10/22/2023 basketball Edit

Sean Conaty brings the 'juice' to Mizzou Basketball

Drew King • PowerMizzou

Basketball Writer

There is no shortage of equipment in Mizzou Arena’s weight room. Smelling of sweat and painted off-white, MU gold and black, the room is stocked with racks, plates, weightlifting chains, barbells, dumbbells, resistance bands, medicine balls, plyo boxes, sleds, exercise bikes, treadmills, Everlast punching bags, a fridge containing protein shakes and bottled water, a TV to display the day’s workout and pair of basketball goals.

Aidan Shaw likes to put the hoops to good use. A year ago, the forward used them as a reference point to show off his max vertical leap of 49 inches — a mark that would’ve broken the NBA Draft Combine record. If the team is assigned a set of box jumps, Shaw will do his with a basketball in hand, springing on top of the box, hopping back down to the floor and then immediately bouncing back up to dunk on one of the baskets.

Earlier this month, Shaw was dunking an eight-pound medicine ball on the goals. Sean Conaty, the Tigers’ Director of Athletic Performance, wasn’t impressed.

“You can go heavier than that,” Conaty told him.

Shaw grabbed an 18-pound ball and, wearing no shoes, took a one-dribble drop step, rose and slammed the ball through the net.

“I would say, last year, I probably couldn't do that,” Shaw said. “That's proof that what we're doing is working and I'm seeing results.”

Head coach Dennis Gates believes the sophomore will go down as one of Missouri’s all-time greatest players. For Shaw to get there, it’ll continue to take long hours in the weight room with Conaty.

It’s one of the many reasons Gates views “Juice” as a critical member of his staff.

“You know, my two most important guys — and there's nothing against my assistants — two most important guys in our program is our Chief of Staff/Director of Operations Chase Goldstein, as well as our strength & conditioning component, and that's the Director of Athletic Performance, Sean Conaty,” Gates said. “Their offices are right near mine. Again, nothing against our assistant coaches, but these two guys run our program from the top to bottom and probably are the two most essential pieces to our success.”

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When Conaty was a fifth-grader, the Monticello, N.Y. native traveled down to attend North Carolina’s basketball camp. The Tar Heels’ strength & conditioning coach led the campers through warmups to start the day. Conaty said he knew then that was the job he wanted. He’d wake up at 6 a.m. to do an abdominal wheel and push-up routine and shoot free throws before heading to elementary school.

He grew up playing basketball and soccer but considered himself much better on the pitch than on the court. But Conaty blew out his knee in high school, requiring three different surgeries, and knew he wouldn’t be able to play anywhere in college. Recovering from the injuries had helped him fall in love in love with the weight room, so instead, Conaty got his personal trainer certification, enrolled at East Carolina and got an internship with the strength staff. He was brought on as a graduate assistant at Springfield College, where he got his master’s degree.

Conaty realized one of the holes in his résumé was that he didn’t have much experience working with football teams — crucial in American strength & conditioning circles — and took a paid internship with the Buffalo Bills. The coach knew he could’ve pursued the football route further and done well in the sport. But Conaty believed that to be great, he had to love what he was doing. And basketball gave him a better opportunity to do that.

“I've always been wanting to be working high-major basketball,” Conaty said. “Having 15-18 guys, I can get a lot deeper from a relationship standpoint, from a training, from a nutrition (standpoint), from the sports science analytics stuff as opposed to football, you've got 100 guys. So like, your role is very minimalized compared to what I'm doing with the (basketball) team.”

In January 2015, Conaty was hired at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va., as an assistant strength & conditioning coach, where he worked with both basketball programs and helped the men’s team reach the Final Four in the NCAA Division III tournament in 2016. Conaty moved on to Eastern Michigan in August 2016, where he stayed for nearly three years and where he also met assistant coach Matt Cline, who joined the Eagles’ staff in May 2017.

Cline had been a graduate assistant at Florida State from 2011-13, where Dennis Gates was an assistant coach at the time. Cline was the first person to tell Conaty who Gates was. Gates had heard about Conaty from Cline, but also heard about him from his wife, Jocelyn. Conaty had applied and was considered a finalist for the strength & conditioning job at Boston College where Jocelyn was a Senior Associate Athletic Director.

Conaty joined Buffalo’s staff in June 2019, where he’d oversee the strength & conditioning for men’s basketball as well as the school’s Olympic sports. Gates was named the head coach at Cleveland State the next month. Conaty watched as Gates’ Vikings won the Horizon League tournament in 2021. He sent a picture of the game to his then-girlfriend and current wife, Suzan. She replied that Conaty was going to work for him someday.

A few months later, Gates called Conaty out of the blue.

“Do you know who I am?” Gates asked.

“Of course I know who you are,” Conaty said.

“I need you to come work for me,” Gates said.

The timing wasn’t quite right — Conaty was hired at Oregon State in September 2021, achieving his dream of becoming a strength & conditioning coach for a high-major basketball team. But the two continued to build their relationship and when Gates was tabbed Missouri’s head coach on March 22, 2022, he gave Conaty another call.

