7 Lessons from Chad Dickman
This week on the podcast, we were joined by Hood Head Coach Chad Dickman for a conversation on the offensive ideas behind one of the more unique teams we’ve watched over the past few seasons.
We covered jumbled spacing, going early in ball screens, quick re-triggers, screening angles, and the footwork needed to play fast without losing control.
Here are seven ideas that stood out:
- Spacing is about removing help, not filling traditional spots. Hood’s “jumbled” three-man side intentionally clears space for the two-man game while making weak-side defenders cover more ground if they decide to help.
- Let the ballhandler go before the screen is perfectly organized. Dickman would rather have the guard attack early and force the screener to adjust than wait until both defenders are set in their preferred coverage. The screen can even miss if the screener’s defender is still forced to react.
- The first action does not have to produce the shot. An initial action may only force two defenders to recover or create a closeout. That disruption can make the second action far harder to guard than the first.
- Teach players how to play through messy spacing instead of constantly fixing it. If two players arrive to screen or the floor becomes temporarily crowded, Hood has answers that allow the possession to continue. Stopping to reorganize gives the defense time to do the same.
- Freedom sits on top of detailed breakdown work. Before worrying about chaining three or four actions together, Hood drills screening angles, speed, distance, spacing, and ballhandler paths. The randomness only works because the individual pieces have been trained.
- Two-man and three-man ball screens can have different intentions. Hood attacks the rim more aggressively in two-man actions. In three-man actions, the ballhandler will often string the action toward the “lookout point,” creating an angle to see the slip, pop, or secondary action.
- Pace requires players who can stop. Hood spends significant time teaching full-speed jump stops, balance, and reverse pivots out of the paint. Getting downhill matters, but so does being able to stop the possession from turning into a blocked shot, travel, or live-ball turnover.
Transcript
Dan 02:18
Coach, kinda start broad here. Personally, you’ve been one of my favorite teams to watch play over the last few years, especially having common opponents and, you know, just kinda getting into your film and all the stuff that you guys do. And would love to just pick your brain to start on spacing and creating advantages, I guess especially early in an offensive possession, and just how you think about that philosophically before we start getting to the nuts and bolts.
Chad Dickman 02:43
Spacing in this day and age, I think, is absolutely key to being good offensively. My assistants and I always talk about, like, we’ll watch, like, big-time Division I games, and obviously the guys are bigger, faster, and stronger, so the defense is gonna be a little bit tougher. But we’re watching, we’re just like, “Man, they just don’t have much room to operate,” like their guards especially. So we’ve really emphasized trying to spread the floor out, making defenders guard as much area as possible.
We do a lot of two-man action and just really, people have commented before, like our spacing’s really bad because we’ll have like three guys on the opposite side sometimes kinda like jumbled up, always moving a little bit. But we do all the two-man game, just kinda, you know, clear out one side, and just gives those guys a lot more room to operate. And then we have three-man actions, we have four-man actions, we have five-man actions where we just kinda flow into the next action, and it doesn’t happen overnight. A lot of it is just kinda getting your guys a good feel of when to use a lot of that stuff. But at the end of the day, we’re really just trying to keep the defense on their heels, and have to make quick decisions, have to talk extremely well, whether they’re switching, whether they’re not switching, and just try to hit them with as many things that they can mess something up as possible. And we’re very big on shooting, so usually if the defense makes a mistake, we’re gonna get an open shot.
Obviously, it’s one thing to make a mistake and leave a bad shooter wide open from three. You know, you can probably overcome that defensively. But when you got five guys that can shoot the ball, it’s really hard to protect the basket and the three-point line. That’s kind of been our mindset, been something I’ve always thought, and I think every year we get a little better at just tweaking some stuff, depending on personnel, depending on what has been working a lot. ‘Cause every year defenses get better at guarding certain things, and so you don’t wanna be out there doing something that you know a team is really good at guarding. So just making tweaks for specific teams, making, you know, some tweaks to some of our breakdowns. But, you know, really just wanna be a team that has a defense on their heels at all times and just almost like stressed out to the point where they know they can’t make a mistake. And so our guys are skilled enough where we get better and better at taking advantage of those mistakes when the defense does make a mistake. The spacing aspect and just trying to create advantages quickly, whether that’s in transition, whether that’s in, off an offensive rebound, whether that’s even off of makes. You know, we usually don’t call plays unless it’s a dead ball. You know, we’re really just trying to keep the pace up, make teams play a little bit faster than they want to, especially defensively.
Dan 05:19
Coach, love to narrow in to start on something you had mentioned, and I think is really interesting within your offense, is the empty early flat ball screen on the two side you mentioned with those three guys away. And obviously puts a lot of stress on the defense because you’ve got these three guys, like you said, kinda bunched away, but they are moving and shuffling.
And then going to the two-man side and that kinda flat ball screen, you settling on that versus like a lower drag ball screen, like kinda why you like the flat potentially. I know you can do different things and different angles, but where you’ve settled on how high on the floor you have it, why you like it flat in the empty, you know, I guess just more into that.
Chad Dickman 05:59
We kinda let the guys make those reads. You know, if they’re trying to cut the middle off, like we’ll flip it around and set a flat angle. If they’re guarding it straight up, sometimes we’ll try to surprise them to the middle. A lot of it is just kind of going through a lot of the breakdown, and we kinda start off doing a lot of two on two.
Three on three, just live action so the guys are getting a good feel for the timing, the angles. Because what’s kinda unique is that no one knows what our ball handler’s gonna do except for our ball handler, and, and he probably doesn’t even know until the last second. So the screener is kinda making the read, but he’s gonna react to the ball handler. So if our own teammates don’t know what he’s doing, then the defensive guys in that action are not gonna be able to prepare for that, all those options. But with having that empty side, you know, the ball handler can definitely refuse that screen, use a flat screen, go middle, and he just kinda gets ahead of steam and goes, and then we just kinda play off of that. Like I said, the three guys on the opposite side, if those guys can’t shoot the ball, then it’s not as effective. But having five guys that can shoot, the defense has to decide whether they wanna send someone over and to help and try to zone up on th- with the other three guys, or if they just wanna play it straight up and just kinda have their guys guard. We have a lot of different options out of it, and again, it happens fast, so a lot of it is just kinda like making the decision and making the reads as quickly as possible. We mix it up. We don’t have anything set like, “Hey, we’re always gonna set a flat angle on the empty side.” But a lot of it just kinda depends on how the defense is playing.
