Head coach of the Marquette Golden Eagles Men’s Basketball team, Shaka Smart, sits down with Thanasis Antetokounmpo for a conversation about hoops, history and life. Smart offers insight into the life of an NCAA coach, discusses ‘name, image and likeness’ as well as the future of the program.
Timestamps:
0:00 – The Best of Four Quarters, presented by Carbliss
4:00 – Marquette Men’s Basketball Head Coach Shaka Smart
12:00 – Sports are simple, people are complicated
20:00 – Big fan of the NBA
29:00 – Name, Image and Likeness
38:00 – Lessons for players
45:00 – Time flies as a head coach
50:00 – Wesley Matthews watches film with MU
58:00 – Origin of the name ‘Shaka Dingani Smart’
Don’t miss any of the show, follow on Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thanalysisshow
Follow Thanalysis on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thanalysisshow/
Shop for the latest AntetokounBros Merch: https://antetokounbros.com/en/
Subscribe to Thanalysis across all platforms: https://linktr.ee/thanalysisshow
[Applause] all right if someone is traveling to Greece what’s a Hidden Gem that they definitely need to visit okay uh if someone is traveling to Greece what’s the Hidden Gem like a yeah the location place to visit first I think uh I think the place I went has been a lot like zakinthos or you guys could we can call it Zante zakinthos they have like uh great beaches like it’s it’s amazing scenery it’s and it’s cheap like I want you guys to understand you don’t have to pay a lot of money it’s Greece and usually if you getting pay if you if it’s Greece and you go out there and you’re paying a lot of money they’re probably robbing you I want to be honest I don’t want to like even mess around but it’s Greece it’s it’s it’s homie it’s uh so welcoming so I think Zante M like Zante zakos and you would see you could see like the wrecked ship there and it’s like a lot of sightseeing they you love [Music] it go back in time you can train with one retired NBA player who would is he go back in time and I can only chain with one retired NBA player I mean obviously the first the first answer obviously is uh Kobe obviously the this guy was Immaculate like just the the way he thing and and everything but I got I got to give a different answer I would say uh Pat Mar it’s uh pistol beat you know just dribbling and on back and legs and everything just no because if you think about it like just just dribbling like drib like if you can learn how to dribble it’s actually like your like your way around the court is like your passport all around the everywhere you are you know you get to if I want to get there it doesn’t matter if you can play defense if I can dribble I can I’m going to get there now I got to make something happen but if you can learn how to dribble it is a big [Music] asset fourth quarter number three oddly it’s connected to carbless who’s a sponsor here four quarters because they’re a big partner of the Milwaukee Brewers what’s the deal with the first pitch man they tweeted at you about a month ago do we have it on the schedule what’s up I I don’t know uh the they did tweet tweet but I got to work I can’t just go out there and just throw it like I got practice little practice we got to get the date scheduled I’ll get a picture here and we oh yeah we we’ll get someone from the Brewers here to practice a little warm-up session I’ll do it I I’ll do it I’ll do it like I I’ll give you a whole shake off the catcher everything every I’m like I hold like I can act the part I don’t know if I can do it that I can’t like hey as throw curveball something like that but I can act AP part was it at the Mets game 50 Cent threw it basically all the way to the left like he just completely missed I’ll show you that clip but um I just wanted to go like straight ahead so you’re athletic you you’ll pull it off we obviously do this and in beautiful camera setup every week movies the soap operas like Stephen A what’s next for you man no soap poppers I don’t know about soap could you act you think you I I bet you could do it if they let me act with an accent yeah I would but I don’t I’m I mean I do I do good good in commercials there really because I’ve done so many like you probably haven’t seen them a lot but like I’ve done a lot I got I got your Instagram page I of commercials in Greece and a lot of like in the past as well with my brother I mean I have a nice smile so I really do good in commercials and stuff like that and you’re humble obviously about your nice smile yeah uh no but I know I’m I’m being real that’s why they they they pick me in commercials but the other thing is I’ve never done something with I mean done something with lines stuff like that but I usually record them after so I’ll do the commercial and then if it’s a it’s a script I’ll record them record them so but I don’t know about holwood no I if you had to be in a type of movie comedy action little romcom what kind of what kind of movie could you be in uh I want to say action has to be something with comedy action okay like a little bit of seriousness but a little bit of like it’s like you like you know the Kevin Hart and The Rock combo we just got to add you to that it’s perfect comedy action yeah that could be like just Academy or something just walk in and like oh we don’t do this year brother like you already got the lines down who do we got to talk to to make this happen I don’t know it’s a lot of uh who do we have talk to that makes happen we get the big voice guy in the movie trailer doing like the end story and star I don’t know but we’ll figure it out Post in 10 years a couple more championships later we making it happy I hope I hope a couple more Championship later that’s all I got say in the four quarters see you guys get ready for our next interview [Music] to hey welcome to another episode of analysis show man your one and only host me f s the Kumo today we have a special guest before before we go to the special guest I know you guys are Waring about my haircut we’ll talk about this in another episode you know it’s go time but today I have somebody special who’s going to teach us about so many layers of basketball and he he’s so special for the City of Milwaukee he’s so special for the city for the state Wisconsin so I I’m so happy to have him because it’s the first time I’m having a oh it’s actually is it say first time having a head coach from a college team so with further Ado from marade University we’re in number 32 your head coach Saka SM Applause thank you that was a heck of an introduction thank you I don’t know if uh I like your energy you would fit in with us because we’re big on energy generating behaviors yeah and that’s right up your alley thank you thank you I you know what’s so crazy I was thinking about the play the the defense you guys have like the havoc and how and I wanted to learn about the philosophy because I was like Dam I I would be I think I would be like great at it I would be like because I you know I buy into it I buy into the philosophy of a defense I buy into how to how to stop the other team from scoring but at the same time like how to because that creates culture as well so could you could you tell me a little bit