Fresh off the 2023 Silver Waves Media Most Impactful Head Coaches list, Pat Juckem enters his sixth season with men’s basketball. (Clara Richards | Student Life)

During Pat Juckem’s first season as Washington University men’s basketball head coach, the team had tough back-to-back games against two conference competitors in January 2019. The first, they lost to Emory University in a 98-108 late-night thriller. After the game, hours after the team had filed back to the hotel, the coaching staff gathered in the green room to watch a late-night film session of Rochester University. The next morning at 9 a.m., they were set to play the nationally-ranked team that had a completely different style of play than Emory, one with a very timing-precise offense.

 But even by the early hours of dawn, they weren’t close to being done with the scouting. Deep in a discussion about the best tactics for guarding, Juckem put his foot down.

 “We aren’t getting anywhere,” he told his coaches clustered around the table. “We need to get out on the court.”

 It was almost 3 a.m. when the staccato bounce resumed in the gym. The coaches ran through the play, two on two, walking through the exact technique. By the time they stumbled out of the Athletic Complex, past the hour when even the Wisconsin bars had done their last call, the weather had completely reversed from when they walked in before tipoff. Their cars were covered with six inches of snow.

 “My wife was like, ‘Where were you guys?’” assistant coach Jason Jabbari said. “I was like, ‘Trying to guard the screen.’” 

 Before he was a coach at WashU, before he was a coach at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, and even before he led the Coe College Kohawks, Juckem was a high school teacher. He taught everything from AP Psychology to Sociology: “I really, really loved teaching,” he said.

 The coaching gig, he said, was never something that was on his radar as a career path. As a student-teacher, his head coach recruited him to help with their high school team. Then, the coaching role just clicked.

 Since then, one thing that hasn’t changed about Juckem is his courtside energy. He’ll never forget his first game as head coach: “I was so wired, and so emotional, and so caught up in everything. It was so fast. And I remember [my mentor] just tugging on the back of my jacket and saying, ‘Pat, breathe. Breathe,’” he said. 

 Now on the sidelines of any given WashU basketball, Juckem rotates between a crouch and an anxious pace, never in the same place for more than a few seconds. The United Athletic Association (UAA), one of the most competitive conferences in the country, has given him more than a few extra gray hairs.

He’s been coaching this team for four years and he’s set the tone: this team is family. He invites them to his house for barbecue and Thanksgiving dinners where he flips burgers on the Weber grill on his porch.

 As his players get to know him, they realize how easy he is to talk to, about not just basketball but also everything else going on in their lives

Clara Richards | Student Life

“Coach Juckem’s a very genuine person,” junior Drake Kindsvater said. “I don’t think I’ve ever quite met a single person quite like him. Very focused. You can tell he’s very passionate about basketball. Really cares about what he’s doing. He’s kept that same energy the entire time I’ve known him.”

 Ask anyone: Juckem’s team prides itself on its defense. That’s where they live and die. Because defense travels. That’s what they can consistently bring to every single game. That’s something that Juckem recruits for. They’re always in the gaps, ready to help each other. 

Juckem will happily tell you that gap defense is from Wisconsin. He’s a Midwest guy himself, brought up on a strict diet of Dick Bennett, former Wisconsin basketball coach who coined the strategy. Juckem went to the Bennett camp himself for a week of defensive focus, one that former assistant coach Kevin Dux said “no kid would ever sign up for.”

 The objective of the man-to-man defense is to keep the ball out of the paint, to not give any easy baskets, and to be good in transition. “We’re not going to prevent them from taking shots,” Juckem said. “It’s, ‘Can we get them to take more of the shots that we want them to take?’” 

 Ultimately, it’s also about trust and connectivity. All five players have to work together as a defensive unit to stay patient and play smart defense.

 “It’s like a symphony,” Juckem said. “They move in concert with each other; there’s rhythms; there’s an omnipresence. When we’re at our best, it feels like there’s not five of you guys out there, it’s six of you. Because you’re doing it with such zest, such energy, and such passion.”

Dux played for Juckem at Coe, was his assistant coach at WashU, and now coaches at IMG Academy in Florida. He said that Juckem’s tradition of good defense is a tradition that he’s now passing on to the next generation of athletes.

“Defense isn’t sexy,” Dux said. “It’s not something that at the high school level is preached much. It’s a challenge, getting kids today to understand the importance of [defense], because everybody’s focused on, ‘How much can I score,’ whether they say it or not.”

It’s something that all of Juckem’s players can talk about at length: Pat Juckem’s deep, deep bag of defense drills. There’s the “bocche” close-out drill. There’s the “hundred-thousand-dollar” stop. 

