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Interview with NABC NAIA Coach of the Year · A Quick Timeout

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to A Quick Timeout Podcast.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Coach Tony Miller.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thrilled today to welcome in Coach Scott Moore,
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  SPEAKER_00: head men's basketball coach for the Grace College Lancers.
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  SPEAKER_00: Coach Moore has been multiple Crossroads Leagues and NCCA National Coach of
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  SPEAKER_00: the Year honors and NABC NAIA National Coach of the Year award,
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  SPEAKER_00: 30 win seasons, NAIA, Fab Four.
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  SPEAKER_00: I could go on and on here, but Coach, welcome to the show.
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  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, man.
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  SPEAKER_01: You could say that to my wife and she'd still say, hey, the dishes are dirty, man.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's irrelevant, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: Thankful for wives who quickly put us in
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  SPEAKER_01: our place.
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  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's a humbling profession for sure.
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  SPEAKER_00: For those that may not be familiar with you and Grace,
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  SPEAKER_00: several things make the school itself somewhat unique and then how
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  SPEAKER_00: that impacts your program.
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  SPEAKER_00: Can you just share with listeners a little bit about that and about you?
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  SPEAKER_01: So Crossroads League is the league we play in.
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  SPEAKER_01: Grace College, we're about, we're Northeast Indiana.
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  SPEAKER_01: We're an NAI school.
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  SPEAKER_01: I've been an NAI program for quite a while now.
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  SPEAKER_01: Schools existed, I think, in 1948 is when we were founded.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it's,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: the best part about,
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  SPEAKER_01: I think,
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  SPEAKER_01: Grace and what we are is not only do we get to play You know,
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  SPEAKER_01: in such a powerful league at our level, but we're in Indiana.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think what the unique thing about Indiana with college basketball is, is,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: most of you guys,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: out there will know that,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, the Indiana's, the Purdue's, the Notre Dame's, the Butler's.
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  SPEAKER_01: Well, in Indiana,
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  SPEAKER_01: we're just,
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  SPEAKER_01: we have those power teams and we have those mid-major teams,
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  SPEAKER_01: but we don't have a lot of, We really don't have any D2s.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's one Division II in Indianapolis.
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  SPEAKER_01: So what's been neat about that, Tony,
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  SPEAKER_01: is the Crossroads League and the NAI has become such a big power where
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  SPEAKER_01: when we recruit and we recruit the state of Indiana,
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  SPEAKER_01: there's so many good programs and high school coaches that not all of them are going
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  SPEAKER_01: to Purdue.
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  SPEAKER_01: Not all of them are going to Purdue Fort Wayne or Indiana or Notre Dame.
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  SPEAKER_01: So We end up being able to recruit just a high level kid because one,
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  SPEAKER_01: they want to stay close to home,
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  SPEAKER_01: but two,
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  SPEAKER_01: our schools are so close to each other that it's very unique and What's a big deal
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  SPEAKER_01: at Indiana high school basketball kind of continues on in college.
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  SPEAKER_01: So you see these games on Wednesdays and Saturdays,
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  SPEAKER_01: like I'm going to bother a lot of people when I say this
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  SPEAKER_01: because people don't understand how close our league is.
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  SPEAKER_01: Like it's 25 minutes to Goshen, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: It's 40 minutes to Huntington.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's 40 minutes to Fort Wayne.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's 50 minutes to Bethel.
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  SPEAKER_01: Like our location is so close.
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  SPEAKER_01: We're so blessed with that.
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  SPEAKER_01: You get this fanfare where you have all these local kids and then these teams are
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  SPEAKER_01: so close that, man,
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  SPEAKER_01: just the crowds and the energy and just,
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  SPEAKER_01: it's really neat because it makes small college basketball feel pretty special,
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  SPEAKER_01: pretty big time.
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  SPEAKER_01: I know if you're watching,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, Mackie,
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  SPEAKER_01: you see those crowds and it's like huge,
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  SPEAKER_01: but the reality is,
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  SPEAKER_01: and you know this,
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  SPEAKER_01: a lot of those teams across the country,
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  SPEAKER_01: there's no more than two, three, 400 people at these games.
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  SPEAKER_01: And some of these have big arenas, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: We have beautiful arenas in this league and just we have such a great fan following.
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  SPEAKER_01: The other thing, too,
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  SPEAKER_01: about just grace in general in the Crossroads League,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: we're faith based institution and it's really neat to,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: we're talking about that a little bit off air where,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, basketball is what bring these kids to what we're doing.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm recruiting basketball players.
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  SPEAKER_01: So if they can't play, I'm not recruiting them to come to grace.
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  SPEAKER_01: However,
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  SPEAKER_01: What's so unique is we get to be able to pour into these kids so much,
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  SPEAKER_01: and we get a hands-on approach with not just the on-court stuff,
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  SPEAKER_01: but the off-court stuff and their faith, and to see that implemented.
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  SPEAKER_01: In their four years here is pretty special.
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  SPEAKER_00: I got to play at Grace.
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  SPEAKER_00: My twin brother and I followed
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  SPEAKER_01: my older brother.
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  SPEAKER_01: My older brother played here.
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  SPEAKER_01: So we were here from 04 to 08, played just down the road at Columbia City.
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  SPEAKER_01: So kind of that connection there where, you know, we were a really successful high school team.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we had a great following.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was one of those old school you see in Hoosiers,
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  SPEAKER_01: right, where it's like the town shut down Friday nights.