about that coach well I’ve coached three different schools and the defensive philosophy has evolved over the years but one thing that has not changed is we want guys with Incredible energy yes and we want guys that have a passion for disrupting and bothering the other team yes and you would be perfect with that uh we played against Andre Jackson at Yukon yeah and he is another one perfect for that kind of Defense uh energy tenacity a little bit of nastiness yeah you need that and just a level of passion for wanting to play defense you know I always explain to guys hey did you have that guy on your high school team that hustled and Dove on the floor and did all those things and everyone says oh yeah yeah that was Johnny or that was that was Jimmy or that was this guy and I always say well why is that why do you think he was like that and they think about it and then they’ll say well well cuz he couldn’t really shoot or he couldn’t score or that was the only way for him to get on the floor yes and then I say well what if we were all like that then we would really have something and so that’s what we strive for we’re not perfect but that’s what we go after no no 100% coach I think like that sets the tones that Chang the the culture of the team and he builds like when I say culture the TV you know culture is not the it’s not the the the the the the wins or losses there you know people sometimes like oh winning culture losing culture etc etc no it’s the people yes it’s how many weak characters you have in your team how many special characters you have in your team who who and then you have the people who are neutral they just get influenced yes you know so this is what I want to talk like when you when you make a team how do you what do you what’s your top criteria what’s your like how do you devise a team how do you go with with your roster I’m so glad you asked uh so for us culture is three things how we act yes interact and respond and so it’s not necessarily words on the wall or any philosophies it’s how we act for example are we late or are we on time how we interact yes for example do we look each other in the eye do we smile do we give each other energy or do we not and how we respond as you know is such a huge thing in competitive Sports because you’re going to get hit in the mouth a lot and you’re going to have success as well and so your response to adversity and prosperity says a lot about who you are so that’s culture for us and as you just mentioned the number one way that culture is built is by who you add and subtract from your organization yes you know you could say we’re about this culture we’re about that culture but if you add the wrong people or if you subtract the wrong people um then you know you’re not going to be exactly where you need to be so uh for us we value three things relationships we don’t want anyone in our program that doesn’t value relationships we want guys that truly care about one another in the game of basketball but even beyond the game of basketball and that’s coaches players support staff everyone number two we value growth we get these guys during a very formative time of their life they’re between 18 and 22 years old yes and so that’s a time where if you’re not growing there a problem we need to make sure that we are aggressively pushing you to grow and improve and even those of us on the coaching staff that are much older we need to grow we can’t stand Pat where we are we need to get better every day and our third core value very simple Victory we’re here to win we’re in a competitive setting we have the Good Fortune of playing at one of the best conferences in all of college basketball at the highest level of college basketball so absolutely we want people that value Victory and most importantly value all the things that go into winning CU as you know playing basketball every player every coach says he wants to win yeah it’s more about who’s willing to go that extra mile or do that extra preparation or have the right mindset even when adversity hits that affects winning yes yes one of those things too as well coach and I don’t know I think it should be the same in basketball as basketball you know college Euro league NBA I think it’s to like it’s not about only the the winning side of it because the thing is people say I want to win but everybody wants to win different they want to win their way it doesn’t happen like that you know it’s is it that we got to buy in and doesn’t mean we win today we buy in we get better and we win to you know wi in a little bit we start winning and we start building where we where we need to be uh so from my understanding where you said it to coach is that you know you can’t you really can’t control the outcome you as a leader of your Co your team the way I the way you explain to me now as leader you can control the outcome but what you can control is your environment you know how people speak to each other how people interact yes you know and over time yeah the environment affects the outcome yes like you said not every time because things happen injuries happen uh the other team we once lost an NCA Tournament game earlier in my career the other team banked in a shot from 55 ft you know things happen like that but the environment is something under your control it is and the way that you try to affect each other in the environment because I really believe it’s not so much about addition it’s about multiplication so it’s not me plus you yes it’s you times me yes and how much are you making me better how much am I making you better and then the same for the other 40 people in the organization that’s powerful how do you manage to do all these things like how do you say okay you know like if if if one of your players are going roll if one of your coaches are going people don’t talk about that a lot of coaches you know sometimes they just won’t buy in you know well there people too yeah and people or you know outside of how do you a coaching mentor of mine has a great saying he says sports are simple people are complicated so absolutely the coaches are people too and they can be complicated as well how we handle that is the same way you would eat an elephant one bite at a time so you got to eat that elephant that’s a that’s a big Endeavor in front of you but all you can do is take one bite at a time and so we try to keep the main thing the main thing in terms of focusing on relationships first um the growth and development of our guys as people first because if you’re not in the right place as a person doesn’t matter how much you work on your jump shot or your ball handling yeah or your free throws you have to be in the right place in your mind and in your heart and in your soul and so that’s where we start no I you know I talking about the draft combine with some of the guys was recently you know before the draft and you know I went to draft combat and I remember back then it was only 60 people so it was 60 of the guys who probably might get drafted and always in Chicago and I went there and I knew about the like the jumping and Running part and the plane I was like I’m going to crush it like jumping running like P and and physically like I was