The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Gottlieb - All Ball: #14 Buffalo Head Coach Nate Oats on his rise from coaching high school to building a giant killing mid-major

Episode Date: December 21, 2018

Subscribe here to the All Ball with Doug Gottlieb Podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/all-ball-with-doug-gottlieb/id1358843497?mt=2. This week Gottlieb discusses has an extended conversation with Buffalo Head Coach Nate Oats on his big wins over traditional powerhouses, learning under Bobby Hurley, and his winding path from coaching high school to leading a giant killing DI program. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tab Ramos on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. Hey, welcome into All Ball. I'm Doug Gottlieb. I'm so glad you download this podcast. We try and make it different than other podcasts. There's great ones that cover basketball. Sometimes I have an NBA guest, sometimes I have a college basketball guest. Sometimes we provide insightful analysis. And I think we'll leave that really to next week, you know. I'll say this about the rumors about Anthony Davis and the Lakers is this is what you need to know about trade rumors and trade requests.

Nothing happens by accident. Right? Nothing happens by accident. What's that mean? Something else is at play in order to get that. conversation started. Whether it's the Celtics reaching out to the pelicans and making overtures towards Anthony Davis or maybe the Chicago Bulls, of course, want to bring Anthony Davis home, or maybe it's some frustration that the pelicans are unwilling to accept some sort of low ball

offer or lower ball offer from the Lakers, you know, a Contavius Caldwell Pope and Brandon Ingram, and they don't want to include anybody else. Whatever it is, my guess in the NBA with a name like Anthony Davis suddenly before the trade deadline and when he's not a free agent popping up as he wants to play for the Lakers, Lakers need to make it happen. These things don't happen by accident. Somebody leaked the story and leaked it with a purpose. And my guess would be that there have been overtures made by a couple of other teams, probably the Celtics, maybe the Lakers, and there's some energy there and that's why the

story gets out. In college basketball, we're about to hit Christmas break time. And while we've seen Duke take on Texas Tech and we've seen Glenn Z, Lose to North Carolina, but beat Duke and lose to Tennessee as well. I think we're getting a pretty good gathering of the top 10 or 12 teams. And we had Eric Musselman on last week. Mussel, of course, an amazing story. If you haven't downloaded that pod, feel free to do so.

It's great. His dad was a longtime college coach who became a pro coach in the NBA with the Minnesota Timberwolves. And Mus himself started in pro basketball. fresh out of playing at U.S.D. University of San Diego. I want to go the opposite route this week. Nate Oates is the head coach at Buffalo. They just beat Syracuse. And on Saturday, and, you know, listen, you may have downloaded this pod on Friday morning

and you didn't get a chance to listen to it until Saturday or Saturday after when you're driving with family over the weekend. So I don't know how they'll play against Marquette as he returns to his home state and nearly his hometown. He's from Watertown, Wisconsin. But Nate Oates is the opposite. Dad wasn't a coach. You know, doesn't have family in the coaching. And he, with the opposite of Eric Musselman, he didn't start in the NBA. He started Division III basketball.

Then went to high school basketball where usually guys, it's hard to get out unless you ride coat tails, which he kind of did. And the coat tails is, it sounds like a negative. But you have players, you produce a bunch of players and somebody wants to get players from your area and respects you as a coach. They bring you on the college game. That's what happened. He'll tell his story. But Nate Oates is the head coach at Buffalo. They're a tremendous story.

They're ranked 14th in the country right now. And last year, of course, the upset Arizona in the NCAA tournament. You're not going to believe, going to believe the stories that he has to share over the next hour or so. It's a long pod. But as many of you are driving around and you love ball, you want to download this podcast and you love ball. You're going to love the stories of Division III basketball, state of Wisconsin basketball, going to high school basketball in the state of Michigan, working for Bobby Hurley,

how he came to meet the Hurley's as a high school coach in Michigan, and what it's been like to take over. And in the last five years, five and a half years, go from being a high school coach at Romulus High School in Detroit, Michigan to being a wildly successful Division I head coach where they go on the road and beat Syracuse at Syracuse. And if you watch the game, they were the better team. Even Jim Beheim said as much after the game.

I should point this out. make sure you at least try and listen to my radio show. We have a pod as well if you like that sort of thing. It's the Doug Gottlieb show. It's on Fox Sports Radio. You can download the IHeart Radio app. You can listen to it on Sirius. There's a Sirius 217 XM 203 or any of your Fox Sports Radio affiliates.

You can also download the pod where we have full show and we have individual interviews. And if you've ever listed my show, we don't actually talk that much about college basketball. We'll talk NBA, a lot of NFL getting ready for the weekend. So it's Doug Gottlieb show. Fox Sports Radio, 3 to 6 Eastern Time, 12 to 3 Pacific every day, Monday through Friday. And of course, this All Ball podcast is a great one. I thank my good friend Colin Cowherd for allowing us to be a part of the herd podcast network. Before my interview with Buffalo head coach Nate Oates, let me take a second to talk to you about

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We all know the consequences of drunk driving. But one thing's for sure. You're wrong if you think it's no big deal. Plan ahead. Don't take chances and don't drive drunk. Drive sober or get pulled over. Paid for by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. So without further ado, let's talk to one of the most successful high school coaches in Michigan's recent history.

Plus, he's become an incredibly successful division one head coach over the last three years at Buffalo. Here's my good friend, head coach of the Buffalo Bulls, Nate Oates. Let's welcome in. He's the head coach of the 14th ranked team in the country, 14 with a bullet. That's because they went in. They beat Western New York, I guess rival Syracuse. They go in, collect a check and collect a win, which is, for those of us, and obviously people listen to the all-ball podcast, no hoop.

Like, that's arguably the hardest thing to do in the sport is to win a guarantee game and then do it in the dome against Syracuse. That's exactly what, what Buffalo did. Nate Oates is our guest. From five years ago, when you joined Bobby Hurley staff at Buffalo to going in and when you beat Syracuse, the thing that I think jumps out to people who, and I think the NCAA tournament last year, obviously last year, so people knew you were good. but that five years, like to walk on that court and to be coaching in front of, you know, the dome of 30,000 people. What's that experience? What's, did you have any moment where you're like, holy crap, this thing has happened really fast?

Yeah, you know what? I didn't really, but I hit, you know, I get text from former teachers at Romulus that I'm still cool with and administrators and kind of think of it. It's true. I just added up. I think June 10th was my first official. start day and working for the University of Buffalo. So it's been like just over five years and six months

until, you know, I was getting a paycheck back at Romulus, you know, five and a half years ago. So it is a little crazy. I think, you know, my first year's head coach, we went into Duke and played at Cameron, went into Hilton, played at Iowa State. So we've been in some places already. At this point, you know, once the ball goes out,

It is kind of cool, but we're going to the dome. I mean, it's kind of got a little bit of mystique about it. I used to be a Syracuse fan when I was growing up, actually. That was back in... I think kind of everybody was, right? Like, I grew up in Southern California, and we had my dad sent some guys out to play. You know, Mike Hopkins played for my dad in A.U.

So did Scott McCorkel, and Biggie's basketball was the only thing on on Monday, right? So you'd watch, and you'd watch Syracuse and the Domew. You know, yeah, like, we're about the same age. I saved my paper on money, bought myself a TV because everybody else in the house didn't want to watch basketball every single night of a week. So I had my own TV. And I was all fired up for ACC Big East Monday.

And Stevie Thompson was from California, wasn't he? Yeah, Crenshaw High School. They had a good little... Yeah, they had... Stevie was, I think, the first. And then, you know, they had McCorkle. McCorkle followed Hopkins. They were both modern-day guys.

Lauren Ellis. actually transferred there from from Kentucky. So yeah, they've always, and then, you know, fast forward to Jason Hart and some others. But they've always had some California guys. And I think honestly it was the power of Big East, Big Monday. And that, you know, we never watched West Coast teams play.

We just didn't. You'd watch East Coast teams play. And, you know, what's his name? Kevin, well, he just got fired at Yukon. You know, he's a L. Kevin Ali. Yeah, Kevin Ali. Because California kids, we'd watch and they cared, right?

That's the other thing is they always, they always cared. Let me, let me ask you about growing up, okay? Because, like, look, I want to talk about your team this year some. But to me, it's, we have, I have a lot of coaches and friends in basketball and people's stories and their makeup and philosophies they have, I think, are as are more interesting than your actual team. Not that your team stinks. It's really good. So Watertown, Wisconsin, right? that's that's your hometown yeah that's my hometown yep okay so i was born in milwaukee my dad was

head coach at uwm uh about when you were about when you were i didn't know that yeah yeah so he that's crazy when was your dad the head coach at uh uwm 75 through 81 yeah i was born in 74 so yeah so i was right then when were you born and you were born right in that time 70 i was i'm 70 January 76, baby. So, yeah, so Columbia Hospital and I think it's the Clatchy Center or whatever, the place on campus. Yeah, yeah, yep. I used to go to games at the Clotsky Center. Yeah, so he actually opened that building, and then an 81, Title IX passed, and they went D3 until Bo Ryan came back when they went back to D1.

And so he left in 81. But, yeah, he had one, I think he had won 21 season or whatever. I don't know, playing as an independent, playing everybody. So he used to share war stories. So Watertown is like, help me out. I think it's what south. It's right between Madison and Milwaukee. Like, no, straight west of Milwaukee.

Like if you went on 94th to Madison, it's right dead in between. It's right right off the interstate. And it's like 45 minutes to Madison, 45 to Milwaukee. You mentioned how you had a TV in your room. My brother had one in his room. That's where I would go watch my hoop. Was your dad, your dad, your mom? Were they into ball or they just think you're crazy?

No, not really. My dad, neither one of them played. My dad's got his Ph.D. in theology. You got a Ph.D. down at that Trinity and Deerfield. So he used to do the college professor and real smart, almost genius-like, but not in the basketball at all. You know, when I played, I played in high school, I don't think they missed any games.

