š§ Slappin’ Glass Podcast: Top 3 Takeaways ā Coach Zach Chu, Radford MBB
After spending nice seasons in the NBA, and one at SMU, new Radford Head Coach Zach Chu joined us this week on the show and dives deep into how data-driven strategy can power personnel, pace, and player development. Here are our favorite insights from the episode:
š 1. Data as the Engine for Program Success
Coach Chu outlined four key areas where analytics drive competitive advantage:
- Personnel Selection: Using a predictive model to determine player impact by level. Notably, small guards who rely on foul drawing often donāt translate up a levelāwhile bigs do.
- NIL Optimization: Validating spending decisions with quantitative evidence. “If a stockbroker lost $10M, you wouldnāt invest again. Why do it with roster spots?”
- Player Development: Custom āprescriptionsā for growth, identifying key areas for improvement via data, not just instinct.
- Game Strategy: Anchoring efficiency-driven decisions across both sides of the ball.
āComplementing basketball instinct with data will become an essential competency.ā
š 2. Reimagining Spacing in the College Game
Chu spoke extensively on how heās adapting NBA-style spacing to the college floor:
- Four-Out Emphasis: Harder to play 5-out due to the shorter 3pt line and tighter gapsāespecially after makes.
- Big as Rim Runner: Prioritizing early seals and rim pressure after misses; using smalls to inbound to initiate 4-out flow.
- Slot Spacing for 5s: When bigs canāt rim run, they space opposite the ball to force small defenders into rim protection roles.
āThe rim and free throw line are still the most valuable spots on the floor. That hasnāt changed.ā
š« 3. Stampedes > Stagnation
In his āStart, Sub, Sitā round, Coach Chu emphasized teaching the stampede catch-and-go mentality above all else:
- “Ball in the air, feet in the air” mindset to create driving angles.
- Promotes unselfish, quick-decision play and syncs with their core identity of leading the league in passes.
- Teaches players to read, attack, and move without pausingāeven sacrificing a few catch-and-shoots in favor of aggressive flow.
āWeāre building IQ around efficiency. No isolation heroes hereāeveryone needs each other to succeed.ā
Transcript
Zach Chu 00:00
One thing that is super interesting. And one of the analytical studies I did when I was in Dallas was really looking at top defenses and their profiles and what really ultimately drove defensive efficiency.
And while on offense, it’s more than realistic to shoot top 10 most shots at the rim and be a top 10 three-point team. You can create offense that creates high volume rim and high volume three. It’s extremely difficult on defense to do both. The idea of building this little kind of umbrella around the rim and the three and you’re going to force guys just to sit and take mid-range shots is sort of extinct. Even the best defenses over the course of the last 10 years really haven’t done that.
Dan 02:15
And now, please enjoy our conversation with coach Zach Chu. Coach, we wanted to start with this. It’s a quote that you’ve said that I think is really interesting. It’s that you believe the application of a data-driven approach can be the single greatest driver of success in a college program today. And we wanted to start with that, your thoughts and where that comes from.Ā
Zach Chu 02:47
Just to spend 60 seconds and to kind of start this with my background, I’ve just got the job at Radford three months ago. I was at SMU the year prior, past season. But before that, I spent nine seasons in the NBA and G League. One year with the Clippers, three years as an assistant coach in the G League with the Texas Legends, two seasons in Dallas, where I worked with Rick Carlisle. And he took me with him when he went to Indiana to coach the Pacers. And when I was in Dallas in 2018, Mark Cuban hired Bob Vulgaris, who Cuban had called the most brilliant person he had ever met. And Vulgaris used data science to become a prolific professional poker player and sports gambler and set a new standard for the utilization of data analytics in professional sports. I reported directly to Vulgaris actually for two years when I was in Dallas. And that experience exposed me to an intense radical approach, which challenged traditional thinking about strategy, player development, roster composition, lineups, matchups, et cetera. And it really trained me to develop a problem solving approach anchored with data. So my role in Dallas was working for him as a liaison that required me to package content in a digestible form to the coaching staff in order to ultimately achieve buy-in. The alignment with Coach Carlisle’s desire to use and utilize analytics to get ahead of the curve resulted in the creation of my role in Indiana when he went there in 2021.
And so through those experiences, I’ve not only had really deep training in terms of what it really meant to drive efficiency in basketball, but also how to ultimately achieve buy-in, not only to the players, but also from the coaching staff. Analytics has sort of been a black box in a lot of ways, I think, in basketball and in coaching for a long time. So that experience really has shaped my approach here at Radford. All of the changes culminating in the progression of NIL in college and now in the house settlement have created widespread negativity. And rather than spending energy complaining about wishing it was different, our staff here is, we believe, it’s much more constructive to embrace it and move on. And when it comes to a data-driven approach, I believe it can be the greatest driver of success in this new era in that the ability to complement basketball instinct with data, I believe it will become an essential competency for all college basketball programs moving forward in this new era. So really, to get to your question, what does that look like? We talk about here the four crucial areas in which analytics can be impactful and create a competitive advantage. The first one would be to optimize personnel selection. And one thing that I started when I went to SMU that I brought with me to Radford was a predictive model, a model that could project ultimately player impact in any conference at any level. So at SMU, at a high major program, the question was always, can a mid-major player perform at the same rate or at the same standard that he’s currently performing at a mid-major? Over the course of the last year, an example of a takeaway from that model was looking at small guards and looking at the productivity of small guards and comparing it to the productivity of bigger wings and forwards and centers. And if you took the players across the board who were ultimately efficient because of their ability to draw fouls, if they averaged a certain amount of free throw attempts a game that was driving their scoring rate, their efficiency on offense, what this model came to find was that small guards who draw fouls at lower levels struggle to convert and struggle to translate to a high major, right?
Those calls, they just don’t get them at high majors. Whereas big guys, centers especially, who are really efficient due to a high number of fouls drawn, that does translate. And so right away, during our process in the spring at SMU, we actually crossed off several small guards on our list because the model really didn’t believe that it would translate. We’ve been diving into the Big South, the league that we’re in now, the Big South, had five teams last year that were ranked in the top 25 in free throw attempts, in free throw rate. So I think one thing that we’re talking about now is we have two assistants that came from Minnesota, from high major, two assistants with NBA backgrounds. And I think the one question we’re asking ourselves is strategically, because the game is called tighter in this conference and in lower conferences in general, what obstacles does that present and what strengths or where does that add value for the way we want to play? So number two would be to optimize NIL spending. And I realize that may not apply to everyone on this podcast, but it does apply to some extent to all levels when it comes to your roster composition and what you invest in players.
