Slappin’ Glass sits down this week with the Head Coach of Colorado State MBB, Niko Medved! The trio dive into a ton of interesting and useful topics including: gaining confidence in building a program, staying seamless in half court offense, balancing analytics and gut instincts, and talk defending DHO’s and late game play calling during the always fun “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Inside the Episode
It was a great week on the Slappin’ Glass podcast as we were joined by one of college basketball’s best coaches, Colorado State MBB Head Coach, Niko Medved. Coach Medved and the Rams enjoyed a terrific 21′-22′ season where they went 25-6 and enjoyed a trip to the NCAA Tournament. We enjoyed picking Coach Medved’s brain on a number or topics including:
- Building Confidence in Your Program: We discuss the process for Coach Medved in instilling confidence throughout a program and the lessons he’s learned in doing that along his journey at different stops.
- Staying Seamless on Offense: Coach Medved is considered one of the best offensive coaches in the country, and has a history of having his teams be in the top tier of college basketball in that realm. In this discussion we dive into how he teaches his teams to “stay seamless” in their ability to flow from action to action on offense.
- “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”: During this always interesting segment we have fun exploring late-game play calling, maintaining standards, defending DHO’s, and more.
Transcript
Niko Medved 00:00
I’m a big believer in, you always have to be evolving. I’m a curious person. That’s a really good trait to have as a coach to always be curious, asking questions of,are we doing things the right way? Can we do it better? But having said that, I think that the key is to evolve without fundamentally changing who you are. You know what? You can’t be afraid to fail. Nothing’s perfect in this world and you’re going to try things that ultimately work, but you can’t be afraid sometimes to try things. Having that feel of, hey, we need to change or be, you know what? We just need to stick with this. We just need to do it better. We’re not teaching this well enough.
Dan 00:39
Hi, I’m Dan Krikorian and welcome to Slappin’ Glass, exploring basketball’s best ideas, strategies, and coaches from around the world. Today, we’re excited to be running back one of our favorite episodes of all time with then Colorado State Head Coach, and now newly hired Minnesota head coach, Nik o Medved. In this terrific conversation, Coach Medved discusses staying seamless and half court offense, balancing analytics and data with film and gut instincts, building confidence when taking over a new program, and we talk defending handoffs and late game play calling during the always fun start, sub, or sit.
Dan 02:11
Coach, thank you very much for spending some time with us. Congrats on a great year. We’re excited to talk to you.
Niko Medved 02:21
Excited to be here, Dan and Pat. You guys do a phenomenal job and have just a wealth of information for coaches.
Dan 02:27
Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you, coach. Really excited to get into a lot with you today. We were talking off here before we got on here about another podcast here on Great One with Jordan Sperber, Solving Basketball. And you mentioned something on that podcast about one of your first years as a young head coach, I believe when you took over at Furman, potentially running things offensively, maybe schematically, defensively as well that weren’t quite maybe what you thought you wanted to do as a coach and the decisions that you made in that first year and how if you could do it all over again and how you look at doing it now is making the decisions that you want to make as a young head coach?
Niko Medved 03:03
I had mentioned it’s a lot of times as an assistant, if you get a head coaching job or an opportunity, oftentimes you’re coming from a successful program or other successful programs where you’re working for somebody who you really admire, who has a great system, a great approach, and you may be coming and get your first job and maybe your tendency is to try to incorporate. You’re obviously going to incorporate some of what you learned. You’d be a fool not to, but you almost have a tendency to want to do what they had done and you maybe throughout your career have continued to have a vision for how you want to play, what you want your program to look like, and oftentimes that may be different than who you work for. It took me to the end of my second year and really somebody who’s been just instrumental in my career, Coach Dick Bennett. He said, Niko, the one thing is if you’re going to do this, do it your way. You get one chance to do it and do it your way. And that’s not your way or the highway, but you have to go with the vision you believe in and what you want it to do. And I made that change really at the end of my second year. We finished the season really strong at the end of my second year there, but then I said, you know what? We’re going to do what I’ve envisioned here. And some of that was the spread offense and some of the things and ideas that I had had offensively as a coach and I thought it would work great at Furman and we went with it. And quite frankly, being empowered to do that and making that decision, I thought it really changed the trajectory of our program and quite frankly, the trajectory of my career. And so I would just encourage young coaches that it’s not about being the second coming of who you work for. It’s you learn and you grow throughout your career, but being able to be yourself and do what you believe in and what you want your program to look like. And that was something I had to go through as a new coach.
Pat 04:53
Coach, staying on your early career with Furman, and you mentioned the second season when you kind of started to implement things or coach your way, was it maybe your team not having the success or you’ve just not enjoying the way you were coaching? I guess what were maybe some of the things that actually triggered you to, I need to do it my way because it’s not working.
Niko Medved 05:12
We definitely had to completely shift the culture of the team. We were able to do that by the end of the second year. We ended up losing in the conference championship game that year. But I just felt like we were putrid offensively, quite frankly. And I just had a belief in a way that I wanted to teach things in a way that I thought we could recruit and be successful in a fun style and more modern style. That was it. And it’s something I wanted to do. And I went with it. And it was clear to me after ending that second year and really evaluating where we were at, although we had made some growth, we needed to take the next step. And that’s what happened. And then all of our off-season workouts, we went into the skill development and implementing that. And I thought our players really, really enjoyed it. We went from being, I thought, putrid offensively to terrific offensively.
Dan 05:58
Coach, if you can remember back a little bit, do you remember as far as when you were making those subtle changes, was it because you were starting to figure out yourself as a coach as far as, hey, I know what I coach too well, was it you were starting to figure out your players more, you’re starting to figure out the league more, like the subtle changes, was it a little bit of everything or how were you kind of getting to those points?
