Gonzaga assistant coach Stephen Gentry breaks down the Bulldogs' upcoming opponents, the path to the 2024 NCAA Tournament and his route to rejoining the Gonzaga basketball program
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Gonzaga Nation with the Coaches Show.
00:07 I'm your host, Dan Dickow, with a new guest today.
00:10 Unfortunately, we haven't been able to line up schedules yet
00:13 to have him in studio.
00:15 A good friend of mine, a terrific coach, Steven Gentry.
00:20 Thanks for joining.
00:21 - Yeah, thanks for having me, Dan.
00:22 - Absolutely.
00:23 So we'll talk a little bit about recent games,
00:26 upcoming games, and then a little bit about
00:28 kind of your path back to Gonzaga.
00:31 But you're originally from Kansas.
00:33 I believe it's Fort Scott, if I'm not mistaken.
00:35 - That's right.
00:36 - You gotta be on cloud nine with the Chiefs
00:38 pulling off a Super Bowl win yesterday.
00:41 - Yeah, great week for the Gentry family.
00:43 Yeah, I get a win in Rupp, and then, yeah,
00:45 I get the Super Bowl win, so my family's super excited.
00:49 And yeah, good week for our family.
00:51 - So I can imagine your kids during a Gonzaga game
00:53 were wearing a Gonzaga jersey, a shirt, whatnot,
00:56 getting excited about it.
00:58 Were you wearing a Mahomes jersey during the game,
01:01 or how do you cheer on your Chiefs?
01:03 - No, I was not.
01:04 I had a red shirt on, though.
01:06 But no, my son Gunner had a Patrick Mahomes jersey on,
01:09 and my daughter had a Chiefs shirt, as did my wife.
01:12 So yeah, we were fully decked out.
01:13 - All right, all right.
01:14 Well, awesome that your team won.
01:18 Hopefully that means there's more wins for your teams,
01:21 namely Gonzaga, in the future.
01:24 Gonzaga, you guys are coming off a big win.
01:26 And I hate to say you need it,
01:28 but everybody on the outside was saying you guys needed it.
01:33 That's just the nature of sports these days.
01:34 You got all these critics and all these evaluators.
01:38 But from an insider's perspective, and the coaching staff,
01:41 and the planning, the prep, the meetings,
01:43 what was the prep like leading up to that game?
01:48 And then what was the execution like?
01:50 'Cause that was fun to watch down the stretch.
01:53 - Yeah, no, and we thought it was just an awesome opportunity
01:55 for this time of year.
01:56 I mean, what a unique opportunity
01:57 to kind of take a step back from WCC play,
02:00 and go on the road and play in an SEC arena
02:04 in a big-time environment.
02:05 So what a awesome opportunity.
02:08 Again, like, hey, we're obviously
02:09 in a tight league race right now,
02:10 but just to take a step back from that league race,
02:13 play on a national stage,
02:15 we thought was just an awesome opportunity.
02:17 We really communicated that to our guys,
02:19 and they obviously took full advantage of it.
02:23 In terms of execution, yeah, I mean,
02:24 I thought our guys did a terrific job.
02:25 This was a team that was coming off scoring 107
02:28 against Vandy, and a team that's a prolific offensive team.
02:32 So I thought our guys did a terrific job
02:34 taking away their easy baskets,
02:36 doing a good job in transition.
02:38 And then we just really, really executed down the stretch,
02:41 especially in our ball screen sets.
02:43 Like we were talking about off air,
02:45 I mean, we scored 12 points alone off one specific set.
02:48 So I think the coolest thing to see, though,
02:50 was we executed in crunch-time spots.
02:54 We were down six, executed a ball screen set,
02:58 got an and one, chipped away on it.
03:00 Down one, executed.
03:01 So it was all those times where our backs
03:04 were really, really against the wall,
03:05 and really executed in crunch-time.
03:08 - One of the things that I think you guys can take away,
03:12 and I think this particular player can take away,
03:15 Brayden Huff, is the fact that in the loss
03:17 against St. Mary's, when Graham picked up his fourth foul,
03:21 and people are going to say,
03:22 "Well, Coach Fuchs should've left EK in."
