- From Doug Collins: getting 70% of 50/50 (up for grabs) balls is a measure of a team's overall toughness.
- Bob Knight "change" drill. When change is yelled, offensive player puts ball down and possession changes. The new defensive player may not guard the man who was previously guarding him.
- "No dribble" incorporated into every practice.
- Defense with hands behind backs. "Defense is not a game of hands; it is a game of feet. Your feet have to dominate on defense. Your hands put the other team on the free-throw line. That's why the feet, the development of the feet was so important to me. I wanted to take the hands out of it. It was tougher to play with your feet."
Showing posts with label Basketball Coaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Basketball Coaching. Show all posts
Friday, June 14, 2013
Saturday, May 19, 2012
How San Antonio Contained Chris Paul
How did this happen? Like Miami has to defend Indiana, the Spurs must limit the side pick-and-roll to stifle the Clippers' offense. The difference in this series, though, is that the Spurs must stop the ball handler (Paul) and not the roll man, and that's just what they did Tuesday night. San Antonio held Los Angeles to a PPP of 0.778 in side pick-and-roll situations with Chris Paul as the ball handler. In fact, San Antonio's defense was so effective that the Clippers all but abandoned that strategy down the stretch. They only ran it once in the second half and not at all during the fourth quarter.
The Spurs' goal was to prevent Paul from getting to the middle of the floor off a screen. If the screener was a 3 man and Tony Parker was guarding Paul, the Spurs hedged:
After setting a backscreen for Randy Foye, Caron Butler steps up and sets a ball screen on the wing for Paul, trying to allow him to get to the middle of the court. But Kawhi Leonard pops out and hedges, getting his body completely in front of Paul to stop the dribble. As that happens, Tony Parker is working his way around the screen any way he can — in this case, he's going under it.
Now, this isn't a trap like we see Miami do time after time; this is just a simple hedge. Leonard pops out and stops Paul's attack, which allows Parker to recover.
Leonard is athletic enough that he gets back to Butler just as he is making the catch, preventing an open jump shot. Butler tries to drive, gets caught behind the basket, and turns it over. Here it is in real time:
Anytime you can turn a Chris Paul pick-and-roll on the side into a spinning fadeaway 3 as the clock expires, the defense has done its job.
On side pick-and-rolls with the big setting the screen, the Spurs did something different, something called "bluing it," also known as "icing it" or "downing it." They took away Chris Paul's option to use the screen altogether:
A common Clippers play is for a big to pass to Paul and then follow the pass with a ball screen. That's exactly what happens here. Paul dumps it to Griffin and goes to the corner. Then he gets the ball back from Griffin, who follows the pass and gets in position to screen.
This is where your "blue" (or "down" or "ice") happens. The defense denies the ball handler and forces him to go along the baseline. Here, Boris Diaw, the man covering Griffin, calls it out, letting Tony Parker know that there is a ball screen coming. Once Parker hears that, he adjusts his body, gets on Paul's hip, and makes it impossible for Paul to use the screen. He has to dribble baseline where Diaw is zoning off the area.
Griffin fades away to the elbow (as he should), but since he isn't a shooter he's neither a threat nor an option. Paul can either dribble into a double team or dump it down to DeAndre Jordan in the post. He takes the second option and Jordan misses the layup.
Paul generally makes the right decisions on the court — which means when they run the side pick-and-roll, he passes it instead of trying to dribble into the help defender. And as I said above, if you can keep Paul from getting to the middle of the floor with the ball, that's a win for the defense.
Look at the guys taking these shots instead of Paul: Randy Foye makes a contested 3, but I'm sure the Spurs can live with that. On the other two plays, Kenyon Martin and Caron Butler miss jump shots. The Spurs are making everyone other than Paul beat them.
The Spurs defense was attacking Paul on handoffs on the side as well. Off of an inbounds pass, Paul passes to Griffin and then looks to get it back off of a dribble handoff. The Spurs trap him as soon as he gets it, forcing a turnover.
This is a great game plan from Gregg Popovich and the Spurs' coaching staff. Chris Paul's contributions were severely limited. It's now up to the Clippers and Paul to counter.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Dick Bennett's Pack-Line Defense
The basketball coach at Virginia 30
years ago, Terry Holland, was flush: He had 7'4" center Ralph Sampson—a
singular player who was so talented that he declared himself "the next
stage of basketball development"—and the nation's No. 1 team, which was
headed toward a No. 1 seeding in the NCAA tournament. The coach of the
Cavaliers today, Tony Bennett, has a Sampson-sized challenge: His 7-foot
center is out with a broken ankle, his righthanded shooting guard is
hindered by a broken left hand, and his 22--8 team, which is clinging to
UVA's first big-dance bid since 2007, has only one real option on
offense: senior forward Mike Scott.
Bennett didn't inherit the anxiety that drove his father, Dick, out of the game shortly after taking Wisconsin to the Final Four in 2000, but he is the caretaker of a defense created by his father to help overcome competitive disadvantages. The Pack-Line defense is a containment system in which one man pressures the ball and the other four stay in help position within an imaginary 16-foot arc around the basket. Virginia deploys it well enough to rank first in the nation in fewest points allowed per possession (0.87). But what the Cavaliers do, Tony says, isn't groundbreaking. "It's just about having an iron will and saying we won't budge on certain things defensively."
Bennettball demands stubbornness; its rules are called "nonnegotiables." What's unusual about this system, which has spread to high schools and colleges around the country, is that to become a Pack-Liner, Dick Bennett had to do more than budge: He had to ditch the system that first made him famous.
IT'S 1984 AND Dick Bennett, 41, is standing in front of a dusty chalkboard. At the top he has written STOP BALL and underlined it. Drawing attention to himself isn't his sort of thing; he was talked into making this instructional video by his assistant, Rod Popp, who's working the camera. Bennett is the reigning NAIA coach of the year, having taken Wisconsin--Stevens Point to the national title game, but he has no expectation that the tape, Pressure Defense: A System, will spread very far.
