Latest / A Quick Timeout / Sundance Wicks Blends Old School Coaching with New School
Transcript
- 0:00SPEAKER_01: That's exactly why I created A Quick Timeout newsletter.
- 0:02SPEAKER_01: It's your digital coaching assistant.
- 0:15SPEAKER_01: Head over to the link in our show notes or visit a quicktimeout.com to sign up
- 0:18SPEAKER_01: for our Quick Timeout Newsletter.
- 0:35[music]
- 0:48SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to A Quick Timeout Podcast.
- 0:50SPEAKER_01: I'm Coach Tony Miller,
- 0:51SPEAKER_01: and I'm thrilled to welcome in someone who I've really wanted to have on the podcast
- 0:57SPEAKER_01: and who I've been looking forward to having on the show,
- 1:00SPEAKER_01: head coach for the Wyoming Cowboys, Coach Sundance Wicks.
- 1:03SPEAKER_01: Coach, thanks for coming on the show.
- 1:05SPEAKER_00: Tony, always a pleasure, never a chore, my man.
- 1:07SPEAKER_00: Let's get to it, baby.
- 1:08SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to be here.
- 1:09SPEAKER_01: All right.
- 1:10SPEAKER_01: So this is exactly where I wanted to start.
- 1:12SPEAKER_01: You are a high energy guy.
- 1:14SPEAKER_01: Your clips on Twitter get me fired up.
- 1:17SPEAKER_01: And you've got also, though, this like bit of old school feel to you.
- 1:22SPEAKER_01: A lot of grit.
- 1:23SPEAKER_01: I know personal.
- 1:24SPEAKER_01: Personal relationships are really important to you.
- 1:27SPEAKER_01: I've heard you talk on some other places, though,
- 1:31SPEAKER_01: and even though the old school feel,
- 1:33SPEAKER_01: you've really adapted to modern tactics and strategies and coaching philosophies.
- 1:39SPEAKER_01: Can you briefly speak to that journey?
- 1:42SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a fantastic way to start it off right there.
- 1:46SPEAKER_00: Holy cow.
- 1:47SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is the way you line up a question right now.
- 1:50SPEAKER_01: Let us go down a rabbit hole right away from the start.
- 1:52SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of who you are as a coach is based on who were you around the most,
- 1:57SPEAKER_00: who had some of the biggest influence on you.
- 1:59SPEAKER_00: And obviously when I played back in the late 90s, early 2000s, right?
- 2:02SPEAKER_00: They were still the old guard of coaches, man,
- 2:04SPEAKER_00: and the guys that were really disciplined, demanding, but they weren't demeaning.
- 2:07SPEAKER_00: They just expected a lot from me.
- 2:09SPEAKER_00: And that was my college coach in Don Meyer.
- 2:10SPEAKER_00: I mean, when he retired, he was the winningest coach in college basketball history at 923 wins.
- 2:15SPEAKER_00: He had a high level of success doing it his way.
- 2:18SPEAKER_00: And he always talked about, man,
- 2:19SPEAKER_00: like if you have A talent, right,
- 2:21SPEAKER_00: and an A work ethic,
- 2:22SPEAKER_00: like you're blessed as a coach if you get to coach somebody who has A talent,
- 2:25SPEAKER_00: A work ethic.
- 2:27SPEAKER_00: But then the coach's nightmare, right, is a guy with A talent and a B work ethic.
- 2:32SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 2:32SPEAKER_00: And then the coach's dream in a lot of ways is a guy with an A work ethic and B talent.
- 2:37SPEAKER_00: And you want as many of those guys as you could possibly have.
- 2:39SPEAKER_00: And those guys are fun to coach.
- 2:41SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of the DNA that I was coached with and brought up in is a guy
- 2:45SPEAKER_00: who was a teacher, a mentor, a leader.
- 2:48SPEAKER_00: A role model for guys, man.
- 2:49SPEAKER_00: He always said, let your life be your argument.
- 2:52SPEAKER_00: Every day he was in the office at 4.35 a.m. You could never beat him into the office.
- 2:56SPEAKER_00: And so the grind of the old school,
- 2:57SPEAKER_00: like we're going to outwork you mentality is always stuck with me
- 3:00SPEAKER_00: because I just believe there's no substitute for being able to put the work in
- 3:04SPEAKER_00: that needs to be done to get the results you want to have.
- 3:08SPEAKER_00: There never will be and ever will be a shortcut to the work.
- 3:11SPEAKER_00: Now there's efficiency in that model as well and that's I think where
- 3:14SPEAKER_00: the times have changed is your ability to become efficient In your output, right?
- 3:20SPEAKER_00: And not having to spend as much time researching or finding the stuff that you need
- 3:25SPEAKER_00: to be able to be effective or efficient as a coach.
- 3:28SPEAKER_00: That's how the game has changed.
- 3:30SPEAKER_00: So that modern old school, like we're going to be tough, right?
- 3:33SPEAKER_00: We talk about in our program, there's analytics and manalytics, right?
- 3:37SPEAKER_00: And you can never let your eyes, right?
- 3:40SPEAKER_00: You can never let the data tell your eyes lies.
- 3:42SPEAKER_00: That's one of the biggest things we use in our program as coaches is Just never let
- 3:46SPEAKER_00: the data tell your eyes lies.
- 3:48SPEAKER_00: The reason why we have jobs and why AI hasn't taken over for us as humans yet is
- 3:53SPEAKER_00: because we can still feel, right?
- 3:55SPEAKER_00: We can still see things that need to be seen when it comes to the psychology of a human.
- 4:01SPEAKER_00: Your players are going to have bad days.
- 4:03SPEAKER_00: AI can't read their moods.
- 4:05SPEAKER_00: So you've got to be able to still have a feel if a guy is Does he have his stuff tonight?
- 4:10SPEAKER_00: Does he got all his stuff tonight?
- 4:12SPEAKER_00: You know, like that's the part where that'll never change.
- 4:14SPEAKER_00: And I thank God for the coaches that came before us that mentored us
- 4:18SPEAKER_00: and showed us what tough love was like and how to coach through that.
- 4:21SPEAKER_00: But we make two decisions in our program and their data
- 4:24SPEAKER_00: And culturally dictated decisions are,
- 4:28SPEAKER_00: you know, how are players living your culture?
- 4:33SPEAKER_00: How are they diving into what you believe philosophically?
- 4:36SPEAKER_00: Are they burning the boats and believing Everything we do when it comes
- 4:39SPEAKER_00: to shot profile,
- 4:41SPEAKER_00: our rebounding scheme,
- 4:43SPEAKER_00: our defensive scheme,
- 4:45SPEAKER_00: our offensive system,
- 4:47SPEAKER_00: all those things,
- 4:48SPEAKER_00: those are culturally dictated decisions and players are living that.
- 4:52SPEAKER_00: Those help us separate when we have a tie between the data,
- 4:57SPEAKER_00: when the data is even with another player.
