Coaches’ Corner- Bob Anderson on Maximizing Your Star

Bob Anderson is the legendary, HOF coach at Williamsfield. Despite its small enrollment, Williamsfield under Anderson had success for decades. Part of the success was his ability to maximize the “star player.” The following are Coach Anderson’s thoughts on maximizing the star…

Each time I think about having a good player, I go back to our ‘96-‘97 team that made it to the Elite 8 in Peoria. Travis Lewis was a great player and the rest of the players knew it, and more importantly the other players were fine with it. 

So without running anything special, the ball ended up in his hands a lot, and he made plays. Against teams who played us man, we ran a lot of clearouts on the side, and pick & rolls. If the helpside didn’t get there, it was a pretty good offense. 

Against zones even though he shot the three well, we put him in the high post because getting him the ball in the middle of the floor was also good offense. 

I also think when people play Box and One on your good player, a ball screen for your good player is good because the defense has to figure who is going to take him or her when they come off the screen. A zone player has to pick the good player- and that is something that has to be taught ahead of time by the Box team. 

Against the Triangle and Two, we used to do two different things:

#1- We ran Four and Post with the post being a player without a man defender. 

#2- Another thing we did was to go 2-1-2 with the two guys that they were manning, we put them on the baseline. With a high post, the point of the Triangle really had three players (2 guards and high post) to guard. With this offense, you will get some great shots for the guards drifting to the wings- the question is whether the guards can knock down those shots. 

The key to maximizing your “star” is that the other players must understand they are playing with a star, and must work to get them ball.