We sat down this week with newly hired Head Coach of Loyola Maryland MBB, Josh Loeffler! In his second appearance on the podcast, Coach Loeffler dives headfirst into the areas of late-game coaching, including psychology, preparation, and situational work, and discusses reestablishing a culture and defensive rebounding tactics during the always fun “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Transcript
Josh Loeffler 00:00
About the prep work, and you can never get yourself ready for every basketball scenario. There’s infinite scenarios. When people are like, hey, you have to do situational work, well, there’s infinite situations. But the more situations you can put yourself in, and the more you can possibly randomize those in practice for yourself to coach, the better you’ll be prepared when that situation comes in the game. And that’ll allow you to stay calmer and present the best information to your team.
Dan 01:49
And now, please enjoy our conversation with Coach Josh Loeffler. Well, the thing we wanted to start with you on is, you know, we’ve done a couple of crunch time film room sessions with you on our SGTV on late game decisions and things like that and wanted to revisit late game coaching mindset or psychology of a coach late game and all that’s you know needed in order to hopefully make good decisions, keep your cool, coach your team, all the things that happen down the stretch when there’s a lot of pressure and games on the line. And so I wanted to start there and I think to start it’s just your thoughts on how you think about preparing yourself mentally, emotionally for late game decisions.
Josh Loeffler 02:42
Great question. There’s no preparation quite like experience, right? So I think all of us get more comfortable with it the more we’re in those situations. The short answer is I’m probably better at it now than I was when I was 25, but I think there’s more to it than that. And it’s such a cop out to be like, oh, well you’ll just get better at it the more you do it. You know, I think another coach speak answer is like, well, I’m better at it when my players are good. It’s like, well, no doubt, of course. I do think there are things you can do to be better in those situations and in a better mindset in those situations. And it’s not that different than what we preach to our players. I think we’ve come a long way in terms of mindfulness and mental performance training and using sports psychology for our players, right? I think even if you’re not doing it all the time, I think we’re all more cognizant of it. And I think we’re all more aware of it and its importance. For coaches, we talk to those players about you have to get the reps, right? When it’s not crunch time, so that when crunch time comes, you’re feeling prepared and confident. So I think it’s the same for coaches. And how do we do that? You have to manufacture those situations in practice so that you become comfortable coaching them in practice and not just in an environment where you’re like, hey, this is the play we’re gonna run if we need a three down on a sideline out with this much time. You probably have to put yourself in situations to actually coach on the fly. And then I think you have to have a plan just like we tell our players. And then I think you just have to have constant conversations about if this were to happen, what would we do? What does this year’s team need? What if so-and-so is not in the game? It’s all about the prep work. And you can never get yourself ready for every basketball scenario. There’s infinite scenarios. When people are like, hey, you have to do situational work. Well, there’s infinite situations, but the more situations you can put yourself in and the more you can possibly randomize those in practice for yourself to coach, the better you’ll be prepared when that situation comes in the game. And that’ll allow you to stay calmer and present the best information to your team.
Dan 04:43
You mentioned experience and having to kind of go through it as a coach. As you’ve grown as a coach and been in a lot of these experiences, have you gotten more confident about your decision making or are you still always, I’m sure there’s always a little bit of doubt as a coach about what you’re doing or if it’s going to work. But how has your confidence level gotten better, stayed the same with the experience behind you now? That’s a great question.
Josh Loeffler 05:06
Great question. I think it’s success and failure breed confidence. And I know that sounds counterintuitive, but for instance, I look back at a couple things that we did at Hopkins. No, we actually won two games in one week on a buzzer beater. The first game was on a Wednesday and we hit the first option to win in double overtime on Wednesday night. Saturday afternoon, we’re playing Swarthmore and it’s the same sort of situation. And we run the counter to it and we win, right? And you know, I’m feeling like a genius and everybody’s feeling great. But the reality of that is that even if the shots hadn’t gone in, we had practiced those plays for about a month before we ever used them in a game. So I felt good about the process so that the process gave me confidence. Watching the team be able to execute it gave me confidence. And obviously I got confidence and our players got confidence because we ended up winning. But I think also a few years before that, I had, I’m sorry, no, it was the next year. I probably botched a timeout. I didn’t explain something really well as well as I’d wanted to. We didn’t end up in the ideal shot. We gave up a run out at the end. I didn’t really explain time and score as well as I should have. We’re playing Whitworth in Las Vegas. I wasn’t as clear as I needed to be. We were down our point guard. We had players in different positions. We subbed one guy in. We decided not to sub another guy in. That was probably a mistake on my part. There were a couple of things, there was a lot going on. I think that’s what you learn about these huddles is like there’s a lot going on. And then you’re trying to explain different things, what we’re looking for. And I don’t think I was clear enough about, hey, go at this specific time. Don’t go earlier than this. I botched it. So we lose to Whitworth. And I got confidence from that because you know what? At the end of the day, after being really upset about it for a little while, like I was all right. I had to grow as a coach from it and I had to teach better because of it. And you learn that like failure isn’t final. That’s a real thing. It’s not just a cliche. If we beat ourselves up as coaches and we microanalyze everything too long, then we’re also not very valuable. So you do have to understand that we’re not gonna be perfect just like every player is gonna hit some shots and miss some shots. We’re not gonna get everything right. And we have to live to fight another day. So I think going through those things in games is really valuable.
Pat 07:20
When it comes to late game situations, the decision to act, especially when maybe the game is in the flow, how you weigh your decisions or when you would, does my team need some sort of impulse? Maybe it’s crunching, do we need a sub? Do we need to maybe change a coverage? And I think that’s also another tricky thing because you make the change and it doesn’t work going back to kind of the failure, you got to live with that, or maybe the word freeze is too strong. But you think, well, it’s got us here, like, let’s just keep kind of writing it out. But maybe a change is necessary. So just how you think about the decision to act, even with all the good preparation you’ve done.
