Slappin’ Glass sits down this week with the Head Coach of Idaho MBB, Alex Pribble! In this thoughtful conversation Coach Pribble shares his experiences in being a part of successful rebuilds, including the foundations that must be in place, and the trio dive into tough actions to guard with a talented 4-man, playbook and ATO designs during the always fun “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Transcript
Alex Pribble 00:00
The coach’s job is to be as clear as possible about how the players impact winning, right? You have to show them very clearly what their piece of the pie is, what’s their ownership, right? If the team needs them to play a certain role, it’s the coach’s responsibility, in my opinion, to be very clear on that. So we had every single coach on staff fill out a form about every one of our guys that analyzed what should this player’s role be on the team? What do we need them to do? What are the habits this player needs to improve on for them to be the best version of themselves? And then we consolidated that information from every single one of our coaches into kind of a one page outline and presented that to our players. So each guy walked out of those meetings saying, okay, this is what I need to work on. This is how I impact winning for this group. And they have a sense of ownership.
Dan 02:09
And now, please enjoy our conversation with Coach Alex Pribble. Coach Pribble, thanks for making the time for us. We’re glad to have you today.
Alex Pribble 02:28
Yeah, it’s my honor fellas, you know, I’m excited to be here with you guys. I’ve been a long-time listener Obviously followed a lot of what you guys have done since the roundtables back in the day You’ve had an impact on my career and just honored to be here with you
Dan 02:39
Thank you, coach. Appreciate that. Awesome to have you excited for you. Now, when we first met, you were an assistant, now moved into going into year two as the head coach at Idaho and excited to talk a lot about that. And that’s kind of where we wanted to start, which is rebuilds. You’ve been a part of a number of programs in your past, and I won’t tell them all, because I’ll let you talk about them all, but there’s been some form of rebuilding going on within those programs. And I know we were talking a little beforehand about the patterns you’ve seen, the things that you’ve seen come up over and over again when it comes to a team or a program trying to build and or rebuild.
Alex Pribble 03:18
It’s been kind of the uniqueness of my career. I’ve been in a lot of programs that have been middling for some reason, you know, maybe a 500, or as I say, Martin’s that program had six wins the season before I got there. And the process going from walking into a gym feeling like the underdog, to walking into a gym feeling like you’re supposed to win. I think it’s a unique process. I was at Eastern Washington initially working for a guy named Jim Heyford and year one, they were sub 500 and year two, when we came in, we won 26 games and went to the NCAA tournament. And the process of just learning how to become winners, I think is very unique. So for me, I’ve seen a lot of different things that play into that. I think a big piece of it is establishing a core group of players that you can really trust. I like to call them culture carriers, right? Guys that are going to take what you do, take what you believe in as a coaching staff and move things forward. You know, make sure the habits are being built in the locker room that are going to lead to success. You know, once you kind of find and invest in those four group of guys, you know, in those guys move forward year over year, you retain those players. I think that’s a real good recipe for building success. I also really am a big believer in kind of the process over product ideal, especially early in these programs, you know, at St. Martin’s, we went through a six game losing streak during our first season in conference. And you had to still make sure that the guys were bought into the process that they believed in what you were doing. So that when it cracked, the guys understood like, okay, this is why we’re winning games now, right? The focus on the process, the focus on the systems that are in place that are going to lead to success. That’s a big part of the rebuilding process. At all three schools that I was at, you saw these kinds of phases unfold. You know, I think the last piece is once you’ve established your core and you’ve really set the process in place, it’s about building belief, you know, and I don’t want to sit here and sound like Ted Lasso on the podcast, but the reality is the guys need to believe in what you’re doing. They need to believe in the systems that are in place. And when you have that kind of buy-in, when you’ve built up that kind of belief in what you’re doing as a staff, what you’re doing as a program, when you have collective accountability for the systems in place, now you can really find success as a program, long-term success in my opinion.
Dan 05:22
A lot of great stuff in there. I want to go back to the core group for a second and your thoughts on who is in that group, why, and how you go about sort of managing that group through that first year. And the question is, is it you mentioned some returning players, but is it a mixture of freshman, sophomore, or do you need seniors in there? Who do you think is ideal for that core group?
Alex Pribble 05:43
When you first take over program. What we did at St. Martins and then what I’m really in the middle of here at the University of Idaho is establishing who those players are. And to me, it’s not always the most talented players. I think you obviously you need to have the respect of your teammates on the court, but we define leadership very simply in our program. We just say that leadership is the ability to make those around you better and more productive very simply. So if you’re the point guard on the court and you’re making guys around you better, that’s leadership. But if you’re a role player and what you need to do is set screens and rebound and dive on the floor for loose balls, and that’s what’s making the people around you better, that’s leadership as well. So you need to find the guys that are really invested in impacting winning and doing whatever the team needs. And I think when you find those people, you invest in those people over time, those are the guys that help you win games. So I think you can have a mix of different classes, different ages, different talent levels, but it’s really more to me about who the players are as people, meaning what are their motivations? Are they looking to be successful just so they can put it up on their social media and they can talk about how many points per game that they’ve scored? Or do they want to truly impact winning? And if you find those people who are about winning, about being the best team that they can be, I think you invest in those guys, they carry that culture forward year over year. And I think that’s how you find that long term success. So it’s more to me about the type of people they are and growing over time than about their specific skill level.
Dan 07:08
I want to go back to, you mentioned Coach Hayford, that Eastern Washington year where you went from, I forget the exact numbers, but tough first year and then you’re in the NCAA tournament that second year. What was happening within the program from that year to the second year that you’ve taken with you?
Alex Pribble 07:25
Yeah, you know that was a unique one because there really wasn’t a ton of turnover in terms of personnel you had those core group of guys i’m talking about carry over from year one to year two and in year two. The beliefs started to change about what they were capable of and i think you change the behaviors once the beliefs change what i mean by that is once they started when the couple games. Winning breeds winning that had some success kind of late in that first year and then early into the second year and they accomplish some big goals early that team beat indiana on the road once you have a program changing when like that. All of a sudden they’re walking into every gym feel like they’re expected to win so you know what’s those beliefs change all of a sudden their actions change a little bit every day they start acting like champions you know we like the phrase you have to act like a champion before you are champion right your habits have to be in line with those goals. And we have players in that locker room guys like tyler harvey guys like parker kelly just really culture carriers are going to do the right stuff every single day. And those actions led to success i think the same thing happened to see our university when coach victor took over that first year. There’s a lot of unknowns guys were taking the court here unsure what the outcome was gonna be but once they had a little success early on in that year all the sudden the expectations were. These processes work we’re going to take the floor and we’re going to win these games and again winning kind of breeds winning you have some success early and over time guys just start to believe that’s what the outcome is going to be. And it’s about buying into the process right so not just the fact that they’re winning games, but that the practice scout work the film work that was what was leading to the outcome that was leading to the success so. Once there’s full buying in that locker room, I think the outcome starts to take care of itself and winning is the product.
Pat 09:05
With the process, are there patterns that have emerged? I mean, I know maybe depending stylistically, tactically, but kind of on a broader scale with the process that you find are important, that you got a hit, so that, like you said, that guys start to believe in the process.
