How To Play College Basketball and My Problem With Mixtape Channels

Foreign. Welcome to the Vision Driven Basketball Training Podcast, episode two. Really appreciate you guys taking time. Whether you guys are watching on YouTube or listening on podcast Spotify, I appreciate you guys being here. And today we're going to talk about a couple different topics that you guys have requested and I'm going to answer some of you guys questions as well, so. Well, I say a couple different topics we're probably going to get into maybe the most requested topic that I get, which is coach, how do I play at the college level? You know, how do I get to that next level? What do I need to do? I'm going to kind of break that down from a whole, a bunch of different perspectives and a bunch of different parts of that. But. And I'm going to answer some questions. I got a lot of questions on that too. Like I said, I want to hear your guys questions. So if you have a question for me, drop it in the comments. DM me on Instagram, whatever you want to do. You know, I really want to, again, I want this to be something that I can be interactive with you guys and really help you guys out knowing what you guys, you know, need to know more about. So we're gonna break down, first of all, get into the college level. And it's something that is very, I think there's a lot of misinformation out there about it. So I want you guys to know exactly what you're getting yourself into. Because I once used to be a person, I just didn't know. I didn't know what exactly it took. I didn't know the numbers behind it. I didn't really know what my goal was. And I think knowing what your goal is and what it actually entails, what it actually means is going to help you to actually get a step ahead and be able to achieve that goal. So we talk about the college level. I want to read you guys some stats first, some numbers just to kind of give you guys a little bit of a, a little bit of a, an actual, some context about what I'm talking about here. So this is a study from 2016, 17 school year. So a couple years ago. And I'm just going to read you the numbers. So for high school in the United states, there are 550,000 boys who play high school basketball. Those are the seniors. Okay. And for college players, there's 30,000. So 550 and then 30,000. Now that would mean that 5.6% of those high school players are playing in College. So 5.6% of high school players will go on to play in college. Okay, now let's break that out even further. 0.9% of those players or of those 500,000, 550,000 play at the Division 1 level. 0.9% of them, 0.9% will play at the Division 2 level. 1.3% of them will play at the Division 3 level. 0.8% will play at the NAI level, 1.7% will play at the JUCO level, and 6.1% of those college players are international. Okay, so that. That goes to sort of break it down for you. That would mean. So I did the math on this yesterday, but essentially, if you wanted to be. You wanted to be at the top of that, the division one level, that, I mean, that's a very, very small, minuscule percentage. So the reason I'm reading that to you guys is because I want you guys to actually understand what the competition level is out there. Like, it is incredible. There are so many people who are out there looking to do the same exact thing that you want to do. Okay? So understanding that and knowing what you get self into, that, that's a big part of getting to where you want to get to. Okay, so let's illustrate this even further. Let's say, you know, if we really want to see what that means, because I can read the numbers and you might still be like, oh, whatever. Like, it's. That's not like, you know, it's still 5%. Like, that's still 30,000. That's a lot of spots, right? Let's take it like this. So take your high school team, and we'll take nine other teams that you play. Okay? So let's say that there's 10 guys who get playing time on those teams. So your team will take your top 10 guys and the top 10 guys on nine teams that you play. Okay? That's 100 players. Five of them will play in college. Five of those hundred players will play in college at any level that I just read off to you, okay? Any of those levels, five of those players will play in college. So out of you and the nine teams that you play, you got to be one of the top five guys to play at any level of college basketball. Now, obviously, that changes based on where you play. You might play in a really good conference where everybody plays in college, or you play in a terrible conference where no one plays in college. So that. That obviously isn't just, you know, it's not across the board, but when you average out the numbers, that's what it actually is. So. And, guys, I just want to get this straight. Anything I say in this video is not to discourage you at all. And I think we're gonna. I'm gonna get into some more, you know, some more actually actionable things you can do to get where you want to get to. But this is not in any way to discourage you. This is only to tell you the facts, to tell you the truth, and to actually educate you on what. When you say that that's your goal, do you actually work like, that's your goal? Because you can say whatever you want to, but at the end of the day, if your work doesn't match what you say you want, I mean, you're not going to get it. So, you know, one thing I always say is that you aren't just competing with your teammates or your friends or your area. Like I said, It's 550,000 down to 30,000. So all of a sudden, we're going from, you know, a pretty decent number to a very small percentage of that. Okay, 5.6%. So you. Not just competing with the guys that, you know, you might say, oh, I'm the best player on my team. I'm the best player in my area. It doesn't matter. Like, you got to look at the entire United States if you're an international guy, which we're going to get more into that later on. But if you're an international guy, I mean, just. Just make that you really have to look at who you're competing with now. So that just, again, I don't want you to get in the habit of, you know, comparing yourself to everybody else. But for now, I want you to understand what that goal actually entails. So, actually, I