To validate an investment to a stakeholder with quantitative analysis, to me, is maybe the greatest reason why a data-driven approach is so important. If you gave $10 million to your stockbroker and he lost it, I don’t think he would give him any more money after. The cost of making a mistake now in terms of the investment that it requires, especially at a high major, to attain a player or to put a roster together, the cost of making those mistakes are now greater than ever. When it comes to having to answer the bell when there are seasons when you aren’t successful, validating your decision making with the data-driven approach is becoming the most vital.
The third thing we talk about is player development and optimizing player development using data and analytics. You know, ultimately being able to use analytics to identify strengths and weaknesses and shape player development around identifying and correcting weaknesses, improving on weaknesses. And for us, I’ll dive into this a little bit more I think as we get going, but developing a prescription for success, a roadmap for a player to develop to achieve all of his long-term goals. And lastly, number four, which again, I’m sure we’ll dive into a little bit, is optimizing game strategy.
I touched on my role in Indiana, but was really how do we use analytics to drive efficiency across both sides of the ball?
Pat 10:18
Coach, great stuff. Back to your first one. You talked about optimizing personnel selection and then also looking broader at roster composition. How are you looking at analytics in terms of how you build in a roster? Is it based off of the inefficiency you think in the league or what wins the league that you’re in? Or like you mentioned, small guards and free throw rates, are there certain kind of characteristics of every successful team that you are prioritizing when thinking about building your roster?
Zach Chu 10:45
The first part of it is the model, just like it has certain indicators or certain attributes that it does and does not like for a high major player. There are certain attributes that the model would favor for a mid-major player, a player that would go into our conference. We do rely on the model to really predict player impact. But overall, I think it’ll be so interesting over the next couple of years to really watch the different models, the different ways that teams are approaching roster construction and see what works.
But here’s what I’m trying to do, and as a staff, we focus on really two principles. There’s the productive players who have had superior efficiency in key statistical categories, which we believe are transferable to our league. The guys that average 15 a game and five assists and certain blocks and rebounds and steals and stuff at a lower level that want to try and play in the Big South and play for us. Then you have players, and there’s more variance and more risk in the second part, which is the players who have the physical attributes and the analytical promise to suggest that they could flourish in our style of play, but are yet to prove their value. Largely because they were highly regarded, high school prospects, we have three players on our team who were ranked in the top 150 in the country coming out of high school, who are on their second or third year of college and chose power five schools and didn’t play or played very limited minutes behind the 23 year old fifth year senior. So we have taken a few swings on these guys that do fit the model for how we want to play and guys that we believe can develop. There is certainly no track record in college, stats in college yet that truly can in any way guarantee their production this year.
Pat 12:45
Kind of building off of that, it’s hard to find kind of those hidden gems or those guys that haven’t shown productivity yet. And you mentioned then kind of looking at their physical attributes, looking at the data approach, what is it about their physical attributes that you’re prioritizing or valuing that gives you hope that they will be a productive player for you in Radford.
Zach Chu 13:05
I mean, there’s quite a bit of just instinct. I mean, we do get these guys on campus, we get to work them out on these visits. But if you look at our roster, I think it would show versatility. We’ll be fast, we’ll be dynamic, we’ll be pretty big at wing, pretty big and physical at wing, we’ll be a little bit small at center.
And so there’s a, I think just in alignment with the way that we develop a style of play in Indiana that obviously you’re seeing now super fast, extremely unselfish, and has some elements of it that look positionless at times. You know, the way that Siakam can handle and they have multiple guards out there handling a stretch five, just the modern idea of playing, you know, being extremely versatile, extremely positionless. Those things certainly will translate based on the way we’ve developed our roster.
Dan 14:01
Coach, I’d love to go to your fourth point, which is game strategy, given all that you just talked about when it comes to winning games now, and all that you’ve learned in your time in the NBA, what do you think that will look like?
Zach Chu 14:15
You know, it was obviously a fascinating experience to implement and help coach Enfield implement very modern NBA type offense at SMU. And I learned so much from that experience. People often ask like, what was the difference strategically between the way you taught or implemented things in college versus the NBA? And my answer was always there was no difference. We taught the spacing the same, used the same terminology, the same principles. It was all very, very similar. I would say the greatest challenge that there is in college is the three-point line. The fact that the three-point line is a step or two in, however far in it is, it does affect your spacing and it makes it harder to play five out. Just the gaps, obviously when you’re five out are even tighter than if you’re four out. And so it really just makes it hard to drive the ball with the difference in the three-point line and the spacing.
Conversely, the rule that everyone asks if it really affects the style of play is the defensive three-second rule. And I don’t know an NBA team that actually talks about D3. I mean, it’s amazing. I mean, we looked it up a few years ago because I would imagine most teams in the NBA tell their low man, their poll, their safety, whatever you call that person, the last guy on the floor to stand in the middle of the line, to stand right at the top of the restricted area circle. So we looked it up, there’s 0.8 D3 calls per game, meaning 0.4 for one team per game in the NBA. So less than one time a game, less than half a time a game, are you actually getting called for D3? And so that element of spacing is really the same. The way you teach help defense in the NBA is very similar to the way it’s taught in college. Just kind of gives you an idea of a challenge, but also something that maybe was perceived a problem or perceived different, but didn’t change any necessary tactical things.
Dan 16:12
With the three point line being closer in college, and you just mentioned the spacing differences, how are you thinking about rectifying that offensively at the college level? you
Zach Chu 16:23
Couple things, like I mentioned, I think it requires you to be able to play four out, one in, and interestingly enough, at SMU, we had a really decent year, especially for being in the first year in the ACC for the school. And we finished 20th in the country, just in raw offensive efficiency.
