The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Gottlieb's Sweet 16 matchup breakdowns; Cole Anthony's decision; Guest: Xavier HC Travis Steele

Episode Date: March 27, 2019

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 breaks down the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 matchups, explains why Cole Anthony's college decision will impact next year's title contenders. Doug also talks hoops with Xavier Head Coach Travis Steele. Subscribe here to get the latest All Ball Podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/all-ball-with-doug-gottlieb/id1358843497?mt=2.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey, I'm Doug Gottlieb, and welcome in to All Ball. All Ball is our All Basketball Podcast, NBA, college, McDonald's All-American game. Hoop! Yeah, look, I'm a big fan of Cole Anthony. I can't wait to see where he plays. He's a stud. He's a killer. He has yet to decide where he's going.

And he has this thing that Greg has. And it's interesting. Like, look, we'll talk about the NCAA term in the Sweet 16. We have Travis Steele, who's going to join us. Xavier's head coach going through one year, lost in overtime, the second round, the NIT to Texas the other night. Kind of have to spend some time with us

here in the All Ball podcast. But I want to tell you a little bit about Cole Anthony, who's unsigned senior, said he's going to decide some time in April. He's very much Greg Anthony's son in that he has a remarkable amount of, let's just say, toughness.

He's got a little hayhole in him. Not going to lie to yet. Which you have to have. the way in which the position is played and the way in which you lead in basketball. So Cole Anthony, I think it's Oregon and Georgetown and Duke and Carolina and all the, some of those usual suspects. I would have thought Kansas would have had a better shot, but apparently not,

probably because they have Dotson who's coming back and I think he's going to be just an absolute stud. Maybe he's the fastest player in college basketball. But if you haven't seen Cole Anthony, scoring point guard. He needs to shoot a little bit better, but has remarkable athleticism, tremendous toughness,

can play both ends of the floor, and he's like his dad in terms of being a leader and a guy who brings everybody together and like his dad has like just a remarkable amount of leadership and toughness. There's no doubt whoever gets him will be in the conversation

of competing for a national championship because if there's one thing we've learned, you've got to have good league guards. You just do. Now, that brings us to last week in the NCAA tournament, looking forward to this weekend in the NCAA tournament. Think about what led, you know, Maryland to getting beat by LSU. Can't get one stop on a switch.

Really, that's what happened to Iowa with Tennessee. They got to stop and then you let your hands down and put your hands down and then point guard hits a three over you and ends up sending it into overtime. Can you get one stop? That's really kind of the difference, obviously, in between championship teams and teams that fall by by the wayside. Let's go through the matchups really quickly. Florida State beat Gonzaga last season,

and they present a remarkable list of challenges, most notably their size and prodigious length inside, right? And, you know, when you bring off the bench Mfondu, who's just an absolute, he just improving, seemingly with every game. You know, I know he was productive early in the season, but boy, late, you know, this last weekend, he showed

a remarkable ability to dominate. And then they're good and long in their back court with three shot makers in Terrence Mann, Trent Forrest, and M.J. Walker. My fear for Gonzaga is it does sometimes take them a little bit of time to adjust to the length of the opponent.

Now, Baylor didn't take him a ton of time, and obviously they were just so much better than FDU. I have Gonzaga moving on, but I do think this is going to be a game which Gonzaga struggles for at least a little bit. Brandon Clark's become their best player. He continues to improve seemingly every time he takes the floor. What a remarkable story from a guy who was 6-2,

his senior year in high school. Purdue Tennessee feels like a mismatch to me, and I'll tell you why. I've seen Purdue in person a couple times, and this is one of matters. Painter's best, not just coaching jobs, but it shows his program and why it works. You have guys that fit roles and don't turn the basketball over and one go-to score. But, you know, the strength of Tennessee is Grant Williams and Admiral Schofield, right? And one of them is going to be matched

up with Grady Eifford. And I just, I don't know how Purdue wins that matchup. They just, don't. And when I watch Minnesota beat them in the big 10 tournament, it was Jordan Murphy. You know, everything they did was try and get Jordan Murphy and Grady Eifford isolated at the top of the key. And Eifford would have to give him space. And he would still, you know, not even make a move. Just drive right at him, shoot over or drive left and spin back to his right. Schofield's a better offensive player, I believe, than Jordan Murphy. Jordan Murphy has got kind of a unique guy. I mean, this, Schofield's more skilled. So as a shooter especially, a 41% three-point shooter.

I just, I feel like that lines off. I don't think that Purdue has, Purdue usually beats you with age, toughness, and some skill. If Purdue can shoot the lights out of the basketball, sure. But I don't know if there'll be that many openings against this stingy Tennessee squad. I love Tennessee in this game. All right, let me give you my quick thoughts on Texas Tech taking on Michigan. Two outstanding defensive teams. Something you might not know about Texas Tech.

is they feel like they missed a golden opportunity last year to beat Villanova because they missed so many shots around the basket. And if you know how Villanova plays defensively where they show you their hands and they play very physically with the rest of their body, that's essentially how Michigan plays. They also load to the basketball and dare you to throw those skip passes and set flare screens. I think that Texas Tech's got a great shot to beat them

because they have just more offensive weaponry. and that's not really what Michigan has. Michigan beats you with enough shot making toughness, intelligence, defense. They just wear you down with their defense. But they also play physically and show you their hands, but bump you going to the basket and going up for post-up shots. That's exactly what Villanova did.

And Texas Tech, like they made it a point the entire season that to practice what they call Villanova shots, which are finishing shots, kind of over pressure, over body pressure. I think Texas Tech wins this game. I think it's going to be a great, great, great. Oregon taking on Virginia, this one's interesting, you know.

Obviously Oregon has, what I like about Oregon is because they play multiple styles of zone defense and they press, I think they can match up pretty well with Virginia. You know, the difference with Oregon is Peyton Pritchard playing so much better. Yes, they weren't healthy, but Peyton Pritcher wasn't playing well, now he is. And when you have a point guard started in the final four, when you have a guy who's a really good shot maker,

and I don't think that the pressure that Oregon puts you on defensively is going to affect them nearly as much, Virginia nearly as much. I don't know if Oregon can win the game, but I definitely think it's close. That's like an eight-and-half point spread. I feel like, you know, Oregon's got to make some shots in order to get set up their defense, but if they can, I think they match up really well. I can be crazy, but I think they match up really well with Virginia. Michigan State LSU, I cannot undersell just how very average athletically Michigan State is.

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I don't know how I get some of the shots off. He's a clever finisher. They just don't have a ton of scoring. And somebody's going to look back, and Michigan State loses and they'll say, well, Michigan State lost in the Sweet 16. Like, yeah, they won the Big Ten tournament, got to the Sweet 16 all with one score,

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Let's get you to our guest for the week. He's the new head coach of Xavier's coach for an entire year now. They just lost to Texas in the NIT. His name is Travis Steele. He joins me on the All Ball podcast. Let's welcome in the first year head coach of the Xavier Musketeers. Travis Steele joins us here in the All Ball podcast. Travis, how are you?

I'm doing well, Doug. How you doing? Good, man. I want to get to your team. I want to get to this year. But the way I like to do it is, like, look, I think we all have our own unique basketball story, right? And like when you read in a bio and sometimes you read it in a magazine or newspaper article, like it just, it's not the same when it comes from you, especially, you know, a ball guy to a ball guy. So you grew up where in Indiana? I grew up in a small town called Danville, Indiana, about 30 minutes west of Indianapolis. Who's the best player ever? Who's the best player ever out of Danville?

I mean, you could potentially, man, I tell you probably Travis Carroll who played at Purdue. Okay. But he's not, how old is he compared to you? He is probably, he was about eight years younger than me. more than that. Two pride 10. Okay, so when you grew up, like, who was your, who are your guys? Like, were you, were you, were you, were you, were you an IU guy or a Purdue guy?