Niko Medved 06:19
I think a little bit of everything. I mean, one thing for me, I mean, my days in the Southern Conference, that’s where I learned how to coach. You look at that league. You had Mike Young at Wofford. You had Steve Forbes at East Tennessee State, Will Wade at Chattanooga. Larry Hunter, you know, God rest his soul was a tremendous coach at Western Carolina. I could go on and on. Bob Hoffman was at Mercer at the time. It was just beaten Duke in the NCAA tournament. Wes Miller was UNC Greensboro. And I figured out really quickly as a young coach, I better figure this out or I’m not going to be a head coach very long. And so I think that really going against those guys and in that league, really that challenge in and of itself really motivated me to figure out I’ve got to come up with my own way of doing things. How are we going to win? How are we going to be successful at a program like Furman to compete at the top of the league? And so I think all those things really go into it. And then yes, like you said, it’s got to be something that you’re comfortable with teaching that you believe in, that you believe can be successful, that you can recruit to, that you think that will work. So I think all those things were a factor going into it.
Dan 07:22
Earlier on, you know, finding confidence in a group and team meetings and coaching meetings and going out and recruiting. Was that something that came natural or is it something that you, you know, worked on yourself to get to that point?
Niko Medved 07:33
I definitely have confidence in myself and maybe comfortable in those settings. I think maybe a bigger challenge is how do you instill when you’re trying to rebuild a program and change the culture, how do you instill that confidence and belief in your program, in your organization? And I think that’s the biggest challenge is doing that and having a feel for that of when to encourage, when to push. And you have to have a high level of accountability and standards. The standards are the standards, but also understand a lot of times you’re taking over a group that really lacks confidence in themselves and what they’re doing and really having that feel for that is, I think, critical. And that’s something I think everybody has to grow into. And I think insecurity for coaches is something they really, really struggle with. When things aren’t going well, it’s easy to look internally and just everything’s on me and people lash out and they make poor emotional decisions on how they handle situations. And I think having that emotional maturity and confidence in yourself is something that really permeates into your team and your players. And I think that’s a challenge for all of us, but in particularly young coaches.
Pat 08:42
As you now progress through your career and had success at Furman, at Drake, and now at Colorado State, how has your decision making process maybe changed? And, you know, not, and we’ve talked off air, but when you do decide to make changes, you know, and not just relying on, well, I had success the previous seasons doing this, but also looking forward and we need to change, we need to adapt, we need to grow. How do you weigh those decisions now with your previous success and your hindsight?
Niko Medved 09:09
I use my experience, obviously, of going through it. You always rely on your staff. I’m a big believer in you always have to be evolving. I’m a curious person. That’s a really good trait to have as a coach to always be curious, asking questions of, are we doing things the right way? Can we do it better? But having said that, I think that the key is to evolve without fundamentally changing who you are and the core values and things that you believe in. I try not to get too emotionally up or down when you’re faced with challenges. I never try to panic. I never try to get too high when things are going well. If I dive learned, I think throughout the years, if I’m in a really emotional state after a tough loss or there’s chaos or things didn’t go well, sometimes the worst thing you can do is just immediately lash out. The best thing you can do is go home, not say too much, get a good night’s sleep, get some perspective. Maybe you don’t sleep, but you get some perspective and you usually come back and have the right approach with your team or your staff. And you know what? You can’t be afraid to fail. Nothing’s perfect in this world and you’re going to try things that ultimately work, but you can’t be afraid sometimes to try things. Having that feel of, hey, we need to change or be, you know what? We just need to stick with this. We just need to do it better. We’re not teaching this well enough. And we need to do a better job of communicating this with our team and our staff and what we’re really looking for, as opposed to just saying, we need to throw in the kitchen sink. And then sometimes you look and say, you know what? I thought we were going to be good at this or I thought this was going to work, but it’s not. We have to be honest with ourselves and we’ve got to change this. Sometimes I think coaches are afraid to, there might be something you’ve worked on preseason or into the season. You put time into it, but it’s you’re just not getting the results and we’re too stubborn to say, no, this is what we do. This is who we are. And you know what? You have to be willing to look at that and say, it’s not working. We’re putting in too much time for this. We’ve got to revamp. And I think those are the decisions that over time you have a little bit more confidence maybe in making, and you’re not afraid to fail. Because ultimately, if you do this, you’re going to do a lot of things that aren’t going to work the way that you want. But to me, that’s all part of the growth process.
Dan 11:24
Coach, we want to shift now on the court a little bit with you. And one of the things that we’ve also heard you talk about in the past is staying seamless is a term you use in your offense and being able to connect parts of your offense, whether it’s a set to your flow, transition to your flow, whatever it is that you’re going to run and just being able to keep the offense moving and not break down. And so what do you mean by that? And how do you kind of view trying to stay seamless?
Niko Medved 11:50
The best offenses or at least in my mind are the ones throughout a shot clock can continue to play and that’s what I mean By seamless, however, you teach it, you know for us miss shot and turnover We’re into our Phoenix transition game And what I don’t want to do is if we don’t have the opportunity that we want to score in the first seven seconds Of the shot clock. I don’t want to back it back out let the defense set call an action I want to be able to stay seamless what I call and flow quickly Into our motion, you know if somebody takes something away or the ball is here We can just keep playing and moving passing cutting and I think what that allows you to do then is to stay seamless and You’re uncomfortable playing in the last eight seconds of the shot clock And you know I think at the time a lot of times where people panic or go back it out and try to run some you know Vanilla high ball screen set that everybody, you know can guard you tell your guys There’s eight seconds on the shot clock and young players panic, but you know, if you just take the time is eight Seven six You’ve got plenty of time to move the ball to play and oftentimes It’s that last ball reversal that last cut that last action that ends up allowing you to get a great shot So oftentimes I found you get your best shots in the first seven seconds of the shot clock for the last seven seconds but I think staying seamless in that middle part of the clock and continuing to move and attack and change the defense sometimes is what moves the needle and I think that’s a really difficult thing to teach something that we spend a lot of time on here I’m doing that and that’s really where that term comes from and what’s the play after the play if I run an action and that action doesn’t you know get what I want first and third read Do we stand there do we just play one-on-one or no? Can we stay seamless and flow right into some sort of motion game and keep the ball moving keep the defense moving?
