Final Four recap, NBA, WNBA, CBA

Listen as we recap the final four, talk NBA, WNBA, and CBA

What is The CBA Podcast?

Topics for Club, High School and AAU Basketball

terry masse (00:00)
You're listening to the CBA podcast. CBA podcast is brought to you by Chapman basketball Academy. Your hosts are Terry Massey, Max Johansson, and Joe Chapman.

All right. It's been a hot minute. Yeah. Spring break. Yeah. Everybody travel. You know, before I get going before with all this traveling and all this driving, the United States needs to get an Autobahn lane where the minimum speed is a hundred miles per hour. Right. Because driving to and from Florida, I did it in 18 minutes, 18 hours.

could have did in 17 and then you got these semis that take five. Oh, I hate five miles to pass. Yes. Yes. It's like really you're going to knock 10 minutes out your time to doesn't feel like they do it on purpose. It's just like they side to side next to each other. You're like, okay, why? Why? Why are you messing with me right now? Like get over so I can get along with my business in Autobahn Lane, 100 miles per hour. And then you got to get a card that says I'm okay to drive in that lane. Yeah. Yeah.

You need an auto bail too to get your ass out of jail. I was following a BMW and I seen he had a radar detector and he passed me up. I was doing 90 and he passed me. I'm like, all right, this is cool. I'll follow him for the next 10 miles. Oh, right, right. You always pick that car until you the car. Yeah. And then you go all the way over. I was no lie. I'm coming back from Minnesota last year and it's just me in the car and I'm the guy that's setting the tone. I'm going 85, 90.

And there's a person behind me for about 10 to 15 minutes. Every time I shift over a lane, they shift over a lane. Every time I go back to the left, they go back to the left. I'm like, why is this car messing with me right now? This happened until I just said, screw this, I'm getting off on the exit.

And as I got off the exit, it was two kids, like 18, 19, just like, yeah, I'm thinking like, this is a serial killer. Who the hell is this? Who does this? It's raining too. I'm like, I get the hell away from me. My wife will be sleeping in the passenger seat. She'll, or she'll look over and then she'll just close her eyes. Cause I'm doing like a hundred or something.

Well, that's a nice wife. I mean, most people wives or girlfriends, they're trying to tell you how fast to go, how slow down, what lane to get into. Why are you going so slow? Yeah. You get so mad. All right. We're back at it. Kind of going to do a little bit of a season recap, maybe talk a little bit of how the Final Four finished up and, you know, just talk about last season finished up and stuff. So, yeah, God, the girls game, man. What?

What's some fun basketball to watch? Oh, yeah, it's got, you know, so many more viewership than the guys game this year. NCAA. That's this I think was 18 .7 million and the boys were like 14 .3. So that tells you where the game is going. And hopefully they get to the rules where they can get started to make more money, you know, and things of that nature. So we can get into that, too. But yeah, that games was so impressive.

We didn't get a chance to talk on air about that moving screen from the charge heard around the world. You know, it was like, is that a moving screen or not? Yes, it was a moving screen people. But do you call that in the last minute of the game? Well, then Becker Becker has to catch a pretty hard pass and shoot it from three. Right. Yeah. You know, her post game interview was unbelievable with it, too. Yeah.

She didn't blame the refs at all. She's right. Right. On a bunch of different plays. So she handled that really, really well. Yeah, she did. And, you know, Aliyah, Aliyah was wide open too. I mean, if they would have jumped, um, Becker's for that shot, you would have had Aliyah on that drop pass to tie the game. It was going to be a shout out to local KK with the game she had in that, in that series. Yeah. Double digit scoring and yeah, she played really well. She played really well throughout the year. They had a lot of injuries.

Going on but she played really well throughout the year. She caught her legs on the second half of the season So that was kind of good to see Now she got to stay out of foul trouble so she can finish games all for that team, but her shot looked well I remember her coming over in fifth or sixth grade and we just want to dial into her shot because she already was special with her ball handling and finishing and stuff like that, but You couldn't leave her open. She was starting to make big shots in the second half of the season So it's just fun to see her game takes off

Ohio State with Hannah Bellinger, they made it. You know, that was a down year for Iowa State. A lot of people didn't think they were going to make it that far. So for them to get to, you know, play in a and that was a good game that they played. They almost beat that they lose to Stanford in the second round. But man, who's that post player, Audrey something in the post on Stanford on Iowa, Iowa State?

She is a force to be reckoned with. She's a freshman. Freshman. Yeah. I mean, she's going to carry, carry this girl's game. When we were talking about post players not being an issue anymore. Boy, they, they stepped up on the boy side and the girl side, you know, Cordoza, you know, Reese and on the guys, Edie, uh, yeah, Klingham and then even, uh, what's that junior guy that was from South Carolina, the big guy.

Yeah. From North Carolina state. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was so funny. DJ did an interview. It was like, I thought I was a big guy until I had to guard Edie. It was like, yeah. It was just so funny when a lot of us as coaches are trying to transfer the game to, you know, everyone can play on the outside until you, you got two bigs like that. That changes the whole game when you can play inside out like that. I mean, the game is, it's so fun to watch when it's continued to play that way. So.

I thought UConn was going to be the team to beat all year and they just had so many horsepowers. Their ball movement was unbelievable. Unbelievable. I mean, the way they're swinging the ball. Yeah, crazy. They didn't settle for shots like they get late in a shot clock all the time because they didn't settle at all. Ten seconds left. They had a late game situation shots. They they were fun to watch for any, you know, high school college coaches that's out there. AAU coaches like they run great sets.

great actions. They know what they want to get to in different scenarios. So it was fun to watch. Yeah. More girl. You know, no inputs. No, you said it all. I mean, have you said like. Trying to now this is like a final four thing that I like Twitter accounts or different people are like, how do we implement what you can or what Purdue did with their people to their own personnel or like action and sets like. Right.