Pat 07:24
Coach, sticking on these two-man actions, y- you said at the top too, like a lot of coaches will say it looks like bad spacing. And even me and Dan before in like our prep, you know, I had it kind of framed as like bad spacing to create great space.
And it’s not bad spacing, it’s intentional spacing of course. I guess going a little bit more philosophical, how you think about manipulating space and breaking the old model, it’s a two-man action, we need slot 45 corner filled. But finding different ways to manipulate the space that compromises the defense in a way that, yeah, there’s no one at the rim, or they’re flatter than they need to be because they’re just following their man into like these jumbled up areas.
Chad Dickman 08:02
Part of the reason we set it kinda high in the slot is to get our ball handler the ability to get downhill right off the bat, and again, have the option to go either way. And we have actions where if a guy is in the corner, whether it’s intentional or not, ’cause as we flow through the offense, like we’re not gonna always be able to have an empty slot ball screen. So we have options that we’ll throw out there when we do have a guy out in the corner. But if that corner defender, if he’s a good defender and he’s smart, he can take away a lot of things in a three-man action, whether the screener rolls, whether he pops. Like, just having that extra defender I think is very beneficial to the defense.
But you know, if you get him out of there, again, one little screw up by the defense can usually result in an open shot. And a lot of times, again, it’s as simple as just, you know, for one second if we can get both defenders to guard the ball, well, the screener’s open, you know? And it’s very hard to rotate one of those weak side guys all the way over, whether he pops to the wing, whether he dives to the rim, whether he floats to the corner, whether he pops to the slot if he refuses it. It’s tough for them to get all the way over and help out with a third defender at that point. So I think just having that empty side early on just kinda puts the defense in a little bit of a scramble mode right off the bat. And you know, I always tell our guys, like the first action is usually the easiest to guard except, you know, our point guard’s an All-American so it’s not very easy to guard. But when the ball starts getting reversed and you start having to close out to defense, is having to close out, rotate, now they’re kinda scrambling a little bit, and now if you can hit them with a quick empty side ball screen, now it’s a lot more effective because they don’t have time to get into the exact spots they wanna get into. So we’ll reverse the ball and go right into the next action a lot as well. Initially the biggest thing is just give those two guys in that action enough space so they can really get those two defenders kinda scrambling right off the bat. And then if we do reverse it quickly, those defenders in the actions are so, you know, worried on trying to recover from the first action that they’re probably not gonna be in great spots trying to, you know, rotate over for the second action. So it’s a really good way to put it as far as the bad spacing is intentional to create great spacing in my mind. It’s one of those things where like we never know what’s gonna happen on a possession, and the better our guys get at just kinda like reading the floor and spacing and clearing out quickly on certain actions, the harder it is for the defense to get in the spots that they probably would optimally wanna be.
Pat 10:30
Coach, you said something interesting. At every possession, yeah, if after the first action nothing develops, how are you helping your guys organize the next action?
Like you said, read the floor, read space so you can get to a clean second action.
Chad Dickman 10:43
That’s probably what takes the longest to kinda get our guys to understand. ‘Cause again, when you do swing it, you are gonna have a little bit jumbled side over there. So again, it’s a matter of all right, can we clear a guy out quickly on that side? Can we do a stagger type of ball screen action? Do we do a three-man action? We don’t wanna pigeonhole it to like, all right, we need to do this. You know? A lot of times it’s just kinda like let’s just flow. Once we get good at it, we kinda know which actions are available depending on where the ball’s at and where our player placement is. So the more the guys get familiar with kinda making those reads the better.
One of the things we had to fight when we started playing like this years ago was you kinda fighting that battle is you don’t wanna ever tell guys not to take somewhat open shots. But again, like we may get a pretty decent shot off the initial two-man action. But one of my assistants broke it down one year and like we were shooting after like five passes was kind of the opposite of a lot of teams. We were shooting like 60% off of five passes or like three plus actions. So it was just kind of figuring out, all right, do we turn down this decent shot? ‘Cause we know if we, you know, can get a couple more really good actions, we’re gonna get a really, really good shot. So it doesn’t always happen obviously, but yeah, just kinda like finding that happy medium of not taking that shot too early, but also not, you know, having your guys question whether we wanna take the shot or not. All of our guys have the green light to shoot. No one comes out for missing a shot. We may take guys out for not shooting wide open shots.
Pat 12:11
One of the things Pat touched on it too is the flowing to the next action.
Dan 12:16
The re-triggers after the first empty two-man game or whatever you, you have early. One of the things, at least last year, you guys did really well, it seems like is a re-trigger was maybe for purposes of those listening, like a ghost flare action, three players in the action, the ball’s in the slot or in the middle, coming out of the corner, or horns flare action potentially.
And just bringing, like, two people towards the ball and then having tricky slips and re-screens. Why that action? Coordinating that action, because it’s not easy to just get seamlessly players flowing to the ball and playing off of flares and slips and all that. And I guess why that’s become something that seems like a staple at least of last year’s offense.
Chad Dickman 12:57
We kind of have, I guess you’d say, rules. If you’re in the corner and there’s a ball screen on your side, you pretty much know a few of the options you have access to. So a lot of times it may be going to headhunt the guy popping’s defender, and then potentially slip if you’re looking to switch that. It could be a hard dive back door to clear out, and it could be, depending on how many guys we have on that side, just a high interchange just to get like a safety for a kickback pass if we don’t have anything. So it is a situation where, like, it doesn’t always flow perfect a lot of times.
But having the option, sometimes we have two guys both running up the ball screen, like from the same side, almost like a stagger, and we may even have a guy come from the opposite side. And we break it down so if that happens, instead of having like one guy stop and like, “Oh no, we got too many guys coming up here,” we have an action for that setup. A lot of it is early in practice, we do probably 20 minutes every practice of just breaking down the different types of setups and using the ball screen, so when it happens the guys just kind of play off of it. ‘Cause you don’t wanna have, at any point, the guy with the ball having to stop, wait, and maybe direct traffic, and now all of a sudden the defense is not scrambling anymore and they can kinda switch out and get to their assignments that they wanna have. But no matter what, if you know the ball is gonna keep moving or stay in attack mode, like even if we do something wrong, at least the defense doesn’t have a chance to get set and stop and like talk through some things. So with a as unorthodox of setups as we have sometimes, our guys surprisingly, just ’cause they’re so trained on doing a lot of this stuff, they just figure it out. And we end up creating situations where teams have to switch a lot of this stuff, and that’s where it’s like, all right, are you gonna switch the ball screen? Are you gonna switch the second ball screen? Are you gonna switch the re-screen? Are you gonna switch the blind flare coming? And that’s where we get a lot of those slip actions. And you know, when it goes fast and you got guys slipping, re-screening, popping, diving, it’s kinda inevitable sometimes that both defenders go with one of the guys. There’s always a situation, and it may not be blatant where we get the most wide open look ever, but you know, having guys that can all shoot the ball if something were for half of a second if a guy over helps or switches and wasn’t supposed to, someone might be popping for a fairly open three, which is a pretty good shot for most of our guys. So kind of our mindset overall.
