 But how how crappy would that be to exit from the tournament early and you look back and you guys all know that the reason that happened is because you didn't do everything in your power. See there's only two things in this world that each of you has 100% control over 100% of the time. There's only two. Your effort and your attitude. Those are the only two things you control all of the time. See some guys sweaty just put in some work. Optional work did you have to come in to work and anytime it's optional is that the option you choose? Is it yes or no right? Yeah anytime you have an option to get better you make sure you take it and there's not going to be any shortage of opportunities for you to get better. You know I first and foremost I want to make sure you guys realize how fortunate you are to be in the position that you're in. You more than likely won't realize how fortunate you are until 10, 15 years having been removed from here but I've been a fan and following coach Hurley for a long time and the staff and the opportunity that you guys here have here is amazing. I have the humility to know there's a very good chance I'm not going to say a single thing to you guys today that you don't already know and you haven't already heard but I've been around the best players and coaches in the world for most of my life and I realize that there's always going to be a difference between what you know and what you do and if you guys want to be the best players that you're capable of and you want to be the best team that you're capable of each of you has to work every single day to close that gap between what you know and what you do. Think about it right now if you came in every single day not when you want to not when you feel like it not when it's convenient you came in every single day and you made not take we don't need shot takers there's plenty of those we need shot makers here and if you want to play at the next level you got to be a shot maker but if you came in every day and you made 500 shots but not just random shots game shots from game spots at game speed according to where you're supposed to shoot from because not every single one of you supposed to shoot from the exact same places if you came in every single day made 500 shots from game spots at game speed what would be the result of that would you be a better shooter guaranteed would you be a better player would you be more valuable here at UConn would you increase or decrease your chance of playing professionally after so the positives completely outweigh I don't think there's a single negative that could be from doing that and every single one of you knows that I didn't see anybody's head explode you guys all know that if you choose to come in and put in extra work and give your best effort if you do that consistently you know all of the positives that will happen then the only question you have to ask is are you doing that and are you doing it every single day see I don't know you guys we met a few years ago but we don't even know each other that well I don't know you guys but I can look at any team and pretty much guarantee there's a couple of you guys that aren't doing that there's a good portion of you guys that do that when you feel like it when it's convenient and when you want to maybe there's one guy on the team that does that every single day but that's what I'm talking about closing that gap because it's not from lack of knowledge every one of you knows that you're supposed to do that every one of you knows you have an opportunity to do that every one of you knows what will happen if you do that so then the question is why are you not doing that every single day and that's why I'm here today I want to just give you guys some things to think about to do two things one for each of you to become the best version of yourself that needs to be the first commitment that you make you have to work to become the best version of yourself in everything that you do because you've signed up to be a part of something that's much bigger than you much bigger than you and you owe it to everybody in this room to become the best version of yourself and it can't be something that you you choose to compartmentalize it can't be why I'm gonna be the best today because I feel like it or I'm gonna be the best on the court but I'm not gonna really worry about the stuff off the court you had that switch has to be on to be the best version of yourself and then you guys need to collectively do that see the only way you can become the best team possible is if each and every one of you makes that decision and you make that decision every single day if half of you make that decision half of you won't you'll probably still be pretty good but you won't be anywhere close to what you're capable of and the other point that I will hammer home is that it's going to be up to you guys to police each other see good organizations have what's called vertical accountability that means these guys sitting behind you with the polo shirts on they tell you what to do and you guys do it that's vertical accountability that's mediocre at best if you all want to be championship contenders you have to have horizontal accountability which means you get on him when he's not doing what he's supposed to do he gets on you when you're not doing what you're supposed to do that when there's an optional workout it's not really optional because you go bang on every single person's door and say hey we've got a workout coming up why are you not ready why are you not dressed why did you not come the optional workout yesterday man you're killing like we need you to be there for us to be good when that comes from you guys and doesn't have to come from the top down then you'll have created something special and the last thing I'll say and then I'll I'll get into some some more depth with this stuff one of the most valuable skill sets that you can have in any walk of life but absolutely in basketball is the ability to make other people better and ultimately that's a roundabout way of defining the word leadership like if you're mere presence if the moment you walk in this room everyone in this room gets better just by the fact that you're here that is like bottled gold there's not an organization in the world that won't pay you guys millions of dollars because you make everyone around you better and the only way you can do that is by being the best version of yourself and and you can program yourself to do these things every single day and when you've made the commitment to do them every day and you've got guys next to you that care enough about you and care enough about this program that they hold you to that standard and they don't let you slide now you've got something special because it's human nature they're going to be days where you don't feel like giving a hundred percent that's just human nature that's not a knock on you that's human nature the question is do the rest of you rally around next man up and encourage and push and empower him on the day he doesn't feel like it because inevitably there's gonna be a day where you don't feel like it either and you need to count on these guys to be able to do the same thing for you and notice all of the stuff we've just talked about doesn't have anything to do with your talent on the court none now thankfully you guys have talent you guys can play or you wouldn't be at UConn but the talent is almost irrelevant if you're not going to actualize all of the stuff that you have control over and it's in everything that you do it's in your individual workouts it's in your film sessions it's in your weight room it's every single thing that you do because how you do anything is how you do everything and it's any time that you believe that you can compartmentalize excellence and you can compartmentalize greatness that's when you're gonna get beat that's when it's gonna catch you can you be a really good basketball player and give a poor effort in the classroom yeah you can I've seen plenty of guys do it can you be the best player that you're capable of and give a poor effort in the classroom I don't think that you can because I think it has to be habitual I think either you give everything you do everything you have or you don't and I want to encourage you guys to consistently make the choice to do that but on the days when you choose not to you've insulated yourself with the guys that care enough about you and care enough about this program that they won't let you slide so you have to realize is it is it hard playing for coach early does he get on you a little bit he's tough right he comes from a tough background he's a tough guy but you guys have to realize that when someone holds you accountable it means they care about you that's the one thing you have to flip because a lot of people get that twisted the reason people hold you accountable whether it's the coaching staff here or it's the guy sitting next to you it's because they care about you and they care about this program see if I know you're capable of more and I let you slide that means I don't care so you should be thankful to have someone or a group of someone's that watch your every move and are on you every second of every day that you give a hundred percent 99 times and on the hundredth time when you choose not to that's the day they bust your chops you should be thankful for that because holding someone accountable it's not something you do to them it's something you do for them and that's why you have to be able to create that mindset you have to because if your dog in it in practice one day coach Hurley should be the last person that has to say something to you because the four or five guys right around you should say something to you before he even has to open his mouth and when you guys can get to that point where you are a player led team not a coach led team then you'll be something really special but you do have an amazing coaching staff amazing head coach but it's still going to have to come from you guys because especially in a game like basketball they can't suit up and go out there and put in the work for you it's always going to fall on you guys so you have to make sure that you take that type of responsibility and in order to do that I want to make sure that you guys realize you can't ever leave the foundational base it was back in 2007 which I know at that time you guys were pretty young but I was kind of just starting in my coaching career and Nike flew me out to Los Angeles to do their Nike skills academies you guys some of you guys gone through the skills academies Nike stuff when you're in high school yeah well 2007 was the first year they decided to do them and the very first one they did was with Kobe and we can have a debate after my talk if you want but in 2007 Kobe was the best player