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Wicks Press Conferences

I was home sick yesterday and couldn't jump on the call. Here are my notes from the recording:
  • White out Saturday night
  • This will be the 245th version of the basketball Border War
  • Both teams are desperate for a win
  • Continues to emphasize to the team how important this game is
  • They did not talk about the Utah State game after the game. They flushed it and got on the plane.
  • Sunny made it a point to call Ali Faroukamesh after Utah State stomped them. Said that no one called him after a loss in his first year.
  • Sunny has a lot of respect for Ali grinding his way to a head coach position
  • We've got 5 very capable shooters that are currently under 28% from three
  • The answer to the scoring issues lies in the work the coaches and players are doing. They both need to do better.
  • Coaches, players, resources, and retention all go into sustained success. You see this at all of the top teams in the country. You've got to invest in the program and the relationships.
  • Relationships matter in retention, but it's not as important as it used to be.
  • You can win for a year and that will make people happy, but sustained success is a foreign concept these days. It's a "microwave society".
  • Chris McMillian is on the scout because he knows how big this rivalry is
  • This rivalry will not die in basketball. Contract negotiations are ongoing. If this doesn't get played next year it won't be on Sunny and the UW athletic department.
  • Sunny committed to playing zone against Utah State. They made the commitment to do that no matter what.
  • Communication on the court hasn't been up to standard. This gets highlighted in raucous environments. He hopes this is an "a-ha" moment for the players.
  • Sunny was pretty humbled by The Herd cheering for Rojas to score his first points
  • Sunny takes complete ownership on the game plan and execution in Logan
  • When asked at what age he knew that CSU was a hated rival growing up in Wyoming, he brought his daughter on to boo and chant "it sucks, to be, a CSU ram" and explained how important it is.
  • The coaches are doing everything they can to get in players faces at practice and get after them. They are really trying to pound into their heads that it's not going to get easier and to simulate game pressure.
  • Players need to commit to the gym to get better, not just check a box of showing up
  • "It's not the shot, it's the sacrifice you put into the shot."
  • Acceptable FG% for a guard is 45%. 3pt is 35%. Bigs need to be at 60% FG. Anything above that is considered a good to great to elite player.
  • Those metrics are tracked through the season and effects the roles of players
  • These 2 teams are very similar
  • We're trying to go from the bottom 3rd to the middle 3rd, but so are CSU, Air Force, San Jose State, and Fresno State.
  • The team that wins will be the team that comes out with more fight on Saturday.
 
Sunny committed to playing zone against Utah State. They made the commitment to do that no matter what.

Congrats, I guess? Meanwhile you're getting destroyed.
 
cowpokeguy said:
Sunny committed to playing zone against Utah State. They made the commitment to do that no matter what.

Congrats, I guess? Meanwhile you're getting destroyed.
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Reading between the lines of what he said and how he said it, they put it on the players to make it work. Sounds like there has been some lackadaisical effort in practice lately.
 
Bryoming said:
Reading between the lines of what he said and how he said it, they put it on the players to make it work. Sounds like there has been some lackadaisical effort in practice lately.
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The players did not make it work. Not even close.

I'm struggling to see how this approach helped the team in any way. Was the idea to teach the team a lesson by letting them get absolutely demolished?
 
Bryoming said:
Reading between the lines of what he said and how he said it, they put it on the players to make it work. Sounds like there has been some lackadaisical effort in practice lately.
Click to expand...
Seems like a bit of a doom spiral here. The players probably don't love a stubborn coach putting it on them to "make it work", therefore he's losing the team and getting lackadaisical effort. Repeat ad nauseam.
 
cowpokeguy said:
Seems like a bit of a doom spiral here. The players probably don't love a stubborn coach putting it on them to "make it work", therefore he's losing the team and getting lackadaisical effort. Repeat ad nauseam.
Click to expand...
I could see how that high energy “in your face” coaching style could wear thin quickly when the losses start to pile up.

Players will buy into almost anything as long as the wins come. When they don’t, they will tune you out quickly - especially in today’s transfer heavy world of college athletics.
 
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