We sat down this week with the newly hired Head Coach of Central Arkansas MBB, John Shulman! In a wildly entertaining and thoughtful conversation we dive into Coach Shulman’s thoughts on BLOB defenses, along with the value of being unpredictable in them, and discuss his preference of switching on defense and “reading the room” as a coach during the always fun “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Transcript
John Shulman 00:00
You better have a feel on where your team is. And if you don’t have a feel where your team is, you got no shot. Two years ago, we were kind of struggling ahead of young team. We got beat on the road. What are we doing practice? Hey, guys, we’re about to lose our team. We’re about to lose these young kids. We don’t need to practice. We need to go to a movie and eat pizza. If you don’t have a feel and you can’t read a room, you will lose your team.
Dan 01:56
And now please enjoy our conversation with coach John Shulman. Coach, thanks so much for making the time. I know you’re moving. You just got a new job. A lot’s going on. We appreciate you sitting down with us today.
John Shulman 02:18
My oldest son would be furious at me because he thinks you guys are gods. I just had Nick Paschal on. He’s a smart guy. You had guys Kori on last year and he’s a smart guy. So I guess this is the June month is feel bad for people and you’re feeling sorry for me and you have me on. So let’s do it.
Dan 02:42
Thank you, Coach. We appreciate that, and we’re excited to talk about a lot of stuff with you today. And one of the things we wanted to start with going on the court first is your baseline out of bounds defense. And the philosophy history, we’ll get into some tactical stuff or whatnot with you, but you’ve been really good at that end of the floor. And I think it’s a place that coaches struggle with trying to figure out what to do to guard. It’s an interesting situation offensively. They’re behind you, and you’ve been really good at it. So just to start broadly, your thoughts on how you guard underneath out of bounds.
John Shulman 03:19
A great question. Number one, go to Bob McKillop. All right. And y’all know who Bob McKillop is. Bob McKillop, he always talked about winning the special situations. So us coaches, we all think the special situations are, you know, down one with the ball, side OB, down two going in the full court. His special situations were under OBO, under OBD, side OBO, side OBD, free throw situation. Those are in his best situation. And so if you can win those, you’ve got a really good chance. I had my philosophy on how to win games. All right. But if you can win those special situations, you’ll be in great shape. So number one, we better take that part serious. It’s not, oh gosh, we play our first scrimmage tomorrow. All right, guys, we’re gonna play man under OB and Tommy, you just, well, coach, I’m on the ball. I’m guarding the guy on the ball. What do I do? I just, you know, get your hands up. Let’s play some ball. It cannot be that. It has to be pretty important if you’re going to win those battles. And I think this helps you win a game. So that’s my number one thought. All right, is you got to make it important. I was assistant at East Tennessee State and I’ll never forget shoot around at the Citadel and I worked for an old mean guy. He’s still living. He’s 88 years old, a guy named Alan La Force who was really good. He’s a really good basketball coach and we spent one hour in shoot around talking about we’re going to guard this set with your hand here and we’re going to guard this set with your hand here. The kids zoned out after about two and a half minutes. They were done. They didn’t listen to one word we said. So I was like, I got a black book here. I got this black book with things that I liked along the way and things one, you know, I think every young coach should have a book and said, when I become a head coach, I will do this or I won’t do this. And just all we do is pick up things along the way, right? We’re just stealing things along the way. And every time I watch a game, you try to steal something. So I know I didn’t want to do that. I know I didn’t want to spend one hour in shoot around working on that. And the last thing about that is you can look really bad under OBD. If you give up a layup and your superintendent and the high school or your principal is over there and going, good God, I mean, that guy can’t even guard that screen to screen or action. He’s given up a layup. Good God. We need to fire that dude. I worked for Jeff Lebo Lebo’s at North Carolina right now as assistant to Hubert Davis. He was a head coach at Chattanooga, Tennessee, Tech and Auburn. And he made this comment to me. Even bad coaches have good under OB man to man place. Even bad coaches have good stuff like screen to screen or we all laugh about it. And we may talk about the flex later on and we all laugh at the flex and who would run the flex. That ain’t a whole lot of fun to guard, boys. I ain’t a lot to you. Still not. And we make fun of it. It still ain’t fun to guard. So even bad coaches have good under OB place. You kind of better take this serious. Well, I’m at Wofford College. I’m assistant basketball coach at Wofford. We’re playing at Auburn. We have the ball side OB and they have this big, gigantic kid from, I don’t know, he was an African kid. All right. He was one of those first seven foot two guys that came and played for Cliff Ellis and they put him over the ball side OB. They put them over the ball, over the ball, seven foot two over the ball. If you threw it down towards your basket, they trapped it. And so the only thing, you know, did you want to fool with that or did you just want to chuck it in the back court and not screw with it? And that’s what everybody did is threw it in the back court. They’re just like, let’s get the ball in bounds. And I went. They just took away every team’s side OB stuff that was done non-existent. I just remembered that. And then I became the head coach at Chattanooga in 2004, which seems like yesterday and it’s not. And my first hire was a guy named Charlton Young, who was the associate head coach at Auburn under Cliff Ellis. And my boss, Levo went to Auburn and took over Cliff Ellis’ job. And Charlton Young came with me at Chattanooga. And I said, Charlton, your side OB stuff. I loved it. Do you think we could invent something under OB similar to that? Because I don’t want to spend one hour going through every team’s under OB stuff. It’s just not what I want to do. I don’t want to waste time. Here’s the deal, guys. And I flipped it through years of anxiety I had at Chattanooga about that. I was going to have to play Chapman. Got it? I had to play Chapman. I had two dudes there, Corney and Corian, that were dudes. All right. And we had to play Chapman. And I would scout and I would drive myself flipping crazy word about you two clowns. Got it? I was worried about it. And so, but I flipped it. When I went to Alabama Huntsville, I flipped it. And I started doing it at Chattanooga. I just wasn’t smart enough. Instead of playing against you, you had to play against me. And I flipped it. And instead of playing against all your under OB stuff that you spend a lot of time doing, screw you, you have to play against our stuff. So I ain’t going to pay attention to your crap. You have to deal with our stuff. And that’s where this whole thing started is that we wanted to be different. We wanted to be uncommon and I didn’t want to play against your stuff.
