ALL BALL -University of St. Thomas head coach Johnny Tauer - Pt.1

Doug is joined by University of St. Thomas head basketball coach Johnny Tauer who is in his fourth year with the Tommies. In part one of this conversation, Doug and coach Tauer discuss Coach Tauer's coaching beginnings, his success at the Division III level and his philosophy at St.Thomas.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hey want to bulocome in. I'm Doug Gottlieb. This is
All Ball. We got a great guest for you on
these next two All Balls. Johnny Cower will join me.
He's the head coach of St.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thomas.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
The Tommy's are in first place in the Summit League
and he's built them from a Division III National champion
to potentially a Summit League champion, and they're still not
eligible for the NCAA tournament, something that obviously most people
know that the transition years should go away.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
They just should.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
But we'll get into all things Saint Thomas in a moment.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Do want to update you.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Obviously, at the time of this recording, we've lost fifteen
games in a row, and as tough as that sounds,
and you know, you get people like, oh, that's got
to be miserable. Don't get me wrong in the moment.
In the moment, it can be. But it's a really
fascinating process and I do want to use this pod

(01:08):
to tell some of the story. First, I'll tell the
story of this past weekend. You know, we had been
steadily improving and we thought we felt like we played
really well in spurts against Milwaukee and had a legit chance.
So look, we felt like we played, we played well.

(01:30):
We're a different team, like one of the things that's
crazy about this year, And I think I'll take a
pod probably at the end of the year and go
back through so many different changes. But we've sort of
been three or four very different teams in terms of
our roster composition. And we added Yonatan Levy a Levy

(01:54):
excuse me, who joined us from Israel, going back three
weeks ago, and I remember, like when we got him, our
plan was, hey, can we get him on the twenty
first of December, that's when he was eligible to join us,
But because of paperwork and trying to get out of Israel,
then we're like, okay, well he'll join us at the

(02:15):
twenty sixth when we start practice for the twenty ninth.
But he didn't arrive until the thirtieth, and then we
played him later. We played them two games with like
two practices under his belt, and he wasn't in shape.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
So then we had essentially.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
A week to sort of get him into shape and
to figure out what we wanted to run and how
we wanted to play.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
And remember, like I still had to figure out how
to coach him.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Guys had to figure out how to play with him,
and then we had to figure out what, you know,
not what he does best, but what kind of condition
he's in. And like, you can only condition somebody so
much when you have you know, you have a mandatory
day off and then you know, you got three or
four practices and then you go and play on a Saturday.
So we felt like we did a pretty good job

(03:02):
preliminarily against Milwaukee. So then we have a couple days
to prepare for three games and six days, I mean
have three games.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
In six days.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
You got to figure out, all right, we have to
be light in terms of our practice load so that
we can't really condition guys then because they'll just break
you down. But we thought, hey, maybe Tuesday. We played
on a Friday, so we felt like, all right, we
Monday we did individual workouts and a lot of film

(03:35):
study and just kind of getting him sharper and how
we want to use him. And then Tuesday we were
set to have pretty tough low practice. Well, he heard
his hip flexer on Tuesday lifting weights, so he barely
practiced during the week. You go into a game against
Robert Morris and it was a game time decision thing.

(04:01):
So I'm like, of course he's gonna play, like his
dad is flew in from Israel. His dad's a former
national team player in Israel. It's got to play, and
he just coach I can't go. And so now we're
back to kind of playing how we played in the
last you know, a month or so without Anthony Roy,

(04:23):
our leading scorer, which is different, and it takes away
everything we had kind of worked on. And we're up
seventeen in the first half, but we suffered massive foul trouble,
something we haven't had all year and we're at home,
which was let's just say strange attended to foul differential
and I'll just be you know, like, look, I can

(04:43):
only be honest. I didn't think the officiating in terms
of what was it call at one end and what
was it called the other end?

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Was it was fair and square? I just didn't.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
I don't think there's some Grandma conspiracy or anything, right,
there's nothing nefarious at work.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
It just worked out that way.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
And we don't have any depth of experience literally trying
to play our more most experienced guys and are our
best guys, and you know, people see the twenty eight
nothing run and like they don't realize that there's a
bunch of things. We missed five layups during that run,

(05:24):
and we had to play, you know, we had to
go deep into our are not so deep bench. And remember,
like if you you're missing your top to your top
three players, right, Anthony Roway not playing because he's injured,
you on time Levy not playing because he's injured, and
you're playing, you're playing on a seven or eight man rotation. Well,

(05:47):
now you play five and your seven or eight man
rotation becomes your nine to ten. And then when you
have three people in foul trouble, you're playing then in
eleven and they're just young and Robert Morris got a
bunch of confidence and went on a run, and our

(06:10):
guys collectively didn't react well. But here's where you know
you have the right kind of kid. Obviously, I just
was upset and beside myself felt like we'd had such
good practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays, assuming you're on a
time with play, we feel like there's a good team

(06:31):
in our locker room.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
They were.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
It was tough the day in between games. You have
one day to prepare for Youngstown State, one of the
best teams in our league coming in and you know
they're coming off of lost to Milwaukee, so I'm sure
they were like, hey, we got to get this one back.
And we had kind of like a player's only plus
me session, and I just established there's four things that

(06:59):
are gonna win usay game. Defend rebound value the ball belief,
Defend rebound valuaball belief, Defend rebound value the ball belief
because we just have to be better. Defensively. We were
we have to rebound the basketball better, limited better, but

(07:19):
still gave up thirteen offense ruins value the ball. We
had sixteen turnovers, many of them late, and that's what
led to us losing. And then believe, and that's it's
just hard to get them to believe that we are
going to win games.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
We had to believe it before it actually happens.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
So you know, you're up ten with I look up
nine twenty two to go, and I'm like, this is it.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
We got them.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Just execute down the stretch and you know what happens
is you see the fissures. It's not one play, but
we run a play that there's a layup on the
back end of it. We turn it over and then
they pick up the pressure and we turn it over.
And you know, they didn't shoot the basketball, and though
they rebounded it well, really they won the game on
those couple of steals and dunks that followed. So you'd

(08:10):
think back to the drawing boards, and when you invest
every amount of your mental emotional being into a group
of young men and you're so close and then you
come up short, it's devastating.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
It's devastating.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
But you know what, we had a practice yesterday and
not really practice, this kind of team meeting again.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Watch film. They got shots up.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
All those guys that played heavy minutes, got time in
the pool, got time to rehab, got time to take
care of their bodies.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
And they're still all in.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
And I know that, you know, if you're listening to this,
you're obviously invested in my conversations and in this journey.
I know we're doing the right things. I know we're
getting more out of some guys than anybody thought possible.
I know that anybody who watches our games can see
the incremental improvement in the things that we do improve

(09:11):
most on the process is better. The results will eventually follow.
When it happens, you'll know it. But there's no quit.
And yeah it does suck, but this is this is
part of it. You gotta go through it. And I remember,

(09:33):
you know, Bill's self when he got the Kansas job,
talking about he lost eighteen in a row his first
year at or Roberts, and I just thought to myself,
I can't do that, Like I just I can't do that.
And now we're at fifteen and we have one more
home game and then back on the road against really
good opponents. So we'll get it going. And I am
learning a ton, a ton, a ton, you know, about

(09:59):
what we need to implement, how we need to implement,
how we need to focus recruiting, how the bench should function,
how my offense should function, how our defens function, things
we need to work on, things that we need to remember,
places that places that we can improve, and the things
that we're doing right and things that work, things that work.

