RAUL PLACERES – MARYVILLE COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 799

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

Email – raul.placeres@maryvillecollege.edu

Twitter – @McCoachPlaceres

Raul Placeres is the men’s basketball head coach at Maryville College in the state of Tennessee.  A 2006 Maryville College graduate, Placeres worked under Maryville Wall of Fame coach Randy Lambert for the previous eight seasons as the associate head coach before taking over the top position in 2019.  In his four seasons, Placeres and the Scots have fashioned a 57-31 overall record and 36-16 mark in conference play. That includes three consecutive regular season titles and two conference tournament championships. Placeres began his coaching career in 2005-06 while finishing his Maryville degree.  From 2006-11, Raul developed the Gatlinburg-Pittman High School basketball program into one of the top squads in Tennessee before joining the staff at Maryville in 2011.

As a collegiate player, Placeres led Keystone Junior College to a “Sweet 16” and NJCAA national semifinal appearance following his freshman and sophomore campaigns. As a junior point guard, Placeres paced Maryville College in assists and led the Scots to a 23-6 record and an NCAA “Sweet 16” finish. Following his senior season, he earned his second consecutive All-Great South Athletic conference accolade while breaking the school record for assists in a game with 17 against Oglethorpe. Placeres finished his collegiate career with more than 1,100 points and more than 600 assists.

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Grab your notebook and listen to this episode with Raul Placeres, men’s basketball head coach at Maryville College in the state of Tennessee. 

What We Discuss with Raul Placeres

• Growing up as the son of Cuban immigrants in Miami
• The positive influence his youth coaches had on him as a young player
• “I go back and see how much these guys poured into me and I feel like I owe it to the game to do the same now for my players.”
• His experiences playing pickup basketball outside in Miami
• The story of his recruitment and the college decisions he made that eventually landed him at Maryville after two years at Keystone Junior College
• Passing up a potential opportunity to play in Germany to get a high school teaching job and start coaching
• Why he loved the purity of high school basketball
• “I’m really going to get on your tail during practice, but once the game comes I really want you to play free.”
• Getting an opportunity to return to Maryville to work for his college coach, Randy Lambert
• As an assistant, your job is to bring as much information to your head coach as possible
• “You have never arrived and you must continue to get better.”
• The advantage he had in being named the coach-in-waiting two years before he took over at Maryville
• Advice for replacing a long-time legendary coach
• “I think a lot of young coaches go about it in the wrong way, because you want to put your stamp and your look into the program. I think that happens organically with hard work and preparation and bringing in the right type of character kids into a program.”
• Losing his first 9 games as the head coach at Maryville
• “Those who stick with it and stay with me and believe in the process, you’re going to be champions.”
• Players must be competitive, be a great teammate, and must produce when given an opportunity
• Characteristics of a great teammate
• “When your best player can also be the best person on your team, I think you create a great environment for great things to happen.”
• If you don’t produce at a certain job, they’re going to go get someone else who’s who can do the job and hopefully do it better. And we’re trying to teach these life lessons through a game.”
• “Truth is a big part of what we do.”
• “They know that I’m going to invest my heart, my soul, everything that I have into them.”
• Appointing captains for small groups to keep everyone accountable
• “Being comfortable, being uncomfortable, that’s part of being a leader.”
• “Turning a to-do list to a must-do list”
• “I’m never going to be able to take the place of their mother and father, but I’m definitely going to build on the foundation that that they have set for their children.”
• Using summer camp to get to know his players on a deeper level
• “I truly believe that there’s no such thing as a finish line when you’re a true competitor and you’re trying to make become the best you can possibly become, the finish line just gets pushed further and further.”
• “If you want to go from good to great as a player there’s time to do that.”
• “I want them to get 1% better in five different areas. And if we can all do that, the 12 guys that are returning, that makes us 60% better.”
• “If you love your kids, you’re going to demand their very best.”
• “I’m their harshest critic, but I’m also their biggest cheerleader.”
• Praise in public, seek improvement in private
• Utilizing 8-12 minute film sessions with players
• “Anytime we shoot 45, 35 70, so 45 from the field, 35 from three, 70 from the free throw line. I haven’t lost the game in four years.”
• Winning the rebounding margin by 4-8
• Getting three stops in a row is a kill
• “When division three coaches are given the opportunity at the highest of levels, I think that’s why they’re so successful because they’ve been able to, to do it all and they’re so ready for the opportunity because there’s nothing that is going to come their way that they have not done.”
• “You can know everything, but you can’t do everything.”
• Do not enter the land of complacency
• Focus on contributing and not complaining
• “We always want to choose right over easy.”
• “We always want to be connected instead of being isolated.”
• Joy over pessimism

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THANKS, RAUL PLACERES

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TRANSCRIPT FOR RAUL PLACERES – MARYVILLE COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 799

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello, and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here. Maybe with or without my co-host Jason Sunkle. We’re having technical difficulties trying to get Jason on, but we are here with Raul Placeres head men’s basketball coach at Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee. Raul, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:19] Raul Placeres: Hey Mike! I appreciate you having me on.

[00:00:21] Mike Klinzing: We are thrilled to have you on looking forward to diving into all the things that you’ve been able to do throughout your basketball life. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me about some of your first experiences at the game of basketball, how you got introduced to it and what made you fall in love with it.

[00:00:36] Raul Placeres: Yeah, man got introduced to it at a really young age. I was about nine years old. My parents are Cuban immigrants to this country and so obviously the first sport was baseball. And I just really didn’t like it. And my dad put put the ball in my hand at nine years old and I just started working and even though he never played basketball just taught me a lot about just having proper discipline and just working on your habits, teaching every day. And man, I was lucky enough to run into a gentleman by the name of Bill Vargas who coached at the Y M C A locally there, I’m originally from Miami, Florida, and played for him.

And he really invested in me and I was a really quiet kid at that point in my life. And he really injected in me a lot of confidence and just passion for the game. Ended up being a point guard in those days. My favorite player was Magic Johnson, and I wanted to be Magic Johnson.

And Coach Bill called me Magic and it, it just gave me a lot of confidence, man, as a point guard to know that my coach had my back and he wanted the very best for me. And that went on to my middle school and had a great coach. Coach Long won a middle school championship, had some great teammates got a couple of guys who are now NBA officials in the Gobel Brothers. Jason and John Gobel. They’re in there both in the NBA as referees And Tras Robinson, who’s a defensive back coach at Alabama. So I played with some pretty talented guys who have done some really good things with their life and. And that went on to obviously high school.

You know, was fortunate enough to play for a couple of college coaches. Sergio Rouco, was a head coach of Florida International, been an assistant at Ole Miss South Florida, has done some really nice things in college basketball. And Mark Lieberman, who worked under Rick Pitino at one point at Louisville.

So I got to play for both of those guys. And also a gentleman by the name of Henry Lorenzo at Gull Prep. I played with the late Sean Taylor in high school. We’re both teammates, played for the Washington Redskin. So man had a really good high school career was all City first team in Dade County, which is a pretty big deal in Miami.

And just accomplished a lot as a high school basketball player and obviously gave me an opportunity to play college ball.

[00:02:47] Mike Klinzing: When you think about those early coaches that you talked about that had such a big influence on you, when you think about what they did as coaches, is there one or two things that when you think about yourself as a coach, that you can kind of trace it directly back to their influence, something that you pulled from them that had an impact that you still incorporate into what you do today?

[00:03:12] Raul Placeres: Yeah. They truly invested in me, the person. And, that really stuck with me as a young man. And obviously I’ve carried that on now I’m going into my 17th year in coaching and they just invested in me, the person And really were there for me as an adult and as a mentor, not just when I played for them, but throughout my whole life I’ve had my Y M C A coaches come to my college games.

My middle school coach still sends me post postcards in the mail. I’ve obviously have stayed in touch with my other coaches. But I think that’s it’s one of those things that, that makes it special now that I’m doing this for a living. I go back and see how much these guys poured into me and I feel like I owe it to the game to do the same now for my players.

[00:03:56] Mike Klinzing: Does he address those cards to Magic?

[00:03:57] Raul Placeres: Yeah, he actually got me a mug that says Magic Coach Magic.

[00:04:02] Mike Klinzing: That’s awesome. Yeah. Did anybody else in your life in that era call you Magic?

[00:04:06] Raul Placeres: Well, I was a Laker fan. My dad was a Celtics fan growing up, so my dad would be calling me magic.

Ooh, man. But that’s rough. But yeah, that is a rough you know, household because he pulled for Larry, but no man, why did I gravitate to Magic as a player? He was a selfless guy. He poured into his teammates and he just tried to make everyone around him better.

And I think that’s what a lot of my coaches did early on in my career.

[00:04:32] Mike Klinzing: As a player, what’d you do to get better? How did you work on your game? What did it look like in the summers while you were a high school or college player? How’d you go about getting better? What were you doing?

[00:04:45] Raul Placeres: Yeah, so my upbringing is a little bit different.

Obviously being from down south you honestly, in Miami back in the day when I played, there wasn’t many gyms you could go to and play, right? You’re playing on the asphalt, you’re playing outside. I’m playing with older guys. You know that’s something that you don’t see as much in today’s player.

