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The big thing is winning the possession battle, so getting more choice shot attempts than your opponent.

So you're going to do that with a couple of different things.

You're going to get more offensive rebounds than you allow by as wide of a margin as possible and you're going to turn over the opponent and limit your own turnovers.

Zach Thompson is entering his third season as the head men's basketball coach at D2 Frostburg State University.

Thompson increased the Bobcats win total by nine in his second year.

He came to Frostburg having been the head coach at the State University of New York at Delhi for seven seasons.

During his tenure, he compiled 123 total wins, including reaching at least 20 victories in each of his last three seasons.

While at Delhi, Thompson was named Conference Coach of the Year three times and helped oversee the school's transition from USCAA and NAIA to full fledged NCAA Division 3 members.

Prior to SUNY Delhi, Thompson spent time in the region as an assistant at Shepherd University, Lemoyne College and Onondaga Community College.

Thompson played his college basketball at West Virginia Institute of Technology, where he was a team captain and earned Mid South Academic All Conference recognition.

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You'll want to have a notebook handy as you listen to this episode with Zach Thompson, head men's basketball coach at Frostburg State University.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here without my co host, Jason Sunkel tonight, but I am pleased to be joined by Zach Thompson, head men's basketball coach at Frostburg State.

Zach, welcome to the Hoop Heads pod.

Thank you for having me.

Excited to have you on.

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

Want to 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, so when I was a little kid, I was involved in every sport imaginable.

I was, you know, super fortunate.

I had really supportive parents.

So, you know, played basketball and soccer and baseball and wrestling and did a little bit of everything, um, you know, as a, as a five, six year old kid, you know, and, and kind of had some, some good mentors and some people to look up to.

I had a couple of older cousins that were basketball players.

My uncle was a collegiate basketball player when I was probably about 5.

You know, he started college right around when I was about five years old and had some coaches in my family.

My mom's cousin and my mom's uncle were both collegiate coaches.

So was exposed to the game at a pretty young age.

And everybody in my family, particularly on my mom's side, is pretty obsessed with basketball.

So it was, it was a kind of an easy and almost unexpected part of being a part of my family that you were going to like basketball at bare minimum, you know, but a lot of us, you know, myself included, really love it.

So when you think back to that time, if you could pinpoint one person, whether in your family or outside your family, and I'm talking like elementary school, junior high, middle school, sort of that era before you get to high school.

Who would you say was your biggest basketball influence during that period of your life?

Yeah, so I would say, you know, as a player, you know, probably the biggest influence for me would have been, you know, my, my grandfather, he was just obsessed with, with the game.

You know, big, big basketball guy, always watching the game, always would, you know, came to every one of my games from the time I was, you know, five years old all the way through high school and into my first couple years of college.

So from a, from a playing perspective, I Would say that it was him.

I kind of indirectly credit my father with, you know, you know, leading me to.

To become a coach.

And I say indirectly because my dad was not a.

Not a basketball guy, but became one as I.

As I got older and really grew to.

To love the game and understand the game.

But the reason he kind of led me to it, my.

My father's a surveyor, and if I went to him and wanted something, I had to work for it.

So if I.

If I'd ask him if, you know, I want to go to a basketball camp or, you know, wanted a new pair of shoes or something like that, you know, I was gonna have to work for it.

So I was going to work with him as a surveyor.

I lived in a small town, so if that wasn't an option, it was, you know, working on a farm.

Our neighbors were farmers.

And I learned pretty quickly that I did not enjoy any of that type of work.

And, you know, watching my uncles coach basketball and.

And.

Or my mom's uncle and her cousin and, you know, and then watching my uncle play basketball, that looked like a lot more attractive job to me than.

Than.

Than doing the.

The manual labor stuff that I was doing as a young kid.

So were you then a kid that was thinking about coaching when you were very young?

And did you find yourself looking at the game from not just the perspective of a player, but also the perspective of a coach?

You were already kind of thinking, hey, maybe coaching is a direction that I want to go when I'm done playing.

Yeah, I think I knew.

I bet I knew probably in about sixth or seventh grade that I wanted to coach at some point.

Now, obviously at that point, I wanted to be as good of a player as I could be, and I was putting in a lot of extra work and trying to be a good player.

But I definitely looked at things from kind of a coaching perspective.

I would say even better.

You know, back at that time, I would go to some of my coaches, probably drive them nuts, you know, drawing up plays and things like that as a little kid that, you know, probably didn't make any sense at all, but, you know, I definitely had, you know, that side of.

Of the game.

And, you know, I was in high school, I was doing scouting reports and watching film and stuff like that for.

For our team.

So it was definitely kind of a.

I had that aspect of the game at a.

At a young age, for sure.

So beyond that X's and O stuff and the.

The scouting and while you're a high school player, what are Some things that you're doing to make yourself a better player.

What did that look like for you growing up where you did, trying to get better and maybe even take it one step further and sort of compare and contrast that to the guys that you coach today and just how different your upbringing was in the game maybe compared to some of the guys that you're coaching now.

Yeah.

So living in a small town, it was hard to get a five on five game.

So there was a lot of things that we did though.

You know, I can remember multiple occasions my dad would get home late from work.

My church had a gym and my, my dad had a key to it, you know, so I'd be waiting, you know, he'd get home at 6:30, 7 o' clock at night and I'd be waiting for him and he'd walk in the door, he'd get changed and we were right back out the door going to the gym.

That was a pretty regular occurrence.

I rode to school in the morning.

When I was in high school, I rode to school with my high school coach.

My mom had her own daycare and my high school coach would drop his kids off at the daycare and I would ride into school with him and I'd work out in the morning from 7 to 8.

He was a PE teacher at our school, so I'd work out for an hour before school started every day in high school.

So I was doing a lot of that.

I had a neighbor right up the street from us that had a nice outdoor court and we would play two on two or three on three out there under the lights at night quite often.

So I was doing a lot of just individual stuff, getting a lot of extra shots.

You know, mentioned my father and he'd rebound for me all the time.

