Ben Johnson-Bowers

Great quote to live by

THEN ➡️ NOW 🏀 Nate Oats has Alabama men's basketball rolling into the Sweet 16… but Michigan fans know his story started right here. Oats spent 11 seasons at Romulus High School (2002–2013), capping it off with a Class A state championship in 2013 Alabama is set to face Michigan on Friday night in the Sweet 16 We dig into the STATE CHAMPS! archives for a look back at Coach Oats’ time at Romulus 🎥 Powered by @callsam @nate_oats | @alabamambb | @marchmadnessmbb

The proposal recommends a 35-second shot clock with full implementation for the 2028-29 season. It still needs OHSAA approval. mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/sports/h…

Is the Shell Drill the end all and be all? No. But it’s a great tool to build defensive habits, break down & teach situations, and enforce max effort. Here’s Ben McCollum using it in practice. Coach McCollum had the best defense at the D2 level for about a 10 year span and is proving it again at the D1 level. What do you think?

Built for March. Ryan Odom’s message set the tone as @UVAMensHoops battled through adversity to secure a hard-fought win over Wright State. The 2026 Werner Ladder Naismith Men’s College COY Semifinalist continues to lead the Cavs into the second round. @Werner_Safety

No Entitlement or Complacency anywhere near his program. “When we had those two winning streaks of 54 and 55 games, we were probably the favorite in every game. Yet we never had a practice that looked like it. And we never had a Sunday meeting where we looked at the film, and felt like we had overlooked our opponent. “ Larry Kehres Mt. Union University Career record: 332-24-3 / 11 National Championships @MountUnionFB @vkehres @CoachGeoffDartt @FootballScoop @3xOptionShow

How bout the Red Hawks!

Stadium of the Night 🌚 🏟️ Kehres Stadium 📍Alliance, Ohio ✅ Capacity: 5,600 Home of @MountUnionFB Oldest College Football stadium in Ohio

@mpopovichREP No doubt, that wad a great for the game of basketball in NEO…every game had a great crowd and environment. I was there for the North Royalton/Perry game and it was absolutely electric!

Happy 1-year anniversary to State Semifinal Sunday at the Field House. It was the best day of basketball I have experienced in that building. I doubt anything else I see there will top it. I'm guessing Louisville and Perry fans would agree.

"Leach Time" 🏴‍☠️ Before games, Coach Leach had our teams go to the movie theater and watch the newest releases. Why? Sure, he was a huge movie buff, religiously staying all the way through the credits and holding up our buses from leaving. He also loved his movie snacks and was very particular about his popcorn. Early on we used to stay at the Red Lion in Lewiston, Idaho the night before games and go to the theater there. Then we switched it up and started staying in Pullman the night before home games my junior year. But Leach loved the Lewiston theater popcorn so much that he had them prepare a bag and had a younger staff member drive over to pick it up. Haha. But the real reason was to get our minds off the game, relax, and be at ease. He wanted us to enjoy ourselves, have fun, and be loose. Not wound up and uptight about the game. Then we’d come back to the team hotel for our nightly meetings and he’d say: “Alright, it’s football time.” That was our trigger to lock in and focus. The horsing around was over. This back and forth was a constant for our team, ebbing and flowing between “relax time” and “football time.” I believe it was a big reason for our success, helping us recharge and come back more focused and fresh during football time. In fact, I think this same ebb and flow was a big reason for Leach’s long term success as well. While most coaches were grinding in the office 365 days a year, burning themselves out with paranoia, Leach spent his off-seasons in Key West enjoying life outside of football. But when he got back to Pullman, Lubbock, or Starkville, he was back in the saddle during “football time.” I think we could all use a little more “Leach time” in our lives. Stepping away from the grind and truly allowing our minds to relax, be present, and enjoy life outside our work, business, or whatever it is we do so we can recharge for our “football time.” #MindStrength #LeachTime

Great, competitive, all Suburban League matchup going down today at Kent!

I’ve been coaching high school football for 33 seasons at the same school. My first season we went 1-9. We were learned to celebrate 1st downs and field goals. Three seasons later we went 9-1, and we were still celebrating first downs and field goals. My key takeaway. Celebrate and highlight the little things. When you do, big things are bound to happen!

Mood for today’s district title game…no better time in the HS or college hoops calendar than the month of March!

Special teams is about getting lined up, maintaining lane integrity, executing proper mechanics and fundamentals, and playing with your hair on fire. It’s pure want to. Nothing complicated about it. Attention to detail, effort, and doing your job every single snap. #Browns

There is nothing like D3 hoops !! Pure passion . The purest level of basketball !! Coaches and Players work just as hard as D1 for love of the game ! Congrats @TCNJMBB !

