I read an article last week by Bill Simmons on ESPN (click HERE) about how to improve the NBA and it got me thinking about college basketball and that in turn became how I’d coach if I’d gone down that route.
As I’ve told various people over the years, I think my true calling, career wise, was being a mens college basketball coach. I had multiple people try to direct me into that field coming out of high school but I foolishly didn’t take their advice. My high school coach played college ball at UMASS with Dr. J, Rick Pitino and Al Skinner and was still close with them at the time (1983 or so). Pitino was finishing up his last year at BU before taking an assistant job with the Knicks for two years before moving to Providence College (where he made his final four run in 86) and I had some opportunities to meet him and discuss playing college ball (not Providence mind you, I was D2 material). I never persued it and today still regret it (note to self – I’m an idiot….). Six years later, I was living in Los Angeles and had a friend who was good friends with Sonny Vaccaro (If you don’t know who Sonny Vaccaro is, then you don’t know college basketball. Google him). I had an interview scheduled with him but something happened and it got postponed and I never followed up on it (again, the lesson here - “Bill's an idiot”).
Anyway, when I read Simmons article, it got me thinking about how I’d run a college basketball program:
1) You have to win (or at least win more than you lose) and it has to be entertaining.
2 With so many “1 and done” players now, unless you’re at a marquee school that continually draws the top level players (Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas, UCLA, Syracuse, et al.), I think you need to think outside the box and do some creative things in order to draw good players, be consistently successful, and play a style that people enjoy watching.
With these thoughts in mind, this is what I came up with:
1 ) Up Tempo - Kids want to play in an up tempo game, giving them chances to score a lot. It’s fun to score and a fast paced, up and down game gives them chances to post big numbers along with it being fun to watch from a fan perspective. A “defensive battle” that ends up being 39-35, while maybe technically good, leaves people leaving the arena going “that sucked to watch”… (even if your team won).
I’d Dictate Tempo - I'd rather lose playing my style, then win playing the other teams style. Now I’m not saying I want to lose every game or anything, but in the long run, the team will be more successful if they can dictate their style. We’d full court press trying to get into an up tempo game and create turnovers. When broken, we’d fall into various match up zones (ala Temple under John Chaney). If the other team has one main ball handler (which most mid major and lower D1 schools do), we’d go various box and 1’s to put the ball in someone else’s hands and try to create turnovers. I want people handling the ball that are not used to it.
Players - Assuming I’m not going to be able to recruit the 5 or, even the 4 star player, I’m going to have to be selective in what 2 and 3 star player I’d need to run my system. I’d go after the lanky, long limbed, 6’3” to 6’8” athletes that can run the floor. I’d have no interest in a slow 7’ footer (even skilled). A Zydrunas Illgauskas type of player would not fit my system…. I’d want a couple 6’3”, 6’4” spot up shooters and I wouldn’t care if they lacked defensive ability. Think Dell Curry.
Juco Players - I think the Junior College ranks have a plethora of these players I describe above. A lot of these kids end up in Jr. College because coming out of high school they may have had ability but lacked a necessary “elite” skill set. After spending a year or 2 in JC, they’re ready to move to D1, but most likely not a D1 powerhouse (that by this point doesn’t have a spot for them).
In thinking this thru, my style would combine the “40 minutes of hell” philosophy of Nolan Richardson and his 80’s, 90’s Arkansas Razorback teams and the Paul Westhead Loyola Marymount teams featuring Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble (basically just saying “screw it, we’re playing token defense and just trying to run up and down the floor, score on you and hope you miss once or twice so we win”). Might not be quite to that extreme but you know damn well when you looked in the paper back then after one of LMU's games and you saw the score 147-143, a smile came to your face and you thought “Damn! That’s a lot of points”! It’s exciting basketball to play and watch. Everyone was happy!
So where would this work? As I’ve said the major schools that recruit and get the 4 and 5 star players don’t need to do this (and it’s hard to beat those teams playing this style, they have to many ball handlers and scorers). It would have to be a mid major that for what ever reason isn’t a national power, that has a hard time getting players to their school, but is either big enough or in a locale that kids “want” to go to. Quite honestly, a lot of schools fit this profile, but I settled on 3 that fit me.
1) University of New Mexico - While they’ve had some good teams over the years, I always thought this was a program that could be bigger than it is (and actually for what it's worth, Steve Alford is doing a great job there now). They play in the Mountain West Conference and while it’s not the “Pac 10”, still a lot of quality competition (BYU, UNLV, San Diego State, Utah, Colorado State, TCU, Wyoming and Air Force). The conference champion gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, so if you can put together a solid , proven, exciting, winning system that players want to play for, you have a chance to be “Dancing” year after year after year……
The Southwest area (New Mexico, Nevada, Texas and lower Oklahoma) is litered with top notch Juco programs which you can pull from.
