Mike Williams - Grand Valley State University Women's Basketball Head Coach, D2 2025 & 2026 National Champions - Episode 1246

[MUSIC] The Who Pets Podcast is broken by Head Start Basketball. By lost in the state championship in high school, lost in the NNI National Championship. Got two few final fours as the head coach and finally win it. He don't know what that's going to be like, you win, I'm like, oh, you know, queues, you're in tears, you're choked up and nobody's crying. Everybody's excited and they're happy and hey, let's go celebrate. So it's a different locker room after winning it than losing it. Mike Williams is the head women's basketball coach at Grand Valley State University, where he just led the Lakers to back-to-back D2 national championships in 2025 and 2026. It is 11 years at the helm of the Laker program. Mike is a master 314 and 50 overall record. On 188 and 28 record in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, he has led the Lakers to six Gleak regular season titles, four Gleak tournament titles, four Midwest regional titles, and two national championships. This is the second stint for Williams at Grand Valley. As he was an assistant coach with the Lakers from 2002 to 2007, which included winning the 2006 Division II national championship. Williams spent four seasons as the head coach in Davenport, where he compiled an outstanding 130 and 11 overall record. Before becoming the head coach at Davenport, Williams spent four seasons as an assistant coach at Michigan. He was also responsible for starting the Women's Basketball program at Finlandia in Hancock, Michigan, and his three seasons as the head coach, the team owned a 44 and 33 record. Williams coached for a number of years at the high school level, where he was the head coach of the Girls Varsity team at Hancock High School from 1989 to 2000. Those teams recorded 207 and 51 mark, winning eight district championships and four regional titles. For five seasons, he was also the head coach of the varsity boys team at Hancock, only a 72 and 36 record. Mike began his coaching career at Ironwood High School, as head coach of the Girls Varsity team in 1986. A few years later, Williams moved to the collegiate ranks, serving as an assistant coach during the 1988-89 season at Michigan Tech. Give With Hoops is the first platform turning basketball analytics into fundraising impact. Every stat tells a story, and now every story drives sponsorship, engagement, and team growth. Programs nationwide are transforming basketball stats into funding power. Learn to use performance data to attract sponsors, engage fans, and raise more with every play. Give With Hoops will help you raise three times more money for your programs. Their stat-based pledges consistently outperform traditional fundraisers. Visit givewithhoops.com/hoop-heads-podcast to learn more and take your fundraising to the next level. Give With Hoops. Hi, this is Doc Esselinger, headman's basketball coach at Caltech, and you're listening to the Hoop Heads podcast. 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Get ready to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Mike Williams, Edwomen's basketball coach at Grand Valley State University, back-to-back Division 2 National Champions in 2025 and 2026. Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads podcast. It's Mike Cleanson here without my co-host Jason Sunkle this morning. But I am pleased to be joined by Mike Williams, Edwomen's basketball coach at the Division 2, back-to-back National Champions at Grand Valley State. Mike, welcome to the Hoop Heads pod. Hey, thanks for having me on here. Good to be here. I'm excited to have you on. I look forward to diving into this National Championship season. Let me start by asking you, obviously coming off a championship last year, what's the mentality back in the fall? What are you and your coaching staff talking about? Where are the conversations like with your players? What's the mindset going into this season? You know, I think we, right from day one, it was we're a different team. We're not last year's team. We don't have to be last year's team. We're our own team, we're our own identity. Talk to some people that have won a National Championship and tried to win another one as far as, you know, her G-Rite talk about some things. I had done it as an assistant coach back in the day. We won my Grand Valley. What's that process for the next one? And I think the big thing, the big takeaway was, we were going to put pressure on ourselves to win a second championship. We're just going to treat this like a new season. Last year never happened, even though I did. These guys were all major part of that last year, so they knew that. But I think they held it really well as far as this is no reproaching this day by day. Let's see how we do. And we didn't put a lot of pressure on ourselves to try and do it again. What were the conversations like between you and your players and talking to them about just going into the season? How do you change? Obviously, again, coming off that National Championship, as you said, you don't want to put pressure on the team and have it say, hey, we got to live up to what we did this previous year. So how do you go about doing that where you sort of ease the pressure, make it feel like a different season? What does that look like? What's the conversations like? How does that impact how you put together practices and just how you approach the season in general? Yeah, I think number one, you don't really address it as far as last year. You don't only bring it up a lot. It's more like, what are we going to do this year? What's our progression as far as what needs