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right around the corner and the Cougars are in the
middle of it. It's time to talk some college basketball
on Cougar Sports with Ben Cripple.
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Speaker 3: Today it is time for.
Speaker 1: A little college basketball segment. We're gonna welcome to a
former BA rates pontificate and diagnose and treat the elements
of this BWA men's basketball team, the ups and downs,
the undulations of this game, to jackal and hide, why
it's happening, and what will this team be down the
stretch of the regular season, the end of the regular
season into the Big Twelve Tournament. This segment's going to
be brought to you by Central Garage Utah. Central Garage
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Speaker 3: All right, let's get out to the hotline.
Speaker 1: Welcome and former bucket getter and now doctor uh If
of physical therapy.
Speaker 3: We got doctor Skyler Halford on the line. What's up, Doc?
Speaker 4: What's up? Ben?
Speaker 3: How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic man, appreciate you talking some ball with
us today. What's uh, what's the latest in the Halford household?
Speaker 3: How's work gone? Give us all the updates.
Speaker 4: Oh, everything is great, man. You know, we got four
kids running around, trying to keep them under control, and
you know, trying to help as many athletes and motivated
adults as we can stay you know, healthy and develop
that skill in basketball area. We love that and always
have and always will. But it's been good. It's been
a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Love it man, Glad you're doing well.
Speaker 1: Uh, this bou basketball team, it's hard to diagnose, it's
hard to treat. What would the doctors say about this
basketball team?
Speaker 3: What ails it? Uh? What?
Speaker 1: What is it good at? What do we need to remedy?
What's going on? Where are the muscle you know, imbalances
and insufficiencies.
Speaker 3: What do we got to address.
Speaker 4: Here from a basketball perspective? Okay, Yeah, So it's it's
interesting you say that because I get it's really it's
kind of hard to read sometimes, right, because of you
get a game like Iiowa State where they play, you know,
arguably their best game of the year, and then we
you know, drop a goose egg against UCS and I
get it, like they're you know, they've gone through their
ups and downs this year with their fair share of
injuries and two key, key guys, and you know that
that does make uh it's challenging, you know, to adapt
to let alone. They have so few guys that came
from last year, so the continuity, right, I mean, it's
just a new group overall being together and then having
to lose some key guys. It's just tough to figure out.
Now some of the things that I think these guys
do the best, I mean, they're they're athletically gifted. I
honestly think that they're athletically gifted. You look at guys
like Rob Wright, AJ you look at I mean Richie
until obviously he went down great athlete himself. You've got
just athletes all around the floor that are long. I mean, Boskovich,
You've got You've got Boop, I mean guys are long.
Keto's as athletic as they come. So that athleticism is
is there, you know. And the hard part is I
feel like at times, I don't want to say that
there's not a lot there's a lack of effort, but
I feel like with that kind of athleticism, there should
be a lot more that we can get done on
the defensive end, which unfortunately I haven't seen yet. But
the good news is that I think we're capable of it. So,
you know, fine tuning that I think would be interesting
and could take us to that next level. So you know,
I'm not going to tell somebody that it's a lack
of effort. I just think maybe there's some urgency that
needs to be there, and we've talked about it. You know,
I think all year long as Cougar fans, that first half,
you know, that that sense of urgency coming out and
you know, hitting somebody in the mouth, letting them know
you're there. I don't know, those are the things that
come to my mind when I think about this team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it is hard to diagnose, it is hard
to treat. It's it's the Jekyll and Hide, the peak,
the Valley. The peak is Iowa State. The next game
it was the Valley versus U seef Man.
Speaker 4: The worst performance, right, yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: So how do you how does this team find its identity?
Speaker 1: Look aj S in the post game, He's like, look,
we're going to be fine and Marked, are you buying
or selling?
Speaker 3: They're going to be fine.
Speaker 4: In Mark, I'm buying it. I mean, honestly, if you've
got guys as good and as talented as Aj and
Rob Bright are. Uh you can. I mean, it's a one,
one game at a time tournament, right, It's a it's
not a best of three, best of five, best of seven.
You just got to win one and then survive in
advance and that's all that's all you need. And when
you got guards that are capable of playing to the
level that Rob and Aj are capable of, I'm buying,
I think, and you know hearing. You know, Aj is
a confident player and I love that about him, and
so when the when the lights shine the brightest, I
feel like he's going to be able to perform really well,
and that leadership from him hopefully spills through the rest
of the team as well, so they can kind of
rise to the occasion when those brightest lights are shining
on them.