Bennett tells the camera that defenders in this man-to-man system must apply intense pressure and gamble with reckless abandon—a curious order from someone whose teaching style is painfully thorough (the video will run 82 minutes) and whose yellow UWSP polo shirt is neatly tucked into his blue polyester coaching shorts. He's a tightly wound man with a blueprint for suffocating "oh-fenses," as he occasionally says in his Nordic Wisconsinese.
This early version of Dick Bennett D aims to force 20 turnovers per game by following these rules: All five defenders must sprint back to prevent transition baskets. The ball is pressured as soon as it crosses half-court, and off-ball defenders are always in denial mode—"on the line and up the line," Bennett says—in the path of potential passes. (The players in the practice footage he splices in, including a young Terry Porter, hop around like trained jackrabbits.) There is no switching, only early help and quick recovery. The ball must be pushed to one side of the floor and then to the baseline, where a help defender is dead-fronting the post. Once the defense has ganged up on that side, the ball cannot be allowed to swing back around the perimeter.
"If you can get the ball on the baseline, eliminating ball reversal is a pleasure," Bennett says. "That's where you're gonna create tremendous turnovers." His earnestness is what makes this the tape's most precious quip, although Bennett's piece of chalk leaves a more lasting impression about 20 minutes into the video. During a vigorous drawing of a court diagram, it snaps in half, causing a brief crack in the coach's demeanor. After a chuckle he quickly gets the lecture back on track, but for years he'll hear broken-chalk jokes from coaches he's just met. That's evidence that his VHS went the pre-Internet equivalent of viral.
Where did the video spread? Where didn't it spread? Bob Hurley of St. Anthony's in Jersey City received a copy at a Marquette clinic in 1985. An instant convert, Hurley implemented the defense during his son Bobby's freshman season and used it to win 15 of his 24 overall state titles and induction into the Naismith Hall of Fame. Iowa-based Championship Productions bought the video for wider distribution, and in an SI poll in the '90s, college coaches said Dick Bennett was one of the men from whom they most wanted to take a clinic (along with Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski and Rick Majerus). When Pat Riley became the Miami Heat coach in '95, he cited Bennett as an influence on his aggressive Knicks-era defenses, even though he and Bennett had never spoken. The sideline fraternity knew Bennett as a professor of pressure, but a national audience will meet him as a purveyor of something else.
It's March 17, 1994, and Dick Bennett is a Division I coach in an NCAA tournament first-round game in Odgen, Utah. This isn't his first national TV appearance; he took Wisconsin--Green Bay to the dance three years earlier, when Tony was its star point guard, and nearly knocked off Michigan State. Now the Phoenix is a No. 12 seed, pitted against No. 5 Cal, an up-tempo scoring machine with Final Four aspirations and a soon-to-be No. 2 overall draft pick, Jason Kidd, at point. CBS tells viewers that Bennett is a "guru," but it's an indication of his employer's lack of prominence that analyst Ann Meyers refers to the school as "Green Bay Wisconsin" for the first six minutes of the game. By the time she corrects herself, the Phoenix has a 6--2 lead and two things are evident: Kidd's Bears are flummoxed, and Bennett's new defense has taken a philosophical 180 from the one that earned him guru status.
After the Phoenix sprints back in transition, the team builds a wall in front of Kidd to keep him away from the paint. Gary Grzesk, a 6'5" sophomore guard, is the primary defender on Kidd and becomes the game's quiet hero. Once the defense is set, the player on the ball applies pressure—but his teammates don't. Instead of denying "on the line and up the line," they pack themselves in a 16-foot arc around the basket and constantly reposition themselves, either as helpers who shrink Kidd's potential driving lanes or as angled post-fronters who prevent feeds from the top of the key. (Cal coach Todd Bozeman says it's almost as if the Green Bay defenders are "in the lane posing for a team picture.") The players are content to let the ball rotate, but they refuse to let anyone drive baseline, because post defenders aren't in position to help. No one ventures outside the pack line unless his man is about to catch a pass, at which point the defender closes out with a vengeance, his hands high to prevent a rhythm jumper, while the passer's man retreats to the pack. Gambling for steals is kept to a minimum, in favor of forcing a contested shot and sending all five men to the glass to end the opponents' possession.
How well did the Pack-Line D work on that St. Patrick's Day? The Bears did not get a field goal until almost midway through the half. Kidd was held to 12 points on 4-of-17 shooting. And UWGB pulled off the greatest upset in school history, 61--57.
Tony was watching from a sports bar in Charlotte, where he was an against-the-odds NBA success as a backup guard for the Hornets. He saw this coming. When he was a junior at Green Bay in 1990--91, Dick started to doubt that all-out pressure was right for a D-I David that would always be at an athletic disadvantage when it faced power-conference programs. The north-south driving offenses that had come into vogue were tough to stop with slower defenders, and the Phoenix was getting caught out of position and giving up too many offensive rebounds. Dick reluctantly sought out a system that would neutralize the talent gap, and as an experiment he taped down a pack line on UWGB's practice court.
Tony's teams were the guinea pigs, but Dick didn't fully make the pushing-to-packing conversion until after his son turned pro in 1992. A few years after his NBA career ended in '95, Tony became an assistant to his father, who had moved on to Wisconsin. There the pack line was painted on the practice floor. Disciplined defenders are the key to Bennettball, and that season's pack leader was the unscreenable Mike Kelley, who guided the 1999--2000 Badgers to the Final Four.
Tony's Virginia team has a player in the same mold as Grzesk and Kelley. Junior guard Jontel Evans is a 5'11" self-proclaimed "pest" who leads the Cavaliers in steals with 48.
The most difficult part about doing a Pack-Line D story is that the Bennetts pressure you not to do a Pack-Line D story. They just don't believe it's a worthy topic. "The Pack Line isn't revolutionary," Tony says. "It's a basic containment man-to-man, built on simple rules that my dad put together. I wouldn't want to waste your time."
