Speaker 1: Well, welcome in. I'm Doug Gottlie. This is all All where.
Speaker 2: We give you the greatest stories in mostly in basketball,
Speaker 2: but all in sports. The stories make the stories.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that.
Speaker 2: I think that's our new Well, that's Michael's who who
Speaker 2: edits this?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: I think that's our new kind of catchphrase. The stories
Speaker 2: are the stories.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Let that kind of ruminate them out into your brain
Speaker 2: while we figured out and listen to Griff Aldridge. So
Speaker 2: we're on championship week or in championship week, Yeah, in
Speaker 2: championship week would be the proper English. And most of
Speaker 2: the basketball community is arguing a couple of things, right,
Speaker 2: who's in who's out? Oh, that's always fun. Who's in,
Speaker 2: who's out? And I have a quick thought on that
Speaker 2: that I'll share with you at the end. And of
Speaker 2: course who's getting fired and who's going where? And it's
Speaker 2: interesting when you when you get to your thirties to
Speaker 2: forties and you've been in this business a long time,
Speaker 2: and some of it is the connectivity of the sport,
Speaker 2: some of it is the connectivity of the profession. Some
Speaker 2: of it is what we're doing here on All Ball
Speaker 2: where you really get to know, people get to know people,
Speaker 2: and I've done a bad job of keeping up with
Speaker 2: Mike Hopkins in terms of being boys. He was one
Speaker 2: of the guys I looked up to when I was
Speaker 2: a kid. He played my dad in Slamming Jam, which
Speaker 2: was the big spring in Summer League, and then in
Speaker 2: au of course played from modern day high school for
Speaker 2: going to Syracuse.
Speaker 1: Becoming an assistant coach.
Speaker 2: The the head coach designate as well, and then most
Speaker 2: recently head coach at Washington. But he lost his job yesterday.
Speaker 2: And it's really always interesting, you know, when you he
Speaker 2: had kind of an emotional speech in front of the
Speaker 2: media where he talked about the people at Washington, how
Speaker 2: much he really was going to miss those people, and
Speaker 2: I think it's look, the Kenny Payne thing is, it's
Speaker 2: just a clown show.
Speaker 1: I mean you if you listen to his.
Speaker 2: When he was asked why he should come back, he
Speaker 2: had some bizarre answer about the Titanic and I'm gonna
Speaker 2: i'ma be tracking who's jumping off the Titanic, Like, dude,
Speaker 2: do you not know the fucking Titanic's at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the ocean.
Speaker 1: It's not the reference that you wanted. To make.
Speaker 2: But yes, that was the Titanic. That was a sinking
Speaker 2: ship that he went down with it. It's actually probably
Speaker 2: a really accurate portrayal of Louisville hoops.
Speaker 1: But it's not.
Speaker 2: In any way the remarks of somebody who should stay
Speaker 2: as Louisville head coach. And look, I'm not sitting here
Speaker 2: going to tell you that Mike Hopkins did some spectacular
Speaker 2: job at Washington.
Speaker 1: Washington's a great job. It's tricky.
Speaker 2: Obviously, switching the Big ten is gonna be interesting. There's
Speaker 2: a new athletic director from the one that hired him. Like,
Speaker 2: there's a lot to it. But none of this has
Speaker 2: anything to do with keeping your job or losing your job.
Speaker 2: It has to do with, you know the fact that
Speaker 2: when you do get fired, that's it, right, Like you're
Speaker 2: a former coach there occasionally can go back whatever. But
Speaker 2: your family's moving, All the families are moving, everybody's losing
Speaker 2: their job.
Speaker 1: It's not a happy time.
Speaker 2: And you know, I would say there are times in
Speaker 2: which I've had this in my life where you don't
Speaker 2: have the empathy for somebody losing their job and the
Speaker 2: understanding of all the different things that go with it.
Speaker 1: But maybe some of that is in relation to how
Speaker 1: they handle their eggs.
Speaker 2: Anyway, I was watching Mike Hopkins yesterday and the guy
Speaker 2: I've known for holy crap, I'm old almost forty years
Speaker 2: and thinking, thinking like this is the worst part of
Speaker 2: what we do, which is when you're the head coach
Speaker 2: of a university university's basket program, you are a paid ambassador.
Speaker 2: You're supposed to know everything about that school and love
Speaker 2: and preach everything about that school and all the great
Speaker 2: things about it. And the crazy part about it is
Speaker 2: when it's over. Granted, he made a lot of money,
Speaker 2: and you know, if you're smart with your money, sell
Speaker 2: your house. You know you kept a bunch of your money,
Speaker 2: you're gonna be good. Like you know, these assistant coaches
Speaker 2: a little bit different, but head coaches you should be good.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, like all that ambassadorship, it could
Speaker 2: be completely fake and it could go out the window
Speaker 2: and you could turn into just, you know, the anti ambassador.
Speaker 1: But the best of the best of people do not.
Speaker 1: And Hop is a guy who's one of those really
Speaker 1: good people. Be interested.
Speaker 2: See Dan Monson was in his job after seventeen years
Speaker 2: at Lombie State. Does hop have a soft landing back
Speaker 2: at Lombey State, which would be really weird coming full
Speaker 2: circle considering actually he played for my dad and my
Speaker 2: dad was an assistant Lombie State until eighty four when
Speaker 2: they lost their jobs. But I guess this is it's
Speaker 2: not a plea, it's just a statement of respect. You know,
Speaker 2: when these head coaches get fired, many of them get
Speaker 2: a golden parachute to walk away. Some do not, I
Speaker 2: guarantee the assistant coaches most do not. And the stories
Speaker 2: make the stories. So when you hear the stories that
Speaker 2: we share on All Ball, understand these are the people
Speaker 2: behind the coaches on the sidelines and the X and
Speaker 2: o's that we discuss that they're real people. And my
Speaker 2: guest today is a perfect example. His name is Griff Aldridge.
Speaker 2: He's the head coach of Longwood University. Longwood was at
Speaker 2: five seed and now they're in the NCAA Tournament. I
Speaker 2: was incredibly impressed with how they played against unc Asheville
Speaker 2: after upsetting High Point beaten high Point. It was the
Speaker 2: best team in their league for a second time in
Speaker 2: like two weeks. And the beating high Point out high
Speaker 2: Point where the where the tournament was played.
Speaker 1: The Big South tournament was played.
Speaker 2: But if you remember Griff Aldridge's story the first time
Speaker 2: they went to the NCAA tournament two years ago, you'd
Speaker 2: know that there's a lot more to them than just
Speaker 2: a basketball coach. I feel like I could tease it,
Speaker 2: but why it's that good.
Speaker 1: Here's a guy.
Speaker 2: I'll just give you the really that the top headline
Speaker 2: walked away from a six figure job as a lawyer
Speaker 2: in Houston to be the director of basketball operations at
Speaker 2: umb You see Marilyn Baltimore County from there.
Speaker 1: Of course they had the incredible upset of Virginia.
Speaker 2: Of course we're going to talk about that, and now
Speaker 2: he's taking Longwood to their second NCAA tournament.
Speaker 1: But the stories make the story. Here's my chat with
Speaker 1: Griff Aldrich.
Speaker 2: Griff, I got a chance to obviously call your guy
Speaker 2: game on Sunday, and it's really an interesting group. You
Speaker 2: guys started out so well and then you hit a
Speaker 2: patch in the middle.
Speaker 1: What happened?
Speaker 3: You know? I honestly think I think it was a
Speaker 3: combination of factors. I think number one, a lot of
Speaker 3: people don't realize we lost a bunch of guys who
Speaker 3: played critical roles last year. You know, probably like everybody
Speaker 3: you know, brought in new new guys. A bunch of
Speaker 3: the new guys that we brought in, you know, I
Speaker 3: think oftentimes, especially at our level, you know, people when
Speaker 3: they're thinking about transfers, they're oftentimes thinking about Power five guys,
Speaker 3: guys who've already played well, and then they're just slotting
Speaker 3: into a new system, you know, when you come down
Speaker 3: to our level. Yeah, sometimes guys just immediately blossome. But
Speaker 3: then I do think they're guys who haven't played. You know.
Speaker 3: We we had several guys who hadn't played for years,
Speaker 3: and now all of a sudden, they're not on the
Speaker 3: scout team. What they do in practice actually matters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, and I want to get to the roster construction. Second,
Speaker 2: but first, over, your left shoulder is arguably my favorite
Speaker 2: poster I ever got as a kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so again, you grew up in Virginia, correct?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Was that?
Speaker 1: Did you get in a Virginia basketball camp? Like? Where
Speaker 1: did you get because.
Speaker 3: I got it at the Virginia Wesleyan the Don forsythe
Speaker 3: basketball camp. Uh and uh, I think it's a converse. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's a converse converse.
Speaker 2: So that that poster. I know it is, don't we
Speaker 2: look at I know what the words it says. It
Speaker 2: makes me stick when I see a guy just watch
Speaker 2: it go out a pound.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And there was some cool Converse posters, right, you had
Speaker 2: the Iceman Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh, you had the Doctor is Always in Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see here they and used to get those
Speaker 2: at the end of camp.
Speaker 1: You get like a Converse poster at the inn of camp.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: And I have that one.
Speaker 2: That one's still hanging in my my childhood bedroom as well.
Speaker 2: That one the Jordan Wings Yeah, and then the Jordan
Speaker 2: Best on Earth, Best on Mars. And I had a
Speaker 2: John Stockton poster.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this one might for some reason, my mother actually
Speaker 3: mad it. So it's got like a matt behind it
Speaker 3: and you can't see, but it's it's it's beat the
Speaker 3: living hell. Uh. And I had it. I just took
Speaker 3: it to college with may. I took it to law school.
Speaker 3: It's just kind of gone with me and my wife,
Speaker 3: you know, was like, can we please throw this away?
Speaker 3: I was like no, So it's.
Speaker 1: That no, no, no.
Speaker 3: No, sat in the garage. And then finally when I
Speaker 3: got to be a basketball coach and actually had an
Speaker 3: office as a basketball coach, I was like, yeah, put
Speaker 3: this bad boy up. But in some way, in some
Speaker 3: ways that it really epitomizes how, you know, we want
Speaker 3: to play. I mean, you know, I think it's it's
Speaker 3: probably a little bit of my personality. But also really
Speaker 3: and again I think that's more coincidence than you know,
Speaker 3: if I had the doctor, if I had the Iceman,
Speaker 3: if I had the George Gervin poster, it'd be up to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're so cool back in the day, I can
Speaker 2: Will we ever have good basketball camps again?
Speaker 3: No? Now AAU has ruined it. AAU has ruined it,
Speaker 3: and trainers and and all of that. It's it's it's
Speaker 3: really interesting. I mean you'll you'll like we used to
Speaker 3: go to defensive stations and you are actually taught the
Speaker 3: Sheldrome like I would go to basketball camp. I'm sure
Speaker 3: you did two, three, four, five weeks a summer and
Speaker 3: you knew sheldne you knew you know, seeball in man,
Speaker 3: you know, and uh, you know we have to teach that,
Speaker 3: you know at Longwood when when new guys get.