got a. I got a dm. And the reason that I'm going with this question is because this topic is. I got a lot of questions on it. So I kind of want to read to you a couple DMs that I got just to kind of, you know, make sure that you guys. I can kind of share the concepts for why I'm sharing all this stuff with you. So my guy Ian, he sent me a DM after my first podcast, said, just got done watching your first podcast episode, really liked it, wrote my goals down, all that. If you guys haven't seen that episode, I'm going to link it up above, make sure you check it out, and said, however, I have a couple questions for you. In your video, you mentioned that you had an opportunity to play juco or D3. I'm just wondering how difficult that is to do. I'm six' two, 165 in eighth grade. I'm a far better average player. Next year I'm going to go into a really big high school that's a very competitive basketball program. I'm also a top three player in my class for the high school, hoping to make it on the varsity team as a sophomore. I was wondering what your path was. What you. You play varsity. Love your channel content. Follow it on Spotify. Appreciate you, Ian. If you guys are not following me on Spotify or podcast, whatever you guys listen on, make sure you guys check me out there. You guys would rather listen. Really would appreciate also drop a review. 5 stars. Appreciate that too. So this is a good question and I'll answer it. I'll go from. I'll start from the beginning so I actually, no, I'll start from the end, so I'll go backwards. So high school, how it worked for me is I started off my freshman sophomore year. I was at a big public high school in my town and one of the bigger schools in the state. And when I was there, the class that I was in and the class below me were just loaded. I mean, we had, you know, I'm thinking my junior year we would have had four D1 players in the starting lineup, one D2 player and probably four or five college guys off the bench. My senior year, we were. It was five D1 guys in the starting lineup. One of them didn't play in college, but if he had played in college, could have played at Division 1 level. Maybe not in basketball, but in football. Just D1 athletes on that, on that. In that starting lineup. So, you know, as a freshman, I played freshman basketball and as a sophomore, I played jv. And you know, I sort of realized after my sophomore year I was like, wow, we're going to be loaded. Because actually the grade above me was pretty good too. So, you know, that was three great classes. And at that point, I mean, there was just I wasn't going to play and I recognized that. And you know, at the end of the day, basketball is one of those sports where. And actually, if you look at the numbers for other sports like football and baseball, the percentage of guys who go from high school to college is actually, you have a higher percent chance of doing that because there's just more spots. But with basketball, there's five guys who get to play, right? Only five guys on the court at once and maybe, you know, maybe 10 guys who actually get to play on the varsity Team. Right. But probably only six or seven who actually get legitimate minutes consistently. So I had to ask myself, well, I had the opportunity to do that, and it's just like when you're sitting behind, you know, that level of talent, I mean, it's just. It's not going to happen. So ended up. And that's the thing. Actually, this kind of leads into another topic, you know, you know, with the whole Jordan documentary that just came out. I haven't watched it yet, but I'm gonna have to at some point. But I keep seeing a bunch of tweets talking about how, oh, you know, Jordan, he got cut from his varsity team as a sophomore and he went home and, you know, his mom told him to toughen up. And most, most kids these days just transfer schools when it gets hard. And it's like, that's why the transfer portal is a thing. And to me, it's like that. I hate to see that because it's just like, usually people who say that are, are. They're the. Back in my day, people who. It's like, back in my day, you know, I had to walk uphill to school in the snow, barefoot, both way. Like, you know, people like that, typically, it's people who really haven't accomplished much in their life, but they, they, they want to make it seem like back in my day, I was all this. And we were all tough back in the day. But, you know, it's funny because if. If you have grown up and you know you want to, you're now the old head, right? That means you've raised this generation, right? So that isn't this kind of your fault. But, you know, that's. That's just. Again, it's not. No one wants to take responsibility for anything. It's always their fault. So anyway, that's. That's a whole nother. I could have a whole podcast on that. But I ended up, after my sophomore year, transferred to a smaller Catholic school in my area and started there my junior and senior year. So obviously. And again, like, I'm the year after I transferred. So my junior year that I believe that team, the big public school that I played at, won the conference. And then the next year, they lost one regular season game to the eventual. Who. The only game they lost in the regular season was to the state champion, and then they lost. They lost two games. The other game lost was in the state quarterfinals, I think. So, I mean, again, just when you have that level of talent, it was. It was incredible to watch. But so I ended up Going to that Catholic school, start there for two years. And so after all that kind of leading into college. But before my senior year, there was a couple of Division 3 schools that I was looking at. One in particular that I was planning on going to. It was a good program. They actually were in the NCAA tournament this year before it got canceled. And so that was what I was set on doing. And things happen. And like I said, guys, I mean, there's just so many players out there that, you know, you, if you, if. If coaches feel like they can bring us home better than you, then they will. So that's basically how they felt. But they. I still had the opportunity to go and walk on there. So I felt like. And I really was confident that