John Shulman 09:10
I tell you why, because your stuff’s better than my stuff. And I firmly believe that I know who I am. I’m very self-aware of who I am. So if I’m not as good as you, I don’t want to play against your crap. So now I’m going to do different things under OB. And so the first thing we talked about was I was like, why can’t we trap under OB like Auburn did on side OB? So just be honest, we came up with the philosophy. We put the five over the ball. We put the three men on the ball side wing, almost like he was playing a one two, two going in the full court. And he kind of funneled everything to the ball side corner. We put the two on the midline of the lane. And we told him to sway back and forth like a crap and make sure that ball didn’t go to the opposite corner. We protected the basket with our four and we put the one on the ball side elbow. And what we did out of this was we started trapping. If you threw the ball to the ball side, the wing, which everybody has somebody coming to the wing, we trapped it. And then people stopped wanting to throw it there. So what did they do? They started panicking at the, and we put the five over the ball. I don’t know who y’all throw the ball in bounds with, but most people throw the ball in bounds with their point guard or perimeter guy. So now we got our biggest guy on you and you’re stationary. And we called him the mad man, wild man. And if he didn’t touch the ball, we took him out of the game, touch the flipping ball. And all of a sudden he’s creating chaos on the ball. All of Bruce Pearl. That’s another part of this thing I want to talk about was all of a sudden you panic one, one thousand, two, one thousand. You didn’t go on to throw it to the ball side. We just chucked it in the back court. We were athletic enough where we had our one man on the ball side elbow, where we go one, one thousand, two, one thousand. And we start leaking back out of there and we would pick off a couple of those. If you did throw the ball to the ball side wing, we trapped with our five and our three and then our four would come be an interceptor or one would be an interceptor and we left because the ball was in the corner trap.
We let the two men, instead of being a goalie, we let him be a flyer up the lane. So if they did skip it, we can still it. I mean, run something against that voice. You ain’t running your man stuff. You’re not running your zone stuff. The goal is we’re going to flip it on that. I believe in four or five point swings. If we can get a steal right there, we can go get a layup at the four point swing and do three, four point swings. And that’s a 12 point game. And that as ball game, a lot going back to what Bob McKillip says, these are pretty important plays.Well, so we started doing that in my first year at Chattanooga, we go to the NCAA tournament, we should have beaten Chris Paul and wait for us in the first round and then people adjusted to it. And then we started, it’s okay. They’re going to adjust to it. Let’s put the five over the ball and let’s make it look like this zone beat trapping the, and then we started switching everything out of man. And now you didn’t know if we were in what we call deep and that’s our kind of our zone to our traps, or we were in playing man to man deep. And then we started fooling around, putting the five men on the ball. And as soon as the official was going to get in the ball, we backed off of it. And we started playing some zone out of it.
Dan 12:28
And coach, on that note, what were some of the, I guess, benefits that you started to see in changing things, disguising things, you know, having something that was a go to for a long time, but then being able to mix things in and be a little bit more unpredictable, anything learning’s in there.
John Shulman 12:45
Let me ask you this question. You’re sitting over there as a coach and the ball goes out of bounds underneath the bucket and you are juiced out of your mind. You’re going, Oh my God, this, I’m going to show my woman. I’m going to show everybody in the world that what a great coach I am. And you’ve watched us play 10 games and we play man to man D on every single under OBD. So what are you really prepared for? You’re going to run all your man stuff. You’ve got on your play sheet. This is what we’re going to run and bang bang. Well, what if we played zone every single time you’re ready for that? What if you mix it up every single time? What if? Yeah. So what if you played zone one time? What if you trap one time out? What if you played man one time? What if you switched out of it? Put the one man on the ball and put them underneath the bucket. What if you switched up these every single time on under OB defense? I’m just going to tell you this. You would drive the other coach crazy. That is what we try to do. Like I just said, your stuff is way better than my stuff. And I firmly believe that if I firmly believe it, then I’m going to mix and match our D under OB. I don’t have an ego anymore. A 37 year old version of me, I had an ego. Now we’re going to play man, or we’re going to play that deep deal. We’re going to trap and we’re going to be tougher than everybody else. We’re going to be meaner and tougher than everybody else. Well, I’m not at Chad new anymore. They want to be gone after nine years. So I was like, that crap didn’t work. So let’s try something different. What I did is I reinvented myself as a basketball coach, just to be honest.
I did that at Alabama Huntsville. And now we play five or six different defenses under OB. And we spend time with it. It’s not something we just throw in there. It’s not something real complex, just to be honest. It’s something that the kids have a great time doing it because they think they’re screwing with you. You know, you get kids that think they’re messing with you. They’re having a good time. They’re like, coach, let’s try this, man. Let’s try mixing this up and we’ll try this. And that’s what we’ve done. We take great pride in our under OB defense.
And we’re just trying to screw with your brain. We’re just trying to mess with you. We’re look how good we are. We’re just trying to mix it up so much that you don’t know what to run. And if you chuck that thing deep, then we win because that means you didn’t have anything to do against our stuff, except chucking it deep. And now we get to play our normal D in the first place.
Dan 15:20
Coach, great stuff. Love all the history on it. At one point you mentioned that you had to adjust because teams were kind of figuring out the deep a little bit. What were they doing that you needed to adjust to? Was it alignment? Was it movement?
