Strengthening The Dawgs
October 31, 2022 | Men's Basketball, Joel Coleman
Dominick Walker has MSU men’s hoops ready for the season ahead.
STARKVILLE – It's not Christmastime just yet, but it's already the most wonderful time of the year for Mississippi State men's basketball strength and conditioning coach Dominick Walker.
The Bulldogs are now only days away from tipping off the 2022-23 season. Among other things, that means if you happen to see Walker anytime soon, there's likely to be a gigantic smile across his face.
"From preseason until April [I love it] because I basically have seven months to develop these guys," Walker said.
Development is Walker's specialty. He's honed his craft with over a decade's worth of experience at multiple levels of basketball, headlined by six seasons as a strength and conditioning coach at the Division I level and a stop with the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers.
Walker has worked with some of the best to ever play the game, including five-time NBA All-Star Joel Embiid, three-time All-Star Ben Simmons, as well as J.J. Reddick – a man who's among the Top 20 in NBA history in career three-pointers made.
Along his journey, Walker has worked inside multiple top programs and organizations and alongside multiple highly-successful coaches. He's developed a knack for specialization. It's how he's gotten the most out of MSU players so far and how he plans to get even more out of the Bulldogs in the season ahead.
Take forward Cameron Matthews for instance. Matthews is one of those players who just naturally looks like he's been honing his physique and conditioning for years.
"I tell Cam all the time he makes me look like I know what I'm doing," Walker said.
However, even for Matthews, a plan is needed.
"It's interesting because we've had certain things to work on with him," Walker explained. "I've actually decreased his [weight] volume. He and I spoke, and there are certain things he wanted to work on to get where we need to get…It has worked for him really well, and we'll continue to do that when we need to. We'll increase [the weight volume] when we need to and decrease it when we need to."
On the other side of the coin, there are freshmen such as Martavious Russell, Kimani Hamilton and Shawn Jones Jr. Walker is introducing those Dawgs to a college strength and conditioning program for the very first time. As such, their training has reflected that. It's very much still specialized though, as indicated by Walker's ideas for Russell and Hamilton.
"For those two guys, they need to gain some weight," Walker said. "They've been doing what they're supposed to do regarding that. They're still a work in progress, but they've come a very long way. We're just going to build on that. These are the type of guys, since they're so young, you can really stress these guys and get them where they need to go. You don't have to wear them out since they're so young and can recover so quickly. So, I love working with freshmen because you do some things differently than a Tolu Smith or a Cameron Matthews would.
"However, at the same time, we take a different approach as to what each of them need. Kimani may need a little bit more of one thing, and [Martavious] may need a little bit more of a different thing. They've been great and have taken the tough coaching. They're great guys to be around, and both have very fun personalities. It has been a joy to coach them so far."
No matter the training program, developing these Dawgs is a group effort. Walker has relied heavily on Hailey Jarr – a sports dietician fellow at MSU – to make sure State's players are getting the fuel they need to grow and perform.
"She and I work together to make sure that players are eating enough," Walker said. "Guys may say they've eaten, but I say, 'Have you eaten enough?'…It's still a work in progress. From day one until now, the guys have come a long way."
Men's basketball players – and MSU student-athletes in all sports for that matter – have recently been given a tremendous tool to ensure they are receiving top-of-the-line nutrition. Mississippi State now houses a pair of performance nutrition centers with a football-specific one at the Leo Seal, Jr. Football Complex and another for all other athletes at the Templeton Athletic Academic Center. Walker praises the impact the fueling station has had on his players.
But maybe Walker's best weapon to help as he's molded the Bulldogs has been the guys themselves. They're pushing each other. They're helping each other. They're all coming together in a way that might foreshadow something special is around the corner.
"Each guy is making sure they're holding each other accountable," Walker said. "Initially, when I first got here [in June], it was a lot of coaching and a lot of teaching. Now, when you come in and watch us lift, the guys are pretty much running it. I'm just here for support, and that is how it should be. That's how it's going to be in the games. I try and simulate that from a weight room standpoint. If a guy is not doing what he's supposed to be doing, the players kind of know what my look is. One of the guys will correct him. I don't have to say a word, and we keep on pushing. It's been good, and everybody has emerged from that standpoint."
As the guys have come together, head coach Chris Jans, Walker and the rest of the staff have gotten stronger as a group, too.
"It has been great," Walker said. "This is probably the most connected staff I've worked with so far…Coach Jans is great, and he lets me do my own thing. If he has any questions, he asks me, and we go from there. He just wants to know that the guys are getting better. As a strength coach, that's all I can ask for. I'm a big proponent of collecting data and tracking progress. So, he will know if guys are getting better, or if guys aren't getting better. At the same time, I'm going to find a solution and combat that."
And Walker will happily do it. Improving his athletes is his passion after all, and as the season nears, there might be no strength and conditioning coach in the country more excited to get the year going and keep getting his guys better than Walker.
"It's seven months nonstop," Walker said. "We have a gauge of where each guy is. From there, we'll build a program for each individual guy. You may see 16 different programs depending on how individualized we need to be. From there, we just adjust how we need to work [based on] game volume and intensity. Who is playing more minutes than others? So, that's what we'll adjust these next six to seven months.
"We'll still be able to develop guys. If you're playing 30 minutes a game, we'll still be able to develop you. I've been a part of different programs and worked for different strength coaches. I've taken a lot from them to be able to develop these guys and get them where they need to go."
Walker is without question on top of his game. He's pushing the Dawgs to greater heights. And it doesn't hurt he's also impressed his boss.
"I'm so glad that he's with us," Jans said of Walker. "He's a professional. He cares about his craft. He works at it. He stays educated.
"The weight room is right below my office. I can hear the vibe from a distance each and every day. It's probably not ideal for any assistant to be that close to the head coach, but for him, it's been excellent because it makes me believe in him even more because I can hear what's going on down there. He's a professional and he's very, very good at his job. He's building great relationships with the individuals on our team, and I can see the respect level they have for him. What you hope for is that everybody in the program adopts the environment and the culture that we're trying to create and Coach Walker has certainly done that in his short time here."