My best fast-breaking teams weren’t my most athletic They were the teams that could play at their top functional speed for all 32 minutes Opposing coaches called them “relentless” - the highest compliment a running team can earn

No doubt about it, winning starts with culture!

@jakacki_ke Drives me nuts. All you're doing is teaching kids to stand around and guard space on defense. When making this point, I've had parents say, 'you want them to get beat?' No. I want them to learn fundamentals, how to play & have fun - that's the main purpose of youth sports.

Team USA just won its first Olympic hockey gold in 46 years. On February 22. The exact anniversary of the Miracle on Ice. Forget the storybook narrative for a second. What happened today is a masterclass in what performance science teaches us about pressure, identity, and legacy. Consider the pressure this team was under. They walked into today carrying 46 years of near misses. The US hadn't won Olympic gold since 1980. They lost the gold medal game in 2002 and 2010...both times to Canada. Last year at the 4 Nations tournament, Canada beat them in overtime. That loss was still raw. The 1980 hero, Mike Eruzione, was in the building. He told the players before the game: "It's just a hockey game." It wasn't. And everyone knew it. Canada outshot the US 41-26. They dominated the second and third periods. Nathan MacKinnon missed an open net. Macklin Celebrini had a breakaway and couldn't convert. Devon Toews had Hellebuyck beaten and somehow the puck stayed out. Then Charlie McAvoy cleared a puck off the goal line with his glove. This was not a dominant performance. It was a team surviving enormous pressure and refusing to break. That distinction matters. How does a team perform under that kind of weight? It starts with the environment the coach creates. Mike Sullivan is now the only American-born coach to win multiple Stanley Cups AND Olympic gold. When he took over the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2015, the team was loaded with talent — Crosby, Malkin, Letang — and completely broken. His description: "There was a dark cloud over the locker room." His first move wasn't a new system or a motivational speech. It was a reframe. He told the team: "There are certain things in life we can control and certain things we can't. We needed to focus on the things that we could control and not dedicate any cognitive resources or worry to things we couldn't control." The team adopted a two-word motto: "Just play." Six months later, they won the Stanley Cup. Tonight, he helped USA do it again on the biggest stage in the world. Sullivan builds what he calls a "safe zone for learning." His video review sessions are explicitly NOT about blame. "We don't want a player walking into our video room on eggshells worried about 'Am I going to be in the film? Is Coach going to yell at me?' It's a game of mistakes. Our responsibility is to learn from them." His guiding principle from his college coach: "Before players want to know what you know, they want to know that you care." It's the difference between compliance and buy-in. Buy-in wins championships. Research backs up Sullivan. Fear-based environments don't produce peak performance. Especially when pressure is already high... They produce anxiety, risk-aversion, and choking. When people feel psychologically safe — when they know mistakes won't be weaponized against them — they take smarter risks, recover faster from errors, and perform better under pressure. We could see it in how Sullivan framed this moment in the weeks before the game. "What an incredible opportunity we have in front of us." Not a burden or expectation...Opportunity. He took the unusual step for a hockey team and kept the team in the Olympic Village instead of a hotel. His reasoning: "The Village is part of the experience." The Hughes brothers roomed together. The Tkachuk brothers roomed together. He didn't try to ignore or isolate them from the pressure. He was embedding them in it, together. And then there's the guy who scored the goal. Jack Hughes came into the Olympics injured, underperforming, slotted on the fourth line. Sullivan moved him up mid-tournament because, as he put it, "We thought by moving him and getting him more ice time, he could impact the game more." Hughes's response: "I believe in myself more than anyone. Wherever I was slotted coming into this thing, I knew I was going to play well." A coach who believed in him when results said otherwise. A player who believed in himself when the lineup said otherwise. Then two teeth got cracked in half by a high stick in the third period. And he scored the golden goal anyway. Everyone's going to remember this as the night the US ended a 46-year drought. On the anniversary. In overtime. Against Canada. But the real lesson is quieter than that. The environment you create determines the performance you get. A safe zone for learning. A focus on controllables. Relationships built on care, not fear. Pressure reframed as opportunity. That's what it looks like when a team is ready, with the right environment and support to tackle the ghosts of history. They built a culture where a team could survive 41 shots and a kid with two broken teeth could score the biggest goal of his life. The 1980 Miracle was about belief overcoming talent. Today was different. Today was talent, preparation, identity, and 46 years of accumulated hunger arriving at the same moment. -Steve

Mentor vs. Shaker Heights boys basketball: Cardinals rout Red Raiders trib.al/EogeAvn