From Dick, more of the same: "We're very respectful of the work that's gone into developing defense," he says, "and the last thing that I want is to be thought of as an inventor of a defense that's been played in many variations." He adds that he didn't even coin the term pack line—that came from a marketing guy who talked Bennett into making a DVD on the new system.
So, in order to do a story on the Pack-Line D, you must assure the Bennetts that you won't say it's sui generis. Everything in modern basketball is built on something else, and Bennett stresses that he was influenced by Bob Knight's helping man-to-man at Indiana, Lou Henson's ball-line defense at Illinois, and Colorado State's Boyd Grant's emphasis on the importance of a player's keeping his hands high while closing out. Bennett selected the pieces that best fit his team, made a set of rules and drilled his players incessantly. He may not have been an inventor, but he has been a shrewd editor and an even better teacher.
His 2005 Pack-Line DVD became one of Championship Productions' best sellers and helped the defense gain traction outside the Bennett family. (Dick's daughter Kathi teaches it at Northern Illinois, and his brother Jack did the same at Stevens Point.) Arizona coach Sean Miller's father, John, a high school coach in Beaver Falls, Pa., admired Bennett's methods. When Sean got his first head coaching job, at Xavier in 2004, he implemented the Bennett's D and used it to reach the 2008 Elite Eight. Now, with the Wildcats, Sean has made the Pack Line the third most efficient D in the Pac-12.
According to Synergy Sports Technology, Arizona is the nation's fourth-best team at defending jump shooters. Miller's successor at Xavier, Chris Mack, stuck with the Pack-Line, and Northern Iowa's Ben Jacobson used a hybrid of it to upset No. 1-seeded Kansas in the 2010 NCAA tournament. Butler used Pack-Line principles in its recent back-to-back runs to the national title game, although coach Brad Stevens has reconfigured his defense, as Bennett had before him, into something that will inspire a future branch of coaches.
College basketball's steady de-acceleration since the '90s has less to do with stalling offenses than with the rise of containment defenses. Virginia plays at the 339th slowest pace in D-I because the Pack-Line is next-to-impossible to score on early in the shot clock. By limiting the number of possessions, Pack-Lining can fuel Cinderella runs but also produce aesthetic atrocities, like the 53--41 Final Four grudge match that Dick Bennett's 2000 Wisconsin team lost to Michigan State. That the system's highest-profile showcase was widely panned as a peach-basket-era grinder does not bother Tony Bennett, whose Cavaliers could be in the bracket as a No. 8 seed, just like his dad's Badgers. Says Tony, "I'd love to get to the Final Four and have them say that about me."
Bennett didn't inherit the anxiety that drove his father, Dick, out of the game shortly after taking Wisconsin to the Final Four in 2000, but he is the caretaker of a defense created by his father to help overcome competitive disadvantages. The Pack-Line defense is a containment system in which one man pressures the ball and the other four stay in help position within an imaginary 16-foot arc around the basket. Virginia deploys it well enough to rank first in the nation in fewest points allowed per possession (0.87). But what the Cavaliers do, Tony says, isn't groundbreaking. "It's just about having an iron will and saying we won't budge on certain things defensively."
Bennettball demands stubbornness; its rules are called "nonnegotiables." What's unusual about this system, which has spread to high schools and colleges around the country, is that to become a Pack-Liner, Dick Bennett had to do more than budge: He had to ditch the system that first made him famous.
IT'S 1984 AND Dick Bennett, 41, is standing in front of a dusty chalkboard. At the top he has written STOP BALL and underlined it. Drawing attention to himself isn't his sort of thing; he was talked into making this instructional video by his assistant, Rod Popp, who's working the camera. Bennett is the reigning NAIA coach of the year, having taken Wisconsin--Stevens Point to the national title game, but he has no expectation that the tape, Pressure Defense: A System, will spread very far.
Bennett tells the camera that defenders in this man-to-man system must apply intense pressure and gamble with reckless abandon—a curious order from someone whose teaching style is painfully thorough (the video will run 82 minutes) and whose yellow UWSP polo shirt is neatly tucked into his blue polyester coaching shorts. He's a tightly wound man with a blueprint for suffocating "oh-fenses," as he occasionally says in his Nordic Wisconsinese.
This early version of Dick Bennett D aims to force 20 turnovers per game by following these rules: All five defenders must sprint back to prevent transition baskets. The ball is pressured as soon as it crosses half-court, and off-ball defenders are always in denial mode—"on the line and up the line," Bennett says—in the path of potential passes. (The players in the practice footage he splices in, including a young Terry Porter, hop around like trained jackrabbits.) There is no switching, only early help and quick recovery. The ball must be pushed to one side of the floor and then to the baseline, where a help defender is dead-fronting the post. Once the defense has ganged up on that side, the ball cannot be allowed to swing back around the perimeter.
"If you can get the ball on the baseline, eliminating ball reversal is a pleasure," Bennett says. "That's where you're gonna create tremendous turnovers." His earnestness is what makes this the tape's most precious quip, although Bennett's piece of chalk leaves a more lasting impression about 20 minutes into the video. During a vigorous drawing of a court diagram, it snaps in half, causing a brief crack in the coach's demeanor. After a chuckle he quickly gets the lecture back on track, but for years he'll hear broken-chalk jokes from coaches he's just met. That's evidence that his VHS went the pre-Internet equivalent of viral.
Where did the video spread? Where didn't it spread? Bob Hurley of St. Anthony's in Jersey City received a copy at a Marquette clinic in 1985. An instant convert, Hurley implemented the defense during his son Bobby's freshman season and used it to win 15 of his 24 overall state titles and induction into the Naismith Hall of Fame. Iowa-based Championship Productions bought the video for wider distribution, and in an SI poll in the '90s, college coaches said Dick Bennett was one of the men from whom they most wanted to take a clinic (along with Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski and Rick Majerus). When Pat Riley became the Miami Heat coach in '95, he cited Bennett as an influence on his aggressive Knicks-era defenses, even though he and Bennett had never spoken. The sideline fraternity knew Bennett as a professor of pressure, but a national audience will meet him as a purveyor of something else.
