We sat down this week with the Head Coach of Lipscomb MBB, Lennie Acuff! Coach Acuff is one of the best teachers in the game and we dive into his thoughts on fixing “5 Out” spacing, the benefits of a great “toss” game, and discuss defending dominant post players and the “out culturing” opponents during the always interesting “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Transcript
Transcript
Lennie Acuff 00:00
Every time we cut, you’ve got to cut to score or create help. One of those two things has to happen.
I just think whatever you’re doing, being able to spend some time, teach them, okay, there is no wrong. Just live to play another day. Like if you come over the top and something good is not happening, let’s play on to the next action. Keep the ball moving. I think ultimately on offense, you’re just trying to atlast. We’re just trying to atlast a really good defensive team.
Dan 01:48
And now, please enjoy our conversation with Coach Lenny Acuff. Coach, thank you so much for making the time for us. We’re really excited to have you on the show today. Thanks.
Lennie Acuff 02:09
This is my honor. I told you guys early off, hey, are you guys what you’re doing for basketball? It’s fantastic. And a friend of mine turned me on to you guys about six weeks ago, and you become my daily listening. So it’s been great. Thank you for what you’re doing. I’m honored to be here. Thank you.
Dan 02:21
Coach, we wanted to dive in on the offensive side of the ball with you. I know it’s something you’ve spoken about a lot different places and I think for us, one of the things we’re thinking about right now is with a lot of five out Princeton space and pace, things like that in the modern game, it’s thinking about spacing issues and how you’re able to sort of fix clunky spacings, let’s say out of a broken break or transition and basically get to where you’re playing, I guess positionless is a word that’s thrown around, but getting guys into spots, the spacings, that makes sense for how you want to then flow into whatever it is that you want to do. And so for someone like you has had a terrific offense over the years, all the places you’ve been, how you first start thinking about those kinds of spacing, potential issues early in the season, especially.
Lennie Acuff 03:11
Any time we talk about offense like our guys have been here this summer and we have five new guys like most people and so I think it’s really important that we clearly identify what is important to us and I think before you do that you have to work with the end in mind what is our goal in every possession like what are we looking for in every possession and for us is we want to get an advantage layup we want to get our hand to the backboard I think coming from division two to division one I’ve learned what rent protection does to change shots around the rim and my first couple years here we’re taking a bunch of really bad layups just running into the short corner and now the next thing you know you’re laying in the cheerleaders and it’s five on four and there they go so we want to get an advantage layup which is us getting our hand to the backboard can we get a range room in rhythm 3 for the right guy you know and you have to prove that and we can talk about that the third thing is we want to get fouled I think when you play inside out somehow some way I think you’ve got to get the ball downhill whether it’s driving it thrown in the post cutting whatever it is I think you want to play inside out and that leads to getting fouled and the third thing is get an offensive rebound if we get one of those four and we’ve had a good possession now anybody’s listening this it knows me knows we have not been a very good offensive rebounding team and it’s really hard to be great at everything but if I’m coaching a just generic team that’s the things I want and then with that in mind I think it’s really really hard to understand what that is until you play a lot and so for us this is what we want now let’s figure out how we get to that and so that’s where we start in terms of spacing for us we really really want to win the first six seconds we want to get the ball the net and one we’d like to be across half four and three and we want to try to get the advantage can we get an advantage and if we get the advantage we don’t want to give it back we need to keep it and use it you know your people say that but I think then and this is what maybe has helped us maybe take the next step at times I feel like is that once you lose the advantage and it’s something you have to work on recognizing we just say red okay let’s say we’re playing downhill the possessions gets messy we get flat-lined we’re just east-west we have no north-south advantage we just yell red and for us is we just get the guard guard wing wing we left that ball and we want to get it moving and now we’re kind of getting into conceptual offense the five gets under the ball at the elbow and now we’re just playing basketball for us our offense is all about even in transition where’s the ball where’s the five that tells us what concept we’re in that tells us what we’re doing and that’s how so we attack early we’re chasing space we’re chasing great early if we don’t get what we want then boom we’re yelling red and we work every day and bouncing that thing out getting double guard or devil wing get five guys above the foul line and let’s play
Dan 06:04
Tons of great stuff in there before we dive into some of that stuff. So as far as the spacing with the 5 in all this, is there a difference between where the 5 is running versus say your 4, your 3, your 2, and do they have specified lanes before they get into red?
Lennie Acuff 06:22
You know guys I get asked that question a lot and we don’t we just say run as hard as you can run If the five is a head of the ball We would like to put his head on the rim and you know We’d like to try to go score before the catch which I think in a lot of times now the way we play Basketball work the forefront by layer of this. There’s not a lot of score before the catch You know, we’ve got to get better at that but run to the rim try to create advantage and you know I coach at Lipscomb which Don Meyer was I think arguably the greatest teacher of the game that’s ever lived and his career was based on Or I want in you got to bring a half-man help Can we bring a half-man help to the post? but we’re trying to rim run and we just try to get as wide as we can and Space and this is something that we talk about all the time find the two on one Where’s the two on one if we can advance it to the two on one if we can drive the ball to the two on One wherever we can get to the two on one is where we’re looking and I think too if you have guys that can really shoot I think sometimes in transition the best way to get them a three is random running because you just lose your guy I mean just in defensive transition. It’s amazing. How many times you’re running you’ll have an ace shooter That ends up getting a really really good look just because you’re running but no We really don’t and I know that can be confusing at times. I do think this I think you need to let the ball find your best ball handler playmaker Ideally if you can have two that’s great Last year, we’re very dependent upon one kid But we love to have at least two or three guys that can get the ball up court and just chase the two on one And I think you have to challenge your guys to to be great at the things that take no talent It takes no talent to run really really hard and that happens every time and we want to run on makes and misses Like we really would like to get the ball of court on a make or a miss Because I love baseball guys and the best pitch in baseball is strike one Because now the pitchers on the advantage he’s on the attack We want to get ahead of the defense Defensors are so good now the size of physicality and athleticism if you’re having to go through their defense every single possession I think it makes it very hard
Pat 08:28
Following up and kind of staying on the same subject with the four man. And again, I think this is another question we run into a lot when you want to play this five out position list, but your foreman, maybe he gets in some tricky spots where it’s always better if he’s in kind of the wing or the high slot to go more screen down, handoffs down. But if you’re just want them to run and fill spots, regardless of position, what have you learned with maybe where your foreman, let’s say, traditional fore even just your second big when he’s running position list and maybe some of the tricky things that you’ve had to work through.
