‘Winning is in the details’: Why Shocker basketball tracks high-fives in practice
There are no wasted minutes in a Wichita State men’s basketball practice conducted by Paul Mills.
Every single drill, whether it involves a basketball or not, is recorded and charted by coaches. Mills is meticulous in the process, combing over practice film like he is scouting an opponent for an NCAA Tournament game.
Players are routinely delivered their statistics from practices and intrasquad scrimmages, which include common categories found in box scores. But they’re also graded by a “care factor” and rewarded for diving for loose balls, giving high-fives to teammates and being engaged while sitting out.
When explaining the significance of making every minute meaningful in practice, Tennessee’s Rick Barnes, a coaching friend of Mills, once told Mills that no coach in the country watches more practice film than him.
“Do you want to bet?” Mills thought to himself. “I’m not getting beat there.”
An example of the level of detail to Mills’ self-scouting came in a recent film study when the coach scrutinized the pushup form of his players.
“I didn’t think some guys were locking out their elbows,” Mills said. “They were like these little, wimpy pushups.”
On the recruiting trail, Mills isn’t afraid to cross a prospective player off his list if he notices they don’t touch a line in a running drill during a practice.
On his own team, Mills stresses the importance of the details. So much so that entering his second season, he has not had a player show up late for a meeting yet.
“There’s a level of detail required in order to be good at anything,” Mills said. “In my mind, it tells me that you’re committed to doing it right. And if you’re not committed to doing it right, eventually it catches up to you.
“If your care factor is low and you’re not showing up on time — and being dependable and trustworthy isn’t important to you — then we’re not going to put trust and dependability into you. I would rather have a guy whose production may be a little lower, but you can trust them versus a guy who is just all over the map.”
Learning the X’s-and-O’s concepts in the 30 practices leading up to the Nov. 4 season-opener at Western Kentucky is important, but Wichita State players are drilled that it is equally as important to show positive body language.
It’s a critical factor for establishing and maintaining a good team culture in Mills’ estimation, which is why the coach is known to spend an inordinate amount of time showing players film of their body language in practices. He also tracks the number of high-fives given, a statistic he finds important because NBA all-time leading scorer LeBron James led the league with 41 high-fives per game last season.
As the team’s lone exhibition game approaches on Sunday against Emporia State at Koch Arena, Mills is focused on molding Wichita State into a team that cares about the right things.
“You need to have your heart in the right place and you need to make sure we’re celebrating each other’s successes,” Mills said. “We put a premium on body language and you really try to get across that everybody better be engaged mentally and physically and vocally through that whole process. The guys hear me say this a lot, but you better make sure we do the heart work before we do the hard work. If you’re not into this 100%, you’re not going to be able to translate it into physical actions.”
“Anybody can come out here and run a play, but details are what actually win games,” Mills said. “Everybody has plays, everybody has pick-and-roll coverages, but it’s about how you do things.”
This story was originally published October 22, 2024 at 2:12 PM.
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