John Shulman 15:33
It would try to screen in my foreman or pop in front of the two. Ed Conroy is a jerk. All right. He’s at the citadel. Now he’s a buddy of mine. We used to put our foot, our two man who was guarding against the opposite corner. We put one foot out of bounds. So you couldn’t throw it over there. And Ed Conroy told me if it can’t do that, I’m going to throw the ball over there. They’re going to hit it. That’s technical. That’s the same thing as hitting the ball in the band. And he got that call. I looked down and flipped him a bird during the game. I was like, thanks a lot, Ed. You just screwed up my whole philosophy. You know, getting that ball to the opposite corner. Listen, I’m coming from D two. A lot of D two baskets are from the ceiling or from the wall. All right. They don’t have a stanchion. Got it. And so it was a lot harder to do it because all you’re going to do is back up. So the ball back up and then throw it to the opposite corner with that basket. How it is, it makes guys nervous. They’ll throw that ball over there and hit the stanch. They’ll throw that ball over and hit the bottom of the bat board. All this is, is deception. So if you’re able to rush the quarterback without blitzing. wouldn’t that be a good thing to do is be able to put pressure on the quarterback. We’re all humans out here. You put pressure on me, you know, I may screw up.
That’s why that five man over the ball. If you screen in my four man and you screen in my two man, if I’ve got pressure on the ball, it doesn’t matter. It’s kind of like you may want to talk about doubling in the post. If we have a double in the post and you can’t see the weak side, it doesn’t matter if my guys, my guys may go eat a fried baloney sandwich. Those other two guys, they’re off the court eating a baloney sandwich. It doesn’t matter because if the ball can’t see those other dudes, it doesn’t matter. If I’ve got a five man over the ball, putting pressure on the ball, mirroring the ball and taking that serious, you can come up with unbelievable concepts, but it doesn’t really matter if he can’t see it and he can’t make that play. And so there’s a lot of stuff. You can screen it, you can screen in, you can occupy my three man and screen in my four and try to hit that seal right there. But once again, if my five man is active, you know, I had a high school buddy of mine do it and he had this big doofus that was like, you know, all big doofuses, they’re either going to play basketball or they’re going to do the big drum in the band or the big trumpet guy in the band. And this dude played in the band, but it’s like his mom won him be on the basketball team. So every under OBD this kid subbed in, he subbed in stood in front of the basket. Y’all are young guys. UNC Asheville had a guy, a big old guy named Kenny George 112 years ago, that every time they had the ball underneath the bucket, they brought him in. He was seven, eight, something like that. They stood him right under the bucket and he went and touched the rim. And then they filled the ball and he dunked it. Well, every under OBD, it’s important enough. Bucky McMillan at Sanford. Well, we talked many, many years ago, you know, what if you play the game like this? This is an abstract concept.
But what if you play the game where every time you had the ball underneath that you put in your best offensive players, this is abstract. What if every time the other team had the ball under OB, you put in your best defenders and you try to get that stop that moment. And so I’m just saying that under OBD, put a big guy in, put them over the ball. It really doesn’t matter what you run, because if you’re putting pressure on the ball, listen, when are you going to panic? You got the ball one, 1000, you’re fine to 1000 at three, at 3.5 seconds. You’re just trying to get the ball and bounds, you know, and my guys over there go one, two, three, and going nuts on the ball. We’ve gotten scored on. It’s funny. You can work 10 straight times with it in practice. And after the fourth time they start trying to be funny and ball fake and trying to hit a scene, we’ll then change these, you know, put that five men on the ball and then back him off. And now you’re playing zone when that they’re not as funny anymore. Haha, funny, funny. Now I gotcha. All right. And then the next time, put the five men on the ball and switch every screen. Well, now that’s different. The fives on the ball. So if I’m the other coach and the fives on the ball, I’m assuming you’re running your deep stuff. Well, now you’re running, you’re playing your man D now you’re backed off. Now you’re playing in a zone, just talking to you all about it. It’s me so flipping juiced up about this year coming up because we will not play the same under OBD twice in a row.
But once again, I’m not trying to micromanage every part of the game. I want to get people at 37. I want to be the smartest dude in the room. I’m not going to tell you how old I am right now, but I don’t want to be the smartest dude in the room. So I want my offense guy at that time out. I’m just letting you know, we got the ball. I’m looking at my oldest son going, Mac, what are we running? Ain’t my decision. What are we running? And then I’ll look at him at better flipping work, max. It better work. I just know that.
Pat 21:02
When you change it up and you said you put the five on the ball and you’ll switch everything, I mean, that’s similar to like the zone. You’re trying to encourage maybe a pass to the wing. I guess when you’re going switch everything, are you trying to deny horse catch areas? Like what then are you talking about with the other four defenders in the switch?
John Shulman 21:18
Well, we played a little different. We got to make sure as we’re defending, we’re making sure that our heads are turned to the other guy, that we’re not just going to get blindsided. We are kind of risking it all during that time. And we’re trying to absolutely get a five second call. Absolutely. Try to get a hand on the ball, just doing something different. I’m just trying to mess with you. You know, it’s the same thing. Well, once I come off a ball screen and you’re going to hard hedge every single time, after a while, hopefully the goodness, we can figure out some way in our Princeton stuff where you can attack your stuff. Now, if you hard hedge one time and you switch it one time and you double it one time, I got some issues with you. I’m not scheduling your team anymore. Well, I don’t want to deal with that.
Pat 22:07
When you are switching, maybe the answer is you’ll do both. Like you’ve been talking about with the five man on the ball. Will you have him pressure the whole time? If you’re going to switch where you have them for like the two seconds, then back off to protect the rim and slips or anything with the switch.
