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The Merrimack 2-3 Zone Defense · A Quick Timeout

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[music]
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SPEAKER_03: Today's guest is the head men's basketball coach at Merrimack College.
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SPEAKER_03: He's also got a new book out, More Than His Own, the Merrimack Basketball Operating System.
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SPEAKER_03: He is Coach Joe Gallo.
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SPEAKER_03: Coach, welcome to the show.
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SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me.
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SPEAKER_03: Appreciate it.
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SPEAKER_03: Appreciate you taking the timeout this morning for me.
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SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
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SPEAKER_03: Busy time of year.
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SPEAKER_03: So appreciate coach making some time here.
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SPEAKER_03: I haven't read the book yet,
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SPEAKER_03: but I love this already because the temptation often for coaches is to believe that
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SPEAKER_03: a system, the system itself is going to make or break your team.
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SPEAKER_03: And a big part of this book is dispelling that myth.
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SPEAKER_03: Correct?
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SPEAKER_00: Correct.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: Or kind of Everything that goes underneath the system and just by watching
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SPEAKER_00: the way someone plays or trying to mimic it off a whiteboard isn't always going
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SPEAKER_00: to equal success.
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SPEAKER_00: That goes for Myself as well.
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SPEAKER_00: You know,
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SPEAKER_00: I have plenty of examples in there of,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: some offensive things we stole from people and you got to be careful not to try
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SPEAKER_00: to do everything you see out there or you could drive yourself nuts.
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SPEAKER_00: You'd go into practice with 10 new plays every day if you put in everything you saw on Twitter.
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SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's just, you know, like anything, it's, you know, not what you do.
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SPEAKER_00: It's how you do it.
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SPEAKER_00: It's how we practice.
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SPEAKER_00: It's how we staff, how we recruit, how we prepare.
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SPEAKER_00: You know,
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SPEAKER_00: there's a chapter on rhythm,
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SPEAKER_00: which talks about,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: our preseason,
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SPEAKER_00: summer session,
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SPEAKER_00: our weekly rhythm, our conference rhythm, how we structure our days off.
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SPEAKER_00: So I think there's just a lot into it,
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SPEAKER_00: you know, and we get a lot of publicity for the zone and rightfully so.
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SPEAKER_00: We've been really good defensively.
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SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
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SPEAKER_00: as I started to store some things away,
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SPEAKER_00: like this really started with me cleaning my office to make room.
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SPEAKER_00: Because I wanted to get this bookshelf out of there and then add a couch.
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SPEAKER_00: And I just had binders of years, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Ten years as a head coach.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, about ten years as an assistant coach.
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SPEAKER_00: I had some of my old Robert Morris binders in there.
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SPEAKER_00: And there's some drills we still use from those binders.
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SPEAKER_00: And I was putting them all in some Home Depot.
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SPEAKER_00: So I thought it would be cool just to kind of put everything in one place.
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SPEAKER_00: And it started as that,
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SPEAKER_00: just making different folders and buckets of how we play and drills we use and staff
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SPEAKER_00: and responsibilities.
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SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it kind of turned into a little project that eventually became the book.
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SPEAKER_03: Yeah, coaches are going to love this.
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SPEAKER_03: By the way,
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SPEAKER_03: if someone by chance hasn't seen the defense,
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SPEAKER_03: do you have like a book jacket summary of what that is?
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SPEAKER_00: So I do have a chapter on it in there, right?
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SPEAKER_00: There's a chapter that goes into pretty good detail
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SPEAKER_01: on it.
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SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's our, you know, high and wide extended two, three zone.
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SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of,
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SPEAKER_01: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: Coach Boeheim,
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SPEAKER_00: Syracuse principles from years ago,
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SPEAKER_00: but I think the game has just evolved so much and people are shooting threes
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SPEAKER_00: so much more now than they were even five years ago.
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SPEAKER_00: Not even as a team, just individuals, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Like you never heard of a shooting five man.
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SPEAKER_00: 15 years ago,
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SPEAKER_00: and now you've got players that can be in the short corner one second and
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SPEAKER_00: then slide out and make corner threes or be in a high post,
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SPEAKER_00: 6 '10 guys sliding out and shooting threes.
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SPEAKER_00: So we had to evolve that defense as well to take away those threes so it's just
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SPEAKER_00: a little bit unique twist on kind of what started as
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SPEAKER_03: Syracuse Zone.
