Ep 59 - Lane Below, Men's Head Basketball Coach Gulf Coast State College

Four-peat secured. Now the real test begins. We open with the Bulldogs’ path through districts—how Sikeston handled a bruising Festus team, survived a cold stretch, and turned fourth-quarter pressure into a double-digit win. From missed “dagger” threes to a surge of late turnovers, we unpack what actually swung the game and why our pace matters more in March than it did in December. Then we set the table for a high-stakes quarterfinal: Vianney’s three-point volume, a seven-footer patrolling the glass, and a neutral court that could blunt their comfort from deep. We talk matchups, the logic behind our stretched matchup zone, and the two or three moments that usually decide a possession game.

Midway through, we welcome Gulf Coast State head coach Lane Below for a masterclass in modern preparation. Lane traces his route from Advance to Three Rivers with Gene Bess to Ole Miss, and into JUCO head coaching where he’s built a fast, unselfish offense and a ruthless matchup zone that traps posts, corners, and ball screens. He opens the hood on real scouting with Synergy—every possession tagged by morning—so game plans target what teams actually do. We dig into practice design, conditioning without overloading bodies, recruiting for character and fit, and the real NIL landscape that’s changing lives for sophomores who buy into roles and win.

We keep it local and practical: what Sikeston must do to limit second-chance threes, how to turn long rebounds into instant offense, and why neutral rims can help if we contest on the catch. We also call out streaming headaches and how fans can request refunds when official feeds fail. For players and parents, Lane’s advice is blunt and gold—get a credible advocate, show up in person, compete the right way, and remember that someone is always watching.

Tap play for strategy, stories, and a clear-eyed look at what it takes to keep marching. If this breakdown helps you see the game better, follow the show, share it with a Bulldog, and drop your quarterfinal prediction in a review. Go Dogs.

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Transcript

Opening Hype And Four-Peat

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Alright, Bulldog Nation, it's time to get in the doghouse. This is where Tyson Pride lives, where we tell the stories that make this town special, from the legends of the past to the faces shaping our future. Whether it's basketball, community, or just that good old Bulldog grit, we've got you covered. You're listening to The Dog House, the voice of the Titan. What is up? Bulldog Nation Championship Sunday. You are Micah Harris. I'm Matt Tanner. We are the co-host of the Dog House Podcast. Thanks for joining us again. Thanks for joining us the day after. The dogs are celebrating a four-peat. Four peat. 23, 24, 25, and now 26, a district title. And we have the quarterfinals up next, next Saturday, which would be March 14th.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Against Not Western Rose.

Sponsors, New Logo, And Shoutouts

SPEAKER_02 1:03

A little bit of a shock, maybe, to some. We got to see the end of it. We'll kind of talk through that here in just a minute. And but as we say, Micah, let's pay some bills first and then we'll get right to it. Give it a shout-out again. Let's give a shout-out to our new logo. You can see it once you when we get to the video portion of it. You'll be able to see our logo behind on our TV.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Is it on our Facebook page now?

SPEAKER_02 1:26

It is on our Facebook page, yeah. And we made a post about our new logo. It is really, really cool. AI. I I wish I could say I designed it. The original design is by Mr. Brian Henson. He helped with the the the bulldog and then the the headphones that say go dogs on them and all that stuff. And we kept that. We did. But the the the AI with the it looks like it's on a like a metal sign with the the screws, and now it's sitting on a pedestal pedestal out in front of the field house. Right. Right. With some neon lights around it in the rain. It is really, really cool. And so we are excited about that. And and it still says powered by Mercy Phoenix and Greengrass Guys. Our two very important and partners with us. And again, what we're trying to do, if you if you need your lawn, and it is high time for that. D told me he was going to be out this week with greengrass guys, and so they're out putting out preimals.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Your grass is green right now.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

It came back. It had been, I mean, it had been green-ish, but it's really starting to come back already. These warmer temperatures and this rain is going to. Yeah, I'm gonna have to start mowing. I guess that's the bad side of it.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

I was looking at mine, I'm gonna have to mow mine too. Yeah. I mean, like it's just probably next, well, I mean, maybe next Sunday afternoon. After I record.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

That's right. Well, hopefully we're well not hopefully, we will be coming to you next Sunday as well to record. Hopefully, we are celebrating a quarterfinal win.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Going to the going headed to headed to Como.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Headed to Como for the final four. That's the plan.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

That's the hope.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

That's the hope. That's correct. That is that is correct. But again, shout out to our partners, Mercy Phoenix, your healthcare staffing solutions, EMT, EMS, R-Ns, C N A's, L P N's, ABC, B B D, East Coast Family, all the alphabet. They are your go-to, Jody. Jody Cheney is your guy. Contact them on their Facebook page, Mercy Phoenix, M-E-R-C-I-Phoenix, P-H-O-E-N-I-X. Go to their website, mercyphoenix.com. And if you need to reach out to them, you can contact them. There's a contact us on their website. Reach out to them. Greengrass guys, it is high time for Greengrass Guys. If you want your yard looking unbelievable, contact D Bizzle. Greengrass Guys, you can reach them. They have a Facebook page or reach out to D, reach out to Micah or me. We can get you in touch with them. And they are outstanding to work with. Both of those guys are outstanding to work with, outstanding individuals, families, and they're terrific partners with us. And they are they're they've told us that they are very proud to be partnered with us, and we are honored to be partnered with them. Shout out to Luke. He's got us set up on our new logo on our TV. He was just in here. He was we were giving him a little grief.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

He was giving us a little hard time too.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Yeah, he he takes or he gives as much as he gets, there's no doubt.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

I think he likes it Sunday afternoons.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

We're kind of interrupting his his Sunday afternoon rituals. Correct m meditation, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

I don't know. He would look like he was all spread out with his books.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Yeah, he's probably doing some homework. But yeah, we we we've interrupted him. But he'll he'll be fine. We won't be long. We appreciate him. We do, we do. He's he's terrific at what he does. Shout out to Aaron. Thanks for allowing me to do this and allowing Micah and I to take over part of the house when we do this. And she's always a willing host when if we we're not done, if we're recording something before, and our guests get here.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

She's we don't have a guest to get here today, though.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

We don't. It was earlier in the week.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Very exciting guest.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

I say if you plan to just listen to this part, go and listen to the other part because it's he's he's a he's a wealth of knowledge.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

Absolutely. Mr. Lane Bellew, he's from Advance. He married a Dexter girl. He's down in Panama City, Florida. He's the head coach of Gulf State College again in Panama City. And they are they're they're a junior college. They they played Pop or excuse me, Three Rivers earlier this year. They came up here and played Mac, and they're they're trying to get to Hutch or Hutchison, Kansas, which is where the JUCOs, that's their national.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

And the tournament trip starts Wednesday?

SPEAKER_02 5:47

He said the 11th, which would be yes, Wednesday. That's right. That's his first game. They've been off several days now, and so yeah, that's their first game, but they're that's their region tournament, I think is what he called it.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Stephen challenged us to get better on our knowledge. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

He did. He did. We were he did. He he was he was giving us some grief. So yeah, and by the way, there was a gentleman that follows, and he tagged or he posted one of the comments on our Facebook page.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

He just got conference conference coach of the year, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:20

That is correct. Mr. Lane Bellew got conference coach of the year as outstanding. His second year as a as an actual head coach.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

I think that actually came out like a day or two after we recorded.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Right, exactly. It came out afterwards, so we didn't get it on the on there to mention. But hang around, talk to him. He's a wealth of knowledge. He's got a cool story. His wife, Hannah, Hannah No formerly, was a division one basketball player as well, had terrific seasons at Dexter High School under Mr. Chad Allen, who was the girls' coach then. Mm-hmm. And who they just Dexter won back-to-back district titles for them. That's right. Yeah. So they said that was the first time since 57 or 58 or something like that that they won that back to back.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

So I feel like we had we encouraged that. Like they had to play us, what, two or three times?

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Oh, they yeah, twice. Twice, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh again, and uh shout out to Justin, our legal counsel, our chief legal counsel. He's he's a big part of what we do and helps us with our business side of it. And always he's always good for some humility for on our part, right? Mm-hmm. Keeping this grounded, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

He's uh he's got a lot of good he's he does. He's got a lot of good um suggestions on some technical side stuff too. And when he comes in next, he and I were talking about some stuff. We're gonna probably redo our intro and outro, just tweak it a little bit, make it a little bit better, get some stuff on that. Probably, yeah. That's right. That's when he talked about coming in. Shout out to Tucker Chaney, which is Jody's son. He's helped a lot with the actual editing part of the process and the videos and getting those out. And by the way, our videos when they come out this week may not be able to with Lane's portion of it. Well, certainly with ours, you'll notice some things on there. We're gonna have some logos on there. This week I'm gonna try my hand at putting overlaying what we're talking about with some video. That'll that'll be a what the heck you call that. It it'll overlay us talking and it will cut to like a video of the game, yeah, of a few seconds of something that we'll we'll talk about here in a little bit, and we'll find a clip that matches that and put that on there. Be be really cool, be a little interactive, or I guess interactive be a little bit better. We're just we're we're trying to get better as we go. And Tucker's been a lot of help with that. Again, now shout out to Brian James and Derek James and Deij. He called it. I don't know if you saw on some of those CMO high school basketball page posts. I think junior delay. And and junior meant nothing by this. And and of course, and it was very when I say he not that he didn't mean anything by it, he was being very supportive. He's like, Oh, I think Seiston win easily. And Derek said, Hey, can't overlook anybody. And Junior said, Yep, I agree. And Derek said, Hey, Festus, when they when Charleston beat them, Festus was about a few days off football. They I think they made it to the state semifinals, maybe, or the finals, maybe. I'm not sure. Festus had a really good football team. A lot of those kids played football. Their coach even said that at the district seating. Uh-huh. And Derek said, hey, you know, not taken away from Charleston. You know, they've got to play who you play, but they're a different team than they were in December. And so, and they ended up proving to be that. They were they were a formidable opponent. They were really, they were we'll we'll get into that too. But anyway, Derek was uh right on that. Brian's always a wealth of knowledge, too. They they give us a lot of the information, thanks to that. And Tyler Anderson, Tyler was in my office the other day, Twisted Arrow Woodworking for the sign on the wall. If you get a chance, give Twisted Arrow Woodworking, give Tyler a call, and he can hook you up. He does all kinds of woodworking projects and things like that. And uh he's also a former bulldog and just an outstanding person, and we're glad to be affiliated with Tyler, and he was he was on here as a guest. He was several a few several months ago.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Well, probably getting close to the almost a year now because it was during the College World Series. Right after the College World Series.

Community Updates And Platform Growth

SPEAKER_02 10:14

Yeah, when Murray, when Murray went out there. That's right. That's right. Again, please like, share, follow our Facebook page, Twitter, or Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Please give us a like, share, follow, review, make a comment, ask people to to like our page as well, and join it. We'd be very appreciative. And again, we we talked about this a little bit last week, but thank you.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

We we can't thank you enough for the likes, the follows, the comments.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

I mean Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

I mean, there's I it's very appreciated.

SPEAKER_02 10:51

Absolutely. Thank you, thank you for to everyone that is that follows and follows along and listens. Uh, you can catch all of our podcasts on Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, uh, Music, iHeart, uh, radio, YouTube, a whole host of sites, and then on our website, the doghouse.buzzsprout.com, there's an embedded player on there with all of our episodes on there. You can go back and listen to them, and we appreciate you guys doing that and and and keeping those out in front. If you need to reach out to us, our our email address is doghouse.syxton at gmail.com. And again, send us a message. Hopefully we can we'll get back to you. And if it's something you're interested in, or something you want to tell us, please reach out to us. And also, if you're interested in becoming a partner with us, reach out to us. Again, we've still got one that we've we're talking to right now, working through some stuff, and we'll see how that goes. And if it doesn't, that's okay too. No hard feelings at all. We're we're we'd be honored to have another partner, and we're glad to do that.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

It helps us make our podcast better.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Absolutely. We were just talking earlier about camera angles or more cameras. Yep, yep, yeah, we sure are. Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Now we have the ability to host more than two guests. We can go to the city.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Well, we can here we can we can have we can have eight inside our studio, we can have up to eight guests at one time. Count well, you and me plus six. That's right, eight people at one time. That's right. Right. So we're we're excited about that. Make sure we're paying all of our bills. I think we have. And if you're again thank you. Shout out to all the folks that made the trip yesterday to Cape, it was a little I I thought we were gonna be standing in the rain. Unfortunately, it held off and it rained.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

By the time I walked in, it just quit raining.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Right, right. It w when we lined up, we were there.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

Well, actually between my drive between Sykeston and about from Benton to Cape, it started kind of clearing up.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Right. Same exactly the same thing happened to us. Yeah, you were just a little bit behind us. And I was curio I was hopeful that it wouldn't be standing that rain, but we had umbrellas and all that stuff, and then fortunately it wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Because I figured they didn't open the doors till about 1215, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:11

About 12. It was about an hour before. Okay. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Well, I knew somebody the other day was waiting at Dexter and they said they wouldn't open them before like 45 minutes before the game.

