ISU Men's Basketball Coach, Greg Lansing
My first comment was, “you people are crazy”. No, I don’t think it can get any better. You kind of go through your life working to a point you have goals and things you want to accomplish in life. And this has certainly been my goal my whole life. And, 20 years into coaching, it’s how I’m celebrating my 20th year… in my first head coaching job in college. I’m just really, really happy and feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to be the head coach at a place that means a lot to my wife and I.
A line of very good men have coached mens’ basketball here. We’ve had Curtis, Wooden, Kluegh, King, Waltman and I’d certainly add Kevin McKenna there too. We had a lot of work to do when he got hired and hired us as assistants. And I think we did a really good job of building this thing and the talent level where we needed to. And if it hadn’t been for two or three injuries last year I think we’d have been talking about something a little more special than what it was. I don’t know. I’m not going to put any we have to win this many games or this is what I want to do. All I know is I’m going to want to win championships. I’m going to want to win the Missouri Valley every year. I’m going to want to play in the NCAA tournament every year. I’m going to recruit guys that would have the same types of goals. Granted we were pleased with how we survived last year with the injuries, but .500 in the conference isn’t good enough. It’s not what we’re shooting for. We want to be up there fighting for a conference championship every year. , putting a really good product out on the floor.
You know, I’m a basketball junkie. I’m a high school coach’s kid. So it’s been from since I could walk and talk that I’ve been doing basketball stuff. My dad was a tremendous coach. He’s in the hall of fame in Iowa
and showed me right away how hard to work. I also learned that you don’t want to accept loosing. It wasn’t nice to be around the house or around him after a loss. And it’s how to handle those things. I’ve had so many good coaches and friends along the way that I’ve picked up stuff from. Way too many to say. But I have to give Coach Waltman a ton of credit for hiring me twice, when he didn’t have to, and he did. He’s still as good of a game coach and basketball coach as I’ve ever been around. And then Steve Alford . A basketball junkie. And he’s really competitive. He’s a student of the game. He’s a film watcher. Always looking to approve. And then with Coach McKenna. A lot of his NBA philosophies and some of the things there. There are a lot of other guys as well but those guys have made me to kind of where my philosophy is. I’ll be more emotion. And I want to be more fast paced. My relationship with the Phoenix Suns for the past 7 years makes me want to play a little faster, with the ball screening and more freelance on offence. Defensively. We’re going to work very hard on the defensive end. On defensive rebounding. Mostly man to man guy. I’d really only rather play man to man. Those types of things. I think it’s going to be a fun style to watch. The biggest thing is I hope our guys compete and play as hard as they can.
I think we’ve got good guards. I really like what we have. Two of them are Jakes, you know. And both of those guys can handle a ball. There both very different, their bodies look the same, they could be brother and younger brother. I really like both of those guys and what they bring to the table. Incoming Steve McQuarter is … we can’t watch our guys right now, but all of our guys are raving about him right now. When I saw him last summer, we weren’t even recruiting him, and I kind of liken him to a key smart type guy that can handle the ball and do things that a decent shooter, good, good enough shooter, but a guy that competes and wants to defend. So um, being a point guard in high school and college, and a coach’s son, I want that person on the floor with the ball in his hands to be thinking like I do a bit. We’ll have a lot of work to do on that. Loosing Harry and Rashad is a huge loss.
Walker, he’s hopefully going to be the biggest, baddest guy on the floor every night. I just went down to see him. For one. Lou gets all the credit for recruiting him. The Junior college coach is a good friend of his. He got that done and we beat some big schools. If we hadn’t got him early, we wouldn’t have had a chance. He’s 6’8, 255. Doesn’t have much body fat on him at all.
Body just like that (Antonio Davis). No high flying or anything like that. But he’s a great kid, a kid that works hard. There are coaches that just rave about how hard he works, runs and plays all the time. Phenomenal kid. Yes sir, no sir type of guy. And he’s so excited to get here and I can’t wait to get him up here. He’s going to walk into the place and you’ll know he’s going to make a little difference for us.
