Lindenwood University Basketball Talk with Coach Kyle Gerdeman

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (00:01.368)
Welcome back to basketball talk. Welcome back to basketball talk with Linwood University head men's basketball coach Kyle Gerdeman, where each week we talk about basketball, college basketball at Linwood University, the Ohio Valley Conference, NCAA and other places. Kyle, always good to have you on the show. Welcome back. How are you doing, sir?

Kyle Gerdeman (00:21.176)
Doing good, doing good. Glad to be on and we're kicking off another Monday morning here.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (00:26.136)
So, know, so last week is probably a coach's typical week, a nice win against a good SEMO team and a day on Saturday where everything fell for them and nothing fell for you. Talk about those games.

Kyle Gerdeman (00:38.244)
Yeah, was a kind of a typical week because it happens that way sometimes. But yeah, I thought we got off to a great start Thursday against CMO. I told our guys after the game, I thought it was the best all around game we had played up until this point in the season. I thought we just really did a good job offensively, defensively, mentally, the things that we have to concentrate on to be a good team.

I thought we were really engaged because we led the entire game and I don't think we've ever done that before. And one, it's just, I don't know how many times it even happens for anybody during the year when you just kind of lead wire to wire. I thought what was good about that was that SEMA was never competing the entire time. And every time they made a little run, we would make just enough plays to kind of hold them off. then we made the plays we kind of needed down the stretch.

So I thought it was a really good job by our guys and a group effort and what we're gonna need down the stretch. then I think then you turn that around and you get to Saturday and you're feeling pretty good about everything. And first of all, think, again, I said this after the game, you have to tip your hat to Little Rock because one there, are more heads in first place, Little Rocks in second place. mean, to me-

Those two teams, SIUE obviously, there's some teams I think that are really, really talented in our league. But boy, would have to, I'd be hard pressed to say that Little Rock isn't just as talented, if not more than anybody. And they played that way Saturday. I thought that they came out, I thought the first eight, nine minutes was pretty good from both teams. thought competing, executing offense, defense, we were doing a lot of good things.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (02:10.658)
Yeah, interesting.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (02:22.456)
Yeah.

Kyle Gerdeman (02:24.772)
But then at one point for us, the ball stopped going in the basket on really good looks, really good offensive plays, and it never stopped going in for them. And one, that's, I think, a credit to their talent. I think we made some mistakes defensively that kind of spurned that on a little bit, probably. But over the course of 40 minutes, I think just the fact that our shooting percentage just was not there that night. And as much as you talk about it, because-

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (02:34.838)
Hahaha

Kyle Gerdeman (02:52.034)
I think it happens, I feel like it happens at least once a year for everybody that you're just gonna have that night where the ball doesn't go in the basket and you try to figure out how you survive that game and still give your team a chance to compete and a chance to win. And we couldn't survive it. Again, they were too good themselves that night and did not be able to make shots and good shots at that. mean, we couldn't make open threes, we couldn't make layups at the rim.

And again, I do think their defense had a little bit to do with the plays at the rim. But just one of those days and you gotta move forward from it and bounce back today, get back to work and see where you go.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (03:31.606)
And you and have talked about this a couple of times before, that shooting is a function of, what did you say, timing, rhythm, and mindset.

Kyle Gerdeman (03:38.198)
Yeah, a little bit. I'll be honest with you. I think our mindset, we'll talk about it a little bit more today before we move on, but I thought our mindset was, it was rattled a little bit. You could kind of see it in some body language. You could see it in facial expressions. After five or six missed wide open threes, we had some guys that were, I thought mentally weren't in there. And that's easy for a coach to say, I'm not out there shooting it and easy for fans to say, but.

We just like challenging our guys in those situations like we talked about with the free throws. We don't shy away from talking about it needs to be better and we don't shy away from encouraging guys to have the right mentality of shooting shots. And that's a tough life sometimes because everybody wants you to make them and a lot of times you're gonna miss them. But you gotta stay tough through it and but we'll recover from it and move on.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (04:28.214)
I notice attendance, I wanna talk about attendance real quickly. And I know that Jason Kuhn, the athletic director at Lindwood has said, fans will come out for conference games. And I've noticed in the last series of home games for both the men's and women's games, there's been a noticeable rise in attendance.

Kyle Gerdeman (04:44.132)
Yeah, I would agree with that. I think that the conference season usually brings out more fans, and I think we've seen that. thought we had a fantastic crowd on Thursday, and it was just great to see so many of the students and then the other student athletes showing up to support both teams. mean, it just looks fantastic in the gym when you see a crowd like that and you get the band on one end. I mean, we've got a great arena. mean, it really is fun when you see a good crowd there.