- 5:00SPEAKER_00: Now we go to a culturally dictated decision.
- 5:02SPEAKER_00: Are they living our culture the way we want them to?
- 5:04SPEAKER_00: But for the most part,
- 5:06SPEAKER_00: data a lot of times is one of the biggest separators you could possibly have,
- 5:10SPEAKER_00: especially the right data or metrics that matter to you.
- 5:12SPEAKER_00: Those are the biggest separators nowadays in how you can coach, teach, lead.
- 5:17SPEAKER_00: You've got to be able to have data in your program and metrics that matter.
- 5:21SPEAKER_00: So you can make hardline decisions when you need to.
- 5:25SPEAKER_01: Big shout out, by the way, to Coach Meyer.
- 5:26SPEAKER_01: He was the first kind of coaching clinic mic'd up.
- 5:30SPEAKER_01: And I remember watching those VHS tapes and that kind of grainy old dark gym
- 5:35SPEAKER_01: and watching them practice and run through drills.
- 5:37SPEAKER_01: And those were some great times back then.
- 5:39SPEAKER_01: 30 of them, 30 VHS tapes, 30 VHS.
- 5:42SPEAKER_00: And then the printouts with the handouts.
- 5:44SPEAKER_00: I mean, I had to pack.
- 5:45SPEAKER_00: Package those, by the way.
- 5:46SPEAKER_00: So, you know, my job as a GA was, you'd be like, Sonny, we got a guy down in Tennessee.
- 5:52SPEAKER_00: He wants, you know, attacking pressure, you know, tape 26 or whatever.
- 5:56SPEAKER_00: And I go tape 26, package it up, put the handout in there, mail it off.
- 6:01SPEAKER_00: I did hundreds of those, man, a week.
- 6:03SPEAKER_00: And it was unbelievable.
- 6:05SPEAKER_01: Ultimate share of the game and somebody who I've looked to and tried to follow
- 6:09SPEAKER_01: in his footsteps and yeah, I love Coach Meyer.
- 6:12SPEAKER_01: You alluded to this and talked about this,
- 6:15SPEAKER_01: but I want to identify it for coaches because you just talked about essentially
- 6:20SPEAKER_01: the thing that a lot of coaches are struggling with and that's finding the balance
- 6:24SPEAKER_01: between those two things.
- 6:26SPEAKER_01: And I feel like sometimes they think it's an either or type of thing rather
- 6:30SPEAKER_01: than this is a support of something that Either it's the gut,
- 6:34SPEAKER_01: the eyes, or something that I already believed.
- 6:38SPEAKER_00: Adding the and to
- 6:39SPEAKER_01: it, right?
- 6:39SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 6:40SPEAKER_00: It's right.
- 6:41SPEAKER_00: The culture and data, right?
- 6:43SPEAKER_00: Culture and analytics, right?
- 6:45SPEAKER_00: And when you add the and to it versus the or to it,
- 6:48SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 6:48SPEAKER_00: I could sit in a team meeting all day long and rattle off a bunch of numbers
- 6:52SPEAKER_00: and tell them this points per possession and this XYZ.
- 6:55SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it gets very acidic in a lot of ways and we can over inundate them.
- 6:59SPEAKER_00: With all the numbers, because every single player has a number above their head, right?
- 7:04SPEAKER_00: I look at them like they're like video game players.
- 7:06SPEAKER_00: It's like 0.96 points per possession on, you know, and you could get into all that.
- 7:10SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day,
- 7:11SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 7:12SPEAKER_00: you gotta, I always look at this for not, not in like a silo of, all right.
- 7:17SPEAKER_00: Here's the data for this, here's the data.
- 7:19SPEAKER_00: It's in your program.
- 7:20SPEAKER_00: This is where we all get it screwed up.
- 7:22SPEAKER_00: It's like things that matter to me will not matter to somebody else.
- 7:25SPEAKER_00: Now, there are some things that everybody pretty much looks at objectively and says,
- 7:29SPEAKER_00: yeah, that's a pretty important statistic, right?
- 7:32SPEAKER_00: Like you talk about the four best shots you can take in basketball or
- 7:36SPEAKER_00: a cutting layup,
- 7:37SPEAKER_00: a driving layup, a paint touch or a rotation three and a free throw.
- 7:42SPEAKER_00: That's how sprawl ball started.
- 7:44SPEAKER_00: We all know that those numbers tell you that rim and three rate matter,
- 7:48SPEAKER_00: and that has led to the game changing at a high level or a more efficient level
- 7:52SPEAKER_00: for generating points, points per possession or points per shot.
- 7:56SPEAKER_00: So there's some things like that that are pretty static,
- 7:57SPEAKER_00: but what about if we crash four guys to the offensive glass team and another team's
- 8:03SPEAKER_00: a crash three to the offensive glass team?
- 8:06SPEAKER_00: Well, then their offensive rebound percentage numbers may not matter as much as ours do.
- 8:11SPEAKER_00: I mean, we were 17-1 last year.
- 8:14SPEAKER_00: When we had a 75% do-your-job effort and we won the glass and we send four to
- 8:19SPEAKER_00: the glass, we tag up.
- 8:21SPEAKER_00: We were won 35% to 40% of all available offensive rebounds.
- 8:25SPEAKER_00: That's a metric that matters to us,
- 8:27SPEAKER_00: so we can measure that in practice as well,
- 8:29SPEAKER_00: especially from an effort standpoint and know that when our guys meet
- 8:32SPEAKER_00: the 75% effort standard with our technique to crash into the offensive glass,
- 8:36SPEAKER_00: that results in more offensive rebounds,
- 8:38SPEAKER_00: which results in more possessions,
- 8:39SPEAKER_00: which results in more points, which results in more wins.
- 8:42SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's a metric that really matters for us.
- 8:45SPEAKER_00: Now, 17-1 is too much of a dealt,
- 8:47SPEAKER_00: like there's not enough meat left off the bone right there,
- 8:50SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 8:50SPEAKER_00: where you want to be able to lose some games too and maybe not,
- 8:53SPEAKER_00: or, you know, win some games when you don't hit that number as well.
- 8:56SPEAKER_00: So we're going to have to be better at other margins.
- 8:58SPEAKER_00: But balancing that is, look, there's a toughness element when it comes to crashing the glass.
- 9:05SPEAKER_00: So screw your analytics.
- 9:06SPEAKER_00: If you're not a man that goes to the glass with relentless accountability 75% of
- 9:11SPEAKER_00: the time,
- 9:12SPEAKER_00: regardless if you get the offensive rebound or not,
- 9:14SPEAKER_00: just that pressure for 40 minutes,
- 9:16SPEAKER_00: there is a cultural aspect of that, a toughness aspect to it that isn't a number.
- 9:22SPEAKER_00: That's a man going to make an effort that matters.
- 9:27SPEAKER_00: And that, to me, that's the cultural piece of that.
- 9:29SPEAKER_00: The analytical piece of that is once we chart that stuff,
- 9:31SPEAKER_00: we show you the results or we show you the numbers and we say,
- 9:35SPEAKER_00: look, this makes sense.
