[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Roundhouse podcast with Paul Sullantrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. Thanks for listening. We appreciate your time. Today we're going to talk Shocker basketball Bob hole Bob is in his 17th season as a color voice for the Shockers radio and TV. He will be on his way to Myrtle beach later this week as he will go with the three and O Shockers. They play in the Myrtle Beach Invitational. They will face Coastal Carolina in Coastal Carolina's home gym in a tournament that's kind of unusual. 03:30 p.m. Thursday on ESPNU so Bob, we've got three games. Let's give all the caveats. Small sample size there's some weird circumstances. Lipscomb played without their all conference player. Western Kentucky had an atrocious three point shooting night over 21, which probably isn't going to happen much. And then the Shockers played Friends of the NAIA. So all of this is small sample size, as we said. But three games in under coach Paul Mills, you've had a lot of time to watch practice. How do you describe his coaching style?
[00:01:23] Speaker B: I'd say up tempo.
They like to run, they like to push it.
They like to be spread out on offense and have good spacing and they don't mind taking a quick shot. If somebody gets a good shot early in the possession, they'll take it. So it's not like they're trying to run and rotate the ball or reverse the ball X number of times and work the clock. They push it up, look for a shot at the basket, either somebody driving or a postman posting, and if that's not there, they're right into their offense and they're looking for a good shot right away.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: He has said, this isn't an exact quote, but I think words to these affect his job is to prepare them in practice and that's kind of where he holds them accountable and really is detail oriented practice video and then they play the game and I think he wants them playing pretty free out there. Does that remind you of any other coaches? Who would you maybe compare him to?
[00:02:38] Speaker B: He's a cool customer.
I haven't seen him too excited over There on the sideline yet, and Lord knows he could have been during that Western Kentucky game. But he keeps his cool and I don't see a lot of yelling or a lot of admonishing. He seems to be pretty positive and just kind of explains to I've talked to some of the players and asked him if Coach got on him about their rebounding and such and thinking that maybe he got after him in some time outs, but the players said, no, he just explains to us long shots, long rebounds, you've got to hold them to one shot. And so I think he's very measured and positive.
And so far, I think they've done a good job of trying to not try to do things that the team can't do.
He puts the players into situations where they can be successful. So he tries to figure out, what can these guys do well, and then let's try to get their offense running where they can do that.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Yeah. His sideline demeanor has been, I think a lot of people are watching that and he's talked about it, the players have talked about it. And, yes, he's pretty calm on the sidelines. I saw him, he had a couple of chats with referees in some games, but in general, you don't see a lot of reaction. And his explanation and the players explanations has been that kind of stuff happens maybe a little bit more in practice. That's where he might get a little more animated. But the game is time for them to, for the players, that's when they're to play, not worry about, know, waving his arms and doing those kind of things.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: You said. Who do I compare him to? I've been kind of searching my mind, trying to think of somebody nobody I've coached with, but I would say maybe the first name that popped to mind was like Tom Davis at Iowa. He was pretty professorial and analyzed things and didn't yell and scream much.
And really Lud Olsen didn't scream a lot either.
But most coaches are pretty excitable. And so far, Paul seems to be pretty cool. All right.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: He reminds me a little bit of Chris Lamb because Chris is always holding a piece of paper and looking at the statistics and, I guess, match notes, whatever he's looking at on the volleyball sideline and doesn't get too animated very often. And Paul Mills has a little smaller piece of paper that he is always looking at, so there's a little bit of a comparison there. You mentioned the spacing, and that's, I think, one of the things that has really stood out here at this early point, and he's doing it without a team that is a great three point shooting team to this point. Obviously, it could change. What's he doing on offense to clear the lane so that guys have room to operate and then get shooters open shots. How does he create that spacing?
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Well, they're running some dribble drive, what people call dribble drive, where you keep the postman away from the ball instead of in the old offenses. You always had the postman following the ball. Whatever side the ball was on, the postman would post up on that side. And in the dribble drive, you keep the postman away. So the guys with the ball have more room to drive and there's not a big defender there ready to help. So they space four on the perimeter quite often and have one postman, but he's on the opposite side of the ball. So they do some of the dribble drive, and then they also do ball screens with the bigs. They have Kenny Poto or Quincy Balor come up and set a ball screen on the guard. And that takes, here again, it takes the big guy out of the lane and it takes the big guy's defender out of the lane. So you've got four on the perimeter plus a fifth now with the screener. And then they come off that screen and the big guy might roll, somebody else might zipper up, meaning that they'll cut up. If the big guy's rolling, they'll cut up and try to take advantage of the defense helping, try to anticipate or read the defense and see how they're helping and then go to the guy they're helping off of.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: We saw a good example of the adjustments that he made in the Western Kentucky game because Western Kentucky really aggressively, I guess, blitzed or trapped, whatever you want to call it, when shockers were trying to ball screen, that gave the shockers a lot of trouble. After halftime, they took away the screener, which since then took the extra defender out of the way and really just let the guards kind of go one on one.
