In this episode of Slappin’ Glass, we’re joined by John Andrzejek, Head Coach at Campbell and former defensive coordinator for Florida’s national championship team, for a deep dive into the real trade-offs that shape elite defensive systems.
Coach Andrzejek walks us through how his defensive philosophy has evolved across stops at St. Mary’s, Columbia, Washington State, Florida, and now Campbell—highlighting the tension every staff must navigate between precision and pragmatism, technique and energy, and staying out of trouble versus thriving inside the scramble.
We explore the decision-making behind scrambling vs. anti-scrambling defenses, how and why he blends principles from St. Mary’s, Houston, and Iowa State, and what it truly takes to guard the modern, spacing-driven game. The conversation gets deep into the weeds on no-middle principles, switching high and low, tagging schemes in middle pick-and-roll, and organizing rotations when things inevitably break down.
Offensively, Coach Andrzejek shares how he teaches cutting around the pick-and-roll through a mix of rules and reads, why simplicity drives better decision-making, and how repetition of core situations builds true situational awareness. We also tackle post-doubling philosophies, personnel adjustments, practice design, and the balance between scouting detail and playing fast.
As always, we close with a Start, Sub, or Sit that dives into cutting around the pick-and-roll and post-doubling strategies, plus Coach Andrzejek’s thoughts on the best investment he’s made in his coaching career.
This is a clinic-level conversation on defensive problem-solving, offensive clarity, and building systems that hold up against elite talent.
What You’ll Learn
- The strategic trade-offs between scrambling vs. anti-scrambling defensive systems
- How elite programs blend no-middle principles with modern spacing realities
- Why playing really hard often matters more than perfect technique
- How to organize rotations and tags when the ball gets to the middle
- Switching high and low to keep the ball out of the paint
- Teaching cutting around the pick-and-roll using rules that unlock reads
- Why offensive simplicity leads to better decision-making
- Different philosophies for doubling the post and protecting the rim
- How practice design, film, and repetition build defensive awareness
- The long-term value of film study and coaching mentorship
Transcript
John Andrzejek 00:00
We want to be good, guarding in the bounce. So that’s taking pride individually, not getting blown by. That’s also our help principles, being able to scramble, rotate, minimize those situations. Because the reality is, if you can’t keep people in front and you don’t know how to defend drives, you won’t get to guard anything else. Teams will just try to drive you the whole game.
Dan 01:52
And now, please enjoy our conversation with coach, John Andrzejek Coach, we wanted to start with defensive trade-offs, and so decisions from like a high level that coaches might make before getting into the nitty-gritty about how they want their defense to be, and some of them that you’ve shared with us that we want to start with, and it’s being an anti-scrambling vs. scrambling defense is one, and the second is a tactical-technical defense vs. a high-energy defense. Let’s go with the anti-scrambling vs. scrambling one to start, and just what that means and your thoughts there.
John Andrzejek 02:33
Yea and this I would say is sort of a point of evolution for our defense at Florida. Our roots in our coaching tree come from St. Mary’s from the Randy Bennett system. And they really try to avoid having to scramble and switch and rotate. And they’re awesome at it. If you want to learn like how to guard every action perfectly, study St. Mary’s. Like they’re gonna guard the cross screen the best way. They’re gonna guard the stagger the best way. And they try to keep their match ups.
And as our program has moved along and we went from sort of there to Columbia, to San Francisco, once we got to Washington State, we had a defensive coordinator by the name of Jim Shaw, who was a basketball lifer, awesome basketball coach, worked for Kelvin Sampson, worked for Lorenzo Romar when they were really good at UW. And he was a lot more into scrambling around and fly in and covering each other up and rotating and essentially being able to make the most out of bad situations. What I think we figured out is unless you have the best athletes in every game you play, there are going to be situations, especially at the high major level, where they’re gonna break your defense down. They’re gonna get biased at times. They have NBA players, the teams we were playing against last year, year before in the SEC, or for those four years at Washington State, they got pros, they’re quick, they’re good off the bounce, they’re strong. There’s gonna be times where it’s not reasonable to just say, all right, you gotta guard your yard, try to not help and never strong side help and make sure they take tough twos. Like there’s gonna be times they’re gonna get biased. So where we got better as a program is being able to manage those situations, being able to help at the rim on a slot drive or a baseline drive, being able to cover down on the dunker, not give up lob dunks, being able to rotate if they skip it out or if they throw the baseline hammer, rotate to that and then the next guy grabbing the guy on the wing. And I think that’s important. The way the game is headed, there’s so much spacing, there’s so many more guys on the court that can dribble and pass and shoot that there’s just gonna be some situations where there’s gonna be some hemorrhages and you gotta be able to make them work for sure. So I would say I’ve got a slight preference there for being a scrambling, helping each other out, rotating type defense, but I will say this, there is a direct correlation between the more times you have to scramble, the more times you have to rotate, the harder it’s gonna be to defend. If you’re spending the whole game constantly having to try to pick each other up and make the most of bad situations, you’re gonna have trouble defensively. So obviously we need to do a great job in scouting, we need to do a great job with our fundamental principles to limit those instances, but as you play better players, they’re just going to happen.
Pat 05:39
In moving more towards embracing that you got to get good at certain situations, you’re going to be scrambling prior to when you were more trying to stay out of the scramble, what were the key points of emphasis that you as a defense needed to get right, you know, mentioned in the scrambling situation, like the crackback, the hammer screen, but when you’re trying to stay out of scrambles, what were the key points or the key situations you guys had to be good in to keep yourself out of those situations?
John Andrzejek 06:07
The St. Mary’s system is fundamentally a no middle defense, three quarter front the post. Those are still principles that we kept at Florida. Those are constants that have moved through the program. They’re pretty far on the spectrum in terms of not giving help.
