Andy Toole

development and their existence or their life.

Yeah, there's no doubt.

I think there's two things that make the challenge greater is the simplicity factor.

A lot of guys come with

residue from their last place, right?

Whether it's, you know, hey, we were a denial team and now you're trying to get them to break that habit in order to learn the habits of RMU.

Sometimes when you got guys as true freshmen, they didn't really have habits in college.

And so they were able to learn your system.

You were able to, over time,

build in more you didn't have to start completely from scratch each and every year now you got to start from scratch each and every year with terminology uh with spacing with style with system now you go through some of that stuff obviously in the recruiting process but that doesn't mean they have a grasp of how to execute it and i do think you have to emphasize a little bit of um uh basketball iq and and instinct in your recruitment like there's a couple guys that we've recruited over the last couple years who just were talented enough but just not able to grasp

the system quick enough in order to really impact the team.

And then the other thing I think that's hard now is, you know, you don't have the same scar tissue you used to have.

Like when I lose my mind in a practice because we miss a free throw box out because in 2018 we missed a free throw box out at FDU in the conference tournament semifinals, like that doesn't resonate with these guys.

Or when we go to play Youngstown State and we say, man, this is going to be a really intense game because we played them last year in the Horizon League championship game.

that doesn't necessarily resonate with these guys.

So you've got to find some different ways to try to get your point across and get them to understand the important things that really determine winning and losing.

Yeah, he's been awesome.

You know, his growth has been, you know, incredible.

You know, he still has another year, so we'll go through the same saga as soon as the season's over of what his status will be as he moves forward.

But, you know, he was very intelligent about his process last year.