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SPEAKER_03: Talking big picture about The Zone,
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SPEAKER_03: what were,
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SPEAKER_03: what are some of the non -negotiable standards That you had For a program and
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SPEAKER_03: the focusing in on the zone,
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SPEAKER_03: especially I think of people not aware of,
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SPEAKER_03: but you guys moved up to division one and immediately had success with it.
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SPEAKER_03: And what I found is, is that that level of success is not by accident.
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SPEAKER_03: There are typically some core values,
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SPEAKER_03: non-negotiable standards,
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SPEAKER_03: whatever you want to call them that are behind something like that.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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SPEAKER_00: And we have,
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SPEAKER_00: so every day when we come out to practice,
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SPEAKER_00: you know, we have three Boards, so to say, that kind of rest on our scorers table.
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SPEAKER_00: And one is just overall standards of the program.
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SPEAKER_00: One is our zone rules.
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SPEAKER_00: And then the other one is defensive identity, kind of three different things.
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SPEAKER_00: But I honestly think the overall standards, which is sustained effort.
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SPEAKER_00: Positive body language, be a great teammate, be coachable, and then defend no matter what.
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SPEAKER_00: I think if we just stopped there and you hung your hat on those things, we could be really good.
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SPEAKER_00: And especially,
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SPEAKER_00: I say to people all the time,
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SPEAKER_00: like I gave a little zone clinic out here for about 50, 60 coaches this summer.
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SPEAKER_00: That fifth one,
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SPEAKER_00: defend no matter what,
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SPEAKER_00: I said if you watched your teams and you just did that,
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SPEAKER_00: you could save yourself a couple baskets a game, right?
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SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is how many times does a guy miss a shot and
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SPEAKER_00: then their defensive effort
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SPEAKER_01: goes down
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SPEAKER_00: a little bit.
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SPEAKER_00: Or maybe a teammate missed you on an extra pass, so you decide not to sprint back on defense.
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SPEAKER_00: Ref made a bad call, and that affects kind of your whole defensive vibe for a bit.
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SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
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SPEAKER_00: our standard is regardless
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SPEAKER_00: of what defense we would be playing is defend no matter what, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Let's avoid those three,
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SPEAKER_00: four baskets a game that other programs give up because something else went wrong
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SPEAKER_00: and it affected them on the defensive end.
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SPEAKER_03: I know one of the not so secret secrets is the practice design.
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SPEAKER_03: Can you talk about practice philosophy?
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SPEAKER_03: You already touched on,
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SPEAKER_03: I know not all times of the year look the same, but practice philosophy in general.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think the energy above everything, right?
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SPEAKER_00: I think we create a joyful environment where guys really enjoy coming to the gym.
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SPEAKER_00: We, you know, we design it so, you know, there's something super energetic.
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SPEAKER_00: We have practice starters to start the day.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, like this time of year, I tell them they hear my voice enough.
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SPEAKER_00: So we don't do the whole let's all gather around half court and give the old speech
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SPEAKER_00: for five minutes before practice.
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SPEAKER_00: They start in the locker room.
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SPEAKER_00: After they stretch and they come running out onto the floor like they would run out
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SPEAKER_00: for a game and they run right to their zone spots and we go two or three minutes
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SPEAKER_00: of what we call set the tone.
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SPEAKER_00: Just not even much coaching involved,
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SPEAKER_00: just simple 1-3-1 zone offense alignment,
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SPEAKER_00: maybe a two guard front and we're just flying around and we're hooting
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SPEAKER_00: and hollering.
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SPEAKER_00: I think
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SPEAKER_00: you've got to be careful when you teach.
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SPEAKER_00: I think you can't stop practice for 10-15 minutes because you're never going to get them back.
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SPEAKER_00: So sometimes right after Set the Tone,
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SPEAKER_00: like yesterday we put in two new sets offensively, we did it right away.
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SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I may do that before.
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SPEAKER_00: They may stretch.
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SPEAKER_00: We install some offense,
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SPEAKER_00: then they go to the locker room, and then they come out and start flying around.
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SPEAKER_00: Or we may save that to the end of practice because we're just big on the vibe and
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SPEAKER_00: the energy in the gym.
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SPEAKER_00: We don't want to do anything to kind of take away from that, but you do have to teach.
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SPEAKER_00: And then the other thing is just really time and score on everything we do.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of competing.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of winning.
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SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of losing.
