An Interview with Coach Nick Levine

Tuck it on the beat. What's up, guys? Welcome to the 32 on your host coach, V. It's been a little while since last one. I know I wanted to make these more regular, but just hasn't happened that way. Life got in the way. I was caught up in the youth sports tornado. As the boy between his two flag football teams and his baseball team, he had some sort of athletic activity seven days a week. I was coaching one of those teams. And so, you know, a little wild, but not to make any excuses. I know that you guys all have busy lives as well. So I'm here providing you some more interviews and some more content. They should be coming out a little bit more regularly now. I have, you know, a couple of interviews already completed. Some edits being made. And so we should see some more of these conversations being brought to light, which is a lot of fun because we're getting into the off season right now. And I think this is the off season is like a really special time. As a high school basketball coach, I think you get the opportunity to plan. You know, I think you get the opportunity to unplug a little bit. But also, like, it's full of possibility, right? And the off season, we're all potentially next year's champions. And so what I want to do today is I had an interview with a good friend that I've coached against for a long time. Coach Nick Levine from bishops here in San Diego. We were in the same league for a year, but we played each other non league games each of my last probably six or seven seasons. He's a great coach. This interview is really awesome. I really liked the X's and O's that he gets into and I like the focus that he has on culture. I think culture is something that we don't spend enough time on as high school basketball coaches. And I think he's really, he really does a great job of that. Without me blabbing anymore, the center has gone on long enough. Here's my interview with coach Nick Levine. All right, so today on the 32, I'm very happy to be joined by a good friend coach Nick Levine from bishops. How you doing, bud? I'm good. Thanks for having me on. What's up coach V? You know, same old same old. It's it's May and I don't have any off season planning to do, which is weird. But I'm kind of leaning into it by talking to other people about their off season planning. So before before we jump into that, tell me about yourself. Tell me your basketball journey, kind of where it started. You know, the steps that you took that led you to to bishops. Yeah, so I grew up in Philadelphia. I grew up in Philly, my dad grew up in Philly. So I grew up playing a ton of basketball. He was a kind of a basketball junkie too. And he coached us a little bit growing up. And he grew up in West Philly. I grew up in a little nicer part in Northwest Philly. And so, but he took us all over the city. And so, yeah, kind of fell in love with it early on, I think. And, you know, really had some great coaches early on. And, and, and then also Philly is just a great basketball town, right? So it's like, yeah, you got six division one schools right there. You know, it's, it's a great basketball city. So, yeah, I think it was a big part of my life growing up in middle school, high school. And, you know, I had great coaches. So I think they kind of influenced me a little bit. And I always like admired coaches. And then my dad was one of them too. So I think that all kind of steered me into, you know, thinking like a coach. Maybe earlier on and then a lot of other kids. But, you know, and then I went to college in Ohio. Then I came out here at a cousin who played at UCSD. He was a little older. So I came out here with a couple of buddies. And I thought I would be back in Philly in like a year or two. But yeah, it's been over 20 now. So, you know, it's a tough place to leave once you get here. Yeah. So, yeah. And as far as coaching goes, you know, I think I always thought I wanted to, I knew I wanted to stay involved in the game. I didn't know it would be a career, right? Like I never thought it would be a career for me. But it sort of turned into that. And when I first got out here, I got connected with Ryan Meyer, who was at Country Day. It was his first year. And so jumped on with him. And he, you know, was an amazing first coach to work with. He taught me a ton and kind of got me, you know, I caught the bug I think early on. And so from there, I got Pacific Ridge for a couple of years. And then Bishop's opened up. And this is my 12th year here. That's amazing. So, you're from Philly. How many times have you been to the Polestra? Oh, it's my favorite gym in the country. Yeah. So we would grow, when I was growing up in like the 90s, there was no Ivy League tournament. So Penn, it was Penn or Princeton every year pretty much. And so when they would play each other, that game was, that was my favorite game of the year. It was kind of electric. So that game was like, that would decide who would go to the tournament every year. So that one. The Polestra, I got to play there a couple of times to. Really? It's like a music. No, I have never been there. And I really want to go. Yeah, it's like a different feel. It just feels like you're, you're a part of history there. There's, it's, and the sound. It's only 8,000. It holds about 8,000 or something, but it's sound travels really well. And so they still do like, they do the Catholic League semis and championships there for high school. And that gets packed. And yeah, that's a bucket. You guys, you got to get there. Yeah, I read, I, I like, I went through a stretch where I was reading everything that Fine Scene has written about basketball. And I read his book, The Backroads to March. And he talks about the Polestra a lot in, in those. Yeah. In that book. