KEVIN BRODERICK – NAZARETH UNIVERSITY MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 878

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

Email – kbroder0@naz.edu

Twitter –@NazBasketball

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Kevin Broderick is in his 15^th season as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Nazareth University in Rochester, New York and his 28^th overall as a college head coach amassing a 448-269 (.625) overall record through 27 seasons.

Broderick previously was the head coach at Oswego for 13 seasons where he coached the Lakers to eight straight winning seasons.

Broderick’s coaching experience includes two seasons as an assistant coach at Canisius College and one season each as an assistant at Genesee Community College, LeMoyne College and Nazareth. At Canisius from 1994 through 1996, Broderick worked under the direction of former Nazareth head coach John Beilein, who has had several Division I coaching stints, most recently at the University of Michigan.

As a player, Broderick was a four-year member of Nazareth’s basketball team and was team captain as a senior in 1988-89. As the team’s starting point guard for two seasons, Broderick averaged 7.7 and 8.4 assists per game for his last two seasons. He ranks third all-time in career assists at Nazareth with 460.

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Get ready to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Kevin Broderick, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Nazareth University in Rochester, New York.

What We Discuss with Kevin Broderick

• Winning a state championship in New York as a high school player
• Having 5 future college basketball players on his high school team despite having a graduating class of just 26 kids
• How he ended up playing at Nazareth after watching Jeff Van Gundy play against Oswego State
• Knowing he wanted to coach, but wondering if he could make a full-time living doing it
• Getting a GA job with Nazareth after graduating
• Working as a guidance counselor and coaching part-time
• “Even though I played here for four years, you realize. Number one, that you really don’t know anything about coaching, even though you played here, right?”
• “I just could not be really happy unless I’m in the gym all day. I’m a coach.”
• Working part time with John Bielien at Canisius before landing his first full-time coaching position under Bill Van Gundy at Genesee Community College
• “Working for Bill Van Gundy was just a life changing thing for me.”
• “You don’t coach for coaches, you coach for players.”
• “To really develop as a coach you have to get your own team and make your own decisions.”
• Getting the head coaching job at Oswego State when it was a part-time position before it became full-time in his second season
• Developing his philosophy as a head coach, how the defense came first and the offense took a little longer
• “We have a very specific way that we believe in that we know how to teach. We don’t start from scratch each year. And I would say that about 80 percent of that is not going to change very much.  And the other 20% we’re going to adapt and be flexible based on  the skills and talents of our players.”
• “Predictable is not always a bad thing”
• “Everybody wants to think outside the box.  The answers are oftentimes in the box.”
• “Being complicated, that’s just not our priority”
• “I just feel awful if I contribute to losing by asking our guys to do something we just simply have not repped enough, that’s bad coaching.”
• The difficult decision to leave Oswego State after 13 seasons and return to his alma mater Nazareth University
• His priorities when he first took over at Nazareth
• Getting Alum Jeff Van Gundy involved with the program
• “Don’t confuse the hardest worker with most competitive.”
• Advice for coaching your own kids after he coached his three sons at Nazareth
• Why looks for great teammates when he’s recruiting
• The value of a recruit’s senior year in high school when it comes to evaluating them as a prospect
• Making practice fun, challenging, and meaningful
• “What happens the most in the game? What’s most impactful to winning the game?”
• “The practice plan doesn’t run me. I run the practice plan.”

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THANKS, KEVIN BRODERICK

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TRANSCRIPT FOR KEVIN BRODERICK – NAZARETH UNIVERSITY MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 878

[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 Kevin Broderick, the head men’s basketball coach at Nazareth University. Kevin, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod

[00:00:12] Kevin Broderick: Thanks for having me, Mike. Jason really appreciated your work over the years.

Wish I could listen to all of them, but I’ve listened to a bunch and really appreciate the work you guys do.

[00:00:25] Mike Klinzing: Well, thank you for those kindwords. We are always appreciative of people who give us praise because you sit here and sometimes you’re talking on the, into the microphone and you know that people are out there listening and we’re able to see statistics and all that, but it’s still nice to hear it directly from somebody who finds value in it.

And to that end, we’re also excited to have you on the other end here on the microphone to be able to share some of your wisdom and knowledge with our audience. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me a little bit about some of your first experiences with the game of basketball and what you remember.

[00:00:59] Kevin Broderick: Yeah. So I grew up in Fulton, New York you know, pretty close to Syracuse. I had two brothers, younger brother, older brother, and, you know, we were simply just a basketball family and a basketball community. There’s a little bit of, Sandlot baseball, there’s a little bit of it. We didn’t have Pop Warner football you know, dabbled in some other sports, but we were, you know, a basketball family and a lot of CYO basketball.

We always went to Catholic school and we had a terrific league starting really as young as third grade. And this was, you know, pre AAU and all these Some of these events that happen now, but we just had a tremendous amount of opportunity to play and you know, started playing really young and loved every second of it.

[00:01:48] Mike Klinzing: What do you rememberabout some of your early coaches? Is there anybody that stands out or any lessons that you remember learning from those early coaches during that time?

[00:01:58] Kevin Broderick: Yeah, I think I, I, I think all the time about just how, how lucky I’ve been, which on every stop I’ve been you know, learned from.

You know, great coach is my first coach and third grade you know, guy by the name of Nunzi Fashera, which, you know, he just loved the game, loved to be in the gym with the kids. It was very low pressure. Just, just learn how to play and enjoy it. And And I think that’s so important for young people. We just, we just love to be around him.

And there was no, no yelling and screaming. Let’s just, let’s just enjoy the game. And now when I got to high school and I went to Bishop Cunningham, which is a Catholic school in Oswego, New York. And we were, we were clearly a basketball school and we, I, my graduating class had 26 people, but We had five college basketball players on my, on my team my senior year.

And you know, I had a guy by the name of Chuck Possessi who had never coached before. And, you know, my, a few years before I started, he, he got the job at Bishop Cunningham and he was one of the great players of from Syracuse. They had a parochial league in Syracuse. He’s one of the great players of all time.

And he learned how to coach, but right away he knew how to compete and there was a intensity with everything we did and I was lucky enough my senior year we, you know, we won the state title. We won our last 18 games and it was everything you’d, you’d hope to get out of a high school career. And as I said, it was a tiny school and, you know, five of my teammates played college basketball, which is just so unusual.

[00:03:39] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s pretty incredible. I mean, 26 kids. How many of those were boys? Was it half and half?

[00:03:45] Kevin Broderick: Yeah, we joke it was all about you know five or six families with a with a lot of kids, but It was clearly a basketball school. It wasn’t you know, I played a little bit of football, but in a class D small school We we didn’t have You know, we didn’t have enough numbers to be good in football, but, you know, it was all, it was a, you know, a tremendous, even back in the fifties and sixties, it was you know, a dominant basketball program.

So you know, that’s part of why I went there and it was you know, basketball was important from day one and you know, just to, to play on, play at a school that basketball mattered and, you know, all of our teammates knew it.

[00:04:30] Mike Klinzing: What a tremendous experience. Was thatstate title your favorite memory or do you have another one or two that maybe stand out for you?

