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There's so many people in our profession don't have peace about where they're at.

They're constantly looking for their next job.

They aren't able to put roots down and that was me.

The five years in junior college.

Like they were good spots, but they weren't places we wanted to be long term.

We have found a place that we love and I don't want to leave just out of curiosity because my family's thriving, our program's thriving.

So I'm just very fortunate to be where I'm at.

Ryan Glenny is in his ninth season with the Dallas Baptist University men's basketball team and he serves as the team's Associate head coach.

During his eight seasons with the Patriots, DBU has advanced to the NCAA Tournament six times, won two Lone Star Conference Division titles, a pair of Heartland Conference regular season titles, and clinched the Heartland Conference tournament championship in 2018 while posting a 10775 overall record.

In 2019, Glenny was named the Texas association of Basketball Coaches Small College Assistant Coach of the Year.

Before arriving at dbu, Glennie was the top assistant coach at North Platte Community College in North Platte, Nebraska and also had coaching stints at Jacksonville College and Western Texas College.

Glenn he began his coaching career at Iowa State University serving as a student assistant under current Creighton university coach Greg McDermott.

After graduating from Iowa State, he joined the Dallas Baptist University staff as a graduate assistant coach.

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Grab a notebook and pen before you listen to this episode with Ryan Glenny, men's basketball associate head coach at Dallas Baptist University.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here without my co host Jason Sule tonight, but I am pleased to be joined by Ryan Glenny, associate men's head basketball coach at Dallas Baptist University.

Ryan, welcome to the Hoopetts pod.

Thanks a lot, Mike.

Thrilled to have you on.

Looking forward to diving into all the interesting things that you've been able to do in your career.

Let's start by going back in time to when you were a kid.

Tell me a little bit about your first experiences with the game of basketball.

What made you fall in love with it?

Yeah, I didn't grow up in a particularly athletic family.

I grew up on a stereotypical corn and soybean farm in, in eastern Iowa.

And there was a hoop in a big red barn, you know, plywood backboard.

And so there was always that to do.

And, and so I'd just be in the barn shooting for hours.

And it's just this, not from really anyone really introducing me to it.

My dad played a little bit, was a Celtics fan with Bill Russell and things back in the day.

But we, we'd play one on one growing up, you know, in the winter, in between planting and harvest.

So those are a lot of really good memories for me and my dad growing up.

And, and so from there I just, yeah, just middle school, high school played.

And I would say that I loved the game a lot more than it loved me in terms of I didn't have a whole lot of natural athletic ability, but I took it as far as I could through high school and then found ways into coaching from there.

Who was the first coach that had an influence on you?

Boy, you know, there isn't a, I went to a really small school, know the town was two, three thousand people.

And so some of the coaches I had from middle school up through high school in different capacities.

And there was a man by the name of Ron Hedrick, he was the high school math instructor and he Just kind of coached all the sports.

He'd be an assistant for, for all of them.

And for.

For whatever reason, I wasn't particularly gifted.

I was never a star of a team or anything.

But he just really invested in me, believed in me.

He encouraged me when I was coming off the bench.

And, you know, and I know he's just a really good man who gave me a lot more than I was able to give him on the court.

So he was probably the first one.

Just through middle, through middle school and through high school.

Having him as a math instructor who.

Yeah, it was just helped me feel valued, even though I wasn't out there being all conference, going to a small school.

Did you play other sports besides basketball?

I did.

I did a little football and track and then got to high school.

The hurdles got higher, I did not get taller.

So I started doing golf.

But basketball was my main sport.

Iowa is, you know, wrestling capital of America.

We were a wrestling powerhouse.

So basketball wasn't taken very seriously.

And so I tried to find guys to, you know, played, go around the neighborhood, hey, want to play some threes outside and things.

But then to come from a particularly strong program, I just really loved it.

How do you think that playing all those different sports as a kid, when you think about the specialization that so many kids get involved in today, for whatever reason, whether it's just the youth basketball environment itself, whether it's parents kind of pushing kids to specialize, coaches or programs pushing kids to be able to specialize.

When you think about your childhood growing up and shooting in the barn with your dad and playing multiple sports and just having those experiences, how do you value those in your life?

When you think back to that time of your childhood.

Yeah, just.

It provided a lot of different experiences through sport successes, failures.

Being at a small school, I was always with the same teammates because my.

The guys on the football team are also the guys on the basketball team and the track team.

And so you're.

You're with a lot of the same people 365 days a year through different sport.

And it.

There's benefits of specialization, specialization, but there's also absolutely benefits of, Of.

Of doing other things.

I think of guys that I've coached in college, like some of the better players I've had were all state football players or one of the guards I've had with the best footwork, grew up in the Netherlands playing soccer, you know, like that.

Those experiences that they had allow them to do special things in basketball that they.

I don't think they would have been as special at.

Had they not had multiple sports, have they not experienced those growing up with.

Your background as a player and thinking about the coaches that influenced you, was coaching something that you thought about from an early age or when you went to college?

Was it not really something that was on your radar as a potential career?

Where were you in the process of when you made a college decision?

Were you thinking at all that, hey, maybe at some point coaching is where I wanted.

Obviously, I know that you got an opportunity to work under Coach McDermott.

We'll talk about that here in a second.

But where was your mindset as you were leaving high school, going into college, in terms of career wise?

Yeah, it's.

It's remarkable.

It should have been on my radar much earlier, given how much I love the game and how clearly obvious it was I wasn't going to be playing college basketball.

But it didn't occur to me.

Upon graduation, I went to a local community college for a year and a half, dabbled in education, journalism, you know, different majors.

I tried.

I finally landed on physical education because I wanted to be around athletics and things and.

But again, for some reason, coaching hadn't really occurred to me.

And then I transferred to Iowa State.

My dad was an Iowa State alum.

I just grew up rooting for the Cyclones my whole life.

And so I.

That's just where I was going to go.

And when the thought of coaching finally occurred to me, it was kind of a surreal experience that I haven't had very often.

But I had a homework assignment.

They gave us two or three choices of people in our field in kinesiology to go listen to.

And one of them was a former Iowa State player that I had grown up watching, Jake Sullivan, and.

And to go talk about the AAU organization he ran out of.

Ames back then, 20 some years ago, all I knew, coming from a small country town is AAU is just playing summer league with your high school team in the summer.

I didn't know what it was.

And so I went, I listened to Jake talk, and he was telling me about this AAU program, All Iowa Tack, that he had started there in Ames.

And they were getting a lot of the best players from Iowa, and they're traveling around the country playing in tournaments.

And it was.

They were just getting started and it was growing and it was just really bizarre.

Like, it was just a moment where it's like, this is what I'm going to do.

And I went up and I was like, can I help?

Can I.

Can I volunteer with the program.

I remember calling my mom, like, with goosebumps on the, like walking home.

It was so bizarre, but it was like I just found out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.

And I couldn't really explain it, but that's kind of where it started.

So from there, obviously, that's an instantaneous dream.

But then there are things obviously that have to take place in order to get you from this light bulb aha moment to, hey, I'm actually going to start to move myself in the direction where I can consider coaching as a career.

So after that light bulb moment, what are the next steps?

What are the next couple things that happen in the progression towards becoming a coach?

Yeah, well, I had to beg Jake to allow me to coach with him.

He didn't know anything about me and, but he allowed me to get on board.

And the program was growing from just having high school boys teams, but they were adding middle school and elementary school and he just needed willing helpers.