So on drives, they really try to just keep fighting to get back in front, stay on the hip, contested twos, make and make floaters. And in a lot of cases, make them make layups. Even contested layups against just the guard with him on his hip, make him put the ball in, don’t foul, don’t send the big over at the rim to help. Now I’m talking in a vacuum. There’s certainly, if you look on film, you can find cases where they help, but they’re trying to not help. That was our philosophy at Columbia for sure, at least for the first part of Coach Smith’s tenure there. And then really, as we started going to those high major leagues in our first year at Washington State, we just were a lot less athletic than the teams we were playing. So the idea of just kind of putting people on islands and just saying, you got to find a way to guard this guy at the top of the floor. At least Tiger Campbell, he’s really quick. He’s going to get biased a little bit. Like it’s just reality. So you got to be a little more pragmatic about it and being able to help each other out and rotate and fly people off the line, don’t let them shoot threes. I thought it helped us a lot. And it became a big part of our Florida philosophy that to be honest, we took to another extreme because we started to incorporate some Houston and some Iowa State defensive principles that can lead to more rotating, can lead to more guarding a different guy than you had before, more switching, stuff like that. And we can get into those if you want to.
Dan 07:54
Yeah, if you wouldn’t mind to make this, what are those principles?
John Andrzejek 07:57
Yeah, about August of last year, kind of out of the blue, I came back from Europe recruiting over there. And Coach Golden told me maybe four days before the first day of school that I was going to be the defensive coordinator. And he said, put together a plan, how we’re going to defend, how we’re going to get stops. In the year before, we were not a great defensive team. And some of that was by design. Like we just had guys that were a lot better on the offensive side of the ball. They also had a lot more attention span on the offensive side of the ball. So we really went hard on getting good at offense for that year.
But we knew if we wanted to go further in the tournament, if we didn’t want to get knocked out by Colorado giving up 102 points, we’re going to have to become a better defensive team. And so the bedrock was what Coach Golden did at Columbia because he introduced ice on the side, not letting them turn the corner middle on ball screens in the outer thirds, making them go baseline, and then weakening in the middle third, which means sending them to their weekend, which usually means to their left hand kind of flat showing at the top of the floor. So we kept all that we kept no middle close outs, we kept three quarter fronting the post, where we took it a step further. And I’ve got unbelievable respect for Houston and Iowa State, their programs, especially defensively, I mean, outside of their coaching staff, I bet there’s nobody in the world that’s watched more possessions of them play defense. I can tell you this, I watched every Houston defensive possession for three straight seasons. So yeah, I’ve got a lot of respect for how they do things. Same with Iowa State, at least two seasons watching them. So starting with Iowa State, they do a few things. So they help very aggressively on baseline and slot drives. If you go, they are coming, the low man, usually the big is going to come outside the lane line, stop the ball, and they’re going to cover down hard on whoever’s in the dunker, and they’re going to split two on the backside and rotate wherever it goes. We went more that direction at Florida. So we brought more help at the rim and did more scrambling on the backside. We did not take it as extreme as Iowa State. When you catch the ball on the wing against Iowa State, I mean, they’re like begging you to go baseline. They’re in a very heavy, no middle stance. We weren’t quite comfortable with going that heavy of a no middle stance. But one thing we did steal that was great for us that we adopted fully is switching high and low. So whenever two guards were screening for each other, like a zoom action, or a split in the corner, something like that, we would switch it out. And where I thought it was great for us and where I thought it matched our principles at San Francisco at Washington State is it helps you keep the ball on the side. Like the fundamental idea of our defense is to keep you out of the middle of the floor, make you constantly have to play from the wing. And when you switch low and high, it’s hard to get those zoom actions. It’s hard to get middle. There are some offensive things you can do to try to mess with the switches, but it’s definitely harder. If you’re playing man and you’re just in head and chest, if they set a good zoom, if the guy in the corner does a great job walking his man into the screen coming off shoulder to shoulder, they’re going to have a great chance of getting middle. We’re trying to limit those times as much as possible.
In terms of Houston, one principle that I love with them is in the heat of battle, you don’t always get to do your number one pick coverage. The other teams practice too. They know that we’re trying to ice on the sides and so they’re going to try to avoid that. They’re going to try to find ways to get middle. And one Houston principle is their bigs just stop the ball. So if they don’t get to their first choice coverage, the bigs responsibility is just stop it as high up the floor as you can and kind of trust the people on the backside or the other three players on the court to be able to handle the tags to make sure they don’t get a roll done. And then they are extremely, the very most in the country, they’re extremely urgent about contesting and running guys off the three. And there’s a lot of analytics on the best way to guard the three is to not let them get them up. And that’s certainly true. We know that, but for the elite defenses that play extremely hard, they can affect the percentage a little bit. And I think the proofs in the pudding with Houston, every year for a number of years in a row, teams have shot a low percentage from three against them. They may be able to get them up, but they’re going to be heavily contested with an urgent closeout. And so that’s something we try to ingrain in our team as well.
Pat 12:46
in embracing the scramble and getting more comfortable in being in it. How much then do you think about if we’re going to be more aggressive, a little bit more higher energy in the scramble? Do you think about teaching technique versus you just got to get it done.
John Andrzejek 13:02
This goes back to your other trade-off. If you only allowed me to choose one, I would absolutely choose playing really, really hard. It’s vital, it can make up for a multitude of sense. You can make mistakes if everybody’s flying around and trying to help each other out and making it work. I just believe at the SEC level, at the NBA level for sure, look at the Thunder, the players are so good that you’re not gonna be able to guard everything the perfect way you want every time. You’re gonna have to be able to make it work, so to speak. So I would choose that, but they both matter.
If you wanna be any good on defense, you have to have both. You have to have good technique, good execution, you gotta scout, you gotta have a plan for all the different myriad actions you’re gonna see, but then you better be playing your heart out. And one challenge I have as a coach when I was a defensive coordinator is striking the right balance between trying to get the tactics right, trying to get the right technique on how to guard everything without making them think too much. Because when you’re thinking a lot and you’re trying to remember, all right, do we jump to the ball on this? Are we switching this? Are we not switching this? Then your feet are slow and then you have bigger problems than you wanted in the first place.
