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Each week Lindenwood University Head Men’s basketball coach Kyle Gerdeman talks men's basketball and much, much more. We'll talk about basketball, future Lindenwood University games, past games, players, the OVC, the NCAA, academics, careers, and many other interesting topics.
Kyle (00:00.317)
Yeah.
Gary D Stocker (00:01.93)
It is basketball talk with Lyndenwood University headman's basketball coach Kyle Gurdiman where each week we get together talk basketball, academics, the OVC, the NCAA and much more. Coach Gurdiman, did you have a nice Thanksgiving?
Kyle (00:14.736)
It was good. Yeah, it was nice to we had a couple extra days off this year, which was a which is kind of a different schedule for us. But but it was enjoyable. Yeah.
Gary D Stocker (00:23.596)
And then you made the trip up to the Cal Illinois for basketball game on Tuesday night, I believe. Tell us about that.
Kyle (00:29.235)
Yeah, good game. One of the better games I think we've played all around here.
you know, since we since made the jump and you know, we got up there and I thought our guys just we just played really well over 40 minutes defensively. We were we were really good and I think that's what really got us off to a great start. We kind of kind of took northern out of some things that they that they like to do offensively and and I think that once our guys got some confidence that they could guard him and and then obviously we made some shots and scored some points. I thought our confidence just grew and kind of snowballed into into what turned out to be a you know, a 30 point, you know, road win which
Obviously, we haven't had one of those on the road and that was great for our team and great for our building early in the year and I think just great for our confidence of our team. So it was a nice win.
Gary D Stocker (01:17.442)
I remember early on when we started the podcast season, you talking about the games coming up and you had at least two Power Four games and slew. Indiana and Texas Tech are the Power Four games. And you said, it doesn't really matter what the score is, it matters how our team plays during those games. Talk about how you saw your teams play during those tougher games you've played already this year.
Kyle (01:27.262)
Yeah.
Kyle (01:35.773)
Yeah.
Kyle (01:40.093)
Yeah, I thought that, you by the time we got done with Indiana, I thought that we had probably, you know, we had probably learned a lot about ourself. And, you know, I think at Texas Tech, you know, when you open up at that first one, you know, it's the first game of the year, you're playing a team that was ranked in the top 10 in the country. So you really never know how your team is going to react. You know what you expect from them. And I thought we did some good things. You we were really short handed in that game at Texas Tech, but I thought our mentality was in the right spot.
Then with the Saint Louis U game, we didn't handle it very well at all. We didn't handle adversity, we didn't handle negative things that happened during a game. We didn't handle it individually, we didn't handle it as a team. So we learned a lot of hard lessons in the game against St. Louis, but we handled it. We got back, we accepted it, we admitted, kinda had to admit to your mistakes a little bit that we didn't do things the right way. So going into the Indiana game, I thought it was a really good-
It was a really good test for us to find out, okay, now we go into this last one here. How are we gonna embrace this one against Indiana? Really good team, great tradition, fantastic arena to play in, great fans. And I thought we came away from that with some tremendous confidence. We didn't score very well in the first half and I think-
Even though we didn't, we really defended well. And so we were able to go into halftime only down, I think, 16 points. But our guys felt a little bit of confidence because they knew they were doing some positive things. Well, we came out in the second half, and we came out on a 10-0 run, and we cut it to six right away with 15 minutes left in the game. I think when you see those positives and guys see, like, hey, when we play together, and we play hard, and we defend, and we do things right, it works.
And so that game, I think with 11 minutes left, I think we were down eight points, something like that. So we were right there for a long time. And I think that by the time we finished all three of those games, I think the way we finished it against Indiana, I think we left the gym that night not happy because you wanna win games. But I think our guys had some confidence of understanding what our system is supposed to be about. And I think we left there with a big positive that carried over to-
Kyle (04:02.335)
the UMKC game, the Northern Illinois game, and really kind of moved us along in the season.
Gary D Stocker (04:07.726)
Well, have to ask about history. Of course, you and I remember the heyday of IU and Bobby Knight. And I remember going to University of Illinois game where Indiana went to town at the heyday and they had Kent Benson and Quinn Buckner and Cruz, first name escapes me. Today's 18 to 20 year olds have recognition of that history for programs like IU back in the day?
Kyle (04:12.263)
yeah.
Kyle (04:29.951)
I think they do for a handful. I think even these guys still knew what Indiana was. I think they would know what North Carolina is, what Duke is. mean, those schools are still obviously really good. But yeah, I think there's others that are probably out there that they may not register with. But I think even a school like Indiana, think our guys still kind of understood kind of where we were.
Gary D Stocker (04:58.062)
because they wouldn't have even been born during that time frame. yeah, okay. And so for the most part, the pre-conference season is wrapping up. You head up to Charleston sometime in the next couple of days. What do you expect of Charleston and Eastern Illinois?
Kyle (05:00.157)
Right. Yeah.
Kyle (05:12.767)
I think a typical conference game on the road. They're always well coached. They're as tough a team to play against in our conference as anybody. And I just think just to open there in the first game on the road, you've got to be ready to play. And we're coming off two wins where we've played well. I'll be interested to see what the third game looks like, if we can handle that winning.
you know, and that growth and understand what you have to do to win a conference road game, which will be new to a lot of these guys. But, you know, I think winning the road game at Northern maybe helps us a little bit understanding, you know, you know, winning on the road takes a little bit more. you know, there's there's things that we did that were positive that should be able to carry over. But I think overall, I just think that, you know, again, when you look at when you look at a team like Eastern Illinois, you know what you're up against, they're going to be very efficient on offense.
really solid on defense. And they're gonna make you earn a lot of baskets and you kind of have to grind through some possessions and still be focused on playing your style of play. And that's what we've talked about a lot here the last couple of days.
Gary D Stocker (06:25.026)
And of course, being a data nerd on this end, I glanced at the OVC schedule so far this year and it doesn't tell us much. know FCS teams play the power fours on occasion. So those one loss records don't mean a lot. Did you capture any interesting observations from the OVC plays so far this season?
Kyle (06:43.199)
You know, I think that that's an interesting question because I think what I look at more than anything is you kind of, I don't, you you kind of peek at what teams are doing a little bit, you know, who's winning, who's losing. But, but I think that what you have to always keep in mind and we're in the same situation is, know, everybody's going to play some, challenging games, you know, the money games, the power four games. And so your records can always be deceiving at times. And so I don't put a whole lot of stock into what
the OVC team's records are because I think they're trying to do the same thing we are. They're trying to improve through these games in November and early December. And so I think that what you find is what happens in mid-December and early January probably tells a lot more of the tale than what happens for teams in our league in November and December. And we've had teams in our league that have got off to fantastic starts, that have won some road games.
won some games against Power Four teams and done some good things. We've got teams that have struggled, but I don't think that you could ever write anybody off in early December. Because again, I think the biggest goal for everybody is we're trying to improve through winning, trying to improve during losses, and trying to see how good everybody can get by probably January.
Gary D Stocker (08:02.56)
So coach, three months with a lot of basketball coming up. Almost all of it is in the OVC. I'm looking forward to watching a lot of basketball games. I look forward to seeing you with the EIU game. presume that's on ESPN and we'll talk again next week.
Kyle (08:14.963)
Sounds good. We've got a handful at home coming up after this. So it would be nice to play a couple games at home and looking forward to kind of getting into getting into OVC and a consistent schedule. we're excited about it.
Gary D Stocker (08:27.448)
So with Linwood University head men's basketball coach Kyle Gooderman, I'm Gary Stocker. Thanks for listening.