in the game I mean Jordan had already retired you can make all the faces you want Josh it's a fact and LeBron is great as he was he wasn't there yet not in 2007 I mean Kobe was that dude and like you guys basketball has always been my number one passion so I had always heard this urban legend of how insanely intense Kobe's individual workouts were you guys have probably heard he called him blackouts he didn't even call him workouts because he went so hard well I was in the training space so the thought of being able to maybe see one of Kobe's workouts got me pretty jacked up and I asked him if I could watch one and he was really gracious he was very open and he said sure man I'm going tomorrow at 4 and probably like you guys I got a little bit confused because the first workout with the players was the next afternoon at 3 30 and Kobe recognized that confused look on my face and was like no that's 4 a.m. yeah well you guys know there's not a legitimate excuse in the world on why you can't be somewhere at 4 in the morning I know there's other things y'all would rather be doing it for in the morning but they're not a legitimate excuse at least not something that you could tell Kobe Bryant so I committed myself to being there and and I want to impress him because I want to show Kobe how serious of a trainer I was so I decided I was gonna beat him to the gym so I set my alarm for 3 a.m. and the alarm goes off I jump up I get dressed and I hop in a taxi and I head to the gym and I get out of the taxi it's 3 30 in the morning I mean it's pitch black outside and yet the moment I step out of the taxi I can already see the gym lights on even from the parking lot I can hear a ball bouncing and sneakers squeaking I walk in the side door at 3 30 in the morning Kobe's already in a full sweat he was going through a warm-up before his scheduled workout started at 4 now I didn't say anything to him just out of professional courtesy I just sat down to watch and for the first 45 minutes I was shocked because for the first 45 minutes I watched the best player in the world do the most basic footwork in offensive moves Kobe was doing stuff I guaranteed you guys learned when you were in middle school now this is Kobe Bryant so he was doing everything at an unparalleled level of intensity and he was doing everything with surgical precision but the actual drills and footwork he was doing was incredibly basic now his workout did last several hours and when it was over I didn't say anything to him again and I just left but my curiosity got the best of me and I had to know so later that day I walked up to him and asked and asked and say Kobe you're the best player in the world you know why are you doing such basic drills and he smiled that that famous smile he has and he said why do you think I'm the best player in the world because I never get bored with the basics I never get bored with the basics Kobe Bryant the best player in the world at that time and someone who unquestionably has mastered his craft said his secret is in the fact that he never gets bored with the basics and as a young coach that taught me a very pivotal lesson and the lesson is just because something is basic it doesn't mean that it's easy those aren't synonyms but lots of times people use those words interchangeably and I know now that we live in a society and you guys live in a culture that often tells you it's okay to skip steps they tell you to look for shortcuts they tell you to circumvent the process they tell you to chase what's hot and what's flashy what's new and what's sexy but I'm telling you guys the basics work they always have and they always will and in order for you guys to each build the foundation to be the best player that you're capable of individually and collectively so you can win a national title and then go on and make millions of dollars playing this game you can't leave the basics you have to continue to master the basics and you'll always be able to level up but the basics are which the foundation to which the rest of the house is built and in the game of basketball clearly the basics we're talking about footwork we're talking about shooting mechanics we're talking about passing angles and basketball IQ we can't ever leave that but then I want you guys to be able to look in other areas like leadership like teamwork like being a good teammate think about the best teammate you've ever had in your life where it could be the guy sitting next to you right now or it might be someone you played a u with when you're in high school what are the traits of the best teammates you've ever played with this is the part where you guys speak think about what are the traits of the best teammates they work hard absolutely they're humble accountable confident their leaders I want you guys to think hard about what you just said because you guys nailed it think of the traits of the best teammates you've ever played with and then ask yourself are those the things that you do yourself every single day are you the type of teammate that you'd want to play with are you the type of player that if you were a coach you'd want to coach those are the basics that's the stuff that you have to do every single day because all of these things matter how many of you want to play basketball when you leave you can you want someone to pay you a lot of money to play basketball see at this level it's always going to be every single one of you which is great and you guys have the talent to make that happen each one of you already has the keys to the car you have the talent to make it happen you have the coaching staff and the support and the facilities and the resources to make that happen the only person that's going to prevent that from happening is you as the only person now you can easily blame other people and blame situations and blame circumstances and make excuses you can do that all if you want but the only person that can get in the way from you having what it is that you want to have is you and you've got people that care enough about you to give you the blueprint of what you need to do to actualize that and now it's completely up to you guys to make sure that you do that and it's all going to start with the basics you can't ever leave them and there's when we look at the basics there's there's three relationships that I want to make sure you guys are crystal clear on and if you can actualize these three relationships that will put you in the upper 1% of doing what it is that you guys want to do the first I started with is the relationship you have with yourself do you have self-awareness do you have self-discipline do you have self-acceptance do you know what things you do well and what things you don't do well both on the court and off the court for the most part now you wouldn't be able to play at this level I mean you guys are at a prominent powerhouse of the school you wouldn't be able to play at this level if you weren't really good basketball players you guys can do a lot of things well but I guarantee there's one or two specific skill sets that you do better than the others so we're looking at shooting passing rebounding defending and handling the ball the five primary skill sets I'm willing to bet there's one of those that you do better than the others and when you guys look in the NBA outside of the top 20 players everyone else in the NBA to some degree is a role player they have one or two specific skill sets that they perform at an elite level and that's one thing that I want you guys to think of is think of what's the skill set that you bring to the table that is elite and then it clearly it needs to be within the role that you have on this team it needs to fit into the overall puzzle of what this team needs for you to do but that's also what you'll hang your hat on when you leave here is that specific skill set if I say a name like JJ Reddick or Kyle Corver what skill sets do those two guys have yeah and it's catch and shoot it ain't even dribble and shoot it is such a narrow specific skill set it is catch and shoot catch and shoot catch and shoot I've watched those guys work out do you know what they do during 99% of their workout they catch and shoot catch and shoot you think Kyle Corver is in a gym right now doing defensive slides or doing two ball drills for hours on end he's not he knows the one thing that he brings to the table that gives his team the best chance of being successful so he can he can fill in his role to the best of his ability and that's what he focuses on and I'm not saying this because I don't want you to be well-rounded players and I'm certainly not saying just because you can shoot the ball that you don't play defense or don't do the other things I'm telling you that you need to have the awareness to know what you do really really well and it needs to match the awareness that the coaching staff has of you because if you think you're a great three-point shooter and coach Hurley disagrees guess which opinion matters most his while you're here his matters most so it's important that you open up the lines of communication and you talk with your staff about exactly what it is that you need to do for this team to be as successful as possible because when you signed up to be part of something bigger than yourself your role is not what you want it to be your role is going to be what everyone in this room needs it to be for the team to be successful now in a perfect world those two things will align what you want it to be what you're really good at and what the team needs are all going to be the same thing and if we can go down the line and say that about every one of you and every one of you holds each other accountable and every one of you puts in the extra work every single day that's the recipe for being a champion i mean that's it don't make it any harder than it needs to be i've just told you guys exactly what it'll take to win a national championship each of you knowing your role embracing your role starring in your role holding each other accountable doing the extra work being a leader and never met you know never missing the basics staying in love with the basics you guys do those things and you're right there you're with any program in the country guaranteed and who controls whether or not you guys do those things just you nobody else see i'm hoping that gives you guys some some confidence i'm hoping that's an empowering feeling like wait the one thing i want the most in this world while i'm in college is to win a national championship and i can do that if i do those basic things and i can get the 14 guys next to me to do those basic things i greatly increased the chance of that happening yeah like that should excite you that should make you wake up every single day saying i'm going to be the best i can be and i'm going to make that