You're listening to The Hardwood Hustle powered by PGC coaching.

This week we're joined by Coach Raul Placeres from Maryville College,

who shares with us what he's learned about decision-making, coaching the mental side,

and focusing on the box score that really matters.

Let's get started.

Welcome back to the Hardwood Hust hustle. Sam and T.J.

with you today and we're joined by a special guest, Coach Raul Placeres from Maryville,

a really successful Division III program in Tennessee. And Raul, welcome the show. We're excited to

talk with you today. Bam, Coach, TJ. Appreciate you guys, man.

Absolutely.

Yeah, so, you know, Raw, we've known each other for years, and so it's been a lot of fun

to kind of watch your success play out, you know, being a long-time assistant.

And, you know, you took over from that assistant and rolled a head job six years ago and from a long-time

successful coach.

And sometimes they say you don't want to be the guy that follows the guy.

You want to be the guy that follows the guy that followed the guy, but you followed the guy

and you've done it well.

But when you look at your career, you guys have had a lot of success and your short time. But your first

year was a losing season. And so we'd just love for you to unpack some of that transition

from taking over for Coach Lambert and then your first year and just share a little bit about

that. Well, Sam, thank you for reminding me of that first losing season.

I've had that in the rearview mirror because it was a tough one.

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