[00:04:35] Kevin Broderick: Yeah, you know, the state title was, was so you know, so special because it was we had one you know, we had always, my My junior year and I didn’t play varsity till I was a junior. My brother was, was the point guard. My brother Sean was the point guard. My freshman and sophomore years, I wasn’t going to play and sit.

So certainly behind my brother. So I didn’t, I didn’t even play varsity to my junior year and we had been. My junior year, we had been a second place team. We, we couldn’t get over the top. And I think we had tremendous dedication from the whole team that summer you know, it was sort of in New York, it’s a big deal to get the Glens Falls, Glens Falls is where the state title was.

And it was just like, let’s get, you know, we get the Glens Falls, which. You know, school had never done it. It seemed a little bit almost unrealistic, but, but we really, really worked at it. And you know, it was the ultimate team, right? You know, we had, as I said, we had five college players, you know, everybody could play.

You know, we had beat a team in the state title. called Bridgehampton from Long Island that basically won it every year. And it was a, it was a double overtime game. And you know, the whole school was there and it just, it just does not get any better than that.

[00:05:57] Mike Klinzing: Be able to have that memory. I mean, there’s obviously lots of people that.

Get an opportunity to play college basketball at some level, but the number of players that get an opportunity to win a state championship, it’s pretty special. And, you know, I think that when you start thinking about those kinds of memories and doing it with guys that, as you said, you guys are all, I’m sure in the same classes every day together, you’re, you’re playing together, you’re friends.

And to me, I think that there’s nothing better than that state championship. As a high school player, just because of, again, that camaraderie that you kind of feel with your teammates, do you still stay in touch with

[00:06:34] Kevin Broderick: those guys? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, it was, and it was a great lesson because we knew we knew that we won because we were a great team with, you know, we understood the value of team.

Nobody, nobody really cared who got the credit. We just, we just wanted to win. And you know, there’s a, you know, there’s lifelong memories and we don’t even have to talk about it enough. We just, we just sort of know when we get together that you know, our school since closed, you know, a few years later, you know, just because of enrollment, it closed, but, you know, that doesn’t stop us from connecting.

And, you know, we just know, and it was, it was hard fought, well earned and you know, it was you know, extremely, there’s, There’s no memory I have as a player better than that. What about

[00:07:25] Mike Klinzing: college basketball? When did that get on your radar as far as thinking about, hey, maybe I have a chance to play at the college level?

Was that something that you dreamed about growing up? Was that something that came to you a little bit later when you were in high school? Just what was your thought

[00:07:38] Kevin Broderick: process? Well, I wanted to be the quarterback in Notre Dame when I grew up, but I quickly learned that that, that was zero, zero chance.

Right. But you know, and again, winning that state championship pre, pre AAU, I mean, this is 1985. There was very, very little AAU or exposure camps. The players on our team, especially me, got the benefit of, Hey, you keep winning and more people see you and you, you get more opportunity. And you know, it’s funny.

I, I knew about Nazareth as a junior and senior and you know, it was everything I was looking for, I thought. Small school, Catholic school, tremendous basketball tradition, even though they’d only had basketball for seven or eight years, and they’d only had men at the school that long, but immediately they were good, and it was funny, my senior year, I got to coach eventually both at Oswego and Nazareth, but I went to a game, you know, my, my high school was in Oswego.

I went to a game, it was Oswego State against Nazareth. And I’d never seen, I knew some of Nazareth’s players, but I’d never seen them play. And the game ended. They didn’t finish the game. There was a fight. Nazareth was winning. There was a fight. 54 seconds. They never finished the game. So I don’t know who won the fight, but Nazareth won the game.

And, and there was two takeaways I had leaving that game. Number one, it was, you know, there was a precision and a togetherness and a just the way basketball is supposed to be played, uh, that Nazareth exemplified. And I was like, that. I want to play there. And, and that, but the second takeaway was, uh, you know, I watched Jeff Van Gundy was the point guard on that team.

And I remember saying to, to one of my brothers, right. If that’s, if that’s what a division three point guard looks like, you know, I’ve played my last game cause that, that’s, that’s not my level. And, you know, luckily I learned that, you know, Jeff was an all American caliber point guard and he wasn’t the norm.

So, you know, my high school coach did a great job of telling Nazareth, Hey, You know, this, come see this kid play. He wants, he wants your school. And you know, because we won and, you know, got to the state title, they, you know, Nazareth, again, it was a two years removed from being an Elite Eight team. They were in, in the early eighties.

They were one of the very few schools that were Ever. just recruiting so intensely across the state. And for a while, I think I was the only guy they weren’t recruiting, but thanks to my high school coach, you know, they, they did come recruit me. And you know, I just you know, I visited and I was, it was just the perfect place.

So you know, they were coming off. You know, 21 seasons, Elite 8 two years ago, so I did not play hardly at all my first two years, and I didn’t deserve to play. I was on teams that won 45 games in two years, and we, at the time, you know, Potsdam was, you know, winning national titles, so the way the NCAA was, we always had to go to Potsdam to play the East Regional, and it was really hard to get out of that, and you know, both years, we lost at Potsdam but…

You know, we were an NCAA tournament team. And then my last two years, you know, I got a chance to, to compete a lot. And it was you know, it was the perfect place for me. And again, another place like my high school where basketball mattered. It was important to the school. It was important to everybody.

And I played for two great coaches Bill Nelson, who I played for my first year. And he went on to coach. The next 23 years at Johns Hopkins just terrific coach. Then Mike Daly, I played for for three years, who, you know, just coaches I admired, respected you know, they, they were everything that coaching should be about.

So I couldn’t have got any luckier at Nazareth. What were you thinking about

[00:11:33] Mike Klinzing: academically in terms of a career? Was coaching already something that you were…

[00:11:37] Kevin Broderick: You know, I, I knew that you know, deep down I knew I, I’d always want to coach and I was a little bit afraid to you know, I didn’t know anybody who did it other than my college coach that did it full time or I didn’t at first recognize that It was really a career that you could do full time.

And, and I wasn’t sure early on that’s what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to coach and teach maybe high school. And, you know, so I got a teaching degree and, you know, student taught and you know, like that, but you know, new, new always. I know, I remember my senior year just really. understanding pretty early.

I’m not, I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when this is done. Right. I don’t have a lot of other hobbies and, you know, I knew I would want to coach. I, I just wasn’t sure you know, doing it for a living. I, I honestly, you know, I knew that it wasn’t the easiest way to make a living. So it scared, that part scared me at first to be full time with it.

So when you graduate,

[00:12:40] Mike Klinzing: what’s the job search process look like? What are the conversations you’re having with your parents? Where’s your mindset as you’re graduating?

[00:12:47] Kevin Broderick: Yeah, you know I was actually had got a degree in business education, so I had a business degree, I had an education degree, I was, you know, towards, by the end of graduation, I was even, you know, really struggling with Coach Daly, who was, you know, if you were to speak with anybody in upstate New York, you know, Mike Daly is, is you know, maybe the classiest coach and the most honest.

And I trusted him with you know, with everything. And so I was constantly that senior year at the end in his office. And he had helped me get an opportunity to go to grad school and, you know, graduate assistant at Division I Niagara. And I, I Thought long and hard about that, but in the end, I, I decided to basically be a graduate assistant for Coach Daly.