so contagious that everyone else in this room does the same and if you guys can do that it's right there it's right there and it takes a lot of humility to be able to accept the role that might not be the role that you want it to be and i know that's one of the hardest parts about playing at this level because when you guys were in high school you may have had a more prominent role than you have now and you probably want that role now and that's a good thing i hope that drives you but you need to make sure that you embrace and star in the role that you have while you work relentlessly to earn the role that you want so if you believe you're a great three-point shooter coach hurley happens to disagree which means right now your role in this team is not to shoot threes i don't think he's going to lock the door so you can't come in and work on your threes before and after every practice and every workout until you can prove to him that you're able to do that that you're able to add that skill to the team but you have to star in the role you have while you earn the role that you want and if you're willing to make that sacrifice every single day i'm telling you guys you control the keys to the car it's my opinion in the college basketball landscape there's what 340 teams there's about 20 and i know there's more parody today and that that mid majors and so forth they're creeping a little bit but for the most part there's about 20 programs that have the potential to actualize what they're capable of and cut down the nets and you guys are one of those programs you have the talent you have the resources you have the coaching staff to be the best of the best and now it's completely up to you guys and in order to do that you have to hold yourselves accountable and you have to take full responsibility for every decision you make you can't blame you can't complain you can't defer you can't deflect you can't make any excuses you guys have the keys to the car and whether or not you do anything with it is completely up to you and i really i mean i want you all to make that decision and here's how we can break that down from a decision-making process you guys all to a man just raised your hand and said you want to play professional basketball outstanding i want you to use that as the filter to every single decision you make moving forward every decision you make i want you to run it through that filter is doing this right now whatever it may be is this going to take me closer to being a pro or is it going to take me further away from being a pro every decision because the little stuff matters see little things make a huge difference this meal i'm about to eat right now does this take me closer to being a pro does it show that i want to take care of my body and i want to fuel myself for high performance does it take me closer to be in a pro or does it take me further away to sleep in a missing class take me closer to be in a pro or further away does giving eighty percent during the strength training workout does that take me closer to being a pro or does it take me further away see if you can break it down so everything's binary and everything's completely black and white it makes life so much simpler because then all you have to do is every decision you're going to make that's all you have to ask like i don't really feel like going in and getting shots up today is skipping that going to take you closer to being a pro no it's not it's going to take you further away and clearly you guys are smart enough to know that unless you consistently make a choice that takes you closer to being a pro you're going to decrease the chances of that actually happening and we can substitute being a pro with winning a national championship it's the same thing i'm hoping those two things are in perfect alignment i'm hoping you're so driven individually that you want to be a pro that you're willing to use that within the confines of your role to help this team win a national championship see when those two things are in alignment there's nothing wrong with having individual goals i'm glad that every single one of you wants to be a pro because if you use that correctly that will greatly increase the chance of you guys winning together and every single decision goes through that filter and you have to make those consistently and then when you don't there shouldn't be any confusion if you end up not being a pro i'm willing to bet you look where you dropped all the breadcrumbs you'll see plenty of chances that you had to make a better decision and you chose not to and that's where the accountability comes in because i know you want to be a pro so if i see you keep making decisions that aren't in alignment with being a pro i'm going to tell you because i'm your teammate because i care so if you guys can can do that now you've created something special and then it's a matter of doing it consistently and that's where these little things will always add up and you have to be willing to embrace as i said that your role might not be exactly what you want it to be but know that about the other guys in this room because regardless of what your role is everyone in this room needs to have an respect an appreciation and value what everybody else's role is not even just players whether it's managers whether it's video folks whether it's coaching staff every single one of you needs to have an appreciation and respect and value what everyone else's role is once you have that type of role clarity now we've created a foundation which we can move on and that next step i've already talked about a little bit is the accountability factor see once you guys have already created standards of excellence and the standards of excellence that thumbprint has already been at uconn for a long time so i told you you guys are part of a program that's much bigger than any one single person in this room this is a historic program and that thumbprint is already on there so now you have to be willing to hold each other accountable to the standards that you've created i guarantee we could come up with a killer list right now of standards that are required for you guys to win a national championship and you could come up with a great list how well you police each other and hold each other accountable to those standards is all that matters identifying them and writing them on a board isn't going to do anything for you living up to that code and holding each other accountable at all times that's what culture is you guys have heard the word culture because it's everywhere and and culture is what will determine the the long-term sustainable results for you as an individual and you guys collectively and ultimately culture are the values and the behaviors and the experiences that you guys have every single day as part of uconn basketball and you have to live those out and in order to have an incredibly high culture can't ever be any slippage see great cultures that this doesn't this isn't their week right here great cultures are consistent and that's how you all need to be which means if a team captain is not here there's no slippage during practice if coach hurley's not here there's no slippage during practice that you guys are willing to do everything you can to actualize your potential every single day that's the type of culture you need and that culture as we said is holding people accountable through love and through grace and through caring enough about them you should want a teammate that gets on you when you don't do what you're supposed to do in the moment it sucks no one likes to be called out no one likes to be i get it but if you can take a step back be a spectator to your own emotions watch it as if it's a movie and you're just happened to watch a character that's playing you and ask yourself is what this person's telling me is this going to help me be the best version of myself more than likely the answer is yes and when the answer is yes you should be thankful for that you should be thankful to have people in your life that hold you guys accountable now i want to switch gears for just a second and just kind of talk about communication because communication is vital and i know you're probably have been told how important is to communicate on the court and to talk loud and talk consistently and with the presence and all of that's true but i want you guys to know from a communication standpoint that you're always communicating something even when you're not speaking even when you don't think you're communicating you are communicating something and every communication is either going to strengthen a connection you have with a teammate or a coach or it's going to erode it and you have to make sure that you're making the decision to consistently strengthen every relationship because when i go back to those pillars and i told you the first pillar is the pillar you have with yourself well the second one is the pillar you have with each other and how much are you doing to support assist push the the guy next to you like do you do you care enough about this team that you're willing to push and practice the guy that gets a few more minutes than you the guy that starts in front of you are you selfless enough to recognize that hey that's coach's decision and i'm going to to man up and be the best that i can be to push him so that he can play even better in games when you can get to that level i'm telling you you've created something special and then of course that last pillar is the relationship you guys have with your coaches and make sure that you're the type of player that you would want to coach if you were a coach don't do anything that makes their job harder more times than not that's the stuff you guys do off the court don't do anything that makes their job harder they're here to help you guys they're here to help you all win a national championship and go down in history and they're here to help empower you so that you guys can make your livelihoods playing the game of basketball for a living they're here in service of you so why would you ever do anything that makes their job harder don't if you know that skipping class is going to give one of these guys a headache then don't do it because by definition that's being selfish anytime you do something that steps out of bounds or undermines the standards you've created to be a national championship level team it's an act of selfishness same thing with not being the best version of yourself if you choose to come to practice and you chose not to get a good night's sleep you chose not to hydrate you chose not to eat well you chose not to go in and get your therapy you made all of those decisions you're basically choosing yourself over the team you are choosing to be selfish when you come to practice and you're not prepared because the only way you