🏀 Top 3 Takeaways from Bryan Hodgson on the Slappin’ Glass Podcast
In a sport where split-second decisions can swing a season, new USF Head Coach Bryan Hodgson has a simple mantra—remove human error from the equation. In our conversation, Hodgson blends deep analytics with the human touch, showing how numbers and relationships can coexist to produce smarter lineups, sharper execution, and players who understand exactly why they’re on the floor. Here’s what stood out:
1. Eliminate “Human Error” with Data and Leverage Metrics​
Hodgson uses lineup analytics, player “leverage” scores, and in-game data to make fact-based decisions on rotations, matchups, and player roles.
“One thing I can promise you is, I’m gonna do my best to coach you with facts, not opinions… If you’re a net negative guy, you probably don’t need to be on the floor.”
2. Simplicity + Wrinkles in Baseline Out-of-Bounds​
In the Start, Sub, or Sit segment, Hodgson emphasized keeping BLOB alignments simple (two or three max) while adding scout-specific wrinkles to keep defenses guessing.
“You may see us in one alignment for a stretch, but the reads and wrinkles make it hard to scout… Simple, but effective.”
3. Non-Negotiables in Transition Defense​
Certain mistakes in transition are automatic “game over” situations in practice, like strong-side kick-ahead threes or one-man coast-to-coast layups.
“Any hit ahead three is a single play—automatic game over. The defensive team is going to get on the baseline and run.”
Transcript
Bryan Hodgson 00:00
Everything we do in practice from the time the first whistle blows until the time we huddle up at the end, there’s a winner and a loser and everything we do. And we have win-loss percentages for the week. If I switch the teams four times leading up to a game at Memphis and I look at the winning percentages going into the day before a game and two guys that play the same position both in the rotation, one just beat the other guys but all we can practice, we’re going to communicate that in the film room and again, it’s part of eliminating the human error piece, right? I’m putting that on the screen. Win-loss percentages are going on the screen. You’re going to see where you stand, where you rank on the team as far as winning what we’re doing on a daily basis.
Dan 02:10
And now, please enjoy our conversation with Coach Brian Hodgson. Coach, congratulations on the new job, all the success over the last few years, really your whole career. We are excited to have you on the show today to pick your brain on a bunch of stuff, so thanks for joining us.
Bryan Hodgson 02:35
Yeah, thanks for having me, looking forward to it and big fan of the show. We’re big listeners here at South Florida and we were in Arkansas state as well.
Dan 02:42
Thank you, coach. We appreciate that. So we want to dive in with this to start with you. And that’s something that you and I have been talking a little bit about off-air before as we prepped for the show. And that’s eliminating human error in coaching and decision-making. And I know it’s something you’ve thought about and are continuing to think about a lot this summer as you head into year one at USF. And I want to just kick that back to you on your thoughts on that, what it means, and what you’re studying and thinking about. Yeah, I think the
Bryan Hodgson 03:08
There is several prongs to it, right? But just as in anything in the world, right? There’s a human error element. And so I think when you look at coaching and I go back to my time as an assistant where I thought a lot about it, recruiting, coaching across the board in our profession, there is a human error element that I think affects performance, right? And so for me, it’s not just in game prep, but also a major part of it is in-game decisions as a coach, you know, substitution wise, timeout wise, top to bottom, from start of the game to the end of the game, you know, win the small victories, the small margins within the game.
We talk about it in recruiting as well. So in-game and in recruiting them, the third prong would be in player development. And a big portion of that for us, when I talk about eliminating human error, is basing decisions on the data and analytics. You know, it’s no secret, I’m a NATO’s disciple. We’re big, heavy analytics based in what we do. And when people hear analytics based in college basketball and people talk about Alabama basketball, they think just in-game decisions. And that is a part of it. So that piece of it for me is knowing, obviously, your players’ leverage is on both sides of the ball. And then understanding when and where we should play guys. We take deep dives about every four games throughout the season and look at our lineup analysis and make sure we’re playing the right five guys together on the floor at the same time. We’ll look at a five-man lineup analysis all the way down to two-man lineup analysis. And we get a good idea of what’s clicking on both sides of the ball. I had this conversation in the film room yesterday with our players. And I said, one thing I can promise you is, I’m gonna do my best to coach you with facts, not opinions, right? Joe, I don’t think you can be in at the end of the game. I just don’t think you’re a closer. We’re not there with you yet. Well, if his leverage tells me differently, then I wanna pay attention to those numbers and it’s not my thought process. And obviously, we communicate all that stuff. We meet as a staff, go over all the data we bring in. It’s really big for us. We made a lot of changes based on our lineup analysis and really found a way to effectively win those margins within the game. We go down as far as kind of finding out where guys at his best as far as minutes and make adjustments accordingly.
Dan 05:46
One of the words that you use in there that I think is really interesting and love to ask you more about is the word leverage. And you talked about the leverage a player may or may not create and things like that. Could you go a little deeper on what leverage is and what you’re looking for with that?
Bryan Hodgson 06:01
We wanna take a deep dive and basically look at what happens to the team when an individual player is on the floor, how they impact each side of the ball when they’re on the floor. I’ve had some of my best players’ best scores with phenomenal offensive leverage. When they’re on the floor offensively, our team is better. We’re 0.3 points per possession, better when so-and-so is on the floor versus when they’re not on the floor offensively. Obviously, you get full game leverage, but then we break it down to both sides of the ball. So on the defensive end, that guy that maybe have one of our best offensive leverages has a negative defensive leverage. So although he’s out there impacting the game offensively, we’re worse when he’s on the floor defensively, and it’s our job as coaches to try to shrink that gap.
And so when we talk about the human error piece, it’s great to be able to sit that young man down because he’s thinking, I’m 18 a game. I’m shooting 42% from three. What are you talking about? Like, I should be out there, and we can sit them down and show them, hey, this is your defensive leverage. Although your offensive leverage is phenomenal, your overall leverage stinks because your defensive leverage is killing it. You’re phenomenal on offense, but you’re a liability on defense, and you’re such a liability on defense, it’s making you an overall negative leverage. And so we’ve had those in-depth conversations last year with guys, and I think back to Tarrant Todd, he just graduated, was our leading scorer, and it started that way last year for him. He had great leverage offensively. Defensively was not great in the beginning of the year, and I had that conversation with him. Because in his mind, he thinks everything’s good. We’re winning, we go on the road and beat Memphis, and he plays his butt off, and we’ve got a great record. Well, we talked to him about having sustained success, and for us to do that, he had to get a lot better on the defensive side, and specifically in what his defensive leverage showed us. And what’s great about, again, eliminating human error, I was able to sit him down and show him the numbers, and then show them how they increased in a positive way, game by game. And it motivated him. He saw his leverage increase, all right, I’m getting better defensively, my offensive leverage is good. Now I’m a net positive for the team, and I need to be on the floor. If you’re a net negative guy, you probably don’t need to be on the floor, right? And so I think it helps with the trust factor. Everybody thinks they’re supposed to be playing. All 15 guys that I just walked out of practice would probably think they’re gonna start this year. But when we can dive in and show them that leverage, there’s no lying here. Like you can’t turn around and say, man, coach doesn’t like me. And what I’ll tell you, where it really helps is when mom and dad and aunt and uncle call.