Josh Loeffler 07:54
And that’s really maybe the hardest thing, right? I mean, I don’t think the public generally understands and sometimes even other coaches when they’re watching a game, it’s very easy to be like, well, why didn’t you switch to this coverage? You know, or why didn’t you do that? And the reality is you can say like, well, they didn’t have a player play against us that we had prepared all week for and that changed the entire game plan. And then the adjustments from there were different then. So like all these stimuli affect all your decisions, right? And as you get into like these crunch situations, these tough situations, it’s even magnified. So deciding stay the course or change, that has to happen really quickly. You might be like, hey, we gotta get a timeout in the next two seconds or else we’re gonna be in action and it’s not gonna really make sense anyway. There are split second decisions. I always think personally that if we haven’t kind of gone over that contingency plan before as a team, it’s really hard for me as a coach to feel great about doing it. That’s just kind of how I am. I have always marveled at coaches that can go into games and run five different things as an ATO that the team has never worked on and that team is very good at it. I’ve never been that coach. And I think that translates to also, hey, if we’ve never played with this lineup, my mind doesn’t go there very much. If we’ve never had that player healthy and playing with us, it’s hard for my mind to go like, hey, let’s put him in right now because I just haven’t seen it. And I think that’s pretty common for a lot of coaches. Our eyes and our brains adjust to that which we see the most, whether it’s in practice or in games. I think that’s like a hard thing sometimes for freshmen to understand. Hey, I don’t play you as much because I just haven’t seen you as much. And then you have to gain that trust. And I think we have to have that trust gained in switching a ball screen coverage and doing some of that. Now there’s desperation, right? And you’re like, hey, we have to just do something to get the ball out of Luca’s hands. But those are fewer and far between than people realize. It’s the smaller adjustments that are harder and I think for me personally, if I haven’t seen it in practice, if I haven’t talked about it with the staff, if we as a program haven’t really worked on it, it’s always harder to do it. I think the other thing that’s really hard for coaches is do I call timeout now? That’s a really hard decision. When do I call timeout? There’s so many things that go into that and it’s so much of gut. And again, that’s why I think building in some random situations in practice where you have to make those decisions in practice. Maybe you have the white team and Dan has the green team and we’re playing a scrimmage and there’s randomized actions and randomized situations and now we both have to coach and draw up things and scheme.
Josh Loeffler 10:34
The more you can do that, I think the more you’re going to feel confident in your own decision making. I think that’s what we’re ultimately looking for, right? We just wanna feel confident in our own decision making. Like I got this. Because when you do that, you convey that to your team and they feel more confident and they feel like they have an advantage and an edge and then they’re gonna go out and feel like we’re gonna win this game. Coach, you mentioned…
Pat 10:57
With the players, you know, you just see them more so you trust them What are the characteristics the traits that you want and the five guys out there that you trust all five is hard.
Josh Loeffler 11:07
Yeah. Let’s talk about it like this. All five guys, man, it’s different. On offense, you want to have guys who are going to be solid and probably execute what you’re trying to do well. But there’s like, all right, well, those four guys are going to be really solid. That guy might screw it up, but he also is just going to go get the ball and get a tip in, or he’s just going to make a play. So it varies with all five, I would say. I think it’s funny, like we’ve always done, you know, hustle stats and stuff like that defensively and offensively too. And some of that process-based stuff with one possession, it goes out the window sometime. I know that guy’s not always in the right spot, but I also know he can go make a play from the weak side and put somebody’s shot on the glass. So like, we need him in there right now. So it’s a mix of like, who’s going to do exactly what they’re supposed to do and who’s going to make a play. You can’t have five guys out there who are just going rogue and do whatever, but it is a balance. Then I think when you’re making decisions about offensively, who’s going to have the ball, who’s going to make decisions, who’s going to get shots, that kind of stuff, you’re looking for someone that you’re confident in. Obviously, that goes without saying. Someone who can kind of get to the second option, because the first option rarely ever works, someone who can make something out of nothing. And then I always think one of the biggest things is you’re looking for someone who’s just not scared of the moment. It’s kind of like that old adage of if they call a technical, don’t tell anybody to go shoot it. Just wait to see who like starts walking the line to shoot them. You know, you want that kind of mindset in those last situations too, like the guy who’s not afraid to fail. You know, I think those guys are super rare and they’re very valuable.
Pat 12:43
Coach, looking at the five, say it’s the last two to three minutes where the game’s still going to flow a little bit, do you tend to be more offensive or defensive minded in terms of let’s put a team that best matches up with our opponent, or maybe let’s play a lineup that maybe has some juice, can score, and maybe cause them to have some matchup problems? Even game, tie game. It’s a close game, but it’s not exactly like it’s going to be possession, possession where it’s like, yeah, let’s go offense, defense here.
Josh Loeffler 13:10
It changes game to game because I would probably skew defensively more than offensively. These are really good questions actually make me think about how Ivy thinks. I always feel like in late game situations, you guys actually teased me about it with Hopkins, right? There was like, how many minutes did Delaney go without passing the ball in that one game? It was like the last like four or five minutes. I always feel like, hey, that guy could get a stuff. So like, if these other guys here, I love offense, you guys know, I love the watch offense, I love the scheme. Late game, you’re like, Hey, the more passes we throw, the more things go wrong. So like, I probably would always skew a little defensively and be like, that dude can get us a good look. So we’ll be fine. But I think there are variables where if you’re playing against a team that’s just, you know, it’s a rock fight, you feel like you can’t score. You might just put a guy in who you’re like, Hey, he’s not our best defender, but we’re playing pretty well defensively. And we just need a guy who we feel can go off and knock some shots in and we’ll live with the defensive liability.
Dan 14:07
I go back a little bit about late game stuff and when it comes to communication and information and as a head coach sometimes you have a flow or feel and then you get a suggestion from an assistant on something and maybe another suggestion or you’re getting information that maybe you weren’t, then you got to process it, think about it, do I want to do it, do I not? And I guess I’m getting that staff communication, the flow of information late game of like who’s telling you what so you don’t have other things clanking around in your brain that you don’t need or have to think about in key moments.
Josh Loeffler 14:42
I think again, it goes back to having constant conversation when you’re not in those moments and as you’re leading up to games. This year was really valuable for me for that because I was assistant again at Cincinnati. And I got to see, number one, I thought Wes Miller does a really good job of having those conversations throughout the year. So he’s going into the season with a way that he wants it to work. And then we adjust as obviously some things are like not as good as he wants, or he just thinks like, ah, you know what, I thought it would be this way, but here’s what I need more. So I think constant communication of that stuff is really important. It was also really good for me to just be back in the seat where sometimes I told an idea and I got told to sit the hell down, you know, like, Oh, really? That’s your idea. Great. Yeah, that’s, that’s great. Thanks for that one, Josh. So helpful. But you know what, it also helped me too, because everybody on staff is going to have to have a different role in the whole game and especially in crunch time. And the more you can get your staff to all be on the same page prior to the game, the more everybody’s going to be really confident in what you do in a late game situation.