Lennie Acuff 09:02
I think that’s a really good question. I think the key word there is traditional forward, depends on how you’re going to play now. We have four printer players and a big. Our five is really the only true post we have now. Now our four can post and our four actually coming back as a good player. But I think if you don’t know what to do with him, I think it’s always anytime he’s behind the ball is get to some type of quick ball screen, something that can get him get to some type trigger. We’ve gone away from ball screen and all the time in transition, and we’ve gone to a lot more toss game or get actions or whatever you call it, just because I think it puts X4, X5 in a little bit more of a dilemma. Now our team last year, we were just besieged with injuries. And so we played four guards. We had played one guy over six, four. And so we were really small. And I do think that the longer the season goes, you tend to gravitate. We’re playing small. But I think if you have a non-shooting second big, I think somehow getting him into some type runout action away, you know, I know you guys say, Coach Beal, I’m here talking about runouts, anything you can do. And we think the five and the four kind of the connectors, like how can they keep us connected, particularly the five. But if you have a non-shooting four, anything you can do to get him in a toss game, anything you do to get to quick ball screens or runout screens, I think is good. But I just don’t want to make it too complicated. I just really want to get an advantage. And then let’s see if we can’t figure it out.
Pat 10:30
When you were playing small, what concepts did you have success with to connect the offense? Keep it moving and not always. It was so dependent on like, well, the five has to be in every screening action or handoff when the guards were in like two man games.
Lennie Acuff 10:43
When we get to red, we’re basically in Princeton. And it’s so interesting about Princeton, many, many, many years ago, there was a coach named Jimmy Tolette, that very few people are gonna know that listen to this, but Jimmy Tolette was the first guy, he was head coach at Sanford. And he was the first guy that got inside kind of the Princeton offense and started figuring out, well, his son played for me. So I learned Princeton offense from Jimmy, and he was a great teacher. But the longer we did it, I felt like there became a think tank on how to guard us. If you go back and watch all the Princeton teams, when they got in the league, they had a hard time scoring because they play against it every night. So what we decided to do was like, we made a big deal about diversifying the offense. We don’t wanna do the same thing over and over and over. And we also wanna be more random. I’m not so much worried about, okay, we have to hit the pinch post every time if we’re in point or rub, whatever you call it. I get the ball to five and then get into some type of split action. When we throw the ball guard to guard, we’re in what we call choice. He can move it on and get to a drift screen. He can bring the ball back and get to rub or point, whatever you wanna call it. But we really try to diversify that. I think whatever you’re doing on offense, whether it’s Princeton or what, just I don’t really call it what we do at Princeton, we’re just kind of playing. But I just think whatever you do, you wanna do it at a pace that’s hard for them to guard. I think we can walk through things every time we play somebody, well, this is how we’re gonna guard it. You hope you can do it at a pace that they have a hard time preparing for. That’s what you wanna do. And I think your ability to cut with purpose, to cut with pace, understanding that the ball talks, when the ball talks, that’s when you run the best offense I feel like.
Dan 12:23
You just mentioned about playing random a little and the choice and things like that and something I guess I’ve been looking at a lot is the differences in sort of like the delay type actions where you know five has it and you got two main games first like some of the point type actions where that split cut is taking place at like the opposite elbow anything that you’ve learned or have felt is harder to guard and that you want to get to what I’m guessing I’m getting to is like lowest splits versus high splits within all this random action you’re running.
Lennie Acuff 12:52
I think it’s just really important that I think time on task is such a big deal. You just have to spend a lot of time into the things that you care about. And for us, when we throw that ball to the pinch post, we want to be decisive. Every time we cut, you’ve got to cut to score or create help. One of those two things has to happen. If you’re going to go split action, you know, you’ve got, we call it rub one, two, and three. Some people call point over down the middle and away. I just think whatever you’re doing, being able to spend some time, teach them, okay, there is no wrong. Just live to play another day. Like if you come over the top and something good is not happening, let’s play on to the next action. Keep the ball moving and just understanding that when we do things at a quick pace, at some point, I think ultimately on offense, you’re just trying to outlast them. We’re just trying to outlast a really good defensive team. You know, like good offense is let’s get to one more action, one more concept, good defense, let’s make one more effort. And so I don’t know if that answers your question or not, but we really kind of diversify point over down the middle. I think cutting down the middle is really hard to guard because if you can’t hit them on the give and go, you can either play right at the guy to the opposite slot or you can play back to the guy in the corner. And I think given that some language, you know, where you can play the other way and then working on a hand cut, back cut off of all that.
Dan 14:08
Sticking on, I go back a little bit, you talked about your toss game, and one of the things I think for Pat and I that is stuck out in, you know, watching your film and then even getting into sort of the analytics, you guys were really, really efficient, maybe one of the best teams in the country in your dribble handoffs or handoff actions. And it always sounds good to do more handoffs and play through the toss game, but the intricacies of the timing and whether it’s a toss or whether it’s a pitch ahead and slip or actually a dribble handoff, there’s a lot of like gray area at times and I guess any thoughts on the handoff within your offense and how you get it more efficient.
Lennie Acuff 14:42
think a few things. I think the first thing is, okay, if I’m the cutter and we talk about this in every phase of offense, you’ve got to have an act. You can’t be a robot. I’ve got to have an act. We call a hand cut back up. It’s just hand cut back that are not gonna go back door. I’m gonna go hand cut. If we get in a hand cut back cut, then I’ve got to have an act and I want to try to get as close to the same plane as the ball as I can. That way we’ve got the two offenders and two offensive players, two defenders all on the same plane and your eyes are a weapon. Use your eyes. When I throw it to you, Dan, my eyes, if I’m gonna go hand cut, I want to show the rim, my eyes and my bottom foot. When I go make that hand cut, we do spend a lot of time on shooting hand cuts because I think it’s a repetition, a rhythm shot and you watch your guys, even your unathletic guys, they can get twitchy at that.
They can get to where they can get that shot off quick and then if I go hand cut, I want to show the rim, my eyes and my bottom foot. When I go to the handoff, I want to stop right behind the handoff. Like if that guy goes under, I need to stop right behind and we call that cat and mouse. We’d like to get all four guys on a row. If they go under, then you hand me the ball and the two defenders are below you and now we’re gonna play, you know, being able to drive left or right. I think that’s a big deal, being a two-directional driver as an offensive player and then if I drive left, we’re escaping right and vice versa. Now, if they’re gonna chase me, it’s just gonna be a go and catch. I’m gonna come on the top and I’m gonna drive the ball with an advantage. If they jump to the ball, my eyes and my top foot go to the ball and then I’m going back door to the rim. So, just working on repping that out and then there’s usually somebody behind the pitch game or the toss game. So, if I back cut, I’ve got to cut the score and if I don’t score, the only way I can’t score is they’re helping. So, we want to throw behind the cut. The guy filling up’s got to be open. If I back cutting Patrick’s man’s helps, then we’re shooting that or then you cut the post, whatever it is. I think it’s really important that you don’t do second things first. When you throw it to him, you don’t need to make your mind up. When I go for the handoff, the first thing I need to do is look at the rim because that’s the most open I’m gonna be and if I back cut, I’m not back cutting to post, I’m back cutting to score and then if I want to turn and pin and post, that’s the second thing you do.