I, I could do that. Like, I felt like I would be able to do that. But a bunch of other things happened with the schools. We were there, financial aid. And the other thing I'll say is when you talk about Division 3 in juco schools, unless you're talking about like, you know, the top level jucos even sometimes still them, but you're going to have to deal with a lot more of the logistical stuff right before you can just get to basketball, basketball wise, it might be a great fit for you, but you have to evaluate is it good with academically, is it good, you know, financially, is it good in terms of where it actually is and do I actually fit in this campus? So that's something that you actually have to really evaluate. And I did that ended up really just not working out for again, a lot of those reasons I just talked about. But anyway, so that was kind of, kind of frustrating because that was the school I was going to go to. And actually I got to the summer and that's when everything fell through, you know, everything. I was expecting some stuff to come into place, didn't happen. End up taking a year off. And that whole year I was training was playing the best basketball that I played. And I was looking at like five or six other schools. So now we're talking probably two D3 schools and two or three D3 schools and then three juco. So I'll go with the D3 ones first. Number one was a school that was about, probably about an hour and a half from where I live. Small branch campus. Would have had a good opportunity to play there, I think. But the issue with them is they had like eight majors and like, it just wasn't like the other thing is like, it was. It was already kind of an investment and I figured like, if I'M gonna actually go to a school and, like, get an education there. Like, I don't want to. I don't want to spend on this on. On a major that I know in interest in at all. And that means you got eight majors to pick from. So it's. It's kind of tough. Campus wasn't anything to write home about either, so decided to not go with them, though I think basketball would have been a good fit. I probably had a chance to play early there. Then there was another school that was a little bit farther away. That was another thing. But I was not as confident in the program they actually had built there. I wasn't sure about, like, do I actually want to be a part of this? So didn't want to go there. Then. The three schools I was really looking at was the JUCO school. So there was one. And where I live too, there's like, not really any. There's no. There's no community colleges near where I live. If there were, I'd probably be playing there now. But the. The first one I looked at was about an hour and a half away. Good basketball situation for me probably again, could. Probably could have played there early. Obviously Mitsujugo two years, so. But I feel like I could have played there as a freshman, but that had a bunch of logistical stuff. And also I didn't love the campus. So also finding a place to live to can be kind of difficult with that. But there was another one that was outside of Philadelphia, about three hours from where I live, and that was a really, really nice campus. And it actually worked out with their housing and everything like that. But that was another one where it's like, do I want to make this. This financial investment, right? Because, you know, I'll be honest, when I was looking at schools, like academics was the last thing I thought about. It was like, basketball. And then I'll try and figure out the academic stuff. But when it comes down to it, and you gotta, like, you gotta spend money on it, right? You gotta really evaluate, what am I getting myself into? Is this worth. Is this worth it? And to me, I just realized to myself, like, it's not. It's not worth it to spend that much on just playing basketball. You really have to evaluate why you're doing it. So ended up not going there. But the last one I looked at was actually probably the best situation for me. It was a school outside of Pittsburgh, and actually I got to go down and play with them in an open gym in the spring and played well. Really. I Think I really, I mean, I really established myself, I think, as a guy who go in there and contribute and, you know, I actually talked to their coach after and he was like, yeah, I think you, like you, I think you'd have a good opportunity to potentially even start here next year. And it was a good, I mean, they're a good team. They actually had a kid who led the country in scoring that year. And really it was because their, their system was run and gun shoot threes. And that, like, that was like, for me, I, I couldn't imagine a better system. That's all I want to do is just shoot threes. So that would have been a good basketball situation for me. But again, it was a logistical thing. Kind of far from where I lived. Find a place to live was kind of tough, so ended up not going there either. So again, I get to the end of, of this would have been last year, at the end of that year, and I realized, like, man, like, that's another. Everything else that I was looking at fell through. And it was just funny because, you know, I felt like, basketball wise, I could compete. But everything else didn't fall into place. So we'll get more into that in a second. But to answer your question, Ian, it's very difficult. And the schools I was looking at weren't even like, top of the line D3, top of the line Jucos. You want to play at a good, like a really good D3, you probably got to be. You're probably the best player on your team. You're probably one of the best players in your conference. You, you probably are an all state player. Honestly, if you want to play at a top D3 school, and then as you, obviously, as you go up to D2, D1, it's the same thing, but on a bigger scale. So, you know, I hear a lot of D3 coaches when I listen to podcasts and stuff, talk about what they do when they recruit. So a lot of these, these really good D3 schools will say, like, okay, well, when we recruit, we're looking for a kid who's a D1 player, but he's missing like one or two things. So he might have, you know, D1 athletic, he might be a point guard. He's got D1 athleticism, D1 