So they're really supportive of me. My mom used to watch basketball with me. But no, neither one were really into it. I just, I don't know. I kind of found the love. I fell in love with it. I was deep in the fifth grade. I played Division III, which I wasn't a Division I one player,

but I love playing. So my best friends are still my college teammates. And I just fell in love with basketball. About when I was, you know, fifth, six, seventh grade, that's when Syracuse is starting to get rolling with Sherman Dougas, throwing labs, Stevie Thompson, and Derek Coleman. To Ronnie Cycle, right? All those All those All right.

Yeah, Ronnie Cightley. He had the, yeah, he threw the best, either the best Allie Upps. I mean, who didn't? And was that, what, what final four was that? 87 was that, yeah, 87 was in the dome, right? Indiana, yeah. Yeah, and.

Yeah, and you and Lvians in that as well. Yeah, that was when I was in sixth grade because I graduated from eighth grade in 89. So that's like exactly when I was getting, really getting into basketball. So it was kind of crazy. And then I got to go back and coach in the dome, which is kind of cool.

I mean, they had a, stat on, you know, I go back and break the film down. It's a hippie copy. That was Beheim's, this is Beheim's 43rd years, the head coach. Like, I'm 44 years old. It was, that was a little crazy to me. You want, you want to know something crazier? This one's a weird one, okay?

So Beheim, uh, Beheim and Bernie Fine went to school with my mom. And, uh, my mom dated another basketball player for a while. And so they kind of all ran in the, in kind of the same pack at Syracuse. My dad actually went to Syracuse for a year. He was six years old and my mom went to Syracuse for a year. His story was he was a walk-on on the men's team.

On the freshman team, he took a charge on a scholarship player and got kicked off the team because they were told under no uncertain circumstances were they to take a charge in a scrimmage or in practice. Because they might hurt. So he, I don't think the kid got hurt. I think it was a rule, and he got kicked off the team. and so he went and transferred and went to Ohio State where he's a walk on when Havelcheck and

those guys went to you know, back when Bob Knight was there. But anyway, like Jim Beheim's old enough. He's coached as long as you and I have been alive and yet he went to school with my mom at Syracuse. And I don't know.

Just, yeah. Okay, so then you went to who'd you play for at Maranatha? So Maranatha for people who don't know, it's back to school, it's in Watertown. Like a thousand students are a little bit less, right? Yeah, a little bit less. So it was a small school.

Coach's name was Jerry Terrell. He's since passed. But the thing was, like, you know, my dad's a professor there, and they had a Marinath Academy, like a prep school associated with the college. So that's where I went to my high school years, like 9 through 12. So the high school and the college were kind of in our mix. You know, you shared some of the same buildings. We shared the same gym.

And so I, he was, he kind of helped develop my love for the game. I used to go on road trips. Like I literally would jump in the van, you know, Division III, drive two, 15 passenger vans to the, to the way games. Like he used to let me jump on the vans and go to road trips, where I'm sure it was a violation. But back then, I don't think nobody could. There's no violations in D3, are there?

Yeah, exactly. So when I was in high school, I was like jumping in the bands and going with the college. and I just, like, loved being in it. And, you know, obviously at the Division I level, there's a lot more scouting and all that. But back then, I just loved being around it and listening to the coach talk and Coach speaking. And then he, so then I played four years.

And then Coach Terrell took me on as an assistant immediately after I was done playing. You know, I wasn't going to go play for money anywhere. So I was an assistant at Marinathet for three years. And then... Now is Maranatha, I don't want to interrupt. Okay, is Marinathas? Division III basketball in Wisconsin is really, really big.

Like I have a friend who, Gabe Frank, who played at Stevens Point. And the Ryan's, of course. Yeah, he could really shoot. He couldn't move it all, but you could really shoot. We were not at that level. So you're right. The Division III basketball in Wisconsin, that Stevens Point, Plattville, Whitewater, Green Bay.

Well, Dream Bay Division I, but like the Division III up, Dick Bennett goes from Stevens Point, point to Green Bay. Bo Ryan goes from Plattville to Milwaukee to Madison and does really well. Like the coaching was big. So that's what I actually kind of graduated in coaching. I went from Marinath to Whitewater, which was the closest UW system school. All those Division III schools were big schools and really good. So then I coached for two years at Whitewater.

A guy named Dave Vandermuehl and let me come on as a coach. And then Pat Miller, who's the coach there now. me and Pat were assistants and then Dave retires after my first year and Pat takes over and I was past assistant for a year before I moved to Detroit and became high school coach. Okay, so so take me back to that and by the way you met your wife in college, right? Am I? Yeah, she came from Colorado.

So she's from like Fort Collins, Colorado. She was a volleyball player. So we were in the gym all the time together. So she's, she wasn't really in. the basketball, but I wasn't really into volleyball. Now I got more into volleyball. My daughter plays volleyball. My wife's all into college basketball now and files it. So you kind of

pick up on their interest. So no, that's where I met her. And we got, we actually got, I got married, like, right away after college, I got married at 23. I got, matter of fact, my anniversary. I was, I got married. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, let's make, let's just, this is going to drop

tomorrow so December 20th Happy anniversary that's amazing how many years 21 this year crazy and I want to get to obviously I want to get to your guys story in a second so which which you know I've gotten a chance to talk about in the past but not in thorough detail as we will hear okay so you're at Wisconsin Whitewater your coaching division three you're an assistant you've been a college coach for you know

half a decade now and how did you how did the Romulus thing happen? Yeah, so there was a guy named Ed Horn. He was an African-American kid that came from Detroit out to Maranatha. It was a college teammate of mine. I actually coached him one year. He was a year younger than me, so he was a teammate, and then when I became a coach, he was still playing.

We got to be really close. We were really good friends. And he actually married a girl that grew up in Watertown, ironically enough, right next door to me, and then she moved away to Milwaukee, but came back to Maranatha, and he ends up marrying this girl Kelly. Kelly Waltz was her name. So me and Crystal, Ed and Kelly, we actually lived like a block away from each other. I was married, and he actually got married to her, and I was, like, actually a married student. So he moves back to Detroit and gets a teaching job at Romulus, like right outside Detroit.

So me and him stayed in touch. Me and Crystal actually went and visited them. We, you know, we were cool. So we all of a sudden he sends me an article one day about the Romulus coach getting fired. It was kind of a crazy thing. He was basically like the school board had fired his coach. And the article was kind of like he'd got screwed, you know? So then that calls me and says, what did you think about the article?

I'm like, yeah, sounds like the guy got screwed. Too bad. You know, I wasn't thinking. He goes, what do you think? You should go for the job. But at that time, I was, I never was going to be a high school coach. I wanted to be a college basketball coach. I was going to climb from D3 to D2 to D1.

But that's, you know, that's really hard to do. But, you know, you're young and naive and think it's going to happen. So I'm like, no, I'm not going to high school. Like, I'm not, I'm not interested. So he kind of badgered me about it over the course for a couple weeks. And finally, I was like, all right, so I sent him a PowerPoint, kind of like my resume, like I, kind of prep prepared.

As a matter of fact, it was, ironically enough, I'm in Milwaukee, we play Marquette. But it was Pat Ball. Me and Pat Ball when they coached in Milwaukee now had gotten to be really close. And we shared some stuff. And Pat had sent me as a PowerPoint kind of like as a job prep. And so I'd gone through and switched a bunch of stuff and made it mine. You know, my background, I sent it to Ed. Ed was huge.

And he actually ended up becoming the technology director for Romulus, like he was really sharp. So he made my PowerPoint look twice as good as it actually was and sent it on to the principal. And all of a sudden I got a call from the Human Resources Director, Romulus. Hey, we're having interviews next week. I need you to come out if you could on such and such a day. I think it was a Thursday. I think maybe they'd call me Friday. Like basically they slip me in as an as an extra as a favor to add. And then I was like, I, you know, screw it. I'll go through the interview. It's good to go through an interview process. I was, I had zero intention of taking the job, though.

So I go out there, and from what I heard, there was, like, about 100 people applied for this job. They had a kid around Coleman that was already committed to Michigan. He was only a sophomore, so he would have had two years left. And there was, there had been four NBA players come out of Miami. I was Terry Mills, John Long, Grant Long. So there was some tradition. It was a good job. And all these people applied, and they interviewed eight people.

and when I went, like, I'm kind of competitive, like, probably more than kind of really competitive. So I told that I'm going to make them offer me the job. Like, I'm not losing this interview. Right. Like, they're going to, like, you're not even sure if you want to be a high school coach, but you are sure that if they were going to make their second choice. In my opinion, I was going to make them off me the job and turn the job down.

Correct. That's what I mean. But last thing you want to do is go and apply for a job that you don't really want, but you're overqualified. for and not get it. And I get offered. Yeah, exactly. So I go in and I, you know, I made them offer me the job.

They offered me the job. So then I add, Ed's like the ultimate salesman. He's a great guy. He actually had introduced me with a team and he had done all this. And I actually liked all the kids, you know, like they, I kind of had an affinity towards some inner city kids. And they're in my 11 years of Rimeonelos, I coached all minority kids. I never coached any.

you know, Caucasian kids. So I kind of, like, I liked them. We, we could hang out for a little bit. They had me teach a math lesson on that Friday because I think they needed to know, they wanted the teacher in the building, so they didn't need to make sure I could actually teach. So I, that was no problem.

I kind of hit that out of the park. They offered me the job, and it's making more, like, about $5,000 more than I was making, I think I was making like 36 or 37. I was actually teaching at the public school in Watertown at the time and coaching at Whitewater. and I think they offered me, I think I went from 37,000 to 42,000.

And I called my wife and I said, you know what, they offered me the job. I think I'm going to take it. And she started trying. Like, she heard horror stories about Detroit. As a matter of fact, when we went to visit Ed and Kelly, his car had gotten stolen. Like, she just, you know, Detroit's got a bad rap.

