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Preparing for Week 1 of Your Basketball Practices · A Quick Timeout

0:00
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly why I created A Quick Timeout newsletter.
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SPEAKER_01: for our Quick Timeout Newsletter.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: The basketball season will be here before you know it,
0:51
SPEAKER_01: and some of you may already be thinking about what that first week
0:54
SPEAKER_01: of practice will look like.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't gotten that far, though, don't worry.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: We're here to help.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: Joining me today is my friend and former boss, Coach Burton Uaro.
1:03
SPEAKER_01: He's here to discuss the process of reverse engineering the first week of practice.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Coach, welcome back to the show.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: It's always fun to do,
1:12
SPEAKER_00: and since I'm not coaching anymore,
1:13
SPEAKER_00: it's fun to take some time to talk with a like-minded coach.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: Let's just start big picture.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: What does reverse engineering a practice look like?
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, going back to the seven habits of highly effective people,
1:28
SPEAKER_00: begin with the end in mind is probably the most famous,
1:32
SPEAKER_00: most used habit out of those seven habits of highly effective people.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: And if you begin with the end in mind,
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SPEAKER_00: almost in anything that you're doing,
1:40
SPEAKER_00: it causes you to break down the bigger task into More palatable steps.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Only experience will help you be really good at that.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: But I do think that even if you've never coached before,
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SPEAKER_00: you do have the ability to,
1:57
SPEAKER_00: if you played,
1:58
SPEAKER_00: been around basketball and done whatever you've done to deserve,
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Being the coach,
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SPEAKER_00: I do think that you have maybe more experience and more wisdom than you might think,
2:08
SPEAKER_00: thinking about reverse engineering, all the things that might be needed.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about specifically looking in the first couple of weeks going into
2:17
SPEAKER_00: The first game,
2:18
SPEAKER_00: what you really do is you begin where you would like to be at the end of the year by
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SPEAKER_00: the time the postseason starts.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: And then you do reverse engineer that all the way back to how you start,
2:29
SPEAKER_00: because I think how you start in anything can be a real predictor
2:33
SPEAKER_00: in how you're going to finish.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: You think about key factors or key things influencing that first week, some of those variables.
2:42
SPEAKER_01: What are the questions that you're asking?
2:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think a lot of people follow you on YouTube,
2:48
SPEAKER_00: Fast Draw,
2:49
SPEAKER_00: whatever,
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SPEAKER_00: looking at X's and O's things,
2:52
SPEAKER_00: but I think that's part of what made our relationship work.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: It's not that those things have never been important to me and that I've never spent
3:01
SPEAKER_00: a whole lot of time drawing up scheme,
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SPEAKER_00: but I honestly feel that the things that you want your program to be about That is
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SPEAKER_00: the most important thing.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: Anybody in the world can Google,
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SPEAKER_00: spend a lot of time on YouTube looking at plays,
3:18
SPEAKER_00: but I think you're trying to set the tone for everything that you do.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: And one of the reasons you're doing that is your talent is going to ebb and flow every year.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't care whether you have the ability to recruit or you don't,
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SPEAKER_00: your talent is going to ebb and flow.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: But the one thing that can be consistent that you can have pull positives
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SPEAKER_00: from is is your culture and how you do things.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: First thing I think of is, who do you have returning?
3:45
SPEAKER_00: And that's obviously not occurring to you right now.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: That's something that you've probably known about since the end of last season.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully you've spent time preparing them for their new role Even
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SPEAKER_00: if you're returning everybody, everybody on your team is growing in different ways.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: And so even if you have everybody returning,
4:07
SPEAKER_00: they're still going to have different roles on the team this year.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: There's no two seasons that are ever alike.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: But I think most people, when they think of that question, who do you have returning?
4:19
SPEAKER_00: They're thinking about who graduated, who's coming back.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: And again,
4:24
SPEAKER_00: looking at it from a culture point of view,
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SPEAKER_00: pouring in to them They should be the ones that are handing down,
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SPEAKER_00: basically, this is how we do things here.
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SPEAKER_00: They should be doing that in the preseason already.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: They should have been doing that in the summer.
