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FAU/SDSU
With a six second differential, down by 1, I didn't think SDSU had to foul. But I did think they should have pressured the ball and trapped. I don't think you can just let the other team run their offense comfortably and hope they miss, you get the rebound, and get an opportunity on offense with just 6-10 seconds left. At the very least I would try and make them uncomfortable and get them out of rhythm.
If you think about it, if FAU gets an offensive rebound the game is just about over. An average team gets an offensive rebound on 20-25% of their misses. You are staring at 80% right there. Not to mention their offensive efficiency and the odds that they score on any given possession. Your chances of getting the ball back down by just a point are below 50% for sure. Likely close to 30%. And given that, you have to go the length of the floor in ten seconds or less and get a good look, even if you do get the ball back. It's not a high percentage situation. I'd have to trap, make them uncomfortable, and try and get a steal.
With a six second differential, down by 1, I didn't think SDSU had to foul. But I did think they should have pressured the ball and trapped. I don't think you can just let the other team run their offense comfortably and hope they miss, you get the rebound, and get an opportunity on offense with just 6-10 seconds left. At the very least I would try and make them uncomfortable and get them out of rhythm.
If you think about it, if FAU gets an offensive rebound the game is just about over. An average team gets an offensive rebound on 20-25% of their misses. You are staring at 80% right there. Not to mention their offensive efficiency and the odds that they score on any given possession. Your chances of getting the ball back down by just a point are below 50% for sure. Likely close to 30%. And given that, you have to go the length of the floor in ten seconds or less and get a good look, even if you do get the ball back. It's not a high percentage situation. I'd have to trap, make them uncomfortable, and try and get a steal.
It obviously worked out great for SDSU. The best thing they did was not call a time out. They had a time out left, but Brian Dutcher let his team play. I'd love to see the odds on offensive efficiency, late in games, off of a dead ball versus playing it live. I'm convinced the offense is much better off playing it out rather than coming out of a time out.
Think about it - if you were FAU, you would rather have just had a shot clock violation than what just happened. Just let the clock run out and set your defense in the full court against SDSU's attack. I know you aren't going to do that - you have to try and score - but you'd feel a lot better on defense if there was a whistle and you had a chance to get set. I always feel better that way. So why does the offense almost always call time out?
Give Brian Dutcher a lot of credit. He let his team play, he didn't give FAU a chance to get set, and one of his kids made a play. Prepare you team in practice for those situations and let them go.
The Easy Way To Do It
(From Admired Leaders)
Bill Gates prefers to choose a lazy person to do a hard job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it. There’s wisdom in that idea, even though Gates says it to make a point about efficiency in thinking and not about rewarding lazy people.
The hardest way is rarely the best way, and too many people like to make things harder than they need to be.
The truth is there is nothing lazy about taking a more obvious or simple path to solving a complex problem or task. For those engaged in solving a problem, that means eliminating steps. Two actions are always superior to three actions in a solution.
Preferring more straightforward solutions is not a mindset reserved only for lazy people. All good leaders prefer uncomplicated answers, solutions, and decisions.
Making things easier when it comes to problem-solving begins by looking for the lowest hanging fruit. Instead of embracing the complexities of the problem, search for what is obvious and workable. Removing any unnecessary items, features, options, and actions while discarding any superfluous information is the recipe for simple.
Pairing a problem down to its essential elements is somewhat of an art form. Accomplishing it sometimes means removing a colleague who likes to add complexity and overthink matters from the process.
Making things simple is the hard work. Anyone can create a solution more complex than the problem requires.
Simple and easy solutions are elegant. Turning a complicated problem into a workable and elegant solution takes creativity. It also requires a preference for a straightforward answer. The best solutions are always simple.
FDU Zach Edey Rules
Cool, simple breakdown of FDU's approach to guarding a 7'4" post player.
The Soldiers In The Trench
There was a man on horseback who saw a group of exhausted soldiers digging a trench. On the side is their section leader who was barking orders.
