Andy Stark is entering his 5th season as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at D2 D'Youville University. The Saints advanced to the East Coast Conference Semifinals in 2026 and continued the program’s upward trajectory since Stark took over the program in June of 2022.

Stark previously served one season on the Baylor men's basketball staff under Scott Drew. During his time with the Bears, Stark helped the team to a 27-7 record, winning the 2021 Big 12 Championship and making it to the NCAA March Madness Round of 32 as a No. 1 seed.

Prior to his time with the Bears, Stark served as an assistant coach at D3 Penn State-Behrend and at D2 Gannon University. He began his coaching career at Stevenson University in Owings Mills, Md. as a graduate assistant for the men's basketball team after having served as the head student assistant at St. Bonaventure while earning a bachelor's degree in journalism and mass communications.

On this episode Mike & Andy discuss the transformative experiences that shaped his coaching philosophy, emphasizing the significance of nurturing relationships with players. Stark addresses the trials and tribulations of his initial coaching years, acknowledging the steep learning curve associated with transitioning to a head coach. Stark explains how he learned to balance rigorous coaching with compassion, asserting that fostering trust is paramount in building a successful team culture. His narrative underscores the importance of patience and celebrating incremental progress, particularly in a program that is in the nascent stages of development. Through his insights, Stark illustrates the complexities and rewards of coaching, particularly in the context of leading a team through challenges while striving for excellence. His commitment to creating a positive environment, where players can thrive academically and athletically, is evident as he discusses the roles of mentorship and community in shaping the identities of young athletes.

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Grab pen and paper before you listen to this episode with Andy Stark, Men’s Basketball Head Coach at D’Youville University.

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You make a million mistakes as a head coach and I think that's why I'm 10 times the coach now that I was four years ago.

Andy Stark is entering his fifth season as the head men's basketball coach at D2D' Youville University.

Stark previously served one season on the Baylor men's basketball staff.

Prior to his time with the Bears, Stark served as an assistant coach at D3 Penn State Behrend and at D2 Gannon University.

He began his coaching career at Stevenson University in Owings Mills, Maryland as a graduate assistant for the men's basketball team after having served as the head student assistant at St. Bonaventure while earning a bachelor's degree in journalism and mass communications.

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Grab pen and paper before you listen to this episode with Andy Stark, men's basketball head coach at d' youville University.

Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here without my co host Jason Sunkel tonight, but I am pleased to welcome in Andy Stark, head men's basketball coach at d' youville University.

Andy, welcome to the Hoop Heads pod.

Hey Mike, thanks for having me.

Obviously first off, thank you for all you do for the game of basketball.

Love, love listening to the podcast.

And then also I am excited the last couple people all national champions on the podcast.

So I feel a little nervous to talk today.

Coach Hurt did some good.

I liked her stuff.

I know Easton pretty well.

Easton was obviously great on here and then Mike Williams at Grand Valley is unbelievable coach.

So just an honor to be on the podcast and, you know, excited to talk about a program.

Well, appreciate all those kind words and hopefully we'll toss a little karma your way and bring you some good things for the upcoming season.

But I appreciate the kind words and yeah, it's been nice to be able to talk to people who have reached the mountain that so many coaches obviously are trying to, to get to the top there.

And to be able to talk to some people who accomplish that is always, I think, insightful both for me and for our audience.

To be able to hear just what those seasons looked, felt, sound like as you're going through and trying to get up to the, to the top where everybody is, everybody's trying to get to.

So I appreciate that.

And again, yeah, we're excited to have you on.

And let's start by going back in time with you to when you were a kid.

Tell me about how you got introduced to the game of basketball.

What made you fall in love with it?

Yeah, the big thing with me was, you know, my grandfather was a coach, my dad was a high school football coach for a long time.

My mom also was a coach.

So grew up in a family that was surrounded by athletics, you know, waking up at five in the morning, going to football practice with my dad every summer, you know, so I've always wanted to be a coach.

You know, I played a lot of hockey growing up loved hockey and I still do, but kind of transitioned into that seventh and eighth grade year into playing basketball and fell in love just with everything about basketball and, you know, was a decent player in high school.

You know, your standard catch and shoot three guy, got some technicals, takes a lot of charges, one of those guys, you know.

And I was lucky enough I played for a really good high school.

Coach Jeff Thompson, Gananda High School down in Rochester, New York.

Unbelievable high school coach.

You know, always had the gym open, would drive me and some of our teammates to other games, like not even teams we'd play, just, hey, this is going to be a great high school game tonight.

You know, just fell in love with the game.

Ended up, you know, going to Saint Bonaventure team camp and all that stuff, and, you know, wasn't really sure what I wanted to do, basketball wise.

And then, you know, I went to a Saint Bonaventure game in Rochester.

They always play like a big game in Rochester.

And I don't know, I just woke up the next day and I'm like, that's where I want to go, you know.

So then I got in touch with the OPS guy, Matt Papano, and kind of started figuring that stuff out.

And, you know, every good program's always looking for good managers, you know, and people that just want to be around the game.

And so, you know, going to Saint Bonaventure was huge.

You know, Coach Mark Schmidt, who just ended up stopping coaching there, unbelievable basketball coach.

And, you know, the one cool thing that I think you kind of look at my background and my story is I've been to places where guys have taken over programs that were dead, you know, and so that's.

We'll kind of get into that, I'm sure, later.

But like, Coach Schmidt, Bonaventure, dead, dead in the water, you know, and he got there, turned it around, you know, and then won the A10 championship.

And, you know, some of the stuff that I take with him is just his player development.

You know, he was always finding, you know, hidden gems all over the place, recruiting wise.

So that was a huge thing.

His offensive mind is unbelievable.

And, you know, like, I just thought the one thing.

Oh, the one thing it really does stick out at Bonaventure was my, my senior year.

So by the time I was a senior, I had a lot more responsibility, obviously, and Coach Schmidt tore his Achilles, so I ended up driving him everywhere.

So.

So, like, when, when, when as a young guy is trying to break into this, this profession, do you get a 20 minute car ride every day with the head Coach of the A10 coach of the year.

Like, I was the luckiest person in America.

And you know, so, like, you know, we still have a pretty close connection.

And then do you want me to kind of keep going through that background?

Let's circle back to just the idea of when do you understand that the student manager path is the pathway to becoming a college coach?

Is that something that, because of your family background with coaching that you were aware of early on?

Because I know you mentioned that.

Hey, I, I kind of thought I always wanted to be a coach.

So when did you start to look at that managerial track?

For lack of a better way of saying it was going to be a way to kind of get yourself into the profession?

I think the big thing with that was I had some schools recruiting me.

Nothing like concrete, you know, and I think it was kind of the handwriting was on the wall.

It's time to get into coaching.

And, you know, it's always something I wanted to do.

So it was easy for me.

You know, going to Saint Bonaventure was a great fit.

And I think selfishly for me, like, it's a small school, right, and it's in the middle of nowhere.

There's nothing to do there except for study and basketball.

So it's great.

They don't have a, they didn't have, you know, when I was at BAYLOR, we had 47 managers or whatever.

At Bonaventure we had, I don't know, five.

So, like, you got a really nice hands on, you know, your coaches, like Steve Curran, that's now George Mason, takes you under his wing and really helps you out.

Like I would go out and kind of help him recruit and, you know, everything.

So you're, you, you're able to really get your hands dirty in that program.

And, you know, that's what I wanted to do.

I didn't want to just go someplace and be just another person.

You want to go in and you want to try to learn.

And, you know, I think Bonaventure definitely was a place where I found my identity in coaching.

And it's like, yeah, this is what I want to do.

When you think about your time there as a manager, what's something from that experience that you are still carrying with you today, now as a head coach that you learned for the first time while you were there at Bon Metra?

Is there one thing or maybe two that stick out for you as coaches?

Hey, these are clear lessons that I learned right away.

Being involved with the coaching staff, there.

Stuff with the coaching staff really would be just like Coach Schmidt, big on relationships, always taking care of his people.

Like, that was something that was like eye opening to me, like how he treats everybody, you know, and it's a, it's a great family atmosphere, you know, And I think this, the Bonaventure, the other thing at Bonavet that always will stick out to me is how important, you know, at that school a good basketball program is.

And it's the heartbeat of the school.

And it was really fun.

Those are kind of the things.

But you know, and then also just, I think the one thing I always take with Coach Schmidt and kind of learn from Bonaventure is how you can kind of play and structure offense through your better players.

You know, he, like, if you need a, if you need a, if you need an ATO or you need a set to get the ball on the block to your best player, there's no one better in the country doing that.

If you need, you need to get a three point shooter open at the end of the game.

Like, I just, every, every couple of weeks I go on my synergy account and just pull up his ATOs.

You know, there's a couple other coaches I do that with.

But he's all, he's on that list, which is, which is crazy.

You know, he's always been, he's always been really good at finding mismatches and getting his best players ball.

Yeah, I think when you could pick out something, right, there's two things.