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SPEAKER_00: If you went to camp, anything like that, and definitely here in the preseason.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: Then number two.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: How many players are missing due to fall sports?
4:47
SPEAKER_00: You know,
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SPEAKER_00: I coached in a bunch of different states,
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SPEAKER_00: but coaching in Georgia,
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SPEAKER_00: you were just flat out going to have to wait until football was done
4:55
SPEAKER_00: to have everybody.
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SPEAKER_00: It really didn't matter.
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SPEAKER_00: But I didn't let that deter me.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: If you're smart enough and you know that, then you can need to plan your schedule that way.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of your fault if that ends up being a disastrous thing for your team, I think.
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SPEAKER_00: Wise scheduling can really help you.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: And you know how many players are missing due to a fall sport.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Don't use that as an excuse.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Coach who you have, not who you wish you had.
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SPEAKER_00: And I think that is a unique opportunity.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: Maybe sometimes you have the ability to pull some kids up from varsity,
5:30
SPEAKER_00: give them some varsity, I mean,
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SPEAKER_00: from JV,
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SPEAKER_00: give them some varsity minutes and just have that conversation
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SPEAKER_00: that this is probably just temporary, but this is your time to shine.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And I had a number of kids Show themselves really worthy of being on the varsity
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SPEAKER_00: when I wasn't necessarily planning on having them because they took advantage of
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SPEAKER_00: the opportunity that they had while the other people were still playing
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SPEAKER_00: in their fall sports.
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SPEAKER_00: Number three, what are your culture scheme and goals?
5:57
SPEAKER_00: Again, that matters to me more than anything.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: And so thinking even how you're teaching A layup drill,
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SPEAKER_00: you're teaching the communication,
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SPEAKER_00: you're teaching the hustle,
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SPEAKER_00: you're teaching the body language that goes with that,
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SPEAKER_00: you're teaching the level of care and precision,
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SPEAKER_00: and all of those things go back to your culture.
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SPEAKER_00: A layup drill with no defenders probably isn't going to reap any benefits,
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SPEAKER_00: but the culture that goes along with that particular drill will have benefits,
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SPEAKER_00: and I think you should have even The culture piece marked
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SPEAKER_00: on your practice plan indicating what you plan on emphasizing that day
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SPEAKER_00: and you should have an idea of how that piece is going to show itself in each
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SPEAKER_00: of your drills.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And then fourth, how many practices before the first game.
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SPEAKER_00: That's going to be vastly different for every state,
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SPEAKER_00: every type of program,
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SPEAKER_00: public school,
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SPEAKER_00: private school,
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SPEAKER_00: but you are going to be going against somebody who has the same restrictions
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SPEAKER_00: that you do and so I don't think there is any advantage or disadvantage
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SPEAKER_00: to having few practices.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Just take advantage of what you have.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't be doing probably a whole bunch of buildup drills right at
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SPEAKER_00: the beginning, breakdown drills, all that kind of stuff.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: If you've only got two weeks between your first practice and your first game,
7:16
SPEAKER_00: you do need to get that culture piece in.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think you need to be probably as vanilla as possible.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: Probably for the first five games,
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SPEAKER_00: if you're truly going to have to wait for people from fall sports,
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SPEAKER_00: just plan on your first five games,
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SPEAKER_00: just kind of showing where you're at, be as vanilla as possible.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: And if you just go ahead and plan on that,
7:38
SPEAKER_00: then I think your practices will reflect how you plan
7:42
SPEAKER_00: on approaching those first five games.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: We've started practice and over half the team is brand new.
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SPEAKER_01: And I feel like one of the biggest challenges isn't just what we do,
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SPEAKER_01: teaching them what we do,
7:54
SPEAKER_01: but also teaching them how we do it and specifically teaching them how we practice.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: What were some things that you thought about in regards to that piece of it?
