Episode #138: Grant Leonard

🎙️ Season 3, Episode 1: Coaching, Culture & Leadership with Coach Grant Leonard 🏀

To open Season 3 of the Significant Coaching Podcast, Matt Rogers sits down with Grant Leonard, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at NCAA D1 Queens University of Charlotte.

This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation and is focused entirely on coaching and leadership. Coach Leonard shares what it really takes to build and sustain a Division I program—culture, roster construction, practice habits, staff alignment, and the daily standards that separate good teams from great ones.

Direct. Honest. No sugarcoating.

🔗 Coach Grant Leonard bio:
 https://queensathletics.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/coaches/grant-leonard/2136

🎯 Part 2 will dive deeply into Division I college recruiting and how the landscape has changed.

📘 Recruiting resources, including the Basketball Recruit’s Journal, available at:

Coach Rogers:  https://coachmattrogers.com

Amazon:  https://a.co/d/1Q0uuU6

Transcript

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The best analogy I can give you is everyone thinks it's like a light switch. Okay. You flip it and you have everything that everyone else has, and that's not how it works. It's way more like a dimmer. And the reason why the transition is three to four years is each year you're gonna get a little more here or a little more there. But it's not the same, and you're not gonna have everything right away, and you have to be very measured what's important and what's not. What are you willing to fight for? Happy New Year and welcome to season three of the Significant Coaching Podcast. I'm your host Matt Rogers in 2026. I'll be posting the video of these conversations on my YouTube channel at Coach Matt Rogers, and I encourage you to follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, x, TikTok, and LinkedIn for weekly podcasts, video clips, blogs, and coaching and recruiting insight. You can find it all@coachmattrogers.com. To open the new year and season three, I wanted someone who isn't going to sugarcoat division one athletics. I wanted someone who can coach, lead, and tell the truth about what it actually takes to play at the highest level of college sports. And that brings me to today's guess. Coach Grant Leonard head, men's basketball coach at ncaa. Division one Queens, university of Charlotte. Grant is bright. He's driven. He's a program builder and he pulls no punches on coaching and recruiting the right way. He was promoted to head coach in the spring of 2022 after six years as the associate head coach at Queens becoming the sixth head coach in program history while transitioning Queens from a powerhouse D two program to a true player at the division one level. And what he's done in a short time, especially in a world where the Division one landscape has changed dramatically over the last five years is beyond impressive. In today's part, one of a two part conversation, we focus on coaching, program building culture roster, construction practice habits, staff development, and what it truly takes to sustain success at the Division one level. In part two, we will dive deeply into Division one college recruiting. How it's changed, what coaches are actually evaluating and what families often misunderstand. Come back Monday for that conversation'cause it will be eye-opening for many of you who have division one dreams. For now, this episode is about the craft of coaching and leading the right way at the highest level. Let's get into it. Here's my conversation with Coach Grant Leonard. Coach Leonard. You and I just talked about this, how that transition from D two to D one, the challenges of it. I transitioned a program from D three to D two and it was like taken. Babies in into the adult world. What's that been like for you, that transition from D two to D one? The best analogy I can give you is everyone thinks it's like a light switch. Okay. You flip it and you have everything that everyone else has, and that's not how it works. It's way more like a dimmer. Okay. And the reason why the transition is three to four years is each year you're gonna get a little more here or a little more there. But it's not the same, and you're not gonna have everything right away, and you have to be very measured what's important and what's not. What are you willing to fight for? You can only as a coach go to your administration maybe one or two times a year to say you need something. Otherwise you become a coach that no one wants to deal with. Yeah. You have to be really planned out. Okay, this year, what are the things I think are important? And as you assess the year. What am I gonna go to my administration about and then look at it over a three or four year totality, and then even another three or four years past that to where you're probably gonna get to maybe your top three or four in the league. It's probably gonna take six to eight years. Yeah, and that is a long time in the coaching world. Most people don't have that much time, and very fortunate that our administration has been supportive in that. And and I've been very like, calculated in what I'm gonna ask for and when, and so that way I don't ruffle feathers and people want me here, and that's important as a coach. Trust me. You've done amazing work having a 21 season under your belt already. With that schedule we're talking about, what are some of those things that you've had to learn? Maybe the hard way about this is what we have to accept right now. This is how I need to adapt because of it. The first thing was is, and when we were division two, we were in that realm of where we were, like Duke, and we were winning 30 games every year. Okay. We were a destination location, division two wise. And man, when you go from winning 30 games and you're playing a schedule to, to become a number one seed in the tournament every year, or number one or number two seed to suddenly going to a game and realizing. Wow. We're actually playing Duke. Okay. And we did okay. And we're probably not winning that game. But that never happened at division two. There was never a moment where before the game we're like, we're probably not winning this game. We thought we could win'em all. And four of our last six years, we won 30 games. All of a sudden we're playing division one. And there's multiple games where you're like, okay, we're we just played Arkansas and they had four NBA players. Okay. And we're on the road. And man, the. That is a difficult, so that is the first thing, like learning to accept the battles as they come and trying to take lessons from a loss where when we were division two there was no lessons from losses. It was just pure that's not happening again. Does that make sense? Absolutely. So very different mindset, but like building your team to where their non-conference schedule is going to prepare us for the conference schedule is a very different mindset. I told my ad this year that the schedule we have coming off of 21 season and returning a lot of players being picked to win the aun we're gonna play a really hard schedule and I think we played top 10 non-conference schedule