Alex Pribble 09:21
Yeah, you know, I know we’re talking about kind of a lot of intangible things here, but to me, checklists are a huge deal. You want to be as efficient with the work as possible, so that really you can just be efficient with your time. What I mean by that is, the head coaching job, it has a lot of different responsibilities, you wear a lot of different hats, right? So the more efficient you can be when it comes to your recruiting process, when it comes to your scout process, when it comes to your fundraising process, your player development process, we’re really checklist oriented. You know, we’re very organized with the way we do those things, which allows us to be really efficient in our work. And once those kinds of systems are in place, now to me, you can spend more time watching film, you can spend more time as a teacher, because the operational stuff is already kind of taking care of itself. There’s some specific processes that we have in place, like we always have our recruiting meetings at 2pm on Mondays, we always have our player development meetings at 3pm on Wednesdays, we’re very specific with those processes as a coaching staff. And then that just kind of frees up more time for us to really dive into the film with our players, to get the sweat equity with the guys on the court. And hopefully, over time, those habits, those processes are leading to us being a better team.
Dan 10:27
I want to ask you about some hard parts of all this. I think for coach, one of the things I’ve always been interested in or been more difficult are almost like half in guys or the half in players where like they’re saying the right things, you kind of need them because they’re talented or you think you need them because they’re talented. And because there’s some players that are going to just be all in. They love it. They’re all about it. Those are the easy ones or the ones that are all out. Those are easy because then maybe they’re just not around. But like the ones where you’re really trying to get them on board and any learnings on those players and how you either just decide they’re not part of what we’re doing or you eventually do get them on the train.
Alex Pribble 11:03
It’s a great question. One of the hardest ones to answer really to me, it comes down to how as a coaching staff, you’re trying to build the program. So what I mean by that is there’s a lot of ways to get it done in this world. We all know that you can bring in the most talent and you can flip the roster year over year. And you can just say, hey, we’re going to go out there and top seven guys that earn their role, they’re playing everybody else, take a back seat and we’re going to flip the roster every year. That’s one way to do it for me, just the way I’m kind of wired as a coach, I’m really dialed into the team building aspect of all this. It’s important to me. I think the way that we’re going to get good over time is to make sure that the people in the locker room are completely bought into our values and are completely bought into the way we want to do things. So we have players in the locker room that are completely bought in. And then we have those players that are kind of one foot in, one foot out, like you’re mentioning. For me, it’s about as a coaching staff, us getting to know those players on a deep level and really understanding if they’re going to be willing to buy in, right? If they’re going to be willing to be team first guys, we over me guys. And if you get to know what makes them tick and you get to know what drives them, what their motivations are, and it’s not about winning, I think sometimes it’s addition by subtraction. Sometimes you do have to move on from those players. Now, with that being said, there’s sometimes players that are one foot in, one foot out for different reasons. Like we had a young man on my team at St. Martin’s who was extremely talented, but I could never quite get him to commit fully. And it wasn’t about his individual motivations. It was about him just learning that I loved him and that his coaches loved him and believed in him. And once he learned that and really trusted that, now he was ready to go all in. So it is kind of a case by case situation. You have to get to know your players on a deep level, get to know what their motivations are and how you can get them to buy in. But if there’s players that aren’t willing to do that, yeah, I do believe you need to move on and value the team, focus on the team’s best interest first.
Dan 12:51
You’ve mentioned it a couple of times in the team building, role clarity, part of all of this and more on that. What is it you’re doing on a weekly basis with your team to build that cohesion, the team building processes, full team stuff, small group stuff, individual stuff. Like what does that look like? Maybe on a week to week deal.
Alex Pribble 13:09
Yeah, it’s great. You know, I think a big part of the coach’s job to be as clear as possible about how the players impact winning, right? You have to show them very clearly what their piece of the pie is, what’s their ownership, right? If the team needs them to play a certain role, it’s the coach’s responsibility, in my opinion, to be very clear on that. So actually, just last week, you know, we had sit down meetings with all of our players to go through that. And the process we like to use, because I’m kind of a, I call it round table leadership, but I really like to pick my Assistant Coaches brains about this kind of stuff. So we had every single coach on staff fill out a form about every one of our guys that analyzed what should this player’s role be on the team? What do we need them to do? What are the habits this player needs to improve on for them to be the best version of themselves? And then we consolidated that information from every single one of our coaches into kind of a one page outline and presented that to our players and said, you know, Johnny, your role on this team is to be the defensive lockdown player, right? If there’s a good perimeter player on the opposing team, we need you to shut that player down. We also need you to make open threes. We also need you to be a great communicator, whatever that might have been, right? We were very clear about their role. So each guy walked out of those meetings saying, okay, this is what I need to work on. This is how I impact winning for this group. And they have a sense of ownership. So role definition, and having a plan for defining each player’s role, I think is really important. You know, the second part of your question, I do believe very strongly that social cohesion leads directly to task cohesion. And so what I mean by that is the stronger your relationships are in the locker room, the better guys are at working together off the floor. I think those habits are going to carry out and play out on the court. So we do a lot of stuff. We call them NBTs, non basketball talks. And basically, that’s a time once a week for our guys to get together and get to know each other. You know, we’ve taught guys how to change tires. We’ve taught guys how to tie ties. We’ve done all that kind of off court, social cohesion stuff that I truthfully believe is going to impact our ball screen coverages. The better they are communicating off the floor, the better they are communicating on the court and working together on the court, especially during the rebuild process. You know, we had 15 new guys in our locker room last year, building up that social cohesion off the court is going to have a major impact on the court.
Pat 15:22
I’d like to follow up with the role clarity and when you define like how they impact winning, when players want more, and I don’t mean it in a negative way, but I think it’s natural players want always a bigger role or they want to develop their game and how you manage when you’re asking them to do this, this for impacting winning, and then also kind of the carrot that will develop you or when they want more, how you’re also balancing that to keep them invested in the role that helps you win.
Alex Pribble 15:49
Good question. And for us, a lot of times has to do with the time of year when we’re having these meetings in the spring or we’re having these meetings in the summer. It’s all about how do we get them better? How do we expand their role? We really analyze their strengths and their weaknesses and help them grow their game. And we’re all in on that. As a coaching staff, we’re big on sweat equity. We’re on the court with a lot of one-on-one time. But then as you get closer to the year, I think those conversations become a little more team specific. And it is a challenge. Guys, obviously, they want to be on the floor. They want to be impacting winning in a major way. But I do think if you can be clear with them on what their job is, what their responsibilities are, I think guys will buy into that. I really do. It’s not always about how many shots they’re getting. It’s not always that all the big fellows want to be shooting threes. I think you can find guys in the locker room that want to set screens, that want to be able to rebound, that want to be able to defend at a high level. And as long as that’s leading to winning, as long as that’s impacting winning, I think you can get the right guys bought into that. So it’s a challenge. I think it takes a lot of conversations. I think it takes a lot of one-on-one time, but it definitely can happen.
Pat 16:49
With these tough conversations when you’re kind of coming out of that summer period and the role while still valuable is still the same as last year, how are you walking that fine line with a player who wants to grow his role, but, you know, whether it’s a recruit came in or they’re just never going to be a big man who can shoot threes because you got guards that can do it. And he needs to play this role.