Speaker 2: Here, obviously now there's three hundred and sixty plus Division
Speaker 2: one teams. When you and I were playing. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know how many. There were probably
Speaker 2: two hundred, I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So so is it when you and you were at
Speaker 2: Hampton City, which is widely considered one of the elite
Speaker 2: Division three programs. Yeah, it was at the right so
Speaker 2: right at that but I know and at this time,
Speaker 2: it's different that at that time was that level Longwood level.
Speaker 2: It's hard because then as opposed to now, But is
Speaker 2: that fair? That's really like you said you played divisions,
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, like as actually just as good as
Speaker 2: any of the mid to low level the ones.
Speaker 3: I think. So, I mean, I think, you know, if
Speaker 3: you set aside players today with their athleticism and their
Speaker 3: size compared to what we experienced, you know, the game's
Speaker 3: just so different. But I think, you know, on a
Speaker 3: relative basis, yes, like we you know, William and Mary
Speaker 3: was in the Colonial Conference. I guess they still are,
Speaker 3: but you know that was back when George Mason and
Speaker 3: Vcu and Richmond all were in there, and and Hampton Sydney.
Speaker 3: We played William and Marion at William and Marion beat him,
Speaker 3: and so you know that was Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 3: think we were a Division one level, you know program,
Speaker 3: you know, certainly low. You know, we've we've finished in
Speaker 3: the Elite eight. I think one year lost to Platteville
Speaker 3: when Bo Ryan was there and had his dynasty going,
Speaker 3: and you know that it was I actually somebody sent
Speaker 3: me a video this is a couple of years ago
Speaker 3: of some of our old footage, and I was like, damn,
Speaker 3: we were good. Like the balls pop in, you know,
Speaker 3: there's you know, we ran the old Carolina pass and
Speaker 3: screen away and slip and curl and you know, and
Speaker 3: it's just so so hard hard to play against, and
Speaker 3: a bunch of really smart players and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: not a lot of guys who were dunking, but a
Speaker 3: lot of guys who could shoot and pass and dribble.
Speaker 3: And so it was it was fun.
Speaker 1: Will the motion offense have returned?
Speaker 3: You know? I I honestly it's funny. Our staff every
Speaker 3: year it feels like there is like I don't know
Speaker 3: if you see this, but I feel like there's like
Speaker 3: a system of the year. Like a couple of years ago,
Speaker 3: it was that old you know, we call it buffalo
Speaker 3: the you know the two posts, you know, continuity offense.
Speaker 3: The opposite post lifts and goes into an empty side
Speaker 3: ball screen and then you reverse it and all of
Speaker 3: that felt like everybody was doing that, And then felt
Speaker 3: like last year, at least in the in the teams
Speaker 3: we were playing, it was floppy, you know, the pin
Speaker 3: downs and playing off that. This year it feels like
Speaker 3: there's a lot of stagger screens. A lot of people
Speaker 3: were playing out of stagger screens. Again, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: just in at our level, but I think the in it.
Speaker 3: Several years ago, I thought it was the ball screen.
Speaker 3: Everybody was everybody, and now now I feel like it's
Speaker 3: it is a little bit more people are going and
Speaker 3: screening away and that's creating problems for people.
Speaker 2: Well, what I saw from you Sunday, and again this
Speaker 2: is usually not my not my pattern of how I
Speaker 2: love to do this, so forgive me for jumping around
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 1: But what I what I saw Sunday was.
Speaker 2: Asheville either switched everything or what like the hard hardhead
Speaker 2: tave and trap everything. And I thought your team's overall
Speaker 2: prep for it was fantastic. You know the big well,
Speaker 2: I mean the big kid, the big Polish kid as Apolla,
Speaker 2: who that's the per example what you're talking about where
Speaker 2: like he was at Utah staight, yes, but he never played.
Speaker 2: And I don't think people unders say, you don't just
Speaker 2: automatically become this awesome you know, high high mid major level,
Speaker 2: low high major level players in there watching other dudes.
Speaker 2: It's just a completely different your body and by the way,
Speaker 2: your your body's not used to it.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the bigger thing is also your mental
Speaker 3: because you've been beaten up confidence wise for a couple
Speaker 3: of years.
Speaker 2: And well, and then and then you come down and
Speaker 2: also down there's some guys beating up. But some guys
Speaker 2: they have that indelible self confidence, right, yes, but they
Speaker 2: think that because it's a lower level, that they're just
Speaker 2: going to roll it out and dominate.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, it doesn't doesn't work that way.
Speaker 3: I think that's right. We had, uh, we had a kid,
Speaker 3: Justin Hill a couple of years ago who turned out
Speaker 3: he's now at Georgia. He was the first team and
Speaker 3: you know, he and I were laughing because he said,
Speaker 3: you know, when I got here, I thought, man, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna be you mister everything, and then dude, yeah, and
Speaker 3: then he said we were playing pick up the first
Speaker 3: week and he said, well, I wonder watch seat on
Speaker 3: the bench. I'm going to be because.
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Speaker 1: It's they're root awake. It's really interesting that.
Speaker 2: I mean, any basketball players mind is interesting, but especially
Speaker 2: like the eighteen to twenty three year old guy, and
Speaker 2: you know, you think, okay, well, he's played college basketball
Speaker 2: for so he knows stuff, and there's just so much
Speaker 2: they don't know, and they don't know how to process
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Like that's a good big element to it too.
Speaker 3: Well. And I think I also think in a program
Speaker 3: like ours, we're very high accountability. We're very we try
Speaker 3: to be detail oriented. We try to be execution and
Speaker 3: discipline focused, and so we're not free flowing in that
Speaker 3: way where hey, we're just gonna you know, we're gonna
Speaker 3: run an NBA action and then you guys, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: put guys in a position you guys just go go
Speaker 3: do you We don't do that, and so then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, it's I think it's that much harder.
Speaker 3: You're trying to teach spacing, you're trying to teach. Okay,
Speaker 3: hey I need to cut here now, I need to
Speaker 3: you know, dive on this situation, and that just takes time.
Speaker 3: That takes time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So getting back to the champion game, Yeah, you
Speaker 2: guys were the Paula was constantly come up the ball
Speaker 2: screens with slipping them, right, but you didn't have you
Speaker 2: didn't have a short roll, and you have long rolling
Speaker 2: and then everybody else kind of flashing behind. And the
Speaker 2: first in the first half, you know, they were really
Speaker 2: plugging hard on the weak side, so you were skipping
Speaker 2: to the weak side corner. And then the second half
Speaker 2: they were staying home. So you just constantly had hit
Speaker 2: the slip. Man he was he had to be exhausted
Speaker 2: getting the ball that much.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, but he was scoring all the time, so
Speaker 3: he was happy.
Speaker 1: All the time. So but what's interesting is, you know
Speaker 1: it's like we.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it's because of time to teach, because because
Speaker 2: emotion is emotion when run, well, we can't really scout
Speaker 2: for it, right, Yeah, And with so many defensive switching
Speaker 2: all the time, a really good motion, it's even harder
Speaker 2: when you're switching because well, now you can backcut or
Speaker 2: curl cut every time, and it makes it really difficult
Speaker 2: to play, especially any sort of pressure man in the defense.
Speaker 2: I guess I'm like, is it because the kids can't
Speaker 2: run it and they can't read, because you don't have
Speaker 2: the time when you have a new team to teach it.
Speaker 2: And I'm not asking you personally, I'm just saying, why
Speaker 2: do you think in general? Because usually we teach offense
Speaker 2: as we coach the way we were coached. Now, in
Speaker 2: all fairness, I didn't really run emotion offense maybe ever,
Speaker 2: like my dad would run like passing game again, like
Speaker 2: passing cut kind of Doug mo style, you know, but
Speaker 2: I never I knew all the principles of it. And
Speaker 2: when I played at Notre Dame John mcclod, we ran
Speaker 2: what I would call it two side motion you might
Speaker 2: call block remover, but the guys weren't going through a
Speaker 2: screener shooter on each side that I was passing either
Speaker 2: go through but usually like fake and just I was
Speaker 2: just facilitate up top.
Speaker 1: But I'm just wondering, why, uh no one runs it?
Speaker 3: I think I think for a few reasons. I think
Speaker 3: the AAU game is is not that way anymore, right,
Speaker 3: you know, the AAU game is is all just freelance.
Speaker 3: So I think, what what we were talking about before,
Speaker 3: kids don't know the game, and so the amount of
Speaker 3: time that it takes to try to teach them, I
Speaker 3: think it's really hard. Like I remember we that's what
Speaker 3: we ran. We ran Carolina's passing game at Hampton Sydney
Speaker 3: because Shaver played for Dean Smith. And I remember we
Speaker 3: actually ran five on oh without a ball. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: and I remember my freshman year, I was like, what
Speaker 3: in the world, he what, what are we doing? And
Speaker 3: I had no idea what I was doing. You know,
Speaker 3: Ryan Odam was my best friend and teammate. He didn't
Speaker 3: know what he was doing. You know, we're running into
Speaker 3: each other and you know, it just took But then
Speaker 3: of course over time, you know, I think exactly what
Speaker 3: you've said is it's almost impossible because you know, some
Speaker 3: of these other offenses, even like the Princeton offense, well,
Speaker 3: there's a there's more or less a subset of variations
Speaker 3: that you're going to run in a particular action, you know,
Speaker 3: where I think in motion, who the hell knows what
Speaker 3: you're gonna do, you know, And that makes that especially
Speaker 3: if you have a balanced team. It makes it that
Speaker 3: much more difficult, you know, to play against. In my opinion,
Speaker 3: I would I.
Speaker 2: Would say, again, this is an opinion. You tell me yours,
Speaker 2: so you're actually doing it. I would say most coaches
Speaker 2: would tell you that it's the players. Yeah, but the
Speaker 2: truth is there's a good portion of it where and
Speaker 2: I actually agree with this, where coaches want to control
Speaker 2: where the ball's going.
Speaker 1: You know, they want to control who's taking shats.
Speaker 2: And the one thing about emotion is, you know, it
Speaker 2: feels that you can't because the defense determines what you do.
Speaker 1: Right, you have to read the defense.
Speaker 2: Now again, my biggest issue is players can't read a defense.
Speaker 2: I remember I was talking with a player who I
Speaker 2: kind of work with during a season and I said, like,
Speaker 2: who is guarding.
Speaker 1: You on that play? Like I don't know? Like what
Speaker 1: do you mean? I don't know? I was like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: how was he guarding you? He's pressuring me? He's like, no, dude,
Speaker 1: you know, no, he was off here. You had a
Speaker 1: five on you. He was playing in the lane. Know
Speaker 1: he's been room.
Speaker 2: That's That's a jump shot to the point is that
Speaker 2: they don't. It takes a while to get to the
Speaker 2: place to where they one know who's guarding them and
Speaker 2: how to adjusts, then to feel the game, and then
Speaker 2: three uh, you know the big one is the secondary defender.
Speaker 1: How is everybody else guarding you?
