The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Gottlieb - All Ball - with guest Chris Beard

Episode Date: August 3, 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. All Ball with Doug Gottlieb is part of the Colin Cowherd Podcast Network. All Ball is an unfiltered podcast covering the biggest stories in college basketball and the NBA. Join Doug as he brings his unique perspective as a TV analyst and radio host. In this episode, Doug talks college basketball, recruiting rules with this week's special guest, Chris Beard. Follow Doug on twitter at @GottliebShow and go to theherdnow.com to find the latest content. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome into All Ball. I'm your host, Doug Gottlieb. We really appreciate you downloading, subscribing, and waiting this here podcast. This one's going to be a little bit of a long one, so buckle up.

We have, We're going to continue to evolve the pod during the offseason, and because there really is no offseason. Last week we talked a lot of high school hoops from recruiting. This week we'll talk some college hoops. Chris Beard from Texas Tech is going to join me, and I don't want to do the, let's talk about your players. We'll talk a little bit about the Elite 8, a little bit about losing a one-and-done, first time ever. Texas Tech and Chris Beard have lost a one-and-done. what I want to get to is his kind of mercurial path from being a high school ball player

that was set to go to like a D2 NIA level school and went to Texas, thought about going back to playing in an NIA school, finished up at Texas, became a very young assistant coach. So what I want to get to with Chris Beard is his path to becoming not only a head coach, but a really good one. He's super interesting, you know. Um, he's, he's a great storyteller. Plus there's some Bob Knight to it, right?

Like, don't you want Bob Knight stories? Of course you want Bob Knight stories. I love Bob Knight stories. Before he joins us, I'm going to give you a Bob Knight story of my own way. One of the things in the feedback that many of you guys give me, tell us more stories. Okay, here's the story. When I was, um, getting to be a freshman, before as a freshman at Notre Dame, I got invited to the U.S. trials.

And, uh, it was like the under 19 trials. Matter of fact, it's funny because Tim Duncan was a sophomore, maybe going to be a junior. He was really young and I was an old high school senior and so he could have played in the maybe it was the 18 and under or something like that and he actually played up because he was just so much better than everybody. He played like the 21 and under, the 20 and under

I was on the 18 and under. I don't remember how it worked. So I was friends with a guy named Charlie Miller. Charlie Miller's nickname is Fluke. He's from Miami Florida. He actually played for Frank Martin and he played for Miami Senior High School. Anyway, so

flu could come out and stayed at my house and played on my AU team the summer before this is back when you could play kind of out of area stuff so we used to fly guys in every summer to load up our team and Charlie's a great dude he just completed his freshman year at Indiana and then Brian Evans was also there and so I kind of befriended Brian Evans and Charlie and I was you know like little brother to both of them hanging out around the USA trials so and when in basketball and a lot of

you guys are coaches or players and you know this. But one of the things that when you play for or work for a vivid personality, like a good icebreaker is give me a story, right? Give me a, you know, if you played with a guy who was a whack job, give me a, what's it called? You know, give me a story. And so I never forget, I said, you know, give me a story about Coach Knight.

And at the time, the story was this, that they were coming back from Iowa, playing on the road at Iowa, and Indiana's team plane had a chair for Bob Knight up in the front, and it could spin around and face the rest of the team. And they lost to Iowa, and Coach Knight had a bowl of fruit, and he was stewing over his bowl of fruit, looking at the stat sheet, and he turned around to look at the team, and he starts reading the stat line.

And every negative stat that he would read, he'd pick up a piece of fruit and throw it at, one of the players. Greg Graham, five turnovers. Are you freaking kidding me? And he started throwing fruit at Greg Graham. And then of course the managers, like, what are you supposed to do?

You go and you get the fruit. You reload coach so that he has his fruit because he wants to eat it or he wants to throw it again. So there's all kinds of there's a famous video out there of coach and I getting run over. Most coaches have been run over at practice. And

that is gold, right? The coach is yelling and screaming and he forgets that we're transitioning offense to defense. And, you know, some of these dudes, they get into their 40s, 50s, 60s, sometimes they trip. Sometimes they're just old. Sometimes it just surprises them and they fall or they just get run over because, you know, if you're playing offense and all of a sudden his shot goes up and he's on your ass to get back, and get your ass back on defense, you turn, you sprint, and oh, there's coach. So supposedly also, and one of the other stories was that there was a film that they had

commandeered for the managers of Coach Knight getting run over at practice, and they enjoyed it so much that when they'd have a bad day, they would all go over to Brian Evans' apartment and run it incessantly over and over and over again. Let's watch it again. So we'll have some Bob Knight stories and some other stories upcoming with Chris Beard. The hoop I want to get to real quick, in terms of the NBA, is many people reacting now as it's set in that LeBron James is going to be a member of the L.A. Lakers. Now, look, you don't have to agree. with my opinion, it's okay. And it's not such a strong opinion that it's like,

this is absolutely the right way and there's no wrong way. I've said for a long time that Michael Jordan is to the greatest player I've ever seen play basketball. And the struggle I've had with LeBron, and this is more previous to this year because he had a little bit more of this, has been that in any basketball game I ever played him, especially like pickup games. And this is kind of the way the NBA has always. been. You get down game in the line, you get the ball of your best player, and you get the

hell all the way, and he's going to go get you a bucket. Right? And I understand that LeBron James is wired to set people up, and he's an incredible passer. He's a really good passer. But there was something about the killer instinct that at times he would defer. And while that's great in big situations, you know, it's not always great. That's great in some situations. not always great in the biggest of situations, as opposed to Jordan who had to learn to pass. As opposed, Kobe had to, I don't know if he ever truly learned to trust his teammates, but he did trust Derek Fisher, and Derek Fisher made him look good. I do think there's some genius to him. And it was to LeBron and how he plays, but Larry Bird didn't have to learn to pass to score down the stretch.

Magic Johnson didn't either. So however you regard LeBron James, he was the greatest player of all time, the greatest player of this era, I'm okay saying, the greatest player of this era. Even if I thought Kevin Durant in many ways outplayed him in both the past two NBA finals. And I actually think that LeBron James is living a lot on reputation defensively.

And Kevin Durant, though his defense wasn't as good most of the season as it was at the start of the year and in the playoffs, he has shown the desire to play more defense than he ever did. So whether or not I think he's the best player now, the second best player, it's inarguable over the last decade. He's been consistently the best or one of the top three players.

in the NBA, right? We were okay with that? Cool. So he goes to the Lakers and now people are being critical in many ways saying, look, Barclay said he wants to be a mogul and everybody's saying it's not about winning. And look, I don't think it's solely about winning, but I think that winning is part of the equation. It's just not the only part of the equation. Family, location, weather, ability to ability to do something after after basketball like you know i think he's an incredibly well-rounded guy now that that may not fit your narrative but what you want for your athletes and it's interesting because Kobe has found this second passion right here's Kobe Bryant a guy who a lot of people

thought man he is just not he is just not going to be able to cope he's not going to be able to cope with not having basketball. And he's already won, you know, an Oscar. So we were so scared that Kobe wouldn't know what to do with himself. And at some of the, Kobe's curious, he's very bright. And some of it, I think, was helped out by the fact that he had the year off when he had the Achilles tendon surgery and the rehab. You know, people think you rehab 24 hours a day.