You know, I was an IU guy. I was an I.U. guy. I was an I.U. guy. Love to watch, you know, whether it was Calvert Cheney, whether it was Alan Henderson, whether it was, uh, Brian Evans, you know, like, I was Indiana had a lot of good players back in the day during that time. Uh, my, here's my best. I have, I have several really good stories. because Charlie Miller played with me.

He stayed with me two summers in AAU, stayed at our house. And then we were at the, what was it, the university games? What were those games called? I can't remember what this game is. We're like the World University Games, like tryouts in Colorado Springs.

So I hung out with him and Brian Evans. And they told me a bunch of good stories. But my favorite Indiana story is our, my first road game in college basketball was at IU. I was playing at Notre Dame. And the year before, Notre Dame had beaten them in South Bend, and it hit something like 15-3s, which doesn't seem like a big number now.

But back then, of course, as you remember, Bob Knight did not exactly embrace the three-point shot. Like, basically he said that was a bullshit way to win, right? So they had a really good team. They had Brian Evans and Andre Patterson and Neil Reed and Charlie Miller and Todd Lindeman was like a senior. They had Sharon Wilkerson, who's really talented. Richard Manville, who's a L.A. guy.

Anyway, so they go up to Alaska for the Great Alaska shootout, and they play Yukon. And Yukon has Ray Allen and Travis Knight and those guys. And Yukon just kicks the dog shit out of them, right? They beat them by 40 points. And so we go down to their place, and we know they're going to be pissed. They had a couple days off before the game. I'm like, man, we're going to get, they're going to come out on fire. And so it was that year, 95, 96, they put down a new floor in Assembly Hall.

And if you've ever played on a new basketball floor, it was like bouncy. Like dudes are in layup lines and we're throwing down, feeling good about ourselves. So we're down, I think it was 40 to 14 at the half. And here's the things I remember. I remember when Knight and Bob Knight was, my dad was a JV player at Ohio State when Bob Knight was on the varsity and they went to those final fours. And so I knew Coach Knight a little bit. And I just, I had no idea, like, you have no idea how big, he's like a big dude, right? Like he was like six, three, six four.

And, and dudes, everybody in the stands had their Adidas sweater just like him. And he'd walk out, he had like an entourage. And it was crazy like his presence. Like, you could feel his presence. So I remember that. And then I remember when, right before Tipoff, when they play the fight song, and they go, ha, you! And then the whole place like shakes.

And I remember, really. running into the locker room at halftime. And it was right underneath, like, the, right before the band in the student section, and they were chanting, don't come out, don't come out. And we were, I was thinking, let's not a bad idea. We're down 4014. Anyway, so, so we have like four freshmen and our sophomore was Pat Garrity. We have a senior, Ryan Hoover's a good dude.

At some point, we might even gone to the four freshmen, you know, so John McLeod could go, hey, we're young. So I remember driving in and shooting a floater. and Andre Patterson, he didn't block it, he caught it, and he threw it. And I think it took out a lady in the third row. And when he did it, he's like, no! So I thought nothing of it. I played okay.

We bused back to South Bend. We got beat by, I don't know, like 30 points or something like that. And you know how it is? You get back to your dorm room, you flip on the game. And Sports Center was on. And it was, Are you ready for Sports Center? and all of a sudden there's the highlight of me.

You see 44 Gottlieb driving, shooting a floater. And out of nowhere, Andre Patterson catches the ball and goes, no! Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na- right? That's my I-U story for you. Did you go to games as a kid? Say that again now, Doc? Did you go to games as a kid? All right, give me one that if you close your eyes, you're like, man.

I mean, because they used to have that shootout at the dome, right, the RCA dome, then to have high school games there at the dome, or the, yeah, you can give me the most memorable game you remember growing up in Indiana? I'd say the most memorable one. You've got to always the rival games, right? You know, like Purdue, obviously, Team Katie had it rolling at Purdue, had it absolutely rolling. So we had season tickets growing up to Indiana games.

So I would say you could go back to any of the Indiana. there for a Bid game. And I would tell you that they were all high level. I wish that that I was actually at the game. In fact, I wasn't old enough. When Knight through the chair across the court, I wish I could have seen that in person. But, you know, like you said, man, like Coach Knight,

I would go to his camp when I was young, too. And, you know, you talk about, like, an imposing figure. Intimidated. You know, like, when you go to his camp, like, He would address the camp at the very beginning, and I'll never forget one of my older brothers over night camp. And Coach Dockins at the time was an assistant coach there, and they made my brother wash his car. He had to wash his car.

He had to do, you know, run, you know, got an arrest. You know, but again, like, when you're at camp, like, with Coach Knight, then you're, like, on your toes, you know. It's like you're sweating around them. You don't want to blink. You don't want to breathe. But he was a, but he's like God. You know, it is, man. When you grow up, then, obviously, you think what Purdue have with Gene Cady

and what, obviously, Indiana had with Bob Knight at the time, man, two of the best coaches of all time in the state. That's why the rivalry was so big, because both guys were terrific coaches. Yeah, yeah. So when did you know that this is what you wanted to do? I'd say to a really young age, man. You know, my older brother is a college basketball coach, John Gross. You know, we had the same mom, different dads.

But, you know, he's 12 years older than I am. And, you know, so growing up, man, I was kind of always his shadow. And I was really, really, really lucky. To also have a really, really good high school coach at Danville High School. His name was Todd Licklider. And obviously, Todd ended up becoming the head coach of Butler, that coach at Iowa. he's one of the best teachers that I've ever been around in the game.

So I was exposed to really good coaching at a young age. So I kind of always knew that I'm 5'11, man. I'm not nearly as athletic as you were back of the day. I'm not going to be a great player. So I want to coach. And so I was lucky, man, to have some really good mentors when I was young, man. I knew I wanted to coach probably honestly when I was 11, 12 years old. that's interesting

I know you played for lick did you did you think about I know he's on he's on staff at Evansville do you think about bringing him back

absolutely absolutely man when I say he's a great coach that doesn't do him justice as how good he is man he uh

you know if you think about like the butler system you know what I mean like that they've had for years a lot of that stuff is from Todd and Barry Collier

but Todd was kind of there ran the offense and stuff. And, you know, he's had such a big impact on a lot of coaches, whether it's Stad Maud or Brad Stevens. My brother, a lot of people, man, he is a terrific coach. You know, he actually, when I got the job here in Xavier,

he already accepted the job at Evansville. Yeah. They'll be with Walter, Walt McCarty, and I know he's going to do really, really well down there, man. That's a great hire about Walt. No, it's interesting. When I've interviewed for jobs, I've talked to Brad Stevens and Brad Stevens and Brad's like, listen, you can hire anybody you want, like I would never, but if I was going to hire one guy and I was going to be a college coach, it'd be Todd Licklider.

Like the guy just, he, from practice times to understanding offense to understanding, you know, how to prepare, like he's the ultimate coach's coach. And for young guys like you and guys like Walter, you know, guys that haven't done it before, I mean, it's an incredibly valuable asset, asset to have. Okay, so What about the decision in college? Because even though you're downplaying How good you are, you could have played and you could have played Like could have done what Brad did, right?

Played it to Paul. Like what was what was, What type of player were you coming out of high school? I was a guard. I was more of a facilitator. Not a great shooter. I was more of a ball handler, passer,

you know, run your team guy. You know, so, you know, obviously, like you said, I had an opportunity to play, but I knew I wanted to coach. You're always trying to, I think this profession is really hard to break in, into,

especially if you're not a big-time player. You know, so I try to go a little bit more of a creative path. You know, I went to Butler, that's where I went to school, which is only 30 minutes away, you know, and my brother at the time and Tom Licklider, at the time, they were both assistant coaches under Fabana, my freshman here, there, and then actually that ended up leaving after one year. I decided, you know, I'm going to kind of create my own path, kind of get away from, you know, necessarily kind of get away from my brother and become my own guy.