And the reason behind that was our ability to play after miss. We led the ACC in efficiency after miss shots. We were right around half, I think maybe eighth or so after make. I found that after miss, it was much easier to get to four out spacing than it was after make, simply because we emphasized the rim runner early and the early seal versus after make, you know, having a bigger guy inbound the ball and trail into more five out alignments. And so one change and like every new head coach, there’s things that, you know, you’ve had success with that you want to take from your past stops and there’s things you want to experiment with. And I’m going through that and trying to figure out that balance.
I would say the, maybe the biggest change we’ll make this year from the way I played last year was to have a big guy run the floor and a small inbound the ball, just to try and create more. Starts to possessions in four out.
When I was in Dallas with coach Carlisle, we had Porzingis on the team. It was very easy to have him trail the play. We actually could quantify every shot taken and what that created for us on offense and the Porzingis trail three, even though it was sometimes 30 feet from the basket, it not only was it a pretty high percentage shot for him, it created opportunities for the corners. And sometimes even the wings to crash. And when you combine the idea and very similar to Brook Lopez in Milwaukee, when you combine the efficiency of the shot, the chances that the shot goes in with the ability to crash and have your biggest guy on the floor shooting and recovering and getting back. When you combined those things, the shot, the crash, the transition defense, we found that that was an extremely efficient shot.
So to get back to your point, more four out will be the emphasis early. And one concept that we use in Indiana was the idea of going from inside to outside to inside, meaning that the rim runner find a way to get from the rim to the second part of the possession, getting to the perimeter so that you look five out at some point in your possession. And then, of course, through the next action, through the ball screen, through the pinaways, through the drive spacing and your cutting, there’s going to be another opportunity in the possession later in the possession to get back to four out, to put somebody else on the rim, to put pressure on the rim in multiple ways.
Pat 19:25
How are you thinking about then, I guess, actions, concepts or triggering offense on maids if you’re going to have a guard inbound with a big at the rim?
Zach Chu 19:36
There’s a couple of things. I think the basic secondary break triggers with four out spacing like playing through the trail, swinging the ball to the weak side and letting the big go from looking in to seal to some sort of way of vacating and finding a corner is the most basic concept. What’s amazing is through this era where everybody wants to play with an empty paint, find ways to space the floor in the greatest ways they can. I think there’s at one point, maybe at least a few years ago, I think people lost sight of what was most important and it starts with efficiency and the value of the rim. And while a three point shot has incredible value, there is nothing more valuable than the rim and the free throw line.
And if you watch the playoffs, and one thing we adjusted a couple of years ago in Indiana was to go back to talking about the seal at the rim. And if you watch the playoffs, every team, that’s a great switching counter, but it’s also a great thing to emphasize in early offense, not only because of your ability to seal and to throw the big the ball. But I think one thing that we use in the NBA, we used last year at SMU was the ability for the big to seal and sacrifice himself to give somebody an angle to drive the ball and essentially use the seal to take away the rim protection. You often hear people call it a Gore-Tot. And so for as fast as we want to play, we expect a guard to inbound the ball, the ball to go to another guard and for that ball to be advanced across half court with the pass and giving that big. You know, instead of him having to inbound the opportunity to run and seal, we expect either throw it inside or to drive the ball early before all five guys cross half court and you’re dealing with the congested spacing. We expect our guys to be able to drive the ball in four on four type settings where they’re using the bigs seal to create angles. I would touch on to the second part of it is when your biggest running the floor, if he cannot get to the rim, I think one thing you’re seeing even more now, maybe because of Boston, but Utah, Charlotte, Atlanta. A lot of these teams are running their big opposite the ball. If you inbound with a small, if the point guard’s coming down the right side of the floor, if the five can’t get to the rim, he’s often running down the left wing or the left slot, which I think there’s more than one reason for it. But it forces someone else besides X5, besides the bigs defender to protect the rim because the last guy on the floor, the low man, the hole has to be a small, has to be coming from one of the corners. And so you’re forcing a small to try and rotate to protect the rim and you’re forcing an X5 to be in rotation on the drive. And so it puts tremendous pressure on the defense early when the five decides to not rim run and space above the break outside the three point line and that opposite wing or slot.
Dan 22:58
We hear a lot now on the podcasts and in many discussions about flow and teams playing through flow. Where though within all of this do set play calls, triggers, certain actions come into play for you?
I guess within the flow of a game, if this is the most efficient way to play, when though would you think about using sets or certain designs outside of, I guess, ATOs, things like that within this concept?
Zach Chu 23:28
I played at Richmond for Chris Mooney, who played for Pete Correll, was running a variation of the Princeton offense. We really simplified it and tried to play with more pick and rolls than a traditional Princeton offense would. But I think I learned there what it really meant to play without plays.
Princeton at its core is the ability to go from one action to the next without ever having to stop and call play and especially stop and call up the big to a pick and roll. And so when I was there, he used to always say he’s from Philadelphia and he used to always talk about playing in parks and wishing that he could teach his teams to play like he used to play pickup. There’s five guys cutting and moving and playing together in a very random situation. And when I got to Dallas and I worked for Coach Carlisle, we were at dinner one night and I remember talking to him about flow offense. He’s from the Northeast as well. And I remember him saying, I really just am trying to coach these guys the way I would want to play in a park. And so I’ve been really ingrained in this idea of stopping and calling plays and it’s just choppy.
It’s just you should play through fluid actions and concepts instead of plays. Watch the finals. I mean, there’s very, very few play calls happening in the finals or in the playoffs, because if you stop and call play one, the other team knows the play, they know what’s coming. It takes time off the clock and it just increases the level of physicality. They’re simply gonna blow up every screen or the slower you play, the harder it is to score. Our messaging to our guys, both when I was at SMU and now here at Radford is that we want to play as random and unpredictable as possible, first and foremost.
But with the changes now, with having a shot clock at 30 now instead of 24, one takeaway I had from SMU was coach Enfield’s feel for how to control the game at times to your point. And so I think it’s a feel thing. And I think there’s obviously times when teams are going on runs, you can’t stop runs in college with timeouts the way you can in the NBA, which with the way timeouts are set up, you have to wait for medias. And so you have to find ways to manipulate the flow of the game with some play calls. And then the importance and it’s just harder for guys in college to especially point guards to really dictate where the ball goes. And the NBA guys are just so good. And they have such great feel. Halberd could probably tell you over the course of four minutes, how many times each guy shot the ball. It’s just different in college. So you do have to be able to call plays to put the ball in specific players hands to try and manipulate who’s shooting the ball a little bit more. And in particular in post ups, if you have a really good post player, to me, that’s where it really demands some set play calls.
