Hi Coach, Thank you for taking a look at these samples from my eBook series!

Along with the HoopClinics screencasts, they make up the 5 Year Anniversary Special. The first sample in this document contains ideas 1-12 from my 130 Ideas for Basketball Practice The second sample contains ideas 1-12 from my 130 Ideas to Improve the Mental Toughness in your program. The third sample contains 13 ideas from my 130 Special Situations eBook The fourth sample contains ideas 1-12 from my 130 Little Ideas that make a huge difference in your program I hope you find these 49 ideas useful to your program! Sincerely, Brian Williams

130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice

Principle #1 Mindset
Practice with the mindset and manner of a champion

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 winloss 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 programs 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 cant even think about competing. But, consistently doing the right things, in the right way, and in the right frame of mindall while working very hardover 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

"My passion is to coach and do things to the best of my ability. I want our team to get better every day at practice. If we can do that, the other stuff will take care of itself."

Players must see and believe that the coaching staff is eager and excited for practice every day. A coachs enthusiasm for practice should be obvious to the players and assistant coaches. The coachs 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.

3.

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. The players goal for each practice should be to improve themselves for the good of the team. A coachs 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. 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. 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.

5.

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130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice 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. Stop yelling, and start teaching. 9. Coaches must believe that they can win with their team, regardless of the teams 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. 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. 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. Plan your practice as if your career depends on it, because it does. 8.

10.

11.

12.

Prepare for every practice like you just lost your last game. --Coach Don Meyer

The rest of the book is broken into the following principles:

The seven essential principles of practice success

130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice

Introduction.Practice--the lifeblood of every successful basketball program Principle #2 Efficiency--Plan for the most efficient use of limited time and facilities Principle #3 Habits--Motivate players to habitually do the right things right Principle #4 Competition--Make practice as competitive as possible Principle #5 Team Building--Incorporate team and chemistry building Principle #6 Game Planning--Incorporate game planning Principle #7 Thoroughness-- Be meticulous and cover everything you do in games

Appendices
Appendix A Worksheet for developing your master plan Appendix B Player Practice Evaluation Form Appendix C Playing Hard Checklist Appendix D Sample Master Practice Plan

130 Great Ideas to Make Your Basketball Team More Mentally Tough

Introduction

n my twenty years of coaching To play the inner game is not really a basketball, I have always strived matter of choice--it is always going on and it to emphasize and improve the 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.

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130 Great Ideas to Make Your Basketball Team More Mentally Tough 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 doesnt 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. 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. --Brian Williams To develop my own philosophy of and 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 ebook 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. I have used my definition of mental toughness to organize the concepts in this e-book:

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130 Great Ideas to Make Your Basketball Team More Mentally Tough The first two sections of the book are: 1) What I believe and have learned about mental toughness as it applies to basketball. 2) What I believe the benefits of mental toughness are and why mental toughness is one of the most important aspects of a successful program.

Sections three, four, and five are applications of mental toughness and come from breaking down my definition of mental toughness. 3) Controlling thoughts and actions. 4) Maintaining a focus on what is important. 5) Execution under pressure: Concentration, Confidence, Overcoming Mental Obstacles.

The final sections: 6) Mental toughness looks like 7) Mental toughness for basketball coaches.

The mental is to the physical as four is to one. --Bob Knight

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. My hope is that you will encounter many useful ideas and resources that will find their way into your program and into the lives of the young people that you touch. As your players become tougher and experience success, that success will lead to increased toughness and you will experience a very positive cycle of success feeding toughness and toughness feeding success. One editing note: In order to make the book flow more smoothly, I have attempted to alternate between the male and female genders. I am not implying that an individual point is gender specific by only referring to males or females. I believe that all of these points apply to boys and girls, men and women.

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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 teams level of Mental Toughness

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 toughness. Like any other skill we Mental toughness is not letting teach, the more we think through anyone break you. and plan specific strategies to teach mental toughness, the more --Tom Izzo successful we will be. The more you emphasize it, praise it, correct it when it doesnt meet your expectations, and demand it (without being demeaning) the more mental toughness you will see your players demonstrate. As coaches, we dont 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

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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 TGHTThe Game Honors make mental toughness a habit or Toughness. personal trait, but it is very tough to stay on track and truly be mentally --Coach Brad Stevens tough. Like anything else, there 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 dont 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 ones 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 schemes themselves are not --Bill Russell 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 Butlers 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 cant give something to someone else that you dont 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 teamall 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 builders and tests of mental toughness. Mental toughness develops in part by being forced to use the skills that go into making mental toughness. Like 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. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.

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130 Winning Special Situations This document contains 13 sample ideas from the Coaching Toolboxs eBook 130 Winning Special Situations Automatic Situations. There are some situations that we call AUTOMATIC 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.