Cape Game Day, Travel, And Swag

SPEAKER_02 13:21

They they they were an hour. So again, if you if you want some swag, uh we've got some t-shirts available. And we also, I do, I have talked to someone, remind me to tell you afterwards kind of some stuff we're looking at and waiting on some pricing and stuff like that. So we'll we'll see. We'll see what's out there and had some pretty neat ideas and we'll take a look, see how it goes. So let's get into the main event, Micah. The we we've we obviously we interviewed, we we met with Lane Wednesday night between Wednesday night. Yeah, oh yeah, in between games. So Tuesday, you know, I haven't I didn't even look for the article yet. Is it out? I'll look.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

I didn't even look either.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

We took care of business.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

DeSoto, which was our opening opponent of the year, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Yes, it was and we ended up turbo and it was kind of the DeSoto team that we Yeah, it was I'll be honest with you, I just caught the end of it. I caught the very end of listening to it.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Yeah, it we were it was over pretty quick. And not not trying to be ugly or anything like that. It was it it it was it ended up the way we anticipated. When I started listening, it was already third stream out there plume, so it was like I don't see an article out there yet, so I don't have any I don't have any stats from last night, but that's okay. We we don't need to have stats. I don't think we need stats. No, we don't have to have those. We'll we can address those later. But then Sykes and one, and we talked a little bit last week about playing West Plains. We thought they might be a tough matchup, and they they were the five seed, and they beat Hillsborough. They were definitely physical, they were super physical.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

So was Festus.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

Yes, number five for West Plains was a concern, and I thought we did a really good job on him as well. He ended up probably with 11, but he had 20 something the night before against Hillsborough. A pretty good team, and so they were really, really physical against West Plains, and we were able to, and I didn't think we shot the ball particularly well, but we shot it well enough, you know, and we basically won by 30. It was like we flirted we did have run o'clock a little bit in the fourth, but I mean ended up it was 6740, I think was the final, but it was you know, it was it was close. It was close, a lot of the game, and then we pulled away late, which I had a feeling we might. And then frankly, coming into Festus for the district championship yesterday, I I mean, I felt good about it. The outcome didn't surprise me. That's what I expected. Actually, I thought the margin was a little closer than I thought it might be.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

That's what I was thinking. I was thinking like 10-15 or something.

District Recap: DeSoto And West Plains

SPEAKER_02 16:10

It ended up being about that, but I thought it might be 20 plus. Uh we had a couple of chances on a couple of what I would call like a like a dagger play, where when I say that, like a back breaking play, where we kicked it for an open three, and if it had gone in, that I thought that'd have really just pulled us up. Right. Put us up 15 or something all of a sudden.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

I think Kobe missed a few.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Not just Kobe, but yeah, no, no, no, and not being critical, they just didn't go. They were good looks, they were great shots, they go all the way in and come out. And Mark Well had a couple like that that rimmed in and then they come out.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

That one like rim all the way down in and then come off and tipped it back in and rimmed back out.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

That was he and J-Ray. That's right. That was I think that was in the first half because it was on the other end. Yeah. Yeah. And there were some some call. We didn't catch any breaks. How about that? Let's just let's just leave it as that. We're not we didn't catch any breaks, I felt like we had some calls not go our way, and the kids did not let it bother them, and they battled through it. They kept playing. They did. You know, and you and I talked earlier, and you're like, man, I didn't feel like we shot it that well. And and West Plan or Festus.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Festus had something to do with that.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

They did. They did. They were big. I mean, their guard, that Drew Johnson, who his dad is the head coach, is like 6'4. I mean, he's a big kid.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

I didn't know this until last night. Number three, the lefty that came off the bench, had broken his arm. Brian told me this afterwards. Got this from Brian James. The their coach again announced this at the district seed meeting. He just came back. He is a pitcher. He's going to University of Michigan to play baseball.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Yeah. Number three, the lefty. Uh hit a couple of threes. He's about 6'4. Big, strong athletic kid.

SPEAKER_00 18:05

They were all strong.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

They were oh, they were massive. That number eleven looked like I mean, he just a big, just a again, not a bruiser. He's an athlete, but just a big, strong kid. And then their big kid, uh 6'8, I can't remember his name. Okay. Womack or something like that. Womac or something.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

It was Womack. Yeah. Is he the one that got foul trouble? Was it 24 or 34 that got in foul trouble?

SPEAKER_02 18:32

34 was the 6'8 kid, but I'm not really sure. I think he got in foul trouble. May it might have been. I know they were rotating him in and out toward the end. Yeah. And I think he had four fouls. Okay. Okay. Well, the dogs ended up being sixty four fifty-two or something like that, or sixty-four-fifty-one, something in that, or sixty-two-fifty-one, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

I thought it was sixty one fifty one, to be honest with you. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

So it was it was ten to twelve, thirteen points or something like that. End up being that. And I I will announce this on here. I don't I don't mind. It's kind of out now. The Acorp feed was messed up, and the reason for that is according to my sources at Acorp Sports, the Cape did not turn on their Ethernet ports because they hard they try to hardwire the internet to that to make it where it's better and it's stable and doesn't lag and all that stuff. And Cape Central did not do that. They did not turn them on. So I don't know if it's a switch. I don't know if it's a computer setting. I don't know what I mean. I don't know. I don't know exactly what that means, other than they just it had no internet coming out of the out of that port when they plugged it in.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

And it may have been I mean I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

I'm I'm sure it was an honest mistake. I'm not not saying that.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

And I'll be honest with you, my my internet my phone service in there was very spotty.

Festus Title Game: Physical Battle

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Yeah. Well, and that's what I mean. And so then according to Acorp Sports, they had a mobile hotspot trying to and and that's it'd be okay if you're trying to download, you know, trying to get on a website, but when you got some video and and trying to stream high def. And so then they end up shutting that down. Finally, the Huddle feed came up toward the second half, from best I understand. And so that's a Misha issue, and I know there's some folks we won't get into all that, but I know there's some issues with Misha right now, and I would say they need to clean their game up a little. That's my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

But I I get them, I get them wanting to make revenue from and and stuff, but if you're gonna put that product out there, you better make it worth it.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

That's the right. That's exactly right. I I'm with you.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

I we don't I mean, and I and I get relying on plays people like A Corp. There's nothing wrong with that. But when your website well, I mean, and I'm not because it wasn't just this game this week. I mean, like a lot of a lot of the pay site, it's going through your and they've not these people haven't had trouble all year long. Correct. And then all of a sudden, when we get into where it's got to go through your site, yes. It's there's you you gotta upgrade. If you're gonna use if you're gonna get drawing the money, you better use it.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

Correct. No, I I'm with you.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Not on yourself, but on Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

And we're it's not uh not necessarily here to bash Misha.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

That's not what we're trying to do, but we wouldn't have we wouldn't have the tournament we got right now without Misha.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

Correct. Correct.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

We wouldn't have the all the sports.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

They've got uh they've got a they've got to do better. They've got to provide a better product for for ten bucks a game.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

And this is well, it this has probably been going on for Oh, it's several years back. At least I would say the last ten that they've kind of almost this pay system. Yeah, and they've not upgraded it from the get-go.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Right, right. It's it's kind of clunky when you go to their website or to their app or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

I've had to rely on it. I mean, like when I was in the hospital, I mean I'd pay ten bucks of to watch.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Right, right, right. You expect to be able to watch it. You get what you pay for.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

I wish they had some kind of fee, like a standardized fee for postseason. Yeah. Or you know, like to do it watching.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

I don't know how they could do that without a paywall like they currently have. I somebody smarter than me would have to have to figure that out.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

But I'm sure there's a if not.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Anyway, if you if you paid, you can go back through Mish Misha and uh get your money back. You can request it. There's some forums and and there's also, I won't say it's a forum, but on CMO High School Basketball, somebody posted, hey, somebody on here said, How do you get your money back through the website? Go look on that Facebook page, CMO High School Basketball, and you can find it and they can tell you the directions how to get it back. But anyway, let's go. So Mike and I were sitting there watching the game yesterday. Dogs jumped out 10 to 2. I thought, here we go. Here we go. Yeah. I thought, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

But then they come roaring back.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

They did and give them credit. They had some big shots. As a matter of fact, they led going into the second quarter. Yeah, they led after the end of the first.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

And then it was nip and tucked because it was only 29-28 at halftime.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

That's correct. Bulldogs did have the lead by one at half.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Which is I'm I'm typically I'd rather be an underdog at the halftime. I just feel like you get more motivation. Which I think we were a better team. I mean, like Agreed. I I think, you know, they played the best game they could.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Oh, I agree. I agree. I thought I thought they played very well. I didn't see the the the stats at the end. I was talking to someone and they thought they missed some free throws, which hurt them. But I free throws.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

I free throws did they. They they were kind of they were kind of if they did anything, the free throws were probably because it when it was real close, they were falling behind on the free throws.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

Right, right, right. So that that did hurt them, but outside of that, I thought they played well and and I thought that they handled our pressure a lot better than now early. I thought we sped them up, and I thought we got a lot of turnovers. Going back to watch the game last night, we ended up we caused 12 turnovers in the second half, which I guess we didn't get a lot of run outs on it because it didn't turn into a bunch of quick points, but we had some really key plays, so let's let's kind of talk through that. So the second quarter we end up 29-28 going into the half. In the third quarter, we built a little bit of a lead, started to, you know, Festus was hanging right in there, and as we talk, Mr. Murray brings the ball up the floor, draws the defense in which he's going to draw the defense. He's going to draw their attention. Left-handed pass to who in the corner. What do we call him? Big Ben. Big shot bin. Big shot bin. Big shot Ben in the corner. Knocked down a three basically as the buzzer. Well, they got a they had a heave from 75 feet.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

So but he I think a few plays later didn't Ben return to Jaharis.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

I mean, like behind behind behind his head. Yeah. Yeah, it was unbelievable. So the Bulldogs are very, very, very unselfish. Sometimes to a fault. You know, they're both wanting another teammate to score.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

I'd be honest with you, we'd shot more in the first half. I think that was kind of Yeah.

Officiating, Shooting, And Key Runs

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Yeah. I thought we again not not critical. There's nothing wrong with that. But sometimes, hey, somebody step up and go ahead and score. Let's get this bucket. We need the two points kind of thing. But I thought I thought we were terrific really in the second half. I think our pace got to got to Festus. I think that's what eventually wore them down. There were times that they they couldn't just keep up.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

How many of those turnovers you said 12 in the second half?