I, I just, you know, I thought he was a great coach and he was, and I just, you know, he was, he meant so much to me. I just wanted to be around him and learn. So I started there. You know, I was in grad school you know looking at a teaching career. I also got, you know, a master’s in counseling and moved into, I was a guidance counselor for a year.

So there was a few years of just coaching on the side, thinking I didn’t want to do it full time. But eventually I just decided I got to do this full time. What’s the

[00:14:09] Mike Klinzing: transition like going from being a player under Coach Daley to being an assistant coach with him? I know that’s one of the things that I like to, that’s a question I like to ask just because I think when you describe your relationship player coach it obviously changes when it becomes coach coach and I always think that for guys that make that transition obviously the head coach has to do a good job of facilitating that and making sure that the former player now coach feels comfortable and then I think also it takes a little bit of Self confidence as the player transitioning to a coach.

So how did you guys approach that part of the relationship to change from player coach to coach coach?

[00:14:48] Kevin Broderick: Yeah. And, and first of all, it was, I think as a player as soon as you become a coach, you realize, even though, Hey, I played here for four years, you realize. Number one, that you really don’t know anything about coaching, even though you played here, right?

It just, I had a steep learning curve there. And you know a little bit about the game, but I didn’t know what really being a coach meant. I didn’t understand. I knew Coach Daly was always in there working and he was always prepared for every practice and game, but You know, I really had no idea all the things he was getting done in a day and then, you know, and then there was a, obviously a little bit of an adjustment that, you know, these guys had just been my teammates.

So it was, it was you know, that right away always has an adjustment. And, you know, coach Daly helped me understand that, you know, that, that means you can’t right away be, you know, you know, to. You know, on guys and yelling at them, but, but there’s still a role for helping them get better and, you know, being part of it.

And, and again, I was just, you know, I didn’t know, I certainly knew that I had a lot to learn. And you know, I was very thankful that in the end, the level didn’t matter to me, you know, going to vision one, I just, I knew that if I started my career with coach daily and, you know, what I learned would be the right things.

That

[00:16:15] Mike Klinzing: year sort of cement for you that college, if you were going to stay in coaching, that college is where you wanted to be as opposed to maybe juxtaposing that with your experience as a student teacher and thinking about spending your days in a classroom and then just coaching after school. How

[00:16:31] Kevin Broderick: did you think about that?

Well, I knew I knew I wanted to do it full time, but I. Number one, there wasn’t, there wasn’t a million full time assistant jobs out there and to make full time money. And, you know, I kind of made the decision to you know, finish my master’s and get, you know, I was a, I was a guidance counselor and coaching on the side.

And so it was, that was sort of an economical decision, but, you know, and that’s, you know, that’s a very challenging job, which I you know, I learned every day, but I also learned that I just could not. You know, I could not be really happy unless say I’m, I’m in the gym all the, all day. I’m a, I’m a coach.

And so, you know, I had been with Coach Daly for a year. I had been a part time assistant you know, while, you know, while being a guidance counselor at at LeMoyne with John Beeline. And, and then at one point I just made the decision, Hey, I, I, I got to pursue some full time opportunities. And And give myself an opportunity to, to do this full time.

It was you know, you take a pay cut. It’s, I knew by that time, I knew some of the hard parts of the job, but I also knew the good parts of the job. And it took a few years of that for me to say, okay, I’m all in, I gotta figure out how I can do this. And and I’m glad I did.

[00:17:53] Mike Klinzing: Once you make that decision, how does that change the way that you pursue the next opportunity?

Does it just how does it motivate you? What do you do maybe differently in terms of just thinking about the way that you pursued that next opportunity?

[00:18:11] Kevin Broderick: And I was You know, basically at the time I had been you know, with Coach Daley at Division 3. I had been with John Beeline, which was a tremendous opportunity.

You know, I was a young co young guy that, you know, a part time assistant. You know, given scholarships at the high level working for john beeline you know, but it was part time. So I just made the decision. Hey, if I can get a full time opportunity at the the level doesn’t matter. But what matters is, you know, who do you get is a full time and who do you get to learn from?

And I, I caught a huge break because You know, Bill Van Gundy, who was, you know Jeff and Stan’s dad, who was a long time, you know, he had been a Division III coach. He had a life from coaching and, you know, he had a full time spot at junior college, Genesee Community College. And you know, I was just getting married at that time.

And it was my wife, Jennifer, who had, you know, been a student athlete in Nazareth too. And it was, She was from Rochester. It was the right location, the right place. And, and that that’s a move that I, you know, I’m so thankful for because working, and it was only one year, but working for Bill Van Gundy was just, you know, a life changing thing for me.

And every, you know, he, he spent so much time saying, Hey, this is, This is what it means to be a coach. This is what you are expected to do. And anybody who knows Bill, there’s, there’s no gray area. He’s going to tell you exactly what you’re supposed to do and evaluate it. And it was, it was exactly what I needed as a young coach.

And it was life changing. What are one or two

[00:19:57] Mike Klinzing: things that he taught you during that year that you still carry with you to this day? Things that maybe you can still hear him saying or sharing with you, or maybe a moment that brought those things to life for you. Can you think of anything that fits that

[00:20:10] Kevin Broderick: description?

Yeah, I mean, there’s, there’s two that quickly come to mind. You know, one of the first things he said to me as a young coach and And then he demonstrated every day. He said, and I think about this every day when I put a practice plan together, he said, you don’t coach for coaches, right? You coach for players.

And, you know, maybe as a young coach, you know, you’re thinking, Hey, I want to run a pretty offense or be you know, have other coaches impressed with my work. You know, he said, you you spend every day thinking about, hey, what does this particular group of players need? This, this team needs, and that’s your focus and that’s the end.

And he, he lived that, you know, at junior college, sometimes we’d have the guys for one year or two, and you know, there wasn’t time to develop like a four year school was. And he was so masterful at You know, the efficiency of every second and, you know, simplifying the game so people could play, you know, fast and worry free and, and then the, you know, how we held them accountable to get better.

And I mean, I think about that every day and he didn’t just say it, he demonstrated in the second thing. You know, when you think about a guy that respects our profession and really. You know, believes in the coaching profession believes there’s a right way to coach one, one thing. And I didn’t, I didn’t realize at the time how significant this was.

And I think about it all the time now is that so I’m with them for one year and we’re playing a very hotly contested game on the road against the team that you know, we, we. was really good and it was somewhat of a rivalry and always a hard game. And you know, they had somewhat of a volatile coach and it was about a tie game with about eight minutes to go.

And we made like five plays in a row and, you know, started to pull away, started to control the game. And, you know, the other coach thought maybe he was getting it. Getting the you know, not a fair shake from the officials. And now this guy was way, way bigger than Bill Van Gundy. And, you know, Bill had had some health issues and all of a sudden he is storming the referee.

He’s, you know, left his bench, he’d crossed half, he’s full sprint. And, and I remember in the split second thinking, You know, good. This’ll, this’ll seal this one. And this is, you know, and Bill immediately sprinted out there, bear hugged this guy and said, you don’t want to do this. You don’t want to do this.