What kind of an adjustment was that? Or why was that adjustment effective?
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Well, it wasn't working. What they were running was not working. And Western Kentucky was making that hard hedge and almost a trap when you set a screen on the ball out front, and a lot of their offense initiates with a ball screen. And so they took that away and made it very difficult. They were very aggressive, very handsy. And then the guys away from the ball were all opportunistic. They were there waiting to pick off passes. So it really took the shockers out of their offense. And at first it looked like they were faking, like they were going to come up and set a ball screen like Quincy Ballard or Kenny Poto. Then he would dive to the basket. And so they tried that a little bit before halftime. They got some things working on that, but I think at halftime, Paul mentioned after the games that he had to go in and just say, hey, this isn't working, let's scrap the game plan and go with a different offense. And he came up with a drill that they do in practice to work on spreading out, and he said, okay, we're going to run this drill as our offense in the second half. So it was a gutsy move to just go to something new.
That was a drill, but not an offense. And it was very effective. They didn't screen on the ball. They kept everybody spaced. And that allowed Xavier Bell to drive and it allowed Harlan Beverly to drive. And those two guys are pretty good at getting to the basket and finishing when they get around there. And then when the bigs were helping, our bigs were doing a good job of slipping behind them for easy was a. I thought it was a great adjustment at halftime by coach Mills.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: The spacing has stood out. The other thing that stood out to me, and you mentioned this just a couple minutes ago, putting people in a position where they are comfortable. And we've seen the examples. Xavier Bell kind of looks like a fullback playing point guard. Boy, he's really going to the hoop and he's got some crafty footwork in there. Colby Rogers picking on a smaller defender. I think he's gotten a lot out of Quincy Ballard when I don't know that we were all sure what he would get out of Quincy Ballard. How does he put people in those kind of favorable positions?
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Well, I'll give you some examples.
Xavier is not your a lot of point guards. They'll hit the post and then slide and they'll kick it back out for the three. And that's not the strength of his game, shooting three pointers and he's not a catch and shoot guy. He's more off the bounce. He's a lot more comfortable playing off the bounce, and he's really good at getting in the lane and shooting over bigger guys or posting up. His defender, which is usually his height, are shorter. And that was very effective in the Western Kentucky game, going over and shooting over the guards. And then he's also pretty good at shooting over the big guys when they come to help. And he has a really high arcing moonshot that he puts up there and scores on. So they're running an offense which allows Xavier to drive without a lot of help around him and get to the basket. Same for Harlan Beverly. They've got it spaced out so Harlan can drive for Quincy, not as he's posting up some, but a lot of it is lobs up the basket. He's really good at catching lobs and laying them in the basket, so they try to get those a lot. And then I think what I've been surprised with is how well he and Kenny Poto have been playing off one another. Quincy's made some really nice passes to Kenny and so they're moving in tandem and doing some nice, cutting one guy, reading the other guy's movements and getting to an open area, and I like the way they're moving.
Some guys are pretty good one on one players. Colby Rogers is a very good one on one player. He's got that fadaway jumper and they look for him on out of bounds plays, so they're going to him more one on one. And I think you could say the same thing about Isaac Abedai. He's a pretty good one on one player and so they're allowing him to do some more one on one than some of the other guys.
And then Reginald in the corner, the corner threes, he's been effective at knocking those down off the bench, so they're taking what each guy does well and trying to have them do that in their offense.
[00:11:50] Speaker A: Wichita State's defensive numbers are pretty good and you watch them. They seem to be a team that's playing hard on defense, seems pretty organized. What are your impressions of Wichita State's defense?
