What made the top teams you faced so good? "Mature simplicity" of Don Meyer...
The best teams are detail-oriented, on the same page. They make it clear early how they intend to win and their plan to wear you down. In crunch time, they make the right reads and execute. Poorer teams lack the direction, skill, or will to compete. It takes precious little time to identify the hunter and the prey.
1) Movement. "Movement kills defenses." We played a team that executed pass and cut offense well. If we overplayed, they cut back door or screened. If we played off, they set up cuts and front cut with quickness. They passed unselfishly and accurately, on time and on target. Our defense wasn't excellent but their offense made us look worse.
2) Ball pressure, ball containment. We played a youth eighth grade team a decade ago on a Saturday morning. They got up on our girls without fouling. Their defensive attack mentality allowed no "dead man's defense" (six feet under). They made us work for everything. They made it a long morning for us.
3) Talk. Communication activates teammates. Talk intimidates.
4) Make the simple plays. Coach Ed Beattie's Winnecunnet High School won five consecutive New Hampshire championships and schooled our league champions in a Christmas tournament. There was no trickery. They spaced, cut, and raced the lanes in transition. Pick-and-rolls, pass and cut, pass and screen away are hard to defend when players cut urgently.
New Hampshire allowed year round coaching. They finished each practice with each player making two consecutive free throws as a team (i.e. 22 consecutive free throws). At one point, I heard they had graduated nine high school All-Americans. They were a machine.
5) The best teams don't beat themselves. They value the ball and waste fewer possessions. They understand Pete Carril's wisdom, "the quality of the shot relates to the quality of the pass." Poor teams take poorer shots, don't pass well, and make bad decisions leading to turnovers.
A vast divide lies between know that and know how. Excellence in coaching, commitment, competitive players, repetitions, and time are hard targets. Remember the success equation - ACHIEVEMENT = SKILL x TIME.
Lagniappe. Research literally means re-search. Naismith didn't invent the game yesterday. In 1942, Clair Bee authored Man-to-Man Defense and Attack. In Chapter 3, he wrote, "The use of the screen-switch, therefore, became important and defensive confusion was avoided by switching on all screening plays, whether inside or outside." Coaches didn't invent switch everything and positionless basketball yesterday.
Lagniappe 2. Smart on Success, Sustainability, Simplicity. (repost of complete notes here)
"We ran four things." Sustainability follows player development. (I can help players improve, but the few elite players separate themselves.)
Lagniappe 3. FastModel ramps up their YouTube presence with a Gonzaga BOB from a 4 low set. 4 low sets offer numerous possibilities, sometimes the least expected of which is an open opposite corner 3.
Lagniappe 4. What's more productive, making your first stringers 10 percent better or your reserves 40 percent better? Seth Godin gives examples of the power of laggards. If NBA starters scored 80 points and reserves 30 points per game, increasing the former 10 percent adds 8 points. But increasing the latter adds 12.
Lagniappe 5. Improving your offense, drill from Coach Giesbrecht. We've run versions of this.