like no I’m going to crush it but then there was another part that was the interviews yes you know and like you I would go to a room and I remember I was getting interviewed by uh for the Knicks and it was like 10 people in the room Mr Phil and everybody from the Knicks organization and then the Lakers actually came to the kind of mess in with the Nicks at the time and they were ask me all these question but the questions were very like not what you expect not about your jumper not about like how how many times you work out at day what do you lift no it was more like hey if this happened what would you do somebody in the team had something would you tell the team uh if this like just stuff like this and I was like man you know and me I’m not from you so I I was like you know I’m just going to be me I don’t know what what the right answer is you know because there is no answer it’s more they trying to figure out who you are as a person how about this so two of our guys just were at the combine in Chicago earlier this spring and wait Tyler and Tyler and oo those are our two seniors going to be drafted in the draft sir good luck good luck folks hopefully I won’t say the team but when one of them walked into the room to do the interview they said okay we’re going to play the game cornhole you know where you throw the bean bags and you try to get it in like a hole and yeah what does that have to do with anything well that was their kind of Icebreaker and a way to see how someone was I guess in a competitive setting of a silly game and they had the records up on the wall and like a whiteboard so all of a sudden our guy got competitive he said well I want to win and he did so hopefully that impressed the team that’s the thing about the character and the and the and the bet because it’s a bet right it’s a it’s a bet I’m going to bet on you so if I’m bet on you I need to know everything for sure I’m going bet on your success if I’m going to invest in you I the investment like I gotta do my due diligence as any other kind of well the higher the pick the more due diligence they do um I’ve coached some guys over the years that have been you know High picks in the lottery and with those guys I mean they send almost like a private investigator in to campus and they interview the strength coach and the athletic trainer and the academic advisor and maybe the facilities guy and everyone because they want to know like you said they’re not asking about the jump shot or anything on the court they’ve seen all that stuff they want to know what’s inside yeah as we say cut them open they want to know what’s in there when you cut someone open yeah and that’s again the higher the pick the larger the investment yeah how many okay obviously you don’t have to say but like how many calls have you got like this how many calls you like when you get to the draft we get countless calls um it it ends up being very very time consuming because they’ll call me they’ll call the rest of the staff and if you added up the number of hours that we’ve spent talking to teams it’s it’s quite a bit but we enjoy doing it because we love our guys and you know it’s fun to talk about them and you know like like you said we’re betting on them we think they’re going to be really successful do you do you ever see yourself as a coach and obviously this is silliest thing to say but do you always feel yourself as a coach to have preference like you always say like because you know what’s so crazy I every single sentence you said is always we we and we and we and we which that’s the way I am and and I love that because it’s all about the team and all about us together as a as a unit but you obious see yourself having like towards gravitating towards like not just players but like people who oh for sure yeah I mean it’s like anything else in life you gravitate towards certain people yes there’s an energy that might attract that someone has or there’s an energy that might repel that someone has uh for us you know we’re fortunate we have these guys that are incredibly bought in incredibly um selfless with the way that they interact with each other they care about each other so much but there are always guys that just it’s just fun to be around you know I like being around all of our guys but every once in a while there’s one or two that come along where it’s like man that guy’s special that’s it’s just like do like the NBA like some guys is is different do you now I know we mentioned the NBA so many times like you are you gonna coach in the NBA or you’re strictly a college guy I love coaching in college uh I think in college you probably have a bigger impact on the person in terms of like I said those formative years 18 to 22 years old um college is you know it’s a very very high competitive level but it’s not certainly to the level of the NBA where everything is about winning and everything really there’s that pretty much something not a lot of room for I’m not saying there’s not relationships in the NBA cuz I’m I’m sure are 100% they are I’m sure that there’s the nature of the business I’m sure there’s NBA coaches that um have in a positive way changed the lives of the guys they’ve coached through the things that they’ve instilled but I would say overall college is probably a better place if that’s your bottom line like if if your bottom line is to affect these guys in ways that you know hopefully they look back on when they’re old and gray and they say man that guy really helped me um like my college coach did for me then I think college is probably the place to be College probably place to be he I now that being said I love following the NBA I love wa I love watching the Bucks thank you thank you you know my daughter Zora is 12 and one of my favorite things and we only get to do it maybe two three times a year is just taking her to a Bucks game and then just seeing her observe everything and take everything in and ask questions and watching you guys do your thing um so yeah I’m a big fan of the NBA what’s the difference you see between the NBA as a player I I I can sometime I see the difference a lot but like as a as as a coach what what you see well number one when we go watch high school games and we are recruiting to try to figure out who’s going to be on our team in the future sometimes it strikes me these high school games they bear very little resemblance to a big East game that’s the conference we’re in the Big East I feel the same way about college and the NBA our games bear very little resemblance to an NBA game especially a playoff NBA game to me there’s the NBA regular season and then there’s the NBA Playoffs big difference as you know better than I um but I I would say one of the things I love about the NBA particularly in the playoffs is when guys um just completely lose themselves in competing and going after winning it is it’s just so much fun to see an Elite level player and team do that against another Elite level player and team yes and College we have that for the college level but in college just because of the nature of things um there’s no there’s no Giannis you know there there’s no there’s no there’s no joker you know there so the best we have is still