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  SPEAKER_01: And our gym was sold out every Friday, every Saturday.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's 306 fans.
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  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
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  SPEAKER_01: And 306 seats were filled every Friday.
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  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, to go down the road, then 25 minutes to go to college.
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  SPEAKER_01: And to have that somewhat continue, it's
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  SPEAKER_00: kind of all I knew.
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  SPEAKER_01: Had an opportunity after college,
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  SPEAKER_01: went and played a couple years overseas,
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  SPEAKER_01: mainly because my twin brother was really good at basketball
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  SPEAKER_01: and I just attached myself to him.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, hey, if you want him, you need me.
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  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I did that for a little while, man.
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  SPEAKER_01: Basketball has always been in my blood growing up.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was born in the 80s, but I'm a 90s baby, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: And so seeing the Indiana Hoosiers in the early 90s,
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  SPEAKER_01: seeing high school basketball the way it was,
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  SPEAKER_01: that's all we And especially having an older brother,
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  SPEAKER_01: six years older,
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  SPEAKER_01: like getting to follow that,
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  SPEAKER_01: like that was where that love first started, you know, when we were really young.
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  SPEAKER_01: So when I got back,
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  SPEAKER_01: when I got done playing,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: like most 24, 25 year olds, it's like, okay, now what do I do with my life?
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  SPEAKER_01: I have no idea.
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  SPEAKER_01: I was in education, I had social studies degree.
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  SPEAKER_01: My older brother had just gotten a head college job.
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  SPEAKER_01: So like an idiot at the time, like, oh yeah, I'll just go into college coaching.
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  SPEAKER_01: That'll be easy.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I learned pretty quick that playing was not the same as coaching.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so it was one thing to be able to do.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was another thing to be able to tell someone what to do and have to be able to do that.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I was humbled pretty quick, honestly, Tony, in this profession.
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  SPEAKER_01: I was an assistant with my brother for three years and tried to get out.
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  SPEAKER_01: That third year was like, okay, this is not for me.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm not good at this.
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  SPEAKER_01: I need to find something else to do.
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  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: it was definitely kind of a miracle how it took place,
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  SPEAKER_01: but my college coach at the time just called me out of the blue when the season was
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  SPEAKER_01: over after that third year.
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  SPEAKER_01: I already committed to just go back home and figure out what's next in my journey.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he had made the comment, like,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: Scott, I'm getting old and, you know, I'm looking for a younger guy to come back.
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  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, me and Coach always had such a great relationship.
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  SPEAKER_01: He was 40 years older than me, so very much a mentor of mine.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I just jumped at the opportunity.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I was with Coach Kessler back at Grace.
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  SPEAKER_01: I got to be his assistant for seven years.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then in 2019, right before COVID, that whole season, got to take over.
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  SPEAKER_01: And what a smart move it was to replace a legend, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: People tell you not to replace a legend and then you're not smart enough to follow advice.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I should have got someone to sneak in there before I took over just so I could be
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  SPEAKER_01: the replacing of the replacement.
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  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, man, we've been here now for seven years, going on year eight.
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  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, what a blessing we get.
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  SPEAKER_01: I got great kids.
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  SPEAKER_01: We've got a great place to play.
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  SPEAKER_01: Our arena is spectacular.
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  SPEAKER_01: We're in a great conference.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it really is, Tony.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we talked about this in the world of athletics today, especially college athletics.
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  SPEAKER_01: Every day I realize more and more what a blessing it is to be where I am and just
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  SPEAKER_01: the opportunity that I have.
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  SPEAKER_01: So definitely don't take that for granted.
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  SPEAKER_00: Two aspects of your background that I want to ask,
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  SPEAKER_00: being a teacher and then also being familiar with the culture there.
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  SPEAKER_00: How did those two things really help you in the position that you have right now?
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  SPEAKER_01: You know,
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  SPEAKER_01: it seems like it'd be easy,
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  SPEAKER_01: but it could also be dangerous a little bit
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  SPEAKER_01: because sometimes I think you can be too comfortable in a situation.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think I owe that a lot to Coach Kessler when we made this transition.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think these are some of the conversations that I'd never forget.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know,
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  SPEAKER_01: he sat me down and You know,
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  SPEAKER_01: he was the longest tenured coach at one place active in college coaching.
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  SPEAKER_01: He had a grace for 44 years.
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  SPEAKER_01: He'd never coached anywhere else.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so the one thing he had told me is,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: when you do this, like, number one, there's nobody better for this job than you.
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  SPEAKER_01: Like, there may be better coaches right now, but, like, you're the best coach for this job.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he said,
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  SPEAKER_01: what I need you to do is I need you to cut ties and With everything in the past,
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  SPEAKER_01: keep the foundation, but I need you to make this what you want it to be.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know,
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  SPEAKER_01: I heard him,
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  SPEAKER_01: but what I wasn't expecting was like,
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  SPEAKER_01: man, you talk about a guy that, you know, sets you up for success.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're on year eight now.
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  SPEAKER_01: And Tony,
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  SPEAKER_01: when I say, like,
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  SPEAKER_01: he wanted it to be my program,
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  SPEAKER_01: he hasn't been, he's around, he's around all the time,
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  SPEAKER_01: comes to every home game.
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  SPEAKER_01: He sits up in our, our crows nest in the alumni suite.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I get a wave at him every single time we come out.
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  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, in seven years, he hasn't come to one practice.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I try to get him all the time.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hey, come around.
