Shownotes
Rob Summers is in his first season as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Cleveland State University. An Ohio native, Summers spent 2019-2022 with Cleveland State as an assistant coach, where he helped CSU win the Horizon League and make its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2009. CSU advanced to the postseason twice during his first stint with the Vikings.
Most recently, Summers joined former Cleveland State head coach Dennis Gates' staff at the University of Missouri for the 2024-25 season, where he served as the team's offensive coordinator. Prior to joining the Tigers, Summers spent two seasons at Miami (Ohio) as associate head coach, where he helped the program achieve its highest Mid-American Conference finish in 10 seasons.
Summers also served as an assistant coach at James Madison, three years as the head coach of Division II Urbana (Ohio) and two years at Glenville State as associate head coach.
As a player, Summers played two seasons at Penn State before transferring to West Virginia, where he helped WVU reach the sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament as a junior and win a NIT Championship as a senior. He played professionally in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.
On this episode Mike & Rob discuss his vision for the Cleveland State Men’s Basketball Program, emphasizing the importance of a transformative approach to coaching rather than a transactional one. He reflects on his journey, including previous roles and the experiences that have shaped his coaching philosophy. Central to his strategy is fostering a strong community connection and ensuring that players develop not only on the court but also as individuals. The discussion delves into the significance of building a cohesive team and creating an environment where players feel valued and engaged. Ultimately, Summers seeks to cultivate an atmosphere of growth, accountability, and excitement surrounding Cleveland State Basketball, aiming for success both in terms of wins and character development.
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Grab your notebook before you listen to this episode with Rob Summers, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Cleveland State University.
Website - https://csuvikings.com/sports/mens-basketball
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Transcripts
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Speaker A:We want to make sure they're Rob Shots, so we call them Rob Shots, not because my name is Rob the Range Rhythm.
Speaker A:They're open and they're balanced.
Speaker A:It's like, it just so happens that my name is Rob Summers, and I was like, man, it's going to look crazy because I'm, I'm, I'm calling these things Rob Shots and my name is Rob Summers, but It's Rob with two Rs, so can we shoot Rob over non Rob Shots?
Speaker A:So we want to be within range, have a great rhythm to it.
Speaker A:We want to be open with our shots, and we want to be on balance.
Speaker B:Rob Summers is in his first season as the head men's basketball coach at Cleveland State University.
Speaker B: He also spent the: Speaker B:CSU advanced the postseason twice during Rob's first stint with the Vikings.
Speaker B: niversity of Missouri for the: Speaker B:Prior to joining the Tigers, Summers spent two seasons at Miami of Ohio as the associate head coach, where he helped the program achieve its highest Mid American conference finish in 10 seasons.
Speaker B:Summers also served as an assistant coach at James Madison, three years as the head coach of Division 2 Urbana, and two years at Glenville State as an associate head coach.
Speaker B:As a player, Summers played two seasons at Penn State before transferring to West Virginia, where he helped the Mountaineers reach the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament as a junior and win an NIT championship as a senior.
Speaker B:He then played professionally in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.
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Speaker B:Grab your notebook before you listen to this episode with Rob Summers, head men's basketball coach at Cleveland State University.
Speaker B:Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast.
Speaker B:It's Mike Cleansing here without my co host Jason Sunkel tonight.
Speaker B:But I am pleased to be joined for the second time, Rob Summers, men's basketball head coach at Cleveland State University.
Speaker B:Rob, welcome back to the Hoop Heads pod.
Speaker A:Thank you for having me back, Mike.
Speaker A:I'm excited to be back in a different role now.
Speaker A:So it's good to be back with you.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker B:The last time Rob and I talked, he was still at Cleveland State, but he was in an assistant coaching role.
Speaker B:And that was I guess three seasons ago or three and a half years ago.
Speaker B:And since then, Rob's made a couple of stops at Miami of Ohio as an assistant coach and then at Missouri with coach Dennis Gates.
Speaker B:So just give us a quick update on those two experiences that you had and then we'll dive into what, what led you to come back and return to Cleveland State as the head coach.
Speaker A:Well, you know, was at Cleveland State from 19 to 22 and you know, we won a three championship in three years.
Speaker A:So, you know, love being on your podcast back then, you know, when we got that program off the ground and applied for the job, wanted the head coaching job when I, when I was here, you know, I was always told, you know, if you win, if you win games, you're going to get the job.
Speaker A:And kind of won myself out of a job, I think.
Speaker A:So I was in the transport portal source from a coding standpoint, my third born, my daughter was going to be born right when I found out I didn't get the Cleveland State job the first time around when coach D. Rob got it.
Speaker A:So I had my daughter here, had an opportunity to go out with coach Gates out to Missouri that that season and this didn't feel right for my family to leave at that point in time the state of Ohio and go eight and a half hours away.
Speaker A:So was blessed to get a call from Coach Steele down at the University, Miami, University of Ohio.
Speaker A:He had just Got the job that they're probably a couple of days before.
Speaker A:We had obviously lost his Xavier team that year when I was here at Cleveland State and he was like, you know what the associate head coach, Rob, I love what the office you guys ran up there.
Speaker A:I love everything you're about, like, come down here, let's talk a little bit more.
Speaker A:And we just kind of really, really hit it off and we both knew it felt right for both of us for me to take the opportunity with him.
Speaker A:So it was blessed to go down there, be closer to my in laws, my parent, my mother in law, father in law.
Speaker A:We're about 20 minutes from where we lived at, down there, outside of Cincinnati area.
Speaker A:So it was perfect for us and, you know, did a great job, you know, being around and learning from Coach Steele and building that program with him, you know, from the ground floor up.
Speaker A:And obviously, you know, they've been doing great things.
Speaker A:They missed out on a mag championship last year, but they, you know, obviously return a lot of guys, so they got a great team coming back.
Speaker A:So Coach still is going to do great down there.
Speaker A:Didn't want to leave him though.
Speaker A:You know, I was there for two years, saw that program increased and Coach Gates had called me after my second year there and was kind of like, hey, what would you think about coming out here to the University of Missouri, you know, and helping me out, you know, running my offense again.
Speaker A:And I was like, coach, I really like where I'm at now.
Speaker A:I really enjoy being with Coach Steele, to be honest.
Speaker A:And I wouldn't have left Coach still for anyone else other than Coach Gates.
Speaker A:So when I talked to Coach Steele, I was like, look, you're out, Coach.
Speaker A:He wants me to come back with him.
Speaker A:You know, they had lost, you know, we had lost every SEC game the year before.
Speaker A:So I was either going to be a, a smart person or a crazy guy.
Speaker A:It was either going to be a genius or I was going to be like, who does that?
Speaker A:So glad that it turned out the ladder and, you know, glad I was able to go and be a genius up there a little bit and, and we had some great players that helped us win some games and it was, it was awesome.
Speaker A:It was a great experience for me just being back with Coach Skates and, and being in his culture and seeing and learning in the SEC and being in a bus all of a league for a season.
Speaker A:You know, I've been, I've been a mid major, you know, assistant, you know, for most of my career coaching Division 2 basketball as well.
Speaker A:So to see it done at a high, high level and also see success at a high, high level, you know, I. I love the officer side of also really wanted to see if.
Speaker A:If that my office of game of what I brought as offensive coordinator would work at that level, and was glad to see that it did.
Speaker A:So it showed me a little bit about my development as a coach myself.
Speaker A:So was there that last year and when Coach Robinson got the no Texas job, got a call from my AD here, Kelsey Gorey Harkey, asking me if I'd be interested in the job.
Speaker A:And no, again, no brainer for me.
Speaker A:I wouldn't have left the University of Missouri for anything other than Cleveland State head coaching job.
Speaker A:You know that I came to an interview and talked to Dr. Bloomberg and they were like, well, you know what happened if you don't get the job?
Speaker A:I said, well, I'll just go back to University of Missouri.
Speaker A:We're gonna.
Speaker A:We got a great team coming back.
Speaker A:We're gonna be good again.
Speaker A:I was like, I'm.
Speaker A:I'm around some friends and some family, and my wife and coach Gay Swipe were really close and our kids were close, and it was a great situation for us.
Speaker A:But obviously, you know, to be come back to somewhere where I really learn how to grow as a coach at Cleveland State and come back to the program that is a winning program and be the leader of that and CEO was just some I couldn't pass up.
Speaker B:During that interview process.
Speaker B:What were some of the questions that you had for Cleveland State in terms of obviously you have familiarity with the program, right?
Speaker B:Having been here and been here relatively recently, some guys come back and it's been 10 years since they b out of place.
Speaker B:And then they come back.
Speaker B:You were here, you know, within whatever, three, three seasons ago.
Speaker B:And so what questions did you want to ask them?
Speaker B:Clearly, they're going through and asking you questions, but I always think it's interesting to kind of flip that around and think about what questions did you want to ask them in terms of what you thought needed to be in place in order for you to build the kind of program that you want to have?
Speaker A:I just want to know the expectations.
Speaker A:You know, obviously I wanted to know what they expected from a head coach.
Speaker A:And, you know, I knew Kelsey, you know, when she was assistant AD under Scott Garrett, so I knew what type of person she was, but also wanted to know what she expected from her head coach and how they want to go about building, you know, and continue to build, you know, the program because the program is A winning program.
Speaker A:It's not a.
Speaker A:It's not a job that you're going into where, you know, it's a rebuild.
Speaker A:And they hadn't won a while.
Speaker A: got here with coach gates in: Speaker A:We had two guys on the program, and they hadn't won since Doris Cole was here.
Speaker A:So obviously, what Coach D. Rob did here over the last three years was phenomenal.
Speaker A:You know, 20 wins per se, per season for three seasons.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's something that I would only be blessed to have accomplished for myself.
Speaker A:So I really want to know what they, what they were expecting out of the head coach.
Speaker A:What type of program did they want to see him run?
Speaker A:And the way they talked about, you know, just being a transformational program and not being transactional, you know, obviously in a day and age of nil, you know, we know that that's the thing that we have to adapt to.
Speaker A:But they don't want to just all be transactional.
Speaker A:They want to be transform, transformative with their relationships with the students, athletes.
Speaker A:They want a coach that's going to be involved in the city, a coach that really loves what Cleveland has to offer and what the state of Ohio has to offer.
Speaker A:And that was for me, I said, I'm the guy.
Speaker A:I said, you know, it is.
Speaker A:This is home for me, you know, the state of Ohio.
Speaker A:I know it.
Speaker A:You know, Cleveland obviously has been somewhere that's been very, very special to me.
Speaker A:Me having my family down the road may have my wife's family down the road too as well.
Speaker A:It's just, it's just a perfect setup for me.
Speaker A:But I really wanted to see where their expectations were and kind of what they wanted to see from their program.
Speaker A:Because Dr. Bloomberg is doing a great job of, of implementing a lot of great things here at Cleveland State and making sure that we're the best version of ourself as a university and not trying to be somebody we're not.
Speaker A:We, we.
Speaker A:We know what type of university we are.
Speaker A:We're commuter campus.
Speaker A:You know, we're not trying to be Ohio State.
Speaker A:You know, we're not going to have 40,000 students come through here.
Speaker A:But can we give you a great degree, you.
Speaker A:You a great experience and bring some student athletes that want to stay around the city of Cleveland and help, you know, help continue to build this city of.
Speaker A:Of what it's known to be?
Speaker B:What would you say going into the job back when you first take it, are the strengths of the program?
Speaker B:What are two, three things that when you look at it irrespective of whether Rob Summers is the head coach or not.
Speaker B:What are the strengths of the program in and of itself, just in terms of the university, the location, the facility, what are the things that you really like about the program again, before you start putting your stamp on it at all?
Speaker A:Yeah, obviously Cleveland State's a winning program now.
Speaker A:You know, for, for six years.
Speaker A:Five, six years now.
Speaker A:It's, it's stone to win.
Speaker A:You, you're, you're, you're expected to be at the top of the rising league.
