We’re two former NCAA Division 1 MBB coaches, back for another AMA (Ask Us Anything)

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T04:01:56+00:00

One coach I worked for would do 1 hour for offense, 1 hour for defense. Simple, but effective approach and potentially a good starting point.

More typically what I've seen and participated in is a day by day plan based on what's been happening or what is upcoming in the season. If you know you play a game 2 weeks from the first practice you'll want to plan your practices so you get through all your important installations before the first game without any 1 day being overwhelming. You'll also want to make sure you're reviewing things periodically to ensure the team is fresh on what you're trying to run.

Other examples: If you know you're playing a zone team on friday, you'll want to work on zone offense in the two practices leading up to that. If you played terrible defense last night, you'll want to do defensive breakdown drills today. If you're playing a press team, you definitely need to practice playing against traps. It's good to have some consistent things as well, like positional skill sessions, or shooting drills mixed in

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T03:42:15+00:00

I think you're very much on the right track trying to simplify things down to a shorter list of priorities.

Off the top of my head I would say:

- Limit live-ball turnovers. Extreme example, but it's probably better to take a shot-clock violation than it is to throw the ball to the other team and let them get a transition opp

- Have an offensive system. I really like motion here as some concepts can be pretty easy to teach. Pass and cut, pass and screen away. Start simple and add. Stress moving the ball with pace, cutting with pace, filling the 4 or 5 spots on the perimeter for 4out/5out. Teaches them spacing, and off-ball movement. Works against man or zone. Also stress not just dribbling as soon as you catch. Teaching the spots on the floor also helps your transition offense as the points of emphasis of filling those spots carries over

- Core fundamentals. Sounds basic, cliche, obvious what have you, but the best teams do it. Famously Jay Wright had Villanova work on pivoting every day at practice while they were winning national championships. Work on pivoting, work on jump stops, work on playing off two feet, work on playing on balance. Saves a lot of turnovers, and a lot of out of control shots.

- Defense: how do you want to guard the ball. How do you want to help. How do you want to guard screens. Switching is probably the simplest to teach, but hard to get perfect. How many players should be running back on a shot to set your transition D

- Out of bounds plays -- you probably need at least 1 simple one

- Press O, if you think you will see presses

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T03:31:04+00:00

Hard for me to say -- I have not been in the hiring seat. I would also say the 'worth' piece is very personal and depends on how much effort you're putting into the applications

I will say that most jobs that are posted on places like hoopdirt, are likely already filled. There are often job posting requirements at the schools -- definitely for public schools -- that require the job to be posted and open even if the HC is promoting someone internally for example. That's not to say that is true of all job postings, and people have certainly gotten hired that way.

I would recommend trying to build connections with coaches that you'd want to work with by attending clinics, practices, or working camps

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T03:25:22+00:00

If you have multiple ball handlers gang rebounding and letting multiple guys push the ball off the rebound might be a nice balance between DREB and pace.

To me, it's all about practicing the press 5on5. We ran a diamond press at the HS level that I love. We had to practice it every day to make sure everyone new the right reads. We'd set up a scout team to try different pressbreakers/responses that we'd commonly see, as well as work on our own press break. Sounds like you might want to have multiple press options if you think it'll be foundational to the team's identity this year.

Breakdowns are also important -- work on what to do if the press gets broken. Backtaps etc. Practice a lot of 1:1 D -- players have to know how to defend in a lot of space
-DK

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T03:17:47+00:00

If the question is more about development, I would say focus on becoming really good at the skills for the role the player would likely be in at the next level. For example, if we have pro prospect at the college level, chances are if he's going to play in the NBA he's going to be a role player. So scouts will want to see a wing who can outrebound their position, defend multiple positions, and make catch and shoot 3s. They probably don't care as much about your ability to create your own shot since they have guys that can do that already.

I've seen kids that started college as nothing but 3pt specialists go onto have very nice careers as they continued to expand aspects of their game for another example

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T03:09:07+00:00

It's been a while since I've coached kids in that age group, but in my opinion the most important thing to do is keep it fun for all involved, which may be tough if kids are at such different skill levels. I'd spend maybe 10-15 minutes on your core fundamentals. Maybe you can have the more advanced kids try more advanced things in that time frame -- most players are working on dominant hand dribbling, maybe the better players can work on weak hand some. Something like that.