And so for the three years, my final three years of my undergrad, I was coaching for, you know, basically volunteering, but helping coach all the teams.

And I was just really a sponge.

I was willing.

I don't know how able I was at the time, but, you know, it was an opportunity and it was a foot in the door to coach somebody and, and to be taught.

The very first team I ever had that was my own was our sixth grade C team.

And one of the most influential moments in my coaching career, it was our C team.

But we're still going and playing in all these big national tournaments that our top teams are playing in.

We're going to Milwaukee, Chicago, top teams winning all these games and we're getting beat by 30 every game.

Like, we just need to be in the local rec league.

And so, you know, it was frustrating.

And I'm like, why am I coaching the C team?

And I got an email from Jake telling me, hey, don't expect you to win all your games, but these players are investing a lot of their time, their parents are investing a lot of money and they need to be getting better.

And if they're not getting better, then maybe this is, this won't be a very good fit.

And it was a gut punch because we had talked about, hey, when you graduate, you know, hopefully we'll be growing at the rate where we can hire you on full time.

And it was something that I loved.

I was in the gym constantly training kids, developing relationships, and it was, it was a huge gut punch and it taught Me, man, like players can.

Players will rise to the level that you hold them accountable to.

They may not be the most gifted players, but I could, I can get a lot more out of them.

And from then on it started getting better and it was a better experience.

I got a lot better as a coach.

That was really a kick in the pants that I needed to kind of.

Yeah.

Drive me forward.

Yeah.

While I was coaching, coaching those guys.

What did you do differently?

What was it that after you get that email, what is it that you change about your approach?

When you think back to that time, what did you do differently?

Yeah, it was, I think just because it's like, well, I'm coaching the C team.

There's no expectations for them to win, show up, get through practice and then go help with the top teams, the high school teams, you know, but I wasn't giving those boys the, the fullness of myself that they deserved and their families deserved.

And after that I just, it's like the attention to detail, the accountability.

No, that's not right.

Let's do it again.

And then watching how they responded in really good ways, like they wanted the challenge, their parents wanted the challenge, the accountability, that's what they were there for.

And watching them get better, then all of a sudden, shockingly, start winning a couple games and the boys are having more fun and.

But again, like I'd never coached anyone before, I really didn't know.

And I just learned so much about human psychology and just through a bunch of, you know, nice 12 year old boys and that really.

Yeah.

And that fit a fire in me to realize, man, I can do, I can do a lot more.

I can be a lot more as a coach as well.

When you think about those reps from that first AU experience and then obviously you continue on and as you said, you did that for three years and had an opportunity to coach different teams and, you know, work both as a head coach and as an assistant coach.

How important, when you look back now at the point you are in your career, how important were those early reps in terms of helping you to understand what it takes to be a coach at whatever level?

Not, I mean, whether you're coaching sixth grade or whether you're coaching at the level that you're coaching now, what did you learn from those early reps?

That not everybody gets those because not everybody starts out coaching their own team in aau, a lot of guys are obviously jumping in at the college level where you're an assistant or you're on a Division 1 staff.

If you're lucky and you're, you know, you're the OPS guy or the video or you're whatever.

And maybe you don't get all the opportunities to do as many things on the floor as you did.

So what was the value of those reps for you?

It was really invaluable.

There are things about being a head coach, even if it's to a sixth grade team, that you can't get.

Being an assistant coach at any level, the, the implication, you know, substitution patterns, the implications of those, how, how that impacts a player's confidence, handling with parents, you know, navigating those situations, being the one that creates the, the practice plans, figuring out time management, how do you make a practice flow?

Being the person who's in charge of getting, you know, the logistics of travel to, to one tournament or, or another.

Yeah, there's just so many in a 12 year old game with 5 seconds left down to, you're the one having to draw something up, you know, don't have to do that much as an assistant, you know, that's what the head coach is doing.

And so in college and so, yeah, just really invaluable experiences.

And again, it's not on a big stage.

So if I fail, like we all learn and we laugh it off and you know, you survive.

There's six AAU games every weekend, you know, go, go play another one.

So I, I really got to grow and learn a lot about myself through that.

What's one lesson?

If you had to take one thing that you took away from your time in AAU basketball that you're still carrying with you today, what's the one most important lesson you learn?

Boy, that's a great question.

I just think that everyone has value.

The big lesson.

When I told you, when I got that email, I wasn't giving those boys, it was subconscious and immature from a 20 year old college student.

But I wasn't giving those boys, I wasn't giving them the value that they inherently have.

You're the C team.

I'm going to get through practice.

Like that's, that's not, that's not how the world works.

Like everyone's created in the image of God.

They have an innate value and should be treated as such.

And when I started treating them with the value that they deserved, they started becoming better versions of themselves.

Tell me about how attending Iowa State gets you the opportunity to work with Coach McDermott.

Are you going in and banging on the office door multiple times?

Are you sending multiple emails?

Are you begging the secretary to Get a chance to feel like, what was.

What was the process like?

A little bit, yeah.

It's.

It's again, a lot of.

And this is similar to.

With my, My sixth grade team is I.

This kind of happened for me, like, realizing that I'm capable of.

Of.

Of more than what I thought.

So, like, I just thought, man, I'm.

I'm going to coach for this AAU program.

This.

This is going to be my career.

I'll get hired full time after I graduate.

That was the plan.

But then going into my senior year, the.

My boss with the AAU program called me in that summer, going into my senior year, and he goes, hey, we're not quite going to be where we thought we were in terms of hiring someone full time after you graduate.

Like, we're not going to be able to hire someone.

And, you know, that was like a. I was just distraught.

This is what I want to do.

And he goes, have you thought about coaching in college?

And I go, never, not once.

Because, I mean, as I've described, come from a very humble basketball background.

And he goes, you should really go on and see if you can get on as a manager at Iowa State.

Just, you know, he had played for.

For us a couple head coaches ago, but, you know, he was still.

Still involved and around.

And so he goes, just go to the basketball office, mention that I, I sent you, and just ask if you want to be a manager.

Well, I did that, but that did not get me to the job I met with.

And there are people that ended up being very influential for me, but Ron Smith, who was the director of operations, Jeff Rudder, who was the associate head coach at the time, he's at Western Michigan now.

I kind of met with them and hey, like, appreciate you having interest.

We already have 10 managers.

We, you know, it's the Big 12.

Everyone wants to be a manager.

And they're like, I just don't think we're gonna have a spot for you.

But I was able to.

I managed to somehow get Coach Rudder's number, and that's where I started wearing them out.

And I just said, look, like, I don't care about hanging out with your players on the weekends.

I don't care about free gear.

Like, if you want me to scrub the floor with a toothbrush every morning, I have one year to be a manager for you so that I can prove to you that you'll be a reference for me to be a ga. You know, in a year from now.

I'm like, I'm burning the bridge and so they let me on and so that for nine months, 10 months, yeah, I was a manager for the team and it was, it was a really incredible experience.

And looking back now, it's remarkable to see the staff I was on, we, we were on the bottom half of the Big 12 that year.

I think it was two years before Coach Mack left for Creighton.

But guys that were on that staff now, TG Altzelberger, head coach at Iowa State.

Danielle Robinson, head coach at North Texas.

Eric Henderson, head coach at Drake.

Eric Crawford's an assistant at Northern Iowa now.

And then Brian Peterson, our point guard, who I'm still really good friends with, is the head coach of South Dakota State now.