- 9:37SPEAKER_00: And if you can't have a number,
- 9:43SPEAKER_00: And not match it.
- 9:44SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't have an analytic and not match it to a manalitic, right?
- 9:47SPEAKER_00: So, all right, well, we want to take better shots.
- 9:49SPEAKER_00: Well, what does a paint touch or a rotation three require?
- 9:52SPEAKER_00: In a lot of ways, it requires an assist.
- 9:54SPEAKER_00: It requires somebody to make a pass to another person.
- 9:58SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I get the paint.
- 9:59SPEAKER_00: I kick it out for a rotation or a one more.
- 10:01SPEAKER_00: Well, all right,
- 10:02SPEAKER_00: the manalitic is you better make the one more pass on the kickout on the rotation.
- 10:07SPEAKER_00: The analytic is when we chart that,
- 10:09SPEAKER_00: that's a pretty high points per possession or points per shot.
- 10:12SPEAKER_00: So if you don't have the analytic that matches them,
- 10:14SPEAKER_00: analytic or vice versa,
- 10:16SPEAKER_00: then I think you're just sitting there and you're spinning your wheels in a lot
- 10:19SPEAKER_00: of ways.
- 10:21SPEAKER_01: Elite programs don't guess.
- 10:22SPEAKER_01: They train with purpose.
- 10:24SPEAKER_01: That's why they're moving to the all-new Dr.
- 10:25SPEAKER_01: Dish Arc 1 and Home 3,
- 10:27SPEAKER_01: where every rep is tracked,
- 10:29SPEAKER_01: measured, and optimized with real-time feedback and advanced shooting data.
- 10:33SPEAKER_01: And because you're listening to this podcast, you get an extra $250 off.
- 10:37SPEAKER_01: Just mention Quick Timeout to your Dr.
- 10:39SPEAKER_01: Dish sales rep.
- 10:40SPEAKER_00: This offer expires October 31st, 2026.
- 10:43SPEAKER_00: Train smarter with Dr.
- 10:44SPEAKER_00: Dish.
- 10:45SPEAKER_01: If you're already using tools like Fast Draw,
- 10:47SPEAKER_01: Fast Scout, and Fast Recruit, you know how essential they are to your workflows.
- 10:51SPEAKER_01: And now that they're fully part of the Huddle ecosystem, they're more powerful than ever.
- 10:55SPEAKER_01: From film and play diagrams to scouting reports and custom recruiting boards,
- 10:59SPEAKER_01: everything flows together.
- 11:00SPEAKER_01: One system built for high performance programs.
- 11:03SPEAKER_01: Learn more at huddle.com slash aquicktimeout.
- 11:08SPEAKER_01: So with all of the data that is available,
- 11:11SPEAKER_01: in addition to what we've always had with the film and the box score,
- 11:14SPEAKER_01: you're talking about, you said it's saving you time.
- 11:18SPEAKER_01: So for the coach who,
- 11:19SPEAKER_01: all right,
- 11:20SPEAKER_01: so how do I manage my time and make sure that I'm looking at the right stuff?
- 11:24SPEAKER_01: How do you decide what is actionable versus what is just noise?
- 11:29SPEAKER_00: Well, and I think that's trial and error too, right?
- 11:31SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, the old phrase is if everything's important, nothing is, right?
- 11:35SPEAKER_00: So you can't chart everything,
- 11:37SPEAKER_00: but what I, Look,
- 11:38SPEAKER_00: these staffs are getting, I mean,
- 11:41SPEAKER_00: I saw a picture,
- 11:42SPEAKER_00: this is not a slide on Creighton by any stretch of the imagination,
- 11:45SPEAKER_00: but I saw a team picture of Creighton yesterday on Twitter,
- 11:49SPEAKER_00: and I saw all the players sitting in a row, and then subsequently that's 15 players.
- 11:54SPEAKER_00: Behind each of those players was a staff member.
- 11:58SPEAKER_00: That's 15,
- 11:58SPEAKER_00: whether it's GA or manager or whoever,
- 12:01SPEAKER_00: or coach, that's one coach per player on the team.
- 12:05SPEAKER_00: That ratio is insane.
- 12:06SPEAKER_00: I don't know how you find enough jobs for people to do nowadays.
- 12:09SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
- 12:10SPEAKER_00: We really dial into each one of my staff members has an area of expertise.
- 12:15SPEAKER_00: That is their area.
- 12:16SPEAKER_00: Coach Martin does do your job rebounding.
- 12:19SPEAKER_00: Coach McMillan does tag up rebounding in our blob defense.
- 12:23SPEAKER_00: Coach O'Flanagan does gaps.
- 12:26SPEAKER_00: He does our gap attack defensively.
- 12:29SPEAKER_00: Coach Whitmore does our rotations.
- 12:33SPEAKER_00: There's not a number attached to all these things, but we are diving into an area of expertise.
- 12:37SPEAKER_00: Coach Thomas is offensive efficiency, right?
- 12:40SPEAKER_00: Coach Reynolds is broad defensive schemes, ball screen coverage, right?
- 12:45SPEAKER_00: And so each guy has an area where they're charting something or they're looking
- 12:49SPEAKER_00: at this and they're saying,
- 12:50SPEAKER_00: we do have We do chart our gap attacks and what happens
- 12:54SPEAKER_00: when we rake versus don't rake and what are the points per possession on when
- 12:59SPEAKER_00: a guy picks his dribble up at the elbow versus when a guy picks his dribble up at
- 13:02SPEAKER_00: the second hash.
- 13:04SPEAKER_00: So little things like that where we can dive into it.
- 13:07SPEAKER_00: So I say this,
- 13:09SPEAKER_00: how do you know what's important and what's not is, look,
- 13:13SPEAKER_00: After a season of charting data,
- 13:15SPEAKER_00: and a couple of these,
- 13:16SPEAKER_00: we've done a couple of these, we know for us, I'm maniacal about turnovers, right?
- 13:20SPEAKER_00: Especially live ball ones.
- 13:22SPEAKER_00: Shot selection.
- 13:24SPEAKER_00: Because shot profile matters.
- 13:27SPEAKER_00: Turnovers can also be shot selection turnovers for us.
- 13:29SPEAKER_00: Our coverage,
- 13:30SPEAKER_00: making sure that we are,
- 13:32SPEAKER_00: just like Houston charts their ball screen coverage,
- 13:33SPEAKER_00: we chart our ball screen coverage.
- 13:36SPEAKER_00: Our offensive and defensive rebounding, we chart.
- 13:39SPEAKER_00: That matters.
- 13:40SPEAKER_00: We want to get more points off offensive rebounds than we give up
- 13:43SPEAKER_00: in transition points over the course of the season.
- 13:45SPEAKER_00: That's how we create our difference there.
- 13:49SPEAKER_00: Year one, we were upside down here.
- 13:50SPEAKER_00: We were 12 and 18.