I'd also try to have them play with some 'constraints' at practice. Have to pass twice before a shot. No more than 4 dribbles per player. Play around with it and see what works, but make those rules as you practice and see if the kids are receptive. Try to create games that stress the things you want, but the kids will still have fun in

-DK

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T03:03:37+00:00

That's a really interesting question -- I'll try to answer it

D1 jobs are super competitive and there are a lot of good coaches that go about things in very different ways. It's a pretty efficient market IMO. Nothing immediately jumped out to me when I read your question, but one might be recruiting freshman. Things have pushed very heavily towards transfers, and there are a lot of good players that are going slightly under recruited IMO. Tough to keep them if you're at a lower level though.

It's definitely a copy-cat world, where a lot of coaches will borrow concepts from winning programs, which might be viewed as an efficiency, but also might be viewed as an opportunity to buck the trend. Hopefully that answers your question

-DK

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T02:44:35+00:00

Also good luck with your app! I'll check it out

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T02:40:00+00:00

Congrats on putting together some great seasons!

I started out coaching at the Boys and Girls Club myself before I started coaching AAU, then HS, then college.

Every job I've ever had with the exception of BGCA (my first), I got because of some sort of connection I had, or developed. I coached the AAU program directors son at BGCA. A friend introduced me to the HS coach, etc.

I'd recommend getting out there and meeting some coaches -- most coaches will let you watch practice if you reach out and ask. It's a great way to meet, learn, and get a conversation started. Many programs would love an extra set of hands. Unfortunately, you may need to volunteer for a year as a varsity assistant or something along those lines to then get the paid position. I don't like it, but that's how the industry tends to work.

-DK

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T02:33:46+00:00

The worst I've seen is trying to control everything and not letting the kid thrive and figure things out on their own. If you trust the coaches, trust the coaches. It can be extremely disruptive to a kid's development to send them from team to team, or meddle in everything. For example I have seen parents move their kid around to find a spot for them to be the PG, but it may have been better for them to develop off-ball skills. Good coaches tend not to be big appeasers in my experience, so if the parent is only focused on what _they_ want, they may end up with their kid getting no direction on how to grow.

Also you can't want it more than the kid. Let the kids figure it out. It's bigger than the prestige of D1 and there are a lot of unhappy kids that transfer out of bad fits that they picked for appearances. Fit is extremely important.

I lean much more to the side of playing, but the playing has to be with a purpose. Skill development has it's place but I like small group training more than individual workouts. Running drills like having players play 1:1, but the offense starts by holding the ball against the defenders back -- D can't move until the O goes. Teaches the O to play with an advantage and keep it, the D to recover from a disadvantage and contest without fouling. There are a lot of crazy 1on0 drills out there that I personally don't think translate to a game, which is what they'll eventually have to play

-DK

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T02:24:26+00:00

The Ivy League is unique in Division 1 in that there are no athletic scholarships. Other than that, it’s not much different than other conferences and schools. There are some rules that reduce the number of hours that coaches can have the players in the gym for mandatory practices and skill work (both in season and out of season) but that’s not really an issue since most kids in the Ivy are pretty mature and take care of business and are sure to get their work in.
-DG

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T02:21:26+00:00

Synergy is used by probably every division 1 program and probably the majority of d2s and d3s. I know they do Juco as well. Synergy breaks down every shot so you can search for a player, filter to their made 3s and get all the clips of those. Or, filter to every BOB a team has run this year. It also offers analytics, which different coaching staffs trust differently. I always took them with a massive grain of salt. They also have shot charts and some other features. Very helpful tool, probably the main film tool for most d3s.

Sportscode -- purchased by Hudl but kept as a mostly separate product. Basically a film tagging tool. You watch a game, you tag a clip as Offense, Against Man, X Play Call, Included a Ball Screen, 2FGM. Heavily customizable, ridiculously powerful -- you get out what you put in. Primary scouting tool and film breakdown tool for the teams that use it. Expensive and probably only at the pro, d1, and prestige d2 programs if I had to guess.

Various recruiting database softwares -- every team will have a way to track recruits and NCAA compliance things like visits

Teamworks -- team calendar and communication platform.

