“THE TRIPLE DOUBLE” #8 WITH ROB BROST, BOLINGBROOK (IL) HIGH SCHOOL BOYS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 928
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The 8th episode of “The Triple Double” with Rob Brost, Bolingbrook (IL) High School Boys’ Basketball Head Coach. Rob, Mike, & Jason hit on three basketball topics in each episode of “The Triple Double”.
- Post Season Player Meetings
- How do you reflect on the season and look for ways to improve?
- Favorite NCAA Tournament Memories
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What We Discuss with Rob Brost
- Tips and advice for conducting post season player meetings
- Reflecting after the season and looking for ways to improve your program moving forward
- Favorite NCAA Tournament Memories
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THANKS, ROB BROST
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TRANSCRIPT FOR “THE TRIPLE DOUBLE” #8 WITH ROB BROST, BOLINGBROOK (IL) HIGH SCHOOL BOYS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 928
[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co host Jason Sunkle tonight, but I am pleased to welcome in for Triple Double number eight, Rob Brost, head boys basketball coach at Bolingbrook High School. Rob, welcome to Triple Double number eight.
[00:00:18] Rob Brost: Man, I can’t believe it’s number eight already and you know, we’re going to have to pull on the ropes without Jason, but I think we can get it done. I think we can do it.
[00:00:27] Mike Klinzing: We’re going to try. So I don’t know if we have to call it the. The double, triple, the triple, single, the, well, I’m not sure what, I’m not sure we have to rename it, but we’re going to go with triple, double, number eight. All right, so let’s start out. Topic number one, postseason player meetings.
How do you approach those both with returning players, with seniors who are graduating? What are some of the things that you like to touch on? Just talk a little bit about how you handle the postseason meetings.
[00:00:56] Rob Brost: Yeah, first off, I think it’s vital to have them and to give players voice to whatever they deem necessary.
And obviously you have topics that you’re going to cover, but a lot of times those things will go into other things and other areas as well. We’re fortunate that I, I think I have a pretty good handle on where our players are mentally and how they feel in general because we communicate so much during the season.
However, the post season meeting is, is a good time to obviously review everything that happened. What went well, what didn’t go so well. To get feedback from players, how can I coach you better? What do you need to work on? What is your plan between now and November to become whatever it is that you want to become?
And so obviously that’s part of the topic as well. And so I think to set out a plan for all, all of the, all of the guys, whether they’re returners, whether they’re seniors. A lot of times our seniors have already figured out where they’re going to school and all of those things by the time the season’s over.
So typically I like to have our underclassmen have their meeting first because you know, those guys are going to be back and they, they got to get back to work like immediately on what we need to do. And then the seniors. Need to get to work on whatever it is that they need to do for their programs that they’re going to after playing for us.
And so I think they’re certainly valuable. I know some coaches, I don’t know if dread them is the right word, but The, the time that it takes to do them and have them is certainly valuable to me as a coach, because I always tell them, the more I know from you, the better I can coach you. And the more for me, the harder and better you can play for me.
And then our relationship is not transactional or it’s less transactional I’m not just trying to get good play out of them and they’re not just using me because I’m the coach. And so those things are important to build throughout the season, obviously, but the post season meetings are critical because it gives a launching pad.
To maybe some kids that didn’t play as much or didn’t play at all and lets them know kind of where they’re at and then what kind of plans you have for them. And so for us specifically, the end of March to November. Is really critical in their developments, specifically individually. And so that’s a critical time to get a plan together as to what they’re going to do.
And everybody is a little bit different, depending on what travel team you’re playing with. Maybe you’re not playing travel. You know, what our summer schedule is going to look like, all of those things. And every player. is a little bit different because every player is kind of in a little bit different spot, if that makes sense.
[00:04:09] Mike Klinzing: It does. Do you come in with written notes that kind of guide you through what you’re doing? And then do you take notes during the meeting to kind of keep an eye on what the conversation is all about? Or how do you approach that?
[00:04:21] Rob Brost: Yes. So, What I typically do to drive the start of it is tell me what was good about the season, what you liked, what went well for you individually.
And that’s how we start, start all, really all of them. And so then we get going on that. And then I say, what would you have liked to have seen work better or done differently for you as an individual? Then the same question comes about the team. And then we talk about How I can help them get better prepared, how I can coach them better.
And what do they feel like they need individually from me? And so that’s for me personally, that’s the best part of these meetings because you know, they are free to say whatever they want, just like I’m free to say whatever I want. And so. It’s really good. And especially for young people to have a discussion of, about some things that maybe didn’t go exactly how you wanted them to go and every single player, no matter how much they play, wants to play more and every single player wants to do more.