So I was, I was just really trying to put in as much extra work, you know, particularly getting a lot of extra shots.

Wasn't probably as invested in the, in the weight room as, as guys are nowadays.

That was, it was a piece of it.

But I don't know that we understood the importance quite as much as everyone kind of understands now of that aspect of player development.

And I think a lot of our guys, you know, just to answer that part of your question, I think our guys are more likely now to get five on five games and do a lot less with skill work.

And in my opinion, I mean, we have some guys here that are great about the, the getting in the gym, getting the extra work with a coach or with a teammate or, or by themselves, even but they want to play, you know, at night, they're in there, they're playing five on five instead of going in and just kind of working out.

I.

I had a tough time finding those five on five games.

Just where I.

Where I grew up.

You have a plan when you're working out by yourself.

When you think back now to sort of what you did when you were in the gym by yourself, what did that look like?

Were you planning before you got into the gym for.

Okay, for an hour.

Here's what I want to work on tonight.

Or was it more kind of haphazard, for lack of a better way of saying it?

I always tell people, so, again, I'm a lot older than you.

And back in the mid to late 80s as I was in high school, I had basically two workouts through high school and college.

I had a workout that I did when I was by myself, and then if I was lucky enough to have somebody else that would shoot with me, then I had a different workout.

And now I look at all the creativity that there is out there in terms of player development and how easy it is to go and look on YouTube or just see something on Twitter and be able to incorporate that into what you do.

And then I think back to like, God, how did I not get so bored of just doing the same?

I got pretty good at those drills, Zach, you know, But I'm not sure.

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure I maximize my player development time in terms of what I could have been doing.

So just how did you approach that as.

As a high school player within that time when you were by yourself?

Yeah, I would say early on in high school, I.

I didn't do a great job of planning out what I was doing.

I went to Dave DeVenzio's, the PAT national point guard College or National Point Guard Camp, whatever it was called, and kind of learned there a little bit more about planning out workouts and that sort of stuff, and got a lot better in that regard.

Once I got into college, I was very organized with what I was doing, and it would be.

I wouldn't say I necessarily had an exact workout that I filed every time.

I had kind of a bunch of different drills that I liked, and I would pick, you know, maybe five or six of them that I was going to do every time I would go in the gym and work out.

And I.

So I got a lot more organized with that stuff the longer that I.

That I was playing.

And I.

And I would adjust and do different drills depending on if I had, like you said, had somebody to rebound for me or a teammate that was going to be taking shots, you know, in between the shots that I was taking and that sort of stuff.

And as my brother got older, I have a younger brother, he's five and a half years younger than me and was a college player himself, and we would work out together when he was in high school and I was in college and was home.

And so that.

That became, like, really good because he had his own set of drills that he liked, I had drills I liked and we would work out together.

And I think we got really organized around that time.

But no, initially I would just, you know, for lack of a better, I really had no idea what I was doing.

I was just going to the gym and just getting as many shots as I could and trying to be, you know, become a better player, but definitely not the type of organization that I had later on in my career and the type of organization that some of our guys now have.

The, the guys that go and work with a trainer and, and, you know, have been around college basketball for a couple years and really understand how to get better.

What's your favorite memory from playing high school basketball?

Oh, boy, that's a great question.

I would say there's not necessarily one, you know, one or won.

We played in the.

We played in the sectional championship my senior year, and that was.

That was a cool experience.

But I would just say, you know, the type of atmosphere at home games.

I tell people all the time, you know, like, when they're coming to college and, you know, they'll.

We'll get questions from recruits like, what type of fan base do you have?

And, you know, how many people at the game?

And I'm like, we get a decent crowd, but it's, you know, you're everywhere you go, unless you go high major, it's going to be.

It's going to be different than when you were in high school, you know, as far as that stuff goes, because, you know, our whole community would.

Would be at every single home game.

A lot of them would travel.

Again, being from a small town, I think that that's something that we were really fortunate to have was, was people that were really supportive of the program.

And I think just that atmosphere and at games is.

Is my favorite part about, you know, high school basketball.

When you think about the experience that you had and the guys that coached you in high school and now you think about yourself as a coach, what's one thing that you can directly trace to what Your experience was in high school, from the coaches that coached you there to now who you are today as a coach.

Yeah, I think the biggest thing, the best compliment that I could give my high school coach was just that he had a great relationship with every guy on the team.

And it wasn't.

It wasn't fake.

It wasn't like he was.

He legitimately cared about everybody on the team.

And that was something that stuck out to me even when I was in high school.

Like, we.

We as players all really trusted our.

Our coach and, you know, really enjoyed being around him and enjoyed practice, enjoyed the games.

And, you know, I try to do my best to.

To really to.

To be that for the guys in our program.

You know, have a good relationship with them.

You know, obviously, we got to hold them accountable, and we're going to have to correct things and come down on guys at times, but having a good relationship, having an open door, and being somebody that the guys in the program can come and talk to and not feel like, you know, you're.

You're too busy for them.

We tell our guys all the time, you know, you guys are the most important piece to the program.

So if you come in here and you need to talk, we're here to talk.

No matter what we're working on, if you want to go in and get a workout in, we'll always get a workout in with you.

Again, no matter what's going on, you know, we'll.

We'll take the time for the players in our program.

And I think that was something that, you know, was very evident in the high school program that I played for.

Makes sense.

And I think when you start talking about, right.

The relationship and just the investment that somebody makes in you accounts for everything.

I always say, when you look back on the people who are the most important in your life, and this is something that I teach during the day, is my real job.

And it's something that comes up in education all the time.

When you think back, right to your favorite teacher, your favorite coach, it's maybe not necessarily the teacher who taught you algebra the best or the teacher or the coach who really knew their X's and O's, it was the coach that took the time to get to know you and cared about you and asked you about your personal life.

Same thing like with a teacher, right?

It's the teacher you could go in and talk to for five minutes before the bell rang.

Like, those are the people that you remember.

It's amazing, Zach, just from talking to so many coaches here on the podcast, when you think about the tremendous amount of basketball knowledge that people have carried that I've been able to talk to on the pod, and yet 99.9% of them all come back to that same point that you just made, right?