Speaker 2: But then I also think that there's an element of Yeah,
Speaker 2: I coaches like, he'll be open every time in emotion,
Speaker 2: and I don't want him open because they'll shoot the ball,
Speaker 2: and I don't want him shooting the ball right right,
Speaker 2: there's the control asting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's I think that's true. I would
Speaker 3: actually say our offense, which you know, we're going to
Speaker 3: run a set and then we get into what we
Speaker 3: call flow and you know, we're basically trying to either
Speaker 3: throw it into the post, drive a gap, or get
Speaker 3: a ball screen and.
Speaker 2: Right, so your your flow game is five out or
Speaker 2: occasionally four out one in.
Speaker 3: Right, mostly four out one end, occasionally five out.
Speaker 5: If if the like, I would tell you, well, I
Speaker 5: would tell you in the prior five years it was
Speaker 5: all four round one because I didn't really trust my
Speaker 5: fives to catch the ball and they go do something positive,
Speaker 5: They would do something just it may not be positive.
Speaker 1: We're all going to watch this pod by the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, uh, but you know zapala Is, you know European.
Speaker 2: Well see, but so the soho again comes wrong when
Speaker 2: he catches up top, he dribbles at a wing.
Speaker 1: It's a read, right, they can backcut and the next
Speaker 1: guy can fill ya.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of what I run in AAU, which
Speaker 2: is I run a five out blow.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We're constantly teaching back cuts.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the idea, the idea behind it is like, hey,
Speaker 2: if you can't shoot, doesn't matter. If you backcut, they
Speaker 2: have to guard you, yes, they have they they have
Speaker 2: to honor you on a back cut.
Speaker 1: Yes, and uh.
Speaker 2: And it creates kind of constant movement in motion and
Speaker 2: then you can make make some calls. That's it was
Speaker 2: one of the first times like, oh that say the
Speaker 2: blow I run.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The issue I have with the guy in the post,
Speaker 1: and I thought.
Speaker 2: You did a good job of it, is I hate
Speaker 2: post catches that for for post ups, for scores, you know,
Speaker 2: just an inefficient shot. And then also it's harder to
Speaker 2: offensive rebound when you have a guy in between you
Speaker 2: and rebound and the ball. And for the most part
Speaker 2: you didn't do. What do you teach when the ball
Speaker 2: hits the post?
Speaker 3: What do you teach, Well, we do. We call it
Speaker 3: a Utah action because we uh you know, watch some
Speaker 3: of Quinn Snyder's Utah jazz uh split actions, and so
Speaker 3: we're super super original. So we call it utah.
Speaker 2: But what everybody does, but that's basketball one on one, right,
Speaker 2: whatever you whoever you steal it from, you give them credit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so we try to get good movement. And again,
Speaker 3: you know we're talking about you know, guys not understanding
Speaker 3: fundamentals from not going to basketball camp. I think there
Speaker 3: is something when the ball goes into the post and
Speaker 3: it's a good post player. Yeah, everybody freaks out and
Speaker 3: and there is something, in my opinion, like everybody's eyes
Speaker 3: just go like people don't see ball in man.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, that's why it's a great passing condition.
Speaker 3: Yes, and so so we try to get good movement.
Speaker 3: And then a lot of times, particularly Zapala has been
Speaker 3: doubled and in the post semifinals and finals, he didn't
Speaker 3: really get doubled. But we didn't really to your point,
Speaker 3: we didn't really throw it into the post a whole lot.
Speaker 3: It was a lot of a lot more ball screen
Speaker 3: because we never really got got into that. And so
Speaker 3: we what we may do is we may come off
Speaker 3: a ball screen and throw it back action and then
Speaker 3: throw it right in. We'll do that sometimes, so there's
Speaker 3: some movement and they're not able to just tee off
Speaker 3: on your on set.
Speaker 2: Well, what I liked about it was one your prep
Speaker 2: for So many coaches have all these great actions, but
Speaker 2: then when you start switching, they like the guys just
Speaker 2: stand and they don't know what to do, and then
Speaker 2: it just becomes, hey, let's find the mismatch and attack.
Speaker 2: And the problem with that mismatch and attack. It works
Speaker 2: great in the NBA when you have Lebron James and
Speaker 2: Kevin Durant, Right, that's a mismatch. When you have a
Speaker 2: college kid and a coach, it's just not that big
Speaker 2: a mismatch, and it ends up usually being a mid
Speaker 2: range pull up contest a jump shot, which is the
Speaker 2: exact shot you don't want them taking, you know. Whereas
Speaker 2: what you guys were doing was you were moving it
Speaker 2: and swinging it and I mean literally.
Speaker 1: Living in the paint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but not on post touches, on cuts and on drives,
Speaker 2: on and on movement, which is kind of the ideal thing, right, yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think the other thing when they're switching,
Speaker 3: unless you're a team that is really prepared to switch
Speaker 3: a ton and like that's just what you do. But
Speaker 3: if it's just like your alternative defense or alternate you know,
Speaker 3: switch it up again, I think defenses start to freak
Speaker 3: out a little bit and they're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 3: there's a mismatch. Everybody load real quickly because our point
Speaker 3: guard is on the five man and next thing, you know,
Speaker 3: we skipped the ball and now we got a long
Speaker 3: close out. We're in the paint. And I thought that
Speaker 3: happened a good bit too, you know, moving the ball
Speaker 3: and finding that finding where somebody was overhelping.
Speaker 2: Well also, and again some of it is, you know,
Speaker 2: not a great three point shooting team, but it's there's
Speaker 2: a there's a discipline discipline to it where when you
Speaker 2: guys were skipping, especially to the weak side corner, you
Speaker 2: guys were attacking those closeouts instead of shooting. And it
Speaker 2: would have no one would have questioned, you know, obviously
Speaker 2: each individual player percentage wise, who you are taking. But
Speaker 2: those weren't bad shots, but you were turning down good
Speaker 2: shots for great shots.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, and it was kind of rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.
Speaker 3: Well, and I think the other thing that we did
Speaker 3: really well was we did shot fake, and which was
Speaker 3: an emphasis for us. Shot fake, get him in the air,
Speaker 3: and then we shot fake them at the rim. The
Speaker 3: number of times we played off too, yes and got
Speaker 3: to the free throw line. And I'll tell you, Doug,
Speaker 3: we hadn't done that all year. Like that's all I've
Speaker 3: screamed about. So I don't know what happened. We do.
Speaker 1: We credit Villanova for the playing off two of America?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 2: Is?
Speaker 1: That? Is that? Who?
Speaker 2: Because it has become a trend, Like I never never
Speaker 2: worked on that. Like we used to work at jump
Speaker 2: stops when I was a kid and we were I
Speaker 2: worked on my dad. I have a you know the
Speaker 2: old two man passing drill, you know, just stake seeing
Speaker 2: each other going down the court.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I still do that every practice. My dad did that,
Speaker 1: But we do, we do. We always deal with a joke.
Speaker 1: He always did it with a jump stop, like his
Speaker 1: thing was do with jump stop.
Speaker 3: So I would say ours is twofold number one. I
Speaker 3: was a you know, I was an sixteenth of a player.
Speaker 3: You were. I was smart and I had a quick
Speaker 3: first step, but everything else was slow. And so the
Speaker 3: way that I could score is I'd get by you
Speaker 3: and then I just outthink you around the rim, get
Speaker 3: you up in the air and get fouled. And that
Speaker 3: was back in the days they called fouls if you touched,
Speaker 3: if you got out of defensive position, and so I
Speaker 3: just throw my body around and yeah, and so that
Speaker 3: that's just kind of I've always been like, why would
Speaker 3: you try to take a shot that has a fifty
Speaker 3: percent chance of going in versus playing off to get
Speaker 3: the guy in the air and go make two free throws,
Speaker 3: you know, And so that was just always that's always
Speaker 3: been my mentality of And then I think the other
Speaker 3: thing Lenny Acuff who's now at Lipscomb, I really stole
Speaker 3: it from him. He has something called finishing school, and
Speaker 3: I don't know if he got it from Villanov. I
Speaker 3: don't know where I got it, but he you know,
Speaker 3: we do it a ton, which is just stride stopping.
Speaker 3: And the other thing that we do is, you know,
Speaker 3: stride stopping to pass, but also stride stopping to finish. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And and then so I think that's been you know,
Speaker 3: that's been really I think the big things and then
Speaker 3: the last thing that we really show our guys is
Speaker 3: when they we call them hope layups. When they shoot
Speaker 3: it and hope it goes in it invariably, it invariably
Speaker 3: turns into a layup or an open three on the
Speaker 3: other end, And so I think that combination, but yeah,
Speaker 3: it probably is Villanova, I guess is probably where it
Speaker 3: got widespread.
Speaker 1: Jase practices were art.
Speaker 2: They were I just I don't know how he got
Speaker 2: them to that level of buy in, Like what the
Speaker 2: you know what magic pixie dust he rubbed on him,
Speaker 2: But like you'd go to their practice and they were
Speaker 2: so incredibly focused, and you know they there's no waste
Speaker 2: of words, no waste of time. Yeah, the first national
Speaker 2: championship here, I went to this practice. They played seat
Speaker 2: in hall next day and I went to the practice
Speaker 2: and I said, Jay, do you tell them.
Speaker 1: To not throw a chess pass? Because everything was a
Speaker 1: bounce past the entire practice. He's like, it's.
Speaker 2: Funny when when when they went to the final four
Speaker 2: with the four guards, he said, it was the first
Speaker 2: year they started really emphasizing bounce pasts, and the idea
Speaker 2: was like, hey, look we're smaller than there by, let's
Speaker 2: throw bounce passes, you know. And what happened was the
Speaker 2: guys liked it so much and even these groups likes
Speaker 2: it so much that they were they made it like
Speaker 2: almost like it was a game. Can we get away
Speaker 2: with throwing every pass that bounce pass in practice?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And then and then you watch them in games, and
Speaker 2: like all the passes and games are bounced passes, and
Speaker 2: you're like, it's so simple, that it's so simple and
Speaker 2: yet effective, and oh yeah, by the way, it's a
Speaker 2: it's like a it's just a simple fundamental of the game.
Speaker 2: And then the other part is this, I've always got
Speaker 2: this from Sean Miller watching this practice where he emphasizes catching.
Speaker 2: You know, coaches emphasize passing, okay, but they don't actually
Speaker 2: say catching, Like catching the ball is actually a big
Speaker 2: fundamental to the game that we don't talk about, we
Speaker 2: don't work on it. And I always thought Nova's guys
Speaker 2: and Sean Mo's guys always actually catching the ball. I
Speaker 2: do wonder if you fast forward twenty years from now, like,
Speaker 2: are there going to be basketball dorks like us who
Speaker 2: love all this shit even though they came up now?
Speaker 2: Because when you come up now and again you tell
Speaker 2: them if I'm wrong. You live it as a college coach.
Speaker 2: They don't watch a lot of basketball. They watch clips,
Speaker 2: watch YouTube, they watch clips and even I mean like, look,
Speaker 2: they'll watch spenergy even you know, they watch clips, but
Speaker 2: not games. They don't go to the same summer camps
Speaker 2: we have, and they also don't communicate the same because
Speaker 2: of the phones right where everything is a text. So
Speaker 2: you know, you'll see older mature teams defensively talking and
Speaker 2: communicator with young kid teams.