You know, I was surrounded by greatness but they're all assistants and players at the time and I got to be around that every day and I was just a sponge.

I was burning coaching championship coaching DVDs and taking them home and that's what I did.

On the weekends I would put in coaching DVDs and write down notes on a legal pad and just trying to maximize the, the short time that I had with them, learn as much as I could, be as servant hearted and be there as much as I could so that hopefully would turn into something after I graduated.

How much time on a day to day basis were you spending in and around the basketball team and the basketball office?

More than I was in class or on homework.

I don't know if I recommend that but yeah, it was, if I wasn't in class, I was in the basketball office morning until the last coach left.

I wasn't going to go home.

I was until either they all told me, ryan, we really have nothing left for you.

We mean it this time or until they went home.

And so you know, as with a lot of jobs I was with, the group of managers were great guys but not all of them wanted to be college coaches.

Two or three of us did so which was great for me that mean I, I got a lot more work because it needed to get done and I was, I was willing and so yeah, Jeff Rudder, who was the associate head coach really invested a lot of time in me and now that I've been around college coaching a lot and seen how things are at in the Big 12, the Associate Head coach investing in a manager doesn't happen a whole lot.

Now our Ron Smith who was a, it was later in his career at that time and just was just a great ops guy helping McDermott but like he invested in me our RGAs and I just was invested in on an uncommon level as a manager.

And I was just so fortunate to be with really good people that were willing to do that, because looking back, some of the things they were having me do wasn't actually helping them.

I. I remember Rut giving me, hey, take these DVDs, home of Oklahoma State, and bring back some plays they're running.

I was like, oh, man, I'm helping with the scout.

In hindsight, no, he had all that.

But I was learning a lot, right?

For sure.

So, yeah, yeah, it's very cool.

And it's funny when you kind of look back and sort of pull back the curtain, right.

Of what you thought your experience maybe was versus what it actually was.

And I think it is amazing when you start talking about at the Division 1 level, obviously you have a big staff, number one, then most schools just like you described, have 8, 10, 12 managers that all have different responsibilities and whatever.

So the opportunity for any manager to get one on one time or get that kind of investment from a member of the coaching staff.

It's obvious that for whatever reason, you made some type of impression on them, that they felt like they saw some potential in you.

They obviously liked you.

You obviously worked hard and did the things that you needed them or they needed you to do and probably went above and beyond.

Which, again, if we're talking about lessons for young coaches out there, right, It's.

There's a huge lesson to be learned.

There is just do, do a great job at whatever it is that you're being asked to do.

Look for ways that you can go above and beyond what you're being asked to do and, and just be there to help.

Right?

And I think then when somebody sees you doing a great job, a maybe, don't maybe not everybody will be as lucky as you to be invested in the same way.

But certainly if you're working hard and you're doing the extra things, somebody's going to notice you.

And when somebody else comes and asks and says, hey, how's Ryan doing over here?

And we're thinking about, we got an opening.

Is he a good fit?

Somebody who sees you doing a good job day in and day out, they're much more likely to be able to recommend you than if you think of this job.

You know, I don't, I don't want.

To clean floors with a toothbrush like you described, right.

That's.

That's below me.

But again, everybody knows that there's jobs that in any job, I don't care what, I don't care what job you have in the game of basketball.

There's always aspects of your job that you might love and there might be some aspects of your job that you don't love, but they're all things that are part of your job description that you need to make sure that you do.

And I think if you're doing them and you're doing them well at the place where you are, that's how the next opportunity materializes.

Because again, you're doing what you're supposed to do.

You've impressed somebody and they're much more likely to reach out or to be able to give you a good recommendations when somebody reaches out to them.

And I think that's a great lesson to be learned that that obviously helped you as you, as you moved on from Iowa State.

And we'll talk about that in a second.

Yeah, absolutely.

Is I, I just recognized I there has, I need to do something that's going to separate me because I, I, I wasn't, I didn't play college, I'm not connected to a staff, I have no family in the business.

But the one thing I could control and stuff I learned from my, my dad and my grandpa was you show up every day and you work hard.

Like I can control my effort and I can work circles around people if my attitude's right.

And so I went with that and I was and like I said, it was a perfect storm of my willingness and people that did not have to invest in me being willing to spend time with me.

Did you know when you graduated that college basketball was where you wanted to be?

Obviously you started out in PE where you could have been a PE teacher and a high school coach, but having that experience at the college level, did you know that, hey, college is where I want to be when, when the time came to graduate?

Yeah, once I got a month or two in, I was only a manager for my senior year.

Just for that final year.

Once I got a month or two in, it became very evident to me that this is what I want to do.

And I was actually on pace.

I was going to need one more additional semester the next fall.

I needed a student teach, which meant I was going to graduate in December.

Well, no one's looking for a grad assistant in December.

And so I went to my advisor who I actually, her son was on that sixth grade team and so she's seen me coach and I told her, I said, hey, I'm going to be a college coach.

I need to change my major to something I can graduate a semester early.

And just basically my major is not going to be a factor, but I'm going to graduate in the spring.

And she goes, do you have any idea how hard it is to be a college coach?

She goes, you're not changing your major, which reflects on what she thought of me as a coach for her son.

There you go.

Fair enough.

And I said, okay, well, I'm gonna go talk to another counselor.

And I had.

I had one previous counselor, and she was, let's do it.

She goes, because I was gonna need a bunch.

I was gonna need to find a different major that allowed me to graduate early.

I needed several professors to give me independent studies.

And she went to bat for me and got me all of those things so I could graduate in the spring.

So I totally burnt the bridge and was like, I'm going to be a college coach.

So, yeah, I absolutely, towards the beginning of my senior year, knew, like, this is what I want to pursue.

Tell me about the job search.

Takes one person to believe in you.

Throughout that year, I would spend most nights, I got really good going to college athletics websites, and I could find the faculty directory really quick, and about 20 emails a night to head coaches Division 1 and Division 2.

So by the end of the year, I emailed or send a letter to every D1 or D2 head coach in the country.

Would get a few, you know, emails back, hey, send your resume or, well, we don't need a ga or we'll be looking for a GA later in the spring, you know, follow up.

But nothing serious.

But the one that did kind of have some interest was Dallas Baptist back in 09.

Coach Flickner, who I work for now, he, I, there's Only one Division 2 program in Iowa, Upper Iowa, where coach Casper Bauer is at now.

And.

But I didn't grow up around it.

I didn't know D2 basketball.

I wasn't familiar with it, but it was someone that was responding to my emails.

And it was really neat because he said his email and this DBU is a very unique place.

But he said, are you a Christian?

And if you are, what's your story?

He didn't.

He didn't ask me any basketball things.

Well, I am, and.

And that's a big part of my life.

And so we emailed back and forth a little bit about that.

And I found out I was a Big 12 manager.

Well, he'd been a manager for Roy Williams at Kansas, so we kind of had the Big 12 manager thing going.

And so I just continue to stay in contact with him.

You Know, just random emails, just trying to keep him warm just in case.

And he had started the program.

The program's only existed for 20 years.

He started it from scratch.

So this is maybe year three or four of the program and they had made for the first time they made the NCAA regional and they were going to be playing in Missouri.

So I asked him, hey, could I, if I drove down to Missouri, could I just get five minutes after the game to shake your hand?

Because again, it's like I've got to figure out some way to separate myself from whoever else he's talking to.

I got nothing else going.

So he did.