Speaker A:So to go in somewhere, this is attractive, right?
Speaker A:You have championship residue on your program.
Speaker A:You know, winners win, and I think that's what Cleveland State does.
Speaker A:So to go into a program like that, obviously, is something that was very, very attractive for me.
Speaker A:And also just, just the city of Cleveland and just Northeast Ohio, very, very underrated.
Speaker A:I, I, we used to tell recruits all the time when I was here with Coach Gates.
Speaker A:It's like, look, whatever you think you know about Cleveland, like, forget about it.
Speaker A:Like, forget about what your perceptions of what Cleveland area is.
Speaker A:Once you get here, you're going to experience how great it is, especially in summertime.
Speaker A:So we get them in the summertime.
Speaker A:Like Cleveland summers are like my favorite time.
Speaker A:You know, right now it's getting a little cold and it's windy out, rainy a little bit.
Speaker A:But I like that.
Speaker A:I'm a Midwest guy.
Speaker A:But, but in the summertime, obviously the, the weather is great.
Speaker A:You're right on the lake.
Speaker A:You know, it's a pro, it's a sports, a sports town.
Speaker A:You know, people love their sports.
Speaker A:And that's one thing about Cleveland that you, you, you see and you experience and people want to see you do well.
Speaker A:They want to get out, they want to support.
Speaker A:But those, those, those things are just so attractive about it.
Speaker A:You know, just the people, people make the place.
Speaker A:Cleveland State has always had great people around it, and we continue to add the same, you know, add those same caliber people too, as well.
Speaker A:And again, having familiar faces, but also some new faces too.
Speaker A:When I came back here and took the job was just a very, very special situation for me.
Speaker B:Beyond winning, what do you think you can do to continue to capture the hearts and minds of Cleveland sports fans?
Speaker B:Obviously, the first thing is you got to put a winning product on the court.
Speaker B:But beyond that, what are the plans to continue to draw people into the program to get people invested and draw out the support from the Cleveland area basketball fans?
Speaker A:I think you have to play exciting brand of basketball.
Speaker A:You know, you have to put people in seats, and people want to watch a product that's very exciting to watch.
Speaker A:You know, we talk about the offensive side of the ball, because that's where, you know, I've came from being offensive coordinator is you want to play fast.
Speaker A:We want to bring that SEC type of feel to the Horizon League just because, again, we're entertainers.
Speaker A:And I think that a lot of people forget that basketball is entertainment, you know, because it's about winning and all those things like that and discipline.
Speaker A:But it's like people want to go to the movies, and they want to go watch a good movie.
Speaker A:And I think we're actors in a.
Speaker A:In a.
Speaker A:In a movie that doesn't have a script, and you never know what's going to happen.
Speaker A:So that's for people on the edge of your seats.
Speaker A:And that's what March Madness is about.
Speaker A:And that's why you love the buzzer beaters and all those things that go along with college athletics, especially men's basketball.
Speaker A:So being able to play exciting brand of basketball, but also to bring in student athletes, you know, from the area that, you know.
Speaker A:No, no Cleveland, that know Ohio, and also even student athletes from outside of the area, you know, going out and extending my recruiting reach to, you know, to Florida and the Carolinas and then have them ingrain themselves in what Cleveland is.
Speaker A:I think that's the biggest thing for our program is we want to be in the community.
Speaker A:We want people to know Cleveland State basketball as these young men are, not just from on the court standpoint of winning games, because, again, that's the standard.
Speaker A:The standard is to win games.
Speaker A:But can we even be, you know, in the community, have a community outreach, giving back, and be those focal points around the city?
Speaker A:Because we are urban campus.
Speaker A:There's a lot of underprivileged youth around the area, and we want to make sure that we're giving back, because a lot of the stuff that we strive to accomplish is not just going to be on the court.
Speaker A:And I think that that's.
Speaker A:That's the smallest piece of it.
Speaker A:I tell my guys all the time, I said, look, man, I'll skip a practice to go help out in a soup kitchen.
Speaker A:Like, we'll.
Speaker A:We'll skip practice and we'll go.
Speaker A:We'll go help out the Special Olympics.
Speaker A:Like me, setting ball screens.
Speaker A:You got setting ball screens for an hour and a half is going to get anything done as much as it'd be going and reading at a studio at the elementary school down the street.
Speaker A:So I'M a little unorthodox when it comes to those things, but I think just ingraining ourselves in the community is just a huge.
Speaker A:A huge thing for me.
Speaker B:That circles back to what you said off the top, right, in terms of what the administration was looking for.
Speaker B:Transformational coaching and not transactional.
Speaker B:And that getting out in the community and serving and being a part of it, it's really what it's all about, right, is being able to use basketball to be able to have an impact, first of all, on your players that are part of your program.
Speaker B:But then secondly, if you can take that and multiply it out into the community, then you're really talking about transformational.
Speaker B:So when you get the job, tell me a little bit about putting together your staff.
Speaker B:What was that process?
Speaker B:Like, who were the first calls you made?
Speaker B:Just what's your philosophy on putting together a great staff, and how quickly were you able to get that to come together?
Speaker A:I mean, one.
Speaker A:One thing that Coach Gates always taught me is always have, you know, always have a staff in place.
Speaker A:Always have a team in place for any level job you could possibly get.
Speaker A:So he's like, look, if you're.
Speaker A:If you got the job at an Ole Miss tomorrow, like, who would your staff be if you got the job at Chicago State tomorrow?
Speaker A:You, like, you just got to think about where you're going to be at next and who would you recruit and have a black book full of those names.
Speaker A:And obviously, you know, with me seeing that how Coach Robinson success was continuing here at Cleveland State, I knew it could be a possibility that he would get something higher.
Speaker A:They won like 13 games in a row.
Speaker A:So I was like, man, he went 13 games in a row.
Speaker A:Someone's going to come knocking at his door.
Speaker A:So if I get the opportunity, who would I hire in there?
Speaker A:And I think I put together a great staff.
Speaker A:You know, I always, I. I love my team.
Speaker A:I love the players that I.
Speaker A:When I get out of the portal.
Speaker A:But when you talk about a staff, I think I have a bunch of future head coaches and former head coaches on my staff right now.
Speaker A:You know, I called my.
Speaker A:My former teammate, Frank Young, who was at App State as associate head coach at App State, obviously with Coach Kearns down there, wanted permission first with Coach Kearns because I needed.
Speaker A:I needed Frank.
Speaker A:I trust Frank.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:I know what he's about.
Speaker A:I know his character.
Speaker A:I know how good of a recruiter he is.
Speaker A:I know how good of a coach he is.
Speaker A:I know that it's only a short period of time before he's going to get his opportunity to move a chair over and be able to be able to call those timeouts.
Speaker A:So bringing him on board first and foremost was, was huge for me.
Speaker A:I knew I was going to bring Delon King with me from the University of Missouri, a Cleveland State graduate, somebody who really helped me on the offensive side of the basketball.
Speaker A:He's huge in analytics, very, very bright, very smart.
Speaker A:Just really is going to a future star in the game.
Speaker A:He's been around Coach Gates and the culture that we have from that tree for six, seven years now.
Speaker A:So he understood what I would need from him.
Speaker A:So I asked for Coach Gates blessing right away.
Speaker A:He was like, well, who are you going to try to steal from me?
Speaker A:I knew he was like, I know you try to take somebody.
Speaker A:And when I brought up the line's name, he said, you know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bless that.
Speaker A:Anybody else, I wouldn't let him leave for it.
Speaker A:He's like, anybody else can't have him.
Speaker A:He's like, I'm gonna let you have him.
Speaker A:So to bring him in was great, you know, like bright young man called, called Mike Hunter, who was a, the junior college coach at Lakeland Community College while I was here at Cleveland State and then was a head coach at Shawnee State down, down there in Portsmouth, Ohio.
Speaker A:So obviously have another head coach who's won a lot of games at the junior college realms, Somebody who's great with post development and bringing him on board again as a high character guy.
Speaker A:Huge for me, when they call it, called Lou, actually didn't think Lou Rowe.
Speaker A:Lou Rowe was at University of Oregon.
Speaker A:And I remember talking to him and it's like, coach, I think I'm gonna get this job because we just, you know, I worked for Coach Rowe and when I was at James Madison, he gave me a great opportunity there.
Speaker A:And I told him, you know, I was going to take this Cleveland State job.
Speaker A:And I said, you know, I gotta bring a former Division 1 head coach.
Speaker A:I need, I need a guy who's, who's been in my seat, who knows the stresses from, from what a Mid Major Division 1 head coach is going to experience.
Speaker A:So I was talking with him about, you know, if he knew anybody or whatever, and, and next thing you know, he's like, rah, rah, what about me?
Speaker A:And I said, coach, you're not gonna leave University of Oregon.
Speaker A:You're not gonna leave Oregon to come to Cleveland State.
Speaker A:God, I can't pay, I can't, I can't afford You.
Speaker A:I told him, I said, I can't afford it.
Speaker A:He said, man, it's not about the money for me.
Speaker A:He said, I've made enough money.
Speaker A:He's, you know, played pro for 15 years and made a lot of money and been.
Speaker A:Been coaching for a long, long time.
Speaker A:So he's like, it's not about the money for me.
Speaker A:He's like, it's about being around, you know, and helping people that, you know, that I love and I want to support.
Speaker A:He's like, he's like, if you, if you want, if you want me to, if you want me to be there.
Speaker A:He's like, I'll be there.
Speaker A:So was blessed to get him on board.
Speaker A:I really didn't think I was going to have a shot at getting him.
Speaker A:I was looking at more of, you know, maybe somebody who's out of the business at the time in the former, former head coach.
Speaker A:But so to bring him on again, huge for me.
Speaker A:Great recruiter, great man, knows the defensive side of the ball like the back of his hand.
Speaker A:So he was great.
Speaker A:And, you know, we got blessed to keep Danny Carliak from Coach Robinson.
Speaker A:Had a couple people in mind for what I was going to do with my director operations job.
Speaker A:But Danny said, you know, he's a Cleveland guy.
Speaker A:Born and raised in Cleveland, loves Cleveland.
Speaker A:He's got Browns tickets, guards tickets, Cavs tickets.
Speaker A:He's got a Rock and roll hall of Fame season pass.
Speaker A:He's, he's got the fast pass, Cedar Point.
Speaker A:He's got everything that, anything in Ohio.
Speaker A:So he's been great for me and keeping him around and, and then rounding my staff out with Casey Perrin, who's assistant down at Louisiana Lafayette.
Speaker A:And we got, just got let go.
Speaker A:But a huge player development guy, a guy who came highly recommended from, from a guy, Christian Smith I know from down in Miami, Ohio.
Speaker A:He said, look, Rob, I know what type of man you are.
Speaker A:You're a faith based man, you're a family based man.
Speaker A:He's like, Casey is at.
Speaker A:He's a guy who's, he's like, he's got a little one on the way.
Speaker A:Him and his wife been, been married for a couple years now.
Speaker A:He's like, he's a star.
Speaker A:He works his butt off and he just, he's just a good, he's just a good person.
Speaker A:And that's one thing I really wanted to make sure.
Speaker A:You know, I wanted guys that could be on different sides of basketball from offense to defense.
Speaker A:But I really wanted to focus in on the character piece.
Speaker A:I wanted These young men to see just great people around him because they can sniff it out.
Speaker A:Like these, these, these college athletes know when a guy's not about the right things and when you have guys that are great fathers, great husbands, these, these players are just going to be more inclined to be like, okay, I understand, coach.
Speaker A:Like you, you want the best for me because you're living the right way.
Speaker A:And that's one thing that I really want to make sure I check the box on and, and I really did with the staff.
Speaker A:I'm, I'm very, very excited about them.
Speaker B:Well, and you're going to spend a lot of time with them, right?
Speaker B:So you want to have dudes that you like sitting in the locker rooms, like sitting in the coach's office with and having those conversations because you got guys that aren't good, high character guys.