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  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, he really wanted this to be whatever I wanted to make it.
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  SPEAKER_01: And the second piece of advice is he said, you're a point guard.
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  SPEAKER_01: You're my point guard.
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  SPEAKER_01: I want you to build a team that you would want to play for and play on.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know what really that meant at the time.
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  SPEAKER_01: But now being in this for a while, it's like, man, he's exactly right.
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  SPEAKER_01: My recruiting and how we recruit,
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  SPEAKER_01: it very much is like, Where would I fit in if I was on this guy's team?
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  SPEAKER_01: If he was playing with me, would that?
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  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah,
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  SPEAKER_01: it's made the transition easier because Coach has been around without being around.
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  SPEAKER_01: And he is such a blessing.
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  SPEAKER_01: He's so humble that I think a lot of times you get a lot of coaches that would have
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  SPEAKER_01: a little,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: maybe a little jealousy or a little animosity about like,
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  SPEAKER_01: That's my guy,
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  SPEAKER_01: I want him to take over, but I don't want him to do quite as good as I did, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: And coach, coach is, man, you completely throw it out the window.
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  SPEAKER_01: He, I mean, he'll send me text messages or call me after games if a ref missed the call.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, he's madder than I am.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, dude, it's okay.
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  SPEAKER_01: But that was good.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think from a recruiting standpoint,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, it's always nice to be familiar, especially with kind of your pocket area.
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  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, you know, I'm not recruiting East Coast, West Coast.
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  SPEAKER_01: We just don't do that.
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  SPEAKER_01: Every single kid I have is from Indiana.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we've had Michigan and Ohio.
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  SPEAKER_01: We've had some overseas kids.
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  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is, like, do a three-hour radius, and that's going to be 90% of my kids.
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  SPEAKER_01: And so being familiar with that, the recruiting piece, who we were as an institution.
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  SPEAKER_01: I think, too, it's like, you know, you're a Bob Jones.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm a Grace.
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  SPEAKER_01: Like, we are unique in the type of young man we can bring in.
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  SPEAKER_01: You can't just bring in anybody.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's not for everybody.
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  SPEAKER_01: But knowing that ahead of time,
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  SPEAKER_01: playing for that,
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  SPEAKER_01: and then having those same values,
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  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I could always sell something that I already believed in.
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  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't doing a magic show for anyone.
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  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't tricking anybody to come to play to grace.
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  SPEAKER_01: It was like, this is how it is.
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  SPEAKER_01: This is the good, bad, the ugly.
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  SPEAKER_01: This is what you're signing up for.
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  SPEAKER_01: Don't come here in August and be like, well, coach more.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's nothing like you said it was going to be.
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  SPEAKER_01: So that was really important.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then from the education piece, you know, I say this a lot.
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  SPEAKER_01: Somebody way smarter than me told me this one time and I never forget.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, you think that you coach a sport, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: Coach basketball, like I'm a basketball coach.
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  SPEAKER_01: And what I realized pretty quickly,
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  SPEAKER_01: especially through education is, well, I'm actually not coaching any basketball.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm teaching basketball, but I'm coaching people.
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  SPEAKER_01: They're human beings.
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  SPEAKER_01: So like the coaching part,
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  SPEAKER_01: Is everything that the people don't see on Friday for those two hours or Saturday
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  SPEAKER_01: for those two hours.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's the coaching piece.
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  SPEAKER_01: The teaching piece is what everybody sees in the fans and everybody yells,
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  SPEAKER_01: hey, Coach
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  SPEAKER_01: Moore's an idiot, do this, call timeout.
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  SPEAKER_01: We're teaching basketball, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: We're teaching a sport.
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  SPEAKER_01: But we're coaching human beings every day.
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  SPEAKER_01: That aspect of being in the classroom.
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  SPEAKER_01: And understanding, okay,
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  SPEAKER_01: what's the difference between teaching social studies and coaching
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  SPEAKER_01: a young man who's struggling to grasp the concept or maybe someone who has
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  SPEAKER_01: a learning disability or someone who they know this and they need to be pushed
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: a little bit because they're a little bit further than other people in their class.
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  SPEAKER_01: So how can I coach that person differently?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing with basketball.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, it's the same thing with every sport.
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  SPEAKER_01: Every sport,
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  SPEAKER_01: every coach out there You're coaching human beings and you're teaching some sort
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  SPEAKER_01: of sport, tennis, basketball, golf, cross country.
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  SPEAKER_01: And today more than ever, Tony, I think you can agree with this.
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  SPEAKER_01: Gosh, coaching people is probably more important now because the relationship piece,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: the screen time,
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  SPEAKER_01: like all that stuff is just, it's tough to be a student athlete in 2026.
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  SPEAKER_01: It's way harder than it was when you and I, it's pretty simple, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: It's like, okay.
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  SPEAKER_01: I got these two things to do.
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  SPEAKER_01: Not much going on.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to get some shots up and get my homework done.
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  SPEAKER_01: And there's a pretty girl.
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  SPEAKER_01: That's about all I care about.
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  SPEAKER_01: Now it's just there's so much.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's so many opinions.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's social media.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's this, that.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of distractions, I think.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I think the world needs coaches right now more than ever.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: One more culture related and you've talked about the coaching from like
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: a head coaching position,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I had the privilege opportunity to watch you guys at
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: the NABC convention this year and the integration of the assistants and relying on
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: the assistants.
