Episode #172: David Arseneault Jr

🏀 David Arseneault Jr. — The Art, Discipline, & Evolution of System Basketball 

David Arseneault Jr., Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Grinnell College, joins Episode 172 of the Significant Coaching Podcast for a deep dive into one of the most unique systems in the game.

In Part 1, we go beyond the surface of “organized chaos” and get into the reality of coaching System basketball—how it’s taught, how it evolves, and why it’s far more intentional than most people realize. David breaks down the defensive philosophy behind the system, how they develop rim protection and positional awareness, and what it takes for players to adjust to the pace both physically and mentally.

We also get into rotations, player buy-in, staff collaboration, and the balance between structure and freedom that allows his teams to play fast without losing discipline. This is a conversation about trust, identity, and coaching with conviction—while still evolving with the game.

If you’ve ever wondered what really goes into coaching at that pace, this episode delivers.

🎧 Listen: coachmattrogers.com/podcast
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Transcript

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On the latest edition of the Significant Coaching Podcast, a presentation of the Coach Matt Rogers YouTube channel, available audio only everywhere you get your favorite podcasts. I'm your host, Matt Rogers. When people talk about system basketball, you'll hear a wide array of opinions, everything from,"It's insanely fun and exciting," to, it's highly intelligent, fast-paced, analytics-driven basketball," to,"It's situational and only works for certain teams," to,"It's a gimmick designed to inflate stats and chase records." As someone who has guided teams using the system to a state championship and national tournament runs, I see it differently. I believe it's one of the best ways to coach and play the game. There's rarely anyone on your bench who doesn't get real, consistent, on-the-court experience or hold an important role. It's a system, offensively and defensively, that's incredibly difficult to prepare for because opponents see it so infrequently. And from a fan's perspective, the pace and intensity make it a compelling style to watch. When it's done right, I think it's pure art. I feel about the system the same way some people feel about theater or ballet. It can be beautiful and, at times, breathtaking. Today's guest is someone who would certainly agree, and is one of the true master teachers of the system at all levels of basketball. David Arseneault Jr. is the head men's basketball coach at NCAA Division III Grinnell College in Iowa. He took over the Pioneers program in 2018 when his father, David Arseneault Sr., one of the true legends of up-tempo, forty-minute of chaos system basketball, retired after one of the most remarkable runs in Division III history. Since then, David Jr. has built a powerhouse at Grinnell, compiling a one hundred and thirty-four win to eighty-one loss record, the highest career winning percentage in program history. His teams have been responsible for some of the most recognizable moments in NCAA Division III, including being featured on ESPN and coaching the highest individual scoring game in college basketball history when Jack Taylor scored one hundred and thirty-eight points in a single game David was also an outstanding player and one I got to watch live when he was a player. He was a three-time finalist for the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award and finished his career in 2009 as the NCAA Division III all-time leader in career assists per game at 9.4. As a senior, he led the nation with 10.2 assists per game. Remarkable. He also ranks 13th on Grinnell's all-time scoring list with 1,462 points, a total that would rank at or near the top at most Division III programs. Before returning to Grinnell to coach alongside his father, David served as the head coach of the Reno Bighorns in the NBA D League, now the G League, an affiliate of the Sacramento Kings. In just two seasons, he led the Bighorns to a Pacific Division title and the best record in the Western Conference, while setting league records in offensive efficiency and leading the league in points per game, three-point field goals, three-point percentage, which is unheard of at that kind of volume, assists per game, and assist-to-turnover ratio. David has had a remarkable and fascinating career in his young career. I found him to be humble, thoughtful, generous, and just a great person to talk with about leadership, mentoring, and doing the thing we both love, coaching basketball. This was a fun one for me. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. All right, here's my conversation with David Arsenault Jr. Coach Arsen Snow. So great to see you. Thanks for being on the show. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Um, you and I talked a little bit before. I wanna record. I, I want to tell you a story. It was 1993, I believe. I was at co I was a freshman at co. And. We prepared for Grinnell, we prepared for the system. But until you get there and, and the old gym that you guys used to have and playing against the system for the first time, it was wild. I mean, the gym was packed. You had a student section up above. I think they sat in couches and they threw things and they never stopped yelling the whole time. So it was like, it was like being in a bar fight for the first time at 18 and I remember coach putting me on the floor as a freshman for the first time and it felt like there were 18 guys on the floor. Everything was so fast and so moving. But the part of the story I want the audience to understand about is I had a teammate, Shaa Delaney, God rest his soul. We just lost him a couple years ago. Shaa went 25 of 27 from the floor that night he want, and he, uh, went four for four for the free line. He had 54 points. Okay. He was the fourth best player on the floor that night. I, I think Grinnell had a kid that had 73 and another one that had 61. I think we lost by 35. Does that ring a bell to you? Oh my gosh. Well, I would've been about seven or eight at the time. And, and I, I recall going over to Old Derby, Jim and, you know, my dad was, was coaching and I, I re I recall like just a great rivalry between. Co in Grinnell in the, in the Midwest conference back when CO was in the Midwest conference. And, uh, yeah, I, I can, I can certainly imagine somebody being the, uh, beneficiary of being at the back end of the press, just making, making uncontested layup layup uncontested layup. Yeah. It, it's, the reason I wanna tell that story, coach, is I want people to understand. That's about an average Wednesday and Saturday for you, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's evolved over time, but no, you're right. You're still gonna get just some, some outlandish statistics and numbers and, and memories really. But I think people don't understand how good of basketball it is at that pace and how much coaching. Goes into doing what you do day in and day out. I don't think that gets talked enough enough about it. I think it's so