Again, that confidence that you convey, it’s really important. Having the whole staff be confident, having your head coach in a time out feel really good about the ATO that he’s drawing up, whether it’s me or someone else, those are really important things because guys get that vibe. And again, you’re not going to be perfect. Probably have a couple suggestions I made this year that I want back. I think the process was right. Maybe the decisions weren’t always right. But I had an assistant when I was at Stevens named Anthony Zio, a great guy, and he used to just throw ideas out there. And one game I must have shot him a look that was like really bad. I don’t know. I was 26 and I was kind of crazy. And he just goes, hey, my job is just give you ideas. Your job is to tell me to shut up. Like, that’s OK. And he’s like, I’m just going to keep throwing the ideas. If you tell me to shut up, that’s fine. And I think that mindset as an assistant is important. Like, it’s OK. It’s not personal. These are heated moments. And I think, again, having a staff and this is kind of like when we’re putting a staff together here at Loyola, like people who like each other, people who have great chemistry, people who trust each other so that everybody knows that you’re coming from a good place. And the feedback, even though it’s not always going to be super positive, is also coming from a good place.
Dan 16:52
I guess just on the topic of communication in these heated moments, going to the players now because one thing to think, be ready to make decisions yourself or with your staff, but then when you have to communicate it to your players and they’re emotionally charged, you likely are. How and in what way you communicate the tactical information needed at the end of the game in a way that they keep it and that you’re not coming into a timeout like, you know, feral and old school, I tell everybody that’s just to calm down in the locker room.
Josh Loeffler 17:21
It’s the best way to explain how not to communicate ever to a team show. Nobody freak out. I’ve gotten a little better at that, I think, by being a parent, just because, you know, my wife will be like, you realize telling a seven-year-old to calm down is actually counterproductive, right? Like, that’s not a way to get a seven-year-old to calm down. So I guess how you convey it, it’s multilayered. When there’s a timeout, I think giving the team a second to sit down by themselves and taking a couple seconds, a couple of beats to like meet as a staff to make sure everybody’s on the same page and allow them to talk to themselves, allow everybody to maybe to breathe. I think that’s really healthy. Can’t be too long if you have to go in and do something specific. If you’ve been able to work on it some prior to game experience, I think that is really valuable so that maybe they’ve seen you draw up on the board more. You also understood, you know what, I screw this one thing up a lot because it’s just the way my brain works. So I got to really be aware of where I draw this because I don’t always draw it correctly. Those are the things that sometimes matter. What if you have two Braden’s on the team? How do you label which Braden’s where? You know, like just things like that you can figure that stuff out. And then I think telling your staff prior to games or knowing as a staff prior to games in these situations, maybe as the team breaks, you get with one guy and go like, hey, you’ve got to look out for this, or make sure you look to set the screen before you slip out too early. So empowering your whole staff to also have conversations as you’re coming out of huddles is really good because you’re trying to just get information on all those seconds and you don’t want it to be overload. So let’s say you’re coming out of a defensive huddle. You’ve got a player who you know is really bright. You got John Newman coming out and he’s guarding a certain guy and you’re like, hey, John, remember this guy likes to shot fake on every dribble handoff, stay down, something like that, just allowing your staff to have that idea as well and powering them. I think that way you can get information in without it all being like right in their face all the time.
Pat 20:27
After the game, you mentioned earlier like the process versus the decision. So how do you go back and evaluate right process, wrong decision or wrong process, we got the right decision.
So how do you go post game and evaluating your decisions and your processes?
Josh Loeffler 20:42
Generally comes down to mostly film, talking through things. I honestly think over the years, the more I’ve been a part of post-game conversations, the more I think we actually misremember things a lot. I’m not saying all the time, I think as coaches, we probably give ourselves too much credit in terms of like, oh, then this happened, then that happened. In reality, you go watch the film, you’re like, oh, that other thing happened in between, I forgot about that. It’s good to sit there and reflect on what the game was. That’s where I find myself after games a lot.
Why did I think that was a good idea? Was it a good idea? But then I think the act of diving into the film is always super helpful in terms of just, I didn’t remember that exact thing happened. I thought that guy was more over here. Like how many times do we go, why didn’t he pass that ball? He should have made it. And then you watch it and you’re like, oh, it wasn’t that open. I think that post-game stuff is so visceral that it’s hard to have as clear a picture. I think we’d all like to think we’re Sean McVeigh and can recall every play that’s ever been run by our organization. But the reality is most of us aren’t. And it’s too visceral and it’s too emotional. And personally, I think being able to get into the film a little bit and watch gives you a much clearer lens. you
Dan 21:53
Coach, my last question on this, see if I can word this correctly, but has to do with post game stuff and things that you can sleep with and things you can’t sleep with as a coach and any learnings from maybe the things you can’t sleep with or you made a decision that kept you up later than not when it comes to wins and losses here, thinking like, yeah, maybe tactically you can run a different play, but is there like more foundational things that have messed with you late at night after one of these games? Yeah.
Josh Loeffler 22:22
The games that always give me the most difficulty are the ones where you just, why didn’t we have it the whole game? I think that’s the hardest thing for me. It’s probably the hardest thing for a lot of coaches. I think we all know in the moment when we’re watching our teams and it’s just not there. Something’s off. Everybody’s a little bit in the mud or they’re doing things that are just out of character. And it’s not malicious. And it’s not so over the top that we’re clearly messed up in this way or that way. We have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It’s more of like those games where we’re a little slow, we’re a little off, we’re not executing the game plan. It’s like when you’re just 5% off and you don’t know why and the effort’s not what you want and the fight’s not what you want. Those are the hard ones.
The effort and the fight and the connectivity, right? Those are things that I always think of. Effort, fight, and connectivity. And you watch a boxing match every now and then and this guy’s a good boxer. I guarantee this wasn’t the plan for the fight. It’s like Mickey’s in the corner screaming a rock. It wasn’t the plan, like get off the ropes. But for whatever reason, the fighter can’t get out of his own way, cannot execute the plan, cannot do something differently. And no one knows why. I always think that is the hardest thing to rationalize because we don’t really know why. And if you point to something, you’re usually high-sized 2020, but that doesn’t help in the moment. I just feel like that’s the worst feeling. And that’s the hardest feeling to sleep with.