[00:12:04] Speaker B: It's been good and it's been not so good. That's something that's hopefully going to get better as they go along. I thought in the Western Kentucky game, Lipskin was a little bit short. They didn't have their all conference forward and so I thought the defense looked pretty strong against them most of the night. Western Kentucky, the transition defense was not where it needed to be in the first half. It got better in the second half. They've got too many layups in the first half. I think they got six points off transition and shockers didn't get any in the first half and they were down two and a half. But second half, I thought they tightened that up and I thought their defense came out just totally flat in the Friends game Sunday and they just weren't ready to play. But they got it going. They got it going. So I think they're really big on communication, as most coaches are. Defensively, you got to talk, you got to communicate. They do a lot of switching. They don't switch all five positions, but they have guard guard switches, big switches, and they have communication on how they do that and then they have different parts of the floor. If the ball gets to a certain segment of the floor, then they play a different defense, and they will try to keep the ball in a corner. They will try to keep the ball on the side of the court and not let it reverse or not let it get out of the corner. So they've got some Interesting man to man defensive ploys there that take advantage of when the ball is in a vulnerable spot where they can take advantage of passing lanes.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: Yeah, the baseline, it seems like you can watch and you can tell they like to use the baseline. Is that extra defender? Is that one of those areas you're talking about?
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Yeah, all coaches do that, force guys to the baseline and then trap and rotate.
When they get a ball in the corner, they try to keep it in the corner, and then everybody overplay the pass coming out of there. So they do some different kinds of rotations. Especially they were doing that in, I want to say, the Western Kentucky game. I think it was where they were rotating because they had some guys that could really pick and, uh, or maybe it might have been the Lipscomb game. They were doing that because their bigs could really shoot the three. So they were really working on some switching on ball screens. When a big was screened for a guard, they were going to switch that, but then they had some really interesting rotations to help cover up what teams do when you switch little on a big or big on a little. So it's interesting, it's been interesting to watch them in practice and see how they approach things.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: So if you watch the Shockers you see on defense, you see a lot of pointing, a lot of talking really crucial to way they play defense. How do you go about coaching, that communication part of the game?
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Well, you stress it in practice every single day, every single drill. And coach Mills and his staff have been just really big on getting the guys to talk and communicate on offense, on defense, about what play they're getting ready to run, and they just stress it all the time in practice, every single day.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Shockers are shooting three pointers at a rate really far below what Paul Mills did his last three or four years at ORU.
Is this an example of him tailoring his approach to the talent that he's got on this team?
[00:15:43] Speaker B: I would think so. I really haven't talked to him about that, but my best guess is that they know that, for instance, Harlan and Xavier are much better, much more effective driving to the basket and going inside than they are just catching and shooting threes. So those guys are driving and trying to score inside, and it puts pressure on the defense when you do that. But Colby Rogers, on the other hand, is shooting threes and Dalen Rigelon is shooting threes.
And I think Kenny Poto is not shooting as many threes as he did last year. So I think they're trying to look at they chart everything in practice. They do a lot of shooting drills and I'm sure they're charting all of those, and I haven't talked to them about this, but I would imagine they have to meet a certain threshold in practice with their number of shots that they shoot before they get the green light shooting threes.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: So you watched Colby Rogers in practice last season and we were all told he was an excellent shooter. Anything he's doing this year surprise you?
[00:16:53] Speaker B: The one on one?
He was doing a lot of catch and shoot last year. I didn't see the fade away jumper as much. Of course, he was on the second team playing against the first team last year because he wasn't eligible to play. So he wasn't running the out of bounds plays and trying to score off of them as much as the top seven or eight guys were. So I've been really impressed with how well he scores off out of bounds plays and how he can beat people off the bounce with that fade away jumper. So that's been a nice surprise.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: You mentioned the out of bounds plays, and that's been noticeable in these first three games.
Shocker. Coaches seem to have a nice knack for drawing them up and getting something out of them. What stands out to you about the baseline? And they had nice sideline out of bound play, too.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: They seem to execute them really well.
I think they've scored. I haven't really seen a percentage on what percentage they're scoring off of on the out of bounds plays, but now they're doing a nice job and they're running some nice stuff and getting the ball to guys where they can scOre. And I thought that the one they ran against the zone, I can't remember if it was a Lipscomb game or the West Kentucky game, but they did a nice job of coming out of a timeout and running a nice play and they got a lob to B Day over the top of the zone. So I thought that was a nice play, right?