guys can can actualize your potential is if every one of you comes every single day is the best version of yourself so don't don't let selfishness win out and selfishness is a natural tendency that's what makes all of this so hard see we go back to that basic and easy dichotomy i know for a fact that everything that i'm telling you guys i'm saying with a very a matter of fact tone this stuff is very basic i don't think i've lost any one of you for a split second i have nine-year-old twin sons and a seven-year-old daughter they understand everything that i'm saying right now this stuff is basic but you guys know firsthand not a single thing i've said is easy not any of it so don't think that i think what i'm asking you to do is easy if you think that it's easy to show up every single day and be the best version of yourself you think it's easy to hold the guys next to you accountable to be the best that they're capable of being it's not you know how hard that is but that's why the reward will be something that very few people ever get to experience because very few people are willing to make the sacrifice to do the things that i'm encouraging you all to do and the fact that you are the ones that control your own destiny in that regard you don't control whether or not you win or you lose you don't control that because clearly if you did you would never lose a game because i don't think anybody in here wants to lose so this is not about guarantees because i can't promise you anything i can't promise you that you'll be all-american i can't promise you you'll play professionally i can't promise you you'll win a national championship what i can promise you is doing these things every day greatly increases the chance that those things happen and that's all any of us should be in the business of doing is trying to get the statistics lined up in our favor i don't want whether or not you play pro to be a coin flip i don't want it to be a coin flip i want it to be so heavily skewed in your favor that we'll all be shocked if it doesn't happen they talk all the time in hoops about a 50-50 ball right a loose ball is a 50-50 ball right you've heard that see i don't i don't believe in a 50-50 ball why would it be a 50-50 ball why is it not a 90-10 ball in yukon's favor every single time why is it 50-50 who said that just because it's there no if you guys condition yourself to play as hard and work as hard and do everything to the best of your ability you're relentless in your pursuit of greatness then there's no reason a loose ball is a 50-50 ball because if it's loose and i wanted a thousand times more than you do it ain't 50-50 i'm getting that ball end of discussion and i want the same thing for you guys i want the odds of you winning a national championship and i want the odds of you playing professionally to be so stacked heavily in your favor and if for any reason any of those things do not come to fruition it's not because of something you had control over there will be times simply you just play another team and they're better than you that that happens that's life there might be one roster spot left on a team and the guy that gets it is a little bit better than you that's okay that's not something you have control over but how how crappy would that be to exit from the tournament early and you look back and you guys all know that the reason that happened is because you didn't do everything in your power see there's only two things in this world that each of you has 100 control over 100 of the time there's only two your effort and your attitude those are the only two things you control all of the time and i want to encourage you guys to put all of your emphasis into those two things your effort and your attitude don't worry about anything else block out everything else your effort and your attitude and get those as close to that hundred point ceiling as you can in everything you do now i was told you guys have uh Justin there's a mental a mental skills coach that works with you guys right phenomenal you guys should be incredibly thankful for that i don't know that you realize the edge that that can give you and what i'm going to share with you now um i've done a lot of study in that area and i'm certainly hoping is on par in parallel with the stuff that he talks about with you because i would never want to say something that undermines something else and i talked about some of this stuff even at at dematha but when we look at what mental toughness is and when we look at your ability to be the best player you can be it all really comes down to your ability to be in the present moment which is to call it to play present if you guys can learn how to play present then you'll be able to actualize your physical potential you'll be able to actualize and maximize your athleticism and actualize and maximize your skill and being in the present moment means three things it means you only focus on the next play it means you only focus on the controllables you control the controllables and it means you only focus on the process if you can do those three things for the vast majority of the time you're on the court then you will be the best player that you're capable of so let's look at the next play mindset next play mindset means no matter what just happened in this current play that play is over it's done and i move to the next play you miss a wide open dunk it's over next play sprint back on defense you turn the ball over with a lazy pass coach early is going to yell at you guaranteed it's over next play the referee misses a call is the referee ever missed a call in a game you guys have played yeah it happens occasionally right yeah keep in mind you guys aren't perfect you're not perfect players right so why do we have this assumption that referees are going to be perfect why do we feel like they have to get every single thing right and at the end of the game you guys as a team will have missed a bunch of shots turned the ball over a handful of times there will have been a few 50-50 balls that you didn't get and yet we always want to scapegoats and say it's the guys with the footlocker shirts it's their problem they were the ones that didn't do their job put that out of your mind referees are an absolute non-issue they have nothing to do with the outcome of a game and believing that they do complaining that they do scapegoating that they do is a mindset of the week now if coach Hurley wants to talk to the referees that is part of his job description as a head coach he can do that you guys don't ever have to worry about the referees referee clearly misses a call when you're driving to the basket so what next play that's what being mentally tough is the definition of mental toughness is be able to block out all distractions and focus on the next important thing that's what mental toughness is it has nothing to do with running into your puke or doing a wall sit to your legs you know or shaking or somebody in your face mfing you that is nothing to do with mental toughness mental toughness means that no matter what is going on in the world you have the ability to hone in and focus on the next important thing and in the game of basketball the next important thing is always the next play you miss a shot it's over you move on to the next play when you look at the i mean in my opinion stef curry will end up going down as the greatest shooter that the game's ever seen i i believe that and one of the things that makes him so remarkable is his next play mentality that he can miss eight shots in a row and he shoots the ninth one as if he made the previous eight shots every single time he shoots the ball he believes with every fiber of his being that that ball is going in there is never a doubt in his mind he can miss 20 shots in a row games tied with two seconds left and he's begging for the ball because he knows the next shot is always good that's the next play mentality i don't remember the exact stats on it but i think it was two years ago if you guys remember he had a streak of consecutive games where he made a three in the mba it was up in the 250s i want to say it was like 257 258 consecutive games where he made a three mba record and then he had a really bad shooting night i think he went 0 for 11 and he and it was the first time he didn't make a three in 250 games do you guys know what he did the very next game less than 48 hours later you remember what he did he broke the mba record for most threes made in a game he went from in him for him having the worst shooting night of his life to having an mba record breaking night in less than 48 hours do you think he ate anything differently to make that happen do you think he tweaked his form did some new drills he didn't do anything except have the next play mentality except say last night didn't go as well as i'd hope that one's over it's time to move on and i focus on the next game so you have to focus on the next play even if your coaches don't focus on the next play you make a bonehead mistake and coach hurley is still yelling at you for it three plays later you don't have to worry about him he chooses what he's going to focus on and yell at you can choose to focus focus on the next play so if you have the next play mentality that and that alone will put you in the upper one percent of all players same thing when something good happens you know i know we see it all the time in the mba so you make a three congratulations that's your job you don't need to dance around and celebrate it you made a three get back on defense because you guys know that with with the gameplay at the pace that it's played at you miss a layup and you choose to pout about it you choose to be in your feelings you choose to have bad body language and you choose to jog back on defense your guy just scored two points on the other end so not only did you just cost the team two points by missing a wide open layup you've now cost us four points maybe five because you chose not to move to the next play same thing you make a three and you're so excited to dance around about it and your guy goes down and makes a layup so the good that you just deposited in our team's bank account we've now had to pay out because you chose to celebrate too early move to the next play and that next play mentality we should be able to read it on your face and your body language if i were to watch film if i were to have trip send me some film and i would have muted and i were to take off all of the graphics and i would have just watched your face and your body language i shouldn't know whether you made or missed your last shot i shouldn't know whether you're up 10 or you're down 10 i think one of the best to ever do that's tim duncan tim duncan's face whether he's winning or losing making or missing it never changes because he's level and he's