- 13:51SPEAKER_00: Last year, we had more offensive rebound points.
- 13:53SPEAKER_00: We gave up points in transition defense by a pretty hefty margin.
- 13:56SPEAKER_00: We won 18 games.
- 13:57SPEAKER_00: We flipped that.
- 13:57SPEAKER_00: So we felt that was a pretty important metric.
- 14:00SPEAKER_00: And then also like the rebounding effort part of it is what we stole
- 14:03SPEAKER_00: from Jeff Linder when I was here, do your job rebounding.
- 14:06SPEAKER_00: But both offensively and defensively from an effort standpoint,
- 14:09SPEAKER_00: they yielded results that felt that was a very important metric that mattered.
- 14:13SPEAKER_00: All right.
- 14:13SPEAKER_00: And then the shot profile and shot types that we shoot,
- 14:16SPEAKER_00: been charting that since the Jeff Linder era here as well.
- 14:19SPEAKER_00: We felt that was your points per possession always mattered.
- 14:22SPEAKER_00: I mean, higher points per possession, you have the better chance you have winning a game.
- 14:24SPEAKER_00: Just that's effective field goal percentage.
- 14:26SPEAKER_00: That's pretty simple.
- 14:27SPEAKER_00: So I say all that is.
- 14:29SPEAKER_00: Look, in our program,
- 14:30SPEAKER_00: we have four to five things that are pretty dialed in when it comes to charting
- 14:35SPEAKER_00: and measuring those, and our guys know that.
- 14:37SPEAKER_00: And we reward those things.
- 14:38SPEAKER_00: We have the DYJ, do your job, defensive rebounding dog of the week every week, right?
- 14:43SPEAKER_00: We have the DYJ chain.
- 14:45SPEAKER_00: We celebrate screen assists,
- 14:46SPEAKER_00: sacrifice cuts,
- 14:48SPEAKER_00: one more culturally so we can have better offensive flow and continuity and reward
- 14:53SPEAKER_00: the guys that are doing the hard things for players.
- 14:55SPEAKER_00: To create easy shots or better shots for him.
- 14:59SPEAKER_00: Those things we can emphasize over and over again, right?
- 15:01SPEAKER_00: It's not what you teach, it's what you emphasize, Coach Meyer.
- 15:03SPEAKER_00: And we just emphasize the four to five things that really matter to us.
- 15:07SPEAKER_00: Every single film session,
- 15:09SPEAKER_00: every single week, every single game, every single practice when we stat stuff.
- 15:15SPEAKER_00: So it's just a running line item of...
- 15:17SPEAKER_00: Here's why it matters.
- 15:19SPEAKER_00: And it always matters because if we do it one week or we do it one game and
- 15:22SPEAKER_00: then we don't do it the next, right?
- 15:24SPEAKER_00: That your players don't have that consistency that they need to
- 15:28SPEAKER_00: at least make it relevant to them.
- 15:30SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you mentioned that because we have trended towards this
- 15:34SPEAKER_01: and it has allowed me to,
- 15:36SPEAKER_01: over the last about four years,
- 15:37SPEAKER_01: become focused on, like you said, what actually matters for our program.
- 15:41SPEAKER_01: And you also alluded to this was the fact that some things may be slightly different
- 15:45SPEAKER_01: for your program than for my program based upon system and both sides of the ball.
- 15:49SPEAKER_01: And then it allowed me to communicate better to the players what actually mattered
- 15:54SPEAKER_01: so that we weren't just all over the place.
- 15:55SPEAKER_01: And that goes to the point of if you don't track anything or Make anything important
- 15:59SPEAKER_01: that nobody knows what's actually is important out there.
- 16:02SPEAKER_01: The award thing I thought is also interesting.
- 16:05SPEAKER_01: I got that from Tobin Anderson about four or five years ago and we did the figurines
- 16:11SPEAKER_01: and we have these figurines of superheroes that we give out that mean something like
- 16:15SPEAKER_01: that.
- 16:16SPEAKER_01: And at our end of year one on ones, we would ask the guys, what did you like?
- 16:21SPEAKER_01: What did you not like?
- 16:21SPEAKER_01: What should we keep doing?
- 16:22SPEAKER_01: And like 75 percent of them mentioned those stupid figurines.
- 16:26SPEAKER_01: And you're like these college kids that think these little figurines that we hand out each week.
- 16:31SPEAKER_01: But to your point, it just kind of reemphasizes.
- 16:33SPEAKER_01: I feel like that's the kind of stuff that makes your culture.
- 16:36SPEAKER_00: Attach meaning to it, right?
- 16:38SPEAKER_00: So we have a saying in our program,
- 16:39SPEAKER_00: never let an outside entity or a voice attach meaning to your work, right?
- 16:44SPEAKER_00: If you're waiting for someone to make your work meaningful or attach meaning to it,
- 16:47SPEAKER_00: then your work isn't meaningless to begin with, right?
- 16:50SPEAKER_00: So we always attach meaning to what we do.
- 16:52SPEAKER_00: Nobody has to value what we value.
- 16:54SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
- 16:55SPEAKER_00: It's cultural, right?
- 16:56SPEAKER_00: That's who we are every single day.
- 16:58SPEAKER_00: It's what we live and what we breathe.
- 16:59SPEAKER_00: And so we attach a lot of meaning to what we do and why we emphasize those things.
- 17:05SPEAKER_00: While somebody else...
- 17:06SPEAKER_00: We may do a chain.
- 17:07SPEAKER_00: Somebody does a figurine.
- 17:08SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, that is attaching a meaning to it.
- 17:11SPEAKER_00: And you got guys fighting for that DYJ chain or, hey, man, I want to be Batman this week.
- 17:16SPEAKER_00: Batman of the boards or whatever it is.
- 17:18SPEAKER_00: That's a cool deal.
- 17:19SPEAKER_00: And I think we're under the necks so much nowadays.
- 17:24SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 17:24SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's just nice to just do the same old boring thing over and over again
- 17:28SPEAKER_00: and, you know, find a way to spice it up.
- 17:31SPEAKER_00: So maybe you're doing,
- 17:32SPEAKER_00: you're charting the same stuff,
- 17:33SPEAKER_00: but it's just, it's a different chain or it's a different figurine.
- 17:36SPEAKER_00: I love that.
- 17:37SPEAKER_01: It is actually Batman and I'm going to start calling it now.
- 17:40SPEAKER_01: Batman of the boards.
- 17:41SPEAKER_01: I like that.
- 17:42SPEAKER_01: So we're going to do that.
- 17:43SPEAKER_00: Saving Gotham with every rebound.
- 17:44SPEAKER_01: That's right.
- 17:45SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
- 17:46SPEAKER_01: I'm going to use that.
- 17:48SPEAKER_01: I'll give you credit too.
- 17:49SPEAKER_01: I like that.
- 17:49SPEAKER_01: I like that.
- 17:50SPEAKER_01: So last year you guys had some injuries midseason and just any time That happens.