Pat 08:37
Yeah.
Bryan Hodgson 08:37
I’ve got Joe Pinions here, he plays for me now and I’m thrilled to have him and he wasn’t playing well when he transferred to us from University of Arkansas. His camp thought it was great because he was shooting 40% from three and they just couldn’t figure out why I didn’t have a former top 100 SEC player on the floor.
And so I got him a call with dad and him and I sat him down and I showed him the defensive leverage and that was great. He turned around and said, Joe, you better find a way to play some defense or I wouldn’t play either. Right? Until they saw those numbers, you know, it was kind of like, what’s wrong with coach? Why is he not playing him? Again, back to leverage and showing how you impact both sides of the ball. We have full season leverage as we show, we’ll do leverage over a five game span, like if we really want to show a kid, you’re really improving lately, especially down the stretch in the season. You’ve already got 20 games worth of data, so it’s hard to really move the needle for the whole year’s leverage, but they’ve been really good the last five. We’ll pull their last five games and say, hey, you have a positive defensive leverage the last five games continue this trajectory and we’re going to get a lot better. And it’s really, really helped us be successful on the back half of our season.
Pat 09:42
And looking at the individual leverage of the player, the two man lineups, the five man lineups, how do you filter all that information out when you eliminate human error and substitution? And in terms of how long to play guys, even if they are good, there’s always going to be a diminishing return or, you know, finding the right amount for the guys who maybe are just specialists. How does all that data inform how you substitute?
Bryan Hodgson 10:05
From a substitution standpoint, once we get the data, we go back to film into, I guess you could say the old school, non analytic approach, right? All right.
Terence got bad defensive leverage, but man, in those first 10 possessions of the game, he was phenomenal. And then all of a sudden, you know, we see four bad defensive plays in a row. Now we’re sitting here talking as a staff. Okay. At around that 17 minute, 16 30 before that first media, we’ve got to get Taron a blow. Because this is when he becomes a liability defensively. And so we’ve kind of combined looking at the analytics of leverage to really understand where our guys can max out. We’ve tried to use that in our substitution patterns, substitution pattern. I can’t stand when I, you know, I watched the game over in Europe at the FIBA under 19’s and I watched the coach for six days substitute off a piece of paper didn’t factor in momentum or anything that was going on in the game. It drove me nuts.
It’s not a perfect science, but you’ve got to factor that stuff in. But having an understanding of how to put your guys in the best possible position to be successful, knowing where their weaknesses are helps the team.
Pat 11:18
How do you think about maybe your first subs?
Bryan Hodgson 11:20
Yeah, so although a lot of guys may do it almost religiously, like, hey, this is my sixth man. You know, this is my seventh. We really try to do it on a by-scout basis. I want to throw a second body at a dominant big on an opponent by the time we get to 18 minutes. I want to throw a fresh body at him as opposed to subbing who I thought normally should be our sixth man, right? Look at some of the games that I’ve coached. I may sub my third big before a guard that would normally be one of my top two guys off the bench just because of it’s scout specific. We’re sending double teams at an opposing big or we’re just trying to wear him down. So it’s very game specific for us.
I’ll just be honest with you. I really truly factor practice into it. I really try to make substitutions based on preparation. I think there’s a ton of value in a guy’s work ethic and attention to detail in practice. If you look at what we’ve done over the last two years, our rotations change pretty frequently based on what we’re doing the days leading up to the actual game.
Pat 12:25
How do you think about then the communication to your team for sure with the scout stuff and the game plan and maybe how you’re going to keep fresh bodies on guys but in terms of what you’ve seen in practice and communicating with players like a you’ve been good this week you’ve been bad this week and that it may or may not affect your minutes.
Bryan Hodgson 12:42
We are probably, and going back to being an eight oats guy, have some of the more competitive practices in college basketball, and that’s no knock on the other program. What I mean by that is we get up and down more in a practice session more than I would probably imagine 90% of programs in college basketball. A majority of our teaching is going to be done in the film room and on an individual basis. When we’re between the lines, we’re going. And so everything we do in practice from the time the first whistle blows until the time we huddle up at the end, there’s a winner and a loser and everything we do.
Even in the most basic, we canned ball handling skill work, there’s a winner and a loser. And we change the teams on a regular basis. Very rarely am I putting just the five starters out there unless we’re guarding scout specific stuff. And we have win-loss percentages for the week. I know what guys impacted winning in practice that week. I know what guys didn’t impact winning in practice that week. If I switch the teams four times leading up to a game at Memphis, and I look at the winning percentages going into the day before a game, and two guys that play the same position, both in the rotation, one just beat the other guys, but all we can practice, we’re going to communicate that in the film room. And again, it’s part of eliminating the human error piece. I’m putting that on the screen. Win-loss percentages are going on the screen. You’re going to see where you stand, where you rank on the team, as far as winning what we’re doing on a daily basis in practice. We chart blue collar, same thing, very similar to what Alabama does. We chart all the stuff that’s not going to show up on a stat sheet. Some of it does, some of it doesn’t, but we’re charting deflections, floor dives, rebounds, block shots. We have a miscellaneous category of you impact to play defensively, and maybe it led to a deflection. We’re going to give you a point there. And so we have your blue collar total from every day of practice as well. And so we’re going to show them that as well going into a game. So every kid, every young man knows where he stands in those categories. By the time you get a couple games in, the guys start to figure out, well, the guys are going to play at the top eight or nine guys in those categories.
Dan 14:54
Coach, you kind of answered my next question, which was when you’re talking about leverages and all these things, like is it efficiency stats? Is it just a plus-minus? Is it internal metrics? Is it a mixture of all those things?
How do you determine leverage yourself?