[00:18:24] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a Lipscomb game.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: I think it's always easier to score off out of bounds plays in the non conference because these teams don't know you as well as the conference teams. When you get into conference play, it gets tougher.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Right. We would add that to our small sample size caveat, but it has been noticeable to this point. They've pulled off some slick inbounds plays and had some success with that. All right, Bob, so 17 seasons, you've seen a lot of a good chunk of recent shocker basketball. Most memorable game from your time sitting courtside and providing color with Mike Kennedy.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: Good question.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: I'm throwing this at you, so take a few seconds. I always ask for one, but of course we're not going to penalize you for two or three.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: I'm going to go with the one. We won Gonzaga out there in Salt Lake City when we knocked off the number one team in the country to advance to the Sweet 16 in Los Angeles. So I would say that one because we won. But just as memorable were a couple that we lost. The tough loss to Kentucky when the team was undefeated in St. Louis. We played them in the second round. And then of course, the Final Four game against Louisville. That was a very memorable game. But your feelings about it aren't as good as that Gonzaga game, right?
[00:19:44] Speaker A: So Gonzaga in Louisville would have been 2013 NCAA Tournament. The Kentucky loss in St. Louis would have been the next season, 2014 NCAA Tournament.
Which Shocker player did the best player of the game? Interview.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: From all the time I've been here, Fred Van Vliet.
Fred could analyze a game like a coach, and when you talked to him after the game, he had really good recall and he could remember different parts of the game and what the other team was doing and what we were trying to do and what worked and what didn't work.
He was really good.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: He was good. I'm sure that's one of the many reasons why Fred is enjoying a successful NBA career. Who's the best team the Shockers have played over the past 17 years?
[00:20:41] Speaker B: Ooh, good question.
That Kentucky team in 2014 was pretty good.
I'm glad we didn't play them the next year when they were undefeated. They were even better that following year.
Oh, gosh. Good question.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: I guess the Yukon team in Maui would be a contender. That would be one.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Yeah, they were good. They won the national title. I wasn't at that game. I didn't go to that tournament. Dave did that one.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: I wasn't there, but yeah, I would say maybe Kentucky, when they knocked us off in or, you know, Louisville was pretty good, but we had them beat. The referees hadn't got us in that Final Four game.
I don't know. That's a good question. I'll have to think about that.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: Kentucky is a solid choice yeah, I think back to that, yes. If you have somebody else, another team pops in their mind, you let us know. But I think Kentucky would be a solid answer. So this is the ten year anniversary of that 2014 team that went 35 and right up until playing Kentucky, number one seed in the NCAA Tournament. What stands out about that team? About that.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: Guys, some guys matured and now all of a sudden Fred and Ron weren't freshmen like they were the Final Four year. They had a year or two under their belt.
Cleanthony early was a different player.
He really came on his senior year, his junior year, he was kind of up and down. He'd be good one game and then bad two games, but he was a lot more consistent player and by the end of the season he was really hard to stop.
I thought that team just, they did a lot of things well. They defended well, they rebound well, they had pretty good depth. They had a lot of good players and that helped in practice because there was 1011 guys and twelve guys they could go at each other in practice. A lot of the practices were tougher than the games that they played. So it was a very competitive, aggressive team.
[00:23:02] Speaker A: That was a fun year, no doubt. Let's talk about Craig Porter, who has made his NBA debut.
Had a nice career here, but a career that he was kind of short circuited a couple times by injury. He got caught in the COVID Web his first year, but ended up being a very good player for the Shockers and kind of carried that team last year to a large degree.
What's keeping him in the NBA? What makes him that kind of player?
[00:23:30] Speaker B: Well, he just helps a team win.
He can defend, he can handle the ball, he can shoot, he can beat guys off the bounce. He's a really good rebounder. He's a shot blocker. He's just got NBA athleticism at six three or four, maybe six three. And he's just a super athlete. He's smart, he doesn't have a big ego.
He's going to do whatever the team needs him to do to win. So it's not like he's got to go out there and take a lot of shots like some young guys do. And I think also he's always kind of been like this. He plays at pace, he doesn't get sped up and go 1000 miles an hour. You never see him turn the ball over because he's going too fast. He knows how to play at pace and a lot of guys, it takes him a while to learn that.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: Yeah, those are good descriptions. Boy, as you were talking about his ability to get into the lane, he would have a lot of success in this offense because you get him going in an empty lane and he can do a lot of damage.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: I know when we played Houston last year, Kelvin Sampson was just shaking his head when they barely beat us up here. It was like, man, he's got an old man's game. We didn't have anybody that could guard him. And IB did a good job isolating Porter and let him go one on one. Kind of similar to what they did the other night against Western Kentucky.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Definitely last book you read.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: Oh, shoot.