underrated what you and your dad have done for the last, you know, 35, 40 years coaching the way you coach.'Cause as much as kids talk about they wanna play fast, I bet it takes a while to get your freshmen to play even half the pace you want'em to play at. No, you're, you're absolutely right. I mean, we have guys come in and, and we talk about it, that, you know, you're gonna play harder than, than you've ever been asked to play before or harder than you've ever played before. And, and even still, we're gonna need you to play harder. You know, and, and there is, it, it's been, it's been coined for many years as, as organized chaos. And, and you're, you're right, sometimes it does look like just pure chaos out there. But, but there is, we are trying to have some type of method to the madness with the, with, you know, whether it's organization of different playing groups, um, or it's the lanes that we're trying to run offensively. Or kind of how we're trying to rotate defensively and, and, uh, yeah, it might be, it might be hard to see to the naked eye, like, like when you're just watching, is this just, it looks like chaos, you know, but, but hopefully there, there are some pieces to it that, that resemble the organized part of the organized chaos. It, it's so, it's so funny. I want, I wanna talk a defense with you because I, I'm sure everybody wants to talk offense with you and I wanna get into it too. But I had a conversation with Coach Westhead, I don't know, 10 years ago. We, I don't know if we were at the NABC convention or somewhere, but we got in a corner and we talked, talked hoops for a while, and, and I, and I talk to him, I go, how do you look at your team every year from a defensive standpoint? And he goes, well, number one, we're gonna be in the best shape of our lives. You know, we're, they're, they're gonna be marathon runners, whether they know it or not. And, and we want to put 40 minutes of hell on the opponent. We, we want to make them have to play deeper in their bench than they've ever had to play or ever want to play. Is that your still your thought process when it comes to defense? Yeah. And you know, like we've, we've evolved so much over the years. I mean, I think this year we had probably one of our, if not the best defensive team that we've ever had. And, um, even just from a, a points. Per game or a points per possession basis. It was, it was the best that we've ever had, at least in the Grinnell system era. Yeah. And, uh, it, our offense wasn't quite as good, um, but we were, we were really able to play three groups of five and rotate three groups of five and, and just be disruptive where, uh, in past years. You know, I think my old man, he was a lot more concerned about just scoring as many points as possible. Yeah. And you know, this year it was more a matter of, we felt like we could press almost without penalty and, and, and press in the back court, double team the basketball, wherever it went. Never give a chance the other team a chance to run a set play. And then in the front court, once they got the ball over half court, it wasn't that we were just conceding in uncontested layup, it was that, okay, now you have to do the whole thing all over again. You know? Yeah. And, and, and it was, it, it, it kind of, it just kind of became the identity of our team. And I think that it started a lot with our, our three captains, two seniors and, and one junior, and all three are, are capable offensive players, but I, I think their strength was in what they were able to do defensively and just how hard they worked. And it, and it set the identity for all the other guys. To, to buy into, into that philosophy of, Hey, we're gonna distribute the minutes. We're really gonna try to wear other teams down, and we're just gonna be very, very disruptive defensively. You do such a great job, and I, and there's very few coaches. I'll go watch your games live every year. Where I'll, I'll just, I'll look at your schedule and go, okay, I'm gonna block out seven to nine on this Wednesday night, and I'm gonna watch a game every year. I'll watch at least one or two of your games if I can't watch it live. I'll watch the recording. Because I just wanna see how you're adjusting. I just wanna see how, how you're evolving from year to year because it's so fascinating. It's such such great learning for me to watch how you play and how you're going about your seasons. And there's a couple things that I just, I love how you evolve your movement on offense, what you're doing in the, in the, in the back court, in the front court, and how you're transitioning from offense to defense as quickly as you are. But I, I've loved, and we're gonna get into recruiting a lot in Sigma two, but you've really done a good job of finding that rim protector every year. Has that been a focus for you when you're on the recruiting trail? I gotta have those three guys to really protect our rim. Yeah, I mean it's, it's, uh, it, it's been part of, I, I guess kind of our recruiting philosophy a little bit, but certainly it's helped just with what we're doing defensively. You know, there have been years in the past where we might have put our best shooter at the back of our press defensively. You know, it could have been a six foot shooter, you. And we weren't getting many stops. Uh, and, and, and we weren't getting many defensive rebounds, you know, and, and so this year in particular, you know, we had a, we had 2, 6, 9 guys that kind of alternated back there and rotated with a third, six, seven long athletic player. And just from a rim protection, and again, from a defensive rebounding, uh, perspective, and then we kind of shifted the positions that guys played defensively. So, um. Going into a little more, more detail. You know, we always have our defensive position. It corresponds with the lane or the position that somebody's running on offense. So if we're thinking about like, okay, this guy's gonna play the right wing on defense, you could kind of think of him as a, as a two guard on offense. He's gonna run up the right side of the floor on, on offense, and, and that's gonna tell him where he needs to be defensively correspond to where he is going offensively. You know, when we started kind of alternating, um, or, or, or switching up the positions that. The guys were playing defensively with where that meant they went offensively. And it's helped us a ton on the defensive end because it's allowed us to put some of our better athletes in different positions in our press. Um, it's given us chance to, to have a big guy protect the rim, but not necessarily inbound trail so that we could still have a shooter in that spot. Um. But no, you're right. For for sure in, in this year, we actually had a a a a first year who in the inaugural year of the Midwest Conference, having a defensive player of the year, it went to a Grinnell player, you know, which is, which is a little bit crazy to think about, but. He was very deserving. He was top 20 in the country in block shots per game, and he was really difficult to score on. He altered so many shots, he got defensive rebounds and, um, again, yeah. So picking for you, picking up on that, obviously with your coaching