🤔 Thought Starter: Thomas Christiansen
🎥 Conceptual Offense Presentation
⛹️♀️ Gap Creation: “Clide” Action
📝 End-of-season Awards Speech
🎼 The Playlist: Benji Hughes
🤔 Thought Starter: Thomas Christiansen
“You can ask a player to do something, but if he doesn’t understand why he’s supposed to do it, he’ll only do it the first time because it’s a recent instruction. But if he understands it, he’ll find the reasons why I’ve told him to do it, and that will allow him to find solutions on his own. A player on the ball has to have three or four passing options. If he doesn’t have that, then his teammates aren’t offering him those solutions.”
— Thomas Christiansen, Head Coach for the Panama National Football Team
🎥 Conceptual Offense Presentation
I had the opportunity to share how we install our offense for Basketball Immersion this week. If you are a Basketball Immersion subscriber, you can click here to watch.
Below is a video I shared in both presentations on conceptual offense. It shows a drill we used to introduce spacing and gap creation concepts to players. In this drill, the player without the ball needs to create a 2-gap for the player with the ball. We didn’t tell them what to do.
Between the coaches clinic 2 weeks ago in Jackpot, Nev. and the Masterclass, it’s been fun explaining how we installed a conceptual offense. Of course, this didn’t just come out of thin air. Several coaches have influenced what we do, and I’m so appreciative for their answers to my many questions.
The biggest influence, of course, is Alex Sarama at Transforming Basketball. He has an encyclopedia available for coaches interested in installing a conceptual offense. We were also fortunate to have Alex work with our team for two days in the summer of 2022.
A point I made in both presentations is that this isn’t a matter of just rolling the basketballs out. Installing a conceptual offense takes a lot of time, patience, and trust. While there certainly have been some frustrations at times, our kids love the offense.
I’ve also appreciated the engagement it provides me and the coaching staff. While we limit our time interfering in practice by micromanaging every rep, we our constantly monitoring drills to see what we need to work on or how we might improve a drill. A lot of times this includes creating a drill on the fly. This leads to activities that are specific to our players needs at the time.
If you ever have a question about what we do, don’t hesitate to reach out. (Idahobasketballcoachingpodcast@gmail.com) I’m always happy to talk basketball!
⛹️♀️ Gap Creation: “Clide” Action
Coach Kurt Guelsdorf at KG’s Weekly Newsletter always stresses the importance of creating driving gaps for players. Here’s a simple concept we toyed with at the end of the season and I can’t wait to employ when summer basketball starts for us in May. Credit to Florida Atlantic assistant coach Kyle Church for sharing this in a clinic video from Coaching U+.
“Clide” is a combination of Cut & Slide. In this case, the corner cuts along the baseline and the wing slides down. The result is a giant gap for the ballhandler to attack. If the wing who slides down is your top 3-pointer shoot, it leaves a tough decision for their defender.
📝 End-of-Season Awards Speech
Last year I was writing about winning a state title. This year I’m writing about losing in the district title game. Many lessons from both experiences. Here’s what I wrote for our end-of-year awards ceremony.
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This was my 14th year coaching high school basketball.
What amazes me each season is the opportunity high school sports provides all the people involved to grow and develop positively as people.
I say opportunity because we can often miss the lessons provided to us in sports like an Easter egg in your favorite film or TV show.
For example, it’s easy after the disappointment of not making a team you want, or not playing as much as people around believe you should, or not reaching your team’s goals at the end of the season to miss the bigger picture lessons available when participating on a team.
But sports are embedded with allegory. And if we are not patient or observant, we can miss the many lessons available that can make us a better player. A better teammate. A better coach. A better friend. A better person.
I know as a player and a coach that I’ve missed many of these opportunities, especially after things didn’t go my way. My reaction to the moment kept me from seeing what was probably obvious to others.
The more time I’ve spent as a coach the more I can appreciate in the face of disappointment, sports is one of life's greatest teachers. But only if we allow it. When we learn and take time to review these situations, the outcome from the introspection can be life altering.
Reflection is starting point to appreciation and incorporating the traits that can open the door to future success such as responsibility, accountability, respectfulness, initiative, humility, and resiliency.
Yes, these lessons are available to us in success — and of course, I much prefer ending the season with a win vs. a loss — but these lessons seem to have more sticking power in defeat. Especially when we are active and deliberate in our response then we can maybe see a bigger picture and start to apply these traits to other aspects of our lives.
Especially when we are active and deliberate in our response then we can maybe see a bigger picture and start to apply these traits to other aspects of our lives.
Don’t get me wrong, I like winning. I really liked winning the state championship last year. And we worked incredibly hard since last May to win another one.
Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. And while it hurt to end our season in the district championship series and not have the opportunity to compete at state, I’ve spent the last few weeks appreciating all of the successes the 2023-24 team had and reflecting on the lessons from the season that can help us grow as we close this chapter and prepare to start a new one.
It can make me emotional identifying all that this year’s team accomplished in our time together.
The stakes changed for us this year. We entered each contest as the defending state champion and received the best effort from every team we faced. We played arguably the hardest 4A schedule in Idaho. We traveled thousands of miles to play some of the state’s toughest teams at all levels. And this team took that challenge head on. Just a few highlights …
Wins over the eventual 3A and 5A state champions during the regular season
A 10-5 record against teams that qualified for their respective state tournaments
a 6-2 record against the 5A opponents our schedule
A 4-0 record against the 4A IEL in the regular season
Attributes such as Hard work, We over Me, and Resilience became hallmarks of this group throughout the season.
Circumstances that would derail most programs such as injuries, illness, or December schedule that included a game seemingly every other night did NOT keep this team from succeeding, especially in the second half of the season.
Leaders led on and off the court. Younger players stepped up when they needed to. Key plays were made by freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors on the offensive and defensive end.
Our team’s play was appreciated by the home fans at Les Rogers Court. This included several old-time Sandpoint people who hadn’t come to a game in years. Young girls couldn’t wait to watch this team play and made home-made cards wishing this team luck. Our school’s band made it a point to play at as many of our home games as possible.
This team was also appreciated by our opponents. Not just for their play, but also for how they handled themselves off the court. Several times this season, a father or grandfather of a player from another team would approach and tell me how impressed they were with our team.
Of course, accolades like this don’t come in a vacuum. So many people are involved in a sports program, especially when there's the amount of success we enjoyed this year. This doesn’t happen without so much happening behind the scenes. From the bus drivers to the administration to the support staff and so many more people are the ones that make sports, and the lessons we can learn from them,
While it would take too long to thank every person who helped us along the journey, I do want to take time to identify a few …
🎼 The Playlist: Benji Hughes
Maybe I've been waitin' too long, too long
For somebody to throw my kinda party
And I know I'm too old…
If you're waitin' for an invitation
You're gonna wait a long time