Hi Coach,

Think about the best coaches you coach against. I probably haven’t seen the teams
play that you thought about, but without watching them play, I’ll bet you two things:
1. You can clearly see an attention to detail in the way their teams execute,
And,
2. Their teams improve steadily game by game over the course of the season.
Here’s what Hall of Fame Football Coach Bill Wash said about improvement in his
Standard of Performance for his coaching staff:
“Honor the direct connection between details and improvement, and
relentlessly seek the latter.”
To be able to make that continual improvement, and to teach those details to your
players, you have to make a commitment to having great practices day after day after
day all season long.
That is why I believe that the four areas that you must consciously work to influence
your team are:
1. Attention to Detail—your staff must coach the little things minute by minute all
year. Every coach teaches details, the great ones emphasize the details. Brad
Stevens believes that “When considering the consequences of not doing the little
things, you realize there are no little things.”

2. Having Gr-r-reat! Practices—It is so true that coaches win practices so that

players can win games. You win a practice as a coach by getting everyone involved
to PRACTICE WITH THE TECHNIQUE, INTENSITY, TOUGHNESS, AND
TOGETHERNESS OF A NATIONAL OR STATE CHAMPION.

3. Mental Toughness "To play the inner game is not really a matter of choice—it is
always going on and it is played in various outer games. The only two questions are
whether we are playing it consciously and whether we are winning or losing.” W.
Timothy Gallwey. Your job as a coach is to get your team to play it consciously and play
it to win!

4. Performing under pressure--winning the special situations battle. The teams

that are the hardest to beat out-perform their opponents in the phase known as
“Special Situations.” Not because they “think the game” any better or because
their coaches are better at drawing up plays in the huddle. The teams that
consistently win the special situations do so because their coaches have a plan
and their players have rehearsed those plans over and over in practice.
These are the Building Blocks for any successful program. The remainder of this
ebook will give you a few pieces of the foundation of the Building Blocks.
#1 You must practice with the mindset
and manor of a Champion
You don’t have to win a championship to be a Champion

H aving the right frame of mind is what separates the programs with great practices
from all of the others. By whatever means you can, indelibly etch the following
saying into the minds of your players:

EVERY TIME WE TAKE THE FLOOR, WE PRACTICE AND PLAY WITH

THE TECHNIQUE, INTENSITY,
TOUGHNESS, AND TOGETHERNESS OF
"I have no individual goals. We
A STATE (OR NATIONAL) CHAMPION.
play for one reason and that's to
win the title. Practice is more
1. Everyone in the program must believe that
important than the games, and I
championship level practices every single
will practice when I'm hurt,
day of the season are the key to success on
when 95 percent of the players in
game day. If they do not demonstrate that
this league would sit out. I expect
belief, then you must continue working to
all of you to do the same thing.
convince them that is true. Then
You will follow my lead."...to the
collectively, the team members must roll
Chicago Bulls. And follow they
up their sleeves daily and make that vision
did.
a reality. For practice to impact your win-
loss record, the players must agree to be --Michael Jordan
and want to be held accountable to and be
coached to the highest standards in your
class. Certainly, there is no way to measure what your competition is doing in
practice. However, if the coach and the players have the mindset that your
program’s standards for intensity, execution, toughness, and togetherness are those
of a state champion, and you go to work every day to earn the right to feel that
you are succeeding, your practices will be exceptionally productive. Your players
must believe that the coaches are not helping them if they allow anything less than
the championship level.

2. Hard work is merely the price of admission into the competitive arena; it is no
guarantee of success. If it is not present, then you can’t even think about
competing. But, consistently doing the right things, in the right way, and in the
right frame of mind—all while working very hard—over an extended period of
time, can lead to success. Hard work is not a victory in and of itself; it must be
accompanied by technique and toughness. It is possible to be a hard worker with
poor technique and no toughness.

130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice

1
 "My passion is to coach and do 3.
Players must see and believe that the
things to the best of my ability. I coaching staff is eager and excited for
want our team to get better every practice every day. A coach’s
day at practice. If we can do that, enthusiasm for practice should be
the other stuff will take care of obvious to the players and assistant
itself." coaches. The coach’s enthusiasm
should be contagious. For practice to
be great everyone needs to be
-- Coach Mike Krzyzewski
enthusiastically involved. As
classroom teachers, it always amazes
us when we see and hear athletes
cheering in response to an announcement that their practice has been cancelled.
That is not the type of response that demonstrates an understanding of the
importance of high quality practices.

4. Players will do in the games by habit what they learn, rehearse, and are held
accountable for in practice. If a coach allows cutting corners in practice, that is
what s/he will get in games. Don Meyer says that coaches can be demanding
without being demeaning. We believe that type of interaction with players is
imperative to success. For example, we believe that placing the ball under your
chin after a rebound is an important fundamental. Therefore, in practice situations
we blow the whistle and call a turnover if a player falls to chin a rebound. By
consistently demanding that this fundamental be executed, you will begin to see it
occur more frequently. We want to create the mindset that doing things properly
leads to increased success.

5. The players’ goal for each practice should be to improve themselves for the good
of the team. A coach’s goal should be to instill that goal in the players and plan
practice to make it happen. Spend time making sure that your players see that as
their goal.

6. Everyone involved in your practices must know the expectations that you have as a
coach for the level of performance and effort. Frustration and conflict which lead
to team turmoil are always present when players individually and the team
collectively are being coached to a higher standard than they are currently able to
reach. The tension can be reduced greatly when everyone knows what the
expectations are and why those expectations are so high.

7. The practice court is a classroom. Practice is one of several classes that students
attend each day. Like all classes, the students should expect to be taught
something each day. Coaches should have clear objectives for the day and a well
planned lesson designed to help the players achieve those objectives.