You don't. Kobe also spent more time as a father, you know, started a program for his daughter, daughters, both of them soccer, than basketball, and he started to develop other interest. LeBron has other interests, and he's still a great player. What you understand when you're in a business is like what you

understand as a student. I remember when he first got to college and you were just overwhelmed by like, oh, I got all these classes, I got all this, the syllabus to keep up with, and the reading and the homework and the tests, and oh yeah, by the way, I'm trying to have a social life. And for me, it was lifting and basketball and eating

and being away from home. Like, your time management skills suck. Three years into college, time management skills are awesome. That's no different than now. He's a machine. Guy's a machine. Gets up, you know, gets up.

Most of these guys get up. They work out early. I'll give you an example. Gordon Hayward, I know this for a fact. Gordon Hayward gets up at five. He's in, he's at the, his workout place at six. From six to seven, he works on his body, lifting, running, whatever his trainer has him do.

And then from seven to eight, he works on his game. he's done. Doesn't touch the basketball the rest of the day. That's his offseason routine. And so from eight until whenever, Gordon Hayward is just a dad. He's just a dad. As we found out, he's going to be the dad of another daughter, but he's just a dad. Well, that's the same for LeBron. Like these guys, they understand how to manage their time. You know, they have drivers, they have chefs, they have trainers, they have guys that just stretch them and take care of their body. And within that other time, within that downtime, he's past the video game playing stuff. stage, you know, he's past these staring at his phone stage.

So, yeah, he can be a mogul, but he can also still be a great basketball player. I don't think what LeBron James is, I don't think what Charles Barkley is saying is wrong. I think he is on the downward side of his career, but he's still kind of in the downward side of his prime, right? He hasn't hit the, oh my God, Jason Kidd can't make a layup stage. He's not close to that. He's managed the mileage on his odometer better than anybody in the history, maybe of any sport. That's what's really remarkable about him. look, it's throwing people for a loop, but we all kind of knew it was coming.

The roster is a little bit different than you thought, but as I've stated previously on my radio show, 3 to 6 Eastern, 12 to 3 Pacific, the Doug Gottlieb show, Fox Sports Radio. There was no blank slate. You can't create a team out of nothing. And based on what was available, this was the path that they've chosen. Let's get some junkyard dogs, experience guys off the bench, and see what the young guys got. And so as we react to LeBron James, is that a surefire championship team know? But I also think he's a builder.

People like the build. This is, here's the housing analogy. You know, some people like to buy a really sick house that somebody else re-did and just live in it and enjoy life. Some people like going in and buying, excuse my language, but a shitter. You know, you go in and you buy something that needs it and they like to, whether they scrape it or they just redo the kitchens and the bathroom and the tile and they paint everything. And then, you know, they're in it for a couple years and they're like,

ah, now we made profit. Let's sell it. Let's move on. Let's move down the street and do the. the exact same thing. That's who LeBron James is. He likes to redo things. So I have, you know, we knew it was coming. It was a little bit harder than people will allow us to believe with magic. Remember, magic walked in and Paul George wasn't coming. He had to explain that one away. Even if they had cooled on Paul George and some people saw it coming, the fact is that you're getting ready to

have a meeting. You're the only one that has a meeting. And all you got to do is make the wide open jump shot. And Paul George decides he stay in Oklahoma City. That had to be somewhat. of a surprise. So they closed the deal and now everybody reacts. I'll also point out this in regards to the NBA. And this is really important, I think. In regards to the NBA, the Oklahoma City Thunder, I think, got better more so than anyone outside of the Lakers.

They refined their roster. First, getting Paul George back, year two, he is going to be better. You are more comfortable. You know how to play within the offense, even if they restructure things. You have a better relationship with Russell Westbrook. You know how that. You're just more comfortable. You're two in a college, year two, and a job, you're just more comfortable.

Getting rid of Carmelo Anthony, who they couldn't hide defensively, and they needed to feed the basketball to and get him shots, that's better. Remember, they get Andre Robertson back, who they love because he's such a versatile defender and he has no ego offensively, albeit he's got to make some, you just got to make a shot in order to keep people honest. And then I like the, I really like the acquisition of going out and getting Dennis Schroeder. Shooter is not a great starting point guard. He's probably bottom five to seven in terms of the starting point guards in the league. Not great. But as a backup, is the six man who could move Russell Westbrook off the ball?

That's a great get. That's a really, really good get. So again, not working with a blank slate. Having Russell Westbrook, do they have enough shooting around him? I don't know. You got Paul George. You still got to bring this. You got the ability to go small with Grant.

And now you get another guard who can. who can defend the basketball and who can get into lane and create shots for himself and for others. For others is a bit of a question mark. I like it. I think Oklahoma City is going to challenge to be the second best team in the West. Whether they have the second best record in the West, that doesn't really matter. Oklahoma City is going to be a tough out, a really, really tough out. And I'm fascinated to see what happens with the Thunder.

In regards to the NCAA for college basketball, we wait and wait and wait. and we'll find out what the new recruiting rules, what the new calendar looks like, but it does look like it's going to be a combination of the recommendations of the committee and the recommendations of college coaches. I don't know how these camps work, these massive camps run by NBA people and NCAA people and somehow taking shoe companies out of it.

I hope to be involved. They call me. I may make a call. I'd like to be involved. I think it'd be great for guys that love the game that don't have a specific tie to a specific. shoe company or specific A.U program that's been on the take. I like that. But I also think it keeps the A.U teams going. They'll still be the peach dam. They'll still be the gauntlet. There'll

still be other events as well. I don't think that'll die. And I think April recruiting period is important. I like the idea of getting high school coaches involved. But I also like the idea of keeping college coaches more engaged with their own current players. If it was me, if I was studying the rules, the rules would be there are no rules, right? Instead of having condensed to weekends where you can come out and see kids. Just look, if you want to go on the road to recruit, go on the road and recruit. If you're a recruiting assistant coach, you should be allowed to go out whenever you want. This idea that you're going to bombard players and be around them too much, if you're around

a kid too much and he wants space, he's going to eliminate you from recruiting him. Everybody likes attention. They don't like creepy attention. So to me, I may less rules is more. don't pay your players, don't change their grades, you know, don't pay people who are going to pay the players. And don't, you know, don't encourage anybody else to change their grades. That's kind of it. I know there's got to be a couple more rules than that, but that's about it for me.

But we'll wait to see what happens. We'll start to preview college basketball as well. We continue to update you on NBA stuff. Dwight Howard, by the way, saying this is bouncing back to the NBA, saying that the Warriors called, I do think the Warriors wanted a big guy. They wanted to get a big guy in the cheap. They got DeMarcus cousins. They thought they could get Dwight Howard,

and then cousins called him and kind of surprise them. The difference with Cousins and Howard is, Cousins is more in his prime and can shoot the basketball, but he's not going to play until March. Howard can't shoot and is also kind of a weird fit with the personality of that team, although he's a guy who likes to have fun and they like to have fun playing. But playing style-wise, he could be an odd fit,

especially considering the minutes would be limited that he'd get there. But the money that he got in Washington was the money that he would get in gold state. So it's reasonable to think they called. And then he was usurped and moved. He was he was passed over when they went and got to Marcus Cousins. That's my read on some of the NBA stuff. We mentioned some of the college basketball rules. One last thing, Zion Williamson weighs out, weighs in at 285 pounds.