That it's an investment in the players on your team, that the players have to be at the forefront.

And when you invest in them and they know that you're invested in them, then you end up getting the best out of them.

And it sounds like your experience initially as a high school player was the exact same thing, that you just felt valued, and then again, that carries over into what you're doing today.

Yeah, no, Absolutely.

I agree 100%.

All right, tell me a little bit about your recruitment and just the idea of playing college basketball.

Was that something that.

With your family being a part of the coaching profession, was that something that you knew you always wanted to do?

Did you grow up a fan of college basketball thinking, hey, that's something that I know for sure that I want to do?

Or just where was your mindset at as a high school player in terms of playing at the next level?

Yeah, I always wanted to play college basketball.

Wanted to play at the highest level I could possibly play at.

I think I was probably similar to a lot of players in that I probably thought I was a little bit better than I really was.

But I had aspirations of playing in college and playing at the scholarship level, and I was getting recruited by a lot of Division 3 programs, pretty much all in New York State, and had some.

Had some different options, and was fortunate to be recruited by Dave Paziak, who was the head coach at Onondaga Community College.

And, you know, he.

His pitch was, you know, it worked.

His pitch was, you know, you come here, you're going to have all those same Division 3 options in two years, and you might have something else.

You might have something a little bit hot higher, you know, And.

And that was.

Again, that was really my goal was to, you know, find a way to.

To play as at the highest level that I could possibly play at.

And, you know, my.

My.

My mom's uncle definitely did help with, you know, kind of leading the way with, you know, some of the decision making and.

And asking some of the right questions in terms of, you know, opportunity to.

To play and playing style and that sort of thing.

And I think that that stuff was maybe a little bit of something that I didn't understand at that point is how important it is to find a place that's the, you know, not just the highest level, but the right fit.

So that was, you know, I was super fortunate to have some people that could kind of help guide in that, in that decision.

But, yeah, I always knew I wanted to play and, you know, so started out, played at Onondaga for two years, had had two pretty good years there was all region and all conference my, My sophomore year, and then went on to play at West Virginia Tech, which was NAI Division 1 school at the time.

Obviously, as I'm sure you know, NAI doesn't have divisions anymore, but at that point it was NAI Division 1, and had had two pretty solid years at Tech as well.

So, you know, look back at my college career, I, I couldn't have really asked for anything more.

Throughout the time that you're playing in college at both places, what are you thinking about from an academic slash career?

Are you still at this point, are you pretty locked in that, hey, whatever degree I'm going to get, I'm hoping to make the transition and, and be a coach?

And at that point, were you thinking college basketball was where you wanted to coach?

Because obviously there's a.

You could go the route of becoming a teacher and going into high school coaching.

And so just what was the thought process for you as you were going through your four years of school?

Yeah, I would, I would say I, I never really have wavered for more than maybe, you know, after a tough loss.

I've never really wavered on, on being a college basketball coach.

It's always been what I wanted to do.

It's always been my passion and, and I kind of always wanted to, to be in, in college, coaching college.

So during my time at Onondaga, you know, Coach Paziak had kind of already talked to me about, you know, go on, play your last two years and, you know, if you have something else, that's great, but if you want to come back here, we'd love to have you back.

So I, I kind of knew in the back of my mind that that would probably be my first coaching stop, would be to.

To go back to Onondaga.

But.

But yeah, I always knew that, you know, college coaching was where I wanted to be for sure.

Made it pretty easy compared to a lot of guys coaching searches, right?

They get done and they're like, I have no idea.

And maybe their coaches had connections and were able to get them different places, but it sounds like you kind of had that lined up.

So just talk about taking that job and what it was like to go back to.

I always think it's interesting to think about as a player, right?

You're in the program, you're playing for the head coach.

I always felt like as a player, I'd never really thought that much about what the coaches did other than seemed like they were showed up to practice, they were there five minutes before I was there.

And then, you know, I took a shower and went back to get some dinner and go, whatever.

And then who knows what the coaches were doing after that.

Like I was completely unaware of what was going on.

So I always figured and thought, wow, to be able to then step behind the curtain and see with my, with the actual guys that coached me, what that was like, what they were actually doing would have been incredibly eye opening for me.

When I was a young kid of 22, 23, right after I graduated, I never had that opportunity.

But just talk about what it was like to go back to your same program, working with your same coaching staff, except now instead of being a player coach, now you're a colleagues.

What was that experience like for you?

Yeah, so I, I guess I should back up a little bit.

My, my freshman year I, I tore my ACL 12 or 13 games in.

So I actually got to kind of try my hand at coaching for the second half of my freshman year, you know, because I wasn't able to play.

So I got, I got kind of a little bit of a sneak peek there for a little bit of my freshman year, which was, was the injury obviously was pretty devastating at the time, but it was a cool aspect of just kind of getting to see the, the coaching side of things.

Then when I came back after my two years at Tech, I would say one of the nice things because I, you know, I have some friends that have become gas or assistants at the school they graduated from and they're, they're, they're trying to coach and correct the kid that they played with the year before and maybe we're going out with the year before and that sort of thing and hanging out with.

And the nice thing for me with it being a two year school was when I came back, it was a whole new group of kids.

So I, I didn't, didn't coach anybody that I had played with, which was nice, but it was, it was a very, it was a very interesting kind of perspective of what goes into coaching in that we had some, you know, we all kind of had some, you know, impressions of who our coaches were, like who our head coach was, who our assistant was and who our other assistant was and kind of their personalities and they were pretty far off.

Once we actually got behind closed doors as just coaches, you know, you know, we, we all thought coach, you know, our head coach was like kind of a, you know, a little hard on us and that sort of thing.

And you know, he was behind closed doors.

You know, you knew that he loved you.

Like he was, he was very much about, you know, player success and what was best for, for the guys in the program and that sort of stuff.

And some of our assistants were actually, you know, when in practice they were fine and then you get behind closed doors and they're talking about how bad you suck.