background, I'd, I'd expect nothing less. But, um, you know, it, it, it was certainly part of what made us successful, at least this year. Well, it does, it does so much for the other four kids on the floor. They can play so much more aggressively. You know, because that's, that was always the hardest thing for me. Teaching the system is just go, you gotta go. Yeah. You can't, you don't get a second to think about, should I go? No, you gotta go.'cause every second you're putting pressure on them. They're wasting energy, they're wasting calories, they're looking over the bench going, get me outta here. You know, if they have to see that trap every single time, and it's different every single time and it's coming at'em with so much pressure. Now everything else is easier for you. You know that, that that big kid can change everything. It's, it's so much like that defensive end on football. If that guy can get to the quarterback, all of a sudden your corners and your safeties can play more free. Right? Completely true. The rest of the guys are able to gamble, uh, step up, uh, look to make plays. And I think that it also, you know, just psychologically for the other team, for the opposing team, they're wondering is this a numbers advantage that we should attack? Yeah. It's a lot different. If, if they're looking at, you know, me standing back there at the, at the safety at at six foot, one and a half versus a six nine guy that's. You know, in the top 20 in the country, in, in block shots per game. Just trying to evaluate when do we attack? Is this the best chance that we're gonna get? Should we just turn it back out and, and try to, try to rotate the basketball around? It's, it's so much fun. Uh, it, I, I want to talk about rotations too, but I want, I want to get into your cycles'cause you know, it's one of your things your dad taught me and I learned from your dad and I can't coach any other way. I, I can't, I, I, I, if you gave me a team right now with 12 kids, I, I don't know how I would play seven or eight in a game. I would go, I would go crazy because I wanna play hard. I wanna play fast. I want to be intense. Those 12, 15 kids are busting their butt for me in practice. Yeah, I wanna find a place for'em. But let's, let's start with the cycle, because. I'm like you, I want my shooting guard running the right side. I was a point guard like you. I was about a 10th of the point guard you were. And I'll, we'll talk about, I watched you play when you were in college too. Um, how much easier is if you're a point guard when they know their best shooter's gonna be here? They've got a shooter going left. They know who that is. They know how that kid likes to catch the ball. They know that route that he's gonna be running. What does that do for your guys? When they know where guys are gonna be, they don't even have to have the ball in their hands yet, but they know where they're gonna be. What's the advantage there? Yeah, I mean, I mean the advantage is, is in knowing the lanes that guys are gonna run and we, you know, we do, we do. Have a lot of trial and error as we're formulating the group, right? So the rotations early on in the season, but once they get comfortable with, with certain guys in their group and they're just able to play at a higher level, you know, they have to think about less. There's, there's just more trust in on court chemistry between the guys so that, uh, instinctively they, they take the outlet pass or a point guard takes the outlet pass and he knows where somebody's going to be. And he's able to immediately scan the floor and see if there's an opening so that we can, we can try to create a quick three point shot, you know, or a headman pass. Um, or there's just a level of trust that if he wants the right wing to run through, as opposed to just sta stay in the right corner, there's a level of trust that if he signals for that, the guy's just gonna do it, knowing that the ball's eventually gonna going to find him. You know, and, and we spend a, a ton of time through the months of October, uh, in November in our non-conference slate, just testing out different combinations and it doesn't always seem to make sense. Who's gonna fit the best with what group? Um. Who's gonna compliment each other? Some guys like playing together. Some guys, you know what position I spent? Oh my gosh. This, this year in particular, we had this one, one other first year player, and I hadn't had a chance to coach somebody like him with his, with his size and athleticism. He's about, he's about six foot 5, 6, 6, long athletic. I think for the first eight practices, I just kept changing him in all five different positions on the court.'cause I didn't know where he was. I knew he was gonna be able to help us. That's right. But I had to kind of figure out what role, what position defensively, how does that translate to what he's gonna be doing offensively, you know, and, and generally speaking, I guess if we, if we win a game, I usually tend to. You know, if it's not broke, don't try to fix it. I just keep the same groups, uh, but minor tweaks throughout with what we're doing, but a lot of preparation and I always try to give the guys at least 48 hours heading into a game to know the group that they're gonna be playing with so that we can practice, we can do a lot of five on oh stuff. We can make sure everybody's on the same page for special situations. Whether it's, whether it's the baseline out of bound sets that we're running or something like that. Um, but outside of that, it's, it's, it is just a ton of, um, figuring out what combinations are gonna work and, and, and help us achieve. Uh, it's, it's gotta be a blast. And tell your dad, I'm still upset with him that he didn't recruit me.'cause I, I, if I had to do it all over again, I would've put all my marbles in and I would've gone to Grinnell.'cause that's how I needed to play. It's, it's where, it's what my soul was. And I told you I got to watch you play. Probably in the early, early aughts you were playing at font bond. Mm-hmm. And. I think you guys were down to 20 at half. I might had a really good team and I think you came back and beat'em by 20. Yeah, it was, it was one we maybe, we maybe scored 163 points or something like that. Yeah, it was crazy. It was great. And I sat right in the front row. I watched, I watched every minute of a game and it was a bunch of us coaches from the Slack that were there.'cause I think we were all playing you that year or something like that. I can't remember. But it was just, it was just such a great atmosphere. But what I loved about. You and you could tell, you know, you could tell you were a coach's kid when you walked in the gym, just how you were preparing. And, but as a former point guard, you knew where your guys were gonna be and you took advantage of it. You made guys so much better the way you led them, the, the way you put the ball, where you put the ball, the spin on the ball, your ability to get to the paint. Was as good as anybody I've seen. It was, you know, I, I'd put you in the same world as Bobby Hurley. In terms of just getting into the paint and collapsing the defense and the opportunities that you created, are you still