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SPEAKER_00: One of the One of my favorite lines in the book is winning behaviors must survive competition.
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SPEAKER_00: If the first time you compete or the first time you have a winner or a loser
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SPEAKER_00: the first time you have a bad call is in a game and you haven't seen that already,
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SPEAKER_00: we see that from day one in summer.
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SPEAKER_00: They don't get here on July 5th and all of a sudden we're doing mic-ins and two-ball dribbles.
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SPEAKER_00: Within 10 minutes there's a blue and gold team and we're competing.
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SPEAKER_00: We Save that skill development stuff for other times of the day, maybe pre-practice.
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SPEAKER_00: But when we're in between those lines, we do a lot where there's a winner and a loser.
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SPEAKER_03: One of the drills that I know that you've shared before,
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SPEAKER_03: but perfect defense,
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SPEAKER_03: and we run something similar to this zone-wise,
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SPEAKER_03: and I know that we've stolen stuff from you.
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SPEAKER_03: This type of thing,
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SPEAKER_03: I've seen other coaches do some kind of perfect drills, but can you explain those?
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SPEAKER_03: Because I feel like those are also some of the secret sauce that goes into building
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SPEAKER_03: the habits and getting guys focused and competing.
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's our, and we'll do that fairly early as well.
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SPEAKER_00: It's really our version of shell.
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SPEAKER_00: We usually won't, you know, it's live minus the ball going in the basket, really.
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SPEAKER_00: We'll actually put a bubble on the rim to kind of work on some rebounding early.
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SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we use it, you know, to introduce something new.
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SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're introducing inside ball screens.
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SPEAKER_00: The first time they'll see it as a perfect defense.
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SPEAKER_00: We're playing App State on Monday.
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SPEAKER_00: Some of the things we think they may run,
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SPEAKER_00: you don't really have much to go off of in these early games,
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SPEAKER_00: but for any game,
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SPEAKER_00: three, four days before, we'll put their main actions in that perfect defense.
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SPEAKER_00: What it is really is perfect talk,
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SPEAKER_00: perfect positioning,
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SPEAKER_00: perfect effort without really attaching a result to it,
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SPEAKER_00: just really going through the process of what a perfect possession looks like
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SPEAKER_00: for us.
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SPEAKER_00: If a guy doesn't get below the ball before he closes out, a whistle doesn't count.
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SPEAKER_00: If a guy...
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SPEAKER_00: The ball goes to the high post and the guy doesn't get out.
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SPEAKER_00: You know, we'll whistle it and that group will go again.
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SPEAKER_00: And we're just kind of building those perfect habits.
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SPEAKER_00: So then when it does really matter, you know, they've been there before.
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SPEAKER_03: Big part of all of this is making sure you get the right guys to come into
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SPEAKER_03: the program and do that.
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SPEAKER_03: Sure.
9:16
SPEAKER_03: When it comes to recruiting,
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SPEAKER_03: what specific traits,
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SPEAKER_03: both physical and also psychological,
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SPEAKER_03: are you looking for that this guy has a chance to actually thrive in this system?
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SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know,
9:28
SPEAKER_00: the physical boxes,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: the different levels you're at,
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SPEAKER_00: you got to obviously check certain size and speed boxes,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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SPEAKER_00: from a from a basketball Talent,
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SPEAKER_00: before we get into the character stuff,
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SPEAKER_00: we focus on what they can do, not as much what they can't do.
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SPEAKER_00: I think you're not getting the perfect player regardless of the level you're at.
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SPEAKER_00: So how do we combine?
9:52
SPEAKER_00: We call them superpowers.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: What's this guy's superpower?
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SPEAKER_00: A superpower might be knockdown shooter.
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SPEAKER_00: It might be a defensive disruptor.
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SPEAKER_00: It might be a great rebounder.
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SPEAKER_00: It might be speed and ball handling ability.
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SPEAKER_00: You can't have...
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SPEAKER_00: Eight guys with the same superpower that won't look very good as a team,
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SPEAKER_00: but can we combine all these,
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SPEAKER_00: you know, almost like a transformer when they all come together?
10:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, can that make a really good team?
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SPEAKER_00: So that's how we look at their talent.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: And then we're big on character.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: We're big on background checks.
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SPEAKER_00: We, you know, in today's day of college basketball...
10:26
SPEAKER_00: There's so many options out there with the transfer portal.