John Shulman 22:21
We have done it multiple ways. We’ve owned the ball the whole time and then we’re like two seconds on, you know, in deep in our zone stuff, everybody asks, are you shading it to protect the basket? Absolutely not. We are right on top of the ball. There is a dead area right behind the five that’s open. You’ve been kayaking. It’s like a little Eddie right there. It’s like a little Eddie right behind that five man. Well, you can’t get the ball there. So it doesn’t matter if it’s guarded or not, but you talk about if we’re switching and you’re on the ball, one, one thousand two, one thousand, and then you can shade, but in our man D we would never back him off. We do back him off in our zone stuff, but we start him on the ball. So as you call your set and Bob McKillop, as your kid is tying his shoe to make sure that he knows what we’re in, if we’re in man or zone and giving the coach enough time to make that call and our files on the ball, well, what are we in? Are we in man? Well, no, it looks like they’re in zone. It looks like they’re trapping. And then all of a sudden the official is getting ready to hand him the ball. And then we back up off the ball. And now all of a sudden we’re in something completely different.
I think if you just lined up and played the game, I think it’s going to be a six to eight point game anyway. I think it’s going to be plus five minus five with five to play. You better have some kind of angle and you better have something that you’re that much better at that you believe in. I’m a little different. I’m very different actually. Listen, it was a sad day when Bobby Knight passed away. It was just a blip on ESPN. It was some highlights and nobody even knew who Bobby Knight was. I remember, you know, I went to coach Knight’s Academy. We play without fouling. You look at our stats. I want to make more free throws in our opponent’s shoot. I think if you do that, you win. I promise to God, if you work on not fouling in practice, you won’t foul during a game. If you make more free throws in your opponent’s shoot, you’re going to win games. Period.
I don’t care what your under OBD is. I don’t care what your offense is. All right. Play without fouling. I can’t go to bed at night knowing that I didn’t guard. You can’t guard a 15 footer from the foul line. If they’re spending the whole game on the foul line. And if you rebound the ball, I’m just telling you, you’re going to win games.
Pat 25:55
You work on not fouling in practice. And I’m just curious how you do do that. And if there are like situations you find that tend to lead to fouls that you’re kind of continually emphasizing or working on in practice.
John Shulman 26:08
Listen, I worked for Lebo for six years. He was an offensive guru. He didn’t give a rip about D whatsoever. And he was a young head coach at that time. And all we did defensive, all we would say is this right here, stay down, stay down, stay down. I was like, come on, man, there’s got to be more to it than this. Oh, come on, stay down, stay down. And you know what? He made an unbelievable point. He didn’t know he was making an unbelievable point, but he made an unbelievable point. You know, low man wins, right? If you’ll just stay down. So we have rules. You do not block your own man shot. Don’t block your own man shot. If you’ll just do that, you’re not allowed to raise, then you’re not going to foul. You’re not going to get in foul trouble. We do a lot of doubling in the post. And so you’re not going to get in a jam inside. We have done a really good job. That’s what people make fun of me. We do a great job of building the wall so we don’t let you in the paint. And there’s nothing that drives me more crazy in this game of basketball than fouling a shooter. But remember, I’m old. I mean, if you even thought about fouling a jump shooter when I was 16 years old, they would kill you. And you may be suspended from school the next day. If you ever fouled a shooter, you were not allowed to foul a shooter. That was the cardinal sin. Remember, guys, I had to guard Steph Curry, not me, but my teams. All right. Steph was in Davidson when I was at Chattanooga. And so I understand that I couldn’t beat Bob McKillip and Steph Curry, but those are once in a lifetime dudes out there.
But we have two heavy balls on the side. If you’re raising, you’re running with the heavy ball. If you’re fouling, you’re running with the heavy ball. It’s a misprinciple. Stop fouling. And we’ve started to play a little bit more zone, but I’m a big believer. If you know you can’t block your own man’s shot, that means you’re going to stay down. Getting back to Jeff Leibos, just stay down and guard the ball. We’ve all done it. We get all geeked up in practice and we want our teams to be tough and mean and nasty. In that first game, all we do is yell, stop fouling, stop fouling. And our players should look at us and say, why we’ve been fouling for the last six weeks in practice. And you haven’t said the crowd, we’re going to continue to do your teams are going to do what you do in practice. If you’re playing football in practice, which I’m not saying you don’t, but if you’re playing football in practice, then you’re going to play football in the games, your kids, your players are going to do exactly what you are emphasized.
Dan 28:56
We appreciate your thoughts on all that stuff. We want to transition now to kind of a lightning round, quick hitting 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 of those options, Sub one, then Sit one on the bench, and then we’ll discuss from there. And so, Coach, if you’re ready, we’ll hop into this first Start, Sub, Sit for you. All right, I’m ready to roll. Okay, Coach, this first one has to do with career traits or things that you think a coach can have that help their career, either gain trust with other coaches or help just in the longevity of being a coach. And so, Start, Sub, or Sit, these three different maybe underrated things a coach can have in their skill set. Option one is their ability to read a room. Option two is just what I’m terming, next day readiness. So, win or loss, their ability, next day of practice to just get back at it. Or option three is their ability to zoom out and see the big picture. So, not get caught in the weeds, but to kind of see all that’s going on. So, Start, Sub, Sit, reading a room, next day readiness, or seeing the big picture as a coach.
