Lean Coaching: Three tips for trimming away the excess that may exist in your coaching style In some recent reading on non-basketball subjects, I ran across the descriptive term lean. The term lean was used as a complimentary descriptor for an author’s writing style. To have a lean writing style means the author is not…
Video Playbook: The Short Roll
The short roll is an effective tool when the ball screen defense puts two on the ball. Here’s a look from some masters of the short roll. When teaching ball screen offense, it is important to equip your players with solutions to various ball screen defense tactics. Without solutions you are just “running something” and doing a…
Zone Offense: Alignment
Alignment may be the key piece of zone offense. Here’s some tips for picking the right alignment versus various zone defenses. When attacking zone defenses, the first step is to settle upon an offensive alignment. And starting from a good alignment may be all the “offense” you need versus a zone. The traditional zone alignments…
Playing With Offensive Freedom
Playing with offensive freedom – four keys to playing with more freedom and less complexity. There is a spectrum of coaches and we all fall somewhere along this spectrum. On one end is the rigid coach who calls every play and coaches every dribble. On the other end is the coach who basically rolls the…
Video Playbook: Staggered Screens
Video Playbook: Staggered Screens – A look across the basketball landscape at options and actions stemming from the staggered down screen. The staggered down screen is a staple in many motion offenses across the basketball landscape. In this video playbook we will look at college, NBA and International teams using the staggered down screen. Staggered Screens:…
Video Playbook: San Francisco Point Options
Video Playbook: Point Series options from the University of San Francisco Dons The Princeton Offense has layers and one of those layers is the Point Series. In the following video playbook, the University of San Francisco Dons will serve as our visual aid for these Point Series options. Over First, let’s look at how to…
What’s Your Basketball Genre?
Counseling Coaches Series: Basketball Coaching, like music, has genres. You don’t have to know or even pretend to care about all of them. (Note: This blog originally appeared at radiusathletics.com and is reposted with permission.) Imagine you have a friend, and this friend is into classical music. He can tell Beethoven from Bach within the…
Auburn Tigers – Transition Threes
The Auburn Tigers (28-9, #5 Midwest Region) high-powered offensive attack is propelled by transition threes. Let’s look at how they manufacture them. The Auburn Tigers love the three-point shot. The Tigers are sixteenth in the nation in three-point percentage, shooting 38.2% from behind the line. Auburn’s 11.5 three-pointers made per game is tops in the…
Baylor Bears Zone Offense
Preview: The Baylor Bears (#9, West Region) will face the Syracuse Orange (#8, West Region) and their vaunted 2-3 Zone in the first round of NCAA play. In general, #8 versus #9 matchups offer intrigue in NCAA first round play. They feature evenly matched teams who had similar seasons and the winner gets a shot at…
Focus Is More Important Than Genius
Counseling Coaches Series: How focused you are on what you do is more important than how much you know. In this day and age, the ability to filter out information is a Coaching Superpower. In the hundreds of hours each year I spend counseling coaches this is a constant battle; especially when they are faced…