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Saturday, October 4, 2025

Basketball and Volleyball - Coaching Is Teaching

Doug Lemov’s The Coach’s Guide to Teaching refines one point - coaching is teaching. The best coaches don't run drills; they shape how players think, learn, react, and remember. Here are six lessons from his work, applied to basketball, with parallels to the volleyball court.

1. Attention Is the Starting Point

"Start with the end in mind." In basketball, Mike Krzyzewski demanded laser focus even on simple warm-ups. If attention slips during a passing drill, it will vanish under full-court pressure.

Volleyball parallel: attention to detail matters in serve-receive. If an athlete lets their platform angle wander or their eyes follow the scoreboard, the point is gone. Coaches build habits of attention by demanding sharp posture and readiness on every ball, even in warm-up passing lines.

How much focus can you generate? Can you catch a tennis ball consistently on your platform?  When you can, then a volleyball should be easier. 

2. Memory Drives Learning

Wooden’s UCLA teams practiced fundamentals over and over with small variations—repetition without repetition. That way, players weren’t memorizing a drill; they were building recall they could use in different games.

Volleyball parallel: blocking schemes work the same way. You don’t just block line every day. You alternate line, cross, soft block, read the setter, then rotate. Spacing those situations out and revisiting them builds memory under pressure. When the big outside goes cross late in the set, your middle recalls the footwork instantly.

3. Feedback Must Be Precise and Manageable

Brad Stevens was known for his short, surgical adjustments: “Force baseline here.” One cue, not a lecture. Brian McCormick reminds coaches - no lines, no laps, no lectures. 

Volleyball parallel: instead of stopping play to correct everything—“get lower, move sooner, watch the hitter’s shoulder”—pick one cue: “late hands” or “beat her to the spot.” Give players something they can act on right away. Volleyball moves too quickly for paragraphs of feedback.

4. Transfer Matters More Than Drill Mastery

Geno Auriemma ends UConn drills with chaos: fatigue, pressure, contact. He knows perfect free throws in silence don’t win games—transfer under stress does.

Volleyball parallel: perfect hitting lines against no block don’t tell you much. Can your outside score after a long rally when the block is set and the defense is waiting? That’s transfer. Game-like reps—transition swings, serve under pressure, digging in long rallies—are what stick when it matters most.

5. Culture Shapes Learning

The 2008 Celtics lived by Ubuntu: trust and unselfishness. Mistakes were allowed, effort was required. 

Volleyball parallel: a team that embraces errors as learning grows faster. If players realize a missed serve but bear down on the next rep, they build resilience. Coaches set the tone—effort and communication must be non-negotiable. In volleyball, where trust in coverage and defensive responsibility is everything, culture is performance.

6. Teaching Is Deliberate, Not Accidental

Wooden scripted practices down to the minute. Nothing was left to chance—every rep carried a teaching point.

Volleyball parallel: the best practices don’t just run six-on-six for 45 minutes. They script: footwork warm-up, serve-receive with feedback, transition defense, then pressure scrimmage. Each piece builds on the next. Great coaches teach deliberately.

Basketball and volleyball look different on the surface—one has a hoop, the other a net. But both are our teaching laboratories. Attention, feedback, transfer, culture, and deliberate practice aren’t just buzzwords—they’re the lifeblood of how athletes learn.

Coaching is teaching. Teaching well is how you build not just good teams, but sustainable teams. 

Lagniappe. Self-talk is a separator. 

Lagniappe 2. Coaches celebrate the success of our players. A former player graduates from veterinary school in a few months and will return to the area.  

Lagniappe 3. Exceptional coaches inform special preparation. 

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