03:24 EK was standing at the scorer's table
03:27 for about a 90-second, two-minute stretch
03:29 with no stoppages in play.
03:30 So regardless, you couldn't get him back in the game
03:33 if you wanted to.
03:33 And St. Mary's kind of went at him during that stretch.
03:38 This time, Brayden Huff was phenomenal
03:40 when EK went out with foul trouble in that second half.
03:43 I mean, he put in work, so to speak.
03:45 - Yeah, no, I mean, that's Brayden for you.
03:48 I mean, he has such a high care factor.
03:50 What a great response for him,
03:52 being a redshirt freshman, to have that type of response
03:55 in that big of an environment.
03:57 Yeah, I mean, I think that's going to really catapult him
03:59 here for the rest of this season.
04:00 'Cause if you can do that at rep against those athletes,
04:04 have that type of response, I mean,
04:06 that bodes very, very well for his future as a Zag.
04:09 - You guys executed down the stretch.
04:12 You mentioned the pick-and-roll kind of set
04:14 that you kind of found something you liked
04:16 and you stuck with it.
04:18 But guys have to make plays in that setting.
04:20 You know, Nembhard or Hickman coming off the pick-and-roll
04:22 have to read spacing, read angles of entries.
04:26 And then Brayden Huff and EK did an unbelievable job
04:29 of like just deep seals when either they were,
04:34 got the switch or it was a late rotation.
04:36 So the defense was recovering.
04:38 - Yeah, no, I mean, that's the connectivity
04:40 we have in our ball screen offense.
04:41 I mean, I know Daniel had to practice quite a bit
04:43 and we do a ton of ball screen breakdowns, you know,
04:45 and having that connectivity
04:46 between the guards and the bigs.
04:47 Yeah, but Ryan and Nolan did a great job
04:49 of reading the coverages.
04:51 And then, yeah, B Huff and Graham did a great job finishing,
04:55 especially against all that length.
04:56 And then, you know, Taun also hit that big three,
04:59 you know, where Ryan got downhill
05:00 and they really, really collapsed and helped on the roll.
05:03 And Ryan made the right reading,
05:04 kicked it out for Taun for a huge, huge three.
05:07 So yeah, I know the guys really executed the game plan there
05:12 but yeah, like you said,
05:12 made great individual plays as well.
05:15 - You know, I thought an unsung hero to the game
05:18 was Ben Gregg.
05:20 I thought his energy in that first half really set the tone.
05:23 - There's no question.
05:24 - As far as, I'm going to the glass, nobody's stopping me,
05:27 I'm gonna get on the floor,
05:28 I'm gonna get out in passing lanes.
05:30 His numbers, I mean, yes, they were good.
05:34 He had, what, 14 points,
05:36 but I don't think it shows the true story,
05:38 the impact he had on that game.
05:40 - There's no question.
05:41 We tell our guys all the time,
05:42 like you can't tiptoe into a street fight.
05:44 Like Ben led us into that street fight by going full bore.
05:49 I mean, he was, the effort plays that he made,
05:50 and I told him on the plane after the game,
05:52 he made six or seven just high, high level effort plays.
05:57 Everyone's probably gonna see the steal you had on the lob,
06:00 but even that tipped ball where he chased it down,
06:03 the length of the floor, the deflections he had,
06:05 the big offensive rebound he had.
06:07 I mean, he was flying around and really, really,
06:10 I think like set the tone for our team,
06:14 just that physicality and that nastiness
06:16 that he was playing with.
06:17 - So you grew up in Kansas,
06:18 so I would imagine you were a big Kansas Jayhawk fan.
06:21 You've coached in the NBA for a while
06:23 with the Miami Heat as a video coordinator.
06:25 You've coached at Illinois.
06:27 You've coached at Stephen F. Austin.
06:29 You've coached at, I believe, Oklahoma State,
06:31 as well as being at Texas A&M.
06:33 So you've been in a lot of high level arenas.