leading the, are you still the leader in the country in, in, in assist? You, at one point you led the, you led the world, didn't you? Yeah. In assist average. I don't know about being in the same category as, as Bobby Hurley. Well, in terms of, but I, I appreciate your, your, your, your high praise, you know, and I was, I think that, um. It's been, it's been helpful, like with our team, um, ha having guys that, that. Play differently at each position can actually be a huge benefit. Yeah. You know, and I, I think that I was, I was very fortunate to play with an a another point guard, uh, and we shared the court sometimes, not frequently, uh, sometimes who led the country in scoring. You know, and, and, uh, for opposing defenses, trying to figure out somebody, two, two guys that are playing the po same position, but playing it very differently. Um, and that still rings true today, like where we're thinking about our different rotations and where our scoring might be coming from. Um, having. Having, having, having our, our scoring come from different spots or our playmaking come from different positions, it puts a lot of pressure on the defense, you know? Yes. And, and, and I think there was one other thing that you kind of touched on, and, and like right off the bat, playing so many guys, it just gives us such a huge advantage from a team chemistry standpoint, you know, and, and. Teams that are playing seven or eight guys, that means that there's, you know, if they have a a, a big bench, that means there are a lot of guys that, that aren't playing that probably want to be playing. And for us, um, you know, it can be hard sometimes to look at our season box score and see, hey, you know, our leading minute getter only got 18 minutes a game. And that presents some challenges and on the recruiting front for sure. Um, but at the same time when we're playing. 10, 12 guys double digit minutes. And our rotation is, I think, you know, it was 15 or 16 deep this year. It, it's giving an opportunity for a lot of guys, especially early in their career, to be able to get on the court, you know, and, and have fun playing what an advantage and, and, and get to play. You know, as the season gets going, you get really comfortable with a group of guys. You get really comfortable of what you can do together. And it's, what I always loved about it is we could be three different basketball teams in the same game. We, we might press a little bit differently with every team, you know, that we rolled on the floor, we might run our rotations a little bit differently. You know, I remember having a, a great shooter that was left-handed and a great point guard that was left-handed one year, and that group. Instead of, you know, trying to get the ball right on that banana cut and pushing it up the right side, we went left. You know? Sure, sure. And it was an experiment, but it, it was just, it was just so much fun and everybody, it takes a little time.'cause if you're used to playing 32 minutes in high school and now you're getting 15, but buying into the fact, okay, I used to play 32 and I'd get 12 shots. Now I'm playing 15 and I'm getting 16 shots. Right. It's accepting that. Right, right. Yeah, no, there's certainly an adjustment, right? Like, and, and so it could be just, you know, there's just obviously gonna be a natural adjustment transitioning from playing at the high school level to playing at the college level. There's gonna be an adjustment in terms of living away from home. Um, you know, there's also gonna be an adjustment specifically for Grinnell basketball as it relates to how fast we wanna play, you know, and, um. Our open gyms, uh, before I'm even in the gym, the guys, it's probably gonna be a little bit quicker and there's gonna be a lot more three point shots taken, and then we get into our practices and those are gonna feel faster and there's gonna be an adjustment. Then we get into our scrimmages and, okay, this is even different than our practices. And then the real deal. You know, and, and that, yeah, everybody has to, uh, take a little bit of time to adjust, to let the game actually slow down for them. And there's, you know, there's no secret sauce to making the game slow down for somebody. It's just, it's just through repetition and it's through building them up and, and giving them the confidence and, and trying to empower them in a way that's that's gonna allow the game to slow down for them. How do you use your staff? I, I'm, you know, I've, I've seen you've posted some of your practices and I've watched some of those. What is your mindset going into the year and how you want to use your staff? Even as early as July and August through March? Yeah, so we've been very fortunate. Um, coach DJ Damo, uh, who was a, he was a head coach at the division three level previously, and, and then, and then joined on, and I didn't know him when we first hired him. And he has been incredible. He and I, um, we get along, we, we, we get along so well. We almost, we almost are able to communicate without even speaking just in terms of what somebody's thinking. And, uh, he has been. Instrumental in the development of our big guys. Like, like he has just taken on that project. And so, you know, uh, you actually really gave him the shout out. I, I maybe give a lot more credit than he does, but he deserves the shout out for what our press looked like because of our, our, our big guys. Um, and, and, and, um, you know, so I, I utilize. Uh, we, we communicate every day. You know, we make a plan as it relates to the recruiting. I think from the X's and O's specifically in the basketball system, you, you know, he was still learning when he first got here. He had never really played this way, so he was still learning. He was able to provide some insight just from a, a new, fresh. Kind of outsider perspective in a way that that helped a ton. And, um, you know, he's great with the players. Like, like he is, he, he can be their go-to if they're, if they're not coming to me with something, they're going to him with something and we're able to communicate about that. And just from a player development perspective, like I, I can't even, I can't even harp on it enough. Especially with our big guys, what he's done to get them ready to play at the pace that we wanna play at, to get them protecting the rim in verticality. You know, as, as the game has evolved and changed, more guys than ever are able to handle the basketball, more guys than ever are able to shoot threes. Uh, they've changed how they want the game officiated in terms of the block charge, and so now the verticality is more important and he's just been on top of all of that stuff so that, so that, uh, uh. We're able to adjust, uh, some of the nuances, you know, of our, of our system. A lot of it will stay, stay the same, but we're able to adjust the, the nuances. I'm excited to talk to him. I know we're gonna try and have him on the podcast here in the upcoming weeks a month, so I'm excited to talk to him about that. Um, you know, coach, he's gonna be, he's gonna, I mean, and he is. I, I, I feel lucky to have had him at Grinnell as long as I have because he is a, a, a no doubt in my mind, uh, head