Alex Pribble 17:12
You know, we’ve actually had outside voices come in and talk to them from different levels. We’ve had professional coaches, we’ve had scouts, and we’ve put videos in front of them as well that talk about at the next level, what they’re looking for is efficiency. They want guys who can do their job well, whatever that job is. We talk about the traditional 3&D players in the NBA and the value that’s created on those rosters. A lot of times, it’s more just about explaining how important that impact is. If you’re going to go out there and get double digit rebounds, at the next level, GMs, scouts, they’re going to be looking for guys that can really rebound at that level. I think it is more about being great at what they do, being a star in their role, than it is about getting into a battle of who should be shooting more shots. We haven’t gotten into many of those conversations. It’s been much more just about, how do you impact winning? How can you make this team great? Once guys feel like they have a piece of the pie, once they feel like they have some ownership over where this program is going, they buy into it. To follow up on that, there is a part of recruiting where you have to find the guys that are willing to put the team first. I think a lot of coaches say, you got to find guys that love the game. I think that’s true, but I also think you got to find guys that love winning, that prioritize winning, especially in today’s day and age and especially at the level that we’re at. You have to find guys that are more interested in having a ring at the end of the year and hanging a banner and making those kind of core memories than they are about whether they average eight points a game or six points a game. I think that there are guys in the locker room and there are guys in the recruiting trail that you can find that are wired that way. I was a walk-on account. I was the least athletic. There was no part of me that should have been playing in the Pac-10 at the time, but I was willing to do whatever the team needed me to do in order to be on that court. So if that meant going in and setting a big screen or diving on the floor or taking a charge, if that’s what my team needed me to do, I was going to do it. And over time, I was able to earn a role where I was starting at the end of the year. I was earning a scholarship and playing bigger minutes. And it’s just because whatever the team needed me to do, I was going to do. I like surrounding myself with coaches and players in our program that are wired the same way, right? Whatever this team needs, there’s no ego involved in it. It’s just about making the team better and impacting winning at a high level.
Pat 19:21
Do you differentiate between players who love to win versus players who hate to lose in your recruiting phase?
Alex Pribble 19:27
It’s a good question. I think you hear that from coaches a lot too. Like I don’t even enjoy the winning. I just want to avoid the losing feeling. I would relate it back to program building. Personally, I’m not wired that way. It’s not a just a hate to lose or fear of losing. I’m much more kind of process focused. And I think when you’re going through the rebuild process, I actually think you have to really celebrate your successes. You know, I really think that’s a part of it. Guys have to, they work so hard. There’s a lot of ups and downs. There’s always adversity that comes during the rebuild process. So when you do have that success, it’s not a sense of relief. Like we finally won a game. It’s more a big celebration. Like, look at all that work you just put in. Let’s soak this up. Let’s enjoy this. And then let’s go do it again. We had a moment this year where we played in an MTE out in Seattle. We have a lot of players from Seattle on our roster. And it was first time they were going back home to play in front of their families. And we got crushed. Really poor performance early in the year, lost by a lot in front of their friends and family. And it was a defining moment for us that in the locker room after that game, they were able to come together, be honest with each other, still believe in what we were doing. And then the next night we came out and beat a really good UC San Diego team in overtime. And to be able to have a response after such a tough event, after having such a tough performance against Seattle, to have a response like that, to come out and beat another really good team on the next night, for us early in the rebuild process, it was a defining moment. Because our guys were bought into the process. They knew that over time we were going to have success. And so you got to celebrate those wins, man, in a major way. In my opinion, you got to get guys excited to win, not just fearful of losing.
Dan 21:06
Pat 22:12
In the rebuild process, how mindful are you of goal setting with the team?
Alex Pribble 22:17
It’s a big part of what we’re doing. We do it as a team. We talk about having common goals as a team. If you want to have shared successes and you want to make sure that everybody has team first, well, you have to identify what that looks like.
So we definitely do goal set as a team, some outcome goals early in the year. And we do a lot of what we call note card exercises. So during our team meetings, we’re down there in the locker room, we’re handing out note cards to the guys and we’re really identifying what they need to work on this week, what their goals are this week in order to continue to move this thing forward. Like when I was playing, we did a lot of this, I think it’s an old Lasalle football thing where you would have weekly goals and very specific goal. So maybe it’s I’m going to make 500 shots today, or maybe it’s I’m going to make sure I get an extra 30 minutes of film with coach Jones on my defense, you know, whatever it might be, you have very specific goal setting exercises to keep the guys present focused on the process. And I think that’s a big part of kind of building the habits that are going to lead to success, especially during the rebuild process. If you have lost a couple games and you are struggling a little bit, you have to keep the guys present. There’s a lot of outside voices trying to impact what you’re doing. But if you keep the guys present focused on the process, focused on what they can do today to win the day today, I think that’s how you know, you keep moving the train forward, you keep climbing and keep getting better. Now, down the line where Seattle U is now after they’ve rebuilt the thing, or where St. Martin’s was during my process, you know, year three and year four, we went to the sweet 16 and year four after a full rebuild. And at that point in the process, guys understood the expectations, right? I like to call that program flow state, the communication is seamless, the systems are clear. In a lot of ways, it’s easier, the guys, they understand what they’re supposed to do, and they show up every day and they do it. And then they expect to win, they expect to have positive results, because they believe in the process at that point. But early in the rebuild, you got to really be intentional with the guys every day, working on your film, keep working in the weight room, keep working on your nutrition, build those positive habits, that over time are going to help them lead to success. So goal setting and being intentional with that early during the rebuild, it’s a huge part of what we do here.
Pat 24:22
When there is an outcome or a stat or some sort of number with the goal setting, I guess what are the parameters maybe you explain to the guys to make sure like, yeah, these are goals that push us but are also obtainable and not just over the top or they’re also then now meeting failure with their goals.
Alex Pribble 24:38
It can be tricky right because everybody’s gonna put conference championship as a team goal right playing the insta tournament as a team goal and when you’re in the first year of a rebuild that might feel like it’s far fetched but we want our guys thinking about that acting like a champion from day one so i’m not too worried about them going some extent off the rails with that stuff we want them to have. I expectations we want them to see a clear vision for what this program can be and again that comes back for me to believe building i feel like rebuilding programs it is a belief building business I really think that’s what it is and when you can get guys to walk in the gym and envision you know arena holds four thousand people I like tell them and we’re gonna walk in this gym. There’s gonna be four thousand people in here cheering for you we’re gonna be competing for a conference championship you gotta see that you gotta hear that you gotta have that vision so the guys know what they’re working towards and that is goal setting that is our goal that is the vision we have for this program and every day we’re chopping away at that.
Dan 25:34
Alex, my last question on all this is sort of Assistant Coach to Head Coach question and your role within this rebuild, you know, the other programs you were in, you mentioned you’re an assistant and seen it from the assistant point of view and kind of your role as an assistant within all this now as a head coach, any learnings or takeaways that’s different now as the head of all this.