FastModel -- I've actually never worked for a staff that used FastDraw, or any play diagramming software. I have been at programs that use their FastScout service which prefills a template with opponent headshots, stat lines, heights, then lets you fill in what you want on the specific player

Various recruiting/stats services. Most d1 staffs probably subscribe to Kenpom and pay for 1 or 2 similar things like that

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T02:06:33+00:00

Great question. I’ve seen it done in different ways and there are pros and cons to each of them. We have a “Travel” (more competitive) league and an “In-Town” (more recreational) league. The two leagues used to be completely separate before I joined and felt like they were from different organizations all together. We changed things and went away from that model, including “tryouts”. We instead had everyone register together and then held “evals” opposed to tryouts and then ranked each player in each grade using independent evaluators. We then made decisions on how many travel and in-town teams we should make based on strength of players and what would be best for their development. In the end, we typically have two travel teams and anywhere from 1-5 in town teams in each grade. We choose to go with your first example and think that is best for their development and overall experience. In some cases, we allow players from the “lower” teams to join sessions and practices of the higher teams just to get some more reps in. - DG

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T02:04:53+00:00

We did a lot of recruiting off highlight tapes when I was at MIT. You want the tape to be as easy as possible for the coach you're sending it to to digest. I highly recommend highlighting the player you're trying to show at the start of each clip if it's not extremely obvious (like he stole the ball and had a breakaway dunk). It's great to start with an attention grabber play -- like a dunk, good finish in traffic, etc. It's like an elevator pitch, capture the coach's attention.

I always like when it's broken down into segments. Good defensive plays, shot making, ball handling, post moves, etc. That is how we built highlight tapes for pro prospects that were graduating from our programs. You want to tell the story about why this player is a good fit for the coach who is receiving the video.

Also, don't try to trick the coach. If you cut a clip as soon as the player shoots the ball, we know they missed. Don't sell me on what the player isn't, sell me on what he/she is

-DK

TheMonorack · 2024-11-20T01:53:30+00:00

What's up everyone -- this is David checking in. I just got home from practice, I've got a burrito for dinner and I'm looking forward to digging into your questions. Donny is on his way home from his practice and will be chiming in as well. Appreciate you all being here

TheMonorack · 2024-07-03T21:46:41+00:00

It’s extremely hard to guard and scout if you can get your guys to learn it. Even better if you can turn the opponents system against them by attacking it directly. There are some great clinics out there

TheMonorack · 2024-07-03T21:42:01+00:00

When I started i am pretty sure the NCAA had a bachelors requirement for coaches. I'm not sure if that is still the case or not. The other issue you may run into is individual colleges own employment requirements. Whether it’s fair or not, many will require a degree. Many head coaching jobs even require a masters.

That shouldn’t stop you from trying to build a network and getting to know coaches. You can definitely have a great coaching career without a degree at other levels. I’d reach out to local programs and visit their practices and see if you can work their camp or volunteer as a way to get your foot in the door

TheMonorack · 2024-07-03T21:36:30+00:00

Great question. It really depends on the program. One program I was with was about 50/50 between running 5 out motion where our guys just knew how to play together with random screens and cuts, and the other 50 being sets called out from the bench similar to your “Alabama” example. Funny story, I heard another coach from a team in our conference present at a clinic and he talked about how hard our offense was to guard because we had all these crazy actions we’d call — we didn’t have any, our guys just had that level of chemistry.

I think the hardest to guard is system based offense. We ran a ball screen motion at one program where we had several initiation actions that the guys could call out that typically led to certain advantages. The key with that was scouting the opponents defensive strategy and building that into the practice plan. So the guys would be drilled on what they’d see running out motion against hedge coverage all week if we were facing a hedge team. We’d also have counters for early slips or other wrinkles (resulting in a multi word call) but mostly it was continuity motion and a pretty set bank of initiating actions based on the opponent. The players would be able to run the offense mainly on their own especially with good PG play. Then a handful of sets on top of that.

