Speaker 1: Hey, what up. Welcome in. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is
Speaker 1: all ball. Obviously, since the last recording of this year podcast,
Speaker 1: a lot has happened. What hasn't happened is we haven't
Speaker 1: won a game. And to those of you who are
Speaker 1: coaches who are listening, you're like, man, that's got to
Speaker 1: be really har right, And the answer is yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard. And the you know, the thing that I
Speaker 1: take pride in is there's there's no quitting anybody in
Speaker 1: their staff. There's no quit in our players. We have.
Speaker 1: We have a new big guy, Yonatan Levy, who I
Speaker 1: think we'll get him to join us in a podcast,
Speaker 1: probably this upcoming week, who came over from Israel. He's
Speaker 1: still kind of rounding into shape, although round is the
Speaker 1: shape he fouled out in nine and a half minutes
Speaker 1: against Northern Kentucky. I am, I am. I'm doing my
Speaker 1: best to not say anything negative about anybody who blows
Speaker 1: a whistle during the game, but I'm going to say
Speaker 1: that's not why we lost. But it was disconcerting that, man,
Speaker 1: we really didn't feel like that was a game in
Speaker 1: which we had we were at a competitive disadvantage on
Speaker 1: some level in that aspect of it. But here's the
Speaker 1: part that you got to take ownership of and I
Speaker 1: actually like is that we're getting better. We're getting better.
Speaker 1: And I know this is not horseshoes and hand grenades.
Speaker 1: I know that people look at final scores, and there
Speaker 1: were some final scores early in the season which looked
Speaker 1: closer than they actually were. This last one looked worse
Speaker 1: than it actually was. We were up ten and it
Speaker 1: was this six or eight point game and you know,
Speaker 1: kid actually from Wisconsin D two transfers are really good player,
Speaker 1: hit three threes late. Kind of that was that. But
Speaker 1: we're starting to figure out how to play better defensively.
Speaker 1: We're playing a little bit different often, and I'm improving
Speaker 1: as a coach in leaps and mountains, my use of timeouts,
Speaker 1: my substitutions, all those other things. And look, I know
Speaker 1: that that. You know, somebody with it has to be
Speaker 1: like a black heart, or maybe they thought it was
Speaker 1: just funny to do. They clipped the nobody you thing
Speaker 1: and made it out like I was saying that about
Speaker 1: one of our opponents, which was the opposite of what
Speaker 1: I said. I knew our schedule was too difficult, right,
Speaker 1: like we needed in my first year to have at
Speaker 1: least two games where we're playing traffic cones, you know,
Speaker 1: just anything. And look at the schedules of other teams
Speaker 1: in our league and everybody plays them, and we did not.
Speaker 1: It was a mistake, and you know our scheduling. But
Speaker 1: the point is that between scheduling, who we take player wise,
Speaker 1: assignments of roles on coaching staffs, my approach in the summer,
Speaker 1: my approach in the fall, my approach during the games,
Speaker 1: manipulation of the clock, manipulation of timeouts, substitution pattern, all
Speaker 1: these things. I really am learning a ton and I
Speaker 1: felt super comfortable early on. I've never felt uncomfortable, but
Speaker 1: I also knew that I had a lot to learn.
Speaker 1: And you know, maybe the thing I've learned the most
Speaker 1: is not just my staff's good. You can lean on
Speaker 1: them and they're helpful, but you do need an old head.
Speaker 1: You need somebody who's seen every war and seen everything.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've brought in several people to help
Speaker 1: out during the year, but not fully on staff, and
Speaker 1: that part is hard and is a miss and something
Speaker 1: that I'll have to try to adjust to going forward.
Speaker 2: Be sure to catch live editions of The Doug Gottlieb
Speaker 2: Show weekdays at three pm Eastern noon Pacific on Fox
Speaker 2: Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: It's good to be back on All Ball, and I
Speaker 1: think you will love our guest because he went through
Speaker 1: his own early struggles as a head coach. His name
Speaker 1: is Jared Calhoun. He's the head coach at Utah State,
Speaker 1: the fifteen one of the year, having an unbelievable season,
Speaker 1: including beating Sandy Use State at San New State, which
Speaker 1: never happens. Let's get to his journey and how he
Speaker 1: went from being a player at Cleveland State to now
Speaker 1: being the hottest head coach at Utah State. Here's my
Speaker 1: conversation with Jared Calhoun before we get to your current
Speaker 1: job or even the Youngstown job. How'd you get to
Speaker 1: Cleveland State to play?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Doug, good question. I was a decent
Speaker 3: high school player in the Cleveland area Villa Angelas Saint Jose,
Speaker 3: home of Clark Kellogg and numerous NBA guys and NFL guys,
Speaker 3: played for a legendary coach in Ted Quasniak. I wanted
Speaker 3: to get into coaching, Doug. I was really at about
Speaker 3: the age of thirteen, I kind of knew I wanted
Speaker 3: to coach college, and we had a legendary coach in
Speaker 3: town by the name of Raleigh Massimino. Sure, you know,
Speaker 3: I wanted to play for him, and I wanted to
Speaker 3: learn from him. And you know, a lot of the
Speaker 3: things we do away from the court, game planning, all
Speaker 3: that stuff is from coach mas Aminos. So that that's
Speaker 3: how I ended up in the conference that you're coaching
Speaker 3: in right now.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well it was so wait, thirteen, where were
Speaker 1: you when you're thirteen? And why did you say? Because
Speaker 1: I have my own story and we were telling it
Speaker 1: today on radio, give me your thirteen year old story,
Speaker 1: and why you decided, Hey, this is what I want
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Doug, So, I grew up with a
Speaker 3: guy named Maverick Carter. He and I became best friends.
Speaker 3: He's now running Lebron's Empire. Actually talked to him last night, man,
Speaker 3: just praying that the people in California are okay. He
Speaker 3: woke up this morning not known if he had a
Speaker 3: house that was standing up crazy. So we used to
Speaker 3: go to the parks all the time and play, and
Speaker 3: you know, just every weekend we were at the parks,
Speaker 3: and that's kind of how we grew up playing basketball.
Speaker 3: And I just kind and knew that, you know, I
Speaker 3: was gonna stay around basketball, and I knew I was
Speaker 3: smart enough to realize I wasn't playing overseas for the NBA,
Speaker 3: and I just wanted to learn. So that's really kind
Speaker 3: of why I went there. What was your experience, Like,
Speaker 3: I loved it, very very difficult. I'll say this, Doug.
Speaker 3: You know I told you off air man, Uh, it
Speaker 3: was rough as a player at Cleveland State. We didn't
Speaker 3: win a ton.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: You learn a lot when you're struggling, So you know,
Speaker 3: all the haters that are that are hating on you, you're
Speaker 3: gonna be just fine. I'm telling you. My first year
Speaker 3: at Youngstown and my playing days at Cleveland Day were rough.
Speaker 3: But you come out, you know, much better from some
Speaker 3: of the struggle. And I think, you know, that's kind
Speaker 3: of how you build your culture.
Speaker 1: I agree, I think, and you know, we'll get into
Speaker 1: kind of some of these things I'm learning, but I
Speaker 1: you know, I think the hardest thing is a player.
