Austin Peay State University men's basketball is going to have lots of new faces on the court this season. With new head coach Matt Figger overhauling the roster, the Governors return just four players from last season, with Chris Porter-Bunton and Zach Glotta the only incumbents to make multiple starts or play more than 10 minutes per game.

Figger's coaching staff has brought in a plethora of talented players, whether via Division I and junior college transfers or fresh out of high school. The skill is there to make Austin Peay a dangerous foe in the Ohio Valley Conference right now.

But skill is only half the battle in college athletics, especially in a league with a history as rich and compelling as the OVC. Division I athletes all have skill—what separates the good teams from the great is the self-sacrifice, the commitment necessary to strive for the same common goal, eschewing personal milestones for championship rings.

It's called leadership. And after experiencing the Athletes In Action Captains Academy, Glotta and Porter-Bunton are merging the locker room with Figger's vision for the program.

"We're the coaches voice (in the locker room)," Porter-Bunton said. "It's important to understand that it's one thing to hear something from a coach, but it's another to hear it from a teammate. Some of the things Coach was teaching us during workouts… we would hear it, but we wouldn't understand it.

"At the camp, we got to learn and understand some of those concepts better. I understand consistency better now—I don't need to have a good day, then a bad day, then an okay day. Be the same guy, every day."

The Captains Academy incorporates a little of everything into the weekend—team-building, competition, self-reflection and personal development. It's a program Figger swears by—for good reason.

"It's always been my job to help these young men grow as people," Figger said. "But this camp also allows them to understand me better and it opens their minds up to different ways to be a leader. When your locker room is led by your players, you've got a good team. When it's led by your coaches, you're going to have some struggles.

"The guys who go (to the Academy) bring back different ideas, better ways to communicate and be positive with teammates and lead by example. The more guys are willing to learn and take on the responsibility of leadership, the better it helps our team grow."

One notable example—whose name is brought up by not only Glotta, Porter-Bunton and Figger but AIA executive director of basketball Eric Nelson—was Sindarius Thornwell. The 2017 SEC Player of the Year and East Regional Most Outstanding Player was an attendee in 2015. Realizing he couldn't lead unless he set a good example for his teammates, Thornwell's transformation into a true leader spurred the Gamecocks renaissance and culminated in a 2017 Final Four appearance.

"I couldn't be the kind of leader I needed to be because I wasn't doing all of the right things that I should have been doing, whether it was getting in the gym more, or being on time everywhere I go," Thornwell said in a 2015 interview with gamecocksonline.com. "This got me leaning more in the right direction. It made me get out of selfish ways. Instead of worrying so much about myself, I started thinking how I could help someone else."  

"Coach talked about sending Thornwell to the camp and he came back setting a different tone on the court and setting a good example (in the locker room)," Porter-Bunton said. "Seeing us in spring and summer workouts, Coach thought we could be leaders on his team. He knows we had our ups and downs the last couple of years, so he sent us to the camp. And we came back with the knowledge of how to make this team a family."

Nelson, a longtime AIA staffer, has seen the same transformation in many of the student-athletes who have attended the Xenia, Ohio-based camp. For those that embrace the experience, says Nelson, it can be not only life-changing but program-changing as well.

"The most common response we get from coaches is about how guys return more confident and become very intentional about developing a good culture and trust," Nelson said. "They walk away with action plans to implement in the locker room. Most of it starts with understanding that relationships matter most. Understanding how valuable relationships are is the most important."

Porter-Bunton and Glotta learned that lesson loud and clear.

"Coach is very confident in the camp, which gave us confidence," Glotta said. "I think he knew some of the things we'd come back with a better understanding of. We can have an impact on a lot of the freshmen we have coming in, and both of us now have a better understanding of what coach wants and have an understanding of how we can help shape and mold (our teammates) off the court."

The experience is fully immersive. Clark Kellogg, Tim Kight and a Navy SEAL visited the Academy to give talks. Cohort groups—four-to-five athletes plus a couple of staffers—would meet thrice-daily to share their experiences and compare notes. Points were awarded for wins in group activities, which appealed to the competitive nature of student-athletes.

There is, of course, an athletic aspect to this as well. A visit to the high-ropes course involves the same kind of teamwork and strength used on the floor. At the end of a long day ("You have to get that nap in the afternoon when you have a break," Porter-Bunton advised), the guys hit the gym to hone their skills and test their mettle against players from Baylor, Iowa State, Dayton and other Division I programs.

Post-camp, the players aren't just left to fend for themselves as they begin implementing what they learned in the locker room. Nelson and the rest of the staff have prepared them through thorough planning and resources to be successful as they help their teammates begin a cultural shift in the locker room.

"One of the cool things we did was situational practice," Glotta said. "The staff would walk us through situations where you handle somebody who doesn't want to buy in, and how we'd go about addressing them. Those types of things give us tools and ideas to really understand our teammates and address why they might not want to buy in.

"They made sure that we ended with a personal development plan. We had to write down one of our strengths as a leader that we're going to utilize more, one of our weaknesses we're going to work on and how we're going to implement those in the locker room and hold one another accountable."

Accountability. Trust. Buy-in. Even if they don't show up in the box score, those skills have their place in hoops, just like three-point shooting, rim protecting and rebounding. And now that Glotta and Porter-Bunton have added those skills to their arsenal, the leaders in the Austin Peay locker room hope to implement something special in the Dunn Center this season.