coach, uh, you know, whenever he wants to be really. So I just, I'm just fortunate that he's wanted to, to hang out with me for as long as he has. Yeah, we, we talk about that a lot on the podcast with a lot of coaches about how important that second Chance is, and you know, how much you learn. You know, you, you, you had your dad and you had a great tutorial growing up and being a part of it. But so many coaches, they almost need that first experience to figure out, okay, this is who I am, this is who I wanna be. And, and, and that second opportunity can be is it's golden for a lot of coaches. So you're, he's, he's gonna be there and he is gonna be great, but we'll take advantage of him as long as you can keep him. Um, I wanna talk a little bit about bigs. You brought it up and I think it's a, it's a great thing because you talk about you got some six nines, you got a six, seven in the program. It's really hard to find those kids at D three'cause people are typically throwing money at them at that NAI and D two level. If you, once you get to that size, you usually can go to school pretty cheap. You know, when you're that size. If you can, if you can run a little bit and play a little bit and you're a little coordinated, oftentimes you're getting those kids and they're really raw, you know. What are some of the things you're doing because of the pace you're playing, to really get them from that neck up to understand their feet and their hands, and kind of find that marriage between the brain and the feet? Where does that start with you with these raw eggs? Yeah, no, that's, that you're making some excellent points because I do think in our system, probably everywhere, I, I really know in our system, um, in our system, it can take our big guys a little bit longer to develop, you know, and that's because of the speed of the game. And, and like you said, getting, getting their, their, their brain and their, their, their feet to sync up can be challenging, you know? And so, um, we start early on by, um. Spending quite a bit of time of just like watching film. Okay. Here are the, some of the situations that you're going to be in on the court. Um, here are some of the two on ones. Here are some of the three on ones. And then we talk about what, what outcomes are. Are we really looking for, you know, in a two-on-one situation, if we can. Get a stop one third of the time. That's a huge success. And it might not seem like, like a success because you're getting scored on two outta three times. Uh, and, and so, you know, just, just starting to, um. Think about how we want the, the possession to end. Um, and then we'll move into some kind of individual skill stuff with that, whether it's, okay, here's the footwork and this is just in a one on zero capacity. Here's what it's gonna look like. Here's how we want your feet facing. Here's where we want your hands. It's gonna be coming fast, you know, and, and how the steps that you're gonna be taking. And then we'll start adding in some, some live repetitions with that. And I'm thinking, you know, even just talking specifically, and there are so many different situations, but talking specifically about a two on one, how are we gonna play this little cat and mouse game? Uh, how are you gonna open up, what does verticality look like? How can we ensure that when there is contact, your hands aren't coming down, you know, and we, we watch film. We'll, we'll talk about it. We'll do some skill work. We'll watch some more film. We'll talk about it again, we'll do some more skills, skill work, and just eventually put them in those situations where they're feeling a little bit more comfortable once we get into actual live game action. I would imagine, coach, you have to talk about what success looks like with your bigs probably more than everybody else because that 2 0 1. It might be a block, but a, a victory might be that two on one kicking the ball back out and not going for the layup and not going for the pass. Right. And allowing your defense to get back and maybe get an extra trap in. So success for a big in your system is, is greatly different than most coaches in the country, I would imagine. I would agree with you completely. You know, and this also relates to in the back court, you know, there have been times where. You know, we often say like, we want all five guys in the back court. Yeah. Well if we have, uh, you know, one of our, one of our seniors this year, six nine player, had a great year for us. His strong suit is not necessarily stepping up and playing like a free safety in football, and so we have to. We, we wanted to work with him throughout his four years at Grinnell, and he developed so much, uh, in his, in his four years at Grinnell. We worked with him on, you know, where is your comfort level? Can, are you able to come up here and show a little bit? And if your man runs all the way, you know, into the back court, like how far are you willing to go? What puts you in the best position for success? Um, rather than just saying, Hey, no, this is the one way that we're gonna do it. You have to go with him. You know, it might take him out of position and it might leave a, leave us a little bit more exposed. So I think there's a fine line between just like evaluating what his skillset is and also what he's comfortable doing. You know, like I can say, Hey, I want you to do it this way, but if he's not gonna be comfortable doing it that way, we're, we're, we're gonna run, run into some issues, you know? And so, uh, now there might be some give and take.'cause I often told, told the big fella, you know, could you at least show just a little bit more for us? It might help. Okay, coach, I can think I can might be able to do that now. If you want a retreat, you can. So, um, but no, you're, you're absolutely right. Just, uh, just, just in terms of thinking about. How guys feel comfortable playing versus how is that going to fit into, you know, my ideal version, I guess, of the system. When do you start seeing ownership take place from that freshman to senior year? When when do they start going, Hey coach, I've been thinking about this. I've been watching film. What if we tried this? When do you start hearing some of that? Yeah, it's interesting. It, it maybe depends a little bit on the individual, right? Um, I think a lot of times in their first year they're, they're not, they're not talking to me about some of those things and maybe they're afraid to say some of those things to me. Um, well, they're just trying to hang on for life at that point, don't you think? For sure. For sure. Everything's moving so fast, they're just trying, you know. Um, but it is, it's, it's one of my favorite, favorite things about being at Grinnell College in a school like Grinnell is that. In most cases, I'm gonna have these guys for four years, you know? And so I can build that relationship and that, and, and hopefully that level of trust where, you know, they're gonna realize that I'm not maybe as mean and scary as what, what I, I might seem like. And that they can come to me with something and say, actually, what do you think about us doing it this way? And I'm like, okay, that sounds, that sounds great. You