Thankfully they won the first round game.

So he first NCAA tournament win in school history.

He's in a great mood.

We, I shake his hand, I've got my suit on, you know, we talk for five minutes.

Hey, good luck.

The next game I drive back to Iowa and then I remember it's finals week.

I get out of a finals end of my senior year, I get a call from coach Flickner and he offers me the GA job and I accepted it without ever having visited campus anything, knowing anything about Dallas.

Never been to Texas because it was a job and it was the one guy that believed in me out of 6, 700 head coaches and so just needed one.

And that's, that's how I ended up.

I mean I'm back, but got moved to Texas in 09 was a division due GA at Dallas Baptist from 09 to 11.

You balance the academics of the getting your graduate degree with your responsibilities on the basketball court.

I know whenever I talk to somebody who's been a ga, they always talk about the challenges of trying to balance their classwork with the amount of time that because clearly guys who are gas, they want to.

Not that you aren't interested in getting your master's degree and it's important in your career, but at the same time we understand how important the basketball side of it is and spending time with the team and in the office and with the coaching staff.

So how did you balance out the academics for yourself and the basketball responsibilities that you had during, during that time?

Yeah, I mean I, I did both.

I did well in grad school.

Um, I, I did what I needed to do in grad school to get through and, and have good relationships with my professors and communicate, hey, we're going to be on the road, you know, got to have a little leniency getting this in and, and things and, and the professors were, were great.

I learned a lot.

But I also knew like My future is going to be based on what I do for the coaching staff in this program the next two years.

And so just like when I was a manager, that seemed to work well, working really hard and asking questions and being servant hearted.

So I, I did that for two years.

And again, you know, at dbu, similar to a lot of division twos, the head coach and there's the head coach and there's one full time assistant and then you have one or two gas.

So I was one of two grad assistants and the, the, the assistant at the time, Brandon Curran.

Again, I was very fortunate, just really mentored and invested in me and I learned so much in two years.

And then getting to be in Division 2 as a grad assistant, you get to recruit, which was incredible.

One piece of advice that coach rudder, the associate head coach at Iowa State gave me when I said, hey, should I take this job?

Yes.

Who else has offered you a job?

But he goes, hey, Ryan, it's in college basketball, in recruiting, it's way better to be a Texas guy than an Iowa guy.

So.

And I found that to be true.

There was just so much talent in our backyard in Dallas and the state of Texas, where, you know, college staffs are flying their staff 5, 6 hours from multiple states away to come recruit Texas kids.

And we had them in our backyard.

So I just really learned to evaluate because there's so many good players from high major down to Division 3.

You get to see all of it in masses and you network as so many other colleges are coming through Dallas.

And then, yeah, we had a good program and I learned from two great coaches.

And so, yeah, moving to Dallas was just a remarkable opportunity for me.

In hindsight, how long did it take.

You to get a feel for the type of player, the level of player that you guys could recruit that would fit at Dallas Baptist?

I'm almost kind of amazed that, I mean, clearly you can walk into a gym and be like, okay, that kid can play.

That kid not so much.

But trying to figure out what kid fits with what level.

How long did it take you to kind of get a grasp on, well, this kid is maybe too good.

It's a, it's clear.

He's clearly a Division one kid.

Maybe this kid isn't a Division two, maybe he's Division three.

How long did it take you to get a feel for that?

Yeah, I, I think the summer in between my first and second year, because going in the first year, a lot of the summer recruiting was done.

I didn't really get to Take part in it much.

And I went to some fall leagues and things, but I remember coming back the first time they sent me to a local event with some high schools.

And I came back and said, hey, Coach Kern, I found a big.

I think we should really recruit.

And I told him who it was.

He goes, yeah, he's.

He's got high major offers.

Congrats.

You can identify high major talent.

Find someone that can play for us.

But that next summer, I was just on the road constantly.

Everywhere Brandon Curran went, I was a shadow.

And I thought he was a really good talent evaluator.

And I'd ask him questions.

He expressed to me the importance of not only being able to identify who can play for Dallas Baptist and help us win, but how important it was to be able to also identify talent at levels that higher and lower than you.

And so he would kind of quiz me, what do you think about this?

You know, and.

And just through a lot of Socratic questioning back and forth and things, that that summer is when I really probably grew the most.

I still don't have it down perfect.

It's constantly an evolving process.

But, yeah, that summer going into my second year as a gratis is when I really started, really at least grasp a good idea.

I could find someone in the ballpark.

You have a side of the ball that you liked coaching better when you first started?

Did you like offense or defense better when you started?

I've always been a defensive guy, and I think a lot of it just comes.

You know, a lot of us are shaped by who we were as players and things.

And the only way I got on the court was if I could outrun everyone in sprints and dive on the floor.

Like, that was the value I brought.

I could play really hard.

That's kind of a.

A theme.

I keeps popping up.

I can do stuff hard.

And so, yeah, I've always leaned a little bit towards the defensive side of the ball.

You got to outscore teams to beat them.

So thankfully, Coach Flickner, head coach, is really good on the offensive side.

And I.

And I, I cover our defense, but yeah, I lean a little bit more towards the.

On the defensive scheming of things.

When you think about the learning process during those first two years at Dallas Baptist, where you come in after your year as a manager, after your experience in aau, what do you think was your biggest area of growth as a coach during those first two years at Dallas Baptist as a ga. Yeah, I was.

I just had a lot more ownership because you need your grad assistants to be assistant coaches, because there's only one.

And so you get thrown in, in the fire and they're like, we need you to do this.

And I may not be quite ready.

I wasn't maybe quite ready to do it.

But the best way to learn is just to start doing it and figure it out.

And so, yeah, I, I just got to do more either as ownership over recruiting.

Like Brandon told me, look, you need to know the state of Texas better than anyone.

You need to know every single kid ranked 100 through 150.

And I took them very seriously on that.

And so I had a list and I took notes, just copious notes on all these kids.

That, that really helped me a lot.

And then, and then the networking piece.

As a manager, you don't really have a lot of networking opportunities.

Like I wasn't a senior manager.

I didn't get to go on the road very much.

Just a couple trips, you're in the shadows, you're upstairs filming practice.

So you know you're coaches, but outside of that program you just don't meet people.

But as a grad assistant, you're on the road constantly.

I met so many wonderful people at all different levels.

Those were things that I really grew in immediately.

Done with your time at Dallas Baptist, who's the person that helps you the most in getting that next opportunity?

After I was a grad assistant.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, it was definitely, I mean, it was Brandon Curren, Coach Flickner, our head coach did to an extent.

But again, Brandon and I at that point were kind of joined at the hip.

And he was, I guess as the assistant, he was the one on the phone with people all the time, recruiting and things, talking to people.

So he was constantly putting words in, hey, do you need a grad or do you need an assistant coach?

And he was directly, he knew the head coach at Western Texas and put in a really good word for me.

And that's again, I interviewed and was fortunate enough to get offered the job.

And that's how I ended up with my first full time assistant job coaching junior college in West Texas.

What'd you do with all your money?

All my money, boy, Nothing.

Because I didn't have any.

I went from having nothing to just slightly more than nothing.

My the GA job was, was three grand.

And in tuition, which I was very grateful for this job, I quadrupled my pay.

I got 12,000 and a dormer.

And not many people get to quadruple their salary.

So I was very fortunate.

So I spent two years out there.

And junior college was completely different than Dallas Baptist.