The relationship piece, which again, everybody knows is so important, especially in today's game, just the way that things are and the way that today's players are being able to build those relationships.

And then obviously you're taking something from an X's and O standpoint.

And I think what's interesting when I talk to coaches, Andy, is that everybody, right, you take those pieces, you take, hey, I really like this, or, hey, this is something that I'm really dialed in that this guy is really, really good at.

And I want to take his strength and be able to incorporate it into who I am as a coach.

And for you to see that as a manager first, to be able to start to look at, hey, these are things that I really like that I respect about this coach on the staff or this coach that I can take with me.

Those things are really important.

And this probably goes to maybe even further on as you continue through your career as an assistant.

But did you even at that point have a way of whether it's note taking, collecting things that you started to look at and like, and say, hey, if I'm going to go into this profession, these are things that I want to make sure I remember.

Did you have a system for kind of collecting those things?

Three ring binder, old school.

Were you Google Drive?

What was your, what was your go to for kind of collecting stuff?

Every practice plan, every.

I keep everything.

You know, I'm kind of a hoarder.

And, and that, that, that capacity.

Obviously my organizational structure has changed a lot.

Now everything's through video and everything like that.

But back then it was really, you know, I had a spreadsheet too, like, of every single coach that I was trying to connect with and put their number in and, you know, meticulously, like, this is the last time I contacted them.

Not to be annoying, but like, hey, it's been a month.

This, hey, coach, how's the season going?

You know, because obviously you're not, you knew, you're just a student manager.

You gotta, the next step is to find that job, you know, and I think that was really important.

But I mean, yeah, like, every little set that we had, I, I have it tucked away somewhere.

And you know, every, everything that every scout, everything.

And I'll pull out that scout and my staff here or will roll their eyes and be like, no one plays like that anymore, coach.

I'm like, but I remember that's how it, you know, and then you kind of take and tweak some of that stuff.

And you know, you, like you said you take your own style from everybody.

Yeah, there's no question about that.

I think you take, you take and tweak, right?

You take it, you're like, I like this.

And then let me use it to fit my personality or my style or my team and, and who I have in terms of personnel and those kinds of things.

I think that's really, really important.

When you graduate from Bonaventure.

Any thought to getting a quote unquote real job or at that point Were you 100% sold on?

I'm going out to try to find myself a coaching position, which obviously you were able to do, getting a GA job at Stevenson, but just walk me through your thought process and then the steps that you took to be able to get that first coaching job.

Yeah, there was never any thought of taking another job.

The, the one thing was like, I did work with the hoop group for a long time, and through the hoop group, you know, they, they gave me some, some leeway and it opened a lot of doors and a lot of connections, and I was very lucky with that.

You know, they were, they were very loyal to me, which is, which is amazing.

So I think I would have had an opportunity to stay in that grassroots side of basketball.

But, you know, luckily I, I got connected with.

I probably interviewed.

And I always try to tell people that when they're looking for that next job is honestly like, those GA spots are sometimes the hardest ones to get because there's maybe one on a staff, two on a staff.

A lot of times they're not paid, you know, so it, I shoot, I probably applied to like 150 different job.

Like, it's really that then that's not an exaggeration.

Everyone's doing that.

But, you know, you know, you, you.

I had a bunch of interviews.

Some stuff didn't work.

You know, ops jobs, video jobs, GA's.

And I ended up getting that job at, at Stevenson, and that ended up being a, a, a good fit for me.

It's kind of like that's the top of the funnel, right?

Everybody who's starting out, everybody's kind of going through that same meat grinder of trying to get that GA position.

And like you said, there just aren't many.

It's interesting just hearing you talk about your experience and applying to whatever X number of schools.

I remember now.

This is a long time ago, Andy.

It's a long time ago.

When I was, When I, when I graduated from Kent, and the year I graduated, everybody cut the GA positions from two back to one.

The NCAA reduced it, and so all the schools basically had their gas staggered.

So you had somebody that was, you know, on for this year, and they'd stay there too, and then whatever.

And so when I applied, basically there was zero.

I mean, there was not only was everybody fighting for those jobs, but there was literally zero openings because everybody had them staggered and had somebody coming back for a year, and I would have ended up having to wait a year.

And I got so many letters from coaches saying, hey, you know, we Just don't have anything or hey, we'd really be interested, but we just don't have anything because Guy X is coming back and because of the cut in the ncaa.

And so I oftentimes think about, and obviously I didn't end up in college coaching, I ended up going back to school and getting my teaching license and becoming a teacher and coaching a little bit in high school and whatever.

But I often think about just how my life might have been different had the NCAA ruling not been to cut those GA jobs back down from, from 2 to 1.

And who knows, maybe I'd have been a college coach at some point, you know, going through and having a completely different career path in life.

It's one of those things that just luck of the draw, good or bad, depending on how you want to look at it, that I just happened to be in the.

Either the wrong place, the wrong time, or maybe it was the right place at the right time with my life.

Turned out pretty good.

I got no complaints.

So.

But it's just interesting to again hear you talk about just the sheer number of applications and letters that you had to send out in order to just get any opportunity at all.

And I think that's, if it's a lesson that I think has come through a lot on the podcast from guys, is you have to be super persistent.

You have to just keep working and try to leverage the relationships you have and, and do whatever it takes.

Be willing to go where you got to go, be willing to pay, work for whatever pay or whatever non pay that you can to get your, to get your foot in the door.

So tell me a little bit about the experience at Stevenson and, and did you know right away, obviously once you get in there that you're like, hey, I'm, I'm 100% in the right place?

Yeah, it was, it was great.

You know, so again, like, you have that manager experience and then you go to the, the small school college basketball, you know, so there's the head coach, assistant coach, and then the ga. That's it.

So, you know, like you, you, you show up and you're like, shoot, I really got to coach my butt off.

I really got to bring value, you know, I remember one of our first meetings.

Coach Stewart, Coach Gary Stewart was like, so who you recruiting?

Been here for two days.

What do you mean?

He's like, well, that's your job, you know, and like it's just his own little way and his own little twist of doing stuff.

But, you know, so sure enough, and luckily we Had a.

A grade ad with Brett Adams that was.

Hey, here's.

Here's the.

Here's a.

Here's a recruit.

Not.

Not your own personal recruiting car, but we have these recruiting cars throughout the school.

He's like, just take it.

Just go everywhere.

So we were down in that DMV area where all the players are, and, you know, you're just meeting a zillion people.

I'd go to a zillion games.

I was probably.

Probably out every other night.

Again, young guy, nothing else to do.

You know, just love hoops.

And then you're down in a great area for basketball, so you're just going watch a ton of basketball.

And it was.

It was a great fit.

And then you start getting into game prep and you're doing your own scouts and you get entrusted with that stuff and you get more and more and more.

And, you know, that was something that I'll always be grateful for at Stevenson is that's where I really was able to lay my roots, recruiting.

And, you know, you're able to make mistakes as a ga, you know, and then you're also going through scouts, but you're learning player personality, you're doing all that stuff.

And it was a unique situation because I'd say probably half the team was older than me.

So you really have to work on those relationships.

You know, those are unique relationships that you have to be careful.

Like, you don't.

Especially when you're.

I'm not cool enough to be friends with them, but, like, you don't want to be friends with them, but you also want to have that mutual respect.

So that's always something that.

It wasn't really a challenge at Stevenson, but something that you kind of always had on your brain.

I could see that.

I think one of the things that I have heard people say a lot in that position, right, Especially as a young assistant, but I think in any coaching position, right, so much of it is what kind of preparation are you doing for your interaction with the players, right?

Whether that's from a player development standpoint, whether that's from understanding what you're trying to do offensively or defensively, being able to teach it, right.

Ultimately, the players want to get better and they want somebody who can help them to be able to do that.

And if you come in knowing your stuff and being confident and being someone who can help them with their goal, right, to be better individually and to be better collectively as a team, that.

That's really what helps to build the respect.

And it sounds like that was kind of the experience that, that, that you had at Stevenson initially, even as a guy who as you said, may have been younger than some of the guys you were coaching.

Yeah, and that's, that's part of the, that's part of the deal when you sign up for that, you know, you're, you're in a really different situation.

And you know, there's, there's times where you're like, what the heck is going on?

And you, you just, you're, you're thrown in the fire and that's, guess what, you're going to get thrown in the fire again when you're a head coach.

So it's, it's a, it's a great opportunity.

From recruiting standpoint.

I think this is always kind of an interesting topic to raise with somebody is how long do you feel like it took you to get a feel for the level of player that you needed at Stevenson to be able to win and that you could realistically get to come to Stevenson?

I think this question can apply, right, to every single job that you've ever had.

Right.

Because you have different levels that you've been at.

But just when you're getting to a new job, how long does it take you to acclimate to, hey, these are the kind of guys that we should be going after that we need in order to win.

And yet they're also guys that are realistic for us to be able to get.

I think a lot of it goes to who the head coach is when you're an assistant, especially what the head coach likes.

Like, I know me personally, I like to bring in guys that are pretty tough, hard nosed, tough minded people.