ball handling, shooting, but he's only 6 foot instead of 62 or 6 3. So that we recruit him or, you know, we've got this guy who's a, you know, great. You know, he will say, you know, he's, he's an incredible athlete. Six, eight. But it's a little bit undersized to play, to play big in at the D1 level. So he might be just as athletic as all the guys you see on tv, but he's a little too short. So that's the kid we're going to bring in. So you got to understand the level of competition. Again, guys, 5.6%. The level composition at the D3 level is. Is impressive. Very impressive. And you know, for most teams, it's like if the best player on your team will go D3 the best, that. That for most teams, that's the case. Now, obviously there's teams where you're going to have outliers, but that's just how it is. Like I said, the most. The Highest percentage of those, 5.6 play in D3 level. So, yeah, to answer your question, it's very difficult. We're going to. We're going to get into what actually that takes, right? I would say for you and really for anybody who's young and this, this does not apply to you if you're a D1 prospect, right? If you're a high major D1 guy, you're going to have teams, you know, going for you when you're a freshman, sophomore, high school, but that's different. You'll know if you're that player. For the rest of you guys who are looking to play, I would say the number one thing is development. Like, you got to make sure you can actually play at that level, okay? Like, kids are so focused on getting there. Like, oh, what school am I going to go to? But, like, dude, like, you're. You're 14, 15 years old. Like, you're not good enough to even get there yet. You might be one day, but you got to put all of your focus into that. For now, I would say don't even worry about that till, like the spring of your junior year. Then you can start to reach out to the schools. And I'm not saying don't go to camps. You can go to camps as a freshman, sophomore, but don't really worry about it, okay? Focus right now on just being the best you can be developing, getting on that varsity team. That should be your main focus. So going back to that varsity point, like I explained, it depends on your team. And I was actually a bunch of you guys. Ian, you were in the live. But. But for those of you who haven't joined any of my live ball handling workouts, I do that usually twice a week. So I would say turn on my channel my YouTube notifications. So, you know, when I'm going live, you can join a week with like 20 minutes. Good work and. But I want to see more people in there, so. So if you're listening to that, I want you to join that. But anyway, after our last workout, we. Well, it'll be two records ago now that you're hearing this, but we were talking about, you know, how to make the varsity team. And we had a bunch of kids who are like, yeah, you know, I want to be a freshman sophomore next year. Like, I want to make the varsity team. And I was talking about, like, what exactly does that take? You know, there's a couple kids who like, I want to start varsity. It's like, coach, what I need to do to start. Like, first of all, you can't ask me what you have to do to start because I haven't seen you play. I haven't seen the kids ahead of you play. I, I don't know your system. That's something that you have to be able to answer for yourself. But the thing that I will say is for you guys who are guards, which is probably the majority of you, number one. And this is, guys, this is something that I say, like, I feel like I did like a broken record saying this, but you have to be a great shooter. Like, shooting the basketball is the most important skill in basketball because once you're able to do that, that opens up the floor for everything else. So if you can shoot the defenses that play you differently, all of a sudden they have to realize, okay, that guy's on the floor, so we know he can shoot. We have to be closer to him and help opens up driving lanes. They had to close out on you harder. You can get by them because they get. They're out of control. Closing out on you so you can pump fate, get by them a lot easier. It all starts with you being able to shoot the basketball. You want to play the varsity level and you're a guard, you got to shoot, you got to be able to shoot. Number two is you have to be able to, to match the physicality of that. And it's tough for younger guys because, you know, when you're 14, 15 years old, you're playing guys who are 17, 18 years old. They just have some, they have some years on you. So we got to talk about the weight room. Like, how committed are you in the weight room? And obviously right now there's not really any weight rooms open. But doing your at home strength stuff, how committed are you to that? Because That's a huge part of it. If you're not doing that, don't tell me that you want to play varsity as a freshman or sophomore. You're not getting stronger. Because to me, it's like, again, you can tell me what you want, but if I don't see it actually in action, I don't see you actually working towards it and being realistic, then you don't actually want it. It's a dream, right? It's a daydream. There was a quote I just heard actually, about vision. It was really, really good. It was. Man. I'm trying to remember. It was like vision. Oh, man. It was vision without action is a daydream or no, no, act. Yeah. Action without vision. Oh, man. What was it? It was vision without action is a vision with action is a daydream. Yeah. Vision without action is a daydream. But action without vision is a nightmare, right? So if you're just. You're. If you don't. That kind of goes back to our first episode, but essentially, all I'm saying is that if you are. If you have a vision, you want something, but you don't actually do the necessary actions to get it. It's a daydream. It's not. It's not like. It's not real, and it never will be real if you can't actually commit to it. So that's why I'm saying, number two, physicality, guys. If you can't match the physicality, how's the coach gonna play you? Right? How are you gonna be able to handle the basketball? How are you gonna be able to. To, you know, stay healthy if you get pushed around? So recognize