In “Hall of Fame Insights”, I ask veteran coaches a question about strategy, coaching, motivation, or other things. Today’s question…
In most sports, we tell our athletes to keep their eye on the ball. In golf, you need to keep your head down and look at the ball. In baseball, the hitter needs to look the ball into the catchers glove. In football and basketball, you catch the ball with your eyes.
For coaches, to understand the game, they need to be aware of what is happening away from the ball. Football coaches are the best at seeing the game away from the ball because they have always organized their staff so some coaches are focused on line play, some on the back, and so forth.
I have two questions for coaches today…
1) To better understand the game, what were things you tried to watch away from the ball?
2) To better understand the game, what were stats that you leaned on or you wish you had leaned on?
Mark Massey, Clinton Ia (Volleyball)
Editor’s Note- From personal experience, I think as coaches (or as fans), we can learn so much by listening to coaches in other sports. I know that conversations that I as a basketball coach had with football coaches helped me look at basketball in a different light. And the hours my brother and I spent on the phone, his insights about volleyball made me look at basketball in a different light.
So much would depend upon an opponent and what our focus was in terms of performance.
How teams defended sets in the middle told us a lot about their defensive strategy. Certainly one of the things we would look for would be if we set the middle, what would happen with their block? Was it coming from their left or their right? Or maybe they didn’t double block in the middle.
A second major focus was how the other team moved defensively as we passed the ball on got ready to set. I would wanna look at just how their perimeter people moved on the other side of the net as we passed and set the ball on our side. Their movements on defense might show us a weak defender who did not move as well as they should. We wanted to use this information to allow our serving or hitting to get them “out of system”, which meant their sitter had to move farther off the net.
A third area of their defense involved focusing on their setter. We would want to watch where they set the ball from different positions on their side. I would watch their setter when she was on defense to see if she reacted or moved too early.
In terms of our side, I would usually want to watch our side when the ball was on the opponent’s side of the net. Defensively were we getting to the spots that we wanted to get to, and were we adjusting as the ball was tipped or hit over. I definitely would be watching our blockers when the ball was on the other side and just watching how quick our blockers were or weren’t. Were our blockers getting in front of their hitter?
Statistically during or after the game- Volleyball is more similar to football than basketball? In football you have games within the game- our offense vs your defense, your offense vs our defense, our punt team vs your punt return and so force.
In volleyball, it’s a different match with each of our six positions in rotation and the opponents six positions in rotation. So you might say there are 12 different games going on in volleyball. We would chart how we scored in certain rotations, and how the opponents scored in certain rotations. Did they set just one player in a particular rotation? A lot of effort is wasted in high school Volleyball preparing to block a player that is never going to be set and if they are set, they will never get a kill.
I think coaches in a lot of sports could learn from how we analyze a volleyball game- looking at the 12 games. In basketball, it seems like it is easy for coaches to fall into the coaching traps of saying things like- “We didn’t play hard.” Coaches should be looking at what game within the game are you losing- your half-court offense vs their half-court defense, your transition defense vs their transition offense, etc. My point is break the game into parts.
We definitely wanted to know during the match what an opponents tendency was in terms of serving. I was fortunate that I had a trainer that enjoyed doing that and did a very good job of communicating that information to the players.
At the end of a set, or match we wanted to know…
serving efficiency
kills/errors/attempts
how are they scoring their points
positive action
our errors
And especially after sets examining where we setting the ball with the right distribution that we desired? Was there someone we wanted to get the ball to more? Is there someone we could help work around the block?
It was possible statistically, and perhaps two dimensionally to describe every point scored in the match, what could we do to magnify our positives, decrease our negatives, decrease their positives
Evan Massey- Galesburg (Basketball)
As a coach, I watched the ball too much. Looking back, I wish I had taken more of the “football approach” and designated my assistants to focus on particular things. I had many good assistants who provided valuable info, but it is interesting that two of my assistants who did a very good job watching away from the ball were Jay Barshinger and Andie Allison Leibach. Jay was a career football coach and Andie had been a successful post player. Those backgrounds helped draw their eyes away from the ball.
Now as a fan, I find there are 5 things away from the ball that I enjoy zooming in on, and I really think tell me a lot about the teams.
1) Help Defense- This is a no brainer but it tells you a lot about discipline and strategy. Are defenders down and ready or resting? Who leaves their defender to tag on a ball screen roll? How do they close out?
2) Transition Defense- As a coach, I found so many times during a game that I blamed one defender for being guilty of poor transition but when I looked at film and watched the play from its beginning realized my assumed guilty defender got back and was doing their job but was covering for someone else. It is amazing how often even on a college level when bad defenders don’t hustle back and go to the “their man” when someone else has already covered for them.
3) Transition Offense- Two things drive me nuts watching games- posts who don’t sprint to the basket and guards who walk the ball up.
4) Next Play- When a player misses a shot, do they sprint back or do they go try to steal from the rebounder? When a player gets a bad call, do they turn around and foul in frustration?
5) Deadball- As a fan, this is so easy to watch. What is body language and interaction during deadballs? It is amazing how often the “star and team leader” on teams just stands by themselves during deadballs instead of interacting and leading. And the really interesting spot is watching players on the bench.
As far as stats to look at, I wish that I had kept two stats, that I didn’t…
A) Fouls Drawn- I would love to have know who on our team was drawing the most fouls on the opponent. I think it would have told me a lot about how players were attacking the basket and maybe who needed to get the ball more.
B) Coach’s Assists- I kept assists but I wish I had added the following to our assists as “coach’s assists.”
* Pass that led to shot in the lane that was missed.
* Pass that led to player being fouled, whether the player made ft’s.
* Pass to open shooter who missed shot.
No comments:
Post a Comment