That you go outside and you’re playing in the 95 to a hundred degrees weather and you better win when you’re playing against older dudes and they don’t call fouls. So you have to be a little bit tougher. And the things that I did my dad was big on the details of the game, especially early on, even with not having much knowledge about the game.

He saw that layups are important. So we had simple man, I have to make 10 in a row, 10 times from the right side, which was a hundred right-handed layups. And 10 from the left side with my left hand 10 from the middle of the floor from five feet and then make free throws. And we would do that religiously.

And I owe my dad a lot. You know, my dad would work at a gas station from 6:00 AM to three o’clock in the afternoon. He’d come home, eat take a quick little nap. And then go to the courts with me for an hour, hour and a half each and every day you know, to pour into me And hopefully make me a better basketball player.

[00:05:54] Mike Klinzing: It’s so different today. And this is something Raul that we talk about all the time on the podcast, is just the way that we grew up in the game compared to the way kids today grew up in the game where they have what you said, much more access to gyms. I mean, as a kid I had little access to a gym when I was younger, and then as I got older, I had some opportunities to get into a gym as a high school player, but a lot of my formative years were spent playing outside or their first on my driveway as like an elementary school kid. And then as I got older, the courts that were maybe a half a mile from my house I used to ride the bike to. And then as I was able to drive, I could drive around to different playgrounds and parks.

Never once in a while find my way into a gym to try to find a good run somewhere. But as you said, kids today don’t play that way. You’re playing aau, you’re playing on a team with kids your own age and you’re playing in a gym with mom and dad watching most likely, and you have to coach on the sideline and all that stuff.

And I look at it and there’s certainly positives to the system that we have today. And yet I look back at my upbringing in the game, and it sounds like yours was a similar experience where I just feel like all the things that I had to learn not just as a basketball player, but just culturally of how to fit in, especially as a younger kid playing against older guys and just going and playing in different neighborhoods and against different people. And I feel like that developed me not only as a basketball player, but also as a person. And I just wonder, from your perspective, like as a coach, when you think about how you grew up in the game and how you worked on your game and how you improved and got better, how do you think about that and kind of juxtapose it against the way that the kids that you’re coaching today, the way they came up in the game and what do you think are the things that I don’t want to say are different or better or worse or whatever, but just how do you compare.

The players that grew up in your era versus the players that we have today, just in terms of how they kind of got to the point where they are, if that question makes any sense at all? =

[00:07:54] Raul Placeres: I know exactly what, what you’re talking about and obviously the message that that, that obviously you want to be delivered from me and in my experience is right?

I just feel like back in our day when we were growing up, there was a lot more one-on-one. Obviously we didn’t have the social media aspect of it where you’re at the park and every kid now has a cell phone and they’re videoing themselves and they’re looking for highlights and things like that.

I think when we grew up playing, we just played a lot more one-on-one. There was great pride in being that guy at the park that nobody could beat. And then where I grew up you’d go to different parks, right? Like, oh man, you’re the man at. At Ruben Dario Park, well, you’re going to go to West End Park and you’re going to see if you are the guy.

Right. And then the word just it was in the neighborhood, man, that guy can play. That guy can’t play. And you would challenge yourself more. Right. And you don’t see that interaction much with the kids today. I’m not saying it’s worse today or our era was better.

It was just different. But playing outside, playing in that heat playing in the type of places that I know I played in and grew up in, it definitely made me a tougher player and made me handle adversity as I continued to get older And in the game, it made me a better player.

[00:09:11] Mike Klinzing: Obviously, you, as you said, had a really good high school career and high school experience.

When you think about your decision in terms of being recruited and where you were going to go to school and thinking about maybe what you wanted to do as a career, where was your mindset at as you were. Looking at colleges and trying to figure out what your plan was, and then ultimately how’d you make the decision?

And then kind of what was that recruiting process like?

[00:09:34] Raul Placeres: Yeah. For me it was kind of difficult because you’re talking about, I made first team all Dade county in Miami, Florida, right? So that’s a big deal. 10 guys got chosen from all the classifications, and I’m one of those 10 guys.

Well, I’m looking at the other nine guys and they’re all going division one. I was the only guy who didn’t go division one. And I understand it now, at 18 years old, I didn’t get it right. I was barely six feet tall and I weighed 150 pounds soaking wet. And it I look at it at, at that time I was like, man, what are they not seeing me?

I’m averaging 21 points a game and five assists a game, and I’m a thousand point scorer, and I’m outstate and I’m the MVP of the All-Star game. And all this stuff that you accomplish as a player. And I get it now as a coach, man, I just physically wasn’t ready.

And fortunately, I took a year off and just went to a junior college for a semester. And then I ended up signing with Keystone Junior College out of Pennsylvania, right there in the Pocono Mountains in La Plume, Pennsylvania, right South Scranton, Pennsylvania. And played for a gentleman by the name of Tommy Dempsey, who coached the head coach at Ryder University and ended up finishing his career at Binghamton.

And man, we went to a Final four my first year there as a freshman. And you know, had some really good success there. I was an all region player and man, again I’m there after two years of JUCO and I’m thinking to myself, man, I really want to prove to everybody. I’m still a d one guy.

And honestly, all I had was a lot of D two s up in the Northeast and I wanted my parents to see me play. And Barry University, a D two back home was really interested in me, and it came down to me and another guy, and they chose the other young man. And man, here I am. I told all those Northeast schools I’m not staying up here because I want to go back home.

And I missed out on all those opportunities. And here I am and luckily like for all of us and a lot of our stories, you know a good friend of mine transfers from the division one to Maryville he played at FIU at Florida International. And he says, man, I love it up here, man.

You need to visit. And I kind of made the first real mature decision of my life and I said I have nothing else to prove, but I just have to prove it to myself and I wanted to play big minutes and I wanted to be part of a winning program. And obviously Maryville College presented all those opportunities and man, I don’t regret it.

You know, I had two great years here. I was off conference both years that I was here. Got to break a school record for assisting a game and I ended up finishing with over a thousand points and 600 assists for my career and got to play a little bit of a b a basketball here locally for two teams.

And man because of that decision, a lot of things have transpired in my life that are amazing. Met my wife I have a daughter and got to become a high school head coach and obviously now a college head coach as well. So it’s been a great ride so far for sure.

[00:12:29] Mike Klinzing: Hard to explain that though, to 18 year old you correct?

[00:12:33] Raul Placeres: No question. No question.

[00:12:36] Mike Klinzing: There’s no question about that. I remember I ended up having an opportunity to play division one, but the offer, the place where I went was the only offer that I had. And just like you, there were a lot of guys that I played against a lot that I thought I was.

At least as good as, or better than that we’re signing early and then they were getting multiple offers. And then I know this guy’s going here and this guy’s going there and I’m looking around going, I’m better than this dude and I’m better than this guy. And you know, you just, and so it’s funny now Raul, because my kids, I have one daughter who just finished her freshman year in college.

I’m going to pick her up tomorrow. And then my son is a high school junior, and then I have a seventh grader. And so the two older ones are kind of obviously the one already made a college decision. And then my son will eventually have one here. And you go through the process of trying to help them figure out like how to pick a school.

And I’m like, I don’t know. I have nothing. I mean, I didn’t look at anything besides that like, Hey, I had one division one scholarship offer. Guess what? That’s where I was going to go and see what I could make out of it. And so I didn’t care about the campus or the majors or the classes.

[00:13:46] Raul Placeres: Right, right. no question. And a lot of it too, like my parents not really knowing the college process, honestly, to be quite frank with you. We weren’t very well educated in the college process. And heck, you’re thinking about I went from Miami to Scranton, Pennsylvania I had a friend of mine who played with me in high school, ended up at University of Scranton, and he told the guy, Hey man, there’s this guy who’s I played with back home really good.

Like, he just wants to play. And they reached out to me and I never visited Keystone. I actually flew into the wrong airport. I was supposed to fly into Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. And I flew into Allentown. I remember the drive, like I’m from a big city and I’m driving down.

I’m like, Man, there’s not a fast food restaurant in a 50 minute window here, you know?  It was an Amish kind of town, so I’m seeing horses and buggies and I’m like, what? And where am I? And man, but what a great experience. Had some unbelievable professors therewho took care of me and obviously won a lot.

And really enjoyed my time there. And then, like I said coming to Maryville, but back to your point of man, I just physically wasn’t ready. And that’s something that now as an adult and as a college coach, I totally understand. I will say that by the time I think I was a junior at Maryville and obviously entering my senior year, that I had finally grown into my body.

And if I would’ve had that body as a high school senior, definitely, probably would’ve played at a higher level. But again, man, the reason I am where I am, there was a reason for it. I’m just really thankful for all those opportunities.

[00:15:29] Mike Klinzing: You would’ve been in the portal, man.

[00:15:31] Raul Placeres: No question. Trying to get a deal with Papa John’s or something.

[00:15:35] Mike Klinzing: You and 2000 other guys all would’ve been in the portal trying to get, trying to get into good NIL deal and get somewhere. So it’s, it’s crazy man, that thing’s going to hopefully work itself out and settle. That’s a whole nother conversation as we go forward.

