TAYLOR ROTH – HIRAM COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 777

Website – https://hiramterriers.com/sports/mens-basketball

Email – RothT@hiram.edu

Twitter – @CoachTRoth

Taylor Roth just completed his third season as the Men’s Basketball Head Coach at Hiram College.  Roth was named the 18th head coach in Hiram College men’s basketball history in 2020, joining the Terriers from the University of Rochester where he served as the top assistant coach for the Yellow Jackets for two seasons.

Prior to joining the Yellow Jackets, Roth spent three seasons as the top assistant and interim head coach at New York University.  Before joining the Violets, Roth spent two seasons as the top assistant coach at Bluffton University and a season as the top assistant coach and recruiting coordinator at Alfred State University.

A graduate of Baldwin Wallace University, Roth began his coaching career at his alma mater, spending one season as an assistant coach with the Yellow Jackets. Roth played four seasons for Baldwin-Wallace from 2007-11, serving as a team captain his senior year.

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Be sure to grab a notebook and pen before you listen to this episode with Taylor Roth, Men’s Basketball Head Coach at Hiram College in the state of Ohio.

What We Discuss with Taylor Roth

• Working out with family friend Scott Ruthsatz as a high school player
• Sending film to Coach Steve Bankson at Baldwin-Wallace University looking for a chance to play college basketball
• Things he took from Coach Bankson – The importance of free throws and playing on balance
• Playing for Coach Duane Sheldon his last three seasons at Baldwin-Wallace
• Returning to BW as a coach while doing his student teaching
• Falling in love with the preparation and competitiveness of college coaching
• How head coaches can help their assistants develop and gain the respect of the players
• Driving to schools that had an opening just to put a face to his resume
• Getting an assistant position at Alfred State and having to learn a whole new system
• “You think that everything you did where you played was the right way. And then you get somewhere else and you realize, oh, this is totally different, but this also is effective. And it helps you grow a little bit.”
• “That’s the beauty of division three and being at a small college is, there’s just so many things you can get involved in and get your hands on.”
• “You also have to kind of evaluate through your boss’s eyes of what type of kid does he like to coach, and who fits him and what is he looking for?”
• His time at Alfred State and Bluffton College as an assistant
• How coaching at NYU made him more efficient and taught him to think faster
• The balance between academics and basketball at NYU
• How being the interim head coach at NYU prepared him for becoming the head coach at Hiram
• Why his last stop as an assistant at Rochester was so important to his development
• Taking the job at Hiram despite never setting foot on campus during the interview process due to Covid
• The two things he did first after getting the Hiram job
• Adapting your systems to different playing styles
• Start the domino – a phrase that encourages the extra pass
• “You get better at basketball by playing basketball.”
• Grouping players in practice based on what’s needed that day
• Telling freshman – “You are in the very beginning stages of a four year journey and the beginning’s usually the hardest.”
• Handling players that aren’t playing as much as they would like
• “Confrontation clears the air.”
• Will a player keep working even if they aren’t playing?
• His evaluation process for recruits
• “You don’t have to be a captain to be a leader. You don’t have to be a senior or a junior to do the right thing.”
• “I don’t feel like I’ve ever went to work since I started coaching college basketball.”

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THANKS, TAYLOR ROTH

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TRANSCRIPT FOR TAYLOR ROTH – HIRAM COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 777

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight, and we are pleased to welcome Taylor Roth, the head men’s basketball coach at Hiram College here in the state of Ohio. Taylor, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:12] Taylor Roth: Great to be here.

[00:00:15] Mike Klinzing: Excited to have you. Looking forward to diving into all the things you’ve been able to do in your basketball career.

Let’s go back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me a little bit about some of your first experiences with the game, what you remember.

[00:00:27] Taylor Roth: Well, probably like most kids mine were a combination of camp, youth camp at my high school. I just always loved going to those, playing in the driveway and going to high school games, putting all those things together.

Just really fell in love with basketball. But I was kind of in love with sports in general. I played hockey, football, baseball, basketball, tried them all, played them all for a long time. And so just was really blessed to grow up around a lot of coaches be around a lot of the game and a lot of different ways.

And my love for basketball just kind of kept growing a little bit more than the others as I got older. And you look up all these years later and I’m still doing it still in the game.

[00:01:12] Mike Klinzing: At what point did basketball become number one? Do you remember?

[00:01:16] Taylor Roth: High school, it was definitely, probably about halfway through high school.

I played all of them all the way through, football, baseball, and basketball. But I just found myself drawn to the gym more, just wanting to, I was working at basketball the most. I was in love with the work of it the most, watching it on TV the most. And it’s just kind of culminated in me towards my junior, senior year just to deciding that if I can keep this going and, and play in college, that’s definitely what I want to do. What did you do as

[00:01:45] Mike Klinzing: What did you do as a high school player to get better? Did you have a plan in the summertime as you were kind of falling in love with the work? Or what did you do? Because obviously you’re kind of on the cusp of where you’re still probably doing it on your own.

You’re not out there like kids are today with a trainer and YouTube and all the things that they have access to today. So just how’d you go about making yourself a better player when you were in high school?

[00:02:05] Taylor Roth: Yeah, it was probably a little bit of like self discovery because of that. And then watching guys on TV obviously.

And then I was fortunate to, I had a close family friend. His name’s Scott Ruthsatz, he’s the head coach at Covington Catholic High School. He was kind of instrumental in my high school years, would work me out some, show me some things. And so I was just kind of a sponge and just found different things to work at.

But it was really kind of on my own for sure. And that’s one thing I kind of am envious of now is just how many qualified people there are out there to help guide some of these kids in their development and their growth.

[00:02:47] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s crazy. There’s another connection for us, Taylor, we’re going to talk about a bunch, but Scott Ruthsatz went to Kent where I went and then we’ve already had Scott on the podcast.

He’s obviously doing a great job with what he does coaching-wise, so it’s kind of cool that you guys knew each other growing up and had he had an opportunity to work with you and help you to improve and get better. It’s obviously just a lot different in terms of how you go about working on your game and, and getting better kids today, like you said, they have access to so much more information and to so many more people that are out there that are willing to help them.

As long as you find the right people slash person to be able to help you to, to do that. When you started thinking about. College basketball, what was the process for you? Where did you start to look? What were the interests that you were getting? Just how’d you go about kind of navigating the process?

[00:03:37] Taylor Roth: Yeah. Well, it kind of goes back to what you were saying about just how different it was. I didn’t play AAU. I went to a small high school, so if you were a decent athlete, it was almost a requirement. You have to play everything. So I did football, I did baseball, I did basketball, and I was good at basketball, but I really had no idea how to go about it, to be honest.

And so I reached out by myself actually by phone. I called Coach Bankson up at Baldwin Wallace and kind of told him who I was. I mailed some film on some CDs, and he gave me a chance and all I really was looking for at the time was just a chance. So I didn’t really have much of an elaborate search once I knew somebody was willing to give me a shot and take me, I just went with it and never looked back.

[00:04:29] Mike Klinzing: Did you send stuff to other schools besides BW or how did you target BW or is it just that Coach Bankson responded and boom, that was kind of it?

[00:04:34] Taylor Roth: Yeah, that was kind of it. I grew up in Sandusky, so I all I really knew was I wanted to play and I didn’t really want to go too far away from home.

And some of the schools that were a little bit rural weren’t really attractive to me academically. So I kind zeroed it in from an academic standpoint almost first, and then realized, oh, maybe I should see if this is a place I could play at too. And it’s just kind of all worked out. So yeah, it definitely wasn’t as exciting of a recruiting story, maybe others have. But definitely worked out for me.

[00:05:11] Mike Klinzing: When you get to BW, what do you remember about your interactions with Coach Bankson? As I told you before, we jumped on the podcast, I started going to basketball camp at BW, probably when I was in elementary school, and then sort of stayed in contact with Coach Bankson as I went through my high school years and was kind of getting recruited by a lot of Division three schools and then some division ones ended up getting a chance to play.

But Coach Bankson was always a guy that, when you think about college basketball here in the Cleveland area, he’s a guy that lots of people think of, and he’s certainly someone that I remember from my childhood that had an influence on me just going to camp. So what were your impressions of him as you played for him during your freshman year and just what the experience was like? Him as a coach and just as a person?