(10:21):
So yeah, it's a lot, but it's I'm sure I'm
going to look back in a couple of years and
be like, that was the best thing that ever happened
to me, best thing, And it didn't happen to me.
It happens to us, and I think it's I think
it's a fascinating exercise this first year getting the job late,

(10:45):
choosing to take the best kids possible and and not
and choosing not to cut any steps in. And we're
not doing any shortcuts or we're just going to keep grinding,
keep getting.

Speaker 3 (10:58):
Better, be shortcuts. Live editions of The Doug Gottlieb Show
weekdays at three pm Eastern noon Pacific on Fox Sports
Radio and the iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
App Let's get to a guy that has also built
and I make no bones about it, we're going to
play them the next three years as well. But when
I got the job and I saw the parts of
our schedule that were already laid out for me, I was.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Like, oh yeah, yo, yeah, yah, yeah, yeah, yo, yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
Johnny Towers, the head coach of Saint Thomas. I've watched
him grow his program as a Division III juggernaut to
now I think a Division I juggernaut, and we didn't
want to play him out of respect for what they
do and how they do it. It's not there's some
aspects of Princeton in terms of two Guard, but they

(11:54):
just know who they are. They find the right kids.
They developed them and they play as a t and
it's a beautiful.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Thing to watch.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
And they can play fast and they can play slow,
and they're tougher than all get out. And when you
watch them play, how many of you watched them play
in some of these by games, you're like, there, why
would anybody play Saint Thomas? And the reason I didn't
want to play them, the reason I didn't want to
play them was because when you beat them, if you

(12:26):
beat them, people say, if you beat some nobody, I know,
people in the sport know, let's take out nobody. You
beat somebody, who are they still a Division three team?
People in the sport know how good they are. People
outside of the sport look at and go like, who's
Saint Thomas. If you lose to them, which we did
this year, people think you got beat by somebody they've

(12:47):
never heard of. So it's out of respect that I
use this to pick his brain on his journey and
his program. Let's catch up with the head coach of
the first it's a place in the seven League, Saint Thomas,
Tommy's here's Johnny Tower. Why do you go to Saint
Thomas to play?

Speaker 4 (13:07):
Like?

Speaker 1 (13:07):
What was take me through that decision.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
You know, I grew up two miles from campus. It was,
you know, I went to a Catholic high school. It's
a Catholic university in Saint Paul. My dad had gone there,
and those were not reasons I went there. It was
a really good basketball school, really good academic school. My dream,
honestly was go to Princeton and play. I had watched
them a lot in the late eighties and the early nineties,

(13:29):
and I'm not so sure Princeton was interested in me
as I was in them. So I ended up, you know,
playing Division III basketball, and I just felt like Saint
Thomas I had a really good sense I was going
to be happy there. I knew it was a really
it was a really good school, great basketball program, and
just felt like the values the program. Coach Fritz, who
recruited me, was a guy that you know, I thought

(13:51):
I'd enjoyed playing for. So it was it was one
of those things you don't know anything when you're eighteen, right,
You're trying to figure the world out. But it just
felt like a really special place and obvious it's worked
out really really well.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Okay, so what how did you guys how did he coach?
What was his style?

Speaker 4 (14:08):
Coach was old school. He was the when he graduated
in nineteen seventy one, he was the all time leading scorer.
He was a post player, you know, never shout outside
of two feet two thousand points a thousand rebounds. He
liked to joke that they made the three point line
for me on offense or defense, that I never went
inside that are kind of either side of the lane
or either side of the court, which probably isn't far
from the truth. But he was, you know what I

(14:29):
always say, I learned so much from him. He majored
on the majors. You know, he grew up in a
different era, and it was just kind of no nonsense,
and you better take care of the ball, you better
be unselfish, and you better guards as well as you
humanly could, which for me was not that great, but
I sure tried. And those three things have always stuck
with me, Like, if you forget everything else, major on
those three majors, and you'll probably have a chance.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, it's funny. We talked to argue, you know, three things,
value the ball, guard the ball, rebound the ball. It
seems it seems so easy.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
Well, in all the other minutia we can get into
his coaches and be curious about and we all love coaching.
Those details and how do you get a little winning
edge here there? But at the end of the day,
to your point, like if you turn the ball over
and you take bad shots and you don't defend or rebound,
you got no chance. And so those were some of
the things that coach he really he made a strong
impact on me in those voices.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Uh, okay, So was he as analytical and data driven
as you are? Like what I played for Eddie Sutton
and John McLeod and heck, I mean neither of them
ever drew on a whiteboard in terms of drawing up
a play like that wasn't there was no like at
os we did two for ones, like there's so much

(15:49):
we didn't do well at oakleom to say. We won
a lot of games, so there is a certain methodology
to it. What was what was he like?

Speaker 4 (15:58):
You know, that's a that's an interesting question. I'd say
he was. I still remember as a freshman he was
not overly into analytics.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
You know.

Speaker 4 (16:05):
When I went into psychology, he always jokingly called it
psychological BS because it was a different error, right, where
like you didn't talk about your feelings. You weren't. I mean,
it was just go out there and do your thing.
And he was so I but I remember as a
freshman he went up to the chalkboard, it wasn't even
a whiteboard, and he drew up sixty five possessions and
he basically said, look it, here's how many turnovers we

(16:25):
can have, here's how many shots we're going to get.
He broke down the four factors Dean Oliver's book Basketball
on Paper, and he didn't do it as in depth statistically,
but it was a very simplistic and very I think
elegant way of as an eighteen year old that made
a lot of sense to me, Like we get the
ball a certain amount of times, offensive rebound, steelis possessions,

(16:46):
turnovers giveaway possessions. Let me listen to my coach and
do what he's, you know, trying to get us to do.
And so I think in that sense he was ahead
of his time. But he was also I mean, he
was our athletic director as well. Before that he was
director of admissions and before that director of financial aid.
So coach Fritz was never a full time coach, so
he really, I mean he he looked at it like

(17:09):
from four to six pm we practiced. But it was
just a different era, right, I mean we didn't watch film.
We had one monitor that was a third of the
side of some by computer monitor. And so you know,
like you say, Coach McLeod, Coach Sutton, Coach Fritz, those guys,
I think it was just a different It was a
different era. But because we didn't have all the technology,
I think those guys were really really good at majoring

(17:31):
on the majors.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
What did you when you went to college? What do
you think you wanted to do?

