PSN Exclusive: One On One With Duquesne MBB’s Dru Joyce III

Monday, Duquesne formally introduced Dru Joyce III as its 18th men’s basketball coach in a press conference on campus.

The nearly-hour-long event featured remarks from Joyce, VP of Athletics Dave Harper and President Ken Gormely before a question-and-answer segments.

Duquesne basketball on Pittsburgh Sports Now is sponsored by The Summit Academy: setting young men on the path to a better future.

Tuesday afternoon, PSN’s Zac Weiss had an exclusive sit down, over 30 minutes in length with Joyce, and below is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.

Zac Weiss: One thing not discussed two years ago with your opportunity at Cleveland State was the feelings coming out of that. Did that drive you in any way to be more of a learner, as a competitor to find that next opportunity? What were you feeling in that moment that helped make this day possible?

Dru Joyce III: “I’m a competitor through and through. I’ve been doing it since I can remember. Whatever game was being played, whatever sport I was involved in, I wanted to win. Coming out of the Cleveland State hiring, I didn’t have any venom or regret. I was actually proud of what I did and wanted to learn. I guess I was eager to see if I could be better next time and what I needed to work on. That day I even went up to Cleveland State and watched Daniyal Robinson meet with the team for the first time. Our AD had asked people to come and support. It wasn’t to be resentful; it was to congratulate him and to see that moment for the very first time, what that feels like. It was not an easy experience sitting there, I won’t lie to you, but it also was a learning experience, and I took a lot from that moment, even with meeting with Coach Robinson to congratulate him. It was his door, his moment to walk through. No judgment I was excited and proud for him. I’m an African American coach as well as he. I just think it is valuable to know you have someone who supports you.”

ZW: The relationship with Keith has been very much discussed but in addition to that in what ways over these last two years has your toolbox been sharpened.

DJ3: “I played so much and naturally that can be your background. My first situation at Cleveland State was an atmosphere that Coach (Dennis) Gates did an amazing job. He was very relational, and he didn’t have to push a whole lot of buttons, he did it with conversations behind closed doors, but made sure he got the best out of guys. I didn’t know how well I would be with that or if that was necessarily my style and then watching and learning from Coach Dambrot, he pushes buttons on the court to get the best out of you and push you to get better. Combining both of those experiences to see and meld together what I believe is possible for myself to get the best out of both of those situations. At the end of the day, I do believe that I’ve learned from the experiences of my playing career, through remarkable coaches as I paid attention in a lot of those rooms and that I have to be the best Dru I can be. If there’s one thing that I’ll take from Coach Dambrot from knowing him since I was 12 years old and this went beyond the two years, is energy, effort and consistency. To watch someone do it that long and show up the same way every morning every day is incredible, and you want to emulate something like that.”

Courtesy Dru Joyce

ZW: Keith told you many times that he was putting you in a position where this could be the end result, what was it like immersing yourself in the culture that Duquesne is?

DJ3: “It’s been an experience that I would think a lot of assistant coaches would want to have. What Coach Dambrot allowed me to do was take on the life in small doses of what it would be like to be a head coach. Not everyone gets to experience that. I am very appreciative of his willingness to do that; he didn’t have to. I found that in both situations, Coach Gates gave me the same leeway. I didn’t do a lot of the media (there), but he would hand me a whiteboard and was allowed to draw up plays in the midst of games, and I’m a second-year coach. That leeway, that trust goes a long way in the development of a coach. I’m glad I got to experience it; I want to do that for my staff as well. My staff will be talented, and I want the world and everyone to know exactly how talented they are and what they’re capable of doing.”

ZW: Staffing wise you do have a good base that has been inherited but you also have your own voice you want to build. How do you find a balance between that?

DJ3: “Any CEO, manager, you step into a situation, you have to evaluate the people in the room from top to bottom. I’m tasked with that responsibility, and I can’t ignore it. I can’t walk around it; I have to figure out what’s in the best interest of our players and this program. In turn that’s going to represent what is in the best interest for me. That is just a hurdle that you have to cross, it’s part of it. When you step into that seat, you have to be there to evaluate everyone in the room and see what fits best. We would like to find an alignment that’s going to work.”

ZW: Relationships with players can be slippery slopes especially today. How do you build relationships, grow them but also realize that sometimes they can be viewed as transactional?

