Washburn Basketball’s Final Four Journey: Team Culture, Mental Toughness & Community Support | Sam Ungashick, Jake Schadegg, and Andrew Orr

Mentally you have to understand. Jake is still my friend, even though he's doing whatever this is that's making me mad.

And you're exhausted and I'm exhausted, so that just makes me want to lash out more. It's okay this?

is just basketball, and basketball shouldn't be your identity. The ball's going to stop bouncing eventually. This isn't the end-all be-all. We're still going to all graduate. We're all going to be good people all right, welcome to the podcast man.

We got sam, jake and andrew from washburn basketball on the pod. Come on.

Welcome to the studio, guys yeah, thank you come on, guys, you guys are here studio, so man you guys, you had an incredible run.

Uh, obviously you had a lot of people in topeka following the season. Um, I heard it was record attendance throughout the season, all those kinds of things. So you guys are graduating. When he's coming back, maybe just like start introducing yourselves, like where are you from, what did you major in in school? And then maybe we can get into like what was it like in the season?

We can get into how much NIL money they made yeah exactly yeah Goose egg.

All right, I'll start. I'm Sam Ungashick. I'm from Overland Park, kansas.

Blue Valley.

West down the street from Andrew. I've spent one year at Benedictine College, my freshman year. I was fortunate enough to have a good year there, and then I decided it was time to go and Washburn the opportunity here came about and I'm majoring in accounting and marketing.

Let's go, man. Was that Benedictine and Atchison? Yeah, okay, nice, thank you, sweet man.

Nice, I'm Jake uh Shadag. I'm from Orlando Florida let's go went to a junior college, my first two years in Illinois, southern.

Illinois area.

so I'm in at Washburn this is my third year now so majoring in kinesiology.

Let's go and you're coming back for a master's degree.

Yes, sir, being a grad assistant next year for the basketball team.

Let's go, bro, let's go.

I'm Andrew Orr. I'm from Overland Park as well. Sam and I grew up literally down the street from each other. We didn't know each other growing up, but we found our ways to each other, wow, yeah.

That's wild.

I went to Blue Line North High School. I've been at Washburn for all four years and majoring in sociology, graduating this spring and then after I graduate, kind of just seeing where life takes me, hopefully somewhere fun.

Yeah.

So, we have two Kansas City guys and an Orlando Florida guy. Yes, fun, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have two Kansas City guys and an Orlando Florida guy. Okay, so hit us actually I don't know if I want to want them to hit it to a straight tell me a little bit about Topeka. You guys haven't been here for super long. I grew up here, so I'm you know, I know Topeka like the back of my hand. Uh, was there anything that was surprising about Topeka? Anything that you enjoy or anything you don't?

like I mean, I'll go go. So I've been here for four years, like I said, and the biggest thing that I started to realize is it's kind of bigger than I thought it was going to be Like, because you kind of hear about Topeka it's the capital city, but you don't really hear about anything other than the capital itself, you know? Yeah, so it's like you don't really think of it other than, oh, the Capitol's there and that's really it.

I mean, you have and the university's like pretty close to the Capitol. Yeah, it is, so it's like it's all within about a two-mile radius of each other.

So, it's kind of hard to, but if you go outside of that, like there is honestly a lot of people and diversity in Topeka.

It's a very diverse place too.

That's what I've noticed the most about it in my four years here.

I don't know about you guys. What about you guys? I think it's like a small town feel, but in a big city kind of feel I don't really know how to explain it it does have a small town feel but, like you said, it is big and diverse.

A lot of people call Topeka a big, small town. Yeah, literally A lot of times.

the longer you're here, you can't go anywhere without recognizing people exactly, which is kind of a small town vibe, yeah, yeah, for me kind of like andrew I've I haven't heard like the best things about topeka most of the people, especially here from kansas city.

I feel like you're just inundated, probably like topeka's the worst most of the people when I tell them I'm, I go to washburn, they're like oh, like, how do you like topeka? And I honestly think, I honestly think it's pretty great, like it's got everything you need, and I went to college in Atchison for a year so I kind of have that small town, really small town experience with not a lot of things just to do. You kind of have to figure out how to entertain yourself.

Dude and Atchison is wild, Like when they get the grain elevator going and the whole town just reeks of alcohol, whatever the grain that they're using.

We have that too over in Southeast Boulevard. Frito-lay is right there.

It smells just as bad. It smells worse, but it doesn't necessarily cover the whole city, does it? No, it doesn't. Natchezon, you can't be anywhere and it's like, oh my gosh. Your windows are up, the ac's off and it's just killing you, that's hilarious, yeah, yeah.

So like we grew up in overland park and it's kind of a bubble in overland park a little bit, like you're kind of you grow up there and especially like I didn't travel a whole lot and so I didn't really get to experience what it was like outside of where I grew up, if that makes sense yeah and so coming, coming to.

Topeka was like the first time living somewhere else other than where I grew up, and it was really nice because of how, like I said, diverse it is and it's something I didn't expect. And it's nice to be able to experience something new when I necessarily wasn't looking for that type of experience.