06:36 Give me your favorite.
06:38 - I'm a little biased.
06:40 It's probably Allenfield House.
06:43 Has to be my favorite.
06:44 Yeah, just growing up and going to those games
06:46 and then having to go in there and coach
06:48 when I was in the Big 12,
06:49 both at Texas A&M and Oklahoma State.
06:52 Just the history of the place
06:53 and just an awesome environment.
06:56 The fans are terrific.
06:58 So it's not fun to go up against that,
07:01 being on the other side,
07:02 but that's probably my personal favorite
07:05 besides obviously, you know, the kennel.
07:07 - Yeah.
07:08 Let's talk a little bit now about upcoming games.
07:11 Six league games left.
07:13 Obviously that final weekend is going to be enormous
07:17 at San Francisco, at St. Mary's.
07:20 And you hope that somebody catches St. Mary's
07:25 on an off night,
07:26 but you got to control what you can control.
07:28 So these next four games make those last two
07:32 as big as they potentially could be.
07:34 You've got LMU and you've got Pacific.
07:36 You've played against them both.
07:38 You played great against LMU.
07:39 You played, you did what you need to do
07:42 to get the road win against Pacific.
07:44 What's the focus leading into both of those games?
07:47 - Well, I think it's really cool, Dan.
07:47 Like when you play a team a second time,
07:49 it's just the adjustments to the adjustments, right?
07:51 And then you can kind of go back to that film,
07:54 you know, from your previous game,
07:55 you kind of see what they've done since then.
07:58 So I think it's kind of that chess match.
08:00 Wow, they hurt us with this.
08:01 We need to adjust that.
08:02 Or maybe we had success with something,
08:05 but hey, they're going to adjust to that.
08:06 So we've got to have a plan B.
08:07 So I think that's the fun chess match.
08:10 So we want to see the improvement
08:12 with those adjustments and with that execution.
08:14 But yeah, at your point,
08:16 we got to kind of look at our own mat, so to speak,
08:18 and handle our own business.
08:20 And yeah, hey, hopefully get some help
08:22 from some other teams, but yeah,
08:24 we've got to control our own destiny.
08:27 - Control your own destiny is something
08:29 that coaches talk about regardless of circumstance,
08:33 but it's true for you guys this year,
08:35 and you get all this outside noise.
08:37 They're in, they're out.
08:38 They don't have the quad one wins.
08:39 The numbers are what they are,
08:42 but if you take care of business
08:44 in Las Vegas, the WCC tournament,
08:47 you don't have to worry about any of it.
08:49 When you look at the opportunities missed
08:53 or the two opportunities that you won,
08:55 USC and UCLA, but then they've slid,
08:58 what's the biggest what if in your guys' mind?
09:03 - Oh, I don't know.
09:04 It's tough to look back.
09:08 I mean, I'm so forward thinking,
09:09 I'm thinking about LMU, you know?
09:11 Yeah, and you are, and I think,
09:13 yeah, it's, you don't want to look back.
09:16 Obviously there's some tough situations.
09:18 If anything, you try to learn from them, though,
09:21 to apply them forward.
09:23 You know, we had some poor late game execution
09:26 against Santa Clara, which pretty much cost us that game.
09:29 Same thing in Washington,
09:31 but I think we've applied that to help us,
09:33 you know, beat Kentucky.
09:35 So I think you try to digest them and learn from them
09:38 and apply them going forward.
09:41 Obviously we'll be able to learn from the St. Mary's one,
09:43 'cause we'll be able to apply that to,
09:45 you know, the next time we play them.
09:46 So I think it's more like an acceptance
09:48 and a learning from those opportunities,
09:51 but I don't feel like there's one like,
09:52 oh gosh, I wish we had that one back.
09:55 So I think we try to take them all in and learn from them.
09:58 - Kind of touched on a little bit
09:59 of some of the different stops that you've had as a coach.
10:03 You were at Illinois with Brad Underwood.
10:05 They're a tremendous program right now, top 15,
10:08 but you obviously graduated from Gonzaga.