But man, so as you’re at Maryville and you’re obviously having an opportunity to, as you said, just getting to play and wanting to be on the floor and impact winning, and you obviously did a lot of that. What were you thinking about in terms of, was coaching at all on your radar at this point? Or what were you thinking career-wise?

Or were you still just focused on, I’m a basketball player and I’m going to school, but man, I want kind of try to continue to play.

[00:16:13] Raul Placeres: No man I graduated, I met my wife my last semester of school and that definitely deterred my vision of, I thought I was going to go back home.

And I ended up staying here. She’s actually an Ohio girl. I know you’re from Ohio. She’s from Aurora. She’s from Aurora right there. But I think you played at Kent State didn’t you?

[00:16:30] Mike Klinzing: That’s right down the road.

[00:16:34] Raul Placeres: She’s an Aurora girl and I met her and obviously fell in love and had opportunities to go and play in Germany.

You’ll probably remember this name, big time, D three guy Jeff Gibbs played for home and Lee Humphrey, who played at Florida, but at the time they were just a second division team, so they weren’t paying much money. And man, it was kind of one of those things in life where I had this opportunity to make about 800 bucks a month.

And my wife obviously wanted me to take it right at the time. My girlfriend let’s go experience the world and. You know, let’s go to a different part. And man, I, I got offered the school system job. I was a history major. And I knew I wanted to coach at some point.

And man, I just couldn’t pass it up. I thought I was a great opportunity working half the time as a translator. I speak Spanish and working as a translator for the school system, being a history teacher the other half of the day, and then, and being a freshman and JV coach I thought I was on top of the world at 23 years old.

And those doors opened up for me. And to answer your question, I’ve always wanted to coach being a point guard, in essence, I’ve been coaching since I was 10 years old on the floor, right? So that, that was, for me, it was a really natural progression to go into this career. So really thankful for the opportunities that have been presented to me.

[00:17:54] Mike Klinzing: All right. So what’d you like about coaching at the high school level? Because I know you did that for a bunch of years before you get back into the college game.

[00:18:01] Raul Placeres: I love the purity of it.  I started at a really young age, that first year I coached freshman jv, the varsity coach ends up leaving and they offered me the job at 24 years old. So I’m a 24 year old kid trying to coach a high school program who’s not been very good. And the first thing that I changed, I felt like, man all these guys are wearing different jerseys and there’s not much cohesion be between them and I wanted them to look good first.

And then when they started looking good, they started feeling good and you know how that goes. And then we started playing good. And man, those four years really helped me. I’m internally thankful for the School system director who gave me that opportunity, and the principal at the time to give a 24 year old a kid, I was a kid, to be coaching 18 year old young men without really much experience right.

As a head coach. It made me grow up really fast and man, we turned it around and we won more games each and every year. We went from 16 to 18 to 22 to 24, and with district championships and being ranked in the top two in the state my last two years, and man, it again made me really grow up.

But I look back at it now as a 41 year old college I coach and I’m like, man, what was I doing? Like, what was I thinking?

But it was the purity of it. Just the pep rallies, it’s a fun environment once we get into the college game it becomes, in some regards a job, you know?

And you lose a little bit of that at the college level. But man, I enjoyed my time those five years, that first year as a freshman and JV coach, and then the four years as a head coach were awesome for me And my family at the time.

[00:19:49] Mike Klinzing: So were you teaching during that time too?

[00:19:51] Raul Placeres: So I quickly found out that that’s somewhere where I did not want to be in, was in the classroom.

And thankfully they named me the translator for the entire school system, so I was taking care of the entire school system, the Hispanic population up in the seven county area. It’s the Gallen Pigeon Forge area here in Tennessee. Really grew and they needed somebody to be full-time and that helped me because here in Tennessee fourth block you can actually start practicing.

And so I was practicing our team sometimes 1:30, 2 o’clock and that was a great advantage to my job and obviously being recently married to spend time with my wife And obviously my daughter.

[00:20:32] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s awesome. I mean, to be able to have that schedule, it’s interesting just how different the rules are from state to state in terms of when you can practice and I know there’s multiple states that have that athletic block built into the school day.

And then there’s other states where players almost coaches can’t even touch players at all during the off season. There’s just, it’s crazy how many different rules there are. It feels like that’s something that the National Federation should step in and try to figure it out and kind of even it out.

Yeah, make the rules the same everywhere. It just seems like if you could put everybody on an even playing field, it would just make more sense from a lot of different perspectives. But who knows, that’s probably never going to happen. Just because there’s so many different hands in the cookie jar when it comes to all that stuff.

So. Remains to be seen. When you think about your time there as a high school coach, you get that head coaching job really early. Like you said, you’re still a kid, age 24. Let’s talk about what were you good at right from the start? Like what’s something about coaching that you took to right away? And then after you answer that, let’s flip it around.

Say what’s something that when you look back, you’re like, God, I was, I was horrible at that particular aspect of it. Now, looking back from the perspective that you have now, so something that you were really good at, that you took too naturally, and then maybe something that you really had to work to develop over the course of time.

[00:21:48] Raul Placeres: My players have always said I’m a players coach And I kind of understood what that meant, because obviously I played right and I wanted my guys to play with that freedom, and understand that I’m really going to get on your tail during practice, but once the game comes I really want you to play free.

You hear that a lot, right? Playing free and loose, but at the same time, being disciplined. I just thought I’m a big, I’m a real passionate guy.  So I think, just being a player’s coach, being extremely passionate and then being right out of the game the guys could see, and I was still in really good shape.

I was playing in the ABA at the time because the local team I would play on the weekends. So the kids would actually come and see me play. That’s cool. That’s very cool. Very cool. And there was a league here, they called it the Rocky Top League. And so it was all the Tennessee guys, NBA guys would come back and play, like CJ Watson would come back and play from Tennessee.

And that was the Bruce Pearl era here. So there was a lot of good players here in Tennessee. And so it was all the lo local college of players, guys that are playing overseas in semi-pro. And so they would come back and see me play. So obviously I gained their respect from the start.

Right? Like coaches not only not only can coach coach, but he can play a little bit, you know?

[00:23:02] Mike Klinzing: That always helps.

[00:23:02] Raul Placeres: Yeah. That helps. I obviously got their respect really early on, especially for a young coach like I was at the time. But you know, looking back at it now, things that I could have improved in, very set oriented at the time there you’re coaching different.

I just wanted to get the bottom of best player’s hands, you know? And although I gave him freedom.  I could have been a little bit more free. Right. And so I look back at it now And that’s probably something I would change. And also I had just finished playing college and the preparation I played for a division three coaching legend, right?

Guy won over 700 games and been to 20 NCAA tournaments. And he’s in the Tennessee State Hall of Fame. And I think I went overboard at times in how to getting my guys prepared for a game and it, it’s high school, but I always thought preparation was really, really important And like I shared with my guys at the time and I was just trying to teach them things in order for them to be ready for the next step was how important preparing for a game was, you know?

And we talked about preparation with pressure and the fueled confidence and it becomes your separation, right? And I would say I would say these things and. These guys are 14, 15 years old, you know what I mean? So a little bit sometimes maybe information overload.

I think now as they’re adults and they’re coming to now see me coaching college and we stayed in touch with a lot of those guys, they see it now, right? What I was trying to do with them at that point in their lives.

[00:24:35] Mike Klinzing: It’s interesting when you think about prep work for high school, because I know that there’s times where you look at it and you say, okay, I want my team to be as prepared as possible.

And then I know, like when I was coaching at the high school level and I was an assistant with the same guy, I was the head coach and he and I coached together for like 12 or 13 years before my kids were born. And I kind of stepped away. But I know he and I would talk a lot about. Well, how much do we give these guys in terms of prep for a particular opponent?

We’re like, half the time they can’t even remember what we’re doing, let alone we’re going to let alone, we’re going to give them and try to show them what the other team’s doing and give them this long scouting report. And I think over the course of time, sounds like you probably came to the same realization that you kind of have to pick and choose and understand what your team is capable of processing and what’s going to benefit them.

Right. Because ultimately whatever you give them in terms of prep has to be something that’s going to make them better. Yeah. Yeah. No, game nine comes and you can, you can, as you said, you can totally overkill that really easy.

[00:25:36] Raul Placeres: Yeah. And one of the things now thinking about that, that era of my coaching career, like I was, we were 99% man to man in college, right?

So I took that same mentality to the high school game by year three of me being a head coach. The officials weren’t as good as the college game and you want your best players to stay in the game. So I started playing more zone and maybe trapping off the zone a little bit more and to be able to use our length and our size to our advantage while keeping my better players in for most of the game.

Right. And so that kind of started changing my philosophy on how I needed to approach the high school game from my first couple years to my last two years there at the high school.

[00:26:20] Mike Klinzing: All right. So during that era, are you kind of set on the fact that, hey, I want to stay in the high school game?

Was the college game something that you were always kind of looking at out of the side of your eye? Just where were you in terms of your thought process?

[00:26:36] Raul Placeres: Yeah, again, really lucky right, at 24 years old to be a head coach in high school without any head coaching experience that’s, you know what a blessing that was for me, right.