Orlando, Florida. Had you even heard of Topeka?

I had Really Because like my dad's from like Illinois area, so like I'm kind of familiar with the Midwest and I lived in Illinois my high school years, so kind of familiar with it.

Yeah.

Drove through here like once or twice before.

Really Okay On your way to Denver or something, yeah. There you go? Good call, good call. I was the only reason, like where else would you go?

Yeah, but yeah, I've kind of driven through it so, but other than that didn't really hear much of it.

So did you get recruited to Topeka? Is that how you got? Yeah, okay, nice.

But I mean being here. I love it. I love Topeka.

Man Speaking of recruitment, I had a buddy. He used to be a coach over at Washburn and I want to hear from what you guys used to be recruits. I want to hear if this is accurate. He told me and he was a tennis coach and he said you know they were recruiting guys from all over across the country division. You know a lot of division two guys are all getting recruited to similar spots.

He said recruiting was hard to get people to come to Topeka but once he got them on Washburn's campuses on Washburn's campus it was over he said we, if they, if I got them on campus, I was going to get them because Washburn's campus and their facilities are just so much nicer than other division twos. Is that accurate? I mean you're nodding your head, I mean walk us through.

Maybe the case for me, like when I came here I had went to a few other schools in, like the conference and like d2 schools.

Yeah, similar.

And when I came here I was blown away by the facilities. Really the campus I was like, wow, no other school that I went to has what this is Really.

It's a pretty head and shoulders difference from most Division II programs, even some of those smaller low mid-major Division I programs. Their facilities aren't as nice, I think, washburn being like it's only in this block radius. I don't know exactly how, but it's only in right. Yeah, 17th to 21st right, yeah, it's like a one city block yeah, exactly, and so having it condensed down makes it so like we can put, like washburn can put its money and keep putting it back into its facilities and stuff, so it's not trying to expand right because it's all right here.

There's no need to go anywhere else.

Yeah, I mean, how many other schools have like an indoor facility? Oh my gosh.

So like Pitt State I know has a really nice one, but like outside, I don't know any other Division II schools that have one that looks like ours. Yeah, did they have the when you were getting recruited, did they?

have the indoor facility. Yeah, so on my visit we went to the indoor and we went to all these facilities and by halfway through the visit I was like, if they offer me at the end of this, I'm going to come down, please offer, please offer.

So when you say facilities, I immediately think of the big indoor complex. But what else, I guess, goes into that? When you're a recruit and you say washman's facilities are so nice, head and shoulders above everyone else, what kind of what else?

we have our weight room. That's super nice. We have there's like 30 yards of turf. There's a ton of racks. I don't even know okay then there's like another upper level of a bunch of machines and things that you would need and um, and then we have our gym that's getting renovated and you could just tell that a lot of people cared, a lot of donors cared about the gym and then we got the upstairs gym. Try to think what else. Yeah football stadium super nice.

Yeah, football stadium. I mean the tennis courts, the baseball field just got renovated, the softball field. They're basically getting ready to put. They put like new locker rooms and the softball Like every single, at least from an athletics point of view, every single department seems to be taken care of.

Obviously, it's hard because some departments bring in more money than others, so it's like you got to kind of balance that out. But I mean almost, if you're coming here for any type of sport, it's one of the best places in the country for division two sports.

That's awesome. Yeah, my favorite part is Lee arena.

Yeah, that's my favorite. Yeah, what do you like about it?

Uh, the lighting.

Right.

And then obviously the new uh capital federal room.

Yeah, yeah, that's new this year isn't it the glass boxes?

okay, yeah yeah, that's super nice yeah, it looks. It looks really nice when we first got it was like, hey, I want to watch the games from in there I know, yeah, play, I want to watch.

How do you get in? There's like membership boxes or like what is it kind of.

It's kind of like another donor room, but okay, I think there's like also an upper level too yeah, like go stand up on top. I'm not too super knowledgeable on how you get connected with that.

I got to watch one game from in there, because I worked. Of course you did. It wasn't my money. He was probably making a business deal.

We were selling houses in there?

No, but I work for Genesis Realtors. So every time you guys switch a three, they yell out our name.

It's the best money we've ever spent. Yes, it's hilarious.

Our company pays for that and you know you go to a game and especially this year, you guys are switching threes every other shot. It's like oh my gosh, where our name's just getting blasted out. So we got to go for one game and sit in there because we paid for that. That's cool, nice, nice. It's pretty funny.

That's dope. I was thinking about what you said about how coming to a new place on your own and feeling like like the diversity, and I remember when I went to college it's really cool because it's a little, it's like a little microcosm of like the whole world because you have not only people from all over the united states, but you have, I mean, even the size of washburn, of what's 7 000 students at washburn, at least 500, maybe a thousand international students so you have people from all over the world and so it's.