it’s very very good but it’s you know our guys I mentioned Tyler and Oso our two seniors those guys are you know were among the better players in all of college basketball well when they start their NBA careers they’re going to be starting from the bottom and they’re going to have to work their way all the way up to to wherever they get to that is so true you know what’s so crazy so I was watching I think M BNC State not you guys game but m b State maybe the next round and I you I was watching this kid was it DJ what’s his name DJ Burns DJ Burns big kid yeah yeah just left him very skilled and you know uh very into it like great feel for basketball great feel so I’m watching him play and I see it like I see the move I see the bump and the bump in the NBA we know that like bump twice bump twice it’s it’s it’s 80% the second bum after the second bum it’s a move either spr move to the baseline or this move to like we know this it’s a fact yes but then I saw him score the same way like two three times and I’m like how does he not well this is a big difference between the NBA and college yeah the guy guarding DJ Burns in that game especially if you were watching the Duke game cuz they played Duke I was watching the Duke game after they played us here’s what you need to understand that kid guarding him has probably played 40 some college games all right in those college games he’s dealt with a DJ Burns type player maybe once or twice let’s just say at maximum a half a dozen times this is the big difference between college and the NBA in the NBA how many times has Chris Paul used a pick and roll oh my God I mean we’re talking about literally tens of thousands of times so there’s no coach telling Chris Paul hey when you come off the pick and roll look for the no no no he’s got like a PhD yes compared to a coach maybe having like a college degree in college you know we’re dealing with guys that they just don’t know yet yes and like you said you can watch on TV and you’ve seen it and you want to grab that kid and say hey man he’s going to spin he’s going to it’s going to spin but that’s also one of the fun things about coaching in college yeah I can see it it’s just and the ab has this thing about like you know if you’re a good player your good players nothing they going to do about it but they have this certain thing of like fig figuring people out like yes you take one year two years they like they have this thing of like try to throw different things at you and and the and the other thing is because it’s professional NBA like they can they can actually make the roster to beat you they can actually literally say like hey we need four bigs when nuggets were eliminated by the Wolves the coach of the Nuggets said this team was put together to beat us yeah specifically no two teams to us and because if if you think about it because no I just the reason I say this and obviously I know we didn’t get the way we wanted to be but like they they the way they had it was it was three bigs and the only the only team in the NBA has three bigs from which we consider we want to be considered the best front line in the NBA is the Bucks like Yannis Brook and Bobby yes so and if you notice how how Reed plays and Bobby play and if you notice how you know say K and and Rudy and Yiannis and and you know that’s a good point yeah so well one of the things I love about following the NBA so I’m a history major when I was in couch there’s this concept in history called Runaway social intelligence and basically what it means is way back in the day way back when people first started to come together in groups yes there’ be a group over here and a group over here and this group over here would figure something out yeah and so they had an advantage over this group over here so then this group over here all of a sudden had to figure out how they were going to do that better whether it was hunting and Gathering or Warfare or whatever it was so then this group figured out how to be better than this group and then all of a sudden the pressure was on this group and it just that’s how over time people have gotten more and more intelligent and better and better at the things that go into winning in life whatever that may be well that’s the NBA too so NBA team a has this this and this this team can’t stop it can’t deal with it so now they’ve got to change and figure out how do we get better whether it’s through roster changes whether it’s through different ways to play defense to play offense now all of a sudden they have an advantage now this first team in the first place has to figure it out and that’s what’s so much fun that’s very so much so much fun I uh and they did they did their job you know the like I’m so happy with those guys because they AP they’re young and they’re fun and Anthony’s great guy and cat is a great guy and Rudy and all these guys like but they you know the team took a bet they they they literally traded everybody for Rudy they took a bed it was like this is what we’re going to do and this is how he going to look for the next two three years and and working out so far you know but uh okay we talked a we talked a little bit about recruiting right like is it harder now with the nio situation is it is it easier for you or like what’s so it’s it’s certainly take Marquette out for a second um recruiting has certainly changed um in some ways it’s it’s become more complicated I would say it’s more important than ever to figure out what a recruit and his family truly values and whether those values match up with our program’s values and this applies to anyone that’s recruiting um because if there’s a mismatch it’s not going to work and then what’s the result of that transfer portal which you’ve heard all about and I think there was close to 2,000 guys that went into the transfer portal this spring in all of division one basketball we were fortunate 2000 we were fortunate knock on wood we were one of the very very few programs where nobody went in the transfer portal and so part of that is a result of trying to recruit and bringing guys that their values and their fam’s values what they want what they care about aligns with ours um certainly recruiting has changed with nil um particularly transfer recruiting but even it’s made its way to high school recruiting for us and this is going to sound really oldfashioned and maybe even a little out of date but I still I don’t want anyone to choose to come to Marquette because of nil um it’s certainly a factor our guys do pretty well in nil that’s good that’s good though but I don’t want them to choose to come here for that because I feel like if that’s your bottom line and picking a place uh it’s almost like getting married and having a prenup yeah it’s like well why are we signing this prenup yeah I thought we were married forever yeah um different but that kind of concept where on the front end money is you know the bottom line and I still think again I’m oldfashioned relationships can’t put a price on them can’t growth your growth think about you think about your think about your your family success in basketball think about you and each of your brothers the growth that you guys made between 17 years