Overtime Elite tipped off its 2024 playoffs on Feb. 20 at the OTE Arena in Atlanta. The first round was for single elimination, and Jelly Fam and the Blue Checks came out victorious.
After Jelly Fam’s 86-69 win over Rolling Loud, Jelly coach Pete Wehye spoke to rolling out about advancing to the next level, his vision for working with youth in sports and leading scorer Ian Jackson being ejected in the final quarter after tensions erupted during the game.
What were your thoughts on tonight’s win?
Our performance was great.
The guys stuck to the game plan, man. It’s something we’ve been trying to do. We’ve been trying to show how disciplined we could be, and I think we showed that tonight, even when the game got a little bit chippy. I know that it got to us, but for us, we stayed the course. We stayed locked in, and we understood what the goal was.
How do you stay locked in during situations when tensions are high in the final few minutes of a blowout?
Outlast their energy. My energy is going to be infectious.
I’m a pusher. I’m going to talk, talk, talk. You won’t be making me shut up. I’m going to call a timeout, then I’m going to tell you face-to-face. What it is, is being constant. We understand the biggest thing is, I’m a big believer in saying that persistence overcomes resistance.
So if I keep on it, and I stay being a pusher, they’re going to have to buy in. Their resistance, just won’t be able to stay.
A lot of times, you saw me at the end, trying to talk to Dellquan [Warren]. Dellquan wanted his get back. We won the game, they go home. There ain’t a better get back than that, because at the end of the day, if it had been our season that ended, it would have been catastrophic for us, right? So we got to understand the moment.
Sometimes, we don’t understand the power of the moment until it’s a memory. Now, they understand it afterward.
This is me, I’m just trying to build it.
Every day it’s an [endeavor] to make sure that they become better people.
Where does raising young men, playing the best basketball, and preparing the players for life rank for you?
When I’m raising them to be young men, I am preparing them for the future. That trumps basketball every time because what I tell everybody is this: “You can’t play basketball forever. I don’t care even if you go to the NBA because you could be a great man forever.
“You’ve got to think about what’s giving you the most longevity. Understand that even if you get to that point, you’ve got to build relationships, you got to do different things. You’ve got to be a healthy contributor to the community. Building men comes first.”
You’ll see a lot of guys out [of the game] just thinking, and it’s hard. We don’t want it to be just basketball. If it would be just basketball, then I would be using the kids. We’ve got to make them better. I tell everybody that I do not change anyone. I make anybody the best versions of themselves. Raising the bar for them.
