Youth Adversity and th... | Mar 14, 2024 001

Joe talks about adversity his boys had to face this past weekend and then dive into how popular the girls game has evolved!

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You're listening to the CBA podcast where you talk everything basketball from club to you to high school to college. The CBA podcast is brought to you by Chapman Basketball Academy. Your hosts are Terry Massey, Max Johansson and Joe Chapman. All right. Good morning, everybody. Last night, it's funny. I was at the Cedarburg banquet and Sarah Holmes. Dad, you guys didn't do a podcast this week.

Hey, people notice. Let's be doing something right that they that they noticed. Right. Right. Right. And and and we noticed it, too. You know, like, yeah, we got to get back on. We needed that little break because there's so many state tournaments and regionals and sectionals and seniors last games. And, you know, some of those are hard to watch and be at. And, you know, it's just like it's a you start in for certain teams already. So it's a combination of a lot. And our last podcast was really good with.

with Craig Robinson. So it was very informative. And now it's like, let's get back into it. Any with the girls ending up, we kind of all predicted who would win state and they kind of did. Or any upsets that you guys thought on the girls side that? No, not really. I think the girls game is so evolved now. Their skill set, their level of play is so much higher each year. Their competitiveness.

It's not frowned upon anymore how hard they play and the coaching is so much better too. I mean, they run so much good actions and sets and motion and principles. And so it's just fun to watch the girls game. And we had a couple girls get to state, Ketamaraine Lutheran, they were up 18 to 20 points in the second half. Couldn't squeeze it out, but they played an incredible season. They got really far, so we're proud of those girls.

Obviously, Pee Walkie, they got over the hurdle of beating Notre Dame. And that's a rival.

years against him.

So I'm happy for those twins and some of those girls. You just see them.

you know, get over that hurdle. He loves to see teams.

And there's another I knew her but I didn't know her as well. Nick's sister Janowski. There's a Janowski girl who's a sophomore who she was controlling that whole game, that finals game and she played well sophomore, Pee -Walky. She shoots a lot of threes, doesn't she? Yeah, yeah, she plays just like Nick. I mean, she's strong, she plays at her own pace, she knows where her spots are, you can't knock her off her spot. So you're looking at him like, wow.

You know, that is just genes right there. Like the whole family are good basketball players. So it's just it's just fun to watch, you know, the growth of the game of basketball on the girls side, but also just the growth individually of some of these players. I know we want to get in a lot of girls basketball, but do you guys see anybody knocking Nicolay off the boys side? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that was a bad draw. I don't think Nicolay should have been a two seed.

I think they should have been, you know, I think Nicolay got the force. They got the four. So I think they should have got like two or three seat, you know. So it was kind of funny to see that. So how do they do we know how they pick the seeds? I don't know how they do that. Wisconsin Lutheran makes sense. They should be the number one seed in the whole state. I mean, they beat everyone regardless of division. Right. But it's hard. Now Nicolay plays Wisco first game. You know, that should be the final game. And then it's P. Walsh.

and Salem West Salem. Yeah. Nicolay's starting to run some crazy trap defense that I watched against Cedarburg. It worked. Yeah. Worked pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. They're a team that can do that. They can team that can do that. It's going to come down to, you know, con can nipple. I mean, he's just a juggernaut. Best player. I mean, Davion Hanna is really good, too. But, you know, he'll control that whole game if I had to guess. Yeah. He's the one player we were talking about. We're going to get him on pretty soon here, too.

But he's one of those players that translates generations. So you know how we talk about, we'll get some of these guys who are 20, 30 playing overseas and we'll kick their butts. He'd be one of those guys that'd be a tough matchup for us because he plays the game slow. He thinks the game, he's not sped up. He can play with older guys and he can play with younger guys. So he's gonna be fun to watch the next five years. I saw Tim just got an award player of the, what was it, player of the - Yep.

player of the year, second time in his career. Yeah, two times. That's pretty hard to do. What I thought was cool is yesterday we were in the gym and there he is at the gun. Season's over, just jacking up shots. Yeah, I mean, he haven't taken a day off really. They lost and he was back in the gym the next day shooting. And he's working on the NBA line now and just stretching his game out and working on what St. Thomas needs from him. So those type of kids, we talked about the one percenters. He finished top six in.

Mr. Basketball. So he's a Mr. Basketball finalist that will get announced sometime this weekend. So seeing those guys go and now we got Mike and Tim being one of our third grade coaches. So they got to make practice planners. And Max, you got a cool story about one of the kids that realized who was coaching them. Tim and Mike were just at the, they were at the tryout helping us out. They were doing like the evals and different things, helping out with the drills. And then afterwards, like a dad came in like.

Do you guys know who these people are? I think they were from Sheboygan, and they would go to just random games and watch. That's the guy you guys watch every Friday night. And then I turned around and was like, they're going to be your coach. And the kid's look on his face was like, his eyes wide open, super happy. He's like, oh, wow, that's awesome. So it was really cool, like full circle moment there. So I know this podcast, we want to get into the girls' game and the evolution of it and stuff. But we can start with, I want to give you a shout out to your.

the club team winning the YBL and going undefeated. I know there's a little stuff there that you want to talk about a little bit. Oh yeah, I mean it was a great experience. In league play we went 20 and 0 in WYBL and we played different tournaments. So overall we went 34 and 0. We played in the AAU tournament beginning of the year, went 2 and 2. We played up against AAU teams, so that was pretty cool. But yeah, just overall just.

Seeing the involvement of the youth sports game is just so fun and so like intellect is like these kids are fourth graders where when I played I didn't play like this in fourth grade. So where these kids are in fourth grade overall as a state is just impressive to see because you know most of us the seventh or eighth grade is when you you take off like some of these kids are like way.