Speaker B:That, that, that doesn't bode well for your, for your staff and just the camaraderie that you guys have because again, we all know how much time we're spending together.
Speaker A:Yeah, no, definitely, Definitely.
Speaker B:All right, so you get your staff in place.
Speaker B:Next piece is putting together the roster.
Speaker B:So go walk us through what that process was like.
Speaker B:And as you're doing that, talk a little bit about just in general, how recruiting has changed for you over the course of your career.
Speaker B:Obviously, nil, the portal have made a huge difference in how teams and rosters are built in college basketball today.
Speaker B:So as a first time Division 1 head coach, building your own program, you hadn't done it at the Division 1 level under the old system.
Speaker B:So this is the only system that you know to put together this roster for the first time.
Speaker B:So just walk us through what that process was like after you got the job.
Speaker A:It was a whirlwind.
Speaker A:It was wild.
Speaker A:It was like I was drinking out of a fire hose for a solid month and a half.
Speaker A:It was, it, it just, I'm telling you, the amount of sleep I probably, the amount of food I ate, I don't think I ate for probably three weeks.
Speaker A:I had the Lion King here, he was like, bring me food in my office.
Speaker A:Like, coach, have an eight today.
Speaker A:And I'm like, man, like, it's like two in the morning.
Speaker A:And I'm like, okay, like, let me just get a bite.
Speaker A:And then I would go back to my, go back to my hotel because I was living out of hotel for a while and just get a couple hours of sleep and then back in the office again.
Speaker A:So it was good that I, you know, again, I had that black book of Names, you know, that I knew that at a mid major level and previous I wanted relationships I had with players before.
Speaker A:I didn't want to just kind of go in cold calling a bunch of guys that I didn't know other than watching film and seeing their stats.
Speaker A:So to be able to go in and, and signed the guys that I signed, you know, I was very, very excited because I, I knew them before.
Speaker A:You know, you look at a guy like Foster wonders who was at Green Bay.
Speaker A:You know, I lost out on him when I was the first time around here at Cleveland State.
Speaker A:You know, had been on a bunch of calls with him, his parents went to see him and he went to Southern Illinois and told us no.
Speaker A:So, you know, ended up going to Green Bay.
Speaker A:And obviously when he hopped in the portal again for his last year, I said, you know what, I don't want to miss.
Speaker A:I can't miss out twice.
Speaker A:Foster, because I think that he fits exactly how you want to play.
Speaker A:We want to, we want to, we want to get a lot of threes up.
Speaker A:We're going to shoot a lot of threes.
Speaker A:We're going to play very, very fast.
Speaker A:We want to play in transition.
Speaker A:And I think he could provide kind of similar to what Caleb Grill provided us last year at Missouri.
Speaker A:So adding him going on getting to Josiah Harris, you know, bringing JoJo back, you know, back to the, back to the Cleveland area.
Speaker A:You know, I know he's Richmond Heights guy, you know, family splits time and canon, all those things like that.
Speaker A:But know he's a Cleveland, Northeast Ohio guy.
Speaker A:So to get JoJo back here was huge for me.
Speaker A:Excited about him, Signed a guy, Kamari, Kamari Jones from Indianapolis, who I had relationship with him when he was at, when I was at Miami, Ohio.
Speaker A:We recruited him a bunch and then he went to Western Carolina and, and he was going to go junior college.
Speaker A:But I said, look man, I got faith in you.
Speaker A:I think you, you gotta, you got a bright future ahead of you.
Speaker A:It's gonna take some time for you to develop, but you can come in here and you can, and you can work.
Speaker A:And that was great for us.
Speaker A:And then signing a guy like d' Ann Nessa, you know, a guy from Switzerland who's played U19 basketball.
Speaker A:Average I think about is like 18, 18, 9 and 5 during those U19 and he had 22 and 17 against France, you know, at 6, 7.
Speaker A:He, he's got pro bill to him.
Speaker A:So to bring a guy like him and you know, I flew over the, flew over to Switzerland to see what his parents.
Speaker A:I was like, look, we got to have him.
Speaker A:And so, like, again, it was a whirlwind of just putting together these different pieces of what we needed.
Speaker A:Because again, we wanted to play fast, we want to be deep, we wanted to make sure we get the right guys in, character wise.
Speaker A:But we wanted to still be old too, as well.
Speaker A:And I didn't want to go out and get a bunch of freshmen, especially at that point in time in April, because it's, again, the landscapes change.
Speaker A:Used to bring freshmen in and develop them for two, three years, and by year three, you're like, all right, let's win.
Speaker A:Like, this is the time to win now.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's a win now.
Speaker A:It's a win now standpoint, because everyone's going to soon go out and they're going to get older guys.
Speaker A:And it's just hard to compete with when you have freshmen out there.
Speaker A:You saw with from us here the first time at Cleveland State, we, we went out, we got old and we won fast.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:There's no doubt that the college basketball landscape has shifted towards the portal and upperclassmen and bringing those guys in that contribute right away.
Speaker B:And then the challenge with that, right, becomes building.
Speaker B:Building your team both on the floor from a basketball standpoint and learning what your players are good at.
Speaker B:Obviously, when you're recruiting them, you have some idea of the type of players that they are, but when you get them on the floor and you actually get to see them and you start to piece together, hey, this guy meshes well with this guy, or this combination seems to work.
Speaker B:So there's the basketball side of it, but then there's also just the building a team.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Building a cohesive unit, a group of guys that plays for each other, that fights for each other.
Speaker B:And so obviously, once you get coaching staff in place, which we talked about, roster in place, which we talked about, then it becomes about how do you build a team both on the basketball court and get to know the strengths and weaknesses of your guys?
Speaker B:And obviously you have a style of what you have in mind, how you want to play, but you got to adjust that a little bit for your personnel and what guys can do and combinations.
Speaker B:And then you also have the piece of building a cohesive team that is together, and you got to do that in a short period of time.
Speaker B:Tell me about that process, what you and your coaching staff talked about in terms of what you're doing with your guys in the summertime.
Speaker A:Well, the first thing we did as a staff is we had A coaching retreat.
Speaker A:You know, I got on my staff, you know, I finally got everybody here around May and said, look, we need three days, man.
Speaker A:I need three days.
Speaker A:We're going to rent out.
Speaker A:We're going to rent a Airbnb, and we got to hash out everything that we're going to do, you know, and, and.
Speaker A:And try to do and then see what, you know, see what we want to stick with, see what we kind of need to change.
Speaker A:So got there and, and kind of, you know, showed them how I wanted to play offensively and kind of handed the reigns over to Coach King and Coach Young and said, look, you guys got the offensive side of the ball, but, you know, obviously we still want to play the same way we played in Mizzou, both playing with pass, with pace, and also playing out of, like, a lot of our split cuts, a lot of NBA style breeds with it and transition and then defensively, you know, handing that over to Coach Rowe, Coach Hunter, and tell him, like, look, I wanna.
Speaker A:I wanna be disruptive, I wanna be tough, I wanna be physical out there on the floor and then let them kind of take their reins from it.
Speaker A:Really didn't want to micromanage guys on a lot of things.
Speaker A:So that was the biggest thing for me is like, hey, look, this is the standard of what I want.
Speaker A:These are some things I comfortable with.
Speaker A:You know, obviously, if you guys have ideas, you're like, coach, I think this will really work for us.
Speaker A:You know, look at the roster that we put together and watch their film, from their junior colleges to their schools they've been at, and tell me what should work with this group.
Speaker A:And it was, it was, it was.
Speaker A:It's been.
Speaker A:It's been good.
Speaker A:It's been good so far.
Speaker A:I think that, you know, going to the summertime kind of establish that.
Speaker A:That pace with our guys was important.
Speaker A:You know, we didn't have DNA with us, we didn't have Ivan Spiroff.
Speaker A:You know, they both were overseas still.
Speaker A:So we.
Speaker A:We're down two of our players that, you know, are going to play some big minutes for us this year.
Speaker A:But, you know, the other 13 guys really got a lot of great reps in it and learning each other, and that's what we spent a lot of our summer and even the fall up at this point.
Speaker A:It's been what we call our Viking DNA segment of our season where we.
Speaker A:We learn ourselves, we learn our teammates, and we learn our system.
Speaker A:So again, we split our.
Speaker A:We split our season up in four different seasons.
Speaker A:Next we're going to go, we're moving on to commit to compete.
Speaker A:And then we.
Speaker A:So we go preseason, we go our first.
Speaker A:Our first non con.
Speaker A:We go to conference, then we go to our playoffs where we're in Horizon League tournament.
Speaker A:It's a tournament.
Speaker A:And I think that's a great way to split it up because the year can become redundant and long, I think.
Speaker A:You know, back when I was coming up in the summertime, you just had open gym and you did some weights and the coaches really couldn't talk to you until you came back in the fall.
Speaker A:And then you still didn't have much going on then.
Speaker A:And then October 15th came around and then you're doing all the practices, but now it's like you're practicing all your lounge.
Speaker A:So I really didn't want my guys to hear my voice every day.
Speaker A:So really, really this summer I let my sisters run every practice.
Speaker A:Every practice that we had, my s. My sisters ran it.
Speaker A:You know, I'd chime in here or there, but I would sit on the sideline, I'd make calls to recruits, I drink my coffee, I chime in where I needed to be.
Speaker A:But it was a lot of.
Speaker A:Let's allow on them to, to be head coaches in their own right, because that's what I hired them for.
Speaker A:I hired him to coach basketball.
Speaker A:I didn't hire him to sit around and, and listen to me, you know, get in a soapbox and, and talk.
Speaker A:So that was huge for us.
Speaker A:And just, you know, 15 new guys, you said it is.
Speaker A:It's always tough, right, when you got new guys, period.
Speaker A:When you got 15 new guys.
Speaker A:So nobody knows me, nobody knows anybody on the team, you know, that first, those first two weeks we didn't do any basketball.
Speaker A:It was all, it was all team bot.
Speaker A:Team building.
Speaker A:It was all, you know, bringing sports psychologists in, you know, let these guys tell their story of where they came from, the things they've seen that they didn't like, the things that they like just really getting to know each other because we had to kind of fast track that as opposed to, you know, previously with, you know, teams when I was at West Virginia, you know, you got three, four years with each of each guy.
Speaker A:So, you know, you got three years to continue to learn and, and see, you know, what their mom's name is, they have any siblings.
Speaker A:Like, you got to find that stuff out now in eight months, because eight months from now, you know, you want to retain guys, but you're going to have at least 50.
Speaker A:You're trying to reconstruct 50 of your roster.
Speaker A:It's just, it's just the nature of the beast now and it's just changed so much in the last, you know, like I said, I've been coaching now for this 16 years and it's like night and day.
Speaker A:So I can only imagine how some of these older coaches who've been doing it for 30 plus years are feeling like this is, this is unbelievable.
Speaker B:Talk to me about the NIL piece of it and how that plays into getting guys to come to Cleveland State.
Speaker B:But just in the general basketball landscape, how does that play into it, your role as a head coach and how you have to manage that piece of it in order to be able to manage your roster?
Speaker A:I mean, it's, it's very important.
Speaker A:You know, it's, it's, you know, some people don't like it.
Speaker A:Obviously.
Speaker A:Me being a former student athlete myself, I would love to have some nil.
Speaker A:I don't even need that much.
Speaker A:I just wanted enough to go get us, get extra supersize my value meal.
Speaker A:I just, I just want enough to put some gas in my car.
Speaker A:I mess with my guns all the time now.
Speaker A:I, I got, I got loans.
Speaker B:That's crazy.
Speaker B:Like, honestly, to me, like, I remember, I remember Rob being so excited over Christmas break that we would get like, I.
Speaker B:My last two years I'm living in an apartment and so you get your meal money over Christmas break, right?
Speaker B:They'd give me like 300 bucks.
Speaker B:I'm like, yeah, and I think I can get by with 150.