8:06
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a lot of veterans,
8:08
SPEAKER_00: I think the next best thing is showing film
8:13
SPEAKER_00: of how previous teams there have done it, showing film how the best teams do it.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of teams practices that you can find on YouTube.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: We took players over to Furman while we're both coaching college teams.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Furman has been on a lot of A lot of people's lips the past couple of years
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SPEAKER_00: and Furman does a lot of the same things that we do scheme wise.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: And so even taking our college players to see other college players,
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SPEAKER_00: I think was a very valuable thing just to kind of see how the best do it.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: And there is no shortcut.
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SPEAKER_00: The biggest temptation is to try to speed through it.
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SPEAKER_00: But I will promise you, you will regret it.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: I promise you, you will regret it.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: If you just try to speed through all of that stuff, you have to let that team go at its pace.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: You're constantly pushing,
9:09
SPEAKER_00: but if you compare it to how quickly you're Previous teams have gotten to that spot.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: That's really not fair because you're not coaching those guys.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: You're coaching a unique set of individuals.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: You hear me say it a lot,
9:22
SPEAKER_00: but maybe this group needs more of the kinesthetic learning instead of watching
9:29
SPEAKER_00: on film.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they just need to do it more and there needs to be a whole lot less talking.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need to drill deep And have the same practice plan,
9:37
SPEAKER_00: maybe Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and just alternate it with Tuesday, Thursday.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Just discipline yourself to drill down and lock in on that and not go any faster
9:51
SPEAKER_00: than what they want,
9:53
SPEAKER_00: but you also can't let them slow you down either, if that makes sense.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: It's about culture that Matt Painter said,
9:59
SPEAKER_00: but Matt Painter said, we don't become you, you become us.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: And so I do think that that matters for culture,
10:06
SPEAKER_00: but I do think that matters for how you do things in your program too.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, you can't let them slow you down too much.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: You can for maybe the first week or two, but you've got that game going.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: You've coached in college basketball.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Your team has played college basketball.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: They know what they need to know and where they need to be.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: And if there's too much of a kid not learning,
10:26
SPEAKER_00: then I think more of that has to be done in small group settings and not so much
10:33
SPEAKER_00: the whole group setting.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: There have been a couple of times already this year where I've taken
10:37
SPEAKER_01: the exact same practice and Done it the very next day,
10:40
SPEAKER_01: maybe change one or two things,
10:42
SPEAKER_01: but feeling that balance between having to push on to the next thing and
10:48
SPEAKER_01: then them just being overwhelmed with new,
10:50
SPEAKER_01: new, new, new, new every single day where you can't even get in the habit of things.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: You can't even get in the groove of things because you can tell from their eyes
11:00
SPEAKER_01: and literally their body, they're just spinning sometimes.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Slowing it,
11:04
SPEAKER_01: like you said,
11:05
SPEAKER_01: drilling down has proven to have some benefit for us already this year.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: It is.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: It's difficult to do.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: We all know where we need to get to, but it's fool's gold.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: It seems like you're actually doing something if you move on
11:21
SPEAKER_00: and you're really holding them to a high standard.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: We have it in our head.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Let's hold them to this standard.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: They're just going to have to meet it.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: And there's a part of that that's always true.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: But a coach with a little bit of time and a little bit of wisdom will also say,
11:35
SPEAKER_00: this is their speed.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: This is where they're at.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: They have to get this.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: It's like a math teacher that starts teaching to their third graders the Pythagorean theorem.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: That's good.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: It's good math.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: I agree with it.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: I have it tattooed on my bicep and it's all awesome,
11:52
SPEAKER_00: but that has nothing to do with what they're able to take and
11:58
SPEAKER_00: that knowledge has no benefit to them.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: And so If you're going too fast,
12:03
SPEAKER_00: you're trying to add on, add on, add on,
12:05