Speaker 4 (17:38):
I you know, every aptitude test that ever took that
I should go into actuarial science. Unfortunately, wasn't that good verbally,
so I didn't even know what actuarial science was and
I never really found out. So I thought about finance.
A lot of people at Saint Thomas that business is
the most popular major, and honestly I was. I was
so clueless at the end of my sophomore year and
I'm like, I'm going to take a psychology class, of

(17:58):
sociology class, and accounting class. And I was acing accounting.
I was acing sociology and I was getting a D
plus in psychology and I loved it. And so it
was one of those forks in the road where I'm like,
all right, everything I know says I should go into business.
That's what my dad does. I thought I could get
a good job in the Twin Cities. But I was
just like, I think I want to go into psychology.

(18:19):
And so I turned it around in that class, and
you know, I wanted to study motivation, and so I
ended up just being fascinated by what makes people tick.
Went to graduate school, got my PhD at the University
of Wisconsin, studying competition and intrinsic motivation. So a lot
of my coaching philosophy, you know, some of the stems
from the great coaches that I played for, and then
a lot of it stems from my research at the

(18:41):
University of Wisconsin and my grad advisor, Judy Herrick Kevitch,
who is just one of the most brilliant human beings
you could ever meet, and so kind of to marry
those two interests and passions. And here we are twenty
five years later, still coaching and not teaching right now.
But I taught for twenty one years at Saint Thomas.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, it's always interesting me. I haven't brought that up
when people ass they asked by you know, like well
you have a radio job, you have like you do
realize that lots of coaches have had multiple hats, you know,
But I guess it's maybe the visibility of it. I'm
not really sure, but it's it's interesting. You know, what
do you hates? When my dad went to Ohio State,

(19:20):
dad favorite class he ever took what he haes taught
one classes semester. So, uh, it is interesting on how
the multi hats. Uh, somehow we've kind of gotten lost
on how that's I mean you you so when you
first came back after you got your pH.

Speaker 4 (19:37):
Yeah PhD in social psychology?

Speaker 1 (19:39):
How long did that take?

Speaker 4 (19:41):
Five years?

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Why?

Speaker 4 (19:44):
Why did I do that?

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Why would you get a doctorate in psychology?

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Why?

Speaker 4 (19:48):
That's a great question is my I have three sons
and a daughter, and as they like to joke, yeah dad,
you're a doctor and not the kind that helps people.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
You know.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
Well, I knew I loved the life of professor. I
looked at my you know the old adage like what
you think you want to do, go look at somebody's
done it. For twenty years, and do you like their life?
Like if you scale this out? And I just looked
at professors and the chance to help other people, hopefully,
the autonomy of studying whatever it is you want to study,
the chance to teach and read and think, like literally

(20:20):
all summer long, what's your job to think and read
and talk to people? And so I just thought the
life of a professor seemed so wildly you know, creative
and curious. And I knew I wanted to coach someday,
but I didn't want to be just a coach where
you get to a point you're like, I don't know
if I have another tool in my toolbox. And so

(20:41):
probably today analytics, I probably would have gone and got
a PhD. And statistics, you know, given today in the
way that the environment shifted. But I just I love
social psychology. I mean it's sort of like I don't
know if you're a Seinfeld fan or curb your enthusiasm
anything like that, but I describe it like that, like
social psychologists scientifically studying things that sign felt covered. I
always joke I want to teach a class called social scientology,

(21:03):
and my students would get so tired of me showing
Seinfeldt clips and they started dating me a little bit.
But that, you know, that's life, and it's what we
do as coaches though. It's how you build teams collectively,
how you motivate individuals, and so, you know, I don't
know if that's a great answer, because yeah, I was
broke from age twenty two to twenty seven. I mean,
you're not making any money as a teaching assistant and

(21:24):
you're taking out debt and you're hoping to get a
job that you're applying where one hundred other PhDs are
going for the same job in academia. So I don't
know if it was the smartest rational decision, but I
just knew it was something I was passionate about. And
to my parents' credit, I think they probably thought I
should have done something else, and we had some heart
to hearts, and I remember my mom and dad. My

(21:46):
dad was just kind of, well, if you're convinced this
is it for you, better work your butt off, because
you know, if you're if you're great at something, you'll
probably always find a job. But if you're not, I mean,
you major in psychology, you could end up, you know,
not ending up in the field of psychology.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
So yeah, that's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
So how did it come to be? I'm going to
go back to my own modern coach basketball.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
I mean, it was really a fluke. So I in
ninety eight, I wasn't near done with my doctorate and
one of my mentors at Saint Thomas, a guy by
the name of Ward Winton, was a social psych professor
of mine, and he passed away unexpectedly. And so it's
not like you just say, oh, I'm a psych guy,
I want a job back in my alma mater, like
I'm a social psychologist. He was a social psychologist. All

(22:29):
of a sudden, there's a position. So I applied and
I did not hear back from They had no interest
in me, nor should they have, because I wasn't close
to being down with my PhD. And so I kind
of moved my attention somewhere else. And turns out somebody
backed out on the job. They ended up posting it
again the next year. I ended up getting it. I interviewed.
It wasn't a tenure track job at the time, so
I thought I'd be there five years, and they turned

(22:52):
it into a tenure track job, and along the way,
I started volunteering as a coach, and so I was
an assistant for eleven years while I was a full
time professor. It was teaching, research committee work coaching, and
it was, you know, it was like doing two full
time jobs at once, much like you're doing now. And
there are a lot of days you didn't know left

(23:12):
from writing up from down and I'm confusing scouting reports
with research papers. But it really was one of those
eleven year spans in my life where I look back
and I'm like, I couldn't do it now. And maybe
that just makes me a lot older, but I think
back to that eleven year window and it was unbelievable
in terms of how much I learned, and that probably

(23:32):
how many hours I put in. But it also I
think helped prepare me for you know, what I'm doing now.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Doug Gottlieb
Show weekdays at three pm Eastern noon Pacific on Fox
Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
How did you guys play when you're an assistant? How
did you guys play in comparison to how your teams
play now?

Speaker 4 (23:55):
No coach was he? I mean, you know, and you
got to remember the guys who were coaching in the
seventies eighties. The three point line wasn't around right, and
he was I think he was pretty flexible in terms
of adapting to the three point line. I'd say we
played slower, and then in about two thousand and seven
we started playing faster. In fact, it happens a fluke.