In my development. But yeah, I always had the ambition of being a college coach. And the call came from my coach Randy Lambert, who was the head coach here for 39 years. And obviously  I’ve mentioned some of his impressive accolades throughout his career. But he called me and said, he calls me big.

He said, Hey, big you know, I think I’m going to retire here in the next four years. I’d love for you to come and help me and hopefully be the next guy. And I’m thinking to myself, man, I’m 27, 4 more years, 31college head coach. Here we go.

Yeah. Those four years turned into eight years because we won a lot. But man, but, but you know, again I’m a believer And everything comes in God’s timing. And just very fortunate those eight years that I spent with him, because he gave me a lot of autonomy in the program and I was basically another head coach and that really prepared me for what has become my job as a head coach now for the last four years. I’m not the head coach I am today without him giving me all those freedoms as a coach and liberties to do what I saw fit for the program. So yeah, once that opportunity came in, I took it and I was still working for the school system at the time, so I’m talking, you’re working full-time from 7:00 AM to about three o’clock and then go to practice and recruit and do all the things like our normal head coach would do.

But that’s what needs to be done in order to have an opportunity to be a head coach in college. So I definitely took that opportunity and made the best of it.

[00:28:21] Mike Klinzing: What was it like going from, and obviously it wasn’t a direct line from you being a player underneath him to coaching with him, but still there’s that separation between player and coach, and now you’re kind of bridging that gap and you’re going from, I played for this guy to now I’m his colleague, we’re working together and we’re on the same coaching staff.

What was that transition like? Was it super easy because of the relationship you guys already had? Was there some momentary adjustments where you kind of had to step back and realize, okay, now I have to look at this guy in a different way? Or just what was that process like for you?

[00:28:58] Raul Placeres: Yeah. I think a couple of different things.  I think the relationship of being his point guard and we had a great relationship as player coach during my time. And but I also saw the game differently, right? And one of the things that I give coach credit for is that he always let me speak my mind. Right? It doesn’t mean and I share this with a lot of young assistant coaches, like.

Your job is to bring as much information to your head coach as possible. What if your coach decides to take it or not that that’s not up to you And your feelings can’t get hurt or you can’t feel some type of way. Right? Like, that is your job. And coach gave me that that freedom to, Hey man, you bring me as much info as possible.

And I’m going to listen to it. And a lot of it he took And a lot of it, he didn’t right. But our relationship was great. And towards the later part of his career there it was a good balance. I was a young guy who was really ready for the opportunity and he was on his way out, but still with obviously a lot of wisdom and knowledge And love for the game.

It was just a good combination of young and old to continue to still do the job at a really high level.

[00:30:08] Mike Klinzing: During that time, so during those eight years, as you’re, obviously you thought it was going to be four, ended up being eight, but obviously you have it in the back of your mind that at some point you’re going to have the opportunity to take over as the head coach, what are you doing during that time?

Obviously you’re learning from Coach Lambert there and you’re paying attention and watching what he does, and well, what else are you doing to try to improve yourself? As a coach, where are you going? Are you talking to other mentors, other coaches from other programs? Are you doing a lot of film study reading?

Just what was your process for improving as a coach?

[00:30:45] Raul Placeres: All those things, man, like you’ve never arrived. Right. And we hear that a lot. That’s probably a cliche saying, but it’s the absolute truth. You have never arrived and you must continue to get better. And towards the last two years, I knew that for sure I was going to become the head coach.

They had named me the coach in waiting, which was great because I knew hey, in about nine months, in that last year it’s going to be my show, you know? Right. And that gave me a great opportunity and the college handled it great, again, very fortunate because I started getting ready two years to the date that I was named the head coach.

Right. So just note taking, watching film, thinking about the things I wanted to do. Get ready for things I was going to change within the program, things that I was going to keep. And just that process of getting ready for the moment. And all the things you talked about from reading articles to watching other teams play, to keeping plays that I liked and the playbook  to thoughts and processes that I wanted to implement with my program once I became the head coach.

So just doing my due diligence as a coach to get ready for my moment.

[00:32:00] Mike Klinzing: When that moment comes. You’re in kind of an interesting situation because you have a guy who’s been there for a long time, who’s won a lot of games, and the program’s obviously been very successful, and yet you’re different, different person, different ideas, different thoughts, and even though you’ve kind of grown up in the game underneath him, there’s obviously ideas and things that you’re bringing to the table that.

You want to change or that you want to do differently? So how do you make that happen without making it, oh, he was doing it this way and it’s, it’s wrong. How do you kind of ease that tension, so to speak, to make sure that you can kind of put your stamp on the program and yet not have everybody feel like, man, what’s Raul doing?

He’s coming in and just revamping this whole thing. Yeah. Even though we’ve had a tremendous amount of success.

[00:32:52] Raul Placeres: Oh, that’s a great point you made, because I think a lot of young coaches make that mistake, and it doesn’t matter what level, right? Where you replace a middle school coaching legend or a high school coach legend, or in my case, a college legend at the division three level.

Right. And I always praise coach in everything that he’s done because he took a program basically from scratch. And made, a nationally recognized program. And I learned that a long time ago, my mother taught me that at a very young age. You know, she was extremely selfless and it was never about her.

It was always about me, my sister, and my brother and our family. It’s about the program, man, and I want to leave this program if I do leave it one day better than I found it. And I knew I had an enormous responsibility to uphold the culture that Coach had created for close to four decades of basketball.

And it was not for me to diminish anything that he did. And my job is to elevate everything that he has done. So that was kind of my approach. But I think a lot of young coaches go about it in the wrong way, because you want to put your stamp and your look into the program And I think that happens organically with hard work and preparation And bringing in the right type of character kids into a program.

[00:34:08] Mike Klinzing: When you think back to the first few months on the job, what were some of the things that you felt like you had to do to establish who you were as a head coach and what you wanted the program to be? Do you remember some of the action steps that you took early on?

[00:34:25] Raul Placeres: You know, the sucker was really smart because he retired and left with one senior, 12 freshman.

[00:34:34] Mike Klinzing: He knew the year to get out.

[00:34:35] Raul Placeres: So that senior class they won close to 90 games and four years and we went to the NCAA tournament two times and won three regular season title. That was a great senior class And I was starting from scratch. And to be honest with you, we’ve had a lot of success here these last three years of my four.

But I lost my first nine games, man, and it, it couldn’t have gone any worse for me right at the time. But again, I’m a believer man, and everything happens for a reason. And it made me a better coach because I’m a young coach. I’m replacing this legend. Everybody’s like, man, is this guy ever going to win a game?

I’m talking about it, the worst of the worst buzzer beaters from half court, one hand I think I lost like three games by one point. Like, everything that could go wrong to start a career went wrong, man. But I remember, I became really good friends with Paul Biancardi during that time.

I coached the big time aau, team BMA’s Elite during that time. And Paul, I remember Paul texting me and saying, Hey man the best thing that can happen to you in your career is to go through some adversity, because if you’re trying to climb the ladder in this profession athletic directors, people that are in charge are going to see, how did this guy handle adversity?

Right? And that’s what happens with a lot of coaching positions, right? A lot of guys get hired from being an assistant coach, but they’ve never really experienced any type of personal adversity as a coach, right? You go from a winning program and here’s the job, right? And that was a great learning lesson for me that I thought everything we had done as a player there and my time with coach, that it was going to work And it was just a different cast of players and I needed to change.

And man, I have never worked as hard as I did in that second half of the season to definitely turn it around and fortunately man, we did. And, but yeah, man, those first couple of months was just trying to get 12 freshmen to understand what it took. And at a high level, playing a really tough schedule.

And we just couldn’t figure it out early on. But it was just a matter of time before the stuff’s really started to click. But that was my first couple of months on the job were obviously extremely difficult as the second half of the season started.

We obviously had a winning record going forward and from that point on, man, we’ve been we’ve done pretty well since that first year. So it was just a matter of that early stage of just getting guys to understand what the culture was about And how we needed to go about it.

[00:37:06] Mike Klinzing: What did those conversations look like? Because this is something that I think is interesting and relevant to a lot of coaches, because a lot of times when somebody’s a first year head coach, and I don’t care whether it’s the high school or college level, not everybody gets that. Prime job or they’re stepping into a winning program.

Lots of coaches end up getting their first experience with a program that needs to be turned around, which oftentimes means you lose more than you win in your first season. And so everybody comes into their job after they get hired for the first time, and your record’s still zero and zero. And you preach and talk about all the things that the program’s going to be about, and there’s lots of excitement because it’s a new coach and the players are ready to go and whatever the message is what it is, and then all of a sudden you start oh nine and now all of a sudden that message that sounded pretty good at zero and zero when you’re zero and nine, it doesn’t necessarily sound as good.

So how did you talk to your players during that time to make sure that they understood that it was about the process of what you guys were going through and that they kind of needed to just stick with it? In order to be able to get over the hump so they could start winning games, but that’s sometimes a hard sell.

So yeah. What do you remember about those conversations?

[00:38:27] Raul Placeres: No, I’ll give you an example. I met with Josh Schertz, who was a fantastic coach at Lincoln Memorial for a decade plus, and now he’s the head coach at Indiana State. I met with him before I got my year started And this has always resonated with me, and I’ve used it with that team, and I’ve always used it with every team that I’ve coached since you know, there’s five business cycles, right?