He's 6'5 and change, 285 pounds. Dude, this is, I mean, he's a tank. he's got to slim up. Because as explosive as an athlete as he is, and he's explosive, he's his ability to make it at the next level is going to be, is he agile enough to move out on the floor? He's going to have to be an undersized foreman. They're going to have to shoot a little bit better,

but that's going to come with work ethic. Got to learn to play harder on defense. But he has a lot of, he has the God-given athletic ability, but he needs to be playing in the 250s, 260. He almost wish whatever Villanova does with those guys to slim down, that's what Duke should do. So as I'm getting ready for the Duke, Kentucky's, maybe even in Carolina, if they figure out their point guard situation,

UCLA should be loaded. College basketball is going to be a lot of fun this year to cover. Obviously, a whole new team in Villanova, since seemingly their entire team went in the first round of the NBA draft. Keep an eye on Zion Williamson, who is a YouTube sensation, but watch for his weight, watch for his movement defensively, and whether or not he could shoot the basketball. I think his basketball IQ is good enough.

It's going to be more about his basketball mode. All right, let's get you to Chris Beer. All right, let's roll on here on here on the all-ball podcast as we talk basketball all the time. I don't know. As soon as we started doing this pod, one of the first, I don't know, like 10 people that came to my mind in terms of just the name, like All-Ball,

which is all basketball all the time, was the head coach of Texas Tech. He's had an incredible run. starting out as an assistant kind of working his way up through the different levels of coaching to becoming not only doing a spectacular job at Little Rock but then Texas Tech in just two seasons I mean think about this 141 and 54 that's his that's his record so far he's been the champion of the Sunbelt course he was coached the year in the big 12 he's coached the year in in the Sunbelt I mean you go back and look at

his resume and it is it's just one of incredible growth but it's also a guy who the more you get to know him the more you know he kind of is all ball all the time Chris Beer joins us here on the podcast is that is that fair like do you have if you had if you had to pick your three

other interest outside of basketball and you can't say your girls can't say your girls what would they be man I was going to go down the daughter avenue and the girlfriend street but can we still say girlfriend is one of the three That's fine.

I mean, listen, women in your life would be one, right? If there was two and there's three. Like, do you fish, do you hunt? Do you like rehabbing houses? Do you like the market? Like, what would two and three be if it wasn't for basketball? You know, none of those things. I did used to play golf early in my career, but I have not swung a golf club since I met Bob and Pat Knight.

True story. used to play not all the time and I'd play like you know once a week or something but then once I got here to text and assistant not that those guys wouldn't let me play golf just kind of like trying to prioritize time and things like that I've got kind of a competitive almost you know addictive personality so I'm almost scared to go plagues I know I'll get the bug again but yeah after women in my life I'd have to say you know one thing I try to do a lot is I go to a lot of movies a single coach days, I'd always go to like the 10 o'clock p.m. movie, no matter what was showing, kind of a time to turn the phone off and just relax a little bit, let your mind go somewhere besides basketball. And I still continue to do that.

It's very rare that there's a movie out that I haven't seen. And then thirdly, I don't know, maybe watching NBA basketball. That still qualifies as basketball. All right, so... No, it's different. It's different, Doug, different than college

basketball. I do think it is different. I do that, and I want to get to that in a second. Look, we can sit here and kind of run down your guys, elite eight run, but I don't know. I mean, that would be the VCR going through your mind. I think it's far more interesting how you got to where you are, how you develop your philosophy, and how you continue to evolve as a coach. I think to people who love basketball, that's fascinating. All right, so let's go back.

McCullough High School, right? that's and then you go to you go to you say I want to go to Texas because of Tom Penders and I want to be part of that staff and I want to learn ball or why did you go to UT? Yeah so my journey growing up you know I kind of played everything football, baseball, basketball like everybody, whatever season was in session is kind of where your love was. I kind of made a commitment in high school just to play basketball and really just fell in love with the sport for so many reasons the locker room, the camaraderie, the competitiveness. it was always hard to get enough people in the neighborhood together to play football. Kind of even play with yourself, you know, imagination, driveway, the whole deal. Yeah, I used to that. Two great high school coaches.

Mike Koonstadt was my first high school coach in Irving, Texas. Coach Koonstadt now, one of the best recruiting service events guy out there with Great American Sports in Texas. And then at McCullough playing for Terry Priest, the Texas High School Hall of Fame coach. Those guys really mentored me. I'd say second to my own father, those guys that probably had the most influence of my life. I was set to go play, like, Division 5 basketball, kind of an academic kind of school around Austin, Southwestern University, not disrespecting those people.

I had already paid my application fee and everything. Then there was a coaching change. The coach at the time, then went to the Division II school. I asked that coach, hey, when do I need to be there? And he kind of paused and said, he kind of hit me in the face at the University of Texas, state school, and then kind of my admiration for Coach Penders in that program. Once I got there, got involved with the team as quick as I could.

Took a little bit of a detour during my college years to chase the playing dream again at Concordia Lutheran, where Rusty Siegler was the coach, a really, really good coach in his own right, went back to Texas. Wait, wait, wait, okay, so how long were you at Texas before you decide you want to play? Because my brother did that. He was supposed to go. like low D1, and he just couldn't get into it. He got into UCLA.

He was supposed to walk on. He got beat out to be a walk-on. And so he's just like a frat boy. Then a couple years in, he's like, dude, I want to play. He started working out of the summer with me. He went to J.C. camps, and he ended up going to Drake as a walk-on. So how many years were you at UT before you went to Concordia? Yeah, same-time story, Doug.

It's like an addiction. You know, I love a basketball, the disease. There's all of us out here that really weren't very good players that had. Particularly in Texas, first year, kind of getting used to school. and going down that route, then really missing basketball, got back involved with the team's second year college with Coach Penders, Vic Trilly, Eddie Orne, some great guys that really helped my career. Then just playing with the guys in the summer and after practice and stuff,

just really started missing it and kind of didn't want to live my life with any kind of regrets. The deal had happened real quick when I didn't go to Southwestern. So got back in decent shape and then had an opportunity to go to Cordia Lutheran, which is actually right there in Austin session. and then right when the school St. Siegler gave me some of the best advice in my life. Like, Chris looked you're wanting to coach. What are you doing here? You're about to go in debt.

I had to fast out taking student loans and all sorts of St. Sigler and Tom Fenders and those guys went back to – it was really only at Concordia for one semester. Okay, so you graduate Texas. And then how long before you went to Incernate Word? Yes, Encounter Word was my first job. I was a graduate assistant there with Danny Casper. It's now the head coach of Texas State.

Steve Lutz, who's done a great job in his career. It's at Purdue now with Coach Painter. I think the future head coach very soon was the other graduate assistant. Young guys all the time, if you can get on somebody's staff like Danny Casper early on, you'll find out whether you really want to coach. He'll push you hard. He'll be fair, but he'll teach you what it's all about. So that was a great first year.

We won a conference championship. My first season of coaching still have that ring today, proudly displayed in the office. And then you went to Abilene Christian. Why make the move over? Well, it's a full-time job. So in a corner word, I'm a graduate assistant, basically just making a couple hundred dollars a month,

kind of surviving. And then Abilene Christian was a chance to get a full-time position with health insurance. Shannon Hayes was the coach at ACU at that time. You might know of him, Doug. He's got some Oklahoma State ties. Was Coach Dickie's assistant at Texas Tech later on. and his dad, Larry Hayes, was the all-time great baseball coach.

That was a great year, you know, being at the four-year level and finally getting a paycheck. And then you went to North Texas? Yeah, so back to the Texas roots, being at Texas, an undergrad. Vic Trilly was one of the assistants for Coach Penders. That relationship got me to the Division I level. I think at the time I might have been the youngest, full-time assistant in Division I only know that because my mom's got a little, I think, still in the house. I read and I go home. Those two really good years with Vic.