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Oh, my God. I'm like, I was, I would read it in the off season to get myself fired up. So, and then you also, you're also, yeah, I know, I need to do it. It's like, add it to the list of trips that I need to take. So you, you also work as a journalist. Am I, am I correct in that assessment? That's a stretch. That's a big stretch. I, you know, I read a couple of things a year. Certainly would never call myself that. But I got into it maybe like 10 years ago. It's been, it's just super fun. Like, it's a more of a hobby than anything else. And so, uh, yeah, I would definitely not call myself a journalist though. But I mean, you get credentials and you get to sit in there and ask questions to coaches. Yeah. College basketball a couple of times a year. It's, it's really fun. You would love it too. It's awesome. Yeah. No, I would for sure love it. Um, so. You know, what do you see? How do you view the game? Like, when you're, when you're looking at it from, from that perspective, when you're going to ask coaches, questions, pregame. I know you sent me a video of a question that you asked coach Hurley from Yukon. Do you, do you look at the game differently when you're about to ask them questions versus how you would look at it as a coach? Or do you kind of look at it through the same lens? Yeah, I think I'm always wearing a coach's hat. Even like, you know, if I'm at those games and I write something around, I'm going to ask a question. And I think it's, again, I think of myself as a basketball coach, definitely not a writer. So, you know, I'm seeing the game as a coach. I'm trying to pick stuff up all the time. You know, my brain works and like, what can I bring back to our team? You know, what, what can I steal and bring back to our team? It's not just access to notes from those guys, but it's, it's the messaging. It's how clearly they communicate, you know, it's their terminology. It's stuff like that. So, I don't think I'm, you know, and if I'm asking questions, it's definitely more like questions you would ask at a coach's clinic more probably than like, you know, talk about the emotion you were feeling, not that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I'm trying to pick their brains. Those guys, those college basketball coaches, like your guy Hurley, they're so good. They're so impressive, you know, and like, I can't imagine being a post game press conference after a tough game. And you just have to explain everything you decided to do that game, you know? Oh, my God. You think these guys have such a bad tree of the job and they're so good inside. You know, it's inspiring to its motivate. I come back like recharged, like wanting to be a better coach from that stuff. And it's, yeah, it's what can I bring to help our team? Maybe it's just a little, it's always access to notes. Like, I'm always trying to find something. But the more I do it, the more I get excited about what can I add to our culture? Like, what, what's going to motivate kids more? What's going to strengthen our culture a little bit more? You know, and so I think you can always pick stuff up, like success leaves clues, right? So, you're always trying to grasp something and something that would work for you and your team. And you can't use everything, but something that you think would apply and fit for your group. Yeah, on that on that trend or on that topic. What, what trends or what things could you pick up? I don't know from the college game that you could bring back your team, like specifically. And what, what trends are high school coaches better off ignoring? Because I know it can be really tempting to see stuff on TV and be like, oh, we could do that. You know, I know personally, there were a couple. you con actions that I tried to install, there was one that I was able to strip down and totally simplify and actually execute. And it was pretty successful for us. But the rest of the stuff, I was like, why did I just waste time trying to figure out what the heck they were doing and run it with my guys? Like, there was no way we could do that. So what sorts of things do you think are realistic that you could take from that level? And you mentioned culture. Do you want to do you want to speak more about that or? Yeah, and I give you credit because I haven't touched any of the Yukon stuff. That is so layered. I don't I have no idea how he