We've been blessed to have a group of coaches and a group of players that have brought in to how hard it is to actually be a good team, not just good players. So that's pretty cool. So our fourth grade team won WYBL, which was pretty cool. And just to see the looks on the kids face like, we did it. Because sometimes it's hard to be undefeated and it's pressure on you every game to live up to the.

you know, beat you, the crowd wants to beat you.

beat you. So the life lessons that we're teaching our kids at 10 is something that we probably learned at 15, 16. So they're learning a little bit earlier how to deal with adversity. I remember the first time, you know, in high school hearing racist remarks as I'm taking a ball out in a section of finals and you've got all white crowd behind you and you know, they saying things to try to rattle you. But you know, at 15, 16, that's still something you don't want to hear. But it's something that you know what they're

they're trying to do, they're just trying to rattle you. Doesn't make it right or wrong, but you know, at TNNs that's just harder to decipher because their mind doesn't understand why people don't like them. So if they hear racist remarks like sometimes my boy's here or they hear things from the black community that.

They're doing, you know, they playing like monkeys out there. So it's just different things that they have to learn how to deal with early at being 10 years old, as opposed to intellectually learning how to process what they're trying to do at 16, 17. So it's, as a parent, you want to have that so you can teach them this is going to happen, you know, and you can't control what other people say, what people think. You have to just go out there and perform and play.

And be respectful to the game, be respectful to yourselves, your teammates, and that's all you can do. But I gotta do it at 10. And it's not right, obviously, we all know that. And we had instances where they want, they think they're 12 or 13, playing down for fourth grade. They asked for birth certificates before we played, that happened before. So.

And the kids, they don't know. They're just out there trying to have fun. The game is still fun to them. So that's the experience of being really good at an early age. That's a part of the game that you want to teach your kids how to deal with adversity. And hopefully that helps them grow. And it helps the overall environment of whatever team that they're on. I'll be honest. It kind of pisses me off a little bit, Ray, because my son.

is one of your kids' best friends and the way you treat my kid and stuff. And it makes me angry. Yeah, I mean, we talk about it all the time. We got a coach here that if you put the time into it and you're around good coaching year round, you're going to take leaps and bounds. It's just a part of the game. Coach Max works with the boys. Everyone is a village. Everyone works with our kids. So.

Just to see their success is a huge step to their development because they now they can see that it works. And they're super proud of it. You knew what team. Yeah, you knew their team when they came in on Monday. They all had their W. A couple had a hat on. I know what team you were on. I saw a picture. Yeah, I was super proud of it. I'm sure they all wore to school. Oh, yeah. They probably haven't taken it off yet. Right. That's a reflection of the work that they're doing outside. Right. Because when I coach.

So I coached seventh grade girls this year, and not one of them played AU, right? So every team that we played had three or four girls that play AU. And we would lose to those teams, right? Because they have two players that are doing euro steps, and no one else can do that stuff. So it's the extra work that these kids are doing outside that parents probably don't even have no clue about. Oh, 100%. And I think that's the hardest part is we put in so much work. We talked about it.

in one of the first episodes of multi -sport players. And I was diving into that you can be multi -sport in the same sport because you can have fun with your guys. It's not even worth nothing. You can go to these camps, have fun, eight to three. You're not thinking about I need to get better. You're thinking about, man, I'm just having fun. I got the ball in my hand. I'm with my guys. You know, we were laughing, joking around. That's multi -sport because there's no pressure. But now you're still getting better. So these kids that are.

going from camp to camp and doing different things and hanging out with their buddies. They're watching games. They're going to games. They're on 2K. You know, they're they're all learning. You know, they got the cards, you know, the match cards, you know, this is people don't realize that's all getting their IQ and, you know, the boys know players from the 70s, 80s. And is this is this a part of the game that it helps excellent kids? What I noticed with you, Joe, too, though, like last year,

If I had watched Joseph and Steph on the gun, you just kind of look over there once in a while. You didn't say nothing. You know, or, you know, when they're doing a drill, you just kind of watch them do what they think. But this year you start talking a little more. Joseph, get that foot in or whatever. And now that's the leap they made. Correct. Correct. You know, but we talked about me and Max and you, we talk about it's it's steps to this. It's the love of the game first is learning how to make mistakes early is you got to be coachable.

But if you don't love it first, and you got to learn how to make mistakes, and you're not around a village of people who are embracing you as a player, then you got too much pressure on you too early. So all the little stuff that they gotten better at, they first had to love the game. And us as parents, we're not living through our kids, especially the ones who have played on a high level. It's more so we want to give them what the game gave us. And first was the joy of it and what we got up front.

Then it's the discipline and structure of it. Then you eventually get better because of all three of those things are in order. You love it, you're disciplined about it, and you got structure about it. And you got a village of people who embrace that for you. Everything else is organically going to happen. So every year, you can keep adding on to what they need to do better. What's your footwork? What are you eating at night? What time are you going to sleep? You can start to do that as they love it. Yeah.

No, I mean, I think specifically those boys are always in here. And I'm probably out of their coach. I feel like I hold them to a little bit higher standard, probably a little unfairly. I did that in the drills. I'm like, Joseph, be an example out of your buddy. And that's probably definitely unfair towards them. But I think that's like they live. I don't think people really like there's a group of probably like 10 to 15 kids. Like it's a pretty decent.

amount that are in here from three to five thirty. Yep. Every day though. At some point they're coming in here shooting. They're lifting. Yeah. They're just like hey is there a hoop open. Hey can I hop in this workout. Can I do this. Yep. But honestly Max that's why they have been successful as you guys being holding them to a different standard. They just got coached by Antonio Curio. That's not easy to do for anybody. Third grade 17 you got to have the right mindset the right mental to be coached by a coach like that.

And they got pushed every day and he wasn't sparing them at all. He treated them like they were his son. So he got on them just as much. And you know what? That's what we want as a parent. Like you want sometimes somebody else like, oh, you go do it. So I don't have to do it because if I have to do it and then be the coach and be the dad, then it gets harder. So it's too much. So if someone can can be just as hard.

as they know how I am on my own kids and it don't have to come from my voice. That's perfect for me because I know eventually I got to be that guy too. But it takes a village for all those kids to get where they're going. So this podcast, we wanted to kind of get dive into the girls game a little bit. We've always had boys on. We did have a couple of girls on and stuff, but we didn't really dive into the girls game and the evolution of it and how popular.