You know you have to have a physical presence and Brandt tried, but with his feet it just wasn’t something he could really do all the time for us. And we were a little thin in there with Josh and Isaiah, but this guy can handle your physical load with out any problem, and some of our… Kitchel, he’s 235, he’s a little more physical, and R.J’s put on some weight, so we’ve got a little more physical in there. And Miles isn’t going to be out shooting a bunch of threes but I think every one of those other guys can do that.
Kitchel’s a very nice young man. Very mannerly. Mom and dad did right there. Any small town kid that puts up big numbers you kind of worry about how he’s going to be against a higher level competition. In his AU stuff he’s done that and he’s been real solid with all that. Is he going to come in here and average 20/10 next year? No. But he’s certainly a piece to the puzzle and a high quality kid. And I think he’s a guy that is skilled enough, like R.J., that can do stuff out on the floor and will continue to develop.
We’re going to see a change in basketball style… more motion. I’m not going to run sprints. I like some of the sets coach (McKenna) had out of that. Because he was so good with those things. I’m not a guy to run set after set after set. I want to give them the freedom to get the rebound or get it and go and play with some freedom and not be looking over their shoulder at me with what the heck are we doing. Coach has so many good ones (plays), we’ll try to keep it (the playbook), we’ve changed them a lot, but we’ll try to keep them as small as possible. We’ll be tougher to scout, because we won’t be running a lot of sets on offense.
What about your communication with the players? Are you going to be closer to them on a day by day basis? Because of your background, you’re known to be family friendly, and family oriented, and wanting everyone on the team to be a family. Are you going to be closer to them?
I think so. Coinciding with that, I’m also going to be really hard on them. Their going to have to do things academically. And they want that. Practices are going to be tough. They’ll have to defend, and really work in the off season.
They’re going to have to guard somebody if they want to play. I love them. Out of all these guys, I want to know everything about them, and what’s going on with their families, what their social life is like. Even if they’ve messed up, I want them to be able to walk in here be a man and tell me. We’re going to challenge them in that way too. I think I’m going to have close relationship with them on and off the court. And know that coming here isn’t just a commitment to play basketball for me for four years, it’s a lifetime commitment as a family member.
Lou Gudino has already done a great job with recruiting. We basically worked hand and hand. I may have been the coordinator, and kind of ran it, but he’s very good at what he does. I think I’m pretty good at that still, I’ll still be hands on with that because I like to recruit, but Lou’s going to coordinate it, and kind of lead the whole staff in where we’re going and what we’re doing.
We defiantly need another assistant. And I’ve narrowed that to a real short list. And I’ve already talked to the guys. And we’re going to get a good one (David Ragland, Vincennes University). There’s not question on being really good. Amazing how many people wanted the job. So I was able to narrow that down quick. And I’ve wanted to be head coach for awhile, so I knew of guys for a while anyway. And then hopefully, we’re one person short . Every school in the conference has a director of basketball operations. We don’t. But I’m going to try to raise enough money to pay them out of our budget, and get somebody back in here. They can’t do any on floor coaching, but everything else. It’s a lot of office work, video work. It’s very, very important, because we’re traveling, coordinating, recruiting, being here, stuff that our guys don’t have time to do… we don’t have a secretary either, so it’s a lot of work. We need something like that. Mr. Prettyman’s been great. And hopefully we’ll be allowed to do that.
With (former players), it’s open door policy. Obviously I was very close to the players when I was here, I want to have all those former players back around, and whether it be friends of ours or local people that want to come in… I really want to reach out to the community and make it the hometown team. I want people to be here, and it starts with former players and they’re welcome here anytime and anything I can ever do for them, but we have to give them some pride and sense of ownership in what’s going on here. Obviously with my relationship with Michael Menser, Nate Green and Matt Rant, those guys will be around here. Those three will be involved.