- 17:55SPEAKER_01: We as coaches faced with lineup decisions that can completely change style of play,
- 18:00SPEAKER_01: rotations,
- 18:01SPEAKER_01: everything that goes into how did you use platforms, AI,
- 18:06SPEAKER_01: that kind of thing to analyze and even speak specifically about what you used
- 18:10SPEAKER_01: and how that helped.
- 18:11SPEAKER_01: But to analyze those lineups,
- 18:13SPEAKER_01: I'm really looking forward to this because I'm thinking about this and kind
- 18:18SPEAKER_01: of we have some guys out right now and then they come back and I want
- 18:21SPEAKER_01: to make sure again,
- 18:22SPEAKER_01: That I'm making informed decisions,
- 18:24SPEAKER_01: not necessarily just what my eyes see and my eyes are deceived maybe from that.
- 18:29SPEAKER_00: I won't be a gatekeeper here, right?
- 18:31SPEAKER_00: I'd love to be a gatekeeper right now because I feel like we have a secret weapon,
- 18:36SPEAKER_00: but we use pick and roll AI,
- 18:38SPEAKER_00: which I'm just telling you right now,
- 18:40SPEAKER_00: if there's anybody out there that's not using it or you've heard from them
- 18:44SPEAKER_00: and have talked to them and you're thinking about it,
- 18:46SPEAKER_00: I'm just telling you right now,
- 18:48SPEAKER_00: it was one of the single most,
- 18:50SPEAKER_00: it's probably two or three things,
- 18:51SPEAKER_00: but One of the single most important factors to us finishing
- 18:55SPEAKER_00: the way we did last year because of the ability to access information
- 19:01SPEAKER_00: that isn't readily available to most sites,
- 19:05SPEAKER_00: which is like,
- 19:06SPEAKER_00: all right,
- 19:07SPEAKER_00: we have statistical evidence on teams playing the game,
- 19:10SPEAKER_00: but it's really hard to dig into something or find an advanced analytic or
- 19:15SPEAKER_00: a deeper metric when let's say a team has played without a certain player.
- 19:20SPEAKER_00: I use Grand Canyon, for example, before we went down to play Grand Canyon.
- 19:22SPEAKER_00: We use pick and roll AI.
- 19:24SPEAKER_00: We're about to go play Grand Canyon.
- 19:25SPEAKER_00: Caleb Shaw is a heavy gravity player.
- 19:29SPEAKER_00: I mean, elite shooter, torched us up at our place, was been on a heater, rolls his ankle.
- 19:33SPEAKER_00: He's out for four or five games, right?
- 19:36SPEAKER_00: We're like, well,
- 19:37SPEAKER_00: how has,
- 19:38SPEAKER_00: you could look at any platform and I'd be like,
- 19:40SPEAKER_00: yeah, field goal percentage, whatever.
- 19:42SPEAKER_00: How has Grand Canyon statistically or stylistically changed in the last five games
- 19:46SPEAKER_00: without Caleb Shaw?
- 19:48SPEAKER_00: We'll type in that into pick and roll AI, give it to the proper prompts, comes back.
- 19:53SPEAKER_00: We see that a three-point shooting percentage goes down drastically, right?
- 19:57SPEAKER_00: From 34 to like 28,
- 19:59SPEAKER_00: 27% without him on the floor because his gravity allowed for other people
- 20:02SPEAKER_00: to have gravity, right?
- 20:04SPEAKER_00: And so their whole effective field goal percentage
- 20:06SPEAKER_00: and true shooting percentage changed with him being out for five games.
- 20:09SPEAKER_00: So we shrunk the gaps and were able to steal one on the road to GCU.
- 20:14SPEAKER_00: Have we just looked at the basic metrics that you always look at,
- 20:16SPEAKER_00: you're still probably fooled a little bit
- 20:18SPEAKER_00: by their overall three-point shooting numbers based on the cumulative comp or
- 20:21SPEAKER_00: the compound interest or compound effect of the season.
- 20:24SPEAKER_00: So that was one area where just being able to dive into that in
- 20:30SPEAKER_00: an advanced technological way, right?
- 20:32SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 20:33SPEAKER_00: People are scared of like, wow, how do we know it's true or real?
- 20:36SPEAKER_00: The point is we were stuck there a little bit.
- 20:39SPEAKER_00: And for us, as we went down the season, we had some injuries.
- 20:42SPEAKER_00: And so I said, all right, I was trying to play big a lot.
- 20:44SPEAKER_00: And I go, all right, I'm not sure this is where we need to be right now.
- 20:48SPEAKER_00: Give me the difference between our small ball lineup that we played sparingly at
- 20:52SPEAKER_00: the time and our big ball lineup.
- 20:55SPEAKER_01: Because I felt like we had to be bigger in our league.
- 20:57SPEAKER_00: The biggest thing with our big ball,
- 20:59SPEAKER_00: small ball lineup was,
- 21:00SPEAKER_00: you know, are we going to sacrifice offense for defense or defense for offense?
- 21:06SPEAKER_00: I thought we were better defensively big.
- 21:08SPEAKER_00: And what ended up happening was we were actually better per 100 possessions
- 21:11SPEAKER_00: defensively and offensively.
- 21:13SPEAKER_00: And we were probably shorter by about five inches, you know.
- 21:17SPEAKER_00: I would have never trusted that because my eyes would have kept telling me
- 21:22SPEAKER_00: a different story from what I was actually seeing.
- 21:24SPEAKER_00: And I needed some statistical evidence to say, you know what?
- 21:27SPEAKER_00: Smaller isn't actually worse for you.
- 21:29SPEAKER_00: You have more gravity offensively.
- 21:31SPEAKER_00: You're stretching teams out.
- 21:33SPEAKER_00: And you are subsequently better defensively per 100 possessions, even though you're smaller.
- 21:39SPEAKER_00: Well, it allowed us to play with more pace.
- 21:41SPEAKER_00: We were a little bit more fly around and figure it out.
- 21:44SPEAKER_00: And so we won five of our last six league games for the first time,
- 21:47SPEAKER_00: I think, in like 20 years in Mountain West play.
- 21:50SPEAKER_00: And we made that adjustment after losing at home to Utah State, who we were forced to play.
- 21:56SPEAKER_00: Small ball against because of injuries.
- 21:58SPEAKER_00: And we lost by two to a really good Utah State team.
- 22:02SPEAKER_00: I said, man, was this a flash in the pan deal?
- 22:05SPEAKER_00: Or is this something that we've been actually, if I look back at the evidence we were doing?
- 22:10SPEAKER_00: And so that lineup analysis that Pick and Roll AI was able to give me And present
- 22:14SPEAKER_00: the data in a way where I could read it, right?
- 22:16SPEAKER_00: And understand it.
- 22:17SPEAKER_00: So it's not just, it's not, you know, some quadratic equation that you can't understand.