No, I mean, listen, listen, I mean, I tell people this story all the time that I was in Israel plan. I left the team in Israel and I came to play for a team in the ABA, Phoenix and I actually met the team in Detroit and we were staying in

downtown Detroit. We were playing against the Detroit dogs. Speaking of Syracuse, Todd Bergen was on the Detroit dogs. I never forget this. I got $20 a day per diem. And when I get there, a guy named Maztrak who's an assistant with the Wizards now, he was like, yo, you got to go and get your food on your own.

There's McDonald's like a couple blocks from here. So I remember broad daylight, walk down the street to get McDonald's with my $20 a day per diem. I felt less safe in downtown Detroit than I ever did in Israel. Anyway, so she's... It looks like Baghdad and parts of Detroit. I mean, it's... So she's like, but she's great.

I mean, I, like, I wouldn't be where I'm at without Crystal. So she... Of course. She's a trooper and she... So we moved to Detroit. We had no family, like none. Like my first Thanksgiving and... And here's the crazy thing.

So Ed's the only guy in New Detroit. Me and at her tight. So I get there. Literally, I think we buy a house and move in in, like, July. Like, like, a month after I get there, Ed tells me, I feel like the Lord's led me in a different direction. I took a huge faster job back in Milwaukee to his wife from Milwaukee. So I'm like, what?

So he convinces me to go to Romulus, and then he leaves on me. And then he didn't like it. He ended up coming back to Rymulus, and he was the technology director for the district when he got back. and kind of a sad story. He ends up getting cancer, and he passed away, maybe four or five years after I'd moved to Michigan. It was, I mean, so I still, as a matter of fact,

I was texting with his son and his son and Aden just moved out to California. But I've stayed in touch with Kelly and his son and his daughter. And we could talk for a couple hours about that whole ordeal. But so I end up spending 11 years in Romulus and all. three of my daughters were born there, and we kind of, almost like a second home. Now, Buffalo, I've been now, I'm going on year six in Buffalo, and we feel like Buffalo is home now, but it's basically been Wisconsin, 11 years in Detroit. Now in Buffalo, I haven't had to move all over the country like a bunch of these college

coaches. I don't really want to do that with a family and stuff, so I've been fortunate. And I wouldn't trade how I got to where I'm at for anything, because I couldn't play Division one. I wasn't that good, but I love the fact that I play. I wouldn't trade those Division three years for anything, and I think coach in high school has given me a background that a lot of these guys in Division I don't have

that I feel like makes me a little bit different and a little bit better in some regards on some of the stuff. Okay, so let's get to that. What is it about coaching high school? It's an honest, like, look, I have my own kind of theories and philosophies, and obviously I want to have you on because of it. I do think, and I know there are guys that have been successful, who haven't played, you know, that they didn't play. I played for one coach in my life that didn't

play, and that was the coach, that was John McLeod. And it was just, it was a very different experience from all the guys who played. And the, and you can tell which guys really had a cerebral feel to having, having played not, you know, not every guy that plays really sees the game, if you will. But I also think that coaching it, I, you know, this is in between my year when I was at Notre Dame and I had to leave, and I went to junior college. I helped out both at the junior college, because I didn't, I just practiced with the team. So I was like an assistant coach there,

and then I was like an assistant coach with my old high school, and my high school coach got thrown out of a game. So I actually coached the second half and overtime of a loss. And, I mean, it's an unbelievable experience. And I've coached AAU basketball. So I do, I understand, I have my own beliefs as to what you gain from coaching at different levels. But, but give me your,

Tell me why you think high school basketball has given you a little bit different perspective than guys that have never coached that level. Well, yeah, for multiple reasons. One of them is that I lived in Detroit, but I lived in Metro Detroit for 11 years. Like I was in those housing projects with the kids. I went and did a home visit. I had to go pick kids up. I had to take kids then to live with me when I, you know, shoot a kid live with me for two years. He had a gun pulled on him.

He had a bad living situation. His mother was incarcerated. and his dad had been shot and killed. And so, like, when I finally picked him up after his girlfriend, let me know what was going on, I had to go pick his stuff up from four different houses that he'd stayed at over the course of the last week. Like, if you haven't been in those situations,

like you can't relate to those kids as well as somebody that's been in situations like that. So for 11 years, I lived it. So I think, I think, A, it helps with recruiting. B, it helps with knowing the kids that I'm coaching now and where they're from, as opposed to somebody who's lived in suburban America that's never dealt with any of the stuff that I dealt with for 11 years at RIMA. So that's one of the things I think.

But then as far as strictly X and O's go, like in high school, I can experiment with all kinds of different things without having the media second guess my every decision. Like for instance, we used to, me and my assistant, Josh Baker, who was one of my college teammates who with Ed, me and Ed convinced Josh to move out from Connecticut. and he's still living in the Detroit, Married a girl from there. They've got five kids, and he's coached.

He's won state championships at Southfield Christian now, but he was with me for nine years. We used to go to watch either a college training camp or like an NBA training camp. I call it college training camp, like college preseason or an NBA training camp every year. So we went out to Pepperdine when Vanne when Vanne-Walberg took over.

I'd gotten to know Vance kind of through his relationship with Cal Perry and he had been really friendly to us with me and Josh for five days. Stayed in L.A. went up there to Pepper Dine. So we came back and instituted the whole deal. The dribble drive, his pressing, all kind of, I liked the way it was. We had athletes at Rondes.

Well, I think 16 games into that year, we were 8 and 8. And it was by far the worst record we'd ever had. And I, but I scrapped the entire pressing stuff. Like, I'll, I never pressed again. Like, it's just, I open the floor up to, you know, we're playing against Division one guy. cards, Newpy Trader went to Ohio State, Maurice Jones went to USC.

Like, I got all these guys that are shredding through the press. Like, in hindsight, it was really stupid. But I got to experiment with it for, like, 16 games, right? So, like, now I know, okay, well, we used to press. I think it helped my kids play hard, and it helped me get the tempo up and down. But I think, I think me and Josh figured out after we quit pressing, I think we won, like, something like crazy,

like 92 or 93%. of our games over like the next five or six years. But it got us to get our offensive tempo off. But then we went back to just shrinking the floor against all them athletes out of Detroit and just making them stay outside the lane and shoot jumpers. But in high school, you can experience, like, if you do that in college, you're expected to win. Like, you can't really experiment like that.

I'll give you an example. I'll give an example of how hard it is. Okay. So Mike Boynton's a coach in Milamontor, and I know that this week he's put in his own offense that he's changed a lot more of he he's putting in more of a dribble drive and you know he's been running kind of what brad ran when brad was at oklahoma state it just doesn't fit he doesn't believe it fits his personnel and i mean look at how much they've struggled here in the non-conference trying to figure out what they want to do offensively and you know uh thankful for him he got a

contract extension after his first year and they had those all those upsets last season but it's it's really really hard to do whereas in high school basketball like you said you can like uh my my my my my Here's one. My brother was at San Diego State. And he, he was in, you know, he watched Wisconsin play defensively.

And San Diego State has always, because they're so athletic, they always, they just cut off half the floor, right? They were, they, they post, they would always post double.

When you got Kauai Leonard. Right. But even before they had Kauai Leonard, they recruited a very high level of athlete as transfers. And so, yeah, you have all that length, you shut off half the floor.

So my brother was convinced that, hey, you know what, we should play packline because we have so much length here that if we're making teams shoot over a long arm and keeping them out of the lane, we already concentrate on rebound. Anyway, Steve Fisher gave him the green light to, you know what, you go study it, you pay it, you know, you go to clinics, figure out exactly how wonder, you institute it. And they had kind of the same thing at Santa Eagle State. One year they ran packline for like, I don't know, 10 games. And then he came in one day and like, this ain't working. Let's get back to who we are. Yeah, it's the high school thing.

So, so, so 11 years there, how many state championships? Just one. Like, I went to five final fours. And like, there's so many times when I've, like, we got upset or whatever. Like, I won it my last year. It was like I stayed. I actually, actually knew that. There was actually a set up question just, you know.

Oh, yeah. But seriously, though, it was, like, that's the thing, too. Like, people don't get. Like, I've had a lot of. success here in my first four years at Buffalo. I had teams that were more talented than the teams that beat us in high school some years. Like it happens.

Like you shoot. I'll give you a for instance. I had a kid Jared Smith. I had two kids committed to the University of Michigan my second year at Rhinos. Jared Smith took over for me at Rhymers. He played at Michigan. We're up four on Belvo's our big rival. Now they had like really good talent too, but it was a really high level game.

we're up four with 41 seconds to go in district championship. Jared goes over for four at the free throw line. There's a kid going to Michigan. He goes over for four at the free throw line last 41 seconds. We lose the game. Well, we got upset. You got to learn to lose a little bit, too. And, you know, shoot, I remember I was crying after the game.

I'm like a grown man coaching the team. Like, I went home and, like, I cried. Like, I was like that into it. Couldn't believe, like, we got upset. Like, but it happens. So, like, I went to five. five final fours. I think before I got to Romulus,

they had won a state championship. Al Wilkerson was the coach. He actually just came out and saw me in Buffalo. I got a lot of friends back there that I made, but they had Terry Mills. So he was the national player of the year, him and J.R. Reed in 86. But they had not, I forget what the,

I think that was the only time they'd even won the regional, though. So we were winning at a pretty high rate, but I only won one state championship. Michigan basketball is really good, though. I mean, there's Flint, Saginaw, Detroit, Ben the Harbor,

Calamazoo, the Westside Grand Rapids Des players. I mean, it's good, but we got upset a few times. Okay, so if my memory serves me,

it was your relationship that you had with the Hurleys because of the recruitment of EC Matthews, wasn't it? Isn't that how, isn't that how this kind of all came to be?

All right, so the first time, who did you meet first, Danny or Bobby? Kind of crazy. So I told you, me and John, Josh always went to like a college or an NBA deal in the fall.

So when Danny gets the job at Wagner from St. Benedict, I call. We said, hey, let's go out and, like, let's see if we can go watch Danny's practice. He just went left high school. You know, we could probably relate to what he's doing. And let's see if we can do it when his dad's going to be there. I'm sure his dad will be there to watch, help, whatever. So I call the Wagner basketball offices. And Bobby Hurley answers the phone.