What do your parents think this whole time? Like my dad's parents thought he was crazy. He started, he was the, his first job was like, he graduated from Columbia with a master's degree. And he went to coach at Fairlawn High School in New Jersey where he replaced Hughie Brown. Like my grandparents thought he was crazy, like actually had him talk to a psychologist where they thought, because he loved basketball so much, much like he's got to something got to be wrong with this this guy uh would your parents think when here you are great student in high school good basketball player and you know you think about leaving texas and then you're taking all these jobs like what's what's the advice they're giving

you at the time yeah same same neighborhood man they think i'm crazy too um i do think my dad told me one thing early on kind of like cliche advice but it's true you know you try to find something that you love to do um and i you know it's obviously since a young age, I just love basketball. The cool thing about my old man, though, he's like, he's so loyal, you know, he's like, you give him a T-shirt, he's just like, wears it until he can't wear it anymore. So as I changed jobs from time to time, I was like, Dad, you want to just kind of clear that out, I can get you a lot of gear now.

I'm at Texas Tech. We've got a pretty good budget. He's like, no, I still like that shirt. So I'll go home. He'll be wearing, like, a corner word shirt next day, Fort Scott Community College, next week's Seminole, North Texas, Little Rock, South Carolina Warriors. He has them all. Like, he literally has, like, a closet full of T-shirts,

but he's so stinking loyal that he won't get rid of him. He just keeps them in the rotation. That's awesome. Okay, so you're, what, 26 and you get the Fort Scott job, right? 26. What was the process like of your Division I assistant and you decide, I want to be a head, like, did you decide I want to be a head coach? Did it just present itself?

You know, why leave a Division I job, instead of trying to get another Division I job, go to JC? You know, I spent a lot of time earlier in my career, and I still do asking the advice of people that I respect. Like, just this past week on the road, you know, I run into Coach Wright who's been so great to me since the Villanola game. Of course, they beat us, you know, kind of nice. It's easy to be nice as somebody you'd be, but I, you know, try to like those two or three minutes I have with him between games, try to ask him something, you know, valuable and spend some time with Bill Self this past week on the road. but always asking people kind of like advice on how to how to get through this deal. And early on, I think the thing that I realized was like everybody's advice

came up with my own idea. You know, if there's no right path, if there was a right path to a head coach and job of success, everybody would take it. Well, I think you've got to just kind of get a path that you're comfortable with and don't look back. You know, it's like I tell our players, there's no right decisions in life. You make the decision, then you make it right. And so with us, I was just sitting there, you know, in North Texas,

really happy working for Vic, Division I level, really close to my hometown, Irving. We had good players. But I just felt like, you know, I got to get some head coaching experience. And maybe at the top of the list that I wasn't a great college player, I just felt the need to get out there to see if I could really get this done. So I just started applying for head coaching jobs. And Kevin Gundy, who was the AD at Fort Scott Community College, really gave me the break of all breaks and gave me a head coaching job at a young age.

I went there, rolled up the sleeves, and kind of figured out, yeah, I can do this. Okay, but your coaching philosophy at the time, you know, like all these different people that you played for, that you worked for, they all had a vast array of styles. But in your mind, we all kind of do this. Man, if I ever get a team, this is how I'm going to play. How did you play at Fort Scott? Well, I've always believed in defense. You know, it started as a player. It's the way I could get on the court to be a guy that my coach could trust to, to, to, to, you know, to, you know, to, you know, and, you know, it started as a, as a player.

to defend and not foul and play the game the right way. My high school coaches were defensive-minded. Coach Penders, obviously, defense with pressing and trapping and being aggressive. Danny Casper, one of the best half-court defensive coaches and Vic, kind of a combination of both. So I came into that job knowing, like, hey, we're going to guard. And I'd wide recruited junior college for a couple years, and I'd seen a lot of good talented teams that looked apart, but they didn't guard. So I knew from day one, they were going to defend or contain.

We'll see what kind of players would get, but we're going to guard. Then I've always been a guy that's just to understand, man, look, you've got to have the players. Like, what's happened here at Texas Tech, I appreciate everybody's compliments, and it means a lot to me. But at the bottom line is, you know, this past year, we had three NBA players in our team, Kenan Evans and Zeyer Smith. I think Zach Smith's right there as well. She had a bad injury. This coaching deal is a little overrated.

You better go get some guys who can play and want to play for you. And I learned that growing up, you know, at the park. We'd play at the park on the nights and, you know, in Irving, we played at Comphans, and there'd be 35 guys deep, you know. So, like, it's your next game. You better win or you're not going to play for another two hours. Now, if you're really, really good, somebody might pick you up, but I wouldn't. So I learned at a young age, I better get with the best players here so we can stay on the court.

So back to the junior college days, sports guy, we went out and got us some dudes. We had some real players. We taught them how to play defense. We had a good, unselfish culture, and we went to work. Whenever I see those guys, I just saw Sean Mason the other day. His son is a... on the AAU circuit now. Sean played for it at Fort Scott,

but I almost kind of apologize to those guys. Like, hey, man, I wish I would have been a better coach back in those days and how we guarded and how we tried to do things right. But obviously, I'm a better coach today than I was back in those days. All right, you go to Seminole for a year, and then how did you get, how did you, tell me how the relationship with Coach Knight started. I know that he's really close to Danny, Danny Casper. I mean, all those techs guys, Bob Knight gets the job at Texas Tech.

How did you come aboard? Yeah, it's a great story. You know, and I really didn't even realize I kind of pinching myself and thanking Pat Knight every time I walk by his office, but you've got to treat ever to help you or who's going to hurt you.

Every relationship's important. Everything matters. And the Texas Tech break for me was, you know, when I was coaching at Fort Scott Community College, Jerry Mullen, you know, the nation's number one junior college guy, he lives in Kansas City. Fort Scott happened to be maybe the quickest

Juko he could get to. So even without me knowing, he came to games from time to time, not only to evaluate our team, but basically to see who we were playing that night. So if Seward came to Fort Scott, that was his chance to watch Seward. And I think we coach right and we treat our guys the right

way and we try to respect the game. So when Coach Knight, he took that one year off from coaching, he was getting organized. He had two or three job offers. He made a couple calls and he called Jerry Mullen, say, hey, I'm putting this team together. I think if I take X job, Y, job, Z job, I might have to, you know,

the lounge junior college players. Coach Mullen, even though me and him didn't have a great relationship or didn't know each other well, he recommended me. He's like, hey, there's a young guy down at Fort Scott that's actually from Texas that I've seen his team play several times. So I thank Jerry Mullen a million times since then almost to the point where he rolls his eyes when he sees me coming. But it's just a great example for all of us that sometimes the people that you don't

even know are the people that help you if you try to do things right. Okay, but did you call? Did Coach Knight call you? Did Pat call you? Like, how did out of the contact begin? Yeah, so I think coach was really close to taking a job. There's about two or three on the table. I think Pat was coaching at Akron at the time, but he was starting to get organized knowing he's going to make a move of coach. And I just got to call one day. Why, she'd call him back in those days. I had the old school answer machine next to my bed. I'll never forget. It was like a Saturday morning after the season. This has been like late March problem.

It's real, real early. Phone rings, and you can hear the message. Like, hey, Chris, this is Karen and I, Bob Knight's wife. He wants to talk to you about a couple players. Well, I thought it was a prank call. I got all sorts of buddies, man. We give each other shit all the time. I thought it was an absolute prank call.