John Shulman 30:05
You guys suck, I mean. Oh, how do you sit any of those? I’m serious. I ain’t sitting any of them. I’m sorry. I’m I’m getting technical because I’m playing all three because I could talk about all three. I would start all three. I’m sorry. So I’m going to deviate from your rules of your game. All right. Reading a room. Last time I checked, except the two, you can get out large berth. But whatever league I’ve been in, you better win the tournament and the tournament’s played in March. And so reading the room, you better have a feel on where your team is. And if you don’t have a feel where your team is, you got no shot. And so two years ago, we were kind of struggling ahead of young team. We got beat on the road. What are we doing? Practice? Hey, guys, we’re about to lose our team. We’re about to lose these young kids. We don’t need to practice. We need to go to a movie and eat pizza. If you don’t have a feel and you can’t read a room, you will lose your team.
Because in March, when the NCAA happened, some of these kids would rather go on spring break to Daytona Beach instead of dealing with jumping to the ball and boxing out on the weak side. You better be able to read a room. I’m starting that one. All right. Next day readiness. And I wish, guys, that I was that coach that was so level. And you couldn’t tell if you won a big game or lost a big game. Well, you can tell with me. All right. I have no problem saying that. There’s nothing better than winning that first game on a road swing. And there’s nothing worse than losing that first game. But there’s nothing better than that practice after you lose that first game on that road swing, where you get all that crap out. Listen, I’ve lost a lot in my career. There is no better learning tool than losing. I mean, why did you lose? Don’t lose for no reason. Don’t lose and get pissed off. Get your paintings in a wad and just say, screw it, man. Learn why you lost. There’s a reason why you lost. So next day readiness. I am the best at losing and being ready that next day. All right. So I’m starting that one, too. And zooming out and seeing the big picture. I’m sorry, but my first year at Chattanooga, we lost a big one in November and I am freaking out. And Charlton Young wants to kill me as associate head coach at Missouri. Now we are about to fight in the hallway. He’s like, oh, there’s no reason to lose your team in November when the tournament’s in March. And I’m like, oh, now I’m old enough to figure that out. Now, when you look at the big picture, we open at BYU Central Arkansas. We’ve had one winning season in the last 18 years. Got it? We open at BYU. They’re getting dudes in there right now. I cannot go into that game and go, oh, my God, if we don’t win that game, we suck. No, that’s not how I’ve got to be able to see the big picture in the long picture and zoom out. And now I’m much better at that. So I’m sorry, I ain’t sitting any of them. I ain’t subbing any of them. I’m starting all three. I don’t even know the rules of technical. Just Mr. So tell me how many shots they get and let’s play ball.
Dan 33:28
No problem coach. We’ve had that happen before and we agree all these are great traits and I wanted to ask you about kind of a mixture of these but learning from losing you mentioned there’s no greater teacher but you talked about the next day readiness and you feeling like you know you got a chance after that game to get back in practice and write the ship a little bit. What have you learned over your multiple stops about how you personally bounce back from the night before to get ready for practice.
John Shulman 33:57
It’s hard. It’s hard. First of all, I would say this. If you’re the coach that gets destroyed on the glass in the next day of practice, we work on rebounding. Then I say you’re a sucky coach. I don’t have it on my desk yet, but I will. Don’t get bored with the basics. Be proactive. So we work on boxing out every day so we don’t get in that situation where all of a sudden we get crushed on that. You cannot be reactive in this world. If this is important to you, it better be important to you before you lose. That’s why I think Nick Saban is the best.
I think he’s the absolute best. I wish he would coach again. He coaches guys, how you’re supposed to coach and remind me about that subject that we’re supposed to be talking about in the first place. All right. Having coaches like this when they’re winning, he’s ripping their balls, correct? The only time you saw Saban encouraging is when they’re losing. He’s not freaking out. He’s encouraging. Well, I hate to tell you 98% of us don’t coach like that. When we’re winning, we’re happy. When we’re losing, we’re mad and we’re pissed off and we’re wanting to kill somebody. Well, when they’re winning, we already know we’re winning. We already know we’re doing good. They don’t need to say, hey man, look how good y’all are doing. You got to stay on them at that moment. When they’re losing, that’s when they need you the most. They don’t need you ripping their nuts. They may need you saying, hang in there, man, hang in there.
Coach, I’m 0 for 9 for the three. Yeah, you’re going to make your last five. Hang in there. Keep chucking it up there. I used to be the opposite and I still the opposite a little bit, but I think that one’s really important. Getting back to your next day of readiness for practice, you got pin up aggression after you get your tail end whipped on the road or whenever, you got to get it out of your system and there’s no better way than getting it out of your system and doing what you’re supposed to do and not having anxiety.
The only thing that you can control is your own team. You can’t control anything else. So get your own team better. And once again, we play in Chapman boys. We’re not playing y’all. Y’all are playing us and you’re going to have to play us. And now all of a sudden every shot goes up. I’m sticking a form in your chest and now you’re going to have to come through us and we got to make it about us. We can’t worry about you because if I start worrying about you, then I can’t sleep at night. And if I can’t sleep at night, then I can’t coach my team. I can’t be a decent coach. I can’t be a decent husband. I can’t be a decent dad. I’m freaking out because at the end of the day, and I just told this to a buddy of mine, if something happened to me today, they would have a replacement for me in two weeks. There’d be another coach sitting in this desk in two weeks. So we’re all replaceable. So we cannot be freaking out and killing ourselves over trying to win a game because I tried that and it did not work.