to be done? And first off, I started with our leaders and we had, you know, every year you have different leaders. For us, it's been our seniors basically. And you don't know how they're going to do. You don't know because they really haven't been in this spot before, but they've seen it. And it's not that they can't lead when they're younger. It's just that they kind of refer to the upper classmen. And this year's group came in day one and said, hey, we want to be leaders. We want to, we want to you know, shape this program and keep it moving the right direction. And so I thought from that first week when they came, we talked about that we're going to be in good shape with our leadership. And we aren't allowed to do anything planned in the summer. You know, we can't work with our players in the summer, but our players are here. A lot of them. They set times up in the morning when they come in and do skill stuff. They usually go from seven to about eight thirty. They do weights. They do some condition with our strength. That's allowed. And then they're all they do some skills. Three on three, four and four. And then they have a couple nights when they do pickup. And so and that's when those guys get that first chance to be leaders. You know, as far as you know, not necessarily running that, but being the vocal part of all of that. And so that was kind of the first step to make sure we had that a leadership in place. We also went through a book called The Twin Thieves. And it was ironically, it should have been done a year before. It was about a football coach Wisconsin who had been really good teams, but kind of put too much pressure on his players. And they would always seem to falter in the in the in the postseason. Now we had wanted champions. We didn't falter, but it's almost like it was really a good book because now it's that added like you talk about that added pressure. And it was really up. You know, we kind of, you know, coach shares in the coach park had kind of facilitated it. And we kind of did, you know, two or three chapters a day. I think with two chapters a day and up until the first scrimmage session, we went through it, but it was a really good book. And I think some good points were main things that we could, you know, we could take with us throughout the season. And each chapter you had to come up with one major point of the chapter. And then we have this neon board in our locker room. And then they wrote that point or that phrase on that board so that we could refer back to it. So I thought that was the second step and maybe trying to have our own identity, be our own team and not put pressure on ourselves. And then I think a lot of it's how you you staff hails the practices, you know, as far as any of the games on the scrimmages up into then, you know, you don't want to compare them to last year's team. Although there are times you do you say, Hey, last year you guys did this and now, you know, these are the things that we want to, we need to do better. But I think a lot of it was just trying to stay focused and positive and not negative and not really look too far ahead. Although you and I both know that these teams start seeing where they're at early on and knowing what could be. And so you can't get away from addressing that animal, but it's something where you just don't, you don't want me to think of that. We're staying in the moment, staying the day. And I thought See you there, good job with that. And I thought they liked practice. Again, these guys like days off. I like days off, but when we were there to practice, I thought we enjoyed it and we accomplished a great deal in every practice session that we had. - Let me a little bit about your practice philosophy and how you go about designing a day-to-day practice, whether it's, let's focus on, I guess, the preseason first. When you're putting together a practice before your first game, what's that process look like for you? And do you have it structured the same way every day? Is it more, hey, we gotta figure out what we need on a particular day? How do you go about putting together a practice plan for your team? - Yeah, we get, we get four hours a week until our first official day of practice, which was about first week in October, someone there. So we had about five weeks where we get four hours of basketball, four hours of conditioning and weight training. And so we do a lot of skill development in that time period. And we had, again, we had some return ease, we had about six players that had played a lot and then everybody else did not play last year. It was a completely, it was like, it was, you know, the team, the one that's champs, we had 11, 12 players been playing a lot of men, it's a lot of games. So we had everybody back. It was like, you know, they knew what they were doing, the summer, we went to Italy that year, we had 10 practice throwing there. So we were prepared day one. We were ready to go. Like it was, we were, day one, the previous year, we were here and I think maybe we got to there. With this year's team, I thought started off a little bit lower on the scale because of just the inexperience and those veterans really had to carry us early. But in that scope of the week, we try to hit five days a week, whether it's a, you know, a 40 minute skill session, two days, half a team for an hour, one day, and then maybe an hour and a half, the hour and 45 minutes full team workouts. So we're getting the skills, we're getting some, you know, it might be the bigs. And then the little split the day and then we combine the whole team like on a Friday or a Thursday and work together. So, you know, when you're touching on a lot of offensive