Speaker B:I remember every, those two years when I was a junior and senior, like, I bought myself a pair of shoes with my extra meal money over a Christmas break.
Speaker B:And then, you know, you look at some of the dollar figures that some guys are getting now and I'm like, holy cow, man.
Speaker B:Like, I can't, I can't believe it.
Speaker B:So just trying to navigate that and manage it, I'm sure, as, as a head coach.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:Just what's it like, man?
Speaker B:I mean, it just, it's just.
Speaker B:I have a really hard time even wrapping my head around it.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's difficult, you know, because the kids, they want something and I understand that they want to be, you know, compensated somewhat.
Speaker A:My thing of it is, and how I view nil, especially at the level I'm at now, is more as a retention factor.
Speaker A:You know, I think that, you know, some, you know, guys make their money, but I really want to use it as a way to retain student athletes.
Speaker A:I want students to want to stay at Cleveland State, I don't want guys who are returning to feel like, well, you're not value me, valuing me the same way you value, you know, a brand new guy coming through our program.
Speaker A:Now does that change?
Speaker A:I don't, I don't know.
Speaker A:But I know that right now that's where I really want to focus on that retention piece of it.
Speaker A:Because you have to adapt.
Speaker A:You don't, you don't want to be stuck with the Blockbuster card when Netflix is out.
Speaker A:And I think a lot of people are like, well, I, I don't subscribe to it.
Speaker A:And I've told people they're like, well, I don't, I don't really agree with it.
Speaker A:And I'm like, it doesn't matter.
Speaker A:You don't think necessarily agree with what it is.
Speaker A:But understanding that it's here is something that we have to continue to adapt to and, you know, give the right guys the right nil money.
Speaker A:You'll feel, you'll feel good about your, about investing in these young men.
Speaker A:But I, I've came from SEC where the numbers were out of this world.
Speaker A:So when you're in the Horizon League, you know, you're not looking at these right.
Speaker A:You know, knowing that wrestling is making, make it 1.5 and make it, make it 1.7.
Speaker A:You know, so you look at, you look at a guy, but if a guy can come in somewhere and be able to, you know, have a, get a, get, have a, have a car, be able to have a car payment and be able to, you know, invest the money and live money in Robin Hood and then get their door dash orders.
Speaker A:So you'll pay for, you know, it's understandable.
Speaker A:But again, I, I think that the biggest thing for us at Cleveland State is we don't want it just to be the only reason.
Speaker A:I told guys, I'm like, if you just want a money deal, I'm not the guy for you.
Speaker A:If you're just thinking about this is this, this is, this is about Nil.
Speaker A:I was like, now again, nil is a piece of it, but if it's, this is what it's going to be, I, I, I know I'll end that conversation right away.
Speaker A:Especially with agents and parents who want to be agents and, and student athletes.
Speaker A:Because if the first thing you ask me about is a number, then you're not really worried about who Coach Summers is and doesn't matter what I tell you about me and my faith and my journey.
Speaker A:You're going to, you're looking to, to, to make Some money, which, again, understandable, but I don't want that to be the piece of the puzzle that's it's like, is so focused in on because these young men don't understand.
Speaker A:And I saw it at the SEC level, once you get paid that first check, you forget about the money.
Speaker A:You really do is it's more about your relationship with your, with your staff.
Speaker A:You're not, you're not worried about it.
Speaker A:I mess with my guys all the time.
Speaker A:All their cars are better than mine.
Speaker A:Like, everybody.
Speaker A:And everybody on our team had a better car than mine.
Speaker A:I got, I got three kids.
Speaker A:So I pull in the parking lot, like, man, I got the worst of the bunch.
Speaker A:I got the worst of the bunch here.
Speaker A:But they, but they knew that.
Speaker A:But they knew that.
Speaker A:You know, they knew that we, that we cared about them.
Speaker A:They knew that we cared about them, and that was the biggest piece.
Speaker B:Yeah, I do think that ultimately, right, what you're looking for as an athlete, sure, the money is new, the money's exciting.
Speaker B:Everybody wants to get a piece of that.
Speaker B:But ultimately you're still looking for a great experience.
Speaker B:And part of that great experience is the relationship that you build with your coaching staff.
Speaker B:And when that's in place, it just allows everything else, I think, to click in so that you can a, have a great experience individually as a player in a program.
Speaker B:But then also, if all those positive relationship pieces are there between an individual player and the coaching staff, that translates to the whole team.
Speaker B:And when you have that kind of cohesion and then you start.
Speaker B:Can all start pushing for that same goal and going in the right direction and, and trying to get the program doing what it's supposed to do when you have, as you said, those relationships, which are so, so, so important.
Speaker B:You talked a little bit earlier just about trying to make sure that in the summertime guys don't hear your voice and get sick of it because you're hearing it from you.
Speaker B:Basically, again, guys now at the Division 1 level, totally different from when you played or when I played, where, again, you just went your own way in the summertime and you did your thing and you came back on campus and then you got yourself ready for October 15th.
Speaker B:Now programs are going year round.
Speaker B:How do you make sure, beyond just you kind of taking a step back from being the voice during the summertime, how do you make sure that you're not wearing guys down to the point where by the time you get to the conference schedule in January, your team's tired because they've been going at it so hard.
Speaker B:Is that something that you think about and in the programs that you've been in, how have they approached that and then how did you approach that this summer to make sure you're not beating your team up so that they're, they're physically still at their best come January?
Speaker A:Yeah, that's definitely something I noticed, you know, especially last year at Mizzou.
Speaker A:You know, Coach Gase has always done a great job of letting his assistants, you know, run stuff and run practices.
Speaker A:You know, he let me run practices at Mizzou all the time to really help with those guys and their.
Speaker A:And when they hear his voice, they knew they need to listen because it wasn't as a voice that was just coming in every day, all day and just became, you know, just part of like this background noise to them.
Speaker A:So seeing that from him and then also understand this a long season, right?
Speaker A:So even though, you know, coach lets us run, it's just a long year.
Speaker A:These guys are, if you're, if you're looking to make it to this big tournament, you're looking at an eight month season at nine months.
Speaker A:Like, it's just, it's just a lot of time to be out there playing college basketball in a row seeing the same people.
Speaker A:So how can you keep it fresh?
Speaker A:You know, how can you take your days and make your days count and not really, you know, spend, you know, those, those four hours that you get a lot of from the NCAA with just three hours of practice, hours of weights, like running your program like an NBA program, I think is the biggest thing that, you know, I've learned from Coach Cases is run like a pro program, you know, have your lockout days, have days where guys can't come in.
Speaker A:Like, because guys are going to want to come in and get in the gym, right?
Speaker A:You got to, you got to, you got to help protect them from themselves sometimes because guys want to get a lot of extra shots up and certain time guys, them guys, you're a heavy minute guy.
Speaker A:You don't need to be coming in, putting more wear and tear on your body when it's an off day.
Speaker A:So having those NBA lockout type of days where guys aren't even allowed in the gym, like you're not allowed in here.
Speaker A:Like go decompress.
Speaker A:Like, be it, be it, be at the house, go, go to get, get, get your extra study hall, get some tutoring in.
Speaker A:Um, but this is not time to come in and, and still try to get up your 500 shots because you want to be a pro.
Speaker A:Which I respect.
Speaker A:But you have to be able to help protect them from themselves sometimes.
Speaker A:And I think that that's a big thing that I learned from coach and obviously I've been implemented here at Cleveland State because we have a lot of guys who are, who are gym rats and they want to be in the gym, but they just don't understand that their body's like treads, like tire treads.
Speaker A:You don't know how much tire tread you have on each of each of these guys bodies.
Speaker A:My tire tread lasted me till I was 25, 26, and my back said no more.
Speaker A:So I don't.
Speaker A:Who.
Speaker A:Who knows?
Speaker A:And I still have teammates that I play with that are 40 years old, still playing overseas.
Speaker A:So they got, they got better trade than I do.
Speaker A:So I think that's the biggest thing for us and, and just keeping it fresh, man, allowing these guys, you know, to, to.
Speaker A:To coach themselves on the floor sometimes.
Speaker A:A lot of times with, with our training, we allow them to self correct.
Speaker A:We don't want to give them every answer to the test.
Speaker A:So when during drills, we'll allow them to coach themselves like, all right, no coaches are talking for this.
Speaker A:Like, this is, this is what the drill pertains to.
Speaker A:We're going small side of games.
Speaker A:This is how we're scoring it.
Speaker A:Coach yourselves coaches.
Speaker A:We're out of this.
Speaker A:And it just allows themselves to hear.
Speaker A:Hear their own voices and, and not just here, you know, because staffs these days are gigantic, right?
Speaker A:We got a big staff here at Cleveland State and Mizzou.
Speaker A:We had about 40 guys on staff.
Speaker A:It's just.
Speaker A:It's just the, the changed a lot, right, since restrictive earnings where they had assisted coaches who, who couldn't.
Speaker A:Who couldn't make over a certain amount of money now.
Speaker A:But I think the biggest thing for us is how, how fresh can we keep these guys and how can we not just every day just be basketball, basketball, basketball.
Speaker A:And that goes back to the community service part about it.
Speaker A:It goes back to like, hey man, I all.
Speaker A:I will miss practice to go do community service any day of the week.
Speaker A:You can ask my players that guys will miss the go a community service day.
Speaker A:Hey, we're not practicing today.
Speaker A:We're going.
Speaker A:We're going to East Cleveland.
Speaker A:Same can be said for guys.
Speaker A:Guys, grades slip a little bit.
Speaker A:Hey, we'll shut it down.
Speaker A:Like with.
Speaker A:I use.
Speaker A:I use an old Coach Carter saying where he's like, you thought it was bad when, when we knew you were fell in Spanish.
Speaker A:Now the whole world knows you're Failing Spanish.
Speaker A:So I want to make sure these guys anytime.
Speaker A:And again, we got great academic guys, so.
Speaker A:But I don't, I don't think we have a kid on our team that should be getting Cs.
Speaker A:Like we have two, two smart kids that when their grades are dropping the seas, we have a long, hard discussion because our recruited high, high academic, high character kids.
Speaker A:So that's one thing that, you know, people commended me on and we're going to hold those guys accountable to that.
Speaker B:How has it been with the pacing in the fall in your preseason practices?
Speaker B:Making sure that you're getting everything in, coming off the summer and getting prepared for that first game again as a first time head coach at the Division 1 level, just making sure that you get your pace of practice down where you're getting everything in that you want to have in by game one.
Speaker B:How is that pacing gone for you guys this, this fall?
Speaker A:One thing that I, that I took from Coach Beeline just kind of like learning under him as a player, then obviously going and sitting watching his practice at Michigan when I was at Urbana was just like having a matrix of like, stuff you want to get put in, in the, in the, in the weekly and just like having a checklist almost of checking things off and like, what's very, what's important to you, you know, Is your press break important to you?
Speaker A:Is implementing your zone important to you?
Speaker A:And then having that checklist and understanding like, hey, you gotta adapt, you got, you gotta adapt.
Speaker A:In some weeks you got to spend a little bit longer on, on ball screen coverages than you did you wanted to.
Speaker A:And then also combining that with coach Gates and him telling me like, rob, you can't catch every raindrop.
Speaker A:If you want to catch every raindrop out here on the basketball court, you're, you're going to, you're going to be sorely mistaken.
Speaker A:So what can you and what can our program be good at and then continue to adopt as the year goes along?
Speaker A:So I don't want to move on from something if we don't have it done right.
Speaker A:I just don't want to check a box of like, okay, well, we got, we got this, we got baseline of bounds defense saying like, all right, next week we're working on this, this like next week.
Speaker A:All right, now we got in got.
Speaker A:If it's not done right, I'll stay with it and then I'll be, and then I'll, I'll want to just adapt as we go on.
Speaker A:So one big thing I wanted to get was our transition Offense and our flow.
Speaker A:Offense in.
Speaker A:And I wanted to make sure that that was what we were really, really good at.
Speaker A:Do we have a bunch of sets put in right now?