Speaker 1: I only went through one tough season as a player
Speaker 1: my first year at Notre Dame and we were nine
Speaker 1: and seventeen, and I had never been a part of
Speaker 1: a losing program. And you know, part of it is,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you this way you played for I played
Speaker 1: for legendary high school coach as well. You you don't
Speaker 1: even think of the possibility of losing. Like I don't
Speaker 1: remember a game even at Notre Dame that I didn't
Speaker 1: go in thinking we're go win, you know. And this
Speaker 1: was this is ninety five ninety six. So the Big
Speaker 1: East had Yukon had ray Allen. They were number one
Speaker 1: through three in the country. Nova had carried Kittle's they
Speaker 1: were two in the country. We played them, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody had a dude. Syracuse was the fourth best team
Speaker 1: and they went to the championship. No, they had John Wallace.
Speaker 1: This was the year that went to the championship game
Speaker 1: against priduce Kentucky, and we had him. We're we have
Speaker 1: them down fifteen at their place on senior night, their
Speaker 1: senior night, but they just kind of turned it on
Speaker 1: and beat us down six with the minute to go,
Speaker 1: beat it and they beat us in the biggest tournament up.
Speaker 1: By my point was what was what do you remember
Speaker 1: about the locker room? You're a player, team's not doing well.
Speaker 1: What do you remember about that Cleveland State locker room.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, one thing that that really stood stood
Speaker 3: out was, you know, there was a divide, right there
Speaker 3: was some guys that were ready to quit. There were
Speaker 3: some guys ready to still fight. We had a good
Speaker 3: leader though, Coach mass got us to the finish line.
Speaker 3: We had good assistant coaches that stayed positive. So I
Speaker 3: was always under the impression that we could turn it
Speaker 3: at any time. Unfortunately, the last year it did not
Speaker 3: work out, and coach Massamino got fired. But you know,
Speaker 3: just kind of a disjointed locker room, you know. And
Speaker 3: so I've seen it as a player, and I saw
Speaker 3: it my first two years of coaching, and you know,
Speaker 3: it can be tough, There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 1: And that's the craziest thing. I mean, you think about it.
Speaker 1: Here's a guy who authors arguably or maybe inarguably, the
Speaker 1: greatest upset in the history of national championship. So obviously
Speaker 1: knows what he's doing.
Speaker 3: Yes, cle Thick fires him.
Speaker 1: It's like, you'd love to say it's his fault, but
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's his vault, right. It really
Speaker 1: is the craziest profession and I heard I heard Eli
Speaker 1: Manning say some one which resonated with me. He had
Speaker 1: a year where he threw he led the league interceptions.
Speaker 1: And I was working for CBS at the time, and
Speaker 1: I was working in New York, and I remember listening
Speaker 1: to the interview with Francess and he said, like, you
Speaker 1: do know him a better quarterback now than when I
Speaker 1: won a Super Bowl, Like I know more, I see more,
Speaker 1: just you know, we just had a bad year. And
Speaker 1: he didn't throw his teammates under the bus and say
Speaker 1: what I thought I knew, which is like, look, when
Speaker 1: you don't have as good a team, you gotta take
Speaker 1: some more chances. That's when more turnovers take place. But
Speaker 1: it is really interesting, like in coaching a guy who
Speaker 1: everybody thinks knows what he's doing. Obviously great Gregaria's personality,
Speaker 1: and yet UNLV State ends up getting let go after
Speaker 1: after all that greatness at Villanova. And so it's not
Speaker 1: like you can't coach it. Obviously was a lot of things,
Speaker 1: and players are probably the biggest part.
Speaker 3: Of it, right, Yeah, I think you know, the players
Speaker 3: are the lifeblood of the program. You know, I've been
Speaker 3: head coach for thirteen years and We've only had two
Speaker 3: losing seasons of those thirteen, so been very fortunate, Doug.
Speaker 3: They have a lot of good players. You know, been
Speaker 3: at two places that historically have never really won a
Speaker 3: lot of college basketball games, so been part of two
Speaker 3: you know, kind of had to change the culture and
Speaker 3: do those sorts of things. But yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 3: think the players are so important nowadays, and you know
Speaker 3: that's why we develop a leadership team and certain things
Speaker 3: on our team because you know, it's a long season.
Speaker 3: As you know, it can really wear on you throughout
Speaker 3: throughout a season.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you get done and you decide to go
Speaker 1: and what be a grand assistant Cincinnati.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was kind of a student assistant. I was
Speaker 3: coaching AAU basketball and coach Huggins was recruiting two of
Speaker 3: my players. Both kids ended up going to Ohio State,
Speaker 3: so I said, all I'm out.
Speaker 1: Uh they went, Which got which players?
Speaker 3: It was Jamar Butler and Matt Turwilliger. I coached these
Speaker 3: kids in AU. I was the head coach. I had
Speaker 3: a good little run with this team, and you know
Speaker 3: it wasn't really a package deal, but I was going
Speaker 3: to go there to finish up because my college coach
Speaker 3: just got fired, and so I went to work with
Speaker 3: Hugs for one year at Cincinnati as a student assistant,
Speaker 3: and a guy on his staff, Dan Peters, got well, yeah, Dan, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, got me my start at Walsh University after
Speaker 3: one year with coach Huggins, and it changed the trajectory
Speaker 3: of my life. It was the greatest coaching experience at Walsh.
Speaker 3: We won a national championship and I was an assistant
Speaker 3: there and just thrown into the fire.
Speaker 1: What was it like? What? What's you know? Your right
Speaker 1: out of college? Right and you're at Walsh. How big
Speaker 1: a school is Walsh?
Speaker 3: So we had about fifteen hundred students we were at
Speaker 3: an AI. We ended up getting Robert Whaley transferred from
Speaker 3: the University of Cincinnati, one of the last non Division
Speaker 3: two guys to get drafted. It was my job to
Speaker 3: make sure Robert did what he was supposed to do,
Speaker 3: and he did and we started to season Doug That year,
Speaker 3: I believe we were seven and five and we never
Speaker 3: lost the game. We won the Division two ANAI national championship.
Speaker 3: And I was the same age as the players. I
Speaker 3: was twenty three. My high school point guard transferred in
Speaker 3: from Akron that used to play with me, and we
Speaker 3: took two Lebron James's buddies, Brandon Weams and now the
Speaker 3: assistant general manager of the Cavs, and a kid named
Speaker 3: Corey Jones, and off we went to win a national championship.
Speaker 3: Was crazy.
Speaker 1: And then you circle back to work with Hugs later
Speaker 1: at West Virginia, Right, yeah.
Speaker 3: Then I go back Doug to West Virginia as the
Speaker 3: ops guy four years as director of basketball operations. Back then,
Speaker 3: you could not be on the court, right, So you're
Speaker 3: doing a lot of administrative work, You're doing tickets, you know,
Speaker 3: just doing a lot of different things. And then the
Speaker 3: fifth year, he moved me up. And then I thought
Speaker 3: I'd probably never leave unless it was a Division one opportunity.
Speaker 3: But I took a real, real chance, and I took
Speaker 3: a Division two job twenty five minutes down the road.
Speaker 3: And you know, we had five unbelievable seasons at Fairmont State,
Speaker 3: and I had a great staff, and you know, I
Speaker 3: had Joe mazzoul on staff and various guys that are
Speaker 3: now doing really well, and it was just an unbelievable run.