So I did not return the call. I didn't even blink at it. Later that afternoon, when I got home from the office, there was another message. And you could tell Karen's voice was changing a little bit. Like, hey, Chris, it was my second message to you. Then I started thinking, man, this might be like happily legit.

So I made a call. A wife's name sure was Karen, and of course I called back that afternoon. Probably made up some kind of excuse that I didn't get the messages. But basically coach was going around done and looking at some of the best unsigned players in the country. Back in those days with the NCAA rule, that was completely legal because he didn't have a job. He came out to Seminole, spent some time with me, and everything worked out. I got the job. One of our guys went to tech with me.

when you did you know him before he came out of Seminole I did not and never met him but it obviously been a huge fan growing up I mean from season on the brink the first book I ever read I read Ferne Gros in fourth grade Mr. Levingworth but I didn't read it

my brother had the Cliff Notes the first time I learned about Cliff Notes was in fourth grade not a big reader again girls movies NBA basketball from the brink me too So I had an infatuation of a coach from day one. Okay, so he shows up at Seminole.

Like, did you play a cool? Did you meet him at his car? Like, what's, I mean, because I do think that one thing, unfortunately, with, you know, he might have coached a little too long, and they went to TV. And so I think people's perspective, when you say coach night now, might be different of those of us who grew up love and ball, right? Like, my dad used to, when he was, when he was the Army, he used to go to his clinics. And then when he was in Indiana, he'd go to his clinics.

I still have notes my dad took when he, because he used to run an offense called the California reverse, and I still have those notes my dad's house that my mom still keeps. So this is basketball royalty, shows up at Seminole Junior College at your school. You haven't been a head coach for two years now at two different junior colleges. Do you remember anything about that meeting? Absolutely. I remember Karen had called the night before and set up some of my lodging for coach, And I really was trying to encourage her to tell coach I could come getting the next morning or whatever.

Then it got back to me that no, that's not how coach rolls. He wants to stay right there in town, which now I understand knowing coach. He's not kind of like a big time kind of perception guys. He's real, man. He would rather be at the Motel 6th than the West End. I mean, that's just Coach Knight. That's why he's beautiful. But anyway, so he ends up staying.

We have one hotel in Seminole at the time called the Seminole Inn right across from campus. great dive bar in there, by the way. Like, that's not a part of the story. No, no, that's good. Wait, well, what's the dive bar? This is good. What's the dive bar? It's just a great spot.

They had like dollar drafts on Wednesday or something like that. Anyway, so I went over to pick him up that morning. It was like a maybe Monday, Tuesday morning at the time or something, and I never forget the door was just kind of cracked. And so I kind of knocked the door and he's just like, come on in. And he's like drying off from the shower and sit down on the bed. And we, like literally talking basketball five minutes when I met him. But just the most down-to-earth guy just loves basketball.

Like, the perception of what people think Coach Knight is and who he is is just so far off. He's like a really, really good person that's easy to talk to in the whole deal, you know, when he's respects, I guess, the person he's with. Another great thing about that, that kind of get the nerve up to ask him, you know, especially if the Texas tech job happened to me being from Texas, you know, what was you going to do with his staff? I really wasn't like starstruck at the time, because I'd met so many people,

Ludd Olson, Jerry Tarkain, and you name it over the years in Junic College, so it really wasn't a star-struck deal, so I was kind of in my element. Got my courage up, driving down to the Oklahoma City airport. This is before 9-11s. You didn't have to go through security,

so I made it all the way to the gate. It's flight leaves in like 30 minutes. On Earth, forget, we're sitting at this little bitty round table. We're both eating pizza. People are coming up. the coach trying to get autographs. He's gracious. He does it.

But when the food starts, he's politely telling people, hey, can you wait a second? We'll eat. I finally get my courage up, and I was like, hey, coach, I was like, I'm not sure what you're going to do with your staff, especially if you take the tech.

I know you have a lot of people, anybody you want it, but nobody, you know, would work harder and be more appreciative than me. And he kind of cut me off, and I'll never forget this. One of my great life lessons, I tell the players,

coach kind of looked at me. He was wiping it at the pepper. I've never been concerned. I'm much more concerned. concerned with who can get what done. And I'll never forget he said that. I have a story. I think in our business, one thing I don't like is he's self-promoters.

He's a worker. He works hard. We all work hard. You're not working hard. You can get things done. Okay. So you get to tech, and he takes over a program, and I knew it so well because we played against him, you know, and I love Coach Dickey.

He's a good man. Obviously, they had some academic stuff, which caused them, you know, to not be able to have all their scholarships, and they weren't great, but they weren't bad either. So how did, I mean, look, that thing got going in like a year, right? I mean, first year, I think you guys made the tournament. When you look back at tech and how Coach Knight turned that thing around so quickly, and I know Andre Emmett, some of those guys were already there, what were a couple of things that he did and that you still to this day said,

you know, that's the magic of what made Bob Knight? But I think the first thing you hit it on the head, you got to give Coach Dickey credit. We inherited all conference players and Andre Emmett and Andy Ellis. This always happens. You know, I try to tell people every chance I get how fortunate we were to follow Steve Shields at Lurrock and Tubby Smith at Texas Tech. It always perturves me when a guy comes into a job and doesn't embrace or acknowledge what the last guy did. And Coach Knight was great about that. I remember vividly him talking to Coach Dickey on the phone one day, like a month or two months,

end up being in Lovick. I thought that was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. But we inherited good players. We also recruited very well right off the bat. Probably Cib Powell was a junior college player. We brought in Ronald Ross, one of the all-time greats, who's on our staff right now here at Texas Tech. So the combination of embracing and coaching and welcoming the returning players

and then adding new players gave us a chance to be competitive. And then I'll never forget how it just simplified coach made everything. Like every day we had some things we had to get done and we got them done. He kind of eliminated all distractions. He had great people around him, handling a lot of things, and coach just really focused on the basketball. But that first team was the biggest increase in wins in college basketball, and we basically went from, I think, bottom of the Big 12 to third or fourth

and made the tournament. In terms of recruiting, did he empower you? Did he say you can offer a player? Did he have to come see him? How did it work? That's another great question. He really trusted his coaches. People ask me that all the time.

Coach, I mean, the answer is absolutely. Obviously, having Pat on the staff was really special because he, exactly what we were doing. And as the other assistants, myself and Bob Byer at the time, we really relied on Pat direction. And he did. You know, Pat, like I do, best guys you'll ever meet. Simplicity, you know, we're going to run the motion. We're kind of the master of keeping things simple. He also kind of embraced the three-point shot.

He struggled with the, he hated the three when he was in Indiana. And you guys shot a lot more threes. Was that a discussion the staff had? that Pat pushing him to it? What changed? That's a good question. From my point of view coming in, I just know that coach valued shot selection. He told me that one time on a long car ride back from, I think it was Dodge City, Kansas. And, you know, Chris, the most important thing, offense is shot selection. And, you know, we had some good shooters. If you were a guy that could stroke it, he's going to let you shoot it. I mean, you're going to have the green light.