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  SPEAKER_00: And how have you gone about structuring things with your assistant coaches
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: that can help create that synergy with the rest of the program?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: I found out early on that not everything in basketball and teaching is like
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: the most important thing in the world.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are some
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  SPEAKER_01: things.
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  SPEAKER_01: And also,
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot you try to be self-aware and I try to be self-aware
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: and I I listen to feedback and stuff like that.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: And the reality is, you know, this not every coach is good at everything.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I've seen too many coaches and staff where I never wanted to be a guy
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: where I was doing anything that hurt my program or wasn't moving my program forward.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I just had the opportunity where it's like, look,
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: I got two guys that are both head coaches that are both really good
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: in completely different ways.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one hand, Jordan, Jordan was my competitor.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like he was the ultimate alpha.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: I am going to kick your teeth in from start to finish.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then afterwards, we can be friends.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: But before, don't talk to me.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that about him because that's deep down inside, I had that.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then I have Steven where Steven is just so high IQ and he's so brilliant.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he's so forward thinking where he's kind of my NBA guy, my 2026, what's the trend?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: What are some things?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so having that person on your staff, he's an ultra feeler.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Ultra feeler.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you bring the two together and it's like,
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: holy cow, this is oil and water and I'm somewhere in the middle.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're like, okay, but man, these two guys are really good at certain things.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: What are some things that I can maybe take a step back on?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: And really where we came full term with this was we played at Purdue and we saw...
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, PJ Thompson, essentially his name was offensive coordinator.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, that's kind of funny.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm a football guy.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: I like football.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: But it makes sense, right?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, the head coach.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: What are the rules?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you kind of stay in your lane.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then we all help each other.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of went back to Jordan and Steve.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: He was like, you know, it's not a terrible idea.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what if we thought about this where,
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: maybe I'm in control of,
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: the hardest part that every coach struggles with is actually getting out of
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: the way.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: That was hard for me,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: especially just being a point guard and being someone where,
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: look, my name's on the door, right?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of the day,
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the one that's taking phone calls and I'm the one that has to deal with that.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: But gosh,
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: when you sit there and you watch them and you get out of your own way,
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: you realize, okay, They're better at that right there than I am.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now I need to give them all the confidence in the world to be able to do that.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it has been a work in progress,
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: but it's been really good for me to take a step back and learn from them and say,
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: how can I even get better at 41 years old doing this now for 17 years
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: if you're not growing, right?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think we're missing the boat.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of those guys, man,
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: they're just They're smarter than you,
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: and you need to give them the opportunity to just grow,
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: and the best thing to do that is get out of the way.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what we try to do.
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• 18:01
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• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let me switch to on the court stuff.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Your teams that play incredible pace, incredible spacing, high efficiency.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: How has your offensive philosophy kind of evolved as you've grown as a head coach?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then also we've moved into kind of this modern era of basketball.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: It changed really early.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: So my first year taking over,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: I would say I recruited all those kids anyway, so I knew all those kids.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: They were all older.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: We had a ton of seniors.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: So for them, it was more like, They were on the verge of winning games.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: They'd never done it before, so just having the confidence.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: My first year,
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: I tried to build those guys up with as much confidence as I could
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: because I felt like they were good enough when they figured out how to win.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: That is something that could continue if we got the right pieces.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: So as far as the philosophy, it really did change over time.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like that first year, we were one of the highest scoring teams in the country.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: We always got offensive guys.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: The league played fast.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: You get Indiana kids so everybody can shoot, pass, and dribble.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: But what I noticed pretty quick is when I was doing our end of the year
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: that first year, we were false statistics, I guess I could say.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: We were really high in certain areas.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: But then what I would compare those stats To our conference,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: we may be top 20 in the country in scoring.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we were.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: We were like 91 points a game my first year.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: But then I realized like, oh, well, we're fifth in the league out of 10 teams.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what are we with field goal percentage?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're really high.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're like 48%.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, we're top 20 in the country again.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we're sixth in the Crossroads League.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we do this really well.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're ninth in the league.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you look and you're like, well, why are we 500 or just over 500 in the league?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are we good or are we just like?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I really changed when Spring Arbor won in 2019.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at Spring Arbor and a team in our league who was never going to have
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_01: the most talent, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: They never had the scholarships that some other teams had.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: They had an unbelievable Hall of Fame coach who I always thought
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: that Coach Cottingham and Spring Arbor in Michigan always got the most out
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: of what he was given.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he hit some home runs with a couple guys.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say they were good, they were really, really, really good.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: But the majority of his team was made up of just roll guys.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I watched them play and they got this thing going where it's like,
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think they were picked seventh in the league that year preseason.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: And they just keep winning and winning and winning and winning.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then at the end of the March, they won the national tournament.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sitting here in my office going,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: how in the world did a team like that,