10:11 There's a tug to this program
10:13 that brings a lot of guys back,
10:14 both as guys that live in the community or as coaches.
10:19 What was the determining factor for you
10:21 of leaving Illinois with a great position
10:23 to come back to Spokane?
10:24 - Yeah, I mean, Gonzaga's always been my dream spot.
10:28 Not to sound too corny here,
10:29 but when I first got in the business at Texas Antimite,
10:31 one day I wrote down all my goals,
10:33 what I wanted to do and where I wanted to be.
10:36 My top goal was to be an assistant at Gonzaga.
10:38 And I had to kind of take a different path to get there
10:41 and spend a lot of time away from here
10:43 and then uniquely came back to be on staff,
10:46 to be the director of operations,
10:48 and then left for two years
10:50 and then had a unique opportunity to come back.
10:52 So I wouldn't trade my path for anyone's.
10:55 It's been so unique and awesome,
10:57 but this was always my dream spot and my main goal.
11:01 - So tell us a little bit about the journey of a coach,
11:04 'cause I don't think the average fan realizes
11:06 just how much kind of bobbing and weaving in a career
11:10 many times it happens.
11:11 I think Coach Few is the outlier and he's earned it.
11:14 He's a tremendous coach.
11:15 He's a future Hall of Famer,
11:17 but to be in one place for 30 plus years like he has been
11:20 is not normal.
11:22 Tommy Lloyd here, 20-some before he gets his first gig.
11:25 Just talk about the bobbing and weaving
11:28 and kind of making decisions as a coach
11:32 to kind of forge your path.
11:34 - Yeah, no, it's a lot of tough decisions,
11:36 a lot of stressful moments,
11:37 especially now when you have a family
11:39 and having to move across the country
11:41 and make those career decisions.
11:43 I've been blessed in that they've, for the most part,
11:46 all been positive moves.
11:47 They haven't come off after being fired or whatever.
11:50 You're usually, promotions are moving on to a better spot
11:53 and growing in this business.
11:55 But yeah, it is stressful moving kids out of schools
11:57 and moving across the country.
12:00 But my family now, we've just kind of embraced it all
12:03 and seen it such as a positive
12:05 and try to learn from each opportunity,
12:09 then kind of apply that to my career.
12:11 And then I can then use those experiences at my next stop.
12:15 And there's so many things that I learned at Illinois
12:17 or I learned at Stephen F. Austin
12:19 that I can apply to my current position here at Gonzaga.
12:22 And probably the most well-documented one was,
12:26 I was here on staff at Gonzaga for two years
12:29 and then left to go to Illinois.
12:31 Well, we incorporated a lot of the offensive schemes
12:34 from Gonzaga to Illinois
12:36 and helped change our season there
12:37 and become a number one seed in the NCAA tournament.
12:39 So that's part of, yeah, just the process is,
12:42 it is stressful moving around and all those moves,
12:44 but gosh, it's such an awesome opportunity
12:46 to apply all those experiences to your current position.
12:49 - A lot of staffs break things down
12:51 as offensive coordinators, defensive coordinators,
12:54 recruiting specialists.
12:55 You know, one of the things that it is,
12:57 I go around with my analyst work, you know,
13:00 I value staffs that are put together
13:03 that coaches can do multiple things
13:05 and they do a little bit of each.
13:07 Maybe they've got a little more emphasis
13:08 on one day than the other, but they do it all.
13:10 And that's what I see with the staff that Coach Pheu has
13:13 with you and B. Mike and RJ.
13:15 Talk about like the responsibilities on a day-to-day
13:20 and game prep for opponents.
13:23 - Yeah, no, I mean, and I've been a part of both staffs.
13:25 Like at Illinois, we did do the coordinator system
13:28 when I was our offensive coordinator
13:30 and we had a defensive coordinator.
13:31 And here, yeah, we break it up more,
13:33 you know, game by game scouts.