stuff in the skill work, but then also some defensive things, you know, you're just working on, you know, you build your defense might be, might be on ball defense for this segment of this practice. That it might be, you know, off ball gap defense and recovery, then it's helps side defense and it's post defense and offensively again, same thing, whatever it is, you're breaking down to might be post work on this day. It might be, you know, getting to the basket, a lot of penetration, a lot of baskets, a lot of finishing on the rim on this segment. This might be footwork and shooting, shooting off the dribble, shooting off the move, shooting off the catch, reading a screen, and then you try to combine that on that Friday, we get, like I said, you're about an hour and a half on 40 minutes the way the time works out and you try to, you know, run like a full practice. So we probably get before our first official day of practice and that first week of October, we probably got four full practices in. So it gives you a little bit, but again, if you're at that upper level, there's one level, they're practicing your route. And so you gotta really be creative too. You know, there's some things that we do without a ball. There's some positioning stuff we do without a ball. There's some movement stuff we do without a ball in that segment that for us without a basketball, we get really creative with that doing some of those things they help us out, but you're trying to jam, especially in an inexperienced team, you're trying to jam a lot in a short period of time to get yourself ready for game one. When you looked at this team and you thought about where they could get to and you're trying to evaluate strengths and weaknesses, going into the season, if there was gonna be one area that you felt might hold you back from accomplishing with this team, obviously ended up accomplishing. But what was the one thing that you were concerned about heading into the season and then how did you try to plan for and remedy that going into your, you know, going into the season? - Yeah, that's a good question. We knew pretty early on that we were really talented. You know, we had really good players, a lot of length, a lot of athleticism, good size, our cards were solid. We knew that the talent level was there. I think the one thing we weren't sure was our depth in somewhat of our experience, inexperienced in the back of roles. We were like, we had six players coming back, we were all made ready to go. You know, they were ready to roll, they had played minutes, they had played in the national championship games. You got six, of course, six really good players. You're in pretty good shape at our level. And then now what's that gonna look like, you know, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 down the line? And so that was kind of our question mark as far as what's that depth gonna be, what's an inexperienced gonna look like? Where can we get them there? Like I said, a lot of our early season practice was focusing on that, you know, the seven through 12. Those players, whatever, 13, 14, 15, who was gonna be? 'Cause we had some players registered as well in all this year that just weren't gonna get the minutes, they need to get. And so they decided to register. But so it was a lot of focusing on that. A lot of drills in practice, a lot of reps for these young players. A lot of our seniors did a great job, communicating to these youngsters, they haven't played a lot. You know, we're coming off an injury of what it needs to be. And there had to be a lot of pay attention to detail in practice. You know, I thought coaching wise, we really explained thing. We're very clear because we had to be clear. Not for those top six, the return ease, but for everybody else. So it was very, it was precise in our explanations here. You're doing this drill. Here's the two points you have to remember. And you have to remember them. You can't forget them. 'Cause you're gonna need them down the road. And so thought we did a really good job with that. And that sort of plays a really good job, paid attention. We do something different. We like to, you know, since we had numbers, we set up some scrimmages. We're able to play some teams back to back. 'Cause you get a forest segment to scrimmage. Usually you go play one team, you play four quarters, and you're kind of focusing more on your upper class. But this year, we had to transist, you know, to scrimmage some division ones, and piggyback and play an NEI team, or division three team on top of it. So we ended up getting out of our four three scrimmages. We ended up getting six scrimmages. And in those scrimmages, those younger players played a lot. The players that were experienced, played a lot of time in those scrimmages. And so, and again, this all helped. You know, we were really into a little, you know, doing a little many times over can mean a lot, you know, and so getting those players in, just those scrimmages, getting those minutes. You know, we did a lot more film this year, a lot of film right down before and after practice and on off days to really get points across for those younger players. And then I thought we did a good job earlier in the year of playing those players that hadn't played as much in the previous year. We got them in, we got them in situations where, maybe in the past, I wouldn't be as, you know, as eager to put them in because at our level, you know, we're not, you know, the BCS level, you're playing the, you're in the big 10, the big 10 is good, but you're getting 13 teams in the NCAA tournament. You're gonna play, you're gonna, you know, 500 in the big 10, you buy seven money games, schedule