So I thought it was that part. It was really fun. Yeah, you're getting to connect all these people from cultures and backgrounds you never would have experienced in a small town. You know, let alone you know people from who grew up in florida and other places, huge cities, but you know, like we have we have kids in our church from tokyo and nepal and europe and I'm like it's just man, this is so fun. Yeah, like it really is a global kind of mini experience.

I think Washburn is also special in that way because I think our international staff like at Washburn that goes out to get people to come from international places like they are really good at getting people to come to Washburn like we treat our international students really well in Washburn. That's cool, I think that's a big reason, that that's a big part of it.

Yeah, that's dope, yeah well, you guys want to jump in a season? Yeah, tell us. What was it like this season? Um, crazy, yeah, I it's. I have so many questions I want to like. What was different about this season than previous seasons there, was it just like the stars aligning with all of the training and recruiting and everything? Or was something done differently this season than last season got?

it um.

I would say the biggest thing is we had experience under our belt.

We had nobody from last year's team left, so like, besides two guys, but uh like we had no seniors, so like, just having like that experience back and then also adding jacob hannah to our roster helped a lot.

So yeah, he's good at putting the ball in the hoop, definitely yeah, yeah, he's aggressive too yeah, like he's gonna make a play yeah, where did he get recruited from?

illinois, springfield cool, was that in the transfer portal? Yeah, okay, it's another.

D2 school in the GLBC.

Nice. Yeah, I would say the biggest difference between this year and the last years that I've been here is the camaraderie between the team. Like the locker room, like my freshman year we went to the national tournament and we were close. I obviously was a freshman, so I was still trying to figure out what it was like to be a college basketball player Right right.

But I mean, all those guys were good buddies. But like everybody in our locker room, like everyone likes each other, Like anybody could hang out with one another one-on-one, and it would be like totally fine. Oh that's cool and I think that's really rare in college sports, especially just because it's like people are, interests are conflicting so much Like everyone wants to play obviously. So it's kind of hard, especially for men, like everyone's trying to be out there doing their thing.

It's like you're friends but you're also competing.

Yeah, it's kind of a hard line to ride, you know. And so I think our ability to do that and still be okay, like be able to compete and talk, smack on the court to we're still friends, we live together, so like we're going to get along, like I'm not going to hate you because you were killing me in practice today, yeah, like you know what I'm saying? That's, that was what I thought the biggest difference was.

I bet that is super unique for basketball Cause I mean, you have five starters, you know on a football team, you know you have, you're not competing as much for a starting role or for sure right serious minutes, everyone has a role versus. In basketball it's like yeah, you know, you got five dudes, you know six, seven that are kind of getting in and out and I would say the other thing with that, too, is like with football you have 115 dudes on a team right you have 15 total yeah, right, so it's like it makes it so we have a lot more.

Yeah, and we have a lot more individual, like one-on-one time with each other.

You know what I'm saying.

It's just we have more of the ability to make more connections just because we're around each other so much. Like there's some guys that play football I know, on a football team like they don't even know people on the other team Because like offense and defense are separated, so it's like there's no point for an offensive lineman to know the safeties.

You know what I'm saying, and so that's why I think it's the coolest thing. Yeah, I think, like Andrew said, everybody was kind of competing for spots at the start of the year preseason.

It was really competitive.

But then, once the season got going, I think Coach Bell did a pretty good job of defining roles and what he expected from everybody. Obviously, not everybody was happy or excited about their specific role that they were assigned almost. But I think a lot of people just bought into it and that's what made us so good because no one was towards the end of the year. Everybody just wanted to win.

I don't think there was anybody on the team that was upset about playing time or upset about the amount of shots that they were getting up, or anything like that.

I think winning makes that easier too.

When you're winning games and you know your role.

It's like if I'm doing my role good and we're winning games it's easy to keep doing it. You know what I'm saying. That is true when you're losing.

It's easy to like. This is your fault.

If, if you were doing what I would do.

Yeah, yeah.

Tell me a little more about that. I'm curious how that dynamic works, because it seems like a really sensitive dynamic where you really you do need the camaraderie and chemistry and cohesion. But there also is a real individualistic competitive nature where you know like I'm competing against him for that spot. How do you guys manage that? Um, where you're, you know like even what you're saying like kind of talking trash on the court a little bit to like spur each other on and but then like off the court we're buddies but also I'm kind of competing against you. Like how how did you navigate that like dynamic?

so you just gotta flip this like you gotta flip the switch right. When you get back into the locker room you're like, okay, practice was practice. Like let's move on. Like if it was a competitive practice, good, like we all got better okay, yeah, we got the team better like that's like. Our job, like as teammates, is to get each other better, so like, and then just like. Right after that, like, flip it, we're best friends again you know what I'm saying Wow.

Are there guys who?

can't do that. No, I was going to say, like, on the team, I think we have the right guys to be able to do what he said and like no one's going to hold a grudge against you, like if they see you on the weekend, they're not going to remember Wednesday's practice when you said this to them or when you bullied him in the paint.