13:35 I think we all still have that same input game by game,
13:38 but yeah, we do break up our players development wise
13:42 where, you know, I work with two specific players,
13:45 Ryan Nimhard and Nolan Hickman,
13:46 and we kind of break up everyone else,
13:48 you know, amongst the staff.
13:49 But to answer your question, yeah, game prep,
13:52 obviously it's a ton of film, a ton of analytical work,
13:57 but we start kind of diving into opponents
13:58 like two days out, you know,
14:01 and getting really in the specifics of that.
14:03 We have a scout team, you know,
14:05 that tries to run the other team's offense and defense
14:08 and gives our guys a great look, great look there.
14:10 So it's a ton of film work.
14:12 We really dive into the numbers of it as well.
14:14 And then, yeah, the rubber kind of hits the road there
14:17 on the practice court with the scout team
14:18 and all the preparations there.
14:20 - So analytics, that's become an enormous kind of focus
14:25 over maybe the last 10, 12 years.
14:27 You know, when you and I have stayed in touch over the years
14:30 we talked a little bit about analytics maybe 15 years ago,
14:33 but it's become a bigger thing.
14:35 Ken Palm is the most known, but there's many out there.
14:39 Are there a couple analytics sites or gurus
14:42 that you really kind of trust
14:44 what those numbers are showing?
14:46 - Yeah, I mean, we really follow the Ken Palm numbers
14:49 really closely.
14:50 We follow Synergy as well.
14:51 That's kind of both analytics and video-based,
14:53 but we also have some in-house stuff that we do as well.
14:57 It's kind of our own little proprietary type deal
14:59 that gives us the answers that we need to the test.
15:03 But it's just a great resource.
15:05 I mean, obviously we're diving into the film.
15:08 We trust our eyes as well.
15:09 You know, sometimes, wow, I know the numbers,
15:11 that doesn't make, you know,
15:12 that doesn't necessarily make sense for us,
15:15 but it's a part of the puzzle and part of the prep.
15:18 And I think a lot of times can kind of give you
15:21 certain little rabbit holes to go down to search,
15:24 you know, to help you prepare for a team
15:26 or help your own team.
15:28 And a lot of times we do share those numbers with our guys.
15:31 And yeah, to me, it's just a great teaching tool,
15:34 but also, yeah, a great preparation tool as well.
15:37 And again, giving you those certain rabbit holes
15:39 to go down and discover.
15:42 - I always had it described to me,
15:44 the best way I had it described, eyes, ears, and numbers.
15:47 What are your eyes telling you?
15:48 What are your ears?
15:49 What are you hearing from other coaches
15:51 that are knowledgeable?
15:52 And then what are the numbers showing?
15:53 And kind of having a come together of all three of those
15:56 to put together your game plan or your focus.
15:59 You know, that's kind of what was told to me
16:02 when I thought I was gonna get in the coaching world
16:05 with my mentor in that realm.
16:07 Who would your coaching mentors be?
16:09 And who do you kind of stay in touch with to this day
16:13 when you've got questions
16:14 or you're trying to figure something out?
16:16 - Yeah, I mean, I'd probably say Brad Underwood
16:17 is the biggest one.
16:18 And obviously I played for Coach Few, you know,
16:22 and that was kind of my first start
16:24 in the coaching business.
16:27 You know, I spent a lot of time on the sidelines,
16:28 as you know, Dan, I was a walk-on.
16:31 And, you know, that was just kind of my first opportunity
16:34 to observe and learn and start to kind of put together
16:37 my own thoughts.
16:38 But yeah, I mean, probably, you know, just Brad Underwood
16:41 gave me my first opportunity as an assistant
16:43 at Stephen F. Austin,
16:44 gave me my first opportunity at the high major level,
16:47 being an assistant at Illinois.
16:49 So he's probably, you know, been my biggest mentor.
16:53 Tommy Lloyd as well, just having been here as a walk-on.
16:56 And, you know, if I do have a tough time
16:58 or want to run something by someone,
17:00 he's another guy I can reach out to.
17:02 And then, you know, obviously in-house here,
17:04 Coach Few and then be my best friend, you know,
17:08 he was in my wedding, like, you know,
17:10 he's an awesome mentor and friend
17:13 that we can kind of both balance ideas off of.