Speaker 3: They don't say shit no.
Speaker 1: But I wonder what.
Speaker 2: I wonder what the world is like twenty years from
Speaker 2: now when that generation is then coaching, what it looks like.
Speaker 3: My guess is now, I think this is where the
Speaker 3: global impact will. I think have a have a play
Speaker 3: because like the Europeans, they don't do that. They are
Speaker 3: playing team. They are teaching fundamental at a young age,
Speaker 3: and so I think there's gonna I think the US
Speaker 3: is going to have to figure something out where we
Speaker 3: start teaching fundamentals again, because if we don't, I think
Speaker 3: the European and the international side of things is going
Speaker 3: to continue to you know, take a bigger and bigger
Speaker 3: slice of the best players and the best teams.
Speaker 1: I agree. I think it's interesting.
Speaker 2: You know, one of my dear friends is Miles Simon
Speaker 2: and obviously play in the ninety seven Nation Champions team.
Speaker 2: He's MP, so he's an assistant coach with the Sons,
Speaker 2: but he was an assistant coach.
Speaker 1: I wanted the under under sixteen, under eighteen on one of.
Speaker 2: The USA teams and I said, brother, catching up and
Speaker 2: he they won their tournament and I want to buy
Speaker 2: a good margin.
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, we win all these levels. Like yeah,
Speaker 1: but again.
Speaker 2: You're doing the AAU thing, like you're there were physically
Speaker 2: so dominant and superior, and we have twelve very good
Speaker 2: players whereas they have two or three, right, and then
Speaker 2: they have just some kind of guys that are kind
Speaker 2: of filling out and figuring out whatever, Like you're mistaken.
Speaker 2: I think physical development for actual skill development. And of course,
Speaker 2: inevitably who gets blamed. AU coaches get blamed. Now you
Speaker 2: were an AU coach in Houston. Yeah, and I don't
Speaker 2: think I can be wrong. I don't think it's AAU
Speaker 2: per se. I mean, honestly, it feels like it's the
Speaker 2: parents to me, that the two things that ruin everything, right,
Speaker 2: are parents and the money.
Speaker 3: But here's what I would say, though, is when you
Speaker 3: were going to basketball camps, they were coaches. They were
Speaker 3: high school coaches who were and like a lot of
Speaker 3: AAU coaches and and I'm guys, they're just guys. They're
Speaker 3: just guys, and and the parents don't understand, Okay, is
Speaker 3: this guy really know what he's doing? What is he teaching?
Speaker 3: You know? And there weren't just guys when we were
Speaker 3: growing up. And and I do think that, you know,
Speaker 3: I think the US thing is not fair because if
Speaker 3: you did US versus Europe, maybe it's more fair because
Speaker 3: the US is larger than the entire.
Speaker 1: Continent after do million people, and we're way we're heavily
Speaker 1: invested in youth sports, heavily heavies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, where where I think if you're playing the US
Speaker 3: versus Lithuania, like, okay, that'd be like the US playing
Speaker 3: against Rhode Island.
Speaker 2: You know, that's like a six A versus a two A,
Speaker 2: you know whatever, your high school right, like yeah.
Speaker 3: So, I you know, I I I don't know if
Speaker 3: things don't change. I mean, Doug, I grew up watching
Speaker 3: Jefferson Pilot raycom and I guarantee you. The vast over
Speaker 3: half of the basketball that I learned was sitting there
Speaker 3: watching ACC basketball. And they would continue to say, now
Speaker 3: you young players who are watching at home, look at
Speaker 3: how he does this right here, and and you just
Speaker 3: you learned it. But I mean I loved it. And
Speaker 3: so that was Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
Speaker 2: And mine was mine was mine was Monday afternoon I
Speaker 2: get home from school. I grew up in southern California,
Speaker 2: Big East basketball will beyond at four o'clock. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 2: and I love Sherman Douglas and watching it, like people
Speaker 2: would say, like, wow, you two great alioops. Like, dude,
Speaker 2: I grew up watching Sherman Douglas. You know who was
Speaker 2: better at throwing aliops? To Derek Coleman and Ronnie Stych.
Speaker 2: Believe in Sherman Douglas.
Speaker 3: Then I haven't heard Ronnie name in a long time.
Speaker 2: Shoot, And I mean, uh, Stevie Thompson like that. That
Speaker 2: team had all kinds of dunkers. Stevie Thompson as well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I had athletes. And then I mean I go,
Speaker 2: I go deep in my point guard knowledge. Jay Verson
Speaker 2: is to me still everybody talks about like he was
Speaker 2: the big ten Chris Corciani.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was the little white guy who dominated.
Speaker 3: The league byron Ice Monroe.
Speaker 1: How how good a nickname was that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And then and I I think I told this to Ryan.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I told I think I told him.
Speaker 2: He did my pod.
Speaker 1: I remember. So I had a thing for Virginia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and here here was the thing.
Speaker 2: So I grew up and the old Bosey Old was
Speaker 2: an alumni hall?
Speaker 1: Was that called the old? And it was so tiny
Speaker 1: and so kind of quaint whatever.
Speaker 3: Or maybe it was a university hall. I don't know,
Speaker 3: I can't remember.
Speaker 2: It is interesting, right, like I don't like, uh, we
Speaker 2: think of the places. And she stayed playing in Reynolds,
Speaker 2: North Carolina, played in Carmichael, and they played in whatever's
Speaker 2: alumni hall or whatever. I'm not sure I can, I can,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure. So so they had a series and
Speaker 2: like look it's you know, they had a series of
Speaker 2: white point guards, right they had I mean John Crotty
Speaker 2: obviously was the king.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: So Jeff Jones offered me. He was like the first
Speaker 2: big school to offer me a scholarship. And I was
Speaker 2: a really good student and my my I was a
Speaker 2: really good student from like the old school, like my
Speaker 2: daddy's is just like get it done, you know, get
Speaker 2: it done. No seas, get it done.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I remember I.
Speaker 2: Got like a letter in the mail from Jeff Jones
Speaker 2: and it was like a personal, handwritten note and they
Speaker 2: called me it's like my juvenior spring junior year. I know,
Speaker 2: it was before my junior year. So like everything else
Speaker 2: was like IMiD majors or whatever. And I just became
Speaker 2: infatuated with everything in Virginia like I didn't.
Speaker 1: It was like something I had seen but kind of
Speaker 1: know a little bit about whatever.
Speaker 2: And then Florida was the next one, and so those
Speaker 2: two schools, so I started to like the architecture. And
Speaker 2: there's the crazy part. I had never been to the
Speaker 2: University of Virginia until four years right before COVID. Oh
Speaker 2: really yeah yeah, And then when I got there, I
Speaker 2: was like, this is way cooler than I ever thought.
Speaker 2: Of course, now the arena has been replaced whatever, but
Speaker 2: always I always thought it was a special place. It
Speaker 2: is just it is, yeah, and it's like it's.
Speaker 1: Like Notre Dame.
Speaker 2: And when I went to Notre Dame, I remember every
Speaker 2: once in a while going like, am I going to
Speaker 2: school in a museum?
Speaker 1: It feels like a museum? Here a part of history.
Speaker 2: How did you get to become an AU coach? You've
Speaker 2: got done playing? You go to law school? Like, did
Speaker 2: somebody say, hey, come coach my team? Did you seek
Speaker 2: it out? Did you start yourself? How'd that happened?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I moved down to Houston. So I My story
Speaker 3: is I was supposed to go be a ga with
Speaker 3: Dave Odom because of my relationship at Wake. And so
Speaker 3: this is the This is ninety six, the spring of
Speaker 3: ninety six, and they're they're rocking and rolling Duncan. It's
Speaker 3: the Duncan years. And I'm spoiled and I'm playing at
Speaker 3: Hampton Sydney and we're great at Division III, and I
Speaker 3: now get to go to all the Wake games and
Speaker 3: they're great. And anyway, he finds out during Sweet sixteen
Speaker 3: weekend that I had applied to Virginia Law School and
Speaker 3: it gotten in and he said, well, you can't come,
Speaker 3: you can't come anymore. I said, what do you mean
Speaker 3: it can't come? He said, you can't come. You got
Speaker 3: to go differentiate yourself, like and you know he knew
Speaker 3: he knew the value of a Virginia law degree, and
Speaker 3: so he's like, grift is a you need to go
Speaker 3: do that. So I went and did that, and then
Speaker 3: I went back to Hampton, Sydney and coached for a
Speaker 3: year with Tony Shaver. But after that year, I had
Speaker 3: a bunch of loans and a bunch of fear. Uh
Speaker 3: that would be a D three assistant for the rest
Speaker 3: of my life. And so I went and uh worked
Speaker 3: for the largest firm in Houston, firm called Vincent Elkins.
Speaker 3: And but I but I loved hoops.
Speaker 2: Uh and was it like the firm like did you guys,
Speaker 2: do you guys have some deal out in the uh
Speaker 2: out in the Cayman Islands where you were where you were.
Speaker 3: Not to my knowledge, but uh, but uh it it
Speaker 3: was uh. Well, you may remember remember the show l
Speaker 3: A Law of course, Yeah, remember some of the crazy
Speaker 3: scenes about the firm, like the party where somebody falls
Speaker 3: through the ceiling. Yes, that was our firm. Okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: but uh you know it's a big corporate firm and
Speaker 3: it wonderful, wonderful uh place. I loved it. I was
Speaker 3: there for twelve years. But but at the same time,
Speaker 3: I missed basketball and so faith is a big thing
Speaker 3: for me. And so I got involved with the Christian
Speaker 3: ministry and in the inner city of Houston, and I
Speaker 3: was going to coach with Houston Select, which was the
Speaker 3: Adidas team. But there were all of I was involved
Speaker 3: with this ministry, and there were all these kids who
Speaker 3: that they you know, they were good, but they weren't
Speaker 3: you know, Adidas travel team. And I was like, but
Speaker 3: nobody's going to coach them. I'll coach them. And so
Speaker 3: we had a B level team and but we'd play
Speaker 3: in the Kingwood Classic and we traveled to New Orleans
Speaker 3: and Arkansas and places like like that, you know, more regional.
Speaker 3: But like DeAndre Jordan played for me. He started, uh
Speaker 3: uh play played with us for three years before he
Speaker 3: moved you know, he moved on. We had actually Oklahoma State.
Speaker 1: You remember you put he put himself in the old
Speaker 1: au transfer portal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well no, no, we we uh you want to
Speaker 3: know the true story about uh DeAndre? So DeAndre DeAndre
Speaker 3: was huge, but he wasn't a good basketball player.
Speaker 1: No, No, I remember so that part. Remember I don't
Speaker 1: know the other Well, no.