Like, you know, it's low budget, no secretary. So I like literally Bobby early answers the phone when I called the Wagner office I couldn't believe it. You know, you kind of grow up watching these guys play. And so I explained to Bobby what I want to do and I want to get out there on a weekend when your dad's going to be there because I'd like to sit down with him for a couple hours if possible if you guys could help me arrange us.

And by the way, we've got some players here too, you know, and you list off all the guys that you've got that they maybe will try to help you with recruitment or whatever. that always gets you in the foot in the door with the college coaches when you're a high school coach. So me and Bobby trade cell phone numbers. We text back and forth over the course for two weeks. We never figured out when his dad was going to be there

and when we could be there. So we didn't do it. We went somewhere else that year. So two years later, they get the job of Rhode Island. Preston Murphy had been trying to recruit EC under the previous staff, but they were losing. You know, it's been rumored that he might get fired. So EC wasn't going to go there.

Danny gets the job. Now all of a sudden we kind of, me and E.C. sit down and talk it over again. Like, yeah, we should probably look at Rhode Island now. Like, Danny's big in player development. I was huge in player development at Riemulus. That was kind of our number one thing is we got in the gym all time, developed players. E.C. was a big gym rat. So we kind of let Rhode Island back into the picture to recruit him.

Danny does an unbelievable job recruiting him, him and Bobby and Preston fly out. Like, I got to know Danny really. well just because he as the head coach took on. And then me and him related really well because I was a high school coach for, that was year 11 for me. He had been in, I think, nine years at St. Benedict. So we hit it off. So they go through the year.

But one of their selling points was EC wanted to be a point guard. Come learn how to be a point guard under one of the best point guards in college basketball history, he's all-time assist leader, you know, Bobby Hurley. So at the end of that year, you know, EC commits to them in the fall. signs of them in the fall. Bobby gets the job at Buffalo. So I call EC down, you know, when I get the news out of whatever class, I'm like, here, here's the deal. E.C. Like, Bobby's not there anymore. I still think you should go there. He goes, yeah, I'm 100% in me and Danny. You're cool. I've got a great relationship with Danny. I said, all right, cool. So I fire texts off to Danny. And basically,

I said, congrats on Bobby getting the job. Two head coaches and two assistants of yours are now head coaches in Division I after three years out of high school. That's, you know, super impressive, doing an unbelievable job, great job. Talk to ECEs, 100% all in, no worries here. You know, call me whatever. That is basically the text, because it is one assistant that stayed at Wagner. So he calls me back that night and basically was like, listen, Nate, all these people are hitting me up for jobs.

You wouldn't believe it. Like, I'm really happy for Bobby, but I'm also really kind of disappointed. This was a great three years. time with Bobby. And if you know Danny at all, he's real, like, you know, Danny. So they're a real negative and talk. He goes, Nate, it's like the body's still warm and these people are texting me asking for jobs. Like these people have no feeling. Like, anybody that texts me asking me for a job today, they have no chance. I'm not hiring any of them. And then he kind of says to me, he's like, Nate, listen, I can't hire another Michigan guy. I already got

pressed them on staff. But would you be interested in going with Bobby? I didn't even bring it up. Like Danny brought it up. And then I was like, yeah, of course I'd be interested. So he goes, listen, I got to talk to him about something else. I'm going to call him. I'll get back to you. Like literally 10 minutes later, he texted me, Danny says, Bobby's really interesting.

He's going to call you later tonight. He calls me. We end up, I interview with him at the Final Four. He hires me as his top assistant and kind of goes from there. All right. So then you're on his staff. And that's when we met. And, of course, two years in,

you guys go to the NCAA tournament with, you know, a couple of Michigan kids. Also, your point guard Lamonte Bearden was a Milwaukee kid. And so you are, and Bobby had told me the entire time in covering you guys in the NCAA tournament that you were a huge reason why, one, not only you'd got players, but two, because you'd been a coach so long. And he hadn't, you had been away from the game for a decade that he kind of leaned on you. he goes to Arizona State. How did you get the job? So, and Bobby was great. I mean, he really, like, through the whole thing,

he was 100% all in on me getting this job. Like, he kind of had this plan, and we ended up getting it a year earlier than we thought. Like, Moss ended up being really good. My kid from Rimeon, that was the Mac player the year that year. So he's down in Arizona State. They do the whole interview. Well, you know, words out and whatever.

So the associate AD, who's now the AD at Auburn, Alan Green, it kind of called me that morning. Like, what do you know? Well, I knew Bobby was at Arizona State. I knew he was about to get the job. I think he just basically had to get approved by the president down there. And Alan's like, hey, what's going on? Like, we need to know, well, I'm back in Buffalo, kind of holding the fort down.

but I'm not supposed to say anything. And Alan's a great dude. Like I said, Alan, I'm in a really bad spot right now. I can't, like Bobby's my boss. You know, so Alan's like, late, don't worry about it. Just tell me whatever you can. And then, you know, I get it.

So I was like, listen, as soon as I know something, for sure, I'll let you know. Well, then Bobby met with the president at Arizona State. He put his stamp of approval. Now he's going to, Bobby wants to meet with the team that, that afternoon, like at like 4.30 or five, not me with them, phone call because they wanted to do a press conference that night. So I had to get the whole team up there in Bobby's office.

And that's what I called Allen back. I'm like, Alan, Bobby wants to do a speaker call with the team at, you know, five, five o'clock, you know, just FYI. So then somebody at least it, I don't know who. Well, Danny White saw it go across, whether it ends up getting a little, you know, the timing with that stuff is always. bad. There's never a great way to do that stuff. So Alan and Danny, Danny White was the at the time. He's now at Central Florida. So they come up, well, Alan came up to the meeting with

the team. So Bobby kind of lets the team know on a speaker on a conference call that he took the job at Arizona State. Alan told the team, wait here, you know, we want to talk to you. So Danny White talks to, and Danny comes to me right away. Danny says, hey, Nate, I want to name you the interim coach. If you're cool with that. and then we'll figure out what's going on from there. I'd like to interview you for the job if you're interested. I said, yeah, of course. Like, I'm all right.

He goes, all right, listen, I want to talk to the team. You wait here. So him and Alan talked to the team for, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes, and I kind of wait. Then he puts it out to the media. I'm the interim head coach. And then he literally, me and him had like a three-hour interview that night. Like, I think I left the office late maybe like 9 o'clock. And we talked about everything.

And then, part of it was, you know, staff. I've only been in Division I one for two years. Two years ago was that high school coach, if I was to hire you, what would your staff look like? So then I had to kind of, I went home and had to start, my wheels are spinning.

I got to get somebody, you know, guys that he wanted. He didn't give me any specific names, but he wanted somebody with some experience if he was going to hire me. So that's how I got a hold of Jim Whitesol, who I had known who had just got fired at St. John, he'd been a head coach at, Boyle of Chicago for seven years. So on Thursday night, I talked to Jim, like late.

Jim's interested. Friday, I bring Jim's name to Danny. That's, yeah, this is exactly what I'm looking for. We fly Jim out Saturday morning. Meanwhile, me and Danny have a whole other around of, like, interviews on Friday. And I'm thinking, man, I got a shot at this. Like, Saturday, and so I text Danny Friday night, hey, I know how to do the recruiting deals for players.

I've never recruited in a system before. Meanwhile, I'm not the head coach yet. I said, Jim's flying in the morrow. How do we do this? How are we going to? He goes, all right, meet me at the office. I think 9 o'clock Saturday morning. We'll figure it out. I think Jim landed at 11.

So mind you, I'm not the head coach yet. I'm literally bringing Jim out. So I meet him to go over how we're going to, like, do this whole day with Jim and his wife Connie. And I go in and we don't talk anything about Jim. Like he got another hour of like questions that he wants to ask me.

And then he basically says, Nate, I'm hiring you. Like, like, I said, great. Like he goes, we've got a press conference at like 11. So we, I've got Jim Whitesell on campus. I just get the job. And basically, Danny was great. He said, Nate, if you don't want to hire these guys, because by that time I brought Danielle Marshall's name to him as well

because he thought it'd be good to have some. with experience, he thought it would be good to have somebody with a name because Bobby Hurley had a name and he kind of got his gotten off the ground. And so I ended up hiring Daniel Marshall and Jim Whitesle and those, you know, and we had to, you know, we got to the NCAA our first year. But yeah, that's how it happened. I mean, it was fast. It went from like Thursday night. Can I give you another, can I give you another angle to it that you don't even know about? Yeah. Okay. So Bobby is at Arizona State, like you said, waiting for approval. And I talked to Danny because I just covered you guys and he said what do you think of our job and you know

I was kind of all in on the Sunni Buffalo deal just you know it's the largest state institution in New York and I thought it had I thought I honestly thought that because of New York and it being so different than the other schools in the Mac it just felt like it was potentially the best job in that league whereas the rest of that league they're all kind of the same you know there I mean there's There's, look, like Ohio you, I think is interesting because it's more of a college town than, you know, Akron and Kent kind of fight over the kind of the same space or whatever. But the point is that a lot of the Mac schools kind of look the same. And I felt like Buffalo was a little bit different, right? It just differentiated itself.