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SPEAKER_00: You can go high school kid,
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SPEAKER_00: prep school kid,
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SPEAKER_00: a Division I transfer from a lower level,
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Division I transfer from a higher level who maybe didn't play as much,
10:37
SPEAKER_00: you know, D2 guys, D3 guys, JUCO, NAIA.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: So you could really get lost if you don't really know what you're looking for.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: So we do a lot of background check.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: We recruit a lot of guys that we're familiar with.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we played against them.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: Coaches we know played against them.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they played in a program that we're familiar with or played against
10:57
SPEAKER_00: a program we're familiar with.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: We try to really stay within our web of network.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: And not to say we won't go outside of that,
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SPEAKER_00: but if we do,
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SPEAKER_00: we better really be sure and kind of background check because
11:11
SPEAKER_00: that attitude is really everything.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: You only have nine months with these teams now.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: You're almost going to have, at best, half a new team the following year.
11:19
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12:23
SPEAKER_03: For most zones, high school zones.
12:26
SPEAKER_03: This is stand in your area and here's your big circle that you're guarding.
12:31
SPEAKER_03: These types of zones do not operate that way.
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SPEAKER_03: It is more responsibility based.
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SPEAKER_03: And as such, I'm wondering your opinion on having coached this for a long time.
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SPEAKER_03: Is it difficult to swap guys different positions or do you primarily put them in
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SPEAKER_03: a spot and you get reps at that spot?
12:49
SPEAKER_03: I call these defenses.
12:50
SPEAKER_03: We talk a lot about decision making offense.
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SPEAKER_03: I talk about this as being decision-making defense,
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SPEAKER_03: making reads, anticipating, and everything that we require.
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SPEAKER_03: What do you see?
13:00
SPEAKER_03: The decision you make, the skill that you use, we're doing that on defense.
13:03
SPEAKER_03: I've at least found it can be difficult,
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SPEAKER_03: and maybe you can help me and teach it better so it's not this difficult.
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SPEAKER_00: It's very difficult.
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SPEAKER_00: I think the one that we've had the most success with is a guy that already learned
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SPEAKER_00: the wing, But has some size.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And maybe if our two bigs are in foul trouble, he could navigate that goalie area, right?
13:25
SPEAKER_00: Because probably they have a lot of decisions to make,
13:29
SPEAKER_00: but they're pretty straightforward, right?
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SPEAKER_00: When the ball goes here, go, right?
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SPEAKER_00: Stay back, stay in your restricted circle until the ball gets to an area you have to guard.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: So we've had guys play those two pretty seamlessly.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: It's those other two that's tough.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: And I think What's made it tougher is not having them, most of them for multiple years.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: I think we've had guys,
13:53
SPEAKER_00: for instance,
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SPEAKER_00: we had a player last year that his whole freshman year he learned the guard.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: And then in the summer he spent a lot of time in the wing.
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SPEAKER_00: And then last year as a sophomore he was so valuable because he could play both.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: But if you're trying to have,
14:08
SPEAKER_00: you know,
14:08
SPEAKER_00: we have one guy right now That we're trying to use at both the guard and the wing
14:13
SPEAKER_00: that just got here.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: I think trying to do that with more than one guy in one year, it is pretty tough to do.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: I think one trick maybe,
14:23
SPEAKER_00: especially for the basics,
14:25
SPEAKER_00: we start sometimes in the fall,
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SPEAKER_00: we'll do a couple minutes of what we call inverted zone slides,
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SPEAKER_00: and we'll make the forwards play the guard,
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SPEAKER_00: and we'll make the guards play the wing,
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SPEAKER_00: and we'll really just do the basic, basic stuff.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: And then we'll watch the film and see what it looks like and go,
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SPEAKER_00: you know what, this guy moves pretty good at that position.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: If we can just get him a little more knowledge and a little bit better in the decision making.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's kind of how it happened.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: They're almost trying out for that other position without knowing it when we go
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SPEAKER_00: to these inverted zone slides.
14:54
SPEAKER_03: I'll have to file that away and try that sometime.
14:56
SPEAKER_03: I like that.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: It's also cool when you see like the Miami Heat plays a similar zone.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: They put their Wings up top and their guards on the wing.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: I think it's just more a personnel thing that, that those are more of their disruptors.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's funny when I put our,
15:12
SPEAKER_00: our wings up top and you look up and you got, you know, six, five to six sides.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, man, this, this would be nice.
15:19
SPEAKER_03: Rebounding.
15:21
SPEAKER_03: I need help with this.
