Steve Serby

Steve Serby

Sports

Steve Masiello on movies, Machiavelli and Manhattan’s NCAA odds

With his MAAC champion Jaspers getting ready to head to the NCAA Tournament, Manhattan coach Steve Masiello took a timeout for some Q&A with Steve Serby.

Q: What do you want the mindset of your team to be entering the NCAA Tournament?
A: Every time we’re not on the court, I want them to have fun and smile. Every time we’re on the court, I want them to take everything personal. … When people pick us to lose, I want them to take it personal. I want it when we don’t have as many fans as someone, we take it personal. I want if our steak is cooked wrong, take it personal. I want them to be bothered by things on the court. And off the court have a blast.

Q: Why do you want them to take things so personally?
A: ’Cause the team we’re playing isn’t going to. That has to be our edge. … The team we’re playing is gonna have 8,000 fans behind them. They’re gonna be probably taking three buses, have two jets. … When your room key doesn’t work, I’m telling my guys, “That was done intentionally. When your TV, your air conditioning doesn’t work in your room, that was done intentionally.” It’s personal. And I want them to channel that on the basketball court.

Q: How would you feel if, like last year, you draw coach Rick Pitino’s Louisville team in the first round on Selection Sunday?
A: (Smile) I wouldn’t go.

Q: You often show your team movies and clips. What are your favorite movies?
A: “Meet Joe Black,” “The Godfather.”

Q: Favorite actor?
A: Anthony Hopkins.

Q: Did you see the movie “Fracture”?
A: Love it. It’s phenomenal. It’s one of the best mental movies of manipulation there is. In fact, I made my team watch it. … I wanted them to really understand mental manipulation. My big thing with college basketball is, perception becomes reality. If you put out a certain brand or a certain product, teams sometimes become more afraid of the perception of what you are versus what you actually are. And I learned that kinda at Kentucky. … We would take the court and you would actually see people … like we’d be up 10 before the ball even went up. And being the defending [MAAC] champion, I really wanted to have a certain … demeanor to us. And I wanted the guys to understand that mentally, you can break people. We watched that movie, and we watched a Mike Tyson clip.

Q: Same trip?
A: Yeah. And Mike Tyson, he used to do a thing before he went in the ring where he wouldn’t blink. And he would just stare into his opponent’s eyes. … Most of the guys would stare back at him for 10 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute, ’cause eventually they would blink though. And he goes, “Once they would blink, I knew I had ’em.”

The stareRSVLTS.com

Q: Tyson said that?
A: Yeah. It’s a three-minute YouTube [clip]. And he talks about, when he was in the dressing room, he was petrified, that he thought he was gonna lose every fight. And then as he would walk to the ring, each step he took he became invincible. And he said, “In my preparation or when I trained, all I envisioned was getting beat. This man was gonna kill me.”

Q: What other movies have you showed your team?
A: I just showed them “Whiplash.”

Q: When was that?
A: On the bus going to the MAAC tournament. It’s one of the best movies I’ve seen. And it’s about a teacher — Fletcher — who is running the Shaffer Conservatory. And he’s a legendary music teacher, and this 18-year-old prodigy, so to speak, drummer, and Fletcher kinda takes him under his wing. And what he does is he mentally just … kills him in every way possible. This teacher just beats him down, then he’d bring him back up, and bring him back down again. And then he would go get an inferior drummer who wasn’t as good as him and give him his spot and see how he would react to it. To the point of where one of his students committed suicide in the actual movie. One of the messages I want our guys to get was that, don’t worry about the why. Don’t worry about the necessary “Why are things happening to me, what’s going on?” — trust in the process. And that’s kinda what that movie’s about, ’cause then at the very end, when the young man gets to the biggest stage of his life, he performs and puts on one of the best shows anyone’s ever seen. And, in order to do it, his mental toughness just had to be … he was almost numb, to pain or feeling. It shows you, there’s a very fine line, and this teacher definitely crosses some lines, but there’s gotta be some sacrifice for greatness. And I wanted my guys to understand the price you have to pay to be great. But also, that a lot of things are gonna happen to you in life that you’re not gonna understand at the moment, but if you trust in your process and you stay to your culture, you’ll be OK at the end.