Speaker 1: Okay, before we get to Fairmont, Okay, you're an opsky
Speaker 1: My brother's first job at Standing the State with Steve
Speaker 1: Fisher was the opsky as well, where he grew to
Speaker 1: be in a full ton of system. What was it
Speaker 1: like to be in Huggs ops guy? Like? What what
Speaker 1: were his specific things that he wanted for travel for example?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there was there was quite a bit.
Speaker 3: We had a very very you know, strict menu. He
Speaker 3: wanted a variety of food on the trips, so we
Speaker 3: would have an Italian night, a barbecue knight, burger night.
Speaker 3: I tried to keep them guessing on on the menu
Speaker 3: the way we traveled, right.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know when we got to the hotel, we were
Speaker 3: going to do certain things, you know, stretch film when
Speaker 3: we had recruits in, you know, what what were things
Speaker 3: going to look like, whether it was the locker room,
Speaker 3: whether it was back then you could put the things
Speaker 3: in the hotel rooms, you know. So I really learned,
Speaker 3: you know, by the.
Speaker 1: Way, by the way, by the way, I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: I understand, I'm not one of these guys that kills
Speaker 1: the NCAA. But we can pay players now, we can pay.
Speaker 4: Them whatever we want to pay them, and yet we
Speaker 4: cannot leave special things for them inside their hotel rooms
Speaker 4: on a visit.
Speaker 3: Well, Doug, you don't know. Yeah, it's we could.
Speaker 1: We could literally pay them whatever we want, but we
Speaker 1: can't leave like I wanted to. I wanted to leave
Speaker 1: some cheeseheads, you know, and get a packer's jersey and
Speaker 1: a name on the back of it. I thought this
Speaker 1: would be a really cool thing to like, coach, we
Speaker 1: can't do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you had a great you had a great episode.
Speaker 3: I've listened to quite a few of your shows. You
Speaker 3: don't realize, but I'm a big fan of yours. When
Speaker 3: you kind of you kind of talked about all this
Speaker 3: stuff in the NIL and the ability to you know,
Speaker 3: it's just it's crazy times, you know. And now the
Speaker 3: Juco rule and now the extra year. The rules have
Speaker 3: changed so much, Doug. Every day I can't keep track
Speaker 3: of it. I mean, I feel like I'm calling my
Speaker 3: compliance guy daily to keep up. But back then there
Speaker 3: were a lot of rules. You know, there was a
Speaker 3: ton of rules. So it certainly has changed, and it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, my ops guy is Dennis Harrington, and he
Speaker 1: finally came. I said, we actually found a really good
Speaker 1: a really good hotel right on the water in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: We played Right State and I and and the food
Speaker 1: was good, the rooms were good, rooms were big, and
Speaker 1: it was it was a good adavoid des I know though,
Speaker 1: like being the dobo is the most thankless job because
Speaker 1: it's it's a little bit like you know that room
Speaker 1: inside uh where you if you don't get your baggage
Speaker 1: at an airport, there's that little room you got to
Speaker 1: go to and you gotta, you know, tell them what
Speaker 1: your bag looks like and fill a lot of paperwork whatever.
Speaker 1: No one ever goes in that room and says, hey,
Speaker 1: great job, I got my bag, thank you. You know,
Speaker 1: they only come in there to complain. That's kind of
Speaker 1: the dobo. No one ever goes like, hey, flight was
Speaker 1: there on time, food was hot. Thanks. So if you can,
Speaker 1: if you can, be a dobo, especially for hugs. Right
Speaker 1: a little the older we get, the more particular we get.
Speaker 1: You've obviously obviously earned your stripe. Okay, so Fairmont State,
Speaker 1: how'd you get the job? Forget about the job? So
Speaker 1: how'd you get the job?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean I went through the interview process. You know,
Speaker 3: there was they said, over one hundred guys that interviewed
Speaker 3: for this job. It had great tradition, Doug. It was
Speaker 3: literally twenty five thirty minutes from you know, Morgantown, West Virginia.
Speaker 3: Nice gym needed upgraded. So really just sold a vision
Speaker 3: of how we were going to get it back. We're
Speaker 3: going to get into the community. We raised a ton
Speaker 3: of money. I had a lot of ties to a
Speaker 3: lot of the people in the state, and I think
Speaker 3: most of them thought I was nuts wanting the job,
Speaker 3: but I wanted to be a head coach. I was
Speaker 3: ready to call my own timeouts, run my own program.
Speaker 3: I didn't care what level it was, and it was
Speaker 3: the best gamble that I ever made. I took a
Speaker 3: thirty thousand dollars pay raise. We got there the next
Speaker 3: day after the press conference to practice, and there was
Speaker 3: everything was set up from the night before, Doug, so
Speaker 3: we couldn't even practice. We had to take down the
Speaker 3: stage the podium, and I looked at my guy that
Speaker 3: came with me, and I said, what did I just do? Right?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: They didn't have practice for ready to go? And I
Speaker 3: soon learned we didn't have all the help we had
Speaker 3: at West Virginia, but it teaches you how to grind,
Speaker 3: how to work, and then we got a great staff.
Speaker 3: You know, we just kept getting better and better each year.
Speaker 1: What was what was the secret? Like, what's the secret,
Speaker 1: sauce to your ability to build that culture so quickly?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it really is the time we spend
Speaker 3: with the guys, Doug. You know, we do leadership meetings
Speaker 3: every Monday, so I bring in the three captains of
Speaker 3: my team. I've done this for a very long time,
Speaker 3: and I first thing I say is what can I
Speaker 3: do better? How can we be better? Who's struggling? There's
Speaker 3: going to be two or three players on every team
Speaker 3: that are really in the tank and struggling. How can
Speaker 3: I help those guys? Are you guys happy with the food?
Speaker 3: Are you guys happy with the massage? Therapy? You know?
Speaker 3: What about practice? This is what our week looks like.
Speaker 3: So I've always done it from like a collaborative effort
Speaker 3: with the players and empowered those guys. And I have
Speaker 3: felt that with this generation, this generation, Doug is so
Speaker 3: different than how you and I came up. They want
Speaker 3: to know the why. So I give it to him
Speaker 3: early in the week and I think it's just been uh,
Speaker 3: you know. Then we've transformed our offense. You know, we've
Speaker 3: played fast, We've played free, We've played with space. You know,
Speaker 3: I learned a lot from from you know, coach Missoula
Speaker 3: and studying the game, and then we stole the matchup
Speaker 3: zone from Northern Kentucky and you know here it's been tremendous.
Speaker 1: Let's let's get to Let's get to Joe. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean just a really kind of fascinating his own kind
Speaker 1: of trajectory and brain. First time you met Joie Missoula
Speaker 1: was wearing went well.
Speaker 3: I coached him at West Virginia. You know, he was
Speaker 3: this this relationship coast back a long way.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: You know, I was the best man in his wedding.
Speaker 3: He was on my staff for three years. We go
Speaker 3: on you know, family vacations together. You know. His dad
Speaker 3: was just dynamite. I mean he kep drive from from
Speaker 3: Rhode Island in the middle of the night, go to
Speaker 3: the game, sleep, go back the next day. I mean,
Speaker 3: just an interesting guy. But Joe had a fire. You
Speaker 3: know as a player, Doug, you could see it. You know,
Speaker 3: he really just transformed his life after college. He really
Speaker 3: devoted his life to God. He just grew grew so much,
Speaker 3: you know, spiritually basketball wise. I saw the change after
Speaker 3: year two, and I encouraged him. We shared an office, right,
Speaker 3: so our office was like a closet at Fairmont State.