I don't think there's any high school team that can put in the amount of sets that I really do with you kind of like make it look the same. I think you can take like some concepts away and kind of like implemented into, but at the end of the day, I think that's kind of the funny part about, oh, we can run this set. We can run that set, but you have to have the right personnel and like teaching of it too. When you're right. One thing where you can, you gotta say is swing the ball, swing the ball, you know, or hit your pulse, kick it back out, swing the ball. Correct.

Correct. And that's just the concepts that we're trying to teach on a daily basis to our kids is moving a ball, swinging a ball. But don't forget about the pinch posts and the low posts of getting them involved in the game. Yeah, because they're busting their ass down there. They're doing all the dirty work. So we got to reward that by getting the ball inside a little bit more. I was asking Max, because you get so going into this season, you guys already had a couple of games on the boys side. Yes. And you guys saw a shot clock. Yes. Yes. How did that go?

It wasn't bad actually. I mean, I would say less than 5 % of the games that we played actually affected us in a shot clock. I think it actually helped some of our players not be so east and west, more so getting downhill. So when you hear eight, nine, you know, nine, eight, seven, now you're starting to think about getting the foot in the paint more. Some of our players, they like to, you know, go east and west as opposed to attacking downhill. So it kind of helped us.

in those moments of having more people try to get paint touches and make the right passes. So it didn't really affect us as much as most people would have thought it would. Yeah. And I think it just keeps like usually in an AAU game, if it's like a 15 point lead with eight minutes left in the second half, it's like it doesn't feel like you can actually come back and have a chance. But your opponents have to play it out. They have to shoot. They can't hold it for a minute 30 at a time. So you're.

There's closer games and you're always like playing, it seems like, rather than just like, all right, we lost this one, like move on, but the games go longer and they get tighter. Yeah. And then you get to coach better too. I mean, you don't get more timeouts per se, because you always get three to four, so it's not a lot. But you don't have to run and jump and trap everywhere when you're down 15, you know, in the second half. We're down 15 to Iroh, Barnstormers on Sunday in Rockford in the Puma tournament.

And we were able to get into a one to two for 10 minutes of the second half and we cut it down to two points because they had to learn how to play. And we had to get stops and rebound and they couldn't hold the ball and just move the ball around or make someone just guard at half court and get out of our zone. So you're able to switch your defenses, you're able to get multiple people in the game and out of the game. As coaches, you're able to adjust to what's going on.

So it's kind of fun to play that style. At the tournament I was at this past weekend, parents are still out of hand. Guy got kicked out, sixth grade girls game, gets kicked out of the tournament. Yeah. And then he tries sneaking back in like two or three times. They ended up calling the police to escort him off the premises. I'm like, dude, this is sixth grade girls basketball, your daughter's on. Yeah. What are you doing? It's...

We have so many stories. I mean, it's been two weeks, three weeks since we started our season. Then there's been eight to 10 instances already that parents or coaches are out of control. Max was on the bench. Who do we play? Oh, Darius Garland Elite. Darius Garland Elite. We're up maybe 15, 20, and these guys made three threes in a row. Now, you know, when teams make shots, they do boom. Oh, yeah. Whatever, you know.

We're all good with that. But then the coach came in my face after the third made three. He came over in my coach's box. So he went past the scores table over in my coach's box and clapped in my face like, yeah, we got you clowns. I looked at the ref, said, what's going on here? He didn't do anything. So soon as he did that, I saw red. Now it was like, oh, it's go time. Like, all right, you you literally.

Forget about the game that's going on. Now it's about like me and you right now. Like you forgot there's a game that these kids are trying to win here. So our fans was ready. They got up ready to go. I was ready to go. My kids are ready to go. Max was stepping in. He was about ready to go. Coach LaChance was ready to go. The ref was ready to go.

So there was probably four or five intentional fouls. There were two or three technical fouls in that game. And it all started with a younger coach who just got too hyped up in the game and it got out of control. So we got the parents that got kicked out. It was just like, well, this could have been prevented. Number one, if that coach didn't do what he did. And number two, if the refs would have just tossed him out of the game. And so it was just a.

Big experience like, oh, we're back. It was the first weekend, like the second or third game. It was like, wow, AU season is back. And it hasn't stopped. I mean, there's instances where I've seen other parents get stopped after a game to talk to the coach about their parents, about their players' minutes. And some of it's valid, some of it's not. And there's that 24 -hour rule that we talked about in the first episode that I think is so important.

to have because there's not nothing good is going to come out of meeting with me or any other coach right after a game. I had parents call after a game, after we win, talk about minutes. I had parents, you know, after a loss that walk up to a coach to talk about minutes. It's just like, this is, you're messing with fire here because what's going to come out of my mouth if it might not be how I really feel right now. It might just be the spirit of moment. Like, dude, don't.

don't do that right now. Talk to you right after coach clapped in your face. Right. You know, and when that happened, all my parents was ready to go. They're like, yeah, let's get we got high fives. Yeah, we got high fives. Yeah, that's like that. That coach and that team deserve that. But, you know, that's this is the nature of the beast that we're dealing with with a you. It's it's not the prettiest. When we talk about transfer portal, it starts in a you. You got.

people jumping team to team to team after the first weekend, second weekend, they got on different jerseys and it's just a nightmare to deal with. From the outside, I will say 95 % of what we do here, we're pretty good, but there's still instances that happens with us. But, you know, just to see what other people are dealing with with other clubs is just unbelievable. And I would say, I would say go, but going back to the coaches, like at least in.

our standpoint and like parent coaches interactions after games, most of our coaches are not the head coaches aren't connected to any of these players, like my family, like they're not volunteering, but it's not like their check is massive to travel these tournaments and coach your kids two nights a week and then travel and hotels. Like they're doing that stuff too, to help your kid out. Now they may, we may make mistakes. They may make mistakes. We may not play someone as much given a game, but it's not.