Pat 13:46
you mentioned you have your Phoenix transition game. If it’s not there in the first seven, you’ll try to get into your motion flow. As a coach, what are the things you maybe have to think about just in general, if you want to do one thing and try to transition to another thing, what are the things you have to think about so there’s synergy there so it can seamlessly go from one action to the next? In this case, from your Phoenix transition to your motion flow?
Niko Medved 14:11
The first thing is I tell our guys, if we get to create a turnover, we get a missed shot, we want to take the first available great shot. I don’t overcoach that, but I am the head coach, I do get to decide what a great shot is. So teaching what that is, paint touches, the kind of things we’re looking for, different shots for different players, so on and so forth. But the way we teach it is, we do a lot of our motion out of maybe different spacing alignments on the floor. And it’s things that we do every day and the guys understand that. And sometimes from our transition, the ball and people are in different space and the ball might get to a different spot on the floor with spacing. And that really keys our guys to understand what’s next. If we end up in our five out stuff, our guys have a feel, okay, we’re not maybe in our transition anymore, we’re right into our five out, which is our open. Or we were in a four round one look and we didn’t have anything and the ball is turned and we’re able to step that big up and now we’re in our Tiger Wolf series. And so I think that what flows is that we work out of different alignments on the floor and doing different things. So the guys know very, very quickly when they can see that alignment and they’re able to use our terminology, it allows them to just keep playing out of it. That’s really the cliff notes version of it. But when those guys see that, it makes it easy for them to just keep playing.
Pat 15:32
Coach, are these alignments coming out of the player personnel on the floor, let’s say if you have a rim running big versus a big hook in space, or is it players have the freedom and it’s just kind of recognizing the alignment you end up in?
Niko Medved 15:46
Little bit of both. I think every year, your challenge is, I have some schemes that I like, some basic things we like to do out of different alignments, but ultimately, it’s never about plays. It’s about players and learning your team and your team understanding. I give the guys a lot of freedom to try to play and I want them to try to make the play, especially early in the year and in the summer. But ultimately, the best teams learn their strengths and weaknesses, their roles. Yes, we can do this, but what might be the best thing to do? Yeah, I can do that, but what might be something better? I try to… Don’t say don’t. I’m a big believer, not trying to tell guys what not to do, but try to encourage them what to do, hunt the good stuff, try to help them understand what might be the best decision in that situation. So every player and every team might be a little bit different, but we have a lot of different things that we can do. But what I try to do is spend the most time teaching the things that I think are going to be the most successful for our group. But ultimately, I think your players can be some of your best teachers. And I think as you watch your guys play and I’d encourage you guys maybe not to give too much structure sometimes early. And as you learn your team, I’ll go through that again with this team. You learn your team and guys surprise you and do different things. You’re going like, you know what? I really like that. Maybe we need to look for more of these whatever pistol-like actions, DHOs, whatever might look good for you and getting your best players organically in the actions that you want, I think is a challenge every year. But I think it’s fun and we have basics, but that’s really how it evolves each year.
Dan 17:19
I want to ask two questions, one just a clarifying one and then my real question after. Quick clarifying for those listening, briefly, what is the Phoenix break?
Niko Medved 17:27
That’s just transition. I don’t know why I ever called it Phoenix, but I think it was the old Steve Nash, Deanne, Tony teams, they were so good in transition. And so we just called it transition Phoenix. And Phoenix for us is just that mentality that we get to stop, turn somebody over. We want to run and we want to attack. We want to try to get the first available great shot. That’s something my teams have always done. And so it’s run space, keep the ball moving. We have some simple things that we really work on in our transition that we want to get and then understanding that if we don’t get a great shot, we’re going to stay seamless and just flow into our half court offense.
Dan 18:06
Okay, perfect. Thank you. You talked about staying seamless. You talked about the first seven seconds being the best time to get a great shot and then how hard it can be to teach a team to keep flowing when they’re learning how to do this. For you and your experience in practice, when you’re playing and team pushes it and it now goes from the seventh second to the eighth second and no big advantage and now the team needs to start flowing into the half court flow. What is it that you find yourself teaching the most to help guys stay seamless? Is it getting to the correct spacing or is it just get to another action right away on that seventh, eighth second?
Niko Medved 18:44
spacing and moving the ball quickly, keeping the ball moving, getting it turned quickly and flowing. And at least in my experience, we really start the year focusing on limiting the dribble. We want to be more of a passing and cutting team. Passing and cutting and movement off the ball is a big deal for us, but we also really encourage them that we do play kind of a positionless, interchangeable style. And I think players really like having those opportunities to be in different actions. Even though there’s structure there, I give the guys a good bit of freedom to play out of that. But I think that’s the way the game is supposed to be. When you’ve got a group of guys that are sharing the ball, that are moving and cutting and trusting, and I think that’s what’s really, really fun. I try to hunt the good stuff. So I might show a clip of a guy making a really, really hard cut. And I think cutting reveals character sometimes. A lot of guys are only going to cut hard if they think they’re going to get the ball. We talk about cutting to score twice, and you make that hard cut understanding that maybe I don’t get it, but that cut is going to create an advantage for somebody else. Well, you show the clip of that guy making a really hard cut, creates an advantage, guy drives it, the ball is turned one more, and the guy who made the hard cut ends up getting the open shot. And having your team, again, show look at Isaiah, look at that cut he made. What a great cut you made. You’re only in possession of looking who ended up getting the shot. That’s team offense. That’s Colorado State basketball. That’s the way we want. That’s the way the game is supposed to be played. And I think encouraging that is really the key to it. And it’s a fun way to play. The guys understand that. And listen, every coach, you’re going to have set plays and actions to help get the ball to the right people in the right places at the right time. But I think throughout the course of a game and a season, it’s a fun way to play. And I think it’s a great way to create good shots.