- 22:22SPEAKER_00: It literally just tells you, yeah,
- 22:23SPEAKER_00: you are actually a better team with these guards playing,
- 22:26SPEAKER_00: these four guards and a big guy.
- 22:28SPEAKER_00: And if you keep a small ball rotation, it's been better for you.
- 22:32SPEAKER_00: And so we went five of our last six games to go to the NIT.
- 22:35SPEAKER_00: Man, look,
- 22:35SPEAKER_00: I attribute a lot of that to be able to have the access to the information,
- 22:40SPEAKER_00: but also the efficiency and In which you can get it.
- 22:43SPEAKER_00: And then in the way it presents it to you,
- 22:45SPEAKER_00: because we input all of our program into our pick and roll AI, it learns us.
- 22:52SPEAKER_00: And the more you,
- 22:53SPEAKER_00: obviously,
- 22:53SPEAKER_00: the more you interact with it, the smarter it gets when it comes to your program.
- 22:57SPEAKER_00: It doesn't do it for everybody else.
- 22:59SPEAKER_00: It does it for yours and how you want the language to be.
- 23:02SPEAKER_00: And that is fascinating to me in a day and age.
- 23:04SPEAKER_00: I just did a TCU exhibition game scour report before we hopped on the call.
- 23:09SPEAKER_00: I prompted in.
- 23:10SPEAKER_00: It took 12 minutes.
- 23:12SPEAKER_00: Look, they have five transfers from different places.
- 23:15SPEAKER_00: It's telling me about who they were, where they were at.
- 23:17SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's the depth at which it can go because we always fact check it.
- 23:21SPEAKER_00: We do the work now.
- 23:22SPEAKER_00: Look.
- 23:23SPEAKER_00: Coach Reynolds has the scout.
- 23:25SPEAKER_00: He does the work.
- 23:26SPEAKER_00: I didn't plug any of this stuff in until the scout was done
- 23:29SPEAKER_00: and we'd already presented it and we'd already talked to our guys about
- 23:31SPEAKER_00: because I like to fact check and go,
- 23:33SPEAKER_01: all right, Mr. AI, let's see how you're doing today.
- 23:35SPEAKER_01: You know, the AI alarmists think we're all going to die in a couple of years anyways.
- 23:38SPEAKER_01: Let's see what's going on over here.
- 23:40SPEAKER_00: And he plugged it in.
- 23:40SPEAKER_00: I plugged it in and Put it out.
- 23:42SPEAKER_00: I gave it to him.
- 23:43SPEAKER_00: I said, Coach, you're still a pretty damn good coach.
- 23:45SPEAKER_00: All right.
- 23:45SPEAKER_00: Pick and roll AI agrees with them.
- 23:47SPEAKER_00: You're 99% of what you just said right there.
- 23:49SPEAKER_01: It's good, man.
- 23:50SPEAKER_01: You need it.
- 23:51SPEAKER_01: How has it changed conversations with coaches and with players?
- 23:56SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
- 23:57SPEAKER_00: I mean, pick and roll AI for us, I'd label it as an assistant for your assistants.
- 24:01SPEAKER_00: Okay.
- 24:02SPEAKER_00: I'm a head coach.
- 24:03SPEAKER_00: I have assistants.
- 24:04SPEAKER_00: I can sit out and yell, C-Mac, where are we at on tag-ups?
- 24:07SPEAKER_00: Coach Martin, what did you see on your rebounding stuff?
- 24:10SPEAKER_00: I can sit there and they're my version of an AI, right?
- 24:14SPEAKER_00: They're like actual real humans I can talk to and yell at me like, hey, I need this.
- 24:18SPEAKER_00: Well, it's an assistant for the assistants.
- 24:20SPEAKER_00: So now let's just say that I've been there a thousand times, 20 years as an assistant, right?
- 24:24SPEAKER_00: Yet you're getting this quandary of, am I seeing this correctly?
- 24:30SPEAKER_00: All right, let me ask the question.
- 24:33SPEAKER_00: Let me prompt it.
- 24:34SPEAKER_00: And let me just see.
- 24:35SPEAKER_00: And I could be seeing it correctly and could validate that.
- 24:37SPEAKER_00: Or it may help me see something or frame it in a different way where I'm like,
- 24:41SPEAKER_00: that actually makes a lot of sense.
- 24:44SPEAKER_00: Now that I'm thinking about it,
- 24:45SPEAKER_00: because it was there, but I just couldn't quite get all of it the way I wanted to.
- 24:50SPEAKER_00: I mean, it makes my assistants smarter.
- 24:52SPEAKER_00: That way,
- 24:52SPEAKER_00: when we plug in our own data,
- 24:54SPEAKER_00: so Coach O'Flanagan's doing our gap attacks, he'll plug it into Pick and Roll AI.
- 24:58SPEAKER_00: He charts it all, stats it all, plugs it in and says, take my information.
- 25:02SPEAKER_00: And then break it down in digestible chunks
- 25:04SPEAKER_00: so we can all understand exactly what it is we're doing here.
- 25:08SPEAKER_00: And we give that sheet of paper to the players and it says, hey,
- 25:11SPEAKER_00: Parker, Garrett, and Uriah Rojas, you are the standard in our gap attacks right now.
- 25:16SPEAKER_00: Madden Smiley, you've shown a lot of growth XYZ over the last week.
- 25:20SPEAKER_00: Nas Meyer, you're the leak right now.
- 25:23SPEAKER_00: You're there a lot, but you're not getting the outcome that we want like Uriah and Parker.
- 25:28SPEAKER_00: So what technical thing are you doing that's different that we can look at
- 25:31SPEAKER_00: on film now and say, this is why Nas' gaps aren't as good as Parker's or Uriah's.
- 25:36SPEAKER_00: And that just ability to take all the raw data that we chart,
- 25:40SPEAKER_00: plug it into the system and for it to spit out how we want it
- 25:44SPEAKER_00: and how we can understand how our players can understand it, right?
- 25:47SPEAKER_00: Digestible chunks.
- 25:48SPEAKER_00: That's how the conversation changes.
- 25:51SPEAKER_00: I think it takes a lot of time to collect the data and then to type it all up and
- 25:56SPEAKER_00: then to write it, all that.
- 25:58SPEAKER_00: It takes so much time.
- 26:00SPEAKER_00: It just saves time.
- 26:02SPEAKER_00: I mean, it saves hours.
- 26:03SPEAKER_00: It saves hours for my assistants.
- 26:05SPEAKER_00: So those conversations are easy now for us when it comes to like where we're at with
- 26:10SPEAKER_00: the data and how it's being charted and all that stuff.
- 26:12SPEAKER_00: From a player's perspective, you know, everybody wants comps.
- 26:16SPEAKER_00: They want to see where they're at.
- 26:18SPEAKER_00: I love when a guy comes in and says, who do you like to study?
- 26:21SPEAKER_00: The guy says, I like to study Shea Gilgis Alexander.
- 26:24SPEAKER_00: Like, that's who I feel like in my game, you know, like, oh, the MVP of the league, right?