A couple of college players, Caitlin Clark, Angela Reese, Haley Van Lipp and all them have made the game. And so we can dive in. Oh, it's a beautiful game. So I caught myself the other day, I think Marquette was playing Xavier. And Iowa was playing Michigan girls. So, you know, I'm looking like I got YouTube TV. Shout out to them. I'm sorry, Spectrum. But.

So I got it back to back like which game should I watch? And I end up watching all of the all of the girls game and I just recorded the market game because it was way more intense. Like the crowd was there. It was the environment. I think the ratings are higher. Oh, my God. Game than the boys game. 100 percent it is. It's just a beautiful game to watch the evolution. The girls, they kind of took off when Steph Curry took off. What I mean is he evolved that game so much to where the girls.

comfortable doing a lot of things that he's comfortable doing. Shooting from deep, one dribble pull up going right, one dribble pull up going left from three, one leg from the logo from three. You don't see some of this stuff and the evolution of him and some of those girls who kind of took his lead.

you know, play for the New York Liberty now. And it's so crazy. We're going to dive in a lot of stuff. But I see some of these guys wearing girl shoes. We never had that happen ever growing up. You know, that's like a taboo like, oh, you got the Cheryl soups on like, what's wrong with you? You pass the Jordans up. But now I see guys in, you know, the Sabrina shoes. Man, just amazing. I see girls in the stewies. I see, you know, different shoes out there. And it's like, and I see the guys wearing them and it's like, OK.

This is something culturally that is starting to take off that we didn't have growing up. But some of our girls that are starting to take advantages of it, obviously Hannah at Iowa State, they just lost in the finals last night. I was watching that game. But they're gonna be in a tournament. They won enough big games to get in the tournament. So they should probably be a 7 or 8 seed. Her dad just texted me today, I need to board my dog. But yeah, this is the evolution of the game. I don't know where you guys want to start with that, but.

You know, obviously, you know, we started seven years ago with our girls program and guys program. And just to see the evolution of the skill work that we were working with the girls on from the Euro steps to the pro hops to the, you know, shooting longer threes that all started when we, you know, those girls were six to seven grades. So now just to see that is evolving to where college is now where the pros is.

Because I wasn't teaching the game as a guys and girls. I was just teaching a game, right? You know for where it should be so to see some of that stuff starting to translate I think it's pretty cool. Yeah, I think you can I think you can kind of start with like Yukon one it was pretty dominant by Yukon for like that whole stretch of late 2000 to like mid 2010 and now you see there's like five there's probably seven to nine contenders each year in the women's game so like I think that shows like

the training, the talent, the skill level, like develop and get more spread out to where it's not. There's 50 girls that are unbelievable in the college game now. More than that. But at one point it was like we're all going to you got in. You got to win the national title by 10. Yeah, I think that's a good example of how you can see it grow from the mid 2010s to where it is now. Like. I will ask. I was not like right. They weren't good like Maryland. You got.

South Carolina, you got LSU, you got UConn, you got UNC, you still have the traditional powers, but there's probably eight to 10 teams that now can actually feel like they won a national title. You got UCLA, Stanford's always been good. Rather than it's just UConn and everyone else. Yeah. And also it was like in the 1990s, it was Tennessee. You know, everyone went to Tennessee to play for Pat Summitt. Pat Summitt was an unbelievable coach. So it's just like all the good girls went one place.

you know, now they're just everywhere, you know, and that's pretty cool to kind of see the evolution of that. I think as a guy who's coached girls for over 10 years now, you can teach boys moves and stuff and they just rely on their athletic ability to do stuff. I got to teach my girls why they can do this move and when they can do this move compared to them relying on their athletic ability. And I think you're seeing smarter girls. Yeah.

with higher IQ because they're learning why they have to do it, not just I can do it because I can do it. Yeah. And Clark can shoot from wherever. But she also like is a really good pass or she gets downhill. She she has a really good floor game to like everything. She reads the game really well. She understands the different coverages that they're going to have on her. Whether it's a blitz, where there's where there's, you know, man to man where they front face gardener, she she kind of sees the game and flows the game.

And she's still efficient by being face guarded and double teamed. And she's still a very efficient player where she gets 10 rebounds, eight, nine assists. She just well rounded that way. So yeah, I think just the evolution of the game, I think, is kind of taken off. Players like Carolyn, my wife played basketball. She would dominate in this era more than the era that she played in because she was a stretch forward who could shoot the ball at six foot.

Similar to our Rachel Ag, that's the same type of player she was. She played overseas for a year in England and it's just the involvement of the game. It would have been more suited to how she played now. Because you gotta shoot the ball, you gotta stretch the floor, you gotta have different players that can do different things, high IQ players. We teach girls how to set the screen and what to do off of it. You remember back in the day the girls were so robot.

And you still see it on certain levels. It's like you go A, B, to C, they're going to do exactly what you said. And they're going to be like, well, you told me to do that. Now you're getting three, four girls on each team that they know where ABCN is, but they're not just going there. They know how to make counter moves and different things. So the involvement of the game is just so special to watch. I think it's ahead of the boys' game, to be honest with you. You still see very, even in high school, specifically high school.

Illinois high school scores like Wisconsin high schools. It's in the 40s. Just for the Homestead to Peer game, it went to two overtimes. It was 52 to 50. And you go up and watch Shermitteown play or like the Shermitteown -Brookfield East game. They're running up and down. They're shooting threes. Danica's shooting from the logo. It's a completely different pace and feel. I don't know if that's coaching and getting just to like, hey, this is how we're playing. We're playing with a different style. And the boys game just being.

Inside out, like there should never be a minute and 30 possession in high school. It just does. It seems happens a lot. It does happen a lot. And it's not like it's not existing in the girls game. It just seems to happen less in the girls game where they're playing more free and we're not taking. We got to pass it five times and get a shot. Well, some of that is. So when my daughter's played a you, it would be you go to practice twice a week and you maybe once in a season.

