Luke Loucks’ first offseason leading the Florida State men’s basketball program has been a whirlwind.
Hiring a staff, flipping the roster and fundraising, all while learning the ins and outs of being a first-time college coach have made for a hectic offseason.
And yet, Loucks has been incredibly open in terms of media access throughout the offseason, letting us come observe practice basically whenever we want.
Matt Minnick and I took advantage of that opportunity last Monday, watching a full practice and then catching up with Loucks after for an exclusive interview.
To kick off hoops week at TN, here’s the transcript from the first part of that interview, touching on the big picture of Loucks’ first offseason. Part 2 is coming Wednesday and will cover this year’s team and more minute details.
As your first offseason comes to a close, what about this job has been what you expected and what has been different?
Loucks: Yeah, I think the team is built how we wanted. We’re gonna be able to play fast, we’re gonna be able to really shoot the ball. I do think it’s an adjustment, especially for those of us coming from the NBA, just talent-wise, skill-wise, that we had to adjust to. Just a base level, especially for the younger guys, of what they know and what they don’t know. There are certain things, when you’re in the NBA, everyone knows how to do X, Y and Z, and that’s not always the case (here). And so you’ve got to spend a little more time teaching, going over the fundamentals and really slowing yourself down. We’re used to speaking a certain way, teaching a certain way, implementing offense and defense a certain way. For those of us coming from the NBA, our college guys have been awesome at (telling me), “Luke, you’re saying things that these guys don’t know how to do yet, and so you’ve got to back up a little bit. You got to really show them, guide them, teach them, and then you set them free.” That part’s probably not been a challenge, but a little bit of an adjustment for me. But I think the guys are doing a great job. We got a really good group that works their tails off, high character, resilient and highly skilled.
Seven months in, what is something you would tell Luke Loucks from seven months ago to be ready for?
Loucks: The most challenging thing in this job for me — and I knew it going in so it wasn’t a surprise — but there’s no off switch, and there’s just not enough hours in the day to do what we’re trying to do. Some things are just gonna have to be pushed to the next day. I think our staff has done a really good job helping me prioritize of, “These are the things that you can do that no one else in this building can do.” Whether it’s fundraising or whether it’s we’re really close on a recruit, you got to seal the deal. Whatever that day may be, you’re just going to have to be okay sometimes with not getting to all of it. You may have a list of 20 things that you feel like are really important. You may only get to 10 of them, and that’s okay. The next day, you got to wake up and get to the next 10 and you’re going to be behind another 10. As someone with a lot of energy who is highly motivated to get this right, it’s hard for me to be okay with not getting to everything you feel like you should get to. But that’s part of the job. Coach (Leonard) Hamilton did a great job here for so long, but he was doing it his way, so a lot of what I’m used to as a coach just didn’t exist here. You’ve got to build it from the ground up. That’s no disrespect to him or his staff. It’s just there’s certain things that we need that weren’t in place, whether it be from an analytics standpoint, or the way they scout and recruit compared to the way we scout and recruit. Neither is right or wrong. It’s just the way we want to do it, so you got to build it. That takes a ton of time, a ton of energy.
You talked early in your tenure about how your ideal roster construction has one or two top guys to build around with tiers of players below that. Is that how this roster was built or did you have to adapt that belief system entering Year 1?
Loucks: There’s two ways to look at it. One, there’s a way you want to get things done, and then there’s two, the reality of maybe what you have financially, what you’re able to go get. I would say we have many more of those “mid-level guys.” I think we got a group of four to six players that we’re going to rely on very heavily. We have a lot of depth, especially those young guys are going to be good, they’re going to play quality minutes as they earn them. But we’ve got a group, both a mix of seniors and guys that have done it on a smaller level, that all cost roughly within a few percentage points. There wasn’t really that one max player that we went after, because a lot of these guys check the boxes of what we were looking for and what we can afford. And most of those guys (we have) took less to come to us, which obviously helped us out a lot. They trusted our development is going to help them in the future. So in terms of like, is it constructed just like an NBA team? Probably some NBA teams, but not exactly how I had it in my head. Part of that was by design, and part of that was just like, yeah, this is your budget. You got to go get it done.
You’ve talked a lot about the importance of fundraising given the program you’re inheriting. How productive has that been this offseason? How much do you think that you’ve laid a foundation for next offseason after putting some proof of concept on the court?
Loucks: It’s the name of the game. Players and coaches can help you win games. I think programs and organizations are going to win championships. It depends on what they value and where the money goes. Obviously, you’ve got to be financially responsible with whatever money you get. But the reality is that when I got this job, we were the lowest-funded basketball program in Power Four. Now fundraising helps, obviously, put this team together. But going forward, we’ve still got a long way to go. We’re doing what we’re doing in recruiting because we’ve had support and help. I think people are starting to realize football is always going to be football, and they need a ton of money to make that thing work, but men’s basketball is pretty important in this equation. I think that’s where our administration has been really good. Our board’s been great. The AD has been great. They understand that it takes money for this thing to work, and with more investment, obviously, they’re relying on us spending it responsibly and bringing in talent that can help us win championships. I think everyone’s on board for that.
We’ve talked a little about the possibility of the Nole Zone returning this season or finding an improved home-court atmosphere by moving the students closer to the action. Anything you can share on that front?
Loucks: Yeah, I think it may be put off by a season. I think we’re still working on some things. Most importantly, the boosters have control of all the tickets and where that goes. Obviously getting the job, I have a lot of ideas that I think that are good that at times get shut down, or at times (people tell me), “Hey, we got to put that on the burner and we’ll keep talking about it and here’s why.” There’s always good reasons, but it’s something we’re going to keep talking about. The game environment is really important to me. I just think it gives you such an advantage when you have a real home-court advantage. Part of that is fans showing up, and obviously playing a style and winning games that they want to come cheer you on. And part of that is the actual game environment that can help teams win games. Sometimes those margins are so small that when you walk in a building, that should be intimidating for the opponent, and we’ve got a little work to do before we have that (level of) home-court advantage.
We’ll have basketball stories every day this week leading up to Sunday’s 4 p.m. exhibition vs. Florida A&M.