But if you're a guy that's not a great shooter, you have to understand that we're going to get a good shot. But I think it's probably because the game changed a little bit and coach changed right there with it. You mentioned he was great to work for he let you coach. What was he like at that stage in his career for the players? Obviously he has a reputation of being super fiery and at times difficult to play for. When you watch him and how he treated his players,

how would you relay that? You know, like if you wanted to be coached and you wanted to get a degree and you wanted to win, then you had no problem with coached. night. It was the guys that kind of always had alternate deals where all coaches struggled with those players, but you knew he had your back. We've got Daryl Dorrell on our staff now,

and Daryl was one of the great players. Play for coach for four years, and Daryl has some stories that I didn't even know to spending time with Daryl the last couple years. Like, when Daryl was a freshman coming from Gonzalez, Texas, had kind of a tough life to that point. He said that a couple times, coach would check

on him. A phone call, stopped by the locker room after practice. Darrell, come here and I want to talk to you. These are the things that no one really understands. I mean, you're not the best coach in the history of the game without, but he was always real. And I think the players knew that he had their back. And, yeah, he wasn't easy to play for. But I think if you ask players at any school that wins like coach did, I mean, nobody's easy to play for them.

It's competition at the highest level. Okay, so you have, you love What a Burger, right? I know that very well. I've listed your press conferences. You always mention how much you love What a Burger. So I want you to, first, your order at Waterburger is what? Breakfast lunch or late night. Ooh, it's a good question.

Breakfast, you go Bob. Do you go breakfast on a bun? Is that what you do? No, I go to keto. Unsweet tea. Okay. See, I thought unsweetened tea only existed on this earth for one purpose and that was to be sweetened, but I could be wrong.

Okay, let's do late night. So late night order at Waterburger is what? Well, what's you got to do late night is you've got to see how many people are in there. You know, like if the drive-thru is really backed up, I'm going to go in. If you go in, you know, if you start getting fancy and stuff, you're going to have to wait longer. So really late now, I try to keep it really simple. I'll just go with a number one, mustard pickle cheese only. I'll go spicy ketchup.

I'll go unsweet tea if my girlfriend's there. If she's not there, I'm going milkshake. And then if she asks me the next morning, do I get a milkshake? I'm probably white-line. Okay. So you get a milkshake. you get a number one you're sitting in the corner

and you got some of your old got some of your old players and a couple of assistants and just you know just Texas basketball dudes and I know that sometimes this will happen having a beer as well but let's just picture Waterburger. Give me your best Bob Knight. Give me the one

my go-to Bob Knight's story. Go. Oh, it's a good one man that is a good one. We had a... There's so many of them. probably in that element when the guys around the kind of things they like to hear

one of the things we would always do is at basketball camp in the summer you know coach was really involved in camp a lot of these guys just kind of show up and shake hands take pictures coach was there I mean he was there at all the sessions and he was invested and he would watch games

and stuff and that's one thing I always kind of looked up to him for and we try to do the same thing with our camps here in the summers I like to think that our staff is involved as anybody but anyway back to the coach days we always knew he would come in in the mornings after stretch, and he would sit at the main table, and he would watch a little bit, maybe check some mail, be there, but he was going to be at that table early in the morning,

is what he did. So we would always take the camp coach that we wanted to pick on. Maybe the guy that had been out too late the night before. Maybe the guy we were just trying to, you know, give a welcome to camp, and we would put him right in front of coach and give him, like, a defensive station or something. So, like, one year he was actually a junior college assistant that me and Pat invited to come work camp.

He was there, and we put him in front of, like, I don't know, Lane Denial or Sheldry or something, right there in front of Coach. Well, you know, we kind of left him out to drag because we didn't really tell him exactly how Coach teaches things. And sure enough, every year, like, clockwork, man. You just see Coach sitting there, keeps glancing up, and eventually just gets the point

where he can't mistake, he can't let mistakes go on as well he coaches. And he would just get up and basically kind of rip the camp coach and stuff. be in the background watching the whole thing. But it was priceless every summer. We could execute it every time we wanted to. That's amazing.

All right, so you decide, you go back to being a head coach. When it went in South Carolina, didn't you go to the ABA before you got back to college? Doug, you'd never heard of South Carolina Warriors in Myrtle Beach? Hey, man, I played for the, I don't remember. How about this? I played in Phoenix in the ABA.

I don't know the nickname of the team I played for. I swear to God. I was in Israel, and Maztrak was a coach of the Phoenix team in the ABA. And I had, I didn't like my coach in Israel. Like, he was a good coach. We just butted heads. And like there's one Israeli guy, guy contour who could play. And they had to have an Israeli out in the court.

And so the only guy who could really was replaceable was me, because otherwise all the other Israelis couldn't play. So, like, we would just butt heads constantly. and they would do shit like you're supposed to get paid on the first of every month but they would wait until the wait until like the shekel versus the dollar

was a better ratio they wait like four or five days and save like 70 bucks and I was just getting pissed about it so finally I go to them and I was like look I'll stay the whole time and I would have to stay and do like this basic training but you have to promise me I'm going to get all my money

and the president of the club was like we will do the best we can I was like come on man just give me your word as a man look me in the eye and just say I'll get you all all your money and he wouldn't do it. And so I start making calls to my agent and I call Maz and

Maz is like, look, I'm going to cut, I got to cut my point guard. You can come, you can start for me, but like look, it's the ABA. It's really good ball. But you might get paid, you might not, but NBA scouts come and watch. So I know the NBA, I swear to God I don't know the team, the nickname of the team. So you went coaching the ABA in South Carolina. Did you get paid? I did sometimes.

We had four, I think, two of the owners paid. It was always a little bit late, but the cool thing about that, though, is how pumped were you when you did get paid? You know, like, in normal jobs, you get paid every month, you know what's coming. But in the ABA, it's like awesome. Like, am I going to get paid? Am I not? And when you do, it's just like you get the lottery, man. Totally.

Absolutely. Not only that, I remember my first, so I flew back from Israel. I joined the Phoenix team. They're in Detroit. We're playing the Detroit dogs. I'll never forget this. People always ask all the time, like, did you feel, because I went to, I can. My ABA was 2003, I'm going to guess.

Yeah, 2002. So I've been in Israel right after 9-11. And people ask, well, did you feel safe there? And I tell them all the time, when I landed in Detroit and I went to the hotel, we stayed in downtown Detroit. They gave me, the Maz gave me 20 bucks and said, that's your meal money for the day. And I had to walk to McDonald's and it was like a 10-minute walk through downtown Detroit. And I felt less safe during that walk than I did at any time in Israel. But I ate McDonald's and I balled out.

We played two games. And a guy named Todd Bergen, who played at Syracuse, he stopped me. He's like, yo, DG, what's up, man? So we start shaking hands. He's like, I was like, I was in Israel. He's like, where were you? I was like, I was in Lebanon. I was like, how was Lebanon?

He's like, oh, man, beautiful women, a lot of weed. I was like, all right, good luck tonight. Anyway, so South Carolina, four warriors, four owners. But they also, did you guys have the four point, the three point or four point play have you stole it in the back court? Yeah, I never got into that. You know, we had a really good team with really good players because it was the year of the NBA

lockout and guys just wanted to go play somewhere. Yep. Not only NBA players, but the whole world kind of froze, you know. And so we had a real training camp, training camp. We did two days, probably five straight days. We had guys from Kentucky, North Carolina. And so we get down to the game, the night right before the game. We were to Hard Rock Cafe doing this event for our owner.

And George Tuttle, a West Coast guy, I think he's in Vanguard right now. Wasn't Cal State Fullerton, great coach, George Tuttle. He's like, Beard, are you ever going to talk to these guys about the four-point player at the 3D? I think, George, I don't know. I kind of out of my comfort zone, man. I want to respect the game.

Let's just play. So that night we don't do anything. Well, now it's the next day. We're playing the first game with franchise history. We've got the mayor of Myrtle Beach. I'll see him downtown. Right before the game. I mean, like, right before the game.