SPEAKER_02 25:45

That's what they were saying, yeah, on the on the broadcast.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Yeah, so I wonder how many of those came in the fourth quarter. Most of a bitch, a bunch of those.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you recall, we had a couple down one time that we had a we had a missed bucket and they got the rebound, but then Jaharis and Marquill surrounded the guy, and we were reaching for the ball, and he stepped out of bounds. And that was one. Now that's a dead ball turnover, but we did get the ball back. Sean made some big steals late. We had some tip balls from behind. I thought that our I thought their effort was really good. They were they out rebounded us, I thought, early. And again, I thought our pace allowed us to be able to continue to rebound with them even though we were undersized compared to them. And Mark Well stuffed the sheets again. He was probably I I know at one point they had nine rebounds, nine points, three or four steals, probably six assists.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

He could probably flirt with a quadruple double.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

He could. He could. Yeah, he absolutely could. He could he he was able to play multiple positions. I know he played on top of the the the one, two, two, or excuse me, the one, three, one that we were running. He ended up being obviously a huge rebounder. He and Jaharis, I thought Jaharis played his guts out yesterday, battled that big kid that was in there. And I thought that, I mean, I thought they I thought that everybody that played yesterday just battled and battled and battled. And we're gonna need that level of effort coming up. But the dogs were able to hang on and say hang on. I I felt like we pulled away at the end too. Felt like if we'd had five more minutes, we probably won by twenty. But we were again it was ten to twelve, thirteen, whatever it was. So it was it was a really good win. And with three or four minutes to go, it was I was still on edge a little bit about well, I mean, you know, you get a couple of turnovers and they hit two or three threes in a row, and all of a sudden this thing gets down to one or two possessions. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, you could heck, I've you we I've been seeing all these highlights with these games, especially in college now that they're in the uh the tournaments and the the conference tournaments, and these teams down well, look at SEMO, heck. They were up eight three minutes to go against Moorhead State and ended up losing.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Who ended up winning the OBC doing? Tennessee state. Tennessee state.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

Yeah, they smoked they smoked Moorhead State. It would seem like it was twenty or better. Yeah, they were a good team. SEMO had them on the ropes at home a week or so ago. I didn't see the Tennessee Moorhead, Tennessee State Morehead State game. I it was I didn't see it. I just saw that Tennessee State won, so they will be going to the dance. But back to the dogs now, on to the quarterfinals. I feel like, Micah, the dogs, we've been here now, it's our fourth year in a row. And I I hope we can break through this.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

This has kind of been So it was Cardinal Reiter the first.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Yep. Cardinal Ritter, then Viani, then Webster Groves. And now back to Viani. And you know, we we were kind of sitting around talking last night, and we're fans are a little frustrated that Viani have let's just say that. But these kids, there I only one kid on our team played in that game. It was Kobe. The rest of them didn't even play. They weren't even involved in the game, you know, back in 24, two years ago. And so yeah, two years ago. Three seasons ago, two years ago. But they're they didn't, you know, so it's not they're not going to have any knowledge necess now, they were probably there and watch, but it's not going to ring the same with them as after we just played them last year or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

So the Viani likes to shoot the three.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Viani likes yes, that is the the understatement of the year. They love to shoot a three. They have a seven-footer in there.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Does he get a lot of those rebounds off of the three?

SPEAKER_02 29:53

So we watched the I when I got home, I we got home about halftime of the Webster Grove game, so I turned it on.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

They suffocated Scotty Atkins.

Turnovers, Pace, And Rebounding Edge

SPEAKER_02 30:02

They did. They forced him right. He's a lefty, and they kept him out of the lane. He they forced him right. He took a lot of contested shots, and if those, you know, sometimes he makes those and they weren't going in that day.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

I feel like that had to be the game plan to play him, though.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

Mm-hmm. Agreed. No, I totally agree. And I mean, he's a he's a high-level Division I player, and you know, he he's a junior, so he's got one more year of this that he'll be able to wreak havoc.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

And then we really start rooting for him.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah, yeah, when he goes to Mizzou. That's right. That's right. So, you know, the key, we're gonna have and this is just Matt. I have no earthly idea of what our, but I mean, we're gonna have to contain their threes. We're gonna have to be able to contest their threes. And the way you do that is when you run our matchup zone that that you stretch that, and that's what that that zone allows you to be able to do. You're not chasing a guy around, so hopefully you can be able to be there on the catch. Now, we're gonna have to maybe double team their big guy, maybe put somebody in front, somebody in back. I don't I don't I don't know exactly what what we'll do, but we'll we'll have to block him out and rebound. We just have to. And hopefully, you know, again, that zone you're able to collapse it too, cut down on straight line drives or dribble penetration. And if they do and they kick, then you still got a guy there, right? That's again, that's the basic premise of that. I'm sure Coach will adjust it. I know he'll make some adjustments on what we do this week with them, and hopefully they'll we'll be able to get past this game. And I look forward to it. It's it's gonna be an immensely difficult game. It just is. It's not gonna be you know, we're not gonna turbo clock this team.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

No. I wish. Unless they're really off on shooting. And yeah, yeah, if they are and and the big guy gets in foul trouble or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Right, right. That's probably not how it's gonna work out.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

I know.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

But it's gonna be uh it's gonna be a nail biter and it's gonna at least it's on a neutral court. That is very true. I think even someone said that. At least we don't have to go up there and you know, they're that same backdrop that they see all the time, and the background and the floor and the rims and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

I would say Park Hills probably favors our gym more than like resemblance-wise.

SPEAKER_02 32:21

Man, it's been it's one of those It's kind of down in a pit kind of thing. Yeah, you kind of walk in.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Yeah, you walk up top and walk down.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Like mineral area.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Yes, and it's a little bit like the old popper bluff gym. Okay, yeah. They kind of that kind of that way it looks, yeah, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Bloomfield.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

Correct. Yep, yep. You come in, that's right, you come in above them and you go down to your seat. So game starts at one. I tried to buy tickets today and it said they don't go on sale till noon on Wednesday.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Well they maybe give them to the schools, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

I d I I don't again, I don't know. I'm not sure how they're doing that. I haven't heard I'm sure there'll be some announcements. Parents and stuff like that. Right. Right. I'm sure there'll be some announcements coming out on the school Facebook page and all that stuff. But I'm I I'm really hopeful of of us getting they're really, really good. I think we're really good too.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Hopefully just got a little bit more.

SPEAKER_02 33:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll hopefully that you know all our shots are falling.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

That's a key with us, is it is And they have been beat this year, so yeah, no, I mean they've lost five games.

Quarterfinal Preview: Vianney’s Threes

SPEAKER_02 33:35

It's not like they're unbeatable. Yeah, they're they're they're they're not superhumans by any stretch, but they're very good. And we're gonna have to play really good to beat them. I mean, just no two ways about it. And we got time to to prepare. I didn't, you know, Festus didn't have time to prepare for us, and we didn't have time to prepare for Festus and that, but in that sort of games, and we talk about that a little bit with with uh Coach Blue with Lane.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Yeah, he said it's a little different. They've got some pretty neat systems that they do.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

Wow, how cool was that they talked about. Yeah, they I don't give it away. Yeah, he'll he'll he'll get into it about how they do some of their scouting and things, and it's really cool. Uh he kind of breaks that stuff down, and it it's really neat how they do that, but it but it's very similar when when they play in their tournaments, as re you know, they'll play some of the same teams again, so they they have a body of work against them.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Did he say he played they played are there eight teams or six teams in it? I think I think there's maybe sixteen.

SPEAKER_02 34:35

Yeah, I think there's six.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

And they played four of them.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Right. Yeah. So they've got obviously a lot of scouting from their own games from them before, where it leads, but the teams they don't play, you kind of do what you can if you got a day in between and do some walkthrough stuff, and it's real, you know. I mean, that's all you get. You can't prepare for all six teams at the same time. You can, you know, there's some principles and things that you cover, but you know, inbounds plays and sets and stuff like that. You just have to, you kind of have to feel your way through that and talk through it before the game and during walkthrough. So the dogs will have plenty of time. Greg Hollifield is a master at preparation, and he will have his team prepared and ready to go. And and listen, they've got a terrific coach. His name's Kevin Walsh. He is a really good coach. They've got a really good program and they've got some players that can flat play basketball. So we're gonna have to be we're gonna have to be just tough and physical as probably as more than don't do what you do. That's right. That's right. We're not gonna change a lot who we are, but we we're gonna have to come out and really assert ourselves, and it's basically gonna be the team that can impose its will, so to speak. And that that would be the team that's victorious, frankly. And of course, we're hoping that the that the dogs are able to do that. I hope so. Well, Micah, let's let's ease out of the way.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Get ready to take a break.

SPEAKER_02 36:01

We'll take a break. And uh guys, stay around, if you would. Listen to to Lane. He is a wealth of knowledge. He's got some advice for kids that are some really sound advice for some kids that are looking to play at the next level. And he is he's a great person. He's a local Southeast Missouri boy, and he's gonna be doing big things. So put him on your radar. And guys, just stay with us here for just a second and get ready for our guest. Hey, thanks for sticking with us after the break. We have a a guy that's well known to our area. He may not be well known to Bulldog Nation, but he is somebody from our area that has some deep, legit roots in the hoops arena, and we are proud to have him on our podcast this week. And Lane and I go back several years. We know each other through a mutual friend and the no family. Of course, he's now part. I guess. Are you part of the no family or are they a part of yours?

SPEAKER_03 37:00

I I don't know. We got we we got a group chat that says no slash blue family. So I was gonna say, it's kind of like the mafia, man.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Once you're in, you're kind of in, you don't get out, right?

SPEAKER_03 37:14

No doubt. No doubt. I got initiation from Chase, so he beat me up when I was in high school.

Neutral Court, Tickets, And Travel

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Right, right. All right, let me read our intro about our guest. Today's guest has Southeast Missouri Roots, a legit basketball journey. He's making noise at the high level of college hoops. Lane Belou is a head men's basketball coach at Gulf Coast State College. His first season leading the Commodores, he guided them to a 23-10 record and a run to the FCSAA Region 8 championship game while helping nine players earn scholarships to four-year schools, including seven to Division I programs. Lane's story starts a lot starts a lot closer to home. He's from Advanced Missouri, played for the legendary legendary Gene Best at Three Rivers and Popper Bluff, and then finished his playing career at Ole Miss. He later joined Ole Miss staff as a GA and was part of the NCAA tournament season, tournament team before coaching stops at Mississippi Gulf Coast and championship level Chipotle. Lane brings the same Southeast Missouri toughness and humility everywhere he goes, and I'm excited for you all to hear his story, how he got into coaching and what he's building at Gulf Coast. Lane, welcome to the Doghouse. Yeah, I appreciate it, man. Thank you guys for having me. Absolutely. It's been quite quite a run for you. So you graduated high school in 1414. 14, okay. So you and Hannah graduated the same year then, right? We did. We did, yep. Now I'm trying to think back, and I didn't do my research on this. She was an all-stater once or twice, right?

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Yeah, definitely our senior year for sure. I'm I don't know about junior, maybe possibly, but definitely our senior year. Were did you were you all-state as well? Yep. Yeah, we were we were both all-state. She was the one year she was player of the year for volleyball and basketball, and then I was the Southeast Missourian player of the year, also my senior year, and then Advance was class two at the time, so I made the the all-state team for that as well.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

Okay, that's the reason I was asking, because my good friend Brian James, who's one of the assistant coaches for Sykston, his wife Emily was an all-stater in basketball Kelly, and she always says, you know, there's only and he played basketball in Sykston. She goes, you know, there's only one all-stater at our house. So but you can't say that. You can't say that at your house. Um so you played high school, obviously, you had lots of accolades at Advance and all that stuff. So tell us a little bit about the basketball community in Advance. I I know a little bit about it. I know go back in the like 50s and whatever, they had a huge, you've got a long history there. Do you know tell us about some of that and how how that shaped you kind of what you what you were doing in at at Advance?

Streaming Frustrations And Refund Tips

SPEAKER_03 40:01

Yeah, you know, you think of Advance Foods is you go back way back, you would say Pete Ritter, you know, who's an all-time leading scorer at SEMO as well. And he did, he was actually close to our family. And, you know, even when I was in high school, he was still playing horse with me and and beating me while he was 77 years old. And so he could really, really shoot it. And then, you know, he kind of fast forward to the 70s. You had the Cookson brothers coaching Carol and Ronnie, and went to the state tournament a couple times, won a few state titles, and then you know, had some good teams in between there, but really had kind of had a dry spell, you know, had a really good team in 2000 and won the Christmas tournament and and here at Roche House. Roche House, yep. Yep, yep. So he was there, and then in 2006, yeah, 2006, they went to the Final Four. And then and then really from there was kind of a dry spell until my senior year, and we'd kind of finished second in the district multiple times and couldn't quite get over the hump. Oren had some really good teams and Bernie prior to that, and and we won the district title my senior year and beat Oren, and then we played New Haven in the sweet 16 and beat them, and then played there for a chance to go to the final four and lost on a buzzer beater, unfortunately, in in elite eight. And so it was crazy. They got to hit the shot. That was his first basket of the game. And so we had we had we had hit a shot, went up by two, and they caught a timeout five seconds to go and advanced the ball up the court and threw it to the corner, and it got banged to three at the horn uh to end our senior year. But I think that breakthrough kind of started advance, you know, the next year they go to the final four, or the next year final, like they had a couple years from there on out. We kind of got over the hump and Coach Bubba Wheatley did a great job and kind of took off there for five, six years and did a nice job. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 41:53

And your brother was right behind you, right? And he played he was a good player as well.