a couple others, you win your 20 games in the NCAA tournament. For us, you know, in our deal, in our region is so strong of your, you gotta win your games. You gotta win the NCAA tournament. You gotta win those non-conference games. And then, in our level, you can host, obviously, if you do really well, which, you know, we did last year in the year before. So if you do really want you don't lose in those, in those pretty season games, you can host the region tournament, which is a big advantage in Division II. So we're kind of under that microscope of not being able to lose if you want all those things to fall in place. So it's hard to throw players in and out of the throwman if you lose early helps you out later on. And then might, but it might hurt you 'cause you don't get the NCAA tournament, you don't host the NCAA regional. That makes sense. - That makes sense. - No, it totally makes sense. And I think, right, that's a balance that all the coaches are trying to find out, right? You're trying to say, "Hey, how can we get our players who aren't as experienced?" That we may need at some point down the road in the season to fortify our returning players. And yet at the same time, like you said, the winning piece of it. And I know that at the Division II and the Division III level, that ability to be able to host those early rounds, the NCAA tournament is huge, right? When you're trying to make a run, especially when you're a good team and you have national championship aspirations to be able to make that path. Whatever percent easier it will be by playing at home, you certainly wanna do that. So when you look at your season, was there a moment in the season where you and your mind, and you probably didn't share it directly with your players based on our conversation, but when you and your mind thought, "Hey, I think this team has a chance to win a second." Was there a specific moment or was it just kind of a slow build over the course of the year? Yeah, there was two defying moments. And we went over and did a demonstration for B-cam and we put our players out there. We did went through kind of a mini practice and we did some defensive things, some drills and credit drills and coach chairs did a couple of offensive things. We went for about an hour and 15 minutes and I got done with that and I thought, "Oh my, this team is extremely talent." It was really, it was some coaches come and say, "Whoa, you guys, your length, that's let us do size is really different in our level." So that was one moment I thought, "Wow, this team is really good." And we were, That was a lot of concern because our conference is so doing good. Our region's so doing good that we were like, you know, we're gonna stack up because Northern Michigan had returned a lot of their players. We're really good. No Wisconsin Parkside. We turn a lot of their players. Fair state. Wayne State. We turn a lot of their players in good players. You know, these guys, these were all conference players. And so, you know, Michigan Tech had a bad year. So we knew that really on, like we're pretty good, but our conference was really good as well. You know, we knew they all had a lot of star power and they're well coached and battle tested. So there was concern, but we knew we'd be pretty good. It was a little talented. And then we went, we had a couple, we screaming at a couple of scrimmage games early on and played really well. Better than we did probably the previous year against a really good couple of the region one teams and some good NAI teams and thought, you know what, this team's different, you know. And again, you got to, you got to hope you, you know, officials don't blow a game for you, which they always tend to do. And you got to hope you don't get injuries. You got to hope that, you know, you don't have a off game and something happens. But I think with those two heroes early in the season, we thought, you know, it's a chance to be pretty good. I think when you're putting together your schedule and obviously when you have your league and how good the league is, and you're trying to balance out again, it's what you talked about before, where you want to have your team prepared and play a great schedule so that when you get to the tournament, that your team is prepared. And at the same time, like you said, it's important to be able to win games so that you can have that opportunity to host the tournament and be able to sort of, again, ease your road in whatever possible way that you can, whether that's a 1% to 2% to make the road a little bit smoother. So when you get to the tournament, talk to me a little bit about the tournament the way it broke for you in terms of the draw and where your mindset was going into the NCAA tournament. Well, you know, again, we're hosting the region, okay? And I love English Village Division 2, but it's, you know, Division 1's got to figure it out. Division 3's got to figure it out. And it has got to figure it out. Division 2 just can't seem to figure this whole thing out. And I'm going to make a case here, because I just think it's got to change. And so basically you're, it's not really a national tournament. So you want the national champion? No, not really. It's really a regional tournament, basically, because you're picking the teams in your region who might be, you know, you might have 15 teams in your region that should be in the top 64 and will eight get in. And then in your region, you might have four or five of the top 10 teams in the country like we did this year. And you're all the same region. So you basically, you know, northward or Wayne State, whatever we'd be along the way, while they only made it to, no, they