Yeah, like yeah, exactly. It's not really like that at all. I was gonna say I'm a super competitive guy too, so like no, I'll try to get jake and I go at each other a lot.

These guys end up going like we're best friends and I like we've almost fought in practice before, but like that's just like all love like trying to get each other better it also helps that we don't really guard each other a whole lot, so I'm going I'm trying to set a screen and he tries to hit me a little hard. I'm gonna try him a little.

Yeah, so does it I imagine maybe part of it helps that, uh, I like I mean athletics is a different animal than a lot of people's normal day-to-day experience, like, I think people like athletics and we love like movies about athletes and stuff, because it's like, yeah, I want relationships like that, that, like you know, you're trying to like push each other and you're trying to accomplish something really big. But most people don't have a context for that kind of like a normal friendship, you know, in class or at your job or whatever. But I wonder, do you think it's because, like, all of you guys are athletes, all of you guys want to get better, all of you kind of have a general understanding like, hey, it's just kind of how it works like on the court, I'm gonna do everything in my power to like get better and try hard and win, and then we're off the court.

It's like, well, yeah, we were just like doing we were being athletes and that's what we do and off the court, it's understood like I'm not actually pissed at you.

I think the biggest misunderstanding is like people that necessarily aren't athletes, that are like on the outside looking in and kind of like what we do is they see just like the physical strain that we go through. They see how hard it is physically, but I think it's just as much mental as it is physical and I think that plays a big part in it. Like if you're mentally where you need to be and like you can talk to you, like on the court or off the court, it's like being able to have have your friends, like understanding it's. It kind of is what it is. What do you mean?

Like what part of the mental part of that?

Like you have to be able to put, but it's also like in practice, like mentally, you have to understand. Even if we are competing like I, still have to think that my body is physically really tired. So I have to have the mental strength to think that Jake is still my friend, even though he's doing whatever this is that makes me mad, and you're exhausted.

And I'm exhausted, so that just makes me want to lash out more.

It's like being able to take a step back even after that mental and physical exhaustion. Like all right, like it's OK. This is just basketball, and Coach Ballard always says like basketball shouldn't be your identity, like we're all basketball players we like playing basketball, but like the ball is going to stop bouncing eventually, Wow. And so understanding that this isn't the end-all, be-all, Like we're still going to all graduate. We're all going to be good people.

And that's really the main goal at the end of the day. Wow, that the best things about having Coach Ballard as your guys' coach.

How long has he been?

there again.

Yeah, fire away. I think he did a really good job this year of just kind of being our leader, being our guy, that in practice, he just I feel like he just did a great job of touching us.

Consistency is the word that I would use.

He's going to come every day with the same mindset. Just done, did a great job of um. Consistency is the word that I would use. Yeah, he's gonna come every day with the same mindset like yeah, he's not gonna let us bs like whether we want to be there or not he's gonna come in with the same mindset.

So that's one of the biggest things with college sports is you're not gonna come in every single day to practice and be like oh yeah, I love this.

Like I'm so excited to be here and, and he knows that he played college basketball.

He knows that.

But it's like being able to find that happy medium of pushing your players to a point where it's like all right, I want them to enjoy it, but I don't want them to hate being here, I don't want them to hate coming to practice, and so I think he did a good job, especially this year, at really finding that happy medium and and pushing us the right way oh, that's cool.

I think the fact that he played in college at a high level is, uh is what helps him a lot and gauging how we feel and things like that yeah, no, it's dope.

It's got got to feel good as a player, knowing he played at a high level at KU on a good team. Yeah, sure, yeah.

It also kind of stinks sometimes and he's like I know I've been this tired before you guys can push me. Yeah, you can't. Yeah, you can't BS him.

Yeah, we can yeah, yeah, that's funny.

Yeah, it's not like a guy who never played Like you can't be our identity. But I could see how someone could try to critique that and be like, hey, if you preach that too hard, then the guys might not try as hard because they're less invested If it's not you know what I'm saying If it's not part of their identity. That obviously was not the case. You guys had an amazing season. How did that dynamic work where it's like, ok, this is not my identity? How, how did that dynamic work where it's like, okay, this is not my identity? You know, if we lose, I'm not a total failure as a man, but I'm also like highly invested, you see what I'm saying.

Like the first thing, I would say I think that gets harder, like the further we got into the post season it's it gets harder to lose, not like. I think mentally it gets harder, takes more out of you.

Right, yeah.

Because you're so amped up and you want to win so bad. It's like losing regular season games, like obviously we're trying to win those, but if you lose a regular season game, okay, there's your next one, there's another one. We can play when the postseason, if you lose, like you're done.

It's over.

And so yeah.

Yeah, I think like the reason it got so hard to lose is because everybody kind of had this growing sense of tense and we all wanted to win for each other. No one necessarily wanted to just have the spotlight on themselves.

I don't think this year Sure yeah.

I mean, obviously guys did, and that's just how it works, how basketball works. But I think everybody really just wanted to win for each other.