And so it’s good to have those conversations and it’s good for them to be able to frame. What they want and articulate what they would like to see happen. And then we articulate together what it’s going to take for all of that to actually happen. A lot of people can articulate it, but then they can’t, they don’t follow it up with the work that it’s going to take to make that happen.
And so it’s, it’s just a good way all the way around to help our guys. One, learn communication skills. With someone that’s not their peer and that someone that is kind of I don’t want to say in charge of them because it’s more a team effort than it is me being the boss of them, but somebody that’s kind of an authority figure that they trust, hopefully to help them get where they want to go.
And, and then obviously we talk about things that are completely unrelated from basketball, their families, their academics, their social situations boyfriends, girlfriends, all of those things what’s going on with their extended family. So those types of things we always cover as well because that’s not sometimes all the time is more important than the basketball piece.
And again, the more I know about them, the better I can coach them and the more they know what I’m thinking, the better they can play.
[00:07:00] Mike Klinzing: You reference the meetings, when I think of a post season meeting and I think about sitting down and you talked about how, okay, we have some ideas about what it’s going to take to get you from A to B, but there’s a lot of action that needs to be taken based on those ideas that come out of.
So when you get to July and you’re having a conversation with a kid and you can reflect back on, Hey, during our March meeting, we talked about if you want to get to point X on our team, these are the things that you were going to had to, had to do. And maybe. Those things, hey, they are getting done and I’m seeing the results or hey, are those things that we talked about, are we getting those things done?
Because I’m maybe not seeing the results. Is that something that you refer back to over the course of that time from March to November?
[00:07:53] Rob Brost: Yeah, I think when necessary we refer back to it. One of the things that the meetings help with as well is this, you can do all of this stuff and still You might not play because at our place, as it is at most places, everybody is working and everybody is working really hard.
So I think sometimes kids get a false sense of, Hey, if I do this, it will guarantee me to get this. And so when we’re talking about the things they need to do, they need to do those things. And then ultimately they need to be better than the other guys. that are on the team that are also doing most of those things.
Now, some of them do them harder, more often, better, with higher intensity, all of those things. And then some kids, let’s face it, basketball is not an equal opportunity thing. Some kids are just better than other kids. That’s just the way it is. Just like some coaches are better than me. That’s just the way that it is.
I can work at it my whole life. I’m not going to be the best coach on the planet. And so I think when kids start to understand that, that they should just do the work and trust the work as hard as that is, especially with social media and all of that, and not be transactional with the work that’s when it all starts to come together.
And so we talk about things like until you start becoming a better person, you’re never going to start becoming a better player. So you got to, for example, when you’re working out and you’re working out with another player, you got to help that player too. And so your shine isn’t less because they get a little.
And so your piece of the pie isn’t Any less because they got a little pie too. And so you know, if you’re getting better and you’re helping your team getting better, teammates get better, then we’re all getting better. And that’s the ultimate goal that you want your kids to understand. And that’s, Really, really hard in this day and age because everybody wants to get theirs and wants this from social media and that thing and these offers and that offer.
And why is this kid getting offers? And I’m not, and you know, all of those things play into the pantheon of stuff that we have to deal with these days. But all of those things are good things. I think if you can frame them in a certain way.
[00:10:28] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it’s almost like you frame it in reverse where the hard work and all that action, it doesn’t guarantee you what you want.
But on the other hand, if you don’t do any of those things, there’s a guarantee going the other way, that if you don’t do those things, that your opportunity is not going to be there.
[00:10:53] Rob Brost: And it’s we have some young kids that are pretty good players and some young kids that are in eighth grade that are going to be with us next year.
And kids tend to see the players that are ahead of them, but they don’t tend to think about the players coming behind them that might be better than them. And so It gives me a chance to say, Hey, this is what’s coming as well. I’m not saying Jimmy or Joey is better than you, but I am saying he’s pretty talented.
So you, you got to think of the things like, okay, these seniors are graduating, but then we got these guys coming from the freshmen team. These guys coming from eighth grade. And these guys coming from the sophomore team, they’re going to play into this thing too, because they want a little bit of this top five team trap all the stuff that we get to do.
So I think the post season meetings are good. But the best part that comes from them is the work that everybody needs to commit to. And so. You know, we don’t do a lot of stuff as a team between now and June 1st when our summer stuff starts. Most of what we do is individual because everybody’s with their travel team or everybody’s with their AU squad two times a week.
So we set out what we want to have them do or what they need to work on to get better. And then in a large part, it’s up to our players to make that happen.
[00:12:24] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, absolutely. So you give them a blueprint of, Hey, Here’s what we think needs to happen. You kind of put that together with the player and then obviously it’s up to the player to execute that plan with your computer.
guidance and somewhat motivation being there trying to help the player to get to where, to get to where they want to go. So my last question on this topic actually kind of leads into the second topic. So in the course of your career through these post season meetings, you talked about how one of the questions that you like to ask is, how can I What could I have done better to help you to be a better player?
