Sherman Dillard talks recruiting and transfer portal
Earlier this week Iowa assistant basketball coach Sherman Dillard was on the road for a stop in Davenport on the I-Club circuit. The long time assistant to Fran McCaffery discussed what it’s like on the recruiting trail when it comes to the transfer portal. He also talks about what why it’s important to recruit your own roster before you do anything else, and what players he thought improved this spring in workouts.
Q: What is it like to be an assistant coach these days with the portal, roster movement, and everything else? It seems like actual down time has disappeared.
DILLARD: You know what, in our profession, there is hardly any downtime for us. What do we do in the off-season? We are recruiting. That never stops. Now we also have individual workouts in the spring. Our guys will take final exams and go home for a few weeks and we get them back in June. We really don’t take much of a break.
In regards to the transfer portal, it’s different. I have been doing this for 40 years and in recruiting you would build a relationship and recruit a prospect. You hope that you can get close with their family and get them to come play for you at your school. Now It’s like microwave recruiting. You identify a kid in the portal, you pick up the phone, and then in two or three days you might get him on our roster. It’s totally different.
I think the one thing that is different is the fact that how you have to re-recruit your own players every year. In years past you would sign a kid and he comes in as a freshman and you would expect him to be with you until he graduated unless he was highly skilled and went to the NBA. Now after every season you have to recruit your own guys and try to retain as many of them as you can. I think we were fortunate to not have as many leave as other places did, but we did lose two guys. It works both ways and we have gotten one back in the portal.
Q: Back in the day, there were ace recruiters. They were highly valued assistant coaches that could go into a living room and get the parents and kids to come to your school. Now it feels like it’s just a transaction. Does it feel that way to you as a coach?
DILLARD: Absolutely. It’s a transactional relationship as opposed to a true relationship. There’s not as much loyalty today. It’s so different. But, here is the thing that I have said, the reason I have had success in this business for so long is just like anything else, you have to be able to adapt.
I have been able to adapt to it. Our staff has adapted to it. Fran McCaffery has adapted to it. It is like a big train running through college athletics. You might not like the way that train is going, but if you don’t get on board with NIL and the transfer portal, you will get left behind. I hope our fans understand that this is the new way of doing business. You might not like it, but it’s the way you do business. You have to adapt to this new model and do the best you can. It’s all about the hustle. You go back 10-15 years ago you could take your time recruiting a player, but now you have to identify them as quickly as possible, getting them on campus as quickly as possible, and then getting them to say yes.
Q: Are you still looking to add one more this spring?
DILLARD: We are looking to add one more.
Q: A frontcourt player?
DILLARD: Yes. I love more versatility. A wing forward/power forward. We are looking for a versatile forward.
Q: How do you navigate things with Payton Sandfort, who is in the NBA Draft process and not necessarily knowing what he is going to do, but trying to build the team?
DILLARD: Payton has had a tremendous career to date. We would expect him to come back next year, but that will be up to him. I think he deserves this opportunity and it’s a dream for him. We are not sitting back on our hands saying that if he leaves that would be fine. We have been thinking about it, but we have not done anything in terms of trying to replace him at this point. If he comes back, great. If he leaves and continues to keep his name in the draft then we have to deal with that when it happens. He had a great career and I am sure his workouts have been great. He’s also been invited to the NBA Combine, so that means he’s taking steps to where he wants to be.
Q: You were able to work out guys this spring. From your view to any players make a jump?
DILLARD: I hesitate because I don’t want to shortchange anyone. I can say this, in the eight or nine years that we have been able to have these workouts, this might have been the best off-season that we have had in terms of the energy that the young men brought to the table each and every day. This group brought it every day on their own and that was across the board. They were self-driven and seemed enthusiastic about what they were doing every day.
We wanted everyone to get stronger, quicker, and more explosive, so they worked really hard in the weight room.
I think with Ladji Dembele, you saw a strong power forward that could play inside and outside. Brock Harding, you saw glimpses of what can do as a floor general. He has been excellent in ball screen action and improved his shot. He had a lower release on his jump shot and he’s gotten that up and improved his overall release which I think will pay dividends down the road. Pryce Sandfort has made strides this spring. Late in the year he elected to be on the scout team. Basically that gave him more confidence because he experienced success. He played extremely well in game late in the year and gave us a spark off the bench.
Q: At the end of the year Fran McCaffery talked about Owen Freeman wanting to add the jump shot to his game. Did you work on that this spring?
DILLARD: Yeah he worked on that and continues to work on it. I had a conversation with him one day that it was all about his ball spin. The rotation and back spin on the ball and if can clean that up a little bit he should be pretty good. He’s still a better shooter than you would think. He has worked hard on that and I think you will see a more efficient shooter moving forward.
Q: You added Drew Thelwell out of the portal. What stood out about him?
DILLARD: His efficiency and his body type. He is long and lean. We didn’t say we wanted a pass first point guard or a scoring point guard. We just wanted to find the best fit and he checked all the boxes. He is crafty, shifty, and smart. He makes plays, but can score from deep too. He is not a ball hog and on top of that, he has the intangibles. He carries himself great and I think he’s going to be a terrific leader.
Q: What about your two incoming freshmen?
DILLARD: They are both outstanding forwards. They both had terrific high school careers. We have seen a lot of Cooper. He used to come to our camps going back to when he was in grade school. I think we identified him early on and got him. He’s a terrific talent that can play multiple positions. He’s been identified as a jump shooter, but he can do much more than that. He will continue to expand his game.
Chris Tadjo is athletic and explosive. The thing that will keep him at an elite level is his motor. He is very active on the glass and runs the floor. He can play multiple positions. He had a terrific senior year and spring. We have two outstanding players. Are they five stars? I don’t know but they are five star players for us.
Q: When you guys have added from the portal it’s generally been more veteran players. Is that something you look for in the portal players you identify?
DILLARD: Initially we do look for that. As you look at the landscape today, typically the teams that are doing well are older. We didn’t say let’s get old, we said let’s find players that fit with our team. That’s not to say that a freshman can’t help. We were looking for experience in the past. We look for the best high school players that we can get and then when we look to the portal, we look for the best guy that fits our system and can help us win basketball games. If they happen to be older, then so be it. If they are younger, so be it.
Q: Are high school kids just not getting recruited in the same way that they were in the past because of the portal?
DILLARD: I think you are going to see a shift where high school players start jumping at offers a lot sooner than they would in years past. They realize that if you don’t jump now then they might lose that opportunity. We will continue to recruit the high school kids. We have a database of kids that we are recruiting from ninth grade on and we will continue to track them. Then we have to decide do we want the potential of a guy coming in who could evolve into an elite player or do we want more of an instant gratification?
Q: Right now it seems like there are schools out there that are either more like you, with kind of a mix, but still really focused on high school players and others in the conference who are basically all portal and significant roster turnover.
DILLARD: I think it really depends on who you are. I also think both models can be successful. We as coaches are almost like general managers. We have to worry about roster management and retention of players. We talk about that with Fran at the end of the year. We have to try and keep our guys here. Forget the portal and the high school players, we have to make sure we can retain our guys to come back. We were fortunate to keep most of them and it was a huge job for us. Now you have something to build upon. But, other places, they have lost nearly everyone. They have two guys coming back and have to rebuild their entire roster. I think you have be concerned about continuity if you are having to do out and do that each and every year. One thing that I think is really underrated is chemistry. That’s easier to build when you have a team that has been together for two or three years.
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