that. The third thing I'll say is that you need to know just how to play like you. And what I mean by that is the. You got to be able to play in a system. You got to be able to do all the necessary things that. That coaches want in good team basketball. You got to know when to make the extra pass. You got to know when to attack the basket, when to score, how to score. Like, what are the best situations you can put yourself into? Score. What are your strengths? Like, know them. You. You can't be a guy who. A coach has to teach you, you know, okay, well, after you make this pass, you have to cut because you can't stand still, because then the. The defense doesn't have to move. So that's something that you have to. You have to recognize. And if you aren't able to do that, you're going to have to go through the whole process of learning it. So a lot of you guys can play and you know how to play. You guys have maybe been around good basketball, you know, as young guys. But the. The main two things, shooting, physicality, you got to be able to handle both of those things as a guard and as a big. Really, it's the same exact. It really is the same thing as a big. That maybe you do less ball handling, but it's no different. Be able to shoot, be able to handle physicality. That's how you're going to get to where you want to get to. So, Ian, hopefully that answers your question, but I kind of want to go forward a little bit. I want to stick with this topic because I feel like there's a lot that we can cover on it. Essentially. I actually got another question on YouTube and this is about getting to college from the UK. So I forget who asked this question. I'm sorry. But the question basically was, hey, coach, you know, I play in London and I want to know how I can get to. How I can get to college in the United States from England. And it was. It was. It's a good question because, you know, like I said, it's not easy and it's not easy for American kids to do it. So if you're not from America, just again, multiply that by like 50, okay? That's how hard it's going to be. But I kind of answered this a little bit to him, but I'm going to go more in depth on it. So the first thing is you have to have film on yourself. Like, if you don't have film, then then how's the coach going to know you can play or not? And by film, I mean you should have a 2 to 4 minute highlight video at most. And guys, forget about music and all that. Just get highlights together and keep it simple, okay? It doesn't have to be a freaking overtime mixtape, all right? Which we're gonna get into that in a minute because actually I got a question that has something to do with that actually might have been the same question. But also you want to have full games, so get like 2, 3, 4, if you can, full games of yourself playing so coaches can actually see you play. So they're not saying, okay, he just picked out like his highlights, right? I want to see what he can actually do on the court. How does he react when bad things happen? You know, what role does he play for his team? All that stuff you got like that. That's again, if you can I would say do that. And especially I would say if you're an international player, you probably have to do that because coach probably aren't going to be flying out to England to see you play. So that's, that's the thing. The other thing is once you get like sufficient interest, that's when I would say, like, maybe there's a camp you go to, maybe you, you, you fly out to a camp at a school in America when you actually have good interest in them. But again, I'm going to go back to this. Make sure you're good enough to play. Like, make sure that there's not a question about are you actually a college level player. So develop yourself, you know, that's the number one thing. Okay? Forget about trying to get to college. Focus on, on being worthy of getting to that level. Okay? So that's a big thing. That same question, actually he had asked me, oh, you know, should I send my highlights or my game film to Slam or overtime? And you know, I, I hope, I hope that this isn't like a common thought because it's, I'm gonna go into a little bit of why I, I don't like those, those channels. Slam. I actually do like Slam. Okay, Slam for the most part is good, but, but you know, companies like overtime and ball is life to it to an extent, I'm not a fan of them because I feel like today's, today's age is just too much. We're like, it's too much with the highlights. To me, it's like anybody can post highlights. It doesn't mean that you're good. Now, I'm not trying to dog anybody who post highlights themselves. That's cool and everything, I get it. But at the same time, it's like the thing with overtime and Slam in balls live is that they make it cool to look cool. The guys, the main thing, if you want to play in college, like, you got to stop trying to look cool. You got to be willing to take charges, you got to be willing to play good defense, stuff that doesn't get put on mixtapes, like, forget about mixtapes, forget about, again, they're cool. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with mixtapes, but I'm saying focusing on them and being like, oh, I want to have a mixtape. I want Slam to come see me. That doesn't matter, guys. What matters is are you a player that a coach wants to have on his team and kind of going along with that when you're making your highlight video? Because I Recommend you do have a highlight video. I'm just. I just am saying you don't need to have a mixtape, but when you do have your highlights, the one thing I'm gonna say, guys, is you want to give a good impression of yourself, okay? So don't be a person who's. Who's putting a bunch of, you know, you're putting, you know, Lil baby and you're putting, you know, whatever. Like, you're putting all these rap. These rap songs in your. In your mixtapes. If you're gonna do that, use the clean version of it, all right? Like, give yourself that good first impression with that coach. And again, that might not seem like a big deal to you. Like, who cares? Like, everyone listens to it. I understand that. But you give yourself a certain impression, okay? Coaches might not want to listen to that. And like I