The biggest public university in the state of New York. Like nobody. Right. Right. Right. So, anyway, so we, this is like, this is probably a couple of nights before you had that visit where you sat down. with him whatever anyway so he's going through like names of guys you know i we we could pump it up to five hundred thousand for bobby maybe a little bit more for bobby but you know all these other guys

like i can't get that much money for other people what you know what should i do and i was like well who do you want to hire so i said who do you want to hire he goes i'll be honest with you like bobby told me that nate oates is doing a ton of the coaching and that he knows exactly what he's doing and i'm an idiot to not just hire nate oates he's like but is that is that you know, like, you know, I'm a young AD. Like, this is a big hire for me. Like, hiring Bobby Hurley was a big thing. If I just hire the, the assistant that was a high school coach a couple years ago,

like, how is that going to look? And I was like, and then he said, you know, but I, you know, he interviewed the players, right? Yeah, and the players were all in. He said every player said, every player said, if you hire Nate, I'm staying. And I said, look, you shouldn't hire a guy just, guys are staying. I was like, but if you've seen a guy work and you think that guy works, like I kind of feel like the answer is right there in front of you. I was like, I think you have a good job, but I think you're going to have to sell somebody on a good job and you're going

to have to hire somebody who hasn't been a head coach. I was like, so if you have somebody who knows your culture, knows the players and has actually been a head coach, albeit not at the college level, like maybe the answer, it's like there's a book called Blink. Yeah, yeah, I'm a big fan of Gladwell. I've read all this stuff. Right. And so I call it. I was like, you know, the whole idea of Blink and he was like,

because, and by the, you know, for people don't know, Danny White, of course, now the AD at Central Florida, played at Notre Dame after I played at Notre Dame. So there was kind of that little connection or whatever. The all-time leading three-point shooter in Notre Dame history is one for one. And so he went from here. So he, he, uh, he, uh, I said, you know the book blink he's like yeah you like you know sometimes the obvious answer is the first

answer i said yeah that that that the right answer is the first answer i said yeah i was like me i was like look and i didn't know you that well i was like but all i can tell you is you got really good players you got a really good culture and like the last thing you want is to have to start that thing over and you go back to being you know suny buffalo instead of buffalo you know and he and so he he he texted me like a couple days later i you know like i'm hiring nate like i got love your support. I was like, I don't, I'm not, I don't know if I was on in Buffalo at the time. My radio show or whatever. But anyway, that's, that's the other side to, um, okay, so there's another. I never knew that. Appreciate you, Doug. I, I, I didn't say, I, in, in all honesty, I didn't say,

because he was asking me, I was like, shoot, I was like, I think the job is really good. And I started kind of, and in my mind, I was thinking, my brother, I was like, but that wouldn't work. He's a West Coast guy to get to the East Coast. I started thinking of guys. I was like, but, you know, then the more you hear somebody talk, you're like, well, I don't know, you have the answer right there. And in all candor, like, he didn't have to pay you a ton of money, right? Money's always tight. I was, and I told him that. He told me in the interview date, if I give you this job, I'm going to put a contract in front of you.

There's no negotiation. You're signing. I said, of course. I said, all I want the chance. I don't care what you pay me. I was the lowest paid head coach in the league. I didn't care. I was a high school teacher two years ago.

Like, none of that mattered to me at the time. The thing about Danny, though, that that's great is he never treated you, and he didn't treat you like your contract, right? There is something to that. Nah, he was great. I know, but like, look, in my business, Nate, in my business, there are, I think one of the issues that some places run into is, my first job at ESPN, like, there was a little negotiation,

but I remember, like, to do basketball games. There's, you know, we'll pay a little bit, we'll pay $1,000 to do this, $1,000 to do something. I was like, fine, great. I just, again, same thing. thing. I just want opportunity. There are some places or some bosses that judge you based upon, well, hey, dude, look, you should just, I remember, you know, I remember my, my first contract negotiation, re-up negotiation

at ESPN where, you know, I made, I think I made, I made, I made, I mean, you know, in reality, I made a good amount of money, but it was like, my contract was for 185 with radio. and basketball, right? And then I'll in, by the end of the third year, with all the extra things that I had done, I was up to like 250. And their first contract offer was like, hey, we're going to pay a 250 flat for like three years.

What do you think? And I was like, I'm already making that with my current contract. And their thing was like, hey, dude, you know, three years ago, you were, you know, you were making, you know, I don't know what it was, like, you know, on 100 grand doing radio in Oklahoma City. and TV and like this is this is you know 150% more it's like yeah but I actually anyway

my point is I think I always thought it was fascinating that Danny uh never he's he's an unbelievable guy and that he never treat you like he treated you like you were the head coach and the second year the head coach with an immense amount of respect and it was just based upon the economics of scale where he was like I mean it was smart he would look speaking smart I mean look at the hires he's made shoot look at the central Florida

football coaches. So he hired Bobby Hurley, who's doing a pretty good job. He's probably got the best team in the Pact 12 right now. He hired myself. He hired Lance Lightpole that just went 10 and 2 in football at Buffalo. And then he hired two football coaches at Central Florida that have gone undefeated. So it feels pretty good to be one of the one of Danny White tires. I think he knows what the heck he's doing when he hires coaches. But at the same time, he was good though. Like you said, he kind of gave me some. know, hey, he always used to call me the ball coach, head ball coach, almost like I needed a little, like, you know, hey, you're Division I head coach now, buddy. He was good. He was good that way, though. I still text with Danny.

I still thank him for giving me an opportunity, both him and Bobby both. I mean, Bobby didn't have to hire me out of high school, and Danny didn't have to give me the job. So sometimes you've got to get some breaks and make sure you thank the people that gave you a break when you get them. So for, and I think some people remember the story, you get the job.

This is two years removed from being a high school coach, you know, 13 years removed from being a Division III assistant thinking, I want to, you know, climb the ladder. You get this dream job. And then your wife, your wife is sick. Yeah, and Danny was really good with that. Like, literally, so I got called. We're having a staff meeting, and I'm standing up. I got a TV in my office. I'm standing up at the TV.

It was like a touch screen or whatever. That's where we, it's like the whiteboard slash TV. And all of a sudden, my phone just kept vibrating on my desk, you know, like over on the other side. So I finally went over and looked. It was like my wife's called like six times, I think. I said, hold on, fellas, I got to grab this quick. Let's see what's going on. I call her and she's like sobbing.

Like, and I had known she had some like her lymph nodes were a little swollen. But we thought it was like, you know, nobody ever thinks she got cancer. Like, she's like, yeah, she's like, I got cancer. I need you to come home. So I stepped back in the office. I'm like, fellas, I got to go, like, wrap up the meeting. I didn't tell them, you know, I got to go. I'll be back.

I go home and that was tough. Like, it was really, you know, we pray together. It'll be okay. So I go back to the office, you know, and I said right then that day, like, look, if you want me to quit coaching, like, oh, and she was like right up front. No, absolutely not. This is your dream job. You're not doing that.

that. Like, we'll get through this. You know, so she was good. I go back and I meet with Danny. I'm like, Danny, like, Crystal's got, just got diagnosed with lymphoma. Like, um, I don't know what to, and he right away was like, look, I'll make calls to whoever, you know, he, Danny was well, he had everybody. So like the med school dean, whoever, he's like, I'll call whoever I can if you need some help. So I said, I'll let you know if we do. I appreciate it. So like literally the next day, then I came in, hey, if you don't mind calling them, like, We'd like to get, you know, as many experts as we can.

And he kind of due to his call, we were able to get immediately in, like, basically the president of Roswell Park Cancer is calling me, like, the day after she gets diagnosed because she got diagnosed from a different place. Because she, we didn't think she had cancer. So I've got the president, and they put me right in touch with the head of their lymphoma department. We were in, like, that weekend they, and then we find out it's not just lymphoma. Like lymphoma is pretty treatable, but it's just double-hit lymphoma, which is terrible. So, like, even now, if you Google double-hit lymphoma, like, the odds are not great.

But Roswell is really good. It's top 50 cancer institute in the country. So that they got on it immediately. And she's been two and a half years cancer-free now. So, yeah, we went through a lot. Wait, wait, wait, but there's more, though, right? Like, again, there's the, there's the, there's the can't, there's the getting the job, there's the cancer. and then you had to get rid of Justin Moss, right?

Who's your best player? That was your best player. Wait, Shannon Evans follows Bobby to Arizona State. So like, hey, here's your dream job, but your best returning guard. Yeah, so it was more than that. So, like, I don't know if you remember Tori and Graham. That was that Arizona State that averaged about 24 or something. Yeah, he was coming to Buffalo.

He was at Buffalo, right? Yeah. He was at Buffalo. He was sitting out at Buffalo. So he goes to Arizona State. The kid Mariso Field had signed with us, committed to us. He gets out of his letter to go to Arizona State. Shannon Evans goes to Arizona State.

And Bobby's, you know, me and Bobby are tight. Me and Bobby still talk all the time. So, like, I want Bobby to be really successful in Arizona State. Like, shoot, if I don't do well, at Buffalo, I might need a job. Like, like, I'm not going to, you know, if these kids want to go there, I'm not going to fight them. Like, I've never been that way. if a kid wants to leave, like, even when I was at Romulus,

like I think I had one, one or two kids transfer. If you don't think it's right, like, I'll help you. Like, I'll help you get to another spot. I'm a, I'm, so three kids that were supposed to play at Buffalo are now playing at Arizona State. Justin Moss gets kicked out. I had a kid, Nate Navigato that had signed with us. And that was the deal.

Like, like, when you talk to Danny, Danny's sitting down with me going through the roster, like, hey, are these kids that sign going to call them? Are these, well, like, what, you know, I, you know, I, I had gone through and told him that this kid's 100% staying. Like I called Nick Perkins. Nick was my recruit out of, you know, but he, yeah, but he, yeah, I'm signed with us when Bobby Hurley was at coach. So I still had to make sure, like, hey, so I call Nick's people.

Like, if I get the head job, is Nick still coming? And they were all like, yeah, 100% in. So, and he was great, and he did come. But then I also had another one. Nate Navigado ends up going to Toledo. So we had five guys that we thought were going to be. playing at Buffalo that ended up not playing at Buffalo my first year. So I literally I had five open scholarships in the spring going into my first year.

