Establish an identity of togetherness, tempo, and toughness. Opponents can't enjoy seeing us on the schedule. Make it, "welcome to your nightmare."
Restructure, refine, restate. How will we become our best? Avoid platitudes. Specify realistic paths. Be good at what we do a lot. Clarify and simplify. We're playing man defense in a developmental program. Pressure on, help away.
1. Contain the ball. Nose on the ball. Move your feet. Hand discipline. Without containment, penetration forces help, rotation, and recovery. It creates speed or size mismatches, closeouts, and fouling. Win the one-on-one battles through aggression without fouling. It begins with mindset.
2. Connect and communicate. A new season means rebuilding culture. We have to care more about each other and for each other. "Silent teams lose." Even great NBA team defenses make mistakes costing buckets of points EVERY game. Consistent talk begins in tryouts.
3. Move the ball better. Reverse the ball, get paint touches, attack and force defensive errors. "Movement kills defenses."
4. Get higher quality shots. The Carrilian principle applies, "the quality of the shot relates to the quality of passing." Take care of the ball and get our shots from our spots. Open 3s will be okay for those who can. We can't have box score heroes, shot hunters, or "my turn" shots. Turn the shot clock in your head off with Newell and Bilas rules. "Get more and better shots than our opponents" and "it's not your shot, it's our shot."
Lagniappe: "Statistics are for losers." Okay, bad teams have bad statistics.
NCAA men's team assist to turnover ratios: Virginia won a title. Belmont was 27-6. Remember the musical Camelot, "if charity means giving, I give it to you." Don't give the ball away.
Lagniappe 2: Become more.
