Grading Grambling’s 2014-15 athletic season
Just one year ago, Grambling’s athletic department wrapped up a calendar year to forget with enough losses to fill Eddie Robinson Stadium and a player revolt to boot.
Grambling’s improvements were minimal at best on paper this past year, but fans can go to sleep at night knowing the Tigers are in a better place.
The News-Star took a look back at the Tigers’ 2014-15 year in sports, assigning letter grades based on overall record, statistics, postseason honors and historical context.
Grambling football coach Broderick Fobbs is one the people to thank for the turnaround. The Tigers were one of the few programs at Grambling to make noise during 2014-15 with a remarkable 7-5 record after finishing a combined 2-20 in the previous two years.
Not only did Fobbs win, he brought together a fan base and a locker room in disarray after the team boycotted a conference game in 2013.
Aside from football and track, where the men’s team won their seventh straight outdoor track and field title, Grambling struggled.
And its athletic department still isn’t out of the woods yet.
Last July, interim president Cynthia Warrick made swift in-house changes, firing athletic director Aaron James and men’s basketball coach Joseph Price and promoting women’s basketball coach Patricia Cage-Bibbs to interim athletic director.
Since then, Cage-Bibbs was removed from her post and Arthur Smalls, assistant athletic director for business, took over day-to-day duties before Grambling officially named Obadiah Simmons as the new interim athletic director last month.
Grambling is expected to hire a permanent athletic director as early as June, which will mark the fifth acting athletic director in a calendar year.
FOOTBALL
RECORD: 7-5 (6-2 SWAC)
GRADE: A-
With nearly 90 percent of the roster returning, most figured Grambling wouldn’t be as bad as the 1-10 mark mustered up in 2014.
The actual results were hard to predict, though.
Following a 0-3 start to the season, Fobbs ushered in seven straight wins to set up a Bayou Classic for the ages. The winner of the annual game in New Orleans would win the Southwestern Athletic Conference West Division title and earn a spot in the championship game.
Although the Tigers lost in the final seconds on a goal-line stand, Fobbs, the SWAC Coach of the Year, exceeded expectations despite playing 75 percent (9-of-12) of his games on the road.
Grambling kept fans entertained by averaging 31.3 points per game during the SWAC slate, including a 63-point outburst in a win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
MEN’S BASKETBALL
RECORD: 2-27 (0-18 SWAC)
GRADE: D-
This one isn’t on Shawn Walker, who has a solid recruiting class for 2016 and has the potential to bring Grambling out of the dungeon.
Walker inherited a roster in shambles — including the transfer of leading scorer Antwan Scott to Colorado State — that had won just four games in the past two years.
The Tigers’ didn’t fair any better in 2015 as the only two wins came over non-Division I teams.
Grambling was the worst offensive team in Division I with 52 points per game and finished in the bottom five in 3-point field goals made, field goal percentage, scoring margin, assists per game, assist-to-turnover ratio and turnover margin.
Grambling won’t be as bad in 2016, but it doesn’t hide the fact that 2015 was hard to watch.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
RECORD: 10-20 (7-11 SWAC)
GRADE: C-
Grambling women’s coach Nadine Domond, who took over for Cage-Bibbs, had an easier time than Walker transitioning to her new post with the Lady Tigers.
Even without last year’s leading scorer Joanna Miller, who piled up more than 1,000 points in just two years, Domond completely overhauled a roster with zero returning players from 2014 and managed a 10-20 overall mark and a respectable 7-11 conference record.
As usual, the Lady Tigers were roughed up in non-conference play before starting out 5-6 in the SWAC. The inexperience kicked in toward of the end of the season as Grambling lost five of the next seven games and lost its first game in the SWAC Tournament in Houston.
OTHER SPORTS
GRADE: C-
Grambling’s baseball team used a late run in the SWAC Tournament to somewhat salvage what would have been an awful year.
The Tigers finished 11-39, but won a pair of games in New Orleans last week and had a lead on Texas Southern that would have catapulted them into the championship game with a chance to make the NCAA Regionals.
Grambling continued is dominance in men’s track and field with a seventh straight outdoor title. The Tigers had two athletes qualify for the NCAA prelims next week, and coach Betram Lovell earned SWAC Coach of the Years honors.
However, the soccer team went 1-10-1, softball finished 9-29, volleyball suffered through a 3-22 year.
FOOTBALL
Record
7-5 (6-2 SWAC)
Grade
A-
MEN’S
BASKETBALL
Record
2-27 (0-18 SWAC)
Grade
D-
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
Record
10-20 (7-11 SWAC)
Grade
C-
OTHER
SPORTS
Grade
C-