It definitely doesn't come with like bad intention and like singling one person out. Like we can obviously always have those conversations on Monday, Tuesday, if we come at it with the right approach. But I just think that gets lost in the whole translation of this one. It's just a rant. A coach that just wants to help kids out and coach basketball. I think parents also get lost. They don't, they don't see all the X's and O's and the game, how the game is flowing.

you know, why is coach have these five players in there? Well, there's a matchup that he's looking at, or, you know, they seen something that this kid's not doing that this kid is in the game. Right. And all parents say is why isn't my kid playing? Well, they didn't see him that he didn't box out and gave up three rebounds down below or... Stem and practice happens too. It doesn't even have to be that game. Correct. They're not seeing what happens on Monday, Wednesday night. Correct. And it's so, so early in the season.

You got to give time for adjustments. You know, it's a puzzle out there. You know, we're trying to put the best puzzle together at the moment of the game. And like Max said, practices, you don't see what's going on. So we're trying to, you know, put the pieces together. And that's just not us as coaches or at CBA. That's just the first couple of weeks of AAU. Like I said in the podcast, the first podcast, it takes two or three weeks before you determine.

who you need to put your arms around, who's going to be the knuckleheads, who parents you need to get in front of a lot more. It takes a minute for all of us to adjust. So that first tournament, we have so much expectations of winning everything, where you learn so much through the adversity of my top team right now, the U17 Gold Elite, we're four and four. And it's perfect because we're learning what we need to do to get better, as opposed to peeking early. And then you come to these live periods and you come...

when coaches can watch you and we're not playing the best basketball. So you want to go through this adversity now so you can be the better version of yourselves later in the season. And that goes for parents too, this expectation that is, I paid so my kid needs to play. That's just not reality of what not just basketball, but any sport or any life you go through is you don't pay just to have a better voice.

If you teach your kids that then that's not that's unfortunate because that's just not reality of life We talked uh, he said mention the transfer portal when I saw somewhere that it ends in May 17th or something like that and there's still hundreds of kids in that transfer program So if you're in the transfer transfer portal, right? After two years or a year playing did you not pick the right school to begin with or yeah, you know, what is what is that decision? Why?

couple things. I would say a lot of it at the highest level, depending on the kid's background, will probably be financially based. If you crush it somewhere, and your financial background with your family isn't great, like they're gonna go try to get more money. That's number one. Number two, I think some of it is coaches. Also being like,

I can get someone better because my job's on the line here with the transfer portal. And then I think the third reason is they're getting terrible advice. Like Alabama just made the final four. They have like four or five rotation guys transferring out. So like what's going on? What was the experience? Do they want more money? Right. You can get, we'll go get more money. Are you going to get a better experience playing at a highest level with a really good coach? I'm not sure. So.

I think the money fogs a lot of what you were saying, like better fit, better coaching staff. Do I like it here? That money is fogging up like what college athletics used to be, which was, do I like the campus? Am I going to get my degree here? Is the coaching staff good? Do they care about their players? Is getting brushed over for the money part. Right. And now these kids are on a year to year contract where, you know, it was four years. Now it's this year to year.

based on the player and based on the coach. I mean, I've talked to coaches where they say that some of their players are getting recruited during the season to go to other schools. And it's just unfortunate because you're, as a coach, that's hard to do. That's like the NBA. That's just hard to have an 18 -year -old who has that much power that they're already got one foot out the door before you can even break that barrier of getting to know them.

and getting to know how to help them through that next step of life. They are already leaving. So most of us who get to college still got a lot to learn. And you can't even get to that learning process because there's just so many people in your ear telling you, you need to do this, you need to do that, you need to average this. I hear so much and it's just unfortunate that the way college basketball is going. They need to fix a lot of it. The NIL is number one. That's

you know, that fifth year and automatic. You can go to any school automatically and play. They need to fix that, too, because it's just messing the game up. And the coach's job at that level now are completely different. They don't even develop. If you are a freshman going to a high level, like if you don't perform right away, they'll get someone else. So like the development, the player development, the film sessions, the extra workouts.

There's just not there anymore for those kids to develop. So they either got to go somewhere else and play if they want to develop or stay there and probably get kicked off by one of those coaches staffs. If you're not performing. And I think you see some of the different like Marquette and I'm a Wisconsin guy. So this takes a lot for me to say this too. Like no one's leaving Marquette. Yeah. At that high level, everyone has money. Everyone's paying. Everyone has good NIL collectives.

So the money will be there, but what are you doing outside of just your money in winning basketball games to make your players want to stay there? Right. Connect like player development, extra skill sessions, being invested outside of just the money and basketball portion of it. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Going back to the girls side. So there's so many opportunities for the girls in college. Pro, you know, going pro overseas, but the WNBA.

There's very limited availability for them. And now we just seen talk about money. Uh, a rookie contract in the NBA is 10 million, uh, Kitten cart just signed a $338 ,000. Yeah. You know, rookie contract, you know, and there's first overall pick. Right. So imagine the 30th. But, um, speaking of the draft to, uh, your, uh, minority order, uh, former teammate, Dwayne Wade had a.

quite the draft down there in Chicago. Oh, yeah, that's going to sell a lot of tickets. For those of Anne Reese on the same team. Yeah, on the same team. I mean, your front line is set. And they got the guard who just signed with the Jordan brand. I forget her name, point guard. You know, like Chicago is going to be good for a while. And the thing about the WNBA is the veterans play a long time. So you got ladies that are in there.

third high thirties, forties that still playing at a high level. It's a hard league to crack to get into. And I go back to that money part of it. You know, it's just very unfortunate that it, you know, Caitlin Clark makes that little of money. But so that collective bargaining agreement that they got to come to has to be a lot better in a year from now. You're going to see ratings go through. I think you could even tell like the the draft had like.

five point million million and the previous like highest rated one was like six hundred thousand when Diana Taurasi came out. Right. Right. Completely different. Yeah. The WMEA needs to change their whole philosophy. First of all, they need to start running their season during basketball. Yeah. Well, because you got to think about it like so, you know, the guys, their rookie contract can be up to, you know, like 10 million. Like we said, let's just say 10 million, you know, for years. What was Caitlin Clark like?

a million in four years, you know, so there's a big difference. But you got to think the WNBA where everyone's on Lies land, she's only going to make three hundred and thirty three thousand or something. Right. But that's that's only three months. The season's only three months. So we got to put that in perspective a little bit, too. Like they don't have like a NBA season where it's eight months, three months to make three hundred thirty.

thousand dollars is unbelievable. But at the same time, they need to extend that to the guys and they play eight months. They should our girls who are good enough shouldn't have to go overseas if they don't have to because it's watering down their experience over there because it's too many people in too many divisions. I feel like it's start right after March Madness. Their season and go to like early.

