Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Go dogs. It's a great day in the Big Ten. Uh,
you know, the best conference in the country. Man, it's
it's a great time to be a Husky.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I love it well, I can. I can hear the
smile coming through the phone. Man, tell me about Gotta
the way practices have gone in preparation for this thing,
because I remember Dick, I don't remember the exact verbiage.
I think the word was combat, if I'm not mistaken
the news. Yeah, the day he was hired, we had
him on for you, Dub and Danny. You told us
that you want your practices to look and feel like
combat out there in preparation for the Big Ten. Are
(00:29):
you Are you seeing that already?
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Yeah? I mean we're we're close. We're not We're not
as physical as i'd like yet, like, but we're we're
getting some guys that aren't. It's not physical, not in
their nature, but they're getting to that point because they're
going to have to be at that point when you're
playing against the produes in Indiana's and Michigan States and
everybody in our league, and so you know, we want
to we want to kind of sharpen each other by
being physical in practice. And making it tough on each
(00:54):
other so that way you know we're ready once Big
Ten play comes.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Coach, is that the biggest adjustment is that the fifth
there's a cality of the Big Ten. That's a big
adjustment coming from a different league. Is it the travel
schedule or is it something that we're not thinking about.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I think it's a little bit of everything.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I think you mentioned the travel schedule that will be different.
You know that that does affect teams in February March.
But I think the biggest kind of difference is going
to be the home court advantages. You know that we're
going to have to go playing you know, like when
you're going to Michigan State and Indiana and Purdue and
Nebraska Minnesota, like every place is sold out, you know,
(01:31):
I mean, the Big Ten is a basketball league, and
you know you're you're not going into an environment where
it's seventy five percent full. You know, like these places
are rocking, and that's why it's got the highest home
winning court percentage of any league in the country. You know,
it's really hard to win on the road, and so
you know, that's why we got to be ready. We
got to be tough. We got to be, you know,
tough minded going into environments like that, and then when
(01:53):
we come home, you know, we have to make the
Last Airlines Arena the toughest place to play in a
Big ten.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, there's no doubt about it. You know, I looked
at and a lot of coaches make a lot of
you know, just a big deal about travel. I remember
when Michigan State came here in the football game a
couple of years ago, Mel Tucker made it sound like
Michigan State was going to Alaska for God's sake, So
I thought they kind of paid for that. So how
much do you have to adjust for these kids? I mean,
you're you're kind of used to it because you never
(02:18):
coached in the Pac twelve, but you do know what
West Coast basketball is all about. How much do you
have to look at just travel schedules, sleep schedules, meeting schedules,
all that stuff when you're taking what amounts to what's
going to feel like a non conference road trip the
entire year.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
No, Yeah, I mean, you're you're, you're exactly right. And
the hardest thing is when you travel west to east
because you're losing two to three two or three hours
every trip we make. Yeah, you know, and US West
Coast schools, you know, obviously being new to the Big Ten,
we have to make four trips including the conference tournament,
five trips west to east, where we're losing hours, you know,
(02:56):
so that first night you're sitting in a hotel room
and it's two in the morning and you're just staring
at the ceiling, you know, trying to fall asleep. And
so where when they travel east to west. Now those
schools coming in from the East and Midwest, when they
come out here, they gain hours and they only have
to make one trip during the year. So like Michigan,
Michigan State, they just have to go to USC and UCLA.
