Playing With Toughness

Valley Coaches on Mental Toughness

(St. Louis, MO) – Winning and losing college basketball games often comes down to playing with toughness. During post-game press conferences we hear winning coaches talk about their teams being mentally strong and showing ‘grit’. Losing coaches often refer to their players lacking the toughness needed to win.

It’s an elusive quality and coaches don’t seem to know if their teams are ‘locked in’ or ‘not really connected’. During a recent ESPN+ broadcast, former Illinois State coach Dan Muller told me that teams can have great pregame warmups, seem like they are full of energy and then come out ‘flat’. It’s a mystery.

We asked Missouri Valley Conference coaches about playing with toughness and about being mentally sharp.

Practice Makes Perfect

Bradley head coach Brian Wardle tries to create adversity during practice. He challenges his players with adverse situations where they have to work through difficulties and respond quickly. He doesn’t want his players ‘going quiet’ and he urges his players to think about how to help one another during difficult circumstances.

Belmont’s Casey Alexander believes it is a day-to-day thing where he wants his players to maintain an ‘even keel’ of being mentally tough.

“It’s definitely elusive and there’s, there’s clearly no perfect formula for it,” said Alexander. “You know, I think coaches at one point in time will try anything and everything to reach their players. It’s so much more about going from day to day and being your best and being ready and being a great teammate, being a leader. In a season you’re going to face it all and you’re gonna have moments of greatness and real highs and you’ll have some really tough games and some injuries and some tough losses.”

Luke Yaklich talks about accountability at practice. The Illinois Chicago coach says you have measure the things you hope for.

“What gets measured gets done,” says Yaklich. “We call it the ‘dirty stats’. There are ways to measure activity. From Shaka’s (Smart) perspective, they (Marquette) tried to get 36 deflections every game and they know that when they do it, they’re the record is really, really good.”

Playing with Toughness = Success

We see good teams ride high and then fall flat. Some seem to have everything figured out one game only to look lost the next. Illinois State coach Ryan Pedon says the mental component is hard to master, but it is a must for teams to be successful.

“In our conference, the teams that are winning and are consistently at the top of the standings have a physical and mental component that they’re able to master,” said Pedon. “You’ve got to be able to do that in the midst of the good and the bad, even when you’re rolling. This is a marathon but this requires a high level of both mental and physical toughness to compete at this level. I think I think that’s one of the things that I love most about this league is it demands your best in both those areas.”

Indiana State coach Josh Schertz says responding to success is as difficult as responding to difficulty. He says that basketball is like life and that how we respond is very important.

“I think I think the ability to respond is paramount to success,” said Schertz. “We talk about that from a cultural standpoint. You see it all the time, it plays a huge factor in winning and losing. A lot of that is playing with urgency and desperation. There’s an old parable that for every 100 that want to respond to failure, only one can respond to prosperity. A huge part of that, to me is being able to do your job when the lights are on regardless of circumstance, which really is mental toughness. That’s really a huge part of developing a championship DNA is that mental toughness.”

Missouri State coach Dana Ford believes selflessness is a critical ‘toughness’ component. He says interpersonal relationships and team goals are a big part of developing what others might call ‘playing with toughness’.

“I think it starts with how you define it and then obviously, how you how you work on it every day,” said Ford. “For us, toughness is doing what’s best for the team. It’s not necessarily what’s best for you and that covers a lot of things. But it’s definitely what separates the winners and losers. It’s definitely what separates the champions from the rest of the field. And your level of consistent toughness will probably ultimately decide your your level of success.”

Experience is a Good Teacher

Northern Iowa head coach Ben Jacobson just became the winningest coach in Missouri Valley Conference play (188 conference wins). He says going through winning and losing experiences build resilience and that translates into team toughness.

“ I think one of the ways that you develop it is through the experiences, the playing games the experiences of winning a close game,” said Jacobson. “We could feel that we were that we were moving in a good direction (during a recent game) in terms of just our overall toughness. Guys have to go through some things. It’s about continuing to rack up the experiences and learn from, the best way we can ,the importance of resilience. So again, I think there’s a number of ways that you can work and build your team and your toughness. But for our team right now, I really believe it’s going to be the experiences that are going to get to help us get there.”

Southern Illinois coach Brian Mullins says coaches have to know their individual players.

“It’s really building relationships and building trust with our guys,” said Mullins. “Our team Wednesday night will be probably a little bit different than it was Saturday night and it changes throughout the season. Guys change and their mentalities change. They have different things going on in their lives. It’s such a day to day thing so we try to be consistent with our approach every single day in terms of how we prepare and how we practice, but we try to spend a lot of time with our guys to understand ‘what does this guy need?’ Understanding where this team’s mindset is and the individual players mindset rather than trying to press the right buttons.”

Playing With Toughness – Everyday Grit

Valparaiso coach Roger Powell Jr says mental toughness is an everyday thing.

“I try to kind of preach to our guys about everyday grit,” said Powell. “Grit in everything you do. We want  grit in the classroom and in your character. Grit in your faith and then grit and the way we practice and grit and your habits. But these guys are finally understanding what it takes to win. You got to have grit in the last five minutes to get a win.”

Valley teams rank ninth in the ‘national evaluation tool’ and tenth in KenPom and BartTorvik.com. This mid-major conference is having a bounce back year from one that was more difficult last season.

Gregg Marshall was the Wichita State coach during the Shockers’ final seasons in the Valley. WSU had a mentality of ‘play angry’. Playing with toughness obviously has many meanings. But, MVC teams seem to have gained the ability to fight through adversity and learn how to succeed.

Playing with toughness has carried this league a long way.

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