SPEAKER_03 41:57

Yeah, he was a good player and and led his team and it was a part of one of the state tournament teams. And then he's actually their coaching now. This was his first year as an assistant, and they had a pretty big win improvement. You know, I think they only won about five or six games last year, and I think they were like 16-12, 16-11, and and and lost to Pucksco in the district semifinals. So hopefully trending for advance to get back in the mix and and him and my old teammate Ethan Barr did a nice job this year.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

I did not realize Jack was coaching there. That's cool. That's really cool for guys to go back and do that, have that passion for that. Yep. Yep. So so when you so you you played at Three Rivers, obviously you played for Gene Best. I mean, the guy's a legend. You played there. I know you went to Ole Miss for a couple of years and did your GA thing. What was there a time when you were like, man, I really want to like I want to coach? You know, I'm probably not gonna go to the association, as they say. What what was there like a watershed moment that you're like, man, this is what I want to do kind of thing, or have you known about that the whole time?

SPEAKER_03 43:02

Yeah, as I was in high school and and high school was kind of winding down, I knew I wanted to coach, but I didn't really know what level. I thought about just coaching high school ball and maybe coaching advance or trying to get a job in southeast Missouri and trying to do something like that. And and honestly, I I knew I wanted to coach, but didn't know what level. And when I got to Three Rivers and got around Coach Gene Best, and I actually took a basketball coaching techniques class that he taught there, and then obviously was around him every day at a practice standpoint. I decided then I wanted to be in college. I just everybody's kind of like-minded, you know, you're kind of recruiting your team. Everybody loves basketball, competitive, and I actually had a Sykes and Bulldog roommate, Vashawn Ruffin, my first year. And so Vashawn and I were super close, and you know, he ended up being our wedding later on. But I knew when I when I got to Yeah, when I got to Three Rivers, I knew I wanted to to do the college thing. Didn't know what where that would lead or how it would shake out, but While I was playing at Three Rivers, my roommate, we had Vishon as a roommate, and then a guy named Eustace that was from Lithuania. And Eustace blew up. He came over here off an email, and we go to our first deal, and he blows up, gets all kinds of high major offers, super athlete, really good player. And so all these high major coaches are coming in, but he doesn't speak great, great English. So they're talking to me a ton. And that's kind of how the thing with Ole Miss came about is they're like, I was talking with Andy Kennedy, and he ended up eventually offering me a spot at Ole Miss and ended up earning a scholarship at Ole Miss. But yeah, my Lithuanian roommate coming over helped me get into Division I at a high level in the SEC.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

So Mess is kind of known for foreign players, isn't he?

SPEAKER_03 44:49

Yeah, he definitely has had some over the years and had a lot of success. And so Eustace was really good, and and I definitely benefited from him being there.

Preparation Week And Coaching Adjustments

SPEAKER_02 44:58

You know, there's a it's a funny story about Kent uh AK, and I call him AK like I know him. I don't know him, but he's got some there's some ties to him to Southeast Missouri, and I'll tell you how. If you remember the twins that played here, Owen and Parker Long came from Alabama. Uh their dad is from here, from Sykston, went, went to school here. Now he moved, they moved to Alabama when he was I think he was a sophomore. His dad's name, their dad's name is Carter Long. Carter played at UAB with with Ken with AK, as he called it. Yeah, way back in the day, back in the early 90s. Carter, see, Andy was a couple years older than him. And but he said, I mean, they had some really good teams back in the early 90s. That was when they were in Conference USA. I was gonna say Conference USA. That was like UAB, Cincinnati, Memphis. I mean, they had some squads back then. They were all like top 20 teams, top 25. And so they had some battles during that time. Was that Michael? Was that when Corey Fraser played at SLU as well?

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Corey played probably right after that, like at SLU, but Carlos McConnell was there because that's Anthony Hardaway was at Memphis at the time. Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

Corey was in the 90s, AK was late 80s. AK was was at he played his freshman year for Jim Valvano at NC State and then transferred transferred to UAB for the next three years, but it was it was the late 80s.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Yeah, it was a it was it would have been late 80s, early 90s. He he might have been there like 91 or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

Corey graduated in 94. Oh, okay. So he was at 40. But Carlos was at Carlos Macaulay from Charlton was at uh Salu in he was he came out in '92. So 93, 93 season would be his first year. So I remember in Carter and Jeremy was there briefly.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

So Jeremy Biles. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So when you all right, so let's go back. So your coaching was there something like when did you so how many years were you GA at O Miss?

SPEAKER_03 47:09

One year, two years? Two years, yeah. As soon as I got employed, I was there two years to get my master's degree, and so that was kind of the the time that I was there, or a lot of time.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

And then right after that, you went to where?

SPEAKER_03 47:21

Uh right from there, I got a job with Coach Tim Ryan at Mississippi Gulf Coast, down near the coast of Mississippi Biloxi area, a little bit north of there. But Hannah and I lived in Gulfport Biloxi area, and I just drove to work every day, but was there for two years. The first year was COVID year, so we didn't play until after Christmas.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

And it was a shortened season. What kind of a wild first year to be honest, and then the second year we had a good amount of success, and and then I uh I ended up going to Chipolla from there and and was there for two seasons. Now where's Chipola? Chipotle's in Mariana, Florida. It's about an hour north of us here in Panama City.

SPEAKER_02 47:56

Okay, okay. And that was with is that with Donnie Tyndall, is that right?

SPEAKER_03 48:01

Yep, yep. Worked for Coach Tyndall for two years as his associate head coach.

SPEAKER_02 48:05

And he's had he's had a lot of success. He's been at the high D1 level, right? Or at Tennessee? Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_03 48:12

And he had worked with I had my G8, I worked for Kermit Davis, and they had worked together at LSU and at Middle Tennessee. And so we had some mutual contacts, and that's kind of how that came about.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

I was gonna say, in in that area of coaching, it seems like they're the contacts not always, because we we talked to Brad Korn. Uh we had Brad on this summer, he and Biley Palmer. And what'd he tell us, Micah? How how did he come to the CMO job? It was something similar to that. It was somebody reached out to him, kind of a I can't remember who Brady Burke at SI University.

SPEAKER_03 48:49

You know what? Maybe that was it. Maybe they reached out to him. Hey, you guys gotta get your info up. I got I got but so far I'm I'm beating you guys up on info.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

Oh, you can do that, you can do that all the time.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

Well, and we had, you know, we had we had them one and Brad, you know, talking to him. Then we have Briley Palmer. Do you know Briley? Yep, I know Briley. Yeah, she recruited Hana a little bit. Yep, yep. She's and she's from the Farmington area, and they're they're doing a good job. Matter of fact, they played today in the women's. I had I didn't even see the score yet. They were I think they played at noon or one today in the OVC tournament. I didn't see how they how they finished. But I then the men they play tomorrow night, I think. But anyway, so that was your that was your first deal. So what what's different about kind of being the guy next to him and then now you're the guy. I mean, you you are the dude. How how how does that what's the difference between those two?

Guest Intro: Lane Below's Journey

SPEAKER_03 49:43

I mean, there's no chance either that I would have been able to get this job if we wouldn't have if I wouldn't have got to work for Coach Tyndall and be at Chipola. I obviously learned a lot, got to recruit some players that you know to the league, kind of see what kind of guys that we needed. We won the conference both years. The second year we won the region, we went to national tournament both years. And, you know, it's so competitive. We we went 58 and 10 while I was there and and started one year 21 and oh, number one in the country, and had a plethora of guys go division one and really just learning how Coach Tendall operated on a daily basis and did a great job. I learned a lot. I learned a ton while I was there. And so each guy that I've worked for has been a little different in their own ways, and and you know, I wouldn't have got the Gulf Coast if we did not have success at Chipolla in the league. And so fortunately the AD wanted to hire a young guy, and so that eliminated a lot of people, and and I think there was like 180 people that applied for this job, and and no kidding, I was lucky enough to to get it. So very fortunate and and we've had a good good run since I've been here so far.

SPEAKER_02 50:48

So how do you obviously I I was when you left while I go, I was looking at your board. Look like you're very structured, and I think you have to be structured at that level. You just can't you can't can't just roll the ball out. I mean, there's got to be some structure to what you do. Some I mean, do you what are your philosophies when it comes to like structuring your practice or what your team looks like, or how what does that look like?

SPEAKER_03 51:15

Yeah, really kind of you know, we have some base stuff that we try to do, but every day we we keep we continue to do skill work throughout the whole season. So usually the start of practice, we split up guards and bigs that are doing 15 to 20 minutes of skill work and then come together and do some team stuff together, toughness drill, rebound and bubble, whatever it may be. This time of year we can't go quite as long. So I'm really trying to emphasize what we what we want to emphasize, and then we play. You know, we're not playing as long this time of year, but four-minute competitive games, three or four of those, and stuff like that. And so it kind of really depends what time of year it is, how much how long we're going or what we're doing. But, you know, this year's been taxing mentally and physically for our guys. We've had the league was as good as it's been since I've been here. We had four team, four teams out of five were top ten in the country all year. And so every night you're having a battle, and and I could feel that from the guys and since it. And so we took Sunday and Monday off completely, which we haven't really done all year. And Tuesday was a little lighter. Today we had a full practice. Tomorrow we're gonna go go a lot lighter, and and Saturday probably do a little inner squad, but you got to manage bodies. I think you've got to keep being competitive and and have pockets of competitiveness, but you're not able to grind them two and a half hours this time of year. You're you're sometimes being counterproductive.

SPEAKER_02 52:36

A lot of the stuff that we talk about on here, we talked with Coach Hollifield's kind of we we we we compare it, not compare it in a way of like you you've done, you know, him what what you've guys done, but he's the exact same thing. He's like, man, we this time of the year, I mean, they played, you've got played what, what are y'all, 26 and 4? Was that right? Uh 24 and 6. Oh, 24 and 6.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

Yep. And you guys, did I read that you got into your tournament or you got into the to the region by 24 and 6? That's what it too. You said you had to win the last game to get in?

SPEAKER_03 53:09

Yeah, well, our our league, man, only three three teams out of our five go to the region tournament. The other side of Florida's got a conference, and we come together. And I mean, as I said, we had four of our five that were top ten. When we started league play, all five teams were top 20 in the country. And so it was a grind. And we started out, we were five and two in first place, and we go on a little skid and lose three in a row, but you're losing a number five in a country. I mean, it's tough. So we're five and five, and now we're going in the last week of season, and we've been top ten all year long. And if we lose one game, our season's done. We got to win both to get in the region tournament. So luckily, our guys found a way. We won two games last week, and it's just kind of crazy. We won two games, or our season was done, and we get in the tournament today, and we're the two-seed for the region. So, like, we could have been out. We could have been out if we lost Saturday, but we're in and we're the two seed. So it's just the league's really respected. It's a hard league. Everybody's got good players and really well coached, but hopefully it prepares us for this region tournament and hopefully more postseason play after that. So where do you play your region tournament? It'll be in Niceville, Northwest Florida, a little bit north of Dustin.

SPEAKER_02 54:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And so is it everybody goes there? It's a it's a neutral site, essentially.

SPEAKER_03 54:30

Yes, but no, it's neutral for seven teams. Northwest is in it, and they got the home gym, but uh it's just it's really about availability. It's not anything they've done wrong. It's you've got to be able to house 16 teams, eight girls' team and eight boys' teams. And so there's only a handful of places that can do it. The teams down south, you got spring training going on, so hotels are astronomical. So they're probably the best place to do it. It's a Division I like arena, and and you know, got a good crowd, fan base, and and it'll be a good deal. It's a cool thing.

SPEAKER_02 55:01

And you told me the other day we were talking, you don't play till March 11th, is that right? Yeah, yeah, we play next Wednesday. So weft. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:13

How can we tune in and watch that? I can send you a link. They stream all the games and and you can watch the whole state tournament. But I mean, it's good basketball. I mean, every team's gonna have six, seven division one guys on it.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

Yeah, so what does the bracket look like? Is it like just a state tournament, or I mean, I know that Three Rivers is going to the like the national championship or JUCO. Like, where do you go from state?

Advance Roots And High School Breakthroughs

SPEAKER_03 55:36

Yeah, they're actually Three Rivers is in the region, which is our region, and we call it state tournament, state region tournament. But everybody plays in a region, and then our league usually gets the winner goes, and then usually gets two at-larges. There's eight throughout the country. And so, like I said, we got a handful of teams in the top ten. Somebody's not gonna win it, but they're worthy of being one of the best 24. So usually we'll have a winner from our region eight, and then two at-large at least, if not more.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

So is that the same region that Three Rivers is in?