NO matter where I’ve been, you always have somebody that has seen some kid, that’s called, emailed about this guy. By no means do we think that we have all the answers or that we don’t have the time to see everybody. So all that helps appreciated. If somebody has something I’ll respond to the email and so will the coaching staff. Maybe we don’t get to see them all the time, but if somebody wants to take the time to promote some kid, then we’re happy to have help.
Coach McKenna was the right hire three years ago. I think it’s just three more years of experience. It’s learning things under another guy. It’s being at Indiana State for three more years and continuing to develop relationships and continue to develop relationships with our current players. Three years ago I was coming from a staff that had been let go. I understand. Ron explained that to me. It came down to Kevin and I, and the one drawback was I came from the previous staff. And there needed to be a change. I understand that, I also understand if you put Kevin McKenna’s resume next to mine three years ago, you’d pick his every time. So, I just appreciated the chance three years ago, didn’t get it, was happy to stay on, and it meant something to me. I’ve turned down other jobs to stay here and now it’s worked out for the best. And I’m just happy to get it now.
I’ve had a long relationship with the Phoenix Suns and David Griffin, who is a VP of player personnel. He should be a GM this year sometime coming up here. He’s involved with that stuff right now. You know, the longer you go in the business, sometimes you get frustrated, about not getting chances at being head coach, and seeing other guys get it. I’d say for the past four or five years that’s always been something in the back of my mind. I’ve gone down and I’ve done pre-draft work for the Suns, the Bulls and worked out some pros locally up in Indianapolis. I like the pro game and I’ve always had an interest in it, But I haven’t had any particular job offered in the Pros, but it’s something that’s always in the back of my mind.
We don’t need to talk about that. I’ll say this. I’ve had other opportunities in college. There’s no question, I’ve thought about professional basketball. Never had any offers on any of that, but in college I have. But when it came right down to it, I wanted to be a head coach, and if I was going to move somewhere, I wanted it to be for a head coaching position. Angie’s got her family here, We’re happy here. We love it here. This place means something to us. So I’d rather have been here than go somewhere else in the system.
Scheduling…It’s hard and it’s difficult. I’ve tried to help him (McKenna) some with it as has Lou. It’s harder to get bigger schools to come here and play you. Or play in general. I want to play schools. I want to play in-state rivals. I want to play good games. It’s just not easy. I think one thing I’ll try to do is get stuff a little earlier. Get games earlier, and things like that. Not wait. But in college basketball, today… I talked to Wichita today, they need three games yet.
I’d do two for one with any instate big school. No Question. Matt Painter is nice enough this year to let us come up there and play them at Conseco. We’re really happy about that. Indiana won’t do it, Notre Dame’s not gonna do it. It’s just part of those guys philosophy. And I understand. When I was at Iowa, we had to play Northern Iowa and Drake every year. You’re supposed to win those games. If you do win, you don’t win by enough, and I understand that… What ever it would take to get any of them on our schedule any year, we’d do it.
We were talking to Illinois before the Purdue thing happened. Actually it was almost a done deal. So. We have to get home games. We already have a brutal schedule for road games, we have to get some home games. Plus for our fans. The season ticket package, we need that, we have to have that. But I’ve got good relationships with all of those coaches in the big 10, and we’d love to at least play one of them every year.
We want people to come to our games. If people call and need me to do something for them, or our players, we’re certainly going to try. The foundation department here are a bunch of really good people. They’ve already had me doing some things with, whether it be golf outings or speaking. I’m going to do as much as I can with them non stop. Because it’s an arms race in college sports. You have to raise money. And here especially. It’s something that’s got to be priority number one with us. And our head coaches have to help. Players have to help. And that has mostly to do with fundraising, but stuff with the community. We ask people to support us and come to our games, we want to get out there, so if people, whether it be schools, getting out in the community, helping in anyway. We want people to ask us. If we can’t do it, these guys are busy to, if we can’t do it, we’ll say we can’t do it, but we’d certainly like to be asked.