So has there been something that’s come out of a postseason meeting and maybe not just with an individual player, but something that You heard from multiple players, maybe over a series of years that you’ve taken and said, Hey, I really have to get better at that. And then that kind of leads into the second topic, which is how do you, so we talked about how you deal with and talk with the players after the season is over, but obviously you’re also having a conversation with yourself of, Hey, how’d the season go?
What do we need to do to get better? What do I need to do to get better? How could I do things differently? So have players brought you things that you’ve learned from and then incorporated into who you are as a coach. And then just kind of at the end of your season, how do you go about self-reflecting on what’s just taken place?
[00:13:53] Rob Brost: I think it I’ll get to how I self-reflect the second part of the question here in a second, but the players. pretty honest with me. Not usually, I think almost always are pretty honest with me and that in and of itself tells me I’m doing a decent job because they, they trust me and they trust that I’m not going to freak out no matter what they say.
And I’m not, because I’ve been doing this long enough. Like, They could say literally whatever they wanted to me and it would be fine. But then I have, I’m going to respond to what they say as well. And I think when players are younger, this is just what I’ve noticed in general. They think like, coach, I want you to push me harder.
I want you to push me harder. I want you to push me harder. And then by the time they’re seniors, they realize. That they have been pushed pretty hard, and that part of my thinking is the mesh point between rest, keeping everybody fresh, and getting everybody ready, especially at the end of the season, because these meetings take place towards the end of the season, while the last month of practices, at least for us, are relatively the same.
We shoot, we do transition progression, we go over the scout and we’re done. And it’s like 45 minutes long and the intensity level isn’t like it is the first three or four weeks of the season. And so a lot of that is to make sure our guys are fresh, healthy, et cetera. Well, that’s the recency bias that they have at the end of the season.
Then the summer hits and we hammer them again, not hammer them, but then we, it’s like a beginning of a season, but we do it all the time because we don’t care if we win or lose games in the summer. It doesn’t make any difference. So, we continue to go really, really hard at that time, and then we start the season hard.
So, my point with that is I have to sometimes reframe them and then remind them about the first part of the season, and remember how you felt in the summer in June? Remember that? Like two and a half weeks into summer camp and you were like, man, I don’t know if I can do this anymore. That’s what it’s like at the beginning.
And so that’s just a pattern I’ve noticed. And since you asked it like that, that’s a pattern I’ve noticed with, especially with our younger players, they have recency bias. Meaning that they remember the last month or so of practice and they perceive that we’re not going as hard, which is probably true as we did the first month, say, or even the month of the summer that we get together.
And so that’s something I’ve noticed. So, Again, that’s part of just dealing with a 15, 16, 17 year old and what they’re going to recall, excuse me, and then what they’re going to say they think they need. And so you know, that’s the biggest thing. No one’s really knocked me off my seat with what they’ve said to be honest with you.
And, and because we meet with our players, not so much, but because I have constant. Communication with them. Usually I don’t get really knocked off my seat by stuff like that.
[00:17:20] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I mean, clearly, I think one of the things anybody who’s listened to our series of podcasts knows that you have a pretty good pulse on what’s going on with your team at any given time with your individual guys, just because you’re in constant communication with them.
And as a result, Mike Klinzing. They’re not going to be bringing you something that is a complete surprise that comes out of left field. You’re like, Oh, I, I had no idea that that was what was going on. So that makes sense. So talk a little bit about your own self-reflection, how you, how you like to kind of wrap up the season and in your own mind, prepare
[00:17:53] Rob Brost: the self-reflection is a lot more. I don’t say it’s a lot, it’s not more difficult, but there’s a lot more responsibility because I take that on. Myself to as best I can meet the needs of everybody in the program, which includes assistant coaches, which includes managers, which includes parents, which includes booster club member. I mean, all of that.
So the self-reflection is, is almost constant, but at the end of the year, especially You know, like a year we had this year, we were ranked in the top five. We didn’t have a normal expectations at the beginning of the season because we were so young and people thought, well, that’s kind of a rebuild.
They got some new guys. But then by the end, everybody was like, okay, yeah, it’s pretty much Bolingbrook as normal. Even though we still had those young guys and all of those, those things remain true.
[00:18:48] Mike Klinzing: Same team as the, at the beginning of the season at the end, but the expectation changes.