Speaker 1: So I'm buying, so ceiling and floor for this team,
do you think what is it?
Speaker 4: I mean ceiling is I mean, is a national champion
on it?
Speaker 3: Still?
Speaker 4: Still absolutely absolutely, I mean, as as hard as it
may be to believe and feel with Richie gone, and
obviously we've been dealing without Dawson for for you know,
throughout the season when you've got a guy like AJ,
who's gonna be he's the next generation talent that as hard.
I mean, guys like don't remember in the past have
as much as AJ has personally, I believe. And then
you've got a point guard like Rob who who has
the ability to be a top, if not the best
point guard in America. When you have guys like that
and you enter a tournament like March Madness, I mean,
we've seen crazier things happen. I don't think it's it's
by any you know, there's there's no reason why these
guys couldn't go that far. And again I see them
going into the tournament depending on how they do in
the Big twelve tournament, you know, anywhere from a seven six, uh,
and if they make a run win the Big twelve tournament,
who knows, I mean a four potentially maybe even even
a little better. So with that being said, I do
think that the ceiling is the national championship. Still, we've
got a lot of things to figure out over the
next three regular season games and into the Big twelve tournament,
that's for sure. And if we can do that defensively
and figure ourselves out, I don't see why that can't
be the case. And then you know we're gonna get
into the tournament. The floor, anyone's floor going into this
tournament is to lose in the first round. You know,
Purdue against the sixteen seed. It's it's just the most
beautiful tournament in America because anything can happen.
Speaker 3: No doubt about it.
Speaker 1: Do sometimes do you envision yourself what you would be
doing on this team, Like how you'd be like weaving,
you know, into the corner, you know, like what role
you could play on this team? We could use the
Skylar Alford right now, is all I'm saying to A
and three point shots.
Speaker 4: I mean, we do need some three point shooting. I
will say that, and I would just I mean, I'm hopeful.
I've been hopeful from the beginning with Alexei Kostitch. He's
a guy that I've just been hoping can fill that
role somehow. I mean, he was four for nine from
three at the last game I've watched, where previously he
had six threes in a game or five. I might
be mistaken there, but like he has the ability to
be that guy that can draw more attention to him. Yeah,
he's a little undersized still is Tyler Moruss right, those
are the two guys that have to be able to
fill that role that I think are most capable of it.
I think Boskovic at times can show it, but just
with like the shooting mechanics that I've watched from those players,
I think the most capable ones to be consistent are
you know, from Russ and Kastitch, And we're gonna need
those type of role players, you know, in the Big
Twelve the rest of the season, in the Big Twelve
tournament into March, to be able to help us win
some crucial games. So I really hope that they can
fulfill that role. I noticed they go to, you know,
that zone, which is what they used to do when
I played, because I was undersized and wasn't able to
pick up you know, players defensively one on one, so
sometimes you got to go to that zone to you know,
help manipulate that a little bit. And I don't know
if we've played a lot of zone this year because
Costitch and Russ haven't played as much, so maybe getting
a little bit better at that zone, finding ways to
get those guys integrated could help help us. So hopefully
they can fulfill that role that I think we do need.
Speaker 3: All Right, I got a tough question for you. I'll
be honest.
Speaker 1: I've never seen this many injuries on a basketball team, Skyler.
Speaker 3: I've never seen this many injuries.
Speaker 1: This is like like I begin to wonder, Okay, when
there's this many injuries, like, hey, are these freak accidents
or is there something with S and C, nutrition, rest, biomechanics,
what we're doing as far as potentiation prior to tip off?
Speaker 3: Like, what are you seeing? Man?
Speaker 1: There's been some like kind of sort of contact, but
it's really more non contact like jump stop, jumps, plant.
You know, we got a vougus you know, stress on
on Richie. That's a movement he's done thousands, hundreds of
thousands of times, you know, probably in his young adulthood.
You know, Dawson's was kind of unique. He kind of
got a little bit of a body and then tweaked.