SPEAKER_00: and they don't understand the basics,
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SPEAKER_00: then you're going to be fighting that all year instead of just fighting it for
12:10
SPEAKER_00: the first month.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: One of the things,
12:12
SPEAKER_00: talking about culture, we all love to say that player-led teams are what we want.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: And then we don't give them opportunities to lead,
12:21
SPEAKER_00: or if we do, that is 90% and off the court stuff.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, the game is not played off the court.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: The game is played on the court.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: And so since it's played on the court, we need to give them opportunities to lead on the court.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things that I have done a lot,
12:40
SPEAKER_00: and maybe I've never, I've never seen anybody else do it.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I didn't think of it myself,
12:45
SPEAKER_00: but I visited a lot of practices and I haven't seen it,
12:49
SPEAKER_00: but scripting the first 10, 15 minutes of practice.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: So what would have gone on before we got on the practice floor may have been
12:56
SPEAKER_00: a little bit of film.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Dynamic stretching, all that other kind of stuff.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: But we enter, we cross the baseline together.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: We don't enter the court until everybody is there.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: And then I think that matters just as it's a small thing.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: But if somebody tends to be the one that that's bringing up the rear,
13:17
SPEAKER_00: I think you see those problems early and you start letting your captains address
13:22
SPEAKER_00: that.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: But the first 10 minutes go.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, we used to do the Laker drill, then do some other drills like that.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: I think it's,
13:31
SPEAKER_00: you're setting a number goal for a lot of these drills,
13:34
SPEAKER_00: but I think alternating between full court,
13:38
SPEAKER_00: half court,
13:38
SPEAKER_00: full court,
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SPEAKER_00: half court,
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SPEAKER_00: if you can get two of each in and they're leading that,
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SPEAKER_00: they know what the number standard that they're supposed to get to
13:48
SPEAKER_00: and letting them make the correction if it doesn't happen.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: What you will also find,
13:54
SPEAKER_00: unfortunately,
13:55
SPEAKER_00: is if you're just standing there watching with your assistant coaches
13:57
SPEAKER_00: and you guys are discussing some things,
14:00
SPEAKER_00: you'll see some things that they'll kind of gloss over.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a guy travels when he's going in for a layup and they're just worried
14:09
SPEAKER_00: about making the layup number and they're not worried about how that carried over to
14:13
SPEAKER_00: the game and you're seeing what they're willing to accept.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: And so their own internal standard isn't very high.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: And you don't stop practice and point that out to everybody.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: You get with the guys who are supposed to be upholding the standard
14:27
SPEAKER_00: and you point out that you saw that and you make them uphold the standard.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: You are leading them so they can lead others.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: You're pouring into them so they can pour into others.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: You're giving them the opportunity to lead.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean they're going to shine right away.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: I think they won't shine right away and neither did you or I when we were 18 or 19 years old.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: But give them Confidence to do that.
14:49
SPEAKER_00: Don't embarrass them right away.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: Pull them to the side or talk to them after practice and lead them in
14:54
SPEAKER_00: the way you would want to be led and point those things out and then expect it
14:58
SPEAKER_00: to happen better the next day.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: You know,
15:00
SPEAKER_00: routines,
15:01
SPEAKER_00: right after that,
15:02
SPEAKER_00: if they go to the first 15 minutes and they're coming sweating,
15:05
SPEAKER_00: then they can come to you.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: That simulates maybe the first time out in a game.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: You just give them gentle reminders about what practice is going to be about today.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: Maybe give a thought for the day and then go right to what that is.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: And so part of what I like to do is post a practice plan.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: I think I have that to talk about a little bit later,
15:24
SPEAKER_00: but have those acrylic sleeves on the wall or have it even on the scorer's table,
15:30
SPEAKER_00: have it posted in the locker room.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: But knowing who is on what team,
15:36
SPEAKER_00: like if you're three on three,
15:37
SPEAKER_00: four on four,
15:37
SPEAKER_00: who's at what basket, All of those things can be on your practice plan.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: And a player-led program will already know that, already have everybody in the right jerseys.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: It's just,
15:49
SPEAKER_00: Morgan Wooten used to always say,
15:52
SPEAKER_00: how are you eating into the other coaches' practice time,
15:55
SPEAKER_00: your opponent's practice time?