I don't even want them to go into football season, really. But I think it should be during the basketball season. But then I did too. I think it should be. I think it should be November to it's Sunday. It's Sunday night football. There's a WNBA game on. Yeah. OK, well, then maybe after football season, January, January to April or something during basketball season, because the girls have proven that on the college side. Totally. That they can hang with the boys. I mean, they kick their butts rating wise during basketball season. So picture a Sunday.

picture of Sunday and in February you got the Sparks playing at 5 o 'clock and then it's a double header in LA at the stadium and the Lakers are on at 7. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right after. And then the all -star game is you have the guys all -star game, the girls all -star game, then you have the guys all -star game. Yeah. And then you have these competitions like you saw Stefan, what's her name? Sabrina. Yeah. You know, Sabrina do. Yeah. You know, the marketing and it's all, a lot of the money comes from TV deals. Yeah. You know.

multi -million TV deals with TNT and they could end up with the WNBA finals like late July, early August and end their season there. Yeah, that's do the fine. I think so, too. Yeah, I don't think that'd be terrible. So after Super Bowl, like started started, you know, and then before football starts again. Yeah, yeah. The finals. Yeah, because it's all about money. More people invest in the WNBA if it's all about money. So you start running your.

games with the NBA piggybacking off their marketing. Yeah. You know, and more more TV deals and that increase your money. Right. Right. Yeah, I totally agree. I think the the things you got to be wary of is, you know, the college girls game is taking off so good that you saw during this. This was the first year I thought I saw the first and second round being played at the same time as the boys. And we talked about in previous podcasts.

You didn't know which one to watch because it was so many games going on at one time. It didn't hurt the girls rating, that's all. And it didn't hurt the guys rating. So to have it on the same weekends wasn't that bad, you know, for viewership, which I thought maybe it was going to be, you know, because usually it's one week boys, one week girls. But they did it all together and I thought that was pretty cool to see that. So.

You know, going back to that, if the WNBA was playing during the same time as college girls basketball, how better would that experience be? Because you don't have that, you know, now. You know, but then when do you do the draft? Like, you got to start to think about how do you, you know, which is easy to do if someone did it all day to put the pieces to the puzzle. But the girls game has taken off so much people should try to make it just as good as the.

guys getting in the college. I mean, you got stars that are still going to be playing next year. I mean, I think Paige Becker is going to be better next year than this year because she had she had two injuries. Yeah. This was her first season, you know, coming back from an injury, you know, so that Juju Watkins coming up, you know, and it's going to just go up, you know, and we're creatures of habit. So we watch basketball during basketball season. Yeah. Right. You know, we're creatures of habit. We're going to watch basketball games. If you love basketball. It doesn't matter.

The ratings for the WMA are never going to reach the NFL's too. So it's like, why even bother about like comparing or when they're going to play? Like you're probably not getting a football fan to watch the WMA anyways. Right. It's probably not the demographic. Yeah. And then a lot of our, to go back to our AAU. So a lot of our girls start, you know, this weekend with the USJN and some started last weekend. And coach Max got his first chance to coach a girls team. Loved it.

Tell us about that. Tell us about your first experience. It's just, uh, it's definitely different. Um, just like the coaching style, the, how you prepare for it, but I think they're all, it just seems like they're more connected and on the same page with it. Um, our girls play just like they run the same stuff. Our guys programs do probably play harder defensively and share the ball three times as well.

So it was really fun to watch high level throughout the state to like let it rain. Yeah. The Lakers. Oh, he says like the Wisconsin girls basketball is really good. There was a lot of high level talent there. Yeah. Yeah. It's so fun to watch the difference of style of play from the girls game to the guys game. And, you know, our girls are so scrappy and tough and discipline and they move the ball. They share the ball. They actually genuinely happy.

for each other's success. They're not pouting or moody or egos getting in the way of who's starting, who's not. They actually love being around each other. And that's the camaraderie that girls basketball have. I call it like that volleyball type of feel. Like, you know, when you get a point in volleyball, how they come back to the middle and they're all happy as hell. Yeah, let's go. That's only one point. But that's what the game is doing now.

So it's just so fun to see, you know, all of our teams are, you know, starting practices now, starting to get in their groove. Every team is starting in our division practicing. So just to see, you know, the game starting to take off a little bit. Poked my head into, you know, Tim Franks and McNabb and, you know, those guys had practice with their U -9 team. And Carter Provod and A .J. Willard.

They all coaching together. So all these guys that we had for six, seven years, um, they, they're calling us at night, coming up with a practice plan. They, they're doing bear crawl, suicide, parent waiver. Where do we get this? You know, can we do charge drills? Can we run our motion? This is you nine. They put in our five hour dribble handoffs, the balls greens.

You know, the kids are loving it and the parents are like, this is unbelievable. You know, having these guys coach our kids. You nine, you got to run four across. That's right. As long as they go towards the right basket. So just to, you know, how the game is, we're, we're pushing the game forward with the guys that and girls that started with us, with Gracie McNabb and you know, Sarah A Taylor Ignatowski, all these girls that's coming back and coaching for us.

You know, your daughters are coaching as well. So we pay, we, you know, we pay in the game back with, with the girls that's and the guys that's been here with us. So it's cool to find their set. And, you know, we got a, uh, one of our girl coaches who coach your daughter, Lauren down. She's going to be an unbelievable coach. She's she's got up 30 in a league game. It was cool. So my daughter, my two daughters and Lauren and Gracie play together in a rec league.

And, uh, there was also an undercover player that I can't mention played with them. Um, and, uh, they went up against.