Speaker 3: I'm saying as in not a good basketball player. As
Speaker 3: in in eighth grade. He went to Colin Middle School
Speaker 3: and he was a backup and he was six to
Speaker 3: one as an eighth grader on our AAU team. He
Speaker 3: was a backup. And then he went to Lamar High
Speaker 3: School in Houston, which was a good public school, and
Speaker 3: he was on the ninth grade team and it was
Speaker 3: a backup. And he's now six three and he plays
Speaker 3: with us again. And DeAndre had his mother is amazing woman.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: DeAndre was a smart kid, or is a smart kid,
Speaker 3: and and he was a he was a great kid
Speaker 3: and fun to be around, kind of goofy, you know,
Speaker 3: and DeAndre I kind of went to him. I said, hey, DeAndre, like,
Speaker 3: and I'm thinking he's six three six ' four as
Speaker 3: a freshman. I'm like, man, if he could get to
Speaker 3: six seven, maybe we get him to a D three
Speaker 3: school somewhere and you know, like he'll be okay, Like
Speaker 3: he could do that. And I said, and he was
Speaker 3: a good student. And I said, you know, would you
Speaker 3: ever be interested in going to a private school? And
Speaker 3: he was like absolutely, And I said, all right, well
Speaker 3: let's talk to your mom. But it's like July at
Speaker 3: this point, and so Episcopal High School which is one
Speaker 3: of the prominent high schools in Houston. My my in
Speaker 3: law's business partner was the chairman of the board there,
Speaker 3: and we said, hey, can we help this kid get
Speaker 3: in and you know whatever. And at this point, the
Speaker 3: kid's a backup at on the ninth grade. Nobody's thinking
Speaker 3: he's going to be who he is, and so we
Speaker 3: get him in. He's now and I go to him
Speaker 3: right before school starts, I said, DeAndre, and he had
Speaker 3: a September birthday, so he's super young, babyface, and now
Speaker 3: he's probably you know, six four six ' five September,
Speaker 3: and I said, DeAndre, you should really repeat ninth grade,
Speaker 3: like you're the training that you've had, it's not going
Speaker 3: to be up to snuff to your peer group like
Speaker 3: you really ought to. And so he was totally against it,
Speaker 3: totally against it. And my wife, who was a youth
Speaker 3: minister at the time, would go over and tutor him
Speaker 3: at lunchtime, and by the end of September, DeAndre decided,
Speaker 3: you know what, I should probably just do ninth grade again.
Speaker 3: Well by December he's a freshman and he's now six
Speaker 3: seven and now it's like wait a second. But he
Speaker 3: was with his right class, he was a September birthday
Speaker 3: and I don't know why they started him the way
Speaker 3: they did, but and to his credit, I mean, he
Speaker 3: obviously got better and better. And what I really heard
Speaker 3: was Blake Griffin was the difference maker for him. When
Speaker 3: he and Blake played together with the Clippers, Blake would
Speaker 3: just grab him and take him to the gym and
Speaker 3: force him to work, you know. And you know, but
Speaker 3: anyway that that doesn't really answer your your question about it.
Speaker 2: No, it's it's it's honestly, it's it's awesome because you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's the I could be wrong, and I'm not
Speaker 2: trying to put words in your mouth, but I think
Speaker 2: it's interesting. You know a lot of the narrative on
Speaker 2: college basketball. A college basketball coach and you say you're
Speaker 2: a college basketball coach, it's almost like saying you have
Speaker 2: some nefarious uh position?
Speaker 1: Right, yes, like what does he do for living? College
Speaker 1: basketball coach?
Speaker 2: You know, It's like, but I'm guessing, like why did
Speaker 2: you get in coach to get into it to make millions?
Speaker 1: You get it? Two reasons, right, love ball and you
Speaker 1: love kids and helping kids.
Speaker 2: Right, it's a completely and then you know it also
Speaker 2: fulfills that kind of competitive need, you know, the need
Speaker 2: for competition, right and and and it is self fulfilling
Speaker 2: in that in that way, like it's a daily competitive environment.
Speaker 3: Well yes, but have you ever read the book Inside
Speaker 3: Out Coaching by Joe Airman? No, you ought to. You
Speaker 3: ought to read it. It's for for me. So my
Speaker 3: switch to college was really about faith. I felt like
Speaker 3: God was calling me to invest more of my time
Speaker 3: and I really thought it was more aau uh you know,
Speaker 3: we actually lived in Third Ward of Houston, so we
Speaker 3: lived so we could be closer to the players, and
Speaker 3: we love you.
Speaker 1: Let you wait, wait what hold on?
Speaker 3: You live?
Speaker 1: So get paid the picture of what how old are
Speaker 1: you at the time?
Speaker 3: Thirty five.
Speaker 1: And you're married kids, no kids at the second.
Speaker 3: We had just adopted. We have three African American kids
Speaker 3: who are adopted kids.
Speaker 1: Right, so you decide, I'm going to go.
Speaker 2: I'm a lawyer in Houston and the successful one and
Speaker 2: what was the third Ward?
Speaker 3: Like, well, so it's the inner city. I mean it's yeah,
Speaker 3: it's you know where Texas Southern is, It's it's right there.
Speaker 3: And but the Christian ministry we worked with had gym
Speaker 3: and so we lived, you know, a couple of blocks
Speaker 3: from Yates High School, which is a well known prominent
Speaker 3: high school, and that's where most of my players came from.
Speaker 3: They came from Yates and Wheatley were the two main schools,
Speaker 3: and and they would come, they would come home after
Speaker 3: school and you know, come over to the house and
Speaker 3: hang out and eat dinner, and then I'm home at
Speaker 3: six point thirty and pick them up, take them to practice,
Speaker 3: drop them off, and then get back to work. And
Speaker 3: and it was awesome. You know. The part I've left
Speaker 3: out is six years into my practice, my wife and
Speaker 3: I moved to London. So we worked in my London
Speaker 3: in the firm's London office for four years. And so
Speaker 3: when we moved back to when we moved back to
Speaker 3: Houston with the firm, we really had to make a
Speaker 3: decision about where we wanted to live. And my wife's
Speaker 3: family's from Houston, lives in your wealthy area river Oaks,
Speaker 3: and and we kind of said we want to we
Speaker 3: want to do a different life. Not to make a statement, again,
Speaker 3: I think we really felt like we were called to
Speaker 3: that and and it was obviously it was life changing.
Speaker 3: It was you know, it was phenomenal, and we really
Speaker 3: thought we were going to live there forever. And our
Speaker 3: kids were African American and we wanted them to be
Speaker 3: in a more diverse environment where where we were the
Speaker 3: outsiders and not them. And and then this called to
Speaker 3: go coach basketball. I really, like I said, I thought
Speaker 3: it was going to be, hey, coach more AAU, or
Speaker 3: maybe go be an assistant at Yates or you know
Speaker 3: something like that. It was really my wife. My wife
Speaker 3: was like, well, don't you love college hoops? I was
Speaker 3: like yeah, and I'm forty forty two at the time
Speaker 3: or maybe forty one, and she goes, why don't you
Speaker 3: go coach college? I was like, yeah, it doesn't really
Speaker 3: kind of yeah, nobody's looking for somebody who, you know,
Speaker 3: fifteen years ago was a D three assistant. And literally,
Speaker 3: again I think providentially, Ryan got the UNBC job that March,
Speaker 3: and his brother Lane was like, you know Ryan Griff, like,
Speaker 3: he'll he'll help you run the program, like just you
Speaker 3: can do basketball and he'll be your chief of staff.
Speaker 3: And so that's kind of how it happened. And then
Speaker 3: I had zero expectator. I thought I'd be with Ryan forever.
Speaker 3: I mean, I love Ryan and I talk every day now,
Speaker 3: and he and I are so different. We were such
Speaker 3: a you know, a good pair. But you know, the
Speaker 3: Longwood thing, you know, popped up so again providentially in
Speaker 3: my view.
Speaker 1: When you took over at Longwood, what was it like?
Speaker 3: It was? It was different. It was you know, I
Speaker 3: think the prior, the prior coach had he was he's
Speaker 3: also a man of faith, Jason g and Jason really
Speaker 3: had a heart for helping guys. And so there were
Speaker 3: a lot of guys who had who had stubbed their
Speaker 3: toe in life, and and so it you know, they
Speaker 3: they came here and and some of them did great.
Speaker 3: Some of them stubbed their toes again. And so in
Speaker 3: a community like Farmville, that's just a smaller community. You know,
Speaker 3: if you're in Houston at University of Houston and somebody
Speaker 3: does something, you know, there's the Texans, there's the Rockets,
Speaker 3: there's the Astros. You know, it kind of can get
Speaker 3: swept under, you know, or people just don't focus small community.
Speaker 3: When you're the flagship sport, you know, everybody knows. And
Speaker 3: so it was really more of a culture rebuild. And
Speaker 3: it was also a program that had had never won
Speaker 3: I think the highest they'd ever finished before was eighth
Speaker 3: place out of nine teams in the conference. The facilities
Speaker 3: were really off, and I think there was just a
Speaker 3: it needed an infusion of belief. It needed an infusion
Speaker 3: of Hey, we're going to do things excellently and that
Speaker 3: mediocrity is not okay. One of our program quotes is
Speaker 3: from Aristotle. You know you are what you repeatedly do.
Speaker 3: Excellence is not an event, it's a habit. And so
Speaker 3: that's just something that we've been trying to push and
Speaker 3: the program and and I'll be I'll be honest. The
Speaker 3: administration always wanted this to be a basketball school, and
Speaker 3: I think in some ways they weren't really sure how.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying I had the answers, but we
Speaker 3: just you know, kept kept punching until you know, things worked,
Speaker 3: and they certainly didn't always work.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, uh, you get this year, you open a brand
Speaker 2: new arena, which is you know, that's a decade in
Speaker 2: the making. Yep, Rinas don't just like, hey, let's do it,
Speaker 2: let's let's go, and you have to put together a team. Okay,
Speaker 2: so give me this time last year, what what did
Speaker 2: when you look up on your whiteboard in your office,
Speaker 2: and who do we have, what do we need to get?
Speaker 2: How does a what? How did how did it all
Speaker 2: kind of come together?
Speaker 3: So so last year we lost two five men who
Speaker 3: had played for three years and they both literally played
Speaker 3: between eighteen and twenty two minutes a game, and so
Speaker 3: we had to completely replace the five position. And then
Speaker 3: we had one one four man back, we had one
Speaker 3: point guard and kind of a combo guard. And we
Speaker 3: lost two all conference players and you know, just again
Speaker 3: we lost a uh, like I said, seven guys graduated.
Speaker 3: And and so going back two years when we won
Speaker 3: the tournament, we had everybody come or we had everybody
Speaker 3: come back, but we lost to our two point guards.
Speaker 3: And so then last year we lost everybody except for
Speaker 3: you know, three four guys, and so we knew we
Speaker 3: had to deal with the five position, and so we
Speaker 3: had to do that. We knew we needed to get
Speaker 3: some wings scoring, and we needed to get more more
Speaker 3: help in the point guard position. And it's been really
Speaker 3: hard to find point guards, to be honest, it's been
Speaker 3: really hard. And I hear that over and over again
Speaker 3: from other coaches. And so you know, first, you know,
Speaker 3: at the five spot, you know Zepuala played for Ryan
Speaker 3: at Utah State.