[00:05:56] Taylor Roth: Well, yeah, I’ll start there. I mean, he’s just a tremendous person, he cared about you and that was very obvious from the beginning. And, especially when you’re a freshman and you’re new somewhere, And it’s all kind of moving fast. Just having somebody that you know is genuine and you know, cares about you is really important.

So I just always felt comfortable, I guess, in his program just because of how he treated me and how he treated everybody. Obviously a tremendous coach, anyone with that level of experience and that much success. I was just really fortunate just to be around him. Practices were very well run and there’s little things I think we’re all amalgamations of all of our experiences, right.

And there’s little things from my freshman year I probably still do or think through just because I remember coach doing them or telling us how to do that. So yeah, he’s great and I’m really fortunate and really appreciative of everything he did for me in that year.

[00:06:57] Mike Klinzing: When you think of yourself as a coach, what’s one of those things that you can kind of catch yourself and think back and be like, Hey, I’m kind of channeling Coach Bankson here.

[00:07:06] Taylor Roth: His emphasis on free throw shooting, that’s for sure. He just was so big on that. Another thing was there’s a couple of drills we did we’re really big at Hiram on being on balance, playing off two feet.

And we did a lot of things my freshman year drill wise that reinforced some of those things. And I didn’t really fully have that theory or philosophy at the time, but as I’ve grown older, I guess there’s just things I keep coming back to and basketball, that are always things.

And, that’s one of them. So I always remember just the amount of time we spent shooting free throws, discussing how important they were. And then the other half is just some fundamental drills about being on balance and being able to pivot and all the boring stuff that leads to success.

[00:07:52] Mike Klinzing: Well, I think what it tells you is that there’s things that have an impression on you both as a player and then as you mature in your career, as you said, you start looking at the people that you played for, that you worked with, that you worked for, and you sort of become that mishmash of all those different people. You see what you like, you see what you don’t like, and you kind of take those things and we’ll continue to talk about that as we, as we go through.

During your career at BW, there was a coaching change and you had an opportunity to play for a friend of mine, former high school teammate, Duane Sheldon, who’s now at Dublin Kauffman as an athletic director. For people who are listening, if you’ve been watching the women’s tournament, you know that his daughter Jacey plays for the Ohio State Buckeyes on the women’s side.

His son was a freshman at OU this year, so definitely a basketball family. But Duane, I’ve known him forever since I was a little kid. I still have a team photo of when we were in maybe fourth and fifth grade and there’s all of us just standing there and our goofy little tank tops and whatever. So I’ve known Duane forever.

So just tell us a little bit about what the transition was like from Coach Bankson to Coach Sheldon and then just the experience that you had playing for him.

[00:09:01] Taylor Roth: Yeah, well I’ll first tell you a quick story. You’ve mentioned Jacey so she was young when Coach Sheldon got the job, and I do remember when he started, we did a lot of ladder drills in the preseason and all that stuff.

And his first year I remember Jacey being better at the ladder drills than a lot of the guys on our team. And I was watching them play the other night and I said to my wife, I said I probably should have seen this coming when she was really young and she had quicker and better feet than half my college team through those ladders.

But no, Coach Sheldon was great to me. I think one thing, coaching changes I think are interesting and a lot of people can see that they can be challenging. But for me anyway, what was great was I got to learn from two different people. And I think that was really, really big for me.

Coach Sheldon was very upfront, very honest. And that’s something that I’ve tried to keep all these years, which is very, communicative with all of us about where we stood how we could change it getting a lot of feedback. Whether it’s our role or how our team could improve.

I think that that’s something most good players crave. And I know I did, just having somebody who could tell me even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear where I am, how I can get better, and then giving me the chance to attack and pursue things. And so I always really appreciated that about Coach.

And I think we all probably, and when I was there, coaching changes our challenge and we probably didn’t win quite as much in my years. Maybe it’s because I was playing, but I had a great experience and I’m doing this now because of my three years with Coach Sheldon for sure and how much fun I had.

[00:10:50] Mike Klinzing: When did coaching get on your radar? Were you thinking about coaching? Before you got to college, was that kind of a plan? Did it hit you as you were going through your career? Just when did coaching become something you’re like, Hey, this might be where I want to end up.

[00:11:04] Taylor Roth: I was an education major, and so my general plan was just whenever I get done with school, I’ll go back to Sandusky and I’ll coach football, I’ll coach basketball, I’ll coach baseball, just kind of do it all. And just be a teacher and a coach. And as I got towards the end I remember my senior year of playing was ending and I had to come back to student teach and I remember Coach Sheldon said to me more or less you’re coaching with us next year.

And so I thought to myself, all right, well that sounds good. So I got more free time, so I did it and I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with the college game and. And kind of that level of player and the preparation. And then I was really fortunate cause Tom Heil, who’s there now would take me on some recruiting trips.

So I kind of got a feel for that. And by the time I was done with that season, I had kind of pivoted to, I think I can do this and I want to give it a shot. So again, just another way, coach Sheldon’s just been instrumental in my career, is just giving me that chance and believing in me  as being able to help his staff out first and that’s really where the college thing kind of took off for me.

[00:12:22] Mike Klinzing: What did you like about it initially, right out of the gate? What was your favorite part of that first year? Just some aspect of coaching that you really took to,

[00:12:29] Taylor Roth: I think it was just the preparation, right? Like from focusing on Mount Union and how we can stop them and the different things that we can do.

And then, It almost kind of the competitiveness of that then bleeds into everything in college. So then it was recruiting, right? So maybe you’re playing example, a Mount Union on a Saturday, and you’re also both recruiting two kids that you’re going to see on Friday night as well. And it’s just like you’re competing in all these different ways.

And that preparation, that competition was kind of, and then I think the other part for me was just, I, I realized like being on a coaching staff is just like being a player on a team. You know, your, your team just, it kind of shifts a little bit and now you’re a part of this other team within the team that’s the staff.

And I just really enjoyed the camaraderie of that too, and being on the other side of it. So I put it all together and just realized this is absolutely what I want to pursue.

[00:13:32] Mike Klinzing: Was it ever weird that you went from being a player under Coach Sheldon to being a colleague of Coach Sheldon? I always think that for guys who go right from playing and then they join their own college’s staff, I think back to my own experience, I just know that didn’t happen for me, but I just know that the idea of being, okay, I’m playing for this guy and now all of a sudden I have to kind of shift gears and as you said, sort of switch teams, for lack of a better way of saying it.

But what do you remember about that experience? Just kind of going from player to coach with the, and sort of changing the nature of that relationship?

[00:14:03] Taylor Roth: Yeah, I think Coach Sheldon made it easier because he just trusted me and valued my opinion. So it kind of made it a little easier for me to just kind of have some confidence with what I was saying and what my contributions were.

And he also did a good job helping me make it clear to the rest of the group, right, because a lot of those guys were my friends still.  I’m on the other side and there’s a respect level now that they need to have for me. So I think your, your head coach can go a long way. And I think it’s also not for young GA’s and stuff, even if they didn’t play in your program and your head coach can go a long way and in making that transition easier if they’re kind of demonstrating and giving you confidence in the office, but then also in front of the group making sure that you’re respected and heard.

And he definitely did that for me and it, it wasn’t uncomfortable very long. I think it was mainly because of that.

[00:15:04] Mike Klinzing: What does that look like on the practice floor? When is that just giving you responsibility or saying, Hey Taylor, you grab this drill, or you take this particular group of guys over here and do this skill development work?

Is that kind of what you’re talking about?

[00:15:14] Taylor Roth: Yeah. Just taking over a drill, in timeouts just kind of empowering me or a halftime say, Hey, make sure you speak up right. If you see things. Just kind of taking I guess what I was doing as a captain, as a senior, and just kind of growing that naturally into a coaching role.

So I tried my best too. I think you have to be careful as well. I knew also what my role was and where I was at that time I was pretty humble and knew I’m 22 years old. I don’t know everything. So I tried to walk that line myself as well, and knew I had a lot to learn still.

So I think we kind of both did a good job kind of navigating that.

[00:16:00] Mike Klinzing: All right. After that season with Duane at BW, you get an opportunity to go to Alfred State. Talk about how that came to pass and, and what that looked like and what you remember about the job hunting slash interview process and just getting that job.