in the country this year. Because that's the only teams that would play us. Yeah. So I said, we might go five and eight in non-conference, but still be set up to win our league. And she was just like, wow, it's just so different. And I'm like, I know. I know. But it's okay. Yeah, it is okay. Yeah, because if you win your league, you're still dancing, yeah, exactly. You can go 14 and 60, as long as you win those last two games, you got, you can go. Yeah. And we I think we put ourselves in position. You look at our stats versus like opponents and the six, like opponents we played. Our numbers are off the charts, but we gotta view that in, in that, in an understand what we also played six buy games where we got bought and we were on the road and playing really hard teams. Yeah. For those that haven't done it, I've coached at every level and I don't think you understand it till you're on the floor and you're seeing the speed and the pace. What are some, and I know you guys played division one teams even when you guys were division two, but what are some of those things, the novice parent, the high school coach, doesn't understand about that jump? What are some of those little things that you're just like, all right, this is a different world. It was one thing in particular that led to the next lesson. So the first lesson was the positional size is so very different. Okay. And when we were winning. Championships in division two and going to Final Fours. We were never the biggest division two team, but we were really fast and really athletic. Okay. And we transitioned that team to division one and won 18 games with the division two team. Okay. We were able to contain our roster and now the schedule was. Because we were transitioning, we got a little bit easier of a schedule non-conference. But regardless that positional size wore us down in conference and by the end of the year our roster was depleted. And there was a game we played where we had seven live bodies. And that never happened at the division two level. So the positional size, we played, I think we were 361 in height that year. Division one wise per Ken Palm. And we were top 100 in rebounding.'cause we had kids that fought and went after the ball. But by the end of the year our kids we got invited to postseason the CBI. And our kids were so tired and wore down, they didn't wanna play. Yeah. That is, it was eye-opening for me because I knew that we had to change the positional size and I knew it wasn't gonna be immediate.'cause I didn't want to gut our team and I didn't wanna gut our culture. So it took time to build that up. Now we probably have the biggest or second biggest team in our league. And we're in year four of that. So it took a long time to do that. And now I think our team is set up to have the best depth. I think we were 30th in the country last year in bench points, and I think this year we're set up depth wise to wear teams down in our league over the course of 18 game gauntlet. Yeah, it's not just that starting five, that six, seven, you've gotta be 13, 14, 15 deep at your level because you know you're gonna have some injuries, you know you're gonna have some soft tissue problems throughout the year. And guys just need a break. Guys can't go 35 minutes every single night. They gotta go 27, 28. You gotta give'em more time a little more rest during certain games. What has that been like for you? In terms of your coaching mindset and how you've had to change maybe rotational philosophies and things like that. We've always played more guys. Okay. And so we've always tried to play nine or 10. It sometimes starts off as 11 and whittles down to nine as you get into conference. But the thing is with the practice, like you have to have another layer in practice of guys that are preparing your team. And that has become both with my coaching staff and the other players red shirts that, that are able to. That way your guys aren't going bone on bone every single day. Top five on top five. And you still want to do that'cause that really helps your team get better. But how you build the roster, division one is different. And that's why they have more scholarships and more staff positions because you just need that depth and the amount of bodies to, to get through that the season like that. And, there's a lot of people, and we'll talk recruiting later, but they'll say, Hey, my son, I watched your guys warm up. He could play on that team. He, I, he's better than one or two of those guys. And you're like that's not how it works. I'm not looking to add on the back end of my roster. I'm trying to lift my roster up. And get better players. So sometimes you see a walk-on or a back of the end of the rotation player and that's not who I'm asked trying to replace. That's right.'cause we're losing our two well conference players. I always. People always have an interesting perspective on, oh, he can play on that team'cause of that kid. And I'm like, no, that's not who, that's not the position I'm looking for right now. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And it's, when I'm talking to families it, I can't say it enough that it doesn't matter what that 12 through 15 guy looks like, because sometimes I'm recruiting that 12 through 15 guy because we need a character. Situation. We need that skinny seven footer that we're, we know we're gonna develop for two years. He might not look like much now, but once we teach him how to use his hands and how to use his feet and get 30 pounds of muscle on him. I wanna go back to what you were talking about, size, the difference in positional size, because I think we need to dive into this more for that, again, that parent or that high school coach that doesn't understand. Yes, you might need a, you might need a 6 4, 6, 5 point guard, but does that mean you're not recruiting that six foot dynamic point guard that's maybe 190 pounds and rock solid legs can squat three 50 is but just dynamic with the ball and takes care of the game. Yeah. And I think your situation and your roster and your your system it evolves. And we are the best player we ever had in school history. He was a young man named Kenny Dye, and Kenny was not heavily recruited. He's from eastern part of North Carolina and he ended up being the all time lean score and a CIS guy in school history. And man was he phenomenal. And the first year we transitioned he was one of the players that, that was from division two to division one, and he was all an all conference player. So clearly good enough. Okay. Yeah, fantastic. I would take Kenny, I would take Kenny again. 