Q: Does every bus trip have a movie?
A: Most of ’em.

Q: What are some others you’ve shown this year?
A: “Lone Survivor,” with the Navy SEALs.

Masiello with his JaspersAnthony J. Causi

Q: The message?
A: Team bonding. We studied the Navy SEALs this whole summer, and basically their culture. I basically just spent a week and just watched every Navy SEAL, read every Navy SEAL article thing there was. And then I tried to basically duplicate a Navy SEAL culture here in the offseason last summer — No man left behind … 10 rules of a Navy SEAL and things they do. And what we wanted was, just a bond amongst each other, between each other, that couldn’t be broken, similar to a Navy SEAL. And a Navy SEAL’s motto is: “Don’t train till you get it right. Train till you don’t get it wrong.” They talk about in times of adversity, you always sink to the level of your training, you will not rise to the occasion. So it was very important for me in this offseason how these guys trained, how we prepared — not only physically, but mentally. Because I knew what we were gonna through. I knew we were gonna be taunted, I knew we were gonna be heckled, I knew we were gonna be belittled, I knew we were gonna be laughed at. And I needed my guys never to lose their cool. I needed my guys to be locked in on the task at hand regardless of the external circumstances that came in.

Q: You knew you would be heckled …
A: ’Cause of my [Kentucky] degree stuff [Masiello was set to become the South Florida head coach last March before a background check revealed false info in his résumé], and everything that went into that. I knew we weren’t gonna get rose petal welcomes in places (smile), so I wanted to make sure my guys were ahead of everyone. And I told ’em, “We’re gonna be playing chess this year and everyone else is gonna be playing checkers.” I said, “That’s gotta be our motto. We’ll be two steps ahead of everyone. Things might not always look good, but if we stay with our process, we’ll be OK.”

Q: How did you handle the heckling and the taunting?
A: I actually like it. As crazy as it sounds, I actually like it.

Q: Why is that?
A: It’s the greatest motivation there is. It makes me focus that much more because you have to block it out. It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be either. … There’ve really been one or two games where it was noticeable. But I relish that. It kinda wakes me up and gets me going. I don’t know if that’s good or not, what it does (laugh).

Q: Muhammad Ali has to play a role somewhere.
A: I show ’em Muhammad Ali … Eric Thomas, one of the greatest motivational speakers I think in the United States today … Tyson, Kevin Garnett, YouTube clips, little documentaries, little series. … We just watched a Kobe Bryant interview on the Siena trip. We put together a 20-minute movie that we made to show these guys. … They didn’t know we were filming them. So we filmed ’em in preseason, they were working out crying, throwing up. And then we showed them two years ago when we lost in the MAAC championship — the tears, raw emotion. And played that the night before every game in the MAAC tournament. And we have voice-overs too, by all these people — Derek Jeter, Tom Brady, Kevin Garnett, Eric Thomas, Tyson — about paying the price for success. Every road you take you’re gonna have to go through pain, you’re gonna have to go through agony in order to achieve greatness. What I want to do is I want to tap into their emotions. I want them to take that raw emotion and then filter it in the right way. And if you can do that, it’s powerful stuff.

MasielloAP

Q: Describe the ideal Steve Masiello player.
A: Unbelievable toughness. … You cannot mentally break him, you have to kill him … and a high IQ for the game.

Q: Who are coaches in other sports you admire?
A: [Bill] Belichick. … I think his relationship with his players … his culture. One thing I notice about Belichick is he never compromises his culture. And I think that’s so hard to do today when we’re judged on wins and losses. His preparation. I actually took this from him, where, he would go up to Ed Reed before the game, and he would see Ed Reed — and have this look, like he was getting ready to go kill — and Belichick would go up to him and pay him the biggest compliment in the world. And you’d see Ed Reed now just smile. And it almost disarmed the opponent. I started doing that every game.

Q: To?
A: Every best player on the other team.