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: that is no, they're never on the floor as the best team or the most talented team.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: How do they win a national title?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And they were much more defensive minded.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: They were much more.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: What I noticed is Spring Arbor's efficiency that year was outstanding.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Their points per possession on offense was high.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Their points per possession defense was really low.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, their field goal percentage was high.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't turn the ball over.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Their, their, Offensive rebound percentage was high.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everything statistically outside of, well, they averaged 82 points a game.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: I want to average 90.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, they gave up also 71 points a game.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: We were giving up 91.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: From there,
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: I literally sat down with Jordan pretty quickly and Steven pretty quickly like,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: hey, we have got to change our mindset.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: We are no longer worried about How many points we're going to score
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: and how fast we're going to play.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be the most efficient team.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I gave them two things I specifically wanted.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: I said, number one, I want to lead the country in field goal percentage every year.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, because it pretty much says we're going to take shots we can make.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, I want to lead the country in assists every year.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be so unselfish and get so many guys on the floor that can do
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: so many different things that we want to get a bunch of guys
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: that can average 15 points a game.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: The first year we brought in those guys, that second year, we put seven guys in double figures.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was more than any team in the country at every level.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody has seven, right?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you can have four.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Five is a ton.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Seven's unheard of.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And by year three, guess what?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we finished third in go-go percentage.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we finished two in the country in assists.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now you take a look at these numbers as we go down the line.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now our defensive efficiency,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: our offensive efficiency,
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: now it's created this storm where I think we're known as one of
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: the most efficient basketball programs in the country at every level because
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: the focus isn't, can I score 98 points?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Some games, but can you win at the national tournament and score 74?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: Seven years ago, no chances.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Heck, if we were scoring 80, we had no chance.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: If we didn't score 94, we didn't have a prayer.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of how it's evolved is this idea of get a lot of guys on
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: the floor that know how to do a lot of things,
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: get a lot of guys who have won in high school,
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: like winning matters to us when recruiting,
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: and then get guys who are so unselfish that are able,
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: and I pitch this as a recruit, like, hey,
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: if you're looking to come and average 22 a game at Grace,
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: we are not the place for you to come to.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: We've had the National Player of the Year and the runner-up National Player
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: the Year back-to-back years.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Elijah Malone averaged just under 17 a game.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: Ian Scott averaged 17 a game, right?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: 17.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: And they played 24 and a half minutes a game because we got nine other guys that can play.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's honestly, Tony, where it's become.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's been a lot of our success is just the unselfishness that we get.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: But also when you watch us play.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: It really is hard.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard to defend a team that has six or seven guys that can score 20 at any time.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Last year, we had eight guys hit 20 points or more during the season.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not real rocket science.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: You just get a lot of those guys on the floor.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it also takes a little bit of pressure off.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you have some studs and we got some studs,
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: I got two guys that are going to be shortlist for national player
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: the year this year.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they don't have to be Superman for us to win games.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: They may have a bad game, but guess what?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: We got six other guys, hopefully, that can pick them up.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of where that philosophy, and it kind of just, it caught legs.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like any other idea I have,
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: it's easy to say something,
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: and then sometimes it works, and sometimes it's like, oh, that was stupid.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'll take blank for that.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: But that's just something that happened to just kind of catch on,
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_01: and it's been really good for us for a while now.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: So what were the things that you focused in on?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the design of the offense?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the types of shots that you were emphasizing?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure everybody hears that.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I would love to be able to have six guys in double figures.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just go recruit good players.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm assuming it's more than that.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and there's two pieces to that, right?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think recruiting is a serious part on that because,
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: again, when we get here, I need these kids to understand what you're joining.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: And we talk about that, like, you know, Ian Scott was a six man for three straight years.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: I kept telling Ian Scott like, dude, I know, but look, nobody cares who starts like nobody.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is college.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody cares except like your grandma,
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: your mom and the old guy back in your hometown that used to follow you.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: No one cares if you can trust me.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think that role and how your rotation is,
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: you're going to average more points because you can play longer and then you get out
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: of the game and now you can just do your thing.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he gets to his senior year and guess what?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's the national player of the year conversation and he misses out just on a couple of votes.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: So recruiting is a big piece.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Then I think just stylistically, like it's no secret.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: You look at our team and,
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: like you guys,
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: we are, we're, I don't know if we have anyone under 6'5 on our roster, right?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a couple guys,
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: but we're mainly 6'5 to 6'10,
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: and we're in between, and we try to get guys that can do a lot of things.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: But one thing I wanted to make sure I taught was,
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: and it was kind of weird being a point guard,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted everybody on our team to be able to score in the low post, in the mid post.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: So taking a point guard who is 6'5,
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: who's never done that, and teaching them, okay, hey, guess what?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to actually have you set a ball screen.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're going to have you dive to the block.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're going to throw a high low to you.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, wait, what?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm posting?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to need to learn how to score inside of 12 feet.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so teaching those things.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then it takes a lot of time.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Motion is not easy because you have to get spacing and timing.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it never looks pretty, but we have a lot of drills that we do.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of things that we do that just try to teach those.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And hopefully by February,
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: when you see us play,
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: it's almost like a full-blown locomotion train or it's like, holy cow.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: These guys look like they know what they're doing because
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: when this ball screen happens, the backside isn't standing.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: They've got actions.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: They've got things.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so...
