For GW basketball players, most meaningful part of workout is hitting the Wall. Just after 7 a.m. one sunny morning last week, a dozen young men in camouflage t-shirts and basketball shorts jogged up to the west side of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, where they slowed down, and quietly entered the park. Heads down, with lowered voices, they spread out along the length of the memorial, occasionally pausing to peer up at some of the more than 58,000 names, or to run their fingers along the wall’s surface.
Four minutes later, the George Washington men’s basketball team gathered in a huddle at the wall’s east end, next to a small sign requesting visitors “honor those who served.” The Colonials were about to begin an hour-long workout around the Mall, what has become the centerpiece of their offseason conditioning program. First, though, they paused to reflect. “You kind of get stuck in the moment,” forward Kevin Larsen said later, describing what those few minutes of silence were like. The next hour could have doubled as a Washington tourism video. “Burton E. How Larry Krystkowiak and Delon Wright Brought Utah Basketball Back to National Prominence «
It’s been 11 years since the late Rick Majerus, draped in that cream sweater, was roaming the sideline at the University of Utah, turning a program with a proud tradition into a national powerhouse. In his 15 seasons with the Utes, not a single team under Majerus’s watch finished with a losing record. He not only won, but he attracted future NBA stars like Andrew Bogut, Keith Van Horn, and Andre Miller to what, at the time, was essentially a mid-major while also nearly capturing a national title in 1998.
After Majerus left the program in 2004, the Utes began to lose their foothold among the nation’s elite. Majerus’s successor, former Eastern Washington head man Ray Giacoletti, started off with a bang, leading the Utes to the Sweet 16 in 2005, but he followed that up with successive losing seasons, which led to his dismissal. Utah had to get its next hire right. The Coach Gene Sweeney Jr. If you’re a basketball junkie who’s looking to kill time, try reading some coaching bios. The Culture.
How Brewster Academy Basketball Became Country's Best. How Brewster Academy Basketball Became Country's Best. How Urban Meyer Took the Buckeyes to School. 7 Strategies to Select Your Team Captains - Part 1. 7 Strategies to Select Your Team Captains - Part 1 Jeff Janssen, Janssen Sports Leadership Center Trying to figure out how to determine your team captains for the upcoming season? Coaches often ask me the question, "What's the best way to determine my team leaders? " There are a variety of ways to select your team leaders, each with their own unique advantages and disadvantages.
Here are seven strategies you can use to find the best leaders for the critical captain role, and the pros and cons of each selection method along with my advice. 1. Pros: The advantages of this selection method are that you allow your team input on deciding their leaders. Cons: While there are many benefits to allowing your team to vote for captains, there are two potentially problematic drawbacks. The second problem with allowing the team to vote is that the captain selection process might be more of a popularity contest. A further variation of the team voting is to allow the coaches to have a vote as well. 2. College Football's Coaching Nun Preaches Positive Thinking in N.C.A.A. Division III.
Photo DULUTH, Minn. — The celebration after the College of St. Scholastica won its fourth consecutive conference football championship resembled an extended family gathering this month. Oblivious to the numbing cold, players, coaches, family members and students lingered on the field, exchanging hugs and posing with the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference championship banner. In the midst of it, Mike Lehmann, a beefy reserve offensive lineman, approached an assistant coach with a request. “Coach, my mom wants a picture,” he said. So Lehmann wrapped an arm around the diminutive coach in the dark blue winter jacket and matching fleece headband, who is beloved around this little Catholic school for a quick smile and inspiring manner — Sister Lisa Maurer, the Benedictine nun who coaches kickers and punters for the 10-0 Saints.
“They’re good kids; they’re awesome,” she said. Maurer, known as Sister Lisa, is one of 87 sisters from the Benedictine Order living in the monastery at St. St. College Football's Coaching Nun Preaches Positive Thinking in N.C.A.A. Division III. A new UT tradition: Third Down for What. John Wooden's greatest quotes. Popovich's plan: Spurs move past perfection. In Search of the Next Andrew Wiggins.
Photo “Everything’s wrong,” Terrance Williams said, his voice growing raspier with each word. He looked around at the teenagers on his basketball team, many of whom were chewing the necks of their jerseys and staring at the ground. “Shot selection! Body language!” Williams, the head coach of the Team Scan Cardinals, one of the best youth-basketball programs in the country, had his players huddled up in the corner of a decommissioned Air Force hangar in Sacramento. In the world of grass-roots basketball, the phrase now used to describe the sport as played by anyone too young to vote, playing for the varsity has become largely irrelevant.