It's March 17, 1994, and Dick Bennett is a Division I coach in an NCAA tournament first-round game in Odgen, Utah. This isn't his first national TV appearance; he took Wisconsin--Green Bay to the dance three years earlier, when Tony was its star point guard, and nearly knocked off Michigan State. Now the Phoenix is a No. 12 seed, pitted against No. 5 Cal, an up-tempo scoring machine with Final Four aspirations and a soon-to-be No. 2 overall draft pick, Jason Kidd, at point. CBS tells viewers that Bennett is a "guru," but it's an indication of his employer's lack of prominence that analyst Ann Meyers refers to the school as "Green Bay Wisconsin" for the first six minutes of the game. By the time she corrects herself, the Phoenix has a 6--2 lead and two things are evident: Kidd's Bears are flummoxed, and Bennett's new defense has taken a philosophical 180 from the one that earned him guru status.
After the Phoenix sprints back in transition, the team builds a wall in front of Kidd to keep him away from the paint. Gary Grzesk, a 6'5" sophomore guard, is the primary defender on Kidd and becomes the game's quiet hero. Once the defense is set, the player on the ball applies pressure—but his teammates don't. Instead of denying "on the line and up the line," they pack themselves in a 16-foot arc around the basket and constantly reposition themselves, either as helpers who shrink Kidd's potential driving lanes or as angled post-fronters who prevent feeds from the top of the key. (Cal coach Todd Bozeman says it's almost as if the Green Bay defenders are "in the lane posing for a team picture.") The players are content to let the ball rotate, but they refuse to let anyone drive baseline, because post defenders aren't in position to help. No one ventures outside the pack line unless his man is about to catch a pass, at which point the defender closes out with a vengeance, his hands high to prevent a rhythm jumper, while the passer's man retreats to the pack. Gambling for steals is kept to a minimum, in favor of forcing a contested shot and sending all five men to the glass to end the opponents' possession.
How well did the Pack-Line D work on that St. Patrick's Day? The Bears did not get a field goal until almost midway through the half. Kidd was held to 12 points on 4-of-17 shooting. And UWGB pulled off the greatest upset in school history, 61--57.
Tony was watching from a sports bar in Charlotte, where he was an against-the-odds NBA success as a backup guard for the Hornets. He saw this coming. When he was a junior at Green Bay in 1990--91, Dick started to doubt that all-out pressure was right for a D-I David that would always be at an athletic disadvantage when it faced power-conference programs. The north-south driving offenses that had come into vogue were tough to stop with slower defenders, and the Phoenix was getting caught out of position and giving up too many offensive rebounds. Dick reluctantly sought out a system that would neutralize the talent gap, and as an experiment he taped down a pack line on UWGB's practice court.
Tony's teams were the guinea pigs, but Dick didn't fully make the pushing-to-packing conversion until after his son turned pro in 1992. A few years after his NBA career ended in '95, Tony became an assistant to his father, who had moved on to Wisconsin. There the pack line was painted on the practice floor. Disciplined defenders are the key to Bennettball, and that season's pack leader was the unscreenable Mike Kelley, who guided the 1999--2000 Badgers to the Final Four.
Tony's Virginia team has a player in the same mold as Grzesk and Kelley. Junior guard Jontel Evans is a 5'11" self-proclaimed "pest" who leads the Cavaliers in steals with 48.
The most difficult part about doing a Pack-Line D story is that the Bennetts pressure you not to do a Pack-Line D story. They just don't believe it's a worthy topic. "The Pack Line isn't revolutionary," Tony says. "It's a basic containment man-to-man, built on simple rules that my dad put together. I wouldn't want to waste your time."
From Dick, more of the same: "We're very respectful of the work that's gone into developing defense," he says, "and the last thing that I want is to be thought of as an inventor of a defense that's been played in many variations." He adds that he didn't even coin the term pack line—that came from a marketing guy who talked Bennett into making a DVD on the new system.
So, in order to do a story on the Pack-Line D, you must assure the Bennetts that you won't say it's sui generis. Everything in modern basketball is built on something else, and Bennett stresses that he was influenced by Bob Knight's helping man-to-man at Indiana, Lou Henson's ball-line defense at Illinois, and Colorado State's Boyd Grant's emphasis on the importance of a player's keeping his hands high while closing out. Bennett selected the pieces that best fit his team, made a set of rules and drilled his players incessantly. He may not have been an inventor, but he has been a shrewd editor and an even better teacher.
His 2005 Pack-Line DVD became one of Championship Productions' best sellers and helped the defense gain traction outside the Bennett family. (Dick's daughter Kathi teaches it at Northern Illinois, and his brother Jack did the same at Stevens Point.) Arizona coach Sean Miller's father, John, a high school coach in Beaver Falls, Pa., admired Bennett's methods. When Sean got his first head coaching job, at Xavier in 2004, he implemented the Bennett's D and used it to reach the 2008 Elite Eight. Now, with the Wildcats, Sean has made the Pack Line the third most efficient D in the Pac-12.
According to Synergy Sports Technology, Arizona is the nation's fourth-best team at defending jump shooters. Miller's successor at Xavier, Chris Mack, stuck with the Pack-Line, and Northern Iowa's Ben Jacobson used a hybrid of it to upset No. 1-seeded Kansas in the 2010 NCAA tournament. Butler used Pack-Line principles in its recent back-to-back runs to the national title game, although coach Brad Stevens has reconfigured his defense, as Bennett had before him, into something that will inspire a future branch of coaches.
