Mistakes I Made So You Don't Have To

I’ve coached long enough to look back at my younger self with reflection. Not in a way that keeps me up at night, but in that way where you think, "man, I wish someone had told me that." As I share lessons, I always think about my 25-year-old self and the lessons that would’ve been useful for me, although many of these lessons are useful for coaches at any part of their careers.

Nobody hands you a manual when you become a head coach. You figure it out through reps, through tough conversations, through long seasons that humble you. These are some of the mistakes I made along the way, and what can be learned.

I used to respond immediately.

The text would come in after a loss, or after a kid didn't play, and I felt this pull to defend myself right then and there. I took it personally. I felt like if I didn't respond, I was letting someone disrespect me. What I've learned is that parents are almost never coming from a bad place. They feel like they're protecting their kid. Emotions and embarrassment make people do drastic things. A response at 10pm after a tough loss is almost never going to go well. Waiting to text until the next day, or better yet, picking up the phone and calling them, can change the energy of the entire conversation. Calm is contagious, and so is chaos. Choose which one you want to take on. At the end of the day you are always held to a higher standard as a coach than parents. One moment where you lack the proper judgement can come back to hurt you. A 24-hour rule or a “let’s talk on Monday” will save you many headaches in the long run.

I underestimated how much my words mattered.

Early on I didn't fully understand the weight of what I was saying to these kids. A throwaway comment on a random Tuesday. A joke that landed wrong. A correction delivered the wrong way. Those things stuck with players way longer than I thought. Kids are hanging on everything you say, especially the ones who look up to you. That's not a burden meant to paralyze you, it's a reminder to be intentional.

The more you invest in real relationships with your players, the more freedom you have to communicate honestly with them. But it starts with understanding that your words carry real weight.

I tried to do everything myself.

When I first became a head coach I was wearing every hat in the building. I thought that was what being a head coach meant. I handled the fundraising, the youth camps, the host dates, the team meals, the….you get the picture. It burned me out, and honestly, it wasn't even good for the program. Your assistant coaches have strengths. Use them. When you empower your staff to own areas where they're good, you get better outcomes and your assistants grow in their roles. Everybody wins. Letting go of control was one of the harder lessons, but it was one of the most important ones. You don’t have to do everything yourself and it’s not weakness to delegate.

I didn't take enough time off.

Nobody remembered that open gym in July. Nobody cared that I stayed three extra hours breaking down film after the game. Meanwhile I was missing things at home that I can't get back. There's a version of the grind that coaches wear like a badge of honor, and I understand that mentality, but I've also missed enough family time to tell you it's not worth it. Go home. Be present with your spouse. Be around for your kids. You can still be a great coach and show up for your family. Schedule it like you schedule practice.

I wasn't prepared for how constant change would be.

Admin changes. Assistants come and go. A group of kids you poured everything into graduates and suddenly the locker room looks completely different. And people's opinions of you can flip in a single season. I've seen coaches go from untouchable to on the hot seat in twelve months. The only thing guaranteed in this profession is that things will change, and the great coaches I have seen are the ones who can respond and adapt without losing themselves in the process.

I cared too much about what people thought of me.

Cutting kids never gets easy. Telling a kid who worked his tail off that there isn't a spot for them is one of the hardest things you do in this job. For a long time I beat myself up over it, tried to find the perfect thing to say, worried about what people thought of me. Here's what I know now: there's nothing you can say to a kid you just cut that makes it hurt less. Their heart is broken. That's not changing. What you can control is being honest and being fair. Lead kids on or string them along and they will resent you for it. Be straight with them, and they might not like you right away, but at least you've given them something they can eventually respect.

These aren't lessons I read somewhere. They're things I lived through, some of them more than once before they finally sank in.

Question for you: What's a mistake you made early in your coaching career that you wish someone had warned you about? And what would you tell a first-year head coach?

Is the Madness Over? The Tournament Is Telling Us Where College Basketball Might Be Headed

If you have been watching the NCAA Tournament the last couple of years, you have probably noticed something feels different. The chaos is still there, but the Cinderella stories are getting harder to find. Last season, there were only four total upsets in the entire tournament. The only other time in the modern era that happened was 2007. Both years stand alone as the two least upset-prone tournaments in history, against an annual average of eight-plus upsets per year. And now here in 2026, the top 16 seeds went 16-0 in the Round of 64 for the second straight season, continuing a pattern that is hard to ignore.

Maybe the easy explanation is NIL money. And there is something to that. At least eight teams entered this season with rosters worth $10 million or more in NIL commitments, and the gap between those programs and everyone can’t be ignored. Power conference programs are spending between $7 and $10 million on a roster on average, while mid-major rosters come in somewhere between $1 and $2 million. That is not a gap you can close with a hot shooting night.

If you watch the games closely, the money alone is not the full story. Kentucky reportedly spent $22 million on its basketball roster this season and was barely a tournament team. Florida won last year's national championship ranked 77th in NIL spending. One high-major coach put it better than I could when he told CBS Sports: "The guys aren't worth the money they're going for. I could spend $15 million, but the roster I'd put together wouldn't win a national championship."

What I am actually seeing on the floor is a shift back to dominant post play. For several years, every team was trying to run 5-out offense and live at the three-point line. You remember that era (Thanks Steph Curry!). Even big guys were being asked to spot up at the arc. And mid-major teams could hang around against anybody if they caught fire from deep. That created upsets. Now the teams that are winning in March are winning inside. In this year's tournament, Michigan's big men combined to make 16 of 18 shots and block four against Howard. Texas knocked off BYU behind a big man who posted 23 points and 16 rebounds. The teams built around true post players are not getting upset because good big men are not that easy to replicate. If you are a mid-major that finds one, he is gone through the portal before you can blink. The quality interior player is the most transferred position in the game right now, and it shows.

Which brings me to the experience piece. Look at the teams still standing and you will see a pattern. Purdue has seniors who’ve played hundreds of games together. St. John's, a program that had not been to the Sweet 16 since 1999, just knocked out Kansas in the second round behind a group of veteran transfer portal players. On the other side, the talented freshmen, regardless of what their NIL package looks like, are still freshmen in late March. The tournament is unforgiving and experience matters.

The trend is probably not reversing anytime soon. The disparity between the richest programs and the rest of the sport was glaringly apparent as higher-seeded teams fended off upsets at a historic level in the last two years. And the spending is still going up. What that means for mid-major coaches is that the path to pulling off the upset your program used to have available is narrower than it was five years ago. I hope that changes and we can get some madness back.

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Loop RIP LOB - UCF

Shared Resources: Partner Passing Drill

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That’s a wrap on Episode 36 of Game Shots. Thank you for subscribing.

My mission has always been, and will always be, to support coaches around the world who love the game and want to keep getting better.