Bryan Hodgson 15:10
we look at all of those things that you just mentioned throughout the course of the summer. So based on the way that we hire, I’ve got an analytic staff here internally, led by Logan Ingram, who was with me at the University of Alabama. He’s got a staff of minions under him that are crunching the numbers for us on a daily basis, but we’re going to look at these profiles on a guy throughout the course of the year. And it’s from Arkansas State last year, South Florida this year. I’m going to show you, this is a report we’re looking at on a daily basis. And when you look at this report from what we chart every day, if I look at Joseph Pinion, for example, he’s the first guy on this list, I can see that he’s at 56 offensive possessions through summer one on his player efficiency report. He’s got a 62% effective field goal percentage. He’s shooting 77% at the rim. He’s shooting 43% from three, and then I can go deeper and I can take a dive into his blue collar number. And so we do that through the course of the entire summer.
And it gives us basically the big picture of where each guy stands individually. We’re not looking at plus minus in the summer. Plus minus is maybe the most overused stat in basketball to me. Like you look at a plus minus on a one game sample size, it can be very misleading. Sometimes it can tell a story. Sometimes it can be discouraging, but this stuff is not misleading. This is leverage on both sides of the ball. We have each individual guy’s points per possession throughout the entire summer. We do individual blue collar throughout the summer, offensive points per possession, defensive points per possession. And again, the leverage piece, we look at how their team is performing with them on the floor and every single category that we stat, and then move forward into the season back to the lineup analysis piece, which guys are impacting specific categories.
It can impact decision making when we’re trying to help ourselves support weak areas, right? We’re struggling to rebound. I’m going to take a look at the rebounding leverages for each guy in my roster and figure that out. If we’re not getting to the rim as much as I’d like, I’m going to go back and look at the numbers and find out who my best room attackers are, who the guys that put the most pressure on the rim and try to make decisions based on that. It’s kind of all encompassing. You talked about subbing. I think about some teams we played last year, we’d go into a game and there was teams that did a phenomenal job of forcing you to take jump shot. They just guarded the paint. They protected the paint. And so I’m going to go back and look at my numbers. I’m going to find the group, the best rim attackers on my team, the guys that put pressure on the rim and scored the rim at a high level and see if we can get ourselves going with that.
And so again, to me, I’ve called it eliminating human error all summer. As coaches, we tend to think we have things figured out. You just listen to us all speak. We’ve got all the answers. The real answers are in the numbers and we don’t take those for granted. We rely heavily on them.
Dan 17:56
You mentioned situations earlier about sitting down with kids and parents and having these conversations about their numbers or their leverage and why they may or may not be playing and finishing games. Easier said than done on a podcast, I know you’re great at it in person.
We reached out to a lot of people about you and everybody kept saying high level communicator, builds trust, all these kinds of things. Where’s the magic in between being a high level communicator and then having all these numbers. And so it’s not a sterile environment, but it really has depth to it. And you can coach from the people side as well.
Bryan Hodgson 18:28
That’s where you want to try to find that perfect mix, right? You eliminate human error, but still be a human while dealing with humans. So every foundation of the relationships that I build is built on non basketball specific thing. My first conversation with a young man and his family is not going to be about the numbers. You’re not going to walk into the living room and say, all right, let’s look at your points for possession last year at EYPL. You know, you’re going to lose that young man’s attention quick.
And so I build a relationship first. And then I sell this in recruiting. I let the families know, Hey, listen, first of all, I want to have a great relationship where we can have open communication. You can call me all year long, but when you do call me, what I have on my side is I’m going to talk to you from a fact-based standpoint, I’m not going to give you, ah, the coaching staff just thinks, you know, Jojo’s not practicing hard this week. You know, what I can tell you is, you know, Taron’s not getting the gym. And so, you know, until he changes that we’re not going to get him out there. Right. Mom and dad always have question mark. That question kind of leads into my second prong of eliminating human error and coaching.
We use it in recruiting and player development. Those are the last two prongs, recruiting to player development being three. And they kind of coincide. So when we go to recruit a young man, we look at the numbers. We take a deep dive into all the percentages, all the things that I just talked to you about. We try to calculate their points per possession on both sides of the ball. There are leverages on both sides of the ball as effectively as we can, sometimes with very limited data. And then even when we go into the recruiting process, I am going to watch the film myself from a 30,000 foot view. And then my offensive staff is going to watch the film and my defensive staff is going to watch the film separately and give me an evaluation from both sides of the ball. Because what I found in the past is we fall in love with the kid because he can absolutely just score it. And then you get that young man and he has zero interest on anything to do with the defensive end. And so we have some really constructive battles in our meeting room where a guy, we bring a guy to the table and the defensive staff is like, no, I’m not doing this again. Watch him guard these five ball screens, right? He’s disengaged, doesn’t impact the ball at all. He’s got horrible defensive leverage. And then we make decisions based on that. And so to circle this all together, when we talk to the families, we talk about those things, but more importantly, what we’ll dive into is a shot type report. We chart every shot that a young man takes from the time he steps on our campus in a live drill, we do it in recruiting. So let’s say a kid plays in the Adidas circuit, the EYBL, whatever the case may be, we’re going to do an individual shot type report on that young man, and we’re going to look at it and what one of those looks like is this right here.
Bryan Hodgson 21:22
So this is Joseph Pinon. He’s playing for me right now. What this tells me over the entire regular season last year, Joe was a 1.16 points per possession, which is good. He did a great job pretty much from every level. His shot charts green, but we’ll take a, and I know you can’t see it, but we’ll take a deep dive into some of these numbers and it’s probably the deepest dive a kid’s ever going to hear about his game.
And so where we tie recruiting into player development and eliminating human error in both, when we go into a young man’s household, we have this at our disposal and we’re going to hand a copy to mom, dad, and the young man or whoever’s involved, and we’re going to say, listen, we love your game. This is what we value, blah, blah, blah. But here’s the deal. These are the areas we got to fix.
We can show them the chart and where it’s right here, you know, when you drive to the basket and you take a layup, we candid layups, you’re finishing those at 14%. Your strong hand, you’re phenomenal. You’re finishing at a 70% clip, but that left hand, you’re finishing at 14%. When you get here, we’re not going to just kiss your butt and tell you, you’re great, we got to work on this. We can, or, you know, Joe, we’ve got it all the way down. We are categories on this shot type report for three point shooting. We look all the way to moving left to right versus moving right to left, you know, shooting off of a screen, shooting stationary, pick and pop. Are you a handler when you come up you shooting off handling a ball screen or your receiver? Did you get a clean catch or not a clean catch? Are you catch and shoot or catch and hold? Are you on the line or off the line? Are they in half quarter transition? I mean you look at our at the rim categories Pick and roll ball handler going to his left pick and roll ball hand are going right Did you finish against multiple defenders how you finish against a secondary defender versus a primary defender? How you finish hands to the rim versus hands away from the rim? I could go on and on and on but it’s very very detailed so that we can come up with again Eliminating human error a player development plan based on their actual weaknesses If you were to listen to the recruiting spills that these kids hear I challenge every kid I recruit to do this Why don’t you when you get on that zoom with such and sucks, right?