10 out of 10 times. As our rosters evolved, we've gotten bigger guards to go through the way the schedule wears you down. But if I was gonna take Kenny again, I'd have to change my roster makeup because we've taken bigger guards to do some things, switch ability, which means I can take some more athletic. Flexible fours and fives because of the positional size. But if I took Kenny as a six foot point guard, again, I would have to get bigger bigs. You would, and I don't understand just one player. If that player is gonna be a main player on your roster, it changes. The other players, you have to take around them. And people don't understand that're like, just take the best player. No, it has to fit. It's just like your offense and your defensive system, they have to be married. Your roster has to be married. The pieces have to work together. That's right. And you can't just. It's not like you can just go out and get one new big, you've gotta think about your rotation. That guy, that big might only be able to play 24, 25 minutes game, so I gotta have somebody that can play that other 15 minutes that's just as talented. Just can do the same things. When you're building that roster, maybe you even want a third one that you're developing that maybe is a red shirt, right? Yeah. And then, and they have to be able to cover up for, if you take a smaller guard and what the smaller guard's gonna give up, right? Yeah. And then you have to accept the smaller guard's probably not gonna be able to switch. Okay. And maybe they will be later in their career after they've gotten stronger and a little more experienced. But that's the type of thing, you have to look higher level, as you build a team, it's not just a collection of talent. It's not a u like you're building a program and it all has to work together. Yeah. And it's, for me, it always I wanted I wanted to play fast. I wanted to get the ball up the court. I wanted scores, but for me it was always about. What is my defense gonna look like and how are we gonna rebound the ball? Yeah. Are you still in that mentality every day? Yeah. Hundred percent. In the end, scoring is awesome, and scoring is usually the separator by how much you win. But wins are determined by rebounding in defense. Okay. How do you get your stops and and then can you limit'em to one shot? And the teams that are consistently a top third of a league, they defend and they rebound at a high clip. They do? Yeah. Talk a little bit about practice with me, coach. What does that, what are your, what does your rebounding philosophies look like in practice? How much are you teaching and grinding? How we rebound and free throw line at the rim three point line. How much are you diving into those specifics every day with how you rebound every single day? Every single drill is a rebounding drill, and we actually are one of the few, and I, we might've been the first. We've always had a rebounding coordinator. You have an offense coordinator. Defense coordinator. Love that. That person they chart rebounds, every single drill. And every single game, every single play did guys do their job rebounding. And we grade it out. But then every drill, he has a rebounding emphasis. And as I build a practice plan and we have a drill, I literally tell him what he's, his job is in that drill with the rebounding and how he's supposed to emphasize it. And whether, again, there's different types of box outs, people don't even realize this. There's a face box out there is a wedge box out to get'em underneath the basket. There's a double box out when your guard and your guy's not rebounding, going to double team'em. And then there's just like the basic hit and spin box out. So there's four or five different types of box outs. And then guys that like, your guy is not gonna rebound'cause he's a get back rebounding down and getting down into the fight. And so we grade it all out. Love that. Typically, if you're at 80% to 85% of your assignments done right, you win the rebound in margin by eight or more, and you start getting the seventies, you might win it. If you get in the low seventies to sixties, you're losing the glass and you are gonna get your butt kicked. Yeah, I, I can go back to almost every win and loss in my career. And it all comes down to what that rebounding margin looked like and what that offensive rebounding margin looked like. A hundred percent. And what does that look like for you guys when you're watching film after games, when you're talking stats and analytics with the guys on the film? Think about this. I'm gonna give you some crazy numbers here. Last year, 21 season, and we were 11 and seven in league and we were 12 possessions away from winning our league. That's how 12 possessions out of 2,800. Okay, so that's the margin, right? And I could tell you that in three or four of those losses that were really close games one or two possessions the margin is five loose balls and loose balls can be a dirty rebound. And this is the next crazy number. 42 to 46% of rebounds are dirty rebounds. Meaning they're tipped. Yeah. Or they're not, you just, the ball goes up and someone grabs it with two hands clean. Yeah. Dirty rebounds. So almost half of the rebounds, more than 40% are dirty rebounds. So who is gonna win the dirty ball? Who? And then you gotta win five more than the other team. And when you do that, you're probably gonna win the game. And so like in huge emphasis on guys that get the ball. And that is also, and we'll talk about more, a huge part of recruiting. Yes. Who's gonna win the 50 50 balls? Or who's gonna make a ball that's supposed to be maybe 25, 75. We're not supposed to get, he gets two of those a game. And those are hugely important plays. They're momentum changing and they wi flat out win games. And so That's right. People wanna talk about these pretty things. And I'm an analytics guy, and I like it. It still comes down to the dirty balls. The loose balls. The balls. You're not supposed to win. You win those, you win the game. We're gonna get in the weeds here as basketball coaches and some of these people that don't are listening that aren't great. Don't follow basketball. But it, this is really exciting for me. This is the stuff I love. All right, so you got a newcomer coming in, whether he is a transfer kid or he is a freshman coming in and you're talking about those dirty balls in practice. You, whatever, you're doing a shell drill, you're doing a three on three rebounding, drill, whatever it may be. What are you talking about and where are you seeing the struggles to transition to be able to play at your level in terms of is it hitting and going to get it, or are you emphasizing we gotta get that big guy three more feet? That's where the dirty ball, that's where we're gonna lose that dirty ball is if we're still in the paint, how do we get that guy pinned on the sideline, pinned on the baseline? How much, where is that percentage of conversation going in terms of driving, ceiling holding, or is it about hitting and going to get it? So if you're on your normal matchup, okay, yeah. So like the guy you're supposed to be guarding, then you're talking about a hit and go get situation. But if it's a switch and you're like a guard on a big man, you're just doing whatever you can to keep him away from the ball. That's right. So and then obviously there's scout based things. If they have a guy who's like an elite rebounder, then your job is to not let him get the ball, even if that's your matchup. But then we're also probably trying to chip at him or send another guy, right? Just get him outta the play and then we'll figure out how to, because he's gonna get really good rebounders getting 10 plus a game. That changes the fluctuation of it, man, we gave up the other day, we played South Carolina State and we beat'em pretty