(24:15):
You've had games like this. We're playing Wenona State, who
was the they won two out of three D two
national championships, and we had a young team and we
went down there and they ended up going thirty eight
and won that year. In eight they won the national title.
The only game they lost was to Division three Saint Thomas,
and we pressed at the end of the game. We
were down ten with two minutes left. We ended up

(24:37):
miraculously winning an overtime, and I remember talking to coach
Fritz the next day and he's like, you think we
should press more often? And that's sort of when we
started pressing. And there have been different iterations. I would
say that was probably a turning point. Offensively, I'd say
we went more to this system. We started running a
lot of two guard offense. Back in five I was

(24:58):
a young assistant. He allowed me to run the offense
and coach Bee lines teams at West Virginia just caught
my eye and I was like, that's how I want
us to play, that's what And coach Maker, who's my
associate head coach. Now, he was an assistant coach on
those B line teams. So it's a crazy story because
he and I didn't know each other at all, and
yet here I'm watching them in the sweet sixteen and
Pittsnagle and Gansey and I'm like, that is beautiful basketball.

(25:22):
And over the years he and I became friends. His
wife and my wife ironically graduated from Little Saint Olaf
College in Northfield, Minnesota together the same year. So like
there's all these connections, and they move back here. After
he left Marist, we got kicked out of our conference.
We jumped from D three to D one, and before
you know, he and I are having coffee as we
did quite a bit and more like, maybe you guys

(25:44):
aren't moving, maybe you'll just stick around here. And so
I think our offense has evolved over the years, but
I've just always wanted to play fast, free, up tempo
a lot of guys and be really efficient and those
are all not easy things to do, but over the years,
I think we've just developed kind of a culture and
probably an understanding of the players that allow us.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
To do that. What's this movement like, moving to Division
one from Division three?

Speaker 4 (26:10):
It's been wild. I mean, you know, for years, my
buddies would say, don't you ever want to coach Division one?
And I certainly wasn't against it, but I was also like, hey,
I'm up my alma mater. We're winning a lot of games.
It's a school I love, my parents come to every game,
we got young kids. There were just so many compelling
reasons that I wasn't just going to go do it
for a label of Division one. And I thought we

(26:31):
had really really good players that I loved coaching. But
this has been really it's been really fun, really cool
at this point in my career, knowing that, you know,
we had a stretch in there, I think we won
twelve straight conference titles, two national titles, and then all
of a sudden, we go from that to being the
underdog pretty much probably every single game in our first

(26:53):
year and starting five Division three players former Division three players.
So year one was very much a baptism by fire
and how can we just be competitive? And every game
we won was like winning the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
You know.

Speaker 4 (27:04):
We won ten games that year. The next year we
still started four former D three guys, and so I
think we've had this progression over four years where we
went from ten wins to nineteen to twenty and now
this year we're fourteen and five. But it's also been
a I think a great pressure test of our culture.
I always talk about that first year, and we did
some really cool things. We led the country in fewest turnovers.

(27:25):
We almost broke the all time record for fewest turnovers
in the history of college basketball. And that was nothing
we did on offense. Is just our guys being acutely
aware that they better not turn the ball over. We're
going to lose by forty and they knew it. We
knew it. But I think we also lost twelve straight
games that year. So when you think about that that year,

(27:45):
to me, I look back with gratitude might not be
the right word, but I do think we were fortunate
that we had all these guys who had lost eight
total games in three years of Division III basketball, and
here they go losing twelve straight games, and never once
did I worry about our locker room fracturing. Never did
I think what are they going to do if we
lose another game. Nobody was happy, nobody accepted it, but

(28:07):
it was the kind of thing where it's like, this
is who we are and this is the team we're
blessed to have this journey with, and so I just
I'll always look back, Doug on those guys, and you know,
there were nine of them that first year who would
jump from D three to D one, and they went
from thinking our goal is to win a national title

(28:28):
and we were ranked in the top five in the
country three straight years to COVID ending a year, COVID
wiping out the next year in Division three completely, and
then boom, they're plopped in Division one. And instead of
looking at that like what are we going to do here,
they were like, Okay, let's make this the coolest opportunity.
None of us dreamed to play in Division one. Let's
go do it. And so that's a long, winted answer,

(28:49):
but it has been a wild journey, and I think
we're really excited at Saint Thomas about where we're at
and what we're building.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
So there is hope when you lose a bunch of
rope that's good, that.

Speaker 4 (29:02):
Wouldn't do honestly, and that it was hard. Don't get
me wrong, I got an ulcer that year. I had vertigo,
and that's the truth. You can ask my wife. Like
the months of January and February, I was hanging on
because it was like you're just you're doing everything you
can to win, and you have perspective like we were underdogs.
We all knew it. But yeah, there was a night
in South Dakota I couldn't stand up in my hotel room.

(29:23):
It was like the room's spinning, and I'm like, what's
going on? I developed an ulcer. I mean it was
it was a rough year that way, and yet you know,
you try to step back and have perspective like, Okay,
this is basketball. It's a game, and I'm coaching kids
who are all in. It's not like they're not trying.
They're trying with everything I have. And we ended up

(29:43):
winning that year, the last two out of three after
that twelve game losing streak, and so that was just
you know something where Senior Day, it was one of
the most memorable senior days ever. It was packed house
and these kids who had been through so much for
four and five years. I mean, none of them were
on scholarship. That first year, we had two kids on
scholarship the whole team, and they were our ninth and
tenth man, and so nobody's on scholarship. And here we

(30:05):
are on senior night with some of them brad students
who came back for a fifth year to pay their
own tuition to play Division one basketball and take red classes,
and they're getting a standing ovation. And we ended up
winning that night. And so it was one of those
things like you know, you the journey, and I could
go on and on because that year was one I
hope we never lose twelve straight games. But I will

(30:25):
tell you that, in many ways is the most confident
I've ever been in our culture. Knowing the guys who
were there, they were bought in, and I think, you guys,
you're going to see that over time. You really are.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
Oh, I know, there's no question. I mean, I had
we sent our group to read in elementary school two
days ago, and I got like three teachers texted me
and like, your kids are incredible, and I was like, yeah,
we we got a trimmed a little fat, and we
got we only got good ones, you know, and it's

(30:58):
it's not enjoyable to lose. But guys that are in
on the way you want to do it and for
them to still feel like like we've had good practices
where you where check it on them morale and they
all think, hey, we can actually be pretty good at
this thing. Now that we got some of the stuff
figured out. We've made some additions. We made so much
subtractions and the overall energy and focuses is good. You know.