Dan 15:20
Interesting hearing you talk about it live a little bit too is just your team being so comfortable in these gray areas where who cares if two of you go towards the ball, let’s figure out how to… Like the defense is more confused than you are if we’re going towards the ball and, you know, you’re pulling defenders away. Early on when you’re teaching and you’re stopping and potentially correcting when, you know, guys, whatever, spacing or two guys went towards the ball or whatever it is, feel yourself teaching like how to get back to certain spaces or teaching how to get to another trigger?
Both? When you want it to keep flowing, it’s like, “Hey, you went towards the ball. No, no problem. Just get back to this space.” Or, “Hey, you went towards the ball, no problem. Just get to another trigger, another action.” Like is it mixtures or one or the other you prefer when you want it to keep flowing?
Chad Dickman 16:02
We kind of build it up. It’s more or less they know no matter what, like we have a stagger ball screen, the guys are pretty much doing something similar every time, and if we add a third guy, a fourth guy to that action, it’s still gonna be somewhat similar. They’re just kinda like playing off of it and figuring it out. But a lot of it is just making the read, depending on A, what the defenders are doing, and B, what the ball handler does. The general foundation of it is just kinda like knowing how to react depending on what happens with those two, the ball handler and the defenders. That’s not easy.
It takes a while for our new guys to really get comfortable with that. And then once we kinda get that down, then we can kinda figure out, all right, well, once the ball gets like swung or on a kick back, then we can just kind of like, all right, well, let’s try to figure this out as soon as possible and get right back into another action. But again, there’s not gonna be like, all right, well, it got kicked back, so this is what we do now. It’s more or less like, oh, well this is an option. We could also do this. We could also do this. And so we’re trying to, you know, educate them enough on our philosophy where it’s just like, all right, there’s no wrong… Shouldn’t say that. There are some stuff we definitely do, but you can kinda play off of it and make it work no matter what once you kinda understand the why. And I think that’s something that once our guys really figure out why we do this stuff, it helps them understand it more, it helps them start to think a little bit quicker. The first couple months of practice, you see like the freshmen like just, you see their brain like trying to process stuff. Things go a little bit slow, but when you get some of our veterans out there, it’s very fluid. They tend to pick it up pretty quickly, and I try to get our guys to do that in open gyms as well. I try to get our captains to understand like open gyms can’t be like other teams’ open gyms. Like I need you guys to run a lot of the same stuff so it becomes habit for, you know, not only you guys, but especially the newer guys and the younger guys. You know, so when we’re starting official practice, it’s not like, all right, we gotta go back to square one because open gym’s been just transitioning one-on-one the whole time.
Dan 18:04
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Speaker 5 18:24
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Hearing you talk about these different actions and the randomization that you’re trying to get within your offense to stress the defense, how much when building out the two-man, three-man actions we talked about, do you talk about screening angles, or is it more about with your assistant if we can just get to three actions, so it’s more about just the pace confusing the offense versus the detail of the screening angle within the action?
Chad Dickman 19:29
We talk a lot about the angles. We talk a lot about angles, speed, getting distance. That’s something I think that we really focus on in breakdown now. Again, it’s a little harder in breakdown if you don’t have a defense out there. A lot of times we at least try to get, like, a token defender out there if we’re working on a specific type of thing. But yeah, I mean, the angles are definitely something that we talk about a lot from not only just the screening angle, but also the path that the ball handler takes when he’s using some of this stuff.
And then when we start talking about, like, some of the blind flare types of screens that we set on the weak side, again, angles play a big role in that as well. Just like everything else, just like one of those things that at first it’s a little ugly and the new guys are setting it at angles that aren’t real effective, but they usually pick it up pretty quick as far as, you know, on certain actions, this is what we wanna do. And again, a lot of times it just depends on where the defender’s at, you know. Like, if they’re trying to ice a ball screen, there’s no use in trying to set a ball screen towards the middle. You know, we’ll just flip that really quick at the last second and try to get a head of steam going to the baseline. So when we talk about, like, all right, we wanna get three or four actions, that’s secondary. That usually comes, you know, well after we actually have focused on executing the actions with the angles, the speed, the distance, the spacing we really wanna have. So we do a lot of two on O breakdown, three on O breakdown, where we’re just kinda like every guy’s playing every spot because, you know, like, we don’t really have positions, so, like, our five man will be coming off our one man’s ball screen a lot. Maybe not a lot, but in practice, like, everyone’s getting reps from every spot. Uh, ’cause, you know, at the end of the day in, in an offense, if we’re trying to flow, we can’t be like, “Oh, we don’t want you using ball screen. Like, uh, no, you’re not gonna be setting ball screen.” Like, all five guys are doing the same thing, so they all have to have a pretty good idea of, of all those principles to really make our offense flow.
Speaker 5 21:24
In teaching, like, a flat angle ball screen, what are the teaching points you’re trying to help with your screeners to understand what it means by a f- like what the angle you’re really after and how maybe, too, they get in and out of that screen?
Chad Dickman 21:36
As far as angles go, like, we’re trying to surprise the defense as much as possible. So we never wanna, like, show, like come up and loop it really big and set, like, a middle angle ball screen. And again, we kinda take a, an angle with a screener so, you know, he has a option to, like, flip it really quick if need be. But we’re always trying to get it as high as possible.