Alex Pribble 25:55
Yeah. You know, a lot of coaches like to use the phrase, it’s so different moving over the 10 inches or whatever it is to the next seat. In my opinion, in my experience, it hasn’t been as big of an adjustment. And here’s why, you know, they talk about head coaches staying up at night after a tough loss. Well, I had so much ownership at Seattle U. I mean, I was so invested in what we were doing. I was up after losses. I was celebrating wins. I felt on an individual level, like I was the head coach, meaning I cared so deeply, had so much ownership over what was going on, that the transition to the head coach enrolled didn’t change my feelings too much. Now, the job responsibilities are very different. And you have to make sure you’re very organized with who’s doing what, delegating responsibilities properly. The job itself can be very different. But I think the best assistant coaches have a sense of ownership that, you know, every win is going on their record. Every loss is going on their record. There’s a true sense of ownership, you know, and that’s what allows you to walk in the gym every day with a little pep. You know, I’d say great pride in the fact that when I was an assistant coach, every single day, I was walking in the gym with some energy. Every single day, I was walking the gym as if it was my program, and I was going to go do whatever I needed to, to help the players be at their best. Now, I worked for great people like Chris Victor and Jim Hayford, that you mentioned. Paul Trevor was the first guy I worked for at San Francisco State. And all three of them were very, very different in terms of the way they ran the program. But I was so bought into what they wanted and so bought into what we were doing as a staff, that I did feel like every win and every loss was on my record. Every day had a great level of importance because I was so bought into what they were doing. So to answer your question, you know, I think great assistant coaches already have that sense of ownership, and there’s great trust between the staff. So it’s not a huge transition from a mindset standpoint. Obviously, you know, when I took over at St. Martin’s, I had to be very clear on how I wanted to lay the foundation, right? The systems and the processes that I wanted to put in place that I believed in. And really, that was about taking a lot of the things from all the coaches I’d worked for in the past and being organized when I got my shot, when my name was called.
Dan 27:58
Alex, thanks for all the thoughts there. We want to transition now to a segment on the show we call Start, Sub, or Sit. We’re going to give you three options around a topic, ask you to start one, sub one, and sit one, and then we will discuss from there. So this first one has to do with organizing your ATO playbook. And these are three different ways you could organize your playbook coming out of timeouts and what you want to run, who you want to run it for, all those sorts of things. And I guess this could be beyond just ATO. This could be your playbook in general too, but Start, Sub, or Sit, these three options. The first option is organizing it by player. So you want stuff for certain players and you’re kind of organized to get them the ball certain places. The second option is shot profiles, need a three, want to post touch, want to drive opportunity, whatever it is. And then the third option is alignments, pick and roll alignments, structure alignments, whatever it is, it coming out of time out that you want to get into right away.
Alex Pribble 28:59
The first thing I consider is personnel is match up advantages on the court. You know, this goes back, you guys had David Riley on not too long ago, it was a fantastic offensive mind. And he and I worked together for Jim Haferd at Eastern Washington. And Coach Haferd was fantastic at that. He could find the matchup on the court, set very simple spacing, and allow those players to create a great advantage. So the very first thing we look for is, is there a defender on the court that might be in foul trouble? Or is there a matchup on the floor that we can really take advantage of? I think that’s the first lens you have to look for, especially late in the game.
You talk about late game ATOs. Who do you want to get the ball to? Who’s going to be able to be the best decision maker when you present an advantage? That’s the first thing we’re looking at. So I would start player matchup. I would probably sub action and alignment. I think you have to make sure you have worked on the plays and the actions that you’re going to put the players in, in those scenarios. So again, if you’re talking about late game ATOs, you have had to work on those things beforehand. So making sure that you have the right player with the basketball, the right advantage created, and it’s something that you’ve gone over, that you’ve perfected in practice, I think is the second piece. And then the third piece is going to be shot profile to shot spectrum. Now, obviously, if there’s a late game scenario where you need a quick two, or you need a three to get yourself back in the game, then maybe that shot profile would have bigger value. But for us, we’re always trying to earn great shots. We’re always trying to attack the rim first and foremost, and then make great decisions after that. So yeah, I think that’s start the matchup, sub the action of the alignment, and then put the shot profile on the bench.
Dan 30:30
I want to start with your start, and I’m always interested in great offensive minds. Like you mentioned, Coach Hayford being able to look at certain matchups and things like that. What the discussions are like in the first half versus the second half when, let’s say you have a matchup you like or whatever it is on the court, you see something you like and whether you’re saving that for later, what you’re talking about in that first half that you’re seeing as a staff, you have someone specifically on your staff looking for certain things. So that way, maybe when that ATO comes up later in the game, you’re ready to use it.
Alex Pribble 31:03
But you know, I think for us, we do have an Offens coordinator, right? We do have somebody that’s looking more at the offensive side of the ball, that’s in charge of recognizing advantages, that’s in charge of recognizing defensive coverages and how we might take advantage of those coverages. Going back to the way we did at Eastern Washington, they’ve been one of the most efficient offensive teams in the country for a long time, and I think it all started with recognizing those simple advantages. You know, there’s players in that program, guys like Bogdan Blisnick and Jacob Wiley and Tyler Harvey back in the day, who were elite one-on-one players, and if you put them in great space around shooters, you really need to be more simple with the spacing than creative. I would always value simplicity over creativity in those scenarios, so setting very clear spacing, making the reads very simple, and then just saying, you know, if the defense is going to collapse from this space, make the exit pass. If not, the expectation is to get to the rim and finish. You know, I don’t know if it changes necessarily half to half, I think it changes throughout the game. Who’s got it going that night? Finding the hot hand, that’s definitely a piece of it, but you know, our job as coaches is to put the players in positions to be successful. So simplicity, getting the ball in the right spot, you know, I think that’s where it starts.
Pat 32:11
You mentioned a couple great one on one players that you’ve had in the past and with the simple spacing, what spot are you looking to put that one on one player? And maybe it’s obviously player dependent, but then how you look to space around a one on one isolation.
Alex Pribble 32:26
Yeah, and it’s not necessarily a one on one isolation, but it’s identifying the spacing on the court. So a lot of times we’ll use some ghost screens, which is obviously a big part of the game right now. We’ll use some ghost screens and put our best shooter and playmaker in space off that ghost screen. So at Seattle University, our very first game with Coach Victor at the helm, we were in a tight one against Alcorn State, you know, home opener, by game at home, a lot of pressure. And we came into the huddle at the end of the game, tie game with, I think there was 15 seconds left. And we looked at our point guard and our shooting guard who are two best players at the time, and really talked to them like, hey, this is what we’re thinking about running. You guys comfortable with this? How you feel? We put some ownership on them. Right away, they said, let’s run righty, which is a simple ghost screen with an open side of the floor and put our best shooter in space.
You know, if you can clear out one side of the floor where you have a little bit of a long closeout created, a guy can shoot the three or attack that closeout. I think simplicity sometimes works. Now I’ve been around some fantastic minds in terms of ATOs. We’ve got some great coaches in our league, actually, that will run very, very creative actions to generate the advantages. And that works as well, obviously. But to me, late game, it’s more about simple spacing, identifying the cutting and the movement behind the penetration. What I mean by that is, if you’re gonna open up one side of the floor and create a baseline drive, what type of cutting are you gonna have off the basketball? So you’re very clear with your spacing once the advantage has been created. You know, we sat in on a round table together on one of your guys’ fantastic SG Plus moments, and one of the guys in that round table was Luke Murray, one of the best basketball offensive minds in the game right now. And this was, what, six years ago? I forget how long it was, but you can talk to guys like that. You can figure out great spacing and great movement off penetration to identify the advantages that you wanna have for the best players, the best decision-makers on your team.
Dan 34:09
The cutting and backside stuff is always interesting to us. And you mentioned about, there’s going to be a drive. What’s happening on the backside for you. Pat and I always love asking about cutting and teaching it.