Pat 27:48
You mentioned with the three point line playing a big influence the difference from the NBA to the college. You know, the other difference being the shot clock.
Where does a 30 second shot clock impact maybe some of the analytics that you would see with a 24 second shot clock?
Zach Chu 28:02
Mostly just the value of the possession. I mean, because of 30 seconds, there’s less possessions in the game. I think we averaged 68 to 69 possessions last year in the MBIU average, you know, well over 90. I think we averaged over 100 my last two years in Indiana. Less possessions, each possession more valuable.
But that’s a good question. It didn’t change a whole lot. We wanted to play fast at SMU. We want to play fast here. We certainly don’t expect to use or have to play in the last eight seconds or the last 10 seconds very often. I don’t have them up the top of my head. It is statistically true that the same as the MBI in college, your efficiency is greater to shoot in the first 10 seconds. If you can create a good shot in the first 10 seconds, first is having to play in the last 10.
Dan 28:52
With the conversation about pace and playing fast and the efficiency of that, then when you think about the fact that in most big games, playoffs, things like that, the pace of the game generally slows down, you still account for how you want to play and talk about this with your team given that that is a likelihood.
Zach Chu 29:16
Part of my role in Indiana was end-of-game strategy. Just through data and evaluating our team, I think a big reason why we chose to play as fast as we do is we just know it’s gonna be really hard for us to score in the half quarter. We know Halliburton is at his best in the open floor. See, Akim has been a top 10 transition scorer for the last, I believe, six or seven years. And so we actually emphasized to play faster in the last six minutes than we did the rest of the game.
There was a huge question mark last year when we entered the playoffs, if we could play as fast as we were playing in the regular season. Our messaging was the same. We truly believe that our greatest chance to be efficient on both ends is Pace. And so that is true that the game slows down, but over the last two playoff runs in Indiana, I think you’ll see that Pace has ultimately been a big part of playoff success. I missed the second half of the game last night. The pace of the game in the first half without having the number on me was pretty extraordinary.
Pat 30:22
At the very top, you talked about your role initially too when you’re at Dallas was analytic buy-in and how you think or what you would recommend for coaches who obviously are proponents of the analytics, look at the analytics, but how they convey it to their team, how they get buy-in from their players, what has kind of been the success you have found and how you communicate analytics to your team and account for the personal element.
Zach Chu 30:48
The greatest source of buy-in I’ve gotten was explaining the why, and analytics allows you to give a very clear version of the why we do things. Why are we playing fast? Why are we choosing to run this play? Why are we encouraging you to shoot or not to shoot this shot?
And very quickly within weeks, you can grab data and people always ask, what is money ball in basketball? We know what it meant in baseball. And the greatest change over the last 20 years in basketball has been and the impact of analytics on basketball has been shot selection. And so however you track that data, I would be absolutely shocked. I still talk to my high school coach every week, obviously now working in college, I’ve worked in the NBA, there isn’t a level where the rim isn’t gold, where it’s not the most efficient shot and where shooting from 18 feet is likely the least efficient. And so being able to show players statistically what that looks like for them and for the team and explaining to them just through the four-factor analysis why shot selection ultimately is the greatest driver of winning and losing the game.
The four factors, shooting efficiency, turnovers, rebounding, free throws, shooting efficiency weighs in 60 plus percent of the formula when it comes to efficiency and winning the game. And so your ability to take the right shots is vital. I mean, it’s the most important thing. And we’ve created buy-in one with showing players their stats, the team’s stats. We track shot location every day in practice. And then the other one that’s been great for us has been showing NBA shot charts. The top 200 shot locations in this season, the top 200 shot locations were all either in the paint or outside the three in the NBA. It is non-negotiable in the NBA. It’s a given fact for every time you take a shot that’s outside of those areas, you’re driving down your efficiency, you’re giving yourself a lesser chance of winning the game, showing our guys that, showing them how they can achieve all of their goals to play at the highest level and to align their individual goals with our team concept, which is to be efficient. You put those things together, you achieve buy-in.
Dan 33:26
Coach, great stuff. We wanna transition now to a segment on the show we call Start, Sub, or Sit.
So we will give you three different options surrounding a topic, ask you to start one, sub one, and sit one, and then go from there. So Coach, if you’re all set, we’ll dive into this first one. Yes, sir. Okay, this first one has to do with what we’re calling modern perimeter skills. These are three different types of skills or decisions that a modern positionless player should be good at. So option one is understanding how to ghost screen and all that goes with ghost screening. Option two is understanding how to play in stack or Spain action. When to slip out, when to screen, all that stuff. And then a third option is understanding how and when to attack through stampedes. So start, sub, or sit, ghost screens, stack screens, and stampede actions. I’ll see you next time.
Zach Chu 34:22
Start Stampede, I will sit Spain action, which leaves substitute ghost screens. We really are focused this summer. Honestly, we will spend 80% of our time this summer on offense. You know, it’s so different in college having four months to work with guys before the first game, right? In the NBA, you have four days. So we have all this time to really focus on these guys’ development. We’re gonna spend much more time on offense, honestly, because I’ve put together defenses in four days. I just don’t, outside of like their ability to move, their ability to move laterally, defend on the ball. We’re not gonna get into zone defense in the summer. So spending that time on offense, the two goals are really to focus on individual player development and team basketball IQ.