130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice

2
 “Stop yelling, and start teaching.” 8. Coaches should enter practice
with the mindset that if players
are making mistakes, the reason
--Coach Bill Walsh
they are making mistakes is that
the coach has not taught them
properly. Coaches need to make
adjustments in how they are communicating their ideas. Yelling the same
instruction louder does not facilitate the teaching process. Coaches must believe
that everything that happens on the court happens as a result of their actions. A
good coach is like a good teacher. If the student is not learning, the teacher must
change the teaching methods.

9. Coaches must believe that they can win with their team, regardless of the team’s
shortcomings or perceived shortcomings. It does not matter whether the team is too
short, too slow, too inexperienced or lacking in basic skills. Coaches must believe
that they can overcome all obstacles placed in front of them. There are ways to
play when your team is too slow and too short. Young players can be taught and
skills can be practiced. If you do not believe that you can win, you will not.

10. Coaches must not accept excuses from themselves, their staff, or team members.
By making excuses for player or team failures, one relinquishes control of their
influence over the outcome.

11. Coaches should take pride in the design of their practices and players need to
develop pride in the way they practice. Pride is an attitude that separates excellence
from mediocrity. Mediocre practices produce mediocre results.

12. Plan your practice as if your career depends on it, because it does.

“Prepare for every practice like you

just lost your last game.”

--Coach Don Meyer

130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice

3
#2 Developing The Mental Toughness Edge

I n my twenty years of coaching

basketball, I have always strived
to emphasize and improve the
“To play the inner game is not really a
matter of choice--it is always going on and it
is played in various outer games. The only
mental toughness of each individual two questions are whether we are playing it
player in our program. I have been a consciously and whether we are winning or
student of mental toughness and have losing.”
attempted to apply the things I have
learned to my coaching career and to --W. Timothy Gallwey
all aspects of my life. I have made The Inner Game of Golf
mental toughness the main building
block of our basketball program. We
refer to the building blocks of our program in this manner:

1) Toughness

2) Individual Skills and Simple Schemes

3) The Winamac Way (the intangibles that want our program to stand for)

Due to the limited time that you have with your players, you must choose the few areas
that you are going to emphasize as your building blocks and work very hard to become
really good at those things. This e-book will focus on my beliefs and efforts to improve
my mental toughness as well as that of our players. I list “Toughness” as number one
among our building blocks because I feel that in the long run, you win with players and
coaches who:

1) Are willing to step out of their comfort zones to do what is necessary to

improve themselves for the good of the team.

2) Have enough self-discipline to consistently give great efforts day in and

day out, no matter how things are going.

3) Are stable enough to fight through the inevitable adversity that comes
during each game and during the course of the long basketball season.

4) Understand that the difference between successful and unsuccessful

individuals is often just the focus to do the little things that unsuccessful
people are not willing to do.

5) Can deliver when the competitive pressure of a game is at its hottest.

130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice

4
It is my opinion that those characteristics are not present in individuals who do
not possess a high degree of mental toughness.

To me, mental toughness is a fairly simple concept to express: Keep the mind focused on
thoughts and emotions that improve performance, and away from thoughts and emotions
that hinder performance. But, mental toughness is very difficult to master, apply, and
maintain. There are two distinct times when mental toughness comes into play in
building a basketball program. One is in training and preparing (can be individual skill
workouts, out of season conditioning workouts, or team practices) and the other is in the
competition of a game. It is my belief that being mentally tough in one of those areas
does not necessarily guarantee mental toughness in the other, so we have to develop both.

I have coached mentally tough players whose families had a lot of money. I have
coached mentally tough players whose families had nothing. I have coached mentally
tough players who were good students and those who were average students. Talented
players and “role” players. All Conference players and guys who played two or three
minutes a game. It doesn’t have to do with age. I have coached mentally tough freshmen
on the varsity. None of that matters. What does matter is the mindset of the individual
and his or her ability to maintain that mindset in the face of adversity.

To develop my own philosophy of and

“Mental Toughness (for basketball)
is the ability to control thoughts and
actions and maintain a focus on
what is important in a calm and
poised way.
Mental Toughness is a key to
improvement in both individual
skills and five player schemes, and
allows players to be able to execute
them during the pressure of
competition.”
methodology to teach mental toughness, I
have pulled ideas from various sources
that I have studied and from my personal
experience in working with basketball
players and teams. I have complied what I
have learned throughout my years of
studying mental toughness into this e-
book in hopes that it will give basketball
coaches a tool that is specific to our game
as you work to develop, nurture, and bring
out the mental toughness that is in your
players.

--Brian Williams I have used my definition of mental

toughness to organize the concepts in this
e-book:
In my way of thinking, any and all thoughts and emotions that players and coaches have
that can be harnessed, re-directed and improved to allow the individuals to contribute
more to the success of the team fall under the scope of mental toughness.

130 Great Ideas to Make Your Basketball Team More Mentally Tough

2
 130 Great Ideas to Make Your Basketball Team More Mentally Tough

Section #1 Beliefs about Mental Toughness

Your beliefs about Mental Toughness will influence your team’s level of Mental Toughness

I am of the opinion that our beliefs lead to our thoughts, our thoughts lead to our
habits and actions, and that our habits and actions lead to our results. I put my beliefs
on paper to be able to better examine what I do and to evaluate myself to see if my
actions are congruent with my beliefs. Following are my core beliefs about mental
toughness. They are the basis for the remainder of this book. I encourage you to make
your own list as a starting point to improving the mental toughness of your individuals
and your team as a whole.