old and 23 years old okay if you had to put a monetary value on that it would be more and I’m not just talking about as a player I’m talking about as a person too it would be more valuable to you than any amount of money that if you were a player in today’s era going into college that you could get in nil unfortunately this kind of gets lost in the focus on well how much am I getting and I don’t blame him for asking that question because I remember being a college kid with the same $3 in my pocket for a month and I was afraid to spend it because I might need it tomorrow so I I I don’t I grew up poor I don’t really I don’t blame anyone that factors in money but again you can’t put a value on relationships can’t put a value on growth and then you can’t put a value on winning you guys won an NBA championship so if someone said to you I’ll give you X number of dollars to take away your Championship yeah no no no no and you and if I take it away you can’t have any of the memories you can’t have any of the relationships you can’t have no no you’re not doing it no now people that aren’t in competitive Sports by the way if he’s the other way I would definitely pay as much as I as I could exactly I would too I would too and you know what I’ve been a head coach for 15 years but the longer you do this you realize I would go be the janitor on a championship team this what people don’t realize now there’s no guarantee at the beginning of the season for anyone that you’re going to win but it’s not about having being the star or being a head coach I like let me be part of that team over there that is going to win um and I think the all the best you can hope for in October when you’re starting the season is that you have a chance to go do something special and then there’s all the different factors that go into it good health uh chemistry a little bit of luck all these things but you just you got to at least have a chance got to have a chance coach got to have a chance it’s just I feel like you know uh you know overseas for us like we you know you start playing early like 17 years old age years old your professional team and you see with luk I shoot a lot of people like right away right and they make great money like you know getting paid five 10,000 a month or 20,000 a month is great money like imagine getting paid this much money when you’re like 16 yeah 17 so it’s it’s a no- bander for people for receives but I think like the thing with NL here though I think what is going to be missed a lot is the Jersey playing for the for the front of the Jersey playing for the school saying like my dad went to the school and I’m pres the school playing for them or you know what I mean the the the family Legacy the the like no I’m going to there because I just want to play for them well it’s one thing that I really appreciate about our players is they take a lot of Pride on what it says across the front of their Jersey sir and it’s hard to do that if you play for four schools in five years but if you spend four or five years at Marquette and marquette’s a special place uh from our University president on down through the rest of us uh but if you spend that time at Marquette there’s a sense that this is my school yes and I mean you play with Jay you played with Wes uh you’ve been around other Marquette guys I’ve played with Jay I played with Wes 2014 13 actually I played with when I was first came from the states straight to the D League at the time I play with Vander blue yes who’s another Mar guy and I play against uh Dario Johnson odm oh Johnson DJ DJ o yeah I play with a lot of like kind of you played against dwade yes against D way so yeah very like it’s crazy like how many players this school has like great players school had well those guys they were all what we call Marquette guys and Jay had this great quote back when he was in Phoenix they asked him about a Marquette guy what and he said a Marquette guy makes everyday count and does everything he can to make his team win and he said some other things too but that was the gist of it and those guys we we we just named they were that you know Marquette is we’re in the middle middle of Milwaukee we’re not out in the suburbs um you know you walk down the block there’s some crack sidewalks as Al Maguire the legendary coach uh talked about when you want to recruit people from those type of neighborhoods well that’s Marquette uh it’s a beautiful place but it’s also a real place and the guys and the teams that have had success including some of the guys you named those guys have a toughness about them they do that you know fit Jimmy everybody they do oh yeah they do they do have a toughness about them you could have played for Marquette yeah oh my God thank you coach thank you hey clip that can we clip that please thank you so okay for for a kid from Greece overseas who wants to play college basketball like how like how does your program recruit players overseas how do you guys you know it’s challenging there’s a lot of uh it’s like a maze okay you know you have to kind of get through different parts of the Maze and it’s it’s like anything else it’s all about Connections so if you know the right people and then they’re connected to a good young player over there then you might have a chance um agents are very very involved as you just mentioned with some of the better players even starting at 14 15 years old um so communicating with with those folks um if it makes sense U but again it’s gotten a little bit more complicated because like you said they can make a lot of money overseas now they know they can make a lot of money coming to the US um but it’s somewhat of a leap of faith on their side and your side because you can’t really get to know them as well as you can some kid from Chicago you know down the block and so we really try to develop a profile on who is this guy you know what’s he all about we just had one of our coaches last month go overseas to go watch a kid playing um in in the junior uh junior team of a professional Club over there to really figure them out we had watched them on tape we had watched a ton of his games but we got to figure out who is this guy it ended up nah guy’s probably not the best fit for us so we passed on it uh but he’s certainly someone that can be a really good college basketball player we’re all about finding the right fit that’s that’s good I have a I have a full up question here I don’t know if it’s true I wanted to really wanted to ask you is it true like like or M Lu Luther King that you you make your players watch like I don’t make them um there’s an interview that MLK did yeah less than a year before he was murdered yeah and and he was very honest he was at that point in his life he was more of a realist yes than maybe The Optimist that said I have a dream yes years earlier he had been through a lot he had shifted a lot of his thinking to he was a big um antagonist against the Vietnam War he was really really big on trying to mobilize the working class to regardless of race to bring people together to create more opportunities for people that didn’t have much he was really on uh some incredible tracks even Beyond race but he was tired and it