Speaker 2: So okay, so so and I mentioned on the broadcast,
Speaker 2: So I mean again, and this is the real way
Speaker 2: the world works is it's about connections. So did you
Speaker 2: did he say? Like, and I remember this time last year,
Speaker 2: Ryan was leaving right to go to BCU. Yes, so
Speaker 2: did did he tee it up?
Speaker 1: Was it?
Speaker 2: Did he just pop up in the portal? And then
Speaker 2: it became a conversation like how did it work?
Speaker 3: So of course I, you know, I knew who Shei
Speaker 3: Man was, but you know, and I'd been out to
Speaker 3: Utah State, so we had probably fist bumped at some point.
Speaker 3: And Ryan sent me what I think they sent everybody,
Speaker 3: which was a link of his film, and honestly, I
Speaker 3: didn't even look at it. And then one day I'm
Speaker 3: sitting there and I go back and I look at it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, man, this I think this guy actually
Speaker 3: is a lot more ethic because I was worried is
Speaker 3: a seven foot step and we don't play. That's not
Speaker 3: how we play. And like, if you're sprinting out for
Speaker 3: ball screens and stuff like, you can't be bad. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we can't win it. And so then I looked at
Speaker 3: I was like, actually, this kid's pretty. He can move.
Speaker 3: And so then we talked and we called Sheeman and
Speaker 3: he literally had thirty schools recruiting it. And but he
Speaker 3: and I really had a we really connected and you know,
Speaker 3: he and I had a long conversation one day and
Speaker 3: he calls me the next day and he goes, Coach,
Speaker 3: I've I've cut the list down to three schools and
Speaker 3: it's Duquane, Bowling Green and Oral Roberts and so I
Speaker 3: just want to thank you for your time and it's
Speaker 3: been great. And I said, she Mon, it's awesome. You know,
Speaker 3: I wish you all the best. Has been fun to
Speaker 3: know you. So that was a Saturday Sunday afternoon. He
Speaker 3: calls me back. He goes, Coach, I haven't felt good
Speaker 3: since we hung up the phone, and I think I'm
Speaker 3: supposed to take a look at you guys. And I said,
Speaker 3: well great, and so he came here and yes, the
Speaker 3: familiarity with Ryan. He's from a rural area in Poland.
Speaker 3: And as we're driving in, he goes, this feels like home.
Speaker 3: Like this feels like my home back in Poland. And
Speaker 3: he's a guy who, like Ducane, is a much higher
Speaker 3: level obviously, but he doesn't like the city and so
Speaker 3: he's like, I'm not going to Pittsburgh. And and I think,
Speaker 3: you know, in some ways it was down to us
Speaker 3: in Oral Roberts. I don't I haven't really.
Speaker 2: I can tell you firsthand the drive from Alsa Airport
Speaker 2: to Oral Roberts as farmland in between, right. Actually it's
Speaker 2: actually kind of famously sort of a bad drive whatever.
Speaker 2: I like, Tulsa is an awesome town to live in,
Speaker 2: but just not that path, you know, see what think like, hey,
Speaker 2: if that airport would have been out in the sticks
Speaker 2: and he drove through the sticks to get to All Roberts, oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, game, may it be somewhere else? And so you know,
Speaker 3: I think Simon, you know, that's kind of how we
Speaker 3: how we got him. And Elijah Tucker was a Xavier
Speaker 3: transfer red shirted his freshman year, didn't really play it
Speaker 3: all last year, but we were kind of like, okay,
Speaker 3: he's big and athletic. And then we had signed a
Speaker 3: Juco five in the fall who was undersized, but how
Speaker 3: we play really fast, really athletic, can defend, and so
Speaker 3: we were like, okay, we've got three three fives that
Speaker 3: we'll figure that out, and then we needed scoring wings.
Speaker 3: You know, we needed scoring from the guard position and
Speaker 3: our our you know, I honestly, if I could start
Speaker 3: two point guards, I would, you know, because in how
Speaker 3: we play, you know, just keep moving the ball and
Speaker 3: it makes it easier for the five man. They're not
Speaker 3: trying to hunt the best guy coming off of a
Speaker 3: ball screen. And you saw that. We got a bunch
Speaker 3: of guys who will come off ball screens, some better
Speaker 3: than others. But anyway, kid named John John Massey, Uh,
Speaker 3: if you look at our roster, you'll see we've got
Speaker 3: three kids from Houston. The Justin Hill kid I mentioned
Speaker 3: who's now at Georgia, he was from Houston. Shabooty Phillips
Speaker 3: was an All Conference player who I actually coached in AAU.
Speaker 3: He was from Houston. So we just we recruit Texas
Speaker 3: a lot. And so John John Massey, you know, he came.
Speaker 3: He had average ten points at McNeice, you know, kind
Speaker 3: of a six five six six, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: one two or three. And you know, we felt like
Speaker 3: he was going to be a dynamic score for us,
Speaker 3: and I think he's average close to double figures for
Speaker 3: us here. You know, he had thirty one against Ashville
Speaker 3: in you know it during the conference, and so he
Speaker 3: has has a lot of potential. And then we signed
Speaker 3: two really good high school kids in the fall. One
Speaker 3: turned out to be the North Carolina Private school state
Speaker 3: player of the year. His team won the championship and
Speaker 3: he ended up being on the All Freshman team, Emmanuel
Speaker 3: Richards and and then another kid, Jalen Bernard, I think
Speaker 3: is kind of like griffaldrich was his freshman year at
Speaker 3: Hampton Sydney. You know, he's he's trying to fit, he's
Speaker 3: running into people a little bit, but he's really grown
Speaker 3: throughout the year. But Jalen was a I think a
Speaker 3: top thirty Texas high school recruit, which you know is
Speaker 3: that's really good, uh for for our level. So we
Speaker 3: did that. The point guard spot is probably where you know,
Speaker 3: we didn't We didn't find that that other compliment to
Speaker 3: the Naper kid, and I think I we we actually
Speaker 3: going back a year, we signed a kid, Nick a
Speaker 3: Lame from ut Arlington who was he and Whalen were
Speaker 3: supposed to be the two point guards. And Nick came
Speaker 3: in first week of class and said, Hey, I've been
Speaker 3: in the States for seven years. My dad just got
Speaker 3: me a pro contract in France where I'm from. I'm
Speaker 3: going home, and and that I think that's really hurt
Speaker 3: Whalen because he hasn't had Okay, no problem, dude, you
Speaker 3: don't want to do it the right way, Go sit down,
Speaker 3: we'll let we'll at neck plot, you know. And so
Speaker 3: there's he's been so much more talented than his backup
Speaker 3: that he hasn't felt he hasn't been had that that,
Speaker 3: you know, push Yeah, So you know that's you know,
Speaker 3: that's kind of how we that's kind of how we
Speaker 3: we did it. And then Da Houston, who you saw
Speaker 3: play some point. You know, Da is an unbelievable you know,
Speaker 3: he was with us, but just kind of a more
Speaker 3: of a combo guard than than kind of it certainly
Speaker 3: than a true point.
Speaker 2: How different are you now than in November.
Speaker 3: As a coach or as a teaming vastly different, vastly Uh.
Speaker 3: We have always been talented, you know. We we should
Speaker 3: have beaten Saint Bonaventure on opening night. I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's a two or three point game something like that,
Speaker 3: maybe four with free throws or something. We played Dayton close,
Speaker 3: you know, until about the four minute Mark in the
Speaker 3: second half. And we've been a talented team. I really
Speaker 3: believe you've got You've had maturity from the new guys
Speaker 3: like Emmanuel Richards is not a freshman anymore. You know,
Speaker 3: you always hear about that. Shiman Zappolla is playing with
Speaker 3: incredibly more confidence than he was. He's able to in
Speaker 3: the non conference. In early conference, if something bad happened,
Speaker 3: he didn't have the confidence to, hey, it's okay, I'm
Speaker 3: going to get the next play. It might it might
Speaker 3: spiral it. And now he's now he's much more confident.
Speaker 3: Elijah Tucker had twenty two against High Point. Well he
Speaker 3: was missing layups you know, in November and December, and
Speaker 3: so you just have a much more in my opinion,
Speaker 3: experienced and mature team. And then I really think our leadership,
Speaker 3: which has been our most important piece, has matured. They
Speaker 3: have always wanted to lead. I don't think they I
Speaker 3: didn't help them figure out how to. They know how,
Speaker 3: and they've been willing, and probably about three to four
Speaker 3: weeks ago they were like, screw this, like y'all follow
Speaker 3: you do what I say. And you know they're not
Speaker 3: dog cussing anybody or anything like that. They're actually super
Speaker 3: positive guys. But like now, there's no doubt, there's no
Speaker 3: question that Waal and Knapper. If he tells you to
Speaker 3: do something, you better do it. And if Da Houston
Speaker 3: pulls you together like pay attention and they have really
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: Blossomed is it. Was there anything you did to help that?
Speaker 3: You know what I think I did. I did. I
Speaker 3: didn't torpedo it. I didn't torpedo it again. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, Doug, this has been the hardest year of
Speaker 3: coaching in my career, you know. And I think during
Speaker 3: you know, that real dip at the beginning of conference,
Speaker 3: you know, I had to go to, frankly, my faith
Speaker 3: and family and and I think that helped me stay
Speaker 3: the course with them, helped me stay my My typical
Speaker 3: approach is like work harder, Like like what are you doing?
Speaker 3: Work harder? Execute? And I think for the first time,
Speaker 3: you know, I mentioned the Joe Aherman book and all
Speaker 3: of that. It's all he's talking about, is we as individuals.
Speaker 3: You know, you assume you come to coach like you're
Speaker 3: not a jacked up human. So the reality is you
Speaker 3: bring all of your childhood issues, all of your issues
Speaker 3: in your own life and then oftentimes you project them
Speaker 3: on the team. And you know, the whole point of
Speaker 3: Joe Airman's book is coaches are so important, but if
Speaker 3: you are a dysfunctional human, you're going to be dysfunctional
Speaker 3: towards your team. And this is the first year I
Speaker 3: really think I tried to really I was like, I
Speaker 3: can't get through to them, And where I probably would
Speaker 3: have just elevated my volume and demanded more, I was like,
Speaker 3: I think I really tried to see them, like what
Speaker 3: do they need from me? And I hate to say
Speaker 3: that that's coaching one oh one, but that's not how
Speaker 3: I've lived my life. When things didn't go well, you
Speaker 3: work harder, you grind more, and you stay in the office.
Speaker 3: Later you figure it out. And obviously that didn't work
Speaker 3: for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 3: I think that helped. I think that helped the vibe
Speaker 3: that they had with me, because I think they really
Speaker 3: felt that I was trying to help them and they
Speaker 3: were frustrated and they knew I was frustrated. But I
Speaker 3: think it helped them stay the course. And you know,
Speaker 3: I think last year, I think the team, the team
Speaker 3: got angry because I was demanding, demanding, demanding, and even
Speaker 3: though we won twenty games and finished second, as a coach,
Speaker 3: I just want to reach our potential, Like if that's
Speaker 3: eight games or twenty eight games, I want us to
Speaker 3: reach our potential. And I knew last year we didn't
Speaker 3: reach our potential, and so I just pushed them harder
Speaker 3: and harder and harder, and they they were sick of me,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: So so here's the big question.