Dan 20:34
These decisions, these actions flowing in and out, how specifically is there something in practice that you prefer to work on it? Is it five on Oh, is it three on three? How would you help rep these decisions?
Niko Medved 20:45
I think maybe a little bit of everything. I mean, I think that, you know, our skill development or individual skill development that we’re doing, we’re teaching shot stops, pass fakes, pivots, you know, passing, cutting, finishing. I think when we do those things, we try to put guys obviously in positions that they might be within our offense so they can see the skill development, that it’s translatable to the game. I see all these guys, I think, going and working on all this, you know, everyone’s got trainers and skill development guys, and I think it’s great. But ultimately, the idea is, can you translate that into a five on five setting? So trying to make our skill development tailored so kids can see the why and how these things actually translate, then we might do some three on three or four on four, either live or sometimes read the coach. I love doing read the coach, we’ll put these guys in these actions, you know, two and three man actions and maybe coaches or GAs mix up how we’re guarding. So they’ve got to read and react and play and see it. And then five on O to five on five, but we do do a lot of five on O, five on five. We do a lot of, you know, where coaches, again, may play, I don’t want to call it dummy offense, but maybe have a prescribed thing, whether we’re going against denials, down on a ball screen, a switch, and sometimes we’ll just do days where they don’t know what’s coming. And they’ve just got to be able to try to read and make the right decision. And so that’s kind of the progression of how we teach it.
Pat 22:05
You talked about, you want to have positionless players so everyone can be involved in a different part of the action. My question is then, when you’re building these seamless transitions, are you then just having one or two actions that everyone is familiar with, is really comfortable with and knows like, okay, hey, like you said, the transition’s broken down, we’re in this alignment, we flash it to the five and we get in and we’re playing?
Or is it really just try to get to the second sign and then we’re getting into a flow-cutting game? Let me know in the comments below.
Niko Medved 22:33
I say positionless. That’s like a buzzword, right? Like culture and everybody. You hear that from everybody. We’re going to play fast. We’re going to play positionless, right? Listen, not every player is positionless. Not every player is the same. I mean, let’s be real here. I think guys with a diverse skill set and multiple skills set can guard different guys, but every player is unique. Everybody’s got strengths and weaknesses. Certain guys can do more things with the ball. So I think for us, it’s more early in the year if we’re teaching something out of our open set. And we might have different reads that you can make off of it. Early in the year, we’re going to allow all these guys to make the different reads and learn how to play. But then as we evolve as a team, again, I try to not just say, hey, we don’t want you doing that. As opposed to say, hey, what might be better for you? Look at who’s over there in the corner right now. That’s Isaiah Stevens. He’s one of the best point guards in the country. What might be a better play to go screen down for him or make a really hard basket cut so we can play to him in the next action. Then you’re a great catch and shoot guy. You’re going to end up getting the shot because of that. And I think just trying to encourage guys to play to their strengths and understand who they are. And of course, is there a time for all of us as coaches? You got to say, what are you doing? You know what I mean? That’s not what we need right now. That’s a poor decision, a poor shot. But I think we start by doing that and keeping it simple. And then can we add more? Can I go to an individual player and say, hey, when we get to this action here, I like you doing that. You know what I mean? This is good here. This is something that you need to look to do because it’s very, very difficult to guard. And I think it’s those things that continue to evolve. And we have more standards and we do rules. We have a way that we like to play. And I try not to do too much too early and let those things start to evolve for each team in each season.
Dan 25:31
Coach, just on offense and some of the complexity and the stuff that you guys do, I know that you’re a fan of international basketball and kind of looking at the international game. What elements of that do you look at and then think about trying to bring to the college level?
Niko Medved 25:49
It’s funny you ask that I’ve really just even as of late tried to get more and more into watching the FIBA and international game. It’s something I even need to get better at. To me, it’s the most translatable thing to the college game. I’m really fascinated by the diversity of coaching and playing styles and coaches willing to try and do different things on both ends of the floor. Just kind of challenge the way you think. I’m a curious person and I think it’s important to always challenge the way that we think and what we’re doing. Is there a better way to do it? We’ve maybe struggled with this or this might fit really well. I think it’s really interesting. There’s so many terrific coaches who are doing some really neat things and some different things. I just think the diversity of coaching and playing styles is pretty fascinating to me. I think it’s really the most translatable thing that we have to the college game.
Pat 26:44
So just quickly on that note, and maybe it kind of ties back into what we started with. If you see something, whether it’s in Europe or somewhere else that you like that you want to try, what will be the process then to give you the confidence to put it on the court and to try it with your team?
Niko Medved 27:00
It is what it is. If it’s something that’s just like a wholesale change, a lot of coaches make the mistake. It’s not really what you know, it’s what you can teach. What can you teach and what can you get your guys to believe in? Then it would require you really spending time, meeting with some people, talking to them, really getting a clear understanding of what you’re getting yourself into.