And then I thought Saturday was really good again. I know we had a few feeder teams in there, young guys in there watching us play and I thought it was great. So I think we'll see the same thing. I mean, SIU will bring some fans over here on Thursday and I think we'll have some fans as well. So I think it'll be another good week for us from an attendance standpoint.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (05:33.902)
Good. And the OVC Tournament is just a little over a month away. I'm guessing eight, nine wins gets a team into the OVC Tournament. Is that what you're thinking?

Kyle Gerdeman (05:43.608)
Yeah, I think probably so. We probably don't put a specific number on it as a group, but I think in your mind you're always thinking, all right, what's it going to take to, what's the minimum going to take to get in here? But I think that where we're at after the first 10 games, think we've kind of put ourselves in a decent situation. mean, think we've, we talked about it after the game on Saturday. We played our first 10 games and really we had eight of those, were.

right there with a chance to win a very close competitive game and you neither won or lost it. I think you look at the second half of the Morehead game and we didn't play very well and then Saturday we just didn't play very well. So two times out we just haven't been able to compete at the end but eight times we have. So I think as we move into these last ten games, yeah, you've kind of got a win total on your mind of what you'd like to get to. But I think being there every night and putting yourself in that competitive advantage with a chance to win the game is.

is what you gotta do, can we do that 10 times and then see how many we can win from there is kind of the way we'll look at it.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (06:48.878)
And then let's go behind the scenes for the listeners a little bit. two kind of background, back office process questions. When you travel, how do teams give you a sign you time either for practice or for shoot-arounds? And then how does Lyndon would do that when teams visit St. Charles?

Kyle Gerdeman (07:05.4)
Yeah, I think it happens, everybody does it. So what we try to do here, a lot of teams, some teams will come in on Wednesday night before a Thursday game and us the same depending on where we're going. So you always reach out and see do they have any gym availability and usually you can get in places on Wednesdays. It's usually later, you can get in 730, 8 o'clock at night and people usually give you an hour and a half to our time block.

as long as they can, we run into some stuff here with so many sports where it gets a little stickier sometimes because we have, we've got men's volleyball, women's volleyball, women's basketball, the arena, things like that. But usually it's, I think the majority of it comes down to I think a lot of teams we understand that, hey, we're gonna need the gym when we go to their place, vice versa. Teams are pretty cordial with each other on game day, shoot around times are always set.

And on Saturdays, they're set by the OVC. So they tell us when we go on Saturday mornings, because it's a little bit of a different schedule. Thursdays is sometimes a little more random, but you're going to get an hour in the main gym where you're playing that day of the game. But again, think everything is, I think when I look at our league, think everybody's pretty cordial with each other. Because even sometimes Fridays, you're looking for a place to practice while you're on the road on that Thursday, Saturday road trip. And so there's been times, for example, that we've played at.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (08:06.249)
Okay.

Kyle Gerdeman (08:32.49)
at Tennessee Martin on Thursday night and stayed in Martin and got up and had, you know, practice at Martin again at 11 o'clock that morning. So, you know, I think it's just a lot of communication between coaches, facility directors, obviously. But I think just the mindset in reality. And again, our league is really good at this is just, you know, you need to help each other out when you can. It's not always perfect. The times don't always work out right. But I think the way that that our coaches treat each other and our teams.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (08:38.789)
Okay.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (09:00.366)
That's

Kyle Gerdeman (09:00.484)
It's been pretty fair from what I've seen. Yeah.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (09:02.958)
Well, that's really good to hear. I'm pleased to hear that. I presume that's the case across the country, but it would be interesting. You got to know there's some gamesmanship at some places, but...

Kyle Gerdeman (09:11.384)
Yeah, think over the course of my career, I've seen a few times where there's definitely some gamesmanship going on. And every now and you'd walk into a place and they'd say, well, you can't get in our main gym because it's being used and you can use our practice gym. then you walk right past the main gym and there's nobody in there. I think over the years you see some gamesmanship, but not so much with the guys in our league. It's pretty good.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (09:17.269)
Hahaha

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (09:24.472)
Here's the parking lot for you.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (09:34.542)
Well, that's good. And then the assistants. You know, I watch TV and I swear sometimes there are more assistants than there are players for some of these big programs.

Lin-A-Boy and the OVC are not blessed with that. FBS, FCS colleges are not blessed with that. How do you have your systems lined up?