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think we want to create that and we do want to give them freedom.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: The one thing we do is I shock a lot of people when I say this.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: We do have actions, but we don't have sets.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Michigan State, they're going to run a set every time.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Purdue, PJ's going to call set every possession.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: My brother at Warsaw at the high school, they're going to run 5,000 sets.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: My guys look at me and he's like, Coach, we need a set.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I got a set for you.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Let's put our best player Right here with the ball,
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: get everybody else out of the way, and then you go be a basketball player.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: How about that?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so they laugh at it,
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: but they know our whole concepts are based around,
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: let us help you get you in positions, now you go make plays.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because I never wanted to be the one where,
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: well, coach, the set didn't work, now what do you want us to do?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know, go play.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: I want you to go play from the beginning.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: It takes a long time.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not pretty.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: We started practice, right?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's not pretty right now,
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: but eventually it will get to that and it just becomes harder and harder to defend.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: One of the drills that you did in connection to that and the finishing
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: in particular was the 10 finish drill.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: I liked not just what it was,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: but then also how you incorporated competition into it and even pace and that kind
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: of stuff.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Can you explain that for listeners?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's crazy because I'm getting ready to do another – we've got
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: a speaking engagement this Saturday, and we're talking about what we want to do.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, you know what, maybe it would just be good to show coaches how we practice.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily – well, every coach looks for drills.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I thought,
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: what if we did part of our practice,
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: but they got to watch our guys practice, and they got to see the intensity.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the talking points will be more based on the how – Coaches are going to want
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: to know what the what is.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, I can incorporate that.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And those are really good.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I think anything you do, I think you just can't devalue the little things of the game.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: We try to get really tricky.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I've got really athletic,
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: really long,
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: really talented basketball players, but they still need to learn how to pass.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: They still need to learn how to catch, right?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no coach, we never talk about how do you catch a basketball.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody does.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we do.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I think You know, what's the point?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, well,
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: the point is,
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: if we can focus so much on the details of the game,
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: then ideally we want to make the game as simple as possible when you play.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_01: So if certain things become habitual and you know,
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to play off two feet or I'm going to get to this spot and I'm going to,
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: you know, 45 dive here, or if I do this, then this happens.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: The more that becomes just instinctual,
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: the better basketball player you're going to be,
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: you're not thinking about those things.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: So 10 finish drills,
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: something like that,
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: like every practice we're going to do,
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: we're going to start something with communication,
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: passing, catching, playing off too.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And we have a lot of drills.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: We do that.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: 10 finishes is one of those.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's very simple, right?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: We get, you know,
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: some guys are going to be,
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: everybody's going to be in the short corner,
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: which we do a lot of dive spots from the short corner.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: The pass was going to be at the elbow and essentially we give them,
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: they have certain finishes they have to do.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: They got to catch, square up, two feet, two hands, finish.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Then the next one they got to catch, square up.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: They got one dribble where they got to initiate that contact.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Our guys are big and strong, so we want them to move space, create space, finish.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: The next one is going to be a two dribble.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to go one, two, and use the other side of that rim as protection, right?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then we get them to the elbow where they have to catch like on a two-on-one fast break.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: They got to rip it through, take one dribble power and finish.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, okay, what's the point of doing that?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or we have a drill called Villanova drill, or we have a drill called four corner passing.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: We have a drill called Bellarmine.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: It all has to do with not only finishing and finishing, but I'll go further.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like we talk about You can't hit rim.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: So when you do this two-hand,
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: two-feet finishes, now I need to do 10 in a row, and you can't hit rim.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you hit rim, you go back to zero.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just amazing.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: We're just taking what we think.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: We're honing in smaller and smaller and smaller.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: And one of my favorite movies,
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've ever seen it,
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: but if you've ever seen The Patriot,
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Mel Gibson,
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: one of the coolest lines he has is,
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_01: He's taking his sons and they're trying to get revenge on something
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: that just happened.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: And one of his sons is getting ready to shoot a gun and he says,
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know, aim small, miss small.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I've never, you know, forgot about that where it's like, well, that's basketball too, right?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Where it's like aim small, miss small.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let's try to take away as much question of missing a shot or missing a pass
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: or turning it over as we can.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then hopefully,
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: if you do those every day,
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: you create just instinctive basketball players who now they're not thinking
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: about it.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: The aim small, miss small has already happened, right?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot to that.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: I know some people could listen to this and be like, look, this guy's crazy.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: What an idiot.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: But it just works for us, man.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd have a hard time pressing.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's part of the reason why I think we shoot 54% as a team from field goal percentage.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Every year, 52, 53, 54.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's some reasons for that.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's part of it, too, is how we practice, how we finish, how we pass.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: One of the others that I really like that built on that,
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: but then also reinforced your pace of play, as well as...
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Advantage situations and then building up to was that transition buildup drill.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Can you explain that one too?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And even some of the constraints that you use that I think that force guys to focus
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: in on certain things.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I'm big on transition.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think one thing that's not taught a lot is defensive transition.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think we spend a lot of time You know, doing half-court offense.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of coaches are defensive-minded,
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: so they're going to go half-court defense,
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: so they're going to go their extended defense.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, we take a look using those football terms, too.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: I break the game up in three areas.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: We have our offense, we have our defense, we have our special teams.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: We call transition our special teams.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of what that is.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, the switching fields or, say, in football.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like it's hard because everybody wants,
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: like, I get a lot of requests for our transition drills.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny,
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: like when you talk about offensively going from that side of the court to
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: the next side on offense,
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: it's not really anything other than if it's a missed shot,
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: we talk a lot about short long.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I require our guys to make a quick short pass right away.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like they get a bust out dribble, the ball's got to be out of their hands.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because the reality is we're telling these guys to sprint on misses, right?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: We want to attack.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: But if I get a rebound,
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: like I can't typically baseball pass or chess pass someone running down the floor
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: because they're on defense.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: They're not there yet, right?
