You’ve coached in Colorado and in the Mountain West as an assistant at Boise State. So was there anything that surprised you about being at Wyoming, or was it pretty much what you expected?
Having grown up in Denver, having been at UNC for the last four years and then before that being at Boise State, I had a pretty good understanding of what the University of Wyoming was. And for me, I just felt like it was always a really good fit, having grown up in the area and kind of knowing what the job entails, knowing the league. It’s not an easy job. But I tell people, there’s only one state in the 50 states of the union that has only one four-year university. I mean, Alaska has two, Anchorage and Fairbanks. The University of Wyoming is the only four-year school in the state. So in this day and age where you see a lot of declines in attendance and people really kind of caring about college basketball until the tournament, this is a place where, if you put the right product on the floor, the people and the state and the community really support it. There are so many places where nobody cares any more. I think this is one of the few places left where people really care, and that’s going to be a big part for us too, is getting the state behind us. I don’t think you can win championships unless you have — you’ve got to have the right players, you’ve got to have things in place — but if you have that fan base behind you, I think that makes all the difference in the world.
Wyoming finished 322nd in adjusted offensive efficiency on KenPom the season before you took over and was 249th in 3-point shooting. This season your team was No. 68 in adjusted offensive efficiency and 78th on 3s. How did you improve that so dramatically so quickly?
Well, I think first and foremost, it starts with recruiting. Just knowing that shooting is something we won’t sacrifice in recruiting. You’ve got to recruit guys that can make shots, not just take shots. And then from there, it’s making them understand, which is hard with young players, the difference between a good shot and a great shot. We love to shoot 3s, but we don’t want to shoot bad 3s. We talk about it all the time. We don’t want to be shooting a bunch of non-paint 3s. We know if we don’t create a 3 off a paint touch or a rotation, the percentages are going to get real low. And so it’s something we emphasize from Day 1. We shoot a lot in workouts and practice. We want to shoot close to 30 3s per game, that’s kind of the goal for us, to try to get to 30. But 30 of the right ones, not just jacking up shots. I think that’s why our efficiency is so good offensively. We shoot a lot of 3s and we don’t shoot any of what we call non-paint 2s. We don’t take any pull-up 2s. Now, maybe there are some in late shot-clock situations, but from my time at Northern Colorado to here, we’re probably top 10 in the country every year in terms of the fewest number of non-paint, pull-up 2s in the country. We want layups and 3s, so that’s what we fight for every possession.
I’ve got to ask you about Marcus Williams. He was the Mountain West freshman of the year, and I know you originally recruited him at Northern Colorado. He entered the transfer portal at the end of the season and wound up at Texas A&M. Was that a surprise?
Yeah, it was a surprise. We were expecting him to come back. Unfortunately, there are just things you can’t control behind the scenes, and his family felt like he needed to get closer back to home. We wish him the best. At the same time, to win at the University of Wyoming, you’ve got to have guys that want to be here, and that’s what we’re focusing on. Because it’s not an easy job, and it’s not for everybody. What we do is not for everybody.
In this day and age of the transfer portal, that’s not somewhere where we’re going to be. That’s not somewhere we’re going to live. That’s not how you build a program at Wyoming. Every now and then, we’ll sprinkle in a guy here or there, maybe guys that we recruited who went elsewhere, that we know who they are, and what they’re about. Our focus is on those guys that want to be here as opposed to trying to chase a bunch of guys that are thinking the grass is greener on the other side. When in reality for most of these guys, it won’t be.
Other snippets -
I’m not afraid of confrontation. I think some coaches are, especially maybe with some of their better players.
Some coaches will trick kids in recruiting, talking about player development. Ultimately, player development in terms of what we do in practice and in our workouts is big. But you don’t truly develop unless you play minutes.
When you have the opportunity to play 600 to 800 to 1,000 minutes in a season, that’s where you’re really going to grow. Some of these kids, they get enamored and they want to win the 15 minutes of fame on social media and be able to tell everybody that they’re going to this school and that school. Well, lo and behold, they’re sitting on the bench their freshman year and they’re not playing. And then my guys are playing 600, 700, 800 minutes, and they just pass those guys up.
We want to build our program with freshmen and develop those guys and get those guys older. For all of us, the trick is to be as old as you can, with the right players. That’s how I’ve gotten to the point where I’m at today. I’ve done a really good job of seeing things in guys that other coaches didn’t see, whether that’s Damian Lillard at Weber State, Chandler Hutchison at Boise, Justinian Jessup. That’s what you have to do at Wyoming, you have to find the Larry Nances when they’re 6-6 and then they grow to 6-9. The Josh Adamses, guys like that.