And so again, just another outside of my comfort zone, had to learn a lot new things and that started my five year junior college trek.

What's the best part about junior college?

I have guys that I've had on that have coached or continue to coach juco that just love everything about it, just simply because again, you're helping these guys to be able to make that transition both academically, hopefully athletically, give them the opportunity to play at the next level.

They just talk about giving kids who maybe are under the radar, who have something in their background or.

And they're able to just kind of help these kids to be able to get to where they want to go.

So when you think about your time, your different stints at the JUCO level, what stands out to you?

What's the most special thing about being a JUCO coach?

Yeah, I mean, the number of players that you have an opportunity to try and help.

Because the turnover is such a high rate, you're recruiting 10 or more guys every year.

And so.

And you get to experience so many different cultures.

Like in Division 2, we recruited a lot of high schoolers.

At Dallas Baptist, we were kind of set up for that.

So it was a lot of Texas regional guys.

But in Region 5, junior college at that time when I was in the league, I mean, Mark Adams was a head coach in the league, Steve Green, and there's multiple NJCA hall of fame coaches.

The national championship was coming out of that league most years at that time.

And so it was a league that you recruited nationally and internationally.

So I was, we had players from all over the world, different states.

I met so many people from so many different backgrounds, both just regionally, how they were raised, obviously.

And then I learned so much.

And then you literally do everything.

I wasn't just the assistant coach.

I was unofficially financial aid registrar, study hall liaison.

You know, it's, you know, I, I was an intramural mural director for a year.

I was an assistant housing director for a year.

You're everything to these guys because you just don't have the resources that universities do.

And so because you wear so many hats, like the hours are, are ridiculous in a good way for a young guy who's doesn't have kids yet and everything.

And you're trying to learn.

I learned so much.

I am not half the coach I am today without, without junior college.

And then again, just from a networking piece, as a young coach, you're meeting coaches because, you know, on the recruiting side, like high school coaches, AAU coaches, because you're recruiting around the entire world, your Rolodex is growing.

And then if you're doing a good job and you have good players, you're also networking with college coaches because you've got coaches at different levels wanting to recruit your players and so on both ends of it, you're meeting so many awesome people that you just never know how that's going to end up aiding you down the road with your career.

There's just a lot of really special memories I have from junior college and experiences that I, that I had.

What do you think are the most important characteristics of a successful assistant coach?

You've obviously worked for a number of different head coaches.

You've seen lots of assistant coaches that you've worked beside.

What makes a great assistant coach, I.

Think first and foremost is humility to just to be really servant hearted.

How can I make the head coach look good?

How can I make our program look good?

How can I make our players better?

Like it's not about you, it should never be about you.

And if you couple humility with an incredible work ethic and a growth mindset to constantly be learning and the ability to think critically, solve problems, be a problem solver, I think those are the character traits that allow an assistant to keep the job that he has to earn more opportunities to help a program win.

But as soon as you start making it about yourself not being willing to put in the time that it deserves, it's not, you're gonna, you're not going to impact winning and the culture the way that you, you positively could be.

That makes a lot of sense.

I think that when you start talking about a loyalty to your head coach into your program and doing whatever it takes, kind of goes back to the original lesson that you learned right back when you're a manager that you do a great job in the spot that you're in, you do what you're asked to do, but then you go above and beyond to be able to help your coach and your program get to where they want to go.

Then that's when you're really, I think, having, you know, having success.

So let's talk a little bit about the, the transition from JUCO back to Dallas Baptist.

So you have three stops along the way, junior college.

You talked about the value in those experiences and just how getting a chance to be able to have your hands in so many aspects of a program that not everybody gets an opportunity to do.

It's always interesting to me, Ryan, to talk to guys that start out at different levels.

So you have somebody who starts at a lower level.

And frequently they give me the same sort of ideas and answer that you gave.

Where I got to do so many different things that had helped me to grow as a coach.

And then there's other guys where they start.

Maybe they're fortunate enough to start at the Division 1 level where you have such a big staff and maybe you're much more specialized in what you can do, and you kind of almost have to learn by osmosis and watching and taking notes as opposed to actually getting your hands in and doing just because there's so many people on the staff.

So tell me about the opportunity to go back to Dallas Baptist.

Obviously, you had been there before.

What made that opportunity enticing?

What was it about the university, the environment?

Obviously your relationship there?

What made it so special that made you want to come back?

And obviously now you've been there for nine seasons.

It's clearly a place that, yeah, you love and are comfortable and enjoy being there.

So what was it at the time that made you want to come back?

Yeah, man, there's so many things.

It's one.

And I touched on it.

One person believed in me after being a manager, and it was Blake Flickner at Dallas Baptist.

It was a dream job for me to eventually try and work my way back to the assistant that left.

I'm the second.

I'm the only.

He's only had two assistants in 20 years.

The job doesn't open up very often.

And so when it did open, you know, I. I talked to my wife and we'd actually really started enjoying Nebraska, the community college and the community we were in.

But we met in grad school at dbu.

She's a DBU graduation.

She's from Texas.

She's got family in the area.

We had just had our first child, our daughter Harper, who's a fourth grader now.

But being able to get to a place where maybe there's a little some family support, you know, starting a family.

But I just.

DB was so special to me.

The, the mission of the university as a Christian university, very much fit.

Met my wife and I's values at a place where we could be who we are and it's expected out of us.

You know, hey, talk with the players about Jesus.

I can do that.

And it's, you know, where it's.

It's a little different at a state school.

It's not as encouraged, obviously.

And so it really fit who we are.

And so all of Those things.

On my interview, I told Coach Flickner, I said, hey, like, because I wasn't as close with him as I was with the assistant.

So it.

It wasn't a done deal automatically that he was just going to bring me back.

I. I had to go up against some, I'm sure, other really good candidates and do the full formal interview process.

But I just told him, I said, hey, if I get an opportunity to come here, we're going to be here for a while.

And he goes, I don't.

I don't want to hold you back if you get opportunities to do something else.

I said, no, I don't.

I don't think you understand how special this place is to Amanda and I.

And in hindsight, hopefully he realizes what I meant.

Now, you know, we're going on year 10.

It's just a.

And there.

There's some things that have really shaped how I view pursuing jobs in my career.

One of them was when Brad Stevens was at Butler, you know, on that crazy run for several years.

I saw an interview, you know, Power Fives were calling and offering him.

He just kept staying at Butler, and he said, well, the grass might be greener on the other side, but I know it's green here.

And I just like, man, I. I know there's so many people in our profession that are constantly.

Don't have peace about where they're at.

They're constantly looking for their next job.

They don't.

They aren't able to put roots down.

And that was me.

The five years in junior college.

Like, they're a good spot, but they weren't places we wanted to be long term.

I was like, but.

But I knew this was a place that we loved.

And.

And there's another one where a coach I knew that I'd come across at a high Division 1 level was very successful at a young age, and.

But he was just miserable.

And I said, hey, why are you coaching?

Like, you don't enjoy your life at all?

And he goes, I've done too many things for too many people, you know, to be one of the youngest high major coaches in the country to give it all up.

I was like, man, like, I don't.

I don't know if I want that for me to say, well, I'm at this level.

But I.

But life is not filled with joy.

Like, that doesn't sound appealing.

And so we have found a place that we love.

And I don't want to leave just out of curiosity because my family's thriving, our program's Thriving.

Coach Flickner and I balance each other out so well.

I mean, I can't ask for a better boss.