Is it rule-based? Is it player dependent? Is it drive dependent? It’s facing depend. How are you thinking about having great cutting action?
Alex Pribble 34:29
Yeah, you can get a whole new start subset just on who you’re cutting, right? It does for us, again, it’s a similar answer actually. It does start with personnel and strengths and weaknesses, I think. You have a wing ball screen that you’re rejecting and you’re ripping baseline and you have kind of a wing corner spacing on the backside. Who cuts and who finds the passing window to us is actually more about personnel than it is about defensive coverage. So if we have a fantastic cutter, we could cut the baseline, short roll into the pocket and cut the baseline, or we can make that hard 45 cut from the wing and lift the baseline. And to us, it’s much more about playing to our players’ strengths than it is about coverages. I just think that’s what you need to start with.
Now, we’ll get to the point where we do a lot of three-on-three or four-on-four against our coaches and we talk about, okay, we’re playing against a drop coverage. There’s a heavy tag on the backside. How are we going to cut to take advantage of this? But first and foremost, it is about who our best cutters are, who our best shooters are, and again, putting them in positions to be successful based on their skillset.
Pat 35:28
within this ATO conversation, when you’re in late game and you’re going to draw up an ATO, I guess, what’s the information you want to get from your assistant coaches, especially maybe like matchup driven too, at times, looking at what the other team like, Hey, track the other bench, see if they’re putting in subs or what coverage we think they’re going to be. And I guess the information you want to get quickly from your assistance before you go into the huddle with your players to put together an ATO. So.
Alex Pribble 35:53
subs is a mandatory one, regardless of time and score, we want to make sure we know the matchups right away. So, so that when I go into that huddle, if I’m trying to take advantage of a specific matchup, we got to be sure he’s on the court. That’s a big part of it.
The other information I think is related to the scout. So we do have coaches in charge of a certain scout, and we dive heavy into personnel on our scouting reports. But we also do talk about end of game coverages. You know, I want to know if we think a team is going to be switching late in the game, especially off ball, if we’re going to create some sort of screening action, we want to know if they’re going to be switching everything, you know, if there’s a potential for them to go zone, if they do, what zone it would be, we want to make sure we’re prepared going into the game for those scenarios and those situations. But again, I think that’s why you err on the side of simplicity and matchup advantages, because you take a lot of those questions out of the mix. If you’re giving the guy, you know, the basketball at a certain area on the court with great spacing behind him, you’re not worried about the switching off the ball, you’re not worried about a ball screen potentially getting blitz or things they might do at the end of a game. Yeah, we want to be prepared. We want to know the coverages that a team might go to. And our assistant coaches are in charge of communicating that we’ll always talk for 15, 20 seconds as a staff, before we go into the huddle, maybe longer than that. But these late game situations will have been worked on in practice a lot. So our guys are pretty clear on what type of actions and where the ball might be going in those scenarios.
Pat 37:12
When looking at matchups, if the other team, they’re obviously gonna be aware or see that maybe you’re picking on this one guy, they’re gonna try to neutralize your best offensive player, let’s say, but there is still a weak defender out there. I guess in these timeouts, are you designing up actions like whoever’s this guy’s guarding, you’re gonna be the ghost screener, you’re gonna be in the open for, we gotta go out to the court and see where that guy is, and we’re gonna pick on him, or let’s be more clear and defined and just send this guy and we’ll react accordingly.
Alex Pribble 37:39
It’s a great question. And I would like to get to that point. You know, I think the best programs down the line who have been in these scenarios a lot, they start to understand that, right? These players that maybe have been on your team for two or three years and they’ve been in these late game scenarios, they really have a good sense for, Hey, we’re trying to put so-and-so in the ball screen because he’s got four fouls and he’s not going to want to defend aggressively. And so make them switch the ball screen and then attack that specific player. Our guys will start to understand that. So if they put that player on a different matchup, we’ll send somebody different into the ball screen to be able to attack the specific matchup. But I think early we’re in year one right now is with this program, we got to be much more clear, meaning we’re going to dictate exactly who’s setting the ball screen based on the way that the defense was matching up prior. So I think your best teams, and obviously as you get to the professional levels, you have guys who have been in these situations more than they can start to do that on their own. Great point guards. I think we’ll dictate that action. There’ll be coaches on the floor and make sure that you’re getting the right matchup advantages. But for us right now, it’s a little bit more, especially in those scenarios, we’re a little bit more specific on exactly who we’re putting into the action.
Dan 38:45
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Pat 39:58
All right, Alex, keeping it moving here. Our last start subset for you has to do with defending a shooting foreman and various actions and off these actions, he’s popping of these three actions. Which one is the most concerning, difficult to defend? Is it when the foreman plays a pitch, a D H O the pop, when the foreman’s just involved in a pick and pop ball screen with, you know, good spacing by the offense. When the foreman’s in the drag screen in transition.
Alex Pribble 40:29
once you’re bringing back some nightmares of some of the teams that play a lot here, you know, the San Diego’s and some of these teams that just have elite, skilled big men is really tough. And you see a lot of them these days. So, you know, I think there’s a lot of different answers and it depends on the makeup of your defense, right? The strengths of your defense. If you can get to the point where you’re switching across the board, you know, and you can be elite with your communication, it really shores a lot of this up. But for me, assuming that we’re not switching with that five men, what becomes the toughest to defend is actually the drag screen. Now we work on a lot because I think everybody does it, but before your defense is set, an action that’s coming downhill, aggressive at you, you’re trying to make sure you’re not getting beat off the balance. You’re trying to make sure you build a wall and transition and don’t give a pain touch. And then, bang, you’re put into that drag screen right away with a dynamic, big, who can pop that, who can roll that, who can be creative off that. I think that’s really hard to guard. And so I would start that in terms of the most difficult to guard. The sub for me, I think, would be the pitch. Dan, I know you’re all about the dribble handoffs, man. I want to go too deep down this rabbit hole, but, you know, when you have those skilled bigs who can handle the basketball and they’re a threat to drive, and then all of a sudden they’re coming into a pitch action, a ball, a dribble handoff action with some pace. Again, that becomes really difficult because your defender’s on his heels a little bit. He’s making sure you’re not giving up any of the penetration and then you’re quickly into the dribble handoff where you’re popping.
That can create a longer closeout after the dribble handoff, which I think is kind of the key. You want to make sure that you’re not giving up long closeouts on these pops. And so I think that’s what you’re working on. And then the sit for me would be the ball screen. Obviously depends on where the ball screen’s coming from. You know, a lot of teams will run the Ram action right now into the pick and pop where they create that separation going into the ball screen, which to me is very difficult to guard. But if you’re just talking about a half court spread ball screen with a pick and pop player, I think defenses work on that enough, especially when the defense is set where you can be really clear on where your tags, where your help is going to be coming from and what your rotations behind the ball will be. So, you know, those drags really the tough to guard, especially with pace. And then the pitches, I would say same thing because you’re worried about the dribble handoff with penetration to the rim as well. And then the set ball screen pops, I think would be a sit, but obviously if you’ve got elite pick and pop players and elite guards who can score it or pass it off those ball screens, that’s hard to guard as well.
Pat 42:52
If you did have a team capable of switching, would your answers have changed at all?