Team basketball IQ, using some of the concepts and some of the things that we just talked about, using data to teach these guys what’s really important, what drives winning, drives individual success, drives team success, and the why is a huge part of our summer. The ability individually to teach guys to play off the catch is certainly aligned. And the conversation that we had last week about player development was, do you teach guys, I watched Chris Beard practice a year ago, teach guys to catch and look at the rim, basically come to a stop, or do you start with the foundation that you’re always thinking about, catch and go, go and catch, stampede type situations, ball in the air, feed in the air, whatever you wanna call it. And so we decided that we wanted to teach guys to essentially think stampede or think go and catch as much as possible. And in particular, and it doesn’t need to be like this designed play where you’re passing it from slot to slot and that guy’s catching it on the move, we’re trying to teach these guys that every time the ball is coming towards them, that they should use the pass to create their advantage and their angle. Whether it’s running the pass down and running towards the pass, to go by the defender as he’s running towards you, or to catch and ball in the air, feed in the air, rip, and go away from where the pass came from. And so I think it’s been great. It does take away a few catch and shoot threes that you probably want guys to shoot because they’re thinking about that so much early, but it promotes quick decisions. It promotes less guys catching and holding, and it does create angles. We have such great spacing on the floor. Anytime you can expect that extra pass to be made to you, ball gets passed from slot to slot. If you’re in the corner and you can expect because of how much we preach to play on selfish. Statistically, we wanna lead the league in passes made. We did last year at SMU. It’s something we track manually. If you know that that pass is gonna be, the one more pass is gonna be made. The pass, the ball goes slot to slot. If you know if you’re standing in the corner, that ball is being swung to you. If you can trust that that ball is being swung to you, then you can anticipate that pass being made and be ready to stampede, be ready to go and catch, be ready to make a decision before even you catch the ball.
Pat 37:48
is that passes made? Is that something you’re seeing from an analytical perspective that it drives efficiency or is it more just kind of the DNA the character of who you want your team to be
Zach Chu 37:58
More DNA, more character of who we want the team to be. To me, it’s not linear to say, it’s not sound to claim that the less passes you make in a possession, the more efficient you are. Golden State led the league in passes for several years and finished first on offense. Last season in Indiana finished second on offense and I believe led the league in passes. I don’t believe that there’s a correlation there between less passes which you hear all the time and overall efficiency.
And so culturally, we have guys here, like I mentioned, who are coming from high majors, who are coming from, you know, successful situations at lower conferences. We have guys that are hungry to achieve all of their long-term goals. The non-negotiable here is that we are going to be the most unselfish team. None of these guys chose to come to Radford and turn down the NBA draft. There’s not guys on this team that are efficient playing in isolation. And so the non-negotiable we have is that we are going to lead the league in passes and we’re going to be the most unselfish team because ultimately we need each other to succeed. We need to space correctly to give everybody the best chance they have to drive the ball and score. We need to pass the ball because ultimately we know we can’t play through isolation. Those things all tie together with individual success.
Pat 39:18
I’d like to follow up with the Spain you sat that how in these player development sessions and building your basketball team IQ, you know, looking at that stack screen or the man setting the backpack, I guess what you prefer or what you’re working with on the read and maybe even like the location of where you are trying to get that screen, if you’re going to set it versus slipping out.
Zach Chu 39:41
It’s just so different in college because I think 80% of the teams we played last year were the big guy in the pick and roll was at the level. You see they’re hedging or showing or whatever. And so there’s no one to screen. And so stack in college simply becomes roll and replace. And so there’s actually great advantages to that. When you roll and replace like that, it forces the low man to make a decision, right? Does the guy who’s guarding the stack screen or does he hold as the low man or does he go out and force somebody else to become the low man, right? Overall, the read becomes much more simple in college.
It’s unless they’re in a dead drop where you can screen the big, you’re simply slipping out. The part of it that’s really sound, that’s really good is one thing about going back to the spacing, the change in spacing, because of the three point line. In the NBA, everything is about the single side eye. It’s about dribbling off screens and putting two guys in front of the ball, dribbling towards two guys on one side and leaving one guy on the backside in college because the spacing is different. There’s no room for the ball handler when you do that, to get downhill. We had some data that showed that our actions that were single side eyes were actually less efficient than putting two behind the ball, meaning dribbling towards one guy standing in the corner and having two guys behind the ball. And so it gives the ball handler more room to attack and to stretch the head or stretch the screen. It allows the roll to roll and allows the next guy to kind of feel behind. And so stack or Spain is a great way to get two behind the ball. To me, that’s where it’s still an efficient college play.
Pat 41:27
Looking at your player development and I think the conversation we’ve had with coaches on the podcast is when you look at player development or is it just about you know playing to their strengths and kind of masking their weaknesses or how you think about developing players weaknesses and once you identify their weakness what really helps in terms of their development you know kind of that repetition versus game like environment and how you think about just building a player development program around improving a player’s weakness.
Zach Chu 41:56
Becoming more and more common, but I would say overall, the more live situations you can put guys in the better. We even in a team workout want to make sure we’re doing as many things live as possible because I believe that your best way to develop as a player is to try things that you can’t necessarily try in December and January. And so if we want guys to work on being able to turn drives into post-ups or drive more to their left hand or shoot, create more catch and shoot threes for themselves, take a shot, you know, think shot first, take a shot that might even get blocked or contested, right? Like those things all happen in live scenario. You teach those things through live settings, even if they’re scripted or manufactured, so to speak, live situations certainly give them the best chance to try things.
And then from an actual coaching a guy one on one, we try to at least make it one on two, have at least two coaches to give guys the ability to make reads, to make them work on being able to read and drive and pass, which is maybe the hardest thing to teach a guy when you don’t have multiple coaches. A great example is like our emphasis now is to play off two feet. We want to play off two feet as much as we can, different than the NBA, right? But we want to play off two feet as much as we can and make guys actually learn how to play off two feet to finish. But even more importantly, play off two feet and pass from the interior, be able to drive at full speed, not get sped up, get two feet and pass over defenders when there’s crowds. And so we use coaches for that. We use obviously live situations for that. But overall, we try to develop weaknesses and expand players’ games with as many live situations as possible.
Pat 45:02
All right, Coach, we’ll keep it moving here. Our last start subset, we’re going to go to the defensive end. And you mentioned when just talking about offensive efficiency, the shooting efficiency and shot selection. So now looking at how you think about your defense through the prism of shot selections and basically the shots you want to give up, the shots you want to take away, which one of these three aspects of your defense are greatly influenced by the shot selection you want to concede? Is it option one, how you want to pressure the ball, maybe funnel the ball, directionally force the ball? Is it option two, how you think about just gap pressure, being in the gaps, being aggressive high or more sit back? Or is it option three, how you look at your ball screen aggression?
