Seeing IMPACT Teams in March Madness

One of the incredible things about March Madness is witnessing the good teams that have made it to postseason play. As a leadership junkie, I revel in the back stories, interviews, and interactions you see on the court with players and coaches. While all these teams are good teams, not all of them are great teams… with even fewer being IMPACT Teams.
 
A few weeks back, I wrote about IMPACT Teams and the importance of the KARS process and is the differentiator between great teams and IMPACT Teams. KARS is a method of making sure that the team embraces and honors the roles necessary for a group of individuals to move from a good team to a great team. KARS stands for:
K – Knowing the Roles
A – Accepting the Roles
R – Respecting the Roles
S – Starring in the Roles
 
I talk about this now because with March Madness dominating the airways, it provides real time case studies to see the results in action. 
 
If you happened to watch the opening round match-up between the #6 seed Missouri Tigers and the #11 seed Drake Bulldogs, the impact of the KARS process was on full display. 

David vs Goliath 
You can read about Drake’s improbable year with a head coach who came from the NCAA DII level and brought 4 DII players from the program with him. To be fair, all they did at DII Northwest Missouri State University was win - as in four National Championships. That is what they kept doing at the DI level knocking off Power 4 opponents such as University of Miami, Vanderbilt, Kansas State, & eventually, Mizzou.
 
Drake was able to defeat Mizzou, 67-57, despite everything stacked against them.

• Mizzou is a power 4 from the SEC, Drake is a mid-major from the MVC.
• Mizzou has ~31,000 students, Drake has ~5000 students.
• Mizzou’s basketball budget is estimated between $10-15 million, 3-5x of Drake’s.
• Mizzou’s coach salary is around $4million, 4-5x of Drake’s.

 
The Power of the Team
How was Drake able to defeat Mizzou? It was the classic Team vs Individuals.
 
Mizzou was the odds-on favorite. They competed in the vaunted SEC with 14 teams making the tournament. They had size, athleticism, speed, and length. Mizzou had 6 players who actively played taller than 6’8” versus 1 for Drake.

Coach Gates, for Mizzou, has been coaching at the DI level for 21 years, the last 6 as a Head Coach. Coach McCollum of Drake is in his first year of DI coaching.
Mizzou’s team consisted of players from Duke, Iowa, Iowa State, Indiana and South Carolina.  Drake had 4 DII players from Northwest Missouri State University, 2 players from Wyoming and a juco player.
 
It should have been a beat down… on paper or with the eye-test. But it wasn't. One team became an IMPACT Team which was the difference.

​The KARS process builds upon the first part of IMPACT Leadership where you focus on recognizing the value that everyone brings, and you build trust by improving how you communicate within the team.
 
Moving forward in the KARS process, it is about aligning the team and individual goals to create and pursue a shared vision. This is the centerpiece of the process.
 
Embracing the Role
Drake was made up of Role Players with lone player Bennett Stirtz, who emerged as a superstar. As a sophomore he was a 2nd Team All-Conference performer for his DII school. Fast forward to this year and he was the Missouri Valley Player of the Year and an Honorable Mention All-American.
 
Mitch Mascari, Drake’s long-range sniper, is a graduate student who also came from the DII program and upon securing a job after graduation, chose to put his Finance Career on hold for one more year to play with his teammates. 
 
Mizzou on the other hand is loaded with future professional basketball talent. Where each game is an audition for the big stage. They come to the team with stars and national rankings, with established NIL deals.
 
While the Mizzou players also Know their roles, in watching them play this year, I’m not sure how Accepting they are of their roles.
 
For instance, Drake is limited by the number of 3-point shooters that they have on their team. Non-shooters, if you will, are not putting up 3’s for them. But for Mizzou, the bigs know that the NBA likes bigs that can shoot, so they have a tendency to step out and put up the low percentage shot.
 
Mark Mitchell, the Duke transfer, is a dominant inside player that should have and could have had a field day over the smaller Drake post players. But during the game, he kept floating out to the perimeter where he was considerably less of a threat to score. 
 
This isn’t meant to bash or criticize a team but to highlight the process and importance of Knowing, Accepting & Respecting the roles of individuals on a team. Then, once those 3 things are established, you can Star in your role.
 
And sometimes, because of how you have embraced the KARS process, you will have the opportunity, because of the trust built through the process, to take on the role of the star when it is required. 
 
IMPACT Teams know that individually you need to improve and be the best you can be for you and the team. But what sets apart IMPACT Teams is the trust built through the process that allows the impact of the individuals, through the strength of the team, to be much greater than anything they could achieve on their own.
 
Through being part of an IMPACT Team is how an individual creates a legacy of IMPACT Beyond Today.

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