If it’s something like maybe you really like an action or something they’re doing out of a ball screen or post upset or cutting or spacing, what it might look like for me is I’m not a guy, well, man, look at that team. They ran a couple of three or four good horns things. Well, I’m not going to sit there. If I don’t do a bunch of horns things, I’m not just going to go out there the next day and put in three new horns plays because that may work for 10 minutes. Then I know what Brian Dutcher is going to do that at San Diego State after he gets in on film. What can we do then within maybe the structure? There’s actions, but how can we, within what we’re doing, how can I get to that action with what we’re doing? I think there’s a lot of ways to do that. Everything that everybody’s doing, they’ve stole from somebody else or they found, but they maybe have tweaked it in a way that fits into what they do. If I like a way somebody moves or cuts or weak side action on a ball screen or handoff action, well, maybe I can get to that through our stuff. I’m going to get to the same thing that I see on film, but it’s really going to fit well within what we do. We’re disguised in what we do and it’ll make sense to our guys. And so I think it’s those things on both ends of the floor, offensively, defensively, whether it’s a doubling a post, a ball screen coverage, a rotation, whatever it is, it’s can you take those concepts and try to fit it in a little bit to what you’re already doing.
Dan 28:41
Coach, this has been awesome so far. We want to transition now to a segment we call Start, Sub, or Sit. And so we will give you three different basketball topics, ask you to start one, sub one, sit one, and then we’ll discuss from there. So if you’re ready, Coach, for this, we’ll dive in. As we’ve talked about a little bit, you guys were a fantastic offensive team and a very good defensive team as well, but this first question is going to be on the defensive side in the way of defensive improvement for next year. And we went through and took a look at all the different actions that have efficiency ratings for you guys on the defensive side, and we picked the bottom three actions that you guys guarded this year, and I’m sure there are things that you’ve talked about with your staff already, but we’re going to ask you to start, sub, or sit, which of these bottom three defensive actions for last year is most concerning or you’re thinking about most for next year to try to improve on.
Niko Medved 29:36
You only have three? Oh, look out.
Dan 29:38
What you said, you were a good team, so it’ll be okay, all right. Okay, so start, sub, or sit your transition defense, isolation defense, or how you guarded handoffs. Those were the bottom three for you guys efficiency-wise last year.
Niko Medved 29:55
I mean, for us, start 100% is transition defense. And I don’t know if you got the numbers off synergy. I do think there was a time where early in the year, inexcusably, we weren’t as good that way. I do think it’s something our teams have always been good at, but I do agree early in the season. That was completely on me. And I think sometimes there’s a tendency to things that maybe you’ve been good at throughout the years. And you kind of take for granted. And that’s a real mistake that I made. And I thought we cleaned that up a little bit later in the year, but that’s a premium. If we’re not a team that really crashes the offensive glass, and boy, if you don’t crash the offensive glass, your transition defense isn’t tight. That is about as bad as it can get. And so that is a for sure start, a non-negotiable for us. I would say handoffs would probably be second for us. And I think people do some different things off those handoffs that can be good. And that’s one of the actions I really like to do offensively too. I think it can create challenges for you defensively. It might be easy to guard if you just have the ability to switch a lot of them. And not all the time, you don’t always have that ability to do that. And I think isolations, we all love to be great in defending isolations. Because I think one attribute of really good defensive teams, they’re able to one, get back in transition. Two, they’re able to take teams out of the initial actions that they like to run. And hopefully what you’ve done is make a team play later in the shot clock and hopefully have to rely on playing isolation. But sometimes that comes down to mono-mono. And do you have a player who has the will and the athleticism and the length to be able to challenge a guy’s shot? And then ultimately, can you end the possession with a rebound? But we all want to get better there. Some of that is just personnel and having the right guys and the right matchups to stop. I think everybody will look around and sometimes you have matchups that are harder than others for you. Different players with your rotations and your lineup and you play against certain guys in certain situations that do cause you issues. But number one for sure is transition defense. Two, I would say handoffs. And three would be guarding isolations.
Dan 32:05
Great stuff. A lot of ways we could go with this one. I will just kind of start with your start in transition. And you mentioned that earlier in the season, it was your fault. Mistakes you made. I’m just wondering when you went to go fix it, was it a schematic thing? Was it an effort thing? Or how are you trying to fix it to get better?
Niko Medved 32:22
I think what I mean by that is I think sometimes it’s easy. I thought our teams at Furman, teams at Drake, and teams early on at CSU, that was something that was always pretty good for us, something we spent a lot of time in and we worked out. Well, I had a veteran crew last year. I think that, again, as you’re trying to improve different things or whatever, sometimes it’s easy to take for granted, like something that you think you do pretty well. I just had done a poor job for a while of really holding the standard where it needed to be, of going back to the basics, that sometimes we can have a tendency to skip or think that we have lit. That’s not in my nature, but I told our guys that. That was on me. That was on me for… There’s an old saying, right? You’re either coaching it or you’re allowing it to happen. I don’t put the blame on the players. I put the blame on me as a head coach. The one thing, I had such a great group and something I think you took stock in and I think that that really improved. We’ve got the guys who are willing to do that, but that’s a mistake that I made at a point last year. Even as good of a season as we had, the margins are small. Who knows one more win, one more stop here or there? Who knows what could happen?
Pat 33:30
Coach, my follow-up is with the DHOs and the handoffs, and what are you thinking about in terms of improving your handoff defense?
Niko Medved 33:38
I think it depends on who’s handing it off. Is it a big to small? Is it a guard to guard? Are you auto-switching when it’s small to small, do you switch late clock? Are there more of those that you can go under? I think the other thing that’s really important is sometimes when we look at the analytics, what I like to do is I might look at raw numbers, but it’s okay, the numbers say that, but let’s go back and watch them. So before you make too many decisions, go back and cluster all those clips together, you guarding handoffs, and let’s go watch all these. And oftentimes, you might find a common problem. There might be one thing that’s simple, and it’s really not some sort of major change. It’s not even a schematic change so much. It’s just, we’ve got to do this and a couple more stops here, there, whether it’s communication or whatever it is that we can fix that problem. So I think that’s what analytics does is you look for outliers. And sometimes these things can get a little bit skewed, but you look at it and say, okay, that looks like that could be an issue for us. Well, why is it an issue? Let’s go back and let’s watch the last 100 clips of us defending a DHO action and see if we can figure out, is there a common problem? Do we need to do something different? Were we not teaching it well enough? And so I think those are things that we have to go through and be able to do that in certain situations, I think, where you can switch more to as good. But we got good players in our league. It’s not easy to switch a DHO. And I don’t know, you can try putting your guard on Graham Ike at Wyoming and see how that goes.