So those are kind of the guys and guys that play really hard.

Those are the guys that I kind of gravitate to when I'm watching.

But you know, I thought at, at Stevenson, you know, you, Gary Stewart has a, a certain style that he wanted, you know, he, he wanted to bring in athletes.

He liked to score.

You know, he, he wanted, wanted to play fast.

And you know, that's what you're kind of looking at now.

You, you, the other thing is you try to, you know, at least my advice for young coaches and I still try to do it, you know, as a head coach is you don't have like, you have a list of maybe at that level again, you're, you're, you're in that funnel, right?

So you're recruiting tons of guys and we do that here at the Division 2 level.

But you know, hey, okay, he doesn't like this guy, if he wants to ask for another point guard, I better have three or four more ready to go.

So you're always just ready to present guys to that head coach.

I mean, what head coach is going to stop?

You're bringing me too many players.

It's never going to happen.

Right.

So again, like, you, you, you kind of learn through trial and error.

But also on the other side, I worked with an assistant, Jeff Smith, that was at Stevenson for a long time.

Unbelievable recruiter, super tied in to that DMV area, you know, work with Baltimore Elite and all those guys down there.

So he, he was just bringing me around and showing me kind of the ropes too.

And Coach Curran at Bonaventure did that too.

Said, I think you need guys in your life, especially early on to be like, yeah, this is what we're looking for.

You know, coach won't like that.

Coach likes that.

You know, we have that with our GA right here now at d' youville and our assistant that's been with me for two years.

Like the GA will bring him players and he's like, no, he's not gonna like that.

Or, you know, he's gonna, he's gonna really like that guy.

Let's, let's get moving on that.

I think the real thing is make sure you're bringing guys to the attention.

Always have enough guys to bring to the head coach, but know their style.

And, you know, you got to study the film from the previous years of guys that, that he's been successful with.

Yeah, absolutely right.

Having an understanding of the history of which type of players have had success, which type of players that head coach likes.

I think that's always a critical piece of it, without question.

One of the interesting pieces about being a GA is not only do you have all the responsibility that you're talking about from a basketball standpoint, but you're also trying to get a master's degree while you're there working as a ga.

So for you, how did you balance the academic requirements that you had with.

Obviously, you're essentially a full time coach as well.

How did you balance those things, those two things?

What do you remember about that phase of your life?

Trying to go through and give your best to both of those areas.

You're just on the computer 24 7.

All the classes there were on online, but it was, it's.

It's tough.

It's tough.

I mean, it's really hard.

Like, it's hard enough to just be a coach and then you have to take the classes on top of that.

And the classes at Stevenson were pretty hard.

Um, but you know, I think you're just really, it's that time of your life where you got to kind of put the pedal down and grind it a little bit.

And you know what, how important getting that master's degree is.

And I think that's, that's really the big thing.

I mean, we were all in the office, all the gas.

They were in the office all the time.

You're either doing homework or watching film or we're all going crazy, you know, so it's, it's.

But again, like, those are the times you kind of miss know being a GA and you're in a GA office with other, you know, 15 other GA's, like, it's a cool, it's a cool time and you're all with a bunch of like minded people.

But tell me a little bit about how you get that opportunity at Gannon.

Is it a connection?

Is it again, just kind of pounding the pavement.

What, what allows you to end up.

At Gannon so goes back to Bonaventure.

Coach Riley was at Gannon.

Used to come watch us practice at Saint Bonaventure all the time.

So it started out as simple as, and this sounds cheesy, but me grabbing him a chair, hair Coach.

Here you go.

Have a seat.

You know, welcome to Saint Bonaventure.

Next time you see him, maybe a month later, a little more conversation next time, a little more conversation.

You know, then I get the job down at Stevenson.

We just kind of keep in connection.

And he's from Bowie.

He was, he's from Bowie, Maryland, where I was kind of right down there from.

So now he starts calling me about players.

Hey, you're down there, you know, tell me about this guy.

Tell me about this guy.

Tell me about this guy.

And you know, that's my little cheat code to everything, is the Division 3 coaches know the area better than anybody.

It's not even close.

If I ever need to know a kid down in the DMV or, you know, Ohio or New York City, you call a couple Division 3 coaches, you'll get the answer real quick on the kid because they work harder than anybody, they recruit better than anybody.

It's, it's not even close.

But that's, you know, that's kind of something that Coach Riley, Riley took.

But that again, that's that Bonaventure connection.

He wanted someone that worked with coach Schmidt and knew that that was able to be a part of good programs and winning programs.

And it was, it was a, that was, that thing fit like a glove.

I love coach Riley.

That's really like the first start.

Like these full time assistant, you know, you're not doing your master's degree, you know, it was unbelievable.

And you know, we had coach Chris Viscuzzo with us too as he was an assistant with coach Riley for a long time.

And that was.

It all comes down to connections like, like you said, it's that just simple as, you know, hey coach, how you doing?

Introducing and then you just kind of keep putting little tidbits in and then obviously guys that want to rise up in the profession, especially when you're young, like people aren't hiring young guys because they're this offensive genius or defensive genius.

Like sure, there's a few unicorns and everything, but if you have access to players and you're good at evaluating players and you, you have access to AAU coaches and good high school coaches and you can you get on the phone and call good junior college coaches and you, you have that good relationship, you become a lot more valuable to people than just a guy that can just do X's and O's or just do player development.

Yeah, absolutely.

So talk to me about that piece of it for you.

I know you said earlier that working with hoop group, obviously that gives you some opportunity to connect with a lot of those people that you just mentioned.

AAU players, coaches, organizations, high school coaches.

So talk to me a little bit about how you built or how you continue to build those relationships with those grassroots coaches, those grassroots players, those grassroots organizations that you can then tap into now for yourself with your program.

But obviously as an assistant you're tapping into the different places where you were.

So just tell me a little bit about those relationships and how you build them.

I think it's just authentic, you know, and honest.

You know, I think one of the things that people respect that, that I try to do and I really make sure our assistants do is if we take someone else, call the AU coach, hey, we ended up taking so and so.

We still love your kid.

You know, the way the transfer portal is, you never know what's going to come back around.

And you'll.

And I, we'll probably talk about that here in a little bit with the Uville.

But you just as long as you're honest and you're upfront and, and you're about the right Things, you know, I very meticulously work on relationships.

You know, like an example is, you know, Chris d' Espara at Crown.

You know, you can go get a kid out of his program and they're going to be a good person, they're going to be a good teammate, they're going to be well coached, you know, so like, and hopefully on the flip side, he thinks that if they come to our program, so it's just, you kind of keep building and then it's also little, little tidbits, hey, did you see this kid?

Like, he'd be great for your program.

He fits what you want to do.

And I think it's just like taking a genuine interest in people and really, really caring, you know, like, I think that's the most important thing when kind of building those relationships.

And it's not just what can you do for me?

Like if you actually, hey, let's go out and get a coffee.

Let's.

Hey, coach, how you doing?

Just checking in.

That means more than I want to recruit your best player.

No.

1, Everyone gets that.

So like you have to have some real relationships.

And especially on year, like for example, you might be part of a watch an AAU program and there's 17s that year aren't good, but you still sit your butt there at the 8:30 a game because you, you love that coach and you have a good relationship.

So it probably drives my assistants nuts.

And I keep talking about that, but a lot of these AAU tournaments, I just watched the same seven or eight programs that I really like their coaches and they're like, oh, you got to go and see this player.

You got to see that we're not going to get that guy.

I know what I like when this is what we're going to do.

But that's, that's the, that's the name of the game.

And I think, I know I kind of keep talking about Steve Kern, but he, he, there's no one better than him with relationships and just treating people right with respect, being honest and upfront with them.

Like, yeah, if we ended up taking another player, the truth might hurt.

But it's better than stringing the kid out for another six months and then he thinks he's going to come to your school and you don't even have a spot for him.

Yeah, I love that.

I, I, the idea that for me, what you talked about in terms of it being a two way street of I know if I go to this coach's program or if I know I go to this organization that I know what kind of player and person is coming out of that program.

And then conversely, for a good AAU coach, right, or a good AAU organization, they're not interested in just sending their kid anywhere.

They want to find the right fit for them.

If they're doing things the right way.

They want to find a program and a coach where what they've instilled and what they've tried to build with their team or with their individual players, that that can continue for that player wherever it is that they end up in college.

And I think that's a great point that sometimes gets lost in, like you said, the pursuit of, hey, we're just going to chase this player.

And then here's a coach that's given us 15 guys over the years and they've all been solid citizens and good players and contributed.

And yeah, maybe they're down a little bit this year.

And now I just ignore that guy because he doesn't have anything to give me in this particular year.

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

And I think the other thing that I like that you said, and it reminds me of the experience that my son had in AAU and he'll be a junior next year at Ohio Wesleyan and he his AAU program again.

And it said nothing to do with me.

We just lucked into just getting on a really good team with some very good players with a just an outstanding coach.

And I had coaches come to me and say, hey, we just really like watching this team play because they play like a real team.