SPEAKER_03 56:44

Because I'm Three Rivers is in the room. Well, they're 16, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, they're 16. So they play uh they play at home, they host a home game. I think they play State Fair, and if they win, they'll play the winner of Menor Area and West Plains.

SPEAKER_02 57:00

Okay, okay. And then you have to win that tournament to go to Hutch, is that right?

SPEAKER_03 57:05

They have to they usually have to win, and then they have to play Region 4, which is like Illinois, Chicago type teams. Our deal is like we have a couple more teams in a region tournament. If we win it, that's it. You're at Hutch. If you don't win it, then you should have a chance to get an at large, depending on your body of work from the season.

SPEAKER_02 57:25

That's what you're talking about. Okay, okay. So it's it's that tournament and then to hutch, is what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:33

So the tournament is a four four bracket, like for the the region.

SPEAKER_03 57:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

Like four games. Four games. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

Ours will be three. We got eight teams in it, so it'll take three to win it all. Single elimination.

SPEAKER_02 57:47

That's what I was getting ready to say. So there's no double elimination, it's win, lose, and go home, essentially. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. So when you were you're tell us a little bit about, let's go back a little bit. Tell us how playing for Coach Best was. I mean, the guy's obviously all kinds, I mean, he's a legend with you know, number of wins and all that stuff. Tell tell us how how it was, how was the recruiting crop process with him? Did you know you wanted to go there? Tell us all about that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 58:17

Well, really, to my point earlier, I wanted to get into coaching, and so didn't have a ton of opportunities, had some at lower places, but I grew up kind of going to Three Rivers games and went to their camps and whatnot and saw how good of a level it was. And and I knew Coach Gene Obviously was a really, really good coach. And so I went over there my senior year probably 10 to 12, 15 times and played pickup with their guys and trying to get an opportunity. And they ended up offering me a walk-on spot in like say April or May. I went there for the summer, and in August I signed a Full Ride Scholarship. And so kind of went over there and earned it, and they respected the work and grind. And I'm just appreciative they gave me an opportunity. But that was kind of how the recruiting went. My uncle played for Coach Gene Best there. My grandpa played at Three Rivers on the only team that Gene Best didn't coach until a handful of years ago. And so we grew up going there a lot, and I wanted to go there mainly because of Coach Gene and trying to get into the coaching thing and learn as much as I could. And and I got exactly that. I didn't know how it would shape out with, you know, I didn't know I'd go to Ole Miss or anything like that. But I knew I wanted to go there and try to learn as much as I could, and I'm super appreciative that I was able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 59:33

Yeah, yeah, for sure. That do you use some of the things that he went through in his practice? Because the reason I say that, like Will Hollifield from here, I know he played there. He said that he had some pretty intense conditioning, I guess, is what he talked about. And and some of the practices were tough. Are there let me ask you that as well, but has the NC NC JCAA for a while there, it seemed like you could kind of practice as long and as much as you wanted. Is that has that has that some of that changed now too?

Three Rivers Under Gene Bess

SPEAKER_03 1:00:08

Not a ton. I mean, I think to our what we talked about earlier, you can't just kill the guys, you know, every single day. But I think the biggest thing I took from Coach Teen was just the competitiveness and the detail of everything that we're doing every day. And Coach was big into rebounding and defense and had a lot of toughness drills and some great stuff for big guys with getting better hands and a lot of different stuff, you know. But the the forefront of everything that that we did there was tough, hard-nosed, physical, kind of blue collar. And I think I've implemented a lot of that in our program. It may be a different drill, but same mindset, you know, as as we had there.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:45

Right, right, right. Is there are there any stories you can share about Coach Bess that sort of family friendly? Actually, he's a very I know he's a very devout Christian, and so I I understand that his language is clean and all that stuff. So probably from that side of it, you there's you can say a lot of the things, but are there any stories that you could share that were that are worth sharing?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:10

Bashawn may or may not have got kicked out once or twice for saying a cuss word.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:14

No, I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:16

But uh it was I'm trying to think, man. I'm trying to think anything. I I'll tell you one like that sticks with me that's super funny. Like, obviously, you know, in high school, you know, when you're in a small town, especially you're one of the best players or whatever, you you kind of get by with some stuff and able to do different things. And I throw a fancy pass or whatever, nobody's saying anything really. And I got there and I got on a two-on-one fast break and threw it behind the back, and a guy caught it and laid it in, and he stopped to practice, and he goes, I don't want to imitate his voice, but he goes, You're not an advance anymore. Quit showboating, just make the simple pass. Like, but it was just pretty good with the invitation, though.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

Yeah, he was he was that's a pretty good invitation. You parked at that.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:59

Yeah, he was he was funny in that regard, but that's probably the best one, honestly. And then another guy that was at my wedding, Jake Connington, when I was going over there to play nonstop my senior year. We won a game, and I'm going to get a drink, and he walks over to me, Jake does, and he goes, Hey man, pass the effing ball. And and so I'm laughing, I'm like looking at him like, is this guy serious? We just won the game. And I said, Hey, we just won the game. Like that and kind of popped right back at him, and I think it kind of gave him some mutual respect, honestly, and we ended up becoming really close, and he was in our wedding as well. But that was one of my first days over there as well, when I hadn't even been on the team yet.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:41

So you kind of had to you kind of had to fight for yourself, so to speak, then, right? No doubt, no doubt. Yeah, yeah. So how so kind of speaking of that, how is the you you're turning guys even more than high school, and you're turning them every well, every year, basically, not even every two years. You're turning them every year. How does how does that how does that affect your chemistry? How do you know who to look for, how to recruit, kind of all that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:10

Yeah, no, I mean we've had I don't think we've we don't have one guy on our team this year that played a second for us last year. And so it's a whole new team. Yeah, we've signed I have signed more high school guys this year. Last year I took a lot of division one transfers and was trying to be really good right away and kind of flipped golf coasts and the narrative and whatnot, and I think we did, and but this year I took a handful of high school guys. We actually only have three sophomores, and the rest are freshmen. So a lot of our impact guys are freshmen and younger guys in theory could come back for another year, and I think we'd really have something. Some of these guys already have Division I stuff and may move on, but as far as chemistry, that's probably the hardest part. But I give them examples of guys that we coach that got 10 points a game and sign high major, 12 points a game and sign at Kansas State. Different things, and they understand the league's respected and valued. And if you can impact eight to twelve points and your team's winning, you're gonna have a chance to sign a Division I scholarship. And so just keeping the main thing, the main thing, which is winning and playing the right way and being competitive and holding these guys accountable. But yeah, there definitely is a struggle with all that stuff. But I try to bring them in the summer and set the tone right away. And you know, some guys leave. You may lose a guy during the summer, you may find out in two weeks that that it's not for him, and he may bounce, and we've had that happen too. Not a ton, but that stuff happens. But we signed guys all the way up to school starting, and so I signed two guys in August this year, right before school started, and so but it helps if if you're winning, that always helps. Guys seem to fall in line when you're winning, you're losing, it's a little harder.

From Ole Miss GA To Juco Bench

SPEAKER_00 1:04:51

Oh, for sure. Talking about the recruiting, like can you explain to us the eligibility, like if you go to NCAA or JUCO, and then when you go to NCAA, do you lose eligibility when you play JUCO ball now? Yeah, yeah, they haven't came out.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:07

They've given they've given this this year's seniors got an additional year, so they're basically playing their fifth year. They haven't done anything moving forward with that. They've talked about it, but they haven't they haven't changed anything as far as that goes. They've talked about giving everybody five years, not counting one of your years of JUCO, but they haven't finalized anything. But the group, there's seniors that are playing in college basketball right now that played junior college, say four seasons ago, whatever it was, that got an additional year, you know, and are playing this season basically as a fifth year, but they haven't made a constant rule that's came into effect yet moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

But see, we we were under the impression that this was probably this was Well, the Pavier the when when Diego Pavier sued the NCAA.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:05

Did that change or no? Did I dream?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:07

People have people have won in court and went to court and done some things, but nothing has changed across the board. There's been individual guys in certain cases that have got it. I know there's guys that are playing their senior year right now that played JUCO for me two years ago that are trying to get in lawsuits so they can get another year. And why are they all trying to get another year? Well, they're getting paid, they're making money, like they wanna they wanna wear it out, you know, before the real world starts. So I can't blame 'em. I mean but

SPEAKER_00 1:06:34

Does Yuko have in all money?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:37

I don't think anybody's really doing that at this level. I mean, I'm not going to say I don't know 100% a fact, but not a ton. You know, I would sell to guys like, hey, you know, we had this guy here last year. This is how we improved him as a player. This is what he did, and now he's getting$100,000 at his next school. Hey, we had this guy, like our point guards going to TCU this year and and had Kansas and Oregon and all kinds of people in here recruiting him, and he's going to make life-changing money last year. And so we can sell that to guys. No, that's not everybody's reality, but you're showing them, hey, it can be done here. You can change your life here, not only financially, but from an academic standpoint, too. I mean, it's gonna be pretty cool he's got a degree from TCU in two years, you know. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:20

I I I'm I didn't think there would be much money at a ego level. I mean, like NIO, but I guess if they went out and got a sponsor or something on their own, they could still do that, right? Yeah, they could. They could. Like if they're a subway shop or whatever once a free state, I'll pay you to do something, you know, kind of we had a taco spot last year.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:44

I think we put them out of business. This this owner kept giving us free taco cards. He gave me like 250, 300 at a time, and I'd give them to the give them to the players. I'm telling you, they were wearing this place out, and I felt bad. I'm not saying we did, but I drove by and they're not in business. I'm like, I don't know, maybe he might have been giving out too many of the free taco cards.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:05

I think he was giving out more free tacos and not charging enough.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:11

But that was like an RIL deal, and they're out of business, so we we don't have any free tacos this year.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:15

Probably not too many businesses are gonna do that too long too long.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:18

Right, right. So when you when you switched from playing to being on a staff, you were still weren't the head coach yet. What's the what's the biggest difference? I mean, you're in the same locker room with the guys. What what's the difference? Tell us how that looks. You're like, man, you know, a year ago I was in here with you guys, you know, putting on my shoes and all that stuff, and now I'm on the other side. What does that look like?

Building A Program At Gulf Coast

SPEAKER_03 1:08:43

Really, my when I was a G, I was just trying to help the players out, maybe talk to them from a different perspective. I'm not coaching them super hard or anything like that. That's not really my role, but work out with them extra, guys struggling, getting some exercise, make sure they're getting a class, make sure they're in the right frame of mind. Coach may be on a guy super hard and he's down, and I'm like, hey man, I I mean, I know he's on you, but this is what he said to the coaches, you know, and like he believes in you, he thinks whatever it may be, trying to just help out in whatever way you can. And then, you know, scouting standpoint, helping with the scout team, you know, chopping up film with assistance, different things like that. Kind of just being a plug and play guy as a as a GA. That was my main responsibility there.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:03

Speaking of the scouting, how is do you guys use Huddle too? Is that a thing at the college level?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:09

I mean, it's uh Yeah, we you we use Huddle for our team stuff, like letting our guys watch film and things like that, but we have synergy is what the main thing that colleges use. And so I plug a game in, somebody clips it somewhere in the world, and the next morning every possession's broken down. They played man, they played zone, a mid-range jump shot, a three-point, whatever it may be, and and they have that for every college. And so that's kind of how we do our scouting.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:35

Like I can say, so the company does that.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:39

You pay you pay for the service, but they do it. But I could be like, hey, you know, let's pull all Matt Tanner's possessions and see what he is, and I can watch it in five minutes and have a pretty good feel for who you are as a player. Wow. And it's just clips of you, you know, or you can watch full games as well. But the clipping is what really makes it a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:59

Yeah, I was gonna say, uh just talking to, you know, like Greg and Brian and those guys, probably even when you played, or maybe even just before that, they used to have to go like if we were playing somebody in St. Louis, we might have to meet somebody in Perryville and exchange game film way back in the day to actually scout somebody. Or hey, we're playing in a week, you know, let's say we win our district, we play next Saturday, we you know, they'll start traveling to watch, yeah, going to watch them. You don't even have to do that anymore.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:29

Yeah, if it's a close game, like we have a by game, here I'll still go watch in person so you can maybe get a play call or I don't know, get a feel for something that maybe you can't see on film. But yeah, I mean the the technology is great, gives you all the analytics, shot charts. You know, you can see how many points guys are giving up when they play zone versus man, what percentage of defense they're I mean, it's uh it's a really in-depth breakdown of every player and every team. And you know, obviously you got to go out and still play the game, but you can have a really good feel for who they are before you play.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:02