15:22
SPEAKER_03: Probably others do any kind of,
15:24
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I hope that you're not, but you might just tell me that it's just.
15:28
SPEAKER_03: Emphasize it a lot.
15:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Emphasize it.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Maybe some reaction drills.
15:32
SPEAKER_03: Get guys that will just
15:33
SPEAKER_00: go get the ball.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: We have a guard this year.
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SPEAKER_00: We have a five-man that really goes and gets the ball.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: I think it's going to really hopefully help our defensive numbers this year.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: But even you look at those old Syracuse teams with all the size they had,
15:45
SPEAKER_00: they were in the bottom 10%, 20% of rebounding in the country.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: So I think if you're going to give them up,
15:51
SPEAKER_00: what you – What you've got
15:53
SPEAKER_00: to avoid is you can't give up those point-blank stickbacks.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: You've got to get to areas.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: You've got to make some contact with some people.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: You can't give up tip dunks and lay-ins.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: If you give up a long rebound and you could reset your defense,
16:06
SPEAKER_00: I think it's not always the end of the world.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: But I've kind of started telling our guys we've done a little more like reaction rebounding.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: It's just your next responsibility.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: So on a baseline drive and a shot,
16:18
SPEAKER_00: you can't take your jobs over because you've got to maybe – Your penetration spot
16:23
SPEAKER_00: where you're supposed to go.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: So it's just,
16:25
SPEAKER_00: you know,
16:25
SPEAKER_00: sometimes you'll watch in the zone team,
16:27
SPEAKER_00: you're flying around really good, and then a shot goes up and everybody stops.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: You know,
16:32
SPEAKER_00: in our thing,
16:32
SPEAKER_00: we started, you know, I read somewhere this summer, kind of finish what you started.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: So you guys are playing really hard and you started this possession great,
16:39
SPEAKER_00: but, you know, now you got to continue and finish it.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
16:42
SPEAKER_00: just emphasizing it,
16:43
SPEAKER_00: you know,
16:44
SPEAKER_00: it's tough,
16:44
SPEAKER_00: a little bit tougher to do your traditional box out drills
16:47
SPEAKER_00: because you're not always lined up to a man.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: So you got to be more like spatial awareness and some recognition.
16:55
SPEAKER_03: We just started.
16:56
SPEAKER_03: This is one of those piece of equipment you had used 10 years ago,
16:59
SPEAKER_03: put it in the closet, forgot about it.
17:01
SPEAKER_03: And then, oh, yeah, there it is.
17:02
SPEAKER_03: Those are just simple, like reduced rims just to create more opportunities like that sometimes.
17:08
SPEAKER_03: And has seemed to help early on.
17:11
SPEAKER_03: You started down the trail, so I'll go ahead and keep going.
17:13
SPEAKER_03: But the analytics piece of it,
17:15
SPEAKER_03: so much data available,
17:16
SPEAKER_03: but especially for those of us playing the zones,
17:19
SPEAKER_03: Maybe a couple,
17:20
SPEAKER_03: however many you want to mention that you feel like stick out to you in your mind
17:23
SPEAKER_03: as far as key metrics that you and your staff measure regularly,
17:27
SPEAKER_03: both practice and games that you feel like is reflective that shows whether
17:30
SPEAKER_03: or not our zone is being effective.
17:32
SPEAKER_03: It's funny.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: When we first started going to the analytics,
17:34
SPEAKER_00: it was more the numbers doubling down on what we expected.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Already emphasized, right?
17:39
SPEAKER_00: So it's not as much the three -point percentage as the three point attempts. Right,
17:47
SPEAKER_00: so it's like that you know,
17:50
SPEAKER_00: If that worst top three in our league and that three-point attempt rate,
17:54
SPEAKER_00: how many threes are they taking as a percentage of their total field goals?
17:57
SPEAKER_00: Turnover percentage, steal percentage, block percentage is another one.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: For us, those deflection hustle numbers.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: If we're going to lose a little bit on the glass,
18:10
SPEAKER_00: we feel like we really have to make up for it with the turnovers,
18:15
SPEAKER_00: taking care of the ball ourselves and forcing turnovers to get some
18:18
SPEAKER_00: of those possession back.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: And also our shot selection.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: We're not going to give up a lot of threes and we're going to force tougher twos.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: How can we combat that by taking good threes,
18:29
SPEAKER_00: not taking the hard twos?