We’re always trying to get the ball handler to go early and not wait. Like, we don’t want the ball handler to wait for the defender to get set, and like, I watch a lot of basketball and you’re like, you watch him wait, you watch the screener get set. And yeah, I mean, you’ll never have an illegal screen like that, but at the same time the defense is literally exactly where they wanna be to guard that. Whereas if you go early, and again, we’ll get an illegal screen every now and then, which I’m fine with. But if he goes early, again, it’s the screener’s job to just come to that quick jump stop before you make any contact. We’ll miss the defender completely sometimes, but again, a lot of times if we’re being effective enough, that guy’s defender will still have to help out on the ball handler a little bit, and that could get him an open shot. It’s kind of very intricate and tedious of how much… Like, our guys probably think I’m out of my mind with how detailed we are about certain things with, like, the angles and the timing. But again, it’s all for a specific purpose, and the more that they get familiar with our offense, I think the more they understand that.
Speaker 5 22:57
I really think it’s interesting the go early aspect of the ball handler. If you could go a little bit further on that, how early is maybe too early, or what are they reading from their defender as to when, yeah, like, “Hey, just go,” and the screener will figure it out?
Chad Dickman 23:11
It’s kind of a feel thing. If our ball handler is getting pressured really hard and the screen starts to come up and he’s 20 feet away and our ball handler just wants to refuse it or take off, he can do that. If he kinda, like, sticks to his hip, then maybe we’ll wait a little bit longer so that defender can get high enough where that guy’s gonna have to either change his path to recover or ideally we wanna at least make that screener’s defender have to hedge or switch or do something. When we’re not effective is if they stick to us and we go early, and then the screener’s defender doesn’t have to help at all, then it’s more or less we’re just playing one-on-one at that point. So a lot of it just kinda depends on, you know, where the defenders are at and again, maybe the angle. But at the end of the day, like, there’s really no right and wrong clear-cut way each action.
It’s just a matter of our guys making the decision and going with it. One thing we always talk about is don’t make a decision and be indecisive with it. You know, once you decide you’re gonna go that way, like, you gotta go that way and get away from that ball screen as fast as possible. Worse comes to worst, jump stop, swing it, and we’ll keep the offense going. We don’t have to score off the first action every time, and again, that kinda goes back to something we battled in the past a little bit with kinda understanding That just ’cause we can get a shot off this first action doesn’t mean we have to take a shot off this first action
Dan 24:32
Just gotta ask you because we have you on about the quadruple ball screen to start possessions and your thoughts on it. It’s just a unique action to start a possession.
Chad Dickman 24:41
Yeah, that’s probably the question I get most at, like, the Final Four. Just doing a little rewind here. So when I took over here, I knew we’d have to do something outside the box, and we had to play a little unorthodox. We weren’t gonna be able to just walk it up and play traditional basketball and accomplish the goals that I wanted to accomplish.
We were gonna have to do something different. And so part of that was just personnel. We wanted to get, you know, the best shooting, most skilled team we could get from an offensive standpoint, and really wanted to just play a different style that the best teams would struggle with. I mean, the best teams in the country, they’re gonna be very, very good at defending what everyone else does. That’s why they’re so good, ’cause they defend all the common actions extremely well. And we’re not, also not gonna be able to just match up five on five with some of the heavyweights at the Division III level. So we always just kinda, like, did some unorthodox stuff in practice. We’ll just kinda like throw out just random stuff when we’re doing, like, live possessions, and I’ll bring the team over and I’ll be like, “All right. Let’s do this. Let’s just see how the defense reacts.” And so the quad ball screen is something that, like, I’d never seen done, but I’m thinking, “All right. Well, if we got four guys that can shoot it and they’re all coming up for a ball screen, their defenders are probably gonna be worried about any of those guys potentially popping out.” And so one of the things we got a lot early on that was just refusing that and just shooting a layup because there wasn’t much help if we set that high enough. But at the end of the day, you gotta have five guys on defense communicate really well and figure everything out. ‘Cause when we do that, it’s very rare that a team doesn’t switch any of those. Our ball handler does come off that. Depending on what all the other guys’ defensive players do, that will trigger what their next action is. And so what ends up happening is almost always two defenders end up getting stuck on one guy, and so then it’s just kind of a quick scramble. Like, we don’t always get something, like, with the ball handler on that, but a lot of times we’ll come off that and just kick it back, and then all of a sudden the defense is just trying to fly around and match up. So the first time we did that ever I remember was at Hampton Sydney, like, I don’t know, six or seven years ago, and we did it two times and they were good. And they were just running around like chickens with their head cut off, and it was just a scramble right off the bat. And so we did, we did it again, same thing happened again. So I didn’t know how it would look against a team that is a traditionally really good defensive team, but when that gave them a lot of problems, then we started kind of incorporating that a little bit more. We got some variations of it now. You know, when teams are starting to cheat on it, we’ll throw out there. Yeah, just stuff like that where you know no team is breaking down quadruple ball screens in practice.
Chad Dickman 27:16
I mean, maybe right before our game because we probably throw it out there once a game, but it’s just something that guys just aren’t used to guarding. So some of that stuff that we think can give certain teams some problems just ’cause they haven’t been breaking that down all year in practice like they have pretty much most of the other defensive actions.
Dan 27:34
Coach, thanks for going through that. This has been great so far.
We 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 to start one, sub one, and sit one, and then we’ll discuss your answer from there. So Coach, if you’re set, we’ll dive into this first Start, Sub, Sit.
Chad Dickman 27:51
I’m ready, man.
Dan 27:52
Okay. First one has to do with great finishers in the paint. You have had, you have guys that really can finish when you do get downhill and get into the paint, and these are three different things that you would think are really important. And your start here would be what is most important when teaching guys to be great finishers in the paint.
So Start, Sub, Sit. Option one is playing off of two feet. Option two is learning how to decelerate, slow down, Euro step, whatever it is, play slower as they get downhill. And then the third option is what we’re just calling quick finishes or acceleration, so knowing how to odd hand finish or get the ball up quicker in traffic rather than, uh, slowing down. So Start, Sub, Sit, great finishers in the paint. Playing off two, deceleration, or quick finishes.
Chad Dickman 28:40
I’ll sit deceleration just because I think that’s really hard to teach certain guys. You almost have to have a cert- Like, Javon, our point guard, is really good at that, but that’s one of those things where I think if you’re not naturally good at that, that can probably get you into more trouble than it should.