Yeah, definitely I agree. I think that we all just wanted to keep playing and to keep moving on. I mean, getting to the Elite Eight was crazy. It was an insane experience. So just having that experience and then getting there, we were like, okay, we have to go win now. But obviously we fell short.

Hey, this can't be your identity. And I think some might hear something like that. They're like, well, if you preach to guys that this isn't their identity, then you're telling them to have less investment in this and they're going to try less hard because it doesn't matter as much if they lose, because it's like, well, this isn't who I am. But that obviously didn't happen. Yeah, you guys were highly invested and very competitive and won.

Yeah, I had a high level success, yeah, so I was just wondering like how that dynamic actually like not putting your identity to basketball actually led to a high level success actually I think he knew he could say that because he knew that we cared about it enough where it was like he didn't want us to overly care about it.

We had been coming in working out together since June. So he knew that we were invested into this team into this season. So that was never a question whether we were invested, it was like. But your mental being mentally where you need to be, like I said earlier, is just as important as physically. I think that's kind of where he was coming from, is he wants us to be in a mentally good spot.

It's like we're just worried about basketball and winning all the time. As a 22-year-old kid 21,. Like last year, I was really anxious about winning games. It was not frustrating, but you think about it a lot. And so saying that takes off some of the pressure, I think, for us.

Like being too hard on yourself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like kind of how you said, if you lose it's not the end, all be all. Like we lost in the final four and like it was awful at the time. But then after you look back and it's like all right, like we did almost everything we could to try and win.

Yeah.

That's what matters.

It's amazing, as you guys look back on your entire season, what would you say is like the pinnacle of the high moment, like was there a particular game or a particular time during the season?

You're like you know, this is it.

Definitely the games that were the national tournament games that were home, the three games that were the regional games. We played Harding and then Concordia-St Paul and Minnesota State-Moorhead.

And by far the moment that I remember the most is when Michael Keegan dunked the ball and I couldn't even hear myself yelling in the arena.

I thought that was awesome, that was bonkers.

That was like two rows behind your bench.

Yeah, it was so amazing. I think I ran onto the court. I don't think the play was dead.

Did you have the video of, like the angle of the bench?

everyone just jumping off the bench just screaming.

That was so amazing.

Well, anticipation is a funny thing. Yeah you watch those videos and you see it like you can see it all happening right, everybody's on my face their benches yeah, it's up and so it like you can see it all happening.

You can see everybody on the face.

Their face just lights up and so it's like you can tell it's coming. But I'm the same way. All those postseason games in the central region that were in Topeka, like all those, there were so many people that came to watch us play.

And I thought it was one of the coolest things I've experienced in my time as a watch for a basketball player at least like seeing all those people. And then mike's. My favorite moment for the whole season was was mike's dunk. He honestly had a couple, yeah multiple, like dunks like that throughout the season where he either putting guys on a poster or just coming down doing something you didn't expect to see.

So I think mike is gonna end up taking the crown for most top plays on the team, oh really yeah that's awesome, yeah well, I think he dunked on somebody like the first two dudes in the first game of the year and I just that was kind of the moment where I realized this is going to be a fun season yeah, it's going to be a theme for the season. Yeah, that's dope and also like the moment that I think that I'll remember, and all the doors had red signs on them that said sold out, wow. It was pretty cool Do you have a favorite moment?

Probably the Moorhead game. Like just cutting down the nets, like knowing that we were going to go to the Elite Eight, was crazy.

Like you talk about it all year. You talk about making it that far all year. Talking about it and actually doing it are two very different things. Oh yeah. And so when you actually get there, it's kind of like, wow, like I knew this was possible, but it's like I didn't even like I was like I said yeah, anticipation is a funny thing.

Could you guys feel the support from Topeka growing as the season went on? And I guess, at what point in the season did you realize?

or when did you first realize, like, okay, there are more people here than what we're used to? Well, I'm in the process of reaching out for internships and jobs right now, and so everybody I'm talking to is telling me that they were watching us and that they were at the games, and they were watching us on espn plus when we were at the elite eight and then even we went to the capitol the other day.

These guys weren't there, but we were at the capitol on friday morning and all of the congress people were telling us that they were tuned in for, yeah, how entertaining we were.

That's kind of crazy. You know who I am. This is crazy.

There were thousands and thousands of people that were supporting us, which is so cool.

Yeah, wow, I feel like over the course of this season, like every game we won, like the next game, there would be a little bit more people. Yeah Next game a little bit more people so like and then it just got to a point where it was like, wow, there's a lot of people in the stands.

Yeah, it's kind of like you blink and it's like, wow, there really are. There was a lot of anticipation coming in for our team too, like we were ranked in the top ten, like the beginning of the season.

And we kind of stayed there, like we never left the top ten. And so people kind of knew that we were good, but they didn't know like to the extent of how good we could actually be and we could actually be. And so I think after like winter break, when we were still undefeated, like we were still winning games, those next couple of home games after winter break, you really started to see it kind of blow up and started to see a lot of more people at our games.