consistent see i don't want you guys playing like this and i'm not saying that it's not okay to be excited when you're playing well you make a big play you get an and one like it's okay to be excited but i need to make sure that you guys are level and you're consistent because the goal is to not have the dips to be champions we have to be ramping up that trajectory is most important so the first pillar is next play second pillar is what i just told you which is to control the controllables your attitude in your effort so here's something you all need to understand will you guys acknowledge that working hard is a choice when you work hard is it because you chose to work hard yeah working hard's a choice do you guys realize though that if working hard's a choice by default that means not working hard is also a choice so you can't have it both ways and as logical as that sounds and i don't mind if you roll your eyes at that because it sounds so obvious but here's what happens with most most players when you work hard you made the choice to work hard when i call you out for not working hard you're going to make excuses i was tired i wasn't feeling well he didn't do this he didn't do that and we make excuses uh-uh if you're going to take the credit and the praise when you work hard then you have to be man enough to accept when you choose not to and of course we're consistently trying not to make that choice but effort falls on you and only you there's only one person in the world that decides whether or not you sprint the floor both ways as fast as you can there's only one person in the world that chooses whether or not you die for a loose ball there's only one person that chooses whether or not you box out every single time a shot is taken and that's you you're the only one that chooses that and the effort at which you execute that is always your choice so you really can't hide behind anything else that is your choice and you have to own it and there will be times where you choose not to give your best effort and i want you to be able to acknowledge that to apologize that with a my bad and then just make sure it doesn't happen again the worst thing about the my bads is when you keep saying them like if your guy keeps beating you to the basket and you keep saying my bad it's like okay we know it's your bad stop doing it don't let him get to the basket like one time is okay one time it's a mistake second time it's now become a decision and you have to own that and then let's look at attitude let's look at attitude more from a level of feedback because i think the secret to you guys each being the best you can be and the team being the best that you're capable of is in your ability to accept and process feedback because feedback is going to be coming at you all of the time as players it's coming at you every day from your coaches but now in this world that we live in of social media and everything with full transparency i mean there's feedback all of the time within seconds after playing a game there's plenty of feedback on whether or not you played well or not so there's a couple things that you guys have to be able to do with feedback one you have to be able to discern whether or not the feedback is legit or not because you don't have to listen to nor accept everyone's feedback it's important that you insulate yourself from those that you don't need it there's only a handful of people that you should be taking feedback from they all happen to be in this room right now all the people on online and on ig and on twitter and all that you don't have to listen to any of that you don't need any of that feedback if some random person walks off the street and tells you you need to change your shooting form you don't need to listen to that if someone on this coaching staff says something that's what you have to be able to listen to so you have to discern which feedback is appropriate but then the most important part and this is something else i'm hoping you guys find very empowering no matter what the feedback is whether you think it's good or bad whether it's praise or constructive it doesn't matter what it is you control how to use that feedback and if you want to be a high performer and you want to be a champion you will always choose to use the feedback in a way that moves you forward and gets you better so you guys played yesterday we're watching film right now coach hurley makes a couple comments about a play that you made no matter what his comments are you and only you choose how to use that feedback you don't control what he says or what he thinks but you decide how to use that if he praises you and says you did a great job look at that extra pass you made that was awesome you choose whether or not to say you know what that i'm going to store that one in my muscle memory and remember that that's the type of play that i need to make to be a part of uconn basketball and the oldest adage to success is to do more of what works and do less of what doesn't so i'm going to do more of that that's the right type of play i have to remember that and that type of situation that was the right play if he gets on you because you let's say a guy beat you on defense you weren't squared up or whatever you choose whether to get pissed off roll your eyes and say he doesn't know what he's talking about or to say you know what he does he wants what's best for me he wants what's best for this team i'm going to listen to what he's saying and i'm going to execute it better next time so that i can be a better player no matter what the feedback is you choose how to use it and because there's no shortage of feedback if every single time you get feedback you use it in a way that makes you better and every single day you've already what you you wake up with the mindset that you're going to put in work with intention and purpose to get better that means every day you're moving up every single day and that's ultimately what's most important where you are right now at this moment is not near as important as the direction that you're headed the trajectory at which you're going is far more important than where you are at this moment and you have to remember that and the only person that controls that ramp going up or that ramp going down is you and then the last piece is you have to to trust the process and respect the process and i know especially with the sixers that's such a a word a buzzword now but the process is going to control the outcome think about a brick wall you can't think about building the brick wall in its entirety all you have control over is laying each brick perfectly if you lay each brick with care and precision there's a very good chance that that wall will take care of itself but that's the only way if you step back and you just worry about the big picture and you just start throwing bricks and you're sloppy with bricks there's no way that it's going to end up as a sound sturdy wall so each of you have already said that you want to be a national champion and each of you wants to be a professional basketball player so in order to do that every single day of your life you have to make sure you're laying perfect bricks and everything's a brick the meal you choose is a brick the time you choose to go to bed is a brick whether or not you do your work is a brick whether you come in to make 500 game shots from game spots at game speed is another brick whether or not you listen with with good body language during a film breakdown is a brick every single drill you run in practice is a brick every one of them's a brick and ask yourself are you laying perfect bricks or are you just going through the motions see you don't realize it at your age because i didn't when i was your age either but those things matter those little things done consistently that's all you've got and because you guys have the talent and the resources there is nothing that can get in your way from accomplishing both of those things being pros and being national championships there's nothing that will get in your way except for yourself and i don't want you guys to let that happen and i don't want you to let it happen to each other so make sure we're consistent with everything we do i know that is a lot for me to throw at you i do want to make sure i've got some time if you guys have some questions or there's some other things that you guys want to talk about but i can't stress enough if you're sitting there right now and you're going i know everything you just said dude i got it i got it i realized that i don't think i told you anything that you don't know but only you can look in the mirror and say are you actually doing it knowing and doing close that gap if we can do that i'm telling you man you guys you got a really special group and you've got a very special opportunity do you guys have any questions or some thoughts or anything i can share with you and certainly i know i've been talking right at the the players but coaches if there's anything else i can share with you guys what you think and eric that might go to your point of yes first and foremost you need to insulate yourself with a very small group of people and you have to know beyond the shadow of a doubt these people love you they care about you they want to see you happy they want to see you successful they want to see you succeed because it's good for you not because of what it can do for them and because you guys are such accomplished players and you have such bright futures as you already know there will be lots of people that try to latch on because they know they can reap a benefit because you're doing all of the things that i just told you to do and that becomes increasingly hard if those people are family if those people are longtime friends so you just have to make sure that you are insulating yourself with people that want to see you be successful see there's there's a saying that if if you do well then you can do good which means anyone that's going to get in your way of you being the best version of yourself anyone that's going to impede your chance of winning a national championship and becoming a pro you've got to find a way to get away from that because if you can do that and when you do that then you can help as many people as you want you can help your family you can help your friends you can help anyone that you want but you can't let that if they impede your chance of doing those things then you're never going to reap the fruits that they want you to reap in the first place and none of them will ever do it intentionally this is all in the subconscious but the the most important thing you can do is insulate yourself and get rid of as much friction as possible if i had you guys go out to the track right now and start running laps it'd be a lot harder if you had a hundred pound weight vest on