Right. And, you know, totally calmed him down, situation over. I really think that if he hadn’t done that it would have been really ugly. And I remember thinking, I didn’t, you know, we win the game and I didn’t think about it that much. And about two years later that coach, you know, he got a division one job and I’m thinking that doesn’t happen if Bill doesn’t do that.

And that was so consistent with how he operated and it was about the game. And, you know, he literally in that split second was thinking about a coach’s career and he’s as competitive as they come. But that’s what he was thinking. I don’t know too many other people that would think like that. And, you know, I’ve had.

You know, it’s been 30 some years since I worked with him, but probably once a week or once every couple weeks, I’m calling him saying, coach, help me with this. You know, two days ago it was, you know, our ball screen defense, right? So it’s yeah, it was life changing to work for Bill. Let me ask you the same question about

[00:24:02] Mike Klinzing: Beeline.

What are some things that you think back that you learned from him?

[00:24:06] Kevin Broderick: Yeah, I can remember thinking when I was with him as a young coach at Le Moyne and nobody had heard of John Beeline outside of Syracuse yet, right? He wasn’t a national name and a Hall of Fame coach yet like he is. And I remember thinking, there’s no way there can be.

That many people out there that can do it as efficiently, as good as he can. And, you know, when I left working for Bill Van Gundy, I also got two years with John as his assistant at Canisius and you know, obviously you know, his ability to teach you know, such a master of teaching the fundamentals, you know, one of the things that always inspired me as a coach is that he was so…

motivated to do everything a little bit better. He loved to go watch high school recruits at practice and he’d always come back from practice like excited saying, Hey, you know what? This high school team did the shooting drill a little bit better than we did. They, they get 10 more shots off in a minute than we do.

So we’re going to do that. And he was, he was always, always doing that. And you know, I don’t, I don’t think I’ve ever sat with him. You know, when I was with him for three years at a restaurant where he didn’t. Pull a handful of change out of his pocket and put it on the table and start moving it around and X’s and O’s he never stopped.

And and the other thing, you know, John was and I share this with my team every year. You know, John was most of his career at LeMoyne was the compliance coordinator, right. And you know, I think in 2017, I think it was sports illustrated did a. A poll and there’s 400 some. Division one coaches.

So it’s a ballot with 400 people you could vote for, for the cleanest coach in college basketball. And, and John got 26 percent of the vote when you can vote for 400 people. And, and again, that when I worked with him, that was very consistent with how he operated. He didn’t, he wanted to know. every NCAA rule, not so he could find a way around it.

So, so that he could protect his team and his school. And, you know, that was a lesson every day. We, we spent certainly at Canisius every day, there was some discussion about how do we do this and not, you know, break an NCAA rule. And you would see with a 20 hour rule that all of a sudden somebody would say, Hey coach, your 20 hours is up.

And he had five minutes left in practice. That’s, you know, what a great example for young coaches. When did you start to think that you were going to maybe be ready to look for a

[00:26:51] Mike Klinzing: head coaching job? Was there a moment that it struck you that, Hey, I think I’m ready to start looking and maybe go on some interviews and see if I can’t get a job or was it something that kind of built up gradually?

[00:27:05] Kevin Broderick: Yeah, when I worked for John Beeline the, the second time at, at Canisius and we had three assistants, you know, Mike McDonald, who’s now the coach at Damon, a great coach. And, you know, Phil Seymour was a terrific coach. And, you know, so I was the third guy and I think all of us you know, and I had replaced one of my best friends in coaching, Dave Nyland.

And I think all of us who worked for John understood that, you know, he was never an assistant coach. He learned by doing, you know, he’s a high school coach, a junior college coach. And, you know, before he got a chance at division one he had already won 250 games as a head coach. So he always impressed upon us the importance of, hey, that to really develop as a coach.

You got to get your own team and make your own decisions. So early on, we, we all had that mind frame and, you know, I’d played division three, I’d loved division three. And so I was very comfortable starting to, starting to look for. Division three. I loved working for John in division one, but I was after two years there.

I think I was 27. I was dying to have my own team. And, you know, the Oswego State job opened it being from Oswego. They, they just hadn’t had a lot of success. Most of the. Time they had had part time head coaches, you know, some good coaches, but really hard to do it part time. And so because they advertised it first as a part time spot I didn’t have to beat out a million people, but so I, I just didn’t.

And I got that job and I was there a week. And. They made me full time and, and the admissions office. And then the next year I was a full time coach. So, and having lived there and grown up there, I knew it was a great school. I knew it was a place kids like to go to. I knew it was a good job. So, I mean, I wasn’t afraid to take it part time.

I was, I don’t know how ready I was, but I was dying for, for that opportunity. And you know, again, I think that maybe if it was a full time position, I probably wouldn’t have got it. What was the learning

[00:29:14] Mike Klinzing: curve like in terms of game management? Because up until this point, basically your entire career, you’ve been an assistant and when you slide over on the bench and now you’re making those in game decisions.

I mean, there’s a ton of decisions that came well before you played a game, but just thinking about the, just the game reps that maybe you didn’t have as many you know, coming in because again, you had been sitting in the assistant chair. So what do you remember about the learning curve as far as game management?

Mike Klinzing.

[00:29:42] Kevin Broderick: Yeah, and I think you know, I was like so excited to, to get the job and, uh, thought I, thought I had a pretty good plan, but I think, you know, looking back and I know that I knew exactly how I wanted to coach defense. I knew, you know, it’s with you know, coach Van Gundy and it was all half court man to man, you know, no zone you know, simple rules you know, stressing.

You know, intense play. And I just knew exactly how I wanted to play defense. And I thought I really didn’t have a good enough plan with offense. You know, if, if you’re a John Beeline disciple that, you know, this two guard offense, which frankly it was it was, it was so complicated. I think that’s why I it wasn’t complicated for John or it wasn’t complicated for the players, but you know, back then.

He hated to write it down. He was, he was worried about people, you know, stealing it. And, and, you know, it was so hard with John to keep up with him day to day. And, and it was his offense and it was so good. And you know, everything about the fundamentals of the offense and the, the pivoting and the spacing and so much of that, I copy every day.

I just didn’t think that You know, at Oswego at the time we were definitely going to have some, some junior college players, which we only had them for two years. And it just felt like even for a masterful, masterful teacher like John, it took a while. So I guess being impatient. So I just didn’t think I could do that implement that.

So it just took me a full year to really decide how I wanted to play on offense. And obviously we all evolved with that, but You know, I sort of cheated that first team on that end of it. And you know, that’s, you know, I don’t think I’ve ever gone into a season since then without really having a very specific plan of how we want to play at both ends of the floor.

So I had half of it, but not the opposite. What does that

[00:31:51] Mike Klinzing: year to year planning process look like for you when one season ends and you look at who you got coming back, you look at guys you’re bringing in and clearly you have a way that you like to play, but some of that has to be dictated by who the players are that you have on your roster.

So what’s that

[00:32:08] Kevin Broderick: process look like? Well, And again, I did sort of copy from John that you know, being a system coach that, hey, we, we, we have a very specific way that we believe in that, you know, we know how to teach. We don’t start from scratch each year. And, and I would say that, you know, about 80 percent of that is, is not going to change very much.