Wow. I didn't realize that was a thing. That's uh that seems like some pretty good analytics to have the next morning. They do that that quickly? Yep. Holy cow. Yeah, you're do you have do y'all have a primary defense or do you switch a lot and and like do you run some sort of continuity offense as well?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:22

We play it, yeah. We play a matchup zone that's super aggressive. We we trap the dunker, we trap the post, we trap the corners, we can trap ball screens at time. It's it's really aggressive. It's not like a two-three zone where you're standing there with your arms out. Like it's a lot of man-to-man principles, and then we play some man as well, depending on certain teams, and we'll switch different things. We may switch one through five, we may stay solid with the five. We just really depends on who we're playing, what we're doing. I'd say our main D is the matchup zone, and and we'll mix in some man on on different occasions as well. And then offensively, I'd say, you know, we play really fast, we get the ball out super quick, we space the floor, we shoot 33s a game.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:06

Well, I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:06

But we have our our base is driving the ball. Like our paint touches to to good catch and shoot threes. Yeah, I mean, and so the the main thing is getting the ball out quick, having great spacing. We've obviously got a lot of sets, but you know, our point guard's really good, and that's made it easier on a lot of fronts, too, is he's a great passer and can score it. And so I don't know, you don't have to micromanage the game as much as maybe some years you're trying to manipulate it, but yeah, I I just try to teach guys to play the right way, man, share the ball and be unselfish and take good shots. And sometimes that adds a challenge to your point of what you said earlier about chemistry, especially on the offensive side, you know, trusting a teammate going one more, et cetera. And I think you've got to have success. You've got to show it when you do it right, and you've got to show it when you do that wrong, or you're taking bad shots, and you know, bad shots and live ball turnovers usually lead to baskets on the other end. And so we show good and bad based after every single game.

Practice Design, Load, And Competition

SPEAKER_02 1:14:04

Nice. So when you when you play your matchup two, three, typically the the attack on a two-three is kind of an overload, or throw somebody, they usually either flash from the opposite side to the high post, or some guys they run a circle kind of around the three-point line and running somebody in that high post. How do you how do you defend that if you've got somebody at the high post? Do you have the offside guard if it kicks to a wing? Does the offside guard cover that, or does your post come up because then you leave the baseline open?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:35

How do you we guard all based on alignment? So if a team's in a offensively a 1-3-1 alignment, which would be a point guard, two wings, high post, and a dunker post, then we're in a tandem. X1's in the ball, X2's choking the high post, the wings are high and wide, and X5's pulled or whatever dunker. If a team's predominantly four out, you know, where they got two guard spots, two corners, and one high post or whatever, then our X-5 guards the high post and everybody's matched like man to man. And so our biggest thing is honor where the ball is. You know, and the scouting comes into play. We're okay, we're playing Sykes and they're predominantly they got 200 clips versus zone, 180 of them, they're one-three, one offense. Well, all right, we're gonna be in fists, we're not bumping, we're not gonna bump the wings, we're gonna stay our tandem and take away the high posts. Or, all right, we're playing Charleston tomorrow, they're predominantly four out. Well, then we're gonna be fist two, bumping everything, and and it's really a lot more like man to man.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:33

Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Do you so do you run like on your breaks? Do you have a you said you like to push it? I haven't seen you guys play, but I assume you get the ball out of the basket, get it out of the net, and you're kicking it to a guard, to your point guard, and he's sprinting it up the floor, you're kicking up the floor. Do you run anything like a secondary break or anything like that?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:54

We have some stuff, but the main thing is we teach the guys spacing, run, fly in the floor, close this guy, takes the ball out of bounds as quick as possible.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:01

We okay, so you don't have a post to whoever, just it's whoever's there.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:05

Yeah, we practice in a preseason with a shorter shot clock. We may play like, you know, four on four on four with a 14-second shot clock or whatever it may be, and play a little bit faster, take it out quicker. It looks like chaos in preseason, but eventually they get used to playing at the at that pace. And and you know, we run and get to the corners. If you're the five-man and you don't get the rebound, you got to rim run, get out dunker, opposite dunker. If you're the four-man and you don't rebound, you rim run, get out opposite corner. Twos and threes are just filling the spots, whether that's the slide or the corner. And we're just trying to constantly flatten the defense, you know, get them to the baseline and and stretch the defense out. So that's our biggest things.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:47

I didn't know. Coach Oliph would runs something similar. They try to he tries to push the ball up the sideline because there's a lot, there's some a little bit more space there. It's not congested in the middle. That this he got this from Bill Selfie said they run a called secondary break. He sprints it ahead, he gets an off guard. Whoever does it, not bringing the ball up the floor has a sprint to the ball side and get to the corner. They try to kick it down to there to get that defense, and then the guy who gets the rebound usually fills at the top, top of the like three-point line. They try to reverse it, you know, get the ball going side to side to get the defense move and too. That's kind of the and typically, of course, especially at the high school level, and it's different because at JUCO and Division I or whatever you all five guys can play, right? I mean, let's just be real. They're not going to be, you're not going to have a I mean you're going to have a weaker link, but you're not going to have some kid out there that know what he's doing. But at this level, if you have that that your your four, your five rim running, he can score 15 points a night just running the floor like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:46

But it sounds like you've got some bigs running too. Yeah, we try to recruit athletic fives. We don't have any fives that are stiffs, all of them are 6'7 to 6'10 and can run and jump. And so we just think the game's faster too in junior college than a lot of levels. And so we want somebody that can move and run and jump, and we try to make them better players. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:06

Now, do you recruit that particular area? Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, or do you wherever you gotta go is wherever you got to go kind of thing?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:17

Yeah, everywhere. Georgia's definitely probably the hottest spot, like kind of in this region. Ton of good players in Savannah and Atlanta. And I mean, you can go to about anywhere in the state and find some good players. But I mean, we've got guys this year from Guinea, New York, Baltimore, Florida, Minnesota, France, Lithuania, Gambia, where else? Virginia, DC. So, I mean, we got guys, Texas, we got guys from all over. So the positive is our our school is pretty well funded, and we can fly a lot of these guys in. And I usually, for the recruiting, I I'll watch them. I may watch a highlight. If I'm intrigued, I'll get a full game tape. I'll watch a couple games. If I'm still intrigued, then we try to get them to campus and let them spend two days here and play pickup with our guys and get a feel for them as a person, take them out to eat and all that, and and see if they fit what we're trying to do or not.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:11

I was wondering if y'all traveled for that.

Surviving A Brutal League And Seeding

SPEAKER_03 1:19:15

I do. I do get out and travel some, but honestly, I try to bring a lot of them here because I don't know. Uh you can go watch a kid dominate in a high school game, and they're not gonna they're not gonna come here and maybe they dominate, maybe they don't, but you're not expecting them to score 30 when they come in, but can they fit in? Do they look like they belong? Does their body, are they physical enough? Are they athletic enough? Like you can tell a lot, even with them at them scoring or or whatever, make they may not be playing there even their best, you can tell if they they're supposed to be on the floor or not. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:49

Now, do you have somebody there at your school that does the strength training and stuff like that? Or is that something you have to do too? I mean, at a I know at a JUCO, obviously you're not at a you don't have a budget of a University of Alabama or University of Georgia kind of thing. How does that work?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:05

You know, obviously being in it as a player at Ole Mess at the SEC level and NGA, and I uh I work closely with the strength coach there, and so he built this, helped me build a plan, and and I've kind of just updated as years ago. Our assistant coaches, most of our guys have at least done it or some experience. It's not obviously a legit strength coach, but you know, sometimes at this level you're doing a little bit of everything. And so our assistants are all in there and got great energy, and we split them up into groups and got music going, and and the guys enjoy it. I think they actually like the lifting and getting their bodies better. And you know, a lot of guys that come to us need to gain 15 or 20 pounds, and so we're trying really hard to do that, and and majority of our guys do do that. We get them protein shakes and all the stuff, and you get them lifting three to four days and and eating the right things, they can they can throw in some weight.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:56

Mm-hmm. Now, do you guys lift a like I assume you lift pretty hard in the off-season, like right now?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:02

Are you lifting as as much or we go about two days a week now, and off-season we're about four days a week. Yeah, yeah. Right now it may be a 30-minute lift as opposed to off-season. We may go an hour or four times and really hit it hard. But right now we're just trying to maintain, keep our strength, and and make sure guys' bodies are still moving and functioning.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:24

Yeah. Got I know their legs, like that's got to be a big deal toward this this part of the year. You got to make sure you're healthy and got some legs. I don't need to. Is your health pretty good? Your team health pretty good so far? Yeah, knock on wood.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:36

We got one one five man, that's a huge part of our team that's kind of dealing with it groin, and we're kind of holding him limited right now and trying to get him healed up. We've got some time, obviously, before we play again. And it's not the major, but just knickk knack stuff. We're trying to make sure guys are sure up and feel good going into next Wednesday.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:53

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So let's we talked a little bit about Hannah a while ago, and she obviously she played five years of Division I basketball. She played four at CIMO and one at Evansville, and I remember it was it was it was odd for me, and I'm sure it was really odd for her when we because we went up and watched her play at Evansville, playing at CEMO where she just came from. I know it was probably weird for her too. And are are you able to have some pretty good discussion with her when you get home? I mean, does she she give you her? I know she inputs on stuff. She's got to. I mean, she's a she was a hooper back in the day. How how does that work out?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:25

We don't usually wait till we get home. We usually, as soon as we're walking out of the gym, no, but yeah, she's saying, Wayne you sucked. You should have called a timeout or something, right? It's crazy, you know, when I got here that one of the main things, Chipot had been good, Northwest had been good, and they were like, we've got to beat, we want to be competitive with these guys. So last year, you know, we're 0-2 versus Chipotle, we got one more left on the road, and we're driving the game. And Hannah's like, You've got to beat Chipotle Lane. You've got to beat him. You can't get swept by Donnie. And we beat him on a buzzer beater. And so this year, this year, we're having a good year. We beat Chipotle. We're going into game three, we're driving the game. And she goes, You've got to sweep Chipotle Lane. You gotta sweep him. I'm like, I said, Dang, the expectations have changed quick. I mean, right. That's a positive thing, but she's been good. Obviously, she's she knows what's going on. And if we lose a game, you know, we're not talking a whole lot. You know, if we win, we're we're you know, talking about everything positive in the game and negative, whatnot, but she's got a good feel and and watched a lot of games with me.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:28

So I was gonna say that's that's gotta help you as far as having that. Obviously, you got your your your staff with you and all that stuff, but she's to me, she's like another, she could be like another staff member that that's right there with you.