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we're teaching that, okay, the first three steps, we got to win.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: We got to get out to a full sprint.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: The ball needs to get out in front, typically about 15 to 20 feet to start the break.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Then from there,
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: now that second pass or that lead pass,
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: and then that's where Your athletes or basketball players become basketball players.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't teach them how to play in transition because they are so athletic and so good.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: And they know how to finish because we work on finishing that those things you kind
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: of see that come to fruition.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: But the buildup is one thing.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's more defensive than it is offense.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's essentially, you know, it's a two on one to start.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: And we used to do this.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of teams do this where there's always an advantage on offense.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we like doing it.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you're not always going to have an offensive advantage.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you are going to have a three on three or two on two or
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: a one on one.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you how do you take advantage and how do you get stopped?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we go two on one and then it's two on two,
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: three on two,
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: three on three,
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: four on three, four on four, five on four and then five on five.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: We do five on five twice.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: We let both teams start with the basketball twice.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: So essentially both teams are going to get an opportunity to start with the ball as
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: a two on one.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then as a coach, you just can put in rules and stipulations that you want to focus on.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I'll say, okay, fellas, you get two dribbles in the backcourt.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, coach, what if they take away the pass?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, but you got two dribbles.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: So what that does is it forces them where,
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: look, if they're going to dribble, it better be up the floor, right?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or if they're going to rebound it, That quick, that short, quick pass has got to be made.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now they're at the three-point line.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now that one dribble, the second one, they're already across that court, right?
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: It makes them push the ball look that way.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: One thing we do a lot is like we emphasize just like on that one,
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: especially on the two-on-one or three-on-two,
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: like any turnover, we bankrupt you, right?
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we keep normal scores.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously the offensive advantage should be the one that gets the lead just
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: because you're playing with an advantage.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: But man, if you turn it over, you are bankrupt.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: You go back to zero.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: So our guys know in that drill,
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: if you turn it over and the longer you play,
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: the more valuable that is, you have no chance of winning.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: So valuing the basketball is huge.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing defensively just teaches them, you got to talk.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: Defense is such a verbal side of the ball where when you're at a disadvantage,
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: you want them to shoot that 26 foot third pass,
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: like somewhat hesitant,
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: like, because you're in a district, you're never going to have three on three.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: So you're trying to play the numbers of like, what's the best shot you can give up?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: And what are we not giving?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're not going to give up anything at the rim.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: We're not going to give up an easy walk in three where it's just catch, feet, set, shoot.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: We want them to be able to move and scramble.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then We do make a rule.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we let the shooter be able to offensive rebound.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Most times we say, hey, shooter, the other two guys can crash.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you really can dictate.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: We have another one called Miami Transition I like a lot.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: What we do is we sold this from Miami, Ohio.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: Friends with Coach Steele,
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: he does a good job,
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: where we essentially put certain guys on certain areas in the backcourt,
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: offense and defense.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then we put two guys,
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: one offensive player,
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: one defensive player, At the basket area, either on the blocks or we stack them.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: And all four of the other offensive players who are in the backcourt
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: of different places, they all have a basketball, all of them.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: So the idea is we are going to call out a name of one of those four offensive players.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: That is the person that has the basketball.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: The other three essentially just throw it off to the side
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: to the managers and
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: then they're in the play.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: So we can dictate because,
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: a transition is Offense and defense,
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: it's never a perfect, like, the one is here, the two is here.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's so scrambled.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we try to put them in different areas where it's like, you don't know where the ball is.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know, like,
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: I like putting,
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: okay, I'm going to put my five man on defense
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: where my point guard is.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then I'm going to yell my point guard's name.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like,
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: well, my five man's not going to just sprint back to the basket and leave the ball.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, you got to guard the point guard.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we're in a mismatch.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: You have to figure it out.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: When we get in the half court, then you can scram.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can talk.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can communicate.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: But for right now,
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: you got to guard that guy because it's a defensive transition and you're on him.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, I think doing more and more stuff like that,
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: now they're not surprised where it's like,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: okay, we're in the second game of the season.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: There's a long rebound and now my five man has to guard
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: an All-American point guard up the floor 75 feet.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, I don't know what I'm doing.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, we work on that quite a bit, actually.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the defensive and offensive transitions.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: We do it every day.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: I love that stuff.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: We probably spend more time, I bet you, in the transition segment.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: At least most teams, I would say.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: That's just a big part of how we play.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: This will be the last thing I ask.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: You talked earlier,
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: paraphrasing, is coming to the conclusion and thinking about what actually matters.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that sometimes coaches can get lost in all of the things that you could do.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so my question is,
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: for a coach that's maybe even one that's been doing it for a long time,
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Being intentional.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think that if somebody listens to this all the way through,
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: they're going to hear like you're very intentional about this is what we're trying
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: to accomplish.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then these are the things that are going to actually help us get better at those things.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: How would you encourage somebody to go about even thinking that way as a coach so
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: that they can become more intentional?
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: And actually help their team,
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: not just improve,
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: any coach worth any salt,
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: like their team is going to get better from the beginning of the year to the end
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: the year, I hope.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: But to like maximize those guys' potential,
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think requires a high level of intentionality on a coach's part,
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: especially when you play the way that you do on both sides of the balls.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: So how can I improve my ability to become more intentional?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think the first thing I would say is it's really easy.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was in this category, man.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: I was 20 years old,
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: 30 years old,
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: where, you know, when I first got into coaching, it was, okay, like, I'm the main.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I know it all.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to do all this.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I know every coach out there that's coached a long time feels the same way.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's like when you're 22, it's like, I got to figure it out.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, remember, I almost quit twice.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I almost quit being an assistant.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then when my head coach here,
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: Coach Kessler,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: had been coaching for a long time,
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: like I felt like, okay, he was probably going to keep going.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of had to come to Jesus moment where it's like,
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: okay, is this like, is this what God has planned for me?