They don't play like bring the ball up and guys are fighting to see who gets to go one on one and take the shot.

They're being held accountable, they're running an offense, they're organized defensively, all these things.

And I can't even tell you, Andy, how many coaches came to me and said, we just like watching this team play, even though, hey, maybe we don't have a guy that's a perfect fit or we have a relationship with the coach.

It's just kind of interesting again when you start thinking about what are the genuine relationships as opposed to, I'm just kind of glad handing people to try to be able to get access to player X or player Y.

So I love both of those points that you made there, for sure.

Yeah.

Like I said, I just think, and I think kids and parents and coaches can see through any phoniness.

And you know, it's, it's.

I think if you're just authentic and you're real with them.

Like, you're gonna have a better.

Better chance of them being successful when you get them too, especially the recruits, you know, in the families.

You're recruiting a whole boatload of people when you're recruiting one kid.

Yeah, absolutely.

Especially today, right?

There's a lot of.

There's a lot of people keep.

There's a lot of people that keep happy besides just the player.

There's a lot of people that you got to kind of keep.

Keep tabs on as you go through that.

So next stop, Penn State.

Barron, tell me about that opportunity.

Unbelievable experience.

Long story short, you know, they ended up letting the head coach go.

My head coach at Gannon, and, you know, he.

By the time he got in the parking lot, he already had another job offer.

And I'm like, well, I don't know, like, what am I gonna do?

So, you know, the next day, Coach Nylan kind of got the news and he's like, hey, like, I don't have anything on my staff, but if you want to come be a part of it, you know, I have a. I don't know what it was.

A thousand, a hundred, it don't matter.

Like, I was still going to do it no matter what.

Right.

I disrespected his program, and, you know, his son and I are close, but, you know, they.

They were always winning, and I knew they ran their program a lot differently than how we ran it at Gannon, you know, so it was a unbelievable year there.

I learned so much.

But the big thing was, you know, you.

You go into an office and you've been a full time assistant, and now you're going back and, you know, I'm sitting in an office with.

With a guy that I never met before as an assistant, and he ends up being my best friend.

He was in our wedding, Chris Klimchock, but now he's a Pit Greensburg coach.

Unbelievable coach.

But, you know, you're like, just.

It's like a total change of pace.

Like, you, You.

You're.

You're part of a really good culture and program at Gannon.

And now you kind of like, don't have.

You, like, lose your identity in a way as a coach.

And it was really hard and that Coach Nyland and, And.

And Clem were able to really pick me up.

The other thing was, you know, you're.

That now.

How do you make it financially work?

And this is.

Every.

Every coach goes through this, you know, so it's not like, oh, look at me.

We work so hard.

No, like, every Coach has some sort of story like this, unless they're extremely lucky.

So I end up working at this bar, you know, and I work from.

And I end up being, long story short, they end up making me the manager because I was good at managing people, I guess.

And you know, so you end up working from 4pm so I go straight from practice, work from 4pm to 4am, sleep a couple hours, go back in the office about eight, kind of do my thing, you know, go back in.

And then I would take a quick 20 minute lunch break and I'd go up to the parking lot in the gas station and sleep in my car for 20 minutes, drive back and just be juiced and ready to go for practice.

So it was again like, that was.

And I, I'll tell Dave Nyland when I see him on the road all the time recruiting.

It was the most fun year I've ever had of my life coaching.

I learned so much because it's polar opposite again.

And you know, they still had all the, the great standards and, and the culture was unbelievable, but they just played differently, they played a little bit slower, they weren't as physical.

But again, like you kind of said this a beautiful basketball ball's pinging all over the place, drilling threes.

You know, I've never, it was just unbelievable.

And, and the one thing like with Coach Nyland that I feel like I learned was really how to like dissect the game and really watch a game.

And well, you know, he.

Would you tell him, well, why, you know, they're running this well, why do you think they're running it?

Why would they run that against us?

Is this the coverage?

So now you're like, wheels are spinning.

You really start to learn.

You know, I, I think there I really started to learn how to really become a, a lot better X's and O's coach and you know, he runs that dynamic two guard offense.

He's kind of gotten away from it a little bit, but, you know, just the nuances of that and the flow and you know, like when I got there, I was always, man, we're going to win.

Like my first practice there, I was like, we're going to win with these guys.

And sure enough, I think we won like 25 games or something.

And the guy's like, he's so good with skill development and just the guys got better and better and better.

And then it really showed me too, like, you don't need to have unbelievable talent.

Like, they just played so well together.

So it's so hard to guard.

It was so hard to do anything, and it could be anybody's night.

And the other thing on top of that is like, Penn State.

Barron's a super high academic school, so you're coaching really smart kids.

And, you know, like, I'm not.

Like, every kid I've coached has been smart, but, like, those kids that are engineers are on a whole nother brain length.

Like, they're talking about stuff when we're going to games, and I'm like, guys, I don't even know what you're talking about.

We need to get focus on the game.

But, you know, they're.

They're just the way they process stuff and like, they, they.

They just run and they'd start calling sets and they.

They'd.

They'd be able to run a whole offense.

They knew the scouts, they knew everything.

It was.

It was the most fun, you know, and it.

Most fun year of my life, but also, like, you're.

You're back on the bottom of the totem pole.

So it was great to just kind of like, grind.

And you didn't have a ton of responsibility.

You didn't have a lot of pressure on you to win like you did at other stops.

It's interesting to hear you talk about asking the questions, right, of, hey, why are they doing this?

Or why do you think they're doing that?

I think that that's something that, again, it's probably always been a part of the meetings in a coach's office, but I do think that it's something that when I think about the way that I was coached As a player 30 some years ago, that coaches didn't ask questions.

They just kind of told you, hey, this is the way it is.

And it wasn't, hey, what did you see?

Or hey, what do you think about this?

Do you find yourself as a coach talking more with your players and asking questions of what.

What they saw or getting their input than maybe even you did at the beginning of your career?

And how important is that in terms of you developing them and helping them to feel a part of what you guys are doing?

It goes back to the relationships and your culture and building trust.

And, you know, I'm.

I'm huge.

A lot of times in practice and even in games, like, shoot my point guard.

We had a point guard this year from France that was unbelievable.

I mean, we, you know, let everyone do this, obviously, but, like, he would grab the board from me and be like, this is what we're doing, coach.

Yeah, let's go.

You know, like, but that's also stuff like he's also the kid that's in my office watching film.

He's, he's bringing film to me.

Had, hey, did you see this?

And like, no, I didn't see this because it was at three in the morning.

You should be sleeping.

But I'm glad you were watching that game in Europe.

But like, you know, he's so like, that's part of that, that trust.

And he, he was really good.

And we have another point guard that's kind of in this pipeline that, that's doing the same thing.

And you know, like, I think that's part of having a good program is if the guys have genuine interest of like, this is what we want to do.

And going back to your question about the why, like, I know it's probably been talked about too much, but this generation of student athletes is all about why, why, why.

So now when I put the stuff in, we're going to run this type of action because they're guarding it like this or this is why we're doing this.

So I, I'm pretty clear and concise right away with why we're doing the stuff we do.

Otherwise it just opens up and they ask a lot of questions and that's great, but you know, you, that you just got to kind of get organized in that, that facet.

What in your mind makes for a good assistant coach.

When you think about both yourself and the guys you worked with when you were an assistant, and then now you think about yourself as a head coach and what you look for an assistant Coach.

What are 2, 3 quick key qualities that you think are important in a good assistant?

The first one automatic comes to mind is loyalty.

That's the most important thing.

Loyalty slash trust.

Being trustworthy.

Um, because obviously you're going to have conversations with assistants and about, hey, you know, this guy's not doing this, player's not doing this.

You don't need your assistant sometimes all the time to run up, hey, coach says, coach says you're doing like.

So that loyalty and trust is huge.

That's all that matters.

You know, like, even if they don't agree with you all the time, that's fine and you don't want it.

Like, that might be point number two.

You don't want assistants that, that agree with.

You know, we, it's funny, we did this thing in our athletic department today.

We did a disc assessment and you know, I'm an I, and then our one assistant is, is a C. So there we're as polar Opposite as could be.

And that's why we work so well together.

But, you know, like, he.

Every time I bring up a question, I bring up like, a.

A thing.

Hey, what.

What if we did this?

What if we did this?

He usually disagrees with me, and I think it's great.

You know, I think it's great.

You can't be afraid of that confrontation, and you can't be afraid of other ideas, because he's also been at, you know, really good schools.

He's been in James Madison, and he was at Louisiana Tech.

So he's got a great background, too, and he's learned from great people.

So that the loyalty, the trustworthiness, that.

Not afraid of conflict.

And I just think, like, the willingness to be humble and do whatever it takes.

I mean, I have a GA here right now that is just unbelievable.

Of.

Hey, we're.

We're gonna drive to New England tomorrow.

Buckle up.

Let's go.

Yeah, Coach, let's go, like, and have a genuine excitement.

Like, you know, hey, I want you to.