1. Mental Toughness is essential to a player fulfilling her potential. There are

four aspects to anything that we do, including playing basketball: physical, mental,
emotional, and spiritual. In this case, I am not referring to the spiritual in the sense
of religious spirituality. My reference is to the sense of being aligned with
something greater than ourselves and the synergy that allows a group of individuals
to become a team that has a value that is greater than the sum of the individuals.
The four are dependent and interrelated and in order for a player to achieve her full
potential, each area must be developed fully and in harmony with the other three.
The mental has a major impact on the other three areas because the thoughts that
we think and allow to enter into our mind influence our physical energy, our
emotional equilibrium, and our willingness to surrender ourselves to and become a
part of the group. Much of the key to players increasing control of their bodies lies
in their ability to control their minds. Mental toughness allows us to keep our
thoughts focused on working towards achieving our potential in the other three
areas.

2. The level of Mental Toughness that is needed for it to make a difference in

competitive basketball does not develop naturally in the majority of players.
Coaches must emphasize, teach, and nurture it for players to make improvements
in the area of mental
“Mental toughness is not letting toughness. Like any other skill we
anyone break you.” teach, the more we think through
and plan specific strategies to teach
--Tom Izzo mental toughness, the more
successful we will be. The more
you emphasize it, praise it, correct it
when it doesn’t meet your expectations, and demand it (without being demeaning)
the more mental toughness you will see your players demonstrate. As coaches, we
don’t go into a season without a plan to teach shooting, dribbling, defense, etc...
We should also have a written plan for teaching mental toughness and be conscious

4
 130 Great Ideas to Make Your Basketball Team More Mentally Tough

of that plan as we are working with our teams. The more we plan and prepare to
teach toughness, the more we will develop it in our players. We have to be clear
about our definition of and expectations for mental toughness. As we evaluate the
performances of our individual players and our team collectively after each
practice and game, it is essential that we analyze and evaluate the level of mental
toughness that our players are developing and displaying and make adjustments in
our plan as we work with our teams.

3. The way to make a team more mentally tough is to improve the mental
toughness of the individual players. Developing individual mental toughness
leads to collective team improvement. It takes strong leadership, patience, and a
plan for a coach to develop mental toughness in his/her team. Players are going to
be at different levels of mental toughness, and some will never get to where you
want them to be. In addition to a team plan for mental toughness, we must have
individualized plans for each player to reach his potential. Discussions about
toughness with the entire team does make a difference with individual players, but
I believe that we are more successful by thinking and approaching the development
of mental toughness for each individual rather than only focusing on the team as a
whole.

4. Almost anyone can be as mentally tough as he or she wants to be. Not

everyone can be a great player, but anyone who is a competitive athlete can make a
commitment and then stick to that pledge to become more mentally tough.
Becoming mentally tough is a matter of making up your mind that you are going to
be tough, sticking with your decision, and not letting others influence you or keep
you from being tough.

It is easy to make a commitment to

make mental toughness a habit or “TGHT—The Game Honors
personal trait, but it is very tough to Toughness.”
stay on track and truly be mentally
tough. Like anything else, there --Coach Brad Stevens
will be times when the journey
toward toughness is one step up and two steps back. But, because I truly believe in
the importance of mental toughness for the success of a basketball team, and for
the present and future life success of the individuals involved, I believe it is worth
the time, the investment, and staying strong and supporting them during their
bumps in the road.

5. Mental toughness is a habit and will take as long as, if not longer than, any
other habit to build. It takes a minimum of 21 days to develop a habit. It has
been my experience that visible signs of improvement in the area of mental
toughness take quite a bit longer than that. Unfortunately, young people see more

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 130 Great Ideas to Make Your Basketball Team More Mentally Tough

examples of not being mentally tough than they do examples of others who are
mentally tough. Trash talking, excessive celebrating, complaining to officials, and
blaming others are just a few of the examples that our players frequently see of a
lack of toughness. Much of our society does not understand what mental
toughness is, nor are those actions viewed as a lack of toughness. Quite often, a
coach will be one of the few positive influences for mental toughness in the life of
a player, which contributes to the length of time it takes to improve mental
toughness.

6. Mental toughness must be taught and emphasized daily. I don’t mean that
there needs to be a big speech every day about mental toughness, but the
cornerstones and expectations for mental toughness must be there every day of the
season regardless of whether it is a practice or a game. The components of and the
outward manifestations of mental toughness such as concentration, poise,
unwavering confidence in oneself and one’s teammates, rituals, consistency of
effort, and positive body language can all be observed in every meeting, every
drill, every possession, and every huddle. To emphasize mental toughness,
someone on the coaching staff must be focused on observing those areas. If the
head coach is focused on execution sometimes some of those cues can escape her.
If that is the case, it is crucial to have another coach who is looking for, praising,
and correcting the subtle indicators of where your players are in terms of mental
toughness.

7. Style of play and personality of the coach have no bearing on the need for
mental toughness, or for whether or not a team displays toughness. For
whatever reason, teams that play more of a half court type of game seem to
develop the reputation as being mentally tough. Choosing, or more accurately,
being dictated a certain style of play by your personnel, is not going to have any
impact on the level of mental
“Concentration and Mental toughness of your players. You
Toughness are the margins of can play as fast or as slow as
victory.” you want, play any style of
offense and defense and the
--Bill Russell schemes themselves are not
going to make any impact on
the level of mental toughness of your players. The only way to impact your
players is to make it a point of emphasis for your program. Another misconception
is that you have to be a loud and demonstrative coach for your players to be
mentally tough. One example in recent history of a coach whose age and
demeanor would seem to preclude him from being Mentally Tough is Butler’s
Brad Stevens. He is very intense, but not overly demonstrative on the sidelines,
and the Butler players have consistently demonstrated mental toughness at the
highest levels of competition.

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 130 Great Ideas to Make Your Basketball Team More Mentally Tough

8. There is a difference between having a positive mental attitude and mental

toughness. Being a positive, upbeat person is not the same as being mentally
tough. Those traits can coexist within an
individual; however, mental toughness is not “Rule your mind or it will rule
only the ability to stay enthusiastic when you.”
things are not going the way you want, but it
is also the strength to make yourself better --Horace
and perform under pressure. Make sure to
not take it for granted that players who are positive people are mentally tough as
well. Work to develop the mental toughness of those players.