[00:18:51] Rob Brost: Yes. Yes. And so we’ve kind of created a monster that way. So it’s always a balancing act for me to keep perspective. Of what we did that was really, really special. And I, I said this to some of our guys in the postseason meeting, and I say it again at the banquet in front of everybody if you’d have told me at the beginning of the season, we would win 28 games, we would have two Allstate players, we would beat we went on the road and beat a 23 and 0 team, we beat the number one team in the state at their place, you’d have told me all of those things were going to happen.
This season, I would have signed up for that immediately at the beginning of the season. And then it gets to the end of the season and you lose to a top five team in the sectional final. And you’re super disappointed just because of how you’ve come together as a group, you’ve played together, you’ve kind of gone beyond expectations and those types of things.
So my self-reflection is always, How can I meet the needs of those people in my charge? And I don’t mean like I’m the boss of them. I just mean I liken it to there’s this big ship of Bowling Brook basketball, and I’m the little rudder on the, on the backside. But if the little rudder on the backside isn’t pointed in the right direction, that thing is going to go aground and it’s going to be a disaster.
But if the rudder on the backside knows what it’s doing, it can prevent a lot of those problems and we can have smooth sailing for the most part with a bunch of waves in there. But if I don’t do what I’m supposed to do. We’re going to, we’re going to crash and it’s going to be like the Titanic. And so that’s the analogy I use a lot of the time.
So it may seem like sometimes I’m not doing much or whatever, but that rudders a little bit off, then we’re going, we’re going down. And so my job is to meet the needs of the people that I deal with on a daily basis. And like I said, that includes everybody. Mostly the players, but certainly includes the assistant coaches, the managers, everybody under my charge.
[00:21:10] Mike Klinzing: But what do you think about when it comes to coaches? Do you think about roles that they have? Do you think about how you’ve utilized them over the course of the season to maximize what they can do? What do you think about when it comes to sort of that analyzing your staff and kind of how that year went for them?
[00:21:31] Rob Brost: I think am I utilizing what they do best and then not only utilizing but maximizing what they do best for what the team’s needs are. And so we’ll call some timeouts and then I’ll let one of my assistants go in and tell them what we’re running. And I’ll just stand at the score table and talk.
If it’s a home game, talk to our scores people, because I know them and people are like, wow, I don’t, I can’t believe you do that. And well, so my concern with that is, is that assistant comfortable? Going into those timeouts, or is he thinking, geez, Brost is so lazy. He doesn’t even want to go on the time.
Cause I’ll go in there and I’ll certainly do it, but I want them to feel like they have not only voice, but that they are capable of doing things that a head coach does and preparing them to be a head coach. And so then when I meet with them at the end of the season. That’s usually the first thing I ask them.
Are you comfortable or were you comfortable with this? Do you want less responsibility, more responsibility? Did you think it was too much, too little? What do you think? And then we’ll obviously come back to how the team played and what they can do to serve the team. And all of those things will come up as well.
But my first thing is, Am I utilizing them and then maximizing what they’re doing for the benefit of the team? And so how we do it with my assistants is I have kind of a defensive coordinator, I have an offensive coordinator, and then I have a third assistant who kind of does a little bit of both. He kind of just, he keeps me organized.
He just, he kind of does whatever needs to be done that, that I need. So that’s kind of how we break it down. And my assistants are really, really, really good. In fact, this year I missed three games because of my dad’s passing. And so we didn’t miss a beat. They went three and Oh, not that that matters that they went three and Oh, but they just carried on without me.
And I think that’s a Testament to where our program is as well, because they didn’t need me there. And so I think that’s another testament to where our program is, how comfortable our players are with our assistants and how comfortable the assistants are doing what they need to do.
[00:23:59] Mike Klinzing: It’s like being a parent, Rob. You raise your kid and you want them to go out into the world and be able to survive without you. So you want your program to be able to survive without you and do what it does. And clearly if you’ve put those expectations in place and you have the right people. In the right spots, then it’s possible for that to continue.
I know that one of the things that I think about that, I think you said it to me on our very first podcast together, and we were talking about delegating and you said something to the effect of. When I was a young coach, I wanted to do everything. And I kind of agreed with you in the sense of, I think if you’re somebody who cares about your craft, you kind of feel like I’m the best guy for the job, no matter what the job is.
And so you kind of want to have your hand in every single thing that’s happening. And you told me that as you matured as a coach, that you had been there that you found yourself Delegating more and more and more and you felt like the more you delegated that the better the program was becoming and the better, not necessarily the better coach you were, but just the better program you were running because you had delegated things and didn’t have to micromanage every aspect of it.
And that’s something that I’ve cited that particular story a bunch of times on podcasts because I think it really speaks to. Sort of the lessons that you learn along the way, because I think as a young coach, it’s really, really, really hard to delegate in that way because you don’t yet know who you are and you’re not yet comfortable with all the facets of what it takes to be a head coach.