bad. And we let a kid get 20 rebounds. I can honestly say I was so mad about that. And the coach after the game, he is coach, you beat us by 25. Why do you seem mad? Man, we let a kid get 20 rebounds. Man, I've never done that before. And so after the game, Hey, congratulations guys. We won a division one game by 25 points. Okay, great. So everyone's happy. And I'm like, but we got some things we gotta figure out as a group.'cause that can't happen again. Yeah. You're already thinking about March. You're already thinking about that first week of April on Yes. On how that's gonna hurt you if you don't fix that. Correct. Here's the good question. How much of that was on that guard that's supposed to be diving in and stealing some of those? And how much of it was on your big that just was playing with a guy, maybe a little bit more athletic than him? Yeah I think it was a collection of the whole group. Okay. There was guys missing assignments. Just not doing their job, boxing out their, like opponent their matchup. There was guards not rebounding down. We got up big in the first half and we just took our foot off the pedal and then he, that kid. He sensed weakness and went and got it and good for him. And this is one of those situations where, as a kid who had came to our elite camps, who wanted Queens to recruit him, and we didn't, and he was ultra motivated. Yeah. And he put a great game together. Good for him. And my thing is but our guys gotta be ready when you're trying to win a championship, you're the hunted. Okay. And when you're the hunted, it's teams look at you like the Super Bowl. They play up for you and championship teams have to learn to play with that target. And our guys are learning right now to play with that target. It's been a few years since we've been division two that we've had that target. Yeah, that's great. It's so much fun looking at that perspective because you're learning every time you step on the floor on, on where you've gotta tweak the engine. Yeah. You're a mechanic through it, through every day.'cause you're like, okay, we're running good. And then you play a game and you're like, oh, that that's gonna come back to bite us. We've gotta fix that. Now does that always trigger your recruiting brain as well when you see those things like, I need to be thinking about that when we're on the road and we're making calls and we're watching film, or are you pretty focused on your present roster when that's happening? Nah I've been a recruiter my whole life, so I'm always thinking recruiting. But what you learn as a head coach is is that problem fixable for that player or is that something that that's not, they're never changing on that. And there are things you can just, like a person in their personality. Like you can change certain things a little bit or you can tweak'em or they can get better. But there are some things that like, that's not, that you're not changing that. Okay. We had a free throw shooter last year. We led a nation in blocks, but he was a 20% free throw shooter. Okay. Ugh. And like we were working to get it better. He was never going to be a great shooter, but he led the nation in blocks. So then you've gotta, you've gotta revolve your roster around that and make sure you have other good free throw shooters around him. And so you gotta decide is that a fixable problem and how long is it gonna take? Or is that something that we have to deal with and recruit around and figure that out as a group. And that's so hard too, because if that kid gets fouled. It's typically their big that you'd like to see get in foul trouble. So it's a double-edged sword. Okay? He may only make one outta every eight of these, but man, the way he blocks shots, the way he rebounds, the way he go gets it. He's gonna create some fouls on the other team and gets some of those guys we want off the floor. Maybe make them sit a little bit more, right? Yes. And so you then you also start to say, Hey, we're gonna look at free throw, rebounding a little different. Yeah. We're actually put together a plan of how to like, are we gonna X out? Are we gonna spin how are we gonna attack? Are we gonna try and tap out because we know that he's, he struggles. Yeah. But can we use it as a weapon? Yeah. You're almost offensive playing play calling for his free throw shooting. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I've been there on that. Talk a little bit about your staff.'cause it's gotta feel great knowing you've got a staff, you got debt, you can pay them a living so they're not living out of a shoebox and doing seven other jobs. How has that helped you in this transition to this new world you're in? Yeah. And again. The light switch versus the dimmer, it doesn't happen immediate. Okay. And so you've, I've had to be creative and as we've gotten through it, I've had to be less creative, but I'm still trying to be creative. But the staff part is awesome. And I can say this, as you hire a staff, if anyone gets a job the first time you get a job, you're gonna get somewhere between 1,003 thousand text messages. The first 24 hours it is. It is insane. And so what I did was I didn't answer any of the text messages until that evening at 1:00 AM and from one to three I answered'em all.'cause I didn't want to get into a back and forth. So I tried to be responsible and there's still people you miss and the people will tell you like, Hey, I texted you and you're like, did you text me right after I got the job? You know what I mean? And then I'll tell people, so you feel like you're drinking from a fire hose. Everyone wants access. Everyone wants to recommend someone. And I can tell you this one, everyone wants to say they want, they wanna hire your friends, don't hire your friends. Okay? Because it's really hire hard to manage, especially if it's your first time being a head coach, trying to mentor and develop your friend. Yeah, because there's a different relationship there. Second. Hire people from cultures that you feel like are similar to yours or the one that you wanna develop. And I was fortunate I got to take over a job that I was very comfortable with. I was a part of building that culture and I felt very empowered to to tweak it but not have to change everything and build a whole new culture'cause it was very sound. And I still probably hired wrong to start. But you learn. Okay. Yeah. But hire people that, again, you don't have to, I don't have to know them and be best friends with them. I have to know their culture and their mentors. And you're gonna get phone calls. I got phone call from Roy Williams and I got a phone call from Mike Chesky to recommend guys, but they don't know me. That's right. And they don't know Queen's culture, so like, how could they possibly understand what this job needed? And so I would try and explain to them like what I was looking for and they're like, oh coach, I disagree. You should do this. That's awesome, but you're not living here. And sometimes they're just trying to toss a problem to you. And I'm not saying those two specifically, but other coaches. But they got out, they retired because they didn't want to deal with the problems that you're having to face right now as well. Yeah. And