9. The coach must be the most mentally tough person on the team. The players
will reflect the coach in the area of mental toughness, maybe more than in any
other area. That is why I constantly work at and evaluate my own mental
toughness in addition to that of the assistant coaches and players in our program.
The coach should face more pressure than anyone else on the team. Depending
upon the level you coach, there are self imposed pressures, pressure to win,
pressure from boosters, pressure from parents, pressure to make strategic
decisions, and pressure to balance your life... The list of pressures a coach faces
seems endless.

In order to be the catalyst for mental toughness growth in our players, we have to
overcome the pressures we face and still be the driving force for the level of
mental toughness for the players. It is true that you can’t give something to
someone else that you don’t possess yourself. A coach who is lacking in mental
toughness will inhibit his players from being to

10. Everyone must make a conscious effort to work on and improve his or her
mental toughness daily. Every player has a role and pressures that are unique to
their position on the team—all the way from the All American player who is
counted on to make the game deciding plays from the opening tip to the final
buzzer, to the player who usually does not see action, but is expected to work hard
every single day at practice without much personal reward. A player seemingly at
the top of his game has to continue to become mentally tougher because of the
challenge of continuing to produce and the pressure that comes with that.
Winning teams and losing teams both need mental toughness, they just need it in
different ways and to deal with the different pressures that come with their
situation.

11. The state of body and mind that we want for our players is calm on the inside
and energized and alert on the outside. That is a difficult state to get to, but
that should be the goal of our preparation and practice that we put our players

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130 Great Ideas to Make Your Basketball Team More Mentally Tough

through. Developing mental toughness helps a player to be able to calm his mind,
which will allow him to be more alert and energized outwardly.

12. Adversity is one of the key

“The ultimate measure of a man
builders and tests of mental
is not where he stands in
toughness. Mental toughness
moments of comfort and
develops in part by being forced
convenience, but where he stands
to use the skills that go into
in times of challenge and
making mental toughness. Like
controversy.”
most things that we undertake,
we are not as good at
-- Dr. Martin Luther King
overcoming difficult
circumstances the first time that
we encounter them. So, one of the positives that can come out of any adversity is
the opportunity to build more mental toughness. In order to maximize your
mental toughness, you have to experience and be able to overcome a series of
adversities. The truly mentally tough individual rises to the top when things are
not going well. Anyone can appear to be tough when things are going well, but,
in my opinion, the true test of mental toughness is how an individual responds
during adversity.

8
 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

Introduction
One of the players I coached (who went into coaching himself) said that he thought that
one of the things he liked best about our program was the emphasis that we placed on the
little things, that when all pieced together made a difference in what our players got out
of the program and how we played during games. This book contains ideas that I have
gathered over the years from various other
“Education is what remains after coaches and implemented into our program
everything that was learned has to make those small changes that when
been forgotten.” strung together, make a huge impact. I hope
that you will find some ideas that will
--Unknown
become habits for your players that lead to
more success.

The theme behind this book is that these are ideas can be implemented immediately and
that will have an immediate impact on your program and will continue to pay dividends
as long as you continue to implement, teach, and follow up on them. You don’t have to
use all of them, but the more you can incorporate and the more quickly that you can
incorporate them, the better results you will see.

I have broken the roles of a coach into 6 categories and have used that outline to make
sure that I am allocating my time and efforts appropriately. Those roles are:

1) Implement your philosophy and organization in every area of the program

2) Develop the individual players’ life skills, basketball skills, and mental toughness
3) Select your program’s personnel—assistants, players, managers, assign roles to
them and keep them productive in those roles
4) Develop a team by implementing systems of play that take advantage of your
players strengths and doing intentional team building
5) Initiate professional development for the coaching staff
6) Promote the program in your school and/or community

I have used these roles to divide my 130 ideas into 6 sections to provide more clarity and
organization. The cliché we all hear at clinics is that “if you get one thing from the
presentation it is worth it.” My hope is that you get many ideas that you find useful from
this list! Consistently following through on the ideas is what will make the difference.
It’s not what you know and teach, it’s what you emphasize and accept over and over, day
in and day out that will make the difference for your team.

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

This book is not meant to be all encompassing, but rather is a list of some small things
that I feel have helped our program and can be useful to yours as well!

Role #1 Program Philosophy and Organization

Implement your philosophy in every area of the program

To me, this is the first step in developing your program because it gives direction and
purpose for everyone involved. My belief is that individual player development (both
mental toughness and basketball skills) and what you are able to accomplish in practice
are the keys to the success of your team. I have listed philosophy and organization as the
#1 role for a coach because you need to have goals, a direction, high expectations, and a
system for their evaluation for those areas before you can make any progress.

Here are some ideas regarding establishing and instilling your philosophy that you can
implement immediately.

1. Establish a lifelong relationship with each participant that cannot be broken. This is
a Thad Matta idea. We put that in writing as the number one goal for our coaching staff
and it guides and directs everything that we do in our program. I am not saying that it
should be everyone’s number one goal, but I believe that each program should have a
most important goal in writing and that all of your coaches know by heart what the
purpose of your program is. Even if this is not your number one goal, I feel that it should
be very high on your priority list.

2. Have a goal for your participants (players and managers): Ours is: “Each of you has
your most rewarding season of your basketball career.” That goal is prominently
displayed in the locker room and it means to me that everyone on this year’s team,
regardless of past success, has a new role and must contribute more this year than ever
before. Even a player who started every game on a state champion team last year has
new challenges to face this year in order to make this year’s season their most rewarding.