The passerby asked the leader why he isn’t helping his team. The leader just said that he is in charge and tells his people what to do.
The man decided to pitch in and help the soldiers dig until the trench was finished. After that, he approached the commander on foot and told him that the next time their rank prevents them from supporting his men, he should notify the top command – and that he will give a permanent solution to it.
The section leader then realized that the person he was talking to was none other than General Washington.
The Map On The Wall
A great mentality on how to start bringing a team together.
https://fromthegreennotebook.com/2019/08/23/the-map-on-the-wall/
8 Essential Qualities of Great Leadership
A good list from a few years back.
I think Managerial Competence too often gets overlooked. Most professions promote people to leadership positions based on how good they are at their job. But production in the workplace doesn't necessarily connect to leadership responsibilities. The best sales guy in the company isn't necessarily equipped to run the company. That mistake is made way too often because we want to be "loyal" to the people who have done a good job.
Producing for an organization and leading an organization are two very different things.
Fouling Up 3
From Seth Davis:
I’ve seen a bunch of studies done over the years, including Ken Pomeroy’s work in 2013. Unlike other studies done at that time, which argued that fouling up three was the preferred strategy, Ken’s findings were basically inconclusive. But last fall, Nicholas Canova of CBB Analytics published a study that was far more definitive. Canova’s conclusion: If a team fouls up three in the final seconds, it basically doubles its chances of avoiding overtime.
To collect his data, Canova studied more than 15,000 Division I men’s games over a four-year period. Here’s what he found:
- 0-4 seconds: The game went to overtime 16.9 percent of the time when allowing a 3-point attempt, but only 8.7 percent when fouling
- 4-8 seconds: Game went to OT 18.9 percent of the time when allowing a 3-point attempt versus 7.6 percent when fouling
- 8-12 seconds: OT in 18.3 percent of the games when allowing a 3-point attempt versus 9.4 percent when fouling
Bottom line: If you foul up three, you double your chances of avoiding overtime.
NCAA Coaches and Officials
Seth Davis on NCAA coaches behavior towards officials:
The behavior from college basketball coaches towards referees has been too awful for too long. NBA coaches don’t act this way. A huge part of the problem is that coaches have a lot of sway with league supervisors as to who gets assigned games, so refs understandably feel that their ability to garner plum assigments is dependent on currying favor the coaches. So all but a few are reluctant to take appropriate action when the coaches get out of hand.
My hope, then, is that when the NCAA men’s basketball rules committee gathers for its annual summer meeting, it issues a very clear point of emphasis that instructs referees to be a lot quicker when it comes to calling technical fouls on coaches. When coaches wanted the hook-and-hold move taken out of the game, the committee made it a flagrant foul, and now we hardly ever see it anymore. There’s a place for a dialogue between coaches and officials, and I understand that things can get a little heated. But this has gone on for too long, and it needs to stop.
Joe Montana
Wright Thompson On Joe Montana. I loved this passage:
It's the moment that matters. Not records. He was fine to let his trophies burn. He misses the moments. The moments are what he thinks about when he sits at home and watches Brady play in a Super Bowl. He's not jealous of the result or even the ring. He's jealous of the experience.
"To sit in rare air ..." Ronnie Lott says, searching for the words.
"... is like being on a spaceship."
Breathing rare air changes you. Every child who's sucked helium from a birthday balloon knows this and so does Joe Montana and everyone who ever played with him. It's the feeling so many kids hoped to feel when they slipped on the No. 16 jersey and let the mesh drape over their arms.
"He breathed rare air with me," Lott says, and the way he talks about air sure sounds like he's talking about love.
Attitude
Attitude is the ultimate buzzword. We use the word all of the time, but we don't really define what it means. It's a vague term we use to fit the narrative we want to create.
