A Super Talk Mississippi Media Production.

So joining me now on the Welcome Home Beef Hotline, Coach Nicky McCrae-Pinson, MMSU Women's Basketball.

Coach, normally a coach takes over a program in their first year and they're not looking at a team that people might predict to win the national championship.

You know, normally it's a building process and, you know, you're trying to install your own culture and things of that nature.

Does anything change the way you would approach the first year to program with a team that has this expectation level?

I think the biggest thing is building relationships with players that you did not recruit.

My staff and I didn't recruit the players, so, and we had a lot of

uncertainty at the time with the state of where we, you know, where we are in America, the COVID,

not being able to touch them for five to six months and talking with them through Zoom

and just trying to, you know, build a connection.

But, you know, we've been together now for about eight weeks.

And every day that's an investment in building a connection with players that didn't recruit

and their families and getting them to buy into your culture and your system.

This program has a great tradition of winning,

and obviously we want to continue to keep that tradition going.

How do you put your stamp on this program in year one?

Well, I think number one is, you know, relationships and getting the kids to just, you know,

buy into your style of play and just playing hard and competing every possession on the

floor and off the floor.

I think that's where you're going to see the improvement for us off the floor,

doing things the right way because I believe that what happens off the floor matters

just as much as what happens on the floor and just the relationship that we're going to be able to build

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