Dan 17:01
Earlier you mentioned your preference for the toss game or playing through some of this action over the pick and roll, maybe especially earlier. I guess a little deeper from your perspective on why you’ve gravitated towards that.
Lennie Acuff 17:13
I think people have gotten so good at pick-and-roll coverage. Also, I don’t think there’s anyone, if you play against switching, they’re really good at switching that doesn’t struggle against that. If they’re really good at it, it’s very hard to play against. And so I think it’s a little harder to switch, because if they switch, a lot of times we call it, oh no, if you’re going to fake it and go. I think having the option to fake the handoff, and also I think at times when you go toss game, I just think you have more options. I can go back door, I can come over the top, and then the big, just teaching them how to get out of there, really working on being able to separate. One thing, and I really try to give people credit if I steal things from them, like you’re setting a ball screen. What we’ve gotten into, and I got it from Bob Ritchie from firm, and he and I talk a lot of basketball is, when you go to set the ball screen, we say set it or separate. There’s no middle ground, either I’m laying wood or I’m getting out. And so I’m either going to set it or separate. That’s really helped our ball screen action.
But it seems like the guys we’ve had lately, when we throw that thing to the toss game, it just gets the defense on a little bit more of a disadvantage. And I feel like even if I back cut now, we can play quickly to whatever you want to get to the next action. Everything I’m saying, guys, there are a million ways to skin a cat. I sure don’t have all the answers. I promise you that. I’ve learned a lot just to not having success. And I promise you, anything I say is, I don’t think I have it all figured out. Believe me.
Pat 19:49
At the beginning when you kind of talked about working backwards, you mentioned, you know, one of the four things you’re after is an offensive rebound and you kind of alluded to that you’re still thinking about it, working on how to prove that or different ways to offensive rebound. What are you thinking about offensive rebounding and maybe how aggressive or less aggressive you want to be with your guys and who you send?
Lennie Acuff 20:11
We’ve got to get better at that. There’s so many things we’ve got to get better at and that ultimately comes down to me. I’ve got to do a better job of emphasizing it. What we’ve talked about a lot is in the summer and early on we try to send forward because I think early in the year you’re trying to just gain intel. Who has a natural knack for rebounding? Some guys just read the flight of the ball. They just, for whatever reason, they’re instinctive and they do that. Well, we don’t need to eliminate somebody that can do that. On the other side, there’s some guys, they just don’t see it. They just don’t do it.
We talk a lot about common sense rebounding. Like we don’t want to go rebounding from the top of the key. If I’m not a real athlete, if I’m a get back guy, I don’t even need to think about going. If the ball shot, the one thing we have kind of had some success with, if the ball is shot from either side, we really want to try to come from the corners to the elbow. It seems like that ball just ends up there a lot. I’m probably the worst person in America to talk to about that. They put out conference standards on rebound and they shouldn’t even put us on the offensive end. Now, conversely we’ve been pretty good in defensive transition. And so, you know, everything’s a give and take and all this deal. I was just watching to talk to you guys a little bit before we started the Australia Serbian game. When you go back and watch it, Australia, they got two or three amazing offensive rebound possessions that kept them in that game late. And so I’m sitting there watching like we just have to do more. And I think that’s a conviction thing. I think that’s how you’re wired as a coach and that’s something we got to get better at.
But I know this, I tell our guys on the defense all the time, there’s no such thing as a bad shot. If they get the offensive rebound, we may force them into a bad shot, but if we can’t finish the possession, that is not a bad shot. They just got a good shot. And you know, we know all the things about, you know, you want to get that thing down up and over when you get an offensive rebound, that’s your best threes. So that’s what we’re trying to figure out. And I do think the DNA of your team, you have to impose your will on some of that, but we have to spend more time on it and have a better plan. Honestly, I just, we haven’t figured that out.
Dan 22:12
Going back to the pace of the offense and you said you want to run on makes and misses what have you found on the makes over the years of who takes it out you have assignments there or you just trying to get that pace with whoever
Lennie Acuff 22:25
I think that’s a conversation any staff i’ve ever been on you have a great length who’s gonna take it out on the make you know and so i tell you we’ve landed i’m very very comfortable with this. The closest guy gets it in but we always have the one in the two is the outlets. And the reason for that is there’s never a time where the one takes out of bounds and nobody’s look. I found the point then you’re the two then i take it out you assume the boss come use the one of the two it’s really interesting if you will just. Let that happen organically i tell you what happened to us some reason went to that so many people play five out now or four whatever it is and sometimes the closest guy to the ball. Is not the guy that you’ve assigned to rebound i want the ball in i want to get it in and just make the first simple pass and let’s go that may not work for some guys but. I think it’s been the best way for us to be aggressive and again a lot of times we’re playing in an athletic disadvantage for the teams we play. I just don’t want to go up against the set defense and i know some people are married to a the five of the fours taken out and i think that’s great. For us that’s what we do because i think it also lets us be a little more random just like a different guy we’re just running to different spots and we’re trying to get space. Just get it in closest guy but it’s always the one or the two anybody can take it out but one or two assume that’s coming to them.
Dan 23:48
If a team is pressuring you pressing, you know, you’re playing a team that’s going to press after made baskets, does that still say the same or then do you want to set something else up?
Lennie Acuff 23:58
Same thing, and I think that’s more important than ever is get it out quick against those people. And I say this in no way with any self promotion, but if you’ll get that thing out, it’s really hard for them to get set in that press. I think a lot of times you’re running right by them. If you’ll get it in quickly, you can get to an advantage. We talk about two ships passing in the night. If they’re running this way, we want to be running the other way. And so we really challenge our guys with that. We don’t play a lot of people that press on makes. Now on a dead ball, we obviously have a different press attack. We’re going to attack that in a different way. Try to be strategic in how we set the floor.
Dan 24:31
Something you said earlier that I just would love to go back to is the longer the season goes, the more likely it is you are to play smaller or something to that effect. Could you go into that a little bit deeper? That’s an interesting statement.
Lennie Acuff 24:43
I think it’s a guards game. I’ve had good teams, some not so good teams. I’ve never had a good team with bad guards. It’s next to impossible. It’s like, now if you watch football, you just don’t see teams win with bad quarterback play. You just don’t. And so I think for us, it seems like the longer the year goes, we try to get more playmaking, decision making, shot making on the floor. And I think the longer the year goes, it gets harder to score. And I think therefore having more guys that are decision makers, playmakers, shot makers, because I don’t care what you do. If you have a hard time scoring, it is a hard game. It is a hard, hard, hard game. I really believe this guys, it is so hard. Now you’re not a coach and people, but there’s so much technology out there for us. That’s why we try to be even more random. The best timeouts for us are late in the year. So, okay, let’s just get to this concept and get that ball moving and trust what we’re doing. Let’s just make one more good decision and outlast them. But having guys out there that have gravity, having guys that can play off two feet, understand how to play, I think the longer the year goes, I’ve always gravitated to that. Because I do think whether it’s post double or whatever, unless you’re just playing somebody that’s just so much bigger than you, I think your chances of slowing that down are a lot better than perimeter play.