said, there's so much competition out there. Why would you put yourself in that position? The coach doesn't know you, okay? The other thing that goes along with that is you gotta check your social media. Are you a person who has a bunch of questionable things on your social media? If a coach would look at that, if a coach would look at that, Make a split decision about who you are, Is it going to be good, a good decision or a bad one? You got to ask this to yourself because again, coaches don't want players who are going to be headaches for them. That's my other issue with. With these. With these mixtape channels is that, you know, I'm going to. There's a specific kid I'm thinking of who I believe is a senior this year. And, you know, I'm not gonna say his name, but he is frequently on these channels, and frequently his highlights are. Are showing to me. And I. I saw a video earlier this year of him, like, fighting the entire student section of a school after they lost by like, 50. And I'm like, why would you post that? Like, I think it was. I think it was overtime. I posted it. But. But I'm like, now a college coach is going to look up this kid. He's going to Google this kid's name. And that's the first thing that's going to come up. He's going to see this kid fighting an entire student section. So he's going to say, oh, no, thank you. Don't want this kid. Like, to me, it's like, these guys are hurting players. They're actually hurting players chances of playing at the college level. And I don't think this kid has any D1 offers. So goes to show you, these channels are not always a good thing. And if there's one thing I can say to you, it's stop trying to look cool, play great defense, take charges, be a good teammate. Okay? These are. These are not things that anybody glorifies anymore, but they're super important. If you want to be a winner, you want to be in a winning team. Coaches recruit guys who are winners, okay? And if you. If you aren't a winning player, if you have a bad attitude, if all you care about is your highlights and posting pictures for Instagram, like, you're not going to succeed down the line, even if you make it to the college level, by the time you get there, you actually have to work. And. And it's not just all, you know, all getting to post pics with your boys with your jerseys on. It's like, oh, I actually have to work at this. I actually have to be a good teammate if I want to get in the court. You're just. You're going to quit, you're going to flame out. And that's essentially how it is. So that's kind of one of my things with those channels. But end of the day, get yourself a highlight video, do all that stuff. But again, it all goes back to your development. That's the number one thing that I would say to you. So the question now is, is what do you do with this information? Right? Because I think there's. There's two different types of players here. There's one sort of player who might be like, oh, man, 5%. Really? Like, I don't know about this. I don't know if I'm gonna be like, maybe I'll just do something else. And I. I hope that's not you. And here's the thing. If you. If basketball's not for you, that's fine. Like, I'm not saying you have to play basketball. If you don't want to, then don't do it. But to me, I hope that more of you take this as more of a challenge. Now all of a sudden, you have to say, okay, this is what I want to do. But am I actually doing the necessary things to get it? Do I have top 5% work ethic? Right. Do my actions match my vision? Okay. Or is it a daydream? Or is it a daydream? So ask that to yourself right now. And I hope that most of you guys are in that second category. The other thing going along with that is that the thing is, a lot of players are. Are Scared of. And, and the reason that a lot of players will hear this and they'll say, like, I don't know about this is because players are, and people in general, this is not just basketball players. But, and I see it as a coach first, and I see it all the time, players are scared of putting 100% effort into something because there's a possibility of it failing. And then all of a sudden, what do you have, right? If you put 100% to basketball and you don't succeed, you don't get to the level you want to get to, you don't win, right? Then it's like, man, like, I put everything into this and now I have nothing because I don't have any of that time that ever the energy that I put in. But also I don't have the result that I wanted. So why even do that? Why even risk it, okay, If I know that 95% of people won't achieve, first of all, it's not. You have to look at it like this, too. Not all those 95% who don't make it, not all of them want to play, okay? Some of them don't want to play. Some play other sports, so understand that. But still a lot of them don't play. Again, 95%, that's still the number, okay? 95% of those people don't make it. So how, like, how do I react to that? And to me, it's like, if that makes you want to quit because you feel like the numbers aren't with you, they're not. They're not with you. But if you feel like that makes you want to quit, that's just, to me, is a terrible way to live. And even if it's. Again, I'm not saying you're a quitter because you don't play basketball, but I'm saying if you quit because of that, that's going to show itself in a bunch of areas of life. Anytime it gets tough, that's going to be your thing. It's like, oh man, I might not make it, so guess I won't even try. That's just a terrible way to live. And I want to illustrate that for you guys because for me personally, since I was 12 years old, all I wanted to do is play college basketball. That's all I wanted to do. And obviously I can tell you about what my experience was, why I'm not playing college basketball, why this happened and that happened. And I can give you legitimate reasons as to why it didn't happen. And at the end of the day, though, I didn't. I didn't get it done. Like, I didn't accomplish what I wanted to accomplish, right? I put. I put eight years every day into one thing, and I didn't get it. So do I view that. Do I view myself or that as a failure? Well, I don't at all. Because that. The thing with sports, and this is the