Alex Pribble 42:56
You know, we talk about this a lot as a staff. We have a great defender on our team named Julius Mims. He’s a six and nine big, but, you know, state high jump champ, right? One of those long and lanky laterally, he’s very good and he’s very long. So we talk about if it’s easier for us just to never put two on the ball, especially in scenarios where you have a great pick and pop player like that, you know, you see it a lot. I’ve seen the professional lows. I do like having the ability to just switch one through five. I think it’s a great adjustment to make. But obviously if you can keep your bigs around the rim where there’s great rim protection, there’s still an advantage there. And if you got to have bigger, stronger guards who can defend in the post, force catches off the block and not just give up post advantages if you’re going to switch one through five as well. So if we are switching one through five, I think all three of the actions become a little bit simpler, meaning as long as the communication is clear early and we’re able to get foot to foot and we’re able to shore up any slips or shore up any of that ghost screen action, then the blueing across the board becomes simpler. You’re just never putting two on the ball would be the goal. But again, you become more susceptible to maybe some of those pick and pops, especially off the dribble handoff, the more pace those actions have, the harder it is to communicate the switches.
Pat 44:04
Jumping back to the question i’d like to follow up with the pictures like you mentioned like the strength is that they were the lines between is it a d.h.o is it a pick and roll is it a ball screen. How are you trying to work with your guys and navigating these pictures and the coverage that you want with a dynamic big who can pop.
Alex Pribble 44:24
Yeah, well for us, it actually starts more with the ball handler who the pitch is going to I should say, if you’re just talking about a open side and empty floor with the dribble handoff, a pitch happening on one side of the court, we want to be up the line and in the gap pretty aggressively so that when that dribble handoff takes place in an ideal world, we’re actually blowing anything in the scoring area. We’d like to be able to blow up the pitch, blow up the dribble handoff and never even get to that action, right? If you’re on your heels a lot and the player coming off the pitch, coming off the dribble handoff is very comfortable, makes it much harder to guard that, but the more aggressive we can be with the player coming into the pitch action, the less advantage we give up in that moment, less separation we give up coming into the dribble handoff, I think that’s really where it starts. And now, we like to be up to touch with a lot of these players, especially if we’re not switching and we are in a dribble handoff coverage, we like to be up to touch and be really aggressive with those pitches, which shortens the distance on the recovery, shortens the distance on the closeout going back. So, if we can do a good job being aggressive in the initial pitch action, blow up the dribble handoff in an ideal world, and then make a short recovery for our bigs when they’re popping off the pitch, I think that’s ideal for us. So, we want to stay out of rotations, we don’t want to give up a ton of separation going into the pitches, and to us, that’s the simplest way to defend the action.
Pat 45:37
With the decision to be aggressive with the guard versus more aggressive with the foreman in terms of maybe trying to blow up the handoff from foreman side.
Alex Pribble 45:48
If I’m understanding it correctly, the foreman has the basketball going into the dribble handoff, we obviously do want to pressure those players. If we have a situation, a lot of it’s personnel based, but if we have a player who’s a true pick and pop big, who is not as dynamic off the bounce, we’ll be super aggressive going into the ball shoot. We’ll keep him uncomfortable, a lot of activity with our hands, a lot of physicality going into the pitch. That’s a big part of it as well. Similarly, it’s personnel based off the ball. So the player that’s coming into the dribble handoff, if that player is not a dynamic shooter, we will slide underneath the dribble handoff as well to make sure that we’re not giving up any advantages after the pitch. Our scouts are heavy into personnel. Our guys will understand how they’re guarding the action based on what the personnel looks like. If we can go underneath the dribble handoff and not give up any advantage, that’s a great way to do it. Obviously, the re-screen will happen a lot of times on that as well, and we got to be ready for that. And then we’ll be physical with a lot of those pick and pop players. That’s, again, an ideal world. But if our defender does give up a little foot speed, then we have to continue to use our length, use our gap, and shorten that closeout after the pitch.
Dan 46:50
Alex, I was trying to not ask the dribble handoff question, I just have to. Just flip to the offensive side of the ball for a second with these because you’ve talked about like in the ATO stuff, we were talking about the ghost screen stuff. Here kind of talking about blurring the line between a pitch and a ball screen and all that. Anything offensively that you try to work on with the two players involved to like make that line blurred for the defense on the other side of it now?
Alex Pribble 47:15
Yeah, we need elite pace. You know, we need elite energy in the basketball. So it’s so easy. We fell into this trap a lot last year where our offense was pretty easy to guard because it was very stagnant at times. We’d be setting up a ball screen or setting up a dribble handoff with the defense set. But if we can do a good job reversing the ball from side to side and then going into the dribble handoff or going to the slipped ball screen with a little more pace, to us it’s way harder to guard. So I like studying some of the Alabamas of the world who have those, they call them connectors up top. So if it’s a dynamic roller, he might not shoot the three, but the ball gets reversed through the connector and he can quickly switch sides of the court and go with pace into a dribble handoff on the next side. I think that’s much harder to guard. So we really like to get out of our rolling action, get out of our ball screen, dribble handoff action very quickly. So if we can create an advantage, we can switch sides of the court with great energy in the ball, get to a pitch or a dribble handoff and then get out early, maintain that advantage. That’s kind of what we’re looking for. So great energy in the ball, good pace, moving from side to side. I really like some of the things that you hear people talking about now with the screen in terms of, you know, I think you guys call it like a hot stove screen. I call it like a hip touch and get out. You know, I was listening to Phil Handy not long ago, who’s a great player development coach. And he was talking about screening on the hip just very quickly and then getting out very quickly. When you’re talking about these dribble handoffs and these ball screens, if there is an advantage going into the screen, it’s all about how quickly you can go get off the action, right? So we really want our guys to make the pitch, get out early, put a lot of pressure on the rim, force the defense to collapse, to squeeze really aggressively. And now you’re playing out of rotations. That’s kind of our goal in those dribble handoffs and the ghost action on the perimeter.
Pat 48:58
I’d like to just follow up on your start when you mentioned the drag screen with the four man dynamic big deck and pop How are you thinking about the thing the drag? And maybe if I kind of challenge you more with an empty side drag where that pop is a thread and like you said the Defense isn’t gonna be set are you thinking more in terms of ways?
I guess cover just to keep your big connected to that for so that you can then get to the pop or neutralize the pop
Alex Pribble 49:22
It’s really hard to guard, it’s why so many teams run it, right? For us, it depends on if we’re switching that ball screen or if we’re into a different type of coverage. So if we’re switching it, we’re going to try to dictate the ball handler into the screen pretty aggressively. And then we’re going to be aggressive with the foreman. I mean, we’re going to be physical with him so he can’t slip out early, kind of jam him into the ball screen a little more, that will make it easier to switch the action. Now, if we’re talking about just our regular ball screens, we’re not bluing anything, we really like to play based on locations on the court. We like to script our ball screen coverages based on where the ball is. So if it’s on the outer third, we want our defender guarding the ball to be very aggressive and dictate to the baseline, which will allow us in those pick and pop scenarios to basically neutralize the ball screen. If we’re doing a good job, dictate into the baseline, we’re in an ice coverage or whatever your program calls it. If we’re pretty aggressive in that ice coverage, I think we can neutralize the ball screens on the outer thirds with the pick and pop. And so, if they’re popping out to the empty side, we’re already in a position to take that away. If they’re popping back to the top of the court, to the top of the key and they’re burning on the backside, we try to be very aggressive in our ice coverage, again, to shorten that close out back to the pop at the top of the key. We’re just trying to create as small of rotations as possible behind the action.