Dan 25:59
Okay, coach, great stuff. We do want to transition now to a segment on the show that we call Start Sub or Sit. We will give you three options around a topic, ask you to start one of them, sub one of them, and sit one of them, and then we’ll discuss your answer from there. So coach, if you’re set, we’ll dive into this first one. All right, so this first one has to do with your program development. And Pat and I have heard you talk about out-culturing people. You know, one of the tenets of things that you’ve talked about is the strength of your culture. And this question is gonna be about what’s tough to teach when it comes to having a great culture. So the first option, tough to teach, is getting your players just to play hard. The second option is playing smart. The third option is playing together, the kind of a cohesiveness amongst the groups. So playing hard, playing smart, or playing together, tough to teach when it comes to culture.
Lennie Acuff 26:55
I would definitely start playing smart. I think that’s the toughest thing to teach. I think that is very subjective. The two hardest things to teach in my mind in the game are feel and vision. Those are the two hardest things to teach. And that’s where I think the ability to help your guys learn how to learn. Can we help them learn how to learn? Can we do a really good job of them understanding this is who we want to be? And I think you have to identify what wins. And then we have to educate them on that. And we talk to our guys all the time about, you need to be the kind of player that for whatever reason is we just play better because you’re in the game. You just have the ability to impact winning. But I think that’s where it’s so difficult to say, okay, this is who we are. This is who we’re not on the court and off the court. And a lot of that is, you know, the programs they came from, did they value what you value? They value shot selection. Do they value taking care of the ball, whatever it is. But I think playing smart would be, I think the hardest thing. Okay. Sub would be play together. We have six core values in our program. And the first one is being selfless.
We’re all born selfish. I mean, at the end of the day, we all want to know every morning when I get up and when I go to work or those guys come to practice, what’s my day going to be like? And trying to get them to understand that the greatest blessing in life is helping others be the best version of their self. And so how can you really elevate everyone around you? And I think that for us is like, if I’m not having a good day, what can I do to make somebody else have a good day? What can I do to elevate the people around them, but just understand it somehow, some way. That’s the beauty in my mind of the Olympics is these guys are playing for something bigger than their cell. How would you like to have had that conversation occur had to have what Jason Tame say, Hey, bro, you might’ve been the best player in the world the last three years and you’re not going to play. Those are tough conversations, but somehow getting the buy into that and just figuring out what can we do for them to understand you can get whatever you want out of life. You have somebody else get what they want. And just together, when you’re doing all this, you’re just trying to make memories. Like when this is all over, you guys play together, you have memories and you have stories. Well, if we do this together, we have a chance to have more memories and have more stories. And that’s what you’re chasing. That’s against our nature.
Dan 29:13
Coach, I love your answer and I know something you’ve spoken about and want to dive in, I guess, a little bit deeper on some of the other core values of your program. Is there anything else to share with us as far as those six?
Lennie Acuff 29:25
The six we have are selfless, thankful, humble, driven, committed, and responsible. Selfless, thankful, humble, driven, committed, and responsible, and that we’ve had those for the last 20 years. I tell our guys all the time, you know, I’ve never met a selfish person this happy, but I sure know selfish people have a way to make everybody around them miserable. And so it’s really hard for any of us to function collectively if we’re selfish, but we’re all born selfish. So you have to have a selfless mentality. I think also having the ability to be thankful. I want solutions. Problems are obvious. Solutions are the things that are hard to find. I’m looking for people that have the ability to understand, man, we are blessed and we get to do this. We don’t have to do this. And then guys that have humility to them, I think right now, humility is a superpower.
It’s impossible for you to get better if you don’t have a level of humility. I’m serious. When I listen to every podcast, every person that comes on you guys, I’m learning something. And I think just allowing us to have the humility to help each other and understand that I can be so much better if I allow somebody to help me. And then selfless, humble, driven, you know, we tell our guys that at the end of the day, there’s just going to be times in your life where you want to punt. But if there’s something deep down within you that drives you, that you plan for something bigger than yourself, you have a chance to keep going. Selfless, humble, driven, committed, you know, obviously the commitment, I think you want to almost have a conviction more than you have a commitment, like I’m convicted. This is who we are. And that leads to us being more committed. And then selfless, humble, driven, committed and responsible.
I think a lot of times, and you know, I’m a parent, I know you talked about you having two children, Dan, is that, you know, sometimes you want to rescue them for responsibility. At the end of the day, you’re responsible for you. And you have to take ownership of that. And it’s really hard for us to grow if we won’t take responsibility. And me at the front of the line, as the head coach, I screwed things up all the time. And I think I have to go in there and own that. I have to wear that because I think when you’re successful, you’ll get a level of admiration from people. But when you’re vulnerable, and you’ll take responsibility, I think people are drawn to that.
I think when you’re vulnerable, you allow people to say, I know I don’t have all the answers. And that’s not false humility. I have screwed so many things up. I’m telling that like, I’m sorry. We lost a game a couple of years ago at Notre Dame. We’re up four, like 30 seconds ago, and I should have called timeout and I didn’t. There’s not many days I go by, I don’t think about that. We should have called timeout and that’s on me. And so I think when you take responsibility, it allows you to be vulnerable.
Pat 32:00
I would like to go back, you mentioned two of the hardest things you think to teach are feel and vision. And I just like to follow up on the feel and how you help your guys have a better feel for the game.
Lennie Acuff 32:11
That’s a great question. You know, and I know some people may not agree with this. I’m a huge believer in playing pickup. I think you get a better feel, not just how to play the game, but how to play with other people. If you play, pick up the right way. And obviously you don’t want to build these great habits. You don’t want to eliminate it when you play pickup, but that’s why we play a lot in practice. You know, Rick Byrd that was the coach at Belmont forever is still right down the street. Belmont’s two miles from our campus. And so coach Byrd lives about a mile from here. And I just think he’s one of the greatest coaches ever. We had breakfast one day and I said, if you had to go back to do again, what would you do more? He said, you know, he said, when I coached, everybody told me they thought we played a lot of five on five. He said, if I could go back, I’d play more. And the longer I’ve coached, I’ve gravitated to that. And I think just having the ability when all five guys are out there, how does it work? Like I value breakdown work, short side of games, whatever you want to call it. But then the day, there’s going to be five people out there. We talk to our guys all the time in offense, just watch what happens in front of you. If the guy cuts back door, then you feel if he pops, you burn, watch what happens in front of you. And so I think it’s impossible to get that unless you play a lot and then try to start the ball at certain segments and you just have to understand it’s going to be messy sometimes, but we’re never going to learn if you want to have these beautiful practices all the time. You know, people come to watch you practice. You want to think, wow, we know what we’re doing and all that. But then the day you’re probably kind of stuck there. The only way you can learn is for it to be messy and work through that a lot like life, huh?