Dan 23:48
That’s why you love practice the next day, you know, get back to practice and make it better.
Josh Loeffler 23:51
Oh yeah, we’re all geniuses the next day in practice.
Pat 23:55
On that note, when you’re in those games, what can you do as a coach? Is there a way to turn it around?
Josh Loeffler 24:00
Sometimes, my first year at Hopkins, the game I was talking about earlier where we won at the buzzer on the Wednesday, we were walking in at halftime, we’re down, I don’t know what we’re down, we’re down a lot. And my assistant, John Andrechak, who’s now at Florida, really good coach, really smart coach, like great basketball coach. We’re like walking in, I don’t know, it was just one of those games. And he was like, I think we should do X, Y, Z, if we go from this to that. And I was, I don’t know, man, like I think I got this one. I just went in and we talked about no X’s in us. So he talks about some other stuff. And you just try to push some buttons without crossing any lines. And that worked out. But then a couple of years later, we have one of those games playing Muhlenberg at home. Just couldn’t get it going, couldn’t get out of our own way. And they’re good. Kevin’s doing a good job. They’re attacking us in smart ways, but we’re just not playing well either. And then we finally start playing well or better, maybe. You put in a different guy and you go like, you know what, we’re just gonna go small and I’m gonna play these guys. And I feel like these are the hardest playing guys. And sometimes we’re right about that. Sometimes we’re wrong. And we just didn’t have enough time to get enough good possessions in a game and they won.
So sometimes you do something and it works. Sometimes you do something and maybe the idea was right. That’s why sports are crazy. How many sweeps do you really see in the NBA Finals, in the NBA playoffs? Because it’s hard to win that many games in a row without having an off night. Conference play and college basketball, it’s really hard to not have an off night. And it’s really hard to not have a team that figured something out about you. And in real time, you can’t figure out what they figured out. We all know so much about each other now with all the information. You can try and push all the buttons. You can try every trick, try every ploy. And sometimes it’ll work and sometimes you just don’t have enough time, even if it is the right thing to do.
Pat 25:43
Last year, you were an assistant coach with Cincinnati. What are you gonna take from your time as an assistant coach last year to your head coaching position now?
Josh Loeffler 25:51
I thought that we did a very good job about managing. I think staffs are getting bigger in America. That’s hard for people to deal with, especially for me. I’m coming from the division three world where I had two assistants. My staff here is not huge. You watch some of these games and you’re like, where are the players? It’s all just coaches. And we weren’t that at Cincinnati either. We actually had a pretty manageable number of people on staff. But I thought that Wes did a really good job of explaining responsibilities and holding people accountable for those things. And then kind of delegating based on that and each person feeling like they had things to accomplish that were super meaningful and impacted winning. So I thought that was really, really helpful.
And then communication about that. I thought we held things to a really high standard. Everything from the way social media was presented to the way a uniform looked, to the way a room looked when you walked in, like it all mattered. Some of it was minutiae that I probably always thought I thought of, I thought mattered. And I was like, no, that really did make a difference right there. So I thought that was really cool. In terms of basketball, I really mean this. It was great to see someone who cared so much about team. The Carolina Way is a real thing, guys. All those lessons that get put in books about Dean Smith, I got to see play out and I got to see those coaches, like Roy Williams came in and talked, the embodiment of that and pointing the passer and the way you treat people. And then probably the most important thing, I don’t know if anyone in the country treats players better than Wes Miller and will move mountains in his day to make sure that players are taken care of first. And everything will drop to make sure that players are cared for. I think that in a sport and a athletic world that is becoming more and more transactional, I think that’s probably the number one thing now that I really think about it is just the relational piece was so strong. It is the most important thing. Who cares about anything else? That’s probably the number one.
Dan 27:52
Coach, appreciate all your thoughts on that first part. We want to move now to a segment that you’ve played before.
Come back to it now called Start, Sub, or Sit. Those may be listening for the first time. We’ll give you three options around a topic. Ask you to start one, sub one, sit one, and then we’ll discuss from there. So coach, if you’re ready, we’ll dive back into this.
Josh Loeffler 28:11
If you’re listening to this for the first time, I’m sorry that this is your first episode. I’m sure someone good will be on soon.
Dan 28:19
Okay. This first one has to do with tough things about starting a new job. And like we’ve hit on over the course of that first conversation, long time at Hopkins, one year Cincinnati, and now starting things back up again at Loyola, Maryland. And so I want to give you three different options about what might be difficult about becoming a head coach in a new place. So finding your style of play or how you want to play at your new job. And then option three is the staff role clarification and dynamics. So new staff, all the stuff we mentioned a little bit in the beginning as well, but getting everybody on board on staff and how you want to play. So start, sub, or set those three options. Thanks for choosing this.
Josh Loeffler 29:11
Three hardest options guys, really good stuff here. So I’m gonna start reestablishing your culture. It’s gonna segue into my sub, which is the staff dynamic. And I think those two are really, really related because I don’t think you can establish or reestablish a culture very well if you don’t get the right people on staff to help you do it. So I think making sure that your staff dynamic is taken care of on the front end in every way that you can control and you can’t control every way, right? But hiring the right people and hiring them to a job that they’re excited about with terms that they like, by establishing the correct people in the staff, you’re setting yourself up to do the hardest thing, which is establish a culture or reestablish a culture. I mean, this is a people business. If you don’t have the right people in place, you’re really fighting windmills. So reestablishing or establishing the culture, I think is the hardest, but if you don’t have the right people, who cares? In terms of establishing or reestablishing a culture, the thing that I think is hardest or can be hardest, I was at Hopkins for six years. By the sixth year, a lot of it ran itself because expectations and standards had been set. And if you continue to attract the right people, they are gonna make sure that the trains run on time kind of internally and less of it falls on you as a head coach. So when you go to a new job, those things are not in place and everything is brand new or almost everything is brand new. And as a coach, I think it’s healthy for us to have to realize how to establish a culture again and all the work that it takes place, but it’s hard. And at times you can forget just how hard it is to hold people accountable to a standard that is brand new again and again and again. And I also think it’s very healthy to think about, oh yeah, in year one at my last job, we actually did this thing that I never even thought about that much after that because it kind of took care of itself, but like that was super important. And we gotta make sure that we get back to doing that, even though I haven’t been doing that for a few years because our captains did that instead of me. So I think that’s hard to do that, but I think it’s also a really good practice for us as coaches to get back in touch with what does help establish or reestablish. And then I’ll probably sit style of play, especially in year one. The style of play in year one offensively from Hopkins, I look back at and go, oh, but we thought it was a good idea. It wasn’t a bad idea. It wasn’t the ideal idea. There are things about it I hate. There were things about it that were fine. And there were things about they’re good. The style of play in year one, when I look back at our time at Hopkins, allowed us to focus on more of the cultural and defensive. So our offensive style play allowed us to focus on other things. And then we adjusted as the year went on. So I think having a base style of play that’s gonna work is important, but I think you can be flexible as a coach.