What do you see in man Brody Koslowski's out, Xavian
Staaten's out. I know you don't have all the details
on these injuries, but what's what's a rye here? What
have you seen so far that you're like, uh, is
there an issue? Is there not an issue.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's it's reasonable to I mean,
people are going to naturally raise concerns, But honestly, I
mean I was just recently looking over actually a bunch
of ACL studies, systematic reviews and things on just ACL
risk factors, and to be honest, Ben, it's really you know,
research suggests that like, it's not caused by one major flaw.
I mean, it's usually stacking small risk factors, like there's
a slight asymmetry here, there's some extra fatigue, workload, movement
mechanics can be off. And I I mean a team
like BYU at the highest level that they are, I've
been inside the facilities. I've seen what they've got. They've
got high level you know, upper I mean NBA level class,
you know, professionals in there helping with these types of things,
and I don't doubt that they're doing a fantastic job.
I mean, in one of the studies I was looking at,
in particular, the very first line of the study says
that it's as basketball players are a high risk group
for antier cruciate ligament injuries, and that's just the nature
of it. No matter what you do I mean you can.
I do believe that they're the more we do, the
more we preemptively, like are trying to identify risk factors,
treat risk factors, You're gonna have a better chance of
not having injury. You know, people talk about injury prevention
that that is just not even I don't even know
why we even say that. I mean I get it,
but like, there's no such thing as injury prevention in
high risk sports like basketball. There's just no such thing.
And it's injury reduction. We're just trying to reduce the
chances of having an injury. And by yes, working on
a symmetry's monitoring workload. I mean I remember going to
a pre practice, you know, as an alumni, watching these guys,
and they handed out that these sheets that had like
how much workload each individual player had, like by to
the decimal point, and like, I mean they're tracking all
these things. It's a high level institution. They do an
amazing job. It's just, yeah, we have gotten bit by
that bug this year, and I can't say what it's
exactly attributed to. I mean, I would love to get
in there and and like just do my own research
and stuff, just because I love this stuff, and I
love BYU's program because yeah, it's it's very interesting. But again,
like I said, it's not one major flaw, it's not
one major thing. And yeah, most most of these acls anyways,
I mean I was looking at articles of NBA players
like they did studies over you know, beyond a decade
of time, where they're looking at video analysis, and and
most of them are these non contact injuries or where
they're getting bumped in the air and they land on
a single leg and then you know, they get that
force that's just too much for the need to handle.
And there's just so many contributing factors. You can't just
point to one thing, so I might not address it
the way you wanted to answer that question to be answered.
But that's just kind of like what I'm seeing I
would love to go. I mean, there's you know, quad
hamstring ratio, there's seeing biomechanically how these players move with
video analysis, and I'm sure there's some really cool stuff
and technology that BYU has that I would be loved.
I would love to even just learn about and learn from.
But I'm sure they have those things and they're addressing them.
It's just it's super unfortunate in sports that sometimes those
things just happen. If I were to say one other
thing about that, Ben, I think what we don't maybe
talk about, or actually has been talked about to an extent,
is how much basketball is being played, how much basketball
games are being played, tournaments are being played while these
kids are growing up, you know, like the mileage and
how much mileage they're putting on their bodies, to the
point where when they get to college, when they get
to pros, we're seeing definitely an increase in these injuries
from before. And you know, there is a question of
like how much sports should these youth be playing, how
many games should they be playing, versus like how much
more do they need to be focusing on their bodies
at a younger age to help prevent some of these,
you know, workload spikes and issues. But that's another question.
I don't have the answer for it, but it is
something that I think has been brought up in the
past about youth sports in general that I think continually
we all as healthcare professionals want to try and identify
ways to help so that we don't have these kids
getting to these moments in high school college and professional
sports where their careers ultimately can come to an end
because of some serious injuries that maybe could have been
avoided had they learned how to take care of their
bodies earlier on. So anyways, I'm passionate about this stuff, Ben,
don't keep me going. I'll be on here over time.
Speaker 1: No, Well, I now have to follow up because I
had this this same conversation. Look, I got young kids,
so I'm pretty far away from specialization. I'm pretty far
away from kind of having to address some of these things.
Speaker 3: And I'm sure it'll be even more.
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows, maybe uh you know, I don't
know how crazy it's going to get in the next
decade or so. But you bring up some really valid
points here. Specialization. We're seeing overtraining, right, I see it
all the time in my industry. The the the the
amount of games, the amount of practices, and a highly affluent,
highly competitive environment that we're living in here in the
United States and in particular here in the state of Utah.