Zach Chu 45:55
And let me start with what we’re trying to take away here. So one thing that’s super interesting and one of the analytical studies I did when I was in Dallas was really looking at top defenses and their profiles and what really ultimately drove defensive efficiency. And while on offense, it’s more than realistic, and there’s 30 teams in the NBA, so I’ll use the NBA as a reference. It’s more than realistic to be a top 10 rim team, to shoot top 10 most shots of the rim and be a top 10 three point team. You can create offense that creates high volume rim and high volume three. It’s extremely difficult on defense to do both. The idea of building this little kind of umbrella around the rim and the three, and you’re going to force guys just to sit and take mid range shots is sort of extinct. I think even the best defenses over the course of the last 10 years really haven’t done that. The best example really has been the last five has been the Milwaukee teams really starting in like 2019, but over their stretch where they were really a dominant defensive team, they were prioritizing one thing and that was the rim because they knew if they could protect the rim at a record setting rate, even though they were going to be bottom five in three point of temperate, they knew that rim shots led to the most fouls. So they know if they took that away, they would be taken away fouls.
And they knew if they took away the rim, they would give themselves the best chance to rebound. The idea of long shot, long rebound isn’t really true. 70% of offensive rebounds come from shots in the paint, right? Whether it’s a floater or another guy gets the rebound or you get your own miss. And so your best chance to be a solid rebounding team is to protect the rim and the paint as much as possible. I say all that to say, I think it is most sound to choose one or the other, to choose something you really want to be good at and pretty consistently, I’ve chosen the rim. And so ball pressure is extremely important, disruption is extremely important. I would actually still start ball pressure, but you have to be careful because the higher you extend your defense, my coach and Chris McNeese always say it’s really hard for teams to guard us when they’re guarding us 50 feet from the basket and they’re trying to protect the rim.
I think you have to be cognizant of point of pickup. Aggressive pick and roll coverage, I would probably sit, I think there’s multiple ways to be aggressive. I don’t think that needs to be a priority as much overall. And I’m sorry, what was the last one? Gap pressure. I think gap pressure, the entire league has really gone away from any sort of one-pass denial if you watch. The ability to be in gaps and very often said do two things, be able to be in a gap and stop the ball as well as close out to your man on the pass and take away the three is an NBA skill. It takes range, it takes effort, it’s a real skill. And it’s probably the least practiced defensive skill is the actual ability to be in a gap, to push off one leg and to fly out and close out at a guy and make him neutral. And so really a great skill that makes guys a lot of money.
Pat 49:26
Coach, if we can build off of that conversation, being at a mid-major and most of our listeners, yeah, we’re not coaching the elite of the elite in the NBA, how will you think about the gap pressure and maybe, yeah, from a positioning standpoint and being able to have some influence in the ball, but also, like you said, be able to close to your man and not just give up a one pass rip drive as well, you know, with smaller bodies, less athleticism?
Zach Chu 49:53
We’re putting a lot of onus on the players to be able to do that. And obviously you can’t get blown by, right? So it starts with ball pressure, but also containment. We use the term, we trust our help. We extend our defense. We want our feet on defense to be outside the three point line. We don’t want to be, you know, guarding a guy with two feet inside the three, because we know that we can get out, we can pressure the ball appropriately and trust our help. I think that sound, no matter who you have on the floor.
Pat 50:24
Then the ball pressure and maybe tying it back at the analytics. If there are any being square on the ball, forcing baseline, forcing middle. Is it preference is one shown to be more efficient than the other, or is it all just containment, like being able just to contain the
Zach Chu 50:42
The middle of the floor is going to be the most efficient offensive location. Overall, statistically, you do not want to give up middle drives. That said, overall, I think the game is becoming more and more square, meaning you don’t, outside of the extreme defenses that are forcing baseline and making guys play from the baseline, I think overall you’re seeing a more and more square game because of the ability to drive the 45 or the slot. That angle on the floor is just so threatening. It happens so fast, usually it’s a stampede situation often. It’s really hard to rotate hard for the low man, the safety, the hole, to really rotating in and help on that play that you’re seeing less, in my opinion, seeing much less open stance to influence baseline.
Dan 51:37
Coach, the teams that are good two-point field goal percentage teams but also of course want to be good three-point field goal percentage teams, are there any analytics or learnings or teachings on how they can still be good at that as well?
Zach Chu 51:53
When I was in Dallas, when I was working with Bob Bulgaria’s, we had a few guys working with us that were coders. New basketball, but weren’t coaches by any means. One of them spent like a month on this project trying to come up with what really weighs into what drives this shooting efficiency metric in four factors in the NBA or really in basketball. And, you know, I thought it was going to come up with a really complex, detailed answer. And after a month, he comes back with three-point field goal percentage, ultimately drives shooting efficiency and drives winning in the NBA.
So it wasn’t three-point volume. It was efficiency. The next question was, well, how do you lower efficiency? How do you actually make teams shoot worse from three? And stats guys will tell you pretty consistently, it’s a luck factor. I personally believe it’s an effort stat defensively, the way you can test. We did unbelievable research on this. One year, Toronto led the NBA in opponent three-point field goal percentage. Their average momentum towards the shooter on the closeout was like twice as fast as the next team. Crazy things. But it was real. You can, to some degree, and I think we’ve all felt it, and I think it goes back to the complementing instinct with data, or in this case, maybe complementing data with instinct. You can, at some level, dictate three-point field goal percentage. You can force rush shots. You can make guys uncomfortable. And the takeaway is, one, it’s possible. One, you can do that. And two, it’s extremely, extremely important to talk about.
Dan 53:33
Coach, you are off the start, sub and sit hot seat. Thank you for going through and playing that game with us. That was a lot of fun. Hey, we’ve got a final question to close the show and it’s when we ask every guest and it’s what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach.
Zach Chu 53:50
Relationships. Absolutely. And I’ve been like super fortunate from the start of my career to get to surround myself with really great coaches. I got to spend a year in LA with the Clippers when Doc was the head coach and we had Lawrence Frank on the staff. My direct boss in player development was Dave Severns, who’s a mentor to me. Got to work with great staffs, you know, in the G-League and in Dallas, obviously in Indiana in this past year and the relationships I’ve built. One of my best friends was a Richmond teammate. My other best friend was an intern when I was an intern with the Clippers, you know. It’s truly the most special part of this business and what I value.