(31:23):
It's interesting. I went to the Bucks Magic game last night,
and you know, in the media the other job, right,
there's this narrative that the reason people aren't watching the
NBA as much is because they shoot so many threes.
And I kind of find that comical. And I'll tell

(31:47):
you why. We're about to say Major a little older
than me. I grew up watching basketball, and I can
tell you that no one watched that much NBA back
then because it wasn't on really as often. But if
you go back and watch, it's not like regular season
NBA was all that gould to watch, you know. I mean,

(32:07):
don't get me wrong, I like a good post move,
but throwing it into pat Ewing and he gets double
teamed and he passed to pass the pass it one
more around the perimeter and somebody shoots, or you throw
back into Patchwing and he shoots a fade away Like.
I don't think that's actually pretty a ball as guys
are playing now. I think there's other factors as to
why people aren't watching, mostly just a proliferation of the

(32:29):
sport on TV. It's always on, it's everywhere. There's nothing
special about it. Let me get your perspective, because you
don't you run B line stuff, but you have your
own twist on it. You have maker stuff to it.
There is a value in the three point shot. You
like so many people, You guys don't value the middies
neither do we? Uh? What what are you? What are

(32:51):
your thoughts on how the trends in basketball and where
things are going?

Speaker 4 (32:56):
Yeah, that's it's a fascinating question. I get in a
lot of arguments my but my buddy is our cohort,
and they'll talk about, oh, there's no defense in the NBA,
and it's say, well, it's hard to answer that question
because the spacing is so ridiculous. That I read the
other day a good article and said, you know, part
of it. If there's a problem with the NNBA, part
of the problem is they've cracked the code right in

(33:16):
terms of geometry and spacing and having one or two
guys who are so incredible with the basketball, how are
you going to guard that? Right? So if you superimpose,
and I don't know how you do this, but let's
take the Bulls in the nineties when they won six titles,
and you have them guard the Warriors from twenty sixteen
twenty seventeen, I don't know. Curry's coming down the floor

(33:37):
at twenty eight thirty feet pulling. Well, that's going to
change your defense. Right. When I was in grad school
at Wisconsin, I was so fortunate Dick Bennett. Those were
the five years he was there, so I got to
watch him put in, you know, drill after drill transition defense.
I still thought the years he was there was unbelievable
because they were not the most talented team by any stretch.

(33:57):
They made it to the Final four in two thousand
and they've been to the tourney twice in fifty years
at Wisconsin, and they went three out of his five years,
and people were complaining they didn't love the style. I'm
sitting there like, Okay, you've been to the tournament twice
in fifty years, you've been there three out of five.
Now do you like winning? But I think back to
those transition drills, and it was what get ten feet

(34:19):
in the paint and then fan out and guard people. Well,
if you did that today, you'd give up one hundred
and fifty points. And so I love how basketball looks today.
I think the creativity, the skill set, the spacing, it's
really impressive. I do think at some point they may
need to move the NBA line back if you want

(34:39):
to have a little bit more balanced, because there is
a there is an element where you shouldn't shoot mid
range twos unless they're wide open and it's probably your
best player and it's probably late shot clock. Like other
than that, why would you ever do that if you've
got three leech shooters who can who can all shoot
at forty percent? So I love watching the game. I
do think this wouldn't be popular because you'd have to

(35:01):
widen the floor too. But I think if the arc
or twenty five or twenty six feet in the NBA,
that would that would bring back an element of critical
thinking in terms of what's a good two versus a
lousy three, and how you compare those two, because I
think a lot of NBA teams would say lousy threes
from our best players are fine, will take them. See.

Speaker 1 (35:20):
I think the number one way to change it is
to actually call fouls in the low post the way
they call the fouls and the perimeter, you know, I
mean it's to me, I compare it in the football
sense of you know, the reason that running backs wear
down so much is they haven't changed any of the
rules on hitting running backs when you hit them the ball.

(35:43):
But the quarterback you can't hit n ar below, can't
hit necker above, can't ever touch your helmet, you know.
And once they throw the ball, you have like a
half second. You can't touch them. You can't throw them
to the ground right and then wide receivers five yards
you can't touch him, can't hit them when they're when
they're defenseless, et cetera. Such running backs nothing changed. Well,

(36:05):
if you watch the NBA game, even you watch the
college game, in the low post, if you're posting up,
you can get away with a whole lot more than
if you're facing up. And that's by design right.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
It was.

Speaker 1 (36:14):
It was to bring back a freedom of movement in
the NBA and make it more watchable. If they really
want postplay to return, they got to get back to
calling actual fouls in the post. I like that that
becomes the march to the free throw line.

Speaker 4 (36:28):
I don't know if that's what we want right Well,
you saw last night probably Fordham and UMass. I think
they shot one hundred and twenty some free throws. No,
it's triple overtime, seventy nine files. I'll tell you the
other thing that really bothers me, and it's hard, this
is subjective, but I think we reward how to control
ball handlers who are initiating right late in the game
with teams putting their head down driving it. And so

(36:50):
that to me too is where we You know, we
talk about rhythm, speed, balance, quickness, and any of those
are interrupted to following the defense. But I just see
a lot of auto control ball hands who are rewarded
for initiating contact and then throwing a shot up.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Yep, yep, I've seen that. I've seen all ends of it.
I also it's just amazing, like what is a foul
and then when the ball goes up. Obviously we struggle
rebound the ball, but I mean what people are able
to get away with just in rebound it. There are
no rules. I tell our guys all the time, like, listen,
there are no rules, literally, just the rules. Go get

(37:28):
the ball. Don't care, go get the ball.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
Our rebounding struggles we probably mirror each other a little bit.
Neither one of us has a huge team. I stopped
practice today and one of our kids got called for
a file on a defensive rebound and he was kind
of debating it with one of our young assistants. I
was like, hold on, I would love to see us
get called for a foul on a defensive rebound. SI
just hit somebody box out hard enough, because you're right,
it becomes, I hate to say, like football, but when

(37:53):
it does become like football, it becomes a big advantage
for the teams that have got the size and the weight.
And that's not your team or our team.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
No, how do you handle the portal.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
You've benefited some from it, you know, bringing a really
talented Division two All American up, but then you've lost guys.
You know you had a couple of years ago, you
had a really talented freshman you lost to a high major.
What are your thoughts on the portal transferring without sitting
out and how that's affecting your program specifically.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know that where we're going
to put that genie back in the bottle. I do
think if they forced people to sit out for a year,
it would actually fix a lot of things. Right the
nil that stuff's not going away, and there's some good
things about it, certainly, but it would require people to
really recruit the right kids and evaluate the right kids
rather than you know, you look at the Horizon League

(38:48):
where you are, the Summit League where we are a
lot of the All conference kids every year just jump
because they sort of think that's what I should do.
And sometimes it's the right thing. Sometimes you end up
not playing very much, you end up in a bad
fits to them. I mean, it's there's a lot of
risks to it.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
And so.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
We we've been I mean we've been fortunate. We've only
lost two out of our twenty three undergrads the last
two years total. One of them was aner rody to Virginia,
and so I think we're I think typically we're going
to stay recruiting a lot of high school kids, but
it is the reality that you're going to lose kids,
and sometimes you're going to lose them unexpectedly. And that's

