To be able to play well in practice and games, players need to get both mentally and physically prepared. Each player will have their own way to do so. Some will listen to music to get themselves in the right mindset. Others might want to do something more relaxing before they go out and compete. Whatever it may be, everyone on the team has their own routine they go through every day.

Junior Zyon Dobbs says that he likes to listen to music to get mentally prepared but, more importantly, stretch to get physically ready. He said that he likes to “obviously get a good stretch in, I am getting a little bit older so, I have to stretch now. That’s my routine.” This is how most of the team prefers to get ready to go into their practices. They like to listen to music, stretch, and run some shooting drills before the actual practice starts. However, this is not true for all on the team. Some, such as Tyheil Peterson, like to listen to podcasts. Peterson mentioned, “I’m a big podcast guy, I like listening to podcasts here and there. Just watching practices from previous days…that kind of gets me in the flow of things.”

There are a couple of players on the team that are coming back from injuries they got last season. One of those players is Seth Younkin. Getting ready for the practices and preparing himself has been a little different compared to others on the team. He spent a lot of time not being able to put weight on one of his legs. He says that his way to cope with his injury has been to lift weights. “I would go in there, two hours a day all summer, seven days a week. That really helped me better myself not only physically, but mentally. That just takes all my stress away,” says Younkin. Even though he is now on the back end of his rehabbing process, this is still a part of his routine. Younkin says that he does weightlifting every day before practice and that it is a big stress reliever for him.

The team typically has afternoon practices, then a break, with shootarounds in the evening. Players fill the time between practices in different ways. Some like to go eat or sleep after. Others, like George Mangas, like to relax in different ways. “Sometimes I will take an ice bath here and there, maybe meditate some days, just take twenty to thirty minutes just to calm down and relax and ease my body and ease my mind,” says Mangas. Something that unites most of the guys on the team in a way that they like to spend some of their time off is video games. This is one activity that is not related to basketball that many on the team enjoy doing after their practices or workouts.

While each player approaches it differently, most seem to get mentally and physically ready and relax, in similar ways. From music to post-practice naps to video games, they all have their own routines that they go through to be at their best.