UWM alum and I think one still plays and well, they put the other team put up 90, but we put up 50 something. I think Maya had 12 points, Maddie had 10 points, but Lauren put up 30 and she was knocking threes down from the logo. She was Caitlin Clark that game. It was pretty fun to watch. It was pretty cool. And I was telling her, you know, I've known Lauren for probably six, seven, eight years now when she was at West Bend. West, when she played, I used to come and do individuals with.

with their team and team takeovers. So to see the transition of going to college, playing at Lakeland, graduating, playing there, then coming back coaching, and you see the transition of these young athletes from 16, 15 to 23, 24, of the discipline and structure that they learn through the game and how that's carrying over into their everyday life. It's just so fun to see that transition. Plus to be mentors.

to the girls too, you know, because they know what it's about. Right, right. And so it's just fun to see that, you know, our season is about to take off on the girls side as well. So it's just amazing to see the growth of CBA, amazing to see how many girls we got playing the sport. And we got some talented players and that always helps too, just to see the third grader, fourth grader, you know, looking up to the.

youth 17 player and they'd be in the same gym and they know each other's name and high five and you know, do a workout alongside each other. I think it's pretty cool environment that we've set here. How do you as a director, how did you pick like what circuit to go on and stuff or do they call you or do you got to apply? Yeah, pick you because how good you were the season before. Yeah, it's a little bit of both. You got to continue to push the envelope of what's out there and you got to continue to play well on different circuits.

For instance, that Select 40, the last two to three years has been an unbelievable circuit. The first time we heard about it was through the Lakers. They played it three, four years ago. And you always want to see who's trending where and what they're doing, especially the successful programs in the state, like Max mentioned. So the Lakers, you got Impact, you got Purple Oasis, you got Let It Rain, you got the Legends.

So Wisconsin Blaze, you just got a lot of people doing a lot of different things. So you want to stay, you know, what they're doing. Like Wisconsin Shooters is another one that, you know, you got to go on these circuits and play well. And if they like you, they'll bring you back and tell you about the circus and what they can offer you as a program. With our Puma deal, they started their girls side this year. So they're going to have two or three events that we go to and next year might be four or five events.

Um, we're doing our select 40, we do our usj and we do our North Tardin, uh, North Tardin is obviously really big program in Minnesota. Um, and we do our competition up there is amazing. Minnesota girls basketball is unbelievable. Boys too. Um, but girls basketball is unbelievable. Their high schools are great. We go there every year, at least once or twice a year. Their high schools are college camps. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy there.

So we stick to those. And obviously, you do your Tournament of Champions in Chicago, just the big ones like that. You get to Louisville and do the run for the roses. That's a fun one. That's a fun one. And Louisville's an amazing city to be in for any tournament. So you kind of stick to what the waves are, because you don't want to take away from any guy or girl the big trips, you know? Because as you get older, when I played, you knew when a U16 player...

they're going to run for the roses or in Chicago to play in a McCormick place. So you know those big tournaments. So you're looking forward to it every year. At least I know I'm going there as I get older. So you shoot for it. And that's no different there. So you got to perform well on these tournaments, but you also have to continue to put your envelope and do a little bit more here and there too. Where was the tournament that you had the shot clock? Was that here locally?

We had NY2Lane is now doing a shot clock for all their tournaments for their circuit. And most of the shoe circuits have shot clocks. What school were you in for that one? Homestead. So they had like little portable ones, probably about like shoulder height for me in each corner of the shot clock. And Puma had theirs on the, was it on the wall or on the? It was on the floor too. It was on the floor too. Yeah. There's one elevated and one lower. Correct.

Yep. And, and one, um, and some floors had it on, you know, regular up top scoreboard, but some had it on the floor. Um, is this the hard part of that is, um, I like the shot clock. You just, I think every tournament you need a third person running it instead of the scores table and a score person who's doing a game clock. Also doing a shot clock. I think you need two separate total things. And then, um, because sometimes the shot clock moves.

and the game clock moves, you know, at the same time. So if there's a malfunction and you didn't start to the shot clock, now the game clock, you got to reset too. So it gets tricky. So if it's 20 seconds left and you forget to reset the shot clock, but now you got to take 10 seconds off the game clock to reset it because it's on two different things. So that's one of the times the things that you can relay that to the, you know, the directors like, all right, this is.

Some of the things that you can do better here. And what I like is a lot of these places are listening to advice because everyone wants to shot clock. I think the game needs to evolve into that. So for people to go out on the limb and start doing it, that's the first step. And it's gonna be little things that we all can fix. But the first step is actually getting it. Well, they said money is an issue. Like I wanna know how much so where the scorekeeper sit.

How much is it to get that video of the players on there and stuff like that? You know, they're spending money. Yeah, that kind of stuff. But not a shot. Yeah, the shock. The most expensive thing would just be getting the actual shot clock. Right. Place. Well, I mean, what's the scorekeeper? You hire another scorekeeper and you pay him 30 bucks a game for the two hours. I don't know. Just press one button. Right. Yeah, I agree. I just think there's so much more that can't be more than five grand. No, no, it can be.

Well, how much so how much are those little things that the portable ones, the portable score, score boxes, they score 80 to 100 bucks. I mean, I don't even need to get a new score. No, like all those scores that you just have another like at colleges, you just have another there's a shot clock outlet there and it's just an extra little. But what I'm saying is the the screen itself can't be any more than one of those portable score things that you have on the table. Yes, yes. Totally. And the hang it above.

a backboard. You had all these referendums where they're putting in, you know, stadium seating in the lunchroom. Right. You can't put a shot clock above your backboard. Yeah, some of the. Yeah, it was crazy. Some of the division three, division two colleges like they have worse weight rooms and facilities than these high schools have. You go to you go to Cedarburg and you got a stadium seating with like pillows. Put a shot clock and then I can sit on the freaking picnic table.

Yeah. And I also think that this like for Homestead, for instance, they don't have records, you know, like showing records. You know, I think like every school should have. That's the cool part for any kid walking through as a ninth grader, 10th grader to show the records of who's a high score, who's an all time leading score, who's the most winning person in the program. Like little things like that you kind of want to show.