“It’s time,” Gates told him. “Are you in or are you out?”

Conaty was in.

Conaty’s philosophy on development is principle-based and data-influenced but relationship-driven. For that reason, his work with Mizzou’s players starts early in the recruiting process.

When prospects come to campus for a visit, Conaty will sit down with them and their families to go through a full PowerPoint presentation describing his regimen and what’ll be expected from them both training- and nutrition-wise. Throughout the year, Conaty will check in on the athletes to see how their development is going and send them workouts to try.

Once players join the team, Conaty puts them through a full assessment using a force plate, putting them through jump, balance and strength protocols. The force plate, a black, square platform connected to a computer, creates a movement signature that tells Conaty how the player creates force, how he transfers his force, whether he loads up unevenly on his left or right side and any other deficiencies he might have. Conaty speaks to the player about what kind of goals they have, then uses that data to construct customized development plans — or “cards” — for each individual.

“Long gone are the days of 'OK, how strong is he? What's his one-rep max back squat? What's his 185 benchpress?' Like, those metrics don't really translate to basketball,” Conaty said. “I can see what they're deficient in and then actually target that with a training program.”

A force plate used by Director of Athletic Performance Sean Conaty inside Mizzou Arena's weight room.

Conaty’s cards might change a bit depending on whether the team is in season or out of season, but two things remain true year-round: the Tigers are going to lift every day that they practice and the intensity of the workout is going to match the intensity of practice.

The NCAA allows teams eight hours of countable athletic-related activities per week during the offseason. Mizzou typically will use four of them in the gym and four of them in the weight room. However, once the team is back in season and the amount of countable hours increases to 20, the Tigers try to differentiate themselves.

“A typical, old-school motto would be, maybe you lift three-to-four days a week in the offseason; in-season, some teams only lift one or two days a week,” Conaty said. “We flip it. We do lift four days a week in the offseason. In-season, we might actually lift five days a week. Now, it's not an hour-long lift, it might only be a 20-minute lift … It's just a habit for the guys where, again, we treat it like the NBA and like a professional where anytime you're doing something on the court, you're going to be doing something to take care of your body on that given day.”

If Mizzou has a long, grueling day on the court, the team knows to expect the same in the weight room. Likewise, if it’s a relatively easier day in practice, there’ll be a relatively easy lifting session to get through. Conaty says this process helps the players’ bodies handle more stress on the days that they need it and also allows them to focus fully on recovery during off days.

Freshmen usually require a little more hand-holding than the upperclassmen. Conaty breaks them off into their own group when they first get to campus, putting them on their own introductory program that lasts about four weeks before joining the rest of the team on the main card. However, the freshmen aren’t required to stay with the program for the full month.

“Trent Pierce really spent a week on that card and then he was able to progress because he came in with such a good background,” Conaty said. “Other guys, it takes a little bit longer.”

Conaty also takes the freshmen’s autonomy away when it comes to their diet. For many players, it's their first time living away from home and first time having to cook for themselves. During their first couple of months with the team, Conaty tells them exactly what they need to eat during the week. He’ll take them on a trip to the grocery store and give them a tour of which ingredients to stick to and which ones to stay away from. Later on, once they have a better understanding of what they need to eat, Conaty will let them start picking their own meals.

Upperclassmen have more freedom. Players have a “fueling station” at the Mizzou Athletic Training Complex where they can eat breakfast and lunch. For dinners, they have Red Card, an off-campus meal plan that lets them eat out at different restaurants around town. Missouri has brought in a few professional chefs to teach the players how to cook at home, but the team also has NIL deals set up with a few companies, such as Bush’s Catering, that’ll deliver food to the athletes if they don’t feel like cooking.

Conaty said he’ll also help with micronutrient supplementation, noting that a few players on the team have a vitamin D deficiency. But in the macro, his main concern is making sure they realize the impact nutrition can have.

“I tell them, they're gonna have a ton of free calories surrounding them,” Conaty said. “It's really about us identifying what kind of a nutrition track you need to be on and then again, being an educator and for me being the liaison with nutrition, being there every step of the way, making sure they’re adhering to the actual nutrition plan.”

Conaty is meticulous when it comes to weight management. He sits in on each practice and film session to see how the gains made in the weight room are translating on the court. He’ll constantly speak with Gates and the other coaches on the staff about which players need to add or lose weight, whether it's to add weight or speed or reduce injury risk. But Sean East II is someone whose weight they didn’t want to change much at all.

“(East), at 6-foot-2 and under 180 pounds, most strength coaches are gonna say 'OK, we should definitely, probably get him to be 190,'” Conaty said. “But then you actually watch him on the court and you watch his actual basketball strength and how he moves, you realize he's actually strong enough. He's got good basketball strength, you know, he uses his body very efficiently. So for us, it's about 'OK, he doesn't need to have this big 10-pound weight jump. We need to kind of be on more of a maintenance program, but still develop definition. Maybe there's a little bit of fat mass that needs to reduce and increase in lean mass.'”