You do some speed and agility, but you just practice twice a week and then you play your tournaments. Well, I think the training parts like what you guys do is what has evolved because when you started, you know, five or how many years ago or whatever, that's when you started seeing training being more prevalent. And that's I think what's really made the game evolve the way it has is like when you guys started training and definitely as a different like the ways that we said skill level a bunch of times, but just the.

ability to, I guess it is skill. It's to put the ball on the floor, shoot, pass. And we're like Joe said, we're doing the same thing here at Chapman as we would do. Like I had Mason the other day, I Mason went through the same workout as I'd probably put our seven, a 17 year old kid through girls and guys. Well, I mean, you have boys and girls kind of doing the same work altogether. Except when you tell Molly, go shoot with Tim and she didn't want to do that.

And they get that sometimes like we got dual workouts where you know high school workouts there's guys and girls More times than not they don't want to you know be the same drills as each other But you get some of those special players that don't care like

Like KK Yarnham or whatever. Or even at the fifth grade level, Lola. Yeah, yeah. She only wants to play boys. Right, right. You get some of these special girls. They don't really care who they with. It's about getting better and they want to be pushed by guys. I mean, we at KK, we couldn't put her with any girl at her age or two age up. She had to play with boys when she came to training. So you got those instances as well. But yeah.

the involvement of the girls game. I still think this state needs a shot clock. I think Illinois Illinois just passed. So it's Illinois 26. So it's Illinois. Everybody around us. Iowa, Minnesota. Yeah. What are we doing? Watching these state games and you know, I'm watching teams stall the ball and it's just like, what are we doing? I saw I saw Twitter. One guy they held it for the first quarter. Yeah, I saw it. It was zero zero. The first quarter. He just stood there and held the ball. It's like that's partly on the.

Yeah, yeah, we're trapping foul. Just run to the other end so you can get the ball. Right. Let them try and let them score. We play. And it's just hard to to do that. And so I'm happy that you are starting to bring a shot clock, you know, involved. So these kids got to learn how to play basketball, stalling the ball and playing without a shot clock is not basketball. You're teaching them to be robotic, kind of like we talked and like they're not even catching and looking at.

So you're just taking a decision out of their head. Yeah. Like and usually like taking their confidence away. Like you can't shoot it. We got to get here. But you probably pass up on three, four shots. Yeah. Every possession when you play that way. Yeah. And no one finds any rhythm. No one develops that way. No. You just pass up shots. That's what I always tell. If you're open and you space, you shoot it like you play off your shot first. You shoot even third or fourth.

If you're open, shoot it. I don't care if you hit the rim or break board, but you got to be able to, if you feel like you can get a shot off, you got to shoot it. Right. And that's the thing with girls, uh, coaching girls, it's like, they're, they're so afraid. They get so timid out there. I asked the girls, my team this, this year, I'm like, so what stops you from shooting? They're like, well, we're afraid. What are you afraid of? Okay. You play softball, right? Yeah. Are you afraid to pitch the ball hard? Well, no. Do you play volleyball? Yeah. Are you afraid to bump set spike?

Oh, no. I said, well, then shoot the ball. Most fun part. Yeah. A lot of people are afraid of failure. They're afraid of other people's perception of them. They're just afraid of letting people down, especially girls. So they got this fear of them. And I had my first 15 U girls practice yesterday. And I'm just looking at all these girls because when people come back from their high school season, they're either really high or they're really low. It's no kind of in between. So you're trying to help them out to become better.

because we're their coaches, we're their psychologists, we're their sports psychologists, we're their guidance counselors, we're kind of everything when they walk back into the doors. And you gotta kind of get a feel of where everybody is. So I had girls turning down shots, they get in the rebound, they're looking for the outlet to the guard. It's just like, no, we're gonna evolve your game. One through five, whoever gets the rebound, let's go. Let's get it on the run. If you got a wide open shot, take it.

There's a one more pass and you score 25 points a game.

So you need to turn down some good shots for some great shots. So you're trying to pump in all of this stuff to make people feel good about themselves. But the perception of who they are as players, it kind of rubs off on girls more than guys. But they don't want to have a fear of letting people down. I like coaching girls because they laugh more. Yeah. They have more fun on the bench. I think they're better teammates. Yeah, they are.

They better teammates, they laugh more, they give you a better spirit too. You know, when you're walking in, you come, sometimes we come from the guys practice. Yeah, it's a really good change of pace for us because we go to the guys practice and you gotta, you know, they, they goof around too much. You gotta really drill those guys and get them going hard as they can and, and accepting hard coaching. Then you go into the girls, we got to do the same thing, but it's different, you know, because they got a smile on their face. They, they want to be there. They're energetic. They just bring a different smile to you.

and it brings so much positivity with them. For, why do you think, so, why do you think is the biggest thing why college girls basketball is so popular? We can say Caitlin Clark because she's Jack, you know, Jack, is it just because she can hit a three from the logo or? I think it's more, I would say, obviously you need a like a lightning rod like Caitlin Clark to get the focus on it and get it going, but with,

the continuity of the women's game and the rock like there's very there's not as much roster movement and player movement like if you're an Iowa Hawkeyes fan for the women's basketball like you've been with those girls for three years and you saw them make a final four run. So you've been through the ups and ups and downs. LSU they return. Iowa returns 11 players from their national title run last year. LSU returned six for the boys national title. Each team returned six but only.

three in the rotation for Yukon and two in the rotation for South Dakota State. It's six in the rotation for Iowa and four in the rotation for LSU. So like I think the continuity and the familiarity, like that's what you always loved about college sports is that you get these guys or girls for four years and you're on this like roller coaster with them. Now, yeah, specifically on the boys, you don't know where anyone is. Right. It's rare. You like look at the portal already. Yeah. I played for St. John's one year or Rutgers and.

Yukon the next for that cam Spencer guy and different things like that. So I think it's just a continuity. You're you know who's playing and who's on your team and you've been through like kind of battles with them as a fan. I think there's a lot of missed opportunities starting at the high school level for the girls basketball. All right. The girls are playing here and the boys are at the school at the opposite. But when there's a double header, that gym is packed. So why can't they run JV games Thursday night and have every Friday?

or varsity game, a double header, right? Concessions would be more. Attendance would be more. Everybody's there. And you could even put the boys game first and the girls game second once in a while. Let's switch it up a little bit. And that way, each team is cheering on the other. I think we're behind on that in this day, too. I think they shouldn't be playing on the same day. Because it's just.

should play on one day, the guys should play on one day, or you got double headers. You know, so the community. The double header is such a great environment. Yeah, it is. It is. I saw it at Hartford where they switched it because they were trying to get a share of the North Shore. So the guys played at 530 and the girls played at 7 and they packed Hartford out, you know, to get the girls over that home. It's more money for the concessions and everything. Everybody that way. And I think that's a.

state is having the guys and girls on the same day or switch the day.