So it was, you know, it's an interesting perspective, you know, to, to kind of get from, from those first couple years of coaching.

What did you love about it right away?

Because obviously having not done it in any type of full time capacity, you're thrown in.

I'm sure there were things that you're like, man, I didn't realize there was so much of this or boy, we're doing a lot of that.

But just what, what was it that grabbed you right away that you were like, man, I know this is, I know I'm in the right spot.

Yeah, I think, you know, developing a program, getting to spend time around the game, you know, and just seeing players develop over the course of their, you know, on a daga, it's a.

Obviously like I said, it's a two year school so you're only getting to develop them for a couple years, but you're helping those kids to achieve their goals, helping them to move on and go to their four year school if that's what they choose to do.

And you know, most of our guys did choose to kind of go that route and, but seeing the development with our players over the course of those couple of years, the part that was the hardest was just that I still wanted to play, you know, but, but aside from that, I, I loved everything else about it.

I actually liked going out recruiting, you know, like preparing for opponents, you know, like, like practice.

Liked everything about all of that stuff.

Loved the games but, but wanted to be out there playing still.

Did you get to play a little.

Bit in practice every once in a while?

Yeah, we would play pickup pretty regularly in the off season as well and you know, over the summers and stuff like that.

And I, I'd get to play a little bit like when we'd run camps and stuff, but a little bit in practice as well.

It's amazing how much you miss it.

Like I'm 55, Zach, and I tore my ACL when I was 42, and that was the end of my playing career.

It was probably over before that just because I wasn't playing very often.

And when you get to.

When you get.

When you get to that age and you're playing, like, once every three weeks and then you can barely walk after you play, it's really not.

It's really not that fun of a thing.

I was always like, man, if I could three or four days a week, I could probably be fine.

But playing once every three weeks just wasn't cutting it.

But it's amazing how when you think about just the amount of time that you spend right, As a kid and just how much you just love.

Like, there's a reason.

I think this is something that I think about as a coach, right?

That and I think about this as a parent, too, that sometimes we get so serious about the game and we just.

As we lose sight of the fact that, you know, why'd you pick up a ball, man?

Why did I pick up a ball?

We picked up a ball not so we could grind and not so we could figure out all this different stuff.

We picked it up because we just love the play, and it was fun.

And I think, like, as a kid and that what you just said rings so true to me, that when I stepped away from the game and obviously I'm still playing in men's leagues and I'm still playing some pickup basketball when I'm in my early 20s, but it just wasn't.

It wasn't.

It wasn't the same.

And the ability to play has never.

I mean, the ability to play has left me.

The desire to play.

The desire to play has never.

Has never waned.

I still.

I probably have more dreams about playing basketball and winning or losing basketball games than I do about anything else.

And I haven't played competitively for 30 years or whatever it is, so it's kind of crazy.

And that.

That what you just said rings so true to me.

Just about.

Man, I still.

I still want.

I still want to play.

I still want to play.

So that's.

I think it's.

I think.

Yeah, it was.

It was hard for, you know, a handful of years, for sure.

All right, so after you get done at the alma mater, then the next opportunity is at Lemoine.

Tell me how that comes to be.

Tell me about the transition from, again, a program you're familiar with to you're suddenly in a new place that you haven't been before.

I was extremely lucky.

So I.

I used to Work Lemoyne's camps from the time I started playing at Onondaga.

And then I, when I'd be home in the summer from, from Tech, I would, worked the camps again.

Then when I came back to Onondaga, I started, you know, once again working, you know, working their camps.

And I was, I had been applying to some, some GA positions and some different things and was, was kind of striking out and I had started reaching out to some different coaches and asking if I could meet with them and just talk about, you know, kind of the path to moving up the path to getting the next job.

And Lemoine just happened to be one of them.

I went in, I walked in with a Onondaga blue polo on and a pair of khaki shorts, I think, and sat in the office with Steve Evans, who was the head coach at Lemoine at the time, and just started asking him some questions.

And then it kind of turned into a makeshift interview and he said, I don't know if you're aware, but Nick Nishay left or told us he was leaving two days ago and I need to get a GA in position.

Would you be interested in the job?

So just, you know, I happened to kind of reach out at a, at a time that, you know, was.

A position had opened and kind of, he knew who I was.

I had worked his camps and I, I was obviously very interested, wanted to coach at that level and, and you know, he gave me an opportunity and he was very, very hard to work for at times, but the type of guy that when you're not working for him, you know, he'll give you the shirt off his back.

He's, he's, he's great.

He's done a ton for me and a ton for my career.

You know, to answer how, how things kind of were different at a, at a place I was unfamiliar with, they were a lot different.

You know, at first it was more of an, kind of an observatory position, you know, trying to learn, trying to figure out how they were playing.

I got the job.

It was.

The school year had started already.

They were practicing and they had a lot of stuff in, they had stuff in from the previous year.

So just, it was, it was playing catch up initially and figuring out how he wanted to play.

And.

But once, once I did, I mean, it was, it was a tremendous experience for me and super high level basketball in the Northeast 10 and so I really enjoyed it.

And you know, I'm super appreciative that, that he gave me that opportunity.

But yeah, it was a ton of fun, for sure.

One of the things that I always think is interesting is when somebody starts out their coaching career like you did in a program where you played right, where you're already familiar with sort of, at least the rhythm of this is how practice goes.

This is the offense that we run.

This is how our coach runs the program.

And I always say that, again, going back to and experience from my life, that I played for the same high school coach.

All through my high school career, I played for the same college coach for all four years.

So when I got a coaching job, the only thing I knew, really, was what those two guys had done.

So when I started coaching a team, all my drills, all my offense, all my defense, everything was pretty much based on them.

And I wish somebody would have grabbed me at some point in my first year or two of coaching, said, hey, you got to go and you got to study this person, or you got to go to this clinic, or you got to go to that.

I.

I kind of.

I kind of relied on the fact that, hey, I was a good player, so I'm going to be a good coach, as antiquated as that sounds to me today, after having gone through and talked to so many people in their career, but that was kind of the way that I approached it.