3. Have a purpose every time you take the floor... We have a sign over the door leading
from our locker room to the floor that is the last thing the players see as they go out for
practice or for a game that says:

EVERY TIME WE TAKE THE FLOOR, WE PRACTICE AND PLAY

WITH THE TECHNIQUE, INTENSITY, TOUGHNESS, AND
TOGETHERNESS OF A STATE CHAMPION.

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

There is no way to measure those goals, but we all know what doesn’t meet those criteria.
I believe that it helps us to be able to ask during practice—is this a state champion’s
effort? It leaves little doubt as to the type of standards we have for our practices.

4. Be reliable, but not predictable. As coaches, we all need to find ways to stay away from
predictability with our teams, day to day during the season, and year to year over the
course of a player's career. Hold meetings in different places, do different drills at
different spots on the floor, have the first team wear a different color scrimmage jersey
than normal, make variations in your drills, change the order of the segments in practice--
work on offense first, if you normally do defense first, change the locker room's postings
or setup, etc...

Those small variations help keep things fresh for your players. Doing something
differently will increase their attention with the new stimulus. We can still be reliable in
what we emphasize, expect, and stand for, but we need to find new ways to engage our
players' concentration and awareness.

5. Emphasize execution, not baskets. It is important to have a standard for offensive and
defensive execution and effort, not just baskets on offense or stops on defense. If you are
scrimmaging against your second unit or JV, you can score or stop them without the
execution that you will need on game night against another team's first unit.

The standard in practice must be, and your players need to be sold on why that is
important, what it takes to win on game night, not what it takes to defeat your second
team.

6. Conduct a parent meeting and open

practice. The coach/parent relationship is “It takes a village to raise a child.”
extremely important, and as we all know, is
one of the most difficult parts of coaching. I --Unknown
believe that holding a pre-season parent
meeting will help to communicate with the
parents in mass in a non-confrontational way. After our meeting, we open the practice to
parents to watch.

The agenda that I have used for our parent meetings is outlined on the next two pages:

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

We start off with this quote from Lou Holtz

Our coaching staff agrees with

Coach Holtz, but… I don't think coaching is about making a
million dollars a year. I don't think coaching
is about winning championships. I don't
WE ALREADY ARE AT A
think coaching is about going to a great school.
GREAT SCHOOL! I think coaching is about helping young people
have a chance to succeed. There is no more
1. Thank you for your
awesome responsibility than that. I think one
attendance and for dealing
of the greatest honors a person can have is to
with our practice times
be called ‘Coach.’ ”
throughout the year—there
are seven different practice —Lou Holtz
times and game schedules
being played right now.
2. Coaching Staff and attendance for information purpose.
3. Goal #1 for coaches: Establish a life—long relationship with each participant that
cannot be broken.
Goal #2 for coaches: Assist in the development of all aspects of the life of the
participants.
Goal #1 for participants: Have the most rewarding basketball season of his/her
career.
4. Cost to parents--Shooting Shirt, Beige Slacks, White Dress Shirt, Shoes, Practice
gear
5. Relationship of coach and parents
A. I look forward to a friendly, professional, and productive relationship with
every parent.
B. Roles—Play, coach, officiate, support
C. Please be supportive—“Listen to your coaches about basketball” is the best
advice to give. I have an entire program to consider. Over 100 students in
grades 5-12.
D. Notebook—please look at your son/daughter’s notebook
--Phone tree will be provided
--Helps you with our philosophy
E. Playing time—Coach’s decision and is not negotiable
F. Role in program or program Level—Coach’s decision and not negotiable
G. Strategy—Coach’s decision and not negotiable
H. I will not discuss other players with parents
I. I will talk to you about any other area that can help your son
J. Please support our priorities—again, please see your player’s notebooks

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

K. Follow chain of command. If your son has a concern that he shares with you,
please ask him if he has spoken to the coach about it. We would appreciate
your son extending us the courtesy of seeing the coach he has a concern with
first. I am not perfect, but I am the coach and it is my job to deal with any
problem that affects the program. I would appreciate hearing concerns
directly from your son.
L. Parents may attend practice. However, it is the opinion of our coaching staff
that it is not in the best interest of your son to do so.
6. Web Site Waiver, Prospect Sheet, Code of Conduct
7. Web Site, E-mails
8. T-shirts and sweats
9. Question and answer
10. Food for away games
Varsity and Junior Varsity (Need volunteers)
Freshman Games (Need volunteers)
Other ideas--signs, buttons, pictures, having the team over to your home Please
follow our priorities if the players are at your home
11. Locker room tour for parents and watch practice

7. Try it, you’ll like it. I have always believed in experimenting with something new in
basketball practice a couple of times a week for no more than 10 minutes of practice
time. Early in the season we usually try
“All life is an experiment. The something new every day. I am not suggesting
more experiments you make, the that you experiment with revamping your
better.” philosophies and core values of your program,
--Ralph Waldo Emerson but am suggesting to think about experimenting
with your personnel early in the season to be able
to get the right players in the right situations, and
as a way to add some variety to keep the players interest and attention late in the season.

Even during the years where we have had "everyone back" I still felt that they were not
the same players that they were last year. At least I hoped that they weren't because I
wanted to improve on last year's record not repeat it. So, I spent some time learning
where they had grown and where they still needed to get better.

When I pick up new drills during the off-season or improvements to our offensive and
defense systems, I like to put them in early season practices to see if they do fit with our
personnel. I certainly believe in constantly working to improve as a coach, but regardless
of how well something works for another program, it might not work for you, so I think it
is good to put something in and work on it a few times before deciding if it is for us. It is

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

possible that I did not get the whole story of how something works if I saw it at a clinic or
on a DVD.