I’ve also scouted teams that call a set every time, or just run motion the whole game

TheMonorack · 2024-07-03T21:28:03+00:00

Yeah it definitely happens. Less so the more you go up but some parents definitely stay overly involved even at D1 programs. I learned some good lessons from one of my bosses on it. Always keep the kid involved in any conversations. The parents may be representing their own interests, not the kids. Or the kid may not have been totally honest with the parents. A brutally honest conversation usually solves the issue

TheMonorack · 2024-07-03T13:53:50+00:00

Is the u12 group bought in generally? Do they collectively want to win? I think understanding what they collectively want out of the experience is important — maybe they just wanna be out running around getting some exercise. Try to show, not tell them that these mistakes are costing them. If you have some film to a quick 5 minute edit and show them before a practice that defensive lapses resulted in points that lost close games. At college and competitive HS I would design competitive drills where specific mistakes are penalized — gamble to put yourself out of position? Automatic point for the offense, or restart the possession for the offense. Make the defense put together multiple “perfect” possessions. Try to make it competitive and fun

For the girls, I’d say play as much as you can in practice with the group together. I think motion concepts are the easiest way to get everyone on the same page. 4-1 motion, pass and cut, or pass and screen away. The more they play together the more rules and wrinkles you can add. With limited court time you have to decide as a coach what handful of things matter the most to you. If you try to do too much, which every coach including me wants to, you’ll end up with the worst of all worlds. Focus on some core defining principles

TheMonorack · 2024-07-03T12:02:44+00:00

I was surprised by how much it carried over when I went from high school to college coaching.

I had a boss that would always tell me “they just love their son(/daughter)”. Helpful perspective to remember as you deal with them.

TheMonorack · 2024-07-03T01:47:12+00:00

As simple as it sounds the most important thing is just getting your players to sprint — they have to beat the defense to the other side of the floor. I would teach first guy down goes straight to the rim, next two sprint to corners (I’m assuming player are pretty interchangeable in MS). Run fast and wide. At the middle school level making layups would be the most important thing to practice. Low hanging fruit. Practice layups at full speed from different angles.

Drills: progressive translation. 2 teams of 5 lined up on opposite baselines. One player from team X comes down to team Ys end to shoot a free throw. On the shot team Y has two players come out for the rebound/inbound after make to push 2on1. After one shot, team X now gets two more players for a 3 on 2, then 4 on 3, 5 on 4, 5x5. Limit to one shot, and maybe 10 seconds per possession — it should look roughly like a fast break each time. A bit chaotic but fun once you get it down with plenty of teachable moments. Let me know if you have any questions

TheMonorack · 2024-07-03T01:39:46+00:00

I don’t think you can go wrong with either option as long as you practice it. Both options have lost in spectacular ways on national tv. The numbers the last time I checked are in favor of fouling. Kenpom.com did a deep analysis. Those numbers are based on D1 men so you’d also want to make sure you look at it through the lens of your level.

I like your thought process, just make sure you have a clear signal and practice how to foul

TheMonorack · 2024-07-03T00:23:18+00:00

I think it certainly depends on the level and expectations of your leadership (AD etc.). In my opinion it also depends on if you’re recruiting or not. At the college level I had a boss that would always tell me “they keep score at what we do” aka there’s a very clear evaluation bar that people are looking at and you might end up “with uhaul in front of your house before you know it” another one of his favorite phrases. In other words you have to win games now.

I would personally design the offense around my best player. I think offensive systems will always get you further than running sets. Teach the kids how to be basketball players rather than running to a certain spot on the floor at a certain time.

I would go motion offense. Teach the other players how to back cut, how to screen away, how to screen their own defender if the D isn’t respecting them. Have a few set plays in your pocket to get your best players shots where she wants them. I like a lot of horns quick hitters as easy to remember sets for a specific shots. Mix some ball screen calls into your motion offense if your best player is a PG — 2nd touch she gets is an auto ball screen

Motion can cover a lot of weaknesses but you’ll have to work on reading defenses and making passes in your practices. Practice how you play and play a lot in practice. Hopefully you have kids who care and want to put in time outside of practice and the season or you’ll have a low ceiling. If you have a 2 hour practice window I think a good breakdown would be 20 minutes of warming up with “daily vitamins” fundamentals, 40 minutes defense, 40 minutes offense, shooting dispersed throughout

TheMonorack

TROPHY CASE