Pat 14:18
On this subject, you know, you talked about being a no middle team, but again, you know, SEC, you’re going to play guys that can break the middle. How much as a staff or coach then did you talk about what our rotations or how we solve that fire when they get middle versus kind of doubling down on well, we didn’t switch high to low properly, we didn’t ice, we didn’t defend the middle like we needed to like basically trying to double down on the technique or the tactic versus well, how do we solve a middle penetration?
John Andrzejek 14:48
It is bold. I mean if you see me at practice sometimes there’ll be possessions maybe we don’t get scored on or we do get scored on and I’ll talk about two different things. I’ll talk about all right so at the end here we had a slot drive we did have to send help he was beat so our big had to help over not up wall up put his chest on him we need that cover down we need the guy guarding the shooter in the corner to drop down the big’s legs take away that dunk and I’ll make a big point of but then I’ll go back and go all right and the reason he got middle is we didn’t get the switch low and high right you know they break cut the wrong guy went with the cutter instead of passing off to the low man we stayed with him which is not what we want to do now we’re chasing the middle on the handoff it can be both things at once it can be the technique piece might have been what created the hemorrhage but they’re still the play hard piece to try to take a bad situation and turn it into a contested two instead of an easy two.
Pat 15:46
In that situation, you know, when you’re no middle, you’re going to load up that low man. When they break middle, how much do you then think about also maybe peel switching from maybe the perimeter right away versus we still will help at the rim from that low man. And like you said, try to apply it as best we can than the crack back.
John Andrzejek 16:03
We’re not a peel switch team. I’ve seen it. I know Coach Boyd. I’m interested in it, but it’s never been one of our principles. And the reason is is that we fundamentally do not want to give up strong side threes. That’s still a vein that runs through our defensive philosophy from back to St. Mary’s. So if the ball is coming toward you on a middle drive or even a ball screen, we want you going back to your guy. All of our help, so to speak, should come at the rim and should come from the backside. So if we envision a slot drive where somebody’s driving down the right lane line, we want to help over at the rim, not up with the big. We want the defender in the corner to drop down into the legs of the guy in the dunker. And then whoever was guarding the wing, he now has to split two and be ready to rotate whether that pass goes to the wing or to the corner. Likewise, if there’s a middle pick and roll and we’re in our weak coverage, so now the ball is going from right to left. As that ball moves out of the middle and toward the wing, we’re going back to our men on the ball side. And then the people on the backside, let’s say there’s two on the backside, they are pulling in and tagging. We’ve got a little detail to that. So if there’s two on the backside, we’ve got a high tag and a low tag. The high tag guy has to come to the elbow and take away the short roll. Once the roller passes the elbow, he gets back to his guy. The low tag guy has to hang in longer. He’s got to be above the charge circle. A lot of courts have that little volleyball metal stanchion spot on the floor. That’s around where we want that low tag to be. And the idea is that if we have good ball pressure, then that pass back to the wing after the shake, that pass back to the wing should be a pass with a hump. It should be an air time pass that if we’re athletic, we should be able to run from the midline to there without giving up a three and without giving up a middle drive.
Dan 18:03
Coach, what are some things that offenses would do from like a tactical standpoint that were more difficult to solve when it comes to some of these things we’re talking about defensively?
John Andrzejek 18:13
Teams that we have the biggest trouble defending with these principles are teams with elite off-ball screening and off-ball movement. Not necessarily teams that run some off-ball plays, because if you run three or four plays that have a, I don’t know, twirl action or whatever you wanna call it, like a stagger away and then a curl and a single, or maybe it’s a flex to a downscreen, if you just run three or four of those plays, we can scout that out. Like we can figure out how to guard that. Where it becomes a problem is when you’re able to play within those concepts sort of side to side. So UConn was a team, we had a lot of trouble guarding. Now some of that was we only had one day prep and some of that is they’re just awesome on offense. But the constant getting in these off-ball, three-man, four-man games on one side, then it’s back on the other side, it makes it really challenging to figure out the switching because we’re trying to keep our fours on their fours, we’re trying to keep our fives on their fives, but we’re switching as needed one through three really. So they’re tricky to guard.
Kentucky does a great job there. They do a lot of four-man games, three-man games, where different guys are curling or back cutting, then there’s a single and it’s not really scripted. They’re just reading the game and it can be hard to map that out on the fly. And that’s the downside of switching low and high. Like the number one thing I would say that is a problem is it’s sort of the old adage, when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So when you’re a switching low and high team, all of these actions look like things that you should just switch and pass off. And good teams that move the ball really well have good concepts. They can find little ways to pick at it, get easy layups, get a pop back three, something like that. So those types of teams bother us the most. Now the teams that just do relentless zoom action, constantly ball screen handoffs, trying to get middle, I think the way we guard is as good as any at guarding that type of stuff. Like it gives you a chance to actually keep it on a side, to dictate, to not let them constantly dominate that middle third. And if we flip the page to offense, that’s what we are trying to do on offense. We are trying to dominate that area between the lane lines and not allow you to keep us in the outer third. So it’s a zoom over here, then on the other side, it’s a break cut, throw and follow, get middle over there. Then we’re looking for a high low. If that’s not there, we’re playing again, trying to get middle. So this defense can be good at, I wouldn’t say neutralize it, but slowing down that type of offense.
Dan 21:22
If someone came to a practice now or last year at Florida, like how are you emphasizing these things so that it translates to the game? Even a deeper question is like how are you teaching it? How much of it break down? How much is it five on five? Film. What goes underneath all this stuff?
John Andrzejek 21:40
little bit of all of it. I’m a big film guy. I’m probably as big in the profession into film as anybody. I try to clip every single practice, at least in the preseason, and bring the guys in for individual film or send them clips to their phones. I know how to do that now. And just correcting the little details. You know, when we don’t talk well on the switching low and high, when the bigs don’t call the ice on time or they call it too late, call it too early, our cover-downs, getting those right, our transition D. You know, making sure we’re doing a great job there. And that’s another St. Mary’s principle. They do ball and hold. So on every shot, the ball guy has to get to the top of the key in between literally the three-point arc and the foul line. And then the whole guy has to get to center court. And so the ball guy has to stop the ball wherever it gets out letted. So if it gets out letted to the point guard on the left wing, he’s gonna pick up him. If it gets out letted to the two guard on the right wing, he picks up him. The whole guy is gonna be deeper than deepest, nothing over the top, no run-out, dunks. And then the three crash guys, they’re obviously trying to crash and get the ball. But if they don’t, they can’t crash on the baseline side. They can’t get caught behind their guy, out of bounds. They gotta bust their butt back, load to the ball side. Last guy on the scene picks up whoever’s on the weak side of the floor. All that stuff goes together. We’re correcting it all.