College basketball's steady de-acceleration since the '90s has less to do with stalling offenses than with the rise of containment defenses. Virginia plays at the 339th slowest pace in D-I because the Pack-Line is next-to-impossible to score on early in the shot clock. By limiting the number of possessions, Pack-Lining can fuel Cinderella runs but also produce aesthetic atrocities, like the 53--41 Final Four grudge match that Dick Bennett's 2000 Wisconsin team lost to Michigan State. That the system's highest-profile showcase was widely panned as a peach-basket-era grinder does not bother Tony Bennett, whose Cavaliers could be in the bracket as a No. 8 seed, just like his dad's Badgers. Says Tony, "I'd love to get to the Final Four and have them say that about me."
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Top Secret
The secret of basketball is that it isn't about basketball.
From Sports Illustrated:
On Dec. 17, a high school basketball coach suspended five players for what he described as a general lack of discipline. Eight other teammates thought the punishment was unwarranted and came to practice two days later along with the five to ask him to reinstate them. When the coach refused to discuss it, those 13 players left the gym, and the team.
Six players stayed, all sophomores and freshmen on the varsity. They lost twenty straight games. But they stayed.
"I had to make some sacrifices to pay her this season," said one. "I didn't just want to give all that away."
The coach said the players who left are welcome to return next year if they're willing to meet with him, but for the moment he'd rather focus on the ones who didn't leave.
The final record wasn't pretty, but something beautiful emerged among the six players who stayed on the team.
"We really bonded," one said.
"These guys could have folded up and quit, and no one would have blamed them," said the coach. "But they refused to do that. I can honestly say this is the best season I've ever had as a coach."
From Sports Illustrated:
On Dec. 17, a high school basketball coach suspended five players for what he described as a general lack of discipline. Eight other teammates thought the punishment was unwarranted and came to practice two days later along with the five to ask him to reinstate them. When the coach refused to discuss it, those 13 players left the gym, and the team.
Six players stayed, all sophomores and freshmen on the varsity. They lost twenty straight games. But they stayed.
"I had to make some sacrifices to pay her this season," said one. "I didn't just want to give all that away."
The coach said the players who left are welcome to return next year if they're willing to meet with him, but for the moment he'd rather focus on the ones who didn't leave.
The final record wasn't pretty, but something beautiful emerged among the six players who stayed on the team.
"We really bonded," one said.
"These guys could have folded up and quit, and no one would have blamed them," said the coach. "But they refused to do that. I can honestly say this is the best season I've ever had as a coach."
Saturday, February 11, 2012
The Right Way To Coach
"Character, boys, that's all it's ever been about, all it will ever be about and all it's about tonight." - Mike Powell, high school wrestling champion coach, before every match
Debrief Encounters
I'm intrigued by this possibility (found in a magazine, below) in any kind of team. I'm a believer that vulnerability is a basic part of a team's foundation. It might be through the natural humility of the members, but sometimes a little process can help.
"Pilots returning from missions build trust through sessions in which they sit in a room together, stripped of name and rank; each speaks openly about mistakes he made during the mission."
"Pilots returning from missions build trust through sessions in which they sit in a room together, stripped of name and rank; each speaks openly about mistakes he made during the mission."
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Random Hoops (And Life) Thought Of The Day
If you must rest your legs, then do it on offense or on the bench. If you must rest your lungs, then do it on offense but NOT on the bench. The success (and the fun) of any team in sports or life is rooted in continuous, enthusiastic communication to help each other.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Basketball Tryout Bloopers
We finished day 2 of boys' basketball tryouts yesterday. When you put 60 kids in a gym with wide levels of basketball skill, and add a dash of nervousness from the competition, some funny things can happen.
- Player catches the ball on the right baseline and makes a hard drive with his right hand. After one dribble, the ball mysteriously flies up and crashes off the backboard. The back side of the backboard, that is. No, actually, the posts that hold the backboard in the air.
- Shooting contest at a basket. One team on each side trying to make twenty hoops as fast as possible, first team done wins. Exactly one ball per team. At one point each team has missed a shot and the shooter is running down his own rebound. They turn to fire a pass back to the next shooter in line. The balls smash into each other with a Hindenburg-like POP. I'll bet you fifty dollars that if I had asked them to accomplish that feat, they'd have failed in ten tries. And I would win easily, because I had just watched them attempt a passing drill five minutes earlier.
- 6'4" freshman built like a Weeble, but falls down. After being bumped off balance and falling backward about five steps, with his hands desperately and futilely flailing to stay upright. This happens about once every two minutes, by the way.
- Half-court scrimmage. Skins vs shirts. Guard makes a slicing move to the basket and lays it up. Different 6'4" player snuffs the shot. Was it a bad shot? No. Was it an impressive block? Hardly. They were on the same team.
- Player catches the ball on the right baseline and makes a hard drive with his right hand. After one dribble, the ball mysteriously flies up and crashes off the backboard. The back side of the backboard, that is. No, actually, the posts that hold the backboard in the air.
- Shooting contest at a basket. One team on each side trying to make twenty hoops as fast as possible, first team done wins. Exactly one ball per team. At one point each team has missed a shot and the shooter is running down his own rebound. They turn to fire a pass back to the next shooter in line. The balls smash into each other with a Hindenburg-like POP. I'll bet you fifty dollars that if I had asked them to accomplish that feat, they'd have failed in ten tries. And I would win easily, because I had just watched them attempt a passing drill five minutes earlier.
- 6'4" freshman built like a Weeble, but falls down. After being bumped off balance and falling backward about five steps, with his hands desperately and futilely flailing to stay upright. This happens about once every two minutes, by the way.
- Half-court scrimmage. Skins vs shirts. Guard makes a slicing move to the basket and lays it up. Different 6'4" player snuffs the shot. Was it a bad shot? No. Was it an impressive block? Hardly. They were on the same team.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Brad Stevens Breaks Down What Makes A Great Team
Hear the coach of the annually overachieving, mid-major conference basketball team Butler University discuss the characteristics of great teams.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Motivating The Bench Players
Huddle up.
By the time our first game arrives, five of you will be picked to start. "Starters," we'll call them in the score book.
