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Players-only meeting sparked 6-game win streak
3/14/2023 11:40:00 AM | Men's Basketball, Paul Coro, Lopes Insider Blog
Ouedraogo called players for late-night talk to share feelings, goals in Utah hotel
There is a beyond-the-box-score value to how Yvan Ouedraogo helped Grand Canyon to the NCAA tournament.
Sam Houston coach Jason Hooten called him the best screener in the nation. Ouedraogo is a wall on post defense and is shockingly effective switching onto guard coverage at 6 feet 9 and 250 pounds, all of which was missed when he missed six weeks for a hand fracture and then played into game conditioning.
But even after a season-high 13 rebounds in GCU's triumphant WAC Tournament championship game on Saturday night, Ouedraogo's greatest contribution might have been an assist on Feb. 28 without a game.
Ouedraogo sent a series of texts that called for a players-only meeting in a Cedar City, Utah, hotel on the eve of the Lopes' game at Southern Utah, which proved to be the first victory of a six-game winning streak that the Lopes take into Friday's NCAA tournament first-round game against Gonzaga in Denver.
"Y'all boys tryna talk later tonight after practice?" Ouedraogo texted the team thread, following later with "Let's come back out there tonight if y'all wit it."
What happened from 10:30 p.m. to after midnight in that Courtyard Cedar City meeting room transformed their undefeated March with players expressing feelings and visions more than ever during a tumultuous season.
"There are two things that happen in March: either guys are tired of each other and want to go home or guys actually get together," "Ouedraogo said. "As men, we sometimes forget to actually speak to each other and actually tell how we love each other. I thought that this team is so special and we went through so much together that we just needed to do something unforgettable.
"We also were drawing a line that, 'Enough is enough. We're not losing any more.' "
After a night practice, the players arrived promptly in the hotel meeting room and sat in a circle.
Ouedraogo asked each player to speak from his heart and say what the team needed to do in the final two regular-season games that week and the following week's WAC Tournament to reach its NCAA tournament goal. The big Frenchman went first.
"I took notes on it all because I knew this meeting would be something memorable," McGlothan said. "There were so many poignant points in it. The main heart behind what everybody was saying was that we all love each other.
"One of the points I brought up was, 'We love each other as a group, but if we don't do anything with it, what's the point? We're just another team that likes each other. Why not get a championship? Why not get a ring? A banner? Something in history to say that this group did that.' "
The vulnerability helped the Lopes ignore any outside noise and loosened the team, which was evident the next morning when McGlothan started a snowball fight with head coach Bryce Drew after the game-day shootaround.
Ouedraogo had conferred with loved ones and McGlothan about the best way to carry out his idea. He knew the meeting was right as soon as he heard teammates pour
out their hearts with each other.
it was the most he has heard from sophomore guard Ray Harrison, who spoke to his teammates for about 15 minutes. Ouedraogo was most moved by hearing how much the sharpshooting seniors, Noah Baumann and Walter Ellis, did not want their careers to end with the way the season was sputtering during a 2-3 stretch.
Baumann, who also has played at San Jose State, USC and Georgia, was the last player to speak and went over how GCU has every basketball piece on its roster to be a championship team.
"I told them that we have what it takes, but if we want to have a special part in GCU history, we've got to lock in and do our parts," Baumann said. "I didn't even care if I scored the next night. I wanted to get rebounds and impact winning. If we didn't go to postseason play, it would've been such a waste of a year. Losing wasn't an option.
"It was a special two hours to let it out and put it on the line. My other schools' vibe wasn't as perfect as here."
The team that was 18-11 at the time of the meeting had taken seven of those losses painfully by five points or fewer. The night after the meeting, Ouedraogo was moved to the bench but played brilliantly to help the Lopes shake off a 14-point hole and give Southern Utah its second home loss of the season — by five points.
Last week, GCU won its first three games by five, five and three points before an assertive 84-66 championship game win against Southern Utah on Saturday night. The Lopes, knocked back by losing their WAC Preseason Player of the Year Jovan Blacksher Jr. in January, have found their stride for the program's winningest season in seven years and second NCAA tournament trip in three seasons.