You know, and I go in, I like, oh, where's the where's the trophy? Right. Right. I think everybody wants to see that, you know, and measure themselves and what to get to. So I think that's another thing in high school. You got to have that, you know, for your kids. I think it's important for anyone. If you guys like for your program in general, not even. Yeah. It's just like to show what your program has accomplished. Yeah. I think that's something the game has got to continue to move forward. And we can talk hours on that.

Um, we, we still going to get our market boys on here. Um, at some point, you know, we, we, we did finish all those guys are always hard to get. I know. Yeah. TJ Nolan, Kate, they're, they're always doing something. It's good to see Nolan. Nolan's in here working out now. And, um, we've got an individual with him today and just working on his game, getting his body. Oh, Khan is in here every day. And some of the guys, Jack Doherty and some of these guys, it's just in here working, you know, that's just.

that discipline and structure that carried them through to where they are now. It just doesn't stop just because the season's over. You know, the McNabs, the Franks, and all these guys that are, they're working because that's what they want to do. And that's just a part of the grind that's been installed and instilled in them for, you know, 14, 15 years now. So let's go a little higher level, Marquette. What happened to your Marquette? But it's a make and miss league. You know, it really is.

And it's happened to us twice so far in AAU where we just can't make a shot, you know, and I will say during that game in Marquette, they took the right shots majority of the time. They were giving them shots that they made all year. They just didn't make make it. I think they went four for 30 or four for 31 from three that game. But I wouldn't say none of them was bad shots. You know, it's just like it's when NBA players and college players say it's a make and miss league.

It really is, and it really is contagious. If you play the game and you know your team has missed eight shots in a row, and you're the guy that's got the ninth shot and you're wide open, nine times out of 10, you're gonna miss that shot. Just because that's just, the game is like that, it's contagious. And that's why I still feel like we had to get an inside presence in that game. We had to score to get.

just to get some touches, get our rhythm back, and we couldn't do that. We had Joplin, mystery free throws in a row to end the first half. Usually he makes those. He's gonna make one out of three to feel good about himself going into the second half. So that's how you knew it was just a make or miss type of game. Did DeGaduro rely too much on that little floater shot in the middle? Yeah, he did, he did. I thought he could have done a little bit more in the low post just to get us going, just to get us a touch.

But again, that's just not how we played all year. So to change the game just based on one half, you can't do that. You gotta ride the wave and hopefully you catch your legs. And there were times in that game we did, you may want to two more layups, you may want to two more threes, we're right there. But we couldn't sustain the shot making because we for the most part, we sustained the defense, we sustained the energy, we sustained the effort.

we just couldn't sustain the shot making. And that's what it comes down to in a tournament. That's why you got to be so lucky to make it as far as we did as a final four and so lucky to win it. It takes luck. It takes coaching. It takes not being injured at the right time. It takes shot making. It takes a lot to win on a one game setting and not a best of seven setting. So as much as we're down, they did better than they did last year. That's the thing that as a coach,

and you go into a new environment and your starters didn't make it past the first weekend, well, they got to the second weekend. And that's what I told Coach Shaka. I was like, I'm just proud of what you've done in three years at our program and what you're doing as a minority at a school like Marquette, being a coach that carries himself the way that he does. And to build a brand the right way of not people in a portal and different things like that. I mean, what he's done in three years at Marquette, it's been unbelievable.

So, to advance to the second weekend was the first time that he's done that here. And the first time that group has done it, that was important. More than winning the Big East this year, getting to that second round because no one has done it there in that group. So I thought it was a really good year. Obviously the fans are gonna always be up and down. Fans are the fans, there's nothing you can do there. But I thought it was a really successful year.

Let's go a little higher level because you got the NBA playoffs certain and it looks like the Bucks are going to be all without. Do you think they tanked to to play the Indy? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. For sure. But why would you take the place on that? Just wipe the floor with you and play off will be different. Yeah. Well, Giannis might not play this. That's that's why I'd rather play Indy because they don't exactly inside. Otherwise, you have a beater. Right. You don't want to see. I think they really tank to not that.

When I say tank that last game, they started out like they were killing. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because they was playing so well. And then you can just tell like past halftime, it was just like, let's just chill out, guys. Steven is like, oh, damn, hates it here and stuff, which, you know, he's got stuff. So people are like, oh, Milwaukee's not, you know, the place to go. People.

Milwaukee Bucks players don't live in Milwaukee. They live in the suburbs and send their kids to high end schools. Right. Right. They're only here during and then they are in L .A. or Florida or New York. Well, the summer is better. Right. Yeah. Wisconsin summer is better than Florida summer. Yeah. It's better than California summer because it's not as humid and it's better than Portland. And the thing with Dane is a couple of things. He's going through a divorce. You know, he don't have his family here.

In Portland, he had everyone, you know, his family, his mom, you know, his siblings. He's got everyone there. And here he just came by himself and he's he don't have his kids with him either. So, you know, that's a that's a big adjustment for 11 years playing in, you know, one city. And now you got to come over without anyone. It's just you. So it's going to take time for a guy like that to adjust new system, you know, injuries, you know, they haven't had their whole team all year.

Different coaches different coaches. I mean, they really had three coaches and a whole different staff Plus Middleton, Giannis and Dean played the total I think yeah, and when they play together, they scored 140 It's ridiculous. So I will take a backseat on what you hear in the media I mean because they don't want to talk about people's personal life a lot on the media, but that plays a lot on the person mind I couldn't imagine going to another city. I

without my wife and kids and a routine. He took his kids to school every day. He picked them up and that takes a toll on you when you're that age. They're humans first. Yeah. It gets lost. So I wouldn't take it too much. I take it as a grain of salt a little bit. I think he's fine. I just think he needs, they need a whole year on the doc. They need a whole year being healthy. They need a whole year of understanding what's, what's their top five, you know, players.