was just it’s a different MLK than if you hear some of his stuff from earlier in his life so every year on that day I like to send out that interview it’s about 20 minutes to all of our players other people on a list of there’s a group that I send a little reading excerpt to every morning so I send I don’t know if they read it or not I don’t know if they’ll watch the video or not but you know you have to expose people to things and then it’s up to them if they’re ready to consume it or not oh that’s that’s really great that’s that’s good but like I’ll send it to you yeah send it to me please if you give me your number I I don’t know if you’re giving it out or not what’s please coach yeah uh I would love for you to send me a good morning Texas and uh quotes you would like that stuff yeah I’m very big on that I really kind of reflect a lot and like trying to always have my philosophy and my mental uh intelligence and mental focus like always involved and can I ask you a question since we’re kind of along those lines tell me what have you learned you’ve been in the United States how long this is my ninth ninth year okay so ninth years in the United States from Greece mhm uh travel to other parts of the world unbelievable background nine years what have you learned in terms of who you are not before we even talk about who you are that maybe you didn’t know n years ago yeah what I’m not I’m not a bully you know I used to when I was you know when I was was like younger i’ would be because I was always physical and I was always bigger and I was always the older brother and I always had to protect my brothers you know when I came to the states I I realized like and you know through basketball as well like you cannot bully way into leadership you know that’s not the the way you know you used to see all the videos like ah you got to do this you got to scream you got to I was like n if I want to be a leader in the team you know if I’m not the best player but I want I want to be a voice that people really like when I when I say something people look at me and go like okay I hear what he’s saying had to be different yes that’s one of the things now culture wise like uh I wanted to say I I’m not I I the person I’m not is I don’t take everything face value like I don’t I just don’t take everything face face value because there’s a lot of things that we don’t see yes people just throw things out especially in States though I don’t know I don’t know and that’s nothing against the the us because I think like the US is is amazing when it comes to like and business and sports and entertainment and all these other things and how proud people are you know for like the veterans and people who like really uh uh went to war for this country and all like this togetherness but at the same time you see a lot of division as well like see a lot of people kind of like try to and it’s nothing serious too it’s just like it could be anything that’s the worst part is not like you know people I’ll give an example right and I don’t I never talk about politics but like say let’s say you believe in a different party and I’m and my ideology is different party I don’t care you’re my friend I’ve grew up with you I don’t care if you think you know I mean that’s over that’s the overseas mentality I’m not going to stop hanging out with you because all of a sudden you decide to vote for this person I bro that’s you because he you’re going to pay less taxes or that’s what fits your family all right cool whatever but like here it’s a thing too much division yeah it’s a thing and I’m not that person I’ve always been the person bring people together so definitely I’m not that and I don’t know I mean what else it’s a hard question it’s a hard question but like those I know those two things for sure I’m not like I’m not now you know this is life in some people’s uh in some people story of the best person ever and some other people’s story of the villain it happens to everybody you know it is what it is but never I’ll would never be you know believe anything like that just you know you can’t believe way your way into Nothing in life you know and people a lot of people will kind of try to do that sometimes and like but it trust me it’s long-term wise nah you can’t you just really got to you know I’m not saying you got to be naive but like you know if you’re if you’re nice person you build your relationships you have good alliances and and really you’re good at what you do people value your relation like value you as a person presence so that’s that but okay so who is Shaka smart who is coach outside of basketball well I’m married my wife’s name is Maya yeah um my daughter’s name is Zora so they’re both named after two of the best uh African-American writers of all time uh my Angelou who’s one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever heard speak um and then a woman named zor Neil huren one of the two most talented uh black writers female writers of all time um they’re the two stars of the family um and then I’m I’m like a role player so if we were the Bucks you know I would be like uh Pat Bev you know um and my daughter’s 12 um we live just north of Milwaukee and uh we love it here love Yeah my next question was going to be I mean because you said it my what is it like being married to a genius because I well I’m married to a genius and then my daughter is is smarter than all of us so well could you could you elaborate why because I don’t think people understand why I say Jus uh well Maya my wife went to Harvard and then she has uh a degree from Northwestern as well and she recently wrote a book since we’re on the podcast I might as well plug it it’s called reading for our lives it is a guide for parents about teaching kids to read between birth and the age of six and it’s her passion childhood literacy it’s a real issue and challenge in our country particularly in um some of the areas that don’t have as many resources yeah as others and there’s a lot of kids that get to second third fourth grade and they’re way behind in reading and so that’s my wife’s passion uh but having a wife and a daughter that are geniuses just means I have to listen and get told what to do I see the coach it’s it’s crazy yeah that uh you’re head coach you’ve be a head coach for like what how many years coach 15 years 15 years plus goes fast I used to be the young coach now I’m kind of medium the SE no mean no you’re still the young coach coach trust me still the young coach I mean there’s some old ones out there uh I still have a lot of energy so that’s good that’s good then you get to tell or you get to you know tell a whole school whole organization a whole program like hey guys this what we need to do this this this but then at home you know you get to I get bossed around no yeah but not bossed around you get to like be whatever they need you to be you know yes that’s I I really enjoy that because um it’s it’s definitely a different role and um I can focus on particularly my daughter’s you know just kind of putting front and center her goals and her dreams and trying to celebrate those but also help her take a growth mindset yeah because I think there’s so much in life that