15:57
SPEAKER_00: And I think if their practice goes for 90 minutes and we go for 90 minutes,
16:03
SPEAKER_00: I firmly believe that our 90 minutes is going to be more fruitful
16:06
SPEAKER_00: than our opponent's.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: That has borne itself out over the course of my career.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: That's not bragging.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: It's just it is what it is.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: And when you think about those things,
16:17
SPEAKER_00: that does start affecting what you want to do scheme wise,
16:19
SPEAKER_00: because you're not usually going against the other team's coach.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: You're going against the other team's 18, 19 year old point guard.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: And so if you just have the mentality that your practice is going to eat
16:30
SPEAKER_00: into your opponent's practice,
16:32
SPEAKER_00: There are certain things that you can do to win a practice every day.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: There's a certain standard that's upheld.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: I think if they get used to winning practice every day, for us, it was the four factors.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Everything we did was about the four factors.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: And so we would actually know whether that practice was worthwhile that day or
16:50
SPEAKER_00: whether we in fact lost practice.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's okay to lose a couple practices,
16:56
SPEAKER_00: have that disgusting feeling,
16:59
SPEAKER_00: not being able to sleep easy that night,
17:01
SPEAKER_00: Waiting 24 hours until you get back to have another practice
17:05
SPEAKER_00: where you can finally fix some stuff.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: It is much better to have a couple practices that you have lost and learned from
17:12
SPEAKER_00: than to have those kind of things happen in a game.
17:17
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18:07
SPEAKER_01: There was something that we started doing,
18:09
SPEAKER_01: I feel like just a few years ago,
18:11
SPEAKER_01: but it was the structuring it a certain way to create a certain type of practice.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: This idea of a practice just isn't a practice,
18:19
SPEAKER_01: but having a red day, a yellow day, a And I think that's a great thing.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a great thing.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a great thing.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a great thing.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: You've seen some of my charts and my calendars where I actually map some stuff like this out.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not saving your practice plans, I would highly advise you doing that.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: That's just like if you're a teacher, that's just like not saving your lesson plans.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to have to go through every year and try to remember what you did,
19:19
SPEAKER_00: what lessons you should have learned.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: If you do that, you'll keep making the same mistakes year after year.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: So hopefully, You're saving your practice plans in an orderly fashion.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Doug Novak,
19:29
SPEAKER_00: when we went and visited Doug,
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Doug actually gets his hardbound,
19:34
SPEAKER_00: like a hardbound book and puts all his practices into that at the end of every year.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: And I've always thought that was a cool idea.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Not cool enough for me to actually do it, but I thought that was a cool idea.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: But red days, red days are where you're doing most of your teaching and drilling deep.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: I think you have a red day.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: If you're covering really more than one thing offensively,
19:55
SPEAKER_00: one thing defensively,
19:56
SPEAKER_00: I personally think you're kind of not taking advantage of what red days are supposed
20:03
SPEAKER_00: to do.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And this would be something that I wouldn't necessarily let the players in on.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't think we ever talked to them about color days,
20:11
SPEAKER_00: but it's definitely the coaching staff would definitely know week
20:14
SPEAKER_00: by week what days were going to be what when we were doing our planning.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: You probably don't want to start off the first day of actual practice with
20:22
SPEAKER_00: a red day, unless maybe you're doing a conditioning bootcamp, that type of stuff.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: And they are getting their conditioning in,
20:31
SPEAKER_00: then maybe you could justify doing a little bit of that,
20:34
SPEAKER_00: but you want to start teaching your culture.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: You want them to get going and, and, and be playing basketball.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: You probably don't want your very first day of practice to be a red day.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: But red days I have.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: Never run consecutive red days.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: If you have two days where they're doing just a lot of hearing you talk,
20:53
SPEAKER_00: that's never a good thing.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: No matter which color day it is, even on the red days, they shouldn't hear you talk a lot.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: You should explain it and give time to ask questions.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think the Asking question part is the key part of a red day.