And they can't say gym space because there isn't a gym that we go to that doesn't have an auxiliary gym and another gym. You know what I mean? So you could run JV in one gym for two. Yeah, absolutely. And then. Yeah. So when we were in high school in Apple, when we played like an Apple in the West or East, it was a cross town rival. We have all six teams, boys and girls play that same night. So we tip off freshmen would go both go at four and then.

varsity would rotate. So let's say boys varsity is at 545 while girls JV is going on the other gym. And then guys JV would play at 730 in the aux gym and girls varsity would play 745 on the main. So we do that at every Appleton doubleheader there, which was a really cool environment. So you have both programs, every single team playing on that same night. Yeah. And then you see all over Twitter, OK, oh, nobody cares about the girls game.

Well, that's not true. I mean, right. The ratings on college girls basketball right now is higher than college boys basketball. Yeah. I think it's all marketing and in my opinion. Yeah. And these girls, it's so many more girls playing the game than it was 10 years ago because they got people they can look up to. It's not like someone slam dunking a ball here and there. You get a, you know, a few amazing athletes that you're starting to see more and more on the girl side. But.

They can.

playing skillful and being lightning rod for their university. That's reachable to a lot of people. So on the guys side is, you're going to be blessed with the athletic ability. Sometimes you won't be. Craig Robinson was kind of talking about you might have the genes, you might not. It's different on a guys game than it is the girls. But the sport itself is just so much more likable on a girls game. And I also like that.

It's not frowned upon these girls like South Carolina game against LSU. It was a scuffle. Back in the day when you see two girls scuffling, you don't really like it. Just go play nice in the sand. We don't want you guys to be this type of players, but emotions run high in games. And it's okay for these girls to have those type of environments just as much as it is okay for the guys to have it. So we have this reality of what we want from the girls game as opposed to.

what it really is, it should be physical, it should be trash talking. It's gonna happen, so why try to cover it up? And it's a part of the game that we all know it is. I think part of the thing out there why they think girls gaming as partners cuz the WNBA is not very popular in my opinion. I think it's because first of all, they run it during summer.

That's the first one who wants to be sitting at home watching a basketball game when it's nice outside. Why not run it during the NBA season? Right. When it's basketball season, college girls, basketball is during basketball season. Look how popular it is right now. Right. That would be interesting to see because I mean, Caitlin Clark is declaring I think the stamp Cameron Brink. Yeah. The Stanford big is also declaring. So you'll have all these popular college athletes.

going to the WNBA. So it'll be very interesting how they market that or like have changed the popularity of that league. Maybe it is just Caitlin Clark. Maybe they're doing something else like. Well, it's so hard to girls game because they make so much money overseas. Yeah, they don't make NBA. Yeah. And it's also it's not enough. It's not enough spots in the WNBA. So all our good players that come out of college, they don't have a spot in the WNBA. They might get drafted, but, you know, all the vets play a long time.

NBA as opposed to NBA as a younger league. The WNBA is almost like the offseason for those girls because they make less money. It's in the summer. They're coming back home. And then in the winter, they'll go play overseas and make millions of money for Real Madrid. Not millions, but more money than they make here. Yeah, I just think that, you know, let's pretend that they ran it during the NBA season, right? So the All -Star game, you have a WNBA All -Star game.

You have an NBA All -Star game, but then you do a co -ed All -Star game. Yeah. You know, look at what happened with Steph Curry shooting in the shooting competition. She just about beat him. Yeah. You know, and it was one of the most watched three point contest. Yeah. You know, I'm not saying combine the All -Star games, but you could have a co -ed and you could have co -ed competitions. And it'd almost be cool to do almost like different weekends of where the WNBA like goes.

to and plays their games in that specific city for a weekend. So it's almost like groupings where one weekend we're in Indianapolis and these eight teams are there to play their league games. And then they go to Vegas and then they go to Orlando and like, yes. So it's almost like a traveling thing where they get more. It's a whole event from Thursday to Sunday and you play two games a weekend, maybe you have open practice and you do cool stuff like that. Just like something different to like drum up rather than like, I don't know.

You know, they're on ESPN and ABC sometimes, but you don't know when you don't. It's in the summer and they getting overshadowed because you got TBT in the summer. You got other sporting events in the summer. So NBA playoffs. You got the playoffs. Baseball season. Baseball playoff start when the NFL starts. Right. Yeah. It's opening season. You know, first game, NFL's first week in September. That's the NBA playoffs. I do like let's do a WNBA today. You have the.

WMBA All -Stars on the NBA Today show. Yep. Let's have them talk about the women's game for, I mean, you got, they fill that airways with a bunch of garbage anyways. They talk about the same stuff. Let's put a WMBA show at 2 .30 in the afternoon rather than the Stephen A. Smith again. Right, the replay. And they did, I saw they did, they did college game day for the women's for the, when Katelyn Clark was gonna break the record. That was the only time they've done that. Yep, yep.

So there's good enough games right now where I think you can, whether it's four a year, do a college game day for the women's at UConn. Yep, yep. Versus Maryland or South Carolina, Alice U, Tennessee, Kentucky. Because look at the great coaches you have there, too. You got Dawn Staley, who's amazing leader. She can coach anybody. It don't have to be women's sports. She's just an amazing leader. Becky Hammond, she's one of my favorite coaches. She could be.

be the San Antonio Spurs coach. She should have been that coach. You know, pop ain't going nowhere. Kim McCaukey's been doing it for a long time. Forever. It's just so many quality coaches. She caught a little slack, though, with the fight. Dawn took the high road in the fight. And then she said, push Angel Reese. Don't push my guard or something like that. And that's why I feel like.