[00:16:13] Taylor Roth: Yeah. I was probably delusional about how easy it would be to get a coaching job. I remember just going through that year and thinking, well I played, plus I coached a year. I mean, I could probably start at Ohio State or something. And then I quickly realized that’s not going to happen.

That’s not how it’s going to work. So I started just sending out my resume as many places as I could. Obviously I had my coaches as references. One thing I started getting a lot, Mike, was that email back or that call back of, we’ll keep your resume on file. I realized I don’t know where this file is, but I don’t think anyone’s really taking me that seriously.

So a few schools that I knew had openings like GA’s and stuff, I just started driving there. Which now sounds a little crazy, but I’d just show up and I’d dress nice and bring my resume and just say, I want you to get a face to the name. And really was hungry just for a foot in the door.

And what really ended up helping me was the assistant at Alfred had played for Coach Sheldon at Heidelberg and he was leaving and it was a combination of, I sent just a blast email out to that coach and he saw my references and so he called me then called Coach Sheldon. And that’s how I got my foot in the door for an interview.

And then you know, the rest is history. So it all goes back to relationships.

[00:17:46] Mike Klinzing: What does that look like? Obviously this is your first time in a program other than BW and so you’re kind of stepping out on your own, so to speak. So what was that like working for somebody else that you didn’t already have a relationship with as a player?

[00:18:01] Taylor Roth: It was awesome. I mean Dale Wellman, he’s now at Nebraska Wesleyan. He’s won a national championship and just a phenomenal coach and another just really, really good person, which has been the theme of my journey. Just being lucky to be around good people. And so yeah, I got there and it was a little different because when I was helping out Coach Sheldon, I knew all the plays.

I knew our offense, I knew our defense. I didn’t know anything that Dale was doing. And he was running at the time, a lot of Princeton and two Guard and from John Beilien, it was pretty elaborate. And so there’s a large learning curve of I have to learn all this first before I can teach it.

And so, but I just dove into it. I didn’t have anything else to do. And when you’re young like that I was making no money, but I was the happiest guy in the world just going and teaching and coaching basketball every day. And so it kind of exposed me to a different style of play.

It exposed me to a whole new region of teams and schools that I’d never even heard of. And just allowed me to learn from somebody new who also does things that are really high level, just in a different way. And so I think when you’re young, the first thing you do is compare everything to where you played, right?

That’s hard because you just think that everything you did where you played was the right way. Right? And then you get somewhere else and you have over time realize, oh, this is totally different, but this also is effective. And it kind of helps you grow a little bit. And that definitely happened for me at Alfred.

[00:19:40] Mike Klinzing: Did you start putting together, for lack of a better term, a notebook with things that you sort of wanted to keep with you? Whether you continued on as an assistant coach for a few more years, or eventually if you’re thinking about getting a head job, did you start to put together that sort of, again, a notebook just a, a compilation of the things that you were learning?

[00:19:59] Taylor Roth: Yeah, absolutely. I was writing down everything and especially like with some of specifically like a lot of the offense and the things that we were doing was totally foreign to me. I loved it. So just jotting down everything and, and even going back in the notebook and writing things like, if I was running my program, this is what I would do and writing it out.

And then I somehow stumbled around that time too, something really good. I think it was John Beilein, but it was like 50 things that I know are true about basketball. Right. And it was just like, things about like, you know winning rebounding wins, right? All these things. And I just started trying to think, well, what are 50 things that I believe in my heart that I know are true about winning and losing in basketball?

And so just looking for things like that to help stimulate my growth mentally was pretty much all I did while I was there. And my notebook definitely took off once I got there. Did you still have that list of 50. It’s in a shoebox, I think up there. Again, you talk about all these different things, like I think I had read somewhere that Bob Hurley had all his drills and things in a shoebox, and I thought, well, if it’s good enough for Bob Hurley, that’s good enough for me.

So I got a bunch of things in a shoebox and I know that some of that stuff is still in there.

[00:21:28] Mike Klinzing: That’s funny. That’s good stuff. So you were at Alfred for a year and then you go to Bluffton. Talk about that transition.

[00:21:35] Taylor Roth: Yeah, so I my original goal was to get a graduate assistant position and I just had a hard time finding one that first year.

And so at Alfred, I was just kind of a part-time assistant that they gave a dorm room to. So the Bluffton thing opened up, again, small world Coach Neil had coached Tom Heil when he was a player at Bluffton, and then he also recruited coach Sheldon out of high school. So he talked to them and he got connected with me and I really wanted to get that master’s degree cause I knew most head jobs that was going to be something somewhat of a requirement.

So and then for me too, it was an opportunity to come back to Ohio, which I, which I wanted to do. And so that’s how I ended up with Coach and just, again, another, just tremendous person, but tremendous coach. I mean, he just retired after this year, but every day was just an advanced class.

One thing that was great for me, there was I was really the only assistant. And so at Alfred there was two of us. So at Bluffton, and I just had to take on everything with coach, the scouts, the laundry recruiting five, six nights a week, you name it. And he let me do that and trusted me with a lot of things.

And so yeah, I was really fortunate to kind of land there and pursue my graduate degree, which was really important to me at the time. Plus, you’re making a ton of money, man, right? Right. I’m going from one university housing spot to another. There you go. That’s the way to do it.

[00:23:12] Mike Klinzing: So obviously as the only assistant you’re taking on a lot of responsibility, both basketball and non basketball wise. I’m curious of the things that were maybe non basketball, was there any part of that that. I don’t know if, I don’t know if enjoyed is the right word, but were there things off the court that you got to do that maybe you didn’t even realize when you got started in coaching?

You’re like, I didn’t even know coaches did this, but maybe some things that you enjoyed doing kind of off the court, away from basketball that were part of your responsibility at Bluffton?

[00:23:46] Taylor Roth: Yeah, absolutely. I got to do some game management, like for other sports and kind of got, got introduced to some of the administrative side of things if that was ever something that I’d want to pursue.

And I really, really liked that. At Bluffton actually, one of the things I did was on one day a week, I had to line all the football fields for practice and stuff in the fall. So it wasn’t anything that was professional development, but it was kind of nice to just go outside for an hour and a half and just do something totally separate. But yeah, I got involved with the golf outing for the summer with alumni coming back and I’m sure there’s a million other things that I can’t even remember now cause there’s so many. But that’s the beauty of division three and being at a small college is, there’s just so many things you can get involved in and get your hands on.

And if you’re young and single like I was at the time and kind of eager to help and learn, I was able to do a lot of things. So those are a few things. Just like game management facilities stuff and helping with camps and just all this stuff that has nothing to do with X’s and o’s in coaching.

[00:25:07] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. I think that’s one of the things. Whenever we’ve talked to somebody who kind of got their start at the division three level, I think almost universally they cite that opportunity to just have their hands in so many different things where a lot of times they’re only, they’re the only assistant, or maybe there’s two guys, but no matter what it is, it’s not a huge staff and you just get to do and see all these different parts of the program.

Versus conversely, somebody who maybe starts at the division one level as a ga, you, you kind of get in there, or you’re an ops guy and there’s obviously a bigger staff. So you don’t necessarily get your hands in as many things as you do on the division three level. And so it’s just interesting to see how those different career paths, just how you kind of go, have to go about the learning process and, and what that looks like.

But on the division three level, obviously you get a chance to do a whole bunch of things. And one of them is recruiting. And I always think it’s interesting when you jump from one school to another, and obviously you’re moving from schools that are at a similar level, but you’re going to different geographic areas. So as a recruiter, one of the things I’m sure is important is being able to build relationships with the high school coaches and the AAU coaches that are coaching kids that are in that area. So just how’d you approach recruiting at your first couple of stops here as you’re going through and just thinking about going to a new geographic area and trying to figure out, okay, who are the kids that we have to recruit and how do we identify those kids?