But obviously, once you’ve done it for a number of years, and especially when you’ve done it at the same place, And so you have all those things in, in where they need to be, then you feel comfortable delegating. And so I think that’s what I hear you saying. And I think that when I think about your program, I think the Rudder example, or just again, the CEO of the, of the thing where you’re not maybe necessarily in every nitty gritty detail, but you have somebody who is watching every one of those nitty gritty details.
It’s that you’ve trained those people to be able to do that so that. They can use their expertise and you don’t have to be on site for every single thing that happens, if that makes sense. I don’t know if I’m summarizing correctly kind of what you said, but that’s how I remember it.
[00:26:35] Rob Brost: it. That’s exactly correct. And I’ll tell you another thing that I tell people all the time. My job as the head coach is to make sure that all the players are coached, not to coach all the players. And that goes from our varsity group all the way down to our freshmen. So it’s just a kind of shift in thinking, right? Even the, the 15 varsity kids that practice with me every day, my job isn’t to coach all of them.
My job is to make sure they’re all being coached. And so that’s just a shift in philosophy, I guess. And it’s a shift that I’ve been able to make gradually, but now you know, some people would say I’m too far the other way. I mean, if you came to a practice, Mike, you and I would stand there and talk off to the side while the practice was going.
And I would stand with you for almost the entirety of the practice. And so that’s what happens when college coaches come. That’s what happens when college coaches don’t come. It’s not like when you’re not there, then I’m just jumping in and doing out. That’s not how it is. So My job is to observe and to get everybody that’s there what they need to be successful.
And then obviously it first starts with the players, but that includes the assistant coaches, the managers, and everybody that’s in the gym. And then it’s also my job to make sure that that same thing is happening at our sophomore practices and our freshmen practices. And that’s much harder because we have three or four assistants at the varsity level with 15 guys.
And then we have two freshmen coaches for 20 kids. So it’s a, it’s a little bit tougher task with them than it is with us but that’s the way. That the, that we tier our system and the way we kind of work with our players as they, as they get older. So I think our. When we started to be ultra successful is when I started to give up a lot of that control.
I wasn’t trying to do everything. I wasn’t trying to show everybody that I knew everything. Now it’s the exact opposite. Like people will come up to me after like, I love how you let your assistants go into the timeouts and You know, now we win so that that helps. So it looks good. If we were losing and then I let my assistants do it, it probably would be an opposite thing, right?
I can’t believe he makes his assistants go in there and they’re down. So you know, I get this at clinics too sometimes. Well, that’s easy for you because you’ve won at a really high rate and you’ve been there for a long time and you have really good players, which is all true. But it didn’t start off like that.
When I got there, that was not happening. And so just like our players evolve I evolve as a coach and I do so much more now by feel than by plan, if that makes sense. So, our first two weeks or so of practice, for example, will be down to the minute. But by the time you get to January, I’ll have like one or two things that I want to get accomplished on a scratch sheet of paper, and that’s it.
The rest, I just go by feel. I go by, I feel how things are going, I see what I think we need, I know what I want to work on. And then we do that and I talked to my assistants about it and then we literally just hey, let’s, let’s do this, this and this and then, then we’re out of there. So I think I’ve just evolved as a coach throughout the years and it’s never perfect and it’s never exactly what everybody needs, but I do a lot on feel now for sure.
[00:30:26] Mike Klinzing: There is a lot of, I think, growing and developing. I think back to when I first was a varsity assistant coach and that was my second coaching job after I had coached a couple of years of JV basketball. And I remember in the early year two, three, maybe of coaching, when our head coach would step out into the coach’s office to take a phone call or walk out in the hallway, And I was kind of left in charge.
I could feel the intensity and the, the tempo of that practice change. Yeah. That all of a sudden head coach isn’t there. And now coach Klinzing’s in charge and it’s just not the same. And then eventually, and again, I can’t point to a moment or a reason or what it was, but at some point that changed where the head coach steps out.
isn’t there, has parent teacher conferences, and suddenly I’m running the practice and it feels exactly the same and there’s no difference. And that’s something that again, you don’t, I think, walk in the door, both from a head coach’s perspective and from an assistant coach’s perspective, you don’t walk in the door knowing how that works or how that’s going to feel or if you’re going to be able to do it.
You It’s something that I think evolves over time. You’re not going to, you’re not going to get that in year one. You’re not going to get it in year one. Let’s put it that way.
[00:31:52] Rob Brost: And people have asked me and I’ve been offered other jobs and I don’t know if I have the time or the patience. And I’m certain that the administration and the parents don’t have the patience for me to do that all again.