Kyle Gerdeman (09:57.336)
Well, I think what we try to do is break down, give guys really specific areas. So for example, like Coach Bean, he's kind of in charge of our defense and spends a lot of time prepping our defense, watching film on our defense. Justin Anderson spends a lot of time with our offense. So he's kind of focused on that area of our team, so watches a lot of film.

Not just with our team, with guys individually about positive things they're doing on offense, things they can do better on offense. So you kind of get those two areas covered a little bit. Coach Campbell kind of is involved with both areas, spends a little more time probably defensively than he does offensively. And then Coach Walker, not only is he he's doing scouting reports, doing film work.

but he's also our director of operations. So he's got a lot of time he's got to spend, you know, managing our daily operations, managing our travel schedules, things like that. So that's how we kind of break the four of them down and they do a really good job. I think it helps when, you know, instead of, you know, think instead of an assistant being worried about every aspect of the team, which sometimes they want to do, I think sometimes when you just give them, you know, one thing to lock in on it, can really help your team.

And I think I've seen that this year because I think they've done a really good job of spending extra time with our guys individually, which I think is even more important than the team concept at times. We'll watch film as a team, but I think when you can grab a guy individually or two guys individually and kind of show them some stuff, I think it kind of hits home a little bit easier and a little bit faster. And then after that, I think that they all know that they've got a responsibility to their relationships with the players are important.

What are your conversations like with them off the court, kind of away from basketball, making sure that we're checking in on them, making sure they're in a good spot mentally. Do they need anything academically? There's that piece where they've got to monitor the academics a little bit and who's doing well, who's struggling, what do you need help on? really, they've to help manage these guys' lives a little bit. Sometimes we talk about that.

Kyle Gerdeman (12:13.198)
Cuz I think one, we have a lot of guys that are doing a really good job on and off the court. But I think what you don't want is, you don't wanna have a guy that hasn't heard from a coach for two or three weeks for some reason, And that's what we meet on all the time. And we talk about the constant and the consistent communication that we have to have with these guys to help them remain focused, to help them stay engaged. Because we know that young men-

sometimes can have those times where they have a lapse and maybe they get disinterested academically at times or maybe wonder what their role is like on the team in February during the season. And we just have to have open communication. And I think that when we talk about all the roles that we break our coaches down into, I think the one consistent one has to be those relationships and the communication we have with our guys.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (13:04.45)
And then lastly, this is repeat week. You've been through the conference schedule once. have Eastern Illinois coming in on Saturday, SIU-Edward Resort coming in on Thursday. Talk about what you're looking for in those games, coach.

Kyle Gerdeman (13:15.202)
Yeah, one, we talked about it right after the game on Saturday that this starts basically the second half of the season, the second half of the conference season. We've seen everybody once, we know how those games went. And I kinda enjoy this part because, and I think a lot of coaches are the same because I think you get a chance to be a little bit more specific on your game plan, a little more detailed. That being said, what happened in the previous game?

isn't guaranteed to happen again. For example, just because you beat Cimo doesn't mean you're gonna go beat him on the road and vice versa. So every game still has a new challenge. But I think that we've seen enough of each other now that teams are really gonna be locked in on trying to make adjustments the second time around and what you can do to give yourself a better chance. So I think that's where everything starts. But I think when you look at it, probably playing as good as anybody in our league right now.

You know, just beat Moorhead at home on Saturday, which is a great win for them. Again, I've said from, you know, since the summer, mean, Rayshon Taylor is probably the best guard in the conference. You know, and he's been in the league for a long time and has had a lot of success. I think everything that you do with SIUE starts with if you can kind of get him in control, which is really, really hard. I think they said the other day he's had five straight games with 20 or more points. So, you know, really good player.

And so that'll be a test for us on Thursday. And then I think you'll see the same thing Saturday with Eastern Illinois. They kind of remind me of kind of when we went to Southern Indiana. I think that they're way better than what their record would show you right now. They've been in a ton of close games. Coach Simmons is a fantastic coach, one of the best I've ever been around. And they will be ready to play regardless. they have.

three guys that can really score the basketball. So you have to be prepared for those guys and not let them have a good game. And like I said, think overall just understand, hey, we've got 10 commerce games left and we know that they're all gonna be a challenge at home on the road, no matter who you're playing. We plan on being competitive in them and going from there.

Kyle Gerdeman For Jan 27 2025 (15:31.214)
Well, let's call that a wrap with this episode, this podcast episode of Basketball Talk with Linwood University head men's basketball coach, Kyle Gertrude. Coach, always a pleasure looking forward to watching some games this weekend and we'll talk to you next week.

Kyle Gerdeman (15:43.524)
Appreciate it, thank you.