Perhaps the starters will feel privileged. It is a significant role. They may spend thirty minutes on the court, more than any other player. They will probably score more points than their teammates.
They are far, far from the most important players on the team.
They say it takes ten hands to make a basket. This saying makes a key point, that no single player would stand a chance against a five-person team. Teammates and teamwork are required to succeed. Assists are as valuable as baskets.
However, the saying understates the number of hands considerably.
This team will have forty practices together, twice the number of scheduled games. Games are less than 40 minutes long, while practices are 80 or more.
In all, spectators will see less than a fifth of our team's action. If they remember the names of anyone on the team, it may well be the starters.
Gentlemen, basketball is a fantastic game. It creates top physical condition, close relationships, and fun.
I especially love it because it is teaches many of life's harshest lessons well before you get a chance to fail them when it counts.
You will feel disrespected by opponents, opposing fans, and referees.
You will feel disrespected by your own teammates and coaches.
You will be outscored in some games.
Your hard work will often go unnoticed.
Your pain will often be unappreciated.
You will be criticized by your coach in front of your teammates.
You will be criticized by your teammates.
You will be frustrated by referees' mistakes, your teammates' mistakes, and your own mistakes.
Your limits will be exposed, and you will be judged.
You will be exhausted and irritable.
You will disagree. You will be powerless.
And you will spend time on the bench.
You may be on the bench when you're sure you could outplay a teammate who's on the floor.
You may not be cheered by our fans all season long.
Is it worth it?
Some day you will need to work to survive. You may need to work in order for your loved ones to survive.
You can read from the above list of lessons and easily substitute the names of family, friends, bosses, co-workers, law enforcement or countless others into those harsh realities. People will fail you, you will fail you, you will fail others. Your situation will seem unfair.
You will be tempted to lash out in anger. To wallow in pity. To give up. To dig a hole so deep that it becomes a grave.
In those moments, you may remember basketball.
It could save you.
If, that is, you choose to learn how to win.
This is the message to the bench players.
You do realize that we are ALL bench players, don't you. All of us will spend time on the bench.
I believe the bench is a great place to be. That's why I'm here.
Ten hands alone do not make a basket. How good can the starters be by themselves? We will never score our best if they play every minute, no matter how good their condition. A five-man team has no chance if one gets hurt.
How good can five players be without someone to play against in the practices? And how good can five players be if they play against poor players in practices? This is 80% of the season!
Some of you may get the "glory," as others would describe it in the papers. If you measure yourself by that type of "glory," you'll lose a lot in life, maybe even become a "loser" by the world's standards.
Because winning is not outscoring teams from other schools. That is both beyond our control and also ignorant, since it ignores the vast majority of our season.
No, winning is playing to the best of our ability, within the roles that we find ourselves. Because in life, not all roles that we play will be our favorite. And most of them will not be combined with fun and good exercise like basketball.
You have different strengths. Shooting. Dribbling. Defense. Rebounding. Jumping. Passing. Leadership. Speed. Intelligence. You all have weaknesses. Your package, your role may be to push the starters to their limits in practice, so that they are not overwhelmed in games.
You will all fill a role on the bench with me as well. In most gyms, the bench is our only source of encouragement and optimism. If we do not practice encouragement, including me, then we will fail at it during games both on the court and from the bench. And in basketball and in life, that is perhaps the greatest failure of all.
As long as you choose to play for this team, realize that the bench is a place of honor.
We who sit there have earned that seat through an eager desire to succeed.
We have worked, sweated, struggled and grown in ways that will never be fully seen or appreciated by a crowd, especially for most of us as individuals.
What they will see is our standard of victory - an entire team that hustles, shares, and cheers each other on during each moment on the court.
Our goal is to be victorious every day of the season, and whether or not we outscore another team that day, to leave the court with our heads held high.
Our goal is to become better men.
By the time our first game arrives, five of you will be picked to start. "Starters," we'll call them in the score book.
Perhaps the starters will feel privileged. It is a significant role. They may spend thirty minutes on the court, more than any other player. They will probably score more points than their teammates.
They are far, far from the most important players on the team.
They say it takes ten hands to make a basket. This saying makes a key point, that no single player would stand a chance against a five-person team. Teammates and teamwork are required to succeed. Assists are as valuable as baskets.
However, the saying understates the number of hands considerably.
This team will have forty practices together, twice the number of scheduled games. Games are less than 40 minutes long, while practices are 80 or more.
In all, spectators will see less than a fifth of our team's action. If they remember the names of anyone on the team, it may well be the starters.
Gentlemen, basketball is a fantastic game. It creates top physical condition, close relationships, and fun.
I especially love it because it is teaches many of life's harshest lessons well before you get a chance to fail them when it counts.
You will feel disrespected by opponents, opposing fans, and referees.
You will feel disrespected by your own teammates and coaches.
You will be outscored in some games.
Your hard work will often go unnoticed.
Your pain will often be unappreciated.
You will be criticized by your coach in front of your teammates.
You will be criticized by your teammates.
You will be frustrated by referees' mistakes, your teammates' mistakes, and your own mistakes.
Your limits will be exposed, and you will be judged.
You will be exhausted and irritable.
You will disagree. You will be powerless.
And you will spend time on the bench.
You may be on the bench when you're sure you could outplay a teammate who's on the floor.
You may not be cheered by our fans all season long.
Is it worth it?
Some day you will need to work to survive. You may need to work in order for your loved ones to survive.
You can read from the above list of lessons and easily substitute the names of family, friends, bosses, co-workers, law enforcement or countless others into those harsh realities. People will fail you, you will fail you, you will fail others. Your situation will seem unfair.
You will be tempted to lash out in anger. To wallow in pity. To give up. To dig a hole so deep that it becomes a grave.
In those moments, you may remember basketball.
It could save you.
If, that is, you choose to learn how to win.
This is the message to the bench players.
You do realize that we are ALL bench players, don't you. All of us will spend time on the bench.