Every player in the E.Y.B.L. hoped to recreate Wiggins’s performance, and most coaches hoped to leverage that ambition for their own benefit — to secure a larger Nike deal or, perhaps, a job on a college staff. But Williams’s players quickly outperformed even his most unreasonable expectations. Nike, of course, was omnipresent. “Hell, no!” “Exactly!” Q&A: Cavs Coach David Blatt on LeBron, Princeton, and ‘The Natural’ « What a life for David Blatt, and what a last couple of weeks. Blatt is the NBA’s new mystery man, plopped in charge of perhaps the league’s most intriguing team. He has coached all over the world for the last 20 years, winning consistently in Israel, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Russia, and Israel again. He capped a half-decade run at the Israeli powerhouse Maccabi Tel Aviv in May with an improbable run to the Euroleague title. He coached the Russian national team to the EuroBasket title in 2007, a massive turnaround for what had been a moribund program, and then to the bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics in London.
Blatt sat down in Las Vegas for an extensive one-on-one with Grantland to talk about the influence of the Princeton offense, his defensive principles, and landing that LeBron guy. When you interviewed with the Cavs in June, did you have any idea it might be possible to sign LeBron? We did not talk about LeBron during the interview process. Really? It was “the guy.” I did not. No. No. 5 Ideas to Develop Relentless Competitors. Jeff Janssen, Janssen Sports Leadership Center Tired of dealing with too many wimpy, soft, and entitled athletes who don't know what it means to compete? UConn men's basketball coach Jim Calhoun once lamented after a frustrating loss, "I was embarrassed by the way we played, by the way we didn't compete.
We did not compete the way we need to compete. Given the schedule we're playing, you need to compete every single night. " Have you too lost games and championships because your athletes didn't compete with the intensity and intelligence you needed them to? Coaches are becoming increasingly frustrated and disheartened by the lack of competitiveness shown by too many of today's athletes.
As Indiana men's basketball coach Tom Crean says, "In our entitlement culture today, young athletes grow up assuming they deserve things without having to work or compete for them. 1. 2. Are you positively pushing your players to test their limits? 3. 4. 5. Coach The Team, Not The Individual. One thing that I've come to believe more and more as a head coach is the effectiveness of coaching the entire team as opposed to coaching the individual. The most effective communication I have with my team is when I'm talking about what "we" need to do and not addressing one individual about what he needs to do.
It seems like a subtle difference, but I find that it's important in two ways - one is getting the message across in a direct and immediate way, and the other is in the long-term mental health of your team. Over the season they will respond better when they aren't worried about being singled out or embarrased. I've realized that during games I almost always speak about what we need to do, whereas in practice I may teach the individual a little bit more. If you're in a time out in the middle of the second half and your team is getting killed on the boards, for example, I find it most effective to coach the team and not an individual person. Butler has found secret weapon in statistical guru Drew Cannon - March Madness 2013 - Pete Thamel. Butler's Brad Stevens is the first college basketball coach to add an advanced statistics expert, Drew Cannon (center, in stripped tie), to his staff.
USA TODAY Sports NEW YORK -- The formal basketball career of Drew Cannon ended in eighth grade as the sixth man of his junior high team. In college at Duke, Cannon's only hoops experience came from an intramural team called the Norse Forse. When Cannon graduated with a degree in statistics last spring, he had modest expectations of finding a job right away.
"We were hoping he would not be living in the basement," said Jim Cannon, his father. Instead of toiling in the basement, Cannon spent the season on the Butler bench and will be with the team when the Bulldogs play Bucknell in the NCAA tournament on Thursday. Cannon takes MBA classes at Butler and makes just $1,000 per month, but his work has significantly impacted how Butler uses lineups and helped him emerge as a potentially transformative figure on the college basketball landscape. Www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/The Dwight Effect A New Ensemble of Interior Defense Analytics for the NBA.pdf. Www.sloansportsconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014_SSAC_Pointwise-Predicting-Points-and-Valuing-Decisions-in-Real-Time.pdf. What LeBron James Knows About Analytics that You Should Too - Michael Schrage. By Michael Schrage | 2:00 PM May 3, 2013 The most useful question I’ve learned to ask people about analytics is, “What do you plan to do with them?”
By far the most interesting answer I’ve gotten comes from basketball superstar LeBron James: Hire Hakeem Olajuwon. Until his championship 2011-2012 season, NBA cognoscenti viewed James as a phenomenally gifted loser. He could do everything but win when it mattered most. No one doubted his desire or ability, but they demonstrably weren’t enough. You don’t have to care about sports to realize that exceptional talent, dedication, discipline, teamwork, and hard work assure neither improvement nor victory. You also need self-awareness and smarts. What do you need to know and emulate about LeBron James’ journey to championship level? No, you can’t hire Hakeem Olajuwon. Kirk Goldsberry brilliantly describes the open secret to James’ success: Nothing makes serious competitors more open to analytics than losing. And there’s more to the story. NBA What do the Heat mean to LeBron? How much is trust worth?