18:30
SPEAKER_00: So those are kind of the main ones we look at.
18:32
SPEAKER_03: Is there anything target -wise deflections and or steals that you guys are aiming
18:37
SPEAKER_03: for?
18:37
SPEAKER_00: 35.
18:39
SPEAKER_03: We want 35
18:39
SPEAKER_00: deflections.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: It's an old Patino number.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: You can get there.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: If I deflect the ball, but you end up with the ball and you get the steal, that is too.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: So it's not just 35 straight deflections.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: A steal is a deflection.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: A block is a deflection.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: Deflection, deflection is a deflection.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: And then if there's any type of loose ball and your guy's the first guy to
19:03
SPEAKER_00: the floor, we give that a deflection as well.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: A new one we added is, and we led the country last year in enforcing shot clock violations.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: So if we get a shot clock violation,
19:16
SPEAKER_00: We'll add that in our deflection count.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: And the five guys on the floor,
19:19
SPEAKER_00: you know,
19:20
SPEAKER_00: that won't count as five towards our total.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: But when we do our individual because our guys see after every practice
19:26
SPEAKER_00: and every game their MC point is what you call deflections.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: And if you were one of those five guys off the floor that forced
19:32
SPEAKER_00: to shot clock violations, You know, You'll get a
19:35
SPEAKER_01: point for your individual tally.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: And the other thing with that we go is points against.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: So everybody, we have an assistant coach do a defensive report after every game.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: How the other team scored, what they ran, what type of basket it was.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Was it a top to wing three?
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Was it a wing to top three?
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Was it a...
19:53
SPEAKER_00: High-low pass.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: Was it a baseline drive and a kickout opposite, which would be on the guard?
19:59
SPEAKER_00: And then he has it in red, who gave up those points?
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And then we also have that tally as well of how many points each individual guy gave up.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's a big, what gets measured gets improved is a long time saying.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: And I think if you're measuring too many things,
20:20
SPEAKER_00: It'll just make you feel good sitting around a conference room with your coaches.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: We try to avoid wasted time.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: We're just going to measure what we think will really hit home with our guys.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: They know that we value deflections and playing hard,
20:34
SPEAKER_00: so they want to be at the top of that list.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: They also don't want to be on the so-called naughty list of the guy that gives up
20:40
SPEAKER_00: a lot of points.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: You want to be low on that end of it.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: Those are the two really main things.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: If you're out there playing hard and Causing some deflections and some chaos
20:50
SPEAKER_00: while also not giving up points because you're doing your own responsibility.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: You're probably going to do a lot to help us win on that end of the floor.
20:57
SPEAKER_03: It will be helpful to coaches to maybe expound a little bit
21:00
SPEAKER_03: on what you just mentioned, because I found this is the case.
21:03
SPEAKER_03: When you are a coach who coaches these types of zones,
21:06
SPEAKER_03: it is often not what you think is the problem.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: Like this thing led to that thing.
21:13
SPEAKER_03: Can you speak, can you speak to that?
21:15
SPEAKER_03: I feel like sometimes then we prune the tree,
21:17
SPEAKER_03: but the reality is that the root problem still exists there
21:20
SPEAKER_03: because we didn't actually address what was causing that problem.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think one is you have to,
21:26
SPEAKER_00: you have to study and have the knowledge yourself,
21:29
SPEAKER_00: you know, because you don't want to be in a practice and start looking.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: I remember, I mean, I'll go back to a story.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: When I was an assistant coach here for Coach Hamill and Brown was
21:41
SPEAKER_00: a legendary high school coach in Maine.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: He was, people say he was the one that Rick Pitino got his matchup zone from.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: He was his assistant at Boston University and he ran this kind of crazy matchup zone
21:55
SPEAKER_00: as a high school coach in Maine.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: And he would come up three years in a row,
21:59
SPEAKER_00: and he would put this matchup in for us.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: And he Would just take the team and I would sit there as a 23 year old assistant
22:06
SPEAKER_00: and I would take these beautiful notes on it
22:08
SPEAKER_00: and we think we'd have it all figured out and then Coach Brown would leave
22:12
SPEAKER_00: And we'd give up three layups and Coach Hamill and I would look at each other
22:16
SPEAKER_00: and go, do you know whose fault it was?