University Arena (commonly called “The Pit”), seats about 15,000, and is known as one of college basketballs loudest venues in the country (click HERE). It’s a tough building for opposing teams to come into, as since 1966 the Lobo’s home record is a staggering .821. The school has a large enrollment (28,000) and while Albuquerque might not be as exciting a city like New York or Los Angeles, it’s large enough to draw the players needed to run the system.
2) The “U” – I can’t understand why this major collegiate power in every sport hasn’t broken thru in basketball. I’ve heard the arena is a multi use facility that’s held the program back, but still, south florida is in the top 5 in the country in turning out top level basketball players (maybe #1 in athletes). They are in a major conference (ACC) which has it’s advantages and disadvantages. Disadvantage being it’s never going to win the conference and it’s virtually impossible to play pressure defense when the other team has multiple players to handle and distribute the ball. As I’ve said, one of my main philosophies is pressure and forcing the other team to make quick decisions and preferably by players that aren’t used to handling the ball (i.e. bigs.). In a conference like the ACC, the other team will have those big guys that are able to do that (hence the 4 and 5 star player). The advantage though is you’ll probably draw some of those higher tier players because you’re in the ACC. Never hurts being on national television facing top level talent. University of Florida obviously has been very successful and over the years Florida State has fielded top teams. USF in Tampa has made the NCAA tournament a few times and FIU (right up the road from Miami) has hired Isiah Thomas and already has commitments from some 4 star players for next year (I’m sorry, but no way Florida International shoud be out recruiting the University of Miami!). If you start playing an exciting up tempo , high scoring games there, you telling me you couldn’t bring in some big time talent? South Florida would be going crazy….
3) DePaul – Help me out here. Why isn’t DePaul a national power anymore? Major University, located in a major city, great basketball tradition and in an area that might produce the best talent in the country (behind only NY City and that’s debatable.). They play in the Big East Conference, which is probably a downfall (as we discussed with Miami), but they have the ability to be an elite power and quite frankly should be. Why DePaul isn’t a top 20 power year after year is a mystery. With the talent this area produces, you’d think it would be easy for them to cherry pick a lot of the better talent coming up in Chicago. To me, this program not being better is a disgrace to college basketball. How you can’t win there is beyond me (currently this season, they’re last in the Big East at 1-15 with an overall record of 8-20. Needless to say, they’ll be a coaching vacancy coming up…..).
Over the years, a few coaches have taken bits and pieces of this, implemented it, and been successful. John Calipari, when he was at UMASS, went after a lot of these types of players and went up tempo. He mined the NY and New England talent and turned that program into a national power (look where they’ve gone since he left). Later, while at Memphis, he started drawing the 5 star players and evolved the system. This is basically the footprint Pitino previously used. While at BU and Providence, he couldn’t get the top elite players, so he went more up tempo in order to counteract a negative. At Kentucky, that wasn’t a problem, so he changed some things around. Now however, look at his Lousiville teams. You’re seeing a lot of athletes 6’3” to 6’10”, and he’s pressing and forcing an up tempo game to create turnovers.
If I had to describe my ideal player, it would be someone like Stacy Augmon (The Plastic Man!). 6’8”, lanky, long arms and could run all day (couldn’t shoot worth a shit though…..). He was a 3 time winner of the College Basketball Defensive Player of The Year award. He could cover a point guard or a slow, plodding 6’10” center. Just a beast, who was tailor made for an up tempo system. Give me 7 guys with his defensive skill set. Now, granted, he was a high level recruit, but there are a lot of guys out there with similar athletic make up who you can use.
As I said at the beginning, if I had to do it over, I wish I’d taken the advice of some people and taken my career a different way. As you can tell, I’ve spent a time thinking about this and it’s fun to think how things might have turned out differently. In the mean time, I think about college basketball and wonder why some of these midlevel programs don’t roll the dice and give this style a shot. Are you going to win a national championship playing this style? No, you’ll become exposed playing the top schools (but you're not going to win a championship anyway....), but in the right situation, you could be consistently successful, and you’d be entertaining as hell to watch. I guarantee you, teams would dread playing you.
And yes, in case you're wondering, the title is from Dr. Strangelove!
Bill
No comments:
Post a Comment