Whereas where I’m at now, I don’t want to say I have that because you can lose it. And like tomorrow we’ve built up some sweat equity, if you will, with the players, the parents, the community, the administration, all of that. And it took us years to do that. And so there’s a certain level of expectation, but that’s what we want.
And it’s a do it all place and we have to do it all. And so it’s just been a good mesh point between my personality. The players, the community and all of those things. And I don’t know if it would work necessarily at another high school or another place, because maybe my personality doesn’t work with, with those at another school with a different type of culture or different type of whatever.
And so I’m not naive to that, to that fact. And I understand that this might be the only place where I could be a really, really good head coach. Now I’d like to think I could do it anywhere. It would take some time and some years to get it to where we’ve got it here.
[00:33:19] Mike Klinzing: Circumstance. Right. I mean, you can go and think about the NBA or the NFL draft, where players end up and whether or not, what their career looks like and how different it would be if they ended up in situation. A versus situation B. And I think clearly when you’re, it takes time, no matter where you are, it takes time to establish who you are, what you’re about, get the right people in the right places, and then get those people to understand what your vision is.
And then you can be in position as you described with a really good analogy that you can be the rudder of the ship. That can be a gigantic ship and you’re just a tiny rudder on the back. But man, if you get off two inches off course and that thing keeps pointing two inches off course, you end up, you end up in a really bad place at some point if that, if you never self-correct and get that thing in the right place.
So it’s again, As, as you well know, and as everyone in our audience knows, coaching, there’s a fine line as far as how you get things done and what that looks like. And the best coaches, I think when you describe Doing it by feel. It’s, it’s a level of experience. It’s a level of understanding of your players.
It’s a level of understanding of your coaching staff and all that’s done through constant communication and awareness and just having your, having your finger on the pulse of your team and your program. And I think sometimes we make it sound like, oh, it’s easy. Anybody can do that.
And it’s hard. It’s hard. It takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of investment. And I think that it’s, it’s, it’s interesting to, to sit in the stand sometimes as a parent and listen to conversations and you just, people don’t necessarily have a very good understanding of what it takes to run a successful program, to be a successful coach and You know, I think all the little, all the little things that are, I don’t even know what I would call them, tricks of the trade, but just the little things of bits of experience that you learn and help you to be able to have the success.
Those things, you don’t have those things on day one. You develop them over time.
[00:35:45] Rob Brost: Exactly. You’re exactly right. And it’s, it’s difficult to get everyone to understand that and you never get everybody to understand that. But I say to our guys and I said after we lost in the sectional final, like People outside of this locker room don’t know because they’re not here with us.
They don’t understand it because they can’t feel what we feel because they haven’t been here. They see Friday night and Saturday night and Tuesday night. That’s all they see. And the expectation is that we’re machines and we’re not machines. We’re humans and our feelings play a part into it.
And as much as we like to say we’re tough and that, We can compartmentalize and all of that stuff. And we can do that to a certain extent. So I’m not against or any of that or saying that that doesn’t exist. All I’m saying is the people that really know what we go through and what we need are the people in this locker room.
And that’s why it’s not that we lost that is the sad part. The sad part is that it’s over and it’s, there’s, we’re not going to meet like this group again, ever. It’s never going to be like it was yesterday ever again. And so if we would have won, we would have had three or four more days or maybe five more days, depending on when we lose the next game of this. And that’s what you want. And to our guys credit, I mean, we could have had five more days to the season, but there’s only four more teams that got more days than we got. And so you know, we, we pride ourselves in that, but it hurts not so much because you lost, but it hurts because it’s over.
And that’s what you want as a coach. to feel from your guys. And that’s because they know that it’s not going to be like it has been really ever again, because the team won’t be like this again.
[00:37:45] Mike Klinzing: Sure. And I think that you realize when you get to our age again, how fleeting that is and how valuable that time as a high school athlete, as a high school team, as one team for one season to be able to spend that time together with.
your teammates, the coaches, everybody. I think, man, as you look back on it at this point in our lives, how special that is. And obviously when you’re coaching a team, you can look at each individual team and think about how special this group was and that group was and the connections that they had. And there’s, there’s really nothing better.
And the honest truth is there are very, very few teams that get to end their season with wins compared to the number of teams that have to end their season with losses. And no matter what point you end up taking that loss. It always, it always hurts because as you said, it’s not the same and that group’s not going to be together in the same form and fashion that had been before.
And if you’ve built those bonds with your teammates and with your team as a coach, yeah, that, That hurts. And it’s, it’s something that everybody has to, has to learn how to deal with and figure out. No question. Yep. All right. So NCAA tournament, when this goes up, we will be in the midst of the Sweet 16.
So I threw a topic out at you. What is your favorite NCAA tournament? of the NCAA tournament. So I don’t know if you have one that stands out above all, if you have several, but just throw something at me and then I’ll throw something back at you.