Pat 36:56
It’s my follow-up. I like to ask about reading a room and you get a good example of the time your team needed a pizza and a movie versus a practice and Just what you’ve learned from your experience to understand those types of situations and when your team actually maybe know We need the practice first. Yeah, we know we need the pizza like what have been the factors the characteristics or things that you pick up on
John Shulman 37:20
The only sport I cannot enjoy watching is basketball. I don’t sit back on my couch and get a Diet Mountain Dew or Diet Coke and watch basketball and enjoy watching basketball. I’m trying to learn, but I enjoy every other sport. I enjoy watching sports. So I’ve got a buddy of mine who’s a PGA golfer and oh my God, I love this guy. He’s the older guy now, but he’s one on the PGA Tour. He won on the Champions Tour. He went and watched us in a game down at Florida International. Isaiah Thomas was coaching then and I was freaking out. I was on our team hard. We got beat 20 to 25 that night in Miami. We got on the bus and my golfer guy was on the bus with us and I said, I’m going to kill him. And he looked at me. He went, you are exhausted. Your team is exhausted. When I’m exhausted out on the golf course, I can’t get better. I can’t hit a ball. I can’t get better. I can’t think properly. You don’t need to kill them. Y’all need to rest because you cannot learn if you are fatigued and you can’t get better if you’re fatigued.
And I was like, huh, that was interesting. We flew back home to Chattanooga the next day. We had a team meeting that night at my house. We had Appalachian and Georgia Southern that weekend. We took Monday off. That was like, what are we doing? Well, we’re taking money off. We’re going to get refreshed. All right. We practiced Tuesday and Wednesday, not long. And we whipped Appalachian on that Thursday. And now we’re back at it. I think you learn from everybody. You learn from people in the business world, you know, I mean, those people burn out, man. Those people get fatigued. We’ve taken great pride. And I’ll say this, we’ve taken great pride in being good in the month of February and March at Huntsville and at Chattanooga.
We were really good in those months. That’s when you need to be really good. That’s when your season’s defined. You know, we may not beat BYU in Utah in our first swing. Nobody’s going to remember that at the end of the year. They’re going to remember how we do in the A sun. So why lose your team at that moment? I went to watch Steve Ford’s practice at East Tennessee state at like October the 20th. And I went over there and he had like seven guys practicing. Where is everybody? I was like, everybody’s hurt. I was like, what do you mean everybody’s hurt? He said, Schulman, we’ve been practicing since June. Everybody’s fatigued. Well, that doesn’t make any sense. And so I don’t want to fall in that trap.
Now that I’m D one, Mr. Cool guy, D one, I don’t want to fall in that trap. We had practice yesterday and we got it again today. We’re going for an hour, but it may be good here in two weeks to instead of practicing to go play a little select shot golf tournament. And last time I checked, we’re coaching a game, correct? Correct. It’s a game. We don’t think it’s a game because we’re stupid people. We make it more than the game, but it’s a game. The best practices we had are in February. When we’re getting ready to do shell for the next 20 minutes and I put their jerseys on and we’re ready to kill each other. And one of my assistants brings out faces and we play wiffle ball for the next hour. You talk about going from, Hey, we’re playing with and having the time of their life. It’s okay.
You know why it’s okay to have fun? Because in 25 years, nobody’s going to give a rip on how central Arkansas did in the year 24, 25, they’re not going to care. So we might as well impact these kids as much as we can impact these kids right now and do the best we can do. I thought the best I could do is go to the NCAA tournament. And if I didn’t, I was a failure. Well, I realized that that’s not the case. And I fool around a lot, but I’m a very serious and emotional guy. And I’m very appreciative of being back on this level because I never thought I would be back on this level, but I’m going to do it my way this time.
Dan 41:20
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Pat 42:32
Our last Start Sub Sit for you, we’re going to go back to the court. This has to do with switching defense. We hit on a little bit, but we’d like to come back to it.
And I’m going to give you three pressing questions to answer when you’re going to run a switching defense in the half court. So Start Subsits, option one is figuring out how you want to switch. Option two is figuring out what you want to switch. And then option three is how you are going to solve mismatches after the switch.
John Shulman 43:02
So switching how to switch what to switch and what was that last one.
Pat 43:07
Solving mismatches post-switch.
John Shulman 43:10
All right, I’m sitting that I can give a rat’s ass about a mismatch.
Pat 43:13
Okay.
John Shulman 43:14
You ever heard that comment in Germany? A rat’s ass, I don’t say that over there. We say that in Tennessee. We say that hopefully they say that in Arkansas. All right. I believe in, I would start in what, what are we switching? Very simple. And I don’t know if we can do that on this level, but we may try. Even though my coaches hate me for it. What are we switching? I think it’s the most important. They have to know I’m not a big off the ball switch guy and everybody getting point and everybody getting lazy and no one can get through a screen, we have switched ball screens, handoffs and flare screens period. End of story.
And sometimes running the prints and stuff, they’re split actions. And one guy’s taken low and one guy’s taken high and that’s not switch. I was just being lazy and trying to outsmart people, but we switch ball screens, handoffs and flare screens. That’s it. I remember asking Rick Barnes when he was at Clemson. It’s a long time ago, man. And it drove me crazy. I’m a big jump to the ball guy defensively, big jump to the ball guy, big shrink, the court guy defensively. And every time we jumped the ball, God, we’re getting flare screened. And I was like, this is not even fair. I’m asking guys that jumped the ball and then having to guard a flare screen, how on earth we’re going to guard a flare screen. And I said, coach Barnes, how do you all guard player screens? He said, Oh, that’s easy. I was like, what? He said, we pressure the ball. And I was like, Oh, I don’t think you understood what I said. How do you guard a flare screen? Not a ball, a flare screen. He was like, we pressure the ball. And then he walked away. I was like, how cool is that man? Then I learned right there. I was like, you pressure the ball kind of gets back to under OB defense. It don’t matter how you guard. If you pressure the ball, it really don’t matter how you guard, but flare screens are always very difficult for us because we always jumped to the ball. All of a sudden you switch a flare screen and everybody’s just standing there. I know Nick pass was Mr. Intelligent, man. I love Nick. He’s speaking for us at Billist, but he did a lot of flare actions against us. We scrimmaged them last year and we just stood there and we just stood there and switched it and then we may get beat on a knife. We call it a knife on a slip on occasion. And that’s what you got to go back and work on in practice and make sure you’re coming together. But what you’re switching, they better know. So I’m starting that one. Those are non-negotiable trust, ball screens, handoffs, and flare screen, all right, period.