And the other 20% You know, we’re going to adapt and, you know, be flexible based on you know, the skills and talents of our players. I think the system is flexible enough that, hey, if the best player this year is a point guard, well, we can emphasize that if the next year it’s a post player. But but I think, and, and John was really big on this, is that, you know, you just, you can’t procrastinate to implement what you want.

You know, wait around and see who can do what with, with all of it. So, you know, we start every year, uh, certainly with a lot of off season planning, but you know, and we get to recruit to our system. So there’s not a, certainly part of it has to change, but, you know, we’re not going to. You know, we’re not going to start over every year.

And, you know, Bill, Bill Van Gundy always talked to, to me about the, you know, predictable is not always a bad thing, right? Is that, you know, my biggest focus is, Hey, do our, do the Nazareth players know what, what we’re about and what we’re supposed to do and. You know, we’ll worry, we’ll worry next if, if our opponent.

[00:33:45] Mike Klinzing: Funny that you say that because that’s one of the things that when I was a high school varsity assistant,

[00:33:51] Kevin Broderick: I always felt like

[00:33:53] Mike Klinzing: that was the key to our team’s success was how well could we execute what we were supposed to do. And I always felt like as, and this is coming off me. As a player and thinking back and clearly like I played, I’m just a couple of years younger than you.

So we played in sort of the same era where I don’t know what your scouting reports look like in college, but you know, mine were pretty basic and there wasn’t a ton when I look back on it and think, and I’m sure our coaching staff put a ton of work in it. But when I think about how much of that I actually processed and utilized while I was playing, I mean, there was some, but probably not that much.

And then I got to high school and I’m coaching and. I know the level of players that we were coaching compared to the level of players that I was playing with when I was playing. I’m like, man, if the guys that I was playing with and myself, if we didn’t take a whole lot of value from the scouting report, like these high school kids, they’re just not getting very much.

And I always felt like if we can just get good at what we do, that in a lot of cases, You know, once you got beyond your first like five or six guys, like you were lucky if guys seven or eight knew your plays, let alone try to figure out something that somebody else was doing. And so I always kind of felt like, let’s just get really good at what we do.

And if we do that, yeah, we can maybe give them a little bit. You know, it’s just, and I think sometimes it’s interesting that obviously it’s so much different now because the scouting process and the way kids can watch film and share and do all the things that where you and I were sitting in a film room where a coach was trying to hit rewind on that VCR button and going 15 plays past the one that they wanted to show.

And just, you know, it was a, it was a mess compared to what we have now. But I think that’s really a good point is, Hey, you got to get good at what you do.

[00:35:40] Kevin Broderick: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, one of the things you know, Jeff, Jeff Van Gundy, who’s a NES alum and just been so, so helpful to our program and, and to me and all the coaches and you know, he, you know, one of his great lines one time was, you know, in this world of, Everybody wants to think outside the box.

The answers are oftentimes in the box. Right. And the you know, what wins to me for 28 years of coaching as a head coach, it just hasn’t changed. Right. And you know, there’s, you know, certainly advancements and all this, you know, I remind my sons who are just starting coaching that they can go on YouTube and find the best you know, 10 international plays with the best 10 NBA plays that were run last night.

And, you know, certainly as a starting coach, we didn’t have any access to that. And, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of tremendous parts of that that, that can help you and your playbook and your diversity of what you do. But. At the end of the day I don’t think, you know, most of our guys, it’s, it’s, you know, they’re going to give it the right amount of attention.

But I was reminded in our assistance the other day, last year we had five, five members of our team that, you know, they’re, they’re pursuing doctorate degrees right now, right? They, they’re, they’re going to give us two hours every night, but they’re not going to go home and watch two hours of film. And I don’t expect them to.

So you know, You know, being complicated or that, that’s just not our priority. And, and I don’t, you know, I just, again, I think some, a lot of that’s overrated and I just feel awful if, if, if I contribute to losing by asking our guys to do something, we just simply have not repped enough you know, that’s bad coaching.

We’re, we’re going to err on the side of just not having enough in our playbook verse. Hey, we, we’re trying something that we just didn’t get enough reps at. Is that something that… You

[00:37:51] Mike Klinzing: have grown to understand better as a head coach from when you first started, and I guess to go along with that question, in addition to answering that little part, but are there other things too that when you think about where you started compared to where you are now, what are some areas that you feel like you’ve gotten way better at or maybe some things that you thought were better?

You know, that, that are different than what you thought when you first became a head coach in terms of what,

[00:38:17] Kevin Broderick: in terms of importance. Well, you know, again, as I mentioned, I think it’s, you know, so important to have you know, a philosophy with every part of the game, offense, defense special situations.

And so, again, I think when I started as a head coach, I had a really good. plan defensively, but had to dig deep and had to learn the hard way with, and, and, you know, frankly, offense is harder to coach. And so that took me a little while. I think too, that if I started my career over the first few years, it was, you know, that balance between the.

You know, coaching intensity and, you know, trying to win the game, just playing harder than the other team verse, you know, let’s just be more fundamental, right? At the last 15 years of my coaching career, I’ve, I’ve given the fundamental piece you know, the, the attention it deserved, you know, as a young coach, I, I thought we can out hustle our way to, to wins and, you know, which obviously there’s a place for that, but I think, you know, as you go through winning and losing that usually when, when you, you lose, it usually comes back to, Hey, we, we gotta get better at pivoting.

We gotta get better at closing out. We gotta get better at you know, talking through switches. And so, you know, I think early on, I didn’t, you know, it’s a little bit skewed in terms of effort, which matters, but now it’s, you know, a little bit. A lot, a lot of attention to, you know, let’s win the fundamental battle.

Talk about the decision

[00:39:52] Mike Klinzing: to leave Oswego and take the job at Nazareth, obviously at your alma mater. So clearly there’s a pull, a tug there, but just you had a tremendous amount of success at Oswego. Was it strictly the opportunity to quote, come back home or what was it about the Nazareth job that, that made you want to leave a place that obviously you had a tremendous amount of success?

[00:40:12] Kevin Broderick: Yeah, it was it was excruciating in terms of how hard a decision it was. And, and, you know I’m reminded every day that there’s a ton of good, you know, very good coaches who don’t get a chance to coach Division III at one school. So, and it sounds awful to say it was hard to choose between two great jobs, but I loved Oswego.

I was 13 years. I loved every part of it. My wife still works there. And she, you know, she is a tremendous school. We had tremendous leadership as you can see that they just, I mean, they’re ranked third in the country right now in the preseason, you know, Jason, Adam Stockwell took over and. Did a very good job.

And then Jason’s taking it to a whole new level. It’s a great place. And Nazareth was really the only division three job. And it was, you know, the pull of my alma mater, my wife’s alma mater, but also my three sons and they were only in sixth grade, fourth grade at the time, but deep down, we knew that.

They’d be the type of guys that would love to go to college in Nazareth. We just, we believe that. And all three of them ended up going there and, you know, you get that free tuition and so it was, it was, I, I really underestimated how hard it was because, you know, we’d just come off a good season.

I love my players. I didn’t. You know, I underestimated how hard it would be to leave those guys that we had, you know, really worked at it as 13 years. And that last group, it was, I really didn’t handle it well at first. And, you know, somebody finally, Made me, Hey, at least you got a new team to embrace.