Speaker A:Probably not.
Speaker A:We probably have about six or seven sets that we have from our season.
Speaker A:But we know how to play in transition.
Speaker A:We know how to flow into our secondary, and we know how to flow into our office and our splits and our open alignment.
Speaker A:And guys know how to play in a game and they can come out and they can play fast and they can play a way that Cleveland State is going to play this year.
Speaker B:How do you design your practices?
Speaker B:And I'm thinking about this question in two different ways.
Speaker B:One, what's your process for planning a practice?
Speaker B:Are you looking at the previous day's practice, sitting down in your office at your computer by yourself, putting together the practice plan and then sharing it with assistants?
Speaker B:Are you guys doing it collectively as a group?
Speaker B:So what's the process for putting together a practice?
Speaker B:And then number two, what are those practices?
Speaker B:What does a practice plan look like?
Speaker B:Do you keep it the same every day?
Speaker B:Do you like to go defense first and then offense and then special teams?
Speaker B:Do you.
Speaker B:Do you have a flow?
Speaker B:Do you have a certain type of some.
Speaker B:Some favorite drills that you say these are part of our practice every day?
Speaker B:Just A, how do you put together a practice and then B, how does that practice look day to day?
Speaker A:Yeah, well, you know, I used to, as a head coach when I was at Urbana, I would just come with a practice plan.
Speaker A:I would hand to my assistants about an hour before practicing, say, hey, look, I.
Speaker A:You run this drill or help me with this one, but I'm going to run it all.
Speaker A:So this is what it looks like.
Speaker A:Just know, you know, then they would.
Speaker A:They would help out and whatnot.
Speaker A:But I really learned a lot being here with.
Speaker A:Again, I know talk about Coach Gates a lot, but he.
Speaker A:He's had a huge impact on my career just from a standpoint of being able to think outside the box and ways that I didn't think that's how college coaching went.
Speaker A:And when we were here at Cleveland State, me and Coach Jarvo, me and Ryan Sharbar, defensive coordinator, we would do every practice playing.
Speaker A:We, me and him would sit down in the office after every day after practice, and we're like, all right, what do we want to do tomorrow?
Speaker A:And we did it because coach gets like, where's the practice?
Speaker A:I remember the first day of practice, he's like, where's practice playing at?
Speaker A:We were like, every school, I've been at it was the head coach would hand me a practice plan.
Speaker A:So I'm like, what are you talking about?
Speaker A:Where's the practice plan?
Speaker A:And I was like, you know, don't you come up with it.
Speaker A:And, and he was like, what, what, what am I paying you guys for?
Speaker A:You like I paid you to come here and coach.
Speaker A:And from that day on, you know, he really, you know, empowered our staff to like do that.
Speaker A:And me and Coach Dall would sit down and, and we would come up with a practice plan and, and we would hand it, you know, we would give it to him that night and we say coach, this what we came up with.
Speaker A:And, and he would kind of tinker it and move some things around, around what he, what he thought we needed to work on and what he wanted to see from a practice standpoint.
Speaker A:And it was perfect for us.
Speaker A:It, it really worked well.
Speaker A:And it's something that, that I brought here back to Cleveland State with me because we were doing the same thing at Mizzou last year.
Speaker A:You know, as an officer coordinator, you know, I had my, my 45 to 50 minutes of, of the practice that I was allowed to have and I always knew I wanted to get some small sided games in, I wanted to get some, some execution in stuff, transition.
Speaker A:And I'm a simple coach.
Speaker A:I don't, you know, I, I, I love the cla stuff.
Speaker A:It's because that's how John B. Lan is.
Speaker A:You know, that constraint led approach.
Speaker A:I love having different games like that.
Speaker A: had since, you know, this is: Speaker A:We're at West Virginia doing CLA stuff, you know, so we're playing small side of games and we're scoring it differently.
Speaker A:If you get a back cut, you get extra five points.
Speaker A:Scoring off the split screen with a, with, with a curl cut is, is, is worth three.
Speaker A:You know, it's, it's all those things that now everyone's finding attractive, but we've been doing that for a long, long time.
Speaker A:So seeing with my practice planning, I love, I love to start off, you know, just begin to practice just getting guys loose.
Speaker A:You know, I, I always love to stretch guys.
Speaker A:I know that some people don't like stretching.
Speaker A:They don't like watching a guy stretch, but they don't stretch on their own.
Speaker A:So I always make sure that they straight, like give me five minutes to stretch it just because I hate when guys get to practice.
Speaker A:Like I'M not loose.
Speaker A:And I'm like, dude, you're supposed to get loose before practice.
Speaker A:But my staff does a good job, though.
Speaker A:Our guys will get in early and they'll.
Speaker A:And they'll.
Speaker A:And they'll work out.
Speaker A:They'll work out.
Speaker A:They'll get shots up.
Speaker A:So they'll have a good sweat going on before we get to practice.
Speaker A:But we always will stretch.
Speaker A:We'll get in, we'll get shots up.
Speaker A:We always start with a passing drill.
Speaker A:I'm big on passing.
Speaker A:We always talk about throwing strikes, not balls with our passing angles.
Speaker A:So always do a lot of pass, do some passing drills to start off us, and then we go right to defense.
Speaker A:You know, give my defense there a lot of amount of time, and they're allowed to fight for their time.
Speaker A:And I tell them, you know, some.
Speaker A:Some days that if they don't get the drills they want to get in.
Speaker A:I said, fight for your time.
Speaker A:You know, if you guys as defensive coordinators want us to be good defensively, fight for your time in a practice plan, these are things that you want to work on.
Speaker A:Obviously, we'll talk about.
Speaker A:I'll talk about it as a head, from a head coaching standpoint and say, well, I don't want to do this today.
Speaker A:I want to move this to tomorrow.
Speaker A:And then I get my offensive there, 45 minutes of practice as well.
Speaker A:They come in, they, you know, they.
Speaker A:They have on the practice plan, they wanted to work on this, you know, this and that.
Speaker A:And I look at it and I say, well, let's change this drill up.
Speaker A:Let's score this drill differently.
Speaker A:But I think it just really gives them a stake in the company.
Speaker A:I think, you know, and I think that's what you want to have as an assistant.
Speaker A:You want to have stake in the company.
Speaker A:You don't want to be just a worker somewhere.
Speaker A:And if you got the stock options and you got stock in this company and you want the company to do well, as opposed to someone who's just coming into work every day like, well, you know, the boss is going to make the rules.
Speaker A:He's going to do everything he wants to do.
Speaker A:I'm just going to come in, I'm g. Collect a paycheck.
Speaker A:And just learning under coach Gates and learning how to, you know, empower my.
Speaker A:Empower your assistants really made me feel like I wanted our offense to be really out.
Speaker A:I went our office to be the best of the country every year.
Speaker A:When I was at Cleveland State, when I was at Missouri, I want us to be the best office team in the country.
Speaker A:I want to be the best team in the country.
Speaker A:But also selfishly, I know that he gave me, put me in charge of something so I want to be great at it.
Speaker A:And I think my staff here does the same thing.
Speaker A:You know, they're in charge of special teams.
Speaker A:They want to have their baseline of balance going great.
Speaker A:So I tell them fight for their time, fight for that baseline of balance time.
Speaker A:Make sure you get five minutes of baseline of balance offense in, make sure you get 10 minutes.
Speaker A:You know, if you want to.
Speaker A:It's a big day.
Speaker A:Hey coach, we haven't did in a while.
Speaker A:Let's get 20 minutes.
Speaker A:I need baseline, about 20 minutes.
Speaker A:Just give me a segment.
Speaker A:Okay, let's, let's knock it out.
Speaker A:And I kind of like the know be fluid with my practice planning.
Speaker A:If I feel like there's something that I really wanted to focus on that we didn't get in the day before, you know, I'll delve back to it.
Speaker A:But, but now we're getting into, you know, into the, the, the, the grind of things.
Speaker A:So it's going to be a lot of, you know, scout based learning for us to be honest.
Speaker A:So whether we talk about ball screen coverages or split screen coverages, just the things we do, how's the team that we're going against, how they're going to guard it and everything around that price will be adapted based upon that.
Speaker B:Easier, hard to delegate.
Speaker B:I know, you know, it's the right thing to do, but as a guy whose name is ultimately attached to the one loss record in the program, is it, do you find it psychologically easy to just say, hey, you guys take this or is that something that still, even though you know it's the right thing, is it still a little bit difficult to hand it to somebody else when you think, man, I could do it?
Speaker B:Not necessarily better, but it's not exactly the way that you would do it.
Speaker B:Is it still hard psychologically or.
Speaker A:No, I think at times it is.
Speaker A:But I also have to catch myself because I know that I, I, I used to be such a micromanager before because I was like, I could just do it, I could do it right my way.
Speaker A:And as a head coach, I'm getting pulled in so many different directions from the amount of meetings that I have.
Speaker A:I, trust me, I didn't know I was gonna have this many meetings and this many lunches and breakfast coffees and, and driving over here.
Speaker A:And if somebody, Coach Gates tried to warn me, he said, man, look, you want to be A head coach, it's going to be a lot less basketball than you think, brother.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:I, I, I'm, I'm truly learning that.
Speaker A:So it's tough at times, but I always catch myself because I know what it felt like working sometimes with, with head coaches that didn't allow you to do things that you wanted to do and feeling like I wasn't as involved as I wanted to be.
Speaker A:So with my staff, I have now and again, that's why I brought guys on that I trust.
Speaker A:I think that sometimes it's hard when you don't trust.
Speaker A:If you, if you start not being able to delegate things, it just shows that lack of trust you have in your staff.
Speaker A:And I truly trust, trust these guys.
Speaker A:I trust these guys want me to win as much as I want myself to win, because again, at the end of the day, I know that my name's on it.
Speaker A:All these wins and losses go on my Wikipedia page and everything along those lines.
Speaker A:But also, everybody's contracts are tied to my contract, too.
Speaker A:So if they let me go, I don't, I don't have people that go to keep leftover.
Speaker A:So we'll see.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:As you said, you're coming up on the regular season, and that comes the time when you start scouting opponents.
Speaker B:How do you like to scout?
Speaker B:What does that look like?
Speaker B:What are the things that you're looking for in a scouting report that are important to you as a head coach that you want to make sure that a, you know, and your staff has a handle on and then what you share with the players?
Speaker B:So just walk me through your philosophy on scouting and what that looks like for Cleveland State.
Speaker A:Yeah, so we, we do it, you know, kind of similar to.
Speaker A:I'm, I'm not a big football guy, so I can't really tell you, but I'm assuming this is how football teams do it.
Speaker A:But so I have my two defensive coordinators.
Speaker A:So Coach Hunter, Coach Row, my defensive side of the ball.
Speaker A:Coach King and Coach Young are my office side of the ball.
Speaker A:And then Coach Perry is my, my player development.
Speaker A:And he does a lot of things along those lines with special teams.
Speaker A:So with, with Coach Ho, Coach Rowan, Coach, Coach Hunter, I allow them to watch the other team's offense.
Speaker A:They, they, they split up game by game.
Speaker A:So, you know, let's say we got Loyola coming up.
Speaker A:Coach Ro have them.
Speaker A:We play Capital, I believe, the next game like that.
Speaker A:So Coach Hunter and they'll just like, go game after game.
Speaker A:So they just stay on the defensive side of the game and they just wait.
Speaker A:They just watch all that offense over that side point and then they'll, they'll meet.
Speaker A:They'll talk about how we wanted to guard this.
Speaker A:They'll talk about different sets they run.
Speaker A:Are they, are they heavy in transition?
Speaker A:How are we going to guard the transition side?
Speaker A:Do we want to throw zone at them?
Speaker A:What are those things going to happen?
Speaker A:Then they come together with a plan and then they're present to me two days out from game day plus two.
Speaker A:So game day plus two in the morning, we'll meet 6am the staff, they'll present.
Speaker A:All right, coaches, how.