That's authentic. And she's always in the mix. She's always mixed. That's how she was as a player. She's always saying stuff. Yep. Yep. Which, like, how many times do you, like, the guys is just so much more business and professional. Like, you kind of lose some of the authenticity of it, I think. How long before we see?

Yeah, you know, she's already in a state farm commercial with Jimmy Butler. He was there. Yeah, she had a who was the rapper that was at the Iowa game versus Ohio State. It wasn't Travis Scott. It was someone that was in the commercial. Yeah, yeah. And his whole group were there at Iowa City for an eye with the girls. It's like, that's awesome. I got a question for you guys on an idea. So I have a hard time with state for the youth sending my.

girls to stay because it's always during spring break. You know, and is there something better that this that Wisconsin can do for youth for the state tournaments and stuff? Well, it's too long. The seasons are too long. The season starts really October to, you know, this week. That's a long that's longer than high school season, you know, so that they can't go too far.

You know, they got to do something like a March Madness in the beginning of the year. I think that would be cool. Kind of do it all with the high school stuff going on and make it like a whole March Madness theme for all of basketball. For all the basketball from third grade to eighth grade. It should be a March Madness type of field where you got the venues to do it at. You know, the venues don't matter. You can do convention centers in Milwaukee like that USJN. If you can pack 30.

30 courts into the McCormick Center for 90 Challenge and stuff. You can do it at the Midwest. Yeah, easily. And that's the thing that needs to change. It's too long. Then it goes into spring break, and it goes into AU. So when I had my girls team, we stopped in the February. We're done. We went to the state. There's a state in Adales.

We did that stuff. The girls was the Dells and then the Wausau. We did Wausau a lot. Right. So we did that and then when we were done, it's like it's too long of a season. You're expecting too much for these girls because it's over like two semesters. So it's a lot of schoolwork that they're doing. It's just a long, long time. So I think they first got to shorten it up. And then secondly, they got to make a lot of money.

some type of theme that everyone's involved. How cool would it be a March Madness theme like down down in Milwaukee with the Midwest Express Center and the Deer District and stuff and can you imagine the atmosphere whole state thing and then with the state tournaments with the high school going on at the same time and yeah and I think that's how it should be. You got your records you got your different divisions that you're in. Here's the top 25 30 teams and and you know League one League two different different tiers of each one. Everyone gets their fair shake.

You know, because it's not actually is they call it a state tournament, but it's really not. It's just it's like the W. Y. Yeah, really. Yeah. Whoever's in it. Yeah. It's whoever signs up. Correct. Correct. What are your thoughts? You guys are talking about seeding and how they figure it out and stuff. I saw a tweet from think coach. Cryer was. Reef tweeting a thing about a tournament type playoff instead of the seeding. Yeah, like a march band is a tournament. What do you guys think about? I think that's a good idea. I.

really do think that if they go to a tournament setting like that, but it still goes by what's seeded everyone. I mean, it's still gonna be seeded in that too.

32 right because you still have to do divisions like it's not like right division five can play with division one where you do the whole state correct that would just wouldn't it wouldn't be fair but it wouldn't be fun or like point of it like compete against that the level you've been competing with all year yeah because I think high school is a little different with college there would be a lot less upsets in high school

Right. Playing feels a lot more even. But I think if you did it one through 32 and the thing that drives me nuts with the seeding is why am I playing a North Shore team in the second round of the playoffs when I just played them twice? Oh, yeah. Like you can't see another Brookfield. I said this before. Brookfield Central played Brookfield East in the first round of the playoffs.

I don't care what the seeding says. That can't happen. It can't happen. You can't do that. It's not fun for the kids. It's not fair. It's like, play someone else. Get a different environment. So the whole point of being in the playoffs is you play different teams from different areas. And I also feel like when you get out of your regionals and they kind of reseed from there, right? And then they put the team that is close to their North Shore that now they play in another North Shore school.

that venue. Yeah. But somebody got to travel hour and a half to get to that site. But it's a sectional game. So you're like, how did y 'all come up with us having to come hour and a half and that team had to come five minutes for sectional game? How is that fair for anybody? You know, it's just like, how do they come up with some of these, you know, formats and who plays who and the receding? I always find that curious, like, all right, who?

How is the is that the computer reseating them to or is that the reason it doesn't really make sense? This is so much. You have you got the bracket already. You're just playing. That's what you match up with. Sectional three and sectional two play sectional four. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, there you go. You got to beat everyone anyways. Right. Do you think maybe on the college side, the girls game is so much better right now because I feel girls stick with the school for all four years. There's no one and done. There's no. Yeah.

There's no, I mean, the NIL is in girls, but I don't think it's as prevalent as in boys, is it? And part of that is the money aspect. And it's the 1 % of the college athletes that are really like one and done. It's not as big of an issue as everyone makes it seem. But back to the continuity of it, you're exactly right. The girls game, you're sticking around, you're getting a degree, you're playing there because it's been your dream to play college basketball. And you, yeah.

And you love the game. So I think that you can feel that when you watch a girls game. Yeah, I take Hannah for instance, Hannah Bellinger. She did four years at Truman. By her second year, she was an All -American. She could have left. She had opportunities. People were hitting me up like, you think she's leaving? Let us know. She didn't want to do that. She wanted to leave her legacy. She played her four years. And then she went for it as a grad. That's more what the girls are doing. They have six or seven girls every turn. They might get a grad player. They don't get a lot of try.

to girls, they get more.

a year that can come in and learn a culture already got some type of culture already and be a key component to their team as opposed to three or four transfers coming in and try to rebuild that way. As someone who's played overseas for the girls that are done with college and WNBA is not for them. How much harder is it for them overseas than for like the guys? It's not that much harder. I think it's less jobs. Like we said, that's that's.

hardest part for the girls game is it's just less jobs everywhere. Is there a European?