The start would be playing off two. We talk about that constantly. Just because so many ball screens, we’re, we’re gonna get guys driving to the basket a lot, but at the same time, like, we don’t have the biggest, most athletic team, and we don’t want our guys going in there and trying to get shots off against really good shot blockers that are down there. So we talk a lot about if you can get the ball to the block and jump stop especially, and pivot out. We do a lot with moving off the ball when the ball gets to that area, just because as you all know, defensive eyes kinda gravitate towards the block when the ball goes down there. So we do a lot of off the ball types of stuff when the ball gets down there, whether it’s 45 cuts, whether it’s called warrior screens, whether it’s interchanges, screening for someone else. So we get a decent amount of looks just from getting the ball down there and jump stopping. We will talk about, like, two foot finishes a decent amount, but I think it’s imperative for our guys to all be able to do a quick jump stop when they get in that area and we don’t have anything. ‘Cause not only does it prevent the turnover, prevent a bad shot, you’re also in a really critical area that I think can be of great value if you have four other guys that are doing what they need to be doing off the ball. So we do probably 10 minutes, probably more than that now. We incorporate it into other breakdown drills in practice. But ton of jump stops. It’s something that I’ve really incorporated and stressed more every single year. I think we do it more and more. So I think it definitely helps us prevent those live ball turnovers. I mean, if you get blocked, it might as well be a live ball turnover. We really stress that, so I think that would be the most important. And then sub would be the quick finishes. ‘Cause again, we’re getting downhill. A lot of times the defense is spaced out because of our personnel and our shooting ability. So, you know, you do have defenders trying to get over there to prevent the layup. And so we do a lot of, like, we call it Steph Curry finishes, where we just, like, refuse it and just try to get down there as fast as possible, shoot the right-handed layup from the left side, and vice versa. We did in the past, but we’ve probably done less of this year in Europe, finishing against contact. We’ll still get the pads out here and there, and they still get enough of that in live breakdown. If we have to go up there and try to finish with contact against really good teams, like, I just don’t think our percentages are gonna be as high as they need to be. I can use a example. This year we played Mount St. Mary’s, a Division I team up the road, an exhibition game, and at halftime…
Chad Dickman 31:15
This is gonna be completely wrong, but we were shooting, like, 35% from three, and we had hit, like, I don’t know, nine threes, and we were, like, 2 of 14 from two, and they had blocked, like, seven of those, ’cause they had some big athletic guys. And I was just, “Why are we even shooting twos?
We should just shoot threes the entire time.” ‘Cause we had a lot of offensive rebounds as well. But I was like, “Our twos are getting blocked, or they’re very, very tough layups.” And so we don’t do a whole… And again, against some lower level teams, yeah, you can get in there and worry about contested layups and finishing against contact, but I think against the best teams, like, that’s just not gonna be most beneficial to us. But I do think that we gotta be able to get down there quickly and finish. So we do some finishing drills that I think are most apt to situations that we have in games. So I do think the quick finishes are important. That’s how I would rank those three. That was actually pretty easy for me, so.
Dan 32:09
Good. Good.
Coach, my follow-up on it, we’ll go to the two-foot finishes. And one is it, you mentioned jump stop, are you teaching actual jump stop, or is it stride stop? Is it both? How are they stopping? And second is just the read on that, if there’s any other bodies, if there’s help, we’re automatically trying to jump stop or, you know, I guess what are even some deeper teaching points on that?
Chad Dickman 32:32
We kind of leave it up to their discretion. I mean, if they think they can get the shot off and they think it’s a high percentage shot, do it. I don’t want our guys to, like, be driving in there with tunnel vision, “I gotta do this,” or, “I, I gotta get a shot off,” or, “I gotta jump stop.” So it’s kinda at their discretion depending on what’s available.
But we do kinda talk about just coming to that jump stop where you’re coming in there, and if you do go off with two feet and finish, great, but again, if you’re getting it in there too, just being able to come to that jump stop and reverse pivot so you’re pivoting 180 degrees so you can see the whole court. ‘Cause again, like I said, we’re gonna have hopefully four guys moving full speed off that, and hopefully defenders starting to collapse a little bit and watching the ball a little bit. So again, the biggest thing I think is being able to come to that quick jump stop and remain balanced and be able to pivot out without traveling, without having your momentum take you too far. That’s one of the first things we focus on in practice, is the ability to do that without traveling, full speed, staying balanced, pivoting to the right angle. So that’s kind of what we’ve really emphasized from that into things.
Pat 33:36
An overall player development standpoint, you know, we’ve talked about screening angles, now finishing, of course shooting, but if you wanna play fast, if you wanna shoot threes and everyone’s gonna be kinda randomized, interchangeable within the offense, what are, like, the key pillars when you think about, like, your player development aspect of your program?
Chad Dickman 33:54
If we were a Division I school, we could do summer workouts and all, like, the preseason work. Like, I’m sure we’d do a lot more player development. But as you all know, we have such limited time to not only work on player development, but actually having to get, you know, offensive concepts, you know, defense, out of bound. Like, there’s so many other things you have to worry about.
So a lot of it is we try to do about 45 minutes of skill work every practice and just kinda focus on certain skills. And so the guys know that. We want them working on all that stuff in their free time. But yeah, some of the biggest things, you know, we… I was talking to our incoming freshman about this, and I’m just like, “You’re gonna look like the biggest goof ever at the gym, but, like, you need to, like, get really good at dribbling full speed to your left and jump stopping, and dribbling full speed to your right and jump stopping, and then pivoting out.” And they were looking at each other like, “Yeah, we’re gonna get beat up at a gym doing this.” But I’m like- … it’s so important to being able to do that and do it quickly. So just that footwork stuff. Again, we’ll do some finishing drills in practice. We don’t do a ton with that, but obviously with shooting, like, we take a ton of shots every practice. And it’s not just drive, kick out, shoot the three. We do a lot off of, like, our actions, so a lot of it is just like, all right, you ghost a screen and catch the ball on the wing, and you gotta be able to catch that ball in rhythm and shoot it without, like, fading backwards. ‘Cause you may be going full speed away from the rim, and you get your footwork down where you can stop and catch the ball moving forward again. So getting a lot of shots off of, like, our pop actions. So again, like, just different things with shooting, like rhythm with your shooting, footwork. We usually bring in good shooters. I’m never in a situation where I’m trying to change a guy’s shots or anything like that, but being able to definitely catch the ball and shoot it in rhythm the same way every time in a lot of different scenarios. Then just being really good at just coming full speed off the ball screens, and whether that’s stringing it out to get to what we call, like, the lookout point, or whether that’s attacking full speed and trying to get a layup or be ready to come to that jump stop. You know, every guy has gotta be comfortable taking two or three dribbles full speed in any direction. So that’s something I think we really try to emphasize. And again, all of our guys are getting drilled on this every day in practice. Some guys obviously are a lot more comfortable than others doing that. But I think if you can have all your guys that can get out there and shoot, pass, and handle it, again, it’s just gonna be very difficult for a defense to account for all that.