Dan 33:49
For sure, kind of within all this, you mentioned you’re committed part of your core values. And another thing that Pat and I had heard you talk about when it comes to kind of culture and players buying in and all that was difference between players that like it, love it and live it and the different combinations of how many players you have in those three categories and what kind of team you end up having. Could you expand on that? Because that was some great stuff you had.
Lennie Acuff 34:13
You know, I think a lot of kids today play basketball or sports just because they’re good at it. It’s not that they love it, but they’re just good at it. So they do it. I just think there’s such a ceiling on anything you like. But if you love something, there’s another level and a commitment to it. It’s like in your relationships, if you truly love someone, you’re going to fight through the tough times. You’re going to fight for it. And to me, we want to get guys when we get them that love it, because I tell them, I said, I hope this is a place. If you don’t love basketball, you don’t like, this needs to be somewhere. If you don’t really love basketball, you’re not going to enjoy playing here because we want guys that are passionate about it because I think passionate people attract others. I think passionate people help elevate everyone around them. There’s very, very few kids you get at 18 or 19 year old that know how to live it. And I think that’s our job is to teach them how to live it. We built our program, the school I was at before the University of Alabama and so we’re a division two and we built our program on red shirting guys. Now a lot of that has changed. You know, it’s really hard to get your kids to do that now, but our whole thing was we say we get a kid to commit to us in the fall going into his senior year. Well, he may be six, six, one 65, and that’s a kid you’re going to get at a D two school with a D one’s past on it because he’s not physical enough or whatever. I’m like, great. He has great skill. He has great feel. He loves the game. He’s not going to play basketball for 24 months in college because we’re going to get a red shirt. And if we do our job over those, particularly that first 12 months we get him as a red shirt freshman, he’s not going to be the same person if he loves it. We have to teach him how to live it by how he eats, what he puts in his body, how he works, all those types of things. And I think there would be so many guys we’d have like that. We’d have the question asked us, well, where’d you get him? Well, he had no scholarships. We were it. He came here on a half scholarship. And I know you guys saw that in division three. I mean, like how did that guy end up playing division three basketball? Is he just loved it and they taught it and some way he learned how to live it. And I think on a side note, not to elongate this, but that’s what’s been really kind of cool about some of the transfer stuff. How many guys did you get drafted? Well, he started at a junior college and he went to D two. Now I’m not crazy about guys transferring four or five times, but we have a really good player who two years ago is a transfer from Emory of division three school. And he brought so much to our program. I mean, it was unbelievable. He oozed of it and he lived it every single day. And what he did, he elevated the guys around him.
Pat 37:56
All right, Coach, keeping it moving, our next Start, Sub, Sit. We’re going to go back to the court and look at the defensive end. And this one, it has to do with defending a dominant scoring big and start, Sub, or Sit, the most likely scenario that you would emphasize going into this matchup against the dominant scoring big. So option one, fronting. Option two would be ball pressure in terms of pressure on the entry pass being super aggressive there, or option three is thinking about a doubling scheme.
Lennie Acuff 38:30
I will start with the doubling scheme. I’ve gone from division two to division one. One thing that I wasn’t probably prepared for is the ability for people to play over the top of you on pick and roll. Most time in division two, you throw back and you throw into the post where now they, whatever you’re playing drop, whatever you’re doing, there’s another level. They just throw it above and there’s nothing you can do. I think for us, it would be figuring out how to be able to catch him, for him to be able to catch the ball in a spot that we still have a chance to guard him, not letting him have an angle. And if you do that, then you have a chance to figure out if you’re going to double, however you want to double off the top, off the pass, or if you’re going to come from underneath. But I do think a lot of times, if you can just get to them early, and if you can create one or two tough possessions for them early in the game, there comes a little bit less of a confidence factor for them to throw that in.
And I think the second thing I’d say is probably fronting. I think on defense or whatever you’re doing, you got to figure out what you’re willing to live with and what you’re willing to get beat with. And if you’re going to front, then obviously you’re going to have to bring another man to help. And then you’re going to X out the backside. So we’re going to give up a three, whatever that looks like. But I do think there’s some teams that I’ve watched that are not good at doubling the post. They’re great. And they really make it difficult for guys. I don’t know ball pressure. I think if you’re playing, somebody use it as a dominant big. At our level, they’re probably going to have bigger guards than you. So unless you have somebody just can walk right under them, I think the ability to affect. Now, you don’t want to be able to let them just come down, just throw it in as they can. But I think if I was going in order to be post double and also front, maybe front to work, try not to get an angle and then also ball pressure.
Pat 40:15
You mentioned on the fronting, like kind of knowing what you want to give up and then going back to kind of reverse engineering or offense, do you approach it the same way when building your defense in terms of what you don’t want to give up or what you want to give up when you build your defense?
Lennie Acuff 40:29
100%. Whatever you value on offense, you have to equally emphasize that we can’t give this up. And it’s funny, like our defensive numbers, I think we finished top five in the country in a lot of offensive numbers, we were bottom 10% defensively. But the longer the season went, I think in division one, you have to look at this is we played five by games last year, you’re not fighting in your weight class in those games, what you need to look at is what’s your defensive numbers when you’re playing in your league. That’s the most important part.
And I do feel like the last three or four years we progress defensively through the year. But I do know this, you can’t take off everything. And you have to figure out what’s really, really important. I know this, when they get that ball to the rim, what they say 68% of the shots are made in NBA at the rim. And then you file the rest of the time, we need to keep the ball out of there. That’s the two best shots in basketball, free throws and layups. Well, whatever we can do to keep that ball out of there. And that keeps us out of scrambles. And the one thing we have done, we were second to country and fewest fouls. That’s something we do try to talk about. Now, some of that is we probably need to be a little bit more aggressive. But we’ve really done a good job of winning that free throw line. And if you go in the free throw line in the turnover battle, that goes a long way to giving you a chance to win the game.
But just answer question, you know, we don’t want to give up layups. We don’t want to give up range room and rhythm threes for the right guy. And there’s some guys, I want them to shoot them all night. If they’re shooting them, have at it. You know, we just can’t let a really good shooter get up 10 threes in a game. We have to be better at that.
And then we don’t want to foul. We don’t want to give up offensive rebounds, you know, so that you’re just trying to reverse engineer that.