pushes kids to take a fixed mindset which means if I had a good game or a good grade on a test I’m the greatest ever yeah or if I had a bad game a bad grade on a test then I I’m the worst yeah and in reality um it’s all about growth it’s all about improving I how do you and this other question I want to ask how do you balance the the I mean I don’t know if there is a balance I think I would say more of integration but like how do you do that between family and because for you to be a head coach for so many kids and it’s he takes a lot of f my family is very understanding okay my wife is very very independent okay she is not like some of these coaches wives who their whole life and their whole identity is to be the wife of the coach she actually sees that as an insult no no no I’m not I’m not the coach wife okay um now she loves the games okay she supports our team uh she’ll come with us like when we go to the conference tournament or the NCA tournament uh this past year we went to Hawaii she goes on all the good trips basically we took all the nice stuff we took our team to uh Italy last summer that was a lot of fun she was on that uh but she’s always been very independent and so that’s allowed her to not get too jammed up when I’m working a lot um she’s always been very understanding um and then my daughter has never really known anything else I’ve been a head coach her whole life and what’s been cool is as she’s gotten a little older um sometimes I can bring her to the gym yes and she started playing basketball since we moved here to Milwaukee so it’s a lot of fun trying to put her through a workout um although she doesn’t listen so good to me so uh she listens better to her other coaches than she does to me uh she always wants to play around when she’s with me okay those was going to be my next question but uh you know I really want to ask you about two things and and I don’t know like have you had have you the first thing would be like have you ever had like any NBA players come to like talk to the guys you know like I know was with Texas K like KD was involved in this program you had Mar which is you know D Wade and Jimmy but like those guys like involved and Jay and all those guys invol in the program those guys have been terrific uh at Texas uh KD was awesome I mean he came and talk to yes he he would come about once or twice a year and by the time I got there yeah he was KD I mean like literally MVP uh winning championships uh doing all these unbelievable things but he would come and he would sit in a locker room with the guys and he’d be so humble and so um sharing and giving of his time give those guys advice and you could tell he enjoyed just being around the guys and talking ball and in the younger days of his career he would play pickup with those guys and there would always be someone that would be like like oh I’m going to guard him and he would just fry the guy I mean just demolish I mean it was it was it was bad but you know it it also showed a side of him like man this guy’s done all these things but he still has this Burning Desire like to make sure people understand this is mine like I I did this like I’m the best guy that’s come through here um since I’ve been at Marquette uh dade’s been terrific um just just he’s been around a lot I think when guys get done with their careers they have maybe a little bit more time and a little bit more um they reflect back on the past more um so he he actually spoke at graduation a few years ago at Marquette he was awesome um no disrespect to this year’s graduation speaker but I was at graduation um this year and someone was like you know we didn’t get dwade so I think he set a precedent pretty high um Jay’s been awesome you know he’s been terrific he uh comes and speaks to our guys you know once or twice a year doc has been great uh you know he’ll he I have him given the pregame talk a couple years ago this is when he was still coaching in Philly and it just so happened that you guys played Philly that night and then we had a day game so doc was in town and usually I walk around the corner and I talk to the guys right before the game so I walked around around the corner but then Doc Rivers was behind me and I just kind of he just walked and and took the the front of the room and so that was pretty cool for the guys to hear from him but I’ll tell you the best former player story is West Matthews when he was here shout out to West man you you want to talk about an unbelievable representative of Marquette University of the basketball program of this state he’s from Madison yes uh we we were in a tough stretch in our season this was my first year here we had lost a few games in a row and we had just lost a game in double overtime that I hate this word but we should have won um and yeah I hate it too so that’s why I H it so because I think should is the most dangerous word in sports what does that mean but anyway we’re at a pivotal point in our season and we’re in a film session the next day and Wes had texted me about coming by so I man I’d love for you to come by so we sat in the back of the room and we’re watching showing clips from the game and as you know clips from those heartbreaking losses yeah those are tough to swallow because as a player you already know okay I understand I should have closed out harder uh you’re showing stuff that guys already know what they needed to do but at the same time from an accountability standpoint you need to show certain things you have to so that history doesn’t repeat itself well Wes was in the back and he pretty much took over the film session and so the coaches stopped having to say anything and he talked about what he was seeing on the clips from a player standpoint but Al also from the standpoint of someone that you know had been part of the program and had won big at Marquette and that was now playing in the NBA and having success in the NBA and it was really really powerful and I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or not but we ended up we went and we won eight out of our next nine games in the Big East I mean these were hard games we were playing yeah and it really was a turning point in our season to allow us in our first year with the basically a whole new roster almost to go to the NCA tournament in our very first year so I’m never forget West doing that man shout out to Wesley Matthews man you know I think like he stand here with Milwaukee to was incredible man it was just unfortunate one year we had Co next year it was just like injuries this that but like I really appreciate him you know I really look up to him as well like as a player as a see we stay in touch and everything is he’s he’s a great person you know I actually have another D that I do the animal facts but like no I want to like just talk know just basketball and with you because like I’m learning so much on how you see college and how and what’s your perspective and this but uh what’s the most difficult that like the other question would be like what’s the most difficult time you’ve had as a coach like is it when you have to cut a player is it when you got to go play and get a great player team what’s the most difficult part of it