teaches that. I would love to like explore it, but that is so in depth. And those guys just flow from one action to the next so nicely. I don't know how he teaches it. It's chaos. It's crazy, but it's beautiful to watch. Yeah, I think, you know, I think when we all like we all watch that stuff and we're like, we want to we want to put it in with our team. But you really have to think about what do you have? What could work? Like, you know, I think one of the things college, the ball screen stuff, and we've done a ton of ball screens ourselves. But you got to have a big guy. You got to like, we see switch so much that if if you can just switch everything, you don't have a big athletic guy, you can't punish that switch, you know, you're never getting advantage. I don't know how much ball screens are useful for us at the high school level. And like everyone wants to run everything through through that. And I like it too, but you got to have the personnel. So what it's it always comes back to what fits for your group. And I think high school coaches have a challenge. College coaches don't. I would love to recruit. I would love to pick a style of clay, recruit to it and just get great at that. You know, we have a different team every year. We have a different we have strengths and weaknesses that change every single year. So I look at a roster every year and we think about, you know, what do we do best? How can we put a put the kids in position to do that the most, right? And that changes a lot. So we did a lot of ball screen stuff. These last couple of years, because we did have a big I thought was hard to switch. But now we probably don't. So we got to figure it out. So yeah, I think like you can't just copy it. It has to make sense for your group. Now, what does work? I think with the analytics and stuff, there's, there's, you know, you look at Connecticut, you look at Michigan, you look at Arizona. Those guys got so many paint tools like layups or ducks, right? So how can we, as high school coaches, I love threes. I love rhythm threes, but what are we shooting like 30% maybe usually? So, you know, it's a high value shot, but there's nothing like layups. So I think about high school coaches, you know, the offense should be designed to get paint tools. How many paint tools can you get, right? Because that's, I think two point field goal percentage is so important. And those guys do it in a number of different ways, like the post seal plays, you know, maybe coming off shuffle, you know, flags or something. But how can your offense really get a look at like a deep paint too before you go into something else? And I think the best college teams were doing that a ton. You saw it with with the final four for sure. Connecticut does a great every year. So, you know, some of the analytics stuff that that college is really focused on and pay attention to, I think we should pay attention to as well. Are we teaching shot selection? We started doing shot grading, like A, B or C. So A is, we broke down every shot and A would be a on balance paint too or rhythm three and open rhythm three for a good shooter. A C would be like a really challenged three, a tough pull up to or one of those paint tools where you're falling over, right? So we started breaking that down with the kids and I think they cannot kind of understand what we're looking for a little better with that. So, you know, I think you just again, it goes back to what do you have and what makes the most sense for what you have? Yeah, I love that. The shot grading thing. Because I mean, the really good, the really good teams at high school or anywhere, are just so efficient, like there's not wasted, there's not wasted motion, there's not wasted energy and not wasted shots. I think that's where, you know, the best teams that I had, I think we scored, I think like 80 percent of our points were either the free throw line or within five feet of the basket, you know, and that's just and not just like, you know, not just the years where we had, you know, we had Marley who was like enormous. Even some of our smaller teams that were pretty successful, it was the same way. Like we were scoring everything was close to the basket. It was backdoor cuts for layups, it was that empty side pick and roll that we ran the last couple of years. Anything that would work to get something going down hill towards the basket was the best for us. So I like, I like that idea of grading shots. Would you guys, when would you guys go over that? Would that be like something that would be like kind of a homework assignment for the kids for the film or was that like a team film like we're all grading this together situation or how would you guys do that? We do it early in the year we would do it after every game and maybe just grab a kid in the office or maybe, you know, huddle makes it easy, right, because you could just go right on their box court, right on their shot, so you can you can do it in a couple minutes. But yeah, early in the year we want to go over and we talk about it all the time and in practice and stuff and, you