Speaker 3: Kids are specializing.
Speaker 1: Way earlier, and they're they're they're playing in all manner
of tournaments, whether it's baseball, basketball, I mean, football now
is having a lot of offseason stuff with with seven
on seven and then you strength and conditioning.
Speaker 3: That's that's also a big part.
Speaker 1: Of of the youth movement.
Speaker 3: You're seeing that. I mean, you do specialize basketball training.
Speaker 1: You're seeing kids come in, they want to get better,
their parents want them to get better. You're sitting there like,
well we got to load manage a little bit here.
You got some teller ten to tennis. You're going through
a ghosts burt. You know, you got a little os
good slotters, you know. Anyway, like you know a lot
of money is being allocated to it too, so there's
like there's there's an economy behind it. And anyway, give
me a little bit more here about what you're seeing
and what you recommend to your youth as they're coming
in to be balanced at multi sport athletes too.
Speaker 3: Like that's what I did. I did everything so I
didn't get as much loading. Like football and basketball are different,
Baseball was different, track and field was different.
Speaker 4: Yeah. No, I'm all for multi sport athletes and youth athletes.
I mean, I don't think it's it's a horrible thing
to do. I mean, for me, I started, you know,
quote unquote specializing in basketball in ninth grade. When I
made my varsity high school basketball team at ninth grade,
I was like, all right, this is what I'm doing
moving forward, this is what I'm gonna specialize in, quote
unquote right like and I but I think all the
other sports and things that kids can play are going
to teach them so many great movement qualities because these
kids need to learn just how to move like and
these various sports can teach them that. And then also
on top of that, it's like, yes, you know, I'm
biased as a skills trainer. I think that skill development
is extremely important. Our game is important. Absolutely is being
able to understand your body right and when it's telling
you that maybe you're doing a little bit too much,
versus pushing through and thinking, oh crap, I'm gonna you know,
I'm gonna get kicked off this club team that's gonna
get me to you know, college or the NBA. Like
and having a strength and conditioning program. I mean, there's
research that suggests that kids need to get started with
strength training so much earlier than a lot of people
really understand and believe. And that's to really fortify and
help protect these kids as they're moving forward and my
the word I would use for this is balance and moderation.
Those are the two words that I would use. And
you've got it because I see a lot of kids.
So I see a lot of kids who will come
to skills training with me and they'll do they'll play
on a club team, and that's great, but they have
nothing on board for some sort of exercise program, strength program,
conditioning program as well. And I find that that lack
of that strength and that lack of just just building
out their body from a performance standpoint can be extremely
hurtful for these kids in the future because it puts
them at a higher risk of these injuries. I want
these kids to play sports. I know all the wonderful
things that sports can teach kids, not just for sport
but for life that are are extremely beneficial for life.
But you know, it's and and that things happened. Don't
get me wrong. People are gonna get injured. It's gonna happen.
But I just think there needs to be more education
to all the use of America. I mean, and obviously
it's very like you said competitive here in Utah of
having that balance, having a skills trainer, having a team
that you play on that doesn't necessarily play literally every
single weekend four or five games a weekend, and right
and a strength coach or or a performance coach of
some sort that can help you on a weekly basis
to develop your body, right Like, and I get it,
It's it's an economy there. There's there's costs to these things.
So I'm I guess I'm speaking from just like a
perfect scenario, if you know, costs and things were out
the window. And I don't know what the answer is
to that, but those are the things that kids need, uh,
in the competitive environments that we live in to give
them the best chance of being safe and healthy, I
guess moving forward and into their you know, potential and
future careers.
Speaker 1: Love your respective doctor Skyler Halford. For anyone that wants
some basketball training or they need some physical therapy, hit
up doctor Skyler Halford. Thanks for breaking down some of
the best VAU basketball elements today, sky.
Speaker 3: And uh we'll catch up again soon.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much, brother, absolutely, thank you, Ben.
Speaker 3: Have a great day all right, YouTube man Skyler Holford.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, that was a little college basketball segment
here on Cougar Sports, brought to you by Central Garage, Utah.
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Speaker 3: Everyone that joined us, obviously Skyler Halford.
Speaker 1: It was fantastic and a great very Steve Clements, former
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Speaker 3: We had Joe Klatt commentary as well on the show.
Speaker 1: Shout out to him, and then got into some spring
ball conversations.
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