Oh yeah. You hear Euroboys, you know, the NBA is all European, come and come and come. I'm not completely in.

to Joe's point of less jobs, they'll have a top league for the girls. That's very similar, like the top Spain league, the top British league.

paying jobs, but there's second and third divisions for the boys, which like feed into if you win, you can move up. Yeah. So that's, I think, the main. Yeah. And there's a lot of jobs where it's the second, third tier for boys is like the girls first tier. It's just not a lot of opportunities, not a lot of Americans, not a lot of money. So the big spots, you know, you're Madrid, you're Spain's, you're, you know, Israel's Australia. They they're going to have somebody WNBA.

coming back and forth. And then the girls game is so popular that the European girls are really good too. So it's not like you need five Americans. It's starting to become a European game on a guy's side too and a girl's side. What does Europe do that we do differently? Because I see all over social media that we need to start doing what they're doing as far as developing players and stuff. What do they do?

It's a why are they more successful? It's a full program. You're in that program from the minute you're in school to whether you make the professional team or whatever they have. Like it's you're not bouncing around like I live in this area. This program. I'm with this program. I'm with this team. Could it be that the money doesn't dictate it as much? Yeah, it's not flowing. It's like what Max is saying. They start at a younger age than us and they start playing competitive.

younger age and they got more skill work. So, you know, a lot of times they go for five hours.

where here we go an hour or two. And they play one game every two weeks or a week, and we play eight in three days. Right. But I think, and they do the club, it's like club to the professional too. So how many, I think we're trying to do a good job of keeping our kids here, but how many kids help hop around to six different AAU teams? You don't get.

You don't get I shouldn't say you don't get better, but it's harder to do that and build skill and character and things like that where the European like this is where I'm at. This is what I'm working with. I'm going to work with the same coaches each day. They're helping me get better and it's consistent. Yeah, you see guys like Luca, who's been a professional since he's been, you know, 16, 17. And so when you see him playing for Dallas, this game is easy for him. You know, the Europe game is harder, you know, than the American.

It really is with the three seconds and illegal defenses and no hand checks and different things you can't do here. In Europe, you got to really play. You plan to get grown men who's going to take cigarette breaks at halftime, have one with their coach, and come right back in and ready to play you. It's just a more physical game. The crowds are more intense. I mean, it's fireworks in the crowd.

is it's random, it's lively. It's like you're going to a football game, but it's basketball, you know, so it's it's more intense. So when these players come over and make this transition, it's like easier for them to make that transition than it is for a lot of Americans going overseas to play. So click Kate and Clark's going WNBA injuries to senior. I think she just declared. Yeah, she's going to. So you lose them. Haley.

Yeah, she's going to. She's going. So I mean, when you think talk girls college, I mean, those three names pop up right away. You know, they're moving on. So how does the college game stay popular next year? You got you got Juju Watkins is unbelievable. She's going to she's on pace to break all of Caitlin's records if she stays all four years. I mean, she's she just broke a lot of records that was set by Cheryl Miller.

Reggie Miller's sister, and she was just, she was considered - She's a freshman at USC, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's considered the best player of all time, Cheryl Miller, on the girls side. So she's breaking all her records already as a freshman. So she's going to be the face, she's still got Paige over at UConn. When she decided she's coming back, I thought that was pretty cool to have that. And South Carolina, I mean, they're just -

What can you say about them? Look at the freshmen. She won the MVP of the SEC championship. I forget her name. But she's just a freshman. She's making these fast. She's behind the back passes and fake passes like Rondo. It's just like, well, this game is going to keep evolving because the freshmen that's coming in are starting to play like upperclassmen. That's how you know the game is evolving. So it's star -studded. And if you're a really good senior in high school,

And let's say you were a five star senior in high school. It's translated over fast to girls college. So it's easy to get more faces now. And I think the terms of the faces, like they have the big time coaches, Dawn Staley, Gina Oriamo, Kim Mulkey. They have those big time faces where the guys, those faces are kind of they're out. Roy Williams, Jay Wright, Coach K. They're moving on where.

it used to always be a coaches game of the coaches drive. It's the coaches and the universities that used to pump it. And I think the girls have more heavy hitter coaches. And with their personalities and the social media and them just being out there, I think it's just growing that game and helping it get even farther. I think what's helping on the girls' side, right, we come in here and right now it's really pumping up, amping up as far as trainees and stuff. And last night it was what?

girls training and the gym was absolutely full. So you're going to see the girls still evolve so much more. Yeah. Just by watching how full the gym was last night. Yeah. We had 80, 82, 83 girls in our spring academy. It was just, you know, just amazing to feel all three courts and all girls, you know, and different levels from third grade to eighth grade. No high school girls. And, you know, they got their own days. So this is a third graders having a pass.

I think there was a lull though here for a couple years in numbers wise. I know like the current eighth grade I think in a number school is not just Cedarburg I think Homestead has a little bit of number problem, but there's a couple years here where the numbers are lull, right? But now Now that I'm involved more in the youth and I see the numbers seventh grade sixth grade. Yeah fifth grade I got to two teams at seventh grade, you know, so the numbers you're seeing more popular more popular on the girls side Which is good to see. Yeah. Well, that's gonna happen

From that eighth grade to that freshman, sophomore year, that's the hardest transition for any guy and girl because you gotta realize what you wanna do and who you wanna be. And sometimes that's hard to kinda see at that age. You're either gonna go a different way or you're a multi -sport, you gotta pick which one you wanna go down. So it's always gonna be a low of kinda numbers when you get to eighth, ninth grade. But you're right with that where it's just historically.

This girls are more girls before we're starting to play volleyball a lot more. So I think it's starting to even the gap out a little bit more now. Sticking with the girls side, like I said, summer's amping up here, right? I think I don't have a weekend off now until I looked at it was like August, August 25th or something like something crazy. But you guys are are really busy. You got trainings every other day or camps and stuff. Yeah. But sticking with the girls. So you lost.

a pretty good amount of girls to seniors. A lot of very good players, Sarah A, Kaitlyn, Lucy. Do a little preview of your 17 girls this year. Oh man, they're going to be special. So when you lose a group, you add to another group. Because the things that you lose, you want to make sure you get in the next group. Because that's the culture that they leave behind.