We do do some breakdowns, like we’ll do two ends where the guards will work on switching low and high, or maybe guarding splits, or guarding the dribble. We’ll play one-on-one a bit because I think that’s the very most basic part of your defense is the less help we have to give, the better. The more you guys can just guard your yard, keep people in front, make a miss, the better we’re gonna be. So there needs to be that pride aspect to the defense. Maybe on the other end the bigs are working on front in the post. You know, we want a three-quarter front, keep the ball out of there, which means they got to move their feet. They got to be physical as well, pushing the guy down. But I like five-on-five stuff. I really do. I want to spend at least 15 minutes every single practice working on ball screen or DHO defense. I think if you can guard ball screens, you can guard. There are very few exceptions to that. The four things going into the year last year at Florida that we wanted to be good at by the time the season started is we wanted to get back. And that’s your transition D. That’s sprinting back when they get the ball, communicating. We want to be good. Guarding the bounce. You know, so that’s taking pride individually, not getting blown by. That’s also our help principles, being able to scramble, rotate, minimize those situations because the reality is if you can’t keep people in front and you don’t know how to defend drives, you won’t get to guard anything else.
John Andrzejek 24:28
Teams will just try to drive you the whole game. We’ve been in those spots before. That’s what UCLA did to us one year. It was nothing but flip and then get middle and get downhill. And then you got to guard the ball spring. And that’s just crucial. And every year it becomes a bigger and bigger part of the game. We talked about that. And then the fourth thing is you got to be able to get it off the rim. You know, and that means blocking out, holding your block out, going from putting your forearm on the guy to getting your butt and your back on the guy. And then if your man doesn’t crash, running back in, helping to scramble the ball.
Dan 24:59
When you watch a great defensive team, there’s just this constant, I’ll say like hand activity. And when you go back to kind of like our first part of the conversation about the high energy stuff, how important is how they have active hands, what kind of active hands they have? And then like personnel, 6’2, 6’3 guard versus one of your seven footers when they get switched on the ball. How are you holding them all accountable to a certain level of hand activity based off of who they are?
John Andrzejek 25:29
there’s a feel to it for sure. At its heart, your defense has to go together like how you teach, everything has to match. And if you’re going to pull into the midline, like when the ball’s on the wing, if you’re going to ask those backside players to be in an eye on the midline, then you better have good ball pressure. Because if they’re playing three feet off, and those guys are way on the midline, they’re going to throw bullet skips across the floor, and you’re going to be in long closeouts, giving up threes or giving up drives. So if I’m going to ask them to be in good help position and take away the roller on a pick and roll, then the ball pressure has to be good enough so that that pass back is again is a pass with a hump rather than a bullet pass to the wing or to the shake or whatever it may be. We try to instill that and that’s easier for some guys and others.
There’s definitely guys that you coach that just kind of get it and that’s how they defend. Elijah Martin was one of those guys where he liked putting pressure on the ball. He liked picking up full court. He liked being a pest and getting deflections and stuff like that. But there’s other guys that, you know, you got to bring them along a little bit in that area. The other thing is I pride myself on being a pragmatist. You know, you do have to adjust to your personnel. And if we get our seven foot big switched on their six one point guard, then I’m not going to ask him to pressure them five feet above the three. It’s going to be more about either A, we’re going to either say, hey, this guy can really shoot. So you got to stay up on them. But then when he breaks the three, like I know you can’t take away both. I know you can’t take away the three and keep them in front 100% of the time. So we’re going to prioritize taking away the three. And then if he gets by you, then we got to be good at being able to scramble, help with the rim, cover down, rotate, do that piece. Or you go the other way. And you know, based on the personnel, you say, hey, this guy’s more of a slasher. He’s super quick. Just gap them know that he really wants left sit on that left hand. If he walks you down and shoots a pull up three will lift. They need to know that stuff going in, especially if you’re going to end up in some of those situations.
Pat 27:39
Sticking on the ball screen and how you tag it, I think the advantage of being the no middle forcing to the side and being able to ice it is you can put your defense in a familiar situation where there’s in a vacuum normally two behind the ball. But when offenses get to the middle third ball screens, and they can maybe then dictate if it’s two in front of the ball or two behind the ball, and maybe more so the question is when there’s two in front of the ball, I guess how do you think about defending a middle third ball screens.
John Andrzejek 28:08
This is another point of evolution. Even back at Washington State, at least in the first few years, our rule was just to tag on the backside. So if there were two on the backside of the ball or two shakes, however you want to put it, those two guys would tag. If there was only one, then he would tag hard and if they got a lob dunk, it was on his butt. Where we evolved is, and this is again a Houston principle, this is something we stole from them, is they tag it a little bit differently depending on if there’s two in front of the ball or two behind the ball. And it was great for us.
It was a big part of our success at Florida. So if there’s two behind the ball, two shakes, then the top guy is going to get that high tag around the elbow. He’s responsible for not allowing any short roll catches. And then as soon as the roller gets behind him, he goes back to his guy. The low guy will hang in because we’re flat showing. We’re getting at the line of scrimmage moving side to side. So it should be a long pass over some ball pressure, at least in theory. It should be a long pass from there back to the wing where a good athlete can get from the midline to close out, at least run him off of three. Now, if there are two people in front of the ball, so if the ball is going right to left, you know, there’s a guy on the left wing, there’s a guy in the left corner, then the guy guarding the one player on the backside, the high shake, he again has to take away the short roll pass at the elbow. He has to come up the floor, not allow that catch to happen, but then as soon as the roller passes him, he’s back to his man. And then the low man on the two sides, so the guy guarding the offensive player in the corner, he’s got to hang in and he’ll hang in roughly the ball side lane line. It can be a little further than that, but I’d say roughly that area where he’s discouraging that pass the roller, ready to break on it. And in order to make that all work, the guy guarding the ball side wing, or the wing on the side where the ball is going toward, the wing on the two side, he’s got to be in the passing lane from the ball handler to the corner. So he can go kind of chest the ball, make sure he’s in that line of sight of the pass, ready to jump with high hands, so that if that pass is thrown from the ball handler to the corner, again it has to be an airtime pass. It has to be a pass with a hump, not a straight line bullet pass to the corner. That was great for us. It helped us a ton.