There’s the birth, the growth, the plateau, the decline and the death of a company, right? And anything that you do, you must maintain yourself in the growth phase. And that’s what I preached and I didn’t deviate from that. And I think as I’ve gotten now going into my fourth year as a head coach the message has to be very clear to your guys.

And if it’s clear there are going to be bumps along the road, right? But as long as the message is clear, everybody knows what we’re trying to accomplish and what we’re trying to seek. As a team. And that was my selling point to them going through those tough times was, Hey man, this is all about growth and this is part of the process and you know, the ones that you know, and I remember saying that to this day, we were in a film room and I said, the guys that stay with me, you’re going to be champions and the ones that did have experienced five different championships since that time and that’s part of it, man, in order to go about it.

You know, And find the winning joy, right? You have to go through some tough times. And those tough times definitely made me a better coach and made our players much better players.

[00:39:56] Mike Klinzing: In terms of your philosophy offensively and defensively as a head coach, because you were already in the program and you were stepping in as opposed to going to a completely new environment, did you have a pretty good feel for obviously the personnel coming back and.

As you said, you come in and you kind of got a new group and that group of seniors had graduated, but you had a much better feel for what the program was and what you could do there, potentially than you would as an outsider coming into a new program. So how set were you on the way you wanted to play both offensively and defensively as a head coach, and did that change when you actually sat in the head coaching chair?

[00:40:39] Raul Placeres: The luxury of that idea I was going to be the head coach I was recruiting the players that I wanted in the program and I went with a very athletic mindset because I knew that’s what we needed to be really successful in our league. And I’ll tell you one quick lesson. I learned to never devalue the value of having shooters, we were extremely athletic. We played Sylvania, we opened up with a scrimmage with them and we beat them at home. And I’m thinking to myself, wow, man, like we actually got something here. And then I take nine freshmen. I was playing nine freshmen and one senior at the time.

And we go to M T S U conference, u s a big time program, and we’re down, I believe like two or three points at the half. And I’m looking at my assistant and I’m saying, Hey man, like we got something here, you know? And you know, we took the whole JV at the time we had a JV program, so I let everybody play.

They obviously got out of hand in the second half, but I said, man, we got something here. You know, we just have to continue to develop it and then one thing after another, like I shared with you in those first nine games bunch of. You know, really close losses and buzzer beaters And all that.

But I knew that the talent level was there, that we had the makings of a championship caliber team. And like I shared, I looked at them all in the eye and I said, Hey man, those who stick with it and stay with me and believe in the process, you’re going to be champions.

And man, it happened the next year and we’ve been doing it now for the last three years.

[00:42:16] Mike Klinzing: Tell me a little bit about your recruiting process. How you go about just getting started, putting together your initial list of players that you want to check out, that you want to go look at, and then how you over time narrow that funnel down to who you bring on campus to come and visit.

And then how ultimately you make your choices about who you want to bring in and who’s going to be a part of your program.

[00:42:38] Raul Placeres: You know, like a lot of coaches, great coaches you’ve had on, on your podcast a lot of similar things, looking at skillset I’m big on skill. I’m big on feel And we got three simple little boxes you have to check, and the first two are non-negotiables.

You have to be a great teammate. I know those things sound very cliche-ish in our world, but it’s the absolute truth, man. If you can’t be a great teammate you’re not going to be a great basketball team. I’m a firm believer in that you have to have a competitive spirit about you in everything that you do.

And we’re looking at that. How competitive are you as a ball player? Are you only front running when you’re up And defending and with a lot of energy, or you. Consistently that way in a game. And then lastly, because you’re watching them in AAU, you’re watching them at the high school with their high school teams.

When their opportunity is presented, do they produce? And that’s how we recruit, but that’s also how we deal with our guys. The first two are non-negotiables. You have to be competitive. Competitive, you’ve have to be a heck of a teammate. And then once myself And my staff decide that it’s your opportunity, you have to produce.

And that’s the way we go about our recruiting and the way we go about our program.

[00:43:54] Mike Klinzing: How do you define a great teammate? What does that mean to you?

[00:43:56] Raul Placeres: Man? You know somebody comes off the floor we’re very traditional in that sense. When you watch us play we all stand up we all cheer for, for our guy.

When we go into the game, we got a tower in our hand to make sure that we got the matchup. When we go back into the game we go into the game we’re kind of huddled up during a timeout. We jog off the floor, whether we’re up, down, it doesn’t matter. At halftime, we jog off the floor when the game is over.

We’re on the floor at exactly 60 minutes. Everybody’s shirt tails tucked in to stretch and get ready to play a basketball game and to hopefully play it at a really high level. A great teammate is a guy who just doesn’t come to the gym and works on his skills by himself, but he’s wanting to bring somebody along with him, right?

I can go on and on about different things that we look at with great teammates,  but that gives you a little bit of an example of what we look for in a guy a great teammate, how do you deal with. Pick up 2000 a high school game and most high school coaches bench a guy.

Right. You know, I’m out of that philosophy. I’m going to play the guy, right. And trust that he understands what he needs to do on the floor. And how do you go about that? Are, are you continuing to cheer on your teammates or are you lounging back in the chair and not being attentive to the game and not being attentive in the huddles?

You know, also being a great teammate goes to family. How do you treat your mother and father after the game? I look at that type of stuff. How do you treat your mother and father on the recruiting visit when we’re eating lunch together? If someone who disrespects their mother in front of me, you’re more than likely not going to have a real good relationship with me if you come to school.

Right. And so I’m looking at all that type of stuff And obviously the other two components of being competitive and obviously producing at a high level. When your opportunity is given.

[00:45:37] Mike Klinzing: How much of that at this point is player enforced, for lack of a better way of saying it. In other words, when you first got the job, obviously there’s some teaching that has to go on and you, I’m sure had already had that established as with your previous staff.

But now as you take over the head coaching job, how much of that now is just, hey, the older guys, the veterans who have been in the program, Hey man, this is the way we do things. And really coach doesn’t have to say a whole lot. Where are you in that process?

[00:46:08] Raul Placeres: Yeah, we’ve been very lucky. Okay. We ended up getting two division one transfers here the last three years.

And those guys have been phenomenal. Our best player, he was named in All American this past year And Miles Rasnick one of the best players I’ve ever coached at any level. And he leads by example And the guys see it, right?  He’s always in the weight room.

He’s always working on his game. He’s very attentive in film room. He’s always on time. He’s a great student. So when your best player can also be the best person on your team, I think you create a great environment for great things to happen. And to your point, yeah, it is really player led.

Honestly. I talk about it in our introductory meeting to start the year. It’s very simple, right? It’s not a tricky mathematical equation, right? It’s real simple, man. Like, these are the things I’m asking you to do. And once you are given the opportunity to play, You have to produce because that’s how the real world works, right?

Like, if you don’t produce at a certain job, they’re going to go get someone else who’s who can do the job and hopefully do it better. And we’re trying to teach these life lessons through a game. And I think that’s a very simplistic way to teach it to young 18 to 21 year olds.

[00:47:25] Mike Klinzing: When you think about developing a leader like that, is that something that you think the kid comes in with? And then how do you go about developing those leadership skills that you see in players to make sure that you have the kind of program that, as you said, is player led? What do you, how do you give kids space to be able to, to grow as leaders within the program?

[00:47:51] Raul Placeres: Yeah, man. So I’ll give you an example. In our meetings, I’m very direct and to the point with our guys I’m always speaking the facts of the truth with them. I’m always speaking to them with respect and empathy with what they’re dealing with.

But I also allow them to vent and share with me what they’re seeing, how they’re feeling, how the process is going for them. So, I deal in a lot of truth And all the great programs. I think we all we all kind of share those things, right? Truth is a big part of what we do.

You know, I heard this was probably a year ago. You had coach Merkel on from Randolph Macon won national championship. And I think their phrase is truth over harmony, I think is what he talks about. Yep, that’s right. And yeah, And I feel it when I heard him talking about it, I felt it because that’s who we are.

The truth will always be the key for growth to, to take place. And again, we always talk about growth. I’m always, that’s a word they tell you. They’re sick and tired of me saying it, because I talk about it all the time and I’m going to invest in them and that’s what they know that I’m going to invest my heart, my soul, everything that I have into them.

I expect the same thing in return. I think when you do that growth 10 naturally happens. And then the leadership part comes with that, right? Because now you know you’re empowered by your coach because he’s giving you the freedom and this is your team. This is what you need to do in order to bring these guys along And help us become a better team.

So just giving him the confidence that I believe in them, that I’m hearing them but that we do that through truth, And that’s how we go about it.

[00:49:32] Mike Klinzing: Talk about how that plays into the off season, because as we’ve talked about numerous times with a bunch of guys who coach at the D three level, the off season is a time where if you’re a Division one coach, you got tons of access to your players.

I might argue too much access to your players. Whereas at division three level, now, you guys are finally getting to eight days, and I know everybody’s super excited about, Hey, what are we going to do with this eight days and how are we going to make this maximize it? And everybody has kind of a different thought on that.