[00:39:25] Rob Brost: I have a couple and for anybody that knows where I’m from, you’ll get this.
And for anybody that doesn’t know where I’m from, you might not get this, but it’s, it’s okay. I have actually two NCAA moments. The first one in number one is in 2010. When Northern Iowa beat Kansas, the Ali Farrokhbanesh III, I graduated from Northern Iowa. I’m from Cedar Falls, so where the University of Northern Iowa is.
I had just gotten a Bolingbrook job, I think, a year or two before and to be quite honest with you, when Ali shot that ball, we were up one with 30 seconds to go. And I thought, what are you doing shooting that? Like, what are you doing? We’re up one, let’s hold it and get fouled. And he shot it and he, of course he made it and then we beat Kansas.
So that’s probably number one, but then rewind to 1990. I’m now a junior in high school, same team, Northern Iowa. We’re playing Missouri this time, and Maurice Newby, who was our star guard at that time, hit a three similar to Ali’s to put us up five or six against Missouri. I think they were the two seed, we were the 15, and we were watching that in our high school classroom.
And just went crazy. And so I had known Maurice because I was a player, not at the University of Northern Iowa, but a high school player. And we kind of knew each other from I was a junior in high school and he was the star player at the local university, all that kind of stuff. So that was my first NCAA memory.
That’s great. And then the Ali FaroukManesh against Kansas. That’s my number two. So obviously we hope we can make some like tomorrow we have Caleb Thornton is the point guard at Akron. So he’s playing against Creighton tomorrow. So hopefully he’ll do something. Joseph Yosefu played at Kansas and they won the national title.
He’s a player of mine. So we have former players, former Raider players that have done great things in the tournament as well. So, but my two really great memories are those two Northern Iowa moments.
[00:41:38] Mike Klinzing: So I got to talk to you about the end of the Akron Kent State game in the MAC final.
[00:41:45] Rob Brost: Oh, that was heartbreaking, but I wanted Akron to win, but I didn’t want them to win like that.
[00:41:52] Mike Klinzing: No, I mean, it’s, that’s one of those cases where obviously Kent’s my alma mater, so I was rooting for them. I know both coaches of both of those programs. Yeah. Really well. And to have a game and on for anybody who didn’t see it.
So Kent State down one scores with six seconds to go. Akron inbounds it. Kent goes up one on the shot, Akron inbounds it, and one of the players from Kent doesn’t realize that they are now up one. And he fouls with I think 4. 8 seconds to go. Akron comes down, makes both free throws, and then Kent has to go the length of the floor and don’t score.
And they ended up losing by one. And obviously that’s an opportunity to go to the NCAA tournament, but you just, I mean, heartbreaking for that kid to you know, you, you just, anybody who’s played the game of basketball and you think about being, being that player and you just know that the hurt of that play is never going to go away. t
I can guarantee that that young man’s going to be 65 years old one day sitting somewhere and that memory is going to pop into his head and he’s still going to be. He’s still going to be mad. He’s still going to be upset about it. And it’s just, man, that was, it was, it was heartbreaking. And again, I was obviously rooting for Kent, but by the same token it, it was, it’s not the way, no matter who you’re rooting for, it’s not the way you wanted to see it came in. Let’s put it that way.
[00:43:29] Rob Brost: That was gut wrenching on either side, really.
[00:43:33] Mike Klinzing: Absolutely. All right. So I have a couple that I have, I have two that kind of have a personal connection, sort of like, What you described, so, so for me, seeing my alma mater Kent State in 2002 make it to the final eight.
Yeah, the NCAA tournament and a loss to Indiana away from making it to the final four. When I think about the program that I played in and kind of where we were and we had some good success when I was there, we went to two nits and so, but to, to think that the program or the team that I played for could have had a legitimate chance to go to the final four, to me, was kind of unfathomable.
And that year, 2002 happened 10 years after I graduated. So that was a fun run just cause you see our alma mater, make it to, make it to the final eight. So that was cool. And then the other personal connection I have is back in 1986 when Cleveland state beat Indiana. Yeah. And. My dad was a professor at Cleveland State, so I had grown up kind of with Cleveland State basketball and gone down and watched them play in games where there was me and my dad and my mom and my sister and maybe six other people at various times watching games.
And so I kind of, yeah, I kind of grew up with Cleveland State basketball and then the guys that were on that team eventually as a high school player, because my dad was down at Cleveland State all the time and I would kind of go down there and try to work my way into some off season pickup games in the gym with players.
Again, back when the pickup basketball scene was a lot different and there were lots of games to be had. But so I kind of knew those guys personally. And to see that again, a program that I had grown up with and watched to suddenly make it to the national stage at beat Indiana and Bob Knight.