Speaker A:This is what they run.
Speaker A:It's how we want to guard it.
Speaker A:We'll talk be 30, 40 minutes of that.
Speaker A:Boom.
Speaker A:From there we move on to the office side of the game.
Speaker A:We'll talk with Coach Younger, coach, Coach King.
Speaker A:They'll talk about, all right, this is how they're guarding ball screens.
Speaker A:This is what I think that what actions we can do to attack them.
Speaker A:These are, these are guys susceptible to being able to be a matchup problem for us, a matchup for us.
Speaker A:So we can try to target these guys on, on the offensive end for us.
Speaker A:And then they just stay on the offensive side of the ball.
Speaker A:So those, those two will never, they, they'll never touch anything defensively.
Speaker A:They'll never watch a, probably won't watch a rep of the, the other team's offense until they get to the game day, to be honest.
Speaker A:And then Coach Baron and we'll, we'll, we'll watch every player, every personnel clip and he will present on every personnel for the season.
Speaker A:So every game he'll know exactly what their players are good at and be able to give that information to our players at a high, high level.
Speaker A:And I really, I really like that part about it because it really lets you focus in on, on one side of it and what your specialty is.
Speaker A:I've been parts of programs that do it.
Speaker A:Like each season takes a game.
Speaker A:So, you know, you'll have this game and the next step, have that game and you know, next you have that game.
Speaker A:So you kind of just go in a row and I believe, you know, if you're a specialty on, in a program is like, hey, you're, you're on the opposite side of the ball.
Speaker A:Are you really going to be that great on the defensive side of the ball?
Speaker A:Maybe you're, maybe you're okay, maybe you're all right, but I don't think you're going to be doing it at a high, high level.
Speaker A:So for us to have three different guys working on the game and being able to watch, you know, that.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:That's that segment at a high level and be able to communicate that to the staff and to the players.
Speaker A:That at a high level, I think it just takes, you know, some people think it puts more on your plate because you got every other game you're doing a scout, but I think it takes a lot off your plate because you don't really have to worry about as much.
Speaker A:All right, this is what this guy does at a high level.
Speaker A:Like, you know, that.
Speaker A:That Casey knows that he could tell all the players, that he could talk to the team about that stuff.
Speaker A:Boom.
Speaker A:Or.
Speaker A:And the same thing could be said from the offense.
Speaker A:Like, are they a huge horns team?
Speaker A:They love to run Horns action.
Speaker A:And this.
Speaker A:It's that now.
Speaker A:Now you get.
Speaker A:Now you talk about offense.
Speaker A:So you're like, try.
Speaker A:You're just pulling yourself in so many different directions from a scouting standpoint that I believe that if you die, you divide that up amongst your staff members and in a way that, you know, really mimics what, you know, I would assume a football program looks like.
Speaker A:I think it helps.
Speaker A:It helps you at a high level.
Speaker A:And I'm not big on, you know, bombarding guys with stuff with.
Speaker A:With.
Speaker A:From a scouting standpoint, you know, we're front and back or front and back of a sheet.
Speaker A:You know, we got personnel on the back where you get the top, you know, top eight, nine, ten guys.
Speaker A:And in front, we have our office of keys, defensive keys.
Speaker A:We have some of their sets drawn up, some of the key stats that we need to have, some of the things that we need to execute on defensive end, some of the things we execute on offensive end, because they have short attention spans.
Speaker A:It just is what it is.
Speaker A:I have a short attention span, so I don't blame these guys.
Speaker A:If I hand them a packet of like 12 pages of a scouting report, they're not going to read it.
Speaker A:And I'm just going to be more frustrated than myself if I start asking them questions from page 10 that they didn't read.
Speaker A:So to keep it short and concise and also really make it about us as well, we always say that we're our own biggest opponent.
Speaker A:And, you know, we just competed ourselves at a high, high level.
Speaker A:So for me, that's the biggest thing.
Speaker B:You had to pick one area of the scout of the scouting report to share with your team.
Speaker B:Would it be the personnel side or would it be the.
Speaker B:The X's and O's action side, which one do you think is more important for the players to, to digest and really take into account as they're going into the game?
Speaker B:If, if you had to pick one.
Speaker A:Personnel, I think personnel, I think it's, it's key.
Speaker A:I've, I've always said that, you know, I, I've, I've gone over to the side.
Speaker A:Coach Charbaugh, our defensive coordinator in Mizzou, would always like, disagree with me at first about those things.
Speaker A:So he was like, well, like, I was like, it's all personnel, nothing to do with plays.
Speaker A:Like, you got to know some stuff that they run, man.
Speaker A:And I was like, ah, it's all about personnel, like.
Speaker A:But again, I think that it's a good combination of both.
Speaker A:But if I was really to lock in and, and tell guys like ABD to focus in on this piece about it, I think it's 100%.
Speaker A:You need to know what guys do.
Speaker A:You know, I may forget that on this cross screen play, this guy's coming off another pin down.
Speaker A:But what I'm not going to forget is that my guy's a lefty and he loves to go one drill, pull up just right.
Speaker A:If he's going left, he shots make it downhill.
Speaker B:Requires a lot less thinking right as a player because it's something that you've done if you're a good player.
Speaker B:It's something that you've done probably since you started playing the game is understanding what the guy you're playing against is all about.
Speaker B:And maybe there wasn't a scouting report when you were in eighth grade, but five minutes into the game, you figured out kind of what your guy liked to do.
Speaker B:And so that's something that, right as a player, that stuff translates much easier than, as you said, hey, we're getting this weak side action or the ball is going to swing here and then they're going to pin down that stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah, if you can process that, great.
Speaker B:But ultimately, like you said, you want to know if my guy catches the ball, is he going to rise up and shoot at three or is he a guy that I can be a little bit laid out or be, you know, get a short closeout or long closeout and still be able to stop him.
Speaker B:I think that stuff translates to players, like you said, much better than some of that X's and O stuff.
Speaker B:That again, in the heat of the moment, you're much more likely, as you said, to remember a guy's going to go left and pull up as opposed to all the off ball actions and things.
Speaker B:You got to guard and, and hopefully over the course of practice.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:As you said, if they know your principles of how you want to play offensively and defensively, that stuff's going to kind of just, I don't want to say happen naturally, but they've drilled on it, they've worked on it in practice so much that the personnel stuff I think is, is what's going to flash into a player's mind in the, in the heat of the battle, so to speak.
Speaker B:Tell me about analytics and what's important to you when you start looking at what drives winning for your teams.
Speaker B:I don't want you to give away all your secrets, but give me one thing or two.
Speaker B:Don't give me, don't give me everything I don't want.
Speaker B:I don't want it all.
Speaker B:But just give me an idea of what's, what's important.
Speaker B:What are some things that are important to you?
Speaker B:Whether it's something that you like to track in practice, whether it's something that over the course of time is an assistant that you feel like really drives winning for the teams that you coach?
Speaker A:Well, a couple things, you know, without giving me the whole secret sauce.
Speaker A:You know, we really, we really want to track our time past half.
Speaker A:We want to, we want to play fast, so we definitely want to track our time pass half.
Speaker A:That's how fast ball we call tph.
Speaker A:How fast can we get that ball past the half court?
Speaker A:And obviously, you know, the fastest way to do it is through a pass.
Speaker A:So we want to take the ball out of bounds fast.
Speaker A:We want to get the ball inbounded fast and we want to get the ball pass half fast.
Speaker A:So we, we track that and we stat that.
Speaker A:You know, we want to be, we want to be around 27, 27 for the game, for on, on average.
Speaker A:So that's one thing that's huge for us and also a big thing for us is, is our shot chart and kind of how we, how we categorize our shots.
Speaker A:We have, we have what we call gold medal, silver medal and bronze medal shots.
Speaker A:Our gold medal shots are everything that's in around the rim and catch and shoot threes.
Speaker A:We've adapted the catch and shoe.
Speaker A:We used to just be around the rim and free throws.
Speaker A:But I want to do catch and shoot threes because I believe that, you know, with us, wanted to shoot threes.
Speaker A:We want to put that in a gold medal standpoint.
Speaker A:Any silver medal shots for us are off the balance shots.
Speaker A:So anything that's off the balance from a three From a three point standpoint, the silver medal and then bronze is anything that's non paint twos.
Speaker A:So all those mid range pull ups and everything that guys, you know, everyone wants to shoot them because they're like, oh, I can shoot him.
Speaker A:The percentages show that they're, they're, they're, they're bad, Bad shot.
Speaker A:You, you much rather be shooting 30, you know, 31% from 3 as opposed to shooting 35 from, from mid range pull ups.
Speaker A:So we, we stat those.
Speaker A:We want to make sure that we're shooting around 78% of our shots that come from gold medal standpoint, which is one thing that we, we've always stated.
Speaker A:And we want to make sure that they're, they're Rob shots.
Speaker A:So we call them Rob shots.
Speaker A:Not because my name is Rob, but actually Coach Klein at Bazou brought this.
Speaker A:I was like, why would you, why did you call him Rob?
Speaker A:He's like, well, the range rhythm, they're open and they're balanced.
Speaker A:It's like.
Speaker A:It just so happens that my name is Rob Summers.
Speaker A:But I was like, man, it's gonna look crazy because I'm calling these things Rob shots.
Speaker A:And my name is Rob Summers, but this is rob with two Rs.
Speaker A:So can we shoot more?
Speaker A:Can we shoot rotten Rob over non Rob shots?
Speaker A:So we want to be within range.
Speaker A:We have a great rhythm to it.
Speaker A:Have a, want to be open with our shots and we want to be on balance.
Speaker A:Like we now non Rob out there just shooting a bunch of threes that are outside of our range, that aren't in rhythm, that aren't open.
Speaker A:You're off balance.
Speaker A:Like those are gold medal shots that we don't want to take.
Speaker A:So I think sometimes guys think, well, it's a gold medal shot.
Speaker A:I was at the rim.
Speaker A:Well, are you on balance?
Speaker A:Like, are like is in a rhythm.
Speaker A:You're obviously incident ranger at the rim, but you're not open.
Speaker A:You're getting, you're double team there.
Speaker A:So can you play off two feet?
Speaker A:And can we, can we, can we fight for Rob shots?
Speaker A:And that's one big thing that we stat and we want to make sure that we analytically do that at a high, high level.
Speaker B:Does that have to be a more verbal discussion during the early days of practice as you're getting your team familiar with that?
Speaker B:And then I would assume as the season goes along they start to learn and understand what type of shots you're talking about that fit into each one of those categories.
Speaker B:I would guess that the learning process it has to be more.
Speaker B:It has to be pointed out more frequently early on as you're getting started with them.
Speaker B:And then as time goes along, they just kind of learn, like, all it takes is a look.
Speaker B:And, hey, man, that was, you know, whatever.
Speaker B:That, that was a bronze metal shot.
Speaker B:We got to get something better at that possession.
Speaker B:Is that kind of how it goes?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:It's a lot, It's a lot of discussion.
Speaker A:It's a lot of stoppage of.
Speaker A:And talking a little bit.
Speaker A:And I'm not, I'm not huge on talking during practice, but you stop a couple times the price and you talk about it, and then you bring them in, you watch a bunch of film.
Speaker A:You know, we're big on film too, as well here.
Speaker A:So just allowing them to see what these shots look like.
Speaker A:Because again, when you start talking about these, when first things you say bronze, that's a bronze metal shot, guys.
Speaker A:Like, what?
Speaker A:Like, it was a pull up.
Speaker A:And it was, it was a pull up.
Speaker A:I was like, well, it's a rob shot, because you were open.
Speaker A:I was like, but it's a bronze shot.
Speaker A:And you know, the NBA's categorized that as Area 31.
Speaker A:So 31 of those shots are made.
Speaker A:So it's just a constant communication with them when they first get here.
Speaker A:And then as we get into, you know, as we got into, you know, August, September, and now we talk to you guys about gold medal shots and rob shots.