17:15 - So let's go back to late '90s, early 2000s.
17:19 You're a young player in high school
17:21 in the west side of Kansas, if I'm right, geographically.
17:24 - East side, yeah. - East side, sorry.
17:26 I guess Kansas City, yeah.
17:28 So what was the tug, what was the pull
17:31 to get you to come to Spokane
17:33 and try to be a part of the program as a walk-on?
17:37 And then the big picture goal of, you had talked about,
17:40 you knew you wanted to get into coaching
17:41 and it became what you wanted to do,
17:44 top of the list, being a Gonzaga assistant.
17:46 We'll see where that goes from there,
17:48 'cause I think you've got the skills to be a head coach
17:50 when the time's right for you.
17:52 But walk us through what young Steven Gentry
17:55 was thinking of when, like,
17:57 - Well, there was this floppy-haired guard for Gonzaga.
18:00 (laughing)
18:01 No, I mean, I was always, you know,
18:04 a basketball junkie growing up.
18:06 But no, I mean, my sophomore year in high school was in '99,
18:10 my junior year was 2000.
18:11 We talked about, you know, Luke
18:12 and how that's kind of a pivotal year
18:14 for your high school career, your junior year.
18:16 So, yeah, I saw Gonzaga making these deep runs
18:19 with Matt and that group, and then your group as well.
18:21 And I just became hooked.
18:24 I became a huge fan of how they played
18:26 and how hard you guys played and how together you did.
18:28 And I grew up a huge Kansas Jayhawk fan.
18:33 I realized that maybe I wasn't going to be good enough
18:34 to play there.
18:35 Yeah, and I just set my goals and eyes on, you know,
18:38 come to Gonzaga.
18:40 And I wasn't afraid to get a little bit further away
18:43 from home and experience a new part of the country
18:46 and all that.
18:46 But yeah, no, I remember I came on a visit,
18:50 a visit, and Tommy Lloyd showed me around,
18:54 and I just became hooked on the school.
18:57 And yeah, and kind of just grit and grinded
19:00 and created my own little opportunity here.
19:03 I mean, I think you kind of obviously know my story.
19:04 I wasn't a part of the team my first year,
19:07 but I came to practice every year and just sat in the stands
19:09 and watched and played pickup with you guys
19:12 as best I could and most I could.
19:14 And yeah, then eventually made the team.
19:17 - Yeah, well, it's an awesome story.
19:19 And it's one of those things where,
19:21 because we've become friends for such a long time,
19:24 you know, I'm partial to wanting to see your career progress
19:28 like we stayed in touch when you were at
19:29 all these other stops.
19:31 And I know you've had a tremendous impact on Gonzaga.
19:34 And I know when the time is right,
19:36 you'll make the right decision for you and your family.
19:38 I just hope that, you know,
19:41 Gonzaga is able to achieve the pinnacle
19:43 of their goals and dreams,
19:44 which we all know at some point will be
19:46 another Final Four in a national title.
19:49 But that's becoming more and more of a challenge
19:52 with NIL and Transfer Portal.
19:54 We don't need to get into that too deep right now,
19:56 but how does that work in regards to the season's over
20:01 for 85% of college basketball?
20:05 You guys have continued to have to play,
20:07 focus on task at hand,
20:09 but knowing there's all these other players
20:10 that are starting to be in the portal
20:12 and knowing, hey, that might fit,
20:14 he might fit, that might fit.
20:16 - Yeah, no, it's the busiest time of year.
20:19 And that's where I wish, like,
20:20 to get a little bit off topic,
20:21 I wish they would push back the portal entry
20:24 till the season's over.
20:25 I wish, like, we could celebrate college basketball
20:28 a little bit more.
20:29 I mean, it's such a long year.
20:29 I mean, why can't we just have the focal point,
20:32 you know, beyond these players and beyond the tournament?
20:34 And then, hey, then when the season's over,
20:36 let's turn our attention to the portal.