Pat 36:16
One follow-up on the pick and roll. You mentioned knowing when to, like, string it out, and you said get to that lookout point versus when to play, hit it, go fast.
This hits home because I had a point guard who can go fast, and he knows how to go fast when it’s open, but getting then, like, those fast point guards to know when to string it out. Is it the coverage that then you’re emphasizing with them, or, like, what is the read with point guards that can go fast but have struggle Getting, stringing it out, playing maybe in that slower gear before getting to the fast
Chad Dickman 36:47
You know, a lot of times in our two-man action we’re talking about we’re trying to put pressure on the defense and force them to protect the rim, and a lot of times both defenders will be so worried about the ball getting to the rim that that’s when we get to, like, the pop and the kick back. But in our three-man actions we still want our ball handlers to be ready to turn the corner and get to the rim if it’s there, but in our three-man actions, that’s where your first option’s probably just to string it out, get to a good angle where you can hit the guy slipping, you can hit the guy popping, ’cause we’re always gonna have that secondary action in our three-man action.
So I guess just to dumb it down and make the easiest answer to that, three-man action, our standard thing is we’re trying to string it out and get to a lookout point unless the sea opens up and we have a path to the basket. In the two-man actions we’re trying to be a little bit more aggressive and get closer to that rim to put the pressure on the defense.
Pat 37:37
On that three-man action when it is, yeah, let’s try to string it out, and I know it’s probably a little bit of everything and personnel or player driven, but is it, are you talking like a hostage? Are you trying, you know, get quickly to that space, kind of like the little hesitation or skip step?
I guess maybe is there techniques you feel that have helped your guys in the past or that you guys try to teach within your program?
Chad Dickman 37:58
We gotta break habits a decent amount, ’cause I think a lot of guys are taught certain ways off ball screens. Getting them to go early is new for a lot of guys. We want the guy with the ball to get away from that screen as fast as possible and get as much distance as needed. We never want them to slow down.
I don’t want our guys trying to split defenders. I really want, again, kind of goes back to the spacing, like we want the faster we can get that ball to a spot where we can make a pass and the more distance we can get, the harder it is for the defense to recover if they make a mistake. Like, I think if you come off there a ball screen and slow down, like off of one dribble, like even if they make a mistake, there’s not enough distance for them to have to, like, scramble that much. Whereas if we come off full speed and we get those three guys all going three different directions pretty quickly, any screw up by the defense is gonna be a lot harder to recover from. So you gotta be like shot out of a cannon coming off that ball screen.
Dan 38:59
Coach, thanks for going through start, sub, sit. You’re off the hot seat.
Thanks for playing that game with us. We got a final question to close the show, but before we do, thank you very much for coming on the show today and sharing all this info with us. This was a lot of fun.
Chad Dickman 39:11
No, I appreciate you guys having me. This was cool.
Dan 39:13
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?
Chad Dickman 39:20
That’s a really good question. So I was an assistant coach for about 10 years before I got my first head job. You know, having the ability to see so many different teams over the years and see what gave us a lot of problems defensively, what gave us a lot of problems offensively, and just kinda like picking a little bit of, like, stuff here and there from each team and kind of customizing it to your personal philosophy and your personnel and whatnot. I think just really being eager to learn and think outside the box I think has really benefited me.
I’m one of those guys that have the binder with 9,000 quick hitters in it where I’m like, “Oh, we’re gonna use this sometime. You know, we’re gonna use this.” You use, like, one, you know? And so just kind of going through that whole process of just seeing so many different teams with scouts, using synergy to watch. In this day and age, you see a team that’s scoring a ton of points really efficiently. You can just go, “All right. What are they doing? How can we incorporate that into how we play or our personnel?” So I think just the investment I made into really focusing on things that maybe not everyone else does or focuses on I think has really kinda given us a leg up, at least for our program now, in that we, again, we do play a lot differently than a lot of teams. So again, it’s not like something that you could just come in in your first year of coaching and be like, “All right. We’re just gonna do this. We’re gonna do this.” It was a lot of film, trial and error, and never knowing if any of that stuff’s ever gonna pay off. But as you start to get really set in your philosophies, just kinda having all that in your back pocket with, like, you know what? You know what? This team used to do that. I bet that would be really effective with our offense or our personnel. So I think that would probably be my answer, just really kind of overindulging in a ton of film throughout the years as an assistant coach, and still as a head coach. I think that’s really helped me out in my career, I would say.
Dan 41:24
Okay, Pat, I know you and I talked about this before, but for those at the D3 level, Hood has been one of the best programs in the country the last couple years, and Coach Dickman’s teams have been really fun to watch, just unique style, lots of skilled players, as we talked about today. But a really fun watch for those at our level and a really good team, so it was a fun time having him on today and getting a little, uh, deeper insight on all the stuff he does.
Pat 41:50
Yeah, completely. With, like you said, I mean, you turned their program on to me early this season. I’ve been a little bit addicted, always checking in, seeing what they’re doing.
Like we talked about, they run some unique actions and stress the defense in unique ways, and so it was fun to finally get him on today.
Dan 42:06
Absolutely. Well, let’s dive into our takeaways, and so for the first one, I’ll kick it to you.
Pat 42:11
Yeah, the first takeaway, especially, like, on the two-man actions and just how they’re really intentional in thinking about what to do on that three-man side. As he alluded to, they first recruit as best skill as possible, and this, one of the skills being shooting. So it’s of course always gonna make it difficult when you can put three great shooters on the side and create gravity like that.
But it doesn’t just stop there, and watching them and what he talked about, just thinking about ways, like, to break the traditional mold that the good teams are really prepared to guard. You know, especially when it’s an empty side and how they load up a three-man side. Like, the top teams use that extra defender, that third defender on that full side that can really muck up- Even empty side ball screens, you know, and regardless of angles. And so to hear him talk about how they try to think to be unique and try to challenge then these defenses and approach it differently, and he talked about it like kind of this jumbled spacing, you know, moving bodies, exchanging bodies, is why it stood out. It was really fun to watch. And you know, I think, too, without jumping too far ahead into other takeaways, you know, when we talked about their three-man action on the ball or these three-man actions on the ball, like we’ve talked a lot in the past about like gaggle spacing, these three-man split cuts or playing through the elbows, off-ball screening or playing through the pinch post. But I think what was fun today was to hear how he thinks about maybe three-man actions on the ball, like we talked about, and then this like three-man actions really away from the ball, like more like three-man spacing actions. And that was fun to kick off the conversation there and just get his thoughts on how they’re trying to just manipulate tags and help in unique ways that are outside of, let’s say, quote unquote, traditional spacing.