I believe the bench is a great place to be. That's why I'm here.
Ten hands alone do not make a basket. How good can the starters be by themselves? We will never score our best if they play every minute, no matter how good their condition. A five-man team has no chance if one gets hurt.
How good can five players be without someone to play against in the practices? And how good can five players be if they play against poor players in practices? This is 80% of the season!
Some of you may get the "glory," as others would describe it in the papers. If you measure yourself by that type of "glory," you'll lose a lot in life, maybe even become a "loser" by the world's standards.
Because winning is not outscoring teams from other schools. That is both beyond our control and also ignorant, since it ignores the vast majority of our season.
No, winning is playing to the best of our ability, within the roles that we find ourselves. Because in life, not all roles that we play will be our favorite. And most of them will not be combined with fun and good exercise like basketball.
You have different strengths. Shooting. Dribbling. Defense. Rebounding. Jumping. Passing. Leadership. Speed. Intelligence. You all have weaknesses. Your package, your role may be to push the starters to their limits in practice, so that they are not overwhelmed in games.
You will all fill a role on the bench with me as well. In most gyms, the bench is our only source of encouragement and optimism. If we do not practice encouragement, including me, then we will fail at it during games both on the court and from the bench. And in basketball and in life, that is perhaps the greatest failure of all.
As long as you choose to play for this team, realize that the bench is a place of honor.
We who sit there have earned that seat through an eager desire to succeed.
We have worked, sweated, struggled and grown in ways that will never be fully seen or appreciated by a crowd, especially for most of us as individuals.
What they will see is our standard of victory - an entire team that hustles, shares, and cheers each other on during each moment on the court.
Our goal is to be victorious every day of the season, and whether or not we outscore another team that day, to leave the court with our heads held high.
Our goal is to become better men.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
NCHS Handles Moline 60-40 To Reach Sweet 16
The Normal Community Ironmen played aggressive, fundamentally sound defense and withstood a sizable Moline home crowd advantage to tip the Maroons 60-40 on Wednesday night.
The Ironmen jumped out to an 8-0 lead and held the edge for the entire game, maintaining a 24-18 cover at the half.
In the second half the NCHS road-weary fans and cheerleaders watched their players use crisp passing to break the press and the half court zone. While the defense turned in a comparable half, the offense stretched the lead to 25 midway through the fourth quarter.
Normal extended its record to 25-6 on the season, and plays East Saint Louis on Friday night in the sectional championship game.
The Ironmen jumped out to an 8-0 lead and held the edge for the entire game, maintaining a 24-18 cover at the half.
In the second half the NCHS road-weary fans and cheerleaders watched their players use crisp passing to break the press and the half court zone. While the defense turned in a comparable half, the offense stretched the lead to 25 midway through the fourth quarter.
Normal extended its record to 25-6 on the season, and plays East Saint Louis on Friday night in the sectional championship game.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
McDonald Tabbed To Lead NCHS February 8
Newton County High School assistant sophomore boys basketball coach Joe McDonald has been asked to serve as head coach for one game on Tuesday, February 8 in Dixie.
The road contest against the Edison High School Bulbs was originally scheduled as a home game, but had to be postponed when the EHS bus driver was detained by lion-related injuries.
The conference game had to be rescheduled, with February 8 being the viable alternative. Since that date coincides with the head coach's obligation as keynote speaker for the International Foundation for the Deaf annual conference, the temporary promotion came to fruition.
McDonald's debut will be the second generation to take the helm. McDonald's father coached over a dozen high school teams to winning records in fourteen years.
"It's exciting to be part of the tradition for NCHS and the family," McDonald said. "The way to honor both is to provide the same quality Steelworker basketball, in execution and teamwork, that we've coached all year."
The road contest against the Edison High School Bulbs was originally scheduled as a home game, but had to be postponed when the EHS bus driver was detained by lion-related injuries.
The conference game had to be rescheduled, with February 8 being the viable alternative. Since that date coincides with the head coach's obligation as keynote speaker for the International Foundation for the Deaf annual conference, the temporary promotion came to fruition.
McDonald's debut will be the second generation to take the helm. McDonald's father coached over a dozen high school teams to winning records in fourteen years.
"It's exciting to be part of the tradition for NCHS and the family," McDonald said. "The way to honor both is to provide the same quality Steelworker basketball, in execution and teamwork, that we've coached all year."
Thursday, January 20, 2011
NCHS Wraps Up Tournament At 3-1
The Newton County High School Steelworkers finished a successful Martin Luther King Holiday Classic basketball tournament in Ritztown with a split of games on Monday.
Facing the Squaws of Nipperton in the morning game, the team almost literally handed their opponents the lead with ten turnovers in the first quarter alone. Most of the miscues were errant passes that turned into fast break points for Nipperton.
"My favorite was the pass on the fast break that sailed over the backboard," assistant coach Joe McDonald quipped.
Satellites aside, the sophomores got their game under control. After falling behind by as many at 15, they made an impressive fourth quarter rally to trim the lead to seven with three and a half minutes left before rediscovering their flair for miscues down the stretch.
"We're averaging about 18 turnovers a game," said the head coach afterward. "If we convert six of those into points, we'd be winning games going away. It gives us room for improvement, which is what we want in the second half of the season."
Nonetheless, NCHS did continue to shoot impressively from the free throw line overall, finishing around 70% for the tournament.
The second game was a matchup with the Jartmouth Screaming Mooses, a scraggly-haired bunch from the Chicago suburbs. The Steelworkers' point guard Manny Duzwell had his best game of the event, unloading 15 points on an assortment of driving layups and free throws. They dominated the glass, giving up nearly zero offensive rebounds, and held them to just 19 first half points. In the second half they were far more generous, allowing over thirty points and clinging to a dwindling ten point lead in the final minutes. When at last a desperation game-winning three pointer missed the mark, Newton County could embark on the long snowy bus ride home with high heads and a 12-2 record on the season.