Josh Loeffler 32:03
I think you can adjust. And I think if you get all those other things in place around it, you’ll be okay. I once had a coaching friend of mine in football go like, hey, I’ll run the stupidest plays ever. But if we do them really well with great players, it’s still gonna work on some level. So I think that the cultural piece and the staff piece are the top two for me.
Dan 32:24
The start reestablishing culture just interested in when you’re trying to really establish something, how does it work like as you’re doing this again? Is it a lot of little mini meetings with one on ones small groups? Yeah, I guess what are your steps to early on trying to get the trainer?
Josh Loeffler 32:42
It’s funny that you asked that question. The big team meeting, like, hey, this is me, I am this, and this is us, and we are this. It’s good because it establishes a tone, but it’s probably so overrated. It’s about the work. You want to establish tone and set a culture, get to work and hold them accountable. And having intentionality every day, so like, hey, we got to make sure we do this, this, and this, and explaining things quickly and then holding people accountable, they’ll figure it out too. Those big team meetings to kick everything off, the more I’m in this, the more I think they’re probably pretty overrated. It’s like the written scout, right? The written scout is way more impactful if the stuff you do on the floor about the scout is really good because then they can go like, ah, this is what we’re talking about. I just live this. So it’s about the work. It’s about the work on the floor. And then I think in terms of growth and improvement, we’ve kind of gotten this way too with end of year meetings. We used to do like big end of year meetings where like we dissected everything for who knows how long, but it was too long. And the reality is I think the way you want to approach growth and development of players is you want to establish something and then have them do it. And then there’s a check-in and how’s it going? And all right, we need to adjust and we need to pivot and we need, and then there’s another check-in and then we pivot this way. And then there’s another check. It’s constant, right? Growth never ends and development never ends. So just like establishing a culture, you want to have smaller meetings, constant check-ins, you know, making sure standards are being reached, those sorts of things as opposed to big meetings.
Pat 34:11
You said something interesting. I mean, it’s about doing the work and you mentioned explaining it to them quickly. Why quickly? I mean, I think intuitively understand you don’t want to turn everything into a lecture, but why quickly?
Josh Loeffler 34:21
Quickly might be too simple a term or the wrong term, but I do think you want to be terse and direct. I was catching up with a few ex-players the other day. Maybe it’s just me, but things that I find to be inefficient really bother me. I struggle with practice plans that meander all over the place. I struggle with meetings that kind of wind around and go too long. That’s just not the way I’d like to go about my day. I always think you want to explain something in the simplest, most effective, and most time-efficient way. You can give a reason why, but it’s got to be a quick reason why. It can’t be a monologue because that’s the other thing. Players aren’t here to listen to coaches. They’re here to play basketball, and they’re here to have a coach guide them to how to play basketball the best. I just think everything has to be efficient in terms of your explanations. It’s part of our job as a coach to distill something down to its simplest form to make sure that our players understand it in the most efficient way possible. Maybe quickly is a bad term, but I want to be efficient with the way we explain everything and make sure that things are distilled down to their very essence as closely as we can.
Dan 35:31
Your sit, finding your style of play. I know we’ve talked end-of-game stuff and you mentioned how much do you love the offensive side of the ball. Anything that you learned going from Hopkins great division three program to major division one basketball and how you thought about trading advantages in the style of play, having division three players obviously different than the guys you were coaching last year and any just thoughts on now that are going to carry over as you’re at the division one level, any differences there.
Josh Loeffler 36:01
I think the higher the level you go to, and I could be wrong because I’ve never coached higher than the big 12, but it seems to me when I was at division three, and maybe you feel differently about this, Dan, I’d actually love to hear what you think about it. And Patrick, I’d love to hear what you think about this as it pertains to Europe as well. But as you go up levels, I feel like at the lower levels going up, worried more about actions to defend. And as you go up, worried more about how to defend players, specific players, and oh, they put him in this action because it’s a good action for him. But like really what we’re trying to do is figure out how to defend that player because the level of player just goes up and they need smaller advantages to be really good. So how do you get your player a small advantage offensively, right? But defensively, I think the biggest thing to me that stands out is you’re much more worried about defending personnel as you climb levels. I don’t know if you guys agree with that or not. I would, I do too. I mean, you see basketball at level all the time. That’s one thing that’s really stood out. And I think that from that, you can be like, all right, well, how do I use that knowledge to help us build a better offense? How do I use that knowledge to help us build a better defense? And one thing that I thought that the staff at Cincinnati did a good job of was thinking, and I don’t know if you always did it perfectly, but we thought about what is so and so great at and how do we get them in that position? And offense can be that simple sometimes. And sometimes we make it too complicated. It doesn’t have to be as democratic. It can be like really like, hey, how do we just get this guy a right-hand drive in the double gap? Things like that. So I think when you’re thinking about what was the hardest part of guarding people in the Big 12, how do I use that to make us hard to guard here? And I might not do it perfectly. We might not do it perfectly, but I think it’s something that we should consider strongly.
Pat 38:59
Our next start sub sit has to do with ways to improve defensive rebounding and your start would be what would help the most with improving your defensive rebounding. Option one, is it teaching block out techniques? Option two, is it teaching rebounding areas, spots on the floor to get guys to? Or is it option three, just reading the habit of pursuing the ball and just going and getting it and not being caught flat footed?