Speaker 3: So the number of ideas that we had were just ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I mean, both of us never stop with ideas. We're
Speaker 3: probably not great for each other. We wanted to reinvent
Speaker 3: the game of basketball, and we laughed because neither one
Speaker 3: of us was very good back then. But we just
Speaker 3: developed a great relationship and threw things off of each other.
Speaker 3: And you know, I just people ask me all the
Speaker 3: time and with interviews and stuff. When he won the title,
Speaker 3: are you surprised? Well, obviously yes, But did I knew
Speaker 3: he would be ready? Yes, if he ever got the opportunity,
Speaker 3: that guy was going to be ready. He had been
Speaker 3: planning for a long time. And uh, I think he's
Speaker 3: gonna go down as one of the greats. I mean,
Speaker 3: he inherited a great team. But you know he demands
Speaker 3: the team. Uh you know, I've been to their practices.
Speaker 3: The players love him and he runs great stuff.
Speaker 1: No, he does run great stuff. Wasn't Wasn't he a
Speaker 1: holdover from bee Line? Though?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's maybe the most amazing part, right is you know,
Speaker 1: here's the guy who was a B line holdover. And
Speaker 1: you know, so oftentimes now guys want to you know,
Speaker 1: he didn't recruit me. I'm not his guy. They want
Speaker 1: to leave like that's maybe an untold remarkable part about
Speaker 1: the story is that he played for both he was
Speaker 1: a B line guy, but then you know, he became
Speaker 1: kind of a signature of of that that Final four team,
Speaker 1: right in terms of his leadership with it. This really impressed,
Speaker 1: like of the impressive things is one of the most
Speaker 1: impressive parts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Doug, we inherited quite a few good
Speaker 3: players Dayshaun Butler, which is now on Joe's staff, well
Speaker 3: Easton Smith Camp Thurman. You know back then, you you know,
Speaker 3: those kids didn't transfer at the rip they do now, right, So, yeah,
Speaker 3: he we ran the one three one zone. That's how
Speaker 3: we beat cal Perry in the Elite eight to go
Speaker 3: to the Final Four.
Speaker 1: And yeah again and for people obviously basketball people who
Speaker 1: listen to this, they know this. But I mean you're
Speaker 1: talking uh three lottery picks on Kentucky just a dominant
Speaker 1: team and they could do nothing with the one three nothing. Now,
Speaker 1: I will tell you, and I mean I know your
Speaker 1: guys at Youngstown. I mean they'll, they'll, we're we're tinkering
Speaker 1: with it. So my high school coach became a junior
Speaker 1: college coach and won four state titles in cal Point.
Speaker 1: And he says he was the only guy that bee
Speaker 1: Line ever let stay with this team. That he was
Speaker 1: there for like two weeks. So he became kind of
Speaker 1: a savant with the one three one funneling guys, baking
Speaker 1: and fanning, and so we've been it's we we broke
Speaker 1: it out for two possessions Wright State and gave them
Speaker 1: to Lambs.
Speaker 3: But you guys play them Sunday, right, Doug? Do you
Speaker 3: play Youngstown next Sunday?
Speaker 1: We do? We do? We played, We played on Sunday.
Speaker 1: We have you know, and as you know, the Horizon
Speaker 1: League kind of weird schedule, no games this week, which
Speaker 1: we needed. Then we played Milwaukee. Then we don't play
Speaker 1: until Friday, Friday, Sunday, Wednesday.
Speaker 3: So uh so, well, yeah, your league is full of zone.
Speaker 3: It's a people don't realize. The Horizon League is a clunky,
Speaker 3: kind of a weird league to coach, and it makes
Speaker 3: you really think you got the Northern Kentucky zone, you
Speaker 3: got the Oakland zone, you got Cleveland State playing a
Speaker 3: million defenses. You know, it's a weird league, Doug, I
Speaker 3: think it is.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a weird league. But I'm really impressed
Speaker 1: by the level of toughness and competitiveness for these teams.
Speaker 1: Like they're just one team is is is tougher than
Speaker 1: the next, you know it. So as we kind of
Speaker 1: you know, learn from what we need to get. Obviously
Speaker 1: we need to get older, but now older doesn't do it.
Speaker 1: You need just really tough minded, super competitive kids, because
Speaker 1: we just we just get beat up on the boards.
Speaker 1: And just like again, I look, I look at Milwaukee
Speaker 1: we're playing Saturday. I like their team because they're just tough,
Speaker 1: you know, even when things aren't.
Speaker 3: But I've coached against bart and they're gonna play fast
Speaker 3: and in free and you know, so you got to
Speaker 3: probably slow them down, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: So so you get all the way to being the
Speaker 1: runner up right in the at Fairmount, Yeah, what's that like?
Speaker 1: Where you've built this thing into do you know, four years,
Speaker 1: three straight tournaments going all the way to the championship
Speaker 1: game and then you got an opportunity to go to
Speaker 1: Division One. But as you point out at Youngstown, at
Speaker 1: the time hadn't won. What's that like to the competitor
Speaker 1: and you wants to finish it and wants to win
Speaker 1: the national title as you did at the NAIA level,
Speaker 1: and yet you always wanted to be a Division one
Speaker 1: head coach. What was that like?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Great question, man. Frustrating right, Uh, you know I
Speaker 3: lost to Ben McCollum, very very good coach at Drake,
Speaker 3: good buddy of mine. Do you play those guys, Drake?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, we actually we ran a We didn't guard
Speaker 1: two of them and we kept it. We were down
Speaker 1: four with four to go. Man, they are so connected defensively.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean all those kids have played for him.
Speaker 3: That's obviously a competitive advantage. But you know we we
Speaker 3: lost to them by eight or nine points in national championship. Frustrated.
Speaker 3: I think we had one of our worst offensive games.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know if he just tells me this,
Speaker 3: but he said if we played ten out of ten,
Speaker 3: he thought we'd beat him nine out of ten, he said,
Speaker 3: by far the hardest national title that he won, but
Speaker 3: he won four of them. But I get the nicest texts, Doug.
Speaker 3: So I go back to my hotel room and I
Speaker 3: get a text from Jim Tressel, who is the president
Speaker 3: at Youngstown State, wanting to talk and talking about him
Speaker 3: losing I believe two or three national championships at Youngstown
Speaker 3: and would you have interest in the job. So fast
Speaker 3: forward twenty four hours after the game, I'm on the
Speaker 3: phone with Joe Missoula at my house basically asking him
Speaker 3: if he's going to take you leave the G League
Speaker 3: and take the job. Because we were so tight knit,
Speaker 3: our coaches and our players that we really wanted Joe
Speaker 3: to get the job. So I felt relieved and I
Speaker 3: felt like it was the right thing to do, take
Speaker 3: a new challenge with Joe getting the opportunity to run
Speaker 3: Fairmount State. So it worked out really well.
Speaker 2: Be sure to catch live editions of The Doug Gottlieb
Speaker 2: Show weekdays at three pm Eastern noon Pacific on Fox
Speaker 2: Sports Radio in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: So you get to you, you get the Youngstown What
Speaker 1: was it like?
Speaker 3: Oh, first two years, Doug. That's why I'm rooting for you.
