I played with Jalen Brunson in college. 3 things any young player can learn from him

This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak’s newsletter here.

Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree played with Jalen Brunson at Villanova for one season. Villanova won the national championship that year and Brunson was the consensus National Player of the Year. Cosby-Roundtree is now on the basketball staff at Temple. Brunson is an All-Star with the New York Knicks.

1. Be relentless in the way you attack life

The first time I remember thinking, This dude might be different, was in a practice before the 2017-2018 season. 

I was a freshman at Villanova. Jalen was a junior. We were playing five on five, and one of my classmates, Jermaine Samuels, was guarding Jalen. The game went to seven and Jalen scored all seven points – in the post. Jermaine is 6 feet 7; Jalen is 6 feet 3, but there was nothing Jermaine could do. Jalen just kept going at him. I’d never seen a guard play like that before. 

Jalen was just relentless.

He attacked everything hard and did it to the best of his ability. He worked out every day, and he worked out hard every day. He did what the rest of us did, and then he did more. In college, we all lifted three times a week. As a freshman, I was a little skinny guy, so I lifted four times a week. Jalen lifted with us, but his lifts were modified to maintain a specific weight. Since he didn’t want to get too heavy, he quite literally lifted differently than we did. We were all trying to get stronger; he was trying to maintain. 

During practice, J.B. always tried to win every drill. Afterward, he would come back after everyone else was gone. Even when he was in the NBA, he came back to Nova and was always in the gym, working, putting up his shots. The shots you would see him take in games were the same shots he worked on by himself over and over again. All those things he did thousands of times before we ever did them in a game. He pushed himself beyond his limits.

He put in the time and work into being who he is today.

2. Always try to have a positive attitude

The Villanova staple was attitude; that was our thing. J.B. embodied that. 

He typically had the same energy every day. No matter what it was, no matter how frustrated he was, he was always super positive and tried to bring about a good vibe.

He always kept things light, getting others to laugh. That was something great about him. 

I clearly remember times in the locker room after getting yelled at during a hard practice, and he would find a way to keep all of us freshmen in good spirits. It taught me to find the positive and to try to be uplifting, not just for your teammates but for yourself. Especially in tough times, try to find the positive spin in everything.

3. Maintain a standard 

Jalen yelled at me a few times for not getting my eyes on coach Jay Wright. We used to have this thing at Villanova: When the coach was talking, we would yell “eyes” so everybody would quiet down and look at him.

I was a freshman, so I didn’t really understand how important it was. Jalen really got on me one time. “Eyes, eyes, eyes!” He screamed it at me. 

He always upheld what Villanova basketball was. And he inspired everybody. 

You didn’t have to be Jalen, but could you get as close as possible to what Jalen did to impact winning? How could you think about the team in the same way Jalen did? That was kind of the motto. That was something the coaches preached, but it was also something you thought about yourself. 

If he was the best player in college basketball and he was diving for loose balls and taking charges, why couldn’t I?

He made me want to be better.

Another time, we were playing together in practice. It was me, Omari Spellman and Jalen. We lost, something happened and we argued. I can’t even remember what the argument was about, but there was a miscommunication. 

Coach Wright made everyone get on the line to run. As we got on the line, Spellman was having an issue. Jalen yelled at him: “This is not what we do. This is Villanova basketball. Just move on. We’ve got to do this. You’ve got to play the right way so we can do what we do.”

That right there embodied J.B. He always thought about the team and winning. That dude was such a leader in that way. He could keep everyone together, and he could keep everything light, but he had that intensity about him when he needed to.

He was the rare leader who could do both.

— As told to Jayson Jenks