wouldn't it i mean a lot harder well if you're trying to drag people through life and they're nothing but an anchor to you all they do is take from you and energy from you and they get in your way and they they allow you to make excuses they tell you it's okay that you didn't come to the optional workout because i'm your boy man it's cool no problem no that's not cool anyone that allows you and enables you to not do those things that is not cool you don't want those people in your life and it makes it really really hard like i said if that person's been in your life for most of your life i'm not saying that that would be easy incredibly hard decision to make but if you've decided that in your future every decision that you make is going to help you win a national championship and help you become a pro then if anything that this person wants you to do is contrary to that they simply can't be a part of the circle so you have to insulate yourself and then you need to make sure that you're modeling your behavior after the type of people that you want to emulate so and this isn't about who's your favorite player per se but who are the guys that you know either at the current college level or at the pro level that put in work that do exactly what they need to do and then make sure you're emulating those guys you know one of my mentors said success leaves clues so follow them like find out what these guys are doing and then do those things and it's not about playing the comparison game because that's a slippery slope that can be a dangerous track but i think effort's one that there's never a problem complaining about or comparing with like right now in your heart of hearts do you really and truly believe that you are the hardest worker in this room do you really believe that now some of you if you're being honest you shouldn't believe that because you're not but i would want every single one of you to actually believe you're the hardest worker because of the effort you put in and here's here's an exercise i've done with teams i'm not going to do it with you guys it would be out of my place but certainly if the coaching staff wanted to do it if i had a series of index cards right now and i handed them out and i said all right i want each of you this is completely anonymous no one will ever know what you wrote down i want you to write down who the most talented player in the room is and i want you to pass those in i'm gonna give you another card i want you to write down who is the hardest worker in this room you pass those in and i'm going to keep asking you questions i want i want to know who's the toughest person in this room you guys all write it down you're voting we're not voting who's the most selfish person in this room who's the most apathetic or laziest person in this room and i want to collect that data i want to see what you guys think and i would love to see what some of those answers are because for some of you i know it could end up being very eye-opening i can tell you right now that in order for you to have a chance to be the best that you're capable of whoever you all think is the most talented player on the team that person better also be the hardest worker that person better also be the toughest that person also better be the best teammate and i want each and every one of you to believe that's you and i want you to work to make that you i want each of you to feel the ownership of this team that you're willing to step up and lead the worst mistake you can make which which guys are my freshmen you're a freshman you were a freshman right we got three freshmen in here yeah the worst mistake you guys can make as freshmen is to think it's not my place to lead because i'm a freshman i'm gonna wait and when i'm a junior or senior then i'll lead if no one else is going to step up and lead you guys lead now you take it upon yourself and you guys that are older and have been here you should feel more ownership because you have been here and your leadership should not only welcome the freshmen and to show them the ropes but you should take it upon yourself to be the leader and every person in this group has has the opportunity to lead there's no rule that says there's one leader even coach hurley coach hurley is a leader of this program he shouldn't be the only leader if he is the only leader in this entire room you guys you've got a major uphill battle every single one of you should feel a sense of ownership and should feel a sense of leadership this is your program as much as it is anyone else's so look to the guys that do things at the highest level don't try to be them but emulate the habits and the behaviors that they have and then make that contagious that's always that's always the next step how good of a player you are is only one step how good you make everyone else is what will define you as a player and ultimately that's what your legacy will be and that that got me thinking one more thing because you guys all want to be pros which is great you increase your chance of being a pro if this team does well you guys win at a high level and every single one of you your stock goes up because without question the number one thing that the MBA looks for are winners people that can win of course they want athleticism of course they want skill that's a given that's an ante just to sit at the table they want guys that they know can win and every single one of you every time you win a game collectively everyone's stock goes up a little bit you start winning at a high clip you win conference championship you win a national championship your individual chance of playing professional has just gone up tenfold way more than if you average a double double like that's cool everybody in the MBA average a double double that doesn't matter so that's why what you want for yourself has to align with what the team needs this is a team sport nothing should be more important than uconn basketball nothing should be more important than winning a national championship but if you do it right doing those things at a high level will also get you the things that you guys desire on an individual level then everybody wins what other questions we got kobi was an interesting one i mean we're not bfs by any means i got to watch a couple of his workouts but there was a couple things i picked up one his definition of sacrifice i find really interesting because i heard in a separate interview i didn't have this conversation with them someone said something to the effect of you know um are you cool with all of the sacrifices you made to be a great player and he was like sacrifices what are you talking about i never made a single sacrifice i did what i wanted to do i decided my number one goal was to be the best player that i could be and everything i did was in alignment to that so going to the gym at four in the morning for him was not a sacrifice that was what he wanted to do because this was the thing that he wanted so bad it wasn't punishment that's something else you guys have to realize and this is something i tell my own three children all the time repetition is not punishment repetition is the mother of all skill repetition is the oldest and most effective form of learning that will never ever change if you want to be a good shooter there's only one recipe for it repetition repetition repetition now they have to be game specific reps they have to be reps with perfect footwork and perfect shooting form this is not about casually going in and shooting for a couple hours this is going in with intention and purpose and that's the thing i i got from kobe you know if you if we look at the the spectrum of players that go in and shoot on the on the high school level you've got the kids that go in and you know they got maybe they even have one of the shootaways and they made 500 shots they barely broke a sweat they're cool with that and on the other end you have kobe who every single shot he's not doing anything from a catch and shoot everything he's doing he's making a specific l cut or a v cut he's trying to get open before he even earns the right to shoot this is he's not in it to play horse he's in it the reason he wants to be able to make these shots is because he knows he's going to have an all mba defensive player on him and if he doesn't even get open to get the ball there's no shot to take so everything he's doing he is running through at game speed that's another thing when we look at the court i would imagine there are specific shots in your offense and with your position and your style of play that you get more shots in certain areas of the court so the first part of awareness is do you even know where that is and i'm not saying that to call you out if you don't it's something you need to speak with the coaching staff about or watch on synergy and get get some footage do you know where most of the shots you take are and i'm not asking you specifically i hope the answer to that's yes if it's no then you need to find that out because if if over the course of the season you are never ever going to shoot the ball from the left corner then i don't need you practicing any shots from the left corner it's a waste of your time it's a waste of your energy i need you to double down on the areas that the team needs you to be strong on so that's the other thing that kobe would do he would look at the specific areas that he knows he gets the vast majority of his shots and let's be honest he's a volume shooter so he gets a lot of shots and he would make sure that he works on those different areas and then he sets everything up at game speed so there's there's none of this casualness about it everything is a hard cut right into perfect form and that's where purpose and intention will outweigh volume see if we're gonna really and this this probably is something maybe even justin has talked to you guys about you've got someone that says i come in and i'm gonna i'm gonna take 500 shots a day well take 500 shots a day doesn't do any i can take 500 shots if the ball doesn't go in the basket who cares that's the name of the game so then you have someone that comes in and says well i make 500 shots a day okay now we're getting closer but if you want the kobe mentality kobe comes in and he makes one shot 500 separate times and that might sound like verbal semantics but it's not the only shot in the world that matters to him is the next one he's not worried about logging 500 he's worried about cutting to get open and make that one shot because that one shot is the game winner of a game seven that's all that matters and then the moment that shot regardless of whether it goes in or doesn't that one's over and he moves to the next play i've got one shot this entire workout all i have is this one shot and i'm going to do this to the best of my ability that's all that