Speaker 3: I love guys that have to have to figure things out.
Speaker 3: You know, you're you're at a historical place that I
Speaker 3: think could be good. Right, you got to get your inprint.
Speaker 3: You gotta you know, and that's what we did. You know,
Speaker 3: the first year we won eight games. We were not
Speaker 3: very good. We were two and eleven in the non league.
Speaker 3: What's crazy is we start on the Horizon League three
Speaker 3: and zero and we think here we come right. And
Speaker 3: I think we ended up winning five or six games
Speaker 3: that year, and I learned more about running a program
Speaker 3: during those trying times. The biggest mistake I didn't do
Speaker 3: was work out. I got I became very, very depressed,
Speaker 3: almost bottomed out. But I found new life at the
Speaker 3: end of the year, and we came back and we
Speaker 3: improved on eight wins. I believe we won thirteen or
Speaker 3: fourteen the next and then we went for five straight
Speaker 3: winning seasons. But you know, those kids went through a
Speaker 3: lot with me, and I'll cherish that, and they've made
Speaker 3: me the person and the coach. And it was tough, man,
Speaker 3: it was really really tough losing like that.
Speaker 1: You know, you had won previously, so you knew what
Speaker 1: you were doing would work. But I do think that
Speaker 1: anybody who's reasonable you get that crisis and confidence. Is
Speaker 1: this going to work here? Or is it gonna How'd
Speaker 1: you overcome that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were just looking for you know, small wins.
Speaker 3: You know, in fact, we played out here at Utah
Speaker 3: State and we got excited about about our team diving
Speaker 3: on the floor because we hadn't We hadn't dove on
Speaker 3: the floor for the last three games. So we finished
Speaker 3: two and eleven first year, and at halftime I was
Speaker 3: going nuts because they were diving on the floor. You know,
Speaker 3: things like that. Trying to keep a positive outlook, not
Speaker 3: lose the team, and just really try to state mentally
Speaker 3: locked in and not burn out, because I think you
Speaker 3: see a lot of coaches, especially in our world today,
Speaker 3: that can fizzle out. So I just tried to from
Speaker 3: year one to year two, get the kids that really
Speaker 3: wanted to be there, kind of fit who we are,
Speaker 3: and developed a leadership team and just not look back.
Speaker 1: You know, the Horizon League championship team of two years ago.
Speaker 1: Obviously I saw that team because close with my boy
Speaker 1: and they played you guys in the n it at
Speaker 1: your place. What's that like? Because we always you know,
Speaker 1: when I'm working on TV, we always champion the team
Speaker 1: that wins it, right, but we never talk about the
Speaker 1: other side. You take the worst team in the league,
Speaker 1: you turn them over six years into a league champion
Speaker 1: and your reward is you have to go beat everybody
Speaker 1: again and win the Horizon League tournament and you don't
Speaker 1: what's that feeling like from a guy who had you know,
Speaker 1: you've been in the National Championship game, you'd won a
Speaker 1: national championship at the NA level, but to win the
Speaker 1: league and to build, because that's really what you're trying
Speaker 1: to build, Like then tournament's great, but you want to
Speaker 1: win your league? What what is what are those emotions like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's that's a great, great point. You know,
Speaker 3: it was frustrating. I felt like, you know, at our level,
Speaker 3: at your level, there needs to be a little more
Speaker 3: of a home court advantage. I always thought, you know,
Speaker 3: back in the day, you know, the Horizon League champion,
Speaker 3: when Brad Stevens and Gary Waters were in the league,
Speaker 3: if you won the regular season, it was at the
Speaker 3: host site. Right. I feel like at the Horizon League level,
Speaker 3: you've got to protect a one seat a little better.
Speaker 3: Right at the end of the day, where college sports
Speaker 3: are headed, the power for us are going to own
Speaker 3: uh the the NCAA tournament. It's just the reality. So
Speaker 3: if you get a team that's older connected can go
Speaker 3: win a game in the tournament. You got to protect
Speaker 3: that seed. And you know, Indy's a great experience. Doug.
Speaker 3: I think Julie your commissioner. Now I've been, you know,
Speaker 3: part of the Big East, have been part of the
Speaker 3: Mountain West. I think she's big time. I think she's
Speaker 3: really really good. I think she could, you know, continue
Speaker 3: to climb. I think the Horizon League does the best
Speaker 3: they can, but I think it needs to go back
Speaker 3: to the host site and protect that because there was
Speaker 3: definitely very very deflated and now with the n i
Speaker 3: T that being cut for load to mid majors as well.
Speaker 3: I was very thankful that we got to host an
Speaker 3: n i T first round game against Oklahoma State and
Speaker 3: we just happened to be able to do it because
Speaker 3: you know, Oklahoma State had something in their arena. But
Speaker 3: it was deflating, you know it was. It still sits
Speaker 3: in my stomach to this day that I didn't win
Speaker 3: a Division two national championship. We're eight points away and
Speaker 3: I wasn't able to get Youngstown to the NCAA Tournament.
Speaker 3: But I feel like I left it in a good place.
Speaker 3: I have great friends. My one of my good friends
Speaker 3: was able to get the job again, you know, and
Speaker 3: he you know, he was able to get a couple
Speaker 3: of guys that are in my wedding on his staff
Speaker 3: hired there. So it's just a neat thing when you
Speaker 3: can leave a place and you kind of see like
Speaker 3: other guys get their opportunity and.
Speaker 1: You know it.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, I think that that was very frustrating.
Speaker 1: Okay, you you get the job at you toasting. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a place that I know really well. I've
Speaker 1: done a ton of their games. They've had an Actually,
Speaker 1: my the high school coach I told you about to
Speaker 1: be given a junior college coach. He sent several players
Speaker 1: there back when coach Morril was there. They have had
Speaker 1: quality coach after quality coach after quality coach. There's a
Speaker 1: really high bar set there, but especially with this day
Speaker 1: and age sprinkles there a year and he's gone and
Speaker 1: he takes he takes the best players. What's it like
Speaker 1: to take over Utah State? Now you finally get to
Speaker 1: essentially a high major with their success and you've been
Speaker 1: winning a different part of the country and the coupver
Speaker 1: wasn't bear but it definitely has been rated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the first thing we had to do,
Speaker 3: Doug was was really do our research on the current roster.
Speaker 3: I think so many guys come in and really spend
Speaker 3: you know, I've done this three times and I've made
Speaker 3: mistakes every stop. So I said, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: make the same mistake. The biggest mistake I made at
Speaker 3: Youngstown I spent too much time with the donors raising
Speaker 3: money because we had no locker room, we had no this,
Speaker 3: we had no that, no budgets. I wanted to spend
Speaker 3: the first two weeks really getting to know every player
Speaker 3: so great O Sabor, Joshua Duje, good big time players
Speaker 3: that transferred out of here. I had countless meals with
Speaker 3: I worked them out. I gave everything I had to
Speaker 3: everybody in the program for the first two weeks and
Speaker 3: tried to figure out who wanted to stay, who wanted
Speaker 3: to be a part of this. And we did a
Speaker 3: really good job of building those relationships, trying to sell
Speaker 3: our vision of how we want to play offensively and defensively.
Speaker 3: Did the research with Coach Morrell. He was my first call.