And so I decided to start coaching high school basketball over on the west side of Indianapolis at Bendos High School, and then I coached DayAU basketball. And then I just trained guys in Indianapolis, and there was a lot of really good players in Indianapolis at the time. So I was very fortunate to work with some really talented guys. Okay, let's go back a second. First of all, you don't know this, but the first game I ever called was that year you were at, when you were at Butler, in 2000, January of 2001, it was against TCU, greedy Daniels. It was like a, like, I'm going to say like, I'm going to go like January 4th or something.

I'd never been to Hinkle before. This is obviously before Butler really kind of hit. And I was still pissed at Butler because the year before, Scott Robich didn't take a charge against Florida in the first. round. We play Florida in the elite eight. Florida is not in the lead eight. We go to the final four. Anyway, so that was, so, I mean, think, I mean, think, yeah, is Scott Robes, who still probably has eligibility considering a few

amount of games he played how injured he was. But, but, think about that, think about that staff, right? So you had, Thad was the head coach, Lick was an assistant, Gross was an assistant, who there was somebody else who was assistant on that staff. That thing was just loaded. Huh? Yeah, it was.

It was loaded. It was loaded. Mike Marshall was on staff as well. And actually, you know what, Brad Stevens was the volunteer. Like a volunteer, right? Volunteer back then all of a sudden, he got promoted the director of operations in the fall. So he quit his out of the internet to be one documented as Eli Lillian job and took a, you know, no he wasn't good paid at all at Butler. And then all of a sudden he got promoted, you know, in the fall to the operations job. And so, he said, you know, he wasn't getting paid at all at Butler. And then all of a sudden he got promoted, you know, in the fall to the operations job. And so. So you think about that staff. I mean, I mean, that, bad, bad, bad to hire, you know, he was a, he had a great staff. Did you have, I mean, honest to God, did you, did you think to sit there and go, like, this guy sitting next to me, like, you know, Brad Stevens, like, did you have any idea? Any idea? No. I mean, no.

I mean, but, like, obviously, you do how intelligent he was. Obviously, his work ethic is off the charts as well. But no, I'd be lying to you if I said, I could, I can't tell you right now that I'd do back then. But obviously, man, he is an incredible coach and an even better person. And he's one of the best in the entire world, obviously. So you go and you decide I'm going to, I'm going to coach at Ben Davis High School, which, again, I'm a Southern California kid, spent one year playing college basketball in Indiana. And even I know about the history of Ben Davis High School.

take me through that process because you were still in college at the time weren't you? Yeah, I was. I watched experience with Polly again, trying to figure out a way to kind of like move ahead because obviously not a big man player or anything like that. So I try to have to pave my own path, you know, take my own path. And, you know, Ben Davis gives me a great opportunity. You know, obviously it's a – it's got a lot of history, learn a tradition. You know, there's been tremendous players come out of Ben Davis.

over the year. And I was really lucky. I was able to work underneath a guy named Steve Whitty, who's one of the probably the most winningest coaches, obviously, in the state of Indiana history.

But he was extremely successful. I mean, great coach, and he brought me on, and I was able to learn from him and coach on the fly. But sometimes I think the best experience that you can have, there's one thing being around it,

but it's another thing, obviously, coaching, right, and doing it. And I was able to kind of start, you know, put my nits right there and there, and the one thing we learn right away, because I was almost basically the same ages as the kids, as the guys I was coaching. You know, like, even though I looked, you know, and you had to be able to gain the respect right away. You do that obviously through the preparation, do your work ethic,

and showing them that you can make them a better player. That was kind of my path. That was my way to kind of be able to coach those guys and gain their respect. And, man, it was an incredible. experience for me and it allowed me to kind of, it was kind of my foundation, gave me my foundation for my coaching career. Okay, so you're doing all this. You're going to, you're going to school at the same time.

Do you remember what you ran? Like, what was your, what was your, did you have an offensive philosophy? Because now you guys run a lot of really good kind of what I would say advanced offensive sets. Some of it, there's has some limitations in terms of, you know, your personnel. Like, would you, like, you're a college student, what'd you run for your offense, the stuff you ran in high school?

You know what? It also takes stuff from obviously Butler. You know, when I was there with Todd and those guys, like, you know, you kind of saw, I saw what they were running. So I would run a lot of that stuff at Ben Davis. You know, a lot of the ball screen stuff, you know, high ball screen, middle ball screen stuff.

And also run a little bit of, you know, with high school kids, it's so different. You know, because you have a lot of times, like we had a lot of six foot four, six foot three. We didn't have a six-nine guy, you know, like you do in college. So we'd run flex. We'd run kind of versatile offenses where we'd kind of get inside, outside guys. But you're right. I mean, it's amazing.

You think back to when I was coached in high school basketball back in 2000, you know, 2002 and all that. Like it's how much offense is changed. you know, over the year. Totally. It's a different game. Well, it's interesting because it's like even, I think even a lot of broadcasters are slow to pay attention. Like, take Virginia. They're not running block or mover anymore, right? They're not.

They're not. They're running ball screen. They're running the spread ball screen action. They're not running that ball screen continuity stuff, whatever that really Brad seemed to be the one who came up with. But, I mean, it just, it's. Offences, now some of it's changed. And then Michigan State, they run kind of a, one of their series they run is, we call the Cowboys. It's the old Henry Iba offense, the kind of the two-one-two set.

So there are some pieces, but motion basketball seems to have gone kind of a way. Yeah, defenses have changed. You know, everybody, when I was playing and I graduated in 2000, everybody hard hedged a ball screen. Like everybody. And now you can count on like one hand who hard hedges a ball screen. Some teams, you know, keep it on the side and ice everything. And most teams, you know, they either switch or they go over the top and funnel it to a big guy. But it's really interesting on how much stuff has changed.

All right. So then you went and didn't you, then the next thing was under Thad, after you graduated, you were a grad assistant for Thad, right? Yep, that'll have to see another really good staff there. and he said that he was kind of learned from the guys here around. Again, really lucky in that Allen Major was there. He ended up becoming the head coach of Charlotte. Obviously, my brother was there as well.

And then Dan Peters, who was a terrific coach and terrific person as well, was there on staff. So I was able to kind of soak up as much as I possibly could again, and underneath that there at Ohio State. Why did you go to Wabash Valley? That sounds like a death. That sounds like a desolate place, dude, Mount Carmel, Illinois. Yeah, no, it sounds as bad as it sounds.

I could say that. It's not good because I wanted to coach AAU, and I wanted to recruit, and I wanted to kind of get out on the road a little bit, and they made a rule that I could no longer coach AAUAU basketball while I was a GA at Ohio State. That became a rule. that spring and summer. And so, you know, I was heavily involved in AAU kind of in Indiana, and I wanted to coach,

and so I devised the plan, hey, you know, I'm going to go to Walbach College for a year, and I coached because junior college are no rules. You can do whatever you want, so I coached the AAU and I coached at the junior college level for a year. Again, I think just for me, I wanted to get experience doing it, and again, you know, stuff like that, but I just wanted to kind of get out on my own a little bit and get some experience of recruiting and getting out on the trail. I wanted to be seen. Sometimes I feel like, man, it's so hard again, not being a big-name guy,

if you're not out on the trail doing things, if you're in like an operations position and stuff like that, I think sometimes it's kind of out of side, out of mind, you know. Sure. It's hard to move up in this business. All right, so you're coaching speech, right? That was your team. Yep.