Life by Keith Richards.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:25:09] Speaker B: His autobiography, of course.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: The guitarist for your, are they your favorite? Absolute favorite. The Rolling Stones.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: They got a new album out.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: Yes. Give us a quick review.
[00:25:20] Speaker B: Hackney DiamondS.
It is a masterpiece. Go buy it today.
[00:25:25] Speaker A: How many times have you seen the Rolling Stones? 15 times. Very nice. Favorite restaurant from your time traveling with the shockers?
[00:25:35] Speaker B: Ooh, there's a steakhouse up in Omaha that we went to one time. I can't remember the name of it, but it's an old fashioned steakhouse with the mahogany walls, and it was a lot more expensive than most restaurants I ever go to. But a lot of boosters were on the trip when we were playing Creighton, and we had a lot of people along. I think it was probably 2013 or 2014, and we went to a really nice steakhouse up there.
I can't remember the name of it.
You know what? The food in New Orleans, I love the gumbo and the food in New Orleans, so I don't have a favorite place down there. But everywhere you go, there's good food.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: That would be a good stop for food. So you've been doing this 17 years now. How has your preparation changed? What have you added to your preparation over this time to be a better color person?
[00:26:36] Speaker B: Oh, I think I've gotten better at it.
I know for me what's important and what's not important. The weird thing is you got to prepare differently for television than you do for radio, because in television, the color guy talks a lot more because people can see what's happening on the screen. So the play by play doesn't have to describe every little thing, so you have to have more interesting stuff about each player when you're preparing for a television game. But when I do color for the radio, Mike Kennedy's got a. He's got to describe everything that's happening. The ball's coming up the floor and it's getting passed to the left wing. And so you've got to learn to jump in and out real quickly when you're doing the color on the radio. So I don't need as many.
So I'll tone it down a little bit, pare it down a little bit when I prepare for the radio for the Shocker games. But you have that pregame show, so guys call in and ask questions. So you want to have everybody's stuff so you can defend an argument.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Is that why Mike has that ruler, so he can wrap you on the knuckles whenever you talk too much during the radio broadcast?
[00:27:48] Speaker B: We've got a pretty good tempo. He hasn't had to do that very often.
He's so good. Sometimes I don't even have to describe a play because he's described it so well just when he does the play by play. So I really don't have to add any color because he's already done it.
But it's a different tempo, different timing, and we've gotten a pretty good feel for jumping in and out and not talking over each other.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: Yeah. What does make Mike Kennedy so good at his job?
[00:28:16] Speaker B: He's been doing a long time and he loves what he does. I don't know if I know anybody that loves what they do more than Mike does.
I don't think people say how long is he going to do and when's he going to retire? I go, he's not going to retire. He loves it too much and he just loves doing basketball. I think he probably likes doing baseball even better than basketball.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: He is a big baseball guy. Yes. And did volleyball, still does volleyball, home games on TV. But boy, there was a time where he traveled with volleyball, traveled with basketball, traveled with baseball. So that's the definition of loving what you do.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: And then does the Wichita Open golf Tournament in the. So, yeah, he's a hard worker and loves what he does. And he's really good. I mean, he's just a pros pro.
[00:29:05] Speaker A: No doubt. No doubt. Bob hall, entering or in the early stages of his 17th season as a color voice for the Shockers on radio and TV. Shockers will play Coastal Carolina 03:30 p.m. Thursday on ESPNU. Bob, have a safe trip and thanks for your time.
[00:29:21] Speaker B: You bet, Paul. Nice being with you.
Hi, this is Rick Nyuma, president of Wichita State University. Check out the latest episode of the Forward Together podcast. Each episode I sit down with different guests from Shocker Nation to celebrate the vision and mission of Wichita State University. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:30:09] Speaker C: Thank you for listening to the Roundhouse podcast, courtesy of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. We encourage you to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more roundhouse
[email protected]. Bradshaw into Wingate.
[00:30:26] Speaker A: Wingate's going to dribble it a couple.
[00:30:28] Speaker C: Of times and throws it in the hands of Kuznard. Threw it away. Kuznard to Ryan Martin for the dunk. The shockers are going to the Sweet 16.
It's all over. The shockers up. Seven, 3 seconds, two jeopardy. Smith is no good. Wichita State to the Sweet 16.