Dan 30:42
Coach, this has been awesome so far. I think we could just keep going on all this defensive stuff. We do wanna transition now to a segment on the show we call Start, Sub, or Sit. We’re gonna give you three options around a topic, ask you which one you would start, which one you’d bring off the bench and sub, which one you’d keep on the bench and sit. So Coach, if you’re ready to dive in this first one, we’ll go for it.
John Andrzejek 31:01
Let’s go Kyle Smith always taught me the most important thing for a coach is defining roles Everybody’s got to know how they help the team, you know, you can’t have your tenth man thinking he’s the star So let’s see if I can handle that here
Dan 31:18
That’s good. Well for this first onewe’re gonna talk about cutting around the pick and roll. And so for the purposes of this conversation, we just kind of mentioned at the end of our first bucket there, how we’re defending, you know, whether there’s two behind, two in front, those kinds of things, but basically how you’re gonna cut around the pick and roll. And so your start here would be how you would prefer to teach the cutting that’s taking place around the ball screen. So start, sub, or sit, pick and roll cutting and teaching it.
The first option is just making it purely read-based, reading either the ball handler, reading the roller. It’s a read-based cutting system. The second option is just rule-based. You’re always doing certain types of cuts on certain types of pops, rolls, short rolls, whatever it is. Or option three, is it purely or mostly personnel-based? Who are you, shooter, non-shooter, how you’re cutting? Start, sub, sit, pick and roll cutting, read, rule, personnel.
John Andrzejek 32:14
It’s a tough one, I gotta be honest. That’s a hard one for me. I will sit personnel based. I think it’s important. I think you gotta be able to do it. I also think if the other team knows that a specific guy is always gonna cut, I think good coaches can prepare for that. Good coaches can scout that out. I know it’s something we pay a lot of attention to defensively, you know, this guy, whenever the ball is coming toward him, he’s gonna look for that burn cut out of the corner or whatever it may be.
I’ll sit that. The next part is hard though. I’ll start rules based. That’s kind of how I see the game is I’m big into sort of if then statements, you know? If this happens, then you do that. If you could see the back of your defender’s head in the corner, then you cut. If the guy in the corner cuts baseline, then you need to slide to the corner. That’s kind of how we teach those things. If, all right, if we’re popping against the ice, if we pop and your man stunts hard at the popper, then you cut. If that guy cuts, then the next guy in the corner has to lift. That’s how we try to approach offense. But, you know, it kind of leads right into the read base is they have to see these things happen and be able to recognize them and handle it well. You know, one that pops up a lot offensively is maybe the ball goes from the wing to one of our bigs at the high post and he’s looking hard at that high low. They’re fronting the post. He’s trying to get a high low and the other team hangs in hard with their low man. You know, they’re trying to take away that high low, sandwich him, however you want to put it. Well, we need that guy on the wing to do something. If he just stands there, then we have no line of sight to throw it to the corner for a shot. So we need that guy to either cut over the top or screen his guy in or cut to the rim and then we can lift hard on the backside with the other guy. I think those two are linked, but I definitely teach it in a if-then sort of way.
Dan 34:16
Yeah, great answer. Something Pat and I were just talking about before the show ourselves and you get to these situations where you want your players to read those things like you mentioned, but then sometimes I guess the easy part of teaching is the rules earlier to at least get them into those spacing actions.
I wanna go to your sub, which was the read and situations you might find yourself having to teach a lot with the read. And you mentioned like the pop. Are there other situations where a short roll, a long roll where those cutters are having to really make a read based off of either where the ball is or where the roller is and what they’re doing and what you find yourself maybe going back to teaching wise.
John Andrzejek 34:56
Full disclosure like we run the ball screen motion here at Campbell just like we did at Florida and it’s all stolen really from Gonzaga and Arizona. I can admit that now since I’m not working at Florida anymore you know that’s really where we took the offense from.
Now we made it our own we changed some things. Coach Hovde did an unbelievable job. Kevin Hovde who’s the Columbia head coach now but the beauty of that offense is you create the same five six seven situations over and over and over and over and over again. So you actually can get into the detail of like when to cut versus not to cut because you don’t have 30 different offensive situations. You’re going to have either one big low ducking in and the other guy rolling if we’re in 30 low as we call it or you’re going to have the other big outside the three and then you’re in more of a spread look right and then that’s going to create situations where either they’re helping with the low man and then you could talk about slides and baseline cuts or they might not be. So I’m going off script a little bit but the beauty of the offense is the same things happen over and over again so you actually can have the detail of like all right if they guard the high low this way then this is how we hurt it. If we put it in the post and they bring a hard double from the middle then we want to pull over our guards to the ball side so we can get the ball out and across quickly. If they double from the strong side you know then we’re going corner we’re having the other big in the dunker screen in his defender as the ball gets whipped around for the weak side three. You can have some detail on that and we try to do a lot of segments like I’m a big believer in that all right we’re doing 10 minutes here where we’re going against strong side help or strong side post doubles we’re going against the big big double we’re going against heavy gigs at the nail and what we’re going to do against that. That’s how I try to teach we’ll find out we’ll see if my career record ends up good or bad but that’s what I like to do I like to approach it.
Pat 37:04
In building kind of this situational awareness for them to identify what’s unfolding and how to react. You mentioned in practice putting them in the situation. How much are you thinking about building the awareness through your play calls? You’ll quote unquote kind of joystick them early in the hopes that they start to recognize the action so then later you can remove the calls and maybe it’s just the recognizing the situations they’re constantly in and how to read the defense.