And so I.

I always think that it's good once you get an opportunity to get outside of that and see that, like, hey, there's lots of different ways, right, that we can have success.

And then as you've gone through, and we'll talk about some of the other stops you've had along the way, right?

You pick and choose things that you're like, I really like this.

I'm going to incorporate this into who I am and what I do.

And then maybe there's some other things that you're like, yeah, I didn't.

I didn't like that as much, or maybe that didn't work for me, or I.

I didn't fit with that.

And then, boom, you.

You kind of start to develop your own philosophy.

So just talk about how valuable just that piece of it was when you got the job at Lemoyne.

Just to see a different way of doing things, good or bad.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I think that was, you know, extremely important for me.

When I was.

When I was at Onondaga, one of the things Coach Paziak had had kind of told me to do was to keep a notebook of different drills.

I liked different things.

I liked about different coaches that I had played for or worked for and then obviously the, the opposite of that, drills and things that I thought probably I didn't want to do and maybe some characteristics about coaches that maybe I wanted to.

To not be myself as a coach.

And, you know, so I was.

That, that was something I, I kind of did all throughout my coaching career was, was track that stuff.

And so getting the opportunity to work for a different coach who had a completely different style.

We went from Onondaga where we pressed and played pretty fast and played basically all man to man, ran a, you know, motion offense, to getting to LeMoyne where we're continuity ball screen offense a million sets, and then defensively playing two, three zone almost exclusively.

It was, it was great in the, in terms of just like you said, getting an opportunity to just see a different style and, and pick some things out of that that I really liked and then, you know, kind of figure out what parts of it I didn't like so much.

How many of those notebooks do you have now?

So I only have one.

I have a, I have a notebook.

I have a couple different notebooks.

I only have one with my, the things I like about, you know, the, the guys that I worked for.

I have another notebook where I, you know, this summer I, I started a new project of kind of tracking every successful program that sort of plays within the style that, that we play and just taking notes, watching film, watching, you know, synergy and, and looking at the stats and really trying to figure out what things stand out in those stats.

And, and it's amazing how clear it really is that the, the teams that are successful, they, they, they all have some of the same markers in terms of kind of what makes them successful.

And then I've been fortunate, you know, to, to meet with some of those guys this summer.

And a couple of Those are Division 1 programs that were practicing this summer.

So I've been traveling around quite a bit and watching some, some schools practice this summer as well and trying to get, get as much better, you know, within the confines of kind of how we're trying to play as I possibly can.

So that's been, that's been really valuable, for sure.

All right.

I don't want you to give away all your trade secrets.

Sure.

But if you can give me, give me one thing that you've looked at that you think translates to success for the teams that you're watching and then for your team, and then which teams.

What, what team is doing that well that you've sort of gone and been able to.

Been able to Steal from.

So there's a, there's a couple things.

It's not giving anything too crazy away.

There's a couple things that stand out a lot.

The, the big thing is winning the possession battle, so getting more shot attempts than, than your opponent.

So you're going to do that with a couple of different things.

You're going to get more offensive rebounds than you allow by as wide of a margin as possible, and you're going to turn over the opponent and limit your, your own turnovers.

Now, we actually did a fairly good job of that this past year.

We won in both of those areas, but we were pretty bad defensively and gave up, you know, a pretty high percentage shooting.

So that, that's something where we need to get better.

I would say some of the teams that do a great job in those areas that we've, that, that I've looked at.

I mean, obviously everyone knows Nova Southeastern, but, you know, Coker did a great job of it last year.

West Liberty, Dallas Baptist plays that style.

They're really, really good at it.

Pitt, Bradford does a really good job of it.

They play that same style.

And then, you know, Sean Rossi and Montclair State, you know, and Coach Potts, those guys do a great job of it as well.

So if you look at any of those programs, they're, they're winning in those areas.

They're, they're getting a ton of offensive rebounds.

They're not giving up a whole lot of them, and then they're turning their opponents over probably 7, 8, 9 more times than they're turning it over every game.

So if, even if they shoot the same percentage, they're, they're getting 10 to 15 more shot attempts per game.

And so those are some things that, you know, we've, I've always felt like those were important, but really putting the stats next to it and seeing just how important it really is is, has definitely helped me this summer for sure.

So as a coach, do you look at.

Okay, so let's take those two, let's take those two statistics.

Offensive rebounds and turnovers.

You can look at it.

There's two sides to each one of those, right.

You can either get more offensive rebounds yourself, or you can prevent your opponent from getting more offensive rebounds.

Obviously you'd like to do both if you could.

Yeah, but you could focus on one or the other a little bit more.

And same thing with turnovers, right?

You can either say, hey, we want to be a really low turnover team ourself, or maybe when we want to play more pressure defense and turn the other team over.

So when you think about those two, two statistics, do you lean one way or the other with each one of those or do you try to cover sort of all four areas?

For lack of a better way of saying it?

Yeah, I think, you know, we want to be at least solid in all four areas.

But I, I'm, I'm very aggressive by nature.

So I think, you know, from a, from a, the turnover perspective, we want to create more turnover.

So I'm okay if we're not sitting at seven or eight turnovers in a game, if we have 10 or 12 in a game, but we turn the opponent over 20 times, we're, we're very happy with that, those numbers because we're going to play very fast.

And that's again, not giving away any secrets.

We've always, always played fast.

But you know, and then from a, from a rebounding perspective, I concern myself a little bit more rather than just a raw number with a percentage.

So, you know, we're trying to offensive rebound a specific percentage of our misses and hold our opponent under a specific percentage of their misses.

So I'm a little more balanced in terms of the offensive rebound versus defensive rebound number.

You know, we're trying to get 40% of our offensive rebounds and give up under 30% of, of the opponent's misses.

So it's a little bit more of a kind of need to have both with the, with the rebounds, I would say.

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As you wrap up being an assistant at shepherd, you get your first head coaching job.

Tell me a little bit about the transition from being an assistant to taking over your own program.

What you remember about those initial days on the job as a head coach?