21:09
SPEAKER_00: It is not the chance for you to vomit everything that you learned since
21:13
SPEAKER_00: the previous season to show how much you know.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: It is to get clarity on certain things.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: And so you may get clarity sooner than you think of,
21:23
SPEAKER_00: and you need to be prepared for that in your practice plan.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: But I wouldn't do two red days in a row.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: Yellow days, yellow days should probably follow.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Red days, especially early on where you're doing three possessions.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're doing a score stop score.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: We would do Creighton where we built up from two on one all the way up to five on five.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Those kinds of things are getting them a chance to make it more game-like.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: You're not stopping every single time.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: You're able to get some things on film.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: You're taking their training wheels off a little bit.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: And it's more how the game is actually played, where there's not a whole lot of stoppage.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: It is habits that are being built.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: So that should follow red early in the season.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Late in the season, a yellow day should probably follow a green day.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: And that's just kind of the way I've done it.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Green days, mirrored game days.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: Players know,
22:18
SPEAKER_00: while we didn't call it green days in front of the players,
22:21
SPEAKER_00: players would know The type of days we were going to have going in.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: And you're actually playing for,
22:29
SPEAKER_00: even though you don't have as many subs,
22:31
SPEAKER_00: obviously, as you would have in a game because you're splitting your team up.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: You do have coaches for each team.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: You're doing a lot of things really competitive.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: It is the chance to get a lot of game-like stats for the four factors,
22:44
SPEAKER_00: for free throws,
22:45
SPEAKER_00: for turnovers,
22:46
SPEAKER_00: anything that really matters to you, especially if you have huddle assist.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: It gives you a truer picture of where your team is.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: You can fill yourself into thinking your team is really learning these things.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Man, these guys are fantastic and green days are lie detector tests
23:04
SPEAKER_00: and they usually show you really quickly what still needs to be worked on
23:08
SPEAKER_00: and it makes the yellow days more effective.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: The guys have Nowhere to hide when they see some of that stuff on film and they tend
23:16
SPEAKER_00: to be a lot more attentive after a couple of green days getting filmed and
23:21
SPEAKER_00: then us being able to have a film session with them.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: So zeroing in on that first week, what's the priority?
23:29
SPEAKER_01: What are you focusing in on and how do you determine that?
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, I talked about culture a couple of times.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: So let's just say that everybody accepts and agrees and understands what I'm trying
23:40
SPEAKER_00: to say there.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: When people say priorities,
23:42
SPEAKER_00: that is not That is not the proper usage of the Greek word that we get priority
23:48
SPEAKER_00: from.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: A priority means something that is more important than everything else.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: You should know,
23:53
SPEAKER_00: by the time you're having your first practice,
23:56
SPEAKER_00: you should know what that team needs to succeed.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: And this we are talking about,
24:02
SPEAKER_00: we're accepting all the culture stuff,
24:04
SPEAKER_00: but this we're definitely talking about scheme.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: So if you're small, Like the team you have this year, you know, you've got some new guys.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: You're not really sure where all of your scoring is going to come from.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: And that's not to say that it's not there.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: They just haven't played enough games together for you to be sure where that's going
24:22
SPEAKER_00: to come from.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: You might have to be a more defensive-minded team.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: And so that would be my priority.
24:31
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't really worry about out-of-bounds plays, breaking a press, any of those other things.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: All those things matter going into the first game.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: But when you're talking about what you're going to think about laying a foundation
24:46
SPEAKER_00: for a wall and adding brick by brick,
24:49
SPEAKER_00: if your foundation here is not strong the first week,
24:52
SPEAKER_00: you're going to have a wobbly wall and it will collapse on you
24:55
SPEAKER_00: because you did not take the time to drill deeply
24:58
SPEAKER_00: and make sure there was deep understanding to whatever priority you want.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: So you're asking yourself, what do you want to accomplish this year?
25:07
SPEAKER_00: You should know how you're going to teach it.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you and I would talk a lot about that.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: That would happen throughout the summer and the early fall.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: There would be no ambiguity how something was going to get taught in our program.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: And then doing that, how will you check that learning is taking place?
25:28
SPEAKER_00: You may have spent a lot of time teaching really well.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: You have Broken it down into small sided games you've shown film,
25:36
SPEAKER_00: but how will you know that learning is taking place?