Well, one of those got filled with C.J. Massenberg, who turned out to be okay. So we got a little bit lucky or fortunate. How'd you find CJ? How'd the C.J. thing happened? So this is crazy. So I get hired that weekend I got hired was there's only two. live weekends in the spring. The first one was when I got hired. So I didn't have staff. I was out. I got hired Saturday during the live weekend. So the second weekend, I had me and Jim

Weitzel and Donnell, I think, had been hired. But basically we had a skeleton staff because it happened so fast. So I'm out, I'm out, where was I at? Maybe Louie? I can't remember. Anyways, wherever I was at, Dusty May that's the head coach at Florida Atlantic, me and Dusty used to be the assistant in the Eastern Michigan. Me and Dusty had been friends for 10 years. May or There's another angle on the deal. I had sent a player of mine to Dusty and Mike White, Danny White's brother. One of my Riemus players went and played at Louisiana Tech, and Dusty was the lead recruiter on it.

So I knew Danny White's brother, Mike. Hopefully Mike helped me out when I got the job with Danny, you know. But I had known that. So Dusty, though, says, hey, do you have scholarships? I said, yeah, I got a fill five. He goes, all right, there's a kid. They had just taken the job at Florida. he goes, there's a kid we recruited at Louisiana Tech that we just decided we weren't going to move on,

but he's pretty good and he's available. This kid's DJ Massenberg, and he's playing as an available up in Indianapolis. He said, do you have anybody up in Indies? And I said, yeah, Whitefield's up there. He goes, well, see if he can look at this kid, Massimberg, you might want to look at him, you know, kind of one of those deals. I called Jim. I'm like, look, you got to go watch. I think it was Lone Star Elite he's playing for.

I said, there's this kid Massonberg that's supposed to be available. Can you try to figure your schedule out? So he goes, okay. So he ends up watching him, I think, three times that weekend. So he comes back. He's like, yeah, he's probably good enough. Like, you know, he wasn't like super excited, but he was like, yeah, he's probably good enough.

I said, all right, well, let's get him on a visit. Because, shoot, we got five scholarships. There ain't that many availables out there. We got to fill these scholarships. So we bring him on a visit. And the only school, the only other offer he has on the table is Prairie View A&M. And, and what he talked about. told me later, like I think he had to, you know, act like at least there was something else out there for him.

He told me later that he wasn't going there. He was going to go to junior college if we hadn't come in. So we bring him in and I tell CJ like, hey, listen, you know, we've got some guys back. You know, I don't know, because I've never seen him play in person. All I saw was videotape. I said, would you be open to red shirt in your freshman year if, you know, if that's, and he, I could tell he didn't really want to. But he's a great kid. So he said, all the right thing. He's like, look, coach, like, I just want to get in a program and get better. Like, I'll do what you want, but I just want a chance. Like, as long as you tell me I've got a chance that I can come in and earn a minute. And I said, yeah, of course. Like, I'll give, I'll give you a shot. Like, so he comes in his freshman year and drops 17 at Duke as a freshman and scores 36 against Ohio as a freshman. And so I gave him a shot. He earned it. He's been pretty good ever since. That's amazing. That's amazing. He got it in.

No, and it's like, look, he didn't go to, and as you know, he didn't go to a small school. He went to South Oak Cliff, which is great football program, good basketball program. Yeah, I just, I don't. Every 22 points a game. Like, I don't know how that happens, but I'm glad it did. Yeah, yeah.

And he's, and he's playing for you at Buffalo. When you played Arizona last year, what was that like? That was a little bit surreal. be honest with you because, like, obviously they've got D'Ondra Aiden, they've got Raleigh Alkins. They've got, you know, we had recruited Raleigh's. Jalen Harris, his high school teammate had committed to us and then decommitted. He's now playing. I think he transferred from New Mexico to Arkansas.

So I had seen Raleigh enough in high school, and this dude's like a grown man, and they've got Wanzo Trere, who just signed a three-year deal, I think, with the Knicks. Like, this team's loaded. So, like, when we get the draw, you know, we've got the, elections show on Sunday night. We're all out at the, at Santor, the local place. And I see us come up as a 13 seat. And I'm, I'm like, I'm a little ticked off. Like in my mind, I'm like, we're not a 13 seed. Like, we, we, we, we were good. Like, we, you know, we, we were 8 and 0 in the mat. We were 15 and three overall. Like, I was thinking we had a chance to be in 11 or maybe a 12 at the lowest.

Then we get a 13. And then they show the four seed that we got matched up with. And it was Arizona. And I'm like, oh, like, literally, like, I think if you went back and looked at the video, like you can tell I'm not real excited. You know, you're supposed to give a fist pump, like, I tried to act like I was excited. I was mad. Like, like, we got screwed. How do they put Arizona as a four?

They should have been like a two or a three maybe. Like, I was thinking they were a two. And then they gave us a 13. So, so I had to put on the right front in front of the team. So then I get back to the office. right away. We start looking at film. And I actually legitimately convinced myself that we had a legitimate shot to win this game because they didn't shoot the three well.

So with the way spacing is and you can guard, you can take away the lane in college. There's no free second the lane. So we got a game playing together the next morning, Monday morning. I told the guys why we were going to win the game. We're a great three-point shooting team. They have two bigs. They play all the time. can't guard us. Jeremy's got a mismatch.

What, what they can't stay in front of you, West. You know, I went through the whole deal. Here's what we're going to do. We put the whole thing in. I convinced myself, we had a shot. I convinced the team we're going to win. But then you still, when the ball goes up, you're still a little uncertain. I mean, this kid, the kid's the number one picking a draft. They got all these other crows around them.

And so I, shoot, when West hit that shot to put us up 25 was like, with two minutes to go in the game. And it finally hit. I did the math click. I'm like, dang, we're up 22. I better get these guys out of here so somebody doesn't get hurt in the last two minutes of this game. So we got a shot to beat Kentucky. I said to the rep, I'm like, if this, if I said, if this shot goes in, I want to time out.

West hits a three. And I call a timeout and it's 25 points. And we get all the walk-ons in. That was the point when I was like, you got to be kidding me. We just beat. We're up 25 on Arizona. That's ridiculous. I don't know how this just happened, but that was a little bit absurd.

What did you learn from the Kentucky game? Because I, you know, the thing is that I'm just guessing, because I thought you had a great shot of Kentucky. And I think you probably, right, thought the same. But there is something to the, there's two different parts to it. One, here's what's crazy about it. Wherever you go the rest of your life, no matter if you do or don't win more NCAA NCAA tournament games and this year's team, you probably will,

people say like man you guys had that great run one year right and you're like yeah we won one game but that's okay just right right but but but you end up putting so much into it and as you know then you do the the post game all the media stuff and the kids everybody's just exhausted and even though you had an assistant who was prepping for whoever won the kentucky game you know most likely kentucky it's just it's very very hard to come down from that high and then lock in on the second game there's there's there's a there's there's a magic to pulling off the second win you is exponentially harder than the first win. Was there kind of a lesson for this year and for future years learned from the Kentucky performance? Yeah, 100%. Like, we thought ahead, you know, so we took the guy's phones. I said you got basically after the game,

like you guys got about two hours. I said, because you'll have everyone you've ever played basketball with your entire life hitting you up. Like, go ahead and enjoy it for a couple hours. We're taking your phone so you can actually get some sleep. tonight, which in hindsight, I still think that was the right decision. I probably should have somebody to take my phone, though. Like, you know, I'm on Scott Van Peltz show.

Everybody wants to interview me, like, the next day, because that was the late game, who was the big upset. So, and Buffalo basketball still was not on a national level. So I felt like to promote the program, I got to take all these. Like, how am I going to turn down all these national radio talks? Like, I basically was like taking every way. I didn't get to watch that much. I'm a big film guy.

I mean, I study all kinds of, take all kinds of notes. I didn't do a very good job. Get myself prep. The other thing, I should just shut my mouth, too. I said, I can't even, oh, I said something. It was so stupid. There was a high school coach back in Detroit that it kind of texted me after, like, hey, go beat Cal Perry.

He's been whining about how an experience they are all. He had said that, like, before the Arizona game, take Arizona. then go beat, I can't, you know, whatever. So I said, like, you know, people ask me, well, what do you think about your matchup with Kentucky? I said, well, CalPairor has been whining about how young and inexperienced they are, and we're not young and inexperienced. We got older guys less than a 50-year senior.

I kind of said it like that. Now, I have no district. I actually like Cal. I don't know what, you know, everybody else thinks. But I went down there when he was at Memphis. That's why I went out to see Walberg when I was high school coach, because I loved the way Cal played at Memphis. I've always respected. I didn't mean any disrespect by that, but it came across like stupid.

I shouldn't have said it. I apologize to Cal before the game. I kind of worldwide west had swung by our hotel and I had known him for my Detroit days. And I said, listen, help me make this thing right with Cal. So he was cool. But I shouldn't have said it. I had Big Blue Nation. They're still probably all over me on Twitter. They were killing me. But I think it kind of woke Kentucky up a little bit too. I'm sure Cal used it. And they came out. I mean, Kevin Knox, I remember the first one he drives to the baseline

and pulls up on our guard. And it just dudes like a six-nine two guard. He just rises up over the top and drills like a 15-footer. And I'm like, man, we're, he's going to do that all night. We're in trouble. And then they couldn't shoot. They were like one of the worst shooting teams in college basketball. All of a sudden that night they can shoot.

I think they went over six against Davidson. You know, when we be there, and all of a sudden they're making their shots and we can't hit. We were in the thing until, I don't know, about eight minutes to go, and then it got opened up then. But I do think it's really hard to focus in after you win that first round. Now, with this year's team, if we're able to get back to that spot again, I think having that experience once will help immensely the second time you go through it.

Tell me if you think I'm wrong. I mean, feel free. And I know you've got things you have to do, so if you have to go, you tell me. I feel like college basketball, when VCU and George Mason, they weren't fluky, but they were unbelievable runs and upsets. And it was the beginning of this with older players,

guys that have nothing to lose, playing against young guys who were going to be pros. And, you know, the older guys were confident and they won some of these games, right? Whereas I feel like now, it's just not that much of a talent gap. You know, like I saw you guys against Syracuse

and I like, you know, Brissette and Dolajal, I think, is tremendous. I don't, I actually think their style, I know they recruit to their style, but I think their style sometimes allows teams of inferior talent. You know, you play a zone. Somebody else gets to set the tempo. If they want to play fast, want to play slow, you can't speed people up. That's, I, Beheim and I have had long discussions about it.

