Young, Losing Teams

If you coach long enough, I think everyone will coach an extremely young team in terms of experience or maturity. A lot of young teams struggle to win. Experience is usually an underrated trait. The fact you have been through something before helps you grow and you learn how to handle it better the next time. As a coach you hope that learning comes through successes but a lot of the time it doesn't. Young teams often lose a lot of close games because they work hard but they just don't make enough good decisions to win the close game.

The main problem is when young teams lose a lot of close games and a lot of games overall. It is natural to lose some confidence and the only thing that truly builds confidence is success. I really do not think confidence can be built any other way. Encouragement or re-enforcing they are talented does not build confidence. Winning close games builds confidence, coming back when they were challenged creates confidence.

So, you have a young team with no confidence...what can you do to keep them working hard? Effort and determination to get better is key. They must see the big picture. I believe they must see a "real life" connection. Rough times in basketball is nothing compared to a man losing his job with kids to feed. That's true pressure. You can use basketball to help build mental toughness though which would help you in that position.

I think the team also needs to know what it means to respect the game. How the game is "supposed" to be played. That has nothing to do with zone defense or offensive schemes. It's about always running back to stop a easy basket. It's about sliding over to take a charge. It's about making the extra pass instead of taking a bad shot. It's about executing fundamentally. The game is bigger than they are. They need to be doing all the small things. Sprinting the floor on offense and defense will lead to good things especially if your man isn't sprinting. Some players will jog back on defense if the guy they are guarding is behind them instead they should be sprinting the floor and helping out their teammates by providing extra help until his guy gets into the half court set.

Cliff notes...I believe they must see the big picture in life. They must have a good mindset to get things done and they must be determined not to fail. They must know how to play the game correctly, fundamentally and in terms of effort and unselfishness. Many players fail in all these areas even great players.

Announcers

Basketball announcers can give a lot of insight into a game. They can make the viewing of a game a learning experience. Most just want to make it fun to watch which is truly their job. I prefer the announcers that see the little things...the pass that leads to the pass that leads to the basket type of thing. A lot just focus on the end of the play instead of what lead to the play.

Here are some of my favorites.
Jimmy Dykes
Jay Bilas
Steve Lavin
Fran Fraschilla

All of them are former coaches and bring a lot knowledge to the telecast. On the NBA side, I like the combo of Van Gundy and Mark Jackson. They bring insight and they have fun with it.

That also brings up of not always staring at the ball while watching a game. Watch away from the ball. Sometimes that is hard when watching on TV, but a lot of interesting things happen when people are trying to get open, the help side, the screening.

Blizzard

Indianapolis received about 13 inches of snow last night and into this morning. I did try to drive through an unplowed alley behind my house to get food. Needless to say I got stuck many times. I worked the forward-reverse-forward technique for a lot of it but in the end I need neighbor help who happened to be outside so I definitely got lucky there.

Duke and Wake Forest play tonight. I'm very excited for the game although I won't be rooting for either team. It should be a great game. I expect Wake to win...they definitely have more talent, but Duke plays so well together. Duke is almost a throwback team that does the little things right to win and win big.

Jeff Teague, the Wake point guard, is a Indianapolis native. He was underrated in high school. He sure would help Indiana right now. He is one of the best players in college basketball and he could prove that tonight. Wake Forest does have a huge height advantage though so they might have the ball go through the post every possession which might hurt Teague's numbers tonight. It would be interesting if Teague and Henderson guarded each other. Talk about athleticism, wow as Dickie V would say.

Side note, if Indiana University could shoot free-throws they would have 3 Big Ten wins right now. They have so many disadvantages with so many walk-ons and freshmen playing but they continue to fight. They have out rebounded each of their conference opponents so far...which is ridiculous if you ask me. Coach Crean has them playing incredibly hard though and if they cut down on a couple of unforced turnovers and knock down some free throws (especially in the clutch) then they will compete in their final conference games.

Effort

Effort and concentration can be a hard thing to teach. It usually comes do to if the player really wants to succeed or win. If the player doesn't care about getting better or helping the team win then they will not put out the maximum effort. A lot of players will say they want to win or they will say they want to get better but really they do not. They would rather take the easy road and have mediocre success then to push themselves everyday. The road less taken is usually that way for a reason. There are a lot of people that like to say "I could have been..." fill in the blank. To be honest no they could not have been because obviously they were missing something and that's why they didn't. Of course, they probably could have if they fully committed themselves to that thing but they probably lack that kind of work ethic or concentration.

Here is a clip of Kevin Garnett after their game Thursday night. He talks about playing with effort every night.

Random Thought

I really hate the idea of a conference tournament especially to decide who gets automatic bids to the NCAA tournament. In the big conferences, it doesn't matter much because the top regular season leaders of the conference will more than likely get at-large bids. If I was a mid-major though I would be strongly against it. A team like Oral Roberts could go undefeated in conference and then lose a heart breaker in the conference tournament and they would have no chance at the big dance.

Conferences will not be getting rid of conference tournaments anytime soon. They make extra money therefore athletic directors and what not love them. I would like more small conferences that get poor attendance at the conference tournaments to reward the teams that won the regular season.

Just a random thought as we are quickly approaching March. Basketball season goes by too fast especially in Indiana.

I Wish I Was a Baller

"I wish I was a baller, I wish I was taller"

The famous Skee-Lo song says it all. Every basketball player growing up dreams of being tall. All basketball players wish they were taller. Players plead with coaches to list them on the roster a inch or two taller. To be a baller the rule is you must be tall. Obviously, this is not true but most people believe it.

The interesting thing is that the game needs to be played low to the ground. Ball-handling is better the closer the ball is to the ground. Moves are more explosive if you are low to the ground. Post players cannot be pushed around easily if the post player has a low center of gravity. Almost every player could improve their game by constantly being lower to the ground.

Standing straight-up is the opposite of being low and will rarely do any good on the basketball court. The only time where I can think of that standing straight is a good thing is when creating a wall for someone to shoot over in the post area. Most players catch while being straight up and down then have to get lower to make a move or to protect the ball. When every player catches with their knees bent it is a indicator that they are well coached and that they are probably pretty fundamentally sound.

One thing about being low when making a dribble move...you need to actually get even lower on the move. Even if the player's knees are bent, on the move itself, they should get a little bit lower to increase ball protection and to increase the explosiveness of the move. Players usually think they are lower than they actually are. They will also think bending at the waist counts as getting low. Exaggerate the knee bent/squat-like position in practice because we all know in games there will be some slippage.

GET LOW!

Jodie Meeks

Jodie Meeks put together one of the greatest individual efforts in recent years in college basketball Tuesday night for the University of Kentucky. Meeks had 54 points to set the school record, which is not easy to do at a program like Kentucky. The most impressive thing was Meeks did it on only 22 shots. That is ridiculous efficiency.

I love great individual performances that lift a team to victory. If Meeks doesn't have a great game last night I doubt Kentucky wins that game. Whenever I go to a major league baseball game I hope to see a no-hitter. It is rare and it is a great individual effort that takes support from the whole team. It is what made Michael Jordan so special because any night you could see something spectacular like that. Jordan could get into a zone and put up 60 points any night.

Congrats to Jodie Meeks and thank you for the great performance!