So I'm just very fortunate to be where I'm at.

It's a really healthy perspective, Ryan, and it's not one that you hear all that frequently.

I think there are guys that have taken the track that you have, that have found a job that they're comfortable with at a level that they're comfortable with, in a place that they're comfortable with, and have realized that, hey, I'm already in a job in a place with a group of people that I love that are a perfect fit for me.

And yet we both know that there are a lot of people that are, again, as you just spoke about, are always on the lookout for the next job, that opportunity to advance, whether it's to advance up a level, whether it's to advance from an assistant coach to a head coach.

And I think that there's always.

It's always no matter where you are, that you can always.

Right.

You can always chase more.

I mean, you can be at University of Kentucky, you can be at North Carolina, and you can be suddenly Mike Shashefsky being pursued by the Los Angeles Lakers and.

Right.

Does it make.

Does that make.

Does that make sense?

I mean, there's.

There's obviously a piece of you, I think, that obviously says, hey, maybe I should give it a try.

But then I think if you look at not just the coaching piece of it, but what I heard you say as you were talking about it was not just about.

It wasn't just a perfect fit for you as a basketball coach, but it was also a perfect fit for your wife, for your family, for your lifestyle, for your values, for all those things that sometimes in the pursuit of careers, those things sometimes take a back seat, unfortunately.

And I think when you do that, then you get in a situation like you described with your friend that you knew that gets to that position where all of a sudden they're like, yeah, I've done all these things, but I'm not really, really happy.

I think I'm with you where, you know, like, at a certain point, like, my happiness.

My happiness means more than.

Than chasing the next job that could make me happy.

Because chances are, if you're chasing something that could make you happy, the odds of it actually doing that are probably.

Are probably pretty low.

So I. I can relate to all the sentiments that you said make a lot of sense.

They're ones that I think in the coaching profession, a lot of times it's hard to make the decisions that it sounds like you and your wife have made in terms of all those other surrounding things.

Not only the coaching.

Basketball is great, but all the other things are great.

I don't know if I'm paraphrasing what you said accurately, but that's kind of what I took from your answer.

Yeah, no, you are.

That's spot on how I feel.

And, But I also recognize not everyone gets an opportunity to be in a place where they ever feel like this.

So they do continue to search.

And there's, there's an element of financial stability.

Like, I mean, some, like I was, I moved three times, four times in six years.

You know, just trying to get to a point where we could have some financial stability.

And so I, I recognize it's not a criticism of, of how people go about it, but I.

It's just a, a recognition of knowing who we are as a family and knowing where I'm at and that it fits really well.

All right, let's start with the high level overview and then we can dive into some details.

What makes you guys at Dallas Baptist successful?

And when I say successful, I don't just mean wins and losses, but what, when you look at the program that you and Coach Flicker have built over time, what makes you guys successful?

What is it about what you guys do?

What's the overarching, most important thing or two that you feel like leads to your success?

Yeah, I think the things that are.

Yeah.

Big picture outside of X's and O's and things.

It really comes down to identifying the people that we identify that we want to be in the program.

Like I said, DBU is a pretty unique place.

It's.

Students go to chapel, we do team Bible study once a week.

That's not for everybody, and that's okay.

And so we really try to identify young men that would really enjoy being at Dallas Baptist if they were just a traditional student.

And we want them to come to Dallas Baptist for, because of basketball and a lot of other reasons rather than basketball.

But, you know, we want basketball and guys.

And so we've got a really good mixture of guys that, that Christian faith component was a big part of them or their family's lives, and they, they wanted that.

And other guys, well, that's, that's new to them, but they're open to, to it and having discussions and things.

But like, we just, we, we're fortunate enough because of what Coach Flickner has built over 20 years to, to be a.

You know, I think a Pretty desirable spot that we can have, have a higher standard than some places that maybe I, I couldn't have in junior college but like we just selfish people don't exist in our program.

People that yeah, selfish.

I just say we don't do selfish and we don't do knuckleheads.

It doesn't mean that they're perfect.

But I think compared to things that I have experienced coaching in other places, like I sleep really, really well on the weekends.

I.

They're, they're men that still need invested in just like the guys in junior college.

But you know, they're um, they're responsible, they care about other people.

They're really talented people who yeah, care more about other people than themselves.

And I think our unwillingness to bend on that has allowed us to have some sustainability.

It's like we have one of the things I'm most proud of and this won't last forever but like we haven't had a single player enter the transfer portal in four seasons.

That's unheard of now.

I don't know, I haven't done any research.

I don't know if anyone else can say that.

And typically when people are transferring it's your best players they're trying to transfer up and it's walk ons or guys that aren't going to play as much and they're trying to find a place where they can play more.

Those guys have all come back for us for four years.

Our all Americans have come back and we're not begging them too.

But I think a lot of it comes down to one, we've been fortunate.

But two, they chose DBU for basketball and things.

There are other things that hold them there.

They're loved and treated with value.

They're getting better, they're around other like minded high caliber men.

So the locker room, we've been very fortunate to be.

They're, they're having fun.

Like it's not well.

Got some guys that are on making good decisions over here and other talented guys over here that have a completely different agenda.

Like you got 15, 16 guys that are on the same page for the most part.

And that's it's fun.

College should be the four most fun years of your life.

We've had a few transfers that have come here and they're like, I didn't know I was going to love basketball again.

And so those are the overarching things that I think have allowed us to have a level of sustained success because of the people.

All right, so how do you vet when you say basketball and obviously the basketball piece, there's a level of skill and talent that a player has to be able to have in order to play at your level.

How do you vet the.

And part of that during the recruiting process, what are some things that you're looking for?

Who are you talking to?

What kind of questions are you asking to be able to determine whether or not that kid's going to be a good fit in your environment?

Because obviously with the Christianity piece adds something that's not a part of every single program.

And then obviously there are certain intangibles that you guys look for, that you want for guys are going to be a part of your program.

So how do you vet that during the recruiting process?

Yeah, we're, we're first off, like, we're very transparent with who we are.

We're not trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes and they get here like, what Coach Chapel, what.

We try to be as transparent as we can in the process that, that, you know, developing trust both ways from them to us and us to them, I think is really important.

We talk to as many people around them as we can.

High school coaches, AU coaches.

We spend a lot of time getting to know the parents because a lot of times an 18 year old maybe isn't quite ready to articulate what they mean or what they really want, but their parents can.

And you can learn a lot talking with parents about.

Yeah.

Who their son is, what.

What their family values.

Because a lot of usually parents, especially not, not as much with transfers all the time, but with high school kids, which is majority of our program, those parents have, have still have a ton of influence on shaping how their sons view things.

And so if, if they're people that have, you know, most of our guys, almost all of them only went to one high school down here in Dallas.

In Texas, the transfer portal in high school is rampant.

And so, you know, we find guys that stay.

We're.

Our players are stairs.

Coach Flickner's been here 20 years, I've been here 10.

Like, we're people who stay.

So we find people that are wired like that.

Most of our guys come from programs that have won state championships or gone to state.

They're from winning programs.

And so you hope in that they understand the greater scope of that the program is bigger than you.

There's those things I'll straight up ask their high school coaches, do their teammates like them?

I think that's huge with a high school coach.

If I ask them, tell me about Jimmy and they go, oh, he's, he's a pretty good kid.

They just don't have much to say.

Well, we're not into like an average kid like every other kid in the high school.

Like they need to rave about the person.

