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Without further adieu, here’s the newsletter for this month!
HOOPS COMPANION POSTS
Program Building (Part 1): Overview
Program Building (Part 2): Culture
PLAY OF THE MONTH
DRILL OF THE MONTH
CULTURE THOUGHTS
“Be paranoid about mediocrity.” (Seth Godin)
“A simple question that often changes my behavior: Does the amount of attention I’m giving this match its importance?” (James Clear)
“If you’re studying my game, you’re entering my game. And I’ll be better at it than you.” (Marcelo Garcia - 5x Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Champ - from P.S.P. French)
“You can have a doctorate degree, masters degrees, coaching certifications, passed countless training programs, go to the best coaches clinic, be a wizard with X’s and O’s etc. If you CANNOT connect with your student-athletes, if they don’t trust you, YOU WON’T BE AS SUCCESSFUL.” (Todd Wolfson)
“Culture is an abstract set of principles that lives - or dies - by the concrete decisions that people in your organization make. As a leader, this gap between theory and practice poses huge challenges.” - Ben Horowitz
Everybody is loving them some Mick Cronin right now after UCLA’s run…so here’s an awesome video I saved from a previous interview.
COACHING LINKS
Effective Field Goal % Calculator - this is a good little tool to simply calculate your EFG%
Thoughts on Intentionally Violating Free Throws in Late Game Situations (Bob Walsh)
LEADERSHIP/GROWTH LINKS
Free Yourself from Old Narratives and Write a New One (Intelligent Change)
"If all you do is what’s required of you, you’ll suck. Baseline people live baseline lives. Don’t complain about the results you don’t get from the work you don’t do." (Dave Anderson)
The Magic of Being in “Monk Mode” (Greg McKeown) — great article on closing yourself off and GETTING STUFF DONE!
HOOP THOUGHTS
Alabama (Nate Oats) competitive scrimmages - Games are played to 8 or 12 points. SCORING = Mid-range/long 2 = 1 point, at-the-rim 2 = 2 points, College 3 = 3 points, Steph/Dame-land 3 = 4 points
Transition Offense thought from Joe Burger - if your closeout shoots a jumper from beyond free-throw line extended, you can leak out in transition. He claims that over the last 3 years/84 games, they’ve gained 2.9 points per game by running out and only lost .61 points per game by someone “following their shot”.
No Consecutive Drives - I keep seeing this concept pop up all over Basketball Twitter. Obvious to see here that the best play is to SWING it after a drive instead of driving into the help. Interesting idea to think about.
I tweeted this and it got quite the reception:
Great thought from Don Showalter:
RANDOM COOL BASKETBALL STUFF
I hate Georgetown (unabashed Syracuse fan here)…but even this one got to me. This is why we do what we do.
Can Ryan Turrell Be the NBA’s First Orthodox Jewish Player? (LA Times - such a cool read)
14 Things I Learned in Year One (Tyler Herro - The Player’s Tribune)
How Scott Drew Has Succeeded in the Job Nobody Else Wanted (Yahoo! Sports)
VIDEOS
Shaka Smart Practice Drills at VCU (from Mark Cascio)
Small Sided Games To Use In Your Program (from Alex Samara)
NBA Dummy Plays from Half Court Hoops - lobs, corner cuts, etc.
All 68 NCAA Tournament Teams in 11 Minutes (Jordan Sperber)
BOOKS
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (Gregory McKeown) - I’ve read this 3-4 times now and it always challenges me to focus on what is truly essential, what matters, where my time should go, what’s most effective, etc.