didn't. They played the national championship. These could have been playing the final four lead eight. So you look at that draw when it, when it, and when it comes out. And again, we were fortunate enough that first round, you draw, you're the one seed, and then Maryville's eighth seed. They won their, their conference tournament got in. So now our kids are excited because they're playing some of them played before. They're excited. These guys were like, it was finally, they're not playing fair state for the fourth time. No, the missed for the fourth time, Wayne State for the fourth time. You just got done playing these teams in the Gleeic tournament. They're gonna play again a week later. You know, just the, the foolishness of the whole thing is, is crazy. And again, your kids aren't excited to play Wayne State the fourth time. And here's Wayne State. You know, I played each other, we're gonna play somebody else. So we get to play Maryville, so our kids are excited. And then we beat them, and also now we gotta go play Wayne State, who's really good, who we won at home by one. Maybe it's a third place by one, and I think it ain't gonna happen. And we're thinking here, two of the best teams in the country are playing around to the NCAA tournament, and you're playing for the fourth time. So anyway, Penn's out, we in a win that game played very well. And again, we're at home, they're not. That's an advantage for us, no question. You know, and again, that's another thing too. You know, Wayne State really good has to play us on our home floor. You know, and we in heck of a crowd. So, you know, we win now and now also, we're gonna play Northwood in the regional final, we'll get it, we played again, we played it before. So, and again, you only played them once, your kids are excited, but you win that. Now you get a chance to go to Pittsburgh, and they take the eight teams left, and they see them on the RPI or the KPI. And so we end up being the one, and Newman ends up being the eight. And now we know we're gonna play three teams, we never played before. And so, you're just, you're excited to play. And I think the draw worked out really well. You know, I think, you know, we ended up winning each game pretty handy, but we played at a level, we just got a little bit better as the year went on, and we were playing at a high level at the end of the year. When we got to the lead, the Pittsburgh, and, you know, any other P even played them in the final, they had a really good team, they played a really good schedule, they had to take it with Ganon, it was a tough team, they beat them two or three times to get there. They beat, you know, Colorado Mace was really good, they beat them in the semi. So the final game was a great game against Indian APA, and two good teams, and like I said, I think our kids were playing at a really high level in that final elite. - What does your prep look like during the tournament when you have a relatively short back to back time in between games? What's the film study look like for you? What are the things that you specifically look for in each team in terms of your preparation for your team, for the next game in an tournament run? - Yeah, so the good thing is with our staff, we got every team broken down, we're gonna play before we play, which is really good. So we kind of, we're ahead of the game, I think everybody else probably does that as well. But our big thing is we like to use more time, but we don't wear our players' legs out. So that's big on us, you know, this year, the way it worked out this year, we would practice, like it was a Glee at game, we practiced pretty hard on Monday, taper on Tuesday, and then Wednesday, we really didn't do anything, we just walked through, we just did a walk through, shot around, did some fail, maybe 35, 40 minutes at the most. It was kind of that day before the game, we just did nothing really, nothing on the legs. And then we do a shoot round the day of the game, which is pretty lively. So it's 45 to 50 minutes, we go through drills and we guard their stuff and we do some offensive movements. So there's a lot to the shoot round, but that day before is really a day of really not doing much. And we continue that in the late eight, you know, you played on that, we played on that Tuesday and the Wednesday off. So Wednesday was film, walk, you know, maybe a dynamic drill or something, but nothing much. And then that day of the morning of the game, you know, we end up getting about a 50 minute shoot on time, that was pretty lively, pretty lot of pop to it, you know, get go through things. And we played the game, then you didn't play it, we played on Thursday with one. So now we've got Friday, same thing, you know, just really a lot of film, go through things, no personnel, no what they do, no one in a guard every situation, offensively look to the press and where's your, what's the space, what spots you get to against the press and where you look against that press, what press recommend to run, you know, offensively, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna go in this, some high low action against this team, you know, here's where the doubles are coming from, all that stuff, but nothing live on that Friday. And then again, Saturday morning, get up, pretty lively shoot around, it's a 45 minute practice, you know, people watch our shoot rounds go, wow, you guys go pretty hard the day of the game and then we do, we do, but it's seen, it's something that we can stuck with through the year and it seemed to work. And as long as you can get that shoot on too close to our game time, our kids seem to get that, you know, that four or five hours to recover and really felt