know, if, if you're comfortable and your group's comfortable, then let's try it out. Let's try it out. Yeah. It's, uh, it's, it's, it's so much fun when you get to do this with a group of kids over the length of time. And that's why, you know, I watched the D one game and I even the D two now, and I'm just like, oh. You might have'em for a year or two, but you know, they come in and there's already a leg out the door. D three, there's that purity where, all right, we can build a family here. We can build a true brotherhood and, and really figure each other out and, and, and do this together. It doesn't have to be that leadership head and, and 15 players. It can be a group of group of guys working together to accomplish that. So I, I love that. And you see that when you watch your team play, you see that, you see. How willing they are to adapt and how good they are at adapting. No, you're right. And I mean, so much of what we do is predicated on the mental mentality, you know, and, and, and on the, the energy that we want to play with and, um. You know, all of our guys are so loud and so energetic during practice, except for maybe the, the, the incoming first year crew, you know, and there'll be times at practice where I'm just like, okay, no, I know, I know the returners are gonna bring the energy. Actually, you guys just have to be completely silent for this drill. We're just having the freshmen or the first years. Make the noise and bring the energy and just trying to get them to come out of their shell a little bit in a way that's going to boost team morale and boost team chemistry. You know? And I, and I feel like that is, yeah, having, having talented players is, is, is important, but having the right team chemistry to me is even more important. It is. It's huge. It's huge. Yeah. Everybody buys in and especially the way you do it, it's, uh, it's so fun to watch and it's, it's joyful. They just. Know, it's it's tag team wrestling man, back in the day, it's, Hey, your turn. Go get'em. You know, I just, I how, how you'd want to coach any other way after watching your teams play is, is baffling to me.'cause it's so much fun to watch. It's, yeah. It's gotta be so, you know, you know, and I, I grew up, you know, probably about the time I was watching you play, uh, coming over to Darby Jim, it was. I didn't even know there were other ways to play the game of basketball. I just assumed that everybody kind of plays like this and, and, and all the, all the games are gonna be high scoring and, and, um, it is, it is fun to see how the game continues to evolve, you know, and, and how it's, you know, it's, it's forcing us to try to be, be even more creative. I think probably in the mid nineties we were the crazy ones taking however many three point shot attempts per game. Yeah. And everybody else was trying to throw it into the post and. Now, uh, you might be the crazy one if you're not taking a lot of three point shots. Yeah. And, and I'm just anxious to see even in this kind of next generation of, of basketball players, how the game continues to evolve. How, how, how I personally can continue to try to push the creative limits of the game and, and, and, and adjust our, our style. You've definitely done that, coach.'cause I, I know for a fact when I was coaching at Maryville and preparing for, for you and your dad, it was, it was, the idea was. We're, we might not play you until December, but we're already talking about Grinnell and preparing for Grinnell in October. Because if we're not, if we're, if we're totally focused by the time we get to December on, we're only gonna have an eight man rotation. We're gonna play like this, and then we gotta go play you. Everything we've been working on for two months is out the window and we've got. We're totally unprepared. We're gonna lose by 30, 40 points. And, and it may not be that way in the first half, but in the second half it's gonna be that way because you're playing 15, 16 and we're trying to play with eight. And if our, we got two starters with three fouls, we're screwed. Yeah. You know, so let's flip that. All these coaches are preparing for you and they're, and they're trying to slow you down. Everybody's trying to find a way to slow you down, and you've probably seen just about every way to slow you down. What is your mindset in terms of how you talk to the guys about that? Because you can't watch film and go, okay guys, this is, this is how they're gonna play us, right? Yeah. Because you're not seeing on film them playing against the system. So what is your mindset and coaching your guys, preparing them for all the curve balls You're probably gonna see defensively. Yeah. Um, no, that's a, that's a, that's a great question. Like, I, I think that our, our, our scouting approach is that we're gonna watch. You know, the, the last time or two times that we've played that same team, especially if personnel is maybe the same, uh, and just get a sense for their, for their press breaker, maybe, maybe some ideas of, of, of what they're gonna try to do to us defensively. Um, but more than anything, I'm gonna try to not overload the guys with all this information and I'm gonna let us just try to play the way that we wanna play. And, um, there might be a, a few subtle tweaks, but I think in, in large part. I'm not sure how much of that information they're going to be retaining anyways, uh, that if they're able to just kind of play free and easy and with a level of confidence that the other team is really just gonna have to adjust to us, then we might be able to just get more out of it. And so it might be here or there with, hey, you know, this is a dead ball press breaker that they might look to run. And it seemed to give us a, a little bit of confusion the last time. So, so here's kind of how we're going to just slide this player over to this. Are they run four across? Do we want to turn off ball and and denial all across? Do we want our safety to kind of step up? Um. You know, oh, they're lobbing into a big guy and, and, and is that somebody that we want to actually go trap or should we just try to play'em one-on-one? Like little things like that, that might just be a slight tweak, but not so significant that it's gonna take away from their aggressiveness level. Because I think as soon as we start thinking about all the other different things that other teams are doing, um, it's gonna take away from, from how hard we're playing, you know, in, in the, in the e ease with which we're hopefully playing with. I've been in this boat. I didn't, I I didn't run the system consistently enough like you have over the years, but I found the more I gave my kids about the opponent, the more it slowed them down, the more they were thinking about, oh, I gotta be worried about this three quarter court, 1, 2, 1, 1. Instead of going, no, I gotta get the ball in the bounds. I gotta look at option one. I gotta see option two. I gotta see my rim runner, right? I would imagine you have the skinniest scouting report of any coach in the country because you want your guys doing their thing, but understanding what might come their way. This is, it's so funny that you say this. There's, I don't even know if this is like