Speaker 3: Talked to Coach Sprinkle, talked to Craig Smith, talked to
Speaker 3: Ryan Odom and it was really neat Doug. I thought
Speaker 3: one thing here that they nailed. They had four players
Speaker 3: on the interview process. So when I walked into a room,
Speaker 3: I had one hour with these kids, and I had
Speaker 3: watched thirty one games on Utah State. It was a
Speaker 3: job that I always wanted. I feel like you can
Speaker 3: win a national championship here because the home court advantage,
Speaker 3: the location. We have great high school basketball in Utah.
Speaker 3: We're starting to get a lot of prep schools. There's
Speaker 3: some really good juke goes in the area. And we
Speaker 3: just hit the ground run and the kids were brought
Speaker 3: in in the portal, you know from you know, the
Speaker 3: returning guys and the new guys. It's been an incredible,
Speaker 3: incredible story. You know, we lost great Osibor to the
Speaker 3: portal and Nil and obviously his relationship with Coach Sprinkle.
Speaker 3: We lost Joshaduje. We did lose some guys. We didn't
Speaker 3: keep them all, but the ones we kept, I'd tell
Speaker 3: you they really want to be here.
Speaker 1: I noticed behind you are all the Mountain West trophies,
Speaker 1: right the recent mouse most trophies. And what's interesting about
Speaker 1: that to me is it's like, I there's some Coach
Speaker 1: Bennett stuff and I was like, I didn't earn that.
Speaker 1: Let's not put that in my office. I didn't earn that.
Speaker 1: How do you handle that? How do you handle you know,
Speaker 1: Ryan had great success, Sprinkle had great success, Craig had
Speaker 1: great success. Coach more obviously incredible historic success. How do
Speaker 1: you handle just the awards and what you decided to
Speaker 1: keep and what you said to us in your new office.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really funny. So I told our staff the
Speaker 3: other day, Doug, I said, why are these trophies not
Speaker 3: in the trophy case inside the spectrum? Well, the trophy
Speaker 3: case is so old. We don't think it'll be able
Speaker 3: to hold the trophies because these newer trophies wait so much.
Speaker 3: And they said, Coach, every time we bring in a recruit,
Speaker 3: we need to sell our history. One thing you feel
Speaker 3: about this job, Doug every day, and Danny you know,
Speaker 3: told me this and we talk quite a bit, is
Speaker 3: it's a pressure cooker. Right, So you know, I think
Speaker 3: they just think we're going to win in the spectrum
Speaker 3: and we're just going to go to the NCAA tournament.
Speaker 3: And you know we've been able to do it. We've
Speaker 3: had a niche here, right, We've had great international players.
Speaker 3: We've had great high school players. Our fan base is elite.
Speaker 3: Now we're in a whole new ballgame. Right, I'm the
Speaker 3: first coach to actually coach in the NIL world. You know,
Speaker 3: we're we're middle tier in the NIL. Right, We're probably
Speaker 3: six or seventh in total dollars for our roster. Right,
Speaker 3: We've got to continue to move the needle on that.
Speaker 3: In two years, we're going to opt into revenue sharing.
Speaker 3: We're going to be in the same league as Gonzaga, Right,
Speaker 3: So we got to keep changing and keep growing with
Speaker 3: this job. And I think you know, it's a storied program.
Speaker 3: It really is, and it's it's an honor to be here, man,
Speaker 3: Like I wake up every day really really, you know,
Speaker 3: just proud to come in. And when you have good
Speaker 3: players Doug and good kids that buy into your offensive
Speaker 3: system and defense. It's been unbelievable really, because I've had
Speaker 3: two jobs.
Speaker 1: How do you identify in the portal who can play
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we have a kind of a metrics you know,
Speaker 3: the point guard position. We really really value winning at
Speaker 3: that point guard position. We really value speed. Right, So
Speaker 3: we took Date and Allberry from Queen's. He didn't win
Speaker 3: a ton of games, but he's really really fast. We
Speaker 3: really study efficiencies. We talk with the kids about efficiency, right.
Speaker 3: So one thing that I learned from Joe, it's not
Speaker 3: you know, it's not the minutes, it's not the points.
Speaker 3: We don't ever talk about that during the recruiting. We
Speaker 3: talk about how much better can we make you and
Speaker 3: your decision making in offense? Right, So we assist on
Speaker 3: sixty five percent of our makes. So we do a
Speaker 3: ton of red drills that I got from Joe, whether
Speaker 3: that's a pick and roll, read an off ball screen,
Speaker 3: read a drive, read a post read. We want our
Speaker 3: guys to make high level decisions on the basketball court.
Speaker 3: We want to play at a certain tempo. You know,
Speaker 3: we have certain criteria for every position. This is the
Speaker 3: first year that I've had a non shooting starting five,
Speaker 3: So our backup is a shooting five. I got to
Speaker 3: have one big guy that can stretch the d. We
Speaker 3: want a lob threat. We want rim protection from the five,
Speaker 3: and then we want three point guards on the roster.
Speaker 3: I think so many teams are handcuffed because they only
Speaker 3: recruit two. You got to have three, and then versatile
Speaker 3: wings that can not only play out of pick and rolls,
Speaker 3: but you know, read defenses, drive the ball, make threes
Speaker 3: and interchangeable, right, the two, three and four is very
Speaker 3: interchangeable for us.
Speaker 1: What is the one thing you do better now than
Speaker 1: you did five years ago at Youngstown as a coach?
Speaker 3: Yeah, great question, more patient, better plan? You know, I
Speaker 3: would say, communicate better with our guys. Don't overreact. You know,
Speaker 3: I think you know you're there's a time you have
Speaker 3: to show emotion. There's a time you have to get
Speaker 3: on guys. I coached very angry two games ago, and
Speaker 3: I didn't like it. After the game, I couldn't sleep,
Speaker 3: but the kids, I couldn't get him to move. We
Speaker 3: were playing Fresno State coach Wahlberg had his team more
Speaker 3: ready than mine. So I became very angry, very angry
Speaker 3: during the game at halftime. That's not me, That's not
Speaker 3: who I am. So I got to be kind of
Speaker 3: consistent how we're going to run the daily operation. I
Speaker 3: rely on my assistance a lot more. Doug, I would say,
Speaker 3: you know, you're you're going to learn that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Empowering others is I think one of the greatest gifts
Speaker 3: we can do as head coaches have them take ownership
Speaker 3: of things, whether it's you know, skill work development, you know,
Speaker 3: empowering your ops guy, making sure our players think our managers,
Speaker 3: you know, our student managers. Two of my best friends
Speaker 3: were managers. I started off as a manager at Cleveland
Speaker 3: State and worked my way as a walk on. So
Speaker 3: you know, you have to acknowledge everybody in the program
Speaker 3: a lot and give thanks to those people. And I
Speaker 3: think that rubs off on your team, and then everybody,
Speaker 3: you know, really enjoys being around each other.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that the Horizon is a lot of zone,
Speaker 1: kind of a Mucket up league. He in out West.