[00:26:28] Taylor Roth: Yeah, I think, like you said, so much of recruiting is relationship based. And so for me it was just how many gyms can I get into? How many high school coaches typically can I call and talk to? And then I think the other thing that I tried to do, what was important was when you’re the assistant, a lot of it is you’re evaluating kids and being like, okay, I think he’s a good player, but you also have to kind of evaluate through your boss’s eyes of what type of kid does he like to coach, and who fits him and what is he looking for? And that changes too everywhere you go. So I tried my best to kind of learn as best I could early, like how do we play, who’s a good fit here? Who’s a good fit for who I’m working for? And then just getting in as many gyms as you possibly can in the beginning.

And then that what happens, I think a lot is like, you don’t get the first kid in the first cycle, but you do a good job. And coaches start to get to know you and then all of a sudden, the second year, the next round, you’re getting kids referred to you because they know you.

And so the only way to get to that point is just the work, just pure work, just getting in gyms, getting to know people, being visible. And I think that that’s, that’s the best thing you can do when you start in a new place.

[00:28:01] Mike Klinzing: When you’re trying to identify. The kid that fits with your head coach, how much of that is a direct conversation with the head coach where they’re kind of letting you know, Hey, this is the type of player that we like, and how much of that is you kind of looking at who’s already on the roster, sort of how the coach interacts with them and what kind of players they are, just what’s the balance between those two? I’m just curious.

[00:28:22] Taylor Roth: Sure. You blend it together. You know, I think some people you work for would be, are a little more direct just because maybe their play style or whatever is so specific. So yeah, it’s through conversations I think in the office and then a lot of it too is you go to an event together.

I always thought when I was at Alfred, what was great was Dale Wellman took me immediately recruiting. We went to this massive hoop group event and sat together and watched a million kids and then back at the hotel after he said, okay. Gimme your numbers, right? Like number four 20, I liked him.

Why’d you like him? And just kind of starting to develop that language between each other is definitely a big way to do it. And then you have to obviously look at your roster’s needsand things like that. But through conversations I think is the best way. I’m just being direct kind of with your boss and who are we looking for?

Who do you like, why do you like him? And that starts to give you a sense.

[00:29:23] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. And then you go and you have 4,000 players under one roof and you have to figure out who can play.

[00:29:28] Taylor Roth: Right. It’s some years it’s those turns so big, you’re just like, all, he made two shots, check them off and let’s, right, let’s move on.

[00:29:40] Mike Klinzing: Exactly. Yeah. Those things are, it gets crazy. So. Alright, so you go from Bluffton to New York City, man. Hmm. What’s that? What’s that like, just from a living standpoint? So you go from Bluffton University to nyu. What’s the living situation like at nyu? How do you figure that out in downtown New York, in Manhattan?

[00:30:01] Taylor Roth: Well, again, it’s going back to luck. I had a relative who was working in the city at the time. And so I had interviewed for two other jobs in the UAA that cycle, and I didn’t get either one of them. But both coaches and they both kind of must have thought somewhat highly of me.

So when Coach Nhi at NYU had an opening, it was like August. It was really late. And so he just kind of went to his guys he knows, said, Hey, I need an assistant. Kind of need him quick. Like, who do you have? And my name came up a couple times and I think. That’s kind of how I got in there.

And I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I’d live in New York or coach at nyu. I had never been to New York City, honestly, I think I’d been on one plane in my life before that. But I knew the UAA was this really unique conference and I knew how high a level it was within division three.

And I was just so excited to, to take that on and, and give it a shot. So it was definitely a culture shock learning the subway and trying to figure all that out and living. But I was lucky from a living arrangement because I did have a relative in the city already. And, and so that made it a little bit easier.

But taking a job like that in late August is always a challenge. So it was, it was quite a whirlwind.

[00:31:33] Mike Klinzing: What’s it like then? Living, recruiting, coaching in an urban area versus the three schools that you’ve been to previously are clearly not, not that anywhere is like New York City, but just what was it like just coaching a team in New York City and just maybe the energy and just kind of how it was different there?

[00:31:50] Taylor Roth: Well, I think the thing that I really learned there is just the efficiency. Like there is no time wasted in New York. And that’s obviously the whole city. It’s just constant movement. It’s efficient and what you figured out, like, for example, with recruiting, right? It’s a very specific college experience.

And so we just, it was quick. Get on the phone. What do you think? New York City? Yes. No. Okay. It was very polarizing. Right? And so it actually made it easier. Cause if a kid was a yes, well, There’s only maybe two schools, maybe Chicago and us, that are like each other. So you immediately thought, okay we got a really good chance here.

Now obviously they could get admitted. It’s a phenomenal school. It’s difficult to get into, but the efficiency at which we recruited and then some of the like, I don’t want to say blunt because that’s kind of has a negative connotation, but just getting right down to it. Like we think you’re pretty good.

You know, what do you think? Like visit what and the efficiency of that recruiting because we had no time to waste. I’ve taken that from there probably more than anything. And that’s really helped. Because you can apply that in a lot of different places is as opposed to kind of you’re recruiting somebody and they can say, oh I kind of like it.

And they’re looking at three or four different schools and you can’t really tell if they really are interested in you or not kind of. Because they can’t really figure out what they like and don’t like. And NYU helped me just learn how to present your school, present, how it’s different, how it’s unique, and then find out quick, like, is this interesting to you or not?

And if not, that’s okay. But we’ll move on. So that was really beneficial and kind of made recruiting a little bit easier. Practice was crazy while I was there. They actually tore the gym down after my first year, so we didn’t have a home gym my last two years. So we practiced in Brooklyn.

We practiced in different parts of Manhattan, different gyms. I mean, coordinating laundry. Mike, I could write a book on all the logistics that went into that, but it just made me a better coach for sure. It made me more efficient, it made me just think faster. And that was invaluable.

I’ve tried to apply a lot of that everywhere I’ve gone.

[00:34:11] Mike Klinzing: How’d you get guys around to these different gyms?

[00:34:12] Taylor Roth: So, They typically would just take the subway to practice on their own or city bike or whatever. So it’s kind of like we’re practicing at four and we’ll see you all in Brooklyn. And then it would happen.

And so it goes back to, I think my education background, my division three thinking on the fly background, it really came into play because there’d be times where a kid would text us and say, coach Subway stopped. I don’t know. And we don’t know what I’m going to get there. So it’s like, okay, well three of our point guards aren’t going, are going to be 45 minutes late today for practice.

And you’re already in warmups, right? So you’re like, okay, how are we going to figure this out? What are we going to do first? Let’s move stuff around. And so it was really challenging and stressful going through it. But the growth I think I took mentally from all the challenges we faced there has just been, just been so helpful everywhere I’ve been.

[00:35:11] Mike Klinzing: Tell me a little bit about the academic piece. At a school like NYU, and then I know your next stop’s going to be at Rochester, which we’ll talk about obviously two really super high academic schools and just what the experience was like working with kids who obviously take basketball very seriously. But in order to go to either one of those schools, you have to take your academics and your schooling really seriously too.

So just talk a little bit about the balance between the basketball side of it and the academic side of it at those two institutions.

[00:35:41] Taylor Roth: Well, I think the thing that I enjoyed about it looking back is I just felt like, I feel like the, how basketball fit into their most of their lives was in a very healthy way.

You know, for some of them the basketball was really like a break from biomedical engineering all day. They worked really hard. They were in the gym all the time, all that stuff. But there was some sense of, this is just a part of my life. And I always thought there was times that it made it easier for those kids to get out of a funk if they maybe weren’t playing well, what do we is we get back in the gym, we shoot more, we watch more film, we try to figure it out. And sometimes I think that makes it harder. And so I thought that sometimes the balance those kids had, cause they had these exterior stresses that were different than just kind of what we were trying to accomplish.

It almost made it a little bit easier for them kind of to navigate a season in the ups and downs of a season. But it’s also great because it’s a group that they want to know the why. They’re intelligent. So you have to be honest, you can’t fake anything with them. And I found it really, really refreshing and I thought there are some challenges like games around weeks that we had finals and all that stuff.

You know, it just has a different feel and it’s more challenging maybe than other places. But it was definitely different just in terms of kind of the balance between basketball and academics compared to maybe some other places.

[00:37:27] Mike Klinzing: And then how about factoring in the unique travel situation, the UAA, I know that people who listen to the pod all the time we’ve talked to, we just talked to Jason Zimmerman, although his episode but hasn’t aired yet, but by the time your episode airs, it will.