And we can get yours in a second, but just when you think about. Developing the leaders in terms of your players and making sure that everybody in your program, all your guys are getting their off season work and doing what they need to do when you can’t be the guy there with them all the time. It has to come from the leaders within the program.

So how does that play into kind of how you go about talking about the off season with everybody on your roster And just go through that process with me?

[00:50:30] Raul Placeres: Yeah. So, so first of all, again, Very fortunate. We have a strength coach at our level. I can’t say many some programs have that, but that is not the grand majority of college programs in division three have a strength coach.

Right. And so our strength coach deals with the physical piece in the preseason, in the postseason in the summer. So that helps coach and I with that part of the development of the player. But I’ll give you an example of what we we’re doing this summer. So I, the returning players, I got 12 guys returning on, on from this past year’s team and they vote for two guys who are, who do you think two captains are returning?

Right. And then obviously you get different votes and stuff like that. And we have a roster now of close to 20 guys coming back with the freshman that we signed. I basically appoint a captain, four guys. To five guys, right? And they are in charge of them all summer in regards to checking up on are you doing the workouts that we sent home?

Are you following the weight and conditioning program? I give them three drills that they need to consistently work on because I will see when we get back on campus, if you can pass those drills that we did and especially now with, with the NCAA passing, the we’re going to get eight days before October 15th that definitely helps us a bunch.

But I do that because the group is now responsible And we’re holding them accountable, but I’m also holding accountable one guy for the group, right? So we all feel like we’re part of this, and you don’t want to let your group leader down and obviously you don’t want to let your team down.

We partner them up throughout the year. They come in and they work on their game two to three times a week before we can get started October 15th, but, They have a guy typically plays the same position And they’re working every single day. And we create that structure for them as their coaches.

[00:52:27] Mike Klinzing: I love that idea of the small group. To me, that makes a ton of sense because now you kind of set up these individual, whatever you want to call them, group squads, that, as you said, not only now or they don’t want to let down the greater entire team, but now you’re talking about you’re responsible for this small group of guys in your little pod and you won’t, don’t want to let down the leader of your group.

And to me it just is another whole layer of accountability and just a way to make sure that they’re on track and they’re, they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing. And as you said, it’s a, it’s a way to also empower. It’s not just one leader. Now you have multiple leaders on the team. Right. And that’s what I think as coaches, you always want to do, like we always talk about, hey, like, yeah, we might have a captain, but everybody can lead.

And I think. A lot of times coaches will say that, but they’d off, they’d often give kids the space to be able to lead. So they might say, Hey, we need more leadership. But then where does that leadership opportunity come from? And I think that by doing this, you’re giving way more opportunity for kids to be able to assume that leadership role And start to take that on.

And again, as you well know, talking about growth, that it’s a process, right? Becoming a leader. It’s not like suddenly like, Hey Raul, you’re a leader, man. And now you’ve got it all figured out. Like that’s not how it works. And so you have to continue to give kids more and more responsibility. And as you give them more responsibility, they take that on, they grow, they improve as leaders.

And that to me, again, is what it’s all about. You said it earlier, using the game of basketball to teach those life lessons that are going to impact them, not just when they’re 18, 19, 20 years old, but when they’re 30 or 40 or 50 years old. Hopefully those lessons that they learned, When they’re planning for you or lessons that they’re going to take with them throughout their life.

[00:54:19] Raul Placeres: You know, and you’ve heard this before, right? Being comfortable, being uncomfortable, that’s part of being a leader. And we have this phrase, and I, heck, I don’t know who I took this from, but you know, with all this stuff during the summer it’s turning a to-do list to a must-do list, right?

Yep. And we have to do that. You know, that might’ve been Kevin Eastman with his book, the Best how The Best Are The best. That’s a great book, man. Yeah, man, it’s fantastic. But, but I think that’s from the book. And and I’ve taken that, right? Like man, we have to get some stuff done if we want to be the type of team that we want to be.

When you’re in that huddle and it’s a two point ball game and you’re looking at each other’s eyes and we’re talking about, Hey, we need to stop. Man, did we work harder than these guys on the other side? are we going to earn this victory? And I think those are the moments And why I’m doing this group thing, because now they can all look and say, Hey man, we’ve busted our tail all summer long for these moments.

Right? And you know, again, empowering, it’s part of their experience, you know? It’s like I tell the parents, man, I’m never going to be able to take the place of their mother and father, but I’m definitely going to build on the foundation that that they have set for their children.

Right. And my job as their head coach is to continue to empower them so they can be very successful in the most important game right. In the game of life. And that’s really, really important to me.

[00:55:40] Mike Klinzing: All right. Let’s talk about where you are right now in the calendar. As we talked about, I think before we started recording, you got.

Kids that are finishing school, so you’re just kind of waiting on grades right now, but as a Division III, head coach, school’s out, players went home. What’s Raul doing day to day during the month of May?

[00:56:02] Raul Placeres: Raul was trying to get better because I can’t get complacent because we have had success. The last three years we’re coming back off of another regular season in conference tournament championship.

I’m just trying to get better each and every day. I’m listening to podcasts, I’m watching film on synergy you know, incremental little changes here and there in regards to our defense and offense to, to make us a little bit better next year picking other coaches’ brains. Also getting ready for my camp.

I have a big team camp. We have over 80 something teams, high school teams coming at the end of the month here in May. And then the first couple days in June, and then I have a little kids camp two weeks after that. We typically get about 150, 160 little kids, and I’d really enjoy that. I treat it like an old school camp you get dropped off at seven 30, camp starts at nine, and we go all the way to five.

And man, we have a great time with that. Those are the same little kids that come to our games. You know, we use our players our freshman, we get them all together. And they work camp. I use those four days of camp to eat dinner with them every single night and talk about a different subject a different topic that they’re going to encounter as first year students in college.

And it gives me a great time to spend time with those young guys that are coming in and incorporating the guys that are returning with the new guys. And that’s what I’m doing, man. I’m just again like. If you want to be a great coach, you have to be a life learner.

You’ve never figured it out. You need to continue to grow and learn. And that’s what I’m trying to do because there’s no such thing. I truly believe that there’s no such thing as a finish line when you’re a true competitor and you’re trying to make become the best you can possibly become, the finish line just gets pushed further and further.

Right? And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to push that finish, push that finish line further and further. So I can continue to work And, and work harder to continue to obtain goals.

[00:57:50] Mike Klinzing: Do you have a team or a coach or an action or something that you’re watching on Synergy? Is there something you’re kind of dialed in on right now?

[00:57:56] Raul Placeres: Man and I’m not a big secret guy. I love what UConn did with their post player. We got a really dominant, big coming in as a freshman that I really, really like 6 9, 270 pound kid that we want to create some space for him inside. You know, I, I returned four of my five starters. You know, I think we’ll, we’ll have a pretty good chance to be pretty good again next year.

And you know, I like what UConn did this summer. You know, I’m a big driving space guy. That’s one thing that I changed  from taking over, we’re a four out one in motion, predominantly with a big at the block. We kind of put him in the dunk spot now and I studied Doug Novak, if you know anything about Doug Novak and his driving space, I’m a big fan of it. I’m a big fan of how he thinks about the game. I think he’s one of those guys that you don’t hear as much about, but I think there’s great wisdom And knowledge in everything that he brings to the table as a coach.

I’m continuing to get better at my craft in regards to the driving space and just like I said, man, just little things that can hopefully incrementally make us better. So that’s what Raul is doing right now.

[00:59:00] Mike Klinzing: What’s one or two things that, without giving away all your secrets, what’s one or two things that you’re looking at that.

Maybe you want to tweak from last year to this ne this coming season.

[00:59:08] Raul Placeres: Have to protect the paint a little bit more. That came with the youth that was the great thing about if you know anything about our past season, like we went 18 and eight, but I had Probably a top five strength of schedule in the country.

Eight of the 13 non-conference teams I played ended up going to the national tournament, and four of those went to the Sweet 16. Right. And we beat one of those. So we really challenged ourselves, but I did it with six freshmen. Like I played six freshmen this past year, and I started three of them.

And we have to get better on the defensive side of the ball, but that takes time, right? A lot of these guys that takes about a year and a half, two years to really understand the consistency of staying in a stance. You know, coming from the weak side not over helping, just knowing your role and what our philosophy is defensively.

Protecting the paint is really important to us And getting out on shooters just contesting a little bit more. I’ve gone to GAP just because the college line has stretched out And I just don’t believe guys shoot it really well consistently. And we just have to become better at ups.

[01:00:13] Mike Klinzing: What’s the biggest adjustment for a high school player defensively making the jump up to college in your mind,

[01:00:20] Raul Placeres: Speed of the game, physicality of the gang, you’re the top dog at 18 years old in most high school programs, where now with Covid with the transfer portal you’re playing a lot of teams with 23, 24 year olds, right?

It’s grown men and just the physical side of the game is just a little bit different. And you have to get used to that. And the only way to get used to that is bringing in it every day in practice and playing at that speed consistently. So you can, when your opportunity does come in a game that you can play at that level.

[01:00:53] Mike Klinzing: All right? When the kids get back to school and. You’re starting to I October 15th. Now it’s going to be different this year because you got your eight days. What do you do with your eight days? You know, yet?