Speaker 1: You got a little bit of everything there. I was you, Sandy,
Speaker 1: the State has built theirs with defense and rebounding, scoring
Speaker 1: in it. Just in that points to win. Coach Wahlberg,
Speaker 1: you mentioned at Fresno, right, he's the dribble, he's the
Speaker 1: you know, dribble, drive motion, shoot a ton of threes,
Speaker 1: a little bit of a quirky style. What have you
Speaker 1: noticed that's different about Mountain West basketball from Horizon League
Speaker 1: basketball or Big East basketball?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did a study, you know, in the offseason
Speaker 3: on every team, uh kind of you know, how they
Speaker 3: guarded pick and rolls, how they guarded off ball screening,
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of different things. The thing that
Speaker 3: I've noticed in the Mount West offensively with teams very deliberate,
Speaker 3: a lot of pick and roll, slower paced league outside
Speaker 3: of New Mexico, UH coaches want to you know, kind
Speaker 3: of call a lot of sets. They want to get
Speaker 3: the ball to their best players. Defensively at just a
Speaker 3: huge emphasis on gap defense over helping. You have to
Speaker 3: make below the free throw line reads. You have to
Speaker 3: have the bill to make decisions at the rim, late kickouts,
Speaker 3: a physical presence, Doug. The biggest difference between your league,
Speaker 3: which I think is really really good. Lot of good
Speaker 3: like upcoming coaches, those middle age type of coaches that
Speaker 3: have their niche, and then you throw a great campy
Speaker 3: in there that is going to throw a million sets
Speaker 3: at you and play this the weirdest son I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: I still can't figure it out. And he spoke at
Speaker 3: my clinic when we were in the league together and
Speaker 3: he's one of my best friends of this day. Just
Speaker 3: a lot of things, you know, like so you gotta
Speaker 3: I think you got to do this as a head coach.
Speaker 3: You've got to have a system. You can't be a
Speaker 3: control freak. I think you've got to be great in ATOS.
Speaker 3: We have really done a good job in ATOS. If
Speaker 3: you look at our efficiency, our baseline out of bounds,
Speaker 3: I think we're in one of the best teams in
Speaker 3: the country at executing and we do a tremendous job
Speaker 3: in our off ball screening actions. I think everybody lives
Speaker 3: in picking rolls. We've done more off ball screens this
Speaker 3: year than I've ever done, and I got a lot
Speaker 3: of that from Joe with the Tatum and Brown, those
Speaker 3: wide pinned downs, those screen of ways. You know, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of things you can do and be creative
Speaker 3: with some of those off ball screens, but physical and
Speaker 3: just a really good league.
Speaker 1: Has it setting yet? You know that that how easy
Speaker 1: this transition, at least perception wise, has been. Has it?
Speaker 1: Has it? I mean you're thirteen and one.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, when you're winning, it's it's really easy.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: I think everybody thinks that Tim Miles can coach vance
Speaker 3: can I mean every is.
Speaker 1: A perfect example, right, Tim Elevant coach in the same
Speaker 1: league obviously different resources now, right, but dominated the league
Speaker 1: when he's at Calorio State, and now it's really hard
Speaker 1: in San Jose. So but I mean my point is, like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's apprehension with anything, and obviously you know
Speaker 1: all the benefits to Utah State, but my goodness, the
Speaker 1: start has to has to feel really good as it
Speaker 1: as it set in. When you look around, you're like,
Speaker 1: this is this works here, it'll work anywhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what it does, Doug. It just kind
Speaker 3: of reaffirms to your players that hey, what we're doing,
Speaker 3: you know, can can work in the game. And we've
Speaker 3: been elite in the last three to four minutes of
Speaker 3: every game we've won. You know, really what gave us confidence.
Speaker 3: We went into Saint Mary's and won on the road,
Speaker 3: right then the San Diego State, which hadn't been done
Speaker 3: here in eighteen years, went on the road. Then we
Speaker 3: go on the road, you know, to Nevada and placed
Speaker 3: you know, Coach Alford, which has been awesome to me.
Speaker 3: We have the same age and he's kind of you
Speaker 3: know him and Coach Dutcher been really good to me.
Speaker 3: Those guys are awesome guys. Have admired them from Afar.
Speaker 3: You know, we're all fans of each other, and you know,
Speaker 3: me being a you know, a younger coach, and I've
Speaker 3: always watched the Mountain West. Those guys been great, So
Speaker 3: it just kind of shows you, you know, we've we've
Speaker 3: adjusted it to the game of basketball. Our players are
Speaker 3: efficient players. And when you put we over me, and
Speaker 3: everybody has all the different slogans and all the different signs,
Speaker 3: and ours is real simple, we over me. The third
Speaker 3: bulletin of every game is put the team over yourself, right,
Speaker 3: and that can go a million ways. Right, make the
Speaker 3: extra assists, make a screen assist, make a one more assist,
Speaker 3: you know, defensively, communicate the coverage right, stop the ball
Speaker 3: that's putting the team over yourself. And you know, these
Speaker 3: kids have really embodied that and we were able to
Speaker 3: do that at Fairmounty and Youngstown. And you know, if
Speaker 3: we're lucky enough, fortunate enough to get in the NCAA tournament,
Speaker 3: I think will be a really hard out because the
Speaker 3: way we play, we're really good on both sides. Those
Speaker 3: are the good mid major teams that make a run
Speaker 3: at it. Doug, I think you've been doing it so long,
Speaker 3: from your playing days to your you know, your coverage
Speaker 3: of the tournament and your your show and now obviously coaching,
Speaker 3: you've seen it. You got I have connectivity on both sides.
Speaker 3: Because you could have a bad shooting night. We've been
Speaker 3: able to overcome that. You could have a grand offensive
Speaker 3: night and not guard, which we had the other night
Speaker 3: at San Jose. You got to win in a variety
Speaker 3: of ways, and I think those are the best teams.
Speaker 1: What would it mean to you to make that NZA tournament.
Speaker 3: It'd be incredible. You know. I've been wanting to get
Speaker 3: back there for some time, you know, but not only
Speaker 3: make it, Doug. You know, I think I truly believe this.
Speaker 3: At Utah State you can win a national championship. You know.
Speaker 3: I've talked to Dusty May, He's a good friend of mine.
Speaker 3: Almost did it at Florida Atlantic coach Dutcher, at San
Speaker 3: Diego State coach Larnaga, at George Mason Brad at obviously
Speaker 3: Butler twice. There's been a whole slew of teams that
Speaker 3: not only made it at our level, but also almost
Speaker 3: won a national championship. And I think moving forward we
Speaker 3: can do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of people that you know, some
Speaker 1: of the older guard getting out because for a myriad
Speaker 1: of reasons, but one reason they don't like the road
Speaker 1: we're on. You know, the portal is a lot. You
Speaker 1: go to transfer out right away, makes it really hard.
Speaker 1: You mentioned you're a locker room wh you're at Cleveland State.
Speaker 1: You know guys that quit, guys that were staying. Now
Speaker 1: you have Hey are guys wearing about next year where
Speaker 1: they're going to play next year when you're in the
Speaker 1: middle of your year. What about you? What are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on on where college basketball is, where we're headed,
Speaker 1: and what you would like to see evolve out of
Speaker 1: this path?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Doug, So the show that I loved you did
Speaker 3: the show in Lara Andega, I believe a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks ago. I listened to that when we were on
Speaker 3: the road, and you know, I agree with a lot
Speaker 3: of the things that you have said about it. It's
Speaker 3: not going anywhere, it's not changing, but just a couple things. Right. So,
Speaker 3: we're fifteen and one. We're top twenty five in the country.