John Andrzejek 37:29
Think at our heart, the ball screen motion is who we are. And the pace at which we play, the way we inbound the ball quick, the hard rim runner, the wings running the corners, looking to throw ahead at all opportunities, that’s our bread and butter. And we can’t get too far away from that. That needs to always be what wins the day. If we have to go to our set plays to get us 30 points, we’re not gonna win. If we gotta go to our set plays to get us eight points, we can probably do that. We wanna be good at our motion. And what that means is being able to adapt it to whatever coverages we may see, whether that’s switching, whether that’s hard show, whether that’s going under stuff, whether that’s a deep drop. So we do a lot of segments going at those different types of coverages, whether it’s setting good zooms because the other team doesn’t switch low and high, setting more contact screens on the ball, if we’re going against drop, making sure our guards are setting up the ball screen where they’re bringing the defender low enough so he can’t go under, where they’re coming off shoulder to shoulder, turning the corner middle, or if it’s playing against hard show, having our big banana roll. So getting behind the ball so that the guard can get them the ball in space and force the defense staff to rotate and then knowing what we’re doing when they do rotate, how we’re cutting, how we’re lifting on the backside, to try to create two-on-ones.
Pat 39:46
All right, coach. Well, yeah, we just had a little cup of coffee on the offensive side. We’re going to move back to the defense. Now, this start subset has to do with doubling the post and I’m going to give you three different types of way to double trap the post, but I want to frame it with your start being what’s the toughest to organize on the backside. So how you rotate, how you protect the rim around where you double from. So start subset doubling the post. The hardest rotations to organize is that option one, when you double from the passer option two, when you double from a man at the top off the, and someone in the middle top middle third or option three, when you double from the baseline.
John Andrzejek 40:30
I kind of have two orders to this, depending on how I understand the question. I think it’s harder to teach doubling on the high side, like from the nail or from the midline or whatever. There’s just a little more to it to get that right. But I think it’s sound, and I think it can be very effective. I mean, that’s what Virginia does with the big, big double. I also like the baseline double too. That’s what Iowa State does. That’s what Houston does at times. I think it’s sound. I think it can be very effective. And both of those defenses are going to have kind of the same off ball responsibility. So whoever entered the post from the ball side, he’s going to deny the ball back out. We don’t want him to just be able to get it out and across quickly. Whoever’s the lowest guy on the floor, he’s going to take away any dunker or any cutters to the rim. And then the higher guy on the floor is going to be sort of in a split two type situation, maybe shaded a little bit more toward the guy at the top of the key than the guy on the far wing. So I think it’s easy to teach the idea of the strong side double. That guy’s going, whoever’s got the next guy at the top of the key, he’s going to have to run to the ball side corner, and you kind of figure it out from there. I think that one is less effective. So I think it’s a hard run to get all the way from the top of the key to the ball side corner. And teams that are good offensively or have a lot of shooting, they’re going to put it in and just immediately go to the corner and be looking to get that shot before you can get there. Which one do I prefer? For us, I would prefer the baseline double because we’re a no middle defense and we three quarter front the post. So I think it fits better with that to just have the lob defender, the lowest off the baseline, the low man come over and help on that rather than forcing the big to adopt a different stance than he normally would front the post and double from the middle.
Pat 42:29
I’ll follow up with the top double. You said you think it can be effective, but there are some challenges in coordinating it. What have you found, whether you’ve ran it yourself or just kind of studying it, why you think it can be maybe more effective than the baseline one, but what is the challenge with it?
John Andrzejek 42:45
I don’t think it’s necessarily more effective than the baseline one. I think it all depends on your principles. It all has to go together. So if we were a hard show team or a Pacline team, then I think you should double from the nail. I think that’s better. I think that matches more how you do things. But if we’re a three-quarter front to post team, if we’re a nominal defense, we’re already teaching on the three-quarter front that we want to get around. We don’t want them to be able to throw direct passes or bounce passes. If they’re going to throw it to the big guy, they need to lob it over the top of us. So we’re already teaching that if they lob it over the top of us, the low man has to be able to come over and either knock the ball away or be there to put his chest on him and wall up. And it becomes like a mini trap on the post-entry lob. So if we’re already teaching that, it’s very easy to then make the transition to red.
This is literally how I teach it. I say, all right, imagine the situation. They throw a lob over the top and we have to get tight. We got to come over with the low man, put our chest on the guy. What would everybody else do? Well, we need that next guy to drop down, take away any cutters, take away any drop off dunks. And then the other guy, you got to split two for a second until the ball comes out. And I can just go, all right, well, these are literally the exact same responsibilities for our baseline post double.
Everybody’s doing the same thing. The low man’s coming over and double it on the baseline side. You’re the goalie taking away the rim, no cutters, no layups. You’re denying the ball side pass out. And then we’ve got somebody split in two ready to rotate wherever that next pass goes, everything’s the same. Now the challenge of it, like I think the eternal debate is, do you double on the pass or do you double on the dribble or do you do it more spatial? Like if they’re inside the post box, you go, if they’re outside the post box, you wait for the bounce. Those are sort of eternal debates that we’ve tried different things. We’ve done it differently at Washington state where we waited for the bounce on that at Florida. We tried to go more on the pass like Iowa state does. Iowa state’s the best at it. As soon as that ball’s in the air, the low guys running over, they’re fouling them with their chest, but not with their hands, making it really hard on the refs to officiate it. They’re physically pushing the guy down, forcing him to spin baseline rather than get middle. I love that. I think it’s great. I think for us at Florida, that was too high of a risk profile than we were comfortable with, you know, cause when that looks good, you create turnovers and they step out of bounds and you get dunks. And when it’s bad, you give up uncontested threes and you have big problems. I’ll be honest. It was more coach golden than me. I think he was more like, we have these big six 11, 270 pound bigs. Let’s just let them play one on one. If we absolutely need the double cause there’s a switch or something, then we can wait for the bounce.
