March

Everyone who coaches is searching for the right answer. How do I get my team to play the best in March, come tournament time? I love having these conversations with other coaches. Every team has a different personality, and every coach has a different approach. There isn't one simple answer.

When I started as a head coach at Rhode Island College in 2005, I took over the best team. Our group was a post season team to begin with. We had a chance to be good right away, and we were able to sustain our success. We played in the conference championship game 8 years in a row, winning 6 of them. We were 21-3 in the Little East Tournament over 9 years, and I learned a lot about what worked and what didn't when it came to success in March.

Count On Your Culture

The first truth I learned about post-season success is that it is so much more about what you do in September and October than what you do in March. You aren't going to change things and try different strategies to find success in March. You count on what you do every day with your team, starting with the summer or early fall when you first get together. The habits you develop and the belief you have in your system are going to have a bigger impact on your success than any one strategic decision you may or may not make.

Inevitably, in the post-season, you are going to come across situations you cannot control (just like you will during most games you coach). You can't constantly move the chess pieces around to make everything work. You won't be able to call a play or draw something up every time you need a basket. Your kids are going to have to play, and they are going to have to play under pressure with a lot on the line. The way you've prepared them to do that throughout the year will show up. You have to prepare them, and you have to trust them. The pressure will be greater, the stakes are higher and the competition is better. You will have less control as a coach.

Prepare your team the right way, and remind them constantly that they are up for the challenge - not because they want to win that day, because of the way they have prepared every day. Dig deep into your culture and your core values - who you really are - to find success in March.

Scared Goes Home

Tight teams get beat. You see it all the time in March. Teams that have had charmed regular seasons and won a ton of games, all of the sudden get into a close game and it feels different. They get out of character, start to press, and things get even worse. The pressure of a one-and-done game can get to any of us.

The challenge here is to stay disconnected from the result. Teams that think about losing play with fear. Focus on the process - the way you play - as opposed to the result - what it says on the scoreboard. It's not always easy to do, but it's the best way to find continued success. Refer to your standards for how hard you play, the way you compete, communicate, execute - all of the stuff you know that leads to success. The team that looks up with at the 5-minute mark when they are down 4 and feels "Oh, no, we might lose," is the team that is in trouble.

I used to remind my team all of the time that "scared goes home" in the post-season. I would tell them to go out and make the first mistake of the game. Make the most mistakes. That's fine. That tells me you aren't scared, you are ready to play. Separate your teams approach from the result to get them to play their best.

Talk About Losing

It might sound counterintuitive, but I think you need to be willing to talk about losing.

In 2009 we had a great team at RIC, maybe the most talented, experienced team I've coached. We had a legitimate chance to go on a Final Four run. We had run through our league and went into the post-season at 22-3. We lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, at home, in overtime, to MIT.

We got tight. As the game wore on and the lead went back and forth, losing became a possibility. And the biggest mistake I made was never addressing it. I kept trying to loosen my guys up in timeouts and get them to be themselves, but I never addressed the elephant in the room. We were thinking "Oh my God, what if we lose this game?"

I should have talked about losing. I should have counted on our culture, and gone back to what we did every day. We were totally process-based, and winning was never the goal. It was about how hard we played, always. I should have said "You know what guys, we might lose this game today. MIT is a good team. But I'll be damned if we are going to lose because we are scared or tight. If we compete the way we do every day - for each other - and they are better than us, I can live with that. We all can. But I can't live with the fact that we are afraid of a result, and it's affecting the way we compete."

I didn't want to mention losing, to even bring up the possibility. Yet we all had that sinking feeling that it might be happening, and I didn't address it. I should have talked about losing.

Playmakers Win

I always told my teams "I want to see playmakers out there. Take a chance. Take a risk. Make plays." That's the attitude I wanted in the post-season. I wanted them to feel like it was in their hands, that I wasn't in control once the ball went up. They were. They had to be ready to respond to whatever happened on the court, and make the right plays.

I wanted them to have the confidence and belief that they could make the plays - and decisions - to win. I had coached them all year long. They knew how to compete, how to play, how to win. The post-season isn't a time to play chess and try and move the pieces around - it's a time to turn them loose.

Play Your Bench

When I got tight in the post-season, I would shorten my rotation. We always played a lot of guys, and when we struggled early in games I'd leave my starters on the floor, when I should have done the opposite. I know it's popular (in the NBA) to tighten the rotation in the post-season, but I don't like it. I think it shows your team you are doing something different, and they wonder why.

Your team may need a change that can bring some energy, just like in the regular season. It's a 40 minute game and an 8-point deficit with 30 minutes left to play shouldn't get you away from who you are. Your bench tends to play with less pressure than your starters do in general, and that can be very valuable in high-pressure post season games. Don't be afraid to sub in the post-season.

Play For Each Other

The best teams, the elite teams, play for one another. They don't play because the coach tells them what to do. They don't play just because they want to win. They don't play just for fun. They don't play for titles. The best teams play for their teammates. They refuse to let one another down.

The pre-season conditioning sessions. The early morning weights. The countless hours in the gym. Running sprints after practice in October. What gets you through all of that and keeps you competing at a high level is your teammates. Remind your team of this constantly in the post-season.

Full measure is the gift that teams sports gives us. The willingness to give everything you have, leave it all out on the floor, regardless of the result, for your teammates. There's nothing like it. Teams that play for each other are very hard to beat in the post-season.