He's, he's the best teammate.

I can coach him harder than anyone.

He's selfless.

He's the first one in.

Like if I can't get him to shut up about a kid, those are the guys we want.

Those are, you know, high caliber people that aren't into being average.

And then sometimes we've had the wool pulled over our eyes a couple times where we think this kid's going to be a good fit.

And we get to the point where they come on the official visit and then they hang out with our guys at night, which our guys don't take them out.

Like they take them back to the apartments and they play Madden and work on homework and then they might take them to Andy's custards.

It's a very tame visit and the guys don't commit and at the time we're, we're kind of upset and disappointed.

What are you talking about?

And then we kind of follow their career and maybe hear some things that they were into or, or our guys will tell us during the visit, hey, Coach, he's not a good fit based on what he's telling us away from the coaches.

And so because we're so open with who we are, the players that aren't great fits a lot of times pull themselves out of the equation.

Even if we've, we've been fooled or we've incorrectly assessed them, they choose not to be a part of it, which is fine.

That's, that's great.

Like that's, that's all part of the process.

Um, so those are all things that go into identifying the, the person that we're trying to, to have in our locker room.

Tell me about the responsibilities of your staff.

How do you guys delegate?

Who does what?

Has that evolved in your time there?

Obviously now you're have the title of associate head coach.

So how do you guys parse out who does what on the staff?

Yeah, I, I, I'll credit coach Flickner.

He is really good at trusting his staff and being willing to delegate.

That is something in my first few years, what's really hard for me with our grad assistants was trusting someone else to get a job done because in junior college I'm the only guy like I know how it's going to get done.

It's gonna be done the way I want.

Um, that's an area that I've grown over the years, but Coach Flickner has been really good at allowing people to grow in the positions they're in and.

And giving them responsibility.

Um, so I've been with him 10 years now.

We.

We can read each other's minds at this point.

Um, and our personalities and our giftedness and things that we like to do and don't like to do perfectly balance each other, which is.

Is.

Is so freeing.

And so, you know, he's obviously, he's the head of the program.

I mean, he's.

He's the face on campus.

He's organizing practice and all the big picture stuff.

He's also, you know, he's over our offense right now.

For, for me, I'm.

I'm a recruiting coordinator.

I run our camps in the summers.

I am over our defense.

I coach Flexner and I now both kind of split the scheduling, and we work on the schedule together.

Those are things that I've grown into that He's.

It's like, okay, well, I don't want you to get bored.

We need to keep growing you.

What else can I give you?

You know, so that you feel challenged and you're growing?

And he's really continued to invest in me in that way.

And then it's similar with our grad assistants.

Obviously, there's like, the menial tasks that we need laundry done.

I need you in the gym rebounding or working out.

The guys help with, you know, travel plans and logistics.

But from there, you know, those are the things that we just need to run a program, just need to get done.

But then it's, what are.

What are the areas you're gifted in, like, and then we'll throw you.

Some guys are awesome at graphic design.

Awesome.

Let's create a bunch of stuff.

Some guys absolutely know they want to be college coaches, man.

Take me recruiting with you everywhere.

Like, when you're watching film, I want to watch film, you know, and so from there, we just really find out what are they passionate about, Throw them into those areas, Help them grow in areas that they need to grow into.

Because it's.

I was kind of the way I was invested in when I was a grad assistant.

I very much.

Because of the impact it had on me, I very much feel the responsibility to do that for our grad assistants and prepare them.

Because after this, it's like you're the guy that has to go get players.

Like, you're the guy that has to put out fires for the head coach.

I mean you're the guy, you know, next year.

So preparing them for those opportunities and so they get to do a lot of full time assistant things based on what is their, how competent are they at it and then how, how growth minded are they going to be and if their heart's right and their work ethic is right, they'll be doing a lot of the stuff I'm doing and they can make help me and help, I mean this brings so much value and we've been very fortunate to have a lot of great gas that have gone on and you know, to careers in college coaching.

So that in general is kind of how the, the duties have been assigned as of recently.

What is the practice planning process look like for you guys as a staff?

How do you put together a practice plan?

Is that coach Flickner coming up with it and then bouncing ideas off of you guys as he's putting it together?

Is it him putting it together on his own and then coming back to you for feedback?

What's the process for you guys for putting together a daily practice plan?

Yeah, so, so I've been, I've completed nine years now.

The first eight years was mostly him.

I mean he, he very much a big part of his job is planning a really efficient, effective practice, you know, where every single minute is, is accounted for and he wants to stay on time and it's, it's a well oiled machine.

Um, and he would, we'd have staff meetings most days, talk about practice plan, he'd want our feedback but ultimately he was going to decide, you know, what we're going to do.

Last year he gave the defense over to me.

So this is where things changed where like he goes hey, you have from this time to this time in practice and then on the shared drive, you know, he's putting in his offensive stuff and I'm completely branding the defensive portion of practice.

Again he's, he's not afraid to allow people to grow, to invest on.

He again finding new ways to help me feel challenged and grow.

And so now it's, it's very much a split between me and him.

Just throughout the day he and I are working on, he's putting up the, working on the offensive side, I'm working on the defensive side.

You guys typically run a practice with the same format every day.

In other words, do you start out with offense first, then defense, do you start with shooting and then you go to special situations or, or does it vary day to day?

Or does your normal practice Have a certain rhythm to it.

Yeah, there's, there's a good, there's a rhythm to it.

I mean for 20 years we've had from 2 o' clock to 5 o' clock in the gym.

It hasn't changed.

We're very fortunate.

So just, I mean, just that just knowing every day, I know there's a lot of places where it.

Practice changes day to day.

I'm so grateful that our staff and players knows this is what you have.

You go home to dinner with your family.

So there's that.

But then, yeah, the rhythm is pretty similar.

It's, you know, come in kind of dynamic, stretch, get some skill, work in to get loose, you know, on your own.

And then we'll start with usually either like a footwork or a passing drill.

Just as a, just as a warm up, trying to get their, their blood going.

And then it's been defense first and then it's been offense and then we end with any special situations or, you know, kind of unique things.

The end changes a little bit day to day based on what we want to do.

But skill work, defense, offense is generally the rhythm of our practices.

What's the day before a game look like in terms of prepping for a specific opponent versus, let's say a preseason practice?

Yeah, so we play a really unique style.

We press entrap the entire game on makes and misses.

And so that we've just started doing that a couple years ago.

And that's really changed our, our preparation because how if we're doing it right, it's so disruptive.

We're not seeing as many of the opposing team sets and things right.

And it becomes a lot of managing bodies, making sure our guys are fresh just because the, the rigor of that style is a little different than traditional basketball that we used to play.

So the day before is like just a quick review of, hey, these are the press breaks that we've seen from these guys.

We might go down and back once.

Hey, you feel good about it?

Great.

Moving on.

No one's hurt.

Good.

Two or three common actions, you know, that the other team, you know, we feel like we might see, but we're not.

I mean we used to, we used to cover everything before we went back playing a more traditional style.

Um, and then it's.

Well, we just get to focus on us a lot more.

Just defensive principles.

We'll go some, some shell drill.

Just make sure.

The biggest thing as we're going through the season day before a game is just making sure we're sharp Bodies feel good, our motors are, are revving.

But it's this style of play.

We focus more on us than any other style of play I've.

We've coached and anywhere I've been.

Which is.

Is nice.

Yeah.

To.

Yeah, it simplifies the scout a little bit.