Speaker 2: Okay, when you go to the tournament two out of
Speaker 2: three years, a place like Longwood that used to be
Speaker 2: a bye game, everybody would just count as a win
Speaker 2: in the win column, right, Like where the hell is
Speaker 2: Longwood's that's a win on anybody's schedule. So when you
Speaker 2: change that to three straight twenty one seasons and you're
Speaker 2: connected with with with Ryan and you're in the NCAA tournament, inevitably,
Speaker 2: when you make the nca term somehow you're a genius coach,
Speaker 2: whereas you might have won the league and you're no,
Speaker 2: you're not this genius. Right, That's the way this bizarre
Speaker 2: profession works.
Speaker 3: It's it's absolute, and I should say it's absolutely. You
Speaker 3: would never run your business this way. You would never
Speaker 3: run your household finance this way. You would say, give
Speaker 3: me the guy who's got a track record, you know, right.
Speaker 2: Well, right, yes, yes, I would say, but like like
Speaker 2: look like like, look, you coach in AU, and I'm
Speaker 2: just and maybe part of this is me projecting kind
Speaker 2: of my own feelings, Like I understand that there's other
Speaker 2: things about running a basketball program that have nothing to
Speaker 2: do with actually coaching the games. But people ask all
Speaker 2: the times about like, well, you've never coached before, Like, dude,
Speaker 2: do you have any idea what it's like to coach
Speaker 2: in AU, especially when you have multiple levels, right when
Speaker 2: you have the twelves, thirteens, fourteens, and sixteens or something
Speaker 2: like that, and you go game to game to game
Speaker 2: and you can't coach every team the same because the
Speaker 2: players aren't the same. And then oh yeah, by the way,
Speaker 2: you don't actually know who's always going to show up.
Speaker 2: You just don't know. So it really prepares you for
Speaker 2: game management. You know, you got to communicate really well
Speaker 2: because you the timeouts are shorter, and the kid's attention
Speaker 2: span is bad and they're not you don't have practice
Speaker 2: fund practice.
Speaker 1: To drill things whatever.
Speaker 2: So it's so I understand like the alternative coaches I
Speaker 2: think is a Again, I just think it's a case
Speaker 2: by case scenario. Yeah, but my but the what I
Speaker 2: was and look to to back up, you wouldn't run
Speaker 2: a business this way is I tweeted this out I
Speaker 2: think yesterday, which or the day before, which is like,
Speaker 2: we do this insane thing every year on TV and
Speaker 2: radio we argue about these bubble teams. Right Meanwhile, like
Speaker 2: the bottom end of the of the tournament, it's like
Speaker 2: you could be a crummy team team wins your league
Speaker 2: by three or four games and then they drop one
Speaker 2: game in the tournament and they don't go to the ends.
Speaker 1: Like that makes sense, makes no sense.
Speaker 3: High Point High Points had an incredible year. Yeah, incredible year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, But the high high level stuff feels
Speaker 2: very transactional now, yes, you know, feels very transaction Now.
Speaker 2: You were able to kind of put together this team
Speaker 2: and bring it together on the fly. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if that's more awarding or less rewarding than when
Speaker 2: you build a team over time. But here's the question,
Speaker 2: is something greater part of the calling or is being
Speaker 2: Longwood's guy for twenty years to calling what's the calling?
Speaker 3: Well, I would probably quibble, and I know you didn't
Speaker 3: don't mean it this way. It probably depends on what
Speaker 3: you define greater, you know, and how how do you know?
Speaker 1: How do we I mean like you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Like like wait, like like like Forbes leaves wake Forest
Speaker 2: and they call or you know whatever, yeah and or
Speaker 2: or you know, Tony decides I'm done with this stuff,
Speaker 2: like I can't do it the way I want to
Speaker 2: do it at Virginia.
Speaker 1: You know, Greater obviously is a is a loaded.
Speaker 3: They need an I am coach, But you know, I look,
Speaker 3: I think for us, one of the beauties of this
Speaker 3: is I'm I don't I'm not climbing a ladder. And
Speaker 3: if if we stay at Longwood for twenty years and
Speaker 3: that's what God has for us, I'm fired up. Like
Speaker 3: we have a I have a president and an ad
Speaker 3: and I'm not. This isn't coaching carriage cell job speak.
Speaker 3: This is legitimately, you know when.
Speaker 2: They all do sound the same. Hey, I get the
Speaker 2: greatest cut I was. I was recruited by Jerry Green.
Speaker 2: I don't remember Jerry. Hey, Jerry's old Carolina guy. Okay,
Speaker 2: so Jerry was the head coach at Orgon. I'll never
Speaker 2: forget this side. But I'm sitting out. I went to
Speaker 2: Not Dame. I left and got in trouble a bit,
Speaker 2: so I had to I couldn't transfer right away. I
Speaker 2: sat out for a year. So because you know, everything changes,
Speaker 2: it just made sense. Got my a degree at a
Speaker 2: junior college in California, and so I actually visited Oklahoma
Speaker 2: State and it was a terrible visit. Whether I got
Speaker 2: in laid it was one game, what wasn't a good game.
Speaker 2: And I went and Oregon played Arizona the next night,
Speaker 2: Matt Court amazing. I'm an unbelieve they beat Arizona, who
Speaker 2: won the national championship that year.
Speaker 1: They carried Jerry Green off the court. Okay, And two
Speaker 1: things turned me off. Three things. One I was at
Speaker 1: a party and it was like Cheeching Chong's van everywhere
Speaker 1: I went, and I was just I'm not.
Speaker 2: Like an anti weed guy, but in like college, I
Speaker 2: was just like this is nuts, Like I will lose
Speaker 2: my mind here, I will party my my balls off.
Speaker 2: But I tell this story all the time where the
Speaker 2: old Mac court they redid it several times, but this
Speaker 2: is before the last redo, before they built a new place.
Speaker 2: You sat in bleachers when you're on the team on
Speaker 2: the very bottom part of the bleachers. And as a recruit,
Speaker 2: my legs were to the back of the players. They're like, no,
Speaker 2: come sit down next to us. And the problem with
Speaker 2: was Jerry Green was he was like a Dean Smith,
Speaker 2: Roy Williams disciple. So he was just running guys in
Speaker 2: and out like no rhyme or reason. Seven dudes in
Speaker 2: and out and none of them had anything nice to
Speaker 2: say about him when they court, so.
Speaker 1: They're carrying them off the court.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile it's like, has no idea what he's doing right.
Speaker 2: Second thing was this though I never forget. He was
Speaker 2: at my house and uh, you know he's from the
Speaker 2: South and Tennessee came open. He was you know, there's
Speaker 2: rumors of him and tis I coach you and there's
Speaker 2: rumors of you in Tennessee. Is like Dougie, I got
Speaker 2: the greatest contract. I worked for an incredible president. Bill
Speaker 2: Knight's a personal friend of mine. You know, I have
Speaker 2: a rollover deal with a ten million dollar annuity. I
Speaker 2: am never leaving the university work and then literally next
Speaker 2: way he's putting out of Tennessee. But the volunteers.
Speaker 1: He was amazing.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, and look, I don't I'm not sitting
Speaker 3: here saying ever what I think I'm where. I think
Speaker 3: I'm maybe different than at Jerry Green. I never expected this.
Speaker 3: I never expected to be a head coach. And then
Speaker 3: what's happened at Longwood with the new arena, our facilities,
Speaker 3: like and I'm also Doug, I'm I'm I'm smart enough
Speaker 3: to know that this int me. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff. And again, my faith is a
Speaker 3: big part of it. Like I think I've been blessed
Speaker 3: and been blessed to get the right recruits and probably
Speaker 3: miss on the wrong recruits. And so I just and
Speaker 3: I've got three kids who are in seven, six and
Speaker 3: third grade. And again I'm not saying we won't ever leave.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying I don't think I'll be putting
Speaker 3: on a Tennessee hat next week, but but I we're not.
Speaker 3: You know, I know a lot of coaches, And when
Speaker 3: I was in law and when I was in private equity,
Speaker 3: I was this way, Okay, what's next, What's you know,
Speaker 3: what's what's the next firm? How do I climb? Like
Speaker 3: I'm not And and here's the other thing. I'm I'm
Speaker 3: so jack duh. I don't know if I can handle
Speaker 3: a higher love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that that's a reason. That's a very reasonable thing.
Speaker 2: Or if you want to, right, because you don't have to,
Speaker 2: you don't want to. You're happy you got a really
Speaker 2: good gig, all right, last thing, and now you got
Speaker 2: to go. You've been really gracious with your time. We're
Speaker 2: a couple of years out now from it. Can you
Speaker 2: believe the Virginia thing happened?
Speaker 1: Like? Oh like again?
Speaker 2: And here's here, I'll give you my perspective about it
Speaker 2: real quick. When I told you about my infatuation for Virginia. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the fact that you know Ryan's the head coach when
Speaker 2: it happens at the UNBC is incredible, right, the just incredible.
Speaker 2: My first game I called at CBS in the NCAA
Speaker 2: tournament and you know, like I was doing the same
Speaker 2: thing we were talking about. I was climbing, you know,
Speaker 2: I was an ESPN climbing climb comment. I took the
Speaker 2: CBS job because I always wanted to do the tournament.
Speaker 2: I always want to do the fon four my first job.
Speaker 2: In first game, we're in Salt Lake City and Southern
Speaker 2: playing Golenzaga, and Gonzag is a one seed, it was
Speaker 2: a sixteen seed, and the first game was which to
Speaker 2: stake Pittsburgh And I had known Greg Marshall since his
Speaker 2: days at Winthrop, and he and his wife used to
Speaker 2: hang out. We used to hang out the Final four
Speaker 2: and he used to ask me to introduce him to
Speaker 2: every I made as by director, right, so he was.
Speaker 2: Greg was awesome with me, and he was just like, hey,
Speaker 2: just so you know, like we're actually really good. We've
Speaker 2: been hurt all year, We're just now getting healthy. He's like,
Speaker 2: just don't be surprised. We kicked their asss I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, and they were down early and there was
Speaker 2: a it was the when the first year the elbowing
Speaker 2: rule became a flagrant and it was a terrible call
Speaker 2: and and to screwed up Pittsburgh and sure enough, which
Speaker 2: top boat raced him. So that was like my first
Speaker 2: and it was a modest upset. So Southern comes out,
Speaker 2: and you know, their band just sounds different than everybody
Speaker 2: else's band. It spends on so much better than everybody
Speaker 2: else's band, Like I don't no, literally, they tune the
Speaker 2: instruments better. It's crazy and and I remember watching them
Speaker 2: practice the day before talking to their coaches, and their
Speaker 2: coaches were like, man, our assistant coaches are. They have
Speaker 2: to run study hall, they drive the players around like
Speaker 2: it's we have no facilities, nothing, Like we're not even
Speaker 2: be able to make danceay term next year because our
Speaker 2: APR is so bad, like them like they have no
Speaker 2: And then Gonzaga walks in and it's it's like royalty
Speaker 2: walks in. You know, their uniforms are brand new, their
Speaker 2: sneakers are better Mark few.