22:18
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea whose fault that was.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: So I think make sure you're knowing what you're teaching before you teach it.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: And then you'll be able to pinpoint what went wrong.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's one of the false things.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of times people are scared to go zone
22:35
SPEAKER_00: because they don't really know it enough to kind of hold their guys accountable.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Right.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Where with us, the more you study it, the more you see it, the more games you play.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have so much data now,
22:46
SPEAKER_00: you know, we can pinpoint exactly, you know, that was that forwards drop.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: So those two points are on him and you could show the film and guys and go,
22:55
SPEAKER_00: guys, look, four guys did their job here.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: One guy didn't.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: And it led to a basket.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Right.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Like, especially early in the year, I said,
23:03
SPEAKER_00: after one of our scrimmages,
23:05
SPEAKER_00: if each one of you just took away one mistake
23:08
SPEAKER_00: where we were probably 10 points better today.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: So now I will say this,
23:13
SPEAKER_00: early on when they're just getting it,
23:15
SPEAKER_00: there's some tough baskets to assign because you go,
23:17
SPEAKER_00: well, that guard at his hands down.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: So he let the ball go into the high post on a fastball,
23:26
SPEAKER_00: which really,
23:26
SPEAKER_00: I know it was the forward's fault because it was a high low,
23:30
SPEAKER_00: but that guard didn't really give him time to get down there.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: And the other rule we have is if the ball zipped in,
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Our five man's supposed to count one Mississippi in his head before he closed out
23:40
SPEAKER_00: and he just ran straight at the ball.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: So what are we doing there?
23:43
SPEAKER_00: And in a case like that,
23:45
SPEAKER_00: Mickey Burtnick,
23:45
SPEAKER_00: my assistant,
23:46
SPEAKER_00: he'll probably give them a third of a point each and kind of break it down that way.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: But when it really, really is at its best, it's one person's fault.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: He just had that mental breakdown for whatever reason on that possession.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, but I think you can do that with man to man.
24:01
SPEAKER_00: I stole the points per,
24:03
SPEAKER_00: and then we go,
24:04
SPEAKER_00: we divide it by minutes played and Everybody's assigned points per minute.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Now with us,
24:12
SPEAKER_00: it's not all one size fits all because if we're doing our job,
24:19
SPEAKER_00: more so than not,
24:20
SPEAKER_00: the basket should be scored on our five main because we forced the action there.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: We made you play ISO against them.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: So we have different numbers we use for each position.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Randy Bennett in the clinic I saw many, many years ago, I think he did.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: I think this was pre-points-per-possession era.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: I think he was trying to give up 64 points or less in a game.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: So that would be .32 times the 200 minutes played in a college game would get you to 64 points.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: So I think he wanted every guy on his roster,
24:52
SPEAKER_00: every guy who played,
24:54
SPEAKER_00: to be 0 .32 or less points per minute given up and
24:59
SPEAKER_00: that would keep you know he felt like if he held the team under 64 they had
25:02
SPEAKER_00: a good chance of winning so we've kind of messed around with that number based
25:06
SPEAKER_00: on our pace and what we want our points for possession to be and then
25:11
SPEAKER_00: which position get you know we have a little more to it because of our system but at
25:15
SPEAKER_00: the end of the day we're just holding these guys accountable to not giving up points
25:19
SPEAKER_03: while they're out there.
25:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah early on I don't I just tell them it wasn't your fault,
25:23
SPEAKER_03: but I don't do them a whole lot of explaining
25:24
SPEAKER_03: because it was probably three guys' fault.
25:27
SPEAKER_03: And by the time you get to week five and six,
25:29
SPEAKER_03: you can get a little bit more specific and,
25:31
SPEAKER_02: oh, they understand what they're doing there.
25:33
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, that takes some time to get to.
25:35
SPEAKER_03: You mentioned the center and being able to guard.
25:37
SPEAKER_03: How do you help them become better?
25:38
SPEAKER_03: Because oftentimes your center is not necessarily your most agile,
25:42
SPEAKER_03: great east to west, quick on his feet type of guy.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: So we do try to recruit that.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Now, we've had, you know, we've had fives at all different shapes and sizes.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: We've had undersized guys.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: Back when they called charges, we had a kid take 40 charges one season.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Our first year at Division I, he was maybe, I'm being generous, at 6'4".
26:03
SPEAKER_00: But those guys spend a lot of individual time.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, every day we'll do...