Facing the Squaws of Nipperton in the morning game, the team almost literally handed their opponents the lead with ten turnovers in the first quarter alone. Most of the miscues were errant passes that turned into fast break points for Nipperton.
"My favorite was the pass on the fast break that sailed over the backboard," assistant coach Joe McDonald quipped.
Satellites aside, the sophomores got their game under control. After falling behind by as many at 15, they made an impressive fourth quarter rally to trim the lead to seven with three and a half minutes left before rediscovering their flair for miscues down the stretch.
"We're averaging about 18 turnovers a game," said the head coach afterward. "If we convert six of those into points, we'd be winning games going away. It gives us room for improvement, which is what we want in the second half of the season."
Nonetheless, NCHS did continue to shoot impressively from the free throw line overall, finishing around 70% for the tournament.
The second game was a matchup with the Jartmouth Screaming Mooses, a scraggly-haired bunch from the Chicago suburbs. The Steelworkers' point guard Manny Duzwell had his best game of the event, unloading 15 points on an assortment of driving layups and free throws. They dominated the glass, giving up nearly zero offensive rebounds, and held them to just 19 first half points. In the second half they were far more generous, allowing over thirty points and clinging to a dwindling ten point lead in the final minutes. When at last a desperation game-winning three pointer missed the mark, Newton County could embark on the long snowy bus ride home with high heads and a 12-2 record on the season.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
NCHS Whips Donkeys
The Ritztown High School tournament served up an easy opponent for the Newton County High School Steelworkers in game two, and the Steelworkers opted to take it easy on them in the first half.
Partially drained by a rough game against Ziegfried High earlier in the day, the Workers treated defense as optional for several first-half stretches and couldn't seem to solve cross-court screens that opened up clean layups. As a result, the Ditchfield Donkeys accumulated 19 points by the break, after failing to break 15 until the fourth quarter of their opening game.
"That was not Steelworker basketball," said the NCHS head coach among other comments with the calm of a man covered by fire ants.
The half time tongue-lashing worked. With temperatures in the four-court dome falling in the late afternoon as the heater shut off, Newton County froze Ditchfield's offense to the tune of a 1-point third quarter.
With a 15 point lead to start the fourth quarter, the entire bench saw significant minutes. The closest thing to drama was when Bert Watcher inadvertently felled his own teammate Willie Makit with an ill-fated knee to the groin.
The 2 1/2 hour bus trip home was a joyful one, capping a day that begin with a departure from the NCHS lot at 8:45 a.m., and the team arrived home by 10:00 p.m. Following an off day Sunday, the team will make the same round trip on Monday for another double-header.
The Steelworkers yield just 38 points per game, well below the team goal of 50.
"We're pleased to be 11-1, but more focused on getting better as players, people and a team," the coach added. "Our teams have peaked before at this point. We're halfway done, and need to find our way to the next level."
Partially drained by a rough game against Ziegfried High earlier in the day, the Workers treated defense as optional for several first-half stretches and couldn't seem to solve cross-court screens that opened up clean layups. As a result, the Ditchfield Donkeys accumulated 19 points by the break, after failing to break 15 until the fourth quarter of their opening game.
"That was not Steelworker basketball," said the NCHS head coach among other comments with the calm of a man covered by fire ants.
The half time tongue-lashing worked. With temperatures in the four-court dome falling in the late afternoon as the heater shut off, Newton County froze Ditchfield's offense to the tune of a 1-point third quarter.
With a 15 point lead to start the fourth quarter, the entire bench saw significant minutes. The closest thing to drama was when Bert Watcher inadvertently felled his own teammate Willie Makit with an ill-fated knee to the groin.
The 2 1/2 hour bus trip home was a joyful one, capping a day that begin with a departure from the NCHS lot at 8:45 a.m., and the team arrived home by 10:00 p.m. Following an off day Sunday, the team will make the same round trip on Monday for another double-header.
The Steelworkers yield just 38 points per game, well below the team goal of 50.
"We're pleased to be 11-1, but more focused on getting better as players, people and a team," the coach added. "Our teams have peaked before at this point. We're halfway done, and need to find our way to the next level."
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Rules On Winning
Applicable to a game or life, as noted by Richard Taylor:
1. Work hard.
2. Stick together.
3. Have the right attitude.
4. Be positive; don't criticize; look to compliment.
5. Improve every day, especially as a person.
6. "How badly do I want it?"
7. Know that no one can beat you; you beat yourself. Morale is what motivates the best to get better. As you think, so you shall be. A sprit of devotion and enthusiasm for the team and purpose... Until you find a purpose higher than winning, you will never win.
8. Leave the room cleaner than when you entered it.
9. Winning is a by-product of hard work - but winning is not the most important thing. Playing the game the right way is the important thing.
10. Enjoy the things that make us better, the intangibles like team concept, not the stats.
11. We play with the intensity and poise of a national championship team.
12. Play each possession like it's the last game.
13. The purpose of playing is to get better.
14. If you think about losing, you will lose.
1. Work hard.
2. Stick together.
3. Have the right attitude.
4. Be positive; don't criticize; look to compliment.
5. Improve every day, especially as a person.
6. "How badly do I want it?"
7. Know that no one can beat you; you beat yourself. Morale is what motivates the best to get better. As you think, so you shall be. A sprit of devotion and enthusiasm for the team and purpose... Until you find a purpose higher than winning, you will never win.
8. Leave the room cleaner than when you entered it.
9. Winning is a by-product of hard work - but winning is not the most important thing. Playing the game the right way is the important thing.
10. Enjoy the things that make us better, the intangibles like team concept, not the stats.
11. We play with the intensity and poise of a national championship team.
12. Play each possession like it's the last game.
13. The purpose of playing is to get better.
14. If you think about losing, you will lose.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Rick Torbett
This guy does a series of basketball instructional videos and styles the "read and react" offense with increasing popularity. Elements of it will appear in our team's offense next season so it's a good time to get a jump!
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