As many know, preparation for this year’s Blue Ribbon guide is underway. So you understand the process, I talk to each head coach ’roundabout this time–last year’s wrap up, this year’s look-ahead and such. We have an extended conversation about players, points of emphasis, and program-related items. There’s a shorter, catch-up call in August just to make sure everything is in order, and to see if there’s anything notable that changed over the summer. It works well because heavy lifting can be completed in July, and all that’s left in August is obtaining the most recent news possible for publication. (Except the schedule, which is a PITA.) So anyway, I was fortunate to sit down with Shaka Smart on Friday, and before we got into the usual flow of the interview there was a question to ask him that’s been nagging me since mid-March. We know of the burned calendar on March 1 . Fun story, no doubt, thinking about Smart singeing his arm hair in an attempt to motivate his kids to forget about a bad month of basketball. However to me, that was an outward expression of something bigger. While it makes for a great story, the calendar burning serves to illuminate a deeper transformation. Something happened that first week of March that was not normal; bigger and better than any outward motivation. You don’t go from losing four in five games–and three at home when you’d lost three home games in last three years combined–to the Final Four without something important happening. Was VCUs Final Four run the manifestation of the power of momentum? Four talented seniors “figuring it out?” As always, Smart’s response didn’t disappoint. You ask him a question, you can expect a thoughtful answer: “Every team, under the surface, has a certain potential to be the best it can be. Great is such an overused term, but for us ‘the best it can be’ was great. But every team has that somewhere deep down, and there’s a variety of reasons that are outside the understanding of most fans, there’s a variety of reasons your team doesn’t play at that level. Winning is about so much more than talent. If winning is about talent and potential we wouldn’t have been there. We weren’t a top four team in terms of talent or potential. Neither was Butler. Going back to March 1 there was an understanding–on our part as coaches and the players–that there was a potential to be at our best with our backs against the wall. Our guys worked hard leading up to the (CAA) tournament, but sometimes you need something to happen, something to spark the emergence of your team back to greatness. Drexel, defensively, was better than any other team we played in the (NCAA) tournament. People kept telling us about Purdue, and Florida State, their defense. But I kept saying we’ve played tougher defenses during our conference season. So Jamie makes the shot. That provided a spark. Overall, for our program, we were able to utilize it as a spark. To build on what we’ve done. Then the Mason game was the beginning of what happened for the rest of March where people doubted us and talked trash. It was the precursor. They had won 16 in a row, most by double digits. They were playing as well as anyone in the country at that point. When they talked that trash we were able to get (our players’ minds) away from how good Mason is and onto the ‘let’s show these guys.’ Everything clicked. The magnitude of the ODU game maybe caught up with us, the time period between the end of the Mason game and beginning of the ODU game. I have a great deal of respect for ODU but it was not so much ODU as it was us. I think we got caught up in (the stakes and the rivalry) a little bit and that led to the slow start. We battled back and that went a long way towards getting us in (to the NCAA tournament). We needed all that, every possession of that game, to show our resolve and ability and how good we can be.” Once VCU was selected the stories came easily. Jamie Skeen sitting alone eating during the Selection Show. Freshman Rob Brandenberg coming to the rescue during a sloppy first half against USC. Rodriguez-to-Burgess, and Brandon Rozzell talking smack to the Kansas bench after his three put VCU up 17-10. But I think there’s still more to it, the riddle every coach spends idle moments trying to answer. Burning calendars, opposition quotes, and every other motivational technique is designed to get to that unknowable place, to tap into that under-the-surface potential Smart was referring to. Coaches see it in small bursts, both individually and collectively, and it grinds on their peace of mind: What is it that produces the beauty of the 13-2 run, or the five-game winning streak? It’s happened in the past so the capability is there. How in the world do we tap into that more often? Sometimes, the simplest of questions are also the most profound. They lack a tangible answer even though one exists somewhere. For coaches, it’s figuring out how the 12 young men who play on Your Team can mesh preparation with execution to the best of their ability. It’s frustrating for everyone to see great highs and forehead-crinkling lows? But honestly, for you, the fan, isn’t that part of the beauty of college basketball?

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Shaka Answers The Unanswerable…