From over the weekend this is a defensive sequence late in the game between Florida State and Clemson. I see a lot of teams trying to front the post defensively when they play against an opponent who has a formidable post player. Most teams execute the fronting part well, but what's usually missing, and the most important part in my opinion, is to support the front on the backside against the lob pass. FSU does this extremely well by bringing the help side wing down to pinch the forward:



Schematically, its really very simple. FSU is in a full front and the guard up top thinks that it should be an easy lob to O5. O5 even gives X5 a little shove and then goes up to get the ball. However, X3 times the pass and drops down from the help side and X2 rotates to split O3 and O2,


After the pinch, O5 attempts to put the ball on the ground and go up with a power move but the ball is stripped from him. FSU takes the ball the other way and is able to score on the break.

Very simple to scheme out, but definitely something that requires reps from your players. They need to instinctively know to drop down from the help side. You could run a modified shell drill to practice it for sure.

For more ideas on defense and drills to use in practice, take a look at Steve Alford's DVD on Defensive Drill Progressions. Coach Alford is the head coach of University of New Mexico.

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I'm a big motion offense coach myself so anytime I see teams execute motion offense well, it puts a big smile on my face. The Michigan Wolverines under John Beilein have become a big motion team. Coach Beilein has brought his open-post motion over from West Virginia, and after a couple of years of finding the right the players, the Wolverines look like they're back to contend for final fours again.

In this play in OT against Creighton, the Wolverines execute the backdoor lob to perfection. Setup is high-post open motion. 4 players on the perimeter, forward at the high post. The forward pops outs to receive a pass for what would normally be a ball reversal to the side of the floor. This is the most crucial part for any motion offense. Players must setup their cuts. If the forward simply cuts backdoor here, it won't work because the defender starts in position to guard against it. The forward must really plant his top foot and use his hands to indicate he is ready to receive the pass up top,

The defender bites and overplays the ball reversal pass. This is where eye contact and communication between ball-handler and player are crucial. Both players realize the overplay right away, the forward plants hard of the top foot and uses his lateral quickness to go backdoor,

The ball-handler sees it and looks to lob the ball to the forward guiding him to the rim,


What seems like a simple play, actually takes many many reps and whole-part-whole progressions to teach. It's important to remember that motion offense takes time and you must be patient to teach it. You can't expect to put it in late November and expect your players to win the season opening tournament. It literally takes hundreds of reps in multiple situations before players get used to how and when to do what, and to get used to their teammates. But once they get it, motion offense is the most beautiful thing to watch, it's basketball offense at its purest.

Coach Beilein doesn't have any DVDs produced but if you're a fan of motion offense like me, then check out Bobby Knight's new DVD on motion offense. The DVD includes 2 hours worth of motion wisdom from the legendary college coach.

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From Greg Brown's blog, head coach of University of Central Florida's women's team, some great stuff on Pat Riley's philosophy. I've always been a big fan of Riley's Lakers teams and especially his Knicks teams in the 90s. I definitely agree with the mental toughness being more important than physical toughness. Players who have the right mental head space are the ones that will get you through the big moments.

1. Bump and run on defense. Make that your go to part of the game.
2. Two most important things: REBOUNDING & DEFENSE
3. Defense: Be the most physical in the league. The idea of the game is to take the opponent out physically and mentally.
4. Spend your time getting into your players head individually. There is only so much you can do coaching a team.
5. Make certain that your players understand that if you’re going to be a team it has to be a team defense, team offense, never I always WE.
6. It’s what you get from the games you lose that is extremely important. Did we learn from losing? This is an important part of any team.
7. We want to, as much as possible, try to make our players understand who has strength in what areas. Talk about that a lot, spend time, do the things you need to do to try to make people understand that.
8. In dealing with administration, management, etc., understand that they are extremely interested in only themselves.
9. To have a great basketball team you have to have more mental preparation than physical preparation. Once you’re mentally tough, you can become tough physically. Once you’re tough mentally you can overcome being tired, you can overcome fatigue.
10. Always practice as hard as you can. Go for it even the day of a game.
11. Make certain that your team is mentally prepared. Don’t show them a ton of film. Mentally prepare them with your voice and mouth. Get them tuned into what you want.
12. Game day preparations. Real hard workout the day of the game, go after it that night.

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Magic and Larry reminiscing about old times. I've just finished teaching a unit about people coming together to make great things happen in social studies. To me, nothing exemplifies that more than Magic and Larry. Bitter rivals, fierce competitors, and friends forever...


My favorite part of the clip, when Magic talked about the Newsweek cover during the 1992 Dream Team. Magic said, if Larry isn't on the cover, I'm not doin' it. That's what it's all about.

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Trying to catch as many games as possible these days. From a couple of nights ago, the Villanova Wildcats won a thriller over the always tough George Mason Patriots. The game went down to the wire, with Nova hitting some clutch 3-pointers. A coach emailed me the other day asking for a quick hitter for a 3-pointer and I responded with a dribble drive to the weakside corner 3-pointer. I love that play because the weakside corner 3-pointer is probably the most difficult to guard in basketball. Take a look at how Nova executed it out of their 4-out 1-in offense:



Weakside Corner 3-pointer:

Here's the thing. How many teams prepare defensively on how they will take away the weakside corner 3-pointer?? Most teams focus on ball pressure, stopping penetration, and closing out. With proper spacing on offense, it is impossible for the defense to do all those 3 things. That's what the weakside corner does, it stretches out the defense and makes it really hard for a sound defense to cover all the bases.