Dan 43:50
Yeah. And for those listening, like the visual part of this, I mean, if you’re imagining an early empty flat ball screen, and he’s got great ball handlers and guys that are coming and setting that like early flat screen, like you said, kind of in the slot, so you can go either way.
Pat 44:07
Yeah.
Dan 44:07
But then on the three side, for the most part, they’re not just like standing spacing. They’re kind of, he mentioned, kind of jumbled or pretty closely spaced, but then as soon as that action’s taking place, they are then moving and kind of shuffling or like could backside flare.
I mean, obviously there’s things that they do there, but what a tough action to guard an early offense where you’ve got an empty flat ball screen with a great ball handler coming downhill at you, like you mentioned, work on the speed and go early, and you got just that rim pressure coming with a great player, and then you’ve got three shooters that are shuffling and like, so-
Pat 44:41
Yeah
Dan 44:41
… the communication needs to take place on the backside where the mig or the, you know, the bottom defender’s guy’s moving, and do you stay and help? And if you do, then you can get caught on a kick-out three early. Like really tough.
I mean, obviously they’ve got great players, but just a way to start the offense I thought was something I’ve looked at a lot personally with them, and he mentioned it, how if they don’t get something out of it, oftentimes that then helps the rest of the possession flow because either the two defenders in the two-man action are scrambling to recover back, and then they’re flowing to their next set of things, or someone on a kick-out from that three side is scrambling or closing out, and then they can start to really play and flow into these things from there. And so yeah, it was interesting hearing him talk about the philosophy on that, and I think out of that, we got in later too about the angle and the speed and who’s going first, and I thought that was like, those were good teaching points too.
Pat 45:32
And one last point too on this jumbled three-man side spacing.
You mentioned too, like I think it’s, yeah, okay, who’s the mig? We’re moving the mig or the man at the rim. But I think too it also, because you’re setting the flat ball screen and the ball handler can go either way, it’s also clearing the nail too. So if the ball handler goes middle, because it’s the same exact problem, I think the defense naturally, if they’re not really, I’m not paying attention’s not the right word, but if they’re not like on their P’s and Q’s, let’s say, they’re also getting flat as they kind of follow-
Dan 46:03
Mm-hmm
Pat 46:03
… the shooters and this off-ball movement, and then they’re just compromising themselves, whether it’s at the nail or even at the rim, like we talked about.
Dan 46:10
Agreed.
Pat 46:11
So Dan, we’ll keep it moving. I’ll throw it to you for takeaway number two.
Dan 46:14
I’ll stay in the first bucket, and I guess we’ll just move to another interesting point within what we talked about, which is the re-triggers within the offense, and one just being what they actually have done or will do, which is these re-triggers with these horns flares, blind flares, like you mentioned. You’re bringing two players, sometimes even three players towards the ball, and then just based off where that ball handler is going, you’re getting these flares and then flare slips with the remaining player. Like there’s just a lot of combinations of stuff that can happen.
Pat 46:46
Mm-hmm.
Dan 46:46
The action itself and the speed at which they do it and the speed in which they re-trigger their offense is very impressive, if anybody who watched it. But I think what was fun to hear too today a little bit were the nuggets on, well, that’s not obviously easy to teach for young guys coming in, and you know, am I doing this right?
He mentioned the freshmen. How do I build this? And I think what was nice hearing him talk about is how difficult and messy it probably is early for these younger players, even for them to come in. But the mindset of, “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about if you made the right cut here or the right slip.”
Pat 47:20
Yeah.
Dan 47:20
Just continue to put yourself into these actions and that whatever it is that they’re doing isn’t wrong. It’s just like, okay, how do we use this to create the next advantage potentially? And so you don’t have players running to a ball screen then stopping, “Oh, I shouldn’t have done that. Let me go back out.” No, just like, keep going. We’ll figure it out.
We’ll ghost flare it. We’ll get to the next spacing. And I think that was kind of cool to hear because you can see it visually when you watch them play. They’re just not holding the ball up and stopping, saying, “Oh, I messed this up. Let me re-space it, get to here.” They just keep-
Pat 47:52
Yeah
Dan 47:53
… going, and that was cool to hear, I think, under the hood, no pun intended there, about some of that stuff.
Pat 47:58
Yeah, that’s what I have admired across several conversations we had of just about pace in general and playing more randomized is the willingness of the coach not to, one, like rule everything or try to turn it into, “Okay, well, if we get this, we can do this,” you know? Like just encouraging the, first, don’t slow down, and we’re gonna solve it.
And you always hear it’s three multiple things we can do out of this spacing. Now, of course, it comes with you gotta put in the work and do your, like you talked about what he hit on it. It gets messy, but I admire like the commitment to it, because if you wanna play this way, and then you say, “Okay, well then yeah, we’ll rule it, and you do this,” or put an order of operations, or it’s like, “Okay, well then, then we’ll just do this action always,” that’s when you of course become scoutable and then pace starts to die a little bit because defenses are able to kind of gum you up a little bit there. And I think for me too, when I hear all these conversations, trying to think through it and how I would teach it and learn from it, like that’s what I always admire, and it’s no different with- You know, Coach today and then, like, what comes out of it is, like, this great three-man action, this horns flare, ghost flare stuff, and how just these unique pretty actions, like, emerge out of it, and you just gotta give the guys time, give them freedom, pump them with confidence, and just tell them not to slow down. Like he said, the mentality. If you make a decision, kind of make it with conviction and not stop midway through, because then that’s gonna do more damage than whatever. It’s a wrong cut, wrong read, but just, we can just keep going.
Dan 49:24
Yeah. I think, like, when you watch Coach Dickmann’s team, when you watch some of the best teams that people can think of, a Josh Scherzer’s team, you know, St. Louis or Ben McCollum’s team, like, just people that know those offenses, the amount of time that the defense spends in, like, a nice shell is, like, almost nonexistent. Maybe it’s quickly dissolved because of the continued pace and retriggering of multiple actions over and over n- and the understanding of, you know, how they’re going to take advantage of switches and mismatch. All those things, going back to Hood, when you watch, I don’t know how much of any possession a team is in, whatever shell defense you practice, you know, pre-season, like, it’s just not there.
