October 1st means that the college basketball season is near. A lot of Div1 teams getting ready for the tradition known as midnight madness. A couple of videos to get you pumped up, first one is from Oregon:

Here is a cool timelapse of defending champion University of Kentucky, setting up to sell tickets to Big Blue Madness. Think about that, this is just for tickets to the event, and not the actual event, and people are camping out. Wow...

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It's taken me a couple of days to absorb the shock that came when I heard that Jim Calhoun decided to retire from the University of Conneticut as the men's head basketball coach. As I think about it more, it makes me sad to think that the ultimate tough guy in Calhoun could only take so much. Although his incredible coaching legacy will inevitably be overshadowed by the circumstances surrounding the recruiting violations, and academic probationary sanctions, I can't help but feel disappointed that a guy who had always been known for doing things the right way would unfortunately get dragged down by the progressively worsening sliminess of big-time collegiate athletics. Perhaps it would have been fitting if Calhoun decided to retire on top after winning the 2011 NCAA Championship, but the fighter within decided to keep going despite what he knew was coming.

In reflecting specifically on Calhoun's legacy on the college game, I think his biggest contribution schematically was his "pro-style" based approach. In other words, many coaches are system coaches -- they use a 4-out motion, or flex, or dribble drive, 7 seconds or less, spread pick and roll, 40 minutes of hell, 2-3 zone, 1-3-1 zone, etc... Calhoun's philosophy has always been that the best system to use is the one that gets the best players the ball. So, when he had the likes of Ray Allen and Rip Hamilton, it was all about the box sets, and stagger screens to free up those jumpers on the wing. When he had Emeka Okafor and later with Hasheem Thabeet, it was a man-to-man defense that featured a dominant shot-blocking big man, leveraging their offensive rebounding prowess, and a post-entry based offense. With Kemba Walker, it was half court trapping, and a 1 man fast break and the drive and kick game. It was not a surprise to see so many star recruits gravitate towards UConn, future NBA players were developed by Calhoun because he featured them, and found ways to make them successful. And when they went to the NBA, they became stars because they played in a system which featured them.

It's certainly true that Calhoun rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. He wasn't always graceful in defeat nor in victory, but with Calhoun you always knew that what you saw was what you got and that he didn't give a damn what anybody else thought. There wasn't a lot of pizzaz, he didn't care to put on a show, he just coached his a** off and was always about his players.

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Since making the final four a year ago, Shaka Smart's VCU Havoc defense has been much discussed recently. More than anything schematic, it is really more of a philosophy and an attitude. Certainly it requires a certain amount of stamina to run this kind of defense, but when run properly it is very very effective. Enjoy this "Havoc" compilation from the 2011-2012 season,

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With the college football season already underway, here is a little something to get you excited for the upcoming college basketball season. It's a short 7 minute behind the scenes look at the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team on their recent European trip to Switzerland to take on the Swiss Men's National Team. Some good raw footage of EJ talking about focusing on defense because when you think too much about your offensive game you tend to get more nervous. And also some highlights of the games vs the Swiss team.

Hope you enjoyed it...

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I was watching parts of John Calipari's All-Access DVD with his 2011-12 Kentucky team and one of the coaching points that Calipari talks about and is often overlooked but is probably the most important regarding BLOB and SLOB plays is choosing who will be your inbounder. Here is a short clip from the video where Calipari talks about it (about 4min in),

A lot of times, we get lost in the scheme of OB plays, but I don't know how many times I've watched games where the wrong person was inbounding the ball on an OB play, and it ended up in a turnover going the other way for a basket (my own teams included). I think as a coach, you need to find out which specific players can inbound the ball reliably under pressure. I used to change the inbounder depending on what kind of play we ran, but now, I decide in advance the 2 or 3 players who are allowed to inbound the ball based on how reliable they are.

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Been going through a number of coaching clinic videos and DVDs recently and one of the common concepts that keeps coming up breaking presses and traps is the idea of having 3 passes available at all times -- sideline, middle, and behind.

You can use any number of sets, 1-3-1, 1-4 across, 1-2-2, but the idea is to always make sure you have those three passes available at all times, with one of the players cutting diagonally to become the new middle player and everyone else cutting and replacing. In Bruce Weber's Press Break DVD, he calls this "pistons",

The idea translates to attacking half-court traps as well. The idea is you always want to present 3 pass options -- sideline (O3), middle (O4), and behind (O2). Lason Perkin's talks about it briefly in his Euro Ball Screen Offense,

Note above that the 4th player (O5) is always opposite the ball. This is for spacing as once the pass is made to one of the 3 options, you want to have a player on the weakside who is open for a quick reversal and layup.