Yeah, so it was, it was an interesting transition.

So when I took the job at Delhi, Delhi was transitioning from a two year school to a four year school.

So they were starting the NCAA process.

We're going to compete in the USCAA post season wise, but we were not eligible for like NCAA postseason and stuff.

When I took the job, there had been a head coach there for a while, then there'd been an interim guy and then me.

And so when I took the job, I had one returning player and zero recruits and I took the job in June.

So I, the, the thing I remember the most from that initial, maybe, you know, month to two months was just literally trying to recruit anyone with a pulse that would come play at Delhi that had any ability whatsoever.

You know, one of the, one of the beautiful things about that experience was it taught me how important it is to recruit character.

You know, that that first year was, was, was rough, to say the least.

I was, I spent more time in the university police office than I probably spent in my own office for things on campus with kids getting in trouble and stuff.

And you know, I swore to myself that I would never do that again.

No matter when I took a job, I was never doing that again and unfortunately haven't had to go through that again.

So how do you, when you think about recruiting for character, obviously makes your job as a head coach so much easier both on and off the floor.

When you think about recruiting for character, what are some things that you look for in players?

So I'm thinking intangible wise.

And then as you're looking for those things, how do you vet out what makes a guy a high character guy?

What are some things that you do to determine whether the guy has the kind of character that you want to bring into your program?

Yeah, so I would say, you know, some of the things that you'll see initially would just be how a player interacts with their teammates on the court, how they interact with their coach.

If a coach gets on them a little bit, are they, are they saying something back or, you know, poor body language, that sort of thing, or are they responding kind of the right way?

Obviously it's, you know, recruiting has changed a lot with the transfer portal.

We still try to do at least, you know, depending on how many guys we need in a year, we're trying to bring in, you know, maybe half high school guys and half transfers, so still kind of doing some of that traditional recruiting.

But if we bring a kid in from the portal, we're trying to vet them by sometimes reaching out to their college coach, depending on how well we know them and where the kid might be coming from and that sort of thing.

But if not going back and even contacting their high school coach and getting kind of a report on how the kid is, I found over the years that, you know, most people are pretty honest.

I'm very often found somebody that'll say the kid's a great kid, and then you get them and they're kind of a knucklehead.

Most, most coaches will be honest.

I'm.

I'm always honest.

If somebody calls me about a kid that's leaving our program, I never try to, you know, run anyone into the, into the ground.

I'm just honest.

If they're really good kid, I tell them.

If they're not the greatest, I'm.

I'm telling them that as well.

So.

But as far as the vetting process goes, I think that's really important.

I think it's important to always try to get kids on campus as well for their visit.

Some of our, some of our older players, our returning players, they really have a good gauge for the type of kids that we're looking for.

So I always try to create opportunities for our guys to spend time with the recruits without the coaches around to kind of get a feel for, for the kid.

If we can get them to stay overnight, that's even, even better.

Sometimes kids, for whatever reason, aren't able to or don't want to.

And so we try to still set up some time for them to be around the players by themselves.

I think that has really, really helped over the years.

You know, even back to my time at Delhi, to really get a good.

Get a good gauge for the type of person that, that the young man is.

And sometimes, you know, if they come with family members, parents or whatever, I mean, you kind of see how they interact with them as well.

If their mom says something, they roll their eyes.

You know, it's not a.

It's not a good sign.

You know, we all.

There's always going to be those moments where maybe you don't want your mom to say something, but it's probably not the right, you know, the right approach to, to, to, you know, when, when she does say something.

So just.

Just kind of reading all those different things and, you know, trying to make sure we're bringing in the right kids for the program.

Tell me, what attracted you to the job at Frostburg?

What was it about the potential of the program that made you think, hey, this is going to be a really good opportunity for me to build something special?

For sure.

Yeah.

So I would say, you know, initially, the location, we're, you know, less than two hours from Pittsburgh.

We're just over two hours from Baltimore, just over two hours from D.C.

three hours from Richmond.

So we can get to a lot of places where there's a lot of good basketball in a.

In a short period of time.

You know, we have every single major you can imagine.

So as far as, like, if there's a kid you want to recruit and you want engineering, we have engineering, we have sports management, you can come here and become a teacher.

You can do literally anything you want to do from.

From Frostburg.

And then our facilities, you know, the gym is.

Is okay.

It's not.

It's not the best gym in the conference, but I would say our campus is probably overall the best or at least top two or three campuses in the conference.

It's really, really nice.

And people are always super impressed when they.

When they come here.

I think one other thing that was really attractive was there's only two division, two programs in the whole state of Maryland.

So, you know, as far as kind of getting some Maryland kids, I would say our roster is about 50, 50 Maryland and out of state.

And.

But we can always attract in.

Maryland's got really good high school basketball.

So we're.

We've got a pretty big pool of players to.

To pull from.

And then I think, you know, having a.

Having a good working relationship with the women's coach is always a good thing.

And I knew Jenna from our time at.

Or at, excuse me, shepherd together.

She was the women's coach at shepherd when I was the there.

So I knew that, you know, she'd be easy to work with and.

And, you know, fun to be around and all that type of stuff.

So that was.

That was another piece that was just a, you know, huge sell for me as well.

Yeah, I think if you can get yourself into the right environment and see the potential of the job that you're taking.

Right.

It goes back to what we talked about in terms of players.

Right.

Trying to find the right fit.

And it sounds like as you're looking around and you get the opportunity at Frostburg, you're looking at all those different factors that you just laid out and said, hey, this is the right fit where I think I can come in and make a difference and build something.

Build something special.

Talk to me a little bit about just how you design a practice.

What's your philosophy for putting together a practice plan?

How do you do it?

How do you structure it?

Just go through the sort of step by step, how you, how you plan out a practice?

Yeah, so the first thing we always want to do is make sure that it's going to be really, really competitive.

We, every single drill that we do is, you know, we're keeping a score, there's a winner and a loser, and if you lose it, you know, it's not meant to be like as punishment, but you know, you'll have a down and back or, you know, two burpees or something like that.