Josh Loeffler 39:29
I think I’m going to start habit. I’m going to sub lockout technique and I’m going to sit areas and the block out technique areas pieces. Actually, I don’t feel really confident with one over the other necessarily, but I do think I’m going to start habit sub block out technique, sit areas. I’m sure someone will tell me why I’m wrong and they’ll probably be right. I think we were very fortunate at Johns Hopkins to be the best defensive rebounding team in the country several times. And yes, that’s a humble brag. So I didn’t grab any of the rebounds and we did it in years where we had elite individual rebounders and we did it in years where we had no one who averaged over 5.8 rebounds a game as person. And I thought the reason we did it well is because we were just really, really habitual. We had great rebounding habits. It mattered. We held them accountable. Guys held each other accountable. Our habit of just this matters. We would say we’re going to gang rebound all five. We would just constantly talk about rebounding as a team. So I think that’s why habit to me, just a habit of I go get it. I’m going to sub block out technique because I actually had a conversation with this about somebody the other day. We would grade guys on whether they blocked out or not. You had to check. Sometimes like you’re a point guard, you checked for the block out, your guys getting back and you go in, you did your job. Sometimes you’re a five man, you check and your guy’s not really going and you have to make that split decision. He’s not in a position to get, I just have to go pursue the ball now. But that’s all block out technique to me. When I think of block out technique, I don’t think of just how you actually physically block someone out. I think about the habit of checking and making a decision and having great decisions on when to stop blocking out and going to pursue the ball.
And I think someone asked me, what about the guy who’s a really good rebounder, but a terrible block out guy? And my point is when’s the last time you saw that guy? When’s the last time you saw a defensive player who’s oh, that guy’s the worst block out guy of all time, but he’s an elite rebounder. I’ve never heard anybody say that about any, I guess you could say maybe Dennis Rodman fell into that, but I bet if you went and watched film, it’s not true. They talked about it like he was like that. Sometimes I remember being a kid hearing about how he does his own thing with rebounding. Then you go watch the film. You’re like, no, he’s pretty fundamentally sound. And then he can elaborate on that and just go get it with instincts. So I think if you can teach guys to at least check box out a certain way, box out and then go get it, I think you’re in a great spot.
And then areas I think matter. We all know that shots from the right are generally going to get rebounded on the left. So I think teaching that and just reiterating that is really important, but I don’t think it matters quite as much as just the habits of we care about it and the habit of blocking out really matters.
Pat 42:18
How did you go about practicing these habits?
Josh Loeffler 42:22
One of the biggest things is just holding them accountable for the habits in practice. And I mean like, statting it, grading it in practice when it’s live. I think rebounding drills in general are really bad. I think you have to do some of them to establish a mindset and a toughness. But if all you’re worried about is rebounding, anybody can be a decent rebounder. Anybody can do it when nothing else matters. It’s when there’s other decisions to be made and other things going on that guys get worse at rebounding. So I think it’s, number one, talking about that. Like, hey, we finish possessions. And the way you finish possession is by all five guys going to get the rebound. All five guys pursuing the ball, all five guys doing their job. So talking about that, you get what you emphasize, right? So the more you emphasize it through statistics and what you bring up with the team and rewarding guys, that’s the other thing, like rewarding guys. We had players who legitimately broke through the starting lineup at Hopkins because they became great rebounders or just diligent rebounders. So you get what you emphasize. I think there are drills that I like that you can have emphasized rebounding at the front end. And then it turns into more basketball on the back end. For instance, we used to do something called the 12 second drill. We put 12 seconds on a shot clock, offensive players are on the outside of the three point arc. They can do whatever they want. Defensive players on the inside. There’s a coach and a wing coach and a wing coach at the top and pass back and forth. Eventually a coach shoots it. You try to miss it. Offense can go and crash all five if they want. There’s no real rules for the offense, but the defense is then going to run out and they have to score in whatever the shot clock is. So 12 second, maybe one day it’s a 24 second drill. So then you’re also teaching the offense, like, Hey, you want to crash all five, you better figure out how to get back and not give up really good shot. So you’re creating the habit of like, Hey, part rebounding is we’re not going to shy away from being physical, being nasty, being grimy, doing whatever it takes to get the ball. But then you also have to play basketball afterwards. How do we play basketball afterwards? So I think any drill where you’re incorporating the rebounding aspect, but I also have to have floor balance. I have to make sure our defensive transition is good. I think those to me are the drills that can help the most.
Dan 44:36
Love to ask about your grading on it and what was emphasized on the grading system and did you care how many actual rebounds each player got the game or practice or was it you’re just grading their decision or how they blocked out and whoever got it got it was more team oriented.
Josh Loeffler 44:54
Once both, we gave a positive numerical grade, a plus one if you boxed out, a minus two if you missed your box out, a plus, I think it was a plus two for a defensive rebound, a plus one for a tip out. Offensively, it was based on what your responsibility was. If you’re supposed to be a crash guy, did you crash? Plus, did you not crash? Minus, did you get back? You know, that kind of thing. And then we had transition defensive grades as well. Like if you’re a guard and you’re supposed to get back or like you shot the ball from the top of the key and you should obviously be getting back. Did you have like a stupid fake hustle play late where you kind of make a bad play at the ball, you know, that kind of thing. So, but then also offensively like, hey, you get this for an offensive rebound and you get this for a tip out. You know, like I think you want to still reward guys who are productive. It’s like, yeah, we want to be process based. We want to be process oriented, but let’s not forget about the fact that you still have to produce. Guys who get a lot of rebounds are always going to be valuable. So we want to reward them for doing all the right things in the process, but then also reward them for getting the ball.
Dan 45:58
The difference between those two teams you said you had team of elite individual rebounders and then one not so much one that was not so much was it because of the blockout the pursuit versus you know just having great elite guys i mean is that more i guess where you point to your system for rebounding or any differences in the two teams there.