20:37 But yeah, no, it's a tough balance.
20:39 You're obviously putting a ton of time
20:41 into the film prep and stuff like we talked about earlier,
20:44 but yet keeping an eye on the portal as well.
20:46 And I mean, gosh, I remember we were in the arena
20:49 preparing for UCLA.
20:51 We did a Zoom call with Graham E.K.
20:53 You know, right after practice.
20:56 And, but you have to, right?
20:58 'Cause he's wanting to make a decision
20:59 and he's wanting to come up with his,
21:01 you know, top two or three schools.
21:02 So it'll be no different, you know, this year,
21:05 where we're going to be preparing for a team
21:07 here late in the year,
21:08 and you're still calling kids and doing Zoom calls
21:11 and, you know, setting your sights on next season.
21:15 - Awesome.
21:16 Obviously three weeks left of the regular season,
21:20 conference tournament in Vegas.
21:22 And then I still believe that the NCAA tournament is there.
21:27 Obviously there's work left to do.
21:30 What is it about March?
21:34 - Yeah, I mean, I think the challenge is all the noise,
21:36 right?
21:37 I mean, just, you know, just all the extra media attention
21:40 and pull from that, the projections.
21:43 You know, this team's, before games are even played,
21:44 it's, this is the projected winner.
21:46 This is the final four, you know?
21:48 And so I think that's the challenge, you know,
21:51 is to kind of, you know, eliminate that noise
21:53 and continue to focus on your team and your prep
21:55 and whoever that upcoming opponent can be.
21:58 'Cause everyone wants you to continue
21:59 to just look a step ahead and you can't.
22:02 And every year there's, you sense those teams
22:05 that have looked maybe a little bit further ahead
22:08 and you end up getting popped and sent home.
22:11 But I mean, I think the fun part,
22:13 it's just the highest level of competition
22:15 and just, you know, being a part of those games
22:20 and being part of selection Sunday.
22:21 I mean, there's just nothing like it,
22:23 just to see your name pop up.
22:24 And, but yeah, no, I think it's just the sheer competition,
22:28 you know, and you've put in all this work,
22:30 all these individual works, all the summer,
22:32 and now it's finally time just to let it rip and compete.
22:35 So that's just, that's the best part of it.
22:37 - Let it rip and compete.
22:39 That's, that is exactly what I think Coach Pheu
22:42 has kind of really pushed for guys in this program
22:47 to embrace and to go out and do.
22:50 And that's evident about how they played on Saturday at Rupp.
22:53 And I'm sure that's going to be how the rest of the season
22:55 goes for the guys.
22:56 - Yeah, he really does.
22:57 He instills so much confidence in the guys.
22:59 I think, especially this time of year where it's, yeah,
23:01 hey, we're continuing to pick and prod
23:03 and get that last 5% out of the team
23:06 and out of the individual players.
23:07 But I think he's the absolute best.
23:09 Like when that ball's tipped, like, wow, okay,
23:11 Coach has got confidence in me just to go and to play.
23:15 And obviously we've, you know, just a guy like Julian,
23:17 just shooting that three against UCLA,
23:18 you don't take that shot unless you know
23:20 the coach has confidence in you to fire that way.
23:24 And yeah, that's where Coach Pheu,
23:25 that's kind of his, kind of little genius, right?
23:29 Is just, you know, pushing those right buttons
23:31 to give the guys a ton of confidence,
23:32 especially this time of year.
23:34 'Cause again, I've been in a bunch of different spots.
23:37 There's a lot of coaches that get the opposite.
23:40 They get tighter and tighter and tighter.
23:42 And it's, if anything, Coach,
23:43 he just gets a little bit looser and looser
23:46 and gives these guys a ton of freedom
23:47 and a ton of confidence.
23:48 - Awesome. Great stuff.
23:49 Well, for Gonzaga Nation, I'm your host, Dan Dickow
23:53 with today's special guest, assistant coach, Steven Gentry.
23:57 Thanks for listening, Steven.
23:58 Thanks for joining.
23:59 - Thanks for having me.
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