Speaker 1: It's like a symphony.
Speaker 2: Four minutes and fourteen seconds to go in the game
Speaker 2: and it's tied and Southern has the ball, and Spirodidas
Speaker 2: and I are like grabbing each other like, don't fuck
Speaker 2: this up. We're gonna call the first ever sixteen CD
Speaker 2: to be to one, like we're all on on upset alert.
Speaker 2: Everybody's all the TVs are turning to our game and
Speaker 2: we're and Gonzaga like pulled it out, and I just
Speaker 2: remember thinking like.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's ever gonna happen.
Speaker 2: And you thought of it happened, it would happen in
Speaker 2: one of those crazy, super low scoring Princeton Georgetown. We
Speaker 2: grew up watching where somebody throws in a crazy shot
Speaker 2: at the end of the game and everybody goes nuts. Well,
Speaker 2: when it actually happened, it was an ass whooping, like
Speaker 2: it just spiraled completely out of control. So now a
Speaker 2: couple of years later, tell me, tell me what memories
Speaker 2: you have.
Speaker 3: I remember, I remember being shocked. I remember in the
Speaker 3: first half it was there's like maybe the eight minute
Speaker 3: under eight media timeout, and as I told one of
Speaker 3: the assistants, Nate Dixon, I said, we can play with
Speaker 3: these guys, like we can play with them. What a
Speaker 3: lot of people didn't remember about that team is that
Speaker 3: that team almost beat SMU, which was a top twenty
Speaker 3: five team at the beginning of the season, without that
Speaker 3: little point guard kJ Mora. Yeah, And we played Arizona
Speaker 3: two days later, a day and a half later, and
Speaker 3: had it to four with twelve minutes left in the
Speaker 3: second half. We were up seven at Maryland at halftime.
Speaker 3: So the team was older and it had confidence, So
Speaker 3: I don't think they were terrified of the moment, you know,
Speaker 3: and the dynamic of that, the personality of that of
Speaker 3: the leaders of that team were like, yeah, let's go
Speaker 3: hoop and and I remember I was shocked that we
Speaker 3: were getting such wide open shots. That's what I mean.
Speaker 3: We were making shots, and we're making some hard shots,
Speaker 3: but we were also twisting ball screens and rejecting and
Speaker 3: you know, slicing and dicing and making the extra pass.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was it was a thing of beauty.
Speaker 3: And and then and then everybody's making shots and they're
Speaker 3: not making shots, and you could just see it. And
Speaker 3: I think them missing DeAndre Hunter. A lot of people
Speaker 3: forget that that was huge.
Speaker 1: That was huge, course, no, it it and and and
Speaker 1: and but but you know, there wasn't a guy in
Speaker 1: your team.
Speaker 2: They would have offered a scussion too, right, Okay, And
Speaker 2: that's but it's a it's a terrible drug that you
Speaker 2: fed us all because you made everybody believe that that's possible,
Speaker 2: which I guess it always is possible.
Speaker 3: But well, I actually I actually think it's more possible
Speaker 3: today than it was when it happened at UNBC because
Speaker 3: of the transfer portal. Because they're kids like Shiman and
Speaker 3: Elijah who you know, they played against those guys and
Speaker 3: now maybe you know, if they have a good night,
Speaker 3: everybody else has a bad night. And then The other
Speaker 3: thing is it's not a long pressure on sixteen, you know.
Speaker 2: No, and then and once you get to and like
Speaker 2: and the other part about that game I didn't tell
Speaker 2: the story was and I said this in the broadcast,
Speaker 2: was and suddenly there's twelve thousand, two thousand Southern fans.
Speaker 1: Yes, like it's eighteen thousands. He places like five thousand
Speaker 1: Good Zega fans. And suddenly twelve everybody's cheering for you. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, it's nuts.
Speaker 3: Well, that was wild. And the other thing I'll say too,
Speaker 3: Ryan and Tony Bennett. I think we're very friendly. Ryan
Speaker 3: really looks up to Tony just how he coaches his faith.
Speaker 3: I think Ryan really aspires to a lot of what
Speaker 3: coach Bennett does. So, but it was wild to be
Speaker 3: especially in the second half. And I remember again at
Speaker 3: the eight minute mark, we're up sixteen, and I said,
Speaker 3: I don't think they can score fast enough. You know
Speaker 3: how slow they play. Yeah, I don't think I don't
Speaker 3: think they can. I don't think they can catch up.
Speaker 3: And you know, and it was incredible. Probably half of
Speaker 3: the arena, maybe even more was Virginia fans dead quiet dead,
Speaker 3: you know, because like you said, this wasn't like, hey,
Speaker 3: it's a nip and tuck game. And then we won
Speaker 3: like to Purdue, you know FDU game. This was everybody's gone,
Speaker 3: what are we watching? Like, what is happening right now?
Speaker 3: And quick funny story and I let you go. We
Speaker 3: have a text string with that that team and you
Speaker 3: know it probably texts, you know, a couple of times
Speaker 3: a year, and they h that night that uh Fairley
Speaker 3: Dickinson was about to be was getting close to Purdue.
Speaker 3: The text started coming and you know, after the horn
Speaker 3: sounds and they win. Uh, this is the funniest thing.
Speaker 3: I think. One of the old assistants goes, well, it
Speaker 3: looks like we have looks like we have company boys.
Speaker 3: And Joe Sherburn, who you know was was one of
Speaker 3: our key players because yeah, dot dot dot. But imagine
Speaker 3: beating a one seed by only whatever they beat him.
Speaker 1: By you we woke their ass. We were no doubt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so imagine imagine did you get the walk on him?
Speaker 3: I'm sure we did. I'm sure it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't that amazing, Like that's the story. The story is
Speaker 2: not that you won the game. The story is that
Speaker 2: the walk Ons got in like yeah, they would have
Speaker 2: thought they were getting in that game, but in a
Speaker 2: completely different context.
Speaker 3: Well, that's what happened two years ago when we were
Speaker 3: playing Tennessee. We were with them at ten minutes and
Speaker 3: I still remember, I don't know who the interview lady was.
Speaker 3: And we're down twenty five at half and they can't
Speaker 3: mess and they're beating the brakes off of us, and
Speaker 3: she goes, well, you know what adjustments? You know? Do
Speaker 3: you think you're gonna make it halftime? And I looked
Speaker 3: at her and I said, I don't know, do you
Speaker 3: have any suggestions?
Speaker 1: Amazing?
Speaker 3: So anyway, good times, good times.
Speaker 1: Well listen, I like your club.
Speaker 2: Uh awesome, you turned this thing around, and let's see
Speaker 2: who you get on Sunday. Yeah, and talk again, talk
Speaker 2: again soon. But I do appreciate you joining me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, thanks for coming out to uh, to the
Speaker 3: to the tournament.
Speaker 1: That place high point. Holy cow.
Speaker 3: They gotta go on. They got it, they.
Speaker 1: Got it, they got to going. That's what That's what
Speaker 1: investment in resources looks like. That's what looks like. Yes, wow,
Speaker 1: how about that? Huh?
Speaker 2: I mean you think you sacrificed something for your job,
Speaker 2: for your life and then you listen to Griff could
Speaker 2: be fascinating to see what happens if jobs in Houston,
Speaker 2: which there's a potential for a really good job I
Speaker 2: think in Houston to come open. If that brings him
Speaker 2: quote unquote home, be fascinating to see. But if that's
Speaker 2: not a story of a guy who has his prioriti
Speaker 2: as an order, I don't I don't know what is.
Speaker 2: I did want to point this out, the strangeness to
Speaker 2: the exercise we go through with all the arguing over
Speaker 2: who's in and who's out. We're trying to figure out
Speaker 2: Indiana State versus Saint John's, right, and Saint John's They're okay,
Speaker 2: they got twelve losses. They'll unless they win the Big
Speaker 2: East Tournament, they'll have thirteen losses to end their season.
Speaker 2: And you're trying to weigh their season their success against
Speaker 2: Indiana State, for example, who's like twenty five and six
Speaker 2: six losses in a conference that everyone would consider inferior.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, Saint John's.
Speaker 2: Didn't beat any of the good teams, right, they just didn't.
Speaker 2: They didn't beat Marquette full strength, didn't beat you cut
Speaker 2: of full strength. So don't tell me how great they are,
Speaker 2: you know, And they didn't beat anybody in the NY
Speaker 2: Conference that matters. So if the argument is, well, they
Speaker 2: play in a better league, like they beat in those
Speaker 2: teams in the better league, they lost to average teams,
Speaker 2: they lost the good teams, and Indiana State lost the
Speaker 2: good teams as well. But we're going back and forth,
Speaker 2: which one of these teams should get in the tournament?
Speaker 2: And yet and like again, this is to Gryffaldrich's team.
Speaker 2: They finished in fifth place in their league. Granted it's
Speaker 2: not a balanced league schedule, but high Point was the
Speaker 2: best team. High Point, based upon being the best team
Speaker 2: of the season, truly belongs in the tournament. Isn't it
Speaker 2: interesting though, that we argue whether or not these teams
Speaker 2: that are not I mean the State it's the best
Speaker 2: team in their league or the second best team in
Speaker 2: the league. But anyone is allowed in if you win
Speaker 2: your conference tournament, regardless if you're good or not. And
Speaker 2: yet we only grant entry at the bottom end of
Speaker 2: the tournament or in the middle of the tournament. I
Speaker 2: guess with the at large teams two very very verge
Speaker 2: teams at best. It's just I don't know, that's how
Speaker 2: my brain's work. We talk about the best we let
Speaker 2: anybody in, and then we argue over the teams that
Speaker 2: have had successful seasons on their level or disappointing seasons
Speaker 2: on their.
Speaker 1: Level, but are they good enough to gain entry.
Speaker 2: It's a very, very weird thing that doesn't occur, I
Speaker 2: don't think in any other tournament, in any other gathering,
Speaker 2: any other place. The idea that last place is Montana State,
Speaker 2: not really competitive in the big big sky. Great win
Speaker 2: for them to beat Montana, but they're in the tournament.
Speaker 2: And yet we're arguing whether or not Indiana State, who
Speaker 2: had a great year, or Saint John's who had a
Speaker 2: good turnaround year belonging to the tournament.
Speaker 1: Does anybody else see the weirdness to that?
Speaker 2: Reminded The Doug Gottlieb Show airs daily three to five Eastern.
Speaker 1: Of course, we have an hour podcast.
Speaker 2: You just type of Doug Gottlieb and you if you
Speaker 2: download this podcast, you download that one.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I like this stories. Make the story.
Speaker 2: We'll see if that's saying lasts until the next time.
Speaker 2: I'm dog gottlie This is all ball