Speaker A:So they'll bring it up themselves like, oh, it's a non rob shot.
Speaker A:Like, they'll, they'll, they'll yell it out in Miller Practice if a guy shoots a bad shot, like, non rob.
Speaker A:Non rob.
Speaker A:So again, it's, it's, it's fun.
Speaker A:It's fun to kind of categorize those things because I think sometimes coaches just say it's a bad shot.
Speaker A:And guys don't know what that means.
Speaker A:It's just here at Koshio, that's a bad shot.
Speaker A:And I tell them, like, you know, we can get a better one.
Speaker A:We can get a rob shot.
Speaker A:We can get a gold medal rob shot.
Speaker A:That's a great shot for us.
Speaker A:And being less about the shot going in, I think that, that sometimes as basketball players, we just, we're worried about it going in.
Speaker A:So anytime a shot goes in, it's a great shot.
Speaker A:Anytime a shot misses, like, well, that wasn't as good as the one that went in.
Speaker A:I'm like, no, it's good.
Speaker A:That's a good, that's a good basketball shot.
Speaker A:He just didn't go in.
Speaker A:That's a bad basketball shot that went in.
Speaker A:So I think that these guys, they, they, they see it and they're, they're learning the terminology and they're learning to accept it because they watch a lot of NBA basketball and they, and they notice kind of like how the NBA is playing and what the NBA really, truly, you know, stresses around that game.
Speaker A:And they, they see this kind of how we're going to play, too, so they enjoy it.
Speaker B:How much film do you watch with your guys both up until this point, obviously it's been in the preseason, but then how much do you anticipate going in once you've played some games and there's that game film to look at?
Speaker B:How much are you sharing in terms of film work with players on a, on a daily slash, weekly basis?
Speaker A:A lot.
Speaker A:We watched a lot of film.
Speaker A:We probably spent more, more time watching film.
Speaker A:And it's, it's less like as a team, I think sometimes you don't get a lot of that experience when you're just bringing everybody into one big group.
Speaker A:But, but having small groups come into the office, whether it was my, you know, defensive coordinators, officer coordinators, or myself, and just sitting down and watching not only film of what we're, you know, let's say we're working on, you know, two side transition, and we're watching, you know, we're watching the Celtics, you know, watching the Celtics two side transition clips and them seeing Jason Tatum and those guys do it and then, you know, telling them, like, all right, we focus on that yesterday in practice.
Speaker A:Now let's watch your clip of two side transition.
Speaker A:Now what do you see here?
Speaker A:And just letting them kind of see it and talk through it as opposed to just being in there with a clicker.
Speaker A:And, you know, how I kind of, you know, how we grew over, you know, I was just sitting there, just talk to us for an hour, and we're just like, I don't know what's going on.
Speaker A:My eyes are so happy.
Speaker A:So we want a ton of it, but we try to make sure that guys are engaged.
Speaker A:We do, we do a lot of like, like, almost like multiple, multiple choice.
Speaker A:So we'll watch, we'll have them come in with five clips of guys individually.
Speaker A:And, you know, with synergy and all these new technology you have now, we can put all these circles and diagrams and, and have questions pop up on the screens.
Speaker A:Like, all right, so this, so this is the question.
Speaker A:So the question, you came off this ball screen.
Speaker A:What's the Best option.
Speaker A:And then option A is that, you see gotten the.
Speaker A:Could you have a circle?
Speaker A:They got a corner.
Speaker A:You gotta circle the guy at the dunker, and you gotta circle over you.
Speaker A:Like, are you supposed to shoot.
Speaker A:This was a swing this to this guy, or you drop it off to the big.
Speaker A:Like, what's.
Speaker A:What's the right option?
Speaker A:And sometimes they forget what they did in the play, and they're like, oh, of course.
Speaker A:Of course I'm gonna swing to that guy.
Speaker A:And the next thing you know, they shoot a shot and they're like, oh, I didn't know I shot that guy.
Speaker A:I got to remember that one.
Speaker A:So it's just fun.
Speaker A:Like, I. I try to get the guys engaged as possible because, again, I think film's a huge part about it.
Speaker A:And as we start games now, it's going to be even more.
Speaker A:More intricate for us because we have to learn from the last game, but also be able to move on, too, as well.
Speaker A:But if there's a teaching point from the last game of somebody to be played with, how they guarded us, and then we can, like, kind of learn from that going to the next game.
Speaker A:We got.
Speaker A:We got to show guys, because the, you know, the eye in the sky doesn't lie.
Speaker A:I think sometimes guys think that it does that.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:That camera, man, it shows it in full speed, too.
Speaker A:We ain't slowing down those sprints.
Speaker A:We talk about bolting, transition, running down the floor, and we're like, we showed our guys a scrimmage the other day.
Speaker A:We said, now show us the time you bolted.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:We say bolts.
Speaker A:Bolts are our sprints down the floor.
Speaker A:So bolt like you're out, Usain Bolt.
Speaker A:And just.
Speaker A:We're like, anybody just stop the.
Speaker A:We're.
Speaker A:We're going to leave.
Speaker A:We're going to leave the clicker right here.
Speaker A:Somebody come pick the clicker up and show us the A stop.
Speaker A:And we let like, 10 clips go, and no one stopped it.
Speaker A:And I was like, yes, because none of them were both.
Speaker A:But then like, like, so you gotta.
Speaker A:They.
Speaker A:They see it and they recognize it.
Speaker A:It's just sometimes in.
Speaker A:In the.
Speaker A:In the.
Speaker A:In live speed, and when they're doing those things, they.
Speaker A:They feel like they're moving.
Speaker A:And I was the same way, right?
Speaker A:As a player, man.
Speaker A:As a big man, I'm running.
Speaker A:I'm like, coach, I'm giving you everything I got.
Speaker A:And I'm like, man, that's like, I'm giving you everything I got.
Speaker A:So, like, I'm probably not giving everything I got.
Speaker A:And these Guys see that.
Speaker A:But it's, it's, it's been huge for us.
Speaker A:The film, the film room has been, has been, been key for us.
Speaker B:I do feel like the ability to learn from film, especially in today's game with, as you said, all the technology compared to even you go back 10 years ago and just how much more cumbersome it was to be able to, to share and cut up the film and be able to, to dial it down to certain players and certain actions and all those things.
Speaker B:And it's just, to me, it's always just a huge advantage because now, like when I watch film with my son or with my daughter and you're able to just be so much more efficient and as you said, when the camera just doesn't lie and you can look and they might say, hey, I, I think I'm running hard, or I thought I ran hard during the game.
Speaker B:You could just pull out the clip and look like this.
Speaker B:That's not what it looks like.
Speaker B:And so it's easy then for them to be shown what it is that you want them to do.
Speaker B:And, and sometimes again, and you said it right, your, your perception as a player of what you think you saw or what you think happened or what you think was playing hard or running hard in your mind, you can convince yourself of that.
Speaker B:And when there is no film, it's just my word against yours, right, as the player against the coach.
Speaker B:Like, I, I think I was playing hard.
Speaker B:And the coach could say, well, I didn't think you were running hard.
Speaker B:And neither one of us can prove either.
Speaker B:Either way now with film and practice and everything that you guys have the capability to do, it's just such a tremendous, tremendous learning tool that wasn't available to players of past generations.
Speaker B:And I, I'm always fascinated by, again, how coaches are, are utilizing it, doing the small groups and individual stuff that, as you said, sitting in a room with 15 guys all looking at the same film and having the VCR button that, you know, goes back two minutes past where you wanted it to, and everybody's just kind of falling asleep while that, while that's going on.
Speaker B:I mean, just a different, just a completely different world today than, than the one that you and I participated in back in the day.
Speaker B:All right, let's talk about game day for you as a head coach.
Speaker B:What's it going to look like day of a game?
Speaker B:What do you anticipate your hour by hour schedule to look like on a, on a day when you have a game at night?
Speaker B:What's Going to get, what's going to get Rob Summers in the right frame of mind to, to coach a game at night?
Speaker A:Well, first and foremost, if we're at home, I'm taking my kids to school.
Speaker A:One, one good thing that I, I enjoy about, you know, being a head coach and I enjoyed about being with Coach Gates because he was huge about family too as well.
Speaker A:So again, I've worked for, I've been blessed to work for some head coaches who, who know what it's like to be a father.
Speaker A:And I've heard some horror stories from some guys that, you know, like, they almost tell their sisters, like tell your family kids like, we'll see you after, after season.
Speaker A:And I was like, man, I couldn't, you know, I, I probably wouldn't be in the business anymore.
Speaker A:God's blessed me a lot.
Speaker A:God is truly like, because if I, if I were to work for one of those guys, I probably wouldn't be culture right now.
Speaker A:You'd be like, yeah, Rob Summers works, works for Microsoft right now.
Speaker A:He's, he's a data analyst or something like that.
Speaker A:But I'll work with some good guys.
Speaker A:So for me, man, game days, you know, taking out, you know, taking my kids at the bus stop, dropping them off and then taking my, my 3 year old to the daycare that's probably half a mile from my house and then taking my nice little 25 minute drive in from the west side here in Cleveland into the office, getting in the office and you know, reading my Bible.
Speaker A:You know, I, I, I enjoy getting into the Word the first thing in the morning.
Speaker A:I just pray because I'm only in this position because of God.
Speaker A:I said it every time that I thought about being a head coach and I was like, man, if I ever become a head coach, it's just because of God.
Speaker A:It's not because like I'm the best coach in the world because there, there are a lot of phenomenal coaches out there and a lot of guys who deserve their opportunities that sometimes don't get them.
Speaker A:But I truly believe that, you know, your blessing is going to come for you when it's supposed to come for you.
Speaker A:So I always started reading.
Speaker A:You know, I always try to get like 15, 10 to 15 minutes of just a reading through.
Speaker A:I'm in the New Testament right now and a big runner.
Speaker A:So, you know, right after that I'm probably going to get my run in.
Speaker A:I do 10 miles a day.
Speaker A:So run, run 10 miles and, and get out there and just kind of decompress from any type of anxiousness that I would have from that standpoint of, of anything building up in my, in my mind.
Speaker A:It's really helped me with my emotional intelligence.
Speaker A:The running piece, to be honest, I think that from.
Speaker A:I don't know if I'd be prepared to be a head coach right now if I didn't run.
Speaker A:It just, it just just truly like makes everything make sense.
Speaker A:Once I get out there and I'm just running and you know, whether I'm listening to a podcast or it's just like I'm just running in silence, I'm able to kind of think very, very clearly.
Speaker A:And then especially that post run clarity that I have is at a high, high level.
Speaker A:So get down.
Speaker A:My run probably takes me about hour and 15 to get my 10 in hour 15 if I'm making good pace.
Speaker A:If I'm slow that day, it's about an hour 25.
Speaker A:I' like I'm going, rain, snow, rain, snow.
Speaker B:Rain, snow or shine, you're out there.
Speaker A:Rain, snow or shine.
Speaker A:I, I wish I had my videos still.
Speaker A:I, I, I, I broke my phone when I left Cleveland, but I used to run when I was here and we got hit with crazy snow year three and I have one of just like, I have a ski mask on and I'm like my whole like my eyebrows and eyelashes just got like snow all over them and I'm just like, I'm, I'm yelling David Goggin sayings in my phone because I sent it to all our players.
Speaker A:But yeah, I ran a day.
Speaker A:It was about 50 and rainy today here.
Speaker A:I just love it, it just makes me, it makes me feel like I accomplished something at a high level that most people haven't for that day.
Speaker A:So it just gets my mindset and like a mindset of like I'm, I'm just different, I'm a different breed.
Speaker A:And it just, again, I don't, I, I love it.
Speaker A:It's just really helped me out and being out there on the road has been awesome.
Speaker A:But from there I'm not, I don't eat lunch.
Speaker A:I'm not, I don't, I don't.
Speaker A:I eat about one meal a day.
Speaker A:I drink a lot of coffee.
Speaker A:I won.