good during the game. - That film work, are you mostly looking at team stuff and actions that you have to defend? Are you looking more at showing individual players who their match might be personnel wise? What kind of film work are you showing the players? - Yeah, we do both and we're really basic, like it's funny because we got to the tournament, you know, the men's program uses when they do a scot and we're going to be playing like number 11 is Steph Curry, KLM shoot and we use Gleeic players because it's so dog on good. You know, it was like this player is McCannifers and this player is JCW, this player is Kaelin Blatch. You know, that was kind of our Meef scene, John from North, but in so because our players recognize, like, oh, okay, this is what this player does, but Kudos to Gleeic is such a good conference, but it was more or less, okay, this player can't get a shout out. This player is going to want to pull up, dribble going left. This player wants to get all the way to the rim, going right or left. You maybe gave him two things on each player on the personnel. So we show a bunch of clips. They, we would put jerseys on of our, you know, the second, the group that would run, the other team stuff, we put a jerseys number on, so they could use to that the number they're guarding because they, you know, sometimes they don't know who by face who they're guarding when you play them one time, but they know the number to get them acting, okay, we're not flying at this, this is, this is 13, non shooter, red driver, don't fly at them, you know. So a lot of personnel stuff, and then yes, there was more, a lot of team stuff, you know, what, what do they do offensively? Was it a, they, they want to go low block? Do they want to, they want to space the floors? Is it, is it ball screen action? Is it handoff action? Is it, is it down screen action? Is it, you know, what are they running on offense that we need to guard? What is what do they like to do? Are the team that wants to get to the rim, do they want to show? So all those points come in, you work on those, and offensively, you know, how do they guard the ball screen? How do they guard the high low? Do they front to post? They play behind. Do they double from a certain area? You know, that we look forward to, we have to cut the backside. We've got to cut the strong side on the doubles. You know, how their team wants to get in the impression, or do they like to lay off and let you get your shot? Do they want to pressure? You know, and sometimes when you have time to prepare Northwood through a really good little, a little 2-2-on-3 quarter court press against us, the regional final that didn't lay the chance to prepare for. And it was really a good look for us. Took us some time to figure it out. So all those different things, you're kind of looking at and you put together and hopefully a condensed Scott report that your players can understand. I'm not going to understand a lot of stuff. You can't give me 42 plays and six things, what do you play? This guy likes to dribble, spin back. You give me two things, maybe three. And so that's kind of what we, that's how he coaches. We can't overload these players. We just give them some basic things so they don't, you know, they can understand them and they're able to carry them out in the game. Absolutely. If what you give them is an actionable and you're overloaded, no, it probably ends up going the other way and being detrimental instead of positive without question. I think that's a, that's a really good point for any coach out there trying to learn something today that if you just keep it simple and get things that you give them two or three things that they're playing, that your players can actually learn and execute, then you're probably ahead of the game. All right. You win the national championship. Back to back, you're in the locker room. You didn't really talk about it all year. You said at the beginning here that right from the start of the season, you tried to put the previous year's national championship to the side and make this its own team. So now you finally get to that national championship game. You win it. What do you talk about with your team in the locker room after the game? You know, it wasn't a lot. It's funny because when you lose that last game and you talk longer, you just, you do, you go through things because you feel for these players that lost their last game. You know, and I watched a little special in Jerry West and he just said, Jerry West says basketball is about, it's worth about dealing with losing because you're, you're going to lose in only one team wins your last game. That's it. Everybody else loses their last game. So you got to deal, how do you deal losing? And so, you know, and when you win it, these guys have won it all. They didn't lose. So they're in there. They're happy. They're not sad. They're in a good mood. You're in a good mood. You tell them some great things. Talk about a few things. You know, for me this year was a little bit more of a relief. I don't know. Last year was you celebrate a little bit more the first and second was like a relief that you want it as you're for some reason. You're expected to win it again. I don't know, but there wasn't a lot said. You know, there wasn't a lot. Just how proud you are of these players and what they did. You hit on a couple of those things like you talk a lot about your seniors because they're done and the things that they've done, you know, as far as what they accomplished and what great leaders they were and how they, they really kept this team together and, you know, then you talk about now you know what it's like and you guys have, some