And, you know, Coach Daly had left me a, a very good team with a, with an all American Corey McAdams. So it was very, very hard. But you know, I do think I get to coach at the, at the best, the best place in the country for me. So I guess I shouldn’t say it was that hard. When

[00:42:17] Mike Klinzing: you get the job clearly.

It’s very, very important to you just because it’s your career and you’ve just made a decision, but you have, I think whenever you’re an alum at a school, I just feel like there’s whatever, there’s just a tiny little extra ounce of something that you pour into it just because that place has been so good to you and meant so much to you.

So when you first took over.

[00:42:41] Kevin Broderick: What was something that you thought, we’ve got

[00:42:44] Mike Klinzing: to get this done in order to get the program exactly where I want it to go? Were there one or two things that stood out to you that you thought, man, if we can just get a handle on this, we’re really going to take this program where I want it

[00:42:56] Kevin Broderick: to go?

Yeah, and, and it was, you know, for me a lot different than my first opportunity to Swego. I was taking over a program that, you know, had been successful and had, you know, a longstanding coach. Coach Daly was there 23 years and had had so many good things in place and, you know, certainly, Hey, as coaches, we have to, you know, I had learned so much from Coach Daly, but you know, you have to do your thing and you have to do what you believe in that.

You know, number one you know, I, I wanted to, you know, establish, you know, a toughness and intensity that you know, I thought could be better. Number two, I wanted to embrace, you know, there were so many players over the years that had great pride in Nazareth basketball and you know, I wanted to, you know, get them on board.

It was it was certainly a a priority for me to have somebody like. Like Jeff, who wasn’t just Jeff Van Gunny, not just a great former player, but, you know, for, you know, our opinion, you know, maybe, maybe the best coach out there that, you know, we wanted to get him connected to our players. And I knew as a player, everything he stood for.

And you know, we wanted to, hey, this is. Number one, this is very, very important, right? Nazareth basketball is, you know, you’re, you’re now playing for somebody who played here and it is extremely important. Nobody believes in the school more than me. And you know, we’re going to take great pride in our school.

[00:44:36] Mike Klinzing: Getting Jeff back involved in easy sell for him.

[00:44:39] Kevin Broderick: You know, it was, it certainly was because one, he had a great experience. He had, you know, had been at. You know, three other schools. He started his career at Yale. You know, again, he was a great player and, you know, then he had played for his dad who was at Brockport State and, um, you know, when he came to Nazareth he would say, I think he just said this the other day he, he enjoyed his experience everywhere else, but, but he found a home and, you know, they, his junior year, they were, they made the elite eight and It was great basketball.

We had, you know, coach Nelson was, had already established a great program. So he loved this experience in Nazareth. So it was not hard. I had built some relationship with him having worked for Bill, but you know, certainly it was easier that he wasn’t. coaching an NBA team at the time. And so he had, you know, time and it’s just been so, so beneficial to our players.

You know, then when we discovered Zoom, right, the amount of time he spent. He spent with our players you know, through zoom, he lives in Houston, but just spends time with, with everything you would hope somebody would tell your players, right. And, and everything he’s about as a coach and he was about as a player.

And I think two years ago we had won like 16 or 17 games in a row. And right before the end of the season, I think we lost three out of five. I mean, we very simply. You know, we had lost our mojo. Like we were just not playing with confidence and the conference tournament was coming up. And I don’t think I do this with anybody else.

And I was like, chap, we just talk to these guys and you know, he watches the games, he follows the team he knew and somehow. Somehow he got it, helped get across to our guys, you know what, let’s just play, let the coaches do the worrying and you guys just compete. And you know, he knew our guys and he would say things like, Hey, if, you know, Steve, if you’re not going to defensive rebound better, we’re not going to win.

And the players knew that he watched the games, he was invested and you know, we ended up winning our conference tournament and winning the game in the NCAAs. And it’s just been, it was an easy sell. And it’s. It’s been such a highlight for me and for, again, for our players. All of our players who are interested in getting into coaching have learned so much from them.

Him, and he gives them all of their, his cell phone, they reach out and yeah, we’re, we do whatever we can to have him a part of it. And our players benefit so much, and the coaches do too, obviously. What’s some of the feedback

[00:47:22] Mike Klinzing: you heard from players? Obviously, it’s not an everyday experience that you go and play basketball at a

[00:47:28] Kevin Broderick: Division III school and you get an opportunity to interact with somebody who’s had such a tremendous amount of

[00:47:34] Mike Klinzing: success at the highest level of the game.

So what are your players, if somebody stops in and is in the office talking to you, what are some of the things that they’ve shared with you that, that, that Jeff has had an impact on them in

[00:47:46] Kevin Broderick: some way? Yeah, it was, it was funny that you know, as one example you know, my son who played for me for, uh, five years, actually you know, he graduated and got his first teaching job.

He’s teaching middle school and he got a teaching job at Brockport middle school. And that’s when Jeff went to Brockport high school and, you know, Jeff had impacted him so much, his whole bulletin board in his classroom was, you know, And Jeff Van Gundy’s quotes. That’s funny. You know, I guess the fact that Jeff’s an alum, right?

He, he could, he could get away with that too. He’s a Brockport alum, but you know, things like, you know, your decisions reveal your priorities and, you know, things that certainly are appropriate for middle schoolers. And, you know, that’s just one example. You know, our, our guys get so excited about it and they’re…

They’re so impressed with how invested he is. And, you know, I think an example was when we were, when he talked to our team before that tournament two years ago he pointed out to our players and I didn’t, I should have, but I didn’t realize this. He had pointed out to our players that even though we were 21 and six at the time or something, we were trailing at halftime at 13 games.

And he basically got on them for. And you guys aren’t getting yourselves ready at the tip. And that’s, that’s a problem. And, you know, really challenged them on that. Number one, they were, you know, that’s how invested he is. That’s how you know, and they, you know, they understand that right from the start, that this is not just you know, well known guy, he’s, he’s all in on Nazareth basketball and they have great appreciation for that.

And and they love it. What was it

[00:49:34] Mike Klinzing: like? Coaching all your sons because obviously that’s something that some guys get to do and a lot of times you get to do it at the high school level, but not everybody gets that opportunity. You get an opportunity to do it at the college

[00:49:46] Kevin Broderick: level. So

[00:49:47] Mike Klinzing: there’s clearly some really positives to it.

And there’s also some pitfalls that you got to watch out for. So. Let’s frame it in the sense of what was it like? And then if you had to give somebody else advice for coaching their own kids, what’s some things that you guys learned along the way that helped make the experience a positive

[00:50:03] Kevin Broderick: one? Yeah, it was you know, number one, uh, with, with all my sons, I, you know, had the opportunity to coach them for multiple years, five, six years each in, in spring AAU.

So I like to say that. I really screwed it up then when, when it didn’t matter as much, right. It’s just bring it to you. And I really, I, I’m glad I did that because I was a little bit better at being fair when they got with me, you know, my all three of them you know, the number one thing they’ve, they’ve made easier on me as a coach’s kid is they’ve always been.