Um, cause some of their guys are getting older, like things like that. They just got to determine which way they want to go. I think they sell out next year. And the only two people that are not untouchable is Damon Giannis. Yeah. They sell out and get super old on athletic. Yeah. And it's that time and Giannis only signed a three year deal. So, and the third year was a optional player year. So you're going to have to bring it next year. Um,

You think it's do or die. You think if if Celtics don't win at all this year, they blow that team up. No, they put they got too much money. They just signed everyone. Holiday, they just signed. Blowing it up would be like. To Derek Whiteside, Derek Whiteside. I thought he did it. I think he came on a deal that was still pretty good, though, because he's only a second year there. I'd bring him there. Oh, yeah, I like Derek White Pritchard to Milwaukee. Yeah. Anyone really?

Sam Howser. Yeah, Howser. He's going to make some money somewhere. He'll be a piece that they might have to let go if they don't win because they couldn't afford them. They just can't afford what he does right now. It's going to make like Duncan Robinson made that five year 90 million contract. That's what he's going to get somewhere. That's just so much money in a draft draft, Ronnie, and then bring LeBron over on a one year. Someone's going to someone's going to beat that. I mean, what LeBron did this year?

To still average 25 points a game, eight assist a game, six, seven rebounds a game. At that age, it's just unbelievable. He's not my best player ever, and he shouldn't be no one's, but he is definitely. I think he's third in my opinion. Who do you have second? Colby. Yeah, I have Michael one, Colby two. I can't, I can't. You can't. Michael and Colby were the hardest working NBA players to ever play the game. Yeah, Colby was unbelievable.

Um, and it's still hard for me to talk about him in past tense, but what he, he was never the most athletic player. What he did for 20 years to elevate the game of basketball and to implement the best player ever and to take it a step further. He's on the plateau by himself and in a lot of ways in my franchise, would want franchise and didn't start as a franchise player. He, he came off the bench. So some of his stats are.

very skewed because he didn't play in the first couple of years. He had to. It was an old man's league back then. So he had to earn respect, you know, and Dale Harris, you know, some of these coaches didn't play rookies. So he had to earn his way up. So I like stories like that. The reason why I put that like so Michael had Pippen. Right. And that who else? That's pretty much it. I mean, Colby had Shaq, but LeBron had Bosch, Wade.

Allen now he's got Davis. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Kevin Love, Kevin Love early LeBron. We're not we're those teams were like 20 win teams if LeBron wasn't on that. I agree. And he took them to the final year to the finals. Yeah. He took when it when they got to the Spurs and they they beat that Detroit Piston team and he scored like 20 straight points. No one else does that.

No one else does it. That's why I got LeBron really high on my list because his early years, he was a one man wrecking crew and he made people around him better. Like Mo Williams, he was an all star and with the Cavs because LeBron was next to him making them better. So he made people around him better. That's why I think he's in the top three or four because he just made people everywhere he goes, he makes people around him better as he's getting older.

I think he needs to take a step back, from averaging 25 to maybe 18 to 19 points a game and just be the facilitator, rebounder that he can be. Because one year he averaged, he led the league in assists when he was Lakers true point guard, so he can do it. Anthony Davis gotta be their best player in this postseason to win, to at least beat Denver.

What do you think about the talk with the record? Speaking of records, you know, Caitlin Clark making that record. And then you see, well, he wouldn't have broke that record if there was a three point shot back when we played. You know, what do you think about that? Well, it's a couple of things to it. I think past generations are always going to talk about the next generation because of what we didn't have. You know, it's just the game is moving forward.

There's TikToks and things about, you know, one guy's like, I'm done with the 80s. He's making these TikToks like, look at this move. I'm done with the 80s. Like he can't even, Jordan can't even dribble left. He dribbles right -handed going left. And he's just making all these comparisons. And there's valid points to the three -point line. Obviously Pistol Pete will still be, you know, the record right now because, you know, he shot it from deep, you know, but it wasn't.

So the game is evolving, so we got to evolve with the game. And so, you know, when people say that you got to take it with a grain of salt, but also understand that every era is just a different game. Not to say the 80s, 90s players can't play in today's game and not saying today's players can't play in that generation again. You adapt to whatever the game is and you kind of go from there with Steph Curry be just as effective in the 90s. Probably, but he would have to adjust and not take in.

23s, you know in a game it probably be eight, you know, so like Steve Novak was talking about you just didn't shoot that Mitch, you know back then so You have to adjust to a player like a Steph Curry to even allow him to get to that point does a coach even? Allow him to be Steph Curry in the 90s So it's this you got to take it with a grain of salt. Yeah, I think it's just a weird conversation to where like the past generations

whether they intend to, but it just seems like they're always bash the current players or like look down on the current players, how they're doing it. Like, oh, you couldn't play in this generation. You can play in that generation. Like I think hockey is like the one sport where everyone kind of because it hasn't changed a lot. Obviously, but they always like respect the players that came before them. Oh, yeah. After them and stuff like that. And like basketball in particular is the one where like.

every generation hate each other and they couldn't play when I played and couldn't play now. Right. So it's always a weird dynamic with that, which is weird. I don't know if it's the money thing, because how many how much money the NBA players are making now? Yeah. When they were playing back in the day, because that's the biggest difference. Right. But I don't know. It's always just a weird dynamic, I think. Yeah. As we look forward here this summer, what what so what what do you all got going on here with CBA?

I see some kids putting in the extra work. You got camps coming up, training's still going on. Yeah, it's a little bit of everything. We got camps, training, individuals. You know, we got obviously our tournaments going on. You know, CBA is a machine at the moment. I mean, every day you can be in a gym with, you know, one of us working on your game. You would go into another gym, you see a practice going on.

You go to another gym, you see the shooting machine up, you know, working. You come into the office, you see people watching film. It's a machine right now. And that's what we always wanted. That's what we wanted to create in Southeast Wisconsin when we first retired. You know, that's something that I envisioned on doing. And it's just really taken off in year seven. You can see the benefits of CBA throughout the whole state. And I'm just so happy and proud.

of not just our program, but the state of Wisconsin has unbelievable basketball and great programs here. From the girls side to the guys side, it's just a nonstop machine. Wisconsin is not considered one of the top places to play basketball, but I don't know many places like Wisconsin that's producing as many talent as we have on the guys and the girls side in the last five to 10 years.