Region Bracket, At-Larges, And Hutch

SPEAKER_03 1:23:44

Yeah, she's like I I joke with her. You know how when you're a kid or I'm sure Aaron's involved, like you've got a headroom mom, and they're like cooking rice crazy. She does that for our team, and so she makes some pasta and alfredo and and always taking care of them in that way, and got them some shoes at Christmas, and so she's kind of like a second mom here for our guys. I mean, and so she's done a great job with all that, and our kids are around the players and and they're nice to our kids, and so try to create a little bit of a family atmosphere. We've got so many new guys, and some of them away from home the first time. You don't want them to feel like they're out here on an island. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:22

That's a big deal. I I and of course I I know that's who she is. She loves kids. Gosh, she Luke would go over there and he'd spend a week, and I'd have to make him come home when he was little, and she I'm like, son, you got to come home some no, Dad. Hannah and Aunt Joe said I could stay, and I'm like, okay, whatever. So I and and I knew she loved kids way back then, so that's terrific. So how is that? I mean, you're right now is the high time, and you're probably well, you're still at the office. Here it is. I mean, you're taking time with me, and we appreciate it, obviously, but you you you're gone all the time or gone a lot. Do they go with you to a lot of the games and stuff like that too?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:05

Yeah, I try to involve them as much as possible. I mean, obviously, I'm I'm trying every day to be as best as good as we possibly can be for sure. But, you know, I they ride with me to the games. All of the games are pretty close. I I usually drive separate and we ride together. And, you know, like I said, we have the team functions. I'll bring them up. My kids are at every game, they're hanging out with the players. And so, yeah, I try to do as much as possible with them. And, you know, when I get done with practice, I go home and, you know, we're cooking dinner or Collins is helping cook dinner, Hannah's making dinner, we're bathing kids, and then usually when they go to bed, I'll spend some more time doing coaching stuff at night and try to knock that stuff out. But, you know, when I first when we first had Collins, I didn't think I did a probably did a great job of managing both right when we had Collins. And so I try to just put that stuff up when I go home right away. And sometimes we'll watch practice while we're eating dinner, you know, hook it up to the TV and everybody's watching it and whatnot. But I try to uh I try to turn that stuff off at least until close to bedtime, and then I'm I'm locked back in. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:13

That's I was gonna say, what what do you hope your kids, what do you what do you want them to see from you or what do you want them to learn from you while you're coaching? Have you have you have you thought about, I mean, are you it you know intentional? Obviously, you're when they're there, I'm sure you change the way you do things a little bit as far as trying to make it family friendly, so to speak, but yeah, what do you hope they learn from you while seeing you do that?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:36

I would say just probably work ethic and just grinding for what you want, you know. I mean, my parents worked extremely hard when I was growing up and provided for us and all the stuff, and I hope that I can do the same for ours. And nothing's easy, you know, if you want some. I mean, I walked on at Three Rivers, earned a scholarship. I walked on at Ole Miss, earned a scholarship. I worked for free at Ole Miss, earned a scholarship. Like, I took a huge pay cut to go to Chipola, and Hannah and was completely supportive of that. But, you know, you've got to chase what you want, and I hope they just see like the work ethic and grind that you've got to put if you really want to be successful at something. And, you know, my mom was influential in a lot of ways too. Like, you know, hey, do something that you love. If you're good enough at it, you'll make money doing it eventually. And so hopefully they just see the the work ethic and but also treating people the right way and doing things the right way as well. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:33

So when you were Mississippi Gulf Coast and Chipotle, now here are there specific things that some of those coaches taught you or that you picked up on? Like, did you pick up a specific defense? Like you talked about a 2-3 mainly and how you you're a matchup 2-3. I mean, when I hear that, the first thing I think of is Jim Bahim, right? He he ran that 2-3 matchup or matchup 2-3 at Syracuse for years and was highly successful at that. Was that what those what they taught you there? Or is that something that you're like, no, I really like that. You already had that in mind, kind of thing?

Scouting With Synergy And Film

SPEAKER_03 1:28:05

Yeah, a little of a mix, honestly. Like AK changed defenses a lot and kept people out of off balance. Coach Davis changed defenses a lot, but played some zone, probably more than most do. And then Coach Tendle was exclusively zone. And then Tim Ryan, my first boss, played a little bit of both. And so, and then Gene was all man-to-man. Yep. And so I don't know. I think I've been very fortunate. Like, all of them were really good in their own ways. Gene Best, Hall of Famer. Tim Ryan won a national title at this level. Kermit Davis was SEC coach of the year my first year. Andy Kenney is an all-time winners coach at Ole Miss. Donnie Tyndall was, you know, unbelievable at Division I. And then obviously he's at junior college killing it and trying to work his way back up. And so I I got to see a lot of really good things in different ways. And the main thing I've learned is you can be successful in a lot of different ways, you know, and so there's not necessarily just one way to do things. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:06

So what what's your vision there for for for Gulf Coast as far as all right I'm here now. We've we've won two years. What what do you hope to see in the next three to five or whatever whatever time frame you're looking at?

SPEAKER_03 1:29:24

Yeah for Gulf Coast, I mean when I got here I wanted to compete to win the region and compete to win the conference and try to make it to Hutch and hopefully compete out there. And so last year we came up just short. You know, we're tied for first place with three to go in the conference and we go one and two, the other team goes two and one. So we get second we make it to the region or one possession away from Hutch and a region title we fall short.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:47

You know and so I thought we're given that large to Hutch last year then?

SPEAKER_03 1:29:52

Unfortunately not we missed out I think, yeah, I don't know if he is saying or not, but the the head of the committee said we missed it by one spot. And so yeah, unfortunate deal. But it gave us some juice going into next year and hey this is what we got to do different, et cetera. And so this year we at least got a share of the conference title which is goal one. Now we're about to start goal two which would be a region title and then hopefully goal three which would be a national title at Hutch. And so obviously you got to have some luck and catch some breaks to do that. But I think our team's as good as anybody if we're playing the right way. You know I'm not saying we're a sure thing to win it all but we're more than capable if we're playing the right way. Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:33

What was one of the hardest things you know as a first year coach I mean you're looking back you're two years in now as the guy and we talked about that a while ago you know the it's different than sitting in the seat next to the guy because at the end of the day you've got to decide you know do we call timeout here you know all those things. At the end of the day I know you got help and input and all that stuff but what's what what was one of the first the hardest things you had to learn as a first year coach?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:00

You know, as it says that you're making decisions but they're not always used. Sometimes they are sometimes they aren't you know but you may freely make a decision and there's really no pressure of that. You know what I mean? And so now everything's kind of on you and you make a bad decision during a game or or whatever it may be, it's right on your shoulders. And so you know I think you don't even know what you don't know until you get into it. I think I'm a lot better this year than I was last year at a ton of different things. I've still got a million miles to go but the hardest thing for me was probably managing practice time and bodies. When I was at Chipola we had 15 guys and a couple walk-ons here we've only got we've got a few less scholarships so we've got 12 and then maybe one walk-on and so like if my best player if we play 20 minutes at practice he's playing 18 19 minutes at practice at Chipola our best player may play nine to 10 minutes and you're kind of keeping him fresh so understanding in division one you got more players so that was probably the hardest for me was balancing the bodies how long to go practicing hey should we take off should we go this day do we need to go hard and you know different things of that nature but I would say we got a much better feel this year in year two of what we need to do. So speaking of that do you know who you're going to play on March 11th? Indian River we played them earlier in the year and and it was a close game they've got a nice team and so it'll be a hard game but hopefully we can pull it out.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:29

So but you're but but you can scout so you're going to be really prepared for them and put in inbounds defenses and whatever you're going to scout them and really know what their tendencies are then.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:42

Yeah 100% I mean we got a 30 game sample of watching them play and so on all online so we'll work day and night over the next few days to make sure our guys are as prepared as we can be because the sickening feeling as a coach is if you you don't cover something or don't don't go over something preparation wise and they score on it or something happens and your guys weren't prepared. One play could be a difference in winning and losing and so you're not going to be able to cover everything but you want them to have a good feel and be confident going into the game that they know what to kind of expect.

Matchup Zone Philosophy And Spacing

SPEAKER_02 1:33:12

Micah and I have talked about this a lot we hear Coach Hollyfield talk and the things that he says you know he's obviously had 30 plus years of coaching but he always tells his team he said you win them and I lose them and he said the reason I lose them is because when we lose I didn't prepare you. And so I think that's you and you said it you didn't say it those exact terms but you said it you're like oh my gosh we should have gone over that or we should have gone over that inbounds play or whatever. I didn't tell them about this or we didn't cover this that's the that's where you you know that's what leaders do. They say man that was on me we I didn't prepare you right. And so that's that that's the tough part that I think that if you've got so you've already played 30 games so the the the tougher part to me and Mike and I talked about this even with the short season for the next game yeah you can't prepare for somebody you might play two days later I mean what can you do in two days right and but you're lucky we've played we've played Northwest Chipotle Indian River Dayton so we've played four of the seven teams possible already this year.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:21

So you have some feel and then we advanced scouts so I'll have a coach will have he'll have a complete scout done on one team and we may not play him I'll have another coach have this team done and we may play him. You know and then a couple teams that we played in the conference that are in the tournament like we've already got a great feel for them. We may update a few things based on how we played them the last game whatever but really you're just trying to get as much info as you can and get prepared for the other teams that you haven't played as much or played at all. But all our we split that up this morning and we've got more than enough time to put together a good plan for every possible team that we may play.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:57

Yeah. So like next week Wednesday you play well the next game like you win play the next day is that kind of how that goes or we got Thursday off and then we'll play Friday.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:07

And then if we win we'll play Saturday.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:09

And that's not a ton of like you can't prep certainly from Friday to Saturday how can you prep? I mean you can look a little bit of film or something but that's not true prep so to speak at that point. But but I mean everybody's in that same boat.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:20

It's not just you guys how do you how do you try to do that? You've got to emphasize what you think is important. You're not gonna be able to cover everything but there's a couple things you think are super important about how their team plays whatever it may be you've got to try to get that message across hey this team's an elite offensive rebounded team everything they do is toughness. Hey this team is great in transition we've got to put them in half whatever you think it is you've got to really really emphasize that you don't be efficient man don't waste your time on stuff that that may not be as important.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:50

Yeah at that would you cover something like that in a walkthrough or something I mean if you're going if you're going day to day you're gonna have a walkthrough in the morning or something but you're not have time to really have a hard practice or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:01

Yeah the positive is for us is like okay we play Indian River first round we played them and then we're gonna have a more in-depth scout because that was early in the year. But we played them. If we win we're gonna play Daytona or Eastern okay we played Daytona so this week we really got to get a good feel for Eastern but you know if we play Daytona we've already played them. And then if we win that game we're probably gonna play Northwest or Chipolla who we've already played three times apiece. So you know it's not probably not as it is a challenge but probably not as much as you guys would think.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:33

Yeah yeah but as usual and you've got a little bit of time leading up to it you can kind of prepare you know maybe not say you're working for that toward that specific team but put some things in you know 100% 100% if you've got a kid if there's a kid in our area or anywhere says man I really I love basketball good player what what's what's uh just some advice you give to them about how to get to JUCO level to it doesn't matter and Mike and I talk about this all the time with kids use that I mean the the the stats and the numbers say basketball, baseball football golf whatever they say the numbers of you getting to a professional level say you're not going to get there, right? It's such a small number of individuals that get to that level like the NBA let's say yeah and so we stress hey you know make sure you you leverage your time at Gulf Coast or you leverage it anywhere to get a to get a degree and and better yourself personally but what what's something you would tell a kid like if like I want to play basketball at the next level whether that's UCO or whatever what would you tell them?