You know, in tremendous shape and just ready to go. And, you know, I think that matters, right? One of the first thing we do at October 15th, the first thing we do is you know, we run the mile, right? To see who’s really ready to play and wants to play in a timed mile. And, you know, my youngest son, you know, he wanted for two years in a row, which again, you know, that, that sort of helps the credibility.

But, you know, as far as advice, I would say that. I did learn, you know, in fairness, that just because They are the sons of a college basketball coach. And, you know, we certainly talk a lot about the game and fundamentals and strategies at home, and it feels like they get, you know, more information and more teaching that it’s still, that doesn’t mean they.

They might not turn it over, they might not forget that we don’t have any timeouts left, they’re, you know, they’re still gonna screw it up and they’re, they shouldn’t be held more accountable than the rest of the guys. So I think I had to, I think I screwed that up a bunch and I really caution when you coach your kids.

But I would say, you know, our, our, when we had a great year two years ago when we made the second round of the NCAA tournament and You know, hosted and had the sellout and every, you know, all the greatest experience I’ve had as a coach to have all three of them on my team at the same time was was, was incredible.

And, you know, included in that year, we played, we played an exhibition game at Notre Dame with all three of them, which we’re a hard, hardcore Notre Dame fan, you know, we’re huge Notre Dame fans. So it was. That year was, boy, that was special that we started the year with Notre Dame and ended it with the NCAA tournament and, you know, all three of them were playing.

So that was about as good as it gets. What was

[00:52:39] Mike Klinzing: the most challenging part

[00:52:40] Kevin Broderick: of it? You know, it was

You know, it was tough that my, my oldest son you know, he was always a valuable player and, you know, he was, he had tore his ACL one year and then he got the COVID year. So essentially he was there six years and every year he was there, he was you know, he was the backup point guard. He was an important player every game.

He became a. At five foot seven, a disruptive, like almost intimidating defender. He’s a great one on one defender and but he, you know, he never rose to the level of being the starting point guard and that, you know, he was as a competitor. You know, he wanted that, and, you know, that’s, that’s not easy to see him not get that goal, but you know, it was always a little bit easier when, hey, he’s, he knows he’s a valuable, valuable guy, and so it worked, but it certainly not, didn’t make it easy, and, you know, my other sons, you know, similar, none of them ever started they were all great teammates and valuable guys, but yeah, you know, it’s never easy that way.

What do you think, as you

[00:53:54] Mike Klinzing: look at the

[00:53:55] Kevin Broderick: success that you’ve been able to have and you think about the

[00:53:58] Mike Klinzing: types of players that you’re recruiting, what are some of the intangible things that you look for that you know is going to make a player successful for you at Nazareth?

[00:54:08] Kevin Broderick: Yeah, and we’ve had You know, so much fun the last four or five years because we really have had you know, great teammates.

And, and again, I, I’ve certainly coached enough years where that wasn’t true. And I think especially the last 10 or 15 years, you know, every time we start the recruiting process you know, number one, we’re calling the high school coach. I’m, I’m blown away that I hear these, you know, high school coach tell me that.

You know, somebody’s recruiting their kid and they’ve never heard from that school. I mean, that’s, you know, that’s, that’s call number one, the high school coach. And it’s always, we always start with two questions. One, you know, what type of teammate is he? And two, what would the rest of the kids at his high school that aren’t his teammates say about him?

And the answer to those two questions are, are very important to us. And you know, I think, you know, when I first started coaching, I didn’t think about that enough, you know, maybe You thought you could change a guy who wasn’t a great teammate. I don’t, I don’t think that anymore. I tell our assistants, hey, we’re just like.

Our obligation is to make guys better at pivoting and better at defending. We should be able to make them a better teammate, but we’re not deprogramming them. We’re not going from bad to good. We’re going from good to better. So that really has worked for us. And, you know, I think the, the, the, the third thing that some of my great players that I’ve coached have taught me.

And re emphasized to me is that, you know, the, the compete level you know, Jeff, Jeff used to remind me, he’s reminded me more than once is don’t, don’t confuse, you know, the hardest worker with most competitive. There are two different things and you’d like to have both, but the most competitive is, is probably the most important.

So we’re, we’re really interested you know, how they compete, is it, does their high school team win, do they, do they not, can they not live with their high school team not winning and are they, does the scoreboard matter a lot to them and you know, we really try to evaluate that and you know, it’s, it’s a factor.

Hey, if we’re going to recruit you, you know, I tell our guys all the time, I have no idea on our team, none, who scored a thousand points in high school. It’s, it’s an accomplishment. It’s great. Thank you. Not one I’m that concerned with, but I know if they want a sectional title or a state title and, you know, that, that, that matters.

You look at,

[00:56:49] Mike Klinzing: you mentioned coaching your sons in AAU basketball. We know that sort of the way that players are recruited has shifted. I mean, I remember the first time, the first time I ever heard a story like you described of a coach, a high school coach telling me that their player had been recruited.

And the college had never spoken to them as the player’s high school coach. This was probably, it was in the first year, I think, of the podcast. So we’re looking back probably in 2018. Maybe it was late or maybe it was early 2019. And I remember this coach was a local high school coach here in Cleveland.

Tell me that one of his players signed to go to this school and that he had never talked to the coach. And I remember just being

[00:57:30] Kevin Broderick: absolutely floored by that. And then

[00:57:33] Mike Klinzing: as I’ve been through it, and my son is a senior in high school this year, and you see kind of how the landscape has changed and how it’s a lot easier for coaches to go Be at an AAU tournament.

You can see a ton of different players and you can, especially at the division three level, you can talk to those players. You can talk to their parents. You can talk to their AAU coach and kind of get a feel for it. And with the high school, you maybe go and you can go to a practice or you can go to a game, but you’re only seeing one player and it’s not quite as time efficient.

So how do you think about AAU basketball in terms of evaluating kids and getting a feel for what they can do and compare that to how you recruit at the high school? level and what you’re seeing, maybe compare the two in terms of what are you looking for? And which one do you, I don’t know, prefer, but just how it’s changed the way that

[00:58:22] Kevin Broderick: you look at recruiting.

And, you know, certainly there’s, there’s great value in both. And, you know, obviously sometimes You know, AAU gets an unfair you know, reputation sometimes that just like high school, sometimes there’s, you know, bad AAU programs, good AAU programs. You know, my assistant who’s a tremendous assistant, Dennis Walker, you know, he, he ran a great AAU program for a lot of years in Rochester where they Practice three times a week and they did everything that, you know, I wish my son played for him and you know, everything that you’d expect from, you know, a great program.

And so, you know, certainly when it’s something like that, that, that has great value. We’re, we’re a school that, you know, the early decision, we don’t do a lot of that. We don’t push kids to decide early. I find great value in watching kids play. with their high school team, their senior year, when they should be playing their best basketball.

And we’ve had so many great players that their jump from their junior year to their senior year was significant. And, you know, maybe we didn’t, weren’t sure they were recruitable as juniors, but They’re playing great when they should be. So we like to go slow with that and evaluate our current team and fit is so important and timing is so important.