But you know, you talk about the travel and just the sort of called the plane, the airplane league because of the way that the travel situation is. So just talk about how you navigated that as a staff and, and making sure that, again, your guys are getting the basketball they need and also the academics when combined with that unique travel in the uaa,

[00:37:58] Taylor Roth: Yeah, it’s different. Proxy an exam on the road. Now we had times where there’d be a kid who would fly separate, like the day after or hours after, because he had a test. And so just doing your best to be a resource when they are on the road with how, what you need help, like kind of, oh, you need to print something, let me help you with that.

Do you know just being available to kind of help them get what they need, whether it’s wifi or whatever. Cause the academics, when we leave on a Thursday or whatever they’re still really busy and then Sunday night they’re flying back and they have to be back in class on Monday.

So yeah, that’s definitely a challenge. But it’s a lot of fun. And I thought, the thing that I enjoyed was every year I was in that conference, I was in it for five years and it was watching the freshman or the new kids go through it and just, Have so much fun with, we’re in Chicago now, we’re in St. Louis, we’re playing in these unbelievable venues, whether it’s the Palestra in Rochester or Wash U Gym all these historic places and checking out these cities and just kind of watching the kids experience. That was probably the part that I enjoyed the most and it made all the organization of it and the lack of sleep and everything else that you did on those trips made it worth it for sure.

[00:39:26] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s really cool to be able to get kids that kind of experience. You think about most division three schools maybe you get a chance to fly once, maybe during a season, whereas you guys are going, as you said, to major cities and traveling across the country. That experience, there’s no way that you can replicate that.

I mean, clearly beyond the basketball, but just the life experience of being able to go and do that, I’m sure is really unique. And for you as a coach, as you said, to be able to see those kids experience that for the first time, just kind of take it all in where just like you, right? A lot of those kids probably hadn’t flown and hadn’t been to a lot of places.

I’m sure there are a lot of them that had been, but there’s clearly some that hadn’t. So just to be able to have those experiences, I’m sure was super unique. Super unique. While you were there at nyu, at one point, you got a chance to be the interim head coach. What’s that like going from, Hey, I’m the assistant to now, I’ve scooted over 18 inches, and everybody always says that’s the longest distance in coaching.

So what was that interim experience like?

[00:40:28] Taylor Roth: It’s a challenge because it’s usually not under great circumstances, right? And so all of a sudden you know, coach Nhi is a tremendous coach and I love working for him. And so all of a sudden everyone’s kind of looking at you and you’ve have to kind of keep that thing moving and stay positive.

But what makes being an interim coach really challenging is you don’t really, and we were halfway through the season when it happened, is you don’t really feel like it’s your program and you’re not really doing things maybe on the court that you would do just because of when it happens and you know that you’re handing this back here at some point.

And so I just tried my best that it happened to me was to continue to execute the plan that I know coach and we all thought was best and make sure and do my best to make sure that the kids didn’t feel like we skipped a beat with practice and games and travel again, the UAA and just kind of doing our best to keep it moving.

But it was great for me obviously, just because learning how to coach in game. I remember we played Case Western the first game and I remember standing there doing the national anthem thinking to myself, I have no idea what I’m going to be like. Right? Like, you’re like, am I going to be a crazy person? Am I just going to sit the whole time?

Right? Don’t really know. And then all of a sudden the game just starts and you’re natural. Like whoever you are, you’re natural. And it kind of just comes easy. And I think that had that experience allowed me to be a little bit more comfortable in my own skin when I started at Hiram. Just because I kind of already had some confidence and knew kind of who I was on the sideline.

But it was definitely challenging, but also rewarding and beneficial for me to get that experience.

[00:42:21] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. To put that in your back pocket and know that at some point when you did get an opportunity that you would have that, that you could fall back on. I’m sure that was invaluable to you as you continue to move on and eventually got the job at Hiram.

In the meantime, you end up at another school in the uaa, university of Rochester. Tell us a little bit about how that came to pass.

[00:42:39] Taylor Roth: Yeah, so just being in the league for three years and you know, I had gotten to know Luke Flicker just over my time in coaching and obviously we played against each other several times, see each other out, recruiting and all those different things.

And so when that job openedI knew for me it was time to go, NYU had hired a new head coach and I just kind of knew myself as well. It was time for me to move on. And I really felt ready to be a head coach, but I also at the same time, wanted one more experience. I thought if I could work for somebody that I really respect  and does things differently than what I’ve seen in all these other places, that I really feel like I’m going to be ready.

And that’s kind of what it was for me. I got really lucky and I’m forever grateful that Luke brought me on. We had two really good teams. My two years there, we made the NCAA tournament my first year. And I just learned a ton. And I think it was a great kind of last step of you know, you’re, you’re ready to be a head coach, but now you’re, you’re really ready after you work for someone like that and in a program that prestigious.

So that was a really, really good experience. And my wife actually is from Rochester, so that was nice for our family as we were starting to kind of get serious and all that stuff. It’s always good to keep your wife happy. That’s always a good move, Taylor. Yeah. That’s the goal, right?

That’s the idea.

[00:44:09] Mike Klinzing: That is always a very good goal to accomplish. There’s no question about that. So did you start then looking around for head jobs after the second year and that’s when the Hiram job comes open?

[00:44:20] Taylor Roth: Yeah. I kind of looked a little bit after my first season there and went back and forth with Luke just on what do you think, what would be a good opportunity?

And he’s great because he really helps you with the interviewing process. Its you into interviews before, but really felt right. And they’re also really hard to get, obviously. Right. So I was more than happy to come back for another year. And then after that second year, Hiram opened pretty early in the spring.

I was familiar with Hiram from playing at BW and growing up in Ohio and the league it’s in and I knew it would be a slam dunk for me personally just being back in the area too. So, yeah. Went for it. And was fortunate enough to be offered the position.

[00:45:11] Mike Klinzing: What were some of the questions that you had for the administration before you took the job?

Because obviously there’s some things that you want to have in place if you can be able to build a successful program. So you can think back to some of the questions that maybe you asked them in the interview process, just to kind of give you a feel for what they were thinking in terms of the men’s basketball program.

[00:45:33] Taylor Roth: Well, I always liked to, and I remember asking them too, just like, what is a successful program? What does a healthy men’s vascular program look like to you and to this college? Because that’s defined differently, a lot of different places, and that always helps you get a sense. Are we on the same page here?

With kind of expectations and goal setting? So that’s always something I ask. And then I think it’s always important, like for me at the time, so I interviewed virtually. I never went to campus because that was right at the height of the pandemic. It was May, March of 2020. So a lot of my questions at the time revolved around what is next school year going to look like?

You know, how’s the college handling some of this? It was a really, really unique interview process. Yeah, absolutely. So that was some of the stuff I had. And then just kind of asking people in the department as well, just about their experience do they like it there? Is it a place?

You just want to get a sense of like, are you going to be supported? And are you going to be around good people? And so those are usually what my questions revolve around. And all those, I was able to get answered through Hiram. And by the time I was finished asking a lot of those questions, I felt really confident about if I was offered that job, I would absolutely take it.

[00:46:57] Mike Klinzing: So you come into just like the interview process, a very unique and unprecedented situation where everybody’s dealing with Covid, trying to figure it out, trying to figure out what the right thing to do is from a playing standpoint and just trying to get organized. So it adds a whole nother layer of complexity for you as a first time head coach.

When you think back to that moment when you’re looking around, you say, okay, what do we have to do to get this program to be able to. Do the things that we wanted to do to be able to find the success that you talked about a minute ago. What were some of the things that you looked around and said, Hey, I’ve have to figure these, these couple things out.

What were the most important things that you kind of thought you had to do when you first got the job?

[00:47:41] Taylor Roth: For me it was two things. I wanted to get a hold of every kid on the team that was supposed to return and just get a sense of if they were planning to come back, what their experience had been like to that point.

And just being very honest, you know understanding that I don’t expect you to trust me right away but we’ll work towards it. And all I’m asking you for is a chance and I’ll give you one is the same. And so trying to figure out, like, this is kind of what we’re going to try to do.

Let’s try to start building some relationships, even if it’s through Zoom to start and, and see kind of what we have and then pair that with, who can we still bring in? Because at the time I think we had had one kid committed for that next school year in that freshman class. And I just wanted that group to be a little bit bigger.