they had the resources to deal with it. That's right. We were still developing them and still are now. Yeah. My recommendation is take your time. Don't hire your whole staff right away. Don't hire your friends. Hire people from cultures that you're comfortable with, that you really feel like they're gonna transition to your culture well. And then hire people that you want to develop and hopefully develop so they get better jobs. And then build your organization so that you grow from within. And that's what I've tried to get to. I've had a real affinity for hiring guys that just finished playing pro. They're older, they're mature. They can still run. Yeah. And then they really want to help develop players on the floor and I can develop a lot of their habits in coaching and, that's been my what's been successful for us but I'm just. Be open to learning about that and continue to grow in that. And I'm still learning myself. Yeah. And you'll, you won't ever stop with that process. Talk a little bit about the intangibles and the logistics of what you're looking for when you're talking to these potential assistant coaches. What are the things that you feel like you personally need?'cause we're always trying to find. People with strengths that maybe are our weaknesses. What are the, how much are you looking at maturity paperwork, being able to make a lot of phone calls to, to build relationships with kids? Where is that priority order for you when you're talking to a potential assistant coach? What are some of those things that the box gets checked really quickly for you? Yeah, I'd say the first thing is character. And so like, all right, let's just say I'm not here. Say I'm at home or I'm on the road and you have to make a decision that you can't, like you can't rely on me to make the decision, like character. What are you gonna do? Do the right thing. That's right. Do the right thing for the organization, do the right thing for us long term. And I wanna be able to trust my people to make those decisions and know that they have the character and the ethics to make the right decision. And that's a big deal. That's the first thing. And obviously you want guys with strong work ethics. And for me, I want guys that are ultra competitive that, that have won one as a coach and one as a player. And'cause I think that's important. I think winning translates. In recruiting and then also in staffing. And so we want guys that have all those traits and yeah, then we have a mixed bag of nuts, guys that played guys that came up as managers guys that you know, are experienced coaches and guys that have less experience. But really the common thread is they come from winning. They have great character and they're unbelievably competitive. And if you have those traits, then you can be successful with us. You feel like you could teach the rest? A hundred percent. Yeah. Okay. Like the other stuff, like when you're talking about hey, learning how to deal with admissions that it, it takes a, some experience, but that's not difficult. It's just clunky. It's new. But we have enough experience on the staff that we can handle that. And you don't need to have guys that all do the same thing. Yeah, we have a guy on staff who's unbelievable computers, editing, that kind of stuff. Awesome. I have multiple guys that played pro basketball. I have one guy that's an unbelievable fundraiser. One of our guys that is a former pro, he is unbelievable in the camp setting and like running that stuff and all of that all ties together. Their strengths are a little bit different. But building a staff that collectively has a lot of different strengths, that's the cool thing. Bringing in a guy that's played pro in Europe because camps and teaching and coaching is such a big part of being a pro over there. Yeah. You have to learn, you have to get confidence, you have to be able to be in front of a group of 12 boys and be able to teach and be a leader. So are you finding that,'cause my concern with my concern was always with hiring pros is are they gonna be able to teach what they've learned? Are they, can they articulate the skillset that they have? You can tell over there. It's a business, but the building community part, which I think is a huge part of college, like we're entrenched in the community and doing community service and running camps, is not just to make money, but it's also to really build a fan base and build like fabrics that lead to other things. And building community is a huge part of what we do here at Queens and those guys that played pro, they had to do that to keep their jobs over there.'cause a lot, their whole paycheck was not just playing basketball. A lot of it was being a part of that organization and working the youth or, and or doing community outreach different than an NBA. It's not nearly the same. It isn't, and it's it's really a great tool. I've talked with so many, I've had pros myself that have played overseas and they came back just as different people that, they weren't introverts anymore. They weren't scared to shake somebody's hand and look somebody in the eye. They could talk with some confidence. So when you have that pro experience overseas, it really changes you and you, there's so much maturity that comes out of those guys. Yeah. And obviously the language barrier and learning to overcome that's right. In countries where like maybe they don't always speak English and and then dealing with the GMs and stuff over there, like they, how they handle things is amazing. And some people don't wanna hire those guys. I'll hire a bunch of'em, and I've had a lot of success with that. We'll develop the coaching habits here and the nice thing about that is they don't have any bad habits because they don't have any habits because they haven't learned that yet. And so how you do office hours and how you build a culture as a staff and for me. Some staffs like to be ultra competitive. My recruit, my scout, we are way more holistic. It is all of our, once we have a player in our program, they're all our players and no one works out just one guy. That's my guy there. There's none of that. Yeah. And. I need my guy to play. No, we need our guys to play great. And that is a huge thing for me, the collectiveness of the staff. And there's no I have a scout record of five and one, and he's two and three. We don't do that here. We're all together. And so I just really believe it matters. It is collective, it's collaborative, it's healthy, it's holistic, it's awesome. It's the way it's the way it needs to be done. Otherwise there's always a tear in your fabric and you don't want that. Bring the novice person that hasn't coached at your level. Bring them into your staff meetings. Let's talk about April 1st. You've got your group, you're doing your trainings, you've got individuals, you've got small groups, got some scrimmages still going on, but you've got a five, six month window where you've gotta start thinking about what are we gonna look like in October? What does that look like when you're talking to your staff and you're starting to build out those projections? How collaborative is it? How much are you saying, this is what I wanna do? Yeah. And I