25:39
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know that,
25:40
SPEAKER_00: if you don't have evidence of excellence,
25:43
SPEAKER_00: you will fall flat on your face in the first game if you don't have a way to check
25:49
SPEAKER_00: that.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: Beforehand.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, maybe that shows up in a scrimmage.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that shows up in overmatched situations.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, your team's going to struggle against a press.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: Don't have them go five on five.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: Have them go five versus seven and basically prove to them all
26:08
SPEAKER_00: the little things Maybe they're raising the ball up in their Statue of Liberty.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're not pivoting.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're stepping out of bounds.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: All the little things that go into breaking a press,
26:18
SPEAKER_00: those are the things that you need to know really early.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: Test really early and start improving on really early if that's the priority for you
26:26
SPEAKER_00: to be able to win this year.
26:27
SPEAKER_01: You just kind of alluded to this,
26:28
SPEAKER_01: and I've already said it probably two or three times this year,
26:33
SPEAKER_01: but just talking about playing with simplicity and mastering the boring,
26:38
SPEAKER_01: I think coaches can even take that advice.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Don't chase a shiny new object.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: When I was growing up in coaching and even until I resigned,
26:48
SPEAKER_00: I went in person to programs and I went to a lot of clinics and People aren't doing
26:54
SPEAKER_00: that as much anymore, but I do think they're learning.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: They're just learning through social media, podcasts, stuff like that.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's fine to learn that way,
27:06
SPEAKER_00: but the immediacy of wonderful ideas tends to lead to the immediacy of wanting
27:12
SPEAKER_00: to apply it to your team.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: And that's where a problem comes in.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about young coaches.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about coaches Who've been in the game 10 or more years
27:24
SPEAKER_00: who should know better,
27:25
SPEAKER_00: but still think that there is an X is an O fix for every single thing
27:29
SPEAKER_00: that ails their team.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: And they're constantly trying to just tag that onto whatever problem that it is.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: It's a band-aid that doesn't work very well.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
27:40
SPEAKER_00: when we talked about Master the Boring,
27:41
SPEAKER_00: the one thing that I always think of that we said all the time is...
27:47
SPEAKER_00: What do your eyes see and try to train their eyes because everybody's coming from
27:51
SPEAKER_00: a different type of program.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: A lot of kids are not,
27:54
SPEAKER_00: especially offensively for what we ran,
27:57
SPEAKER_00: they're not used to running concepts coming from their high school program.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: They're used to running a very structured A to B to C to D type of offense.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: And basketball is really not played that way anymore.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: And so it takes time.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: To train their eyes.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And then once you train their eyes about what they're seeing around them,
28:18
SPEAKER_00: then train the correct decision to go with that.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: And that's mastering the boring.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be a boring thing,
28:26
SPEAKER_00: but cool backdoor plays,
28:28
SPEAKER_00: alley-oop plays,
28:29
SPEAKER_00: all of those things don't matter if you haven't done the required work,
28:34
SPEAKER_00: like footwork and training their eyes, all that type of stuff.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: I think that goes along with that is helping them learn.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: And a big part of that is asking the right questions.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: We've seen this firsthand,
28:48
SPEAKER_01: but asking questions that really don't require much thinking where you,
28:54
SPEAKER_01: the outcome ends up being,
28:55
SPEAKER_01: you just are programming a robot and then actually asking questions that causes them
29:02
SPEAKER_01: to think and helps them learn the right way.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: I think any area of leadership.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: From administration to teaching,
29:09
SPEAKER_00: coaching, whatever, requires you to ask questions really, really well.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Some are questions that you don't actually know the answer to,
29:17
SPEAKER_00: that you're really trying to find information.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Some you do and you're leading them to the right conclusion or
29:24
SPEAKER_00: at least indicating what you want by the type of question that you're asked.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: But in a film session or on the court,
29:30
SPEAKER_00: especially when you're going through the red practice days like we talked about,
29:35
SPEAKER_00: you cannot Ask, are there any questions?
29:38
SPEAKER_00: They will just look at each other.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: They will look like they were kicked in the head by
29:42
SPEAKER_00: a mule sometimes just wondering what you're even talking about.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: They will zone out.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: They just got out, especially at the college level.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: They might have gotten out of a big lecture class in the afternoon
29:55
SPEAKER_00: and they could be Really drowsy like any of us would be,
29:59
SPEAKER_00: and they need to be engaged.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: I think engaging questions, I'll start with like, what questions do you have?
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Don't even ask, are there any?