But my point was really, if you watch now, one, because of the age and experience that you have, and mid-majors, low-high majors have, and two, because the high majors have, and two, because the high majors have, you know, they've been so, there's been such a purge to the NBA that I just, I don't think there's that big a gap. I think that you and, you know, Nevada's, their average age is like 23 years old. I think like, it's a reality that you guys are a top 15 team. I don't think it's fluky at all. I feel like the sport has come around to some of these programs. Obviously, Gonzaga is a different level. They're like the best of both, right? They recruit to high level guys and they get four and fifth year guys and some foreign guys as well.

But I feel like this is like this is the era now where you're going to have, you're going to have always at the Dukes and they're going to have the freaks and the freaks and the freaks. But outside of that, like you're right there talent-wise with just about anybody. Am I crazy to think that? I said that after the Syracuse game, I think some people took it the wrong way. But I said, I feel like we got the better players. Like I, and it wasn't, you know, I respect Coach Pan.

He's almost 1,000 games. He's really good. And Berset's going to be a pro and battle's really good. But, you know, I clarified it. I've got fourth-year guys, fifth-year guys. Like, we've got grown men for such only a sophomore. Like, he's really good. Dolishel is a sophomore too, right?

Same, same thing. Yeah, like, yeah, so that's what I meant. Like, I mean, I still feel like that. I'm not, like, when we talk about players one through nine, like I play nine players in that game, like, I'll take my one through nine over theirs. Like, and I firmly believe we're better. Now, part of it is we're older.

and part, you know, and the other thing is, like, they're able to recruit a McDonald's All-American at Syracuse and we're not going to get that a Buffalo. But sometimes the recruiting rankings aren't, I mean, look at C.J. Massenberg, like, I mean, take a freshman, McDonald's All-American on some team here, like you're trying to tell me that, now some of them are unbelievable, obviously, and they're playing great and the whole deal,

but take some other ones that sometimes it takes a while to adjust to college basketball. CJ's better than some of those freshmen that were like top 20 recruits. Like I'd take CJ over him. Well, like, like here's the honest discussion. Okay, one, he's played a ton. And because he played at a little bit lower level, I know he played well against Duke his freshman year, but that experience gain gains confidence.

And, you know, he didn't, he didn't, a lot of these other kids, they go somewhere and they recruited the same level as him. mentioned Jalen Harris, right? He goes to, you recruit him. He goes to New Mexico. Then he transfers and he sits out. So now he's at Arkansas and he's averaging nine and a half a game as opposed to had he come to the Mac, you know, by now he'd be in what his, he'd be a junior and he would have played right away and gain confidence. And, you know, you learn from doing. And he probably would have been a double digit, you know, high level, all league type of player. And so there is something to the development when you can be an alpha earlier in your career so that you're a better player.

And that actually proves out in the NBA as well, how many guys that have gone to a slightly lower level or even a substantially lower level gained that experience. And maybe they weren't better players coming out. Maybe they were properly evaluated, but their improvement because they got to do it and because they got to take some of those shots and miss some of the shots earlier in their career, they became better players because of it. And I'm a mid-major coach, so I have to make that point.

Like, I've got an agent, and they've got in their office, they've got a ton of interns. So I had to do a project for me a couple years ago. Like, they went through all the NBA. There was over 80 guys in the NBA that went to mid-major schools. Like, you think, like, let's say Steph Curry goes to North Carolina. You think he's going to be the player he is? Like, he wasn't big and strong enough to play at North Carolina's freshman year. No, he got to, he got to fail.

He got to, he got to fail his, he had to fail some his first year. He got to, and then, you know, he stayed, remember he stayed through his junior year where he got to play the point. But his first two years, he did not play the point guard position. He was a two, and he never, you wouldn't never play. He was a small. Yes. Like, come on, like those guys, I mean, if he goes to Duke, Kentucky, I mean, obviously he couldn't because they didn't offer him, but let's say that they had, like he can't play at those, like, like he wasn't physically. But now look at him, he's the MVP of the NBA.

Like, like Damien Lillard. you just go down on the list there's so much C.J. McCall and there's there's just so many and they're not just role guys in the Damian Lillard here's here's one for you okay so so Damian Lillard's from Oakland my brother's at Cal

and brother's like look he was always a you know six foot six one two guard like I liked him he's like I liked him a lot he's like but you know it's like he was a six foot six one two guard and in the pack 12 you know at that time you know we you know, they had, you know, Alan Crabb who became a, you know, became a pro and others kind of kind of

like that, you know. And so, but Damien Lillard went to Weber and got a chance to play and the whole offense was designed around him. And there's, there's something to that experience that's gained. It's like, you know, so kids are so now skewed by what they see in the NBA where all these guys playing with these dream teams where you really are better off on some level, especially for development, getting a chance to do it and maybe having something built around you instead of being part of a cog. You have to know yourself and how you function and how you're going to succeed.

But yeah, I mean, Damia Lillard, C.J. McCollum, those are a couple of incredible examples. And we try to use that with recruiting and we've been able to get some pretty high. I mean, like our kid, Jeremy Harris, that's really good. That killed DeAndre Aten in the tournament. Like, he visited, he had high major offers

coming out of junior college. He was mature enough to know. Like, so he comes to us, his junior year. Like, if you go look at it, his numbers last year in his first 10 games. But basically the first half of the season until we got the conference, he was bad. Like he struggled.

So if he had gone to a high major, like he visited Texas Tech before we got him to commit here. Like if he'd gone to a high major, he probably doesn't keep playing. Like I just kept playing. Like I know how good you can be. And I've got all the confidence that we're going to get there. But if you go somewhere else where they got somebody really, really good, you know, they're probably just going to play them. So like Jeremy made a lot of mistake, missed a lot.

of shots didn't play well for half the year and then all of a sudden he's a big reason we win an NCAA tournament game like some some guys I think some kids with the right people around them are starting to make better decisions in that regard man you go somewhere you're gonna go somewhere you're going to play also it comes you knowing him knowing the kid and you having been a player believing you know not killing his confidence because like I played for guys that you miss shots enough in games matter what you make in practice you miss a shot they take you out and now you're never going to make a shot because you're worried if you miss a shot, you're going to come out.

All right. Last thing before I let you go. All right. So here's the way it's going to work. You make it's reported 600 grand now. I don't know if that's accurate. But, you know, let's say you're making slightly north of half a million dollars, which is in comparison to the 36 you're making, you know, as Division III assistant.

And the, you know, probably 50 you were making in Detroit was, is, you know, light years better. But at some point in the in the very near future, somebody's going to offer you something with an additional zero at the end of it. And it's really, really, really hard, right? Like, like you said, this is, Buffalo's become home. What's that discussion like with your wife? What's what's that? And in, in your own, is it, is it a number? Is it a location? I mean, and what for people who want it, because, because no one's ever really honest about it, right? Right? No one, you're not allowed to be. No, because, I mean, honestly, like, I mean, I'm a pretty honest kid.

Like, what am I supposed to come out and say? Like, I want to get out. Like, nope. I mean, even the guys that are, I mean, go back to look with Nick Saban, what a week before he took the job. He's, you know, like, I mean, what are you supposed to say? But here, I'll tell you that because me and my wife have talked about. I mean, you know, like, let's not be stupid. Like, you know, we're doing pretty well.

And it's kind of what happens in college basketball. And here's what we've talked about. We literally, we just bought, when I got the head job, I didn't go buy a new house. I'd been living in the same house that I lived in when I was an assistant that I bought basically off my teacher's salary because I, we bought a house when we moved to Buffalo. We lived in that same house up until it's past summer. We just bought a new house. We've got it on the Niagara River.

It's great. We love it. It's a million-dollar house. It's like my wife's dream house. Like she literally just sent me a picture of the sunset and over the river last night. Thanks for getting me my dream house. love it, you know, the whole deal. That's pretty amazing.

It's pretty amazing. And I want to think about this answer for a second, but you need to like mentally take a snapshot and it's great. Like that you and your wife have that, that she's smart enough to understand like you're out here killing yourself, you know, dying with every game. That's pretty amazing your relationship and what you've been able to provide for your family.

So that's awesome. Yeah. The last few years have helped with all. I mean, when you realize that life and death, and they'd go through a lot of stuff. Like, yeah. But, but so she, so, so, so we, we, we just had this discussion this past week. Because, because it came up last year.

We, we were eight, no one in the Mac, and we were rolling through it, and people were starting to talk. And the school knew it. And, and Alan takes the job at Auburn. And so Kathy Twist, you know, interim A.D. wants to redo my contract. And they, they did. Day day, day came through. And, but me and Crystal talked about it. We, we literally started praying, you know, I don't know if I want to say every night,

but, but, but very, very, very. frequently like, God, like make it crystal clear what we should do. We didn't really want to leave. And, but at the same time, neither of us came from money. Like, I don't have money sitting in a bank. My dad doesn't have a bunch of money. I mean, he's, you know, like, I don't come from money. So somebody offers you, say, and you're looking at these different jobs that people

are talking about and they're out paying like two point whatever, like, it's a lot of money to turn down for a guy. That was high school. It comes five years ago. So we pray, let's make this crystal clear. So the school comes up with a great, and it's public knowledge. It's out there.