think that every coach kind of does this differently, but I learned a lot of this from Bart Lundy at Milwaukee. Okay. And you're gonna take a few breaks let's just say in late March, early April, all the way through May before you get your team in June. Okay. And you're building your team now with the portal and everything in April and May. And hopefully the teams, that, in my opinion, at our level, the teams are being successful, retain the most, and then add on so hopefully you're taking moments as your roster's building and you're building a plan of what you're trying to learn and what you gotta grow from last season. Okay? Again, we talked about 12 possessions that I knew that we needed to get better at. Those margins are so small, so where are we gonna do that? And I knew that those margins were gonna happen in two areas. How we defend the three. And how we take care of the, protect the ball on offense. And so a lot of our focus in that June period is as we put in our base principles and we're learning and growing as a team, is, how do I emphasize those two things? How do we contest the three and then how do we take protect the ball offensively and building that into our team like. Every year we have slogans and things that we say as a team that we're working towards. And some of'em are cultural or every year things, and then some of'em are that year. And all of that goes in and I think it's collaborative to a point. But you're also, I'm the leader and I've gotta make some decisions that, that overall, we're going in this direction. And I will say this in a staff meeting, and I again learned this from Coach Lundy. Everyone gets input. Because you can learn so much. I can tell you this, you, when you're a part of an organization and you walk downstairs and you talk to the lady who cleans your arena, and she can give you a viewpoint or lens on a few players in your program that you've never thought of before. Yep. And Steve Clifford, who is with the Hornets, was unbelievable about that. Talk to everyone, give everyone a voice, learn from them, and then use that collective information to make decisions. And so I, every guy on our staff, from graduate assistants to managers, to all of our coaches, I give them all an opportunity to give their viewpoint on practice every day as we meet after practice. And then I take that information and sleep on it. And then. Next day, moving forward, have a direction because I already have an idea of what went wrong or what went great. Yeah. But that's what a staff meeting looks like. Giving people a voice, letting'em have an opinion, understanding their background and their perspective and why their lenses that way, and then taking that information and all of it together and keeping our ship moving forward all in the same direction. And that's probably the most important thing. A lot of teams are supposed to win a championship and don't because their boat's not rowing in the same direction. It should be about collective growth as a group and individual growth daily, each player, and can you keep your boat getting better and closer to the goal every day? And that's our only goal. We start in June and we know we got till March. Yeah, you're two months into the season. And you get a little bit of a breather here, not much, but you get a little bit of breather. It's the first time you get to walk away and maybe look down on your season. So far, and I'm sure you haven't had a ton of time to do this yet. This is probably the week you're doing that and doing some of that reflection. Can you look back to June and some of those decisions you made then and now you've seen it? Work for two months or not work for two months, what does that reflection look like? And are you going, okay, we gotta make some adjustments here over the holidays? Yeah. And we already started making'em. Yeah. And the nice thing about playing the schedule we had is we've had some weaknesses exposed that I think would've waited till longer to get exposed. Like verse like opponents, you could see a sliver of a crack. Okay. But verse the big opponents, that crack got way bigger. And so okay. Our ball pressure and our defensive intensity wasn't consistent. So what tweaks or changes to how we're preparing and or to what our scheme is that I can get our defensive intensity and ball pressure to be way more consistent. That's been the hugest thing for us and we're making those adjustments. We started making'em a few weeks ago'cause we knew that in this, in. Wake Forest, Arkansas, Auburn that we had to really make some decisions before we got to EKU and Bellarmine, which is January 1st. And so we started making those adjustments and you can look back in June and say, I should have emphasized one or two things earlier. And then also say this is why we played those games, to see where we're at. And that's, and it's been a good learning lesson for us. How much of that. Change that you're making is a strategic technical change, and how much of it is changing how you crack the whip and practice to get that intensity that you want? Is there a balance there or is there, are you feeling like you have to push and challenge a little bit more to get that emphasis you want? Yeah, it's 50 50. Okay. And the one thing that I can tell people, you walk into a game after a game and gut wrenching loss or tough one or you're mad, maybe you got kicked. Okay? And you can say some things emotionally, and the most empowering thing you can do to your team is to take ownership yourself. I didn't, there's one or two things that I didn't do right here in this preparation that we're gonna adjust and I always say we're gonna watch the film and make sure that we're emotionally in the right place, and then we're gonna talk about tomorrow and film and then assess where we're at. But not to just cut players like, you didn't play hard enough, you didn't do this, you didn't do that. I can't believe this. You can do that once a year. Once a year, and if you start doing more than that, you're gonna lose your team and they're gonna lose faith in you. But you can empower them by saying, I, I have some ownership in this too. And we're gonna, we're gonna assess it all and we're gonna look at it. And I don't, again, when you're playing those big teams, I don't mind losing a game. I, what I do mind is losing a game. Because we, our culture wasn't right. Those are the times when I'm like this didn't look right. This didn't smell right. We played Wake Forest. I was like, I was disappointed. Our culture did not play through in that game. We were at Villanova, we're at Virginia, we fought and we did a lot of good things and we're gonna learn scheme wise what we gotta adjust. But you guys fought, your effort was there and our culture came through. So there's different ways to look at it. And I can tell you, we, this break, we had to look at both. How am I. Cracking the whip and how hard I'm being on them in practice. And there's a different level of intensity you get to in January, always anyway. And then also, alright, we gotta tweak two or three things X's nose wise to get us to that consistency point. We need to be. This is such a challenge for all coaches. How do you deal with