Gabryluk wants to come back as Dieruff's coach

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/

FROM KEITH GROLLER

In the aftermath of one of the high points of the Dieruff season on Saturday afternoon, I asked Steve Gabryluk if he wanted to return as the Huskies head basketball coach.

It was a natural question because while it was nice for Dieruff to knock Allen out of the tournament with a truly gritty, spirited effort on Saturday afternoon, the Huskies should have been in contention for a league tournament berth themselves, or, at the very least, earned a District 11 berth.

Instead, Dieruff's season will end after a Tuesday night makeup game against Easton.

Gabryluk said that as long as the rest of his staff would return with him, he would like to continue the challenge at Dieruff where, frankly, it is never easy.

That "never easy" part are my words, not his, but it's obvious to everyone in the basketball community  what Dieruff's strruggles are. Everyone sees what the Huskies can do in the summertime when school is not in session and eligibility isn't an issue.

But everyone always says: "They may have those kids now, but will they have them all next season?"

That's why people scoffed at me when I predicted Dieruff to be one of the four LVC playoffs teams this year when we did the predictions in December. They were right. I was wrong.

Once again, the roster had a lot of changes and departures and the losses mounted in the second half of the season. Some of those losses came in great games, but high school sports is not about coming close. There are no morale victories. Ultimately a loss is a loss.

While what happened on Saturday was definitely nice for the kids who did the right things and stayed the course, Dieruff ranks as one of the season's biggest disappointments.

While the Huskies have nine wins, which is their best total since they went 13-12 in 2007-08, and it ended a streak of three consecutive 5-17 seasons, this was still a disappointing season no matter how you spin it.

Coming off a football season that included a 5-5 mark and generated a lot of positive vibes, it was thought the boys basketball team could pick up on the momentum.

Dieruff was a finalist in the Stellar Summer League and then had Tyler Kohl, a Division I talent, land on its doorstep just a few days before practice began in November.

But Kohl missed the last one-third of the season and Matt Riddick, a talented athlete who was scoring more than 20 points per game, only made it through seven games.

You can ask around about the particulars of those departures. Not my place to reveal them.

The bottom line is that they weren't there and Dieruff lost games it would have won had they been there.

I don't think Dieruff was ever going to be as good as Central Catholic, but when fully intact, the Huskies could have competed with anyone else in the LVC. In fact, they still beat LVC-qualifier Becahi without Kohl and Riddick.

Dieruff's JV team and freshman team both 14 games.

The talent is in place to keep the program competitive going forward, but it obviously takes more than talent.

Give Gabryluk and his staff credit for not allowing this season to totally disintegrate. If there was no respect there, no dedication or commitment, the kids wouldn't have played as hard as they did on Saturday.

Going forward though, you wonder what it will take for Dieruff to to rise up to a level where the highlight of the season is qualifying for a playoff berth and not knocking someone else out of the playoffs.