(39:25):
why to me, I don't I don't think any of
us have the answers, but trying to build it with
kids who really want to be at your school for
the right reasons, and that you got to sif that
out in the recruiting. You know, battles where sometimes you
got a kid here who's a little more talented than
this kid. But if this kid is dying to be
at Saint Thomas and I think he's going to be
here four years, that carries a lot of weight to me,

(39:47):
you know that. I think in this era, I think
every kid has in the back of their minds someday
I may transfer. I don't know that we had that
in our r or we went to school like that.
You didn't think that like that that way. And then
I think selling not selling, but you know, finding the
right fit where kids are looking at in this case

(40:08):
Saint Thomas saying this basketball program, the journey you're on,
the academics, the location, the alumni network, the opportunities I have,
those are all reasons I want to come here, so
if something's hard, they're not just going to transfer because
it's tough. Because honestly, in D three, it was easy
for me to tell guys like, hey, the freshman, Doug,
if you're good enough, you'll play. Most freshmen don't, but
you will if you're good enough. As a sophomore, I

(40:30):
think you're going to be, you know, playing a lot,
but as a junior and senior, you're going to be
one of the best guards in the country at our level.
And to me, that was always a nice way of
framing up. Here's going to be your development over the
course of four years, and I think that's more challenging
to do, certainly for all of us in the Portal era.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
I agree. You know, it's it's you know, we we
have freshmen, and you're like, you're really excited about incoming freshmen,
but the reality is one of the reasons we're strugglings.
We have too many freshman and it's like, hey, you
guys are great, but I gotta go get some old,
older kids too. You guys just played South Dakota and
I know they pressed and they run and they trap,

(41:11):
and you guys scored one hundred and nineteen points. What
was that like? To coach?

Speaker 4 (41:18):
It was crazy. I mean because we you know, we
like to get up and down, but we're not. I
wouldn't say we're frenetic. I think we'd like to play fast.
It was Mayormember. At one point, looking up at the clock,
I'm like, Dad, we got ninety points. We're scoring all
and there were still ten minutes left in the game.
I mean it was it was unlike any game. And
they play really fast, but they're also not playing Grinnelle.

(41:39):
I mean they're just they're playing up tempo. And both
teams shot it unbelievably. I mean halftime was sixty to
fifty one, and I felt like we were playing decent defense.
I think both teams. I think both teams for the
game shot over fifty percent on threes. There were a
lot of fouls called. We went thirty five or forty
one from the line. So it was it was a

(41:59):
crazy game. Give up one hundred and four points and
I didn't walk out. We didn't play great defense, but
we also didn't play horrible defense of it. I do
feel like the trickle down to the NBA, just the spacing,
the number of shooters that people are putting on the floor.
I know in the Summit League our games, I feel
like this year and when we're for four games in,
but I feel like the numbers people are putting up

(42:21):
are higher scoring than in the past, and I think,
you know, there's a lot of factors to that. But
it was, yeah, I don't know. I don't know we've
ever given up one hundred regulation win or lose, to
be honest with you. In fact, my old head coach,
coach Fritz, we were talking about earlier, texted me right
after the games that you know, I always loved an
old defensive battle because he would that would have he
would not he looked up and you know he was

(42:42):
coaching before there was a shot clock. If he looked
up and was sixty to fifty one, that was a
good final score. Like we held people of fifty one
for the game. We won sixty to fifty one, an
old smash moulk game. That was a good game.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
Okay, So now I get really difficult as you go
to Omaha and it's like a crutches got a really
interesting team. They went through a stretch for they lost.
I think they lost like nine of eleven or something,
I mean something terrible. Right, Yeah, it's nine of eleven
and now they've they've turned around and you know, only

(43:18):
one D three. But outside of that, I think they've
won seven to zerw including beating Denver, beat Kansas City,
beat South Dakota State. What what's your temperature on the
Summer League? This is the first place showdown you guys
got on the road in Omaha. But what's the Summit
League like this year?

Speaker 4 (43:36):
Yeah, it's gonna be interesting because and we played denverron Saturday,
so before we play Omaha's got to buy before we
play them. We played Denver on Saturday. But yeah, if
you had said before the year, I mean Omaha beat
both US and Omaha were in North Dakota and we
swept North Dakota and North Dakota State that first weekend
in North Dakota State. Both of them are good, but
North Akota State has been Their offensive numbers are like

(43:59):
a video game right now, and they're really really good.
And then both of us we're able to beat celt
Dakota State at home. So No, Crutch is a great team.
They got a balance of really tough, strong veteran front court, guys,
and they've got good guards who can shoot it. So
they got they got a really nice mix and they're tough.
They kind of got his personality where they're just they

(44:20):
go out there and compete. I watched them last night,
the whole game against Denver, and they just it's not flashy,
and all of a sudden, you look and they're up twenty.
So he's got a really nice team. Celtdakota State. North
Dakota State have been the perennial powers along with Oral Roberts,
and so it's going to be I think a pretty
wild race. I mean, it's fun to be at this
spot four games in, but like I tell our guys,

(44:41):
I mean it's you know, anybody who starts paying attention
to the standings before the season's done, you're kind of
missing the mark, Like we don't control the standings anything
like that and sounds cliche, but you better take it
a day at a time or you're gonna lose a
lot of games.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Isn't the big fight in the league to get the
tournament out of the dakotas.

Speaker 4 (45:01):
Well? Some might the Dakotas might say, no, that's not
a fight at all. Just keep it there, I think.
I mean, hey, it's a big advantage. We played there
last year yourself to go to State in the Semis
and they were the top seed. We were the four seed.
And you know, there's ten thousand people there in nine,
nine hundred and eighty of them are Jack Rabbit fans,
and you know that's where the league headquarters is that
we draw. Well, it's a it is a great event.