Speaker 3: I think we're the only mid major team in the
Speaker 3: country right now to be ranked. San Diego State's been there,
Speaker 3: Drake's been there, whoever, But right now, as of today,
Speaker 3: then it'll change, right I ask my guys. Today there's
Speaker 3: fourteen guys on my roster. Eight of them have been
Speaker 3: contacted by NIL agents. Eight of the fourteen. Various schools
Speaker 3: have tried to try to get involved, right one being
Speaker 3: not too far from here. It's totally out of control.
Speaker 3: It's off the rails. Anybody that thinks it's not they're crazy, right,
Speaker 3: So it's not going anywhere. How can we change it?
Speaker 3: You know? Hopefully the revenue sharing is going to be
Speaker 3: really good. We're not going to that till twenty five,
Speaker 3: twenty six. You know, I really really worry about the
Speaker 3: Horizon League and schools like yourself, that coaches like yourself
Speaker 3: that are doing it the right way, developing players, you know,
Speaker 3: out raising money, you know, really taking care of your players,
Speaker 3: and you guys just being a feeder system. You know,
Speaker 3: I worry about that with us, with my current roster.
Speaker 3: It's on my mind every day. Can we keep this
Speaker 3: team together, you know, because I think if we can,
Speaker 3: it can be special. But I think, you know, with
Speaker 3: the ni L, we have to have multi year contracts.
Speaker 3: If a kid leaves, it has to be a buyout,
Speaker 3: and there needs to be a whole restructure of the
Speaker 3: landscape there.
Speaker 1: I think, I think, I think the multi year deal
Speaker 1: is a big thing, I think. I honestly, the hard
Speaker 1: part is and look, you know, do you contacted, kid?
Speaker 1: Do you not contact I haven't contacted anybody. My guys
Speaker 1: are told do not contact they kid, we have players
Speaker 1: that have been contacted despite the fact that we're two
Speaker 1: and fifteen or the opposite of the inverse of it.
Speaker 1: But I think that's the hard part is everyone tells you, hey,
Speaker 1: once they hit the portal, it's too late, right, But like, okay,
Speaker 1: but I thought we're not supposed to talk to him
Speaker 1: before they hit the portal. Like, I don't even know
Speaker 1: how that works. And obviously you have the nil agents,
Speaker 1: you have the parents, you have the au coaches, and
Speaker 1: then you have the rumors of or this guy's leaving,
Speaker 1: Like where did you hear that from? You know, I
Speaker 1: think that the contacting of players on your roster. I
Speaker 1: think that's the part that and the multi year deals. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they got got to have the multi year deals,
Speaker 1: and then the contacting of players your roster just has
Speaker 1: to has to be eliminated. I don't know how.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, Doug, I'll lose my lose my mind,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure you would too. I think that's just
Speaker 3: totally unethical. You can't do it. Uh, they back channel,
Speaker 3: they're going through the AAU coaches that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: You know, we have two really good players that are
Speaker 3: trying to be poached now, and I just take it
Speaker 3: ahead on. I asked the guys, I explained to them
Speaker 3: what the NIL agent can do for him. I do
Speaker 3: think some guys it's good for But a lot of
Speaker 3: guys can negotiate these deals themselves, right, So I see
Speaker 3: both sides to it. But certainly, uh, the older coach
Speaker 3: uh is is definitely there's a frustration level around the country.
Speaker 3: You're seeing Hall of famers get out. But like guys
Speaker 3: like yourself and I, we got to figure this out, right.
Speaker 3: We gotta be a voice. Certainly with your platform you
Speaker 3: can have a bigger voice. But I do think there'll
Speaker 3: there'll be some changes here in the next couple of years.
Speaker 3: With it.
Speaker 1: Last thing moving from your West Virginia and Ohio for
Speaker 1: such a period of time. What's in Utah been like
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 3: You know, Doug, It's beautiful. I wake up every day
Speaker 3: we face mountains, the Wellsville Mountains. It's the most peaceful,
Speaker 3: one of the safest safest environments. College Town. Just it
Speaker 3: looks like a postcard, right, It literally looks like a
Speaker 3: post guard of the mountains. Every day it's been different.
Speaker 3: I have grown a lot bit, you know, I always
Speaker 3: dreamed of coaching on the West coast, you know, in
Speaker 3: the Mountain West. Never in a million years what I
Speaker 3: think I'm in Logan, Utah coaching the Utah State Aggie.
Speaker 3: So sometimes times, you know, it is so real and
Speaker 3: I think it's.
Speaker 1: So much better where you are. And look, I'm a
Speaker 1: Southern California got but the care factor is so minimal
Speaker 1: in comparison to where you are. Your league cares right
Speaker 1: New Mexico they care, you know, sunny at Wyoming as
Speaker 1: they start winning, they care. You know, when I did
Speaker 1: the Mountain West Tournament, there was a year there where
Speaker 1: when coach Hi had a going at Wyoming where between Wyoming,
Speaker 1: New Mexico Utah State, you know Utah back then was
Speaker 1: in it in San Diego State. And then you know,
Speaker 1: if you U and OLV is good, that place is
Speaker 1: just alive. I actually, I think the Mountain West is
Speaker 1: the best because people legitimately care and show up. Obviously
Speaker 1: Utah State being you know at the top end of it,
Speaker 1: along with New Mexico, but you kind of end up
Speaker 1: nailing it, whereas the West coast, you get too far west.
Speaker 1: There's too many things to do and basketball is just
Speaker 1: kind of far down the list. And that's really why
Speaker 1: I left as a player. Was my sister was a
Speaker 1: UCLA cheater leader. My brother went there. We were season tickelovers.
Speaker 1: But I can't tell you how many games I went to,
Speaker 1: like nobody cared. Yeah, you know, and USC famously nobody cared.
Speaker 1: And everywhere I went on a visit, they cared. So
Speaker 1: I think there is a but Utah is a special
Speaker 1: place and they love basketball.
Speaker 3: They absolutely love ball here. You know, it's.
Speaker 1: Neat never a Mormon church that doesn't have a hoop.
Speaker 3: Everyone, every single every single street we got a hoop.
Speaker 1: You're right, hey, listen, I I really appreciate. I know
Speaker 1: how how valuable time is in the season. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: great to catch up with you. Let's do so in
Speaker 1: person at some point in time. But you guys are
Speaker 1: killing it, and thanks for joining me.
Speaker 3: Coach, I'm rooting for you. Just don't don't beat my penguins.
Speaker 3: On Sunday, I'm going to tune into that get my number.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you, man, it's a big honor for me.
Speaker 1: Well, what a great conversation with coach Calhoun. And obviously
Speaker 1: you can hear like he has thought of everything in
Speaker 1: terms of who, what and where and why they're recruiting,
Speaker 1: and you know, I mean like, look, there's a guy
Speaker 1: who's put together a plan and executed that plan at
Speaker 1: now three different locations. And as a as a young coach,
Speaker 1: I learned a lot in that conversation. I think you
Speaker 1: probably learned a lot and listening to it as well.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening and reminded. The Doug Gottlieb
Speaker 1: Show airs daily three to five Eastern twelve to two
Speaker 1: Pacific on Fox Sports Radio iHeartRadio app. You can also
Speaker 1: download that podcast. We have a daily pod and the
Speaker 1: radio show is pod pod version as well. Just type
Speaker 1: in Doug we ever get pods in the meantime. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. We'll be back soon. This is all ball