Pat 45:41
We stick on the baseline, so the trap comes and then the guy rotates down to protect the rim. Then how do you coordinate, I guess, cuts that come from the top of the key? Or maybe even if, yeah, I know it’s situational, but if teams that have maybe a big at the elbow that also dive a big from the elbow, I guess coordinating with that split two and the guy at the rim, who’s taking like cuts that are coming from the top down?
John Andrzejek 46:07
Pass off the cutter. You’ve got to take him down just maybe a step so he can’t catch it out like the foul line because if the bounce pass happens at the foul line, the low man at the block is not going to be able to get there in time. But if he gets below the foul line, then that low guy at the block needs to physically take him on and not allow that pass. So that sort of cut, we would pass it off.
It can get a little more complicated if they try to do like splits at the elbow or if the post feeder cuts. We’ve done different things on that. Normally I think you’re better off just going with the cutter, having the next guy become the ball side denial. You basically just flop responsibilities. But honestly that doesn’t happen that much. I think the best way to attack the post double offensively is usually just try to pull people over the ball side. Once you start cutting, that cost you seconds. You know that’s two extra seconds where the trap can get a little bit tighter, where the blood pressure of the guy in the post with the ball that’s seeing this amount of ball pressure for the first time in his life, he’s going to start thinking, I could just slide that pass there. That’s where the steals happen. They’re not in the situations a lot so they’re not used to having the ball in a trap for three, four, five seconds.
Dan 47:24
Coach, you’re off the start, sub, or sit hot seat. Thanks for going through those with us. That was a ton of fun. We’ve got a final question here to close the show. Before we do, congrats again. Last year on the national title, congrats on the new job. Thanks for coming on today.
John Andrzejek 47:38
No, I appreciated it. It was good. We got in the weeds for sure. You didn’t let me down. We talked about going more tactical on this one and we definitely did.
Dan 47:47
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?
John Andrzejek 47:54
Man, a couple of them. I mean, I’d say the first one is just being a part of that Kyle Smith coaching tree and doing a good job for him, staying with him, following him to first at Columbia, right out of college. I got lucky, DOBO spot open. I got a job there going with him to San Francisco, reuniting at Washington State. He’s guided me through my career. I don’t get this opportunity without his help. He helped me get to Florida. Like he was the one who pushed that over the hump to get that done. I’m eternally indebted to him.
The other one I would say though, is watching a lot of film. I venture that for people at my age, I’ve watched as much film as anybody in the world. Say 10,000 hours. I’m way, way, way, way, way past that. So because of that, I feel like I’m not surprised by a lot of stuff that happens. Like I have an idea within our philosophy, within our principles, how to adjust the different little troubleshoot type things that happen during the course of the game.
Dan 49:04
Pat, that was fun. That was in the weeds. That was as we talk about doing these podcasts. Always some of our favorites when we just really drill down on the details.
Pat 49:16
He came to the right podcast if he was eager to get in the weeds, especially on the defensive end. So we appreciate him so much for sharing. Love the conversation as we’ll start to recap here and just the depth he was willing to go with us.
Dan 49:28
For sure. Hey, let’s dive right in for takeaway number one, I’ll throw that to you.
Pat 49:32
For my first takeaway, I’ll start with the big bucket and then kind of doing some research and the chance to talk with coach prior to and knowing his past that he outlined with us today, just these trade offs. Like we said, we go through when, you know, him starting being more staying out as a scramble versus now, OK, going towards like we talked about a little bit more aggression, getting more comfortable in the scramble.
But I really enjoyed how he thought about teaching them finding these moments of aggression within. And I think they’re always base coverage of being a no middle, no paint team and a hard ice, keeping everything in the outer third. So my first take was I enjoyed that backstory a little bit, also kind of the thought process that as they kind of evolve from St. Mary’s Washington to Florida, you know, their evolution and getting their defense where it was last year and where he hopes it to be this year with Campbell.
Dan 50:23
One of the things I just enjoyed listening to him talk about were someone that thinks so deeply about this stuff, as he mentioned, how much filming watches and how much of a student of a game he tries to be. I enjoyed hearing him talk about how he pieced together from different defenses, what they did last year at Florida or what he believes in.
We can’t all run this type of defense or we’re not all philosophically aligned based off of a variety of things. But I enjoyed, oh, we did this and then I really liked what Houston did here. So we started to implement this and then Iowa state this really well. I think we can all do that in our own way, like whether or not you’re no middle or packline or straight up, whatever it is. There’s other programs, other coaches or other schemes that I think it’s one of the benefits of, I know for us, like having people on this podcast or constantly researching is like, maybe you’re not taking the whole thing, but you’re taking one or two things and adding. And I thought it’s a reason he’s already been a great coach and going to be continually a great coach as a head coach is you could tell he knows what he’s doing. He knows who else does great stuff and he knows then how to go after that information to bring it in. On a zoomed out perspective, I thought that was like a big takeaway from me of just whatever it is you do on defense, listening to him talk about how he got there was super beneficial.
Pat 51:43
Yeah. When we talked about doubling the posts, you know, and kind of stealing pieces that make sense for your identity, what you do. And so looking at Iowa State for how they double on the baseline, because like you said, there are no middle three quarter to 19. So that’s going to make sense that, okay, well, let’s look at some of the best teams that double from the baseline. So to your point, I think, yeah, he was clear in like, looking at some of the best defenses, what can we take? He mentioned Houston kind of, if they can’t get to a coverage, just like this emergency, the bigs gonna apply pressure on the ball, like stop the ball, and we’ll figure it out from there. And I think that’s another takeaway I liked was talking about these failure defense, I think it’s been kind of a thread I’ve been on, but you want to be no middle, of course, you’re going to have your rotations, how you load up, but kind of what happens when it does get middle, you know, do you appeal or not? And like you said, I think to what I struggle with is like the peels, you get up strong side threes, but I’ll you then still keep the rotation at the rim. I liked his thoughts there.