matters when you can have that type of mindset and that is a kobe type mindset then you've got something really really special yes i'll start working hard in addition to working hard okay so there's actually there's a triangle that we need and you just hit the first one which is working hard which is a given the next is you have to work smart have to work smart so a perfect example would be what i just told you if you know that you are never going to shoot from the bottom left corner then you spending 20 minutes working on that is a waste of your time it's a waste of your energy that would not be working smart but then the third is you have to work hard you have to work smart but you have to do those things consistently anyone can work hard on a day they feel good anyone can work smart when they've got a coach standing over them but can you do those two things consistently and working hard this is something all of you have heard since you were little kids you got to work hard you got to work hard anytime someone wins an award yeah i just got the mvp uh yeah it's because i worked hard we know what is working hard working hard is intentionally leaving your comfort zone with purpose it is pushing yourself mentally physically and emotionally past what you feel like you're capable of doing in the moment that's what working hard is and if you can do that with the intention and purpose of working smart and you can do that consistently now you're on on part of being the best that you can be so the working because you have to have all three if you work hard and you work smart but you only do it every other tuesday you're not going to be a very good player if you work really really hard every single day but you're just spinning your wheels because you're not working smart you're doing dumb stuff you're never going to be a good player and clearly it doesn't matter how smart you are and how consistently you do it if you don't put in the effort you'll never be the player that you're capable of being and that has to be the measuring stick that each of you use because it's not a batter of whether you're better than him or whether you guys are better than another that has nothing to do with it it has to do with are you the best that you're capable of that's what should matter most and you have to have that trifecta of work hard work smart and work consistently to even be considered the best that you're capable of what else we got guys these are great questions and we just stand here awkwardly for a little bit longer we could do that what about my coaches what do we got guys the horizontal and vertical and then the discipline to do it all the time like we don't have like you're talking about being consistent working hard but having the discipline to do it over and over again is the hard thing it definitely is and you nailed it and here's the thing and you guys know this the reason it's so hard to fall in love with the basics is because the basics are usually mundane and they're monotonous and they can get boring if you let them which is why you have to find your fuel has to be in the outcome that you want there ain't nothing boring or mundane about being a pro there ain't nothing boring or mundane about winning a national championship and in order to have those things then you have to be willing to fall in love with the basics and think about it too it doesn't mean that you have to come in and do basic footwork for nine hours a day it means you have to have razor sharp precision where you come in and you work on some basic stuff you work on your form shooting you work on your footwork 10 minutes a day can make a huge difference and then from there you collectively start to build up so you add more advanced moves you do more advanced things but i just don't want you guys making things more complicated than they are like i've been around the game of basketball my entire life and here's how i've broken the game down this is the most basic way i can tell you how to win a basketball game and this is so obvious you guys know this and yet you make decisions constantly that are contrary to this if you guys want to win as many games as possible and increase your chance of winning a national championship here's exactly how you do it on offense you take the highest percentage shot possible every time on defense you make them take the lowest percentage shot possible every time right is that the game of basketball if you do those two things do you think you win most games you absolutely win most games so talking about running things through a binary filter everything you do and this is what makes basketball so hard because it's such a fast-paced game you don't get the breaks that baseball and football get in between every play so you guys have to have the iq to within a split second say to yourself is this pass i'm about to make does this increase the chance we're going to get a high percentage shot or decrease it you shooting this shot from this specific area this time and score with this person on you is that the best shot that we're capable of getting if most times down the court we can answer yes to that then you guys are doing everything you can to play at a high level same thing on defense clearly you playing some olay defense and letting him go get a wide open layup does not force them to take the highest percentage shot possible so we can't have you do that which is why team defense and help side defense and communication and all the things you guys are taught are so important but that's that's the filter you need to run it through but think how many times that doesn't happen somebody wants to take a my turn shot you know what a my turn shot is yeah like i need to get some love i want to put up a shot because i want to be a pro and everyone else keeps shooting so it's my turn i'm taking a shot that that violates the law both laws one of you being a pro and two you guys winning a national championship because very very very rarely is a my turn shot the highest percentage shot that the team can get and it takes unselfishness to do that it takes a humility to know that me taking a semi-open 17 footer is not as good of a shot as me kicking it to you who's wide open on the wing this will be a much higher percentage shot and as much as i want to be on espn and as much as i want to knock this down right now this is not what is best for our team so i'm going to make the decision that is best for our team because ultimately what is best for our team will be best for myself you can't ever forget that i'm telling you winning trumps everything you all win and every person in this room stock goes up including theirs you guys see the coach in carousel right you win everybody becomes more valuable and while you may not control the outcome of winning you absolutely can increase the chance of it happening by doing these things don't make things any more complicated than they need to be and the that the leadership and the the sustainability and the accountability they're all things that you guys control and you have to learn how to have those conversations with each other because it's human nature to get defensive it's human nature if you're you're getting on me for something for me to deflect for me to make excuses that's i get it one could go as far as to say that's normal behavior but you can't have normal behavior when you're trying to attain something that's abnormal being a professional basketball player and winning a national championship is not normal 99.999 percent of human beings walking the earth will never experience either one of those things because they're not normal being the best college basketball team in the country is not normal so you can't do normal things and expect something that abnormal so you have to be willing to step out and do that and this is where you guys need to be able to come together because if you call him out for not doing something and you get defensive this is where we need some other people to try to make peace and to try to make this work and it's not about pleasing other people it's about doing what's right consistently doing what's right consistently making sure everything lines up to the things that you guys want and if you're willing to do that i'm telling you the sky is the limit for you guys you control it there's nothing i can't think of anything in the world more empowering than knowing how much control you have over your future based on the decisions that you make every single day what other questions anything else yes sir i think we all hear the stories about like kobi's obsession with the game and how he compares have you seen any players trained that kind of compared to that on that level or is like kobi just the most sort of thing you've ever seen well a couple things that and i mean i do think kobi has been wired differently than most human beings without question and there's a difference between trying to emulate behavior and trying to be like someone else so i don't want any of you to think that you need to be like kobi see that would actually happen a lot when i was still working at the high school level parents would say you know i heard kobi works eight hours a day so i'm going to make my kid work eight hours a day i'm like first of all your kid ain't kobi so i think you can relax on that but we don't have to try to copy what they're doing we want to take things run them through our filter of what we're capable of but i mean at that kobi brine skills academy this was 2007 stef curry was actually one of the college counselors now this was after his freshman year at davidson so if you guys go back and look and i know you guys are really young but the coaches will know after his freshman year davidson that was before he blew up on the college scene that wasn't until his sophomore and junior year so nobody even knew who stef curry was for the most part he got an invite to that camp because of his dad del who played in the mba in fact most of the coaches didn't even know his name at the camp they just called him del's kid yeah that's del's son over there but i could tell immediately that there was something different about him and the main thing was at the end of the first workout he and i had never met we were just standing next to each other and he says to me coach will you rebound for me because i don't leave the gym until i swish five fritos in a row swish five fritos in a row that was his standard of excellence that was his ticket to leave the gym with swishing five fritos in a row now i don't know who the best frito shooter is in this room no matter how good you are you you have to admit that's a high standard i mean you could swish four in a row hit a little bit of the rim on the fifth one it still goes in you're still five for five you're still mathematically perfect but that wasn't good enough