And so we were lucky it was Covid again, it was crazy. Our, we ended up bringing in I think like six guys or so six or seven. And it was all through Zoom. They never, they never visited Hiram. I’d never been to Hiram and we kind of just kind of agreed, hey, we’re going to figure it out together. But I really wanted high character people, people who work, love the game.

Were good players, but it was a lot of intangible stuff that had to be checked first, because I knew. You know, they hadn’t won a lot the year before and I knew it was with Covid too. I knew it was going to be really rocky. There’s going to be a lot of adversity. And so I just was looking for some kids that I could count on and we can add to the group we have.

And, so those are my two main things, and it’s paved off and dividends that group now is, they’re going to be seniors next year. And I give them so much credit. They’ve been through so much as college athletes and they’ve really helped us kind of set the foundation to what we think we’re going to be, start to be pretty good here.

Just because I could count on them for three years. So those were my two main things. Getting to know the guys returning and what can we still do with recruiting here in the last kind of ending stages there.

[00:49:55] Mike Klinzing: How difficult was it to do that through Zoom? I mean, obviously when you’re talking about trying to get at somebody’s character, There’s always right a face-to-face interaction and look at them in the eye and being able to talk to them where they’re standing there right in front of you.

And obviously in Zoom you can see each other, but there’s definitely some things that are lost in translation. And then you think about just trying to see the kids play and the challenges that that presented. Just how’d you go about doing that? Did you have a process? Did you think about it differently?

Just how’d you make that work? Obviously everybody had to figure out and, and navigate things that they had never navigated before. But I’m just curious about kind of how you went through the process of rethinking what you normally did face-to-face.

[00:50:40] Taylor Roth: Yeah. So right before I got the job when I was at Rochester, we had put together this relatively elaborate and I thought pretty impressive virtual visit for, at the time it was for juniors who weren’t going to be able to visit in the spring.

And so I kind of had a general blueprint of how to put something together virtually that would be somewhat sufficient. But then you’re right, you don’t get to see them play in person. You don’t get to shake their hand and meet them and meet mom and dad. And so I really had to rely on high school coaches of these kids and people that I knew if they were coached in an area that I knew people and having multiple conversations with them and their parents to get to a point where I was comfortable.

You know, the one thing I figured out kind of quick was there’s all these kids who were planning to take all their visits in the spring. And so it kind of put us on an even playing field. Cause for a lot of kids it was like, all right, well it’s March. I was going to do all my visits in March and now I can’t go anywhere.

And so it allowed us to kind of come in and be on an even footing with everybody, even though we were late to the game. So, It was advantageous, I guess, in that way. But it was definitely a unique process for sure, and it required a little bit more blind faith probably than you normally would have in a year.

And so I got lucky. We ended up with some really, really good kids and good players. Good to be back to normal, right? Oh, absolutely.

[00:52:13] Mike Klinzing: All right. So from a basketball standpoint, as a first time head coach, like you mentioned when you took over at nyu, it kind of wasn’t your program. You were just kind of a continuation of what had been.

So now you’re getting a chance to put your stamp on the program and you’ve had a lot of great people that you had an opportunity to work with. You’ve seen what works, you’ve seen what doesn’t work, you’ve seen things you like, that you don’t like. As you take that job, where are you in terms of. Your basketball philosophy offensive and defensively acts as and os wise about kind of how you wanted to play.

And obviously part of that depends on getting to know your roster and the players you’re bringing in and the players that are returning. But just from a basketball philosophy standpoint, where were you in terms of your confidence level as a head coach about how you wanted to play?

[00:53:06] Taylor Roth: Yeah, I had a lot of confidence because I’d worked for so many, I had had like five different experiences.

And so what I kind of knew was, first of all, whatever our strengths are going to be offensively or defensively, I probably have some level of comfort and putting a, a plan together that that fits our group. And so I think one of my strengths now is that I’m able to kind of change year to year just cause I’ve been into exposed to so many things and so many different ways of playing.

And so as an overarching theory and philosophy. Taking a step back when I took it was the NCAC’s an unbelievable conference. Worcester, Wittenberg, Ohio was it, I mean, Wabash in the final four, two years ago. And so it’s an unbelievable league. It’s really well coached. It’s also really big physical and kind of half-court oriented.

And my thinking at the time was if we’re just going to roll it out, roll the ball out and do what everyone else is doing, whether that’s ball, screen continuity, or whatever it is, we’re probably going to keep getting the same results. So we’ve, over time, as our team has changed more towards my philosophies, we’ve kind of moved to where we’re playing a little bit faster than most people in our conference.

Scoring a little bit more kind of playing a little bit more of a perimeter oriented way just because year to year so far anyway, we haven’t been able to match up inside. And it’s yielded some good results. Not quite what we want to do yet, but. We’ve definitely kind of found our own way of playing and our guys really like it.

And so that’s been good too. We’ve had some buy-in there, so it kind of just stemmed there. It was alright, like what are we going to do that’s different? Because we kind of need to do something different based on the hierarchy of the league and what our talent was relative to everyone else, or just in terms of how our kids were different our different strengths.

And then let’s apply all these different things that I’ve learned over the years. And I think one thing that’s a challenge when you first become a head coach is you, you slowly wean off of doing things just because people you respect and worked for did them. You know, whether that’s drills or off an offense you run is you have eventually you get to this point where it’s like, well, I’m not doing this because someone I really respect did it and it worked. I’m doing it because I think it’s best. And somewhere in that, early on in that first year, you start to make that separation. And that definitely happened for me. And it’s kind of evolved to where we are now, which is playing a little bit more fast paced, giving our guys some freedom.

And it sounds really silly, but we pass a lot. You know, I tell our, I tell everyone we recruit, you’re not going to graduate as the all-time leading scorer at Hiram. Cause we just don’t play that way. The ball moves and we’ve had a lot of success playing that way.

[00:56:06] Mike Klinzing: That’s one of the things when I think about the game of basketball and both as a player, as a coach, as a parent, as a fan, when you think about the kind of basketball that you like to watch, I think passing is something that if you really love the game, I think there’s just passing is so underappreciated in terms of just what it does for.

A basketball team and how it gets everybody to buy in and how it makes the game more fun for everybody who’s involved. And when I say everybody that’s involved, I mean coaching staff, players, fans, parents, everybody who has a stake in it. I think if you can teach your team to make that extra pass and be unselfish, it just makes the environment so much better.

Even look at all the way going to the NBA, you think about sort of the guys of the, the Russell Westbrook Triple Double Year, or James Harden or Luka, and those guys are unbelievably talented and the things that they do. And at the same time, you watch those games and you think, man, how much fun would it be to just stand in the corner and never touch the ball and then have to go back and play defense and only get four shots a game and you better make them, or else that that superstar guy is going to be angry at you.

And so I think to be able to have that philosophy of teaching the extra pass and moving the ball to me just makes a ton of sense. So from a coaching standpoint, How do you instill that in your team? Cause I think a lot of times you’ll see players, especially at the high school level, sort of like guys have it or they don’t, and sometimes it feels like just, how do you coach that?

I’m just curious what your philosophy is in terms of how you try to get that instilled in your players.

[00:57:46] Taylor Roth: Right. No, you’re hundred percent right. It’s hard. I think the one thing that I had to do the last few years is take a step back and realize I’m not that old, but the way these kids learn basketball, that’s kind of where I started was how are these guys growing up and learning basketball?

And it goes back to our conversation when I was growing up it was motion, right? Like reading screens and looking and, and being able to hit that pass. You see a guy read a screen and you know, to. And I think a lot of kids, just because they don’t play that way as much anymore in high school or they, maybe they, but they’re, they’re so much more advanced with their ball handling I think at times.

And the things they can do with their feet manipulate their feet that the passes you are asking them to make kind of have to change a little too. And so as a staff, like that’s one thing is let’s meet them halfway in a sense that we want them to be unselfish. We want them to make the right play, make the right pass, but let’s define it and make that pass be one that they’re capable of making and seeing because at our level, we don’t get that much practice time. So that’s kind of where we have started with it. And then it’s just constant. It’s every day, it’s not letting somebody, when there is a bad shot or selfish play stopping it and, saying, and pointing it out.