Pat 42:12
I promise we’ll get back to the post question, but with not fouling from a technical or tactical standpoint, I know you talk about it a lot. What do you emphasize on the court to help your guys be better non-foulers or not foul?
Lennie Acuff 42:24
I wish we had some secret formula. And honestly, the part is that we’re not overly aggressive. We do try to keep the ball in front and we’re not a pressure team. But we do work really hard at showing our hands, being able to throw your hands. You know, we say, if you’re gonna foul them, foul them below your waist with your hands up.
We work on all cowboys where they drive the ball and we really work on picking up hand pumps to the ceiling, get your hands up, trying to keep them inside your feet. And then, you know, I do think that the longer the possession goes, it just becomes that, can we just figure out a way to outlast them on that end, just make one more play. But how many times you see a great defensive possession either ruined because you foul with two or three on the shot clock or you give up an offensive rebound. People talk about offensive patience. I think you have to have defensive patience as well. The longer this thing goes, we gotta be able to hang in there because if you’re playing against a good team that is layers of offense, you’re gonna have to be willing to guard for a while and just be able to outlast them.
Dan 43:19
With the kind of offense you run and all the splits in the motion, the random, when you’re building your defense against your offense day to day, are there any difficulties with players wanting to switch stuff because it’s easier all the time if you’re not trying to switch on defense, or I guess how you sort of build in both when you have such an efficient offense.
Lennie Acuff 43:38
I think that’s a great question and a couple of things. I think the first thing is we’re going to make our guys guard head up, you know, without switching the majority of the time. And I do think it makes them be able to guard multiple actions. I do think one way we’ve improved through the season defense, we’re just guarding ourself, you know, if we can guard a lot of our stuff, then I do think we have a chance to be pretty good on defense, but then I think it’s healthy.
Sometimes, you know, you have to be able to give them the solutions to the problems because we’ll get within two weeks of the first game, three weeks, and I’ll say, okay, guys, you understand now. They’re going to try to stop us. Okay. They’re not just going to line up and play half court man to man against us and play drop coverage every time or whatever they’re playing. So I think you have to build that into your practice. Okay. We’re playing against switching today. We’re playing against drop. You know, I thought TJ Saint was great on your show when he talked about CJ was right down the street. So I got him to come over two days later after he listened to you guys. He lives here in Nashville and you know, the sea shake and short, I mean, that’s a great teaching point, but I think figuring out how do we play against different coverages and I don’t care who you are. Everybody has kryptonite, I guess, unless you’re Yukon, but 99.9% of the teams have kryptonite and I think when you really become good at something is when you know how to fix it, like when we start the game, we don’t really start with plays or whatever we just want to play. All right. And then I should be able to sit over there and say, all right, this is their plan tonight. This is what they’re trying to do. So these are the things we got to get to. These are the things, whatever that is, if they’re in drop coverage, if they’re hard hedging or they’re switching, all right, then these are the things we have to be able to get to. I still think the ability to play with pace, fundamentals, travel, if you can play off two feet, if you can show with one catch with two, if you can pitch and catch and you understand that we talked about how it is, what is smart basketball, what is winning basketball? I think you’ll figure that part out, but just knowing that they’re going to try to stop you, they’re not just going to line up and just say, okay, we’re going to play however you want. That’s when you’re really tested as a coach.
Pat 45:44
Okay, coach, finally bringing it back to our start subset, you started doubling schemes. So I’m just curious, is there a specific, I mean, you mentioned off the passer from the middle, from the backside, a scheme that you prefer?
And in this scenario, with a great score, are you thinking about we need to mix it up and, you know, throughout the game, give him different doubles? Yeah,
Lennie Acuff 46:07
I’d like to have two. I think you have to be careful, I know I do, about thinking the room. I don’t know how many times we say, let’s get more complex. But I do think when it comes to that, we actually doubled from the baseline more this year than we have, and I really liked it. It was very, very good to us.
But I also think, I don’t think it’s that hard to teach. I think a layer of your defense has to be your effort and your anticipation and just the effort that you get them to play with and getting them to fly around. So I think you can teach both of those with that. I mean, you have to spend time on anything, but I don’t think it has to be too complex. We have really liked, and we kind of got it from a friend of mine, just doubling for the baseline. And that’s been pretty good for us and our guys kind of liked it.
But I do think if you’re playing against a dominant, dominant post is having the ability to come from different directions. And then also there’s a train of thought, Patrick, that a twos are less than three, so we’re gonna just play one in the post and see if we can analytic from the depth.
Pat 47:07
And with the baseline double, are you forcing the action in terms of on that catch, you have that defender immediately jump, you know, take away the middle force them into that double or is it wait till the spin to double and shade the middle? Yeah, it’s to the spin.
Lennie Acuff 47:22
That’s where you have to have awareness and anticipation. You have to be able to concentrate to do that. You got to see it happening before it happens. But when that ball hit, when the ball goes in, we’re going to try to shade topside. And then when that guy turns, we want to be there to close the door. And we don’t do it a ton.
You know, we haven’t seen, we ran into a couple, but not a ton of guys, they just throw the ball inside. Things have changed so much. When I first started coaching, I mean, that was such a big part. How are you going to guard the post and how are you going to guard block to block screens and all those types of things? You just don’t see much of it anymore, but you better have a plan.
Dan 47:54
Coach, you’re off the start, sub, or sit hot seat. Thanks for going through that with us. That was a lot of fun.
We’ve got one final question for you to wrap up the show before we do. Thanks again for all the thoughts today. This has been really fun for us.
Lennie Acuff 48:07
Thank you for having me and I appreciate what you guys doing Dan. I’m gonna be the big Chapman fan now I’ll be keeping up every night. So that’ll be one of the things I do ever want to check you guys score So you’ll do great happy for you
Dan 48:19
Appreciate it. Thank you so much coach. Our last question for you that we ask all the guests is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach.
Lennie Acuff 48:28
This is probably one that I’m very convicted of on two fronts. I think professionally is just relationships. I can’t tell you how many people have invested in me and have just been so kind to share with me and help me in just a lot of people you guys would know that didn’t have to do it, but had the humility and willingness and selflessness to do that. That’s the part that I value more than anything is the relationships within coaching.
I think that from a professional standpoint, but I do think the next two things tie together. I think the investment in your faith and your family, I think that, and when I say the, the faith part, I need to grow every single day, but I don’t know how you make it through this profession and in this life without something foundation. And then also your family. I really hurt for coaches that I see that I think, probably think you get a dress rehearsal raising your family. There is no dress rehearsal and it’s a one shot deal. I know you shared, you have two little girls, Dan, and I tell my guys at work for me, if your kids have a ball game, you need to be there. If there’s something going on that we don’t have a game, like I really don’t care if you need to leave practice 15 minutes early or whatever it is, because you’re not going to get a do over on that. You’re just not. And I think our family, like every family’s had its ups and downs, but I know one thing, it wasn’t because I wasn’t there and my wife wasn’t there. I mean, I think you just, it’s a one shot deal. And so, you know, this is a great profession, but make your family a part of it. And also don’t neglect your family because of that too.