The players. They go into schools, they read, do those things. They do cleanups and different types of things. They’ve done special Olympics, they’ve gone around town and done different things, so what every somebody would want us to do, if there are ever promotional things that help their businesses, or they would want to promote themselves or Indiana State or Indiana State Athletics, we need to get them there.
TH- There’s always a question about schedules. Would it be possible to have players go to businesses and pass them out..
Yeah, I mean they could do that, it’s not a bad idea. I think with one thing, there are people with jobs that it’s kind of their job to do that, to promote us. But that’s not a bad idea. Next things is, the only thing you get caught with is there is “Oh Jake Kelly took a poster to this business” and them somebody else is wondering why nobody came to theirs. You know what I mean? You don’t want to offend anybody. We want to do all that we can, certainly, but you might run in to a little trouble there.
We can try though.
Lou’s local, and I’m local now too. I’m a hometown Terre Haute guy now. I consider myself. I just grew up in Iowa. I was just lucky enough to work at University of Iowa for 7 years. We recruited a lot of out of state kids there too. Again, we want to build it from right around here. There are enough players we don’t have to go too far if we do our jobs. And happen to beat some really good schools on kids then we’ll do that. As our need comes we’ll expand as far out as we have to go. But… Indiana and Illinois there are plenty of good players.
Obviously, look at our team. RJ and Jake, and Jake … But any coach wants to win. Whoever it takes, if it’s somebody from in town, or if it’s somebody from New York or LA, you’ve got to go where you can get players. We don’t have to go very far. But there are kids… you’re not going to win every recruiting battle. There are just too many good programs out there. Too many good coaches, and kids are looking for different things. So, we’re going to start right here at home, and work our way out, and if we can finish it by just getting Indiana kids, then we’ll do that.
You have to go by your needs. What’s your team and positions like… we’re recruiting different things in the 2011 class than we are in the 2012 class. We’ve already targeted all those guys’ positions and we’ll work hard at those now. Things change in your program some time or your recruiting changes, or you get to your team and you’re like “boy we need another one of these” or this or that. So you have to be able to adapt your philosophy. But you really target certain positions and then you get the best player you can.
You go all over the place. There are players everywhere now. Jake Kitchell is from a small little dinky school in the middle of no where. But we think he’s going to be a good player. Aaron Carter’s from down in a little small town. So you go where the players are.
We have three players playing in the Indy Pro End Summer League. This something new here … our staff can’t work with them this summer, They’re here lifting 4 days a week, playing 4 days a week for themselves, but it’s something. They can go up there and play with other college guys, some pro guys. I really encourage that. Last night was the first night of it. I see no reason that we wouldn’t continue that. As long as nothing interferes with this, I think it’s a good opportunity for them.
I just feel very lucky to be in the position that I’m in. You know, a lot of people, have had a large impact on this. Along the way. So it’s not like I said at the press conference, This is not about me, this is about the program. I’d like to think it’s in real good hands with the current staff and we’re certainly going to make the most of it. We’re going to work like crazy, have a lot of fun and hopefully make people from Terre Haute and the Wabash Valley and around Sycamore Alumni every where, make them really proud and have some ownership in this thing.
Opening night practice. We’ve already talked about that a little bit. I think they’re just talking about doing a function that night. We’ll practice, but I will say this… people want to come practice, they can come practice. The more people that want to come and watch our guys and get to know them and see how hard their going to be working .. I think that’s a good thing. I’m not going to have a closed door policy during practice.
A 3 point shooting contest. A dunk contest. I’m sure our guys would like that. Something. I agree with how Coach McKenna and Coach Waltman did it. That’s first day of practice. We’re ready to get our hands on them. We want to get a practice. One thing we will do is get that practice. Now if there’s some others, so fun stuff we can do, we’ll do as much as we can.