Dan 54:34
All right, Pat, let’s hop in. That was a ton of fun. I feel like with Coach Chu, you and I could have just kept going on analytics. It’s fun to deep dive into style of play and efficiency. Coach Chu’s been on the forefront of a lot of what works and doesn’t when it comes to NBA models and things like that. So I’m really excited to watch this team at the college level and see how it all translates.
Pat 54:55
Yeah, like we got into a number of different things, but kind of comparing, contrasting where the stats are similar and different from NBA to college based on three point shot clock and really enjoyed just looking at it through the college lens, so to speak, the analytics and what coach Drew shared with us today and is thinking about with his heading into his first season with Bradford.
Dan 55:15
Absolutely. Let’s dive into our top three takeaways. I’ll kick it to you for number one. Yeah.
Pat 55:20
So number one is for sure with our bucket is how he’s applying data to drive success. I think his four things with optimizing personnel selection, the NIL spending, player development, and the game strategy, like you said, I mean, I think we could have done multiple parts and several hours diving into all of them. I liked where we ended up kind of settling our conversation.
I thought in the personnel selection with his model and what he values, I thought I really liked the example he shared with kind of the small guards and what he valued in terms of their ability to get to the rim and free throws versus not, you know, when looking at maybe a smaller guard, we’ve had some conversation in the past with the success of smaller guards. So it was also kind of fun to hear the other side of the coin, so to speak. But then when we settled in the game strategy, I enjoyed that getting his thoughts on spacing and tying it back to just the impact of the three point line and a five out versus four out one in. This is a conversation we’ve had a lot lately, especially with Coach Mike DeGeorge at Cal Poly Slow and just how they thought about offense kind of freeing up some gaps to get paint penetration. So I liked all of his thoughts there, of course, you know, particularly when he thought about how the value of the rim run and kind of bringing that back and how disruptive that can be to the defense, the hard rim run and that it’s easier, of course, off of missed shots. But then I was looking to solve it with made shot breaks and having a guard inbound it. And, you know, I also like the other caveat of you can’t get to the rim, putting them in the slot so that a guard is now in that rim spot and not just putting size at the rim, which maybe then defeats the purpose of getting these gaps similar to what Coach DeGeorge was talking about when they were experimenting with different spacings.
Dan 57:00
Yeah. Obviously we cover a lot in that first segment. You already touched on the personnel, but I also found the game strategy part really interesting, especially this idea of a data-driven analytical approach. I mentioned Coach DeGeorge and how they’ve gone to more positionless, things like that. Everything they’re doing is built on efficiency and what to do to create and what to take away. I also appreciated the emphasis on shot selection and how that feeds into shooting efficiency.
Now as Coach Chu transitions from the NBA to college and into head coach role, it’s going to be really interesting to see how all that is implemented. You asked a great question about buy-in, getting players to embrace this from day one as part of the team fabric. He mentioned wanting to lead the league in passes made. I think that’s a fascinating great ethos of a team. Of course, some teams are more guard dominant and focused that creating advantages through isolation rather than ball movement. So it’s just interesting, different philosophy. I’m thinking of like Coach Tiago, Splitter, who we had on recently, his teams in Paris with some really great guard play where they’re just constantly playing through those guards. They pass a lot too for sure, but they use a couple of those guards to create that first advantage.
Pat 58:15
Yeah, the other interesting aspect is we kind of look at the spacing, you know, valuing space like we all do is the other takeaway he had with the college game is that a lot of the pick and rolls are to the one man’s side of the floor going to the one man side because of again, with the three point line prevalence, trying to hunt that shake, that single side shake, it’s really hard because there’s just not enough space when coming off going to the two man side, I really like that distinction, again, and kind of just understanding how the rules and the spacing so much of strategy in the game.
Dan 58:47
Another thing that I could have gone deeper on was how the European game clears out the two side with constant corner cutting and sliding. They’re constantly using that wheel action to clear space while in college spacing can at times be more stagnant and that compactness at the college level because of stunts at the nail and so on creates a very different tactical picture.
Pat 59:09
Absolutely. Well Dan, as we keep it going here, I’ll throw it to you for the second takeaway.
Dan 59:14
Yeah, I’ll go to my start subset, which was the modern perimeter skills that we discussed with stack actions, ghost screens, and stampedes becoming more standard. Like what’s important for teaching young players and all those actions. And I loved how coach Chu highlighted teaching players to catch on the move, not in a traditional triple threat stance. And we’ve heard that before as well. Uh, the stampede approach kind of changes how we coach the catch. Sometimes yes, it leads to missed catch and shoots potentially or quick swings, but it’s part of the learning curve of, I think teaching like aggressive spacing attacks, uh, and that flowed into a great conversation on, uh, player development, working on strengths, first weaknesses within this lens of efficiency. And the whole theme was, you know, make everything efficient. He also gave some thoughts on Spain action and when to slip out, particularly in the college game that I thought was great where screens are often like touched rather than fully set, especially against hedging.
Pat 01:00:16
I think the Stampede really ties together the two things, the efficiencies after, and like you mentioned, the ethos of having the most passes made team. And to your point, you know, some teams like to, yeah, you have your one or two ball hangers that they’re gonna try to run the actions through. But if you’re gonna be a team that, of course, I mean, everyone values unselfishness. I don’t know what team values selfishness, but I think the Stampede is an excellent weapon to weaponize your guys to be one, especially positionless, if you’re playing positionless playmakers and take decisions with the least amount of dribbles by just constantly reinforcing whatever it is, catch on the move, ball in the air too, like he talked about, whatever kind of your mantra to teach it is. And I think this is the real beauty of the Stampede that it allows you to be more positionless and be more random because you’ve weaponized your guys more.
Even your limited players, you don’t want them making more than three dribbles or you’re not really looking to put them in ball screens or handoffs, you know, those probably are than the guys you have kind of labeled at that. But giving everyone to play within a random drive kick, extra domino game, the ability to be a threat. And I’ve really come to appreciate that again, referencing back to like just some of the conversations we’ve been having of the past. And then I think the other point I liked with the Spain screen going back to the difficulty of creating space in the college game and why most screens are going to the one man side where the Spain screen also maximizes space for that ball handler. Because in theory, it’s corners filled and the stack screen or let’s say at the rim or somewhere in the paint. So wherever that left or right, it doesn’t matter that ball handler is coming off with the maximum amount of space that every left or right is basically going towards a single side. And I think that’s another value of the stack screen, you know, less so maybe attacking the big in the coverage, but more so in creating space and being a nice roll replace action for the ball handler to get downhill.