You hear about how important attitude is all the time. We say you can choose your own attitude. But we talk about attitude like it is simple. Decide you want to work hard and you will work hard today. Decide you want to have a great day and you'll have a great day. If it was that simple and that easy to choose your attitude, I don't think it would be that important to everyone.
It's easy to say "have a great attitude." But I don't think your attitude is just simply a choice you make that day. Somebody who gets upset about something they care about doesn't necessarily have a bad attitude. And someone who lets everything go and doesn't rock the boat at all might have a good disposition, but are they taking things seriously enough to be successful?
Your attitude, to me, ends up being defined by one general question: What is really important to you? The things that matter to you are what shape your attitude, a lot more than a decision you make to just be positive and happy that day.
For example, if your team is really important to you, it's hard to have a bad attitude about your playing time. If the most important thing is what happens to your team, you put that above what happens to you. That's not to say you don't want to play more or try and improve your chances to play - but not playing won't affect your attitude.
If you are really about working on your game and getting better, then criticism from a coach won't have a negative impact on you. You want to get better, and your coach is trying to make you better. No matter how they do it, if improving is important to you, your attitude towards criticism will reflect that.
If you are a team first guy, an official's call won't impact your approach to the next play. Criticism in a team film session will have positive impact on you. Practice at 7 AM on a Saturday will be an opportunity for you, not a pain in the ass.
You don't get up at 6 AM to go lift weights and just decide to have a great attitude that day. You show up with the right attitude because improvement matters to you, and your team matters to you. You don't decide to smile that day. People with a bad attitude don't have the right perspective. People with the right attitude have a clear idea of what is important to them, and they take a mature approach.
You don't choose your attitude. You choose what is important to you. Your attitude is a reflection of that.
Coach The Response
I really like this phrasing as a coaching approach - coach the response harder than the mistake.
Do you really want your guys to move on to the next play? It's hard for them to do if you are still coaching the mistake.
Cameron Indoor
I was keeping an eye on the Carolina-Duke and a friend texted me asking me what it was like playing at Duke. It brought back a great memory. I've watched Carolina-Duke games since I was old enough to remember, and that rivalry really defined college basketball for me ever since I was in high school.
In my 3rd year at Maine we went down to Duke to play a buy game. We needed to bring in close to $400,00 dollars in money games just to have a manageable budget at Maine. Because of that we looked for one or two games each year that would be a great experience for our kids, and Duke was looking for an opponent on a certain day that worked for us. When you have to go on the road to make money and you are going to get your head kicked in, you might as well make it a memorable experience for your players.
When that game came out on our schedule it was a big deal for Maine basketball. The game would be on national TV (what Duke game isn't?) and an opportunity for our alumni to get together and share a great experience. The game turned into a bigger deal because at the time North Carolina was dealing with the controversial HB2 law regarding discrimination, and a number of states would not allow any state entities to do business in North Carolina. Certain teams were canceling games or changing their schedule because they weren't allowed to spend state money to travel to state that had a discriminatory law.
My AD approached me late in the summer and said there might be an issue. He wasn't sure if the state was going to allow us to go play the game. I asked him where I was supposed to get the $85,000 they were going to pay us for our budget. We really couldn't survive that year as a program without that money.
We decided to make the entire trip an educational experience. We talked to our guys about the HB2 law and what they knew about it. We brought in speakers to talk to them about the effects of homophobia and discrimination. I remember when we actually went to Duke and practiced at Cameron Indoor, we met with some members from Athlete's Ally on the Duke campus. We opened our guys minds up to conversations about stuff that they hadn't really thought about before. For the game, our team wore rainbow colored warm up shirts from our league's "You Can Play" campaign. Overall, it was a great educational experience for our guys.