Superstitions. My dad was like that, with stuff he’d wear. Maybe some of the things he’d eat or do. I’m a little bit like that, you know if… I think Coach Waltman would always be. If stayed at a hotel or ate at a certain restaurant, and you got your butt beat on the road, you didn’t stay there again the next year. Sometimes you’ve got to rotate that stuff. But, ah, hopefully I’m not overly superstitious. I just like to think that’s the way it goes. You didn’t deserve to win that night.
My favorite color is Royal Blue. Sycamore Blue.
Favorite song? Oh.. there’s a lot of them. I grew up you know… an old classic rock guy, then you get into college athletics, straight early hip-hop. I love all that stuff.. I hate to say it because Angie loves country, I’m not a huge country guy, other than maybe a Johnny Cash here or there. But I’ll listen to anything. I love music, so I’ll listen to anything.
My game day routine… I think it’ll be the same as an assistant. I get up early every morning and work out. Get up about 5:30, try to be working out by 6. Get here in the office when it’s quiet. Before people start rolling in here and get some things done. I’ll be watching tape. I’m big on that. If they are our opponent, I’ll be watching a lot of tape on them. We’re always going to be very prepared for who we play. So that whole game day, I’ll be doing a lot of that. Getting with our guys, maybe bring them in here and show them things about who we’re playing. You’ve got your pre-game and walk through the day before. That time after pre-game and walk through is so long before the game starts, I hate it as an assistant, I’m just going to struggle with that time. I’m going to have to walk around Hulman Center or something like that for a couple hours. And hopefully be happy after its over.
We lost our best, our two toughest kids, our best leaders. They both played 35 minutes a game. So we’ve got to find ourselves. We’ve got to find leaders. We’ve got talent here, but we’ve got to find some leadership with guys on the floor. Guys are going to take ownership. And get after their own teammates and be coaches on the floor. And do those things. We’ve got good kids, This is the nicest group of kids I’ve been around in 28 years of coaching. They’re going to work hard. They are working hard. They have been working hard. Now it’s as a staff, we’ve got to get things going. Build a chemistry. Its on them too when they’re outside of here to build they’re chemistry and be around each other. It’s on us to turn them into a good team. If they just compete and work every day, it’ll be our job to do those things, and I think they will. They’ll going to listen and work, they’re going to be demanded a lot of stuff. And they’re going to have to come to practice with great effort all the time. To play and compete against each other everyday like it’s a game and hopefully that will carry over to the floor.
We’ve had good kids, we had leadership ability, but it wasn’t overt. I lead by example, I don’t get in their face, I don’t tell them this, I don’t tell them that, it seems that we’ve lacked that personal touch to grab the other person and say. Hey!
I wasn’t a great player, but one thing I tell our guys, is I could lead. I was a guy that talked and competed, and fought and worked everyday. Getting in fights and practice with your buddies and then you walk off the court and it’s over. I’m not asking them to go fist to fist during practice, but I’m asking them to get after each other and make it as hard if not harder in a practice as in a game. And if those guys do that then a leadership will develop. And you need your hardest workers and your toughest kids to be those guys. To get your team where you need to be. That’s going to be a tough job for us, with what we’ve lost with Harry and Rashad, but I’m looking forward to it.
I’ve said this before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, It’s been overwhelming. The support and I know a lot of that has to do with I’ve been here a while, but I know a lot of it has to do with Angie being a student athlete here, Michael Mentzer playing here, her whole family here … but those are good people that deserve what they get. Angie is the hardest working person in the athletic department. Terrific person. Her whole family, they’re all here now. That’s how much of a passion they have for Indiana State and Terre Haute and I’m an adopted son. I’m not from here, I’m from Iowa. But this is my 2nd time here. There could have been other things that happened, but I certainly want to be here, and really appreciate the opportunity to have a chance to guide the program. I want everybody to have ownership. We want to be here, we want everybody to be excited about it and come support us and come have fun with it. So it means something when we win or lose a game. I want people to feel what we feel.