know, pretty clear. Now early in the year you get the kids like, yeah coach, I make that shot, you know, you get that one. So you got a kind of that's when you have to do some coaching and some selling on, okay, maybe you made that shot before I don't, you know, here it's probably not the best shot for our group, right, so. And then the goal, the hope is as you go towards the middle of the season towards the end of the year and they start picking up on it. They're like, you know, if they take a ban on that, yeah, that was a that was a C my bad coach or, you know, something. So it starts being something that they can kind of coach themselves on. But they understand that like an off the bounce three, we can get that anytime. That's a that's a B at best, right? So that could be a late late shot clock shot. Let's go try to get a layout. Let's go try to get a paint too first. Let's try to get a rhythm three and then it all comes, you know, the other thing we did, we would start charting paint touch decisions. So when you get out in there, what did they do? And we were pretty lenient graders like, if you just kicked it out, that's a positive. If you got fouled, if you made it, that's a positive. If you turned it over or you missed the shot, that's a negative and they each had a percentage. That was actually pretty telling for us. So that's something we'll continue to do. And, you know, it's like you're reinforcing paint touch decisions there. You've got to end of drive decision making is so important. Don't chuck up something. Can you read where the helps coming from? Can you spray it out if it has help? But yeah, I think the kids start understanding the kind of shots that we're looking for, you know, maybe a couple weeks into the season. No, I like that. Yeah, that's one thing that I've always been really impressed with when I've played against your teams is that your guys are always like, and you've spoken to the culture of the team a little bit. And I kind of want to get into that a little bit more because I think that the culture that you've built there is is kind of why why you guys honestly were so freaking difficult to game plan for because like I think, you know, I was going to talk about it later, but I'll bring it up now. You know, I played you guys, I coached against you at when you were at bishops, not the Pacific Ridge days, but at bishops. We had eight regular season games. And you beat me in seven of those eight games. Some of those years were years that you guys were just just head and shoulders talent-wise beyond where we were and we got thumped. And honestly, I thought those games were good for us because we were kind of we were we were growing as a program. We were starting to play better teams and I wanted us to go and get get pummeled a little bit so we could put ourselves in our place. But there were some years that I thought talent wise, we could hang a little bit. And it was it was always somebody different that beat us, right? And that was what was so tough to game plan for you guys for was that I felt like your your team was team focused enough that it didn't seem like most of the time it didn't seem like it mattered to your team who it was that was doing the scoring. They just would come in as a group and if we took one option away they would just pivot and somebody else would beat us. And it was really frustrating. But I think that that speaks to the culture that you've built there. And so how do you go about creating that environment? Because it's not easy as a high school coach, especially not I would think at a at a school that where you guys you know you play and probably the toughest league in the county traditionally. And so like you got a lot of guys that when they were coming up and club ball or coming up in middle school ball they've sort of been they've probably been the guy before you know. And so how do you how do you get them to all play together? Yeah I appreciate those those words and it's something I think we're fighting for all the time, right? And yeah you get the kids who Thank you. I just talk about like coach, I shoot that on my club team all the time. I make that shout out all the time as well, you know, that's a different dynamic. And so we're going to ask you to sacrifice a little bit here. And we, we will be pretty, you know, there will be role specific stuff. And, and we want our best shooters shooting the most and all of that. But we also kind of want to be like, the go to guys, the open guy, right? Let's spray that thing around. We talk a ton about, you get two on the ball, you have got to move it. You cannot, we say, don't miss the moment. I think it was Eric Wallstruck who said that. But if you get two on the ball, you cannot miss that moment to move it, right? And you're so valuable if you can get two on the ball and move it. Like you've done your job. So now we're in advantage and we're playing four on three, right? So that's huge for us and the unselfishness stuff. And so I think our culture has been good. And one thing we do is we do a standards meeting, like really early in the