Who are the best players that you had back then for people who didn't follow the AU stuff? And we had some great players that Eric Gordon, who's obviously a phenomenal player. We had, you know, one of my favorite players I've ever coached, Chris Kramer, played at Purdue. Oh, my God, what a stud. What a stud. Tough kid. Oh, my gosh. He was the same one.

Like Purdue's had like five of these guys that Brian Cardinals won. I know. Brian Cardinals won. Chris Kramer's one. Which, like, if they're on your team, you love them, they're invaluable. If they're not on your team, you want to, my brother was a Cal. They had a kid named Jorge Gutierrez. Now, Jorge's bounced around and play a little bit in the NBA. It's a pretty amazing story, a kid from Mexico. He came here and he was like some prep school in Denver. Then he was at Finley. And I never forget, my brother gets a job at Cal. And seven months later, Ben Braun gets fired.

and Moni keeps him. And I think it was that offseason. He took Jorge. And basically he went to Finley and the guys were like, look, you want to win? Take the Mexican kid. And Greg's like, the dude with the ponytail is like, yep. They're like, and what they said,

and this will remind you of Chris Kramer and Brian Cardinal. Every game you'll play, the other team will have a guy who wants to fight him. And it's unbelievable. And it'll take somebody out of their game, and he just makes winning plays. And Jorge Gutierrez went on to become the Pac-12 player of the year. And that's exactly, I'm like Chris Kramer and Brian Cardinal,

and I could kind of go through the list of dudes. But those are the guys that make Purdue Purdue. But how hard are they to identify? Like, when you're coaching AAU basketball, you love them, but how hard is it to sell college coaches on? Look, I understand that Chris Kramer might not be able to dunk. Okay, but you're going to win games in the Big Ten because of him. How hard is that when you're talking to coaches?

I think it can be hard. I think as a college coachman, sometimes guys get so blindsided by talent. Right? Oh, my God. This guy's really long. He's an even though athletic. But at the end of the day, what wins is toughness. Right?

At this level, I mean, like, guys that want to compete, guys that understand it's bigger than them, guys that are tough. And like we had to get J.P. Macquarie here the last few years, Xavier. And I'm telling, that's how JP was. And those guys win. And you think of like a program and he's got a great program. That's what they've been built on for a long time during Matt Painter.

During his day, during King Katie's days, man, like kind of a blue-collar approach. And you've got to have guys like that. And I don't ever forget, like I went and saw, so I was recruiting for my A&U team. And I really wasn't recruiting Chris. I went to go see a kid that he was playing against. And, like, I'm watching this game, and this other kid was supposed to be this highly-ranked guy, you know, whatever, and talented guy had all these eye major offers.

And, like, I'm watching the game. I'm like, why the heck am I recruiting that kid? I mean, he was just all over the floor, diving on the floor, taking charges, you know, sock on the floor, you know, you know, just his enthusiasm and his toughness became contagious with his team. When you see how much man, that just impacts him. And it's not always pretty, but he wins. But I do think sometimes college person, we all get blindside of the talent.

But like at the end of the day, we've got to understand obviously what wins. Yeah. No, and it's hard because you want toughness, but you also need to get bucket geters and guys that create shots. So then you went and you work for, you work for Crean, right? when you went to iU was that was that a package deal with you and e jay i was with kelvin for two years oh god i forgot it was kelvin for two years yeah i was with kelvin for two years and uh you know man it was a kelvin is a uh you talk about it's like you learn things

from every stop at track right and uh man he he had a uh he's a terrific coach like what he's doing at easton not surprising at all you know no we play it we we we We played against him when he was at Oklahoma, and we always used to go like, these guys are terrible. We had no level of respect for most. And they had some guys now. They had, you know, Ryan Humphreys was there

before he transferred to Notre Dame. They had plenty of dudes, but we always just like, man, we have so much better players, but they would run this matchup zone. And they were incredibly tough. I also, I don't know if you remember, like when he first got the job, I came up and hung out with him for a day,

did a story, showed me his house and all that stuff. That was when, before they built the practice facility. Okay, so give me your biggest, if you could, if somebody says, how has Calvin Samson been able to win so much? What is the, what are the one or two things you take away as a coach from him? Yeah, I think personality. He is a fighter.

He is a fighter. I mean, that dude, but he, but he's hard on his guys, but like the relationship piece that he has with his guys, those dudes would run through a wall for him. I'm just telling you. So his relationship, the thing that I was eye-opening to me when I worked for him

was how close he was with the players. And because of that, they would run through a wall for him. And, you know, he's obviously a great coach, X's and O's-wise. But I think that piece, man, like, he's as good as I've ever been around as far as that,

just getting guys to play harder than they think they can even play. you know. Yeah, so how do you get guys to play? Because, like, I'll tell you what Eddie said, when any says to you. Eddie said to him, his whole thing was how hard you can play, right? And just pushing guys' buttons differently based upon their own personalities.

You know, some guys, they would, some guys, they would, and Coach Sutton didn't curse, but some of the assistants would dog cuss you and get you going. Some guys, we had, our best player is Desmond Mason. And Desmond was a non-confrontational guy. Like, if you came at Desmond, he would shut down. But if you said, like, we need five. guys that play as hard as Deson Mason like for whatever reason that seemed to work

and then occasionally if his attitude would slip he would call his dad we had a phone at midcourt and he would pick up the phone like practice is going on Desmond would talk back he'd see him talking the phone he'd hang up the phone the phone would ring and then it would be coach said and like hold on Desmond come over here I called Johnny on the phone

I told him what he told what you told me and now he wants to talk to you and like you hear this like yes sir yes sir yes sir I love you too click and then like all of a sudden he was a new man. So what was Calvin's trick to getting dudes to play hard? You know, I think number one, he understood it.

You know, knows who his audience is. You know, he had to be out a little bit. Certain guys need to be loved on a little bit more. But the thing that he would always do, man, even after practice,

even if he was on a guy, like, he would really, he would show him they loved to, you know, cared about him. And then, the relationship piece,

man, those guys knew it was more than just basketball. their relationship with Coach Sanson. Like, they knew. He loved them, cared about him as a person. And I think that allowed him to go the extra mile with those guys, you know. And something that they really cared. All right, so then you go and you work for Sean Miller.

It was like, it was a year under Sean, right? When you got to. And I've known Sean forever, man. I guess, you know, Sean was an assistant in NC State under Herb Sindeck when my brother was an assistant. there as well. And obviously, you know, Sean worked under the fads. I've known Sean since I was little. You know, like, he used to work me out and Reynolds calls him down at UNC State during the summer, you know, like, so I've known when I was, you know, 11, 12 years old. So I've known him forever. And again, I was a good fortune to make. You know, like, we get fired. We get fired at Indiana.

I was like, oh, my God, like, what am I going to do? You know, it, uh, I was lucky, man. I didn't know if I wanted to coach college basketball anymore. I thought about just coach in high school in Indiana. And I was lucky, man, that Sean offered me a job as the director of basketball operations as Xavier. And, you know, man, again, you learn something from every spot you're at. And Sean, I think, for me, he really built me how to run a program. And, you know, almost like, you know, Sean's like a CEO, you know, the way he kind of approached

it. And, you know, it was very systematic in every. thing that he did, whether it was skill development, whether it was scheduling, whether it was, you know, how we put it in the offensive and defensive system, the identity of our team.

He's just telling that he does, man. And I think that CEO type of mindset was different for me. I had never really seen that mindset. I've seen guys that got a really, really coached, but I thought Sean did a great job of that.