that next practice after a game where, you know. The loss was because of effort and heart. You didn't stick your screens, you didn't drive on your blockouts, you, you didn't run hard routes. How much of that affects that next practice for you and how you handle that next practice? Obviously you're a pro in terms of the locker room and what you're doing in the locker room after that game. And understand you've gotta breathe and get the heck out of there before you do say something you're gonna regret. But what does that next practice look like for you? You gotta be upfront with the players. This practice is gonna be about our culture, because we can't win any championship if our culture's fractured. So this is who we are, this is our DNA as a team. Look, if we're a team that goes to the glass like Mad men and we didn't go. Then we're gonna, we're gonna go, and that, that's gonna be an emphasis, this practice. And so if it's about not winning 50 50 balls and loose balls, then that practice is gonna have a little more of that emphasis. And the guys are gonna know, they're gonna know the whole point of this is not about, Hey, our offensive execution and running this play and that play, it's gonna be about getting that ball. And then there are practices where Hey. Man we're going to get the ball, but Hey, we gotta clean up our execution and we'll work on that. But I think you just gotta tell the players the truth. Like they, they wanna win. I always say this, you got the right guys in your locker room. They wanna win. They desperately wanna win as much as you do. And so just telling'em the truth and being like, this is what we're trying to get to these few practices, man, we're gonna have to go a little, we're gonna have to tweak this.'cause it's gotta be about our culture on that one. I hate using the word punishment, but let's talk somehow get that level. They didn't know they had. That's a big part of our job is teaching kids how to go past where they thought their potential was and where their effort level was. Talk about sprints, pushups, competition. What does that look like that next day in terms of turning the dial up to get'em there? How do we get'em there? Yeah, that the sprint stuff is a part of it. The pushup stuff's hard for me because I, we, they're in the weight room so much, I just, there's that can actually be detrimental. The sprinting somewhat. But I will say this in a, maybe a little bit in November and December, you can be coaching effort. Okay? Maybe a little bit, but honestly not much. But if you're coaching effort in January and February, you're not winning. Yeah, you're not winning a championship. You're gonna lose games you're not supposed to lose and you're not gonna win games. The tough ones, if you're coaching effort and the championship teams, the effort's already there. You're not coaching effort anymore. There's a point in the season and that should be coached in early fall. And once you get, yeah, so hopefully that's not there during the season very much. Like I said, maybe once, and it usually is in November, December. Is it enough for you now at this point in this part of the season for you just to be direct and with those reminders? Yes. We can't have effort breakdowns right now. We can't have one, let alone two or three. We have to be consistent on how we run the floor. We have to be consistent with our defensive pressure. We have to be consistent on how we switch our hedge. Is it, is that enough for your guys to hear that, Hey, this is our emphasis today. Does that turn the dial up by itself? Yes. Okay. It does if you have the right kids. And I, like I said, like the effort part. That should be, that's a part of your environment and culture and it's a part of your staff. There should never be that, that should, that's if I'm coaching that man I'm not a very good coach anymore. Yeah. And. People need to hear that because they think that they play hard and they don't. And that's part of how our preseasons built is to teach them you think you're sealing for efforts here, but it's really way up there. And breaking through that and them learning like every single drill, every single thing you do that is a part of it. You, you should always go that hard. And so like we have a player right now on our team, Chris Ashby. He's preseason player of the year, and nobody else wanted him. He was a throwaway, there was actually junior college coaches who told me not to take him in his league, that were friends. He's not good enough. He'll never be like I can't believe I have two players in my roster that, that are still available or better than him. I was like, ah, I disagree. Whatever. He had 115 threes last year. School record. He's gonna break the school record for career made threes. He's preseason player of the year. He has the best practice pace of any player I've ever coached. And some, a lot of people are like what does that mean? That means every single time he walks in the gym, he goes game speed 100%. Even in a gym by himself with a gun game speed 100%. Every single time we take a drill game, speed a hundred percent and he takes guys with them and you emphasize it. Why don't you guys play as hard as Chris every single day? And people are like he doesn't like rebound crazy. That's not what a skillset is, but every single rep is 100% every single game. There's never been a time where I've ever questioned. Chris Ashby's effort, and that's why he's gone from a player. Nobody wanted to, a player. Everyone wants, because he's elite at getting better every single day. And I try and explain that is something that it is him. It is a skill. And I wish more kids had it. It's the multiplier, right? It's the kid we gotta have, we want 15 of'em because his effort now. And we'll get parents thinking about this and high school coaches thinking about this. His effort draws a second defender because he's moving up the floor so fast. He is running off screens so well that now they're switching and they're switching early, which allows you to cut and slip and do all those things and how his energy is wears down. That guy that maybe is a great shooter is losing his legs in the last eight minutes because he's been chasing Chris Ashby for 32 minutes, yeah, ex, all of those things, right? And they all matter and they impact winning, but they also impact practice and make your team get better. Because other kids start to realize I want what Chris wants. We let Chris, everyone wants to talk. We let Chris shoot 26 threes in a game. People are like, that's unbelievable. I never heard of a kid shooting 26 threes in the game. Our team, it wasn't just me. Like he shot, he started off the game oh, for four and he, in the first three minutes, he's over for four. And I told Chris, I pulled him outta the game to give him a breather and just looked at him and said, shoot a hundred, if they're gonna guard you like that. No one's dumb enough to guard you like that. And he looked at me and goes, and I go, Chris, did you hear me shoot a hundred? And he did. He shot 26. But our guys kept feeding the ball. Why would a team keep giving a kid the ball? You know that many because they love him and they believe in him, and they know that he