- 26:27SPEAKER_00: It's pretty good.
- 26:28SPEAKER_00: And then We type in his DNA,
- 26:31SPEAKER_00: who he is as a player, and say, give me a realistic comp right now for player X.
- 26:36SPEAKER_00: And that comp says, while it's nice that he likes to be like SGA,
- 26:40SPEAKER_00: let's picture him more as a Kevin Herter right now.
- 26:44SPEAKER_00: So this is where I always feel like players have such,
- 26:47SPEAKER_00: if they have humility,
- 26:48SPEAKER_00: they don't tell you they like to study Kevin Durant or LeBron or SGA.
- 26:52SPEAKER_00: They actually say, like, I like to study Larry Nance.
- 26:55SPEAKER_00: You know, he was a four-year college guy.
- 26:56SPEAKER_00: Or I like to study, you know, Kevin Herter, right?
- 26:59SPEAKER_00: It was pretty good.
- 27:01SPEAKER_00: When you give me a real comp,
- 27:03SPEAKER_00: now we can sit there and say,
- 27:04SPEAKER_00: let's start there versus starting with the MVP of
- 27:06SPEAKER_00: the National Basketball Association.
- 27:09SPEAKER_00: And I think that helps change the conversation, too,
- 27:11SPEAKER_00: because it pulls data from the last,
- 27:14SPEAKER_00: Pick and Roll AI pulls data from the last 20 years of basketball,
- 27:17SPEAKER_00: NBA and college, right?
- 27:19SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of data.
- 27:22SPEAKER_00: To reference that against players that are currently playing the game
- 27:25SPEAKER_00: and their statistical makeup and to be able to have not one example,
- 27:28SPEAKER_00: but two or three or four,
- 27:30SPEAKER_00: like that can change the whole mentality at which a player thinks about just from
- 27:34SPEAKER_00: a comp perspective,
- 27:35SPEAKER_00: let alone if we're saying,
- 27:36SPEAKER_00: hey, tell me if guys are really a knockdown shooter, right?
- 27:41SPEAKER_00: And he thinks he's the world's greatest shooter.
- 27:43SPEAKER_00: Like, well, tell me all the 180 shooters in the last 15 years.
- 27:47SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden the guy goes,
- 27:48SPEAKER_00: oh man, there's a lot better shooters out there than I thought.
- 27:51SPEAKER_00: I thought I was special, right?
- 27:52SPEAKER_00: No.
- 27:54SPEAKER_00: These conversations can be had.
- 27:55SPEAKER_00: The data becomes easier to digest.
- 27:58SPEAKER_00: When it's, it's, it's spilled in a way that's not confrontational.
- 28:02SPEAKER_00: Like you're not as good as you think you are.
- 28:04SPEAKER_00: Like here, like here's some players.
- 28:07SPEAKER_00: Here's all the players in college last year who did exactly what you did.
- 28:10SPEAKER_00: You don't even know half of their names,
- 28:11SPEAKER_00: but this is why, like, this is why we got to keep growing in the margins.
- 28:15SPEAKER_00: So I just, man, you could ask it any question in any situation from scheduling for us.
- 28:21SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to,
- 28:22SPEAKER_00: I'm going down this,
- 28:23SPEAKER_00: this rant here,
- 28:23SPEAKER_00: but from scheduling to,
- 28:25SPEAKER_00: to player development, to creating a, I mean, it's our program.
- 28:29SPEAKER_00: So when I say, hey,
- 28:31SPEAKER_00: what are we going to do with Naz Meyer for the next three months over the course of
- 28:34SPEAKER_00: the summer to help make sure that he becomes more of a volume three-point shooter
- 28:38SPEAKER_00: than just a guy who's a maker, right?
- 28:40SPEAKER_00: And he's going to have a great percentage on few makes,
- 28:43SPEAKER_00: but what if we have him shooting six threes a game?
- 28:47SPEAKER_00: How can we change his workout program and regimen?
- 28:50SPEAKER_00: We can type that in.
- 28:51SPEAKER_00: We can get it all out and ready for him.
- 28:52SPEAKER_00: And we could say, this is a shooting workout that this player X has done before.
- 28:58SPEAKER_00: It makes you a better coach because it gives you another avenue of connection.
- 29:02SPEAKER_01: I'll ask you one more thing,
- 29:03SPEAKER_01: and this one I'm going to ask a little bit selfishly because I want to get better
- 29:07SPEAKER_01: at it, and I want to have more informed decisions.
- 29:10SPEAKER_01: Interested to hear,
- 29:11SPEAKER_01: have you used it,
- 29:12SPEAKER_01: or how have you used it in regards to even substitutions during games?
- 29:17SPEAKER_01: Who all should play, how much they should play, when you should sub?
- 29:21SPEAKER_01: How have you gone about that, and has this changed any of that?
- 29:25SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the lineup stuff is still, it's such a unique thing.
- 29:29SPEAKER_00: Thing for I think every program, right?
- 29:32SPEAKER_00: Because you can have lineups that you like and lineups that work well together.
- 29:37SPEAKER_00: But once again,
- 29:39SPEAKER_00: a lot of us aren't the NBA where we're on a minutes load and the guy is,
- 29:44SPEAKER_00: he knows when he's getting subbed out every single game and why,
- 29:48SPEAKER_00: and this is the rotation, right?
- 29:50SPEAKER_00: And for us,
- 29:52SPEAKER_00: we're still trying to grow and develop players and make sure
- 29:54SPEAKER_00: that they can stay fresh and guys may not see minutes for two weeks,
- 29:57SPEAKER_00: but then all of a sudden he's been doing a heck of a job in practice and
- 29:59SPEAKER_00: the guy gets hurt.
- 30:01SPEAKER_00: And now all of a sudden he comes into that.
- 30:02SPEAKER_00: For us, I still,
- 30:04SPEAKER_00: it's a lot more feel for us right now,
- 30:06SPEAKER_00: especially early on in the season with new rosters, new teams.
- 30:10SPEAKER_00: It's like what lineups work, what lineups don't.
- 30:12SPEAKER_00: But when we get into the meat of it all,
- 30:16SPEAKER_00: Coach Whitmore tracks all of our lineups and he plugs it in and we'll find
- 30:22SPEAKER_00: the outlier, right?
- 30:23SPEAKER_00: That's the thing for us is not the lineup that's consistent and kind of what's
- 30:28SPEAKER_00: the lineup that we're not thinking about that we should use more that's the outlier
- 30:33SPEAKER_00: or use less that's the outlier,
- 30:35SPEAKER_00: whether it's a really big plus or a really big minus.
- 30:39SPEAKER_00: I'm not too much worried about the little micro shifts are here,
- 30:41SPEAKER_00: but it's the macro shifts for us that That tell us this lineup you need to play.
- 30:48SPEAKER_00: And right now we get a chance to experiment with some of that in our preseason
- 30:52SPEAKER_00: when we have three exhibition games.