[01:01:03] Raul Placeres: Yeah man, I, my schedule’s already planned. I wish we could start tomorrow, but yeah, it’s already planned.

Take it a little bit at a time. Incorporate the young guys we’re going to take one practice a week and then kind of in, you know go about two days and then three days as we get closer to October 15th for them to understand the grind of a college season.

You know, we’re typically practicing six out of the seven days of the week, right? So they have to understand it’s two hour practices and there’s film room and we’re lifting and you’re coming in and shooting with your partner. And there’s a lot more to it now that you’re in college because you do have a little bit more time, right?

You’re not in class from eight to three o’clock. Right? You may have a class or two during the day. You may not have classes on a Tuesday and a Thursday, right? Like, So there’s a lot of time if, if you want to become you want to go from good to great as a player there’s time to do that. So yeah, I think in those first early practices, it’s just kind of getting our philosophy on both ends of the floor starting with transition and probably with our defense and our ball screen stuff on, on what we’re going to do and how we’re going to go about it.

So that’s probably how we’ll probably start those eight practices.

[01:02:14] Mike Klinzing: How do you and your staff prepare for those practices? And obviously that’s something new, but just thinking about the opening day of practice October 15th. What are you guys doing in the fall to get ready? Man, you got a lot of time to think about that first practice or that first week of practice or all the things you have to get in before the first game.

What are those conversations like in the coach’s office?

[01:02:36] Raul Placeres: Yeah. You say staff and I don’t want people out there.

[01:02:39] Mike Klinzing: They do listen to this. You got your 12, your 12 guys you’re meeting with?

[01:02:44] Raul Placeres: Yeah, it’s me and my guy Jeff McCord. Man, we were both teammates here. It’s just me and him. We love it.

We take great pride in the program because we’re both number one, we’re both teammates here and we both went to the three 16 and we want to get there again. And it’s just me and him, man. We actually met last week and we had a big board and we wrote what we need to get better at on the defensive side of the ball, what we need to keep, what we need to throw out, what we need to include. And we’re ready to go. You know, the playbook is set. And we just have to go about it day by day and hopefully get better. I read the book Atomic Habits Man, and that’s one thing that it talks about is trying to as, as silly as it may sound, getting 1% better in what you do, right?

Incremental just upgrades in what you do. And then if you can do that consistently, you’re going to be a better team. And that’s what I’ve challenged our guys with. You know, I want them to get 1% better in five different areas. And if we can all do that, the 12 guys that are returning, that makes us 60% better.

That’s kind of a Pat Riley thing. Pat Riley did that when he got to the Knicks. It just empowers your guys to understand, man, like don’t overdo it and think about, man, I have to score four or five more points a game. Let’s just make this really simple.

And if we can do that, great things can happen as a team. So, yeah, man, everything is really, I’m big on that. I like to be ahead of the game at all times, right? I’m not a last second type of guy and shooting from the hip type of dude. So you know we’re ready to go if it’s the season they told us, Hey man, you guys can start tomorrow.

The Scotts are ready to go, that’s for sure.

[01:04:19] Mike Klinzing: What’s your best habit that you think leads to your success as a coach? What’s your most important habit that’s made you the coach that you are today?

[01:04:28] Raul Placeres: Man, I don’t believe in tough coaching. I believe you either love your kids or you don’t.

Right? And if you love your kids, you’re going to demand their very best. And I’m their harshest critic, but I’m also their biggest cheerleader. And I’ve taken that that’s been my philosophy my entire career from when I started as a 24 year old, as a high school head coach, to now as a 41 year old head coach in college.

The more you love on your kids they talk about, you want to really. Push them in, in public, right? Like you want to really push the good that they’re doing and the things that they’re improving in really bring that out to them in public And in private talk about the things that they probably need to get better at.

You know, I’m a big believer in that but I think the biggest thing is man, I love him. I love him hard man, you know? And by loving, when you love somebody, you want them to be their very best. And again there’s moments of it’s uncomfortable moments sometimes right between player and coach, but they know dang well that the only reason that I do that is because I want them to be their very best selves.

[01:05:33] Mike Klinzing: When you’re in a practice setting and you’re watching a drill, or you’re watching a scrimmage, or whatever it is that you’re working on at a particular time, this is a question I think is one that I’ve asked a lot of coaches, and I’m always just curious to how different coaches approach it and what their thought process is.

When you see something that you need to correct. How do you go about correcting? Or is that something that, Hey, we’re, we’re stopping it immediately. Is it something that you have to be, okay, in this drill we’re focusing on this, but maybe we have to let this other thing slide within that we want to keep the flow of practice going, but yet we want to be able to correct and coach in the process of doing it.

So just how do you go about coaching your players during practice, if that question makes sense.

[01:06:18] Raul Placeres: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think you I’m a big follower of your podcast, by the way. I think you asked that to Coach Lutz who was at where is he now? Western Kentucky. Yep. Mm-hmm. And, and I think he responded it the same way I’m going to respond to you right now.

Man, you really don’t have if, if you’re stopping the flow of practice, right? If you’re constantly saying, Hey man, you needed to go two dribbles to the right here. You know, I think you use. The ability of what we have in today’s game with the hudl cameras and the synergy and just the, the ability for them to be able to see it and the accessibility of today’s cell phone, which they all have.

Yes. And they’re always on it. Right? It’s a thing I watch every single practice. I think that’s how you get better, not only as a team, but you get better as a coach. You have about a hundred plus of those a year while you only have 25 games. Right. Guaranteed games. So you’re going to get the most out of yourself as a coach and of your players by really dialing in and watching tape.

And it takes two to three clips per kid. That doesn’t take much time to do, honestly. Between myself and the coach, we split team in half And we just, Hey man, like on this possession right here you probably should have gone over the top right here cause we’re hard hedging.

You decided to go under and the guy popped the three behind the screen. Right. But instead of having to stop practice I just want practice to flow And  we can. In an eight to 12 minute film session, which I’ve gone to that now. You know, my coach really likes that. that was one of the changes I made going into this year.

Talk a little bit less in film. But also the attention span of the player, right? I think an eight to 12 minute film session, If you organize it correctly, your guys will get the most out of it and it could be one clip, two clips today was this guy’s turn and we’re just going to watch eight minutes of this guy, right?

I think definitely I’d rather the practice flow than me stopping in every right. Possessions, you know what I mean? Like Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve done that. I did this, I do this little thing where we do an out of bounds under play, right?

We go into transition and then on the way back, we’re in a different type of defense, right? And the reason we do that we can take we can take advantage of let’s go over our outer bounds underplay, let’s do whatever we’re doing in transition. Let’s do it correctly. And then on the way back now, you put five other guys out there and they could be in a two-three zone.

They could be in a 1-3-1, they can pick you up 2-2-1, back to two- three or band or whatever it is. And the guys are constantly understanding man, I have to be thinking on the fly, right? And so I’d rather, again, that goes back to flow. I really like the flow and practice more than me stopping and talking.

[01:08:58] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, man. I like the idea of. Making your players think, right? Because in a game you have to think and be able to process and you obviously can’t call time out anytime a team changes, defenses or throw something new at you that maybe you didn’t expect. So yeah, being able to have your players think on their feet is critical.

When you’re watching that film, are you doing a pre-practice? Is that when you guys watch that eight to 12 minute Film sessions,

[01:09:19] Raul Placeres: I’ve started to do it and these are the things that probably people don’t even think about, right? But like, the cafeteria is only open from a certain time, right?

So I have to incorporate, man, we’re going to watch film after practice. If it’s a five to seven, is the calf going to be closed?  I want them to eat, you know? So this year we went to watching film before practice. I’m going to incorporate, I heard my man, Zim Zimmerman, Jason Zimmerman from Emory on the podcast talking about sometimes they may just play a quick four minute game, and then they go into the film room and kind of watch it and then come back to practice.

I love that. I love that. I’ve never done that. I think I may incorporate that this year. But yeah, we typically watch film before practice, if I want to get their attention sometimes we may have to watch it after practice, but for the most part it’s before and it’s less honestly, that’s one thing that I think I’ve gotten better at.

And going into my fifth year you know, Just precise information that they need to know and not overload them with so much stuff, just the keys of what we need to do. And obviously just concern ourselves with what we do. Well, if we do that, we give ourselves a chance to have a good chance to win in any game we play.

[01:10:27] Mike Klinzing: When you’re looking at the film and you’re going over and looking at a game and trying to analyze what happened, is there one or two. Stats, analytics, things that you like, that you think are really key for your team, things that you maybe zero in on that are kind of a leading indicator for whether or not your team’s going to be successful in a particular game or a particular season?

[01:10:50] Raul Placeres: Yeah. I’ll share some numbers with you. Anytime we shoot 45, 35 70, so 45 from the field, 35 from three 70 from the free throw line. I haven’t lost the game in four years. Right? So that’s an important number for us. Rebound margin four to eight, I think at our level, I’m just talking about division three.

That’s the only thing I concern myself with. That’s the big time for me. Four to eight, we win at a high clip when we rebound four to eight with a four to eight margin steals and blocks. I think anything above 10 is good.