thing, I feel like people who don't play sports really miss out on this. Now. There's other ways you sort of get this, but you don't really get it like sports does, where you learn so many things from it. And honestly, the things that I learned there, what I spent the last eight years, the last eight years of my life doing, that's what I'm teaching to you now. So if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't be here right now and be sitting here talking to you. I, like, I wouldn't have any of the knowledge that I have. I wouldn't have any of the skills that I have to actually teach to players. And so my entire life would be different. And that. That's something that you learn. I learned how to work. I learned how to take losses and rebound from them. I learned how to take losses and grow from them. That's something that you learn in basketball. So even if you put all of your time, all of your effort into achieving that goal and you don't get it, you're not. You're not a failure. You know, there's a Kobe Bryant clip that I posted on my YouTube channel, actually. I'll link the video above, too. And it was about. It was basically. It was like a tribute to Kobe that I made when he died. Rest in peace. And essentially it was an interview that he did about failure. He was asked. He said, you know, he's asked, you know, Kobe, like, why are you so. Like, why do you not have any fear of failure? He was like, well, first of all, what is failure? Like failure. It doesn't exist because let's say that I do something on Monday and I fail at it, right? I don't get it done. I lose. But then I come back on Tuesday, I do the same exact thing, and I succeed. This time, I win. Am I a failure? Well, obviously not, because I succeeded in the end. So the only way that you can actually fail is if you do something, you lose, and then you just quit. That's what. That's what he was saying with that. He also was asked, you know, Kobe, if you had gone through your entire career and you didn't win one championship, would you view your career as a failure? He was like, well, no, I would look at it as very disappointing because obviously that was my ultimate goal. But I would have to look at what exactly went wrong. So was it because I wasn't a great teammate, I didn't put my teammates in position to win? Was it because I didn't have the necessary preparation or dedication that I needed to have to win? I would need to recognize that and then see what I can do differently. Because now when I move on to my career after basketball, you know, where he's writing his book and his production company, he's like, I have to recognize what are those patterns that caused me to fail and how can I change them so that going forward I. I don't fail so that I succeed in my new. The new venture I'm going on. And that's exactly what it is with basketball. For me, personally, I don't look at me not accomplishing my main goal. I don't look at that as a failure. I look at it as, what did I learn from that entire experience? And what can I do so that the next experience I have, I get a different result, you know, and what can I take from that? That's actually going to propel me forward, that's going to help me propel other people forward. And I think that's really more so what I'm. What I'm in it for right now. I'm able to take what I know and help propel other people forward so that they don't have to stumble on the same things I had to. They don't have to face the same things I had to. They have someone who they can ask questions to, and I have that. That sort of experience to help them. So it's all about how you look at it. But I'm telling you that putting your everything into basketball is not. It's not a risk, in my opinion, because even if you don't succeed, you gain so much from it. You have to learn so many skills that are going to translate into other areas of your life. Right? Basketball is great because you have the competition and you have to put in the work and you have to be able to strategize and you have to understand what you did wrong and how you can correct it. Those are essential life skills for any area. If you want to be successful in any area of life, the skills you learn in basketball translate to that. That's why you see guys who play, will play Division 1 basketball will play in the NBA and they'll retire and there will be super high achieving people who are going to go on to be CEOs of companies and they're going to do all these incredible things because they have, they learn those same sort of skills. The dedication that it takes, the work that it takes, the attention to detail that it takes to be great at something. And, and a lot of people who don't have that athletic experience don't have those same skills. So for me, and what I would say to you is that you have nothing to lose. But that being said, it all goes back to the work. Everything goes back to the work. Guys, what does the work that you put in look like? Okay, Are you going to say that you have a goal, but you don't actually work like you have it? That's something that I see all the time. Players say, coach, I want to play in college. Coach, I want to do this. You know, I had another player who asked me, coach, I live in the uk, I want to play in the NBA. To me, it's like, man, like, first of all, you want to talk about numbers now. Go from 300, go from 30,000 to 450, 450 spots in the NBA. So do that math. I believe it's 0.3% of college players, might even be 0.3% of Division 1 players play in the NBA. So you want to, if that's your goal, you better adjust the way you work at it. Okay? That's what it all comes down to is what exactly does the work you put in look like? And to me, the best part about basketball isn't the wins. It's not the. It's not being able to score points. It's not, it's not the fun of it. Obviously, I love all those things, but to me, the best part is what it actually translates to in the real world, which is a lot. Okay? And that's why people will get people be like, oh, it's just sports. You know, you see it all the time. Like, people are getting so mad. It's just sports. But sports is really a path to becoming better at everything. Okay? And that's how I view it. I want to go