HOF Insights: Evaluating Players

EVALUATING PLAYERS- As you look back at making player decisions about playing role (starting, subbing, sitting) or keeping or cutting- were there characteristics or hidden skills that influenced your decisions? What were examples of characteristics or hidden skills that made some players more valuable than maybe people on the outside realized?

Mike Cooper- Ottawa

Attributes that I looked for when deciding if a player would be a member of the team, especially those who were looking to fill those last couple of spots…

1. Attitude: coaching is hard enough as it is and if your bench players on the team have bad attitudes they are not worth keeping and adding additional stress. I am looking to fill out my roster with players who will bring energy on the bench during games and understand their role as a player who might only get limited time during games.

2. Good practice player, I need practice players who always play hard and make it tough on the starters. They also need to be able to run the opponents offense and defense. 

3. I might keep a player especially a young player who hasn't physically matured yet but has the possibility of growing in the next year or two. Nothing worse than cutting a kid who ends up growing to be 6'7" and doesn't want to play anymore because you cut him when he was young.

4. Finally, I am looking for a kid who fits in with the current group and is able to be a positive influence on his other teammates. A player who is just happy to be on the team and just wants to be part of something. I think it is important to give good kids an opportunity to be part of the team if at all possible. 

Tim Engebretson- United

There are always a certain number of players who are obviously starters. When it comes to evaluating the rest of your players a few things come to mind when determining each player's role. I think for us the most important thing was acceptance of a role. If we had players that could consistently execute and be content in their role we would recognize and reward that behavior. When players had similar skill sets we may reward an upperclassmen with the position. 

Other factors could influence our decisions. Off season dedication was important. Leadership qualities were important. What type of teammate and how he was valued and appreciated by their peers were seriously considered. Sometimes we would give evaluations to the entire school staff to help us evaluate all aspects of the individuals. The amount of sacrifice the individual made for the program was also a factor.

Evan Massey- Galesburg

Early in my career, if we had a large number of players wanting to try out, I would set up a conditioning test for the start of practice. We did things like the Beep Test, a one mile run, or running a set of sprints in a certain time. My logic was that if I had a lot of candidates, I wanted to test that they were really serious or committed. I abandoned those formal test, but I did continue to have a couple morning practices as a form of a “test.”

I thought the most important tool for me was to collaborate with my assistant coach. 

For players being kept in a bench role of perhaps being third string, attitude, work ethic, team first person, and coachability became more important than their jump shot. 

In evaluating players for roles as starters and regulars off the bench, it was important to see how players fit together. The John Wooden thought- it is the not the five best players but the five players who play together the best. Sometimes there were attributes that I felt we needed in our a top rotations—

1- Someone with quickness, agility that might be able to pressure the other teams point guards.

2- Someone who I thought could match up and guard the best players on our schedule. 

3- We needed a strong ball handler. 

People on the outside might not understand why certain players were playing over other players. They might think that Player A can’t shoot as well as Play B, but maybe Player B could provide one of the three things I listed above. 

One of the harder things to get a player coming off the bench to understand that the best way to improve or increase their role was to play solid defense and not turnover the ball. Some players went into games thinking they should try to score as many points as possible.  Without realizing it, the player going into score points as a goal was thinking about what was best for them versus what was best for the team. 

Ultimately one of the best tools to evaluate players is to set up situations in practice that require them to either overcome adversity or just to deal with adversity. The players who cannot handle tough things in practice probably won’t be able to handle tough things in games.