Sunday, July 10, 2022

Imagine the Possibilities - Short Video Inspiration and an Accountability Moment

Social media posts leave love-hate relationships. This brief post from a 3-on-3 tournament showed great options.  



Great timing and execution. 


Here's a different option that UCONN ran for Kia Nurse. 

An Accountability Moment. 

There's a meme going around bemoaning current players. My accountability definition goes, "to hold ourself to a high standard." Borrowing from Extreme Ownership, "the leader owns everything in our world." 
If it's true, when it's true, WE OWN IT. Point by point, with brevity. 

1. Over dribble - I taught my daughters, "if you can't do it in two dribbles, you can't do it." Not exactly, because I trained one of the 5'11 1/2" twins as a point guard to teach her to pass. She was the second best passer on her team. The best (Shey Peddy) plays in the WNBA. By the team you get to high school, score on one dribble from the three-point line. 

2. Don't swing the ball. Kirby Scheff tracked that getting a paint touch and ball reversal has over a fifty percent chance of a score. Give the defense a chance to screw up. 

3. Nobody plays defense. Is it technical, tactical, physical, psychological or multiple issues? Play 'live' shell drill daily. Promise to start your best defensive player. 


Dinosaur days (1973). "Get after it." If you play hard, you'll get on the floor. Bad competition? Our league had two NBA first round draft choices back then - Ron Lee (Oregon), Bob Bigelow (Penn). I took two charges against Lee in one game, which might explain some things...

4. Everybody is cool. Warming up with $300 Beats headphones? Maybe I'm envious. That's on me. I don't care about your hairstyle, tights, or style IF you're a winning player. 

5. The Mid-range. "If we don't teach it, they won't come" to paraphrase. If we're working players on box drills and the wing series, they'll have a mid-range. I had one team so small we'd get most inside shots blocked, so 'necessity' made them learn the mid-range. 

6. No teaching. WE OWN THAT. Yes, I know they have AAU and club teams, too. But it's on us to grind with the work product and film clips making the teaching points. There is no greater indictment of coaches who point fingers...at themselves! 

7. No spacing. Chuck Daly reminded everyone, "Spacing is offense and offense is spacing." Again, this is self-correction. Geno Auriemma pointed out the value of having eight high school All-Americans..."if you don't do it, I'll find somebody else who will."

My teams weren't perfect and a lot of them weren't excellent. I own that. But one former player goes to Illinois this summer and another has been All-Scholastic twice and might exceed the former in the next two years. 

Own our world. 

Lagniappe. Got arc? 

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