Right. And, and so, We use the phrase here a lot to start the domino, right? We want to, we want them to pass to where the help came from. Get help, make somebody help, and then pass to where they’re helping from. And I think little phrases and emphasizing that’s the idea. We’re trying to force a hard close out as a group and kind of defining what offense is, right.

And I think that’s kind of how we’ve gone about it. And then I think it becomes easy to get them to buy into it because they’re all touching the ball, right? As we said, the ball has energy and so like, you leave a practice and it feels good to hit a one more pass and the guy hits a three and he’s giving you a high five, right?

Or I think our shooting percentages go up relative to our skill level because we’re touching the ball. Whereas I think if you just stand there and never touch it, You’re going to shoot worse, right? So I think they feel like they’re making more shots they’re more engaged. And so it actually, and then it goes back to college, you get to recruit, right?

So you recruit that type of kid that that’s a good fit here. Then it all kind of, kind of comes together, I guess. So I know I kind of was all over the place, but that’s generally how we, how we get there with it.

[01:00:33] Mike Klinzing: No, that makes a ton of sense. It’s a really good answer and I think it clearly defines sort of how you guys go about encouraging that extra pass, which we know is not always easy to do.

It’s something that I think a lot of coaches, you just, you watch teams and sometimes you just see, Ooh, man, they just, they just would move the ball one more time. Things would be a lot better. And to your point, when everybody can leave practice happy, then you’ve really done something as a coach. And when you’re designing your practices and you’re trying to work on things, how much do you.

How much do you go five on five? How much is breakdown drills? How much is small-sided games? Just how do you put together a practice to be able to teach some of the things that you want to be able to teach to have your kids play the style that you want to play?

[01:01:17] Taylor Roth: Yeah. We probably lean more towards playing than drill work.

I refer at times in practice to drills as our batting practice. You know, it’s like a guy in baseball who’s just, someone’s grooving them pitches and he’s just hitting them and it’s not like realistic, but you have to work on that ball street coverage, you have to work on these different things, five on 0.

And so we’ll do a lot of that early in practice, but our practices are very much kind of live game play and like you. There’s always a good amount of three on three small-sided games. And then there’s kind of changing the constraints within a five on five setting. Right. And clearly defining those. What are we trying to work on?

We’re working on transition or we’re working on our split screen actions in three on three. And so I believe, yeah, you get better at basketball by playing basketball. I’m definitely someone who buys into that concept and believes in that. And I would rather blow my whistle more and stop live, play, but teach while they’re playing than kind of doing drill work.  But it’s all necessary for sure.

[01:02:31] Mike Klinzing: How do you balance that, keeping the flow of practice going versus blowing the whistle and stopping it? To be able to teach. Cause I think there’s clearly, sometimes that’s some of the things that coaches, I think sometimes struggle with is we all tend to get long-winded and we want to explain everything and explain it in great detail.

Whereas we know that the player’s attention span is a lot shorter probably in our ability to talk. So how do you balance out when you stop it versus one, maybe you pull a kid off to the side and you or your assistants talking to them while practice is still flowing.

[01:03:05] Taylor Roth: It’s challenging. I think, and I’m still trying to get better at it cause you can, you start playing five on five and you can go up and down three times and find 10 things you want to stop and talk about.

And so it helps if you have really good assistants. I have two really, really good assistant coaches. And so what it allows me to do is is what you said, just when a guy comes out or sub somebody out, I can just grab him and say, Hey This is what you should have been looking at in on that play.

Or you have to, you have to contest that shot, all those things because I know that my two assistants and my staff can kind of keep things moving for the next minute while I’m doing that. So pulling people aside is something I really try to do, but I think that balance is hard and I support some people recently, I really believe this, I was a phys ed major in college and just like managing a gym and having that education background, I think there’s a lot of value to that.

And there you develop this kind of intuitive sense and feel for flow, like what it needs to stop when it doesn’t need stopped. And I definitely lean on that a lot.

[01:04:19] Mike Klinzing: t How do you put together who plays with who during practice? So in other words, in one practice, do you have. Three separate teams that stay static during that practice.

Are you flowing guys in and out? How much do your starting five, how do, how much do you sub guys? 6, 7, 8, in with the starting five versus the first five, always going against the second five. Just how do you balance who opposes who in practice and who plays with who?

[01:04:45] Taylor Roth: Yeah. We, we kind of change it depending on the day just because of kind of what we need that day.

So a lot of times our first two groups will play against each other a lot and then often we’re cycling guys in and out and kind of interchanging those two groups a lot. But a lot of it just depends what we need. So there’s days where you want your best 10 or your best 12 competing against each other a lot.

And then there’s other days where you want those guys maybe playing against some of your younger guys you know, and throwing those guys into the fire and doing it that way. And then, We also, if it’s the day before a game, we want to keep our first 10 or whoever’s going to play together. And those guys will basically be on one team and they’re playing again.

And we have a very designated scout team. And so we might do that for drills two days before. If a team runs some stuff we know we’re going to have to guard and we’ll say, okay, hey, you know that that White Scout group, you’re on offense this whole time. And so our groupings kind of change almost practice to practice depending on what we’re trying to accomplish that day.

[01:05:55] Mike Klinzing: How do you keep your guys that are not playing as much as they would like, how do you keep those guys engaged in practice? What are you doing with them off the floor to keep encouraging them? Just how do you make sure that those guys continue to buy in? Because no matter what they might say, we all know.

If you’re not playing as much as you want to play or maybe as much as you think you should play, that that weighs on kids. And so what’s your conversation like with them as a staff to make sure you keep their morale up and keep them involved and, and keep them feeling positive about what’s going on day to day?

[01:06:31] Taylor Roth: Yeah, it’s really hard. And because a lot of these guys, usually it’s your freshman or your sophomores and they’re just coming from having the ball all the time in high school and playing a lot and all of a sudden it’s hard. It’s really hard. So what we try to do is I constantly try to come back to the long-term view for them, which is, this is what we see for you next year, this is what we see in the second semester.

If you keep working or we recruited you because you can do this, this, and this. And trying to reassure them that you are in the very beginning stages of a four year journey and the beginning’s usually the hardest. So do not kind of freak out based on how it’s going in the beginning and also not think it’s going to change.

And the guys who are able to handle that and come in with a little bit of humility and just keep working. And those guys usually get there. And so their wins often come in different places. So we kind of make them come in for skill work extra with coaches to kind of try to give them a little bit more individualized attention that they’re probably not going to get in practice that day.

And just constantly painting that long-term picture. You know, the other thing for me is I had a lot of times through my college years that I wasn’t playing or not playing as much as I thought I should. And so I kind of know how it feels and I know how to handle it. So we’re very upfront too.

I tell them what you’re going through is, is hard and frustrating, but you’re not unique. And so that doesn’t give you kind of carte blanche to stand over here and pout. You still have a job to do. And so we’re really not too forgiving either, I think. And just telling it, if you keep working at it, you keep doing what we’re supposed to, we recruited you for a reason, it’s going to work out.

But I think the hard part for most kids is it never really works out how they thought it was going to work out when they thought about college and college basketball. That’s impossible to kind of paint for them in high school. And so kind of dealing with that when it happens and making sure that you’re still building up their confidence is something we really try to do.

[01:08:46] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. That’s really well said because I think it does speak to sort of the unrealistic nature of what a lot of high school kids think about when they think about the college level. And especially when you start talking about. Division three basketball. Where again, what is everybody watching on tv? What’s everybody hearing about?

What’s everybody seeing being posted on social media? It’s all, I got this offer, I’m going to this school. Everybody talks about division one, and then you start talking about division three. And I think there’s such a lack of understanding of how good Division three basketball is and how good you have to be in order to play.

I know we’ve talked to a couple coaches, but I remember specifically a conversation with John Banes from Elmhurst early on, and John talked about he’d get these recruits that would come in and visit, and as he’s talking to me like, well, have you ever watched the Division three college basketball game?

And a lot of those recruits would say, well, no, I’ve never, I’ve never been to a Division three game and. Clearly, I think there’s a lack of understanding from both high school players and I think parents of how good your level of play actually is. And I think that probably leads to a lot of confusion, which leads to what you’re talking about, which is you have to communicate with those kids.