"We know who we are and the adversity that God put us through," McGlothan said. "We showed that we can persevere. We were given an opportunity, and we took the opportunity and showed we were a different team. That meeting told us that we weren't going to let each other down. So that went it that four- or five-minute mark and we're only a few points ahead, we knew these were our guys and there was no way we were going to lose."
Sam Houston coach Jason Hooten called him the best screener in the nation. Ouedraogo is a wall on post defense and is shockingly effective switching onto guard coverage at 6 feet 9 and 250 pounds, all of which was missed when he missed six weeks for a hand fracture and then played into game conditioning.
But even after a season-high 13 rebounds in GCU's triumphant WAC Tournament championship game on Saturday night, Ouedraogo's greatest contribution might have been an assist on Feb. 28 without a game.
Ouedraogo sent a series of texts that called for a players-only meeting in a Cedar City, Utah, hotel on the eve of the Lopes' game at Southern Utah, which proved to be the first victory of a six-game winning streak that the Lopes take into Friday's NCAA tournament first-round game against Gonzaga in Denver."Y'all boys tryna talk later tonight after practice?" Ouedraogo texted the team thread, following later with "Let's come back out there tonight if y'all wit it."
What happened from 10:30 p.m. to after midnight in that Courtyard Cedar City meeting room transformed their undefeated March with players expressing feelings and visions more than ever during a tumultuous season.
"There are two things that happen in March: either guys are tired of each other and want to go home or guys actually get together," "Ouedraogo said. "As men, we sometimes forget to actually speak to each other and actually tell how we love each other. I thought that this team is so special and we went through so much together that we just needed to do something unforgettable.
"We also were drawing a line that, 'Enough is enough. We're not losing any more.' "
After a night practice, the players arrived promptly in the hotel meeting room and sat in a circle.
Ouedraogo asked each player to speak from his heart and say what the team needed to do in the final two regular-season games that week and the following week's WAC Tournament to reach its NCAA tournament goal. The big Frenchman went first.
"I took notes on it all because I knew this meeting would be something memorable," McGlothan said. "There were so many poignant points in it. The main heart behind what everybody was saying was that we all love each other."One of the points I brought up was, 'We love each other as a group, but if we don't do anything with it, what's the point? We're just another team that likes each other. Why not get a championship? Why not get a ring? A banner? Something in history to say that this group did that.' "
The vulnerability helped the Lopes ignore any outside noise and loosened the team, which was evident the next morning when McGlothan started a snowball fight with head coach Bryce Drew after the game-day shootaround.
Ouedraogo had conferred with loved ones and McGlothan about the best way to carry out his idea. He knew the meeting was right as soon as he heard teammates pour
out their hearts with each other.it was the most he has heard from sophomore guard Ray Harrison, who spoke to his teammates for about 15 minutes. Ouedraogo was most moved by hearing how much the sharpshooting seniors, Noah Baumann and Walter Ellis, did not want their careers to end with the way the season was sputtering during a 2-3 stretch.
Baumann, who also has played at San Jose State, USC and Georgia, was the last player to speak and went over how GCU has every basketball piece on its roster to be a championship team.
"I told them that we have what it takes, but if we want to have a special part in GCU history, we've got to lock in and do our parts," Baumann said. "I didn't even care if I scored the next night. I wanted to get rebounds and impact winning. If we didn't go to postseason play, it would've been such a waste of a year. Losing wasn't an option.
"It was a special two hours to let it out and put it on the line. My other schools' vibe wasn't as perfect as here."
The team that was 18-11 at the time of the meeting had taken seven of those losses painfully by five points or fewer. The night after the meeting, Ouedraogo was moved to the bench but played brilliantly to help the Lopes shake off a 14-point hole and give Southern Utah its second home loss of the season — by five points.
Last week, GCU won its first three games by five, five and three points before an assertive 84-66 championship game win against Southern Utah on Saturday night. The Lopes, knocked back by losing their WAC Preseason Player of the Year Jovan Blacksher Jr. in January, have found their stride for the program's winningest season in seven years and second NCAA tournament trip in three seasons.
"We know who we are and the adversity that God put us through," McGlothan said. "We showed that we can persevere. We were given an opportunity, and we took the opportunity and showed we were a different team. That meeting told us that we weren't going to let each other down. So that went it that four- or five-minute mark and we're only a few points ahead, we knew these were our guys and there was no way we were going to lose."
Players Mentioned
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