Pat 35:13
Coach, to throw maybe a specific scenario at you, if the center is the one making the handoff for a dynamic guard, would you look more to put pressure on the center, have your big center come up, try to blow up the handoff, or have him sit back and have the guard try to deny blow up the handoff?
Niko Medved 35:32
I think it’s what you might like to do is get out there and blow it up if it’s an electric guard and like, you know, what’s the problem? The problem is you’ve got this electric guard and you’re trying to stop him from getting downhill and scoring and stop him. But in order to do that, you may want to do that and think that that’s the best thing. But if you’re asking a player of yours to do something that’s not his strength and he’s not comfortable with in theory, that may sound good. But ultimately, is that going to be the best thing for your team? And I think those are the decisions that coaches have to make is to look at their players too and say, yeah, I would love to get out and show hard on that handoff and disrupt or I’d love to blitz this or I’d love to do that. But am I going to ask my player to do something that he can’t be effective at? And so I think those are the decisions you make. And I’ve done that before against players. I’m like, well, I really think this guard’s electric. We’ve got to get out and do this. And we practice it. Practice it. Well, the game starts in five minutes into the game, I’m like, can’t stop this guy from splitting or we can’t. So then we’ve got to change. He’s got to go to the switch. And so I think those are things that happen. And sometimes we practice things that we think are going to work and they don’t work. And some of it is just based on your asking your players to do something that they’re not capable of doing. And again, that’s on you as a coach, too. You have to be able to be honest and look at that where you sub. Somebody, you know, but sometimes when you give up something else, I think those are all the chess matches that you try to work on in a game. And maybe we sub and maybe we can guard that hand off a little bit better. But then on the other end of the floor, we’re not doing this. And I think within a game, the idea is how do we win the game? How do we find and give ourselves the best chance to win the game? And I think making those decisions sometimes within a game or within your preparation are the toughest and most critical decisions you got to make as a coach.
Dan 37:23
Coach, you’ve just mentioned it a couple of times about sometimes maybe the analytics or the efficiency stats lie a touch and you really go to the film to see maybe why it’s that way. I’m wondering, with all the different analytics and stats out there, what, if any, really matter to you and your program that you look at, say, on a daily-weekly basis to try to improve?
Niko Medved 37:45
I think that’s a great question. I think from a scouting perspective or our own team’s perspective, I really like to look at outliers, meaning the margins can be so small in some of these things that aren’t, but what are outliers? If it’s scouting, and you see a guy that’s in the top 15 in the country in usage rate or percentage of shots, well, that’s different. This guy’s, if it’s offensive rebounding percentage, true shooting percentage, whatever it is that really pops off the charts to you, that’s an outlier. That’s different. That changes the game. This isn’t a clear identity of this player, this team. And within yourself, what are things that you look for? Obviously, assists to turnovers are a big deal for us. For us offensively, it’s going to be our effective field goal percentage, those kinds of things.
Defensive rebounding percentage might be something that might really matter to us being a smaller team. Are we able to hold up on the defensive glass? Two-point field goal percentage defensively is something that we really needed to work on. And those are things. But then sometimes, depending on who you’re playing, and you know that team is a huge strength of that team, and to be successful, we’re going to have to limit them. Hey, these guys are getting back, 39% of their missed shots. We might not hold them, but if we’re going to win this game, this is a target number for us. This is what this has to look like. And that might be something that you really pump analytically with your guys. But we look at analytics a lot. We look at it, but I try to… Don’t just take everything at face value. If you see something that’s out there, can you also get filmed to back it up? Because I’ve done that before. I’ve looked at a number, and all of a sudden, when I’ve gone back and looked at it, okay, maybe that’s not telling me exactly what I see here now, maybe isn’t exactly. And why is that? Ask that question to yourself, and maybe you’re not seeing it right. Or maybe you’re just not really digesting that information the right way. And I think those are all things that I try to do.
Dan 39:47
If you’re still listening this deep into our conversation, first of all, thank you. Second, you’re probably a coach who enjoys learning the deep intricacies of the game to gain even the smallest advantage for your team. The problem is there’s so much information it’s overwhelming attempting to find what might actually help in winning games.
Pat 41:00
Alright, coach, our next start sub set for you has to do with end of game play calling. Are you more likely to call plays based on mismatches and exploiting some mismatches you may have calling plays based on comfortability, your familiarity that your guy, they’re just comfortable running this player, this action, or attacking the coverage, attacking the defense, you’ve seen what they’re doing. You know what they’re going to do and trying to exploit how they’re going to defend you.
Niko Medved 41:27
start definitely is what you’re comfortable with. And to me, what’s comfortable with is getting the ball to your best players. So again, to me, it’s about players not plays. So in those game situations or whatever, I think, you know, we can make this too complex or whatever. So when I say comfortable as a start, that means your best players in the action. And then, you know, sub for me would be reading you ultimately, then you trust those players to make the right decisions, you know, if they get blitzed, if that guy switches, if somebody does something, you trust those guys that you put them in as action that they are comfortable with it because they’re comfortable with it. And it’s something you’ve practiced, they’ve maybe seen it before you’ve given them different looks. And so, as the defense tries to do something different, hopefully your guys have the instincts to be able to read and make, you know, the right decision. And then, you know, the mismatch to me, that’s what I would, I think, you know, hey, what beats you the mismatch or the open shot. And I think ultimately, you got to get a good shot and not necessarily hunt the mismatch. I mean, they’re probably going to put their best defender maybe on your best player. Well, I still like our best player guy with the instincts. That’s the best playmaker and that we trust to make the right decision.