- 30:55SPEAKER_00: But then we're not, like I said, we're not NBA guys.
- 30:57SPEAKER_00: These are still young guys growing where Madden Smiley now versus Madden Smiley
- 31:02SPEAKER_00: in March is going to be a completely different player.
- 31:05SPEAKER_00: And his lineups from January through March are going to be different than
- 31:09SPEAKER_00: from November and December in how he plays or how he contributes maybe to winning.
- 31:14SPEAKER_00: So I think it's really subjective, Tony.
- 31:15SPEAKER_00: I wish I could give you a great answer and say, this is how I would do it.
- 31:20SPEAKER_00: I'm still a big field guy when it comes to that.
- 31:22SPEAKER_00: I talk with my substitution coach,
- 31:23SPEAKER_00: Coach Reynolds,
- 31:24SPEAKER_00: before every game based on, because we say every day is an audition in our program.
- 31:30SPEAKER_00: It's a big deal to us.
- 31:31SPEAKER_00: Every day is an audition.
- 31:33SPEAKER_00: And I stay true to that when it comes to rewarding guys.
- 31:36SPEAKER_00: The right to play.
- 31:37SPEAKER_00: If you're going to audition for a week of practice
- 31:40SPEAKER_00: and you are kicking someone's butt for a week of practice and that guy has been
- 31:43SPEAKER_00: an absolute train wreck and hasn't shown up,
- 31:46SPEAKER_00: we're going to make that culturally dictated decision to go with what matters
- 31:51SPEAKER_00: to us more is that you as a person are starting to change.
- 31:54SPEAKER_00: And you decided, hey, I'm going to double down.
- 31:56SPEAKER_00: I haven't played in two weeks.
- 31:58SPEAKER_00: I'm going to, you know what, message sent, message received.
- 32:01SPEAKER_00: And then the other guy's like, I'm feeling good about myself.
- 32:04SPEAKER_00: We're still going to send those culturally dictated, you know, decisions.
- 32:08SPEAKER_00: We're going to make those prevalent in our program.
- 32:10SPEAKER_00: Even if the data is pretty close, that guy's been kicking your butt.
- 32:13SPEAKER_00: So we say every day is an audition in our program.
- 32:16SPEAKER_00: That could screw our lineups up every once in a while.
- 32:18SPEAKER_00: But I started the most lineups of college basketball when I was at Green Bay for one year.
- 32:23SPEAKER_00: They're like,
- 32:24SPEAKER_00: you started 24 different lineups,
- 32:27SPEAKER_00: 20 different lineup combinations in the course of 30 games.
- 32:31SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we reward guys who win their audition.
- 32:34SPEAKER_01: This is great.
- 32:34SPEAKER_01: I'm going to link down below for people to pick and roll AI
- 32:37SPEAKER_01: and hopefully people listen to this,
- 32:40SPEAKER_01: but maybe the secret doesn't get out as much so you can keep it safe there.
- 32:44SPEAKER_00: I hope it does, Tony.
- 32:45SPEAKER_00: I hope it does, man.
- 32:46SPEAKER_00: I wish more people would You know, it's adapt or die now, right?
- 32:49SPEAKER_00: It's adapt or die.
- 32:50SPEAKER_00: And I want to go back to the question you first asked when we started this,
- 32:54SPEAKER_00: which was, you know, how do you blend the old school with the new school?
- 32:57SPEAKER_00: Look, I'm hard on my guys, man.
- 32:59SPEAKER_00: The algorithm loves me right now on Instagram, right?
- 33:01SPEAKER_00: The coaches are like, they'll text me like that.
- 33:04SPEAKER_00: And that's stuff from Green Bay or two years ago in Wyoming.
- 33:06SPEAKER_00: But I think we are, we'll trend back this way, but we got soft for a while.
- 33:13SPEAKER_00: And scared to coach because of all the change that was happening.
- 33:17SPEAKER_00: What if we lose players?
- 33:18SPEAKER_00: Well, let me tell you, you win a lot of games, you're going to lose players.
- 33:21SPEAKER_00: You lose a lot of games, you're going to lose players.
- 33:23SPEAKER_00: So what's the common denominator?
- 33:24SPEAKER_00: You're going to lose players.
- 33:25SPEAKER_00: But what we can't do is lose players and not have them learn while they're
- 33:30SPEAKER_00: in your program or not have them,
- 33:32SPEAKER_00: you know,
- 33:33SPEAKER_00: sacrifice or learn how to be great teammates and still teach them and coach them
- 33:36SPEAKER_00: and push them.
- 33:38SPEAKER_00: The best thing that ever happened to me was my coach being demanding on me.
- 33:41SPEAKER_00: And being really hard on me was the best thing that ever happened to me as a player
- 33:43SPEAKER_00: to understand what discipline really means and to show up every single day
- 33:47SPEAKER_00: the same way, regardless of your circumstances.
- 33:49SPEAKER_00: And so I think that an old school approach of, hey, look, you still you still got to love a man.
- 33:54SPEAKER_00: You still got to love him.
- 33:55SPEAKER_00: But discipline is the highest form of love.
- 33:57SPEAKER_00: I'm way different off the floor than I am on the floor.
- 33:59SPEAKER_00: My alter ego.
- 34:00SPEAKER_00: Right.
- 34:00SPEAKER_00: I'm the juice man on the floor.
- 34:02SPEAKER_00: It's my alter ego.
- 34:02SPEAKER_00: Like I'm Sonny D in the office, man.
- 34:06SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just how it's who you have to be as a coach.
- 34:10SPEAKER_00: Is that you can still push kids.
- 34:12SPEAKER_00: They want to be pushed.
- 34:13SPEAKER_00: Great ones want to be pushed.
- 34:14SPEAKER_00: If we're scared to do that, why are we in the profession?
- 34:18SPEAKER_00: That's not the guys that coached us.
- 34:19SPEAKER_00: They weren't like that.
- 34:21SPEAKER_00: You can be competitive and kind, right?
- 34:24SPEAKER_00: You can still kick ass in between the lines.
- 34:27SPEAKER_00: And you can still form a great connection with the player, even while you're correcting them.
- 34:33SPEAKER_00: Out there on the floor,
- 34:35SPEAKER_00: because you can do that off the floor and you can tell them how much you love them
- 34:38SPEAKER_00: and how freaking ecstatic you are about who the person they are and how they're,
- 34:42SPEAKER_00: you know, who are they becoming?
- 34:44SPEAKER_00: That still matters nowadays.
- 34:45SPEAKER_00: And so don't just,
- 34:47SPEAKER_00: don't just die on a hill analytically and don't just be the last guy selling CDs out
- 34:51SPEAKER_00: the trunk of your car and just say,
- 34:53SPEAKER_00: we all our hearts, all heart and toughness around here.
- 34:55SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
- 34:56SPEAKER_00: the more skin needs the better,
- 34:58SPEAKER_00: like be somewhere in the middle, have a little bit of both.
- 35:01[music]