for him he would start over and if memory serves it never took him longer than 12 to 15 minutes to swish five in a row and that's why i believe he'll go down in history as the greatest shooter of the games ever seen and it's not by luck it's not by accident it's not because his dad played in the mba it's because he's willing to hold himself to that standard and i share that with you because i'm not telling each of you that you shouldn't leave the gym until you swish five in a row you come up with your own standard of excellence you come up with your own way to police yourself to be the best that you can be i had to talk with steve nash one time at one of his skills academies and aside from the players that i have a personal relationship with steve nash is my favorite player of all time and he told me at the end of each of his off season workouts he would pick an unusual finish around the basket so maybe it's a wrong foot layup whatever maybe it's a floater he would pick an unusual finish and he would make it a hundred times that would be the last thing he would do before he left the gym that was his ticket out of there and he said inevitably you're going to see me do something this season and you're going to think i pulled it out of thin air it's going to look like complete luck it's not i promise that whatever you see me do this season i have done in a gym when no one else was watching and we coined those the unseen hours what will determine how well you progress as a player whether or not you're a pro and whether or not you all win a national championship falls heavily on what you guys do during the unseen hours that's when the cameras aren't rolling and the cheerleaders aren't dancing what you do then determines the type of player that you'll be so yes if you end every single workout by making a hundred of this specific shot then when you get in an actual game and you have the muscle memory and the basketball iq you're able to execute i think that about all of the great players i mean clearly one of the best ever do it ray allen you know you you talk about people say these things are luck you know you watch stuff go off for 40 and the average basketball fan thinks a portion of that is luck and that's almost insulting because they have no idea the amount of work that he put in during the unseen hours i say this very respectfully this is about the best compliment i could give somebody like that if you knew how much work those guys put in during the unseen hours scoring 40 in an mba game becomes a lot less impressive it's not that impressive when you know how much work has been put in in the off in the off season and behind the scenes you know it'd be shocking and miraculous someone that puts in no work and can do that and that doesn't happen so you're all's ability to have a big game yourself or as a team your guys ability to do those types of things rests inherently on what you do during the unseen hours and yet with that the unseen hours is is kind of a cool sexy name to remind you of what it is when you're in the gym by yourself but i also want you guys to realize someone is always watching you i mean always so behave accordingly someone is always watching you and especially since each of you have the goal of playing professionally if you think the only time someone watching you is when you're in games or if there's a person here watching your practice i'm telling you that's not the case someone is watching every single thing you were doing this was a long long time ago i mean it's been well over 10 12 years but a friend of mine is a scout for the chicago bulls and he was coming in town i live right near georgetown and saracus was coming in town to play georgetown and at this time both teams had three or four potential first round picks and the game was i think the game was a two o'clock tip it was an afternoon game and he called me up and said alan i'm going to be in town would you like to come watch the game i got you a ticket i was like sure man that was old big east like i'm in let's do it he said meet me at the arena at 11 i was like 11 games at two it's not at 12 he's like i know i have to get in there early because i have to watch the players when they don't think anyone else is watching them i want to see how they go through their pre game shoot around i want to see how focused they are when the strength coach has taken them through their warm-ups i want to see how they treat the building service worker when they don't think anyone's watching that's what i want to watch and i kid you not he took more notes during the time where he and i were the only people in the arena then he took when the game actually started he wrote and i'm telling you now i would never call a player out there were guys on that list who stock at least in the eyes of the chicago bulls there were guys who stock went up based on how they prepared and there were guys who stock went down based on how they prepared and in the mba especially with the first round pick where you've got the slated salary already set do you guys know what the increment is every time you drop one draft pick do you know how much money you lose in your contract it's around a quarter of a million dollars close to three four hundred thousand every time you drop so think about that you could drop five or six or seven places in the draft because someone has a question about how you prepare or question about your character you could cost you and your family millions of dollars because you choose not to do what's right at all times and even worse you could make some decisions that no one's going to give you any money because they can't afford to have you in their organization because you're a liability so behave as if someone is always watching you because at your level someone is what else we got guys these are such good questions awesome man thanks coach one of the things that i think that the biggest thing i'm glad you touched on it a bunch and you guys they couldn't tell from where you were is he spoke to you guys like he's positive speaking so he didn't make eye contact with anyone in the last two rows to the coaches or support staff he was speaking like to you guys you know like that was his thing i love that great and like what coach hunter mentioned about that horizontal accountability yeah like that's what we're striving for good yeah like we are striving for that guys have been there a while now like we're trying to get to that point like admittedly right we ain't there yet now but we're a lot closer than we were a year ago that's awesome trying to get there the other thing i picked up on that i just wanted to say your biggest your real positive speaker about players and stuff and doing the right thing the biggest put down you had of a player is when you said something bad didn't didn't go right for you and you stayed in your feelings stayed in your feelings that's like the biggest insult i felt that you gave a player staying in your feelings i think that's a great way of putting it we've heard that sometimes too as well so i'm like from my point of view i'm just glad you touched on that cool the vertical accountability is coach early's up here and the coaching staff and then yes and the horizontal accountability like we all know at this age how hard it is for us to try yes him to try to hold call him out him to try to call him out him to call him out just to try to call so hard and it's 10 times harder to receive it yes from somebody but that's what we're we're like we're trying to get there absolutely trying to get there we're getting better we're trying not to stay in our feelings yes and we're trying to hold each other accountable and stuff but if we can like you said a bunch of times this group's got huge potentials absolutely well you know i mean with what he just said there there are a lot of things in life that are understandable but they're not acceptable and learning the difference between those two i can only imagine that if i missed a wide open layup in front of a packed house i would be in my feelings i think as a human being we can all agree that's an understandable feeling doesn't mean it's acceptable i understand why you're pouting but i can't allow you to not sprint back on defense and what coach just mentioned what you guys are so fortunate to have is you have the awareness and the humility to acknowledge what he just said so perfectly you're not there yet and you know what when you do get there i still want you to have the mindset that you're not there yet because the moment you all think you've arrived is the moment you're done you will never stop learning you've got coaches in here that have been coaching as long as i've been breathing and they've been in here writing down stuff taking notes because you should never stop working on your craft and this is where we have to be able to support each other and in a perfect world if we're going to throw out that org chart this would mean like you're allowed to hold him accountable now you do it in a professional and respectful way this is your coaching staff so there's going to be vernacular differences between the way you would talk to him and the way you would talk to coach but everyone holds everyone else accountable and what i'm willing to bet is you have a coaching staff that is doing their very best to model the behavior that they want to see in you guys they might not have to expend the physical energy that you all have to do because they don't play but you better believe they spend just as much time prepping and preparing your scouting report and what you guys are supposed to be doing putting in just as much work during the unseen hours they just don't have to physically do it on the court and that's that's something you guys should be very very thankful for but you guys need to all hold each other accountable and i'm i mean i'm not disappearing i might just come in one time to talk but i want to make sure that i'm staying in close touch with you guys and i want to get reports on how we're going because remember it's the trajectory that's all that matters what he just said is you're not there yet but we're going in the right direction that is the best news i could possibly hear that's all that matters i don't want to get a report back uh we took a turn for the worst we're not moving in the right direction guys are trying to hold each other accountable but now they're bickering and fighting and blaming each other and they're in each other's feelings we can't allow that to happen because remember the two things you want most to be a pro and to win a national championship those are the two most important things and very few people get an opportunity to do either one and you guys have the talent to do it now you just gotta go out and do it so i do appreciate you guys very much thank you