Pat 42:36
Coach, my follow-up then is you wanna get the ball to your best player. Will you then kinda keep it short, sweet, let’s get to the action, or will you look to then end the game still, let’s move the defense, get it side to side, but ultimately, let’s end up with the ball in our playmaker’s hand.
Niko Medved 42:51
maybe a little bit of both. I think one thing for me that’s a philosophy I have is I don’t call timeout offense the late games. That let our guys play. We practice that. So our guys know, all right, end of game, end of half, they have an idea of what we want to do. And so we practice that because I’m a believer, heck with the NIT a couple of years ago. And we’ve had a lot of success doing it. Buffalo scores to go up one with 14 seconds left or whatever. I didn’t call a timeout. Because even if I had to call a timeout or run the same thing, you know what I mean? So the guys know and they calmly did and got to the set and we ended up scoring at the end. I think sometimes you call timeout, it allows the defense to set up, they have an opportunity to maybe try to deny somebody the ball, maybe change into a different defense, throw you off balance, do something. Or if we get a stop, I want to just attack. Because I think attacking a broken floor and attacking and doing that oftentimes, you’re going to trust your team and your players to get a better opportunity to score than calling a timeout. Now, because we don’t get to advance the ball to half court, right? So maybe I could get the ball to half court and call a timeout and draw something up. I could potentially do that. But more often than not, I like to let our guys go. And that’s just a philosophy of mine is something that they know. And here on the other end, a lot of times you might like to call timeout defensive, right? If we score late to get a lead or tie it or do something like that, or score late, I might like to call a timeout there to make sure our defense is set, try to do something maybe to disrupt, to not allow them to get a deep outlet, whatever it is.
Pat 44:23
Yeah, coach, I’d like to just follow up because it is really interesting when you get the stop and you’re not going to call the timeout because you want to attack on that broken play two questions. I guess, what are you telling your guys?
I guess, how do you want them to attack on this offense? What are you trying to generate and then how are you working on it and practice just to build a familiarity with it and kind of the shots you can or cannot generate. It goes back to the beginning, you practice the things, sometimes it happens the most in the games, but we work on our Phoenix break almost every day, so our guys are comfortable with that. Our guys are comfortable attacking on a miss and I think there’s an opportunity too to trust your guys and that, is it perfect all the time? No, but what I found is, man, when you attack and you keep it moving and the other team a lot of times doesn’t want to foul and you end up getting a clean look or you end up getting a look and a lot of times when you look back and even if it doesn’t go your way you’re like, hey, if I had called timeout, would I have gotten that shot? Maybe not, but I think it’s something that we work on and our guys know and we only have a couple of simple actions that we might want to get to, even if we want to slow down and make sure we’re taking the last shot. It’s a tie game or whatever it is and we want to make sure we’re taking the last shot of the game or the half, those kinds of things. But something that we work on is just it’s a philosophy that I have. It doesn’t mean I’ve never called timeout, there’s some times where I do and it’s worked out more than it hasn’t where we have not called timeout, but there’s been times you’ve been burned too. I think it’s everything, right? Nobody’s been perfect in that scenario. That’s just a philosophy that I like and it’s something that we do practice here.
Dan 45:51
Coach, when you say something you guys do and you practice, is it like just a simulated scrimmage or is it like little bits of segments, end of game stuff? I mean, I guess, is there any drill or is there any way that you like to try to simulate that end of game decision making?
Niko Medved 46:06
I think for me, end of game stuff is funny. I think there’s probably most coaches would say, gosh, I wish I spent more time on end of game stuff. But like the great coach Bennett, I think you guys had Stan Van Gundy on here who said this too, and said, practice the things that happen the most in the games. And I think you can get bogged down sometimes spending too much time working on that stuff. You got to get there first. You got to make sure you’re in a situation where you’re in these close games that you have a chance to win. But a couple of things that I like to do with that is, one, when we do play, like you said, in practice, short games, whether it’s a four-minute game, two-minute game, one-minute game, whatever, an ODO or something like that, where we get those organic late game situations that come up and we get to practice those, I think that’s a great way. The other way I like to is it might just be in the middle of practice. We’re doing a joint transition all of a sudden, hey, three seconds left, ball on the side, we’re down three, we need a three right here, green ball. And can they do whatever it is that you had, and you just organically just ambushed with it. They have to quickly, boom, can they get to the act? Do we have no timeouts? Ball, full court, you might just do it in the middle of practice and throw those things out or sprinkle them in where they quickly have to adjust and think on the fly. And it’s something maybe we practiced a couple of days ago or even last week, but can they do that? And doing those things throughout the season, keep them on their toes, their thinking. When those situations come up in the game, hopefully they’re able to execute.
Pat 47:35
Coach, can I just scratch my itch when you give that send, you’re down three, three seconds left or you were not going to call timeout, but you need a three. What are some of the things maybe you like your guys try to get to to generate offense? Is it just simply drive and kick and hope the defense most likely will still help off is it get to a handoff or maybe they’re going to switch. What are some of the things you’re maybe trying to help your guys get to if you need a three.