It's a state school, $600,000 a year for five years. So to me, that's great. Like, I signed it before we, before we even went to the Mac tournament. Like, I want to be here. I got a great group coming back next year. I don't want to go anywhere. Like, if I do go anywhere,

it's going to have to be something unbelievable great. So we signed it, and we wanted to stay. And so that's what we. state. So now, you know, we've got five seniors. We still would love to stay in Buffalo. Like, we really like the community. We've got our house. Now, our house ended up having some more issues than we thought. And now I got to pay off all these loans and we cost us more than we thought. But, but we've got, you know, like, what do you want on a life? I say this thing, too. Like, as a basketball coach, a little bit of your quality

of life and not even a little bit. A lot of your quality of life is winning and losing games. I don't care if you're making $50,000 as a high school coach or if you're making $5 million, if you lose, whether you go home to a, you know, a nice middle class neighborhood or you go home to a mansion,

you're still mad if you lose. Like your quality of life is based on winning and losing basketball games at some level. Now, it's not all. And what we've been through with Crystal's cancer, there's no, no, no, I got it. Honestly, it's a great way of looking. It's,

I've never heard anyone put that into words before, so keep going. Yeah, so we're winning here. People want us here. Like, do I go to a high major place that's going to be really hard to win? And when you don't win, everybody wants you out of there in two years. Like, you know, I've got a lot of confidence that I can't win wherever I go and I think I will. But do I take that chance? Like everybody loves us in Buffalo right now.

So now again, you know, there's a certain amount of money you probably can't turn down. But again, like, if you really don't want to live in that place and you've got a great place where you're at now and you're making more money than you thought you'd ever make, like I don't know that I have to leave. And I've got, you know, some, I've got a really good AD now. Mark Olnuck's a great guy. I love him. I think he gets it. But I've got like Alan Green still talk to him. still talk to Danny White. Like, even last year, as it came up, I called some mentors that, you know, like,

hey, if such and such offers me the job, do you think I have to take it? And so, like, one of them said, why? Why do you think you, like, no, like, stay where you're at, we're happy. You don't have to take it. Like, wait for the, and he was right. Like, wait, wait for the perfect job and a perfect job. Look at Mark Few at Gonzaga. Like, how much, like, I'd like to know what he made is the first year at Gonzaga.

How about this one? You know, you know, what's interesting about few, and I'm going to have him on the pod, and I'll see if I can get him to admit it. But, you know, he, he's been offered the UCLA job before and turned it down. But he was, there was a plane waiting to take him to Indiana. I think it's when Kelvin got the job. And he turned it down. I remember talking to him like two days later.

And he was like, I can't believe I turned down. There was a plane on the runway in Spokane. and they were like, if you want it, get on the plane. And I didn't do it. He's like, can you believe like, and he's similarly, you're like, you know, your dad obviously, religious background.

His dad is a pastor. You know, salt of the earth, like legit, really good human being. And he's like, you know, I mean, anyone in the world who grew up around our age is like Indiana basketball. You don't get any better than that. I turned down Indiana. But I also think it was a little, it's a little bit like a player that could have been draft in the NBA that sometimes they come back to school and they have they carry a little bit

of bitterness. I don't know if I think he was bitter, but I do think there was a couple years there where he was kicking himself because he thought, you know, there's this, maybe they topped out at Gonzaga until they, you know, got to the lead eight and then got to the, you know, national championship game and could have won the, won the whole thing. And now I think they can, they can win it this year. But yeah, I mean, like, it's a, it's a really hard thing. And we do a bad job in the media of acting like, Like, you know, most basketball coaches or football coaches are just these mercenaries that the second there's a check, they just go knowing all the people that affects, you know, it affects all the players. It affects all the families of the guys who are on your staff.

It affects, of course, your own family. And it's a really, really, really hard thing to, you want to, you build something and you succeed. You're like, I'm really happy. Could I be happier? You know, like you said, you're competitive about everything, even recruiting and whatever. Of course, you want to. and you've always won, right? You won at Romulus, you won here.

There's no reason you can't win wherever you coach. On the other hand, you do have to have some balance in the way we have our dream house. We know everybody. You know, if I want to cancel practice and just hang out with my family, I can do that. Where I don't know if I can do that. It's a hard thing, right? No, it is a hard thing. And, you know, we're going to pray a lot about it.

And I'd be really happy at Buffalo for a long time. I can say that. So, you know, we'll see, we'll see what happens. I hope hopefully there's some boosters in buffalo that uh that want me in buffalo for a long time so maybe it'll make it real easy for me uh okay so i said the last thing i lied you just beat syracuse now you're returning to your home state take on marquette in milwaukee marquette draws incredibly well beautiful downtown uh downtown arena what's it going to be like to it's kind returning home like the conquering hero.

How many friends and family? So the Watertown Daily Times is the paper from, you know, Watertown. You know, when I'm in high school, you get into sports sectioning school. So that guy called me, was it yesterday, I think? Two days ago maybe. It was yesterday. And I was kind of cool. Like, you know, my family's all coming.

My sister still lives in Watertown. My other sister lives up in northern Wisconsin. They're coming. My parents will be there. they, I mean, it'll be fun. It'll be, you know, it's going to be a hard win to get. Shoot, you're not going to sneak up on Marquette. Like, we're ranked 14th, and they're really talented.

But just, I've never been in the new arena either. I used to always, you know, I've been to Marquette games as a kid. I've been to tons of Bucks games. I used to buy Bucks tickets, the cheap ones up at the top and sneak down and watch them. And the Bradley's, the new arena is supposed to be awesome. So, I mean, it's going to be fun. I've got, I don't know what I got, six or seven, like, high school, classmates, teammates that are coming to watch.

And then I think we're going to go out for breakfast Saturday morning after the game, which will be, I haven't seen some of them since, shoot, not, not too long after high school. So it's kind of cool, you know, coming back. But again, once the ball goes up, none of that stuff, like, I know, like you, you know, we're at Bonaventure and the crowd was going crazy and my assistance and some other. Litter and play fans. My wife kind of told me some stuff that they were chan, which was completely out of control, whatever.

Like, I hear none of that stuff. Like, during the game. Like, they're like, you didn't hear it. I said, no, I literally, I don't, once the ball goes up, like, I don't, like, people yell crazy stuff, and my wife has to deal with it in the stands. Like, I don't, I don't even really hear most of it.

So, like, once the ball goes up, it's going to be another shoot. It could be an AAU game back at Riving, or not an AAU, a summer league game back at Rhymba. Like, you just kind of, get lost in the game and coach it and try to figure out to get a win. And then, you know, after the game, I think it'll be cool.

You've got a bunch of family and friends there, but it's good. And then I'm going to stay here. Then all of our guys are flying out of either Milwaukee or Chicago based on whether they can get to wrecks to go home. And then we're going to reconvene December 26th. I'm going to stay here for Christmas and do Christmas with my family,

which I don't get to do that often, so that'll be nice. Perfect. Well, listen, Merry Christmas. continued success. Enjoy Milwaukee. My birthplace. I got Butler tomorrow night against UCI. UCI's actually got a really good club. Can't wait to see you against the Warriors.

You know, who didn't grow up watching Marquette, you know, back, you know. Do they still do the Warriors' chant? No. No, no. Now they're the Golden Eagles. It's just. But for a while there, they were still like, let's go Warriors, even though they were the Golden Eagles. because they must have dropped that.

They must not do that anymore. I got to tell you know, I visited Marquette. I nearly went there. And when I left Notre Dame, Mike Dean was the coach. Yeah, I remember Mike. Yeah. You know Mike's favorite word to call somebody?

Like you wore, I thought he had sunglasses on when he was coaching the game. Remember he used to have the dark glasses? He had the lazy. He had an eye disease, eye condition. And when stress would come on, he would, uh, he would, he would, he would, he would,

start yelling at dudes, all of a sudden the eye would get super lazy. And that's actually, I don't know if you remember, he got kicked out an NCAA tournament game because Chris Piper got fouled and he took off his sunglasses and he told the official, I got one fucking eye and I

could see that. That got him run from the NCAA tournament game. I don't remember that. He was a bute. And I still have it. He wrote me a four-page letter after I visited on why I should come play for him.

And between my relationship with him, yeah. I mean, he's really, he did an amazing job in recruiting because, you know, I went to a Catholic school at Notre Dame and it didn't, it wasn't a good fit for me. But I really, and even though he played slow, he did, he had another little point guard and he wanted us to play together. And, you know, he showed me, he had this, he had an entire set of plays. These are for you. These are for everybody else.

This is how we're going to play. It was amazing. And then, you know, he went to Lamar and got, them to the NCAA tournament he was at sienna a long time ago they they had a kid did uh brendaman marius brendamann i think was he showed me videos of anyway yeah i nearly nearly went there i actually worked his camp i worked his camp after i turned him down and went to oakland state i he's like like i don't fucking care just come work my camp it's a great time and in typical wisconsin fashion he had a keg in the coach's locker room for camp and he's like i expect that keg to be floated by

Thursday. That is Wisconsin. It is. It is. It is Wisconsin. Hey, well, listen, welcome home. Best of luck

Saturday on Fox. And have a Merry Christmas and thanks for joining me. All right. Thanks. Appreciate it, Doug. Good talking to you. Hey, thanks so much

for listening to the All Ball podcast. This is obviously the last pod, I believe, before Christmas. We're going to record a couple other things next week. Maybe even get one in

so that after Christmas when you're driving around your significant other or you're going to a basketball tournament or going to a basketball game. You have an AAU team. You can you can listen to our pod and take it, take it with you. But I just, I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year. And if you listen to this pod, you love basketball. This is basketball season. There's nothing like a gym, man, where it's a high school gym, a college gym, you know, a rec league gym. So feel free to tweet at me at Gottlieb show when you go to a gym, kind of unique gyms around the I can think of so many in Las Vegas, the Galita Boys Club, where we always used to play in February, with Valentine's Day weekend, all the gyms in Orange County that I've been to,

and of course the gyms that we've been nationwide from all the colleges that I've covered, to high schools that sometimes host practices to international gyms. If you're going to a gym, tell a friend about the all-ball podcast and take it with you and tweet us out a picture. At Gottlieb Show is the Twitter handle. So Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. Hope you're safe.

Hope your team's playing well. And if not, don't worry, there's another game around the corner where you can compete and hopefully your guys get after it. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Doug Gottlieb, and this is all ball.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. And every episode, we're cutting through the noise. breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story

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It wouldn't be a huge surprise if our team ends up in the quarterfinals or potentially a great run into the semifinals. Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tab Ramos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, wherever you can. get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.