DJ3: “You just have to go for it. You have to be willing to sacrifice your time, energy and effort regardless of the circumstances. The environment is what it is, but deep down I still believe that the relationship still matters and it’s always going to matter. I’ll continue to operate how I see fit. I’m not going to let those things change me. Glitz, glamor, anything like that. Whatever’s promised, that’s okay. I’m going to build a relationship, a bond and a trust because regardless of the situation, I want the relationship to last past my time and the player’s time together during their tenure here. I want them to be able to share good news with me, I want to get that call ‘Coach you’re not going to believe this, something amazing just happened!’ I want to pick up the phone or get that text. I’ve seen it happen for my dad, he’s been coaching for 20-plus years or so, but just to have that affirmation from players that come back through his doors all the time that thank him and want to hang out and be around him. That’s what I learned about coaching, so that’s what I want.”

ZW: When you have players that publicly and privately have said that there was no other coach they would rather play for what does that mean for you and the value they see in those relationships moving forward?

DJ3: “There’s a line of trust. They want this as bad as I do. That’s what I take from it. That’s special to hear them voice their opinions and say those things because that means a lot. They haven’t played a minute under my guidance per se, but they believe in me, they’re willing to buy into our standards and culture that we’ve set in place. It’s exciting to hear them express their thoughts and we just talked about relationships; they still exist.”

ZW: We’ve talked about the defense, which you were behind this past season. When did you notice that shift and how did that make you fine tune to make sure the team knew every detail that would lead to success?

DJ3: “I always believe defense is going to matter because it’s going to win us these games. There was never really a tipping point, we’ve always had stretches where I thought we defended well, we just had to execute better, and I thought we had to do some things offensively that would pour into what we could accomplish defensively. It was really an improvement in our defense really was a large improvement in our offense and it didn’t necessarily show up statistically based on the numbers, we still had our struggles, but our decision making, our ball security changed. That led us to be even stronger on defense and once we realized that we can games making one three, so I guess there were tipping points, we can win games where we don’t have good shooting nights, we just pushed and there it was. We found a balance of attack on offense, kept them encouraged and confident and found some things they became comfortable and excited in, and we really found a routine and a recipe that our guys embodied and that led to the success. By the end of it, there were timeouts where I usually would voice something on defense, and I would look over and the players were saying what they needed to do. There were times in the A-10 conference where I’m usually getting the matchups and guys are saying ‘I’ve got him coach, don’t worry about it.’ One of the biggest moments I look back at the Dayton game during the A-10 championship. Tre Williams goes down with a shoulder injury, he’s done, and we could go either way with the next sub we made. One of the players came over and said ‘put him in.’ I could have easily said ‘naw, this is the guy,’ but I told coach ‘Hey they want him in coach,’ and coach said, ‘without a doubt.’ It was listening to your players, watching them involved and take on the identity we had preached for weeks. It was good to see, and you start realizing and seeing those things. Coach at times can be a little uptight but he wasn’t in those moments. I felt that way too. These guys were going to win it, there was no doubt in my mind because of their behaviors.”

ZW: Speaking of behaviors, it seemed when halftime came they were ready for a talking to from you. What did you draw from in those moments as you found your voice and a way for the guys to buy in?

DJ3: “Coach, he’s good because it’s something that happened by accident. I was just fired up one game early in the season. I don’t know which game it was, but he said ‘I like that. You’re going to go in there and get them fired up.’ What it allowed him to do, and we talked about this, was be calm. He’s just as intense and competitive as I am, but it allowed him to be calm and do the teaching and reassure them it was ok. It was cool to play off him like that. I knew exactly what my role was, and I just tried to do it to the best of my ability. There were some games though that we had a good first half of defense and I didn’t want to go in there and destroy their confidence but find a way to push them to be even better. Coach has been around a long time, so I’ll have to take some of those nuances and gamesmanship things I’ve seen and pocket some of those ideas.”

ZW: The relationship you had with Jakub was instant and it seemed like both of your levels of confidence were going up at similar levels at similar times. How important is confidence in whatever you do and how did you notice his confidence begin to rise?