coaching malpractice or not. There was, there was a game, I don't think it was this year, it might've been a year ago, where I was pretty convinced the other team was gonna run like this kind of. 2, 2, 1 press against us to try to slow us down a little bit. Um, and. I actually didn't even tell our team that I thought that's what they were going to do, because I thought that what would happen was, you know, if we went against it in practice and we turn it over, then we'd be thinking, oh my gosh, we gotta do this. You know? And so like at the first sign of of them do, they came out and they did this. And I hadn't told our team that I thought they were gonna do it, and I just looked and I was like, oh, we just gotta go right through it, you know? And like just doing that. They just went, they just went out and just dribbled right through it, you know? And, and again, I'm not sure if I was necessarily in the wrong there or in the right there, but I think, I think you were 100% of the right. Yes. But I think there is because I, but I think there is something to be said about overthinking what somebody else is gonna do. Coach, I think as much as the way I love, I love watching you coach, and I love the way you do, coach. I think the greatest gift you're giving these young men is the life skill of that idea. You know who you are, be who you are, don't let others affect who you are. Yeah. Right. Isn't that the life skill? We want all these young men to walk away from our program with. Sure, sure. Yeah. What, what, what a great tool you're giving them, even if it's subliminal, even if it's subconscious. I, I, you know, I, I talk to these coaches. I've got former coaches that are that coach for me that are now D one and D two coaches and assistants, and they show me the scholar reports they do, and I go, how do your kids remember all this? I go, how, how did they absorb it from a Wednesday to a Saturday? And then you're gonna give'em another 7, 8, 8 page book, right? So I, I mean, that's a skill set in its own, but I love the idea of this is who we are. Good luck. Yeah, and you know, I, I might have been, I mean, I'm sure that we have some guys on our team that that. Would be able to handle more information. Yeah. If we're throwing it just like any team, like you're gonna have some guys that like, are just, are just craving and seeking out a more in information. And I think that there is a, a, a, a general feeling in the coaching profession that if you're not, if you're not providing all of this information, then you're, you're, you're really not doing your job. Which I, I don't necessarily believe in. Um, but I, I, I still feel like that the next. Group of coaches that are gonna be very, very successful, um, are gonna be able to just unlock the mind a little bit more. Yeah. And I don't, um, I'm not proclaiming to be somebody like that or one of those, but I, I think that the next group, they are gonna be able to just figure out how can we get 1% more, um, from the person, uh, and what they're doing, you know, how they're thinking about the game Then, then the actual X's and o's types of stuff. Well, I, I think of the, the Justice League movie. I don't know if you saw it, where Ben Affleck throws his dart at the flash and everything slows down. The flash just is watching this thing that's going a hundred mile an hour. You know, to me that's what I feel like you're doing for your kids. You're teaching them how to go at a pace where everything else seems slow. They're gonna be better doctors, they're gonna be better lawyers, they're gonna be better parents. Yeah. You know, they're, they're, they're gonna be better evaluators because they've learned how to find that calm and the chaos and, and found, and find the, the engineering and, and the, and the, and the real creative lines. How they're doing it and when you, you know, and I'm an outside preserve, you know, I know you're in the middle of it and I'm at 30,000 feet, but I watch your guys and they're making decisions on the fly that I'm like, wow, I know you're coaching it. But I'm like, to get a kid to do that in four years by their senior, to be able to think that way. That's what's so amazing about what you do, and, and I know I'm overwhelming you with, with things here, but I, I just want you to know there's, there's, there's a lot of coaches out here that appreciate how you're coaching and, and I think all of us, if we don't take the whole thing from you, I think we all take little pieces and it makes us better. No, thank you. I mean, I think that there is, I, I, I often think about, um, you, you know, some individual players or, or just like. A specific thing, like I can teach somebody where to go. Yeah. I can't always get them to just go as hard as they can. And so like the first thing is like. Guys that are just going as hard as they can, even if they're going in the wrong, to the wrong spot, or everybody's gonna make mistakes on the basketball court. Like I, I'm, I'm happy I'm so much happier with somebody that is just going a million miles an hour, but going to the wrong spot because I'm like, okay, you at least have the baseline of what we're looking to do. You're making the effort now. Let me help coach you and teach you on. Instead of going there, how about you go here a million miles an hour? Um, versus kind of the reverse situation of the guys that they might go to the right spot, but all the, nah, they don't really want to go to the offensive glass. And it's just kind of showing up in a, in a way like that. And so, um, at least in our program, having guys that, that are just committed to, um, playing as hard as they can, knowing that there's gonna be a ton of mistakes made, but I'm gonna commit to playing as hard as I possibly can for as long as I possibly can. I'll take those guys on my, on my team any day. Would you consider that your greatest growth as a coach over the last 10 years? Because as a point guard for me, it was so hard Early on when I was 26, 27 years old, as a head coach, I was like, why didn't you cut there? Your defender's eyes were on the point guard. They weren't on you or they were on you. They weren't on the point guard. Why didn't you do this? Did you have to go through that? I, I struggled with that for years to go. All right. Like you just said, you went hard. That's a, that's a victory for us. Was that hard for you? Y yes. And building off that, it was so, it still is hard for me sometimes to not like, expect the players. The student athletes see the game the same way that I do, or to make the same decision that I would make. Um, but to try to take a step back and see it from, from their perspective a little bit, you know, and understand that they're not gonna make the same pass that I might have made. Um. But they do have some skills and they are playing hard and they are competing. And so now how can we, how can I adjust my coaching philosophy to know that no, this, this player's not gonna play just like I did back in, in in many moons ago. They're gonna play their own way, you know, and how can I utilize their strengths in a way that, you know, still fits within our, our style. It's a hard, it's a really hard thing to do. Like when you, when