Obviously offensive ability, defensive, that stuff changes with different groups you have. But the DNA of my last 17U team is the same as this team. So they're gonna be scrappy, they're gonna be hound dogs, they're gonna be competitive, they're gonna be shooting, the lights out. Everyone from one through nine can shoot the ball. And that's gonna be exciting for us is we got a group of girls who are excited. We already got four or five girls that got D2 offers already, multiple offers.

And Mackenzie Luring is our point guard. Autumn from New Berlin is our point guard as well. So we got two guards that just pick you up full court, just make you uneasy. And they do it with a smile on their face. And those are the worst kind of guards because they're not mean at all. They're just going to be picking you up, getting five to eight steals a game, talking trash to you. So they kind of set the tone defensively and offensively.

Obviously our guards, we got Sarah Ham, we got Grace Zorbin, they were all conference players and in their regards and their conferences, both of them have offers, division two offers. So that's gonna be something there. We picked up a new player, Mackenzie Hawke, who's gonna be kind of our Lucy from last year. She's gonna be a player that she averages like 12 points, nine rebounds a game. And that's what we're gonna kind of expect from her here too. She's a high jumper.

She's very athletic, lanky, can rebound out of her area. We're gonna teach her to push the ball up the court, let it ride, choose some threes, get her out of her comfort zone a little. Again, we talked about Rachel Ag, she reminds me of my wife a lot. She's six foot who can shoot the ball, she can stretch the floor. She's got a six five, six six wingspan, so she's very long and active. She doesn't realize how good she is.

with ghost greens and flair screens and bring the ball up the court and she shoots over 40 % from three. So we want to play towards her strengths this year. Also a high IQ player and high GPA. So she's going to have a lot of schools that's after her. Obviously Lauren Strifton has been with us since the beginning. She was been with us since she was wearing high socks and you know.

headbands, you know, in third, fourth grade. You know, those girls used to wear colorful socks. Well, headbands were in. I can't look at a picture of my daughter from middle school. It's all headbands and shorts. And I do like a monologue and different things with the kids as they evolve. And every year is kind of special for us. We put all these pictures together and videos. I got over 50 ,000 videos in my phone. Because when I was young, I used to take so many videos of my phone of the training.

that these girls and guys used to do. So at the end of the year, I have a banquet with all these players and I just talk about their growth from us and what we accomplished with them. And Lauren is one of those girls that started with us in third, fourth grade. And now to see her with four or five offers and making all conference in different areas and shooting over 40%. I mean, that kid can go any school she want, 4 .2 GPA, high 30s on the ACT. I mean, she's gonna be.

Someone that everyone wants and we got a first team all conference in the greater Metro and we lost Lucy who was first team. But we got Danica who came on. She's averaging 18 points a game this year for Germantown when everyone thought Germantown was going to have a down year. She kind of came in her and Lucy and really had a great year. So she went for she's a first team all conference player. So that's a huge hat off to her. There are a lot of rewards for a lot of champion. Oh my God a lot of honor.

Yeah, and that's the thing we want to highlight as seasons are starting to end is kind of highlight all these girls that made different things. So that team is going to be special in a lot of ways because they they've been together for a while and the pieces that we added is the pieces that we lost. What I love about it too is like on the Cedarburg side, for instance, you know, there's a lot of honorable mentions. I think there was a first team all conference in Mary.

couple of second teams, but they had over a 3 .8 GPA. And to put the work in that they're putting on the court, off the court, and in their school work, that's more even prestigious. Yeah, it is. And especially the girls, they really care about their grades, because we talked about it before. They usually want to go to the school that's going to benefit them as boys. We don't really care. Whatever school we end up in. And I remember going to Marquette, and they were like, what do you want to study? I was like, whatever you think.

We don't care. I came here for the basketball program. And the girls, they care about, hey, I want to go to school for this. And this is what I'm looking for for this school. If they don't offer this, I'm not considering this school. And that's something that's just different from the guys and the girls. Which is good. It's good. It's really good. It's really good. It helps us out. Yeah, a ton. Number one is getting in places. And you have a c -

clear goal and what you want to do and get you there. It helps out a ton. Yeah, totally, totally. So that group of girls, like you mentioned, that 17 group, they're going to be fun to watch because there's a lot of girls that have been with us forever. And a couple pieces we added, they already got our DNA. So it's going to be a fun group to be a part of. I know high school season just ended, but I mean, next year, the juniors, this year's juniors, next year's seniors are going to be.

There's going to be a great competition again next year. It's going to be. Those P -Walkie girls, I don't see anybody beating them again. Are they calling it back? They're back. They're back. They're only juniors? Yeah, they're back. And then you got Arrowhead. They're best players of sophomore. So Natalie Cusso. So that group.

They just won, too. Is Nina's that Ali's Evil kid? She's 20 -25? She's 20 -24, I believe. She's going to UConn. She's gone. But you still got Hortonville with Rainey Wilson. I mean, you got some big time players who is just seeing the involvement of these girls. So you mentioned a player. And Rainey, they're like six foot point guards. Like, point guard, two guards. How do you suppose it's like back in our day? Like, f***.

Six foot you're stuck in a post as a girl player. These girls are bringing a ball up. They get double, triple team. They make it step backs between the legs. The one girl you just mentioned. I think it's Ali's evil. Yeah, yeah, it's evil. She was doing side steps off of one leg, you know, sidestep one leg fade like dirt. And she was doing it multiple times in the game. So I know that was her skill set. So she she dropped thirty five in the state.

They didn't end up winning, beating Arrowhead, but no one can stop her. And the game was slow to her. She was just picking her spots. She was like, man, she's six foot doing this. So it's just fun to watch the involvement of the girls' game. And it's going to be just as spectacular next year, because a lot of those girls are coming back. Awesome. Well, we sat here for, oh, we're talking about the girls' game. We could probably go on and on.

Like I said, I like coaching them more than the boys. Yes, yes. That's just my opinion. I love it. Love the girls game, the involvement of it, the excitement around it. The girls are excited to be in a gym, seeing their teammates. So just starting back up AAUC and just to see the smiles on these girls faces and how hard they're working and hard they're playing. It makes for a special time over the summer for us. So we're looking forward to continuing to watch the girls game as far as college and WNBA. But.

We're excited that AAU is here too.