To work out the bigs today.

Yeah, let's go.

I want you to, you know, do the laundry.

Sure, Coach.

Like, there's never.

You never have to worry about him or any of the assistants.

Like, hey, can you please do this for our program?

And it's like, oh, gosh, I don't want to do that.

Like, you gotta have.

You gotta have some humble, Humble fibers in you to do that, too.

But, you know, I think that's.

That's all part of that loyalty and that.

That respect portion, too.

I think that's a great point in terms of.

For any coach who's just getting into the profession or early in their career, is one be willing to do anything.

But I think to extend it, which I thought you did a really good job of, is to do that willingly, enthusiastically, look for opportunities to even do more than what you're being asked to do.

And I think those are always the key points.

I go back to some of the very first interviews I did on the podcast, Andy, like, whatever, eight years ago.

And I remember vividly, multiple coaches just telling me that you've got to be great at whatever job that.

That you're in right now.

And if that job right now is sweeping the court before practice and doing the laundry and making arrangements for the travel, then be the best person at those three things that you possibly can be.

And if you focus on that and you do it enthusiastically and you work hard, that that's how your next opportunity is going to come.

You're not next opportunity is not going to come by putting your nose up in the air and looking down and saying, I'd never do those jobs.

Those are beneath me.

And it struck me again, now, I've heard it multiple times and have a good understanding of it at the time.

Kind of like, okay, yeah, that makes sense to me.

But I don't know if I would have expressed it that way before.

I heard so many guys tell it to me in that particular way of, hey, you just, you just got to do whatever, whatever it takes to be able to excel at the role that you have.

And then that's where you're going to get the opportunity to step up and roll and get another chance at something maybe a little bit one step higher and one step higher.

And, you know, I think about your story and kind of the different places you've been and you talk about taking a 20 minute nap in your car at the gas station.

And the phrase that I always use is like, that's the glamorous side of college basketball that everybody aspires to, right?

We watch games in the Final Four and everybody thinks about, yeah, this and that and all the money that's involved.

Then we're like, yeah, but guess what, 95% of the coaches are guys that at some point slept in a gas station in their car because they were working for $500 for the year.

And we're just hoping to get a meal at McDonald's every day because their head coach took mercy on them and, you know, tossed them a $10bill to be able to feed them.

And I think people who are outside of the profession, I don't think have a tremendous understanding of, A, all the different levels of coaching.

Right.

And B, what it takes to be able to succeed and get to those glamour jobs, for lack of a better way of saying it.

And again, some people want those glamour jobs.

Some people find a place that they love and hey, they spend 30 years of their career because they love the particular city they're in, they love their school, they love the type of students and athletes that they get to coach.

And again, you just, everybody finds, everybody finds their niche.

So for you, the next stop is Baylor, which, again, completely different level, both in terms of Division one, Division two, Division three, but also just, again, a school that's had a tremendous amount of success recently in the game of basketball.

So tell me about the experience at Baylor.

So again, long, long story short, it's all to relationships.

Probably when I, when I was at Gannon, they would the Erie Bayhawks The G League team would practice in our gym every day, and it'd be.

So you become friends with the guys that are the laundry guys for the Bayhawks or, you know, the video guys and the skill development guys.

Because they're calling me.

I'm the young assistant again.

And they're calling me at one in the morning, hey, Seth Curry wants to come in and shoot.

Can you unlock the gym?

And I'm like, of course I will.

Like, you don't want to.

Sure.

You don't like.

But.

But you're going.

So, you know, you start, you start going and going.

And they've.

They had the same head coach for like, three years, Bill Peterson and Coach Peterson.

And I got, Got really, really close.

Just.

And he was really close with Coach Riley at Gannon.

So you're just building that relationship.

And my now wife was also at Gannon.

She was the acrobatics and tumbling coach there.

Um, she gets the head coaching, or not the head coaching of the assistant coaching job at Baylor for acrobatics and tumbling.

So we were going to move down there no matter what, right?

So when we moved down there and Coach Peterson, now the Erie Bayhawks coach, is on staff at, at Baylor.

So I show up, hey, Coach P, can I just watch practice?

No, we know next day, hey, Coach P, can I come watch practice?

Sure.

So I start going to practice, right?

I go every single day.

Now, keep in mind, it's not like I'm just some warrior.

I go to every practice.

I had absolutely nothing to do with Waco.

So I'm.

And then again, everyone that's a good basketball coach would go watch Bayley.

They just won a national championship.

You know, Coach Drew's unbelievable, you know, so you, you start going, you know, so I go, you know, coach.

Coach Tang, you know, Coach Jacobs, Alvin Brooks, a DTM Ultra, like those guys.

So now you're just kind of talking them.

Hey, hey, man.

Like, why have you been to practice for two straight weeks?

Did you just move here?

Like, what's the deal?

So you start building those relationships.

So then I get, you know, I start kind of just being around a little bit.

And then all of a sudden, like, their Coach P is like, hey, like, we.

We might be able to do something here, okay?

So, you know, we need you here at 5am to work guys out, Okay?

I mean, that's an easy one, right?

I mean, you're working out Adam Flagler and, you know, the best players and, you know, Jeremy Sohan, who's playing in the championship, and John Chambuchachua and all those guys.

So you start doing that stuff and, you know, you take a tiny, tiny role.

They didn't even know what they wanted to do with me.

They just saw that I was decently loyal.

I was showing up and you know, you know, you know, your role, like, you're not doing anything.

You're just kind of sitting back there taking everything in and you're learning and then all of a sudden you get more and more and more.

So now you're doing scouts and now you're doing, you're helping with recruiting and you know, it comes down to like, Coach Drew's like, wait, I.

So he's like, I want you to pair up with coach Jacob and you're gonna not run the offense.

Not at all.

But like, just help know, just, just help.

So sure, that sounds great.

So now I'm, now I'm full blow, like everything, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And all of a sudden coach, coach is like, I love the way you, you put your, your play calls on this, you know, middle ball screen, side ball screen.

If they're in a drop, we're doing this boom, boom, boom.

So we start doing that and you know, he likes that.

So then he start.

You just start finding your niche in that program.

And you know, it was a unbelievable year.

We were number one for most of the, most of the year.

And you know, the biggest thing and I know we kind of talked about this already is the relationships at Baylor.

They, everywhere else I've been has had great relationships, but Baylor's just completely different.

The relationships that now you have to also kind of keep in mind for people that are listening, like, at that, like high major power four level, there's a lot more money.

So like, they could bring us out to lunch every single, like, I couldn't bring my assistant out to lunch every day.

I'd go broke.

But like, they do things like that, like they really care about you as a person.

You know, they're going out to eat with the players all the time and you know, they just.

All that little stuff and you can really, you really feel loved and you really feel wanted, even if you're the lowest guy on the totem pole.

And then, you know, the player development portion, they give, they give the GA's and managers and stuff a ton of stuff to be able to, you know, hey, this is what we want our guys to get better at, you know, and you know, it was great at Baylor, you know, just kind of be a fly on the walls and every Single coaches meeting, obviously.

And you just kind of sit there and, you know, I think sometimes, you know, I remember Coach Drew's like, are you going to say anything?

Shoot, I didn't even know if I was supposed to.

And then, like, you know, then you kind of get gain respect because he's like, well, what do you think about this?

Well, I don't think.

I don't like it.

And then he was like, oh, so you're just not a yes man.

Like, you know, so, like, it became.

It became really cool.

And like, I was going to stay.

I had no plans to leave him, obviously.

And I mean, we loved it there.

My wife was there.

My one.

My wife won a national championship there.

And Waco is a place that's near and dear to our heart.

But that, that obviously was an unbelievable, unbelievable year.

What was the adjustment like?

Obviously, again, the level you kind of talked about, but just in terms of the number of coaches on the staff and the number of people and the way that the responsibilities are divided up.

As you said early in your career, it's head coach, assistant coach, ga, three guys maybe for some of the schools, right?

And then now suddenly you're at Baylor where you have again, go through the list of how many coaches you have, how many, what guys specialize in this versus that.

Talk about just the size of the staffs and how that you said how good the relationships were.

But just talk to me a little bit about again, sort of the division of responsibility and then how that played into the relationships between the guys who are on staff.

So each, each assistant kind of got like their own little scout group.

So you kind of pulled some guys together and guys would run scouts and then, oh, this coach would run the offense, this coach would run the defense, this guy would run, you know, special situations, Atos, Bobs.

And, you know, these guys are responsible for, you know, these three guys, these guys are responsible for the point guards, these guys are responsible for.

For the bigs.

So it really does become like this wheel that just keeps moving and you have a million different cogs in it and everyone's working towards the same goal, but you are intermixed.

Like, I might be working with Coach Jacobs on the offense, but also I'm on staff with, helping develop one of the bigs with Coach AB.

So I think that's one of the cool things.

And obviously, you know, it's easy.

It's easy when you're winning and you're number one for most of the year and they just come off of a championship season.

That's, you know, there's a lot of juice behind that.