[01:10:02] Taylor Roth: Yeah. And I think most issues, and it’s not I think it was Pat Riley confrontation clears the air. I really think we try our best to have those conversations be upfront, get out in front of things. Again, it’s things I learned from Coach Sheldon, just how he did it. And yeah. I think it goes back to recruiting too, Mike.

I will admit, we’ve kind of not recruited or passed on maybe some kids that I just didn’t feel like they were going to be, they might have been phenomenal players and other people were recruiting them, but I just wasn’t sure they were going to be able to get through to that sophomore year, to that junior year.

And we’ve got some kids in our program now that. I don’t know. There’s probably a lot of people who didn’t recruit them, but we just believe that this kid and the kid and their family, his support system and that this kid’s going to make it and when he does as a sophomore or whatever, he’s going to take off and people.

So I think you have to kind of try your best to think about that too in recruiting is are these kids that are how much do they love it and how hard are they going to work? And what’s their support system going to say when it inevitably isn’t going well? And are we going to be able to keep them around?

And we’ve had some success kind of going that route.

[01:11:22] Mike Klinzing: What’s the recruiting process like for you start to finish? How do you come up with an initial list of players that you want to identify? And then just walk me through how you go about taking that original list and sort of paring it down until you eventually get guys that.

Enroll in the fall and become part of your program? What’s that whole process look like?

[01:11:41] Taylor Roth: Yeah, so we get names originally from like a million different ways. And it’s AAU tournaments, it’s high school games, high school coaches sending us names us proactively reaching out to coaches and who do you know, who was good in your league all those sorts of things.

And then just relying on your network which has been helpful for me is that I, I’ve recruited so many different places. I just know a lot of people, I think in the high school and grassroots type scenes. And so we get names from a lot of different places. And then our evaluation process starts almost after we see them play once.

And we always want to watch some high school film. I think everybody on our team now, I saw play in high school, one form or fashion, just I think the. Watching in structure and just seeing kind of what that looks like, I think is really valuable. And then calling their coaches. We don’t ever take anybody, if we haven’t talked to a coach that they’ve had.

Those are some of the things we do on the front end before we get them to visit. And then after they visit we try our best to spend the evaluation is kind of ongoing. I think on the visit it’s asking questions. I also try my best to, and I know it makes my assistants uncomfortable, but be silent at times and let a little bit of dead air happen because that’s often when you’ll get them kids and their families to ask questions and kind give you more information about them, which I think is valuable.

And suppose to me just talking at them about hiring or myself all day. So we really try to make those visits very laid back and conversational as best we can to keep that evaluation going. And then yeah, at that point I tell guys once you visit, I’m a guidance counselor, you’re not going to get a hard sell.

I’m going to present hiring to you and I’m going to answer any question that you have. And then when you exhaust your search, if this is what you’re really excited about, that’s who we want. We want kids who are excited about it. And once we kind of know they’re excited about it, those are the guys we want to take.

So in some ways maybe unique process. We don’t really like, I guess he would say offer kids until they’ve visited and they’ve kind of expressed interest in us first because we, we want to know that this is someone who’s enthusiastic of Hiram. And so we kind of reverse engineer it, I think a little bit compared to maybe other levels or whatever.

And then the summer, it never really ends, right? I mean, your summer and your spring is just staying in touch, communicating because this is a relationship that’s going to be ongoing and making sure they matriculate and enroll in the fall. That’s not always a guarantee. So with no scholarship attached, so just kind of keeping that relationship going and kind of getting them here once the summer hits.

[01:14:41] Mike Klinzing: How do you balance what you look for when you’re watching them with a high school team versus watching them with their AAU team? Are you looking for different things, similar things? What do you like particularly watching about each of those different environments?

[01:14:54] Taylor Roth: Yeah. I think they’re different evaluations in my mind. I think the AAU event, you definitely can see at times like, okay, this is clearly someone who can shoot. This is clearly somebody who’s extremely athletic. But there’s things like, I think it tends to become a lot more open floored than like a high school game, right?

And so ball handling or reading screens, navigating when a team is, has a scheme to stop you. And then how you play off that and you make the right decision. And those are things that you kind of have to see them in a controlled high school setting to really get a feel for all those things.

So a lot of times for us, the AAU evaluation is kind of like, what’s this kid’s skillset, right? Cause you can watch a ball go off a kid’s hand shooting it and go, oh, okay, like, he can really shoot. Or, oh, we, we may have a work cut out with that one. So you kind of get a sense for those things. And then the nitty gritty to me, in getting kind of deep into the weeds is watching them play a high school game, asking their high school coach about their skills.

You know what they’re good at. It’s kind of the next step. It’s a little bit more of a thorough evaluation for us.

[01:16:13] Mike Klinzing: All right. Once you get a kid on campus, how do you develop those kids into leaders? So I know one of the things that’s really important, especially at the division three level, is to have that leadership.

So when you start talking about the off-season where you can’t have the type of contact that you want, although I know that you’ve added eight days, which I’m sure you’re excited about being able to get your guys a little bit in the off season, but clearly having leadership is really important. So how do you develop leaders in your program?

[01:16:40] Taylor Roth: Yeah. You’re hundred percent right? It’s so critical. And I think that the first thing, and I think the challenge for us at Hiram is it’s easier when you’ve been winning and you have good examples, and you know exactly what that’s supposed to look like, right? It’s not just me explaining what a leader looks like.

You’ve got two or three of them that are doing it the right way. And we’re at a place now where this past year we had a couple seniors that were that way. And so now it’s gotten a little easier because there’s some really good examples. But it’s, to me, I think it’s conversations we try to meet with certain classes, the junior class, the sophomore class and to talk about it.

I’ll just go grab coffee with a guy on our team and just to talk a little bit about leadership and just in general, I’m pretty conversational about these sorts of things. And then trying my best too to clearly define for like the freshmen and for different groups on our team, kind of what everyone’s role is.

We talk to our team a lot about, you don’t have to be a captain to be a leader. You don’t have to be a senior or a junior to do the right thing and have people follow you. And trust you. And so we try to get as many guys as we can to have those good habits. So to make that a little bit easier.

But for the most part, for us, it just comes from dialogue. Getting feedback, obviously. How’s it going? Right? Because I can’t watch right now. I can’t watch open gym. But I can bring our juniors in or whatever and say, Hey, how’s it going? And, and we’re at a point now where they’re pretty honest with me and I’m honest with them.

And that allows us to kind of continue to grow. I think from a leadership standpoint.

[01:18:30] Mike Klinzing: We are coming towards an hour and a half, Taylor, so I want ask you one final two part question. Part one, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge? And then part two, when you think about what you get to do every day, what brings you the most joy?

So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy.

[01:18:51] Taylor Roth: Our biggest challenge at Hiram is just how good division three basketball is, where it’s the OAC, the NCAC you know, going from kind of the middle of our pack or toward the lower rung to beating established programs and beating them consistently.

That’s a huge challenge. And that takes work. So we know that’s what’s ahead of us and we’re pretty confident we’re going to be able to start doing that. And then, I feel very fortunate and blessed in that I don’t feel like I’ve ever went to work since I started coaching college basketball.

I love it. And for me, what brings me the most joy is just the relationships and being on a team watching our kids celebrate a win, have the light click from, whether it’s on the court or, or off the court. And watching the relationships. You know, like our team right now, it’s such a cool group.

We’ve got a kid on our team from Hong Kong, we have a kid on our team from LA, a kid from Spain, and then we got a kid from Ohio and watching them grow friendships and relationships and just kind of being around it, being a part of it and knowing that they’re going to have these for the rest of their lives.

And you kind of brought them together by recruiting them. That’s what keeps me going. And that’s what kind of gets me out bed each day.

[01:20:12] Mike Klinzing: Very cool. And well said. Before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you, find out more about you and your program. So if you want to share social media, website, email, whatever you feel comfortable with.

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

[01:20:27] Taylor Roth: Yeah, sure. So you can always reach me by email. It’s rotht@hiram.edu and then my Twitter handle is @CoachTRoth. And yeah, happy to connect with anybody and help anybody in the basketball world that I can.

[01:20:49] Mike Klinzing: Taylor, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to jump on with us. Really appreciate it and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.