And no, this has nothing to do with Tim Donaghy. For all the coaches out there, I encourage you to spend at least 1 month refereeing, it will change your whole perspective on the game. I never really had a true appreciation of refereeing until I became one for a season a few years ago. What I found most eye-opening was the incredible pressure I was under. Being a coach, its always easy to "referee" from the sidelines, having the benefit of being able to reflect for 2-3 seconds before reacting, seeing what the ref calls, how your players react, how the fans react. As a ref, you blow the whistle milliseconds after the play. You don't have 2-3 seconds to reflect, you must make the right call right away. Everyone is waiting for you to make the call, then reacting to it. It's tough, it's a lot of pressure, all the time.

Anyways, I really liked this segment from NBA TV, probably one of their best all season. Refs really are perfectionists, they want to get the call right. They care about the integrity of the game. And they are professionals. I felt the same way as the refs in the video, if a player or coach came up to me respectfully, I was always more than willing to talk. I think it's a myth that referees hold grudges, I never really had time, people don't realize that when you become a referee, you usually ref a couple of games a night, I barely remembered the scores of the games, let alone coaches or players. Anways, enjoy....

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I'm always on the lookout for good shell-based drills for M2M defense. This one is a good one to teach help defense concepts and closeouts. If your team is playing good team M2M defense, you will always have situations where you are disadvantaged, 3-on-2, 4-on-3, as a result of your defense shifting to stop the ball, so it's always critical for your players to be able to closeout properly and split the offense properly until your teammates can recover. I got these from an older Xavier Newsletter, I like it because there is a quick turnaround so that you can get a lot of players through it instead of a lot of players standing around while 7 players play 4 on 3 for 3 minutes.

4-on-3 Closeout Drill:
1. The drill begins with four offensive players versus three defensive players. The offensive players cannot move without the ball. The drill is halfcourt only.
2. The defense must get three consecutive stops to get out. Possession of the ball by the defense equals a stop. If the offense scores or is fouled before a "third consecutive stop" occurs, the consecutive stop count returns to zero.
3. The offense must shoot on three passes or less.
4. On every catch by an offensive player, one of the three defenders, the closest one, must actively closeout and defend the ball. A defender should not have to take two consecutive passes.





For more shell drill info, check out Kevin Boyle's DVD on Building a Man Defense. Coach Boyle is head coach of St. Patrick's High Shool in New Jersey and a part of the NIKE Grassroots Basketball Program.

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Wasn't able to catch all those great games yesterday, I stayed with CBS most of the day, so I went through the Florida vs South Carolina game earlier today on tape. What a thrilling finish, USC goes coast to coast to go up by 2, only to have Florida come back coast to coast to drain a game winning 3-pointer.

It was one of those plays where you can't find fault really, just 2 teams which played their hearts out, executed as best they could, and the team with the last shot was the one that came out on top.

If there was one thing I would like to point out, is just the spacing of Florida's break. Parsons, 25, goes wide and knows exactly where to spot up for the 3-pointer. Tyus dribbles wide to get into a better driving angle, then as the defense stays at home to defend against the dribble drive, Tyus drops off the ball to Parsons for the open 3-pointer, which he hits.





And if you're wondering why Florida didn't call timeout after USC hit their 2-pointer for the 1-point lead, it was because Florida was out of timeouts at that point.

For more ideas on incorporating the 3-pointer into your offense, check out Billy Donovan's DVD on Shooting and Defending the 3-pointer. Billy Donovan is the head coach of the University of Florida.

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When I watch a lot of basketball at the lower levels (up to JV), it bugs me a little when I watch 1 team dominate the other team simply through a full court press. Ever since about a year ago, I used to be of the sole belief that it was just bad form for a more athletic team to FC press a less athletic team. But the more I think about it now, I think it points to a failure by coaches to properly teach players how to deal with traps and double-teams, especially in the open court.

There were always be situations where it is bad form for a team to be FC pressing (like if ahead by 20-plus points, etc...). But as coaches, we tend to overemphasize the tactical side, how to scheme out of FC pressure, and not actually teach players how to play out of pressure themselves. I think there are some general concepts we as coaches should be teaching which will allow even less athletic teams, the ability to successfully play against pressure defense in the open court. Sure it takes more work, there are no quick fixes, but in the end its a better way to approach it in my opinion.

I scoured my notes and came across some good teaching points from a Mike McNeill article of Basketball BC. So, without further ado, here are some of those great pointers:

1. Dribbling and passing skills required:
• Change of pace dribble
• Pop back or retreat dribble
• Pivoting skills – a great deal of passing ability is determined by pivoting ability; you must be able to create passing lanes by pivoting
• Pass fakes

2. With the ball, do not:
• Attempt to pass off the dribble over top of the defense
• Attempt to pass around the defense – “pass through the defense” - this means pass the ball by the ears, off the hips or directly over top of the defender’s head
• Pick up the dribble until you are ready – “keep the dribble alive”

3. Away from the ball, do not:
• Get “three in a row” – in the diagram O2 should move to the sideline, or to middle, to create a passing lane for O1
• Wait for the pass - move to the pass, “run through the ball”
• Let the defense catch up to the ball after a trap – Hit the next open player.