26:09
SPEAKER_00: We do two different guard forward breakdown segments.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: The first time, the forwards and the fives are together and the guards are by themselves.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: Then we put the guards and the forwards together,
26:20
SPEAKER_00: working on their communication when the ball gets to the high post or short corner.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: And that five minutes or four minutes, whatever it is, is super valuable for those fives.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: They're playing a lot of one-on-one.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: They're doing multiple reaction drills.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: They've got to close out to...
26:37
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a cone at the foul line,
26:39
SPEAKER_00: then they've got to get back home,
26:40
SPEAKER_00: and then they've got to fire out to a corner to take away a corner three,
26:44
SPEAKER_00: and then they've got to sprint back home,
26:46
SPEAKER_00: and then the ball gets to a live offensive player in the short corner,
26:49
SPEAKER_00: and they're maybe playing one-on-one with a six-second shot clock.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: So just doing things to get that motor going You know,
26:56
SPEAKER_00: understand that they got more than one job to do,
26:59
SPEAKER_00: really taking pride in getting those individual stops.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Like if you could have a really good one-on-one defender there,
27:06
SPEAKER_00: it makes it really hard to score, right?
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Because if he's not as good one-on-one, we'll do some different things to help him out.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: But now we might give up some more kickouts.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: But if we could truly just stay home on shooters,
27:19
SPEAKER_00: And make you play one-on-one against a really good five defender.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: That's the worst percentage shot in the game, even for a good player, is an iso.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: So if we have a good iso defender, it makes our defense really, really good.
27:32
SPEAKER_03: This could go on for a really long time.
27:33
SPEAKER_03: I'll try to wrap it up here.
27:35
SPEAKER_03: The coach that reads this, what are you hoping that they get?
27:39
SPEAKER_03: Or what are the big thing?
27:41
SPEAKER_03: What are they going to get from this?
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think, one, I think most coaches probably have a...
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Some sort of their own operating system that they're not even aware of, right?
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Where they can put that to paper and really maybe fine tune it a little bit.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: I think there's probably even some individual steel drills or ways that we operate
28:01
SPEAKER_00: that you may want to Steal and make it your own.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: But I think that's one of the biggest messages in there is you got to really know
28:08
SPEAKER_00: who you are first.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: How do you want to play?
28:12
SPEAKER_00: What do you want your standards to be?
28:13
SPEAKER_00: What do you want your gym to sound and feel like?
28:16
SPEAKER_00: I think before you can take things from other people,
28:19
SPEAKER_00: you got to know that first because then when you take these things,
28:24
SPEAKER_00: You can make them your own.
28:25
SPEAKER_00: You might have your own language.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: You might call it everyone's brain is different.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: You might call something we do.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: You may make up your own name that is more sticky to your brain and to your player's brain.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's the biggest thing is, you know, being able to, A, I love to share, right?
28:39
SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, anytime you could give back to the game, it's a great thing.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: But then look at it and being like, you know what?
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of the level,
28:48
SPEAKER_00: like I talk about,
28:49
SPEAKER_00: you know,
28:49
SPEAKER_00: in our division two days,
28:50
SPEAKER_00: we were taking vans to games and we were playing doubles headers
28:53
SPEAKER_00: with our women's program.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
28:55
SPEAKER_00: we're a lot more fortunate now with some of the resources we have,
28:58
SPEAKER_00: but our practice doesn't look any different than it did 10 years ago.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
29:02
SPEAKER_00: not making excuses for lack of things you have or don't have,
29:06
SPEAKER_00: and just kind of having your fundamental principles and standards
29:10
SPEAKER_00: that you could hang your own hat on.
29:12
SPEAKER_03: And available now and best place Amazon?
29:15
SPEAKER_00: Amazon, yeah, it's really only Amazon right now.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: I think some other distributors can get it from there, but I didn't get too much into that.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: I didn't put the book out there to make a buck.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: I really, 10 years in, I just wanted 10 years of what we've done all in one place.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: I started doing a little research on Amazon and they have their own KDP publishing
29:37
SPEAKER_00: where it's completely self-published.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: I didn't reach out to anybody or get any help on it.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: If you catch a typo in there, Coach, let me know.
29:46
SPEAKER_03: I will, for sure.
29:47
SPEAKER_03: And I will also link that below so that coaches can get that.
29:49
SPEAKER_03: I'm sure there will be plenty that will be interested in that.
29:52
SPEAKER_03: Coach, thank you so much for coming.
29:54
SPEAKER_03: Thanks for having me.
29:55
SPEAKER_03: This was great.