(45:22):
So I think there's a healthy tension between It's one
of the most highly attended, maybe the most highly attended,
you know, mid major. But it's a decided advantage for
you know, two or three schools without question, and so
I don't you know, I don't know where that ends
up going. But we're new to the league. I just

(45:43):
I try and go along with just about everything and
just heay, we're happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yeah, I know. I called my LEGE commissioner about about
an officiating deal a week and a half ago, and
I like, I didn't I don't know when the time
is to call, when the time is not to call.
And I was like, hey, I don't want to be
just ticky wheel here, but it's fun talking about something here.
And Julie was great. She was like, now you're got
to stick you like central call all the time. I
was like, oh, it's like she's like, don't call, don't

(46:12):
call the time. Yeah, a new guy. You just kind
of tread tread lightly cold it game that you've ever
coached in, like where you like got out the bus
or gott a can be at home in Saint Paul
or now obviously in the Dakota's are back even the
D three day.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
D three days, well any time. I don't think I've
ever gone to North Dakota where it's nice, Like even
when we played there three weeks ago, it's like it
looks like it's going to be decent there. I'm telling
the players, I've never seen it. We get to Grand Forks,
that's like negative ten, but I remember so Concordium Warhead
in our old conference that's right across the border in Minnesota,
Fargo Moorhead, and we got snowed in. I remember, you

(46:52):
know where it's negative twenty. There's fifteen inches of snow
coming down, so we couldn't we couldn't get out of town.
I think the game was postponed today, and you're just
you're kind of trapped in more Head Minnesota, so that
would that would be the one I remember most vividly
my I think it was my freshman year at college.
It was twenty twenty below well I think it was
probably twenty below but more and it was a snowstorm,
so we were literally trapped, you know, trapped.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
I don't I don't know what twenty below in the
snowstorm be. I will tell you that we have had
very little snow here in Green Bay, very little, and
it does it feels being being cold without snow. Is
there's a little bit of dry humping, Like what's the point.
I don't really I don't enjoy I don't necessarily enjoy cold, period.
But when it's cold and there's no snow, now, now

(47:37):
you just make me mad.

Speaker 4 (47:38):
There's no in February. Are tough when there's no snow,
I would agree with. Do you get a nice little
cover on everything? And it looks I mean esthetically, it
looks pleasing like our campus is beautiful. You take a
picture when there's some snow there, it's even I think
more beautiful. But yeah, January, we got to get through
to it. And basketball season makes it a lot more palatable, right,

(47:58):
I mean, I look at it I didn't coach junior
and fed war would get really long, and instead you're
hardly coming up for oxygen and you know Marsh will
be here.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
Yeah, my daughter's at Oaklhom State and she she's like,
you know, it's really cold, Like what's it? Like? I said, honestly,
I I have a heated garage. I turn on my
car before I'm like from my bedroom, like make sure
my car I am so soft.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
And then I have a like an.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Arrangement with school security where when it gets cold, I'm
parking by the loading dock because it's like seventy two
steps from my parking spot and it's seven steps from
the loading docks. I did seven step today, so like
fourteen steps total I can handle. You know, that's not
that bad. But and yeah, you're in the gym the

(48:47):
whole time. You're like, hey, it's sixty eight degrees. That's
why I tell recruits all the time. You know, the
weather here in the winter, sixty eight in the locker room,
sixty in the weight room, sixty eight in the gym.
So it's sixty eight degrees every day, every single day. Well,
what about you, You've been doing this a long time
you've obviously transitioned to Division one, and now you guys

(49:08):
have a chance. I do think the Division one transition
rules radict because you should be eligible to be in
the tournament. I think you know what you should you
your first year, maybe not, but after that, Like, what
are we actually doing here? I don't understand. I don't
understand do we why have rules? If you can pay players,

(49:29):
why do we have all these other rules? And I've
been somebody who I've been. I don't believe in paying
players outright, I don't, and I do believe that there's
a right way and wrong way to do things. But
you know you can't call a kid here, you can't
see a guy there. Middle school I know you coach
au middle school kids can't use your gym because they're
recruitable athletes.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Like it does?

Speaker 1 (49:51):
None of it matters when you can pay players.

Speaker 4 (49:54):
Yeah, even I look at the camps you can run, right,
we can't have seventh and eighth graders of camp most
of July and August. It's like none of us are
recruiting seven to eighth graders. Nobody's hardly recruiting high school
kids anymore, much less seven than eighth graders, and so yeah,
there's a lot of rules that don't make sense. Now,
we did get a good ruling yesterday. I don't know
if you saw that, but they've shortened that window from
five to four years for D three to D one

(50:15):
and four to three for D two to D one.
So if this is a year four for us, if
we meet a bunch of compliance sort of checkpoints through
the next several months in June, then we would be
eligible for the tournament next year. So that's you know,
that's certainly better than it was then. We knew what
we were signing up for when we did this. I mean,
there wasn't a pathway to go D three to D
one if they hadn't made an exception for us. But yeah,

(50:38):
I at this point I would agree with you teams
moving up moving up a division from D two to
D one. I don't think they have some ridiculous advantage.
I can see where you'd want to make sure that
all the compliance and all the rules are being followed.
But it's a little like the tax code right at
this point, where how do you keep track of everything?
And you know, we're just a data time.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
But Johnny, you're saying you don't pay taxes? Is that
what you're when you're sharing here in the alpall pod?

Speaker 4 (51:05):
No that I wouldn't want to go into text and
be an accountany You're.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Like other rules, rules, rules, just don't pay them. Who cares?
Who cares? So let's say you make the tournament next year?
Is this it for you? Like? Is Saint Thomas because
your dad went there? Because you went there because you've

(51:33):
risen from being a professor and assistant coach to head
coach there? I guess is this it? Or is there
a higher ring that you want to grasp towards?

Speaker 4 (51:44):
Uh? You know, I probably feel the same way I
didn't Division three. I would love it if I coached
my whole career at Saint Thomas, if they if they'll
have me, you know, I would love to keep doing
what we're doing. I do think we're building something special,
you know, two hundred million dollars arena that opens next year.
I think we've got a really bright future and a
chance to be an incredible mid major. But that said,

(52:05):
I mean, you know, is you never say never, right,
You're always gonna You're always gonna look at what possibilities
are out there and what are the best things for
your family? And I do know it would take something
pretty incredible for me to leave Saint Thomas. I mean,
we get we get such good kids, and it's just
it's it's a lot of fun going to work every day.
I've done it twenty five years and so yeah, I'd
never say never, but it would take something. And I

(52:27):
feel good about that. My wife founded a charter school.
So Chancey opened a network at charter schools. Co founded
them thirteen years ago. Is that a cat or a dog?

Speaker 2 (52:38):
That's a dog.

Speaker 4 (52:40):
Okay, I got here, so we sat.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
Very hairy dog.

Speaker 4 (52:46):
My cat only likes it. It's not my cat, it's
Chancey's cat. But it only likes me when I'm zoom
on zoom call. So I'm actually shocked that the cat
it can tell Like when I used to teach, it
would only come around me when I was teaching. But
she founded a charter school teen years ago. It's called
Prodeo Academy, and so I mean that is her, you know,
that's her baby. She started from scratch and they've got

(53:08):
twelve hundred kids that go to the school. They get
unbelievable results, and so it's we're just we got a
lot of fun things in the Twin Cities, and you know,
it's it's always nice to have options, but it's always,
i'd say, really nice to have your feet in the
spot that you feel good about.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
Okay, So this dog is Vince Flambardi, the Combarty. He's uh,
my guy, he's a sheep a doodle. So Dennis didn't
tell you the story?