For example, a few years ago, I saw a very “A fool is a man who has never tried
successful coach who always produced great
shooters say at a clinic that they did their an experiment in his life.”
shooting drills at the end of practice so that
--Erasmus Darwin
they could shoot when they were tired. That
made a lot of sense to me. We tried it in our
early practices and our players did not like it.
They liked our shooting progression early in the practice and felt that it helped them to
"groove" their shots for the rest of the practice. So, we tweaked it and did our shooting
fundamentals early and did some game pace drills late to try and get the best of both
worlds. That team ended up being the highest field goal percentage team that I have
coached, so I am glad that I experimented with it, told them what and why I was giving it
a test run, and then listened to their input.

Early in the season, I think it is important to do some experimenting with what spots you
put players in against presses and traps, who inbounds the ball, who inbounds the ball for
a game winning shot, who takes the shots at the end of quarters, what shots each player
can make in a scrimmage, and any other crucial personnel decisions that we need to
make. Usually, I don't change my mind as to who needs to fill each role and what they
can do, but there are times when I have made some decisions that I feel have made us
better by putting players in different positions. Many times it is not the new role that you
put someone in, but it becomes how that trickles down to filling their previous spot and
what role changes would take place for the rest of our players that is the deciding factor
in to change or not to change.

We have always been a motion program with a handful of set plays that we feel fit our
players for that year. Early in the year we experiment with our plays to see what works
for this group and what doesn't so that we can pare down the number that we will use. As
the season wears on, we also tweak what we run as we see how we are being defended
and if our personnel changes due to injuries or adjustments in our lineup.

Since basketball is a long season, I like to look for new drills that drill the same concepts
as the season moves into January and February. Not major, complex changes, but
something that can be explained quickly and doesn't eat up a lot of practice time. I think
it helps maintain the attention of the players as they have something new to think about
rather than going through the same things in the same way time after time.

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

I do not believe in taking major portions of the practice to experiment. Ten minutes max
every day the first couple weeks of practice and then ten minutes once or twice a week
after that. I don't want change for change sake, but I also want to always be looking for
new ideas and new ways to do things better that will improve our program.

8. Water or Gasoline? John Maxwell writes and speaks to leaders in all walks of life. One
of his ideas is that as a leader, we carry two buckets every time we go to put out a fire--
one contains gasoline, the other contains
“Don’t wrestle with the pigs. You water. If we choose to make the situation a
both get mud on you and the pigs personal confrontation, blow it out of
like it.” proportion, immediately seek to make it a
win-lose, place blame, or mishandle it in
--Unknown
any other number of ways, we are pouring
gasoline on the fire. If we choose to use
our bucket of water to de-escalate the problem, we are improving our ability to
effectively handle the current situation and also building our skills to handle the next one.
John's message is for us simply to be consciously aware of which bucket we are using
and the affect is has on our ability to lead.

9. Stay in touch with former players. I coached at Winamac High School in Indiana from
1999 until 2003 and we had a reunion of our teams including players, coaches, managers,
parents, administrators, and support staff such as our bus driver, scorekeeper, athletic
secretary, etc… and anyone who wanted to bring girlfriends, wives, or children was
welcome to.

We didn’t organize any activities (at least I thought we didn’t) other than a cookout
lunch. On the invitation, we invited everyone to bring Frisbees, corn hole games, and the
like. I didn’t know they were going to do it, but the players and some of the assistant
coaches put out the word to bring shorts and shoes to play some pickup games on the
outdoor court that was right by the pavilion we had reserved. It was fun to see them
playing together again. I know they enjoyed it too.

It really wasn’t that difficult or expensive to put together. I started working on it about six
months before we had it. Working with my wife, the assistant coaches, and our AD, we
reserved the best pavilion in the park which was right next to the playground for the
young children, close to the restrooms, and close to the basketball court.

Using e-mail invitations, facebook, and free cell phone long distance, it was very
inexpensive to contact everyone that I needed to get hold of. We made it a pitch in and
that made the food prep easy. It fit right in with our number one goal of establishing a
lifelong relationship with the participants that cannot be broken. I had as much fun

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

getting in touch with them as I did seeing them in person. I am glad I did it and am
looking forward to the next one.

10. Have a theme for the season. One way to develop a team identity is to have a theme for
the season that is unique to this year’s group and appropriate for the current season. For
example, after graduating all five starters from a sectional championship team, our theme
was “building a new wall.” The idea was that we needed to build a solid wall for
ourselves by improving every day in order to have a chance to win the post-season
sectional tournament again. We made a poster of a wall of bricks—one brick for every
practice and game—up to the state finals. Every day we decided as a group if we had
improved and could color in a brick or not. A couple of times we felt that we went
backwards and whited out the already colored in bricks. After our first game, we added
two bricks, even though we lost, because we had several players give varsity efforts who
had never played in a varsity game before. It was not the most creative idea ever, but it
was a visual representation that we were building our individuals and teams a day at a
time and that every brick counted to make the wall—and it was unique and appropriate
for that team.

11. Have a player’s notebook. To me, the importance of a player’s notebook is that you can
have your program rules and expectations in writing. It helps document to your players,
which in turn helps with parents and administration. Encourage the players to share their
notebooks with their parents. After you have your team rules, expectations, etc… it is up
to you as to how you use it after that. You can use it for your plays, schemes, individual
workout charts, scouting reports, post game evaluation handouts, motivational
information, bus time, and anything else that you feel is important. I like to use 3 ring
binders in order to be able to add to it as the season unfolds rather than giving it out at the
beginning of the year and not adding to it after that.

12. Have statistical goals in writing, visible,

and on everyone’s mind. The purpose of “If what you are doing is not moving
having goals is to offer direction. Studies you towards your goals, then it is
have shown time and time again that people moving you away from them.”
with written goals that they refer to daily are
more successful than those who don’t. Just --Brian Tracy
by knowing the goals, it will change the way
your players play. Having specific and
measurable goals definitely changes efforts and purpose. The goals need to be
meaningful, be areas that will have an impact on the outcomes of games, and be
something that influence what and how you practice and the way you play in games.
They must fit your team that year. For example, if you want to be a team that gets to the

www.coachingtoolbox.net --Your Resource for Basketball Success!