On the floor, Tuttle's like, man, do you mind if I say something? I was like, go ahead. So I was like, hey, guys, by the way, if you get a steel in the back court, this light's going to go off right here, and we get plus one for every basket. Good luck. Guys's just looking at him, like, what are you talking about? So the game starts, and sure enough, it happens. Like, we're a little soft press. We get a steel, and that light goes on.

You know, it's plus one for every point. But our guys don't know what's going on, but the fans are going crazy. So we get back to the huddle, you know, the other coach called Tom Out. We basically gone to like a six-over-round, but really was like an 11-0 run in the NBA. And the players are like, what is going on in the last? I'll explain them are in practice. Okay, so how did you get the – so then you go to McMurray, and how much different of a coach are you, having been a head coach and then been an assistant for Coach Night?

You talked about when you saw the – a couple of your guys from Fort Scott, you apologized to which you're a better coach. Did you feel different? Did you feel like completely at ease? How different was it you take over at McMurray? That's a great question. I always thought about maybe like what do ADs think about when they hire people. and I think there is a lot of value in a guy that was a head coach and maybe a young age and then grinded it at that level, whatever, and then to come back, I think it's just like

because you have a reference point for what you did before, then you obviously learn new stuff. I don't know, you think about guys like Steve Forbes and success he's having. There's just a lot of guys, a Chris Jan. There's a lot of guys out there like that. But back to my situation, I obviously had all this wealth in Pat for 10 years and was itching to kind of get some of that stuff. But really, the ABA, I'd learn so much from the players. You know, like, I'll be driving to the restaurant with, you know, Marquis Gainess from TCU

and All-American. I just asking me, bet what was the best thing Billy Tubs did or didn't do? So I had all this other information from the pro players. And so at McMurray, it was just like a big, I basically just kind of like slept in the office every night. I just, like, I had so many ideas going through my head at that time. That's really where our philosophy that we're using now kind of formed. It's amazing because having seen you coach in both games and practice, I'm blown away by a couple of things you do.

You don't request you demand eye contact every time you're speaking to the team. It seems like you, and I don't know if you intentionally do this, you use simple words or phrases continually to embed them in their head in terms of how you want them to play. and so it's demanding and you're loud and you're coaching them in practice but if you're around like all you have to do is be through one practice you're like oh I get what he wants I'm I understand how he wants to be how he wants to coach you is that is that kind of what you're talking about is that something that you develop talking to your coaching style now yeah I appreciate you saying that we we mean in that like I've always said that coaching is like getting the information to the players

and eventually getting it executed on the floor I think there's a lot of guys you can sit in a hotel booth with you and talk basketball, but then they necessarily can't teach it on the floor, you know, communications, everything. So we do have a million ideas going through our heads, and anything that can help our players in any way we're going to investigate and think about and research and try to maybe consider. But eventually when it gets to the court, we want it to be a simple situation for the players.

You know, we don't want them thinking out there. We want them reacting and just playing the game. So we do have some code words we believe in, you know, whether it's money is what we call when we get an offensive rebound, so a money putback or a money pick and roll or a money three. The word money, something sacred to us. The word title named after George Tuttle is basically our idea of transition, getting back or attacking when we get a steal.

So key words like a money or a Tuttle, these are things that really is the foundation of everything we do. All right, so now you're at tech after incredible success in a short period of time at Little Rock. And, you know, first year you inherit, as you've pointed out, good players, guys like Keenan from the previous staff, from Tubby staff. But you go out and you grind, you find a kid like Zaire and Jared Culliver, another outstanding fine for you.

What's that like to find a kid that other people at some of the services and some of the big schools might have missed on? Give him a great chance. He takes advantage of it. But then, you know, like a year in, now of a sudden you've got to replace it. It's like a gift and a curse. Yeah, this is kind of new to me. You know, Chris Ogden on the staff, we always kind of joked around Augie.

We caught him Silver Spoon because, you know, he went to Texas, played Final Fours, coach, never left, did the one year of Tennessee. And Augie was the best about it because he would embrace it and never get his feelings hurt. He said, hey, guys, I know, like, what am I supposed to do? Not stay in Texas and we'd all laugh, but tell Augie some stories about Juko or D2 or the low majors or struggling. and Augie would always be kind of like interested in those stories, but we'd always call him Silver Spoon. Well, now, but he'd always told me, beer, there's problems on the other side of the tracks too, man. Like, you know, and I say, oh, I understand. I respect that. I said, I just wish I could kind of try to deal with those problems from time of time.

Well, be careful what you asked for. You know, Zaire was special. We're so supportive of him. We were the 16th pick in the draft. You got to go. That's a no-brainer. But now we're on the other end of this deal, live in the world where we're trying to figure out how to, you know, it's hard to go out and replace Isaiah in May when he declares. So this is the other side of it.

I have a great appreciation for everybody in basketball always have. But now I understand a little bit more what the Kentucky's and Villanobos and Texas do when you lose guys from the one and done. There's a whole other side of that. And so, you know, Augie was kind of a fortune teller. There's other problems on the other side. He was certainly right. You know, obviously recruiting transfers is something you have to do and something that you've been able to do to be successful. Others in the Big 12 are using it as well.

do you have any Are there any couple of things you do Other than calling the guy's previous coach Is there anything you do to To know what you're getting? That's a hard thing because sometimes these things happen fast Kid comes available He's interested in tech

You watch some tape, you talk to some people And then you've got to make a call really really quickly Because sometimes you don't offer him right away The kid gets upset and he's like Why didn't you offer me right away? Even if you're doing your due diligence Do you have a process you go through To know what you're getting?

Absolutely. One thing we really believe in is the video. You know, I tell the guys all the time, let's don't be YouTube guys. Like, don't bring me a three-minute YouTube and tell me about the player. You've got to dig in. You've got to work. At the end of the day, even though we live in this world, everything's easy, social media and cell phones, Uber eats. How about that one? I can't get past that one. It's still value in just old-school work.

So, I mean, we're going to lock up and we're going to watch every game that kid plays. So, like Matt Mooney coming from us from South Dakota. I've seen basically every game Matt played in his college career. And I think that's important for a lot of reasons, not just our evaluation process, but also I think the player needs to know like, hey, this coach knows me. He knows of my journey. He knows where I've been. He knows why I'm transferring.

You know, I think that's important. Another thing with us with the transfer is it's just something I really, really believe in, and it goes back through my whole career, whether it be Juco, one-year guys, G2, one-year guys, ABA, one-week guys, one-month guys. I just think that we have an ability. I don't think we're any better than anybody else, but I don't think anybody's better than us in coaching guys in one-year settings.

I just believe in it. I think we get relationships with guys quickly. We understand and we embrace the idea, like, hey, man, you've got 31 more games guaranteed. This is it. I think there is an art to coaching a guy in a one-year setting, and I think we've been really good about it. And I'm not talking about just Texas Tech.

I'm talking about way back at Fort Scott Community College when I had Jamal Brown for one year or at Seminole State when we had Will Jones for one year. McMurray when we had DeCobie Jackson for one year. I think we're good at that. I hope it doesn't come off as arrogant or boastful, but it's really confidence and belief.