So it is, it is easy and for everyone to say, oh, this culture really works, right?

So that's, that was the cool part of having that same goal.

And obviously you've probably seen but like coach Drew does the joy stuff so Jesus others yourself.

So that's, that's huge with him, you know.

So like the, the thing with coach Drew and coach Tang does a great job of this and coach Jacob says coach, Coach Brooks when I was there as well, just you're finding guys that fit Baylor, that's, that's all that matters.

Because honestly like everyone thinks, oh it's a great but Baylor doesn't fit everybody.

You know, it's so it's very important that you're finding the right people.

They just don't take everybody like it, like I, I, I would like when I was coming from Penn State, Baron there, oh, it must be easy.

You just must look at the 15 McDonald's All Americans.

You're just picking what you want.

I mean they were taking like Adam Flagler the year I came from Presbyterian.

You know, like they're taking transfers and you know, he, they, they, they take a long time to kind of figure out what they want to do.

And it's recruiting wise, it's really meticulous and analytically driven, but also film driven and you know, what system did they play in, what coach did they play for?

It's, it's a, it's a, it's a really, it was eye opening and just how everything runs in an elite championship mindset all the time.

It's almost like right, you just have more tools, more eyeballs.

But the basic idea of finding the guys who fit the program and fit the school and fit the coach.

It doesn't matter what level you're at, you could be at Division 2, you can be a Division 3, you can be at the high level, Division 1.

Everybody's looking for the great players who also fit into their system and fit into their coach's personality so that they can meld that into a successful team at whatever level it may be.

And again, obviously, as you said, Baylor has more people, more tools at their disposal to be able to figure that out.

And they're recruiting a higher level player with more talent.

But ultimately what you're doing is the same whether you're doing it at Division three, you're doing at Division two, you're doing a Division one, you're trying to find the right guys at your program.

Probably that can play at one level higher than where you are.

Right?

Because in order to be able to win at a high level, you got to find guys who are probably borderline able to compete at the next level to really be able to have the kind of success that you want to have on the floor.

And yeah, it's just, again, it's, it's so interesting that even though the surrounding environment is different because of the resources, right, you're getting to go out to lunch every day with the coaching staff or there's just always a coach available to work out, a guy at 10 at night or whatever, whatever it may be.

But ultimately, goals as a coach, right, it's, it's the same.

It's just a matter of how do we make the most use of our resources.

I think this goes back to, and I'm sure you'll agree with this, and something that I think has come along in many different interviews and has come through loud and clear to me is when you start out at a lower level and I've had guys on who have started out at Division 3, I've had guys who have started out at high major Division one.

And when you're at, when you start out in, in a lower division, you get your hands in everything, right?

You, you're thrown in all of a sudden like two, two days into your job, you're like, hey man, who you recruiting?

You know, Whereas division one level, you have more responsibility divided amongst guys, you become a little bit more specialized.

Maybe you're not as involved in X, Y or Z or maybe, hey, I'm just coaching on the floor.

I'm not worried about the travel and the things that sometimes you have to do as a lower level coach.

And, and I've had guys that I've started at both levels that really love that.

Hey, I got to really dive into everything because I started as a Division 3 assistant or hey, I got to really dive into X's and O's on the offensive side of the ball because I started at the Division 1 level and that was the guy who was my mentor on staff and that was what he was into.

And so there's good parts to starting your career in whichever area it is that you start.

And it's just I love hearing the perspectives of guys who have been in different places for somebody like you who's been at all these different levels to be able to see and compare what one level is like to the other and the resources and how that gets managed.

And yet at the same time, it still all comes back to the same sort of thing, right?

You're trying to get the best players, the best students that fit you as a team so that you can ultimately win games.

And so I know you said that, hey, you get to Baylor and your wife's got a great job, she wins a national championship, you feel like, hey, like, why would I ever want to leave this place?

So how does the opportunity at d' youville come to you?

What's the thought process?

Were you at any point in your career at this juncture, are you thinking about, hey, I might be ready to become a head coach?

Are you actively at all looking for head coaching jobs?

Are you just kind of putting feelers out?

Where were you in terms of your career ladder at that point?

Definitely not looking, that's for sure.

I was pretty happy.

We, my family was happy.

But, you know, again, relationships at Saint Bonaventure, again, that's a tight knit community on a halliday.

Who's the athletic director and my boss here, she was an assistant softball coach when I was a student there.

Again, just very, nothing crazy, but just very friendly.

Hey, how you doing?

You know, hey, nice win last night.

Oh, your picture looked great.

You know, she did it, she did a great job.

Just little things like that.

So the job opens up here and they played in the, they were Division 3, then they moved up to Division 2.

So I actually coached against them when I was at Penn State.

Baron.

And you know, my wife was like, ah, just, just throw your throw, throw your, your stuff in and let's see.

Because I'm only about an hour and a half.

My family grew up an hour and a half from here.

So, you know, get the call, they fly me up.

I had no intention of really taking the job, but I was like, okay, it's going to be.

I interviewed for a lot of other head coaching jobs and just never got them again.

Like, that's part of that, that thing is like, take as many interviews as you can possibly get because you just get better and better and better at them.

And I show up here and all of a sudden it's like, oh, you all want Division 2 and you redid the gym and you redid the weight room and you put on like three new medical buildings.

So now I, I'm like halfway through the interview and I'm texting my wife, like, I think we're going to be moving to Buffalo.

Like, I'm like, I, I can't, I can't believe it.

So, you know, everything, everything aligned and the number one Thing that's important to me is working for great people and a great athletic director, a great president that, that backs me and, and, and we all have the same mission is, yeah, we, we want to win.

We want to win at a really high level, but we want to do it the right way.

We want to have great standards, we want our guys to graduate, we want to have great community service and, you know, everything aligned.

So I went back and flew back to Waco and waited a couple days and, you know, talking it over with Coach Drew.

No, you're, you're taking it.

You're going.

He's like, you can't pass up head coaching experience.

And he said, you can always come back here.

I'm like, okay.

So we end up, end up taking the job here.

And I think, shoot.

I think we were like there at the time.

There's 302 Division 2 schools.

We were 301 when I got the job.

And, you know, I loved every second of it.

I think it was, it was the best thing to ever happen to me.

You get to just learn and you get to make mistakes and you just get to get better.

And that was the same thing.

Like, Coach Drew took over a program that had a ton of NCAA sanctions at Baylor.

So.

Same thing.

I talked to Coach Schmidt at Bonaventure.

Took over a team that had a bunch of NCAA sanctions.

Like, obviously here we didn't have the NCAA stuff, but they've never won here before.

And you know, they, they wanted to change the culture, they wanted to change their identity.

Now they didn't win at the Division 3 level.

Now they're bumping up to Division 2.

So I loved, I love the challenge.

And you know, some of my mentors are like, you'll be kicking yourself if you don't take it.

And then on top of that, like I said, you have great leadership here.

Came in and love my interview with all the coaches and the co workers that I have here.

And you know, I. Buffalo, I love Buffalo as a city.

So it was a, it was a no brainer for us to move up here.

And then my wife ended up getting a job two days later at the school down the street, Buffalo State, for acro and tumbling.

So it was meant to be.

Yeah, it's nice that you guys have been able to coordinate.

Coordinate jobs.

Right.

Because so often the spouse has to kind of tag along with the, with the coaching journey, which sometimes they don't always know what they're getting signed up for.

But it sounds like your wife had a pretty good Idea of what she was, of what she was getting into with you?

Yeah, well, I think it was opposite because she's the way better coach and she's got way more rings.

I think I'm the one that's trying to figure it out still.

But, yeah, there you go.

So what advice did all your mentors, what did they tell you about taking over a program that had struggled?

What were some of the things that they said, hey, if you want to get the thing turned around, these are a couple of key characteristics or key things that you should focus on.

What kind of advice did you get?

Shoot, there's a lot of stuff.

I think the big thing was just that I had to realize early was you have to celebrate small wins, you know, So, I mean, I think my first year we only won a couple games, but, you know, celebrate a good half.

Celebrate a good four minutes.

Like, we really, really, really went into four minute wars every four minutes.

That's all that matters.

We.

I don't even care what the end of score was.

I know us, that sounds cliche.

And people are probably like, oh, you're not competitive.

We, we just need to get better every four minutes.

I mean, we were one of the worst teams in the country.

So really, that skill development, and again, like, coach them hard, but you got to love them even harder, you know, and they have to be able to trust you.

And honestly, my first year, I probably didn't love them enough as how hard I coached them.

And, you know, like, you, you make a million mistakes as a head coach.

And I think that's why I'm 10 times the coach now that I was four years ago.

What was the area that you felt like from a head coaching position, transitioning from an assistant?

Where was the learning curve the steepest?

I know the standard answer for somebody who goes for being a head coach, and you ask, well, hey, you know, did you feel prepared?

And they're like, yeah, you know, I needed to improve on everything.

But when you think about just an area where, yeah, you've improved in lots of different areas, but where was the area where you were like, oh, man, like that learning curve of me figuring that out, I gotta get to that pretty quick because that learning curve is steep.

