3 Interesting Observations

Many of you have heard a lot of buzz recently about the new Read and React Offensive System, which was created by Rick Torbett from Better Basketball. Some very respectable coaches, including 2008 NCAA Champion Bill Self from Kansas University, have been raving about it. Coach Torbett has written some articles on the offense, and I wanted to share with you three very interesting points from one of his articles. Here's the excerpt:

"In the mid-to-late-90’s, after nearly twenty years in coaching, three incidents came together to create a turning point in my entire approach towards offense, developing players, and building teams:

1. Using the previous season’s videotapes, I charted all the points we scored from free throws, offensive rebounds, fast breaks, set plays, broken plays, etc., and found an unsettlingly ratio. 80% of our points came from broken plays, transition, and other PRINCIPLED basketball. We only scored the way our set plays were designed about 20% of the time. But in practice, the ratio was the opposite: we spent 80% of our offensive time on set plays and less than 20% of the time on PRINCIPLED basketball. I had to ask myself why I was spending 80% of our time on only 20% of our point production?

2. After a rather average season, my assistant coach asked me if I was happy. I replied, “Not particularly.” He asked what I would do differently if I could scrap our entire program and start all over. I said that I would teach our kids how to play the entire game by principle. He then asked, “Why don’t you do it?” The honest answer was: I didn’t know how. I had a lot of pieces, a lot of 2-man and 3-man principles, but not the entire thing. The whole thing seemed like a pretty tall order: to create a seamless offensive system that would encompass transition offense, man-to-man offense, and zone offense without contradiction, and without being limited to only one “set” (5-Out or 4-Out or 3-Out), and without needing a certain type of players, or players ideal for a particular style of play. (Stay tuned, the Read and React Offense does it!)

3. At about the same time, I experienced some success with a team built around six players who played together from 7th grade to 12th grade. We went to the Final 4 their last two years. Were they talented? Yes, but not to the extent you might think. Only two went on to play on the college level. Their real talent was their coordinated effort. They “knew” each other. They moved like a school of fish. Was I responsible for this? Had I suddenly become a coaching genius? No. Our success was due mostly to the fact that they had played together for six years. In fact, each year they were in the program was characterized by fewer plays and more principles."

To read this entire article or learn about the Read and React DVDs, you can visit: http://www.betterbasketball.com/readandreact/articles.html