I’ll use Nate Oats because I can all right when nade oats calls you to zoom and he’s gonna go recruit I want you to ask nade oats. What do I need to improve in my game? And you’re gonna find out who’s invested in your player development because the guys that aren’t are gonna say well, you know Your physicality you could shoot the ball a little bit better and we want to tighten your handle up Like that’s the company response.
Bryan Hodgson 23:54
Tell me where I need to shoot the ball better. Tell me, you know What about my finishing at the rim needs to be fixed?
They’re not gonna have that answer But if they’re truly invested in your player development We’re going to tell them well you were great against the primary defender But as soon as a secondary defender was involved at all you shot 17 at the rim So now we’re going to get in the gym We’re going to involve secondary defenders make you make decisions finish through contact, right? Your shot type report shows us when you’re on the move to your right you shoot an 11 percent from three But when you’re on your move to the left you’re shooting 52 percent We have to fix your footwork and work on moving to your right and make sure we increase the percentage there And so we’re telling them listen, we’ve got the data to back it up It’s not just me in the gym saying come on joe you got to shoot the ball better We’re going to show you every shot they take from the time they step on campus And then also again the recruiting piece we do it in recruiting So we’re going to show them their shot type report on a zoom and when we walk in a living room And i’ll be honest with you when kids leave here, they see this a majority of sediment That’s the most detailed thing i’ve ever seen about my game The answers are on the paper and so they feel that we’re invested.
Pat 26:10
When you have all this information and maybe it’s like the freedom that you install the players versus the control you have, you have all this data. When you look at them like you’re offensive, how you want to play, how much it is on the players to understand their strength weaknesses and maybe find the shots that are good for them versus you thinking about what offense we want to run or maybe ATO is all that, that puts our guys in the best position to be successful.
Bryan Hodgson 26:36
It’s really a good combination of both, right? We’re definitely running ATOs. You know, if we know Joe shoots it better going to his left versus right, I mean, we’re going to design the ATO to get Joe a shot going to his left. But on the same token, we preach this so much and we meet on it so much with them individually, they start to understand what their weaknesses are. And so when you coach them in your running offense, they want that. They want you to run something to their strengths, right? But they also want to make their weaknesses their strengths. It makes them want to get better in the areas where they struggle.
And I take great pride in so the staff here does and our players getting better throughout the year. Again, you’ll hear me talk about Nate Oates all the time. I thought he was one of the best in the country in the player development piece. Player development factors into their practice schedule every single day. And it does ours as well. To answer your question, you know, short version, it’s really a good combination of both. We give our guys a lot of freedom offensively. We demand a lot from them defensively. And that’s how they earn the freedom offensively. But we teach them what’s good and what’s not. And they know expected shot values. They know points per possession. They know shot geography. And so I always tell guys like, hey, you want to score the basketball? We’ve got the answers to the test. We’re going to tell you where the spots are, how to get there. And we’re going to do our best to put you in those spots. Now you need to hold up your end of the deal and make sure that we stick to those spots. Right. It takes a little bit to get that buy in. But I’ll tell you what, after a while, when they start to see the numbers and how it all makes sense, it tends to come together quick.
Dan 28:13
Coach, this has been awesome so far. Thanks for all your thoughts there. We could probably keep going for a while on all that stuff, but we do 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 of them, sub one of them, and sit one of them, speaking of lineup analytics, and then we’ll go from there. So, Coach, if you’re all set, we’ll dive into this first one. Yeah, let’s do it. Okay. Pat and I have a question that has to do with one of the things you all did analytically very well last year. My first one to start is you’re one of the best teams. I’m not sure if you’re aware, maybe you are. You guys are one of the best in your baseline out of bounds sets. And so, particularly looking at your film, one of the things that we found interesting was how good you were baseline out of bounds in the last, say, two seconds of that five second count, where you continue to put pressure on the rim or get actions later in that five second count. And so, you’re going to start, sub, or sit here. These are three things that you can be good at late in that five second count, baseline out of bounds. So, option one is a late second cut to the rim. So, you get your initial cut, but then later on you get a second cut, a slip or a second screen, whatever it is, to the rim. The second option is a same side get action with your five man or your big. So, you’ve got cuts to the rim, but then late in the possession, you could throw it and chase it right back into a two man game or a pitch back, whatever, on the same side. And then option three is similar to option two, but it’s over the top, having it over the top, where you could throw it and then chase it right into, say, a middle ball screen action directly after you’re done throwing that thing over the top. So, start, subset, being dangerous late, baseline out of bounds, second cuts to the rim, same side gets, or over the top to spread pick and roll.
Bryan Hodgson 30:02
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think I’m going to start a same side get action. I think if you have a high IQ forward that can get a catch and you put a dynamic handler or playmaker as the inbounder, there’s so many different things you can do out of that, right? You run a good action, your handler comes off, they guard it with two. You get a slip to the rim or a lob. You’re running a good action. You’ve got something going on the weak side for a shooter. You really make the defense think there, but they have to think fast. You know, we did that a lot with Taryn Todd last year as the get guy late in the clock. And he did a phenomenal job.
Sub would probably be a late second cut. My reasoning for that is I think anytime you can put pressure on the defense or pressure on the rim and make the defense work, it’s going to be in your favor. Multiple cuts to the basket making, you know, switching that make out multiple times while you’ve got, you know, maybe a hammer on the backside for a shooter, something where you’re making the defense talk in switch positions. And then sit is probably anything over the top. I’ve just seen those passes go wrong so many times. I think anytime something’s thrown over the top under out of bounds, stop breathing for a second. I’m sitting here thinking of like trying to throw an over the top pass under out of bounds against Calvin Sampson in Houston. You’re just taking a risk, right? So I didn’t realize that we were that good late. You know, I think that has a lot to do with good players and I’ve got a phenomenal coaching staff. Also, we don’t overcomplicate it. We went and studied the Memphis Grizzlies last year and coach Taylor. And he said something that really stuck. They had it broken down to how much time of a game was actually spent side out or under out of bounds versus Oh, and half court sets versus flow. And so he spent like 80% of his time last year with the Grizzlies teaching flow offense because that’s where they lived 75% of the game, right? And so we try to keep our under out of bounds stuff somewhat simple, but we do change it on a scout by scout basis. So we’re not easy to scout there. None of it’s necessarily complex, simple, but effective would be the best way to put it.