How does LeBron James properly assign it a value? James works with a coach who butts heads with him and doesn't care at all -- at all -- when James dislikes him or is mad at him. James also works with a coach who listens to him when the season is on the brink, makes a move James has requested and then lets James have all the credit for it afterward.
What's that worth? The leader strong enough to stand up to a King but also gentle enough to get out of his way? James works with a legend president and quiet owner who will hurt his feelings by sending away friend and champion Mike Miller. Financial reasons. Leadership that you trust is helping even on the days when it hurts? James works with two friends who have frustrated him at times: Dwyane Wade while sitting out one-third of this season's skirmishes to prepare for these last two big fights, Chris Bosh while shrinking against bad matchups that push him outside. It was late against the Pacers in Game 2. Even if You're Not a Spurs fan, This Video Will Allow You to Appreciate How Beautifully They Play. - Viral Hoops. The San Antonio Spurs dynasty is a thing of beauty to basketball purists because they epitomize the definition of a true team.
In a league where everyone focuses on individuals and the ‘stars’, they are living proof that ‘We’ is greater than ‘Me’. Go Spurs! The NBA's Improbable Pipeline: How alumni from tiny Emerson college infiltrated pro basketball's front offices. Q&A with Tom Thibodeau of Chicago Bulls - ESPN Chicago. "I'm Out" Phil Jackson tells the story about how Scottie Pippen took himself out of a playoff game against the Knicks in the final seconds in his book "Eleven Rings. " How many coaches anywhere would have handle this situation in this fashion? Game 3 had the most bizarre finish of any game I've coached.
But it also was a key turning point for the team. Patrick Ewing drove across the lane and lofted a hook shot that tied the score at 102-102. I called a time-out and designed a play that had Scottie inbounding a pass to Kukoc for the final shot. Scottie wasn't happy with the play, and when the huddle broke up, he retreated to the far end of the bench, sulking. "Are you in or out? " "I'm out," he replied. I was surprised by his answer, but the clock was ticking, so I had Pete Myers toss in the pass to Kukoc, who put in a jumper for the win. As I walked off the court into the locker room I was puzzled about what to do. "I can't believe what Scottie did," he said. All you know about basketball is wrong - TrueHoop Blog. Winning in The Post-Season. The post-season has a different feel to it. Conference tournaments have a different intensity to them for a number of reasons. For one, the good teams and the bad teams have been established.
The standings over a full season make that pretty clear. There are no teams trying to establish themselves, play a certain way, or thinking long-term about the type of team they want to be during the season. That is over. Many teams, especially underdogs, are willing to play a certain way just to win that one game. The post-season also comes with a different emotion, one that creates a different edge for each game: desperation. Playing well in the post-season is more about what you do all season than what you do when the conference tournament finally arrives. Playmakers. Composure and urgency. How do you do it? Make sure you show your team specific plays that represent the composure and urgency they will need to win, instead of just telling them to do it. Let them make mistakes. Keep it loose. DataBall « On February 13, 2013, the San Antonio Spurs found themselves in a surprisingly close game in Cleveland. Late in the fourth quarter, Cavs rookie shooting guard Dion Waiters made the biggest basket of his young NBA career, knocking down a tough jumper to give his team a two-point lead with 9.5 seconds left.
Smelling an upset, Cavs fans at Quicken Loans Arena started going bananas. The Spurs called a timeout, advanced the ball to half court, and decided to run one of their favorite plays. Matt Bonner inbounded the ball to Tony Parker, who stood 30 feet from the rim. Parker quickly attacked the left wing, where a massive Tim Duncan screen forced Tyler Zeller to switch onto Parker. With 6.7 seconds on the clock, Parker raced toward the basket, poised to attempt a high-percentage game-tying layup. Kawhi Leonard was standing unattended in the weakside corner.
Afterward, Parker reflected on the game’s final sequence: “I thought I could have made the layup, but I saw Kawhi open. NERR - New England Basketball Recruiting Report. Billy Donovan 2010 Florida Coaches Basketball Clinic Notes. Figure It Out On The Run. "What Are Your 3 Most Important Keys?" When In Doubt, Do Nothing.
The Losses of Dan Gable. Kliff Kingsbury Hockumentary. Pick-Up Game Rules. Doc Rivers hides $2600 in the Staples Center ceiling - Ball Don't Lie - NBA Blog. The Michigan Wolverines' unique recruiting strategy under John Beilein. The Sports Guy breaks down the Miami Heat's win streak.
Offseason/Pre-Season. Culture/Core Values.