“He’s got all the defensive drills in the book,” said junior point guard Hayden Doyle. “I could talk all day about his different drills,” junior forward Drake Kindsvater echoed.

“It’s unbelievable,” Charlie Jacob who played his last year of eligibility as a fifth-year last season reflected with a grin. “There’s all kinds of breakdowns he can do, and he finds a way to fill two straight days [of practice with strictly defense drills]. It never ceases to amaze me.”

 Kindsvater, about to start his third season, added with an exhale, “God, I still feel like I’m learning a lot each year, each season with him.”

 As a coach, Juckem is learning too. From his first year, he’s learned that sometimes it’s better to shave a few minutes off of practice to let students prioritize academics. He’s learned how to channel his energy into supporting his players while learning and enjoying every minute of his job. 

 “There’s not one day that I didn’t see our coaches having the best day ever,” former player Kevin Davet said, walking out of the fieldhouse for the last game of his career. “That’s because they love what they do. And that’s what I’ve learned is – you gotta fill the passion bucket.” 

 The passion bucket metaphor is one that has become ingrained into the lexicon of WashU basketball. Juckem’s team will tell you, with no hesitation: that the passion bucket needs to be full, maybe even overflowing. “It’s the bench mob, it’s the juice, being energetic, being involved. That’s what being a part of this program is all about. Whether you’re a starter or a reserve. Doesn’t matter,” he said. 

 “We’re going to be the most energetic, enthusiastic college basketball team in existence,” Juckem said, unfazed about setting such a high bar for his team. “Yep, in existence. It starts with me — if I don’t have the energy, call me out. Because then it’s time for me to do something different.”

Clara Richards | Student Life

 Juckem will remind you that basketball is just a game, and each win and loss, while magnified in the moment, is ultimately inconsequential in the larger turbulence of life. He’s had a lot of reminders of that during his time at WashU alone — a deep NCAA tournament run robbed by a global pandemic. Coaching Justin Hardy during the 2021 season with the eyes of millions of people on him. And so sure, it’s just a game. But it’s a game that Juckem has been a pupil of for over forty years, one that engrosses him and fascinates him, and keeps him up at night. 

 “There’s a myriad of decisions, from who you play to what defense you deploy…and you can replay games in your head, and replay decisions — ‘If I would have just called this differently it would have changed the outcome.’ And you can really wrap yourself in a pretzel, like overthinking. And I can get in that space for sure,” Juckem said.

 “We always joked that we needed him to find a new hobby or another passion because he’s like all basketball, all the time,” Dux said.

“He goes out of his way, all the time, to pour into his guys [in every aspect]. And I think those things actually end up carrying over on the court because as a player — and I felt this way when I played for him — you have such respect for him, and it makes you want to not let him down,” Dux said. 

 His investment in the game pays off in some ways with NCAA postseason appearances and an office that is covered in trophies, gold, and mahogany wooden reminders of titles that the program has won. Juckem knows that his job is, in some ways, judged by a scoreboard. But if that’s all that matters, “then we’re missing the boat,” he said.

 Juckem doesn’t wear a watch, but he does wear a light blue Hardy Strong bracelet. His office is decorated with tiny mementos from his players, like a gavel from the council of post players that he’ll bang at the beginning of meetings. He has a four-foot-tall fathead of former player Charlie Jacob in direct eyesight of his desk and conference table, a shrine to the defensive anchor and former leader of the team. It lives up on a shelf right beside a ball signed by Bill Clinton, smiling down on him as he works at his desk. He’s taught his team about leadership teamwork and work ethic; in return, Juckem has learned a lot from his players. 

 Jacob, who played five years of WashU basketball, pinpointed Juckem’s curiosity and desire to learn and improve — “and that is every single day with him,” Jacob said. “It’s awesome to be around. It gives me energy and it helps me to prop me up and other guys around me on days where, you know, you’re going through schoolwork and things are tough. He’s always there. He’s always consistent.”

 Pat Juckem’s approach to his career has been to focus where his feet are, and right now they’re firmly planted on the brand-new glossy hardwood WashU fieldhouse floor. He’s always had that mindset. When he was a high school history teacher and varsity basketball coach, he thought he had the best job in the country. Then, the head coach opportunity arose at Coe College, and he thought that was where he was going to be for thirty years. 

He’s someone who likes to stay in the moment, and right now that moment is a full slate of nationally ranked competition ahead and a brand-new season. From where Juckem is sitting — in his office, surrounded by signed basketballs and national championship trophies and books about defensive principles and an enormous grinning Charlie Jacob (but only chin-up) — he’s looking at the future ahead, and for him right now, it’s overflowing with potential.