30:08
SPEAKER_00: Just assume that there are.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: What questions do you have?
30:11
SPEAKER_00: You still might get some blank stares or quietness, especially from a young group.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: But then you do the next thing you call them by their name.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: You ask them the question that you,
30:23
SPEAKER_00: you know that they probably don't have the answer to,
30:27
SPEAKER_00: and you want them to realize that you can accuse them of something
30:31
SPEAKER_00: and you can make fun of them and be sarcastic.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Say, what kind of moron doesn't know that already?
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Or you could say, what should you have done there?
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Or when we drive baseline.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: Which pivot are we going off of?
30:44
SPEAKER_00: If we want to reverse pivot,
30:45
SPEAKER_00: if we want to have all these options, what are your reads when you drive baseline?
30:49
SPEAKER_00: What are your reads when you drive middle?
30:51
SPEAKER_00: That's getting them to think about what the answer should be.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: And I think if you're really good at that,
30:58
SPEAKER_00: you follow up later in the practice,
31:02
SPEAKER_00: later in the week, you're asking the same person those same questions.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: And that's really checking for learning.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: And it's a whole lot,
31:10
SPEAKER_00: it leads to better and quicker learning than Then either bad questions
31:15
SPEAKER_00: or accusations that take place.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: They can, anybody today, us included as coaches, we can feel sensitive.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: We can feel like we're being accused of something when somebody is always talking at us.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: And I think all of us respond better.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: Human nature responds better when we're asked questions in a right way and
31:33
SPEAKER_00: a way that's supposed to lead us to the, what the answer should be.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: I just remember asking on many occasions when it came to an individual rep for
31:42
SPEAKER_01: the type of defense and offense that we ran, what did you see there?
31:47
SPEAKER_01: And it's funny because early on,
31:49
SPEAKER_01: especially if they're new players, they don't even know what they saw there.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: They just reacted and threw the ball and they can't even remember what they saw.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: They just maybe thought they saw something.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: And even that is a starting spot.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: Opened up a whole lot of learning opportunities for them.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, my first year there in the postseason, I asked a player a question, senior.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: No, this guy was a junior at the time.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: And he asked me in the postseason what a UCLA screen was.
32:22
SPEAKER_00: I was obviously a bad coach.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: He was running it or I would have stopped it.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: But he did not know that the screen he was running there at the elbow was
32:29
SPEAKER_00: a UCLA screen, UCLA cut.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: And...
32:33
SPEAKER_00: So I think about all the time.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: If I'm having that with a junior in college,
32:38
SPEAKER_00: I probably need to check for clarity a little earlier and a little bit more often.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: All right, well,
32:46
SPEAKER_01: specifics,
32:47
SPEAKER_01: if somebody came looking for this is what you should do your first day,
32:52
SPEAKER_01: probably may go away disappointed, but that changes from program to program.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: I think the things that are the bedrock and lay the foundation are some of
33:02
SPEAKER_01: the questions that we asked today,
33:04
SPEAKER_01: and I think will make a difference over the course of a season,
33:07
SPEAKER_01: not necessarily which small-sided game you're going to run on the first day
33:11
SPEAKER_01: of practice.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean,
33:13
SPEAKER_00: I've taken and built my philosophy from watching Bob Hurley,
33:17
SPEAKER_00: who's in the Hall of Fame,
33:18
SPEAKER_00: Morgan Wooten in the Hall of Fame,
33:20
SPEAKER_00: and Coach K. Those are the three practices that I've seen the most in my life.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: And if that's what they did, I figured that's probably what I should do.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure there's somebody out there who thinks that those guys are outdated
33:33
SPEAKER_00: and they know better, and that's fine.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: But I would rather have as my board of advisors three Hall of Famers than
33:41
SPEAKER_00: Then some guy who's got a cool Twitter channel.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: Knock the guys with cool Twitter channels.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: All right.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate this.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: We're going to keep doing this throughout the season and try
33:51
SPEAKER_01: to give some practical ideas for coaches to use.
33:54
SPEAKER_01: So be on the lookout for that.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: Coach, appreciate you joining us tonight.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.