Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree played one season with Jalen Brunson at Villanova. Villanova won the national championship that year and Brunson was the consensus National Player of the Year. Cosby-Roundtree is now on Temple’s basketball staff. Brunson is an All-Star with the New York Knicks.
1. Be ruthless in the way you attack life
The first time I remember I thought: This guy might be differentwas in training for the 2017-2018 season.
I was a freshman at Villanova. Jalen was a junior. We played five-on-five, and one of my classmates, Jermaine Samuels, was guarding Jalen. The game went to seven and Jalen scored all seven points – in the mail. Jermaine is 6 feet tall; Jalen is 6 feet tall, but Jermaine couldn’t do anything. Jalen just kept coming at him. I’ve never seen a guard play like that.
Jalen was just ruthless.
He attacked everything hard and did it as best he could. He trained every day, and he trained difficult every day. He did what the rest of us did, and then he did even more. In college we all trained three times a week. As a freshman, I was a little skinny kid, so I lifted four times a week. Jalen lifted with us, but his lifts were adjusted to maintain a certain weight. Because he didn’t want to get too heavy, he literally lifted differently than us. We were all trying to get stronger; he tried to hold on.
During training, JB always tried to win every exercise. Then he would come back after everyone else had left. Even when he was in the NBA, he came back to Nova and was always in the gym working and taking his shots. The shots you saw him make in games were the same shots he worked on over and over again. All those things he did thousands of times before we ever did them in a game. He pushed himself beyond his limits.
He has put in time and work to be who he is today.
2. Always try to maintain a positive attitude
Villanova’s main characteristic was attitude; that was our thing. JB epitomized that.
He normally had the same energy every day. Whatever it was, no matter how frustrated he was, he was always super positive and tried to create a good atmosphere.
He always kept things light and made others laugh. That was something great about him.
I distinctly remember the moments in the locker room after being yelled at during a tough workout, and he would find a way to keep us all in a good mood. It has taught me to see the positive and try to be uplifting, not only for your teammates, but also for yourself. Especially in difficult times, try to find the positive spin in everything.
3. Maintain a standard
Jalen yelled at me a few times for not keeping an eye on coach Jay Wright. We used to have something like this at Villanova: when the coach was talking, we would shout ‘eyes’ so everyone would shut up and look at him.
I was a freshman, so I didn’t really understand how important it was. Jalen really caught my eye one time. “Eyes, eyes, eyes!” He shouted it at me.
He always stuck to what Villanova basketball was. And he inspired everyone.
You didn’t have to be Jalen, but could you come as close as possible to what Jalen did to influence the win? How could you think about the team the same way Jalen does? That was kind of the motto. That was something the coaches preached, but it was also something you thought about for yourself.
If he was the best player in college basketball and dove for loose balls and took charge, why couldn’t I?
He made me want to be better.
Another time we were practicing together. It was me, Omari Spellman and Jalen. We lost, something happened and we argued. I don’t even remember what the argument was about, but there was a miscommunication.
Coach Wright got everyone on the line to run. When we got off the phone, Spellman had a problem. Jalen yelled at him, “This is not what we do. This is Villanova basketball. Just move on. We have to do this. You have to play the right way so we can do what we do.”
JB embodied that. He always thought about the team and victory. That guy was such a leader in that regard. He could keep everyone together, and he could keep everything light, but he had that intensity when he needed to.
He was the rare leader who could do both.
– As told to Jayson Jenks
#played #Jalen #Brunson #college #young #player #learn