Pace, Rim Runs, And Shot Selection

Recruiting, NIL Reality, And Fit

SPEAKER_03 1:37:58

Yeah I would say you know obviously it always helps it's hard to get self-recruited like everybody's got a highlight now that wasn't really the case 10 years ago but you've got to have somebody probably vouching for you like if coach Hulfield calls Coach Kirby down at three rivers there's like an 100% chance that Coach Kirby's going to take the call listen to the call and and probably invite the guy over to play some pickup but I think that's the best way man is go put yourself in front of him and get seen and you know I know Sykston's always got some good players and Bashawn actually keeps me up to date on some of the guys and I watched some of those games I watched Sykeson play Jackson last year. I watched Sykston play a few times this year I know the number four kids really good athlete and Cape Central Yeah I was wanting to look at a kid at Cape Central and he hurt his knee and you're gonna watch him over Christmas break but I think he signed it in front Alabama. Yeah Micah we just we talked about that who'd he sign with someone down in the bill or somewhere wasn't it mobile yeah there we go there we go but yeah you know you got people everywhere that are watching like kids probably don't even understand that what who's watching them like Ronnie Dean's from Charleston been around division one forever he can tell me everything about every Southeast Missourian kid there is hey this kid had a bad attitude Ronnie yesterday Subway this kid was this kid was cussing at his coach whatever and so I would say my advice you never know who's watching you better be a good person as well as a good player because there's too many good players out there if you're a hassle or a problem there is a lot of coaches aren't going to take that on you know that's that's a that's great advice that's awesome that's awesome to hear that never know who's watching yep there were people and it's not even they weren't even scouts but there were people at the game yesterday and I'm like you were there so there are people they sneak not sneak in but they go in and sit in a corner just like you said and I see Ronnie all the time. You never know you really never know I mean Ronnie's everywhere he is everywhere. You just never know man I mean pucks my grandmother's name they were watching him the other day at Three Rivers like you just never know who's the kid at Pucksco like Three Rivers was there watching watching him like you just never know who may be watching and and you can hurt yourself. I tell our guys that all the time like okay Kansas and Oregon came in here to recruit our point guard are they watching everybody on our team no but do they have a friend at Missouri State or Arkansas State? Yeah 100% I've done it all I've done it a lot. I'll lead the gym and call somebody be like hey we can we don't need this spot or we can't take another guy like this but this kid's definitely good enough and call him Mississippi Juco or whoever it may be and help kids in that way but I can promise you if a kid's not acting the right way or acting messed up it's gonna be really hard. Yeah yeah that's that's great advice that's great advice hey we're uh we're about we're a little over an hour and I don't want to keep you so we got uh I sent you the uh the lightning round so we'll we'll get to some of those and and then we'll we'll bounce here we appreciate your time what's your advanced Missouri boy what's the best thing about being from advance I'd say the best thing is the worst thing small town everybody knows everybody which is a positive because you can always get help and people will always bend over backwards and that's also a negative because everybody knows everything at all times and so your business is everybody's business right no doubt no doubt Missouri's small what are you talking about like two that's true that's that's true I I think I know the answer to this one but I but I I want you to talk about it. Three rivers of Ole Miss toughest practice we've ever had or ever survived I guess three rivers there's so many restrictions there's so many restrictions like when I got to old miss for the first summer we can only get on the court for three hours a week right and one weights and I'm like this is it you know we're practicing like at three rivers we got morning workouts condition at three waits after that practice after that and then play it's like eight o'clock you're heading home like you know that that question kind of is there a big difference as far as like self-preparation from JUCO to to to um division one school I mean like pretty individual yeah I would say obviously you got better players there guys are older stronger all the stuff and you know stuff that you may have been able to get by with at a lower level you can't get by with at that level but I think the junior college is a mentality you're not eating these luxurious meals there's no hot tub for you to hop in after practice like you're having to kind of do it you know in a different way you got to have a little bit of mud in your blood and so I think I think Juco makes you extremely hungry if you utilize it the right way and when you get to that spot you know hopefully your division one you're gonna appreciate it more and you know we had a kid last year that I kept the only player I kept off the the team from the prior year when I first got here and he'd got four points a game and didn't have a great freshman year. We got 20 pounds off of him he ended up being player of the year all American and now he's uh an all-conference player for Arkansas State getting about 15 a game and so his life changed like that I think that's a cool part about but his mentality that Juco mentality like he didn't have a great year he's got it he's got to make it happen a sophomore year he's gonna be struggling to find a spot and to his credit he did the kid's name's Christian Harman and and he's had a great year for Arkansas State. But with like with like the limited time that coaches can spend with you at at Division I does that responsibility come on you as an individual player to do your own prep you know yeah you definitely have to do some stuff on your own but GAs are kind of that middleman you know they can watch film with you and work out extra with you on the court and you probably do a lot more individual stuff and workouts when you're at that level and you know you may pop in and watch 15 minutes of film with a coach or whatever but you definitely got to be efficient with what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:06

Yeah well I know like Blake talked about that being the difference between like being able to go straight out of high school to play in the minor league baseball is that prep was on him. You know I mean like what nobody telling there he's got to go lift weights or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:22

He had to do all that on his own and I was wondering if that kind of was like that at at college too well and too you're you're trying to continue your career guys trying to go play in the G League or overseas or whatever like there's good players. I mean you leave high school and get to college you're gonna have to beat good players out everywhere you go and it just gets harder harder.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:41

So they're always working too yeah exactly what's one word that describes Gene Bess Christian Wow that's a great I would say that too I mean I've met him a couple times and yeah wow that whole there's a whole community that they have over there and I'll be honest with you I got an opportunity to work in hospice and you know that whole church that he was involved in it really looked like a church.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:10

I mean I'll be honest with you because the people took care of each other you know some people everybody's got their own beliefs and whatnot and and you know everybody's unique and different but he didn't he wasn't just talking it you know he actually did it lived it was about it and so you know I got a lot of respect for that. Absolutely absolutely who's the first coach you'd call if you needed some advice Kermit Davis where's is where's Kermit now he he kind of floats between he's got a place here in Water Sound about 30 minutes away from me and then he's got a house in Oxford as well his daughter lives in Tupelo and so and his dad so they kind of bounce back and forth spend a couple weeks down here and he'll come to practice and whatnot and then back in back in Mississippi for some time.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:58

Is he out of coaching now?

SPEAKER_03 1:45:59

Is he retired essentially yeah yep he's been out for a couple years now okay okay what's the best compliment a player can give a coach a player can give a coach I would say and I know it's simplistic but I would say consistency you know you don't want to be different you don't want to treat people different you know you've got to coach players sometimes different ways and you can coach a different guy but just consistent with your approach ready to go every day I don't want anybody to ever come in here and think man coach was not ready to practice or we weren't ready for that game like you got to be consistent man we may get beat but I'm gonna do my job.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:39

Yeah yeah that's awesome what's the hardest thing for players to understand about roles on a team and and the role they may have I say specific to our level because you're always dealing with freshmen and sophomores is not everybody's role is the same.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:58

Everybody on our team probably had the same role in high school which was the best player and one of the main guys and now they're having to understand what can get them to the floor and keep them on the floor and sometimes that's a challenge for guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:10

It might have been the high school level like you said you might have been the dude that gets the ball to go get a bucket. Now it might be the guy that just gets on the floor or draws a charge which is totally different.

Strength, Growth, And Culture

SPEAKER_03 1:47:21

No doubt what's one thing that you still do that you did as a player kind of like do you do you have any superstitions simple but shower before every game like I go home after everyone and I know that's I'm like a I'm like a clean freak but like we've got a routine we play at 7 o'clock 7 30 like we have shoot around at 2 o'clock I'm done by 3 o'clock I'm home I eat I'm showering right before we leave for the game getting dressed and we're heading to the arena that's okay so that's what probably your third shower of the day I guess that would be probably second before the game one before work one there. But even when I was a GA at Ole Miss I'd run the locker room and shower before the games really that's funny that's funny last one what's the best gym atmosphere you've been in high school college whatever what's the best atmosphere you've you've been in two places come no three places really come to mind Hinklefield House at Butler we played Butler on the road great atmosphere Auburn we beat them twice a year they went to the final four a few years back but great atmosphere and then Arkansas and Arkansas I gotta give them their props like yeah I'm not an Arkansas fan but it doesn't matter if they're 11 and 20 or 25 and oh they got 2000 people there and just going crazy and and they got a great atmosphere man they love I know they love sports they really love basketball they can do what you forgot one question. It's like when he comes home to South when he when he comes home to southeast Missouri where's a must-eat place oh there you go sorry yeah I missed that one hand and I were talking about this it's not one I don't have one place I got about nine that we go to so we've got a rotation I love and this is controversial all my friends at Jackson Dexter are like Wibbs barbecue's the best and then other Dexter guys are like Dexter barbecue or Dexter Queen I love Dexter Queen. I like too I like a lot of pig cherry mountain dew but I go to Wibs too and I get a hot combo and a cherry coke and an apple pie but we love Watami we love emo's pizza I go to L taps and and uh Dexter like I I don't know I I love food man I got about six spots we hit every time we go home Hannah's like are you not tired of eating that I'm like nope I'm not so I'm trying to get somebody to to ship me some webs barbecues down like dry freeze them or something and ship them down. So if you guys can do that as payment for the show that'd be great. Just give me like six or seven okay oh so all right let's see here whibbs barbecue doesn't uh doesn't Mason live in Jackson he does but he doesn't like whibbs what he doesn't like with him he's sick he doesn't like it right right right there are any places to eat down there oh man there's a ton of good spots you don't like my favorite spot is probably I don't know if you guys do you guys ever come to Panama we go to uh Perdito a lot gotcha okay what's that probably what's that oh let me ask you this how far are you from Pensacola Airport? Two hours okay you know you can fly from Pensacola to Cape now don't you I didn't but we have we've also we fly from we got an airport here in Panama City where we go to St. Louis but which obviously a little dry but that's usually where we fly but there's a great place here called Captain Anderson's if you ever are in this area that's really good seafood but and there's a ton of spots I mean you can gain weight in a hurry here trust me On that.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:12

So how far, Panama City, how far are you from Pensacola then? It's like two hours, two hours depending on the city. So Perdito is two and a half ish, then probably, or maybe a little over, because it's a little further west than Perdito is. Okay. Okay. Alright, last one. Give me three people you would have for us on the show. You to tell us we should get on the show. Have you guys had Otto Porter? Have not.

SPEAKER_03 1:51:44

Dad or senior junior. Either one, but I'd maybe go junior since he's kind of fresh off plan and what he's doing now and whatnot.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:53

I may have to hit you up after, see how I get in touch with him. I'd love to have him on. That'd be awesome. And then I know he's a little bit older, but what about Ronnie Cookson? Man, I I'd love to have him as well. I heard he's not doing great physically. That would be my medication. We're hoping to Coach Mac. I'm trying to work with his schedule, get him on. I I know Micah knows. Well, you probably know Coach Mac, don't you? Lennis. Yeah. Yeah. We're trying to get him on too.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:25

And then what about again, another guy? I know he's a little bit older. He probably couldn't do an hour, but Gene Buzz.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:31

I'd I'd love to have Coach Bess on. That would be amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:37

We could we could we can uh filter this thing to make it make it simple for him to get on here. Yeah. Man Lane, it is good to see you. Aaron wants me to tell you hello. She is on her way. Oh well, she's looking on my watch. She's probably she went to Nashville to she's staying with her two nieces. Her brother. Have you met Joseph? I don't know if you met Aaron's brother or not.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:02

I don't think so, no.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:03

Actually, he is a Division I softball umpire. Nice. And lives, yeah. He's a real estate agent in or they're just south of Nashville. And he's gone this weekend in San Antonio somewhere at a tournament.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:15

This weekend he's coaching or um in a Texas St. L game.

Family, Balance, And Standards

SPEAKER_02 1:53:19

Yep. Yep, yep. Nice. We went up, we went up, watched him in the fall. He did uh did a preseason or um exhibition game at Mizzou. So we went up there, it was like in October, I think, and he called it Mizzou. It's pretty cool to Aaron's dad is Joe Baldwin. You probably remember Joe calling basketball, don't you? That's that's my father-in-law.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:42

Yep, yep. It's a small world. So we appreciate you, man. Tell Hannah hello. We got to talk to her last little bit. Aaron is now the delivery spot for Southeast Missouri for Hannah's boutique or whatever. We got a bunch of stuff that are some sweatshirts or something Hannah was selling. So we're the Southeast Missouri uh pickup portion.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:10

Yep, yeah. Them were thick shirts, man. They were like if you wore them down in Florida, you'd burn up. I mean, no doubt. You have to cut the sleeves off. That's right. That's right. They were nice though. I mean, like I kind of looked at them one day, they were laying on the table and was like, man, nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:26

Yep, yep, they're very nice. They're very nice. Yeah, she shipped them up here, and we're out there put that box out on the porch. I guess that's a thing now, man. People just come up to your porch and pick them up and move on.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:37

Yeah, everybody, everybody's tight on the shipping. I'm like, I don't know. The young the younger generation probably didn't even think about it. It's just so natural to order online and buy stuff like you don't think about it. A lot of a lot of people are a touch older are like, five dollars for shipping? You know, like no, spend spend 15 on gas. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:58

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, that's awesome. Lane, man, we appreciate your time. I know you guys played. You came up here was that late fall or first games of the year we played three rivers in the middle area. Yeah, are you coming back? Is that something you guys can maybe do again?

SPEAKER_03 1:55:18

Or I'd like to trip. I don't know if we would do the first weekend. I just thought it was going to be great games for us. I'd probably rather play home games to start the year, but I I would like I'm not opposed to doing a trip. I don't know. Maybe they'll give you a return to quality games. And yeah, they I talked with Coach Kirby. They may end up coming down here this year and flip-flop back and forth.

SPEAKER_02 1:55:40

Was that you said Mac, did y'all play? You played, so you played against Irons, Tony Irons?

SPEAKER_03 1:55:45

Yep, yeah. We went 2-0, fortunately. We were three rivers game went to overtime, was a really tough game, and then we were down in the middle area like 10 with about five to play and came back and won the game. Nice. So nice. Anyway, well, hey, thanks for having me on, though.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:01

I appreciate you guys having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:02

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:03

Absolutely, absolutely, man. We appreciate it. Now, you may not be able to say this, but at the end of our uh podcast, we end everything with go dogs, right, Micah? We do.

unknown 1:56:13

We do. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:56:14

And and you are who, Micah? You are Micah Harris. I'm Matt Tanner. Thanks for listening to The Dog House. Go Dogs. That's gonna do it for this episode of The Dog House. Thanks for hanging with us and showing love to Sykeston, where small town pride runs deep and Bulldog Grit never quits. Don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review, and share this with anyone who bleeds red and black. From the heart of the 573, this has been the Dog House, where Sykes' stories always have a home.