Dan 32:18
The last couple of nights, it was a surprisingly fun deep dive in your film, finding a lot of this stuff in your baseline out of bounds. One of the questions I had follow up was, theoretically, I guess, because one of the designs or the sets, you can have that late same side get. How much of it is a read by your inbounder, basically looking at how they’re guarding under the rim versus up on the ball? How much freedom do they have to make decisions versus a call that you want them to do? I w ould.
Bryan Hodgson 32:49
say 60, 40, a call versus them making that decision. And here’s why I say that as coaches sometimes we’re so predictable, right? Like we’re scouting and we know how guys are going to guard stuff and then they don’t, and they guard it the same way religiously, right? So we’re going to know if that gets going to be there going into a game. But then when you have a high IQ guard, especially a dynamic playmaker, now all of a sudden you give them the freedom, you catch a guy, you know, sleeping. And again, back to what we said, even in the half-court and flow, we try to give our guys a ton of freedom on offense. They know that they always have that option. I mean, we’ll shout it in the game. If we recognize it from the bench, you’ll hear us shouting it and we’ll get into that get game just based off a call from the bench because we recognize it. And so we had Terrence Ford and Terrence Todd both for us last year at Arkansas State and Caleb Fields the year before that. All three of those guys did a phenomenal job recognizing that and they probably had a little more freedom than we’ll start with here out of the gate until they figure that out.
Dan 33:53
You mentioned the Grizzlies and how much time they spent working on flow versus ATOs, things like that. For you to be that good in something like a baseline out of bounds situation, what percentage though would you put on daily practice or weekly putting wrinkles or reads or actually working on this to get to where you got to last year?
Bryan Hodgson 34:10
Yeah, great question. We spend a minimum of 15 minutes a day in our practice. Once we get to the 20 hour mark, 15 minutes a day in our segment, what we call five on one shell, we’ll split two into the floor. We run our deal like a football team. I’ve got an offensive coordinator, a defensive coordinator. Our whole staff is split between those sides of the ball. And then I’ve got someone that oversees that special teams aspect. Obviously he’s on the offensive side. And so in that five on O and shell segment, when they’re on the offensive side of the ball, we’re going to run through all of our stuff and then we’re going to go through the under out of bounds as well. And so you’re getting touch ups and rush ups on a daily basis. I’m not big on doing anything dummy. When I say five on one shell, we’re doing it at the beginning of practice. It’s really part of our warmup routine. We’re going to break into five on O shell and go through that stuff. So we’re really getting to it on a daily basis.
Pat 35:07
You mentioned trying to be simple but efficient and talking about the gets and, you know, even when you go scout by scout basis, how much do you think about alignment familiarity versus having several different alignments underneath out of bounds from a box set of line set all flat versus just keeping it one alignment and maybe we’ll add wrinkles, but they’re always familiar with this alignment we’re going to start out of.
Bryan Hodgson 35:31
We try to keep it simple. I try to keep it to two or three alignments max, and you may see us go through a stretch of game where we don’t get out of one alignment, and we just add wrinkles to it. I think that can be a lot harder to scout than multiple alignments. You see us line up the same way every time. One time we’re setting a double away, the other time we’re getting a slip to the rim. The next time we’re getting a get, you know, whatever the case may be, and it’s all out of the same alignment, good luck from the bench trying to shout that out, right, unless you’ve got the play call. And so try to be as simple as we can and stick to, I mean, I love to be in one alignment, and really we get to about two and at a max three, and you’ll see us rely heavily usually on one. My offensive staff, you know, led by Thomas Butters, they do a phenomenal job of game to game putting wrinkles into what we do based on how our opponent’s going to guard under out of bounds, and we’ve had some success there. Thanks for the support and now back to our conversation.
Pat 37:38
All right, coach, our next start sub sit for you, as Dan mentioned, kind of looking at the film and your stats. We also what jumped out at us was your transition defense from last season.
So this start sub sit, we’ve called threes of most concern in transition. So start subset would be obviously the three pointer that makes you the most upset or the most concerning and trying to take away. So first option would be the hit ahead strong side three. The second option would be a skip opposite into a walk in three or the third option would be a pitch back for a trailer on a three.
Bryan Hodgson 38:15
So I’m starting the one that I hate the most. Yeah, or most concerning. Well, I’m going to use the word hate. Any strong side hit ahead three is in every day of our practice is an automatic game over. We call that a single play. If a guard can fly the ball up the floor, hit somebody on the same side and knock down a three, that’s automatic game over. The defensive team is going to get on the baseline and run. You know, single plays are unacceptable.
And to me, that’s a single play. That’s the easiest one for me to guard strictly an effort thing, right? The second piece, probably the skip opposite, is my sub, because if we’re transition defense, we’re picking up the ball, we’re sprinting back to the rim, and then we’ve got a seeker picking up that opposite skip pass, that should be easily covered. And the sit would be the pitch back because I think out of the three, that’s probably can be the most complex to guard because we’re sprinting to the rim, we’re covering the rim.
We have the ball under control. Let’s say you’ve got a dynamic guard pushing the ball up the middle of the floor. He’s putting pressure on your defense. You’ve got your big at the rim. Here comes a trail five, right? Running down the floor and he gets a pitch back trail three. I can live with that a little bit more than the other two for sure.
Pat 39:41
I’d like to start with your start looking at that strong side kick ahead in that situation. We’re always curious with the rise of the three, how teams account for it in transition. Where is the breakdown happening? If it’s a kick ahead three, is it the lack of pressure on the ball or is it, you’re going to be looking at who was the guy at the rim or that safety defender, not picking that up.
Bryan Hodgson 40:03
It’d be our back man, you know, what we call our back man. So we used to crash three and we would have a back man and we would have what we call the safety, we’d crash him through the nail and he would basically, his responsibility would be to rebound anything that came through that nail area. Now I like to send forward the glass. We may change it, you know, scout specific, but I prefer to send forward the glass and have the back man. The back man’s job is as simple as it sounds. He’s sprinting back like a bat out of hell, no matter what the circumstances, and he is going to eliminate anything at the rim or a kick ahead three, right? Our back man is always going to be dynamic enough to make a play from a paint to the perimeter on a kick ahead to close out and eliminate, right? And for us, when you close out to the three, we want you to be solid enough and quick enough to eliminate attempt from three. And by that time, you should have help behind you to protect you at the rim if you get beat. So to me, the responsibility of that, although it is two-pronged, it can be a ball pressure deal depending on whether you’re somebody that jams the ball or whether you’ve got a containment guy, we typically it’s game by game for us. Sometimes we’re just getting back. We’re not going to put anybody up on the ball. And so it wouldn’t necessarily be a ball pressure thing for us, but definitely would fall in responsibility to that back man.
