On Senior Leadership (or just overall leadership from anyone!)
Q: How important are seniors to a team's success?
Bill Self: I believe a college basketball team is only as good as its seniors allow them to be. That doesn't necessarily mean points, rebounds, assists, that means creating an atmosphere where we have great practices everyday, creating an atmosphere where guys are unselfish, where winning come first, where sacrificing for the good of others is the prevailing term. Those are things that I believe seniors can provide from intangible standpoint that gives your team the best chance.
In our case this year, we got three seniors all of them have been in the program for at least four years one of them five. No matter how much those guys play in the games they've got to be a leader on the court and in the locker room each and every day and I really believe our players our young guys especially look to those guys for leadership and when they perform well, they usually follow.
Q: What kind of effect can a senior leader have on his teammates?
Self: Well I think everybody is some sort form of fashion is a leader. Some are really good leader some are really bad leaders. Just because a guy doesn't play hard or if a guy's selfish doesn't mean he's a leader. He could be leading the team down the wrong path. I think some of the intangibles that leaders have to have, especially upperclassmen in particular, are that they have to be coachable, they have to think we before me, they have to see the big picture, they have to understand it's a marathon and not a sprint, they have to know that being part of something bigger than themselves will reflect positively on them.
Guys gravitate to experience, to players who have been there before, especially when it gets down to crunch time. I'm a big believer that the older you get, the more you get it. The more you give the more it comes back to you. Where as sometimes young players want to take, and when you have a bunch of guys taking you're going to have bad chemistry. When you have a bunch of guys giving and not really caring who gets the credit, you're going to have great chemistry and that stems from great leaders.
