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The Basketball Podcast: EP422 with Greg Tonagel on Daily Habits and Fearless Performers
Greg Tonagel, one of college basketball’s most accomplished coaches, discussing his coaching philosophy centered around habits and fearlessness. Be sure to check out his All Access coaching video series available at gregtonagelbasketball.com and immersionvideos.com, offering an inside look into championship-level program building. Greg Tonagel shared how he transformed his approach from focusing on behavior modification to developing habits that drive success, explaining his shift from using a “box” mentality to a “line” approach that emphasizes growth and movement rather than categorizing players as either in or out of expectations.
The conversation covered practical examples of habit formation, including defensive techniques like “walling” at the rim, and offensive habits like creating for teammates, while addressing how to measure and reinforce these behaviors through practice and game situations. Tonagel also discussed his approach to in-game coaching, emphasizing the importance of leading through belief in players rather than over-coaching, and shared insights about managing player development while navigating the current challenges in college basketball.
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Greg Tonagel Quotes:
“If everything goes to that final game, you can look back and say it’s a disappointment. But as . . each week that passes, it’s a little more healing for a coach. You get further away from it. You brought in your perspective, and you start to think, ‘Man, what did I like about last year? What was good about last year? Where did I grow?’ I’m doing a lot of reflection right now and saying, ‘Okay, this was good. This wasn’t good. Where do I need to go in this next phase of coaching?’”
“I had just finished my doctorate and part of my dissertation was on habits . . I think so much of coaching comes down to habits. There’s the psychology of habits . . and [there is] meaning . . you form those two things and you add that into skill development.”
“You can develop people and you can motivate people. There’s that old adage in the Navy SEALs where they talk about, ‘You don’t rise to your level of training, but you fall to the level of your habits.’ I think that applies to coaching. Players don’t default to what they know or what they hear you saying all the time. They default to what they do 1,000 times over and over and over again. There needs to be this shift, at least for me, rather than asking the question in frustration, ‘Why don’t you understand?’ I’m asking, ‘What are you repeatedly doing?’”
“How do I simplify winning habits into my players that can be repeated over and over again? And so, in the last decade our practices have become more simple and more based upon habits that we can repeat over and over and over again.”
“We started to realize how many times a game, especially one or two possession games, are going to come down to you meeting chest to chest at the rim and being able to win a game. And that’s something that we’ll continue to do and break down . . There’s no scheme involved in that, there’s no thought process involved in that. The idea is you have to ingrain it in your players’ minds. I believe that this game will be won if I stick my chest onto somebody in the middle of the paint.”
“We haven’t had a great shot blocker in a while, so we. We’re not trying to block shots. We’re just trying to chest. And one thing we’ve noticed is when we stat it, we shoot less than 30% on those finishes at the rim. They’re two-foot shots, but because you have a chest in your way, because a guy’s walling up, it is so much harder than you think.”
“One thing we talk a lot about is ‘create for a teammate.’ It’s a mentality, but it’s also a habit. Our players come into our program . . there’s a real self-focus and a lot of it’s how they’re trained and taught. They’re going to go into an off season and they’re going to be taught to only play when the ball’s in their hands. Their parents are paying a lot of money to have a trainer tell them what to do when the ball’s in their hands. We’re dealing with players that have habits that they only know how to play when the ball’s in their hands. So, we spend a lot of time teaching them to think about creating for others.”
“My assistant coach runs the offense and he does a tremendous job of this. It’s really about identity formation. It’s like, ‘Who are you on this team? What do you bring to this team because we don’t need five scores on the court.’ You’re teaching identity and you’re really teaching roles. And no matter what your role is, it all comes back to creating for others.”
“All the statistics tell us the more you reverse it, the more you get in the paint, the higher your points per possession are. So, we’re trying to teach those mentalities and those habits with kids . . And once again, if your mentality is create for others, you’d be surprised how often it comes back.”
“What gets recognized, gets repeated. Right? That’s in leadership. That’s in life. So, if we can recognize it more often, I think we’ll see that [action] begin to be repeated more often.”
“Because behaviors are always the byproduct of something deeper. And too often, I see a behavior and I just want to change the behavior. That never sticks and that never lasts, as opposed to, ‘Okay, what produced that behavior?’ How do I connect at a deep relational level? Once I do, then I’ve got a chance to help you change those behaviors.”
“Fear has caused more missed shots than any person. Most players aren’t getting blocked by defenders. They’re getting blocked by what’s in their head, and that’s fear. I began to think about playing fearless as part of program development.”
“Our scouting reports went from 10 pages to two pages. It’s simple and the default button is just play hard. If you forget the 10 things that this other team does, remember who you are. Remember who we are becoming as a team. Remember that fearlessness means going after it. And let’s go do that.”
“As I watch a game, I’m pretty self-critical. It’s like, ‘I should have done this, I should have done that.’ But I don’t think that changes behavior. It doesn’t get to the root. And so, I have to force myself to start with, ‘Here’s what you did well. And if you do more of this, here’s how you continue to help this team win.’”
“When you love the people you work with and you trust them, it doesn’t feel like a job. It feels like we’re on mission together. I can’t say I love meetings, in general, but I love the idea that we try to stay aligned and so, during season, we’re meeting every day.”
“They put a sign up in their locker room at the beginning of the year that said ‘April Habits.’ What he was saying to the guys was, every day we walk in here, we’re thinking about April and our habits have to be ingrained by that time. And so, I think that’s a lot of what we’re doing in practice. And this goes back to the whole concept of fearless, too. As I’ve gotten older, we spend less time preparing for our opponents and more time on ourselves.”
“You have 16 different learners. So, you better have different teaching styles to go along with that. The expectations are the same. How we get there is going to be quite different.”
Greg Tonagel Breakdown:
Greg Tonagel Selected Links from the Podcast:
Greg Tonagel
Ben McCollum
Steve Nash
Charles Duhigg
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Jeff Clark
Dusty May
Bobby Knight
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