you, when you, when you grow up playing the game a certain way, especially in our system, um, it, it's, it's such a hard, hard thing to get yourself to be like, Nope, that's how I played. That's not actually what's gonna be in their best interest. It's, uh, it's what makes it worthwhile. Getting up in the every morning and doing it again, isn't it? Yeah. Oh my gosh. I, I, I, I, I love it. I can't imagine myself doing anything else. I can't, you know, I feel like I'm on a, I'm on a paid holiday that they gimme a, an opportunity to go and, and coach hoops. It's pretty impressive. Um, I've got some rapid fire stuff for you. We'll, we'll, we'll finish this episode then we'll get into some recruiting. Um, I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm gonna bore the audience if I keep talking about the details of the system and how you're coaching. But I love it and I could listen to it all day and I'm probably gonna be calling you more and you're gonna be, you're gonna get sick of me. Just be thankful I don't live in central Iowa or I'd be there, I'd be at your practices all the time. Um, what's your favorite basketball movie? Favorite basketball movie. Um. Geez. I don't know. I haven't even really, I favorite basketball movie. I mean, a Hoosiers. He just seems like the go-to answer. I mean, how could you not like that? That's the one that just seems, seems to be popping right into my head. I've been out of the game for so long, taking kids on bus trips. It cracked me up. I, I, I don't know if it was Bains or or Guard the other day, I was talking to somebody, you know, another D three coach. I was like, Hey, what do you watch on bus trips? Do you guys even watch team movies anymore on bus trips or is everybody on their phone or their iPad? Uh, very rarely are the team movies going. Actually, a lot of times, like somebody's bringing in hooking up like this, the, the chord so that they can watch basketball. Actually, we spent a lot of time watching other Division three basketball games. Okay. That's when we're, when we're going somebody, like whoever's playing. Yeah. That gets me excited. All right. Who was your favorite player growing up? Uh, my favorite player growing up was Hakeem, the Dream, Eila one. And I, I'm not really sure why, you know, I mean, I guess I grew up like in the, I was born in the, in the late eighties. And so just watching him, uh, play and, uh, especially the footwork, I just loved his footwork and I loved his kind of versatility just in terms of impact in the game in all areas. Well that's, you know, I mentioned it earlier, but that's who you were as a point guard. You were Akeem, I mean, your feet were so great. Uh, your ability to get into the paint and drop that pivot. And, and, and pump fake and whoever was protecting the rim and get people moving. Uh, you know, I, I'm with you Akeem, Akeem's feet, or everybody should learn akeem's feet, right?'cause that was so slow and unathletic that I had to have, you know, some way to maneuver in there. Yeah. We gotta keep everything relative with D three. Man, you were fast for D three. Um, favorite favorite band you got, you got a favorite band you listen to. Favorite band, you know? Well, I, maybe I could just go with, uh, my, my favorite concert was I went to a Tom Petty concert. Um, you know, and I, I, I still routinely find myself listening to a number of Tom Petty songs. It's amazing what a concert will do for you. I, I just, my, my daughter, we went and saw the Lumineers and I wasn't a huge Lumineers fan, but after that concert I was like, I went and bought five or six songs, and I find myself listening to all something about live music that stays with you, isn't it? Sure. Yeah, sure. Um, what's your, uh, what's your favorite gym to coach in outside of your own favorite gym to coach in? Oh my gosh. Um. You know, does it have to be a current, I, I mean, I enjoyed, so I, I spent two years as the head coach for the Sacramento Kings, uh, D League now G League affiliate. Oh, that's right, that's right. You know, and outside of our, our home gym there coaching at, at Santa Cruz, because they had like this smaller arena and I think that they actually might even play some D three games there now, or some D three like, uh, coast to coast tournament games at, in Santa Cruz. And was that the wall, was there a big wall on one end or? Uh. Yeah, it's just kind of in the small and they always packed the place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've been there fans right there at Kaiser Permanente Arena or something like that and, or, or whatever it was. And, uh, that was, that was, uh, probably my favorite place to coach in. That's cool. Not one of my own gyms. That's cool. We'll have to get into that. Off, off, off the record, uh, I wanna, I wanna hear more about that. What's one word that you would use to describe your program? Unselfish. And can I elaborate or No, please do. Yes. It, you know, it, it takes you, you have to, you have to, you have to buy in and you have to be unselfish. And it, it happens with the minutes. And we know we're gonna be able to take a lot of shots, uh, and guys are gonna be able to take a lot of shots, but you're gonna have to be willing to, to, to play a role And, um. You know, just even, yeah, from the minutes from, uh, the role that somebody might be playing, um, you gotta be unselfish. Coach, thanks for doing this. Thanks for humoring me today. I'm gigging out having fun talking with you. I'm, I'm loving it. So excited for you and your team and the future of Grinnell basketball and, and I'm just so thankful we have. You because you keep pushing the rest of us to be creative and be innovators, and that means a lot to me. No, thank you for having me on. I greatly appreciate it. So much fun. You can argue if you want about the strategy of the system, but you can't argue the fact that David Arsenault Jr. can flat out coach the game of basketball. I very much appreciate him humoring my love for what he does and how he does it. What really stands out to me is how clear he is in who he is as a coach and what he believes in. He's not trying to be everything to everyone. He understands his system. He understands his players, and he leads with conviction. And I think there's a lesson in that for all of us, whether you're coaching, leading, parenting, or navigating your own journey. Know what you believe, build around it, and stay committed to it. If you're a coach, an athlete, or a parent, and you're trying to make sense of this process, I'd encourage you to spend some time at coachmattrogers.com. You'll find the significant recruiting resources, the weekly blog, access to strategy sessions, and tools designed to help you navigate this journey with more purpose and perspective. And don't forget to subscribe to the weekly newsletter. Every week, I share insights, conversations, and practical takeaways for coaches, athletes, and families who wanna approach recruiting and coaching and leading the right way. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to favorite, follow, and subscribe so you never miss a conversation. Until next time, stay focused on what you can control, stay humble, and keep chasing significance.