DJ3: “Confidence is key and as much as we want to teach and reinforce things, as a staff we have to bring confidence into our young men. They need it, they’re unsure at times. A lot of times they just want to please us as a staff and make sure they are doing the right thing. Sometimes, doing that they become a nervous wreck and are not playing confidently, aggressively and to their instincts. It’s important to be able to calm them, let them know how good they really are, and give them confidence. For Jakub his confidence comes from the work he put in. He went close to two months without making a shot but there was never a day he didn’t show up an hour before practice and have his workout every single day. You hear the stories about it but I knew that it could pay off for him, but it was encouraging to see it come to fruition. All the hard work that he put in before and after practice paid off and he’s not done yet. He’s growing and he’ll grow into a larger role this upcoming season. He’ll take on more responsibility and I think he’s game for that. It’s up to our coaching staff to help him and continue to motivate and push him, but he’s got a pro mindset. He’ll continue to work and understand that the consistency will shine, it’s already doing so. I think we share an eerie confidence me and him, knowing that if we continue to be diligent in what we do, that it will bear the results.”

ZW: Dave Harper mentioned the Rhode Island game and obviously everything was touch and go at that point. How did you attempt to keep the team calm and even convince Keith that running a zone every once in a while, wasn’t the worst thing in the world to do?

DJ3: “We have a routine about what we do, and I’m not going to sit here and take credit. I didn’t reinvent the wheel. Those days in practice my idea was to keep the ship afloat and make sure that we were prepared. I didn’t do it alone. We have a full staff that understood the mission and what needed to be done. We were all on board. Coach Dambrot does so much for us as a staff, things we don’t even know and see, so you never in those instances want to fail, you want to succeed. That was everyone’s mindset, there’s no way that we’re failing. Our guy is dealing with some family things and we’re going to shine bright in his absence or maybe his absence. I just tried to get us from point a to point b on the road trip and our guys did an excellent job of attention to detail. We work on zone, not very often but it was just a gut feeling that I had. I had done my research on some of the past teams and when I was watching the game play and develop, I thought it was a move that could help stagger them and us steal back some momentum and it did. Now if our guys go out there and don’t buy in, I look foolish. Credit our players for being able to execute. The very first time we called it we actually gave up a three because we weren’t ready and that’s always the worst thing that can happen when you call zone. We went back to it and recognized that we were not in man-to-man defense anymore and once we cleared that hurdle, we got consecutive stops, and it changed the outlook of the game.”

ZW: Last year’s success certainly can help affect recruiting, when you come to the table how much more attention have potential players given you?

DJ3: “I always thought the cause was serious. When we homed in on a kid and recruited them that we have the resources. We have won at a high level this year, but we’ve had winning seasons. We weren’t a bump on the log and people were buying into our relationships and staff’s personality. I never felt like we were out of it or there was a battle we couldn’t fight. I’ve always been confident in what we have. I’ll let us as a staff decide how much energy and effort can be placed and we’ll fight for who we believe in. It does help when you go to the championship and you go to March Madness, it brings a different type of ring. I won’t say that they phones aren’t ringing off the hook, they do ring a little bit more and that’s a good thing. That comes with winning, and a light being shined on your program, we just have to be responsible with it.”

ZW: There was a graphic on social media advertising Duquesne playing at the Cayman Island. How do you envision it is going to be putting a schedule together?

DJ3: “It’s not easy, especially at the mid-major level. You want to challenge yourself; you want to find the right games; you want to gain confidence going into conference season as well. You want to find a balance of matchups, but also schedule well enough that all of the rankings and reporters have respect for your body of work. At their core the young men want to be challenged. They want to play in some big-time environments. I’m not going to say every game is going to be just that, but the Cayman Islands will be a test. I haven’t even dove into that. Scheduling is something that coach also allowed me to be part of. Do we want to play this game or this team and everybody researched if this is a good team to play? Does it help grow our program and meet the qualifications of what the conference wants us to be. There’s a lot that ties into it and we just want to make sure we put the best schedule for where we feel we are at as a team.”

ZW: How much of a privilege is it to be on this part of history with the potential to push it forward?

DJ3: “Whether it was a rebuild or something I get to build onto, just having this chance is huge. I talked about being at the age of 13 and already having embedded in my mind that I was going to do that. I’ve always loved college basketball. It’s something that has always spoken to me. To have people always uttering those words to me, strangers at times, I value their opinion. It’s like a promise almost and I came through on my promise. I told you I could do it. I have work that needs to be done, I haven’t done anything yet, but I have the opportunity to coach these young men. Now the process starts. This is the dream becoming a reality. It’s a huge opportunity. This is a chance that a lot of people want, but they don’t necessarily get. I just want to give my very best and be true to who I am. At the end of the day, knowing that I did that whatever the results may be.”