season, maybe the first week and the players kind of lead it. And I can steer them into it a little bit, but the players lead it and we're usually aligned on it. And we go through everything that that they'll face throughout the season. So we'll talk what should practice look like and the kids will say, you know, if I'm there early, I should be doing skill work. If if it's a break, I'm grabbing a quick drink and then I'm doing shooting. Like I'm not sitting down. If it's post-practice in the gym's open, what are we doing? And then we'll go through, you know, teammate stuff. Like if I ever run by a team match to begin a fiber fist, we should be acknowledging the passer on everything or the screener, right? Like on the bench, what are we doing? If someone hits a shot or we all standing up, if they're coming out. So we talk about everything that I think goes into a season, everything that we wanted to look like. And we'll say like, what's something you did on another team that you think was awesome? Let's bring it to our team. So it could look a little different each year, but then we go and review those standards, maybe three times a week and we're great ourselves on them. And we're saying like something I can do better, something someone else is doing really well. And so I think at some, you know, hopefully that's the goal is like, you're strengthening that culture to where the kids understand that it's hard. This thing's hard. We're going six days a week at it. There's, we say there's two things you have to have to be here. You have to love basketball because you're going to be spending a lot of time. You have to love basketball. Then you have to want to be part of a team, right? Like this isn't tennis. This isn't golf. They're going to be sacrifices. You don't get to just do whatever you want. There are standards we all need to uphold and hold each other accountable for. So, you know, and then hopefully it's fun too, right? And hopefully we're making it fun and the fun should be the competition. The fun should be the idea of getting better. It's not just kind of messing around, but yeah. So I think the standards thing and I think it was coach gay, who where I got that from, but that's been really, really good for us. I think it kind of gets us to the point where, you know, the kids are like, "Oh, we're going to review this. I want to be easy for someone to shout out next time we're talking about this." Like I want to be the first one, kids on the floor. I want to be the first one over there helping them up, you know, or whatever it is. So hopefully, and again, like I said, X's and O's I love, that kind of stuff is more fun now. Like the more you do it, like that's kind of thinking about that stuff, being able to strengthen your culture with that, taping into the potential of each kid and our club debuting, getting them to sacrifice, but have fun doing it. I think that's kind of the fun part. That's so cool. I like that you brought up the bench culture, because that's one thing that you guys have always been really, really, really good at. Like I have to give you that credit, I have to give the credit to your team. It honestly, like when we played you guys, your bench would be so fired up the whole game that it would make my bench get fired up. And so I loved it, like I felt like we would leave those games like better as a team because we saw it being modeled properly, I guess it was, it was really cool. You, they always were really good about that, like every single player on your roster, it was really cool. I think part of that's personalities, like sometimes you get, you just get those kids, right? Who are just simple, unselfish, and they're enthusiastic. And then also part of it is recognizing, you're talking about it all the time, making sure everyone knows we value that a lot, you know, so. Yeah, that's cool. If you were talking about X's and O's, if you were, if this was a college situation and you could just run whatever offense you wanted to run and recruit guys to match that offense, what would you run? UCSD, like Hayden Gray senior year, did you get to watch them at all? A little bit, yeah. Yeah, that was my favorite team in a while, and I followed New Mexico now pretty closely. I think Eric Golan does a great job, clean out over there, they do a great job, so. We started doing some of that stuff, but like it's so fun to watch, they're, they're pretty much five out with ball screens. The ball just zips around, you know, there's, there's automatics, like they're teaching dribble drive rules and there's all these automatics. If I drive baseline, it's a 45 cut or middle one, I get a logo, it's a baseline cut. But and then you can set a ball screen anywhere on the court, and you're in connected offense. Like so all the other three guys know exactly what they're doing based on where the ball is, how many are behind the ball? And then, you know, again, you need some skill, you need a big, if you have a big who can shoot it and a big who can punish the switch, like that's what I would want. I want some guards, some point guards who