And, and, you know, we are very patient with that. And, you know, again, I think as good as AAU is, it just, you know, I, I just think that kids should play their best with their high school team, their senior year, and you know, usually the players we’re recruiting. Unlike AAU have on their high school team, they have a lot of, a lot of responsibility.

They have to do a lot of team, a lot of things for their team to win the game. And I like to watch that. And so they both matter, but, you know, certainly. I’ve never, I’ve never recruited a guy without having a long talk with their high school coach. And yeah, I find that, you know, and as I said, you know, how they act during the other 22 hours of the day that, that the high school coach is always so valuable with.

So they both matter, but to me you know, we really. Really rely on evaluating them in high school and, and we’re not in a hurry. So some of our decisions are not made about who we’re really recruiting till December of their senior year.

[01:00:56] Mike Klinzing: Makes sense. I mean, again, as you said, you would expect it by the time a kid gets to.

their senior year, that that’s going to be when they’re at their best and you’re going to be able to see them at the time that’s closest to when they’re actually going to enroll in your school and be a part of your program. So that, that completely makes a ton of sense. Obviously, there’s different schools that have different requirements and different ways of going about things.

But I think that the more careful you can be in your analysis, the more likely it is that you’re going to make a good decision and get the right guys to be a part of your program. And then once you have those guys on campus, then you got to build that culture with Your team and, and get them in the right positions and do all the things that we already talked about.

How do you think about putting together a practice? What’s your philosophy on practice design?

[01:01:41] Kevin Broderick: Being an assistant for the, the great coaches, you know, Coach Beeline, Coach Van Gundy, Coach Daly, that, you know, I saw early on, that was one of the first things I saw as a young coach, the amount of time that, that those guys would put into, you know, their practice plan, you know, Coach, Coach Beeline would, he’d love to walk into practice and, you know, Tell the team, Hey, I hold in my hand the best practice plan ever put together.

Right. And he took great pride in it. And, you know, he was a teacher. And so I’ve thought, you know, put a lot, a lot of time and thought into how we do that. And you know, the, You know, understanding how kids learn can, not everything, but can most of the things we do be fun, challenging, and meaningful, right?

The fun one’s not always going to be there, but it does matter, you know, that they enjoy it. You know, is every drill challenging and meaningful? And, you know, I would never think to my house, you know, I know what my answer would have been if I asked my high school coach, why are we doing this, right? It wouldn’t have been a pleasant answer, but I.

I think every coach nowadays, you know, you should be able to, whether you want to answer the question or not, you should be able to answer why we do this. And, you know, obviously a lot of thought for us goes into, well, you know, what happens the most in the game? Right. Are we, are we given that and you know, what’s most impactful, you know, to winning the game.

And you know, that has to get a lot of attention. I remember, you know, you know, you asked me about those first year mistakes and I remember at Oswego, I just did, I think Coach Beeline had done this, but my plan was always basically mostly defense at the first half of practice, a little bit more offense in the second half.

of practice. And as a young coach, I was always behind schedule. So the same thing was getting cheated every day. It was always the offense and it, you know, and it showed and how we played. So, you know, you think about that. And I was just telling my assistants the other day, you know, yesterday we had a great practice, right?

We had a great practice. We all felt good about it. And with about 20 minutes left in the practice, that well planned practice, I was like, We’re not doing what I had planned the last 20 minutes because we can’t get any more out of what we’re doing right now. You know, we’re playing, you know, really intense, fundamental five on five, so we don’t need to do anything else, and this is the way we’re going to use our last 20 minutes, so…

You know, in that way, the practice plan doesn’t run me. I run the practice plan, but I’m not, you know, you have to be willing to go off script, but at the same time, you know, it’s, it’s like a lesson plan. And there has to be a lot of thought in the, you know, how the players learn and, and what happens the most in the game.

It makes total

[01:04:40] Mike Klinzing: sense. And I think it’s interesting that I guess I would echo what you said there in terms of, I think the way that coaching has changed a lot in the 30 years that I’ve kind of been around it is when you go back to the era, maybe when you and I played, there wasn’t a lot of answering.

It’s certainly the question. We didn’t ask the question, and many times our coaches didn’t provide that why answer to us. I’m sure they had some whys, although I would venture to guess, my own experience as a player, that sometimes I’m not sure they could give me a why, at least not one that would have been…

believable back then at the time, but, but nonetheless, I do think that one of the things has changed is that coaches are starting to realize more and more. And I hear more coaches saying it, and it only makes sense that we have to do and replicate and practice what we’re going to actually see in games.

And I think the better coaches have. Have realized that over the last five or 10 years where like, okay, this might be a drill that, wow, it’s, it’s, it’s my favorite drill. I really love this drill, but how does it translate into what we actually do when we’re playing a five on five game for real? And I think there’s been a tremendous recognition of that.

And part of it is just like we talked about before we even jumped out today, podcasts, the ability to go on YouTube, the ability to, to listen and hear other coaches talk about what they’re doing. I think generally speaking that The coaching profession has been open wide. Like I laughed a little bit when you talked about how, you know, John Beeline didn’t want to share anything.

He didn’t want to write anything down because he didn’t want anybody to find out about it. And now it’s like, every single thing you do is on synergy five minutes after you, you know, after your game ends. So everybody can see anybody who wants to take the time to break down and try to figure out what you’re doing.

It’s all, it’s all there for them. So it’s hard to, I think, keep secrets much harder than it was back in the day. But I think ultimately you want to be doing things that you’re going to. Your team’s going to do in games. And if you’re doing that in practice, you’re probably running a pretty good practice is kind of where I land on this whole thing.

[01:06:45] Kevin Broderick: Right. Right. And it’s so, you know, it’s so tempting that all these resources and, uh, to, to see a great play one night or here. You know, see a great, you know, the, the ability to type in what’s the best transition defense drills and, you know, 10 great drills come up. It’s so tempting to keep adding, which, which is probably not the answer.

And that’s you know, it’s interesting with You know, I find, I know Coach Beeline would say this, I know Jeff Van Gundy said this, I remember Dean Smith in his book said this, is that the, you know, it seems like the most experienced coaches, it’s, it’s they, if they had it to do over, they’d play more.

More five on five, more five on five in practice. And so I worked, you know, I try to do that. I got my pet drills and favorite drills and my security blanket drills. But I, I, that keeps echoing in my ear that those, the most successful coaches are playing that. Absolutely.

[01:07:43] Mike Klinzing: Completely understand. All right.

We are coming up towards almost an hour and a half here, Kevin, want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you, find out more about your program. So if you want to share email, website, social media, whatever you feel comfortable with. And then after you do that I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:08:02] Kevin Broderick: Yeah, I’m not the hugest social media guy, but I, you know, at nasbasketball on Twitter is a good way to to our acts, I guess now is a good way to follow our program. You know, certainly you know, love to hear from coaches and kbroder0 at nas. edu on, on email. And you know, certainly love to connect with coaches.

And I appreciate that, you know, guys like. You know, you and Jason do this work, which, which allows us to do that.

[01:08:32] Mike Klinzing: So, well, we’re really appreciative of your time. Cannot thank you enough for jumping out with us tonight. It’s been a lot of fun learning a little bit more about your program at Nazareth and learning about your journey as a basketball player and a basketball coach. So thank you for your time and to everyone out there. Thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.