I would sub how you’re going to do it. You better know how you’re going to do it. Are we getting underneath? Are we touching? How are you going to switch on that flare screen? Are you getting underneath it? So you don’t get slipped how you’re doing it and teaching it. Well, I would say would be the sub. And I’m just telling you, I’m not a huge mismatch guy. I don’t think the mismatch hurts you on a ball screen action. I think if you’re hard hedging, I think the open shot on a shake behind. I think that beats you. I don’t think the mismatch beats you. You remember now we’re building that wall in a big way. So if I’ve got a big on a little out there, we’re still going to build the wall because we’re not going to foul. If we give up 15 threes a game. Oh, good Lord. One of y’all are smart enough. What’s 15 times three? I’m just asking. 45. Good answer. 45. And then we give up minimal free throws and minimal second shots and not a lot in the paint that may be gold, low 60s, maybe 65. If we can’t score more than 65 points, then I’m going to fire my son.
All right. And so people are going to score. Correct. I don’t think anybody’s ever shut somebody out. I want to tell you what you’re going to score, how you’re going to score. You give up threes and you give up twos and you give up free throws and you give up second shots and you may do a better job from the three point line, but you just gave up 85 points, I’m going to tell you, I’m going to know going into that game, how you’re going to score. And that’s where my switches. I think a little can guard a big inside. We’re going to front. We’re going to get his knees. We’re going to push back. And if he does catch ball and he goes, works himself out, we’re going to double the post anyway, we’re going to double it every single time. Anyway, I think the biggest aim that I would be worried about is on a shot. What are we doing on the glass? And I think you’d get hurt more there than you do on any kind of mismatch offensively, at least I got to start subbing. Yeah, yeah. That one. No tease on that one.
Dan 47:35
No technicals, sir.
Pat 47:36
Coach, looking at the D.H.O.s and specifically then how you’re going to switch on a D.H.O., what changes with a D.H.O. compared to a ball screen and how you switch it?
John Shulman 47:47
That’s my issue on hard hedging, doing all that stuff. Everybody is so good at doing all that mess and Zoom actions, and we call them Lincolns, which is your D-H-O. Switching allows me to sleep at night, just be honest.
All that crap and fighting through that and what are you switching there, and I’m just gonna tell you, when we started switching all handoffs and all ball screens, life became easy. And my oldest son has met at me this morning that if we’re gonna do all this ball screen stuff and all these handoffs, we have to do more than just switch and practice. Why? We can’t run, it deadens everything. Oh, okay. So you’re pissed off at me because we’re switching it and you can’t get an advantage. All you’re looking for on a ball screen and a handoff’s an advantage, right? Well, you come up and that switch is there, you got no advantage, it deadens everything out. Long story short, with Lebo, at the end of the games, we just played three-point D and that was switching everything because we didn’t wanna give up a three, got it? And then we had no time to prepare in the NIT that year. We had to play Dayton at Dayton, no time to prepare for them because it was the NIT and we just won a game and our travel is all screwed. So we just played three-point D the entire game.
And then we win that game at Dayton and we’re at Tennessee Tech, that doesn’t happen a whole lot, then we have to go to Yale and play and we did the same thing. And I remember talking to James Jones, but I remember after the game, we switched everything. We were sitting at Waffle House talking about it and we switched everything and it deadened everything. But who’s got balls to switch everything? Most people don’t. You know what most people do? They play man or they play zone. Most of them play man and they think they’re really good at teaching man. Why wouldn’t somebody just be completely different and do something? Why would you play a year and play a triangle and two for an entire year or play a diamond and one? Listen, guys, we just coming from D2 and playing Nova Southeastern. Why on earth would y’all be wasting your time talking to me on a call when you’re talking to Jim Crutchfield at Nova Southeastern? That dude is a flipping genius. He’s starting to infiltrate college basketball with his little minions out there. And I don’t like it at all because they’re scary, scary people, very scary people, but they just play different.
They’re pressing on makes, they’re pressing on misses and they’re relentless for 40 minutes and you cannot run anything. They’re tagging up on every shot. They don’t get back. They’re coming in and then you can’t get anything done. That was a long answer for a DHO. How about that? I just don’t believe, you know, those staggered ball screens, who’s doubling on the first one? Who’s hard hedging is that the first guy is the second guy. Man, when you just switch them, you sleep better at night and you may get hurt, but I still think it’s not the mismatch. I think it’s the open shot that beats you not the mismatch.
Dan 50:47
Coach, you’re off the start, sub, or sit hot seat. Thanks for playing that game with us. Coach, we’ve got one final question to close the show, but before we do, again, thank you so much for coming on, for being so open and thorough. We had a blast today, so thank you very much.
Well, I got one question for you.
John Shulman 51:03
Do I get to start at my sub or am I sitting in the pond? Tell me that.
Dan 51:08
You start, Coach, you are starting today..
John Shulman 51:12
Thank you.
Dan 51:12
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 Shulman 51:21
Listen, I will not get emotional talking about it. Invest in older coaches. Invest in the people. My boss, the one that I’ve busted his tail in about under OB defenses, is 88 years old. He’s sitting in Greenville, South Carolina in a kind of assisted senior living center. Man, those guys are invaluable. Coaching is the one profession I think that people don’t want to retire. Business people, that’s a job to them. Doctors, that’s a job. They want to retire. They go to the beach and they hang out. Coaches don’t want to retire.