And so that's when I noticed the, the influx of, of people.

Yeah, that is really cool.

Yeah, that's wild, yeah, wild. So tell us about the tournament. What was it like going to the Elite Eight? It had been what like 25 years or something.

Yeah, 2001, 24, I believe.

Wow, wow, yeah, 24 years what was that like.

It was a surreal experience for me personally, I mean going to Evansville, like obviously, like in years past, I've watched the.

Elite Eight on TV, like the national championship on TV.

It's like actually being there in that moment.

it was like I was blown away, honestly Again, like going back to like talking about it versus actually doing it. Right Two very different things Like talking about oh yeah, we're going to go to Evansville, we're going to do this.

Then you're there and it's like all right, yeah, let's do it. Yeah, like we're here, let's make it happen. Yep, that was. That was pretty cool. What?

about you? Um, so we we got to evansville on like a sunday night we didn't play until tuesday I think and so the first few days we were just kind of getting like pampered with, with gear, with we had walked through a hallway and there were like Washburn logo lights like flashing in our eyes and things like that.

And that was just kind of the moment where I was like, wow, like there's eight teams left, and then we won a game and there was four teams left, and like there's four teams left in the country that are playing and everybody's watching us, everybody wants to be where we are.

That's wild, yeah.

Either yeah.

I don't know.

Trying to watching us. Everybody wants wild. Yeah, yeah, either, yeah, I don't know. Trying to take it in and understand that like this is where we were at home sitting watching these teams play a year ago today so it was pretty it's almost surreal.

Like you, we were there and I think we all appreciated the moment, but it's still like it was surreal at the time to really be there and see it all wow, yeah, that's why I remember telling my wife and we don't watch a ton of Washburn stuff but, when you guys made it to the Elite Eight Final Four it's like, hey, are we going to Johnny's tonight, like we got to watch the game Like we got to throw it up and you know, just hang out. That's the first time I've ever said that is yeah.

yeah, I heard there were so many people like Bullfrogs, skinnies, Johnnies, like all those places were full of people watching us and I thought that was one of the coolest. Things is like seeing a picture of just the place is packed.

Yeah, yeah, all the Washburn games on the TV.

Yeah, I think it was so cool.

I know it's like seeing those like Super Bowl watch parties around the country or the World Cup or something.

It's so cool, I mean you guys, I mean being at Washburn, obviously being players, but you're not from here. I mean that's not something I can say we've ever done. Yeah, like that's not something that you know Washburn is. You know, we're all proud of Washburn and we always are. I'm an alum but I can't ever say, until this year I said let's turn on the Washburn game.

Yeah, Like let's go somewhere, and I think we're all really blessed to have been a part of it.

Like some of it was like, obviously, a lot of it is hard work and putting it in, but some of it too is kind of right place, right time and all of us being together at the right place, this group of guys connecting the way it did. So I think we're all a little bit lucky to have been in the position that we're in, to be put here and be a part of it, cause it's not just individually, it's as a collective, and so we're just part of the whole team and I think everyone was a part of it just as much as we were yeah, but you know what they say about luck luck is just when preparation meets opportunity.

Yeah, so you got to prepare.

Yeah, I think the coolest or funniest part of all of this was just like the level that we reached was just because we're a group of best friends, like, like, going out there. And it wasn't like we were taking anything too serious or more than it was Like. I remember like we would go out there and like make jokes during the games, like during the NBA games.

That also helps when you're winning.

It's easy to make jokes when you're up by 30 and there's six minutes left.

It's easy to be up there laughing, yeah, but no, he's right though. It's just a group of guys that love each other.

Yeah, it's incredible we don't have to linger on this too long because I imagine this was a very difficult experience. But walk us through that last game of the tournament. What was that like, kind of just as an experience as a player. I mean, you guys, guys had won what? Most of your games by 20, 30 points. You know the joy, you know being able to laugh and now, all of a sudden, you're in this. What? Felt as a spectator, a much higher pressure, much closer situation. What was that like?

I mean for me. I kind of I was going into it thinking that it just has another game Like it's not going to help me to think of it as oh, this is going to be a final four game. Like we need to win this right.

So that was my mindset.

I obviously don't. I can't read dude's mind so I don't know what they were thinking, but that was kind of my mindset going into it, like trying to think stay as calm, as I can honestly not think about it too much because I'm gonna have plenty of time the rest of my life to think about it yeah, so it's like right now I just need to go out there and do it.

So, like those two days leading up to that game, I was kind of trying to just not think about it too much, and then it obviously went how it went yeah, yeah and you deal with that. However, you deal with it like after the game it's sad, like that's not the way you want to go out. But my dad says you're either the hammer or the nail. A lot of time in basketball and unfortunately we were the nail were the nail in our last game.

Yeah, Again, that's how it goes. I don't know what you guys have to say. As far as the game itself, I think Nova Southeastern's coach actually said this after the game. He was like that's the best game we've played in two years.

Wow.