8
 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

free throw line a lot, you could set a goal of getting the ball into the lane on the drive or
on the pass on 2/3 of your possessions each quarter and during each practice scrimmage
segment. If that is a goal, then it needs to be emphasized constantly. That is why it is
important to stay with 3 to 5 goals and that it is imperative to have goals that will make a
difference in your games.

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 130 Winning Special Situations

This document contains 13 sample ideas from the Coaching Toolbox’s eBook

“130 Winning Special Situations”

Automatic Situations. There are some situations that we call AUTOMATIC

20 SITUATIONS. We make these decisions at the start of the season based on

our philosophy and our players’ skills. We teach them to the players and then
practice them frequently so that they become reactions. Automatic Situations
eliminate decisions players have to make under pressure. They also eliminate confusion
in communication. I remind players of our automatics during the game, but it is not
something they are hearing for the first time. During the course of this e-book, I have
noted which situations are automatic and do not have to be called as AUTOMATIC.

Coach’s Call Situations. I have also noted which situations are not automatic
21 for the players and will be called from the bench. It is important that your
players know the difference between the two. I have denoted these situations
in the remainder of the book as COACH’S CALL

Shortening the game. There are times when it is to your advantage to

28 shorten the game, even if you are not in the lead. There have been times
when I have held the ball early in the game (no shot clock) even when we
were behind.

I have two ways to shorten the game. One is by running our normal offense, but calling
“4” (no shots other than layups), or I can run our delay game. In this case, we would call
“attack 4” meaning that we are looking to get backdoor layups and drives for layups out
of our delay set. Here are three situations to consider taking time off the clock:
COACH’S CALL

#1 To combat foul trouble if you do not have a shot clock and don’t have a
lot of depth. Take time off the clock while your best players or scorers are
on the bench to keep your opponent from having the advantage of you
playing without your best players.

#2 If your team is playing too fast. I can think of two occassions that we
had dug ourselves a double digit deficit in the first half by playing too fast.
In both cases, my attempt to get the pace more to our advantage was to go
into our delay and attack 4. One of the games we came back to win, the
other we lost in triple overtime to an athletically superior opponent.

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 130 Winning Special Situations

#3 You are playing an opponent whose style of play is a much faster

tempo than yours. You can use the “Milk a Minute” concept in #72 of this
ebook at any time during the game. When I know that we are going to
play that way against a particular opponent, we put 30 seconds on the
clock for each possession in the practices leading up to the game. We run
nothing but a layup (our call is “4”) until the horn sounds signaling that
the 30 seconds has expired, then run our normal offense. That simulates
what we need to do on game night. In these types of games, the football
stat “Time of Possession” applies.

Inbound ball in dead corners full court. The

30 diagram at the right shows a play to run to get

the ball in if you have to go full court and are
being pressed on a dead corner spot inbound.
This is a situation that does not come up very often, but as
Murphy’s Law tells us--if you aren’t prepared, it will
definitely happen at the end of tight game. I am not
implying that this is the only play to run. I am saying that
you need to have a play that works for your personnel.
AUTOMATIC

Break away layups. Giving up layups in transition hurts on the scoreboard,

48 but it hurts in other ways too. For one thing, it is a huge momentum shifter
away from your team and to your opponent.

One way to throw even more momentum their way is by making the mistake of giving up
a conventional three point play with a basket and a free
throw.

It is instinctive that players want to try to block a layup

by swinging at the ball which almost always leads to a
foul. It is critical to teach your players to not allow the
three point play.

My belief is either to let the layup go or to foul in a way

(never by being dirty or being called intentional) that they
can't get the shot off and must make two free throws.

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 130 Winning Special Situations

The only way that I can tolerate giving up a basket and a foul is when our player is
attempting to draw a charge and is called for blocking. That I can live with because if we
get the call that takes away a transition basket from them, that is a huge momentum
shifter our way. AUTOMATIC

Force the ball to the sideline in

52 defensive conversion at the end

of the quarter. We force the ball
to the sidelines in conversion
defense and in the half court as well with less
than five seconds to go in the quarter. That
will lessen the likelihood of a player banking
in a long shot if their momentum is going
sideways rather than head on. It also gives us
a better idea of where the rebound will go.
The percentages show that it will rebound on
the opposite side from where it was shot most
frequently. AUTOMATIC

56 Last shot of quarter play vs. 2-3

zone. Here is the play that I like to
run at the end of thest, 12nd, and
3rd quarters against a 2-3 zone. I call it
overload. AUTOMATIC

There are four parts to the diagram. Parts 2-4 is on the next page.

#1 passes to #3 to shift the defense.

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130 Winning Special Situations

#3 passes back to #1 and cuts toward the

basket

#5 slides over on top of #4

#3 continues his cut to the corner.

As the cut is taking place, #1 reverses

the ball to #2

#2 passes to #3 as he arrives in the

corner

#5 screens the middle defender in the

zone to allow 4 to pop to a 12 foot 45
degree cut

#3 passes to #4 for the shot

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 130 Winning Special Situations

When do you put one of your best players back in with 4 fouls? The

67 traditional thinking is that a coach should remove a player, particularly if that

player is one of the team’s best players; when he or she is 1 foul from fouling
out of the game. The coach’s decisions then become, “When do I put the
player back in the game for good?” or “Do I substitute on offense and defense to try to
get some use out of the player.”

I have always felt that it is better to put a player back in too soon and have him foul out
than to keep him on the bench too long and feel (after the game is over) that I should
have put him back in sooner. If he fouls out, then at least I know that I got every second
out of him that I could have. If he finishes up with four
fouls, then I wonder how much more time he could have
played before fouling out rather than wasting on the bench.