4. With the ball:
• Pass first, dribble second
• Fake high, pass low or fake low, pass high
• Dribble, but constantly change pace
• Force the trap when you want to not when they want to

5. In the double team:
• Stay low in the trap - maintain balance
• Pass away from the defense
• To split the double team take the ball through low and first
• If near a side-line or end-line learn to bounce the ball off the defenders out of bounds – this should be practiced
• If, using NCAA rules, call a “time-out”

6. Approaching the double team:
• Only cross center when you know you can get 10 feet past the center line so you have room to pass the ball back
• When approaching the trap make your last dribble and step to the outside of either defender to create a passing lane
• Use your retreat or pop back dribble and take on the slower of the two in the double team

7. Away from the ball:
• Go down the floor until your check stops - “when yours stop, you stop”

• Circle cut to take your check out of help and to create passing lane

• When the ball is moving towards the sideline or on the sideline you must have a teammate down the sideline, ready to move behind the ball in the middle, and in the middle


• When your defender goes to double team you come back to the ball


For a brand new DVD just released, check out Bill Self's All Access Kansas Basketball Practice 4-pack DVD which includes 424 minutes of practice and Q&A with Coach Self.

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It's always great to watch these 2 hall-of-famers and great friends talkin' basketball, Coach Mike Krzyzewski and Coach Bob Knight. In case you didn't catch it on ESPN, here is the clip below. The best parts of the video are towards the end, after 10 minutes (its around 20 minutes long),



I love the part (around 11:40) when Coach K talks about the "value of the ball". I've always been more of an old school, so I also have the philosophy to cherish each possession, on offense, but also on defense, the ball is the most important to stop.

Second part I liked (around 14:00) was when Coach K was talking about the longevity of his tenure at Duke. It's all about the people. You can be at your dream school, but if there's tension between you and administration, it's not going to work. I think we've seen situations recently in college football, where obviously that was not the case.

Last great part was towards the end (17:30), when Coach Knight and Coach K talked about the missing ingredient in today's college game, team defense. Interesting thing to note is the fact that all the best teams recently have been able to win though with superior defense.

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I'll have to admit that I haven't had much time to watch Texas lately since I've mostly followed Kansas, Duke and Kentucky so far this year. So, when I sat down yesterday and caught the later part of the second half in their game against Texas A&M, I was able to see for myself why they are the No. 1 team in the country. They play relentless half-court defense. They pressure everything on the perimeter, and they play terrific team defense. I took a few clips from the OT session between the two teams which illustrate the point:



In many ways, their defense resembles the kind of half-court pressure defense that Duke plays. But Texas is better at it, because they have better athletes. Their perimeter defenders are a threat to get their hands on the ball every single defensive possession.

Deny

It all starts with the perimeter deny. The Longhorns deny everything on the perimeter. In these 2 shots, you can see that they deny everything, even near the half-court line,



In this sequence, the Longhorn defender gets his hand on the attempted bounce pass handoff. They don't get the turnover, but it shows great defensive fundamentals by the defender to get that arm outstretched to get the deflection,


Recover

The biggest issue with this kind of aggressive half-court defense is that it leaves you vulnerable to the biggest offensive counter, the backdoor pass. Texas A&M attempts to go backdoor, but the perimeter players are so well prepared, and athletically gifted, that they can deny hard, and recover at the same time,


Help

Finally, it is almost impossible to have a solid defense individually. Your team has to work together as a unit to stop the ball, especially when players get beaten individually. Now, several times in the OT, when A&M got blocked, it was more a result of bad spacing by A&M on offense, but still, the Longhorns did a great job of weakside support,


Well, hopefully everyone else is having a great weekend. Still waiting for Rick Barnes to come out with a video, but in the meantime if you need some ideas for halfcourt denial defense, take a look at Tubby Smith's new DVD on Ball-Line Defense. Coach Smith is the head coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers.

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Just watched an outstanding documentary the other day called "Warrior Champions: From Baghdad to Beijing", which recounts the stories of several soldiers who returned home wounded in the line of duty, and turned around their injuries to compete for U.S.A. in the Summer Paralympic Games in Beijing in 2008, the website for the film is here. It was extremely difficult to find a place which was showing it here, but I managed to take it in yesterday. If you haven't seen it, you will definitely not regret it.

Anyways, I managed to find a short NBA TV extract which interviews some wheelchair basketball veterans some of whom appeared in the film. Show this clip to your team, you can't not help getting pumped up after watching and hearing the motivation of these athletes:

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