Pat 41:25
You mentioned that scout specific, you’ll vary how many you send to the glass or not in that week. What is the challenge with that changing? Maybe I’m assuming you probably go three to the glass, get two back. I don’t know if you’ll go send everyone, but just the challenge. And maybe on a week to week or every other week or once a month because of the scout, you’re going to change how you crash and kind of restructure your transition defense touch.
Bryan Hodgson 41:51
If we feel like our opponent is not looking to push base at all, we’re going to send foreign to try to hammer him on the glass. And obviously if you’re going to go in and play Alabama and we know they’re going to push pace and be one of the toughest teams you play all year, as far as putting pressure on you and transition offense, you know, we’re going to put an emphasis on probably getting one and a half to two back in that game. And to answer your question, as far as how difficult that can be in preparation, it’s actually pretty simple because it’s mandatory. It’s a non-negotiable for us. So if we’re live, which we are for 98% of our practice and we ask for two guys back or we ask for one and a half. When I say one and a half, we want a crasher through the nail and that doesn’t happen, we’re calling game and we’re going to run. So there’s a discipline aspect to it and attention to detail aspect, but also you’re really, by the time you’re playing games, you’re talking about a group of four guys that have that responsibility, right? Maybe playing two spots. So it’s a small group that’s changing. And a lot of those times, if you think about it, it’s going to be your back court, right? You want your wings and towards on the glass. And so over the course of my career, at least a lot of my point guards have been some of the higher IQ guys on our team, it just takes that to be a point guard. And so it’s been a pretty simple adjustment. There was a lot of games we walked into last year at Arkansas state where we just felt like we could hammer people on the offensive glass and we weren’t worried about them in transition and we’re sending four. So more often than not, we were sending four. So when we didn’t, it was such a change that it was pretty apparent all week in practice.
Dan 43:29
In watching your film, one of the things I was impressed with, your back guy, when there was a disadvantage situation, two on one, three on two, did a pretty darn good job at not fouling at the rim. How much of a point of emphasis and what is the technique or things that you think about with, you’re getting back, let’s say it’s a smaller guard or whatnot, but trying to contest the rim, not give up easy baskets without fouling basically.
Bryan Hodgson 43:53
Again, something we work on a regular basis, we put ourselves in two on one situations, three on two situations every day in practice. And so it’s something that’s practiced on a regular basis. We call it our transition series. And we teach that all year long, right?
And so one of the toughest things right now in the college game is the verticality rule, because it’s, we go back to what we started this podcast with, there’s a lot of human error and officiating when it comes to verticality. So many times the confrontation at the rim is initiated by the offensive player. If you get hit in your midsection, your hands are coming forward. I don’t care who you are. We teach a lot. When you’re going vertical at the rim, you want to throw your hands back. We don’t want to go vertical. We want to throw them back. So then when that confrontation at the rim happens, you do come forward, you’re still vertical. It’s something that we work on a ton. I think back to some of the teams that we stole it from when I was an SEC at Alabama, Tennessee was dynamite at it. I did a phenomenal job at being vertical at the rim. And then last year, Scott Cross and Troy was probably the best team I’ve ever coached against at being vertical at the rim. And they just made it tough to score at the rim. If it’s something you want to show to your teams and you go pull their film, you could tell that they drilled it on a daily basis. Their guys were elite at being vertical at the rim.
And so we put a huge emphasis on it. And then we also put an emphasis on when they show you the ball, go get it with two hands. And we had some guards that did a phenomenal job at that. So we also, I think probably talk more often than not about making smart plays, right? Knowing when to, I don’t want to say concede because we’re not conceding anything. But if you’re in a bind, let’s not have hoop and harm and give up an A in one, right? One or the other is going to happen. We’re definitely not giving up an A in one.
And so I’d like to say sometimes, unfortunately, there was some business decisions made by our cards. We are pretty solid in transition defense because we emphasize that every day in practice, a firm believer in the things you’re good at throughout the year are going to be the things that you emphasize on a daily basis in practice. And I also would say our forwards do a phenomenal job. One thing that’s probably left out, we don’t recruit traditional bigs back to the bag. We don’t throw the ball in the post. We don’t do anything back to the basket. So our bigs can move. Isaiah Nelson and Damien Collins, we’ve got here now, they both move like guards. And so they do a phenomenal job of sprinting back and protecting the rim as well. So as much as we talk about the back man in the guard, I think our pigs do a great job of getting there and covering up for him.
Pat 46:32
You mentioned at the top of this discussion about single plays or plays that you’ll automatically call game over. What are some of your single plays that it’s an automatic game ender?
Bryan Hodgson 46:42
Anytime an offensive player scores a basketball in transition without making a pass. Let’s say they get a defensive rebound, you know, our big outlets it to the point guard. And he pushes it all the way down the floor and racks. That’s a single play can’t happen. Can’t let one guy who handled the ball in the back court come down the floor and score on you without being forced to make a pass. So that’s a single play. Any hit ahead three is a single play or any hit ahead one catch and go drive and score is a single play. Those three are the biggest ones. So ball handler scores on his own ball handler kick ahead three ball handler kick ahead layup automatic game over and everything we do.
Dan 47:27
Coach, great stuff. You’re off the start, sub, or sit. Hot seat. Thanks for playing that game with us, going through all those things. We got a final question to close the show. But before we do, thank you again for all your time and thoughts today. This was really, really fun for us. Congrats on the new job.
Bryan Hodgson 47:41
Yeah, thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.
Dan 47:43
Absolutely. Coach, our final question that we ask all the guests is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach?
Bryan Hodgson 47:50
I would say, I hate to be cliche, but my staff, I think as an assist and I spent so much time evaluating what other head coaches did, right? Guys that had success, guys that didn’t have success. And when I say this, I’m being as genuine as I can be. I try to hire people that are a lot smarter than me that I can trust because I’ve been around Yes men, right? The guy that has to be the smartest man in the room. And they can be extremely intelligent. But one thing that I’ve learned is they don’t win. And so I try to hire a staff and invest in a staff that challenges me on a daily basis. And I think I’ve got one of the best staffs in the country. And my assistants know that they can walk into my office and disagree with me on anything that we’re doing, whether it’s X’s and O’s, substitutions, all the way to recruiting all the way to our daily schedule. And I am going to listen to their feedback and consider it no matter what. And so, again, hate to sound cliche, but when you invest in the right staff, they’re going to invest in the players.
