It's that time of year when coaches get fired and hired all across the country. Today, Texas Tech decided to part ways with Pat Knight. One great quote from Knight that really stuck with me in reading about it today was this one:
"I've proven I can coach. I run a clean program, I don't cheat, my players graduate and we have discipline. So if you don't want me here there's going to be someone else that wants me."
What a great quote. In a situation where all kinds of doubts can be swirling in your head, where you second-guess yourself, your philosophy, whether you are cut out for the profession, it's good to just remind yourself that just because you got fired, doesn't mean that you have no idea what you're doing.
Things don't always work out, but as long as you have integrity and work ethic, there will always be a place for you. That there are indeed things more important than winning, like doing things the right way.
Watching some college basketball yesterday and caught the big BYU win over SDSU lead by BYU guard Jimmer Fredette. When I watched him play, the thing that struck me the most was how composed he always is, he never lets the emotion of the game get to him, he is always in control. When the ESPN analysts talked about Fredette looking for pickup games at the prison to hone his skills back in his hometown, I was intrigued. Here is the ESPN segment that goes into it,
One of the virtues that is undervalued by coaches is mental toughness. I do think it is something that can be developed like any skill. But its harder to develop because in order to be mental tough, you have to be in the position to make mistakes over and over again and then learn from them. It's a painful process, but it's the only way to become stronger.
Wow, all I can say is WOW. But anyone who has coached for any length of time knows that it's a grind. And to think that Coach Jerry Sloan did it for 1 team for 23 years as a head coach, WOW... definitely will be missed, here was his press conference,
If it weren't for 1 Michael Jordan, Sloan probably wins 2 rings in the 90s. Still unbelievable that Sloan never won the Coach of the Year award.
With so much going on with teaching and coaching at the moment, I haven't nearly had the time to watch as much college basketball as I used to. I was able to catch some games and highlights the other day and this ESPN segment with Doug Gottlieb breaking down Purdue's win over Penn State on a last second BLOB play.
Usually I don't disagree with most of what ESPN puts out there, because they usually have ex-coaches doing the breakdowns. But I think Gottlieb has it wrong here. With Penn State up by only 1-point, I'd rather have one defender down low crowning the basket, protecting the easy layup, rather than having him "up the line" as Gottlieb says to help on the switch who can then help on the shot. Even if Battle had gotten up to the FT-line where Gottlieb is pointing to below, he wouldn't have been in a position to defend the switch or challenge the shot anyways, and would've allowed the inbounder to get great position on the offensive boards,
To me, it was just a missed assignment. What the Penn State defender who got screened should have done was simply switched hard. That should have allowed the screened defender to jump out to challenge the shot or at worst, to force the player to put the ball on the ground and dribble into the help where Battle was in position to defend. Bottom line for me as a coach, if the offense elects to shoot a contested 20-footer, rather than a contested 2-footer, I'm OK with that, I'll take the numbers on that one anytime.
If you're looking for more great ideas for your SLOBs, BLOBs, jumpball stuff, check out Tom Izzo's new DVD on Dead Ball Situations. Coach Izzo is the head coach of the men's basketball team at Michigan State University.
A coaching acquaintance recently passed away and it had me thinking about the lifestyle choices we make as coaches. I don't know about you all out there, but I look around me and I see a lot of my coaching friends (men and women) becoming unhealthier every day. I'm not exactly old, but I think dying of a heart attack in your 40s or 50s is a pretty damn scary prospect, don't you?
Everyone knows that coaching is a time killer, doesn't matter what sport you're involved in. You wake up, work, go from work straight to practice and games and before you know it it's 9-10pm and the only thing open is McDs. But as coaches, we need to take a serious look in the mirror, literally. We need to spend more time thinking about the choices we make everyday. I know that healthy living isn't the easiest switch to make, but it isn't rocket science either. It basically comes down to 2 things: eat less crap, and exercise more.
Anyways, enough of the lecture, I just had to get that off my back as it has been bugging me the last few days. Oh, and the irony of it all isn't lost on me, that as coaches we are supposed to be promoting healthy living through sport.
If you want to read more about coaches and losing weight, read this from Coach B Dud's blog.
Been spending the past couple of weeks reading and getting caught up with marking/lesson planning, etc... I was lucky enough to catch a Lakers game live at the Staples Center over the break (not vs Miami, but vs the Bucks, ya, lucky me), and since then, there has been so much talk about what's wrong with the Lakers losing 4 of the last 6 (ya I know, the Lakers just beat the Pistons last night).
With the Lakers, it's always the same story, how often should Kobe shoot vs pass to his teammates to score? It is similar to the Ewing Theory but slightly more complicated. Clearly he is the best offensive weapon, but if he shoots too much, his offensive efficiency goes down as defenses key in on him. If we passes too much, than the team isn't taking advantage of his overall higher offensive efficiency. The answer then lies in finding the exact balance of how many shots Kobe gets and how many shots his teammates get.
So, in thinking about your own teams, especially teams that have a superstar player, you really need to think in terms of the Braess’s Paradox, which is basically like the law of diminishing returns. In other words, you can keep going to your superstar, but eventually your superstar's offensive efficiency will become lower over time as defenses adjust (double-teams, Box and 1, etc..). You can apply the same logic to a great play you use. It works great the first time, but as you use it over and over, defenses will adjust and it will become less and less effective.
There is a great post by the physics blog Gravity and Levity which explains the Braess's Paradox as it relates to basketball a lot clearer, it's a good read and definitely recommended for anyone who wants to dig deeper.
Been even more busy then ever picking up more teaching blocks to fill my schedule, which means I'm driving 30-40 miles a day to and from schools and then practices at night. Oh yes, the joys of being a first-year high-school teacher. Anyways, basketball is in full swing now and I'm thoroughly enjoying the assisting role that I'm in. Our team had a good couple of weeks but ended with a loss in the finals of the big tournament in town.
I went through the plethora of highlights and interviews from college gameday yesterday, and this ESPN coaches roundtable with Coaches Jim Boeheim, Tom Izzo, and Bill Self really resonated with me, especially when talking about coaches and losing games. It really is true that the losses always feel way worse than any of the wins (Although I don't know about the feeling about the win to win the Championship that Self talks about because I've never won one). I remember almost every loss I've coached (both as a head coach and assistant), between football and basketball, over the past 7 years. And I've lost a lot of games. I've often hoped that the older I get, the less the losses will wear on me, but it never really does. I would say though that I used to think a lot more about what we could have done, and now I focus more on what we need to do to get better, but it still wears on you.
Another great quote from the interview is from Tom Izzo talking about how a player-coached team is better than a coach-coached team. If the leadership is there, if the players have demonstrated to me that they can take responsibility for making their own decisions, then I think Izzo is absolutely right. I've never had a big enough ego to think that I as the coach was above the team. Ultimately, I tell players that it is their team. It's a cliche but it's true, they aren't playing for me as the coach, they are playing for each other.
Finally, I think Bill Self is right on when he says that the more you get there, the more you want it. I have been fortunate enough to have coached (as a head and as an assistant) in a few Championship games in both football and basketball, unfortunately I have been on the losing end each time. But once you get there, you have that burning desire to get back. And I don't think winning it all will make it any less desirous the following year. Winning is contagious as they say.