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Should I keep doing this?
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: Or should I, is this what, what he has planned for me?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the first thing I learned pretty quickly is, You gotta humble yourself.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know that it's easy to say,
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: but if I could,
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: I never tweet this and I never put this out on social media,
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: but every single fall,
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: I wanna tweet out there, just remember coaches, it's not about us.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's not about me.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so many times, it's so easy in our profession to make it about us.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: And look, I know I have major impact in our program and what we're doing.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know it looks different if Coach Moore is not here.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: Good, bad, or indifferent, it looks different, right?
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell our guys all the time when we recruit, like every year looks different.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime you add a person or subtract a person,
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: all it takes is one, and it can be a person who doesn't even play.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: The room is different, right?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: We had 15 guys come back.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: We had no one graduate, right?
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_01: 31 and four, everyone came back on our team.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: However, we added one freshman.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: Their team's a little different.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you got the same team coach.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, we do, but it's still different because we added a guy.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I think just humbling yourself and knowing that you are important and you're
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: a big piece of what's going on, but man, you're not it.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not it.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: I could go away and guess what?
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Steven Halstead and Jordan Widener can continue this and they're going
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: to keep winning a ton of ballgames if I'm not here.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: the intentional part we talked a little bit about today,
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: like I think kids today more than ever, they need us.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: They need us.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: They need coaches not to be fathers, but to be someone that's in their corner.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: And especially with how things have gotten so transactional.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really hard today in a lot of different areas where It's very much,
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: what can you do for me and what can I do for you?
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to trade services and you're going to go on our way.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: I will get out of this profession faster than you realize when that's what it becomes here.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, NIL and all this stuff.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I'm not paying a 17-year-old to come to Grace to play.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like, we're giving you scholarship money, right?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: You would love scholarship money, Bob Jones, right?
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: You'd love to be able to, like, We are giving an opportunity to earn an education.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: And now with the five and five rule,
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: a lot of our kids are going to come and they're going to go on and they're going
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: to keep playing
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: somewhere else and make a lot of money.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: What I want to do is I want this place for every kid that comes through our program
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: when they're done here to be so excited to come back and be able to tell their son
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: or their daughter or their wife that And their family, this is where dad played.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_01: This was dad's team.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I was a part of.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the intentional piece is it's me understanding that as a coach and
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: then me really coaching the person, not basketball.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I bring in our guys a lot.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: We do a lot of stuff outside of this office.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, every,
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: every start of the season,
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: I always, it's easy to remember because I always do it on the first day of practice.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: So the first day of practice,
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: what I do is everybody that's graduated for me and you're like,
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: how do you remember all that?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let me show you.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: I remember all that.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: I put their eight by 10 on a wall as my trophies, right?
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: All of them are over there.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: And what I do is I go down the line and I send them a text and I just thank them
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: because every one of those guys on that wall had an impact in my life
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: and my family's life.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: And the guys that are playing right now,
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: whether they know who they are or not,
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: they impacted that person who's on the team now.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just think that's what it's about.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Understanding your role in this and then understanding the importance
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: of every single young man that is in your program.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: And don't forget.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I've learned this as times passed.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_01: Holy smokes, do we have major influence on these kids.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so one of the little things that I learned,
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: like I'm never going to text one of my players at 930 at night and say, hey,
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: I need you to come see me at eight o'clock in the morning tomorrow
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: and just leave it like that.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, that's kind of weird.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because I don't want them staying up going.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, geez, what is code like?
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: Did I do something wrong?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, they just it processes right now.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: They don't they're not sleeping.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, if they know if if I text you, I'm going to tell you what I need.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: If I call you, you need to answer.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then just over time.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: As over time, you start to be a little bit more comfortable.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's amazing how we do so much stuff to try to get deeper
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: than just I'm your basketball coach, your player.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: I tell these guys so many times they get sick of hearing it.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a number of points that you can score that can make me feel any more about you.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like literally, you could be our water boy or you could be Elijah Malone.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to feel the same way about you.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're the same person to me if you're in this program.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it takes time.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like anything else, Tony, you try to build like that's what's culture to me.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody kind of has their own opinion on what it is, but.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's just this,
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: I want to build something here where when they're done,
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: they know, like, dude, you're stuck with us.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: You're stuck with me and Widener and Halstead for the rest of your life,
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_01: whether you like it or not.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: When you come to Grace, like, I better be getting that wedding invitation.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you have a kid, I better be getting a phone call.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: You get a huge promotion or a job.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I want to be involved in that.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you can guarantee one thing.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're always going to get a text from me at the beginning of the season
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: that lets you know how important you were in my life.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think just being open about that stuff and being, I guess, vulnerable in a weird way.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of hard to say that as a male.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: But these kids need to be vulnerable.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: And we need to be vulnerable as their leaders of like, yeah, guess what?
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: I am just a normal dude.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: I have the same problems you do.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: It just looks different.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: I got a kid,
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: I got a wife,
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: and I want you to have an inside seat of who Coach Moore is and what I am
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: and how I am as a dad and as a husband and all that.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not going to wrap my identity up in you winning us a game on Saturday.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to come and I'm going to show up the same person on Sunday,
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: whether you win or not, right?
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be the same dad,
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be the same husband,
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: and I'm going to be the same basketball coach when we get to practice on Monday,
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: regardless of the outcome.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as I'm not, then I'll step away.