That’s easier said than done with someone like East, who Conaty called a “seven-day-a-week” guy. The Louisville, Ky. native is constantly looking for ways to get stronger and faster. He’ll be in the weight room even if there isn’t a lift scheduled for that day. But Conaty knows that would take a sizeable toll on East’s body and that the point guard has to give himself time to recuperate.

So while East might be in the weight room daily, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s going through a full card. Conaty often just gives him low-impact recovery or mobility work.

Still, while there hasn’t been a massive change in his size, the amount of time the graduate senior has spent with Conaty since he arrived in the Show-Me State has made a noticeable transformation. Conaty weighs each player before they begin their workout and East has consistently been right around 180 pounds every time for the past year and a half despite physically looking much stronger.

“It's been a big difference,” East said. “I’m just trying to use the things that I've been working on in the weight room and bring them onto the court, being more explosive, getting guys off me and, you know, guarding people in the post, things like that … (Conaty) knows about a lot of things off the court, so he's just easy to bond with, easy to talk to. If you're just wanting to talk about anything, you can talk not just about weights. Overall, he's a good guy.”

Caleb Grill, on the other hand, was someone the team knew needed to add weight. The Iowa State transfer had his tonsils removed in March and said he lost about 30 pounds after the operation, dipping below 170 at one point.

Conaty helped him put it back on once he teamed up with the Tigers, getting him back to 200 by June. Grill kept pushing afterward, too, getting up to 215 by July. That big of a change is something that’s more often seen with somebody just entering college ball, not a fifth-year senior.

“What (Conaty has) done to prepare me for this season is remarkable … Athletically, my numbers have gotten better as well throughout that time. So it just shows that he’s really one of the best in the country with what he does,” Grill said. “I just feel like I'm a lot more physical than I've ever been. And then I feel like I'm a lot more athletic than I have been, a lot stronger with the ball and a lot stronger bringing down rebounds and things like that. I just feel like a more complete player on the court.”

“I really think the best thing is (Grill’s) family, they were here this weekend, just saying, man, how happy he is and everything like that,” Conaty said. “I think he's just in a really good place where he knows everyone around him wants to be successful. And that's for everybody. We've got different scouts here yesterday, they're talking to our guys about, 'Hey, some of the resources that you guys have, from strength & conditioning to sports medicine, academics, whatever it is, it's better than other programs and might even be better than you would get at the NBA or other professional leagues.' And so, Caleb and all of our guys really just take advantage of all the resources that are available to them.”

Aidan Shaw was another player Missouri’s coaches identified as needing to add strength. He came into college weighing 185 pounds, which wouldn’t budge some of the bigger bodies in the SEC. But Conaty also knew they couldn’t put it all on him at once.

The Overland Park, Kan. native’s biggest advantage over most opponents is his athleticism. Putting on too much weight too fast might’ve caused that advantage to evaporate.

“There could be some basketball coaches that say, 'Hey, we need 15 pounds on this guy, that's the highest priority,'” Conaty said. “Well, what's that 15 pounds going to cost us, you know what I mean?”

Instead, Mizzou slow-cooked the process with Shaw, using the force plate as a checks-and-balances system to ensure that, as the forward’s body composition increased, he was able to maintain the same amount of verticality and explosion. Shaw now weighs 203 pounds and has just as much bounce as ever. He’s got his eyes set on 215 in the not-too-distant future.

“I definitely feel a difference,” Shaw said. “I see it when I look at the mirror … I see it day-to-day.”

There are plenty of players who’ve impressed Conaty in the weight room. Junior guard Kaleb Brown squatted 600 pounds for a one-rep max after a game last season. Graduate senior point guard Nick Honor asks Conaty if he can get speed work in on any off day. Freshman forward Danny Stephens has “that farm strength.”

Conaty credits the environment they’ve been able to build in the weight room for the strides the Tigers have seen. Rather than being a place guys shy away from, it’s a place they want to be. For instance, after putting in conditioning work on a pair of exercise bikes a few weeks ago, Honor and Colorado State transfer John Tonje lingered for a few minutes afterward, asking Conaty when he’d get to the arena the next day and what they’d be able to do.

The players refer to Conaty as “Juice.” Outside of the gym, “juice” is a slang word that means someone has influence or the respect of others. It’s a nickname that originally belonged to Conaty’s father, who was dubbed “Philly Juice.” When his dad’s friends saw how much Conaty acted like his father, they passed the nickname down, calling him “Seany Juice.”

But “juice” conveys something else to Mizzou. To the Tigers, it means giving off good energy and having high standards for yourself. Helping the team the way he does, Conaty’s nickname stuck.

“We call him 'Juice' for a reason,” Shaw said. “He brings the energy, brings the juice. So he's just, he's here every day and makes sure everybody gives their maximum effort every day. He brings energy to practice.”