of you have been part of this two times. I am some of you one time, but now this is, this is your keep this in your mind because this is what you're striving for next year. You know, can you can you do this again? But you know, it's a different, you know, and I only one time I said, you know, I lost in the state championship in high school, lost in any national championship, got to a few final fours as a head coach and finally win it. You know, what that's going to be like, you win. I'm like, you know, you're in tears, you're choked up, kids and nobody's crying. Everybody's excited and they're happy and, hey, let's go celebrate. So it's, it's a different, different lock room after winning it than losing it. Yeah, that's good stuff. That's good stuff. And I think it does hit on, right? That when you lose it, there's a lot more trying to process what just happened and help everybody to deal with the fact that you put in all that blood, sweat and tears and it didn't end up the way you wanted to. And then when it does, like you said, everybody, you look around and everybody's happy. There's not much explanation that needs to go on. You're just enjoying the emotion of getting that victory and that winning locker room is always a great place to be. All right. Before we get out, I want to ask you a final two part question. So part one, when you look ahead over the next year or two, what do you see as being the biggest challenge? Obviously you come back next year, as back to back national champs. So your biggest challenge and then the second part of the question, when you think about what you get to do every day, what brings you the most joy? So your biggest challenge and then your biggest joy. Yeah. I think looking next year is getting you got to fight that complacency that, well, we wanted winning. You know, we've done it already coach. It's always be hard to win back to back and look, we did this. So now let's go again. But I think our players are different. I don't know this. We had a post season. We ended up getting five days to work with our players in the post season. I saw this different. I thought they, I think they understand what's ahead. I don't think they're taking for granted. I think they really want to make their own mark, whatever that means. It might be a 15 win season, might be 20 win season, might be a deep run. We don't know that, but I think they're ready to, to be their own team. And I think they saw that last year that that team was their own team. They want to be like that. You know, so fighting some of those things, you know, we lost some really, really solid perimeter players, you know, so to really replace that to really get these players up the speed on the perimeter of some of these new players. It's going to be a challenge. And I think they're up for it. I think that's, I think they understand that. I think the good thing with this team is they understand these things. They're not offended by it. Like, okay, well, this is what we got to do. They want to do it. And so now will they do it? I don't know. It's easier said than done. But if they're willing to do it, I think we got a chance to be pretty good again. But it's going to take a lot of work. You know, and then where's the leadership going to come from again? You know, it's the same thing. Now, next year we don't have any seniors. We're two steps removed. And we went through this two years ago and we had a pretty good team, but we lost in the regional file and Ferris State. They went on to the lead aid, but we didn't have any leaders. And so I think as far as our staff, we could do a better job of working with them. You know, and we can't do a ton of the summer. We can send them information and some things to guide them along, but you can't really deal in the individual with the basketball end of it. But we can start practice in the fall. We got to be very pointed in how we help these leaders work with these leaders. We talked about having to have whatever the saying is or some type of theme going in next year. And our players are working on that. So those are going to be the three challenges as we move forward. I think the biggest joy is to see these players when they come back. I guess there's twofold. Number one is to see these players progress. But when they come in this freshman to live here as seniors or fifth year seniors or red shirt seniors, to see them progress and grow as people to get close to them, to get to know them, to get to know their families. I think it's really rewarding. And there's a lot of, I'm such a pessimist type guy and glass half full guy that these players have helped me try to change a little bit. At least now there is something in that glass, whatever I thought there was before. But just to grow with these players over the five years that they're here and get to know them and see them. And the only thing the second part that's rewarding is when they come back. And I get so teary talking about our players to come back even thinking about it. And we go lead eight and there's, you know, we had probably six to eight players former player. Maybe more of that. Maybe it doesn't form a player's that came to the game and some came with their families and some showed up unattended and you see them after the game. And then you're in your invite to their weddings and you see them out and someone's dear hunting on your property and just the different relationships that you make with your players and their families and the people is, it's off. It's unbelievable. It really is. I'm not in any other profession. You know, I waited tables in college and moved some lawns but that stuff. But, you know, as far as, is there another profession