Just so that makes things as competitive as possible.

No matter what we're, no matter what we're doing.

But we, we try to start with some skill, work some shooting at the beginning again, you know, maybe it'll be a kind of one warm up shooting drill and then we're going to get right into some competitive shooting drills and break down our offense and kind of work in that way.

And then we try to transition right into live action.

I've always kind of, you know, been a believer that a lot of drill work, I feel like, doesn't necessarily translate that well to live play.

You know, you, you do shell for 15 minutes and you're in the gap and you're doing all this stuff and you're talking and then you, you go into the live play and guys are not in the gap.

They're hugged up to their man, their, their back is to the ball.

So we do a lot more of like, you know, we might do shell to the whistle and then when the whistle blows, it's live.

So it, you know, maybe it'll be two or three passes of kind of dry and then on the whistle we're playing so it's much easier to correct on the fly and you don't watch them do something perfect for 15 minutes and then just not do it at all for the next 15 minutes.

So, but we try to, everything is, is going to be competitive.

We get up and down a ton, play a ton of live 5 on 5, try to put guys in positions that they're going to be in in the game, you know, and, and, and then we always, at the end of practice, we always come back to some more shooting, some more skill work breaking things down Breaking down parts of our offense, breaking down by position, that sort of thing, you know, but, but I would say no, two practices exactly the same.

But.

But we are getting up and down and playing live a ton in our practices.

So if we have an hour and a half practice, we're probably playing live for 45 minutes of that.

And then the rest is competitive skill work, competitive shooting drills, things of that nature.

All right.

Question I always like to ask coaches is when you think about correcting or coaching something, let's say it's an incorrect decision or something that you thought the player could have made a better read or whatever it might be, or how do you balance out the correction part of coaching with not interrupting the flow of.

Especially when you're going live action.

How do you balance out, hey, when's the right time to stop it and intervene versus letting the flow of the action continue and maybe talking to a kid when they come off the floor or maybe doing it even in a film session.

How do you balance that out as a head coach?

Yeah, so I think a little bit of that depends on what exactly we're doing as far as the live play.

So we do a lot of, you know, Odo, where it's, you know, just three trips.

I'll never stop it for a mistake on something like that.

So because, you know, two plays later, three plays later, you know, some players might forget what they did wrong, but most guys are going to remember, you know, what you're talking about.

So I'll always let that kind of play out.

If it's more of a, of a, hey, we're going up and down, we might try to yell some instruction from the sideline, but then if we feel like they maybe don't understand what we're saying or, you know, or it happens again or another guy does it, then we'll stop it and interject it also kind of depends on what the mistake is.

You know, if it's a bad shot or something like that.

We don't over coach shot selection, but we might say something to a guy on the fly about, about the shot.

You know, if it's something where, you know, we press a lot, if we don't even get into the press, we're going to stop it immediately and we're going to address that.

That's something that we need to do better.

If it's crashing the offensive glass again, that might be something we can correct on the fly the next possession, we'll see if they fix it, that sort of thing.

So I think also you Know, time of the year can, can play a little bit of a role, I think early on in the season, correcting those things, so it becomes a habit.

And then as the season progresses, you know, mistakes are going to happen and in the game you're not just going to be able to stop it.

So you kind of have to let them go a little bit and then correct it when you have an opportunity.

I am big on film sessions as well.

I don't love team film sessions that much, but bringing individuals in to watch things they're doing correctly and things they're doing poorly, and sometimes watching other guys, whether it's on our team or, you know, on other teams, and picking up from, from that, some, some things that they can improve upon or do more of, I think that's really, can be really useful.

How do you build that film time into your day, into a player's day?

How do you fit that in, let's say, during the season while you're playing games?

Yes.

So usually after the game, I'll reach out to some guys that I want to do a film session with the next day, or, you know, maybe have one of my assistants do a film session with the next day and just, you'll kind of figure out what a time, what a good time is going to be to bring them in and then just, you know, we, everybody has synergy nowadays, so just finding those, those few clips you want to show, it's usually not going to be that long.

You know, we're going to maybe show them five to ten clips probably at the most.

And, you know, so we need, we need 15 minutes at the most of their time.

So it's, it's pretty simple to just say, hey, look, you know, you're in at 9, you're in at 9, 15, you're in at 9, 30.

And we've got, you know, got it taken care of at least until we, we get to practice.

So usually that's going to be something kind of the, the day, the night of the game, you know, talking to a guy about, hey, tomorrow, this is what we're going to, this is what we're going to do.

Or, you know, play Saturday, tell them, hey, Monday, this is what we're going to do.

Do you find that obviously different players have different ability to process or learn in different ways, and when it comes to film, I'm sure there are some guys that you can show them something on film.

Boom, they get it right away, and then you see that translate to the practice floor.

Whereas maybe other guys don't see it as readily, or maybe it doesn't transfer quite as well from a film session.

Maybe they got to see it on the floor.

How do you handle that?

Or how do you think about just making sure that you're giving the guy what they need in terms of their learning style to be able to help them to maximize what they need to do on the court for you, if that question makes any sense at all.

Yeah, no, I.

Absolutely.

I.

I understand what you're.

What you're saying, and I think everybody kind of does, like you said, learn a little bit differently.

And I think, you know, again, goes back to kind of building those relationships with guys and really understanding what their.

What their, you know, preferred style and.

And kind of how they're gonna learn best, what.

What that's going to be.

And I think you figure that out with guys.

You know, we.

We used to do it.

I don't run a ton of sets anymore, but early in my career, we'd run a million sets, and I'd have guys in my office drawing the plays on the whiteboard, and we'd have some guys that would draw them on the whiteboard.

Perfect.

And then you go out there and they were running them in practice, and they have no idea.

They have no idea what we're doing.

Other guys that are drawing them on the whiteboard, and they might not quite seem like they have it, but.

But then they go on the court and they're good.

So figuring that out and just kind of figuring out which guys are going to learn which way and when that guy has an issue, you know, addressing it in a way that.

That makes some sense.