I always thought, and every time I've been to one of his practices, I thought it was like a clinic, you know? Like every practice you work on post feeds, you know, catching in the wing, shot fake or ball fake, one dribble, improve your angle, deliver the pass. Like I feel like, and almost every coach that, and I know he hasn't been to a Final Four,

and there's some other stuff going on, but I do feel like almost every coach I've ever been to whose teams are elite, whether they say they're working on passing and catching and cutting and and the fundamentals or whether they just say the fundamentals they all seem to do it now I don't um you know like I don't remember when I was like we didn't do a ton of it at Oklahoma State now we were naturally a good passing team because the person that we played a little bit smaller lineup than he had played um but I do like I feel like he's his teams are as fundamentally sound

offensively and defensively. If I had a flaw to pick with him, it's that he needs to kind of open up the offense a little bit and free up the reins, but they play really hard. They're really physical. And he understands that, like, end of the day, taking care of the basketball,

getting turnovers defensively, winning the battle on the boards, like that's what wins you basketball games. And he does an incredible job of coaching those fundamentals. No, he does, man. He takes about basketball. like you said, man,

working on touching, passing, dribbling, you know, footwork and your jump shot, like, you know, every rep matters.

Every rep mattered with him. And, you know, just the five, the littlest, the tiniest, man, like the devils in the details.

And, like, he's, he is a, he is a great coach. A great coach. Yeah, I think he's terrific.

Okay, so, so, so he leaves, and he goes to, he goes to Arizona. And, uh,

Mac takes over. And to some people, that was a little, a little bit of surprise. So you guys are, like, you guys are sitting in a room, and do you remember where you were when you found out Chris Mack was going to get the head coaching job? You know, I was here at Vegas, so when Sean decided to go to Arizona, that whole deal,

me, I was in Detroit, that was the Final Four, and I came back immediately because we were going to have a meeting, and then that's when he said he was going to Arizona, and then I knew Chris was obviously going to try to get the job. So I stayed here with him during that time. It was like a week time frame in between Sean, taking the Arizona job, and Chris getting it. So I'll remember when Chris got it said he was getting a job, I was right in the office and the Sintosh there. And did you think, now, do you think maybe I should go to, I should go to Arizona? Like, what was the thought process?

You know, I think the thought process for me that was like, you know, number one, like I really believe you in Chris. I knew Chris was really, really, really good. And for me, I've spent my whole career here. You know, you think about here in the Midwest, basically within a three-hour radius of where I'm from in Danville, Indiana. So all my relationships, all my ties are right here. So I felt like this is the place where I could do the best job, you know, and I can learn, again, from a different guy is the way I looked at it, Chris.

Because I knew Chris, you know, obviously we're going to do things very similar to how Sean did them. But, you know, Chris is going to obviously do things a little bit differently. and I wanted to kind of learn from him. And, I was fortunate he was able to, that he kept me on staff. All Ball Podcast, Travis Steele is our guest. He's head coach at Xavier. What allowed, like, as good as Xavier's program had been under all of the previous coaches, and there's an unbelievable list, right?

Like, they've literally all been good. Mac took it to a higher level. Obviously, you know, you go back to last year, a one seed. and, you know, winning the Big East and, like, all of those things. What do you think separates Chris Mack as a coach from other coaches? You know, I think he's an incredible communicator. Yeah, he's another guy really understands his audience, whether he's talking to a high school kid,

but it's much different than talking to, or, I'm saying, a high school recruit, or talking to a kid that's on a grad transfer. You know, or talking to our team, talking to boosters, talking, you know, that he understands his, audience, I think, number one. And number two, he is a, he is really, really, really organized in everything he does. Like, I'm sure he's got practice number one already planned out for next year.

Louisville, it wouldn't shock me. That's how organized he is, man. And he knows exactly how he wants to put in this system for play. Offensively, offensively, and defensively, there's a very organized process to how he kind of goes about that. He's a great coachman. he's an even better person. And again, I'm very fortunate to work underneath them. Okay, so you guys win 29 games.

You win the Big East. You get a one seed. But you lose in the second round. And then he leaves for Louisville. And they left the job open for like, I'm going to say it felt like 10 days. I don't know if it felt. Was it, how long was it? Was it?

What was it like to be you? Because, look, again, we don't know each other that well. I know your boy, Luke Murray, a lot better. and I know everybody else in basketball, and I know bits and pieces of all these guys that are kind of in your basketball family. And they're all like, Travis is the guy, he's got to get the job.

Travis is the guy, he's got to get the job. And I'm like, the longer it sits open, you're sitting there going, well, maybe there's something they know about Trap, right? They're like, maybe there's something they got on him. Like, maybe, I don't know. Like, no, he's married. He's not fool around.

Like, he's a solid dude. Like, what is it? Why are they not giving him the job? What was that whatever two weeks like for you? You know, it was interesting, man. I had some other opportunity, you know, other head coaching jobs, positions that were open. And it was funny, man.

I basically turned them down. And I went all in on Xavier. And, you know, because number one, you know, I've been here, obviously, a really long time. And I know, obviously, you know, like in this business, you know, in order to win big, you get a bet big. and so I thought it was a calcare of really risk for me and I just kind of put my head down

you know great Christopher our athletic director you know he came in right after Chris met with with our players and told him that he was leaving the rule you know he came up to my office and said hey listen trapp here's here's going to be the process you know we you know obviously respect you I think you do a great job but obviously we have to do what's best for Xavier in the program.

And so we're going to look at other candidates. You're going to be one of the candidates, as long as you would want to be. I want to go through the process. But, you know, we're going to interview guys down at the San Antonio down at the Final Four. You know, you're thinking to the back of your mind. I'm like, okay, that's fine. You know, and, honestly, you know, and Sean Miller gave me this piece of advice.

He said, honestly, just put your head down. Do not listen to anything or anything. do you want, don't get on social media, just put your head down and, you know, just, you know, go back to your own business, prepare for your interview. And, you know, and that's like I've even told my brother this during the time frame, too.

You know, I feel like I've had a, I'd had a six-year interview with Drake, Christopher. He knew me. I knew him really well. He goes on every road trip. He's in on film. He loves, you know, he's always involved in recruiting. He likes to know what's going on and stuff.

So, you know, he knew kind of what he was getting, but he also wanted to see, you know, like, hey, all right, what is going to be my vision for this program? How are we going to take it to the next level? Which, again, like you said, every coach, whether it was Bob Stack, Pete Gillen, Skip Prosser, you know, obviously Sadmott, Sean Miller, Chris McHick, every coach has continued to grow the program. And, you know, Xavier, and obviously, you know, our administration deserves a lot of that credit for getting us helping us to go from the MCC through the 8-10, obviously, to the business. Big East as well, which is obviously, you know,

has helped grow the program as well. You know, he wanted to hear my vision. And I had to be able to articulate that to him in a very, very clear way. And, you know, so we're down at St. Antonio, I interviewed for the job, right? And, you know, you always kind of waiting around, and, you know, that I was going to fly back right after my interview to be with my wife and my son. I got a little six-year-old boy. And, you know, Greg Christopher kind of said to me on the way out,

said, hey, you may want to stay an extra day. Don't know where there's things heading. So, you know, I didn't have any clothes. I didn't have an extra set of clothes. I had to go buy some clothes at a little mall right there in San Antonio. And what did you buy? Yeah, I was fortunate. You know, I bought a little Nike half-ship.

And I bought some khaki, Nike little khaki pants because I was afraid, like, hey, you know, what if Greg Christopher called me and says, hey, I want to meet with you. I have to look decent. Like I said, I didn't have any. I had to go buy deodorant, you know, tooth ruffs, toothed face, the whole deal. And Greg called me and said the next morning I was out on a run there in San Antonio, and he called me and said, hey, do you have, I want to meet up, can you meet in 30 minutes? So I read as fast as I could.