Having grown up in Denver, having been at UNC for the last four years and then before that being at Boise State, I had a pretty good understanding of what the University of Wyoming was. And for me, I just felt like it was always a really good fit, having grown up in the area and kind of knowing what the job entails, knowing the league. It’s not an easy job. But I tell people, there’s only one state in the 50 states of the union that has only one four-year university. I mean, Alaska has two, Anchorage and Fairbanks. The University of Wyoming is the only four-year school in the state. So in this day and age where you see a lot of declines in attendance and people really kind of caring about college basketball until the tournament, this is a place where, if you put the right product on the floor, the people and the state and the community really support it. There are so many places where nobody cares any more. I think this is one of the few places left where people really care, and that’s going to be a big part for us too, is getting the state behind us. I don’t think you can win championships unless you have — you’ve got to have the right players, you’ve got to have things in place — but if you have that fan base behind you, I think that makes all the difference in the world.
Wyoming finished 322nd in adjusted offensive efficiency on KenPom the season before you took over and was 249th in 3-point shooting. This season your team was No. 68 in adjusted offensive efficiency and 78th on 3s. How did you improve that so dramatically so quickly?
Well, I think first and foremost, it starts with recruiting. Just knowing that shooting is something we won’t sacrifice in recruiting. You’ve got to recruit guys that can make shots, not just take shots. And then from there, it’s making them understand, which is hard with young players, the difference between a good shot and a great shot. We love to shoot 3s, but we don’t want to shoot bad 3s. We talk about it all the time. We don’t want to be shooting a bunch of non-paint 3s. We know if we don’t create a 3 off a paint touch or a rotation, the percentages are going to get real low. And so it’s something we emphasize from Day 1. We shoot a lot in workouts and practice. We want to shoot close to 30 3s per game, that’s kind of the goal for us, to try to get to 30. But 30 of the right ones, not just jacking up shots. I think that’s why our efficiency is so good offensively. We shoot a lot of 3s and we don’t shoot any of what we call non-paint 2s. We don’t take any pull-up 2s. Now, maybe there are some in late shot-clock situations, but from my time at Northern Colorado to here, we’re probably top 10 in the country every year in terms of the fewest number of non-paint, pull-up 2s in the country. We want layups and 3s, so that’s what we fight for every possession.
I’ve got to ask you about Marcus Williams. He was the Mountain West freshman of the year, and I know you originally recruited him at Northern Colorado. He entered the transfer portal at the end of the season and wound up at Texas A&M. Was that a surprise?
Yeah, it was a surprise. We were expecting him to come back. Unfortunately, there are just things you can’t control behind the scenes, and his family felt like he needed to get closer back to home. We wish him the best. At the same time, to win at the University of Wyoming, you’ve got to have guys that want to be here, and that’s what we’re focusing on. Because it’s not an easy job, and it’s not for everybody. What we do is not for everybody.
In this day and age of the transfer portal, that’s not somewhere where we’re going to be. That’s not somewhere we’re going to live. That’s not how you build a program at Wyoming. Every now and then, we’ll sprinkle in a guy here or there, maybe guys that we recruited who went elsewhere, that we know who they are, and what they’re about. Our focus is on those guys that want to be here as opposed to trying to chase a bunch of guys that are thinking the grass is greener on the other side. When in reality for most of these guys, it won’t be.
Other snippets -
I’m not afraid of confrontation. I think some coaches are, especially maybe with some of their better players.
Some coaches will trick kids in recruiting, talking about player development. Ultimately, player development in terms of what we do in practice and in our workouts is big. But you don’t truly develop unless you play minutes.
When you have the opportunity to play 600 to 800 to 1,000 minutes in a season, that’s where you’re really going to grow. Some of these kids, they get enamored and they want to win the 15 minutes of fame on social media and be able to tell everybody that they’re going to this school and that school. Well, lo and behold, they’re sitting on the bench their freshman year and they’re not playing. And then my guys are playing 600, 700, 800 minutes, and they just pass those guys up.
We want to build our program with freshmen and develop those guys and get those guys older. For all of us, the trick is to be as old as you can, with the right players. That’s how I’ve gotten to the point where I’m at today. I’ve done a really good job of seeing things in guys that other coaches didn’t see, whether that’s Damian Lillard at Weber State, Chandler Hutchison at Boise, Justinian Jessup. That’s what you have to do at Wyoming, you have to find the Larry Nances when they’re 6-6 and then they grow to 6-9. The Josh Adamses, guys like that.