Pat 50:38
Who successfully ice drag screens and transition is it as early as possible pick up points is it i mean i see the hustle of the big man to get to the spot and be in front of the ball on the ice i guess what are the challenges. Is working through an ice coverage in transition.
Alex Pribble 50:56
Yes so for us it’s actually more about identifying very clearly where that pickup point is we get in trouble when our pickup point is too far extended and now we’re icing above the hash mark and there’s just too much ground cover you know the big can flip that. The guard can snake it just makes it really hard to actually keep the ball on the outer third so we only want to get to that ice coverage when it’s in the scoring area and that’ll be dictated by personnel a little bit.
If the drag screen is set out of the scoring area we just want to slide underneath it actually i was listening when your podcast recently the sean miller podcast. And he was talking about don’t go into a defensive coverage if you don’t have to i don’t put yourself in rotations and that’s the exact same way we like to think about it. We don’t wanna get into that ice coverage if they’re not in the scoring area we don’t want to put two on the ball if we don’t have to so. Out of the scoring area in those drag screens will just slide underneath and not give up any advantage but as soon as they do get into the scoring area you need elite communication. You need to be able to connect and direct to the small side of the court meeting as the defense were dictating where the ball handlers going. We’re not allowing that ball handler to have freedom to get the ball back to the middle so elite communication and then what’s that screener has popped or he’s been in a ghost situation and we have to square back off to the ball handler as quickly as possible. Again, to make sure we’re not in rotations.
Dan 52:15
Alex, you’re off the start subset on C. Thanks for going through those.
But does that was a lot of fun. A final question for you close the show before we do. Congrats on the success. Looking forward to watching you all play this year. And thank you for making the time for us today.
Alex Pribble 52:28
Thank you, Dan. Thanks, Pap. This is really my honor, fellas.
Like I said, the Slapping Glass platform is something that I’ve enjoyed for a lot of years now. I appreciate what you guys do and just being on here with you guys. It’s a lot of fun. So I appreciate you.
Dan 52:41
Our last question that we asked all the guests is, what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach?
Alex Pribble 52:47
Yeah, I was thinking about this. This is the one question I knew was coming. And so as I was trying to think through it a little bit, I think the truthful answer is the coaching journal that I’ve kind of had with me ever since I began coaching. It actually started when I was a player. I like to just write down things, actions that I liked, processes that I liked. I started doing that when I was a player because I knew I wanted to coach and I’ve carried it with me all the way through. So every coach that I’ve worked for, every coaching clinic that I’ve sat at, I take a lot of notes. I take pride in being a student of the game. And that coaching journal has now turned into my program blueprint. So as I do take over a program, I have a very clear blueprint in terms of the way we want to get things done. And that’s helped me feel prepared. It helps me feel prepared for the next job when I get the opportunity here. When I got the Idaho job, I have a very clear program blueprint, a way that I want to run things because of all the notes that I’ve taken in my coaching journal over the years. So I would recommend to assistant coaches or younger coaches to be taking notes, write down what you like, write down what you don’t like, learn, envision yourself as a head coach that when your name is called one day, you’re prepared.
Dan 53:54
All right, Pat, it was fun to have Coach Pribble back, as he mentioned, I think it was three and a half years ago, plus or minus, we had a roundtable was fun with Jeff and Gundy back in the day. And there was a lot of great coaches in that group. And he was one of them mentioned Luke Murray was in there along with a bunch of other really great coaches. And so we got to know Coach Pribble through that quite a bit. And then since then, he’s become a division one head coach. And it was great to have him back.
Pat 54:21
Yeah, it was a long overdue conversation. He did not disappoint. He’s been through a lot, seen a lot, a young head coach. So if anything, we should have had him on earlier.
Dan 54:29
Yes, our bad coach Preble. Let’s dive in. I think that you and I were excited to jump in with him on a lot of stuff because as we talked to him before the show and kind of prepping, he has been at places that they’ve been rebuilding. He’s super clear on who he is and all that stuff. We knew this was going to be good because of who he is. And so we’ll get to our top three takeaways and I will let you do the honors and take away with number one.
Pat 54:55
you alluded to, just kind of knowing his background and his stops and how all of them have kind of included the program rebuild. And then he hit it. And before we started recording, just like these patterns that he’s seen that have started to emerge. I appreciate him going through it and kind of the blueprint more or less that he laid out for us was my first takeaway. And he talked about learning to become a winner, the first three things he really hit on and that we dove into with the culture carriers, having the process over the product, and then building the belief. And those are like the three things that stood out. I appreciated kind of getting into the culture carriers and how that looks in the modern game, we got under retention and just going after the right guys and really giving them ownership. And he talked about like the checklist. And again, I go back, I was just grateful for him kind of sharing what he’s learned in these big boulders that got to be moved that helped build the belief and turn the programs around.
Dan 55:50
Yeah, I’ll follow up because we’ve had a number of discussions over the years with some team turnarounds or those years where a coach basically moves the needle from year one to year two and rebuilds. And I think we had Wes Miller on last year, talked a little bit about his first coaching job, the sustained success they eventually had. And I’m thinking of Nick Pasquatt, too, talking about his experiences with coming into a program that needs a rebuild, different levels of it, some that are maybe 500 and a little bit underperforming, some are way underperforming. Dustin Kerns, I’m just remembering now as we’re talking, Dustin Kerns, App State, had a history of doing that. And I just find those conversations really fascinating because the amount of things as a coach that you have to instill yourself and the energy required to do that, it’s not small. I mean, nothing we do is minimal energy. But I think these turnarounds and these rebuilds are a lot because it’s so much about setting the standards and all these things. And what I loved about getting back to Coach Pribble is he’s done it himself. He’s been around head coaches who have done it. And he has this flow, this checklist of things that got to be done in order for success to happen. I like
Pat 57:06
to when we got into the part about role clarity and kind of creating ownership and buy-in. And I think a point that stuck with me that he raised, and when we got into players who always, like I said, naturally in a good way want more. And maybe when their role isn’t changing or it needs to kind of stay the same. But he mentioned the important of like bringing in other voices, either players who have modeled the behavior, or, you know, I mentioned GM. But to me, just I think that’s a powerful tool.
Dan 57:33
One of my favorite parts of the first bucket was being clear on how you impact winning and the sit down that he had with all of the players with the, in, and the staff, I liked how he talked about having the staff write out what they think that player’s role looks like and how that impacts winning and then bringing that player in. And then I think you had some really great followups about some of the more difficult parts of that, like when a player feels like, Oh, maybe I think I can do a little bit more and how you navigate that, but I think that was a great part of it. And I think for like coach Pribble to be able to sit down with each player and let them know exactly how they can impact winning. Then when you bring it to the floor, like that player knows, I just thought that was a really good part of it. And I think there was some good followup discussion too, about when you’re asking a player to do something that they want to do more or the player’s just not good enough, or you bring in a recruit. Those are also the hard parts about it, but I think that that was another big takeaway for me. I love that part.