And now you’ve got a chance to win basketball games. I can’t stress enough. And there’s people that probably offended by it, but I can’t stand when I see a guy have success at the low major, mid-major level, take a job at the higher level and not take their staff with him. And for me, I start to think, well, was it just you that won all those games at your last stop? If you look back, when we went to Alabama, Nate brought 90% of the staff. The other guy got the head coaching job at the University of Buffalo. You look at some of the most successful guys in college basketball. You look at Bill Self, the carryover of guys that work under Bill Self, are familiar faces and names. You know, Kelvin Sampson, same thing. And so I think as much as we talk about players, recruiting, X’s and O’s, scouting, analytics, you have to invest in your staff. You’ve got to enable them. They’ve got to know that you trust them and believe in their work. And when you create that environment, I think you give yourself a chance to win. My guys know that as long as I’m in this deal, they’re going to be here with me.
Dan 50:06
Pat, let’s hop into this recap. That was, you know, when talking to people before the show, we asked a number of people who know Coach Hodgson and had great things to say about him and different potential topics. And I would say he more than delivered in everything we talked about today.
One of the best types of podcast guests where they have the analytics, they have the backup evidence, they have the human element, they have the story, they have all the stuff with it, which just makes it, I think, such a great listen.
Pat 50:37
Yeah, I really enjoyed the conversation as we’ll get into, but I think in our prep and even talking to him, I like the angle that he approached us with that we followed up on the human error of coaching. We’ve definitely had a lot of analytics talk recently, and they’re always good because every coach has their own unique perspective on it and how they teach it.
But looking at it through the lens of eliminating human error in coaching and how the analytics can help that was one conversation we really haven’t looked at through that lens. And it’s going to be fun. I’m looking forward to us kind of recapping and going through it.
Dan 51:10
Well, let’s hop into it, our top three takeaways. So I will for number one, kick that to you.
Pat 51:15
Referencing our prep, the first thing that jumped out to me, and I think with you as well, was in-game, how you look at substitutions, your timeouts, and what analytics can support, looking at some of the errors that coaches can fall into, especially when it comes to lineups and substitutions. So I think we both kind of lit up when we heard that was part of his prong with the small margins in-game. He talked about substitutions and how they look heavily at the lineups, two-man lineups, five-man lineups, and then even individual player leverages in determining how they want to substitute who they want to play. So first, I enjoyed hearing all the thoughts, the level of detail that he shared with us.
Dan 51:54
Yeah, there was a ton in that first bucket to add to what you just said. I think that what’s not probably lost is how difficult it is to be such a great human, create trust, the human side of it. I really like that kind of back end part of it because that is what we’ve heard over and over again is he’s so good at with just relating to the players and being so thorough and upfront. And I thought he shared some great stories about like having parents call him to talk through it. That’s not easy.
You know, I don’t know how many coaches would have an open line to parents about that kind of stuff. Like that wasn’t lost on me as much as this sounds awesome on a podcast to talk through all the analytics and stats and how you do stuff. It is not easy to also then bridge that to the players and how they play and have them buy in, have them feel it and have them be good teammates. And I think from what we’ve heard, and you could tell he just does such a good job of marrying those two things together so that it’s not, like you mentioned, it’s not just you coming in with a bunch of stats and analytics and guys rolling their eyes and it feeling like it takes the sort of soul out of the team. And I think you could tell like he uses all this to install the soul.
Like he uses all this to know like, this is how you can play and help us. I really love the word leverage. It’s just such a good word to use for how you’re thinking about what you just mentioned, construction of your lineups. Like where is the leverage in the lineup? He talked about it when he just talking about who’s gonna play, not play, how a player is sitting down their office and they’re looking at that stuff. I think that players get that. I think coaches get that. And of course at the end of the day, like we’re all trying to create advantages and leverage. With that lens, I thought that was just, that’s a great word and a great way to look at how to use all this stuff.
Where is the leverage on my team? And then for a player, how can I create that? And you could tell, they obviously talk about it, study it, stat it all the time. So a lot there, but I mean, I just think a home run from that standpoint. And then quickly before I throw it back to you, I really liked his coaching point about he wants to give facts, not opinions. I thought that was really a nice nugget in there about why he does all this deep dive and why they spend the length of time they do on this. So that when you sit in front of a player or a team and give them what you’re gonna do and how you’re gonna play, it’s factual.
And it’s not just because you feel like it. And I think nothing turns a player off more than you just giving your opinion. And they don’t feel like it’s got the warranted backup to that. So I think that probably builds a ton of trust that he’s giving constant facts and how all this stuff goes.
Pat 54:19
And I think that’s a huge element in bridging the gap between the stats, the analytics, and the human component. As you mentioned, like the constant daily reinforcement, it really is a lifestyle. You know, if you just go to a player and then out of the blue, hit them with some analytics, even if it is factual, but never really present it to them or talk about it in a daily way, I think that’s where you can get pushback or that’s where maybe the buy-in is a little bit harder.
But even what he said, you know, they’re starting practice and they have all the win-loss percentages. They have the offensive, the PPP, the defensive points per possession. These guys are constantly getting hit on it and they know that this is like part of their culture. This is their lifestyle. And I thought that was also interesting how they use those then to determine going into the game, the substitution patterns. But I think the players are immersed in it and he talks about it in recruiting too, but they’re immersed in it. I think that gets the buy-in.
You can build the trust obviously on different levels, but, and then that’s where it becomes not just a cold calculated, this is what the numbers say, period, full stop and a discussion. But they know their numbers already going into any conversation they may have with coaches or staffs on any sort of playing time discussion. For sure.
Dan 55:31
Shout out to HD intelligence, that little section where he was talking about the stats and all that, what he was showing us the sheet was a HD intelligence, which anybody interested can go and listen to our episode with them. They do obviously great work, so definitely.
Pat 55:46
Dan, I’ll throw it back to you now for the second takeaway of our conversation.
Dan 55:51
To go to the start sub sit from the one I asked about the baseline out of bounds late in the five second count. When preparing for the episode, anytime you go and start looking analytically at what a team did well the year before and they were rated so high, it’s interesting to dive into. And we all have great out of bounds sets or we think we do at least.
There are millions out there that you can steal and look at. I think the teams that do it at such a high level, there’s usually some common traits. And one of them is they can still beach you in the last couple of seconds with dangerous actions. And it’s not just, hey, if the first screen, the screen reaction is not there in the first thousand one thousand two, you just have a kid panicking and just chucking them all over the top, which happens a lot too. You mentioned kind of sitting over the top. Anything is scary. I really enjoyed his thoughts on just the whole setup. And when we got into your question, the fall about simplicity versus having a box and a line and a stagger, like in him saying, and I tend to agree with him that the more simple, but with all the wrinkles and options and reads can be more difficult to scout. And one of the sets that they ran off in that kind of we talked about, which is sort of like a three man triangle, one guy under the rim with a five man kind of offset towards the same side as the ball. It just left a lot where they can do all kinds of stuff with it. And then based off, like you said, if they’re over helping at the rim or players get sucked in, you’ve got the ability to throw that ball in and go right to the same side, get action with a really good guard and big. And I thought they did that really well too. So they were just so dangerous throughout. So I just liked his thoughts on the simplicity with the reads baked in, as well as what makes for an efficient underneath out of bounds team.