Josh Loeffler 46:17
I think if you have a system in place where everybody’s doing their job and rebounding and caring about it You can be really good defensively rebounding some of its recruiting too, right? Like we had some long things who were gonna be good rebounders. They just weren’t gonna be 10 rebound again guys I think on that team. We actually we’re pretty small at the center spot We’re good defensively, but we didn’t have a great out of area rebounder at the center spot We had a good rebounder not an elite out of area rebounder. So everybody did their job and those out of area rebounds We’re falling to different guys based on where they were on and then the team with elite rebounder We just had a guy who could get more out of area rebounds but I think holding guys accountable and Having a system for how you want a defensive rebound is going to allow both types of teams to be successful
Dan 47:03
Coach, you’re off the start, sub, or sit hot seat. Thanks for going through that, playing that again with us. That was a lot of fun. We’ve got one question to end the show before we do. Again, congratulations on all the success, the new job, and thanks for making the time for us today.
Josh Loeffler 47:16
Thank you guys for having me. This is a blast as always. I appreciate you guys
Dan 47:21
Coach, last time you were on, we asked the question, which was the best investment question, but since you are a second time on the show, we’re gonna ask you, what are you most curious about right now when it comes to coaching or basketball? Thats harder than best investment actually. And best investment is not like an easy question. I find so much about basketball really interesting. I guess there’s two areas that I’m really curious about right now, and that is the best way to offensive rebound as a team. Number one, and number two, ways to play offense. I hate the term positionless basketball, but ways to have positionless basketball concepts that will work, whether you’re small, big, really big. What are the really key teaching points to make sure that it can flow from different lineup to different lineup? I think those are the two things I’m most curious about.
Dan 48:22
Always fun having Coach Loeffler come around, excited for him over the last couple years. Did such a great job at Johns Hopkins and had an opportunity last year with Cincinnati and now just newly hired at Loyola Maryland. Obviously a fantastic coach, a fun interview as always, so great having him on today.
Pat 48:41
enough to have him on the pot previously and then with two crunch time sessions. So going into this conversation, I was really excited, especially when we chose the topic of late game crunch time mindsets. And he did not disappoint.
Dan 48:53
Absolutley and we’re gonna in this wrap up do our top three takeaways from the whole podcast I will let you do the honor take away number one for you the starts up it on defensive rebounding. And it’s a conversation we’ve been having a lot with ourselves and with other coaches, just how you do it better, and not just use the cop out, we need better players, we need better naturally inclined rebounders, knowing that he had really good defensive rebounding teams in the past.
And for me, the big takeaway, I mean, no surprise, I mean, not that we thought there’d be a magic pill, but you know, and we’ve heard it with other coaches, but you get what you emphasize, if it’s important to you stat it, and hearing how he would grade and practice in the games, rebounding, and just kind of building that habit through there, he gave us a nice drill, that 12 second drill, but no secret pill, no secret drill, just it was important to his program, and they started it, they held guys accountable. And I liked what he said, you know, they even started players broken the starting lineup because they rebounded, I think that has a powerful effect on the guys more so than punishment, making them run, I don’t know, calling them out in front of the team, but they get to start, they get to play. Remind me a little bit of our conversation with Coach Moore of Grace College and the culture he built, and that it’s more important that guides see it come to fruition, or they see the benefits of the culture or the habits they hold, that it translates to playing time. And when guys see that, I think the buy in becomes tenfold in some respects.
Dan 50:25
Yeah, a conversation topic you and I are deeply interested in just from personal own coaching experiences, trying to get our teams to be better rebounding teams or just find ways to improve. You know, maybe you’re not going to be the best team in your conference, per se, based off your personnel.
But can you, it reminds me of we had a coach TJ Saint on not too long ago, and we asked him a better rebounding question as well. Are we talking to him about more tactical ways to think about rebounding? We talked about your pick and roll defense, your tags, your block out decisions. With coach Loeffler, we were talking a little bit more technical and just trying to get a full 360 picture on how everything connects together and then, you know, what it is you can do to move your team wherever they’re at up a couple levels. And I’ll just double down on you, the pursuit, but we asked him or the habits that he mentioned. I really thought the best thing about that was how they started it and how they looked at every single thing. And like you mentioned, that sends a message. And then I thought that was also, there’s some interesting, his sit and his sub were kind of mixed with the area and the block out and kind of thinking through where that ball is likely going to go to bring your body there, or are you going to actually hit a guy and block a guy out? But overall, I agree with you. And like it reminded me of coach Saint’s conversation. Coach Saint joked that his team wasn’t great at defensive rebounding and he was trying to figure out how to and coach Loeffler has had teams that have been terrific. So it was two good conversations there.
Pat 51:56
Yeah, I agree. Dan, I’ll throw it to you now as we even keep moving. What was your takeaway or the second takeaway from our conversation with Coach Loeffler?
Dan 52:04
Yeah, hard to pick out one from I’m going to go to the first bucket of conversation, which was the late game coaching mindset. And we were excited to talk to him about this today. Like you previously mentioned, we’ve done a couple of videos with him looking at late game stuff. We had a roundtable of coaches recently where that was brought up in the roundtable, just trying to figure out how to grow as a coach in that area of having poise and calmness and communicate well and make right decisions and or make decisions that you’re happy with down the stretch. And Coach Loeffler talked about a ton of great stuff. I think the main takeaway was how much work you can do beforehand, the prep work, whether it’s working with your staff, working with your players or yourself to try to simulate these things so that when you do get to the game, it’s likely something that you’ve at least discussed or felt or talked about. And there’s too many possibilities. But you can put yourself in scenarios where you’re at least thinking through things, you know, odd lineups or someone fouls out or whatever it is, where you’re trying to win a game down the stretch. And the prep work I thought was really great. And it reminded me of we had Coach Trevor Gleason on not too long ago last year with the Milwaukee Bucks. He was talking about his war games in practice and just trying to simulate late game situations where maybe a player fouled out or you don’t have a timeout or whatever the millions of situations so you kind of prep beforehand.
Pat 53:35
The part I enjoyed from this conversation was when we talked about, like, the decision to act. We got into a good conversation about trust, you know, what it takes to trust a player, trust a team or what he looks for. And a lot with decisions and crunch time to make a change or call a play, change a coverage. I thought he raised a really good point that it came from, has he seen it before? I mean, of course, he’s not going to do something completely off that they’ve never practiced. But has he also seen, I mean, he’s raised like, that’s why maybe sometimes freshmen don’t get it. Like, he just hasn’t seen that guy enough in those situations to where as a coach, we feel comfortable enough. I really liked that. I thought that was some good pointers, some good tips, because I think that’s another part of late game. Of course, you can prepare, plan, prep, but then you also have to have courage isn’t the right word, but you also have the ability to like act to do. And I think sometimes we can freeze or get scared, like, by making our conversation with a coach pass and I keep going back to you make the change, you change the defense and it doesn’t work. That can be a tough pill to swallow.