practices that hard. They wouldn't do that if he was a turd. That's right. Because he's a great kid. They want him to keep shooting, and that's a real thing. And what'd he finish with that game? He 30 something and he made 10 of'em. And it wasn't, he was 10 of 26. Yeah. Not for him. Not even a great night, but but he made 10 threes and we won the game on the road by 20. That's great. Yeah. And, but again. He, his pace is like that, and it's every single day and it's program changing. It is. It's when your best player is your hardest worker, you will be great. When your best player is a turd it, when stuff gets hard, you, your whole team will come apart and yeah, Chris is phenomenal with that. I look back to the St. John's losing in the tournament last year and I don't know this, the kid that, that kind of fell apart in that game, but you look at that game and go. W he wasn't a leader that game, he wasn't the role model. He just said, I'm the best player and I'm not gonna take the things with it that need to come with being the best player. And I think that's why St. John's is season ended and at the, to me that was the centerpiece of college basketball. When that happens, when you're leader, can't be a multiplier. Can't miss, can't go one for eight and still make the team better. There's a problem. And Rick Pitino is one of the greatest college coaches of all time, if not the Yeah. And he did such an unbelievable job that he was able to hide that and hold that team together to that point. Yeah. Some point when it gets really hard, it comes apart if your character's not right, especially leadership position. A lot of people will never understand. My son scored a lot of points, but he yelled at his teammates he yelled at his coaches, he pouted and his body language was bad. He kept having his palms up. I, when I go to a game to recruit, I look at those things and I've crossed kids out. That scored 40 points in front of me. Yep. How they acted to their teammates. We're gonna get into the depth of that and segment too. I wanna do some quick hitters with you. Just first thing that comes to your mind. What's the first thing you look for when watching a recruit live? How hard they run the floor. Me too. One habit. Elite players always have re rebounding. Yeah. Most underrated skill in today's game. Passing. And it's not the assist, it's the think that the truth. It's like catching a ball and moving it to a guy and not holding it. I don't care where the game goes, it's still every coach in the country is still gonna be talking about getting the ball from one side of the floor to the other. And what that does to break down the defense and if the pass is out there, everything falls apart. We make the defense better. I love that toughest road environment you've coached in. All right. So I'm gonna give you a couple here. Obviously the BYU Duke stuff, like that's awesome, right? And that there's two that, that are, that no one's ever heard of that I wanna give shout outs to. First of all, in our league, in the Aun North Alabama, the bank, okay? And they have done unbelievable job. The ad and the head coach there. Oh my God, I, they have done unbelievable change that environment. It is rocking. It is rocking. Okay. So respect for that and wanna give them a shout out. But in my career, the best I've ever seen Winston-Salem State University. Division two and it, if you ever can go see a game as a fan, go there. The dj, the dance team, the step show the environment just the fans sold out. Man, they doing an unbelievable job. It is awesome. It is louder and better than Duke. Hear me? That. Wow. I thought you were gonna take us back to our Iowa days. I thought you were gonna take me back to Grinnell. You did. You play in the Grinnell? Played. Played there. Okay. And won. Yeah. And like it, but look like we scored a lot of points but there was another Iowa Wesleyan in that league in Iowa was off the charts and I remember getting hit in the head with a Skittle and was that the old the old Hoosiers gym where the people were on top in the rolling Yes. Yeah, I coached at St. Ambrose, so we played'em every year twice. Yeah. And yeah, I, there was, I had got my lip cut the game before South Dakota State. They were chanting. Grant has herpes, they're throwing Skittles at me. It was a great environment. But that wouldn't be allowed in today's game. I get that. Oh. But it was fun. It was a little different back then. Favorite thing about coaching at Charlotte? Huh? Fir. First of all, being in North Carolina, the hoop state, man, it's awesome. Yeah. And then being in Charlotte, a major city, you're talking about N-B-A-N-F-L like having a quality of life. It's off the charts. Yeah. And so living in the neighborhood I live in and driving into the neighborhood that our school's in Charlotte is amazing, man. It is amazing. It's a great city. Yeah. It's a great city. What still excites you about coaching development? And when you're a head coach, you get to see it on the player side, but also your staff side and watching people develop and get their dreams is the best part about it. We had young men last year, he'd been in our program five years, Caleb Matthews, and watching him go from the kid he was to the kitty developed into, now he's playing pro in Ukraine, he's killing it. And I just. Those type of stories are the reason why you should coach. Yeah, coach, you're fantastic. I could do this all day and have this conversation. I'm so impressed with you and you've got a huge fan and I'm a huge supporter of Queens and looking forward to seeing all you're gonna do this year and into the future. So thanks for doing this with me today. And if you're listening, come back on Monday. Coach and I are gonna tear up some recruiting conversation. It. Thank you for having us. And go Queens. If you're a coach who just listened to this episode, here's your challenge. Take one idea you heard today. And apply it this week. One standard you raise, one habit, you tighten, one conversation you've been avoiding because culture doesn't change in speeches, it changes in your decisions. I really didn't want this conversation to end, so I'm excited to bring you part two. This upcoming Monday where Coach Leonard and I talk about division one recruiting as someone. Who wants my athletes to think big, but be smart about the reality. Part two will drive that idea home more than any other guest we've had on the show. The truth will be hard to hear, but I think it will change the way high school athletes, parents, and coaches attack the next stages of their athletic careers. The world has changed. We can fight it or we can get on board. It's taken this conversation with Coach Leonard for me to realize as a college recruiting advisor, that I have to start changing how I teach college recruitment, and I'm excited for what that means for my student athletes. If you're a coach, a parent, or recruit looking for practical tools to navigate that process, you can find my recruiting resources, including the significant recruiting book and the new basketball recruits journal. At coach matt rogers.com. Until next time, stay focused on what you can control. Stay humble and keep chasing significance.