So they played like their highest level, their highest level, at their highest level, at their highest level, and we probably played at our lowest level, so like that right there just didn't help us, but like yeah.

Yeah, like we had came back from deficits at some points in the season. But I mean it was kind of hard to accept, even like at the end of the game when we were down I don't even know how much we were down 25. Yeah enough.

Yeah enough.

And the end of the game when we were down. I don't even know how much we were down, 25 enough, yeah and like we had never.

We don't gotta get into details we hadn't been in that position before, so it was kind of hard to go through that as a group yeah, but obviously it was then, but it's like just the understanding of it all coming to an end at one time, like it seems like it's all you're preparing.

You're not expecting it to come to an end, like you're expecting to win, like you're pushing yourself to win. So it's like when it all kind of comes to an end kind of just stops, it's kind of a lot to take in. And so that was the hardest part for me was at least being a senior. I know he has another year, but like being seniors, like knowing all right, this is the last time I'm never going to really play for washburn again that was the hardest part for me.

But and you're like probably coming to terms with that in the game yeah, where you're realizing oh shoot, we have five minutes left. We're down by 25. This is my last game.

Yeah, and it's just understanding. I'm lucky enough that I might have the opportunity to play basketball after college and so I had that in the back of my mind, but it's still not even like the playing basketball part, but playing basketball with this group of people. You only get to play, especially in college, with this team, like we only get to play with this group one time, so for it to come to just like a sudden end it's not really what you want to happen.

Yeah, that would be hard.

Like I said, that's how sports goes a lot of the time. So we kind of got to deal with it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I remember. As soon as the game was over I don't know if you texted me or I texted john, it's like hey we got to get these guys on the pod.

We got to get some of these guys on the pod and I think john's like let's give it a week.

Let's give it a week and he goes and I'll reach out to my guy. Yeah, that's probably good.

Yeah, like, right after the game people were telling us like, oh, you guys had such a good season, but it's like that's 24 hours after. I don't really want to talk about yeah, you don't know, but I give it like a week or two after it's like all right, you can kind of understand and look back and reflect on the season we had and it was like appreciated a little bit more absolutely in the moment it's hard, but afterwards time heals a lot of things wow, yeah.

What are some lessons that you've learned or experiences that you're taking with you into the next phase of your life?

I mean, I'll just kind of say the things that I think that I've learned from basketball being on a team. I don't know if I'll ever be in as high intensity situations as I've been in basketball, with people screaming at me, coaches, players, and expecting me to perform at the highest level and then even times I fall short. I have to deal with that and deal with that kind of adversity.

I think that will prepare me pretty well for the rest of my life and being able to work as a team Just what college athletics has brought me like time management. That's a big one, that is big brought me like time management, and yeah, that's a big one, yeah, that's big, yeah. And then, like I guess just time management is forcing me to focus on academics for a certain amount of time forcing me to get to bed at the right time and and things like that just discipline, yeah, definitely, I mean covered basically what I was thinking.

I think like just the adversity of like the season, like all the highs, all the lows, like being on a basketball team, like I just feel like, especially in like college athletics, like in general, just like the adverse situations are going to like really prepare you for the next phase in life, prepare me, I guess.

Yeah, it goes back to that mental toughness, I think, where it's like you have to be mentally, like we're talking about earlier, you have to. Physically, obviously, as an athlete, you have to be ready, but it's like mentally, you go through things like you're having to show up every day when you don't want to.

You're having to push yourself, and that's something that a lot of people that aren't athletes don't understand, like everyone in here, like we're all hard-working people like everyone's gone through adverse situations, but it's like a lot of kids our age haven't gone through right adversity like they haven't been yelled at by somebody saying you're doing this wrong right, right, yeah, so when they come yeah, yeah so like when real life hits them and like their boss is yelling at them, like this is what coach Ballard says.

I don't like quoting coach Ballard, but he said a lot Like when our boss yells at us and it's like, hey, you're doing this wrong. It's going to be like, all right, I'll do it Right. But like a lot of people that would get yelled at and then they'll shut down because they've never experienced someone yelling at them or being that intense with them before.

Or even having to face like your own failure and having to address like what are you? Going to do about this? Are you going to walk away or are you going to lean in and try to like take it to the next level? Thoughts on how NIL is affecting D2 and D1?.

Division II. I don't think it's affecting it near as much as Division I, obviously, but it's like just those high majors, those power four schools like the SEC Big 12, like all those schools. They just have so much money. I think it's obvious. College athletes deserve to be paid, in my opinion, just because the NCAA is making billions of dollars every year off of them and the athletes that are creating that money get zero of it. So I think it's fair for them to. I just don't know. I'm obviously people that made these rules are a lot smarter than me, so I don't know how to regulate that more, but I think there should be different types of rules, maybe right.

Yeah, I think there should definitely be some regulations to like how much we're giving players, because, like you're really like, schools are literally buying players right right they're buying players to play for them, which is crazy to think, and they're making seven figures, Like everybody is.