Speaker 4 (53:35):
Oh is this the Did Dennis pick this dog up
in Atlanta?

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (53:39):
Oh my.

Speaker 4 (53:40):
I was standing and all of a sudden, he's like, coach,
I gotta go, Like where are you gonna go? There's
not that many games in town. He's like, it's not
a game. Oh my goodness. This is so you talked
about a team player, right, So so.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
This is a great So Dennis Harrington's my assistant and
he came to us from from a year's staff with
Saint Thomas and he's awesome. So Dennis, I had my daughters,
my daughter Harper and her friend in town for one
of the recruiting weekends. So Dennis is like, hey, coach,
I'll go. I'd love to go out on the road.

(54:20):
I'm I great. So he's in.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Atlanta, so.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
I have another sheep adoodle and a rescue that my
ex wife has. And so when we when I moved here,
she moved to Oklahoma, and I wasn't crazy happy over
the summer, but she was like, I didn't have my dogs.
I'm like, I'm the dog guy. And so my daughter's

(54:46):
here and we're looking at burna doodles online and there's
a burn and it's like Salt Lake City, like four
thousand dollars. I'm like, this is ridiculous. So I happened
to see on Instagram this's cheap of dudels for sale.
So I'm doing a little research on this kennel and
reading and I see that it's in like South Carolina.

(55:08):
So I didn't remember where dan Bo was going because
there was an event in South Carolina. He was going
to Atlanta, but I couldn't remember where he's going. So
I texted him and said I said something to line
of hey, I need you to get me a dog,
and he's like, he said, I'm on it, coach, and

(55:33):
he starts listing off names of the players that he
that are the most competitive. He likes because we've been
talking about recruiting dog like tougher kids like dogs right
no no, no no no, no no no. And I said, like,
where are you right now? And he had apparently just
left the gym to go like go to the seven

(55:54):
eleven to get like a probably to get like an
iced coffee or something like that and get a snack.
So he thought like I was spying on him. I
was like, no, where physically are you. He's like, I'll
be back at the gym and like five minutes, coach,
don't be like no, no, no where, drop me a
pin where you are? Because I was trying to see.
It's like it's Saturday night, and I knew his flight

(56:14):
was late Sunday, and so he was flying out at
like six and I think the event was like noon.
I was like, what are you doing tomorrow afternoon? I
got nothing? So I was like, will you go pick
up a dog for me? He's like he you know,
So he drove. It was supposed to be an hour.
He claims it was longer because it was like two

(56:35):
hours to where they are and where he is, and
they met it like a loves truck truck stop or something,
and he gets his dog. So the dog is awesome.
Everybody likes the dog, except well there's a couple of people,
but Dennis, because Dennis only he doesn't even really like
his dog, but he likes his dog because Molly likes

(56:58):
the dog, and he loves Molly, and so then he
loves But he's he's like the guy I'm kind of
like this with my kids, Like I don't like everybody's kids.
I love my kids, you know, And he's Key's like
that with dogs. But Barty loves Dennis. The feeling is
not reciprocated. He still has some PTSD from uh because

(57:19):
the flight was delayed. It's a puppy. He had to
go to pet Co and he got like a carrier.
He's the best. He got all that stuff done in
one night.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
I thought it was some sort of test, like all right,
let's just see what this guy will actually do, Like
how training Dame? Remember that with Denzel Washington on the job,
I'm like, is Dennis ethan hawk right now? And Doug
is Denzel And it's like, let me just see how
hard you're gonna work for the Green Bay Phoenix. So no,

(57:48):
that was I was with him. We were watching the
same game, and all of a sudden, he's like, hey,
I gotta go, like where are you going there? He's like, no,
so hey, he came back with a big recruit for
you though, right, that's it. He did.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
He's very popular. He's not going to transfer portal. Everybody
likes him so great. Grades aren't great. He did okay
and obedient school, but grades aren't great. But he's it's
a constant source of entertainment because every time Dennis comes over,
the dog goes crazy and Dennis is like, I don't
I don't really like you.

Speaker 4 (58:19):
So it's very there's probably some psychological theories of attachment
where this dog feels a very powerful Yeah. Right, it's
not being no question.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
So yeah, So do you use your psychological like do
you actually ever do a psychological breakdown on your players?

Speaker 4 (58:40):
Not very much formal stuff. We've done a little personality
stuff before with them, but I probably try to steer
a little more clear, like they know my background and
most of the freshman years, you think that you're a
psychologist can read your mind, and so I try and
disabuse them. But that I was like, no, that's not
what it is. It's just about how you know, how
do you think about the world, And I I think
probably it permeates the way I think, but we don't

(59:04):
do a bunch of psychological stuff, if that makes sense.
But you know, the way I look at the world,
for good or bad, is very much like designing a
social psych experiment. And there's correlational studies, there's experimental studies,
and how do you tweak a variable here or there?
Team building, I think there's a ton of psychology in that,
but it's you know this, it's as much or more

(59:25):
art than science. You know, so you can you can
do all the studies you want, you can read all
the books you want. At the end of the day,
you got we got sixteen guys on our team, we
got seven coaches, and it's like, how do you build
that dynamic? And every year parenting and coaching, I always
I always say, the night you go to bed thinking
you got it figured out, there's no chance in the

(59:46):
morning things are good, like something will have happened. And
I think when I learned to sort of embrace that
in coaching, just knowing even when things are going great,
somebody's got an issue. Right There's a kid in the
team going through something tough. There's a kid who strugg
them with school, there's you know, just the dynamics of
it all and it's what makes it so special. But yeah,

(01:00:07):
to answer your question, I'm being overly loquacious right now,
but I think it's probably every day what we do,
but we don't explicitly talk about it a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
All right, that's it for part one of our.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Of Our All Ball with Johnny Tower, the head coach
of Saint Thomas. Reminder of the Doug Gottlieb Show, airs
daily three to five Eastern twelve two specific plus. We
have it's called in the bonus. It's a bonus our podcast.
You just download it where if you download this podcast,
you see Doug Gottlieb, you know the general content you get.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
Hey, and if you're listening to this, feel free to
send up a prayer to the Big Fellow. We just
we just got to get one for these kids. Man.
You know, if you've ever.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Been a part of a team when they're not struggling
with belief in what we're doing, they're struggling, I think,
a belief in them selves.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
And that's hard. It just is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
And when you know, when you have that number of
losses consecutively, they just gotta believe and finally get one
more basket. Than your opponent. So if you want to
say a quick one to the fella upstairs to help
your boy out in GB, I would I would love it.
In the meantime, thanks so much for listening. Tune in
next time we'll get to part two with Johnny Tower.

(01:01:24):
I'm Doug Gottlieb.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
This is all ball