(03:17):
That's it. Wow, you know where you know, US West
Coast schools, you're making four five trips, which is tough,
and so you know, you got to figure out different
ways around it. But all I know is, like I said,
some of these environments. You know, when you when that
ball gets tipped up at Michigan State and the place
is rocking, like, you don't get tired as a competitor
like you you find a way to find energy for
(03:38):
two hours in an environment like that.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
What does your practice schedule look like between now and
in the beginning of the of the season, and do
new coaches get additional practice days by by the NC
double A.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
No, no, no additional days. We get eight weeks in
the summer, and uh, we only we only use seven
of them, and then we'll save a week because we're
in quarters and so we don't start, you know, school
until it's like September twenty fifth or something like that,
and so we saved one of those weeks in the
summer to bring them back early so we can start
(04:10):
earlier than that September twenty fifth date. But you only
get four hours in the summer. You know, we get
four hours with them on the court, so you can
do four one hour practices or three hour and twenty
minute practices, and then they get four hours in the
weight room or conditioning, right you know that's with the
strength coach, not with us on the court with a
ball or anything. And so you know, it's it's good because
(04:30):
that way, you know, they're they're taking summer classes and
it's it's a great time for the guys to just
come in and get work on their own, you know,
get closer to graduation. Taking one or two classes and
then still us being able to put in a little
bit of our offense or defensive philosophy, you know, in
those four hours a weekend.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Well, Danny, sprinkle the game with us watching basketball. Today's
the first official day for you, Dub in the Big Ten.
Everybody fired up over there, all the logos were up,
and the transit is officially happening. But Danny, we had
Jetfish out with us a few days ago and he
was talking about where the football NIL program is at.
I think you said they're about thirty percent of what
Ohio State is at right now. And obviously budgets for
(05:11):
basketball are smaller because there's just not as many players
as there is in football. But do you feel comfortable
kind of where your NIL program is at right now?
And if you're directly talking to fans out there about
the role we can play and helping you win in
this conference, what would that message be?
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah? I mean, first off, I love jet Fish, like
you guys know, talking to him like he just he
makes you feel good. I can see why he's a
tremendous ruter, recruiter and motivator, Like I love being around him.
But second of all, no, we're we're not even close
to where we need to be NIOL wise, all Husky
Nation Hucky fans, like, we have to we have to
really ramp up, you know, our nil uh if we
(05:51):
want to compete at the top of the Big ten.
Like it's different than what we're used to, you know,
like some of these programs, you know, I mean the Danas,
the Michigan Like a lot of these schools have a
lot of resources and they live and die with athletics
and uh and and they're ahead of us right now.
But we got to catch them now. It's no excuse
(06:12):
to not win. But at the end of the day,
that's that's what recruits are looking for right now. And
so it's something that we got to adjust to. And
it is the new landscape of college athletics. And I'm
confident with the resources that we that we have in Seattle,
with some of the major companies, you know, some of
the best companies in the world, multiple you know, and
things like that, to where when it becomes real ni
(06:34):
l where kids are on billboards, they're on commercials and
and and they're working for their money like that, that's
when I think, you know, University of Washington and with
the Seattle market. I think that's where we could have
an advantage once it gets to that revenue sharing part
in a year or so.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Is there a little bit of a chicken and egg
though with the with the N I L because it's
like which comes first, the NIL money or the winning
right because the more you win, the more you got,
the more Seattle sports fans are going to be Jack
Stump to sign up for Montlake Futures and get a
membership and all of that.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Well, no, no question, And I mean it's it is
crazy to say, but NIL does come before winning right now,
because if you want to get the best players in
the country, you have to have it. And I think
this year, like basketball took a crazy turn this year,
Like NIL was in the picture in the previous years
and it was starting to gain momentum, and then this
year it was just it was just crazy to where
(07:27):
even some kids you're recruiting, you couldn't even talk to
the kid, like you had to talk to their agent,
Like that's how like that's how you have to get
kids now. And so you know, it's it's a totally
different landscape and and it is great because the kids
are being compensated because there is a lot of money
that universities and you know, coaches athletic departments that are making.
(07:49):
I mean, look at the Big ten money. You know
that once we start making the full share of that
that that's a lot of money. And so it's, uh,
it's great, and you know, it's just a new landscape
and will adjust.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Yeah, how much have you been scouting the Big Ten?