being a head coach in college probably losing losing yeah yes um I just I I I never handled it so well um but it’s part of the game yes and I think you guys in the NBA because you play so many more games you have a much healthier perspective and you take more of a growth mindset to winning and losing yeah we won okay good what do we do well how can we build on this we lost okay it’s unfortunate we don’t want that to happen again but it happened it’s part of the game how do we grow from it in college there’s such an emotional attachment to losing that that’s probably the hardest part and for me as a head coach I’m having to manage that for myself but then also for everyone else in the program and so you have to get yourself right first otherwise you’re not going to be worth much to anyone else so it’s certainly a process that I have to go through but I would say that’s the hardest part I’ve coached as a head coach for 15 years and I’ve had one losing season and it was a bad losing season it wasn’t like 14 and 15 like it was a losing season and now in retrospect that was one of the most rich learning experiences of my life and there’s so many of things that we do now that have come out of what I learned during that season and so it’s hard in a moment yeah because you’re upset and you know nobody takes kindly to losing and you never want to get to the point where ah we lost no big deal never never I don’t care what I don’t care what the situation is never that’s probably the hardest part and I would say with the players those guys as you know they want to win more than anyone and so we live in this day and age where everyone has an opinion and everyone is quick to bash someone when they don’t play well or they don’t win but no one cares more than the players no one does and so trying to protect them and shield them uh if I could I would hijack their phones for the entire season enre season yeah because there’s just a there’s a lot of nastiness on there and I think now with the proliferation of gambling um in in in college sports wait wait it’s it’s it’s in college too yes yes I thought it was just the people with the parlays in uh what’s it what’s it called in in the NBA it’s in college too it’s in college and I think one of the things that’s really changed man since I got into coaching is now after games gambling social media boom put them together and I know you guys deal with this in the NBA there’s drunk guys it’s an epidemic in the NBA by the way in their parents basement in their underwear their pajamas they’re literally wearing like a one piece pajamas and they’re on social media criticizing our players and our players because and I explain this to them you can’t be obsessed with the good things people say about you and then ignore the bad it doesn’t work that way so if you’re going to attach yourself to the good then you’re also unfortunately attaching yourself to the bad but I’ve seen guys get brought to tears and get brought to tears temporary depression because of the way people have reacted to how they’ve played and so that’s probably the hardest part because again we’re just trying to move forward and grow and develop this is certainly a roadblock that you can run into yes oh my God yeah that’s I’m done like that’s the the that’s the basketball part I wanted to know but the and the last question obviously I want to end the podcast because I have so much respect for your time coach I don’t want to keep you all day even though I would love for this to be like two three hours coach what is the origin your name like sucker like because people ask me all time the time all the time that like about my name they yes like where it comes from like where where did your name come from so my name is probably the best thing my dad ever did for me me uh did not have a great dad uh was raised primarily by a single mom and that’s a big part of what made me who I am or or or how I go about things today but he did give me a great name and so my name is Shaka denani smart so smart I obviously got from him that’s his last name my dad’s from Trinidad and he has 20 brothers and sisters so there’s a lot of smarts out there out and about um including some siblings that I have that I’ve never even met my first name is Shaka my middle name is dingani those names are both from Southern Africa and they’re both from an ethnicity that can be described using the term Zulu you you you’ve heard of that before um Shaka was a very very influential powerful controversial figure that United hundreds of thousands of people in southern Africa under this ethnicity Zulu as a way to counteract colonialism so Europeans coming in yes to Southern Africa to take over that part of the continent and Shaka said no we’re going to fight back and he was an unbelievable warrior in fact if you if you you Google top 100 Warriors of all time you’ll find him in that list uh really really good with war strategy he invented this extra long spear um that was very effective at one point they had just used Spears that were a certain length but he said no if we have these long ones and these short ones that can make us more effective in Warfare his brother was named dingani so I’m named after two brothers and what’s crazy is I haven’t told a lot of people this denani killed Shaka and so denani actually and this is oversimplified but just in the interest of time he sided eventually with some of the European colonialists as they were making their push they kind of made a deal with them and then they the two brothers became enemies and so dingani ended up killing Shaka so I I proba one of the few people that has a name where one part of my name killed the other part of my name no it’s it’s this is I think first of all you the most interesting figures in in scaa is that correct how I said it says scaa in college as a head coach because not because of your defense only but your philosophy the guy the way you approach players and who you are as a person but your in team doesn’t makes it to your name makes it to whole different level too so man nothing I just man thank you so much I I really I’m so glad that I was able to interview you yes great to be on man I’m a big fan and we would love to have you come by our our facility anytime and meet our players and uh we we we’d love to get you some Marquette gear yes please do please do cuz I know you don’t have like a college alma mater so if we get you some Marquette stuff uh you can rep us around the city I will and I will thank you so much coach uh man and again guys this is this is the end of the show you guys have been amazing if you guys who want to watch the show you can go on YouTube analys show if you want to listen to it whatever you get your podcast from is available in every platform man you know I don’t know if coach has socials and stuff like that but like follow his journey uh go and get the get the book reading for your lives I’m I’m about to get it today so go do that man coach thank you so much I really appreciate you and Analysis [Music] out the analysis is recorded on no studios Milwaukee’s creative Hub and Production Studio
4 Comments
We are Marquette!
The Pistol Pete shout out! 🔥🔥
💙🩵💛🤍🦅
Well done, both of you.