Couple podcasts back we talked about the seniors you were losing How are your boys top team and girls top team losing the you know, you lost him Frank's you know one of the best shooters Yeah, well me and Max talk about this and a couple of my other coaches have texted me in the past You know, it's a big void because you take a group for six seven years on the girls and the guy side the girls we always had two age groups so

This is the age group where we're gonna miss this group next year because we integrated that group. So we still got five or six players on the girls side that's been playing together. And you can see that as they play. With the boys side, we had all of our groups graduate, that 2024 class. So on our top 2025 team this year, we got only three players that's been playing four or five years with us. The rest of the four or five has not, they come from other places.

So the expectations of them understanding our culture right away, understanding our expectation, our drills, our toughness, our day to day getting better, they just don't have yet. And we can't expect that to happen. So I'm reading articles, one of my favorite coaches at SPO from Miami Heat. So just reading articles about year to year, he's having those great teams and.

not so good teams, but you treat them all the same. Like you got to get your DNA, you know, inside of them. And it takes a while, you know, to build that. But by building it, you can tear them down by building it up. You know, you got to find a happy medium to do both so they can feel wanted and getting to know players. So me and Max talk about the first two weeks we talked about it on the podcast of understanding, you know, what the players are doing.

who they are, their personalities, their parents' personalities, how can we help them, how can we do more. So losing that top group, it makes you appreciate them more, number one, but also number two, how can we hold every group to a standard that they can eventually get to that group? Even if they don't reach it, you hold them to that account, accountability for it. Yeah, I think it's a learning, it's good for us too, because I think...

The first weekend for sure was a good wake up call on the boys side. Just like, oh, like we weren't where we were at, where we were expected to be at with all the little stuff like defense, culture, toughness, just like playing through no matter what you're going through, whether you're up or down. So it was good. I think it was a good wake up call for us as well. And then we can approach the guys better as we move forward here. We have a weekend off and then go back next weekend. So. Yep.

got four practices, which again, doesn't seem like a lot to play. We'll have two weeks of, I know I follow a couple of coaches on Twitter and they talk about the top programs and you're mentioned. Yeah. And a lot of coaches when they're talking about top programs in the state and around. Yeah. And that's a fun part for me is we're being mentioned in the breath of, you know, some of the best programs in the state, you know, swing and hero and, um, you know, Halliburton and a power five and some of these programs.

So it's like for us to be only in year seven, it's pretty huge. When some of these programs been around for a long time or they got an NBA tag on them. So for us to continue to do it the right way to continue to build a program. And I always preach, you're not gonna win every game, you're not gonna lose every game. But the product that you show is what coaches wanna see. What are you showing the coaches out there?

Um, is your effort, your toughness, your heart, your discipline, the, you know, your body language, being a good teammate, making the right passes to one more pass. Um, you know, the help side defense taking charges. Are you doing all of that or are you thinking about yourself? Oh, you know, right. And it's going to show, I don't care what game you're watching. It's going to show which players is about them.

and which players is actually trying to do it. They're coming up the floor with the ball. Are they looking ahead or is their head? Right. Right. How many dribbles? And I tell the story to my youth 17 team when I played overseas in Czech Republic and every time we cross half court after two dribbles past half court, we get fined $50. So as an American who used to when you're used to having a ball in your hand and making plays, they trying to quickly.

let you adapt to the European style of game where no one averages more than 14 points a game, but no one averages less than eight. That was my team in Czech Republic. And it was a fun brand, but you got to get used to that. So you come off a pick and roll and you take three dribbles off that pick and roll, you're like, shit, that's $50. So you're starting to think like, man, I got to get to the pocket pass faster. I got to make decisions. I got to hedge and get off the ball.

And you play games five on five and practice with just ball movement. You can't put the ball on the ground. You got a screen pass away and you just got to keep playing. I love playing 10 passes a coach. Yeah. And pass no, no, no dribble, no dribble, you know, and we're, we're trying to get to that in our program is the ball is a star player. We've been saying that in every practice and every game, let the ball be the best player. Um, we want to show clips of our.

past teams and what they've done successful. And that's how you can help the next team. Is this your clips of the last thing? No, you're not this player or that player, but can a team be the best version of themselves by moving a ball, by sharing a ball, by thinking about the next pass, passing up good shots for great shots. The teams last year used to pass up layups for threes. They'd be underneath the rim and like, Oh, I got to pass one more. And that's what we got to the first couple of weekends. Last year we was telling our players like,

You guys got to shoot the ball like you're passing up too many shots That was the conversation that we were having last year now this year. I was like you got to move the ball so it's just gonna take time and And we got to be patient with our players But patience doesn't mean you have to you know come down on what you want to do Patience just mean you got to wait, you know and be patient for them to catch up to what you want and require for them

One thing I do notice, I throw a plugin for you guys is right now I think your training individuals is top, top notch with you, Max. You go down the line. I mean, I've had Mason with every one of you and it's like, I mean, you can see the difference. Yeah. And we, we got six trainers and we hopefully to grab a couple more. Um, and that was something I always wanted to do. Um, as a puzzle piece to CBA is, um,

I want people to have as many opportunities to train as they can. And for years, it was just me training as many kids as I can. With over 500 kids just in this division, you can catch everybody. So to have six trainers who are working around the clock, working with athletes, it's great for these kids because they can pick up different things from different people and apply it to their own game. Every workout is not the same.

every trainer is not the same. So just to see these kids taking advantage of that. And sometimes you see the same kids floating around every different trainer. And that's how you know, you guys want to. Yeah. Yours is one of them that, you know, you got something special going because those are the kids. Because sometimes I can't go every day, but there might be something that's going on every day of the week through different trainers. Well, here we are. Another hour. Yeah, we are gone. We're gone. I know we got some pretty good.

Stuff coming up too on our podcast. So a couple of good guests coming up. Um, so like, and share, and thanks everybody for listening.