But my last takeaway, I really enjoyed when we got in the middle ball third weeds, because I do think the strength of the ice is, and kind of putting everything on the side is that you can always dictate your backside is pretty consistent, you’re going to have two behind the ball. And now when it goes to the middle third, and as a detail that kind of stays the same if they, of course, continue to put two behind the ball, but when two are in front of the ball, just how you think about then you’re tagging schemes, you’re helping schemes, and I won’t regurgitate it. But he spoke really well. And I’m just hearing like, Yeah, what are you going to do on that two man side, you know, we’ve seen teams heavy stunt at the ball, I mean, almost next versus dropping kind of being that x out defender, how heavy is the low guy coming in. But I enjoyed his thoughts there on still kind of keeping that shake to take away the short roll pass and keeping that low man on the two side at the rim.
Dan 53:33
And hopefully, this was a heavily technical podcast. So if anybody has questions on all the terms we’re using here, email us. But I think coach Andrew Scheck did a good job of explaining it on air too of what all these things are. I’ll just go to it because we kind of dipped our toes into takeaway number two, which is from, to me, doubling the post. So point number two, we kind of have already gotten into here. The thing I found also interesting was more of like a zoomed out perspective too of where you go from. And then he also mentioned too, which was followup that he just added in there without us having to ask it, but is on the path first to dribble decisions. And I guess I’ll put a miss in here for me, not from coach, of course, but when you’re going to double, I think there is an art in a question of if you’re going to come with high hands and try to trap it and get a steal out of it versus you’re going to try with that doubling defender to steal it. You know, the guy on the ball, he’s not going to be the guy stealing it, but like if you’re going to double from the top on the bounce and that happens to be your two man coming down, is it more beneficial for him to come with high active hands or if he’s six feet tall and that big is dribbling it to just dive bomb and try to steal it from the double. So I think that could have been another interesting question of when you’re going to double, say from the baseline or from the passer, are you coming to trap it versus from the top or whatever, you’re going to try to steal it and be aggressive. And I think there’s different philosophies there.
Pat 55:04
I agree. I did like the little tidbit he shared is, I forget what maybe he was talking about Iowa State, but they come over and like thinking to foul with your chest versus foul with your hands.
I like that as trying to pick up little tidbits on how to teach how you want this double team to look or how aggressive you want it to be and getting your players kind of having the right discipline with aggression and thinking foul with your chest, I thought was a good tidbit to take away from that conversation as well. For sure.
Dan 55:31
So Pat, as we kind of keep things moving here, I’ll throw it to you for our last takeaway now.
Pat 55:37
Yeah. So the last takeaway, I guess we had to talk some offense, but enjoyed it. I know you and me before we hopped on are thinking about it, looking a lot like at these Clyde cuttings. And we’ve had various conversations when to send it, who are they reading the ball, the defense, all these factors. So my takeaway is just from that conversation is how you thought about situational awareness.
I guess is what kind of this boils down to, I think, as he talked about the read versus rule thing can kind of very blend. There’s a rule based off of the read or these if then situations. But I think even us discussing what it always boils down to is how can your players recognize actions and folding anticipation and what they should be seeing or maybe what it comes down to, what they start to feel and what kind of that triggers. And he hit on something which I think we’ve been thinking a lot about too in terms of in conversations we had, whether it’s baseline out of bounds or just ATOs or your offense in general is just playing out offensive simplicity. So they’re being like he said, I think maybe there’s just going to be six situations that you’re going to put your offense into. Of course, there’s various ways for the defense to defend it, but because your situational is so limited, you can really work on the reps and the reads based off of how the defense is playing versus if you really have an expansive playbook, it’s hard to then have teach those plays plus teach all the reads of those plays. It’s almost information overload. It boiled down to the value again of just simplicity and we’ve had it with Coach Thiago Splitter, Francesco Tabellina, just being simple to drive reads and to drive pace.
Dan 57:14
Yeah, I’ll just follow up with kind of the point you just made. A couple years ago, we had Josh King on, who’s now the head coach for Southeast Melbourne.
And at the time, when he was in Germany with Ludicksburg, he was saying the hardest teams to beat on the schedule weren’t necessarily the ones that had a extended playbook to him, but that did like four things incredibly well and had all the reads out of it. Like it was so hard to prepare for them, he was saying from a defensive standpoint, because he knew no matter what you did, they just had the counter built into what they did.
Pat 57:45
The offense would always be right.
Dan 57:48
Correct. That’s not to say having an extended playbook is wrong. You’re just talking about especially when you have limited time and season starts in a month, what are the hardest teams to beat? I think like he mentioned, those are in there as well. I’ll just add, I did like his tidbit about when he sat personnel and his reason I thought was good is that though that sounds good and though that also is useful and can definitely be a part of your cutting package, he said he thinks good coaches can suss that out and then it kind of can help your backside rotations where if you know, hey, this guy’s always cutting or always screaming away and this guy’s never cutting.
Pat 58:24
And it becomes scoutable.
Dan 58:25
Become more scoutable. Yeah, so not to say personnel-based cutting is wrong. He just made a good point there that, yeah, when you have all the film on everybody all the time, and he said, you know, this guy never’s cutting, it can make the decisions.
Pat 58:37
To your point, sometimes you just got to do it because yeah, him standing out of the three point line isn’t exactly creating gravity either. So yeah, exactly. And if you do damned if you don’t.
Dan 58:47
Pat, I gave a miss earlier, not from coach of course, but anything else you felt like we could have gone deeper on from your standpoint.
Pat 58:55
The doubling the posts that conversation kind of originated from, you know, our talking again with coach prior to about just looking at ways to create more turnovers. And I guess I would have followed up maybe kind of pulling out of that situation.
And I think it’s conversation we’ve had previously to hear just how you could think about where to be aggressive, what’s supposed to be aggressive to create more turnovers. I think we know like if you can generate more turnovers or generate more possessions, but from like the analytical standpoint, it’s very advantageous. So just how we would think outside of the post to also generate some turnovers.
Dan 59:31
Yeah, I know we had a couple ideas potentially of being aggressive on drives, you know, trapping, picking roles, things like that, that I know Coach Anderson has done in his defensive playbook, but yeah, would have been interesting. Well, once again, we thank Coach for coming on and giving us such a great interview today. Thank you everybody for listening. We’ll see you next time.