Pat 57:34
Yeah, for me, my takeaway too was the simplicity conversation we had and the simplicity through alignment familiarity. I think it’s what we’re saying a lot in Europe and we had coach Chavo Splitter on and he talked about, they really just played out on maybe two max three alignments and just getting good at the reads and being unpredictable in that way and, you know, applying that to any underneath playing, I think he said two.
They usually have two max three, but really end up probably playing predominantly one and just knowing the familiarity, you can get the reads, of course, but then I think then in factors and then you can understand maybe the timing of when it’s time to look for that get or hit to that get we’ve kind of exhausted maybe some primary cuts, rim cuts or any sort of screening action. But when to hit to that or when to also see that, yeah, they’re slacked off and like, let’s just start to punish that. I think he mentioned too, like maybe it’s starting the year, they’ll make it a call, but I think again, as they just continue to rep this one alignment, you know, the guys get better and they can see they’re able to also not only make the reads off the defense and that get action, then when they know it, we can hit that and we can just play the get the two man game right away.
Dan 58:39
The way that the alignment was set up too, with the ability to always throw it to that forward and play get late in the five second count with a quick first cut and then maybe a second slip cut, that puts so much pressure on a defense. If you don’t put the man on the ball under the rim, I mean, you’re really putting yourself in a situation where you might get beat on that second cut for a layup.
And I know probably a lot of teams, that’s why they would sag off and help under the rim. But then when you have the danger of that guy coming back in on a get really puts you in a bind. So that’s why that zoning underneath out of bounds might be more on the rise as we’ve seen with trying to guard all this stuff.
Pat 59:14
I can’t remember the conversation, but I know I think you’ve asked the follow up too. And I think that on the defensive end now, like, yeah, when kind of having that clock in your head, if you’re on the ball, maybe three seconds under the rim, and then the last two getting back for the passer in preparation that maybe there is going to be like a quick hit and chase. Correct. Yeah, good point.
Dan 59:32
Alright Pat, well let’s keep this moving, we’ll move to the last takeaway, I’ll kick that to you.
Pat 59:38
Yeah, the last takeaway, I’ll obviously pull from my start, subset on just the most concerning transition threes enjoyed this conversation on a number of levels. But the conversation I enjoyed when he got into the teaching, the verticality, especially, I mean, as we went through what was the most concerning that kick I had three and that obviously identifying or understanding that the difficult thing is that you’re going to ask that player to kind of do two things, but building up that second line, if he has taken away that three chasing out to take away that three and then giving up the drive. And he mentioned that, you know, the single play is they don’t, if it’s a kick, I had one dribble layup. So then as you build that second help flooding the middle behind and just teaching verticality, he has a good follow up there on one, how difficult it is and difficult to officiate, but what they really stressed right when we hopped off, I mentioned it is surprising it spending the time on that and how many layups it saves you by just being solid in your verticals and testing without fouling.
Dan 01:00:34
Yeah, I thought that was a good teaching point at the end there, you mentioned Troy doing that really well with Coach Scott Cross, like how they’re vertical in transition. I also enjoyed your follow-up about the offensive rebounding considerations. I thought that was a nice few minutes about, you know, hey, if you’re playing a team that’s really trying to, like out in Alabama, that’s trying to go, maybe you don’t send all four all the time or you’re three and a half, like you mentioned, or you just have these levers and I thought it was a good point by you, like if you’re going from four to three or, you know, four to five, you know, whatever it is that you’re changing, how does that look? Teaching wise, and, you know, I get the sense that obviously the base is built in. So it’s just, you know, whether you’re sending the three or the four or the base off the shot type. I’ll give you a miss of mine in this one, not from Coach, of course, but I wish I had followed up. So they were really good in transition, you know, when you talked about starting and like those non-negotiables hit ahead three, does it matter if you wanted to take the three away or just have it contested? Being so analytically driven is a hit ahead above the break contested three. How concerned are they or aren’t they about that or like, you know, do they really want that guy to run him off the line to not allow that three? Of course, it’s probably a little bit of personnel base, but, you know, maybe just to follow up on, are you okay with certain types of threes in transition versus others? Of course, I don’t want the extra pass to the corner in transition, taking that away. But maybe it’s more detail follow up from my end, I probably could have done.
Pat 01:02:06
That’s interesting because as we were preparing this question, you know, I think we always kind of play it out in our heads and we talked about that can be a difficult three too. If, you know, if it’s a stand still in the corner, then yes, I get it. I think a little bit easier, but if he’s actually running and having to look over shoulder catch and fire, then you know, it’s also a difficult shot, but it could also reach to how bad the transition wise would get pissed if the guy can look over shoulder, catch, set his feet and still fire it. And there’s no one there to contest.
Dan 01:02:38
It’d be interesting because I’m sure they have the numbers, the numbers are out of like the kick ahead, you know, let’s say above the break, kind of catch and shoot three, which like you mentioned is, can be a difficult footwork shot to make. Obviously players at a high level can make it, but the pitch back and the skip, you’re thinking about those players are more than likely kind of running into that shot with feet set.
Pat 01:02:59
Yeah vision on the rim.
Dan 01:03:00
Yeah, especially that skip pass, they’re able to kind of see it, set their feet, the pitch back, you know, you got momentum into it. But yeah, that’s just like, I guess, more nuance in there about all that stuff. And I think probably, I’m sure what he hates, as he said, is that simple hit ahead three, it probably signals to him more of an effort situation where they’re not talking, not communicating, not flooding back. So yeah, anyway, just interesting there. I gave one of my misses, I kind of have maybe a second, or is there anything else from your standpoint you could have gone deeper on?
Pat 01:03:34
One of the misses that I wish I had followed up was going back to the first bucket when he was talking about kind of his in-game removing error. He talked about timeouts too, and using the analytics and eliminating timeout error. I wish I had followed up on that, just asking what were kind of some of the errors he thought were being made with timeouts and how he uses analytics to influence his timeout decisions.
Dan 01:03:57
Yeah, I’m sure he thinks about that pretty heavily as well. Seeing how this conversation went. Well, that was a terrific conversation. We thank coach for coming on and being so thorough. Appreciate everybody listening and we’ll see you next time.
Pat 01:04:17
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit slappingglass.com for more information on the free newsletter Slappin’ Glass Plus and much more. Have a great week coaching and we’ll see you next time on Slapping Glass.Â