Pat 58:29
My final thought too is I think that conversation then we got into like goal setting and I think that’s always really interesting in program rebuilds. I mean, he talked about it like he wants to kind of have this big grand vision winning conference. He said it’s a good thing, but I just think it’s an interesting conversation when yeah, maybe realistically, it’s a turnaround, but we win 12 games or, you know, we go 500. But how you use goal setting and whether it should be realistic or no, it’s just, you know, give them the freedom to set it. And he also mentioned the weekly goal setting as well in the ownership piece. Absolutely. Keeping it moving, Dan, your takeaway or our takeaway number two from our conversation with Coach Bribble.
Dan 59:10
Yeah, I’m going to go to the start, subset, the ATO playbook, and you and I had fun kind of discussing beforehand, you know, as you organize your playbook, matchups, shots, alignments, all the things that can go into a playbook. And I think before talking about any of the start, sub, or sit, what I took out from that and I circled, starred, whatever on this page of notes that I have here is the difference between being simple versus creative down the stretch, or when to be more simple versus creative. And you talked about having some players that were just really good isolation, one-on-one type players, and you didn’t need to do a lot of false action or creative stuff to get them the ball in a spot. The main thing was get them the ball in space, understanding the spacings around them. And maybe some cutting actions when they do penetrate, but basically like being more simple because they are going to create an advantage and you don’t need to overcomplicate it, especially down the stretch.
Pat 01:00:12
But then this start subset, I also enjoyed getting into a matchup conversation. He alluded to who he worked side by side with now Washington state head coach.
He mentioned when, you know, him and coach Riley work together at Eastern Washington and we had that conversation with coach Riley too about his offense and kind of finding the mismatches. But I thought it was interesting to now when we go into like these ATOs, these late games where it’s kind of just solely a possession and teams can maybe control match ups or make sure they get bad match ups off the floor or yeah, how you kind of hunt a bad defender and how do you deliver that message to the team or is it just, we’re just going to run this play and again, we’ll just ball is going to end up in the hands of the guys that can make the decision regardless if the other teams has made substitutions or not.
Dan 01:00:55
I think a quick example, I can think of this as the pro level, but when you watch the NBA finals last year, you could tell with the Celtics, whoever Kyrie or Luca were guarding, they were just sending them constantly. Obviously, this is the Celtics and high, high level stuff. You ask, is it something where, listen, we come at this time out, no matter who this person’s guarding, we’re sending to the ball screen. The Celtics consistently just put those guys in a middle ball screen or corner ball screen. And I think that was an interesting point by you. A good answer by him too. Yeah, we want to get there, but sometimes, younger team, we need to run this.
Pat 01:01:30
And it goes back to the simple versus creative conversation. I think for sure, obtaining that level of play is easier when it’s simpler, when it’s just like, Hey, we’re going to run an empty side ghost. Whoever has this defender, you’re running the ghost and it’s simple spacing here, and then we make a play.
Dan 01:01:46
Yeah. And then before we go to our last point, I’d like the quick thing, and I’m going to give you a miss here too, but not by coach Pribble. But anytime we kind of like dip our toe into the cutting water, it’s hard to not go all the way in. He talked about within all this creating an advantage, certain guys that can drive. And he talked about the cutting behind it. We did follow up about who is cutting and his preference. And he even mentioned we could go a whole other star sub sit. And so I could have spent more time with him because I know watching some of his teams talking to him. That’s an interesting topic always is who’s cutting how, where, why, all that stuff.
All right, Pat, moving to our last takeaway, number three, kick it back to you.
Pat 01:02:28
For my takeaway, it’ll be on the last Start Sub Sit where we talked about defending actions with a foreman who can pop and this is actually a start subset. I think we’ve had kind of in the chamber for a while.
I think it was, might’ve been Lenny Acuff we were thinking about asking with and just went a different direction, but really for me, it was the conversation about the drags and the pitches. I mean, we alluded just how difficult the pitches are and blurring the lines. And then the drag skiing and transition and just how you differentiate if with the foreman, are you, you have kind of like a base coverage for foreman because usually they’re maybe going to be guarding more dynamic bigs or versus your base coverage is what the fives fives or traditional rim rolling five. And this pitch or a drag versus yeah, like I said, it’s a dynamic popper, you know, what changes or how maybe yeah, your coverage has changed was kind of the background of this conversation. I guess now getting specifically to the takeaway, I like our closing piece on transition icing and the importance of knowing the scoring areas and defining the scoring areas, because I think too, with the ice, the first question I always have is making sure the big is getting up in front of the ball and to the baseline side or the sideline side. So it’s not just, you know, your guard ices and the ball handler just pipes a line drive into the rim. Yeah. You know, I’m just fascinated by this conversation, especially with the skill set of different big men. And do you distinguish four men defense versus five man defense and pitches and handoffs and drag screens, or just having kind of a base coverage and he put the emphasis on the guards and the pitches to really be aggressive and blow it up. It’s super fascinating to me at the moment.
Dan 01:04:05
So I did my best. I didn’t ask too many D.H.O. questions.
I did ask one, but he kind of led us there. Two conversations we’ve had also of interest about foreman being keys within an offense and a defense. Tom B. Luszewski, we had on a couple of years ago, we had a really good conversation about where that foreman is within an offense, tells the defense kind of who’s tagging from where, how they’re going to guard stuff. And like, he always looks at when an offense is flowing, like where’s that foreman at, because that will help defensively. And then Coach Itz, we had on last year when we talked about a foreman that can pick and pop, but like at what percentage are you concerned about them shooting? And he discussed a foreman that regardless of maybe their percentage, if they’re say 30 to 35, but they’re willing to shoot it, the volume, it creates an issue. So he was always talking about the foreman’s volume. So my other thing within that was your transition drag stuff was super interesting. And I think we’ve also seen more transition get action be a problem now where we’ve done some film work video stuff, especially like when you’re going to run a 77 and you’re going to send the four and a five up to do a quick drag and you’re going to have get action with the second screener. That’s all sorts of problems for the defense. And I was going to maybe ask about gets within all this, but kind of ran out of time.
Pat 01:05:26
No, I agree with gets these pitches. What are they? And if you have a four that can pop like, I mean, all the offense really looking for then is just these confusing situations where yeah, you kind of have to drag out the defender or they momentarily are going to put two on the ball. And now you’re playing to the pop and the advantage there.
And I think that’s what I really, again, going back to why we wanted to ask this question, but there’s so many situations where it’s not just like a clear static ball screen or two foot jumps off handoff, like we’re defining here’s our handoff defense. Here’s our pick and roll defense. Yeah. Building off your point and what that gets like just more confusion.
Dan 01:06:03
Yes. Well, Pat, I gave one of my misses anything else from your any wish click on deeper on. Yeah.
Pat 01:06:09
I wish I had followed up more on his NBTs, non-basketball talks when he mentioned the importance he places on social cohesion and creating task cohesion. He alluded to a couple with change in oil or tie in a tie.
Dan 01:06:24
I need to go to those MBTs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pat 01:06:28
So I would have liked to have followed up more on there, just learning different coaches’ methods and what they’re doing and the value he’s seeing and then the returns he’s getting.
Dan 01:06:37
So true. And I think he mentioned the reason he loves that stuff too, is because players that get to know each other, trust each other, like each other off the court, he truly believes that helps solve stuff on the court. Well, Pat, there’s nothing else. We’ll start wrapping this up. Sounds good. Well, once again, we thank Coach Pripple for coming on. Thank you everybody for listening. Have a great week coaching. See you next time.