I'm looking at your schedule here and we know opponents,
but we don't know obviously tip off times. Indiana coming here,
Minnesota's coming here, Northwestern Purdue Rutners coming here. You guys
are going on the road to places like Michigan, Iowa,
Penn State, Michigan State, Wisconsin. How much are you starting
(08:22):
to kind of scout these guys already?
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Yeah, we haven't even had time to scout them yet.
To be honest, we've been I mean literally it hasn't
stopped since the day we got the job. You know,
we've been recruiting, going to a lot of these high
school and AAU tournaments and get kids on campus and
we have camps. We still have practice with our team,
and so once kind of the players leave here in
about two weeks and go home, we'll kind of be
able to dive into a little more film. And my
(08:48):
plan is like giving each one of our assistants, like, hey,
you take these two teams and over the next three weeks,
just dive into their stuff, you know, and that way,
when we come back in September, you know, we have
a little bit of a feel. So when we start
building our practices when September twenty fifth hits, you know,
that way we can start kind of teaching concepts to
hopefully combat what some of these teams do in our league.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Danny Sprinkle joining us. Danny, how long do you feel
like it'll take to implement your system to the point
where your team really feels like they're on the same
page with you.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
I mean, it's a it's a great question nowadays, because
you know, I thought it would take a lot longer
at Utah State. You know, I thought it usually takes
two or three years, you know, to where you you
have guys in the same system. Now, what helped me
at Utah State was having great Osubar and Darius Brown,
who they knew what we were doing, so they could
help teach everybody. You know, we have great this year,
(09:45):
So he's he's kind of being a de facto coach
during practice and telling guys, hey, this is what we're
looking for offensively or defensively, this is how we guard stuff,
you know. But I think it'll it'll take a little
bit longer, you know, probably here, like i'd say, you know,
two three years before really our culture is full blown here,
like you know, we're still gonna be relentless on it
(10:06):
every day. But you know, it does take time, and
it takes guys being in the system for you know,
a year and a half, two three years before it
really starts trickling down in the ownership and they start
coaching each other.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna give you a
year and a half before we start hammering it. So
you better after a big boy. Now, hey, before you go,
I heard a little birdie that there's a few X
and current NBA stars shooting jays at heck ed today.
Who's uh, who's stopped and bited to say hi.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
It is man. That's that's the one special place about here.
You know, today we had Draymond Green, Jamal Crawford, de
Jonte Murray Uh in here today. You know, Polo Pollow's
in here, you know, every morning at seven am working.
Marquise Chris is in here. Wow, it's in here all
the time like that. It's it's all awesome for our
(11:00):
players to see like their work ethic, like okay, like
there's a reason there at the level they're at. I mean,
Paulo is literally the first one in our gym every morning. Wow,
and he's in just a full on sweat by the
time I get here at seven forty five and he's
been working, you know. I mean, I'm in here watching
Draymond Green and Dejonte Like the reps and the pace
(11:22):
that they go at. There's a reason they're NBA also,
you know. And so it's great for our players and
even recruits, you know, like they should want to come
here because there they can play open jim against those guys.
They can work out with those guys, like they're all
Husky fans. Now Draymond's not, he's a Michigan State guy.
We're joking about that. But but like Jamal, like Jamal
(11:43):
didn't go to he's a Husky fans. He's all about Seattle,
and so it's it's awesome having those kind of influences
around our players.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Really really cool mat squad could push for a medal
at the at. You throw them out there, and you.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Probably don't even need to confirm that Draymond's there. You
can just hear him talking from your office up above
the corpus. Hey, Danny, great stuff, man, great stuff. Congratulations
on everything you've done so far. A long way to go, obviously,
but you're killing it off the court with recruiting. Welcome
to the Big ten, buddy, and we'll talk soon. Man.
Appreciate it, man.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
You bet go dogs, Thanks go Dogs.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Danny sprinkle with us on the air a lot more
on a busy Friday day one for uubbing the Big
Ten coming up on ninety three three KJRFM