through a couple other questions too. Like I said, guys, drop your questions below. I'm looking to answer them. So this comes from Maddox and he says, channel straight fire. I have a quick question. I'm going to ninth grade next year and I'm trying to work on my game. I'm already a good shooter and I'm Already an okay playmaker. I'm also good at defending on the perimeter. What do you think my next steps, what do you think are my next steps moving forward? So kind of got into this a little bit, but, you know, I'll give you kind of an exact answer, but first of all, you said that he's a good shooter. And what I would say is become a great shooter, first of all. So, so until you're, I mean, there's really no end, there's really no finish line when it comes to being a shooter. Like, you can always. Steph Curry is the best shooter in the history of basketball and he shoots less than 50% from 3. So I'm sure Steph Curry is still working on his three point shot every day until he's at 100%. That's got to be your, your, your look too. So you got to be a great shooter. And that means, that means you got to be off of screens, off of driving, kick off the dribble, off the flow, off of ball screens. Be able to shoot from any angle, you know, in any situation. Okay, be a great shooter. Because great guys, great shooters are so valuable in basketball. They're so valuable. And the thing with great shooting is that it's all about the work you put into it. Like, you can be a great shooter. It doesn't, it doesn't matter how big you are, doesn't matter how fast you are, how tall. Like, it doesn't matter that about any of that. It matters what work you're willing to put in. And you check out my YouTube channel. I have a ton of stuff on shooting. Actually just dropped a video on fixing your form. And I talk about how right now, because it's the quarantine and we can't go anywhere. And, and actually the number one thing is that there's no basketball games right now, so there's no pressure to perform in games. Right now is the time to fix your shooting form if it's not where it needs to be. So check out that video, guys. And, and again, like, be willing to put in the work. So good shooter, become a great shoot. If you're a guard and you said, okay, playmaker, you got to be at least a good playmaker. Like, like, and I guess my playmaker, you mean ball handler. Like, if you're a guard, really, I mean, if you're a guard or a wing, you got to handle the ball and you got to be good at it, at least good at it. If you're. The smaller you are, the better you have to be at it, in my opinion. So, so that's got to get better too. And then good at defending the perimeter like that. That's the other thing. I mean, if you can, if you can, if you can handle the ball well, you can, you can shoot lights out and you're a good perimeter defender. Like, you're, you're going to find a lot of playing time on, on your varsity team. So that. Those are three things. I mean, you kind of already have mentioned them. Become great at all three of those things. Okay. If you can do that again. It's. The thing with basketball is it's very simple. Like people want to focus on all these other things. Like, you know, coach, I need to get this move, this counter move. Do we need to work on my, my step back, between the legs, behind the back spin move? Like, like that's cool. But are you a great shooter? Are you a great ball handler? And can you play great defense? If you can do those three things, you're a great player. Okay, that's, that's just by, by default you are. So focus on those things. And so then, last question I'm answering today comes from Alvin. And he said, hey, coach, is an amazing video and I've been watching your videos to get me better. But I have a quick question. If I start a YouTube channel for basketball, what should I post so I can get noticed? So we kind of talked about this a little bit, but I just want to reiterate. You want to have between two to four minutes of a highlight video. And these highlights should be like, again, it doesn't need to be like, oh, you crossing people over, doing a million dribbles, make it skills that actually translate to the college level. So can you shoot right? If you can show them that, can you get to the basket, finish that. Are you good at running in transition? Do you play great defense? Like, if, you know, maybe that's something you put in there too. What I don't want you to do, I don't want you to make like a ridiculously long highlight tape. Because like coaches, I mean, they got stuff to do. They're not going to sit there and watch a whole 12 minute highlight tape unless you're a really incredible player that they've never seen before, but chances are you aren't. So just give them something, your best stuff in the first two to four minutes and then see where it goes from there. Also, like I said, if you have full games, I would recommend uploading that too. And then, you know, maybe you send an email to the coach saying, you know, hey coach, I, this is, this is, my name is blank. I'm this tall, I shoot this many points per game. To shoot this from three point land, like whatever. And then maybe send links to your highlights and your game film and all that stuff. But that's all I have to say with that. Hopefully this was a very helpful podcast in terms of getting to the next level, what it actually means to get to the college level. And if you guys have questions on this, of course, ask me them. If I missed anything, I'll try and answer that for you. And like I've already said, if you have other questions, drop them down below. There's a couple other questions that I got that I didn't answer this week but I'm going to get to. So if I didn't answer your question to, chances are I'll get to it next week, so don't worry about it. But if you haven't asked one yet, like I said, drop a comment, Instagram, DMs, Facebook, whatever it is, I really appreciate you guys tuning in. Whether you're on YouTube or podcast, Spotify, whatever it is, I appreciate it. Like I said, if you're listening on YouTube, you could go to podcasts or Spotify, leave a review, subscribe. I really would appreciate it guys going forward and I will talk to you guys next week. Peace.