could or decision makers, problem solvers, and a big who puts you in conflict, puts a defense in conflict, like that's tough. That's a nightmare to go against, you know, so it's a, it's a picture poison type thing. And the ball's moving around, there's a ton of player movement. So yeah, we started doing that the last couple of years. It didn't look anywhere near like UCSD, but, you know, but at times it's been good for us. I was like, we've done a ton of different stuff, like we've said, you know, what do we do best? And I've tried a lot. I know you guys were always Princeton, I love Princeton. We've done some of it as sets, or, you know, just the split action, or maybe just chin, or chin, chin screens occasionally. So yeah, I would recruit a dynamic big with guards that can shoot it. You know, you're going to have to close out to play a shot and play a drive on the guards. And then you have a dynamic big who can shoot it or roll and punish the switch. It's just, it's picture poison for the defense with that. Yeah, you know, I love it. We did, yeah, we did Princeton stuff. And honestly, where I had always struggled was what to do after the initial Princeton, actually, like if the initial action was taken away, what do we do? And it wasn't until the last like year or two that I figured out how to make that Princeton flow into that empty side ball screen stuff. And then it was like, then the offense, like totally opened up. And because then we were doing, we were doing some of the stuff where we would run through four or five actions early in the set before we would get into what we thought was actually going to score. And that was, I mean, you needed, we needed the right guys to do that that had the patience and the, the, I don't know, like the lack of ego that didn't want to just try to create. But you guys would kill us and with, with Romeo and with Nikki, you guys would kill us with these, these high post catches. And then the away screens in the corner and you guys would run that Zoom action and we, we knew it was coming. And it didn't matter, like it, it was so infuriating to play against, like I, I can't watch another, like, another bishops player curl off of that high post screen for a layup. I don't think I can watch it happen again without becoming like physically nauseous. Like when I watch back on film from our games, I just like, I just see that layup happening over and over again, and it makes me so sad, you guys said it so well. You guys got really good with that Princeton stuff too, though. I remember that one year, yeah, when you beat us and you were just, it was like the splits and then right into an empty and we were switching, then you were throwing it into that kid and he was just bully-balling us down low. He was tough. Well, I mean, I have to like, I have to put a giant asterisk on that game that Romeo did not play that game. And so that's the reason that we were able to be as effective out of the high post and we were able to play that bully-ball. Yeah, but that was, yeah, that was a fun one. You guys, you scared the crap out of us that game, though, because we were up really big for like a long time. And then in the fourth quarter, I think it was, oh, and it just got like, thermonuclear hot in the fourth quarter and hit a bunch of threes and got it back to a pretty close game. Now, that was a tough weekend because then we, that was Friday night, we played Vista Saturday, we were down 20, we came back, we took the lead, we're up two shooting a free throw. No, up one shooting free throw, with one second left, he makes it, they throw it into Gavin Gwynne of three quarter, court three to win it. So that was our remember that. Yeah, check in on the coaches type weekend, that was a tough end. So that was a tough, real quick, what you were saying is, and what the UCSD stuff that I love. And I think every coach, we all need to figure out, like, what's our flow? What's our play after the play, or what's our, if we're not calling anything? of the kids doing and that stuff. And you know, to me, you teach that, like we're going to teach those concepts all summer and then we'll have sets and everything. But once you just get into, you run your set, you didn't get it. What's the player? And now all of a sudden we get into a ball screen or a pitch and get or whatever and we're in connected offense. So it's never just like, you know, standing around and watching and not sure what to do next. It's just go get into an action and how many actions can you stack? Cause I think the second one's probably tougher to guard than the third one. So, right exactly. Yeah. And then, you know, we'll spend most of our time just teaching solutions to how the other teams guarding it throughout the year. Like how are they guarding ball screens or or dribble handoffs or whatever if they're switching? Here's what we think would help us out and offer some solutions and practice and go over that for two or three days. And then hopefully, you know, it empowers kids to make decisions on the flag. I don't, I don't want to be calling something every play. You