I think we're as good as it gets when you got one year to coach a guy. I think we get it. What's Brandsma doing? Because Thomas Bransma, he followed you around school to school, right? Bransma update. Yep, so Bransma got, he went to the all fields of West

Texas and made a bunch of money right out of the gates, lived in a trailer, was throwing. What is throwing water line? What is, I mean, listen, I mean, I live in Southern California, man. I'm from Orange County. What is throwing water line? Yeah, so I'll kind of give you the junior college version here. It's like, you know, the oil boom's going on out here, so basically you need water. You need water to get the dirt right. You need water to clean things. You just need water, but there's not a lot of water out here. So basically just bring water in from different sources. So there's so much oil and so much business out there.

You know, there's just like unlimited work. So a guy like Bransma, who was in our program for five years and understands a little bit about hustle of getting after it. You know, he just gets out there and sees an opportunity and seizes it. So they're making all sorts of money out of the gates. Then he gets hooked up. I think he falls in love with a girl from Stephenville, Texas, which was concerning to me because that's where Tarleton was,

in Weird Angel State, that was our rival. I was like, Brands, like, Brands, you could date the rival. He's like, coach, you can't fight love. So I understand that. So I think with the relationship and with the fact that he made a little bit of money out of the gates, now he's in, like, the real world. He's back in love it. He's working a business job that has a kind of an incentive-based salary,

which is good for Brandsworth because the competitor. Here is it as of late space where I think he's maybe thinking about getting the back, but doesn't have the balls enough to ask me yet. But I can see it in his eyes that I think he's going to, be coming into me pretty soon, talking about maybe getting into coaching. And for people who don't know, Thomas Bransma, he started with you, McMurray, followed you to Angelo State, then went to Little Rock, and then, of course, you took the UNLV job for, like, it was like 10 days, and then the Texas tech job, which you've told everybody, it's your

dream job. Of course, you know, it's like a little over an hour from your daughters. You go right back. He followed you to all those stops, and, of course, I mean, like, I think the least you could do is, you know, find a grad assistant. role for him, right? Or something if he wants to get back in this crazy business. That's one side of the story. Some people think that, you know, we owe Thomas. I'd be quick to tell you. I mean, Thomas kind of benefited from our program, too.

The guy goes from being in a Division II school paying $30,000 tuition, so he scored a basket against West Virginia. Can you imagine what his nightlife was that night? The guy has benefited from our program, too. So there's no doubt that I appreciate everything Thomas is done, but I think Thomas would be the first to tell you he appreciates what the program's given him to. I mean, this girl from Stephenville, Doug, is not bad looking. You know, I mean, Thomas, Thomas's life is going in the trajectory. I would like to think to our program had a little bit to do with it. That's a beauty.

That's an absolute beauty. All right. Last thing. We're waiting on these new NCAA rules to determine what's open period, what's not open period. You and your staff, you guys are old school grinders. You want to go watch kids play You want to offer them a scholarship You don't pay kids

You don't change your grades That's kind of the easy baseline Rules to it If I put you in charge Would that just be simply the rules Do we need other periods So that guys are around campus Like how would you do it if they said

Hey Chris you've coached all different levels Of college basketball You know the right way to do it How would you do it? I don't think there's anything wrong In our game now though I think like obviously we have some problems But everybody has problems

The business world has problems I mean, I still go back to the fact that we have a great game where that NTA tournament in Final Four is simply the best. College basketball produces leaders and good husbands and good men. I mean, I love our game. It's beautiful. Do we have flaws? Of course, but everything has flaws. I think with the recent FBI deal and all that, it brings light to some of that stuff.

But I, you know, I think there's another million good positive stories out there as well. I know this, too. Coaches are going to adjust. You can change the rules from three weeks. Institute, no April to May, but eventually we're all basketball guys and we're going to adjust. In my big view of things, and nobody asks me ever, but you are, so I'll take advantage of it. I just think you've got to put the control of the game back in the college coaches' hands. And to do that, you've got to let the college coaches be with the players, go recruit the players, spend time with them.

But it's crazy to me that I can only work with my guys two hours a week in the summer. I mean, and look, and as you know, and people, I'm sorry to cut you off. But like this idea, well, 20-hour week or two hours in the off-season, like, look, if you do too much, you're going to lose the player anyway. So you have to measure how much you do. And as much as people say, well, you're going to kill a kid and working him out, like, no, you're not. He's going to be in the gym regardless. Why not be in the gym under the watchful eye of a guy who's been doing it like you for 20, 25 years and knows how to take a player from point A to point C, right? I mean, doesn't that make sense?

it does to me and then when you don't let the coaches work with the players that's where the outside people come in and I don't blame the players like I mean Jared Colver is going to get in the gym

four or five hours a day seven days a week in the summer that's who he is is his DNA and I can work with him two of those hours and the other hours I mean I just don't understand it

I think I would trust the Bill Sells and Coach Williams and coach put the game in Tom is those hands that's what I would do because I think at the end of the day all of us coaches

you know, are doing this for the guys, man, like we are. Like, I'm not convinced there's, like, a lot of bad guys in our business. I just don't believe that. I think most coaches love their players, and they're going to work their guys accordingly. So that's my big, big picture thing is I don't know why they don't just put it in the coach's hands. I mean, maybe I'm not in the room. I understand, but why wouldn't you get coaches, oh, and Coach Scroger,

why wouldn't you get these guys in a room and ask them, hey, what is the game need? To me, it's that simple, but, you know, you're talking to a guy that, you know, lived around the BC average. I said the last thing I lied. One more. You guys came so close against Nova. I mean, you guys did the best job against them defensively. You just, you miss drives, you miss finishes. And I know they, look, they do a great job of bumping you with their lower body.

And you're playing so hard defensively against all the different stuff they do that I think that to end the pressure takes away from some of the shooting. But as you self-assess, is there anything you come out of that Elite 8 game thinking, you could have done personally better? Yeah, you hit it. Oh, did a great job, like keeping their upper bodies extended where they're not foul, lower body, my poppy's in time to time. To me, that's good coaching.

We had, and we went 0 for 7. You got to make a couple of those. You got to draw foul on a couple of those. And, you know, look, we're at No Excuse program. Some people talk to me about the fish shade in that game. I'm not buying that. I mean, we just got to get to the point where we make those guys call those files. But really, and we've already tried to embrace them.

race that. We started in the spring and in summer working on finishing around the basket, one foot, two feet, lower, upper, more than ever. And then just I do think we were ready to play that night. A lot of people say, well, is it just because Villanova had been in that moment? Y'all haven't. I'm not buying that either. We were relaxed. We were ready. We just didn't play well enough offensively. We held them to 33. If you had told me before the game, we could do that. I'd totally see you in San Antonio, but we just couldn't manufacture enough offense. But ultimately, you got to give Villanova for credit. It was so hard to score against. Maybe the best

defense we played against all year was Villanova. Yeah. I mean, obviously for you, it's one thing for anybody to get to the Final Four, but to you to get to the Final Four in the state of Texas at Texas Tech would have been incredible. But without a loss, you know, it doesn't, sometimes

there's more to learn from a loss than it is from a win. Hey, you've been more than gracious with your time. I know you've got to figure out I know you've got to figure out what you want to do with Brandsma, if you want to add them to staff. I know you've got to send me more videos of Sean Sutton, you know, walking around and forgetting things in his room. I appreciate you join us, and I look forward to catching up with you in person really,

really soon. See you soon, Doug. That's All Ball, the All Basketball podcast here on the Heard Podcast Network. I hope you enjoyed Chris Beard. We'll have another conversation for you next week. Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to listen to the Doug Gottlieb show, 3 to 6 Eastern, 12 to 3 Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, the iHeart radio app or serious xm channel 83 and download subscribe and rate all ball

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