I don't know how fast I was running back to the hotel. I think, I mean, I don't know if I could run a five-minute mile, but it felt like I was. So I hustled back there And I didn't even have time to say out My new clothes And I was ready for them And the first time I ever thought that I wasn't It was that moment

Why? Because I was like, dang Like all of a sudden I peeked out my window Of my hotel And I saw Greg Christopher walking With the two of the associate Athletic Director to the stadium And I'm like, dang

I was like, there's a moment So I called my wife real quick I said, hey, listen, we're probably going to know in the next 15 minutes, whether I'm getting a job or not. He's like, oh, my God, she started getting all. You know, so then I'm up in great Christopher knocks on the door, and there he is. And then all of a sudden, he offered me the job. And obviously, I took that before he could spit it all out, man. I said, yeah.

And really, really unfortunate, so your first call is to your wife? First calling it's my life. And then obviously I spoke with our president of our university father, Graham. And then the next thing I did, you know, Greg wanted to announce it. And then I called, you know, obviously Chris Mack and Sean Miller and my brother. Anybody tells me to anybody that had a big influence of my career, man. And I made sure that I said thank you to those guys. Because without those guys, I wouldn't be where I'm at today.

So you get the job. what was first putting together a staff or figuring out players? You know what? When I called Sean Miller, he said, hey, I'm going to give you a piece of advice. He said, you have to just basically focus on three things. And these are three things that I focused on Allspring. Number one was our current players, which I'd already had a relationship with, obviously. I coached them recruits them.

I knew their parents. So I call each of the players. I wanted to have flew back immediately from San Antonio to Cincinnati to be with those guys. The second focus was, obviously, was recruiting. Like, we are six of the bail. And we only had a couple visits. We had three official visits, and we had like six or seven open spots on our, which you can do the math.

It's not a business group that I have. So we need a player for the third was, and probably the most important things, what you just have to by the most important thing you can do as a head coach is putting really good people around. how what's what's the what's the what's the is there a trick to like I I saw you guys rolling the year against Evansville I felt like you were still trying to figure out like Naji for example super talented kid but there was a little bit of challenge there

in terms of getting him completely bought into to what you're doing whereas late in the year I mean I remember that the game that kind of turned your season was that Creighton game like he was a he was a different player what's the challenge like in being like when you're assisting you one role, you're a head coach, you have a different role. How did you kind of evolve through the year?

You know, I think number one, you've got to be who you are and be true to who you are. And I think, I think guys they see light through people that are fake to try to be different than who they are, you know, try to be somebody else that they're not. You know, so I just tried to be the same person I was

as I was an assistant coach. And, you know, I think we all grew. And, you know, like, Nazi, for instance, We've never been asked to be a feature guy at this level. Like last year, he's a really nice freshman year. But we had Trayvon Blue at J.P. Caratam Cancer, Cajor, Gaines, Sean O'Meara. We had a bunch of dudes that we played through.

We didn't really, we didn't play through, Naji. And all of a sudden, you're on a focal point on a scouting report. Every team, it's a big change. And, you know, Naji had to figure that out. You had to trust the offense, trust me, trust our new staff. And I think that just the year went on. And I think he learned how to be a guy, a play-through guy. Learned how to be a guy that could facilitate to others.

Learned how to be a guy that could create his own shot. You know, like, because he's talented enough to do it, obviously, but it is a big adjustment at this level. Because you think about it, like Evansville's got terrific coaching staff, all these guys, you know, Creighton did as well. And, you know, Coach McDermott's one of the best in the entire country. And, you know, she's playing with really good. really good coaches and really good players throughout the year.

I thought Naji really grew as the year went on. He finished a year really strong and then I've been a second team all-conference guy. You know, we were talking earlier about how basketball has changed. If you went back to when I played or how early 2000s, you guys had a great, you have a great lineup, right? You got two bigs so you can post double, right, with Tarikin and with Hankins, right? Like that's a, right? It's having two bigs and then having a mole. kind of hybrid three, four in Marshall.

But like shooting and spacing is so different now that it becomes really, it was a, I think it was a really big challenge for you in hindsight. Like I don't know if you don't take a Zach Hankins because he's a D2 player of the year and I mean, it's kind of a no-brainer. And you take Wellidge as a grad transfer and Castling as a grad transfer. Can you be more selective, not in that, they're not bad kids, but just, hey, here's what we need. We need more shooting in space more than we need more size.

Is that something in the future that you kind of try and figure out? Kind of a little bit like we talked about with Chris Kramer, not just picking toughness above athletic talent, but also how it fits in with your current players. Yeah, I think you have to nail on the head, man. Like, the pieces have to fit together. And our team this year, quite honestly, I didn't fit together real well. And we had to throw it to, you know, like if you do, if you do a six, nine, guy usually, and maybe he could defend

inside and rebound a little bit, but Tyreek and Zach are both guys that would operate five feet men, and we had those two guys on the floor together. But at the same time, I knew those were our five best players. Tyreek and Zach were in there. So we had to play differently. So we would

run much different stuff offensively when we had those two guys in, compared to when we had Ryan Wellidge at the former or Anage and Marshall at the floor. I think you can get a lot more creative. The more spacing you have on the floor, and the more shooters you have on the floor, the more

creative you can get, the more things you can do. And, you know, like, again, like, and that's the way the games changed, okay? Obviously, the way we're recruiting, that's exactly what we're doing now. If you can't, it's hard to play this thing. And, you know, it's funny.

I think you can get away with having one guy, you know what I mean? Like, you better be special, though. Like, You know, there's not many rondos out there. But you also, and that was, you also, you also have to be able to guard, though, too, right? Like, it's like you can maybe get away with one guy a little bit, but you can't get away with more than one guy that can't guard. You know, a garden space, and you better be able to big shots. And I think, you know, that's what everybody's looking for.

And it's just those versatile guys, guy, Mike Size guys, what Goal Nova's had. It's what we tried to recruit. And we brought in the 2014 class of Edmund Sumner, say, P. McKee McKee. and Trayvon blew it, and those guys, like shooting still, like-sized guys, and you get kind of versatile guys, you know, just players, you know. And, you know, Nause, he kind of fits it. And he's got to become a better senior, and he has become a game. And just huge as a state you're able to play at as well.

And that is the way the game is played. So we were obviously trying to recruit that way and recruit to that style of play. But we just kind of had to figure it out this year as best as we possibly could. You took over a job and you said everybody's taken into a higher level. I mean, like, the only higher level than where it's been is the Final Four. I'll just tell you, like, our guys at Fox, obviously, we cover the Big East. All of us kind of, whether it was LaV or Jimmy Jackson or Nick Ba or Raf, we're all like, man, Travis actually, Travis actually taken on a way harder job at Xavier than any of his predecessors

because all of those other guys were successful. they've all gone on to bigger things but they all were, you know, like when you're in the A-10, Xavier was far and away the most invested program in the A-10. The fans are great, the facilities are great. You were just, the proximity to players was great. Like, you had it kind of going on,

whereas now when you're, you took a job that was one seed in a league. And look, the Big East does not have Q's in Louisville and Notre Dame and, you know, Yukon anymore. But, you know, you had a team. that won two of the last three national championships. There are at least programs that have like amount of investment. How much more challenging was it for you than it was when you were part of Mack staff

taking over for Sean Miller? I mean, obviously, it's challenging. You think about the big, you can't hide, and you can't fake it at this level. You know, like it's a, you need dudes that are talented, you need dudes that are invested, you guys are good for your culture, but, like, you can't. can't fake it. I mean, if you try to fake it at this level, you're going to get your butt kicked. And, you know, so obviously, there was a lot of challenges with that, you know, because obviously, I know we knew that we were going to lose a lot off last year's team.