Dan 50:06
All right, Pat, let’s dive into this recap. Terrific conversation today with Coach Acuff. I mean, he’s been one of the best offensive coaches. Always fun to hear him talk and teach, and he just laid it all out today on a lot of things, and it was really fun having him.
Pat 50:22
Yeah, I said to you once we got off with him that, you know, we’ve been fortunate enough to interview a lot of coaches and you can tell the coaches that are like really good teachers. And he was one of the guys that stands out, you listen to the conversation that of course comes across, but also in just the vocabulary he uses, and how he can convey a message. So I was really impressed. And it was just clear to me, like, he’s a really good teacher of the game.
Dan 50:45
Yeah, let’s dive in here to our top three takeaways from the whole conversation and I will kick it to you on your first one.
Pat 50:53
So I will start with our first bucket of conversation and appreciate Coach Acuff’s thoughts on just how you teach positional lists, transition spacing offense, and like the sticky spacings we get in. I thought he had some really great thoughts on that. And then he started to talk about their hunting early advantage, getting to red. But then also, in our prep credit to you, you kind of sniffed out those DHO actions when getting by me. And he mentioned early that they went away from ball screens into toss game. So my first takeaway is when he really got into the intricacies of their toss game, and just the gray area, he felt it create in the confusion that he put the defensive bigs in. And then was a big highlight when he talked about his hand cut back cut when it came to the toss game and the teaching points within it. I wrote down, if you’re going to do a hand cut, bottom foot first, plant off your bottom foot, ice the rim, sprint to the ball, you can do a back cut top foot, weight on your top foot, ice the ball, setting up the back cut. Just like the teaching points he went into the under the little cat and mouse game catching with two trying to get all four guys in a line. I really liked the detail he shared with us and just teaching his toss game and how he tried to create the confusion and the reads that he worked on with his guys and teaching points.
Dan 52:04
totally and with that I mean they do it a lot and they’re really efficient and you know watching the film on them all the different ways like you just mentioned they kind of twist the screen they play under it they curled over the top they use it to flow into another split action I mean there’s so many things you can do I liked getting into the backstory with that on you know why for him at least of course they do a lot of ball screen stuff as well but that’s just an area of confusion he thinks for the defense and it’s hard for defense to keep pace with all that stuff over the course of the 30 seconds and I’ll kind of add to your point though the vocab was great throughout just another good nugget in there though was the pace of play and I think you and I have been talking about this a lot over the summer and looking into pace not as just we’re playing fast just to get a shot within the first five to seven seconds but just like how fast these actions are gonna be he gave a couple of numbers I think on makes and misses on getting the ball over half court within a few seconds three to five seconds and flowing to their action and another thing to with the pace of play is again not overly analyzing or getting hung up on the right read early but just the pace of the read and forget exactly the terminology he used but flowing quickly and not worrying about if we make the right cut for the right read early but just getting into something
Pat 53:28
Yeah, I said there’s no wrong and you live to play another day.
Dan 53:31
Your notes are better than mine, so thank you. But I just I love that.
I think that was evident throughout of just you’re kind of hearing a honestly a master teacher at this type of offense, talking through the vocab, talking through philosophy of how fast they want to get it in and go and I like to the everybody can take it out.
Pat 53:51
Yeah, I thought that was a great follow-up question by you on the pace with who imbalanced the ball and he brought it up the same way we want to know about five out and positionless basketball and how you transition and it’s going to put your defense in unusual spots where your one’s going to be standing under the rim and he’s going to be taking it out and I can’t say how much I saw last season with my team with our point guard just holding the ball out of bounds and all four other guys are just sprinting up the court. Everybody’s
Dan 54:16
I’m just yelling at people, someone to come back.
Pat 54:19
us losing our minds. So I really liked his point and something I’m going to steal is just always having your one or two expecting the outlet because then it’s that safety net that if the one takes it out, well, then the two clearly knows he’s going to be getting the ball vice versa.
Dan 54:33
I think to just like to sort of connect to a couple of podcasts we’ve had in this realm, I mean, I think Modimeor, this came to mind, I think Nick Pasquale, this came to mind, I think E.J. Saint came to mind, I mean, a lot of great offensive podcasts we’ve had so far this year where there’s a system, no doubt.
But the teachings of all the ways that the players can connect in random actions and flowing into those quickly, I think is like something I know you and I have spent a lot of time on and yes, they run Princeton-type stuff, yes, it’s playing through a pinch post and that’s maybe the base and he even mentioned like he said, like they do have Princeton stuff obviously built in, but it’s just how they think about teaching the players to play together regardless of four, five, three, two, whatever it is and flowing quickly. I think it’s been some other really good ones on this sort of topic as well.
Pat 55:24
Yeah, I credit coach me or who really got me thinking about this. I think when we had him early in the summer, late spring. And then we did. Yeah, like you mentioned with Nick Pasquale and then we did a video with him and a video with Jimmy Oakman. Yes. And both of the big themes within this randomness is not doing the same thing twice. Yes. And just working on your eyes, but you have concepts but randomizing the concepts and not just repeating concepts.
And so then it comes down to, of course, the concepts you want to teach, but then like understanding maybe the spacings that align to different concepts that you can get to with the four in the corner, a non shooter in the corner. And what concepts you can play to and giving them kind of a mini menu to choose from. Absolutely. So Dan, keeping it moving. What was your takeaway, our second takeaway here?
Dan 56:11
Yeah, so takeaway number two is in the start-sub-sit for me about the program development, the tough to teach, he started getting them to play smart was his most difficult. And I thought, I guess the takeaway for me was our little side pivot to talking about feel and vision.
He mentioned those are two difficult things to teach and kind of talking a little bit about that. And I think that the feel and the vision actually kind of reverted back to something we didn’t just mention, but was in the first bucket, which was playing smaller as the season went on and that never had a great team without great guard play. And so I don’t know, I think that was kind of a connecting piece, but I liked hearing him talk about getting the team to play smart. And then of course we got into his core values and he was nice enough to just kind of lay all those out. And I think he kind of got a sense of how important that is to him and the type of players that he ends up building in his program are ones that obviously he’s been able to win with and coach. So I love that just whole conversation. You could tell he’s super passionate about it and there’s a lot of great nuggets in there.
Pat 57:16
I’ll echo your sentiment there. And he spoke really well in the core values, thankful, selfless, humble, driven, responsible, committed. And, you know, I think ever since our conversation with coach Ryan Schmidt, who was with the London lions at the time and now at the Atlanta talks, he kind of went through his pillars. And I think since then it’s really put us not on a path, but we always love them kind of anytime we can have this conversation with the coach and just hearing what’s important to them and why it’s important and kind of how they use these to build their culture as kind of their bedrock is always good conversation. But I just think super insightful and beneficial for coaches to hear and just get some more thoughts on what other coaches hold important and why.
