00:00How difficult is that second turnaround game when you, you know, you get a week kind of in a way
00:07to prepare for that first one, but how difficult, not knowing who you're going to play in that second game,
00:12and how difficult is that a preparation to go into that second one?
00:16The first thing that happens, Dan, is what time do you play on the first day? Are you the early
00:21segment? Are you the late segment? Are you the afternoon? Are you in the evening? That dictates, and it's daunting.
00:32If you're the first game of a doubleheader, you have to wait until the finish of the second game. You
00:38have many media obligations to finish up at the arena. Then you want to get the players back. You want
00:44to get them something neat. You want to give them time to see their families and their loved ones who
00:48have come to the game.
00:49Who, by the way, because of NIL, because of pay for play, more families can get to these games. When
00:58you think about 10 years ago, if you were a team on the East Coast and you got word like
01:06St. John's got word, hey, you have to be in San Diego for a Thursday game.
01:11They're not getting there because they're not getting there because they can't afford it. No one could afford those prices.
01:18So I guess if there's a plus to pay for play, it would be that the families can travel.
01:25You now have to decide over what time you play on the second day. How many hours do you have
01:32to prepare? And then you have to make it as normal as possible.
01:35Because one of the things that's missed is there's media obligations in between. So you win Thursday, you have media
01:42obligations and a slot of time to practice on Friday.
01:49Then you go in and you get your game ready for Saturday. You make a great point because these are
01:54teams that you don't know.
01:55When we do this during the year, if you're Michigan, you have an idea of what Illinois is going to
02:02do.
02:03And then, oh, another, I have a day and a half and I'm playing Ohio State. You know that. You
02:08can prepare that.
02:10This is much more like Ivy competition. The Ivy, they play Friday, they play Saturday.
02:16So judging your time and deciding how much physical you want to do, how much mental you want to do,
02:24and the really good ones,
02:26Dan, they do their scouting reports and they'll say, hey, this guy shoots it like so-and-so from our
02:34league.
02:35Or this team defends the ball screen like that team that we played, you know, two weeks ago in the
02:42conference tournament.
02:44It is absolutely a blur. I'm just sitting here now outside of Philadelphia and saying,
02:52a week ago at this time I was in the Pittsburgh arena, you know, agonizing over VCU against Dayton.
03:02And now we're six, seven days later and they're collecting uniforms of VCU.
03:08Coach, how in the world do you prep for that? I mean, because in college football, and as you know,
03:15there's trends.
03:17You know, you look at a trend of what a team does. You look at a trend of what you're
03:21doing.
03:22How can you build that type of understanding up when you're looking at uncommon opponent?
03:27I mean, uncommon opponent. I mean, you never know what you're going to get.
03:31It really is. How big of a challenge is that to prep your team because you really don't have any
03:37trends going into these games?
03:38I think it's enormous. I think it's under, under, not reported, but it's undervalued by the public.
03:47They'll look at the game and say, well, you're a two seed and they're a seven seed.
03:51So you obviously you're better. Well, no, you're not.
03:54You're not better because some committee gave you a number.
03:56And if you're meticulous in your preparation and the great ones are meticulous about their preparation, it changes their whole
04:08ability.
04:09And I've always said this. Coaches need to practice this.
04:14We have a lot of practice time in September, October.
04:18How about if you simulated an NCAA game with a practice on Thursday, how we're going to prepare on Friday
04:26and then come in Saturday and scrimmage or, or, or run a very highly competitive practice.
04:32Too many, too many. And I don't, I don't want to sound critical, but there's too many guys.
04:38Here's Dan. Here's another one in college basketball.
04:41You could play a game at nine o'clock at night.
04:43You could play noon on Saturday. You could play early games, six 30 in the big 10.
04:50They play six 30 games. So I ask every coach out there, what time do you practice?
04:56And you and I both know 99.9% are going to say we practice at three o'clock.
05:03Right. Do you know how their bodies work at nine o'clock?
05:07Do the players know how to eat during that day, go to class, fill their obligations.
05:13And sometimes we'll say, man, we were really sluggish. Yeah. Well, that's on us as coaches because we haven't practiced
05:19it.
05:21Same thing with the NCAA tournament.
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