A study analyzed approximately 5000 NBA games from

2006 to 2010. (The source of the study is the book
“Scorecasting.”)

The study used the plus/minus statistic (How much did the
team win or lose by when that player was in the game. If
the team outscored the opponent by 9 points while that
player was in, the player’s plus/minus score is +9) to
determine the value of a player to his team. “Non-star”
players had an average plus/minus of 2 points lower in 4th
quarter of a game than during thest quarter
1 of a game.

“Star” players (Made the All Star Team or All NBA team), plus/minus rating is only .17
points lower in the th4 quarter than in the st1quarter.

Comparing “stars” (minus .17 plus/minus in the 4th quarter) to “non-stars” (minus 2.0
plus/minus points in theth 4quarter), it is clear that replacing a star with a non-star is
definitely puts that team at a disadvantage.

The argument can be made that if a player fouls out, he or she is not around for the last
plays of the game. My philosophy is that every possession of the game should be valued
in the same way that the last possession is. I would rather have my best players for three
quarters of the possessions in the fourth quarter (example 24 of the 32 possessions
counting both offensive and defensive possessions) and not for the last play than for 12 of
the 32 possessions and have him for the last play.

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 130 Winning Special Situations

Two other pieces of data from the Scorecasting study are that: 1) A player with five fouls,
will foul out 21% of the time in the NBA. 2) Leaving a “star” player with 5 fouls in the
game rather than putting him on the bench improve the team’s chances of winning by
12%. So, you have pretty good odds that a player will not foul out and you are improving
your chances of winning by leaving him or her in the game.

Some coaches feel that when leaving a player in the game with four fouls they might not
play hard on defense. Our expectation for the entire game is that “Players who do not
play defense do not play.” Anytime a player is not playing defense, regardless of how
many fouls he has, he is going to come out of the game.

Yes, you can occasionally get a bad call that puts

a player’s 5th foul on him. I teach that a bad call
on the 5th foul is almost never the reason for a
S player to foul out. It is usually the silly fouls that
W ORD he picked up earlier in the game that put him in
NING
WIN o a ches foul trouble. Reaching fouls, over the back with
es c no position and no chance at the rebound, driving
om et m n players out of control, fouling a jump shooter, and other
“S ow
u l their in
m
g the . needless fouls are what players need to eliminate.
fo p
y kee long Then, an occasional bad call is not going to cost
out b ench too them and their team.
eb
on th y
a n Gund One other type of foul that I want our best players
Jef V to steer clear of is fouling to stop a breakaway
layup. The two points he surrenders by not
contesting the layup are much less costly to our
team than him getting one foul closer to
disqualification. COACH’S CALL

72 Milk a Minute. Have a system where you can milk a lead without going into
a full blown delay. Our goal when we go to this is to run a minute off the
clock without the other team adjusting to what we are doing. Sometimes if you
are just running your offense and it appears that you just can't get a shot, you can run
some clock before your opponent is able to adjust with more defensive pressure or
trapping. Have a call or signal for nothing but a wide open layup within your normal
offense or run a continuity that doesn't lead to shot opportunities. I call the name of the
set to run and “4.” COACH’S CALL

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 130 Winning Special Situations

Miss a free throw on purpose

76 needing to score. I play this

differently than if we are ahead
because we are looking for a
different type of rebound than missing on
purpose when ahead. We use this if we have
one shot and are behind by two or three
points with less than 4.0 second to go. In
this case, the way I want to play it is to have
the shooter shoot the ball hard off the front
of the rim as soon as he receives the ball from the official. Our hope is to catch the other
team off guard and not ready to block out. If you have a timeout you can call timeout it if
you get the ball in the scramble for the rebound, or if you need a three point shot and
don’t have enough time to throw it out on the rebound. Remind the shooter to stay behind
the line until the ball hits the rim. COACH’S CALL

Plant the seed. In the last two minutes when you are being pressed and have

86 the lead, prior to inbounding the ball, let the officials know that you are going
to watch the clock and will call timeout if the 10 second count gets to 8. By
planting that thought in their minds, the officials are expecting your timeout
and are less likely to give you a “quick” 10 call knowing that you are on top of the
situation. COACH’S CALL

Players “Coach” in practice. To get players thinking strategically in

99 practice, at times, I name one of the players as the “coach” during the
situations segment of practice. I rotate it so that each player is the coach at
some point during the season. My purpose is to make them think more deeply
than they would as a player.

Their requirements as the coach are that they are only a strategic coach. They cannot
correct or get on a teammate or an official (our coaching staff are the officials). The
second requirement is that they must execute the end of the game as we do. In other
words, no playing defenses that we don’t use, no drawing up their own plays, must use
timeouts to stop the clock the way we do, etc.... In short, they are “coaching” for me to
see if they know how we want to play the end of the game. If they violate any of the
requirements it is a technical foul on their team.

I expect them to ask me how many timeouts they have, whose possession arrow it is, and
what the foul situation is. If they don’t, I make the situations the worst I possibly can for

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 130 Winning Special Situations

their team (ex: no timeouts, opponent in double bonus, etc…) If they ask, then I make the
situations to their favor. That way, I have them thinking like I want them to think as a
player in games.

Up 1, opponent scores a field

112 goal to take the lead, 10 seconds
clock running. Our rule is that if
there are less than 5 seconds and
our opponent scores a field goal where the
clock is running (not a free throw where the
clock is stopped); we call timeout, if we have
any remaining. If there are more than 5
seconds, we get the ball in and push it up the
floor until the dribbler sees that we don’t have
an advantage—at that point the player with the
ball calls timeout. If he can get a shot or get to
the basket, we will take that. My philosophy is that pushing the ball immediately at the
defense is the best way to get an opportunity for an open shot or to get to the basket in
open court transition than it is to set up a play to run against a set half court defense.
However, if we don’t have an advantage, we will call timeout and look to run our sideline
game winner.