Dan 57:52
Yeah, I think like, and going back to coach Schmidt, who I remember in that podcast, the core values and the pillars he had, they also connected to their style of play. And so it’s obviously a part of the, I guess, the ethos of your culture and who you are as people, but it also then next to, you know, he had selflessness.
Coach Acuff today is number one and it’s like it connects to how they play on offense and how they’re moving that ball and they’re giving themselves up in cuts and, you know, kind of makes everything stick together. I think beyond just cool stuff on a wall, it truly is lived out in how they play as well.
Pat 58:27
Yeah, that’s what made us want to have this conversation because in our research he talked about, he believes you can just outculture an opponent on the court and win games and that’s, you know, by playing hard playing smart playing together and it all filters back to the core values.
Dan 58:40
Yeah, I believe that too. I think you and I both played against teams where you walk away as an opposing coach and you get beat by a team and say that team just, they’re more together, they played harder, longer, whatever it is, maybe it’s not always they just out-schemed us, it’s they just hung in longer as a group and you could feel it.
Pat 58:57
Yeah, very rarely do those teams beat themselves, you know, like you got to really beat them. Absolutely.
Dan 59:02
Keeping it moving to our third and final point and I’ll kick it back to you for point number three.
Pat 59:08
I’ll say it’s our last start-subsit conversation, but it wasn’t the intended conversation. But when we got into how he just approached defense, and again, with the reverse engineering, the defense, and when we got into the no-fouling conversation, this is a conversation we’ve had a couple of times in the past, and I think it’s coming up more and more frequently.
And so just hearing, I mean, of course, if we make sense on his face, like, don’t foul, you’re giving up one of the highest analytical shots and free throws. But hearing him talk about just cowboys, hands up inside your feet, he mentioned it kind of later on in that conversation that I think goes to no-fouling is that fundamentals travel. And so just kind of again, building your core tenets of your defense, and if it’s not fouling, echoing this every day in practice, having the players hear it. But then to the last point, he mentioned we’re not overly aggressive, but we want to show hands, work with our feet. When we finally got back to the post-double conversation and the hot guy who would fire, and then would cowboy up, close the door, I think he said, but again, not fouling.
Dan 01:00:08
My addition to your thoughts on that part was, it was kind of cool to zoom out for a second. I mean, even though we took a detour, it was still a good detour to kind of hear him think about how you reverse engineer both sides of the ball.
And regardless of what you’re going to do on a post double or whatever it is, you know, he talked about whatever it is that they’re trying to do on offense, try not to give that up on defense. And so kind of his broader thoughts on defense in general and what they really look at. And then when we did get back to it, I did like the double conversation and, you know, when you come across a good big or what you do, and he talked about, I think, having two different things. He didn’t want to overcomplicate it for his players, but he also wanted to be able to keep someone off balance. And he had mentioned doubling from the baseline had been effective for them, but I know they have another one or others that they can go to to mix things up.
Pat 01:01:01
Last point, I liked, he said, get into him early with the big that if they can kind of get to him early, maybe kind of disrupt his rhythm early that he’s found then later on, you know, it’s kind of takes him out of the game, gets him less aggressive or kind of messes their game plan, but really emphasizing whatever it is, however you want to attack them, trying to get to him early, mess up their first couple of possessions with him and his rhythm.
Dan 01:01:22
That actually was a really good point thrown in there, because it’s so true, right? If you’re able to disrupt a really great player’s rhythm early and take some 10 minutes into the game to get a quality touch, psychologically, that can help, obviously, on defense. And it’s more than just maybe making them into a passer or forcing tough shots. It’s like the mental part of it can be helpful, too, if a good player is struggling to find their rhythm.
Pat 01:01:48
especially with like a post player too. Cause I feel like then the offense will go away from it quicker. Cause he did mention at the end, you know, the other decision is analytically leave them want to make tough news. But if you’re trying to establish him early, he’s struggling. I think your guards are less inclined to keep feeding them. And I think the offense just moves away and it’s like, well, okay, now we’ve kind of neutralized one big piece of their offense.
Dan 01:02:11
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Pat, any misses from your end as far as things you could have went deeper on on your end?
Pat 01:02:19
Yeah, I had two in the first starts of sick question. When we talked about how he’s helping his players get better feel, he talked about playing pickup, but he mentioned the right way and the conversation just kind of moved off of it. So I didn’t have time to get back to it, but I would have liked to have followed up with on, yeah, just the right way to play pickup or maybe how he sets it up. Uh, how he just spilled the pickup games when his guys are playing to building good habits.
Dan 01:02:45
Yeah, not just arguing about the score for 20 minutes every time. So I was one, you said there was another one too. The other one was just circling back to our first conversation. We talked a lot about pace and just maybe like a general philosophical question on just how he teaches pace in a practice setting in general, you know, maybe early days of a training camp the first couple of weeks, how he’s establishing pace. Absolutely.
Dan 01:03:07
And yeah, it would be interesting to hear his building blocks, maybe on that, if I could have went deeper too. I mean, I won’t steal your miss, but I have that as just what are some things maybe early in the season, especially. Cause it’s hard. I mean, it has to be early. You can’t pick up the pace in December. Like it’s got to be right away and it’s got to be part of your whole fabric of how you play. So that would have been interesting for sure.
I’ll just give you one of my misses. Gosh, it wasn’t like anything other than I would have just, it’d been interesting to spend more time on some of the conversations about the shot selection. And it’s always interesting to me. Just talked about the range room and rhythm threes in that first bucket. And with all the action that they’re running, all the great stuff that they do, you rarely see them take a bad shot or, you know, a shot. I think he even mentioned too, if we get the offensive rebound, they say it wasn’t a bad shot as part of his offensive rebounding stuff. But yeah, I think too, just when you have such an efficient offense, how you then build in the conversations about the shot selection, I think would have been something I would have just picked his brain on a little bit.
And then I’ll give you another one. The other thing for the miss I had also was I like to talk about if you feel your team is playing more East West than North South, and that’s when they start to flow into their red stuff. So you talked about early advantages in transition. And if it feels like we’re getting East West rather than North South, that’s when they kind of hit their pinch post and get into red. I know I like the term East West versus North South and kind of a way for coaches to maybe feel when the offense is stalling or when actions are going the way you don’t want.
And maybe I would have followed up a little bit more on that. So it was a terrific conversation, and we appreciate Coach Acuff’s time and all these thoughts today. And so, Pat, there’s nothing else from your end. We’ll start wrapping this up. Sounds good. Thanks, Coach Acuff, for coming on. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We’ll see you next time.