know, right exactly. I want them to feel comfortable. I want them to feel like they have answers for the test. You know, and even if it's a curveball, they have, they have some solution that they can go to. Yeah, no, especially, especially when you guys, when you guys have been in the coastal for so long, I want to talk about that because I know that like, there's been, there's been coastal conference league shuffling shenanigans that have happened. And I'll talk about that later. But first, as my, as my little 10 minute warning just goes off, talk to me about what it's like, because we were in that league for one season, one season where we had to like routinely prepare for three, three different open division teams. And like, you guys have been such a successful, such a talented program that has done so much. But then you get into league and like, you're playing up against three potentially top 10 teams. And so you've got like six games against top 10 teams. And so your league record, I don't think often reflects the caliber of talent that you have. What's it like? Like, how do you keep the kids motivated in those seasons where, you know, Parker, Santa Fe, on the whole country day are all sitting there in the top five? Yeah. Yeah, the league's been a beast. It's since I've been here and even before, you know, like you said, I think it's one of the best in San Diego. And so, but I take pride in it. I love when our league is strong, you know, and I think like the kid for Parker, David's coming back. He'll be a senior next year. It's going to be really good again. Like we have high level players. And I like that. And I think we do a pretty good job of promoting that stuff. But it makes you better. It makes you a better coach. It makes you go at it a little harder. You know, you know, what's coming? Like winter's coming. January February is coming, you know, in October, you taken us out of the off from open gym or whatever when you know what's coming, right? So I think being in itself league and rarely have we ever done better in league than out of league. And what's what's refreshing is going through the league and then going into playoffs and seeing someone out of league who doesn't know you so much and maybe not quite as talented or whatever. So I think it really prepares you well. You know, going through like a two three day scout for a really good team. And it's hard to be teams that are more talented than you, you know, we know that, right? It's just it's going to be hard. I think we've always but we never can see like we're we think we can win every game and we're in a lot of games against those good teams. And usually the first half goes okay. Then there's a run or something, you know, in the second half maybe. But but yeah, I think it makes you better as a coach and I think it prepares you for playoffs. And I think it's fun. Like you want to play against good teams in league on Friday nights when the gyms are packed against good coaches. And the league has had amazing coaches. When I first got in, it was it was gym told me it was Ryan Myers, Chad Bickley, Leif, Brad Leif. So the leagues have great coaches, which also makes, you know, you know, they're going to you're not going to get your slips or your backdoors or whatever. Like they're taking away your easy tools. So you know, you add up counterage for that. So I think it's made me better. It's made me a little more obsessive probably just knowing how hard the other coaches are going at it. And then as far as like how do we, you know, we do talk a lot about process over results. We want to how many how many A level shots can we get? How many good connected defensive possessions with multiple efforts can we get, right? And you know, it's we're going to celebrate those. We're going to celebrate those over and over again. And if we lose, we're still celebrating those possessions. And so I think you get better when you do that. And and then at the end of the season or as you're going through that, I judge it like how many games did we win that we shouldn't have? How many games did we win where the other team had the better roster? And then how many games did we lose when we had the better roster? And that's kind of how I evaluate our season or evaluate myself. Because we shouldn't those are the ones that say with you the losses where you feel like you have the better roster. Right. You know, you didn't motivate enough. You weren't you the kids weren't ready to play. You didn't scout well enough. Whatever the other games we should win, right? So those are the ones I'm critical of my cell phone and our staff on. And you kind of they stick with you a lot more. So, but yeah, I love the league. We have great coaches and players in it now. I was the young coach when I got in now by far with the old coach. Yeah. But but it's fun. Yeah. And I think, you know, we've probably had the number two and number three team in the county last year. And the league maybe won for most of the year with Santa Fe. Right. Yeah. No, you guys have done a phenomenal job in that league. The matchups are so