In addition to this schematic concept of sideline-middle-behind, players need to know how to square up so that they can see the 3 passes and not throw the ball to a defender, and learn other concepts such as the crab dribble for pressure release which I've talked about earlier.

Anyways, hope everyone is enjoying watching basketball at the olympics. A devastating opening loss from the Team Canada Women's team against Russia, but they will come back today against England.

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I've written about the Triangle and 2 defense before and since Kansas used it to great effect this past NCAA tournament, most notably in their win over North Carolina, I thought I would revisit it and add some thoughts to what I had written previously especially since I used it off and on during this past season.

As Rick Majerus says in his Triangle and 2 defense Clinic DVD, the triangle and 2 should not be used as a staple of your defensive system. I agree completely with that statement, and Majerus goes on to say that the most important aspect of running the defense is knowing when to go to it, and when to go out of it. The perfect example is the way Bill Self used it with his Kansas team against Purdue and North Carolina, late in the 2nd half when they needed to cool down a hot shooter, and to slow the relentless Carolina fast break. I also agree with Bill Self's decision not to use it against Kentucky, if the other team has 4 good players/shooters on the floor, the triangle and 2 is not the defense to be in.

The key to running a good triangle and 2 defense is finding a player to put on their 3rd best player. That defender will play the point at the top of the triangle in the zone, but is also responsible mostly for the 3rd best player on the floor. That is where your best overall defender should play, not against any of the 2 top scorers. In fact, you probably want to put 2 of your more mediocre defenders (but must be quick) on the 2 top scorers, they are in all out denial (butt to the ball, belly to the man), and they are forcing those 2 players to go backdoor.

Yes, I said that correctly, you want to force the 2 top scorers to go backdoor into triangle zone where they will be met by the 3 defenders. Dribble penetration is encouraged, again because they will most likely be dribbling right into the zone.

Back to the 3rd best scorer on the floor. Your point man in the triangle has the toughest job because he must help on any dribble penetration by the 2 top scorers, but also closeout on the 3rd best scorer. The 3rd best scorer must not be allowed to take a catch and shoot open 3-pointer, instead we want to force the 3rd best scorer to dribble into a shot.

The 2 post defenders must play good post defense. There are some differing opinions on whether to half-front, full-front, or play behind. Majerus likes the full-front, others like to play behind for better rebounding position. I think it depends on your scouting report, if the team has capable back to the basket post players, you probably want to play some form of front. The key for the post-players is that if they are forced to play anybody on the perimeter or in the corner, they do what is called a fake and fade. They stay square to the ball with high hands to entice a dribble drive with a hop forward, then an immediate hop back. In this way, they attempt to level off any dribble drive and force the dribbler to go around the defender where help will eventually be there.

Based on past experience, what hurts the triangle and 2 the most is when the offense uses screens (off-ball and on-ball) between the 2 scorers and the 3rd scorer. The 2 scorers can play a little 2 man game and screen for each other in a pick and roll to get open. It is therefore critical that you have a plan to deal with those screens, whether you plan to trap, hard show, go under, or switch. My experience has been switching has been most effective. Another offensive tatic that is particularly effective is to put the point defender on the triangle in conflict by:

- dribble drive at the point defender and kickout to the 3rd best scorer for a 3-point shot
- wide pin down screen for one of the 2 top scorers backside forcing the point defender to defend the curl
- slip screen the 3rd best scorer and force the 2 post defenders to rotate

Finally, in transition defense, the point defender cannot be an offensive rebounder. His job after a shot goes up is to immediately sprint back to the defend the basket. The 2 deny defenders find their checks immediately to deny, and the 2 post defenders get back as soon as they can.

Like all defenses, the triangle and 2 is a defense in which all players must constantly communicate. Everyone must know where the 3rd best scorer is, and be ready to help on any dribble drive or backdoor cuts.

This past season in the second round of a tournament against a top team, we used the triangle and 2 after getting slaughtered in the first half 30-10, we ended up losing the game 42-37. We came out of halftime and the other team was completely stymied, they went scoreless for 8 straight minutes, their players were heard going to the bench during a timeout saying "we don't know what they're running, it's like a zone but not a zone". The other team ended up hitting a 3 pointer late to give them the lead and we tried playing the fouling game but just couldn't overcome the deficit. The team ended up going on to win the tournament.

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