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Coachs Call Situations. I have also noted which situations are not automatic 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 COACHS CALL Shortening the game. There are times when it is to your advantage to 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: COACHS CALL #1 To combat foul trouble if you do not have a shot clock and dont 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.

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Inbound ball in dead corners full court. The 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 Murphys Law tells us--if you arent 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, but it hurts in other ways too. For one thing, it is a huge momentum shifter away from your team and to your opponent.

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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 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 Last shot of quarter play vs. 2-3 zone. Here is the play that I like to run at the end of the 1st, 2nd, 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.

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#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 traditional thinking is that a coach should remove a player, particularly if that player is one of the teams best players; when he or she is 1 foul from fouling out of the game. The coachs 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.

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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 players 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 the 1st quarter of a game. Star players (Made the All Star Team or All NBA team), plus/minus rating is only .17 points lower in the 4th quarter than in the 1st quarter. Comparing stars (minus .17 plus/minus in the 4th quarter) to non-stars (minus 2.0 plus/minus points in the 4th quarter), 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 teams 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 players 5th foul on him. I teach that a bad call on the 5th foul is almost never the reason for a player to foul out. It is usually the silly fouls that he picked up earlier in the game that put him in foul trouble. Reaching fouls, over the back with no position and no chance at the rebound, driving out of control, fouling a jump shooter, and other needless fouls are what players need to eliminate. Then, an occasional bad call is not going to cost them and their team. One other type of foul that I want our best players 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. COACHS CALL

S ORD W G NIN s WIN ache o c s e yers etim a l m p o S wn m eir o h t l g the n i fou p y kee long. o o t ou t b h benc e h t on undy G n a Jeff V

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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. COACHS CALL

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130 Winning Special Situations

Miss a free throw on purpose 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 dont have enough time to throw it out on the rebound. Remind the shooter to stay behind the line until the ball hits the rim. COACHS CALL

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

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

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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 dont 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 dont, 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 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 dont have an advantageat 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 dont have an advantage, we will call timeout and look to run our sideline game winner.

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The 130 Winning Special Situations eBook is broken into the following chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Philosophy of Special Situations Practicing Special Situations General situations in flow of game Offensive situations in flow of game Defensive situations in flow of game End of 1st 2nd, 3rd Quarters End of game philosophy 8 End of Game General 9 End of Game Offense 10 End of Game Defense 11 End of Game Defense 12 Practicing end of game special situations 13 Specific Time and Score Situations to Practice

In addition to the 13 samples that you just read, some of the other ideas are: If we do lose, how would I rather lose a late-game lead? How to emphasize the importance of every possession and every situation. Giving your players confidence in game special situations Using special rules to make your practice situations more competitive Scoring with 2 on 1 situations

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130 Winning Special Situations Rebounding free throws with an undersized team Converting to defense from missed free throws Pressing on a missed free throw Last second plays, underneath inbounds plays, sideline inbounds plays, full court End of game communication Being thorough when you practice special situations 21 specific time and score situations to practice and how to teach them There are 130 topics covered in all!

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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 dont 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 programs personnelassistants, 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 clich 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. Its not what you know and teach, its 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 everyones 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 years 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 years 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 doesnt meet those criteria. I believe that it helps us to be able to ask during practiceis this a state champions 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 It takes a village to raise a child. practice. The coach/parent relationship is extremely important, and as we all know, is --Unknown one of the most difficult parts of coaching. I 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

WE ALREADY ARE AT A GREAT SCHOOL!

1. Thank you for your attendance and for dealing with our practice times throughout the yearthere 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 lifelong 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. RolesPlay, coach, officiate, support C. Please be supportiveListen 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. Notebookplease look at your son/daughters notebook --Phone tree will be provided --Helps you with our philosophy E. Playing timeCoachs decision and is not negotiable F. Role in program or program LevelCoachs decision and not negotiable G. StrategyCoachs 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 prioritiesagain, please see your players notebooks www.coachingtoolbox.net --Your Resource for Basketball Success! 4

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 think coaching is about going to a great school. I think coaching is about helping young people have a chance to succeed. There is no more awesome responsibility than that. I think one of the greatest honors a person can have is to be called Coach.

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, youll 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, but am suggesting to think about experimenting --Ralph Waldo Emerson 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 www.coachingtoolbox.net --Your Resource for Basketball Success! 5

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 an experiment in his life. shooters say at a clinic that they did their 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 Dont 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 didnt organize any activities (at least I thought we didnt) other than a cookout lunch. On the invitation, we invited everyone to bring Frisbees, corn hole games, and the like. I didnt 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 wasnt 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 www.coachingtoolbox.net --Your Resource for Basketball Success! 7

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 years 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 bricksone brick for every practice and gameup 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 walland it was unique and appropriate for that team. 11. Have a players notebook. To me, the importance of a players 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 everyones 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 --Brian Tracy more successful than those who dont. Just 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

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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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