Niko Medved 47:59
Yeah. I mean, there may be some, you know, some multiple actions like that, you know, screen to another screen, a slip to a screen, a curl action to another one. I mean, I think that sometimes it’s just, it’s still amazing how many times you attack and somebody might overhelp in that situation. And sometimes guys, I mean, listen, we overthink all this stuff. You try to get to actions, sometimes a guy just can pull up. I mean, you know what I mean? And be able to, that guy having the ability to create that shot for himself right there or somebody else is what I found is being a more aggressive attacking team in those situations usually pays off, but they’re difficult. That’s why I think sometimes calling a timeout defensively is very good or practicing your three point field goal defense, whatever it is, making sure you’re organized, making sure you guys know who do we know they’re probably going to go to here. What do we have to make sure? Maybe there’s some things that we saw on film. These are the things we know they like to do late game. We’ve got to be ready for this. This is the guy they’re going to run something for. We got to switch up, you know, aggressively, you know, whatever.
Dan 49:09
Alright, coach, we got one more start sub sit for you. We’re just calling this pace accelerating actions. So I know that you like to play with pace offensively. So these are three different actions you can run in transition that you might prefer or like in order to generate a quick pace into your flow offense. So I know we talked about the Phoenix break a little bit, but we’ll still ask this question. So start, sub, or sit, a drag screen and transition, a get action, or, you know, a pass and a follow for handoff. Or the third option is a quick pin away. So just having your big pin screen away and then get into some type of action after that.
Niko Medved 49:43
I’ll sit the drag. I don’t want to say I don’t like drags, but my experience with that, sometimes they can be really good actions if teams really know how to do it organically. But a lot of times with my experience has been, you’re trying to really attack and get the ball at the floor and attack the paint early and get opportunities. And when guys know you drag, what do they do? They dribble, drown and they’re like, yeah, come on, come get me, come get me. And it just, it slows down. To me, it has a tendency to slow down because they’re waiting for that guy all the time. And I think what do teams practice a lot? They practice transition defense and they practice defending drags, because that’s what a lot of teams do. So I’m not a huge fan of that. I think it’s good for some players in some situations and people know how to set them at the right angles and all that stuff like that. I would say sub a pin away. I think those could be really good when they’re quick and they’re organic and guys can get to that and they can read and react and attack. I think those are good. And I would say start to get action. I think when really good players are involved in those actions, I think they can be, and it’s happened fast in transition. I think they can be really, really hard to guard. You can almost get some pseudo pistol like actions and stuff like that out of it, which I think can be pretty difficult to guard.
Dan 50:54
follow up on the start, which is the get action. Just in transition, just always wonder with teams that do a good job of teaching it, what are you teaching your big who’s giving the handoff back as far as catching it, angle, how they get out of it after they hand it off?
Niko Medved 51:10
Out of it, more than teaching too many specifics is the pace of how you do it. And obviously, we want to try to catch that ball inside the three-point line if we can. So you’re always allowing that guard to play. If a guy decides to go underneath that, see if he has the ability to shoot it or shot, stop and attack it again, I think that’s a big deal. I think having that subtle opportunity to be able to catch it as a big and maybe half pivot. So when he takes that good action, he can get downhill quickly, allowing your big to play organically of reading the coverage. Can he roll to the basket? Can he pop either to shoot it or sometimes playing to the next action out of that is really, really good stuff. Making those cuts, we go to a gun, a big guard tries to chase it and maybe he doesn’t give it to him and it’s a basket cut after that and playing to the next. And so we have terminology for a lot of those actions and we might teach it that way and tell our guys to look for X, Y, or Z and that word association that I really like to use, I think is a great teaching tool.
Pat 52:13
Coach, with the quick pins, how are you helping your guys make it organic?
Niko Medved 52:18
We don’t always do a ton of that. I mean we do some on the quick pins and transition And I think the pace of it again is one of the most important things screening a man pace and like, you know What’s the most important thing on offense? You know, you ask a young player that they’re gonna say the ball No Most important thing on defense is the ball The most important thing on offense is your man and how you’re being played and having the ability to trust your team is gonna make the pass But can you quickly read your man? What’s your man doing? You know take your man and screen if he’s going the middle I can family the simple stuff But that’s hard to get guys to do quickly and organically and then also it’s really the passer the decision maker With the ball is just as important because he has to be able to read what’s going on just like those other guys so he can deliver it on time on target to that player who might only have a quick half-step advantage there and If that ball is not delivered if the passer has got the ball here And he has to catch and see what’s going on and if he can see the defender is, you know shooting the gap He’s got to be able to take it to the action and be able to deliver that pass So that player can take advantage of the advantage that he has right on So I think working on all those things the decision makers Reading your man trusting your teammates gonna make don’t be able to deliver the ball I think those are the things we try to work on
Dan 53:36
Coach, you’re off the start sub or sit hot seat. Thanks for playing. That was a lot of fun. We appreciate it.
Niko Medved 53:41
Appreciate you guys. Thank you.
Dan 53:42
We’ve got one more question for you. Before we do, congrats again on a great season and thank you for coming on the show today and spending time with us.
Niko Medved 53:49
Thank you, Coach. It’s been awesome. You guys do a great job. Thank you, Coach. Appreciate that.
Dan 53:53
All right. Our last question, what’s one of the best investments that you’ve made in your career as a coach?
Niko Medved 54:00
I mean, other than obviously marrying my wife who’s just unbelievably supportive of me and my career and our family, the biggest investment I made was I got connected with Dick Bennett. I had a friend of ours and supporter of the program at Furman who had known Coach. I was just hoping to go up and have lunch with Coach one day. He invited me up to his house. I ended up spending two days at his house with me and his wife, Ann. We really developed a really close relationship and bond throughout the years. He’s just been instrumental for me and the way I think about coaching and encouraging me. And you can see my style really isn’t similar to what he plays, but it’s really not about that. But there’s so many things that I’ve taken from him. And I’m just so blessed to have a mentor and somebody like that who’s really taken an interest in me as a young coach, willing to spend his time. And I just encourage everybody to, you know, young coaches to have a mentor or mentors or people that they can talk to that can help them. And I think, you know, that relationship that I formed when I was a young coach, I think really, really helped the trajectory of my career.