And you had Kevin Mackey was kind of playing that running stun and running 10, 11, 12 guys, just pressing and going up and down and playing almost, I guess, the antithesis of the way that Bobby Knight’s team played at the time. It was just a very, again, contrast of styles. It’s really a true, a true back in the day, David versus Goliath win for, for Cleveland state.
And then they eventually ended up getting knocked out by David Robinson. And I think they were, I think they made the, I think they made the final, that might’ve been the, the final eight, the elite eight, I think that they got to, or maybe they got knocked out in the sweet 16. I can’t remember now, but that was a lot of fun.
And then I guess the most iconic moment for me. And when I think about my college basketball fandom, I think it probably When I think about my ages, 10 to 17. So for me from like 1980 to 1987, when I was a kid and growing up, that’s, I think when I was just the most into what college basketball was all about.
And so the Michael Jordan shot against the Patrick Ewing thing. That’s Georgetown Hoyas. And obviously Michael wasn’t Michael at the time, and nobody knew that he was going to become Michael, but that shot was kind of a launching pad for who he became. It was kind of the moment when he announced himself on the national stage.
But that team, when you have James Worthy and Sam Perkins and Matt Doherty and Jimmy Black and that whole group was and I think I liked North Carolina before that, but that, that game, that run, that team, I think really cemented my, my Michael Jordan and North Carolina fandom. And so from, from a national perspective, from a game that I didn’t have any personal stakes in, I think to me, that’s the one, that’s the one memory of the NCAA tournament that, That sticks out and I can still see, I know exactly where I was sitting in my living room, watching it when that shot went in.
And so it’s funny, the things that you remember that you equate with the place there, there aren’t that many in life and that’s definitely one of them for me.
[00:47:46] Rob Brost: That’s great. I mean, it’s amazing how the tournament itself kind of makes those moments happen, I guess you would say, and a lot of people have those moments and the, the basketball is, is, does crazy things for all of us and it’s brought us together and now we’re friends and so the basketball has the ability to really connect people and which is the most special thing about the whole game.
[00:48:16] Mike Klinzing: It really is. It’s kind of crazy. I’ve had Matt Doherty from that team on the podcast twice. And if you’d have told 12 year old me. Hey someday you’re going to interview one of these guys on a podcast. First of all, I would have not known what a podcast was, but secondly, I’d have been like, no, there’s no way that any of these guys would ever take time to talk to little old me.
And so it’s just, yeah, the basketball definitely has magic in it and what it, what it does as far as connecting and relationships and all those things. And you just think about all the crazy. Shots and buzzer beaters and you could go through a million, you could go through a million different things that happen.
And when you think about just how it’s on the national stage and you start with 64 teams and I mean, you go back to, You go back to Bird Magic. I remember that year Bird Magic 79 and Penn. Penn was in the final four that year. Which, I mean, it’s kind of it’s, it’s, it’s unbelievable. I remember I was actually at a neighbor’s house watching, watching the Michigan State semifinal and just, hoping, hey, I hope Magic gets there to the final game.
There’s just so many things that are wrapped up in my life and I’m sure yours when it comes to those.
[00:49:36] Rob Brost: The memories and stuff like you mentioned the Matt Doherty thing. You know, I remember in 88 when Danny Manning led Kansas and Larry Brown was their coach. And then Larry Brown leads the Pistons and all that stuff.
And now fast forward to 2013. My best player is taking a campus visit to SMU. I’m riding in Larry Brown’s car during the campus visit. And I’m thinking to myself, what, how did this happen? Like I’m a little kid with the Sports Illustrated thing hung up on my bulletin board. And it’s got Danny Manning and then there’s Larry Brownson.
And now I’m riding in Larry Brown’s car, heading to campus with him, he’s driving, like, how did this even occur? And so it’s things like that. Like you mentioned the mad door, like it’s, it’s amazing where the ball can take in and where it leads us all to.
[00:50:32] Mike Klinzing: There’s no question. There is no question.
It’s a lot of fun. And I am thankful every day that my dad, my mom supported me through everything that I did with basketball as a kid. And, and what the game has, has given me I can never hope to even come close to to paying it back, what it’s done for me and for my life. And so I’m forever appreciative of that.
And so this is a fun one, Rob. We got a lot we got a lot accomplished. This was great.
[00:51:02] Rob Brost: Well, I mean, maybe Jason needs to take the next one. No, I’m just kidding. That was a joke, Jason. That was a joke.
[00:51:08] Mike Klinzing: He won’t take any offense. I won’t let him. So anyway, that’s great. Rob, thanks for jumping on tonight.
Really appreciate it. Triple Double number eight is in the books and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.