12, is ideal because that means you’re being very active. You’re probably averaging about eight, nine steals a game and probably about two or three blocks a game. Right. So that’s important to us. That’s tells me how active we’ve been. And then, you know one stat that’s really difficult to do, but we, we definitely track is you know assisting on 50% of the made field goals.

Cause that means everybody’s touching it, the ball is moving it’s not, you just that’s not one guy just scoring it and that’s what we’ve prided ourselves for since coach’s tenure, right. We, we got like this year we had. Four guys in double figure scoring, and then we had another four to five, anywhere between six to eight points a game.

So valuing that that extra pass And making the right basketball play is important to us. And I think some guys we call it kills. You know, getting three stops in a row is a kill. You know, my little student managers that helped me that are really important as well.

You know, I’m always asking at every media time, Hey man, how many kills we got? You know to see how many stops and are we getting consistent stops through the flow of a game?

[01:12:27] Mike Klinzing: Your staff of 12 isn’t able to do all that, right? Hey,

[01:12:30] Raul Placeres: Hey man, that’s why it’s so important.

Like you’re only as good as your, I mean this as your assistant coach, because, so true. Man, they do so much that, that and I’m so blessed to have my guy and we’ve been great friends for 20 plus years and that’s one of the reasons I think we’re so successful as well, is we have great synergy between one another.

I’m the passionate one. I call him Jeff Whispers, he’s kind of my right hand man. So he’s Jeff Whispers, he just goes around and he is like, Hey man real quietly. And he’s like, you really want to do this right? Because you don’t want to pee on your tail, you know?

So we have great balance between him and I and man, we really enjoy it. But yeah, man, we wear so many hats from setting the hotels up to watching the jerseys to film to make sure you got the H D M I cord on the hotels. And some hotels don’t have HDMIs and A lot of things that major programs don’t really probably even concerns or have to deal with.

[01:13:30] Mike Klinzing: At D1 I think they got an H D M I cord guy. There’s one guy who, that’s his only job.

[01:13:35] Raul Placeres: Yeah. But I think that’s why when division three coaches are given the opportunity at the highest of levels, I think that’s why they’re so successful because they’ve been able to, to do it all and they’re so ready for the opportunity because there’s nothing that is going to come their way that they have not done.

So you know, that’s why I get so excited and happy for guys who get their division one opportunity and then do a really good job and then they get that next big opportunity from the division three ranks. Man, it makes me really happy, because I know how hard it is for us And all the things that we do.

[01:14:11] Mike Klinzing: Well you get to touch all aspects of the program, right? Which is something that if you start at the division one level, you don’t necessarily get that same opportunity. I mean, a lot of guys that. Spent years and years, whether you’re an ops guy or you’re a video guy or whatever, and you may not even ever see the floor as a coach.

And so it’s interesting when you start talking about the different pathways that guys have to whatever, coaching, whatever pedestal they want to get to eventually. There’s lots of different ways to get there. And I, I think from just all the interviews that we’ve done with division three, head coaches, assistant coaches, coaches who have coached at the Division three level, I think that’s the one thing that comes across more than anything else, is just the fact that, hey, my experience at the division three level was I had to, I got to do everything that any coach could ever have to do.

And I feel like all those guys feel that. That’s what propelled them in whatever they wanted to do in their career. Whether they wanted to stay at the Division three level And find a job that fit them and find a community and a school that fits who they are. And that’s what they wanted to do. And then other guys who want to move up in a level, they all, everybody that we talk to just talks about how important that experience is and just being able to do everything.

And I think you would obviously concur with that.

[01:15:35] Raul Placeres: Yeah. No. And another thing I had I heard this a long time ago you can know everything, but you can’t do everything. And that’s why I empowered, just like, I empower my players. My assistant coach is empowered to where there’s certain things that he does and I don’t even, you know what I mean?

I you check up on nah, man. Like, because I want him to feel like, man, that’s his thing. And he’s in charge of it. And he has my a hundred percent confidence that I know he is going to do a great job. So it’s just  part of it, it’s a whole organizational thing.

Like I’m a big believer in that your president at the institution has to be bought in. Your athletic director needs to be bought in, your trainer needs to buy in. Then, hey, I’m a big guy. Like, I have to feel good vibes about the bus driver. I have to know that my guy is all in we got a guy, Bobby, Bobby Farmer, he’s our guy.

My man is like, he tells me all the time, Hey, coach, I’m 29 and two, when I’m your bus driver, I say, Hey Bobby you just keep driving brother.

But yeah man, I think it’s, it’s an organizational thing. Everybody has to be on the same page and everybody needs to feel empowered that they can do their jobs to the highest of levels.

And I think that’s when organizations really reach great depths And can be their very best.

[01:16:44] Mike Klinzing:  I love that, man. I love it. I think it, it’s, it’s something that I think oftentimes it’s overlooked, but when you get everybody that’s associated with the program that’s pulling in the same direction and everybody wants to see success, man, that’s when you really can get things going because we all know that that’s not always the way it is everywhere.

There’s, there’s things that can get in the way of that, unfortunately. And when you do get everybody rowing that boat in the same direction, really good things can happen. I want to wrap up two final two part question. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, part one, when you look ahead to what you have coming in the next year or two, what do you see as being your biggest challenge?

And then the second part, 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.

[01:17:35] Raul Placeres: Man, biggest challenge, it just is to not do not enter that land of complacency, right? And just continue to get better And continue to understand as coaches, as a staff, as players, that we’ve never, that we haven’t arrived, that we still got more things to accomplish as a team, as people.

And that, that hopefully that that never creeps in as a program and to continue to understand we have this simple little phrase where we talk about we always want to choose right over easy. We always want to be connected instead of being isolated we want to always serve our community and not be selfish have extreme gratitude and not be entitled, to focus on contributing and not complaining.

And to understand, which is now your final piece. Right. Joy over pessimism, man. And I enjoy obviously my wife and I think that’s, that goes without being said. Like, my wife is everything they put so much into it. As your partner they sacrifice so much.

And I’m eternally thankful for her for that. You know, my daughter I miss a lot of, she’s a really good soccer player and I miss a lot of, of games And activities that she does because of the profession I do. But I think they understand why dad does what he does, but I’m thankful for them.

And so I put myself in their shoes at all times and try to be around as much as I possibly can. So the joy just being around them during the year and how they support me, and they’re at every one of my home games, and that gives me great joy, but also the joy of the hunt man.

You know, when you’re hunting that’s where I take the most joy in hunting down those goals and hunting down what we want to accomplish as a team. That gives me great joy. Not the final prize. It’s kind of crazy when you go up and you cut those nets down or you get the ring like it’s a two minute thing, right? It’s a two minute, three minute satisfaction, right? Yep. The thing that gives you the greatest satisfaction man, is coming to work every day and trying to maximize yourself as a person, as a coach, because you’re a mentor to these guys And you’re trying to empower them and give them the confidence that they can be leaders and coaches, whether they choose it or not, they’re going to be coaching their families one day.

And I take that part of my job so serious. So just the joy of knowing that the journey is hard and it’s tough and that’s the joy of it, man. It makes you want to want it a lot. So that’s what I really, really enjoy is the hunt of the season.

[01:20:04] Mike Klinzing: Knowing what it takes to get there and having a support system in place that you can come home to. I think, man, there’s nothing better than those two things. So that’s really well said, Raul.

[01:20:16] Raul Placeres: Man, I appreciate you brother.

[01:20:17] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. Alright, before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you, learn more about your program.

So you want to share social media, email, website, whatever you want. And then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up. Man,

[01:20:31] Raul Placeres: My Twitter it’s @McCoachPlaceres. You know, that’s a good way to follow myself, our program my cell phone number, (865) 256-2222. If I any coaches that hear the podcast that are interested in any of the stuff that we talked about, or anything that I can help them out with reach out to me.

I love sharing the game with people and man, that that’s really go to our website, mcscots.com and kind of go to basketball and kind of see everything that we’re doing. But man, that’s how you find us, if we’re ever in town and as a high school coach or you got a player, always man, that’s the important part.

Players, if you got players you have, holler at us, but Again, man. I’m an open book. Anything that I can share and help others with in their journey that’s why we do it and I’ll continue to be that way. So, man, I appreciate you because I think what you do is great cause you cover so many different levels and so many different topics and it helps us coaches grow.

And just not, and not just being a coach, but being a person, the total package. So I truly appreciate you And your partner, Jason, for what you guys do. Well, thank you.

[01:21:38] Mike Klinzing: Kind words are always great to hear and we don’t take those lightly anybody that’s taking the time out of their day to listen to what we have to say and to, for us to be able to give a platform to, again, coaches, as you said, at all different levels and different people that we’ve been in fortunate enough to have on that have been gracious enough to come out with us.

I mean, it means the world to us. And the game of basketball is obviously something that has given me. I mean, just about everything in my life I trace back to basketball in some way, shape, or form. So I feel like the pod is a, a small way for me to give back. And again, can’t thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule to jump out with us tonight, share your knowledge and share what you’ve experienced throughout your journey.

So kudos to you and thank you and to everyone out there who’s listening, we appreciate it and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.