A Super Talk Mississippi Media Production.

We are doing the bi-week blitz.

We're hitting up all the coaches on campus.

We're going to catch up with them and see what's going on with their programs.

Joining me now, Coach Sam Purcell, Mississippi State Women's Basketball.

Coach, how do you coach being as stoic and as unexcitable as you are?

How do I coach like that? Yeah, I mean, you're just such a, you're just such a, you know, you're stiff like a board. You don't do anything. Man, listen, best advice ever was given by my two loving parents was, you know what, choose a profession that you love and you never feel like you work a day in your life. And you know what? I haven't worked a day in my life. When you see your players in practice, when you see your players in games, is it sort of that same relationship that they feed off the energy that you bring? I hope, right? I mean, I've had a lot of good coaches and those who listen out there, hopefully had a good experience. But there are some coaches that you question like, man, you're leading me, right? And, you know, do you have joy? Because I think it starts with the coaching staff. If we have excitement and we have an energy about it, you hope that that filters out and flows through the rest of my team.

So that's something we take a lot of pride in.

What's a Sam Purcell practice like?

Fun, but hard.

You know, I keep it real.

We always try to identify what are our weaknesses.

Some people shy problems, I embrace them.

That's why I think I've been fortunate to be a part of 19, you know, being in this, what, 19 years and being part of several NCAA tournament teams is, yeah, everybody has strengths, but the better teams, you know, go at you on your weaknesses. So it's our job in practices to identify that, challenge them, motivate them where they have success,

and before you know, you've got a lot of strengths and hopefully they don't have a lot of weaknesses.

I asked you this question once before, but I want to bring it back because we had a different audience here.

But Mississippi State is a program. You're the fourth coach in three years at this program.

So that's a program, you know, from an outside perspective, you'd say,

well, that's a program that's got a lot of instability. Also four years ago, this team was in the elite eight, and then prior to that, they played for back-to-back national championships. So they're

not that far removed from the best days of the program. Now that you're here, and now you're fixing

a kickoff your season, you know, which program is it? Is it the program that's been unstable the past couple of years, or is it the program that is not too far removed from being one of the best in the country? Well, for me, it's the second one, not too far to be removed because the climate's changed. You know, a lot of times it was get a freshman, build your class, you got to build this thing up of four years.

But with the new NCAA rules in the transfer portal, it's about one year at a time.

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