When we were the one season, we were big each regular season champs, you know, we lost a lot. But also, you had kind of a cool young guys that were pretty talented, you know. Right. But the weird thing, man, for Xavier, is, you know, during my entire time, my entire time, here and we didn't have any seniors. Like, I'd say seniors, like guys that have been here, you know, for either the whole time or even two years or three years, we had to bring in three grad transfers. Those were our three seniors this past year.

Yeah, and the senior night was interesting. Yeah, and that made it really neat. And like that, odds, pod, and we'd get better late if our guys could stick with it because we had some of new guys and new guys and new roles and new stuff. You know, I knew it was going to be a big challenge. And obviously, you know, Chris Mack had a challenge, too. I mean, like, you know, now we were talented, stuff like that when, you know, and Chris took over,

but, I mean, there's always challenges, man. I don't know if mine's harder than, you know, we just tried to attack as best as we possibly could, man. I'm fortunate to have the staff that we have here. And, uh, I think Luke is, Luke Murray is going to get a head coaching job. Neither stuck. What, what, I mean, obviously those of us who know,

and I know them pretty well, It's always interesting. Like I had, I've gotten to know Richard Petino pretty well. And like, again, like Richard Petino, you would think like son of Rick, you know, you think he was, he grew up entitled and arrogant and like, dude is self-deprecating and super enjoyable to be around. Luke obviously like, right, like you go up and your dad is one of the funniest men in the history of the business, right?

You're like, you almost like to do something funny. But he's just, he's just a very normal rate for people who don't know Luke. what's he like on a daily basis? He's just a normal guy. He really is. Like he is a, number one, he's a, he was a great dude. He was awesome to work with. He works really all competitive.

Dude, I, everyone likes them. Players love them. People love to work with him. I mean, like I said, man, he's a, he's a good big, he's intelligent. He is going to make a great head coach. He's not a good head coach, man. He's got a really, really, really bright future. All right, so I have a, I got a couple questions here from the Twitter world.

Brian Snow says, most obvious question, you know Be Snow. Why would you pick a coach without a person now to be on your podcast? Your responses. That's a great question. You know what? He was in my wedding. All right, and I don't tell many people that, but I'll put it out here. You just told everybody that, by the way, so go ahead.

Yeah, I know. this guy shows up at the rehearsal. All of a sudden, I looked down at his pants. I said, hey, no, no, no. You still got to, like, you know how they put that little security thing on your clothes sometimes? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. What he still had is on his pants? And I said, my man, you can't come to. We can't be pictures and all stuff. You've got this big old thing on your pants. Like, he was in such a russ to get there. He was late to everything. My wife is losing her mind.

you know, about Brian, so where's he at? Where is that? And I said, Brian, you get me in trouble. All that you do is be in a long time, get your head, and the clothes on, be later all. And my man shows up with a security thing on his pants, shows about 30 minutes late. My wife's all over my butt.

I mean, God. Where did you get married? Where did you get married? In Cincinnati, here. My wife's from there. No, but where, specifically? I mean, we can't crash the wedding. The wedding's already taking place.

Yeah, it's called Greenwich. acres. It was an outdoor wedding. It was a beautiful setting. My wife said it on him up. I had nothing to do with it. I just smiled. That's all you're supposed to do.

You're supposed to do. Yep. That sounds like a good idea. Oh, yes. That sounds great. That sounds great. This is actually from Retire 52 to being two old two holidays who played for you at what IU, right?

and then came with you to Xavier. The Xavier. Anyway, that's the name of his Twitter handle. He wanted me to ask you about what Rick Barnes did in their second round game, where Admiral Schofield said he wanted to, he won another dude to, another captain. Have you ever heard of that where Admiral Scolfe was like, no, no, no, go with another guy. He's playing better than me. So does you how great a teammate he is.

You know, guys that can understand it's bigger than you. It's all about winning. And honestly, that shows you, I mean, obviously he's an incredible player. You read all the articles on him. I know I read an article on him, basically. When he came back, he wanted to be Rick Barnes' favorite player he's ever coached. That was his goal this year. I saw that quote, and I'm like, wow.

You know, for a guy like that to say that, not entitled, you can tell you, appreciates playing at Tennessee, being coached by Rick Barnes. man, the leadership that he showed by doing that and being selfless. That's why Tennessee's so good. Yeah. No, you are. My brother told me a long time ago. I'll never forget this.

They lost to Duke in, I think it was 2010 when there was a couple, one of their, Patrick Christopher, one of their players got his head split open. It wasn't called a foul. That's one of the things about playing against Duke. But I remember he said, he told me afterwards, he's going to win the whole thing.

And I said, why do you say that? He said, Singler's their best player. Singler's their toughest player. He's like, look, man, you are who your toughest player is. You are who your, excuse me, you are who your best player is. He goes, ask any coach. You are who, think about every team you've been on.

Whatever your best player's personality is, that's what your team is. Right? And he's like, Kyle Singler, is a tough motherfucker. Like, he just, he will not, he will them to win. He'll guard you even though he can't move his feet. keep you in front, he'll batty you if you're ever bored. Like, he's their best player. That's all the other guys fall in line.

And Admiral Schofield reminds me, like, Admiral Schofield is tough, smart, selfless, respectful, right? And kind of a guy who brings everybody together, and that's who their team is. Is that fair? That's why they're good. Okay. Purdue's taken on Tennessee. And I know you grew up as an IU guy, right? And I love what Painter's done with this team is amazing.

Like losing four starters. and I mean, four really, really good players. And now they have guys that just fit kind of roles perfectly. I do feel like that gets exposed. Like Grady Eiford's a great kid and a great story. And I hope his brother comes back healthy for the... You see, I think the Bengals did actually resign him. But I just feel like that's a mismatch for Tennessee.

How do you, when you're preparing for a game and you're like, for example, in this particular game, like Admiral Schofield against Grady Eiford, that feels like a bad mismatch. I saw Jordan Murphy really take it to Purdue at the Big Ten tournament, kind of same reason. They were just finding out who Eifert was guarding, and they were going right at him athletically. How do you try and cover that up? Yeah, I think, you know, we try to do it with Ryan Weller just here. Every game, it's like how do we try to hide him a little bit, maybe.

But, you know, you've got to figure out, again, like, what are you trying to take away from Tennessee? You know, like, what are you going to take with? Because they got a lot of great players. Bone's a terrific player. Obviously, Admiral's a great player. Grant Williams, a great player. They've got a lot of guys. You've got to be able to take something away.

I think that's where it starts. You know, what do you want to take away? And maybe it is Admiral. I don't know. You know, you're going to switch his ball screens. If you've got to try to post you, do you got a trap when he goes to the post, you know, you'll play a little bit of zone

to hide specific guys. Like, you know, like we try to hide Ryan Well as much as possible on the defense. And we play, you know, a lot of two-three zone. So people could not pick on him. we would not switch any ball screens with him either. We try to find a matchup. Maybe it was a guy that wasn't setting ballscreens.

So we put Ryan on that guy so he could switch the other ones if that makes sense. So you've got to try to get as creative as possible to hide certain guys and obviously exploit so you don't get exploited mismatch-wise. But then offensively, I think you always kind of look at it, you know, where are the weaknesses? You know, what do you want to attack? How are they guarding ball screens? how do they guard the post? You know, are they a team that, you know,

floods to the ball on penetration, or do they stay at home a little bit more? You know what I mean? You start to look, how can you attack them on that end as well? It'll be a heck of a game, man. You've got two great coaches in that game now with Barnes and Painter. Yeah.

It's a very, very, very good team. I want to ask you about Michigan, and I'm asking you because you've coached against Villanova, and Villanova, there's a lot of similarities in terms of defense. of style, right? Like I was talking to the Texas tech guys, and they're like, how do we beat these guys? And I said, well, look, last year, if you would have made layups against Villanova, you could have beat, you know, they gave Villanover their best game in the tournament.