Dan 54:34
Sure. And as we wrap it up, I mean, basketball, as we all know, is such a unique sport when it comes to late game decision making, where it’s not like other sports, where there’s natural time in between each play, like a football or, you know, baseball. It’s just free flowing unless there’s a timeout. A lot of these decisions are made on the fly very quickly. You just have a second or two, whether you think you should call timeout or not, right? Like he mentioned that. And trying to prepare for that is, I think the fascinating part about our unique sport and profession is just the free flowing nature. And he brought up to Monday morning quarterback, people say, Hey, why don’t you just do this late game? Hey, why don’t you just switch that? Or why don’t you just change that coverage? And Coach Loughlin for talking about all the things that have to take place for you to just make that decision. It sounds good on TV or after people in the stands. But you as a coach, you know, like there’s so many other factors that go into it. And to make that decision on the fly can be difficult.
Pat 55:31
Yeah, his point was well said on that note, just, yeah, what if for whatever reason, you know, there’s a guy they weren’t preparing for that plays, but how he’s playing, and that changes maybe the strategy, but then that also changes all your counters or all the other kind of situations you had prepared for, and he’s spot on. It all has like ripple effects that maybe you don’t see from the outside, rather than if you’d known what the game plan was and how it changed maybe going into the game or within the first quarter, and that’s going to have then the ripple effects down the line.
Dan 56:01
Yeah, just all trying to make good decisions, remain confident and calm down the stretch and not be in the fetal position at the end of the bench. The last two minutes, just not looking.
Pat 56:12
I don’t think Coach is helping us today. I can’t wait.
Dan 56:16
Good luck, guys.
Pat 56:17
Yeah.
Dan 56:19
Pat, I’ll kick it back to you, our third and final takeaway with Coach Loeffler. The last takeaway I had was when we started talking about, in the first start subset, changing programs, and we got into the culture conversation. My takeaway then came when it led into what he learned as an assistant coach at Cincinnati that he’s going to take into his new position with Loyola Maryland. I mean, he listed off a couple of things, delegating, defining roles with among the staff. You know, he talked about the Carolina Way, caring for players, but one that just stood out to me, having high standards and not just giving them lip service. And of course, we all want to have high standards, but kind of falling through a hat like in everything you do and how you represent the club, the facilities, you know, all that’s involved with any basketball program, like having the high standards. And he talked about just like the difference it actually makes. I liked his thoughts on there. I mean, just kind of plain and simple, kind of resonated from the littlest things. But if you have kind of the pride in your work, your workplace, I think that adds up that makes a difference when guys come overseas, they’re not really familiar with the club, the city. But if you kind of present, like you give them a nice taken care of apartment, chances are that apartments probably can also end up at the end of the year being nice and taken care of. You give them like a rundown kind of piece, what’s incentive for them to take care of it. You know, that’s always what I mean, what I’ve seen just a lot in my experience. And I think that’s why it probably resonated just like, I think those are all part of high standards. Now, of course, budget plays an influence, but that’s, I think, irrespective of budget, you can still write a ownership type stuff. I really liked that piece within what his takeaways from Cincinnati.
Dan 57:59
Yeah. And I think within that too, he had started the reestablishing culture as the tough things about a new job. And I think I had followed up with him a little bit about how he does it. And I liked that within this too, kind of piggybacking on the standards and because he mentioned the last couple of years at Hopkins, the standards were carried out mostly by those captains and he didn’t have to do the legwork as much as when you first started it. And some of things were just carried out by the players. And I also just kind of liked asking about how you go about doing it. And he talked about it’s not just like these big speeches in front of the team all the time. And sure, there’s times to do that, but it’s the work. I mentioned it’s just the work on the court. It’s the work with them individually as players. I took that away as well as far as how you actually establish the culture and how you really get the standards infused in your program is not just one big team meeting and boom, everybody’s got it, but it’s like constant work and it’s constantly checking in and doing all those things. And so, yeah, another great point and a great takeaway from that first start sub or sit, Pat, after our top three here, any misses or things you wish we could have gone deeper on? For sure.
Pat 59:18
One of the misses was on his what he’s most curious about. Things I was ready to go another hour on. But like we said, that’ll be part three, I guess. Definitely a miss there. And maybe another miss I would have loved to have been digging at. I mean, we did a good job and he explained it really well. But when I talked about maybe the higher up you go in levels, and that it becomes maybe less about scouting and preparing its actions, but scouting and preparing against players, the matchups play a bigger role, the higher the level goes up. I thought that was an interesting thought that I tend to agree with. And I would have loved to have gotten more on that. It was a conversation we briefly hit on too with TJ Saint, when we were talking about the delay action, defending delays. And he said, you know, for sure, we have all this base coverage. But the biggest thing is you put a best player in there or a talented player and he blows it all up anyways. And you got to figure out more about how to stop that player less about the delay split cuts.
Dan 01:00:11
Yeah, thanks to you. You took both of mine as well. So I will double down on Coach Loeffler’s great, great offensive mind. I mean, obviously, you can coach defensive rebounding, too. You can coach all over the place, but I think the conversation about style of play and creating advantages at the different levels, and he’s got unique viewpoints on that. We touched on it briefly, but I think we could have had a longer conversation just about now that he’s been different places. I will second that, and then I’ll also second the most curious about question. It almost leads us to want to keep going because it opens a can of worms. We should have opened with that question. Yeah, exactly. But the offensive rebounding, again, like he mentioned, and just trying to solve that, we talked a little bit off-air afterwards about different tactics, ideas, things he’s looking at, coaches he’s talking to, and there’s just so much value in it. I think for coaches every off-season, I’d say over the last three or four years, it’s come back to how do you do it? How do you just gain more possessions and then not get beat the other way in defensive transition? Yeah, could have talked a lot more about that. Yeah. Well, once again, we thank Coach Loeffler for coming on a second time, always entertaining, always thoughtful, and so congratulations to him on the new opportunity. Pat, there’s nothing else. We’ll start wrapping this up. Sounds good. Thank you, everybody, for listening. We’ll see you next time.