Like, the mig is constantly moving. And what this great offense does is it’s moving your shell, and it forces you to then have to be really great either on ball, individual defenders, or you have to put so much stress on the communication between the two players or three players in the ball action, and you don’t need a complete breakdown to score, right? You just need a-
Pat 50:25
No
Dan 50:25
… a half step of indecision by the defense, and you’re playing the advantage. Even though, like you mentioned, we talked about the three men spacing away or them getting to this point where multiple guys coming towards the ball for flare slips and all that stuff. And in one sense you go, “Okay, it, it can look messy or feel messy,” but for the offense, they know how to figure it out and play. And then for the defense, they’re also in situations where they’re in extreme indecision as well. So great stuff.
Well, Pat, we’ll keep it moving. We stayed on the offensive side for Coach with the start sub sit, which I’m thinking that might be your third takeaway somewhere in there, so I’ll kick it to you for that.
Pat 51:01
Yeah. My third takeaway is both pulling from the first bucket and then what we got to in the start sub sit.
But I enjoyed hearing him talk about just the pick and roll relationship dance between the screener ball handler. We talked about angles, but I really liked when he talked about going early as a ball handler, we talked about, and then also when he wants the guard to string it out. So in general, both kind of the big bucket and the start sub sit, my third takeaway is just his discussion on just reading pick and rolls, and I really liked, of course, then, like I alluded to, the go early as a ball handler.
Dan 51:36
Mm-hmm.
Pat 51:36
And that it’ll be on the screener to figure it out, but it makes sense hearing him throughout just, like, the pace and, like, the attacking mindset they want. But it was something I don’t think we’ve heard too much talked about of like, yeah, just go early, and we don’t necessarily wanna wait, and I liked his point.
Even if you have your defender on your hip and the big tries to find the angle, but if it’s happening at such a pace that you’re waiting for it to develop, the defense is gonna get to their primary coverage. Now, you can still beat it, but the defense is gonna get to it. I think it’s, like, kind of the same philosophy as, like, always look to reject first. So I liked hearing him talk about that a lot and, I mean, of course, with college basketball and the proclivity to get illegal screens called that I thought was not expecting that would be one of the takeaways from this conversation today about going early. Don’t wait for the screen setter.
Dan 52:25
Yeah.
Pat 52:26
Again, as we then moved in towards the kinda at-rim finishing and we kinda morphed into player development, just the reads too on, okay, yeah, if we wanna go early, if we wanna go downhill being priority one, but when also to string it out and get to the lookout point. I like that terminology, the lookout point, how so that more is kinda being triggered if it’s a three-man action.
And again, but he talked about getting that lookout point as quickly as possible, and I think he had a great saying or line, three players going in three different directions and see how the defense can handle that when they’re going at full speed. So yeah, again, not quite a hit on the start sub sit, but pulling from that in the first bucket, I just like him talking about the pick and roll reads that he’s teaching his guards.
Dan 53:08
The start sub sit, I thought what was really good about the great finishers in the paint, so talking about the two foot-
Pat 53:15
Mm-hmm
Dan 53:16
… stopping him, that being the start. I think what’s, like, really interesting about these really great offensive coaches that teach pace, underneath it all, there’s some part of their philosophy in teaching that has a high emphasis on teaching players when and how to stop. So, like, as much as, like, it’s pace, it’s energy, it’s going downhill, it’s ball screens, like, movement, it’s also, like, there’s a deep part of it like, “Okay, now here’s where you stop and make a read or make a decision.” And I thought that was, like, a good part of the start sub sit because they are high pace, and they are doing a lot of cutting and movement and all this stuff.
But underneath it, once you get to the paint, really spending a ton of time, like he mentioned every day, on how to jump stop. I mean, talk about just freshmen going into the gym and, like, dribble full speed and stop. I think it’s, like, a pretty underrated teaching point of some of the better offensive coaches is they spend so much time on that, and it makes a ton of sense. I mean, just from the last year, year and a half on the podcast, how many times have we had a great offensive mind on, and there’s been some part of the conversation that touches on two-foot finishing or finishing around the rim or just being that part of their everyday bread and butter of practice of, of we’re gonna get it here, so let’s, like, spend some time working on how to make this better. And I thought that was, like, just a, a really good part of the conversation that came up in the start sub sit. Well, Pat, there’s a ton of stuff today that we went over. Is there anything any misses, not from Coach Dickmann’s standpoint, of course, but that if we had more time or went a different direction would’ve been interesting?
Pat 54:46
We alluded, we had a start sub sit queued up for some. We know they play a little zone defense, but I’m glad where the conversation of course ended up, and we got a little longer in the first bucket, rightfully so.
It’s what he does that is unique and what stood out about their program. But always fun, I think, on the defensive end, maybe like, again, knowing- how they want to play what stresses them than what they’re worried about on the defensive end you know i think it’s the same thing like great switching defenses kind of also have understanding like maybe what works offensively or beats up their defense and so i think if he’s trying to play with this pace and constantly confuse the offense what is then he teaching on defenses especially they’re trying to guard all this stuff all the time i think is always a fun perspective to get from a coach
Dan 55:31
For sure. It would have been fun to maybe keep going down the quadruple ball screen rabbit hole and just variations and all that. I mean, people can look it up. I’m sure you get to ask about it a lot, but glad we got that in there.
My thing that would have been interesting to continue to circle back on was kind of in the attacking switch conversation, kind of touched on a little bit that you mentioned teams are going to end up switching a lot of stuff just based off of what they’re doing. And so then how, what’s the next layer of when you know a team’s going to switch a lot of your stuff, you know, just philosophy on attacking that switch. The deeper question I was thinking about of asking is there is so much action that they do where it’s sending multiple guys at the ball, the quadruple ball screen, but like really the re-triggers of the ghost flare and all this stuff. But when and how then when they get a switch that’s advantageous, are they just going to give that switch space and attack it, you know, with a great player and move around it? Just, we could have talked offense with him for a long time, but that would be something I’d love to pick his brain about next time. So, well, once again, we appreciate coach for coming on and sharing with us today. Thank you everybody for listening and we’ll see you next time.