And he's like, and Beard and a couple assistants, they're like, they're so physical. I said, well, that's exactly how Michigan plays. Michigan's fourth few is fouls in college basketball. They foul you, but they don't get called for fouls because they use their lower body. And they do, they really, really load up on the basketball. And for, listen, if you're listening this podcast, you know, this year, you're kind of a basketball guy. But that's, you know, it's, we talk about flooding.

I don't know if you call it flooding the lane or whatever. They, I've always been told it loaded into the basketball. What's the best? Leah, loading the ball. So how do you, how do you beat that offensively? Because you've had so many times and had success against it. More at home, obviously, than in Philadelphia against Villanova. You know, I think, I think number one, because, like you said, like Michigan keeps it

really tight on the floor, you know, like with, because they have a big kid Teske, right? And they try to take your back or drop, you know, you know, whatever. you want to call it, ball screen defense of coverage, and they keep him, keep him in the paint, so he's a rim protector. And I think, again, you've got to find ways to get teams in rotation. I think when you simplify offense, I think any good offense is broken down to how can you force rotation and can you force to close out, right? And because Michigan, if you watch them, again, I've watched them casually.

I have not really studied them this year. They have a lot of short closeouts, right? They're never really in full rotation. But you've got to try it. The same thing, like Villanova, Villanovo switch. A lot of ballstrings, they'll veer back or drops that are not rotation ball screen defense-wise. And I think you've got to get them in rotation.

You know, that's the key because you think about the guards that they have, whether it's Xavier Simpson or Jordan Poole, they've got some guards that can move their feet. So if it's just a one-on-one battle, but, as you know, like if you and I were to play one-on-one, one, Doug, the top of the key, you'd probably beat me either way. But it'd be a lot easier to drive me if I was closing out on you from 10 feet. Right. Well, I always thought, you know, I saw Michigan State. They used a lot of skip passes.

And the thing they didn't use was flare screens as well. I like flare screens or fade screens, whatever you guys call it. That's one too, load to the ball. Yeah. Huh? Yeah. Especially when you're saying, when they're loading to the ball, you got to pin them in. You know, and then skip and you can play, and then I get to that close out.

So you're always thinking as a coach, in my age I do offensive, how can we create closeouts? How can we create a long rotation? And then we can play. And then we're just like you've done since our guys were in fifth grade. And, you know, so I think you're exactly right. Pending in on the weak side is really, really good against a team like that. And you have to know when you drive the ball against a team like Michigan, you really have to move without the ball. You've got to do a great job moving off penetration, getting to be a good.

to open spots, being ready to drive and kick because they are going to be physical. And if they don't help in and they stay at home, you better be, you better play off two feet. You know, like, you can't. It's just, I would tell you, plenty of Michigan is not a one-foot game. You better play off at two feet, and you better be physical. They better play through contact. Like you said, they don't get caught for foul, and they do a great job of being legal and using their lower body and filling their hands.

They're one of the best out in college. All right. Three more than I know you got, you got to go. You've got a life to live. and a program to take care of. What was the, was there a moment this year where you're driving home from the arena and it felt, it felt real, right? Like, I don't know if it was the Nova win.

Was there a moment where you drove home and you're like, yeah, this is, this is what it's, this is what I've been, you know, I've been waiting your whole life to be a head coach. The first head coach you gig you get is a good one, but a challenging one losing two, two thousand points scores. I'm just wondering if there was a moment where you're, remember driving home going that, or your moment you're on the sideline, where you look down you see Jay, or the, the, the, the, the, the, the, great an overtime win, or even, even a loss where you're looking down at Georgetown, you're like Pat Ewing's down at the other side line.

Was there a moment where it clicked in how real this actually is? You know, it, you know, like I'd say, you know, the moment probably was, you want to compete against the whole Nova. Obviously, they've won two national titles in the last three years. And Jay Wright's a terrific coach. And, you're competing against him. You know, and it's like, man, there's a, that's when it becomes real. And I tell you when it became really real for me, Doug,

because last year, last spring we're at the Big East meetings. All of a sudden, it's like, hey, you get Jay right in there, you got Pat Ewing, get Chris Moore, you got all these guys, it's like, and it's like, man, you start comparing your roster to their roster. You know, that's like, man, hey, this is what we got to get, man. Like, we got to get this thing to the next level. That's when it, that was probably the first moment, was at the big East meetings last May,

just that sense of urgent. You've got to go time, man. And is, and my, go ahead. Is, is that, if there's one thing you could change about your job or about college basketball,

what would it be? You know what? It's interesting because we just played, I'm going to give you a rule. And as far as the game goes, I think moving the three-point line back would be great. Because we just played it with an IT rules, right? And I just,

think the more spacing on the floor, the better. And I think you're going to see even higher scoring games when that happens. I think eventually it'll do it, I would think. I think, you know, they always use the NIT as kind of experimental or whatever, you know, like, we'll test. I think that that would be a good rule change. I like that one. I got one for you. I like the, I would like the elimination of basket interference, not goaltending.

Okay. Goaltending is still goaltending. But when the ball is on the rim, well, I can. can't you compete for it, where you can hit it off. And what people don't understand? Yeah. Like if you ever coached in those rules,

on a second free throw, balls rolling around, you could tip it out. On the other hand, if you tip it and accidentally any rolls in, it's actually two points, not one point. Yeah, I like it. All right, last thing,

I know you're excited because you have an unbelievable recruiting class and you've had more time. How will Xavier look differently next year from this year? you know I think I think we started to be this way towards the end of the year I thought we're going to be a really good defensive team really good and we better be at top

you know it's funny man I'm a big 10 pomeroid guy as far as all the rankings go and stuff like if if we would have over the last 11 games we would have been ranked as the 28th best defense in the country you know if we just took the last 11 games of our season and we played against all NCAA tournament or nit team you know our defense got a lot of better, man. I think with the guys that were bringing in,

we are going to be a tough nasty team on defense, and then I just want to share the ball on the offensive end. You go to the final four? You stay at home? I am not going. The only way I'm going is if we get a day there. So, I'm not going. You're literally never, you're never going again until you go as a participant. Yeah. I mean, I had to go last year. I had to get the job. I usually never go.

You told us you went and bought a pair of khakis. Have you saved those cackies or those special cackies? Are they like the job accepting cackies? Are they like everyday cackies? I still have them. I still wear them. I'm good luck. Good luck there.

Well, listen, I really appreciate your time. And I have so much respect for the grind that's gotten you to where you've gotten. And like I said, we don't know each other well, but everybody I know swears on you. So swears by you. So congrats on what I actually thought was an outstanding first year, not just just because of how it finished, but because, hey, a lot of guys would have, if I would have come up to you mid-year,

they would have said, ah, F these guys, I don't like this team, wait till next year, whatever. You did, and you kept fighting and grinding and got those guys, you know, they advanced them in the NIT a little bit, which that's what it's about, getting the most out of what you have

and looking forward towards the next year. So congratulations, and thank you so much for joining us. All right, that's going to do it for all, ball. Enjoy the Sweet 16. Continue to tweet me out, all of your questions. We'll get into the next week.

Plus, we'll be at the Final Four, next week for the radio show. The radio show, by the way, is daily. 3 to 6 Eastern, 12 to 3 Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you listen to Fox Sports Radio. We also have a serious XM channel. I think it's 2,17 and 203. Check that out. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed this podcast. I'm Doug Gottlieb. You're listening to All Ball. When you're ready to place a bet on today's games, do it with the most trusted name in online sports betting, Bet Rivers Sportsbook, now legal in several states and growing. Bet River

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