funny, right? Like it's that's what people people on the outside, you know, parents specifically, but like just people in general that don't really understand about high school basketball is how important the matchup matters, right? Like that year, right? The year that we were in the coastal league, I remember you guys beat Francis Parker. We were able to get you. And Francis Parker beat us by 400,000 points. I think if you combine the two games, and it's just matchups are funny like that. Like there are some teams that just can't can't get over the hump, can't beat each other like two years ago. You know, my last season, when I was coaching, you know, Delago had a really strong team. Delago was able to kind of push tricity around in some of the games. They took him to overtime. I think they might have beat him once. And we beat Delago twice, both times, you know, fairly handling it. It's just matchups are so funny in high school basketball. And comes down the shot making a lot of times, right? Oh my god. That's what that thing is. Yeah, that's what I always would, you know, I would talk to, you know, Eric, Meetama Calvin. Yeah. I would talk to him after a lot of games. We were like each other's emotional support group for years. And he would always say it afterwards. He's like it's a make-miss game, you know what I mean? Like you can game plan all day long. We can watch 50 hours of film. We can be training and practicing for, you know, you're 4,000 minutes of practice. However many you get per season. But you at the end of the day, like the team that makes more shots is going to win the interim in. And so Jeff Van Gundy said in the NBA, if it's a good shot and you pause it while the balls in the air, it goes in good coach. It doesn't, bad coach, you know? Tap down to that at some point. I love it, man. Well, we only got a couple minutes left. So I wanted to, I wanted to thank you for everything. It's been fun kind of the friendship and the games and everything. It's been fun over the years. I feel like my entire coaching career, I was able to kind of talk to you or coach against you sometimes, you know, in your Pacific Ridge or then at Bishops. We always tried to schedule you guys. You were one of my, one of my non-conference games. I tried to schedule every year because like I said, I felt like we got better as a team and as a program and we played you guys. I felt like there was a lot to learn. And so it was a lot of fun, man. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, it's always fun planning out skies, your friends with, your respect. And you've always done a good job, a great job of promoting, you know, not just your teams, but kind of the game in San Diego. Now you're obviously doing it on a different level, but I don't know if we always do a great job as basketball coaches and I really, I love the podcast. I love the content. You know, I think we appreciate you doing it. And then it's authentic and you can't fake passion and you got it. And I, you know, I expect you're back on the sideline probably. Yeah. What do we think in there? That's what everyone keeps saying. You know, eventually, I think I want to watch the boy, you know, he's in seventh grade right now. So I want to watch him play sports for a couple of years and then we'll see. Yeah, we'll see. People keep, people keep talking to me. I don't know. I really I love coaching, right? Like, I love it. I love the game of basketball. I love the, like, the planning part of it, like building up, you know, planning out our practices and planning out what the culture is going to look like and doing all that stuff. I obviously love the coaching aspect of it too. What I didn't realize that I was going to love so much is, is not coaching. I also love that. It's been, it's been nice having, having just having some time to breathe, but I do miss it. I think about it 24 hours a day obviously. All right, brother. Well, I will, I will check in with you. I'm sure multiple times throughout the season and, and it's been great having you on. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. All right, buddy. I'll talk to you later. Yep. All right, that will do it. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thanks for listening. Thanks for sharing. Thanks for your comments. Anytime I hear from one of you guys that you enjoy listening to this, it puts wind in my sales, you know, if there's, you know, one person that gets any kind of edification or any kind of, kind of, I don't know, temporary therapy from listening to other coaches, talk about the same issues that you're dealing with, then, then what I'm doing is worth it. It's, it's a lot of fun. So thanks for everything. And, you know, don't forget to follow the Instagram at, you know, the 32 pod. Subscribe to the sub stack. And, you know, get in touch with me. If you're a coach that listens to this and I haven't talked to you about being on the podcast, get ahold of me. I'd love to, love to chat, love doing everything, and get our conversation to rest in one shot. Until next time, I'm in touch with you. Take care yourself.