It is exciting that basketball season has gotten started. Yes, I have gotten out to several games in person, and lots of TV games. Here are some early season things that I have observed:
1- Offensive rebounding philosophy is changing dramatically. Last year Houston set the tone of often sending 4 to the offensive boards. In college basketball you definitely see more players attacking the offensive boards. The next time you watch a game watch on three point shots- quite a few teams are sending 4 to the o-bds on three point shots. Just like Grinnell, the shooter rotates to the top of the key.
2- Several teams I have observed have had great success by putting their press on and taking it off- more changing it up. The most impressive that I saw was a team that pressed mm, then some run and jump, and then centerfield denial. It certainly looked like they had three presses and just were going to try each one until they could get a run with one of them.
3- More and more team are going 5 out. As they do, two oberservations that I have had. A) How few of the 5 out teams seem to develop effective screen actions? B) Some teams don’t know how to use a #5 that cannot shoot well and are not good passers.
4- Speaking of posts on the perimeter, if a coach has not put in the action of the pass to a post player in the elbow area with handoff or fake handoff- you should put it in. A post who can fake the handoff and go is a lethal weapon.
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| Aliyah Boston- the master of the fake handoff. |
5- I have seen three teams who have thrown in a flex action for a good shooter. They don’t run it more than 4-5 times in a game but all of them have gotten good things off of it.
6- Amazing how teams and players have added the hammer pass to their arsenal. It seems like two years ago you might see 3-4 hammer passes a game, now it seems like it is more like 8-9 passes.
7- A skill the college’s have obviously worked on is to wall up. It impressive how many post players can rotate to help and just wall up and don’t foul- and the offense doesn’t finish over them.
8- A coaches interview that I listened to, the coach was listing stats on a player and he mentioned how many fouls the player had drawn. I have heard that before but it is a stat that I wish I would have had an assistant keep on the bench.
9- On both college and pro level, there are so many teams that don’t offensively recognize when they need to adjust their offensive approach at the end of games. I watched 3 games this past week where a team was up 2-3 points with under two minutes to go. They came down and just wildly drove and took a low percentage shot. Personally I think there is a time for the coach to step in and have some kind of go to plays with high likelihood of score or foul.
10- I will forever be baffled by the concept of the coach on most levels standing the entire game. Often the coach may stand 15 feet from their assistants. I would be so frustrated as an assistant by not being able to contribute when I wanted to.
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