Dan 01:02:11
At one quick miss from me, not from coach two, of course, we didn’t get into ghost screens as much. We’ve been talking about guard to guard actions a lot lately. And I’m sure that, uh, will be a staple in their four outflow guard to guard with the four trailing actions. It seems like they’ll be doing a lot of that. So could have potentially gone deeper on that, uh, how we have more time.
Pat 01:02:31
Definitely, I’m always curious how you randomize ghost screens and how you just get your guys to kind of self trigger some ghost screen action as well within a four out random offense.
Dan 01:02:42
Yeah, it reminds me of going back to the Coach DeGeorge podcast, talking about how when their offense pauses and doesn’t stampede, that triggers a ghost screen, either a corner step up or slot to slot. And that freedom lets them mismatch hunt, and we’ll probably see more of that this year.
Not exactly a bold prediction by me, but probably.
Pat 01:03:04
Breaking news here.
Dan 01:03:05
You heard it first. Yeah. Heard it here. All right. Let’s move to our last takeaway.
Pat 01:03:09
So, my start sub sit kind of audible here at the last second, just getting all the analytics. We were talking heavy offense, so I was curious just to hear kind of his defensive philosophy and the application of the analytics through the spectrum of shot efficiency. And basically, my takeaway were two kind of the philosophical considerations when looking at your defense. One was favoring either protecting the rim, taking away twos, or protecting the three and the difficulty of doing both. So just maybe trying to first settle on one and build out from there. So I think that’s always an interesting conversation.
But then if kind of again, reverse engineering your defense, if you’re favoring the taking away the rim or limiting threes, and we’ve had conversations on both with several coaches, I just think it’s always fascinating. And then how like the trickle down effect, that he raised some good points, wanting to protect the rim, but also valuing ball pressure, and kind of where that impacts pickup points, how that impacts gap pressure, think like just going to link down to like, what do you want to prioritize always.
Dan 01:04:09
Well, I think he said it, and I think we’ve heard it before, that two-point field goal percentage is what the best teams prioritize, and that’s basically how you should look to build your defense. If you look at the efficiency and the best defense of teams, it’s they don’t give up layups and they don’t foul at a high rate.
And the three-point percentages, it’s kind of, is what it is, like teams are going to shoot a bunch. I think that’s fairly interesting. How do you still be a somewhat good three-point field goal percentage team? I think it has to do a lot with how you view closeout, and probably personnel-based decisions on fly-bys versus short closes. And if you’re really, really valuing taking away the paint, you talked about the middle third of the floor. Like if you’re really taking that away as a defense, you’re going to be giving up kick-out threes, and that’s fine if that’s not what you’re valuing, or if that’s what you’re valuing.
Pat 01:04:59
Yeah, it’ll be interesting. I mean, I think we talked about this directly after the conversation with coach, and I know he was with SMU last year, but, you know, as a year with the head coach and again, going back to the three point line is closer. Can you actually do both, you know, because just of the distance you have to travel as compared to the NBA is maybe even significantly less at times and being able to be an effective three point from a contest or limiting attempts and also protecting the room.
Dan 01:05:27
We have a contractual agreement with Stan Van Gundy. We have to talk about him every recap. Its obligatory at this point. Yeah, but he made a good point. I think on his second conversation with us that teams go on runs by making threes, not twos and teams blow games open or pull away by making threes. And so it’s like, you know, as a coach, if you’re able to limit three attempts and field goal percentage, and you’re able to do that, obviously some really, really great defensive teams do it’s hard to pull away or beat those teams. Yeah.
Pat 01:05:58
I think Trent Curie also said in our pod, like no coach ever calls a timeout after two layups and like loses their shit. It’s more so when it’s after two threes, you know? Lastly, just to wrap it up, I like to thoughts too on just directional forcing and just why teams are kind of playing more square on the ball and just the threat of how teams have gotten good at kind of ripping it and driving down that slot or quick reversals, driving the baseline and putting pressure on the big or the low guy to rotate over. And then, of course, with like all the backside cutting that I think has kind of just been the automatics behind that just, yeah, kind of make, of course, nothing’s impossible, but yeah, I have put so much pressure that maybe teams are, you know, think about just being more square and just trying to contain.
Dan 01:06:40
Can I give another unfounded theory here real fast? That’s all we got. I do think with the rise of how all these offenses are randomizing ghost screens and step ups from the corners, like from the slot and all that, it makes it harder if you’re going to be in a no middle stance or when those ghost screens are coming and you’re angled. Yeah. You’re already giving ground. Where if you just square and stay hopefully on the ball, you can switch and get off it or get under. I don’t have a whole lot of evidence other than just looking at film and seeing all these teams are just getting better at and so good at if you’re no middle and those guys are ghosting from the corner, you better be communicating really well. So it’s unfounded, but something.
I believe it. Yeah, you sold me. Yeah, it’s just you and me at this point of the show. Well, Pat, I give a couple of theories and misses. Any theories or misses on your end? A miss for me is.
Pat 01:07:34
I wish I had explored a little bit further when he’s talking about evaluating players and team composition. With the recruiting process and the portal, just looking at productive players from lower levels, lower leagues versus looking at physical attributes of players who maybe came from higher leagues but didn’t get opportunities back at the bench. Just again, identifying talent.
I think ever since we had our conversation with coach Nick Pasquale where I thought we had a really interesting conversation kind of trying to identify talent and undervalued talent. So would have loved to have kind of dug a little bit deeper, especially on like the productive players and what he values, you know, kind of in vain of his small guard example he gave and just the free throw rate there. Like I said, miss on me would have loved to have followed up with some more.
Dan 01:08:22
For sure, would have been interesting. I highly recommend people going back to Coach Pasquale’s episode too if you haven’t heard it. It was really really one of the best ones last year I believe. Well once again we appreciate Coach Shue for coming on and giving us such an excellent interview. We wish him all the best of luck this year. Thank you everybody for listening and we’ll see you next time.
Pat 01:08:49
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit slappingglass.com for more information on the free newsletter, Slapping Glass Plus, and much more. Have a great week coaching, and we’ll see you next time on Slapping Glass.