Does.

Does one or two things stand out in that?

In those areas?

The.

The big thing was not that I'm some X's, X's and O savant, but, like, I quickly realized, like, I can run a practice, I can do scouts, I can do X's and O's.

It was all the other stuff, running a program, it was overseeing a program, overseeing assistance, delegating stuff.

The other thing that, that not like blindside you as a coach, but you have to get used to doing it is those really hard conversations with your kids.

Like the first thing I did when I got here, the roster I think was at like 25.

I had to cut nine kids.

So it was tough.

Like right, right from the start, you're like, hey man, like everyone's dream is to play college basketball.

And you're ripping that away from a kid, which is really hard.

So that, that delegating and kind of overseeing everything and in those hard conversations with, with people, including, you know, receiving hard conversations from your athletic director, you know, like that you want to go to a place where your athletic director is high expectation is.

Is trying to get you, you know, to keep leveling up.

But that the tough thing I think for me was, you know, having tough conversations with people.

As an assistant, you don't need to have all those conversations.

The head coach kind of puts those out or if you have really good assistance, they kind of put the fires out before where Here.

You know, we didn't have, we.

I didn't have a full time assistant.

So you're kind of doing everything, which is great.

But you know, you're, you're.

You're trying to have tough conversations with people and then you got to coach them and then you got to love them and then, you know, so you really kind of value.

I kind of learned the value of kind of being really black and white and blunt with people in terms of like, I love you, but this is what you need to do.

You're not doing it.

Bingo.

Like, do you understand what I want?

Good.

Then.

Then they walk out and then you got to make sure you pick them up, you know, 20 minutes later.

But that was definitely for me, the hundred percent like that I was just.

Used to be the relationships, everything's great.

Help these guys out.

Now you got to deliver bad news.

And that's tough.

Yeah, that is definitely, I think an adjustment for anybody, right.

Going from an assistant coach to a head coach if you've never done it before, especially taking that first head coaching job.

And I think it's also difficult when you're young in your career to sometimes, as you said, right.

There's a dream there that somebody has, maybe you're taking that dream away from them.

A lot of times sometimes we all feel like it's easier maybe to just, you know, I'm just kind of beating around the bush with the point that I'm trying to make, hoping that they can read between the lines and get it.

And then whenever you do that, ultimately one person thinks they said something and the person they were talking to walks away thinking they said something completely different from what it is that the message that they were actually trying to send.

And then I. I've found in my life, both when I'm on the.

The coach's side, or some cases, the parenting side or whatever, when.

When you're on that side, if you don't make it clear what it is that you expect, it gets really confusing very fast for the person who's on the other end of the conversation when the coach is saying one thing and then the actions that are occurring on the back end don't match up with the conversation that you had.

And what I've found, and I'm sure you found the same thing, is that when you have the conversation and you make that difficult statement, whatever it may be, whether it's about playing time or whether it's about a, hey, this is what you.

How you got to develop, or whatever, whatever it might be, that ultimately the people who are on the receiving end of that conversation maybe don't want to hear that, but I can tell you that they appreciate hearing that rather than being left to twist in the wind.

Because when you're left to twist in the wind, what I found in my experience is that that leaves a lot of room for interpretation, and a lot of things fill in that vacuum.

And now the player is talking to mom or dad or cousin or AAU coach or now agent, right?

And when things aren't made clear, all of a sudden, now there's lots of different opinions that can come in about what that conversation may or may not have meant, and then that just creates a whole new set of problems.

So I think that, again, great lesson for any coach out there, especially if you're young and starting out in your career, the better you get at having those tough conversations, the better off you're going to be as a head coach.

And a lot of times you don't get a chance to have those conversations as an assistant, right?

Because you're.

If you think of it as good cop, bad cop, right?

Coach, a head coach, whatever yells, takes away playing time, whatever.

And then who does the player go to?

They don't go to the head coach, Right.

They go to their most trusted assistant coach.

And then that assistant coach has to reinforce the head coach's message, but do it in such a way that it sort of Picks the player back up, and you just don't get a chance to do that until you become a head coach.

And I know how difficult those conversations can be.

I've been on both sides of them from lots of different perspectives.

Yeah, that's the.

That's the hardest part.

And, like, I kind of go back to that.

Like, you don't think about that when you're taking jobs.

Like, you don't dream about, oh, I'm gonna have to have really hard conversations.

You don't practice those in your head, you know, as an assistant, really.

You know, so that's.

It's tough.

Tell me about the process of building your roster.

When you take over the job, you said, first thing you got to do is get rid of a bunch of guys that, again, your roster was just too big.

So then when you start looking at recruiting, right, and trying to bring in guys that fit how you want to play, the type of guys you mentioned off the top, that you're looking for toughness and guys who have a work ethic and those kinds of things.

So how do you go about turning over the roster, looking for those kinds of guys?

Tell me about the keys to recruiting to try to build the roster that you're looking to build.

Because obviously, players.

It starts with.

It starts with, you got to get the guys on campus, and then you can start to build your culture around that.

Yeah, the.

The big thing with.

With that was I didn't come in here, and whether it's right or wrong, I didn't start telling guys, hey, you're never going to play here.

Get in the portal.

You know, I kept everyone on scholarship that had scholarships, and I honored that.

Now, that didn't mean they played and that I didn't try to recruit over them 100%.

I did.

Right.

But I wasn't.

It wasn't a mass.

Mass exodus here, because I don't believe in that.

You know, maybe now, in today, you know, not five years ago, but today, maybe it would look a little different just because the transfer part was so much more prevalent.

But, you know, so we kept these kids here.

Like, I had kids that were on full scholarships for four years, that maybe only played 15, 20 minutes the whole time here.

So, you know, that.

That.

That creates a weird dynamic sometimes.

But, you know, you have to have that relationship with people.

And I do think I honored.

You know, they probably are still mad that I didn't play them enough short, but I did honor that they were on that scholarship.

And so that was.

That was a.

That was a Different dynamic.

And then the other thing is, obviously some of those kids are on those scholarships, which is fine, but then you got to go find kids that are walk ons that are going to play for you.

The best walk on we ever had here my first year, ended up getting drafted to the G League.

But, you know, that was a lucky strike, obviously, but built.

Built on relationships.

But, you know, that's.

That's kind of what you're trying to do and you're trying to find guys.

I think early on I was trying to just amass as much talent as possible.

And again, I would probably do that a little differently now, where you really try to build on those standards that you have of, you know, guys that fit your program, but also fit your university and your university's mission, which is really important.

And you know, I.

When I talk about toughness, it's also mentally, mentally tough, but even more than physically tough.

But, you know, I.

We're big on watching body language at AAU tournaments and stuff like that.

The other thing that I really value here in the recruiting process is my.

My two young assistants will reach out to guys and if they're goofy with them or they don't hit them back or it's just weird, like, that's not going to be a guy that's going to work in our program.

You know, like, I have a lot more success picking up the phone and calling the kid and they pick up.

Yeah.

Because I'm the one that can offer him a scholarship.

Every.

Everybody wants to talk to me.

Sure, I get that.

But if they're different and they're goofy, acting goofy with those guys, like, we've had a lot of success with that.

And it's funny, some of those guys and go to other programs and then they're in the portal and then they're in the next.

Like.

So, you know, we really try to find.

The guys were very meticulous about the character stuff.

Family.

Now, like you said, agent, you know, everyone's got to be on board.

Like, it's got to be a perfect marriage because ideally they're here for.

You know, we do a lot.

We do more transfers and in junior college guys, but we do have high school guys here too.

And like, I don't want guys transferring.

And we only had two guys transfer this year.

One went up Division 1, one went down Division 3.

Like, I don't.

I don't.

I don't want that.

Like, sure, we have to embrace that because that's kind of the culture of, of what it is now, and we.

And I also love that kids can transfer and.

And further their dreams and they might have better opportunities.

But, you know, you want to build a culture and you want to keep guys in your program, and I think that was something that we've been able to do here.

And now we've kind of flipped that roster over.

You know, we brought in 10 guy, 10 new guys this year, which was difficult, but, you know, you also have that.

That reputation of.

Now that we've become a program that can win.

You know, we went to the.

We went to our conference semifinals this year, lost to Damon, who is one of the best teams in the country.

You know, gave them a couple decent games.

And, you know, we.

At the end of the year, we were playing really, really well, so we had a lot of momentum and really trying to strike on that.

The one thing at.

Coach Tang was always say at Baylor is, you know, you might let someone else go, you might not quite like them, or they might not be a great character fit for your program, and they might beat you two or three times a year, and that's fine.

You got to just stomach that.

But you don't want to have guys in your program that are Gonna beat you 365 days a year.

And that always, like this.

That.

That quote right there just kind of like hit me like a knife, you know, because, like, I have coached guys, maybe not here or other places, too, but, like, you just don't want to be around them 365 days of the year, you know, so, like, that's very important.

Like, if they beat you twice, tip your cap to them.