The play is quite simple, the Wildcats are in their 4-out 1-in motion offense. After a few handoff exchanges, the forward comes up from the block to the top of the key to set a screen for one of the guards on the opposite side. The guard with the ball here decides not to use the screen and drives the wing towards the hoop,

O1 is able to blow by his defender, and X5. X3 is too worried about O3 to help. That leaves X2 to drop down from the weakside. Well, its a decision really, to help or not to help. As coaches, we always teach to stop the ball first so help is always the first option. O2, shuffles down to the weakside corner and O1 finds him for the open 3-pointer,


I think this play would work even if you didn't have a break your ankles point guard. Because with O5 setting the screen, O1 really should be able to penetrate the lane. Now if the defense decides to hedge hard, then you can run screen-roll and have O2 still shuffle to the corner as X2 will probably still drop down to cover the rolling forward.

Now, the only other assumption here is that you have good shooters. But if you're designing a play for the 3-pointer, you better be sure you have a player that is a knockdown shooter.

For more quick hitters out of 4-out 1-in motion, check out Jay Wright's DVD on 15 Great 4-Out 1-In Motion Offense Plays. Jay Wright is in his 8th season as head coach of the Villanova Wildcats.

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I think my brain is on the verge of short-circuiting after a weekend of football watching, basketball practice, college basketball watching, and preparing lessons for next week. I haven't gone through recorded stuff on the DVR, but I did get a chance to browse through some notes earlier today. I found some really great tips from Ralph Willard, former head coach of Holy Cross. I've talked about having an identity before, your team can't be everything at the same time, it needs to have a particular focus. For Coach Willard, he calls his team focus, the "Circle of Opportunity."

If we do execute these 8 things, we will 95% of our games and have a chance to win the other 5%:

1. Deflections: our goal is 40 a game. 40+ deflections a game = .900 winning percentage.
2. Blockouts: we go back through tape and chart everyone on this.
3. Shot Contest: Every shot the opponent takes need to be contested on the ballside of their shot. If it is a righty shooting, we are flying directly at his right shoulder with 2 hands up as you can. There is a 4-5% difference between contesting on the player’s shooting side to his non-shooting side.
4. Offensive Rebounding: If you have an opportunity to go to the glass, you better get there. From the corner, Willard teaches his players to go baseline-out (meaning a player runs along the baseline to underneath the rim before jumping back into play). After the shooter shoots the defender runs along the baseline before jumping in front of the basket to get a hand on the missed shot. Teaches bigs to do the same.
5. Charges: Chart the number of times your guys step up to take a charge when they have an opportunity. This is a sign of sacrifice—giving yourself up for the team.
6. Bull Pursuit: Loose balls are OURS. All great rebounders/ rebounding teams do 2 things: They get great position and they pursue the ball. Use the stat “Out of Area Rebounds” and really emphasize it to your team.
7. Confidence & Emotion: Players must be confident going into every game that they can win.
8. Transition Defense: Take away easy baskets.

There’s nothing in this circle of 8 that we can’t do. We’re not asking you to do anything which you’re not capable of doing. It comes down to execution and effort.

Being the underdog most of the time at Holy Cross, it is not surprising that Willard would adopt a philosophy based on half-court defense, centered around hustle and physicality. If you want to learn more, check out Ralph Willard's DVD on Man Defense to equalize talent. Coach Willard is currently an assistant under Rick Pitino at Louisville.

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One of the teams that is just a joy for me to watch are the Pitt Panthers, coached by Jamie Dixon. Like UCLA (no coincidence that Coach Dixon was a former assistant under UCLA head coach Ben Howland), the Panthers play a tough physical M2M half-court defense.

In this clip between Pitt and Eastern Kentucky, I like how Pitt was keeping it physical, especially on defense. You can say there are a couple of fouls here, but if the refs are allowing contact, it behooves you to use that to your advantage. Definitely bump cutters, don't let them get an open cut to the basket:



In this first screenshot, the forward is making a basket cut after a pass and cut away. The weakside defender slides down and sets his feet, the offensive forward runs into him, and thus his momentum is disrupted,


In this second screenshot, the guard passes into the post with the intention of getting a handoff with the post screening right after. However, the wing defender bumps the wing trying to cut to receive the handoff, resulting in a botched handoff and the turnover,


You have to see how the game is being reffed. I've been in some games where refs called all the tic-tac stuff, and others when it would be 3-2 in team fouls after a half. If the refs are holding their whistles, definitely use that to your advantage. But keeping in mind that your players need to know the line between an obvious foul and just hard physical contact.

If you're thinking of upping the intensity of your practices, then take a look at, Jamie Dixon's DVD on Drills for Competitive Practices.

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