where you connect with people this intimately and closely and just the number of connections because it's five or six every year, you know. And to get a text message from, you know, an email from my first job as I was Michigan coaching girls basketball. I take the tennis team and one of the freshmen is on my tent. He was three doubles. He sends me an email. So I went that championship and I'm sure you know, I am. I do remember you. You were three doubles. You were part of a Dale Pazani. I remember you. Okay. Just to get those emails and you correspond with them, you know, 42 years later, it speaks on to this profession. It's awesome. And it's really well said. I always like to talk about the fact that there's nothing better as a coach than to get a text, get a phone call, get an email that starts with, hey, coach, because you know it's somebody from your past that you had an impact on and sometimes right, you're sitting there and sometimes you wonder, well, what kind of impact am I having in this moment? And then you look back and retrospect and you realize that you did have a huge impact on the young people's lives that you touched. And the fact that you get to do it with a game you love and use basketball as the vehicle to be able to do that is special. First thing before you wrap up, if you wouldn't mind just sharing how people can reach out to you, connect with you, find out more about your program, whether you share email, social media, the school website, whatever you want, and then after you do that, I'll jump back in and wrap things up. - Yeah, obviously people email me, and we get emails all the time about people who want to come and just watch practice, and when you watch practice, and you converse, you can't go watch a practice, so you talk after you talk before, you get cough, whatever after, we're always open to that, we probably get 10 to 12 people come and watch a practice and see how things are doing, and we kind of coordinate it too, or you're coming to watch a practice that's worth watching, just don't come to something that's not gonna be there, but we go, hey, what are you gonna do today? And our practices are pretty loaded, you know, with segment offensive segment, defensive segment, skill building segment, and then a team portion of it, and then a special situation. So we go through a lot in the practice, and our tour practice, and cover a lot of areas, you kind of see, you know, how intense the practice is, or how you move from drill to drill, what, you know, it's not so much sometimes what you work on, 'cause we all work on different things, but, you know, someone, about a couple of coaches come back three, four times, and watch what we do pressing wise, you know, hey, can we come watch, we have to be a big press segment today, we will 45 minutes, break it down, things like that, or, you know, whatever, but I think that's a good way to get in touch with, to just see some things, and again, we always think you gotta watch, and I'm not saying names, we always get to watch the BCS coaches, say no everything, and they are, they're good coaches, but, you know, I'll tell you the stuff I got, some press work stuff I got two years ago, from Keith Haske, he was a high school coach up in Lork, Peninsula, and, you know, some offensive stuff from Scott Carlson, and just, you know, different people that you watch, I watch teams we play, you know, we lost to Kim Cowell, who's now at Tennessee, but she was at Glendale State, and she pressed and we used some stuff that she did, you know, so I think you can learn from anybody. We have this, that we got us, the guys at the top are the smartest, the best, whatever, yeah, maybe, but sometimes they're just lucky, you know, and sometimes you get lucky, and you get to the top, and you're pretty good, but these high school coaches, and small college coaches, man, there's some really, really good ones, and they're the ones that have been through the ring, they grind it, you know, they gotta work with players that aren't elite, so they gotta figure out different ways, and you can learn a lot from a lot of different people. - There is no question that there is outstanding coaches at every level of the game. It's for sure one of the things that I knew, going into the podcast, but certainly after having talked to so many coaches at so many different levels, the basketball knowledge and expertise is not limited to the highest levels of the game. There are outstanding coaches at every single level of the game of basketball. Mike, once again, congratulations on the back-to-back, division two, women's national championships, really appreciate your time this morning, and glad we had the opportunity to talk with you, and to everyone out there, thanks for listening, and we will catch you on our next episode. - Thanks. - Your first impression is everything when applying for a new coaching job. A professional coaching portfolio is the tool that highlights your coaching achievements and philosophies, and most of all, helps separate you and your abilities from the other applicants. The coaching portfolio guide is an instructional membership based website that helps you develop a personalized portfolio. Each section of the portfolio guide provides detailed instructions on how to organize your portfolio in a professional manner. The guide also provides sample documents for each section of your portfolio, that you can copy, modify, and add to your personal portfolio. As a hoophead's pod listener, you can get your coaching portfolio guide for just $25. Visit coachingportfolioguide.com/hoopheads to learn more. - Thanks for listening to the hoophead's podcast, presented by Ed Startvese. (upbeat music)