Hey, that's great, and you're happy for them.

But, like, those mistakes you don't want to make, you can always make basketball mistakes in terms of, like, you can always get kids better.

And kids can grow with personalities, and they can grow out of stuff.

Like, we've taken some kids that have had a lot of problems and really tough upbringings, and there's a lot of success stories there, but also, like, you're at a point in your program where you have to be really careful right now who you bring in.

Like, we had one.

We have one.

We had one spot left.

And the kid we ended up taking was a kid that I recruited, like, five years ago, four years ago that I just have a great relationship with, and he's going to be a good player.

Like, he's going to be our sixth man, seventh man, whatever.

But, you know, like, you're just not bringing in anyone.

You have to Be very meticulous about what you're doing.

And again, that starts with honest conversations.

And the one thing I thought we had this year was we had one or two walk ons at the end of the bench that knew they weren't going to play.

But they were elite teammates, you know, energy givers, big time, you know, and that, that started with that honest conversation in the recruiting process.

You're not, we don't see you playing.

You know, I think you can come in and add value, but it's not going to be with minutes on the team.

Does that suck?

Yeah.

And like, do you want to hear it?

No.

But that's, that's what you're, if you want to come here, that's what it's going to look like.

And you know, they've been some of the best kids we've had in our program.

And I don't, you know, that same kid, I told him, hey, we're never going to travel you because we just don't have room on the bus when we travel with the women's team.

We went, we went on the road and it was so quiet on our bench.

Meanwhile, this kid is never going to play in a game so quiet on our bench.

I told our staff at halftime, I said, player X always comes on the road with us.

There's no way we ever leave him at home.

Our bench is dead.

He gives way too much energy, there's too much juice.

He adds more value than a guy that might play, you know, So I think that's really important when you're building that stuff.

Yeah, I love that.

And I think I've seen it with teams that I've coached.

I've seen it with teams that my kids have played on that when you have guys who are at the end of your bench who don't play, who are as into or more into the game, and being a positive force of energy on the bench, as you said, that is tremendous, tremendously valuable when it comes to just having everybody be energized.

And again, I think that's one of the things that as a head coach that it's not always easy to do.

Right.

It's ultimately, everybody wants to play.

No matter where you're at in the pecking order, everybody, everybody wants to play minutes.

How do I keep those guys engaged so that they're a positive force on my team?

Instead of they become a guy who's grumbling in the locker room, they become a guy who maybe, maybe now they pull guy nine, who's only playing six minutes a game, and they pull that guy over the.

To.

To the side of being disgruntled.

I think that that's really an underrated.

Part of being a head coach is being able to engage every guy on your roster to keep them rowing that boat in the same direction, regardless of how many minutes that they get.

And that's a really, really hard thing to do, as I'm sure you know, you well know trying.

Trying to do that every day as a.

As a head coach.

So to go along with that sort of point, when you think back to taking over the program on day one and you had, I'm sure, a vision of what you wanted it to look like culturally, X's and O style of play.

You've worked with, obviously, a lot of different coaching staffs at a lot of different levels.

And like we talked about at the top of the interview, you've pulled things from everybody trying to figure out your philosophy.

So now that you're a few years into the job, how close are you from a X's and O's culture standpoint to what the vision was?

Forget about records and wins and losses and all that stuff.

But when you just think about, hey, the kind of team that I want to put on the floor, does it look like what you envision?

Did you have to make adjustments along the way?

Just how close is what you thought it was going to be to your philosophy of what it's become?

The philosophy never really changes.

Like, your standards don't change, but your road, like your pathways to it change a lot.

You know, I think you have to be flexible.

You know, I would say I probably have changed my coaching style a little bit since day one.

I was probably way more rough and gruff to start, and now I'm a lot more loving.

And you realize that if you have great relationships with your players, you can do.

You can coach them really hard, but if not, then.

Then you really can.

They're not going to listen to you.

But I think also last year, winning a playoff game for the first time in our school history in the basketball program and going to the ECC semifinals and winning a lot of games down the stretch, you know, this group got a taste of it, and I think that's Obviously, the most important thing is they get the taste of what it looks like to win.

And that's the hardest part is in this whole transition of stuff, you're going from losing to changing the culture to playing games to not lose.

Right.

And then you try to win, and then you still, like in that.

That mindset of like, oh, are we going to the guys?

Are we going to lose?

When is it going to happen?

When.

When's the water going to hit the dam?

Type of thing.

And then now I think we're kind of like, especially the last half of the season, and when we got in the league, it was.

We showed up and we were expecting to win, you know, and I think that's where you want your program to be now.

It's.

It's still a work in progress.

We're not even close to where I want to be, but there's definitely a lot of positive and exciting momentum in our program right now.

Yeah, I think when you start to get it and you start to see right, the.

You plant those seeds in the early years and you start to figure out, hey, what do I want this thing to grow into?

And you keep working towards that.

I think that goes back to something you said a few minutes ago about, right, you got to look for those intermediate wins, right?

You got to look for those little wins of let's win this half, let's win.

And we have a goal of committing less than 12 turnovers in a game or whatever it is, and.

And those become sort of the guideposts of this is taking us to where we want to go, and then that eventually translates onto the scoreboard.

I think that's the right approach when it comes to that incremental growth that you have to do when you're taking over a program, especially when you're kind of building it from the ground up at a place where there hadn't been a ton of success, plus, you guys moved up a level as well.

So.

All right, before we wrap up, I want to ask you a final two part question.

Sure.

So, part one, when you think about the next year or two and kind of where you're at in this stage of building the program, what do you see as being your biggest challenge over the next year or two?

And then once you answer that, when you think about what you get to do every single day, and I think it kind of goes to the theme of the entire conversation that we just had, what brings you the most joy about being a college basketball coach?

So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy yeah, that's a good.

The challenge one's interesting.

I think that the biggest challenge part is now, not like, we have crazy standards on us, but there that.

That group that we coached last year did, like, we told them that last game of the season, like, you guys set the standard.

Now we expect to win.

Now the guys that we recruit, like that, that wheel's turning.

So I think there is some, not really internal pressure, but there is pressure.

Like, our guys want to win and they want to keep this thing going in the right direction.

There's.

They don't want a lot of slippage.

And, you know, I think like we talked about, you just do that with the right guys and the right people in the, in the building.

And, you know, I think that's kind of the.

The next kind of like, like you said, like the danger touch points of, you know, you really got to make sure, like, this is a really important year for our program.

And, you know, it is a little scary bringing in 10 new guys.

Now we bring back four starters, but 10 other guys that how fast can we get these guys in and acclimated to what we want to do and change our playing style a little bit?

We're going to play a little bit differently, probably.

And you obviously have to change it every year with your personnel.

But, you know, that's kind of the caution tape with going forward with this group and, you know, making sure everything clicks and then the other side of just finding joy in your job.

Like, this is something I want to do my whole life.

Like, it's not.

It's not very hard to find joy in your job even.

Like, you know, we have this year we graduated.

Six guys.

Five of them were first time their family, first guys in their family to graduate.

And that's just unbelievable.

You know, you, you really see guys, lives change.

You know, I'm getting old enough now where guys that I coached at Gannon are having, their wives, are having kids, and you're going to their weddings and it's.

That's the most important thing is seeing people grow up and, you know, like.

Yeah.

Do we remember with the big wins and, and then this and that.

Yeah, 100.

But a lot of the times you remember the bus trips or, you know, like our guys at Gannon will.

I'll talk to them sometimes.

We got stranded on a bus for 18 hours in a snowstorm.

That's what they talk about first.

Not the championships we won.

They talk about that and the goofy stuff on the bus.

And we were stuck in a snowstorm like Just craziness, you know, like these are the best years of, of guys lives.

They're you know, student athletes life.

So I think it's amazing to be a tiny, tiny part of that for them.

But, you know, and the last thing I'll leave it with is, you know, this is in college is where you go to really find yourself.

So these guys are coming in and they're, they're young and very green behind the years.

And they're boys, they're boys that are in our program and when they leave, they're growing men and they're ready to go.

Luckily, a lot of our guys have gone on pro contracts but they, a lot of guys go get jobs and they're, they're ready to go, which is.

The number one thing ultimately really is a people business.

And I think that's come through the entire interview both in terms of your commitment to your players, but also your relationships that you've built with all the coaches that you've had the good fortune to be able to work alongside throughout your career.

Last thing before we go, Andy, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you.

Find out more about your program.

So share, email, social media, website, whatever you feel comfortable with.

And then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap things up.

Yeah, no, no problem.

I, I love any conversation.

Anyone could call me at any time.

I'm an open book.

If you're ever in Buffalo, come watch practice emails on the website starkayc.edu.

On Twitter it's Coachandy Stark.

And you know, just hit me on one of those and I'll feel free to give you, I'll give you my number on there and we can connect.

I mean I talk to anybody about hoops and culture and anything.

I love it.

So I'd look forward to it.

Awesome.

Andy, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to join us.

Really appreciate it and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.

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