I wouldn't say it's simple, but it simplifies it.

Yeah, it makes sense.

I mean again, that's, you're, you're dictating, you're dictating the tempo and style of play with the way that you're trying to play.

It's hard for teams to not get caught up in that style of play because obviously, right.

If you're trying to break the press, you're trying to go down and score and you're trying to score quickly by, by beating the press.

And that negates a team that wants to just run down and just run set after set in the half court.

It's a little bit hard to do that when a team's forcing Timbo the way you guys are, the way you guys are doing that.

How much film do you guys share with your players on a.

Whether it's prep for an opponent or in a given week, how much or how much film are you.

Are you having your players watch with you?

Whether it's team or you're sitting down with position groups or individuals, however you guys do it, how much film are you guys watching during.

In a given week?

Yeah, I guess, I mean every day before we do 15 to 30 minutes of film every single day before we step on the court for practice.

A lot of it is.

Is us from the day before in practice or you know, the game the day before.

What can we learn about us and fix leading up to a game?

Generally two days depends.

Thursday games, it's usually Tuesday and Saturday is Fri.

So two days or one day before a game based on how the schedule works, you know, we're watching personnel of the opposing team.

Personnel for how our style of play is, is really important just knowing player tendencies because it's not as much about the plays, it's going to be more about the players.

And so we, we dig in pretty deep and detailed with, with personnel and then we'll watch and then I'll show them a little bit of hey, here's the press breaks that we've seen.

And again, just a couple common actions.

But film is huge for us.

It is a daily occurrence.

It's a great again, as we go through the season, maintaining our guys bodies becomes so much more important than it ever had playing different styles, but we can really teach from film and so we really try to leverage that time to get as much as we can out of it.

You guys film practice and then go back and watch your practice as a staff.

Yeah, especially in the fall, like before we start full on practice, that's we play a lot in the fall trying to figure out what do we have.

Let the guys kind of figure out our pressing system on the fly a little bit.

We film it and then we'll watch it as a staff and then the next day we'll watch 10 or 15 minutes.

Just show them a couple things of just different concepts we want them to try and start picking up.

We're not doing a ton of drill work in the first month or two.

It's.

We're just trying to get their motors revving and then teach a little bit from film and then I'll let them apply that the next time they play.

Um, but yeah, we're filming all of our practices and then during the season especially, you know, the first few weeks before games, we're.

We're filming all of that.

But once we get into late in the season, it's, it's slowed down and it's scouts and things, we're probably not watching as much film from that.

Yeah, I got you.

It makes sense.

It's amazing again, just the way that the technology has evolved and the ability to be able to, to watch film and be efficient in what you do.

Not only watching your own team, but the ability to watch other teams.

And I think one of the things too that when I talk to young coaches, and I'm sure you see this with your gas, is just the ability for them to be, to get in the film room and just have access to all of the video that they can watch and learn, not just from their own coaching staff, but to be able to watch the other coaching staffs of your opponents and when you're putting together a scout and all those things to be able to grow and learn from that.

I can only imagine the value in that as a young coach compared to you go back 15 or 20 years ago and you know, way, way back when I was playing in the era of VHS tapes and guys driving to drop stuff off and meet and put stuff in the FedEx box and coaches hit, coaches hitting the rewind button and going two minutes past the play that they wanted to watch and the lack of, the lack of efficiency in that era compared to what we have today to be able to, to utilize film, not just to help your, your own team, but to help your staff to learn and to grow and to become better.

The value of film is just, I mean, it's, it's truly, I think, unbelievable.

Anybody that I talk to, especially now, especially the young guys who are in the first 2, 3, 4, 5 years of their career, almost everybody just says how valuable film is, not only for them as a tool to be able to help their team and their players, but just a tool for them to be able to learn and grow.

Yeah, there's no longer an excuse to not get better.

You know, it's through YouTube, these podcasts, Synergy for players and coaches.

There is an infinite, infinite amount of resources that can allow you to grow.

And then it's just part of it's having the mindset of I'm willing to utilize it, but then also, like, yeah, there can be too much.

What is useful for what we're trying to do and what is fun, but maybe not doesn't apply to us as much and trying to sift out the most important things.

But yeah, it's remarkable what has happened in technology and how it's an impacted.

Sport, the ability to curate and not be overwhelmed by every single thing.

When you're, when you, when you're scrolling through Twitter, you're like, oh, I love that.

That's cool.

Let's try.

Let's think about the.

Yeah, you can, you can do that and go down rabbit holes nonstop.

I'm sure we've all been there, where you go and you're like, oh, let me take a look at this.

And then all of a sudden you realize, I just spent 30 minutes looking at stuff that is never, ever going to apply to anything that we do with our current team.

We've all been there.

All right, final two, part question, part one.

Ryan, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge?

And then the second part of your question, when you think about what you get to do day in and day out as a college basketball coach, what brings you the most joy?

So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.

Yeah, challenge.

I guess I'll speak personally and then.

And program wise, if that's okay.

Personally, I would say I'm constantly trying to find better ways where I can give the program everything that it needs, but give my family everything that it needs first, you know, how can I continue to become more present as a father, as a husband?

That's a constant evolution that I think I get a little better at each year.

But my Wife and kids deserve, deserve all of me.

And so that, that is always going to be the challenge as a college coach because of how much you're on the road and everything.

As a program, I would say, you know, we, we've been very fortunate to win a lot over the years.

This last year we had an.

Just a really special season and we lost in overtime in the final four.

You know, we're seconds away from the national championship game.

We've got 13 returners back, you know, and that's.

I'm really curious to see.

I know what they're saying.

I'm curious to see when we, once we step foot on the court, you know, the, there's the whole.

There's Pat Riley's got the book, the disease of more type of situation.

Last year we had some freshmen that were playing, but, oh, we're freshmen and they're good with the roles and we make a game for the national championship.

Best year in school history and all these things.

Well, all these guys come back.

Can we continue to be as selfless and program oriented and caring about each other rather than individual of success?

Because we had.

Obviously, when you have a team like that, it's a really talented, special, deep group.

Everyone sacrificed to a degree.

Can they continue to do that for the greater good?

Those are things that I'm really curious to see this year with as many returners as we have.

And then.

I'm sorry, what was your second question?

It's joy.

Biggest joy, man.

Yeah, it goes back to all these things that we, we talked to.

I'm going into year 10 at a place that I love and my family loves.

I'm around, the staff we have are incredible people.

The players like I look for.

I haven't worked a day in my life at Dallas Baptist and then I get to do it again.

I am so grateful.

You know, we've shared my whole coaching journey and I make sure to continue to remind myself where I'm from because it's just that I never lose the gratefulness for where I'm at.

I get to do it again.

That is, that's my biggest joy.

That the people I get to be around, my kids get to come and practice and run around and no one cares.

I just.

I'm the luckiest guy in the world.

I'm just very thankful.

Well said.

Before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share how people can get in touch with you.

Find out more about your program.

So share, email, social media, website, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then after you do that I will jump back in and wrap things up.

Yeah would love to be a resource and connect with anyone that has questions or just any curiosity.

My email is Ryan dbu Edu.

My my X twitter handle is at Coach Glenny if you want to DM me or follow me at DBU Basketball is our Twitter for the program.

Dbupatriots.com but email is probably the best way to get a hold of me and I would love to yeah respond and connect with anyone that has questions.

Brian cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to join us.

Really appreciate it and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.

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