Speaker A:I eat one meal.
Speaker A:I eat dinner every night and that's about it.
Speaker A:So I gotta probably get better at my diet, but for some reason I'm just never really hungry nowadays.
Speaker A:I think it's my metabolism was, has been so slow that when I got done playing I was like £300 and I was like, wait a Second, I can't be a 300 pound 7 foot guy running around there, but who's this massive human being.
Speaker A:So probably get my, Give me another cup of coffee before I head over into, you know, we'll start film, we'll start our film session up about 1:30.
Speaker A:Get in there, watch our special teams, watch some base out of bound stuff and then from there head into my shoot around.
Speaker A:My shoot arounds aren't like practices I'm not big on, you know, let's be taped up and let's get after.
Speaker A:During the shoot around.
Speaker A:For me this is a tune up of sorts.
Speaker A:I want to make sure that we are really, really tight on how regarding things and we're really, really tight on offensively what we're going to be doing.
Speaker A:So can I go over our, you know, go over our first three sets we're going to run for that game with the team as well as talk about some ball screen coverage stuff.
Speaker A:Some, some split screen, split screen coverage things as well.
Speaker A:And then from there come back in, come back in the office and just, just hang out.
Speaker A:I was, I like, I like to be around my staff.
Speaker A:I love talking with them.
Speaker A:I think that being able to decompress with them is huge for me.
Speaker A:I'm trying to figure out if I'm going to continue to keep reading.
Speaker A:I've been reading a bunch.
Speaker A:I don't want to just get so, so far into the reading stages before the game that like I kind of come in groggy because sometimes when I read I'll just get groggy.
Speaker A:But I also don't want to be in a standpoint where I'm too animated.
Speaker A:I learned a lot from being a head coach before at a young age that you can't question every call.
Speaker A:And I was the type of head coach before that.
Speaker A:It was anytime a whistle blew and it went against me, I immediately had to have something to say about it.
Speaker A:And Mike Eats, who was our head of officials when I was in the Mountain East.
Speaker A:And Mikey is like the head office for SEC now.
Speaker A:So Mikey is like a big time guy.
Speaker A:He was like Rob, every time you're talking to my referees about a call.
Speaker A:So that's my biggest thing for this year too as well is every, every referee.
Speaker A:I'm gonna tell him good call.
Speaker A:I told my staff, said every call is gonna be good call, man.
Speaker A:I'm gonna use, I'm gonna use my challenge late game.
Speaker A:I'm gonna use my challenge late game to, to show them I know what I'm doing as far as those things standpoint.
Speaker A:But I'm gonna be less inclined to, to be out there just losing my mind, obviously, with being, being year one for me.
Speaker A:I don't have the same, same rapport with, with the referees that some of the guys like Coach Camping.
Speaker A:These guys have, haven't been around a league for a long time, so I figure they're human beings, they're going to miss some calls.
Speaker A:I might, I might build myself a lot of, a lot of goodwill with them as my years at Cleveland State, you know, continue to climb, because I'm looking forward to being here for a long time.
Speaker A:So I don't want to wear them away, my welcome here early in my career by being on them every day.
Speaker B:Do you have a superstition?
Speaker A:Do I have a superstition?
Speaker A:No, I, I mean, other than, you know, I, I, I, I pray before, I pray during the national anthem every, every game.
Speaker A:And so like when I bow, I just bow my head and I pray and I thank God for it, for everything and no, but as far as superstition, I, I will randomly have a couple.
Speaker A:Like, I have a, I have a pair of lucky socks.
Speaker A:I do have a pair of lucky socks.
Speaker A:So I do have those, actually.
Speaker A:That's crazy you just brought that up because I'm gonna, I have to, I'm gonna have to whip those out for my first game as a head coach.
Speaker A:They, they have, they have, they have, they have, they have, they have a hole in them right now that probably need to get sewn up because I've had them since my first.
Speaker A:I've had these socks.
Speaker A:This is, this is my first win all like, they're, they're like, they're kind of like so old.
Speaker A:Like I gotta wear a pair of socks under them because they're like, they're a pair of like a tuxedo.
Speaker A:They're a pair of tuxedo.
Speaker B:They're like syrups.
Speaker B:They're like, they're like baseball stirrups.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's what they look like.
Speaker A:That's what they look like.
Speaker A:So I gotta wear a pair of do dress socks under them.
Speaker A:So there.
Speaker A:I do have a pair of lucky socks.
Speaker A:My wife's like, why do you have a pair of lucky socks?
Speaker A:Because I don't really believe in luck.
Speaker A:But it's like, it's still probably the one thing superstition wise that I have because I've won a lot of big games in them.
Speaker A:Whenever there's a big game that we got to win, like we won the Horizon League championship in them.
Speaker A:We won our first game at James Madison tournament.
Speaker A:I wore those like it was just anytime there's, like a game, I've lost some games in them too, as well.
Speaker A:But I think that every time it's a big game, I think I'll wear them.
Speaker A:So I think they're lucky socks.
Speaker A:They're, they're, they're, they're probably not, they're just probably old socks that I need to get rid of.
Speaker A:But I'll keep, I'll keep them around for, for a while.
Speaker B:That qualifies, man.
Speaker B:That qualifies as a superstition.
Speaker B:I like it.
Speaker B:All right, last question.
Speaker B:When this season's over and you look back on it, how are you going to define in your mind whether it was a successful season?
Speaker B:What's going to be your definition of success for your season this year?
Speaker B:Number one at Cleveland State.
Speaker A:Man, that's a great question.
Speaker A:Man, that's a really good question.
Speaker A:I, I, I think for me, what success looks like is just allowing, you know, seeing my team and, and, and seeing that they were the best versions of themselves and myself included, like, this is not just about my guys.
Speaker A:Like, you know, I know in Year one, there's, there's high expectations.
Speaker A:For me, it just is what it is.
Speaker A:It's not.
Speaker A:Gone are the days where they allow you, you know, year one to be like, well, he's building a program up.
Speaker A:It's, it's not, it like, people expect to win, and I expect to win too, as well.
Speaker A:So we're going to go out there and we're going to compete for a rising championship this year.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:So that's our goal.
Speaker A:But, but for me is, can I see my team and my, my guys and I see the growth they have, Can I see them grow game by game to where they're playing their best basketball by the end of the year?
Speaker A:And can I see growth in myself and my staff to where we're being the best versions of ourselves as a leader, you know, the CEO of this, of this company.
Speaker A:Do I see myself growing as your goes on?
Speaker A:Because I say it all the time.
Speaker A:You know, I'm not done growing.
Speaker A:I'm not done learning.
Speaker A:I have a lot more left to learn in, in my career, and I probably, you know, when I retire, I, I hope that I don't know everything when I retire.
Speaker A:I hope that I'm still looking to learn more.
Speaker A:So for me, the best thing that I can experience and the best success I can experience is just enjoying that process of it.
Speaker A:Like, I want to Enjoy this year.
Speaker A:I want to enjoy every.
Speaker A:I want to enjoy every game.
Speaker A:I want to enjoy every up, every down, every win, every loss.
Speaker A:Like, I just want to enjoy it.
Speaker A:And I've been enjoying it so far.
Speaker A:Like, I've really been enjoying, you know, being back here in Cleveland and being around these guys and my staff, and I don't want to lose that passion and letting that just fall upon.
Speaker A:Oh, man, we won this game, so I'm happy.
Speaker A:Oh, we lost this game.
Speaker A:I'm sad because once the games are done, they're, like, done, and you're, like, thinking about the next one.
Speaker A:So it's like, I don't.
Speaker A:I never truly end.
Speaker A:Like.
Speaker A:Like, I used to do it.
Speaker A:And, like, I'm like, man, why do coaches act like this is like, as soon as you win it, you're just like, as soon as you win a championship.
Speaker A:Like, I was talking to Joe Missoula, and I was like, man, you won an NBA championship.
Speaker A:You're talking about next season.
Speaker A:I was like, you win an NBA championship.
Speaker A:So for me, it's like, if our season ends, you know, and we go to the tournament and let's say we meet sweep 16, and we.
Speaker A:We make the second round and we lose a game, and we're sad, am I not going to enjoy it?
Speaker A:Because we felt like we didn't play the best game in that second round into a tournament?
Speaker A:Like, I just don't want to be there.
Speaker A:I don't want to be that type of guy that just, like, my mood relies on that.
Speaker A:So I just want to enjoy it.
Speaker A:I just want to enjoy this process with these guys and continue to get better every day and.
Speaker A:And just smile, man.
Speaker A:Have fun.
Speaker A:Be very, very positive.
Speaker A:Hold them accountable.
Speaker A:But be positive and.
Speaker A:And enjoy what.
Speaker A:What God's blessed me with.
Speaker A:It was just being a head coach here at Cleveland State, and it's.
Speaker A:It's unbelievable feeling.
Speaker B:The journey is the destination.
Speaker B:That's what I was thinking about while you were talking, right.
Speaker B:That ultimately, again, wins and losses, as you well know, at your level, are important.
Speaker B:And a lot.
Speaker B:In a lot of ways, is what you're judged on.
Speaker B:But what you're talking about is bigger is bigger than that.
Speaker B:It's about each and every day being with your guys, both your players, your staff, and really taking the time to.
Speaker B:To invest in that and to enjoy every moment that you're going through and being a part of it.
Speaker B:And if you take care of that, Ben, usually the wins and losses end up taking care of themselves.
Speaker B:But as you were talking, like, I said, I just kept thinking to myself, and the journey is the destination and if you enjoy the journey, then you're going to get out of it with you know what you want to get out of it.
Speaker B:And so is everybody that's associated with your program.
Speaker B:So, Rob, before we finish, I want to give you a chance, share how people can connect with you, get in touch with you.
Speaker B:Whether you want to share social media, email, website, whatever you feel comfortable with.
Speaker B:And then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap up.
Speaker B:Wrap things up.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:If anybody wants to get in contact with me, you can give me on any social media.
Speaker A:Rob Summers 33 so that's Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, it's all the same thing.
Speaker A:Rob Summers, 33 so if you send me a DM or anything like that, I, I'll respond to all those.
Speaker A:And then also if you want to email me, I can send you guys, I can send anybody anything they want to have from.
Speaker A:I'm open book.
Speaker A:I really, you know, we're all stealing from somebody.
Speaker A:We're all stealing some type of idea from anybody that's out there.
Speaker A:So definitely open book with that.
Speaker A:You can email me at R C Summers 75 CSU Ohio EDU.
Speaker A:That's my school email.
Speaker A:But I respond, I respond emails.
Speaker A:I'm not, I'm not big time.
Speaker A:I don't know if at certain point, like I said, again, I'm trying to be a Cleveland State to my son, at least to my son graduates high school.
Speaker A:So I got nine years here, so my son needs to graduate high school.
Speaker A:So maybe in nine years from now, I don't know if I'll, if I follow, if I'll be in the NBA or something.
Speaker A:Nine, 10 years of now, I won't be able to find emails, but for now I'll respond to emails.
Speaker A:I'll respond to any of those things like that, along those lines.
Speaker A:But definitely open book.
Speaker A:If anybody is around the Cleveland area wants to come, come to practice.
Speaker A:My practice are all, every practice that we have is open.
Speaker A:We go in the mornings, but every practice is open.
Speaker A:So we've had a lot of high school coaches.
Speaker A:We've had Division two, Division three, the one assistants that are out recruiting.
Speaker A:Anybody that wants to come through is more than welcome to watch us.
Speaker B:Rob, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight.
Speaker B:Really appreciate it.
Speaker B:Wish you nothing but the best of luck in your first season at Cleveland State.
Speaker B:I know it's going to be a successful year based on the definition that you gave me and I'm sure you're.
Speaker A:Going to win a lot, a lot.
Speaker B:Of games along the way as well.
Speaker B:So thank you for your time tonight.
Speaker B:Truly appreciate it.
Speaker B:And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.
Speaker B:Thanks.
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