It's crazy Like dudes that we've played against or played with and we're like they're all right, Like they're good, like they're good, they're going to go D1. They're going to go great Right, but they're not they.

They're going to go D1. They're going to go great.

But they're not.

They're not that much better than us, right?

We feel like we're obviously like those, the top guys in Division. I are like Sure. Those NBA guys like they're amazing, but some of those lower level guys like we could compete with them.

And so it's like seeing.

That is like frustrating is not the right word.

Because you want to see other people. Yeah.

Yeah but you want to see other people succeed. I'm not saying that it's not frustration or jealousy.

No, it's more just like yeah, those guys are crazy, wow yeah. Yeah Dang. Okay. So Coach Ballard in his prime versus you in your prime 1v1.

I'm frying Coach Ballard. He's not scared. What did you say? I'm frying him.

You're frying him, I'm always going to talk.

I'm always going to say that we're going to cut this and send it right to him.

Yeah seriously hey bro.

Oh man, that's hilarious. How long would me and Justin have to train to be able to dunk? To dunk and keep in mind, John, how tall are you six and a half, six and a half, four, five, eight, I think. If you were to just go and buy a trampoline.

Being from Topeka. If you guys could bring anything like a restaurant or a thing to do to Topeka, what would you? What would you bring? I was literally thinking that Hawaiian Bros, hawaiian Bros is tough. I'm trying to think. What was the place.

Zach Cain's.

Okay.

Yeah, zach's, the chicken restaurant Cain's yeah, probably just more of these fast food restaurants.

I guess I don't know, I'm from Kansas City, so there's unlimited. I don't know.

But it's Barbecue.

Yeah, it's barbecue, yeah, barbecue, yeah. Kansas City Joe's.

Is there something in Topeka restaurant that you like that isn't in Kansas City?

Mizzou.

Oh, good call yeah.

I'm a big fan of Mizzou. Me and my girlfriend go there a lot.

Yeah, twenty two dollars.

All you can eat, yeah.

I can put down at least twenty two dollars worth. Man, that was easy for you, you guys anything, I guess, just like Mexican taco shop.

Yes, margarita Jalisco's.

Yes, my man, that's our go-to bro.

Jalisco's is probably the number one answer though I spent the most time and money there out of any other place in Tepito.

by far that's probably true of my family too. I think we go there more often than anywhere else.

Do you have any others? If you guys were to play a game of horse with us, would you guys get any letters?

Yeah, you guys would make something that weird. I appreciate that.

That's very generous of you guys. That's right. What about if you guys play?

horse, just the three of you. Who's winning that? I?

think it's. They're honestly going to say themselves it's up in the air. I mean any of us could win on any day. It's really about horse is a little bit of luck, because you're shooting shots that like all right, you've got to shoot it super high in the air.

Yeah, you've got to bounce this one, yeah.

That, this one. Yeah, that's hilarious man, that's awesome.

How many potholes did you hit on the way over here today?

at least how many potholes there's a big one on the way here yeah, yeah, they just drove from across the street right.

Yeah, it's the 32nd drive.

There's room for two or three, yeah oh yeah, right, when you turn off, uh 17th on the mcvicker going left like towards 21st, there's a big right in front of the president's mansion or whatever.

There's a huge pothole right there.

Got all the places for there to be a pothole right in front of the president's house.

Yeah, Do you guys have a favorite coffee shop?

I've heard really good things about the circle, the circle one. That's right across from my house.

Yeah, it is good they're in college. They haven't quite appreciated the college.

I'm not a big athlete, exactly.

But I do like the circle coffee place because they have like burgers on like thursdays thursday club. Yeah, like the coffee coffee bar.

Um yeah, the coffee bar just down the street, like around the corner.

One of my roommates works there, so I get okay nice perks everyone free coffee is better than anything, so it's like that makes it taste better yeah, I'm trying to think, I don't know.

Um, yeah, honestly, circle is really probably just because it's so close. It's nice to be able to go there.

It's so close to campus yeah, yeah, well, maybe we can close with. Did you have one last thing?

Well, I was going to say for all of our tens of followers, if someone wanted to reach out to you and offer you a Buku NIL money, how could they get a hold of you? You guys on socials?

Yeah, I mean, we all have Instagram. You can probably reach out. You can find it on the Washburn Men's Basketball. Yeah, if you just go, it's all our names. So if you look up our names it'll be pretty easy to find.

Come on, it's Patricks and Buss in.

Washburn.

Jersey. There we go. Hopefully we'll be able to find Wide open.

Don't hesitate to reach out, don't hesitate, come on. Yeah, he's got more. He's got more. He's good at saying it, yeah.

We're going to partner with you on this post and promote like hey, I'm looking for a job.

Here's my resume. His LinkedIn profile has been updated. There we go, Well guys.

Thank you guys so much for coming on.

Thanks for being here, guys.

Congratulations on a huge season, managed to believe the best for you guys and excited for the future for you guys.

Way to make Topeka proud.

Yeah.