Even if that's just five or ten minutes right at the beginning or right before practice, just going over something with a guy, I think that can be really helpful.

You know, I think even just your delivery to a specific player needs to change depending on that player.

We, you know, we've had some guys that, if you.

If you don't, you know, some here, some at Delhi, where if you don't get after them a little bit, they might not respond, but then you have other guys that, if you do get on them a little bit, they might shut down and just understanding which guy you're talking to.

And you can be mad in the moment, but you have to deliver the message the way that they're going to respond best to it.

It's funny, because clearly that is a theory of coaching that has changed dramatically from 25 or 30 years ago.

Again, I think of the times when I was Playing.

And I can't imagine ever a discussion in a coach's office on any team that I ever played for where the coaches would be saying, well, I wonder if we yell at Mike, how's he going to react versus if we, you know, we.

We pat Bill on the butt and maybe that'll get more out of him.

It was just sort of whatever the style was.

Yep.

Loud, quiet, whatever the style was from that particular coach, everybody was getting the exact same thing.

And I think it's one of the best things that has happened in the coaching profession is that evolution of thinking about, what does this player need?

Or even take it a step further.

Right.

What does your team need on a given day of practice today?

Maybe we need to just spend some time in the film room, and we need to spend some time talking and get some shots up.

Maybe there's another day where we need a little bit more intensity.

I think coaches across the board are way more intentional and thoughtful about trying to figure out what each individual player needs to get the most out of and what their team needs on a given day.

Whereas I think in the past, there was a lot of, this is the way we do it, and we don't really look at the circumstances of what we're.

What we're trying to accomplish.

It was just there was one way, and that one way was the only way.

And now I feel like coaches understand much better that I got to figure out how to reach my guys.

I got to figure out how to reach my team, and what.

What they need on a Tuesday may be completely different from what they need on a Friday.

Yeah, no, you're.

You're absolutely right.

Absolutely right.

All right, tell me a little bit about what you see moving forward with the program as you continue to try to build.

What are the two or three things that you think you need to continue to do to get to where you want to go, the consistent success that you want to have.

What are the keys?

Yeah, so I think the keys are recruiting, you know, kids that are bought into the way that we want to play.

We talk to our guys, we talk to our recruits 100% of the time when we recruit them, like, this is how we're going to play, and we don't want you to come here if that's not the way that you want to play.

So we need to continue to get the right type of player in here with the right mentality, Guys that are super competitive, guys that want to win and want to build something that hasn't been done here since we've been Division 2, so we need to get those guys.

I think the other piece to that is we've been undersized in each of these first two years.

We're not going to be undersized this coming year.

We actually have a pretty big team in comparison to the rest of the conference, and I think that's got to continue.

I think, you know, what we talked earlier about, you know, what do I see with the teams that are successful, and it's not across the board, but it's.

The majority of them are big at every single spot.

There's teams that are.

That are successful, that do not fit that.

But, but most of them that are successful, I feel like, are big and kind of switch everything and, you know, are very interchangeable.

We've got to.

We've got to have that.

But I just think those are the, Those are the things.

I mean, collective buy in guys that want to play the way that we want to play, that are unselfish and, you know, good overall team size.

And I think, I think we're headed in the right direction.

I really like our roster for next year.

We've got a solid group of returners, guys that were good players for us last year that I think can be great players for us this coming year.

And then we've brought in some pieces that I think can be really, really good for us as well.

All right, last question.

When you think about what you get to do every day as a college basketball coach, going back to when you were a kid and thinking about, hey, someday I want to be a coach, and now, obviously you've been in the profession for a long time.

You've been a head coach at two different places.

What brings you the most joy about what you get to do day in and day out?

Yeah.

So I would say that the thing that brings me the most joy is, you know, the.

A lot of.

A lot of coaches will kind of take the opposite side to this, I think in terms of the fact that they miss a lot of time with their, with their families and, and that sort of stuff.

But I think the thing that is awesome for me is the fact that, like, my family is super invested in our program.

So my wife is really, really supportive.

I have two little boys.

One, seven.

One's going to be five in a few days.

My seven year old missed maybe five practices last year.

He's in every practice with a, With a whistle around his neck and a practice playing tucked in his waistband, running around, playing one on one with any guy that'll play him and, you know, blowing his whistle when he's not supposed to sometimes, but.

But at every practice.

He traveled to a couple of games last year.

They're at every game and just getting to see my.

My kids become obsessed with the game that I love.

I think that's been something that's been super, super rewarding, you know, and then seeing the guys in our program at Delhi and now at Frostburg as well become like family to my family, I think that's been super special.

My wife is like kind of like team, team mom a little bit, but my boys are at practice running around, and all the guys are great with them, and it's just.

I think that's just such a cool experience for them to be around all different types of kids and all different types of players, and they, they think it's.

They think it's super cool.

So, you know, I love that for them.

So that's probably the thing that brings.

Me the most joy, integrating one family with another.

Right?

When you can put those two things together and spend time with both of them.

Because we both know how intense the life of a college basketball coach is and how time intensive it is.

And just, again, the investment that you have to make in order to be successful.

And so when you can incorporate and have family time and have both of those families be a part of that, I think there's nothing better than people who do that well and can integrate it.

And again, when your kids love being around it, it's something special that not everybody gets an opportunity to.

To do that and to have that as part of what they.

Part of what they do as a basketball coach.

And so for you to have that, I know is tremendously valuable and special.

So before we get out, Zach, I want to give you a chance to share.

How can people reach out to you, get in touch with you?

So social media, email, website, whatever you want to share.

And then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap things up.

Okay.

Yeah, email is always good.

It's on the website.

But Z.W.

thompson, T H O M S E N Frostburg Edu or Instagram at Coach Z.

Thompson.

I do not have a personal Twitter.

We have a team One Frostburg mbb, I think, and we have a team Instagram as well.

So any of those are great.

Love talking basketball.

If anybody wants to reach out or, you know, wants to do a zoom or a call or anything like that, I'd be more than happy to do that, for sure.

Zach, 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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