But it became a national story in the media, and that took up a lot of energy. I remember on the day of the game talking to my AD on the phone, and he still wasn't sure if the Governor of Maine was going to let us play. We were in North Carolina heading over to shoot around in the morning, with a 5:00 tip set on ESPNU, and I was having conversations about whether or not we were going to play. I made sure to tell him (and our team) that they weren't required to wear the warm up shirts or think a certain way. I just wanted them to be open to a conversation about a way of thinking that was maybe different to them. The way they handled it was terrific. It turned into a great learning experience for everyone, myself included.
I had to go to an alumni event before the game, so I didn't go over on the team bus. One thing I'll always remember is they were asking what time I was getting to campus and what type of vehicle I was arriving in. That seemed odd to me.
At Duke they have a state trooper who is assigned to the opposing team's head coach, from the time he gets on campus until the time he leaves. They had to know when I was coming to campus and what vehicle I was arriving in. As soon as I got on campus, there was a state trooper to greet us. He met us at the entrance and followed us to where we parked. When I got out of the car, he walked with me to Cameron Indoor. I asked him what his name was, and he told me - Frank Gore. I thought he might be related to the running back, but he wasn't. I'll be he's never been asked that question before. But I'll never forget his name.
We walked a bit of campus to get to Cameron (there isn't a parking lot right next to the building), and I thought it was kind of funny. Campus was buzzing and as we got close to Cameron we could see a bunch of fans hanging out in front of the building, with the students lined up waiting to get in (this was probably an hour and forty five minutes before the game). I chuckled imagining what it was like for Roy Williams to take that walk before a game, with the Duke students all over him. I walked in and they had no idea who I was. But I had my own cop. Frank Gore.
Cameron is a spectacular, simple place. At its core it's really just a gym, but it feels like a cathedral. They have an incredible hall of fame and lobby that takes you through the history of Duke basketball. But the bones of the place are really like your CYO gym. The locker rooms are nothing special (at least for the Maine Black Bears). When the fans walk to their seats before the game and at halftime they have to walk in front your bench to get to their seats. It has an incredible feeling of your neighborhood gym, except its one of the elite venues in all of sports.
For a building of its size, it is built perfectly. Every seat is right on top of you. There are about 9,000 seats, but it feels like 3,000. The students get in early and make noise the entire time. The buzz, the feel, the energy is just special. I'm a golfer, and I've made a couple of trips to Scotland to play the Old Course. Cameron had that type of feel when I was in it. It almost felt like that was where the game was invented.
Coach K could not have been a better guy. It was a little weird to see him walk out and come over to shake my hand. Both teams had suffered a bunch of injuries (granted, one of his was to Jayson Tatum), and we had lost 3 starters for the year. He said hello and I said "Thanks for having us." He said "I hope you guys get healthy. And I hope we get healthy too." A good friend of mine took a picture of our handshake and actually sent it to Coach K to ask him to sign it. About a month later I got a copy of the picture in the mail with a note that said "Bob - best of luck in your career. Coach K."
I remember we were down 9 late in the first half with the ball, our guys were playing hard and together. Then we turned it over and gave up an easy basket, and Luke Kennard hit a long 3 at the halftime buzzer. I thought we were okay, but we went into the locker room down by 14. I probably don't need to tell you how the second half went.
The energy is Cameron is just different. Growing up in the 80s as a college basketball nut, I'm sure it hit different for me. I started high school in 1986, the first year Duke went to the Final Four under Coach K. It was the venue in college basketball, the place where the biggest games were played.
My family and friends came down for the game, and that made it special. A bunch of my former players from Rhode Island College came down. I still have a picture with them on center court at Cameron.
It's hard to believe that a small, old building like that has such a big place in the college basketball landscape. Obviously it's a credit to Coach K and what he built. But there is just nothing like it. It's amazing to think over all of the years and with all of the success they never build a 20,000 seat arena.
If you get a chance to go, go. Pay for the ticket. Plan a trip with your buddies. Take your kids down for a game during February break. There is just nothing else like it in college basketball. Whether you love Duke or hate them, it doesn't matter. It's just one of those experiences that is different.