Q: You’re a dangerous man.
A: (Laugh). And it’s amazing how it works. It definitely disarms guys a little bit.

Q: Who are athletes in other sports you admire?
A: Jeter. I think he’s the ultimate professional in everything he’s done, the way he’s handled himself on and off the field.

Q: Favorite motivational saying?
A: The most common road to mediocrity is being realistic. Think outside the box. I hate being told we’re good. It’s the biggest insult anyone can tell me. I take it so personal. What has good ever gotten anyone? You don’t win championships for being good. You don’t get raises for being good. You don’t get promoted for being good. Good you might as well be bad, in my mind. If you’re not great, you’re not there. And I think so many people settle for good. I think so many people are OK with good. And it’s why our society, it’s why our culture, it’s why sports today, it’s why we live in instant-gratification society of people want everything because they just want to be good. And they don’t really want to pay the price for greatness. And I want that. I want to go through hell and back, because I think that leads to greatness.

Q: How long have you been chasing greatness?
A: Probably since I started working for Coach Pitino.

Q: Have you read psychology books?
A: I study people. I get no originality points. None. I study Bill Belichick … Rick Pitino … Mike Krzyzewski … John Calipari … Joe Girardi … Derek Jeter. I watch every mannerism, I watch the way they walk, talk, dress, act, smell. … Will Smith has an eight-minute YouTube [clip] called Will’s Wisdom. And he talks about the Wright Brothers : “You people have to understand, these guys sat there, and said, ‘We’re gonna put metal in the air and make it fly.’ ” That’s the craziest … just think of that notion. And that’s where I got that quote: “The most common road to mediocrity is being realistic,” it’s from Will Smith, the actor. So I just study people, I study their behaviors, and I try to translate that to an advantage for us as best I can.

Q: Describe winning the 1998 NCAA championship as a sophomore at Kentucky.
A: I remember being down [41-31 to Utah in the title game]. … And it was in the Alamodome, and I remember both teams leaving the court. … I remember one team was walking … and the other sprinted. It was a little less than a mile run to the locker room. And we sprinted the whole thing. Tubby [Smith, coach] came in, he said: “I got nothing to say to you but one thing — that team is exhausted, and you just showed it. They’re mentally done just by the way they went to their locker room.” Whether it was true or not, I don’t know. But we believed it was true.

Q: Boyhood idol?
A: Mark Jackson. And then my father — he never showed weakness.

Q: Favorite actress?
A: Jessica Biel.

Q: Favorite meal?
A: Chicken francese.

Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Jesus Christ, Machiavelli, Ghandhi.

Q: What would you ask Machiavelli?
A: Because he believes in being feared, and I don’t believe in that. I believe in being loved. But you have to be respected, and he was so successful ruling with people fearing him. My thing with that would be, well wouldn’t they try to overturn you when they had the opportunity if you ever show weakness? There’s a time when the town and the culture could try to revolt. Why did you choose to rule that way? What’s the benefit to it?

Q: And Ghandi?
A: How do you always take the high road? He was 10 steps ahead of everyone, 20 steps ahead. Where do you get that wisdom from? What’s your perspective? Because I think that’s really powerful.

Q: What drives you?
A: I want to be one of the best. I don’t know if I ever will be. But I want to work like that, I want to think like that, I want to conduct myself like that. I want to do right by my staff and players. I want to make their lives better. I look back at what Rick Pitino did for me, and where I am today. That was my college coach. And the impact he had on my life changed my life. I want to do that for my guys. I want to make their lives — I want to change ’em. I want it to be better. I want to be their insurance plan. Where if anything ever goes wrong in their life, they can come to me.

Q: Can this team get to a Sweet 16?
A: It’s about matchups. Our style is dangerous. Our personnel isn’t gonna overwhelm you. The one thing I will say is you gotta kill this team. You have to kill ’em. If there’s air left in their body, they’re gonna fight. So you gotta stomp ’em out, make sure you put ’em away, because this team is a pretty resilient group of kids.

Q: So this team basically is a reflection of its coach.
A: Maybe I’m a reflection of them (smile).