This is not a job to us. This is a calling to us. And I’ve learned so much. Guys, I wouldn’t be… God almighty. I would be a JV basketball coach in high school had it not been for people investing in me. So why wouldn’t we invest in other people? And I’m going to Jay Billias camp tomorrow morning and I’ve got 40 young guys that are spending the weekend with me. I’m going to invest in them to try to help them to live their dream.
I’ve been a head coach 14 years, been to seven NCAA tournaments, D1 and D2. When I was D1, I went to two NCAA tournaments. I got to coach on CBS against Chris Paul and led at half because I’m good. No, because somebody invested in me and gave me a chance and they cared enough about me. I promise to God, if Alan Laforce didn’t do that, I would be nothing. If Richard Johnson at Wofford College hadn’t done that, I would be nothing. But I got to live my dreams because of other people.
So what are we supposed to do? We’re supposed to impact young kids. We’ll try to help them live their dreams. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. The most important investment, I’ve screwed up relationships, guys, because of winning and losing.
I’ll end with this. After Chattanooga got tired of me, I chose family over profession. And so we stayed in Chattanooga and I worked with some business guys for a year. And I was miserable because I was supposed to be coaching, but I didn’t know any better. And Will Wade took my job at Chattanooga and they got upset at home. I forgot who they got upset with. And I was bitter. I wasn’t bitter at that time. I was still bitter. And I was so happy they got beat at home. And I remember going in with these big time business guys the next morning. And I said, hey guys, y’all hear about Chattanooga last night. And every single last one of them turned around and went, no, what happened? They got upset at home. It doesn’t happen. It can’t happen. And they were like, oh, okay. They didn’t care. And what I’m trying to say is that we think the world revolves around us if we win or lose. Nobody cares. Everybody has their own issues. Everybody has their own stuff. So don’t coach for the wrong reasons. I was coaching for the wrong reasons.
I was coaching to make sure that we’re winning. Some people would look at me at the grocery store and go, man, look at that guy. That’s coaching for the wrong reasons. I sucked as a coach. I don’t suck at the coach right now because I coach for the right reasons. And that’s those kids that we have convinced to come to central Arkansas that we’re going to love and care for them. So really love and care for them and really impact them because if we lose next year, we win next year, life’s going to move on.
We got to do the right thing. And that’s for the kids and not for me.
Dan 54:53
All right, Pat, we love the podcast for a variety of reasons. Every guest is a little bit different. Terrific time today. Great guy. We’ve heard from people that helped us get introduced to him. You know, how good of a person he was and excited for him as he’s taken on this new journey, just getting the Central Arkansas head job after successful run Alabama Huntsville. So a ton of fun, ton of knowledge. Great podcast today.
Pat 55:18
Absolutely. Unbelievable energy from coach. I loved it. I think what we said the first thing when we hopped off like that’s a man who’s just super comfortable in his skin in his career where he’s at any hit on it throughout the podcast. Something I think we all kind of strive for.
Dan 55:32
Yep, let’s dive right in and we’ll get to our top three takeaways from the show and I will kick it to you for takeaway number one.
Pat 55:41
Yeah. Takeaway number one for me was just the value of being different. We had this similar conversation with coach Passner when we were talking about multiple defenses and it fit right in then with coach Shulman and his underneath out of bounds defenses. And he did a great job explaining them all and you know, stuff we were interested in, what is he doing with the five man on the ball, off the ball, trapping, I mean, all that tactical detail that we love, but overall for me, it’s just the value he thought about being different, how he came to that. He gave the whole backstory from the killer, his mentor and what he saw, and then it bled into the conversation at the end about switching and just why he switches everything because it’s just being different has value. And he wants to take the philosophy that he doesn’t want to worry about what the opponent’s going to do. He wants the opponent to worry about what he’s doing.
Dan 56:29
Yeah. And to kind of add to your point, we had coached John Beilin on a little while ago and got into like the history of how he got to what he did with the two guard offense. Basically, every coach as they get to whatever it is that they do, there’s a long history usually behind it and tweaks and variations and someone they took from or stole from or learned from or whatever it was. And I really enjoy hearing that and then getting to the end product or what has been the end product for him, which has been a unique way to guard the baseline out of bounds and the sideline out of bounds. And so I love that storyline of how coaches get there, but then to add to what you said, being different and unique underneath out of bounds, like he mentioned it, it turns a situation for the defense into one that causes, it’s a nerve-wracking situation. The ball’s below you, under the rim, it’s a hard place to guard. And it turns it into an advantage for him defensively as an opportunity to get a trap or to make you passive or to just not have to worry so much about the scout because he’s going to change it every time. He said they never play it the same time, so there’s four or five ways that they’ll use it. He went to the deep zone versus the switching and all these little variations I know he adds. And I think it’s, as a coach, an interesting way. We always talk about how you steal a possession and special situations, which he mentioned. And we think about offensive rebounding or maybe pressing or turnover margins and all those things are true. But here’s an interesting area where if you can gain an edge on guarding baseline out of bounds where one, they either just chuck it in the back court, and so he mentioned that’s a win, or you can get a good trap out of it and potentially a steal. And I really liked it. And you know what? I liked it too, because the numbers back it up. It’s a unique way to do it. And I think they write out, whether we’re excellent or one of the top teams last year, Alabama Huntsville, actually guarding underneath out of bounds.
Pat 58:25
There are two ways to look at it. He doesn’t want to worry about they’re underneath out of bounds and you get a great quote, even bad coaches have good underneath out of bounds. Yeah. Okay. We’re just going to zone. We don’t have to worry about what they run, but what I like about him and his perspective is that he zones to be proactive. You’re not going to really worry about sweat the scout, but we’re also going to be proactive and horse the traps. But then he mentioned like having the one man is at the ball side elbow after two seconds, like start to leak out and try to get steals on passes over the top. So I think that’s a big distinction. And I liked it a lot that extra layer. It’s not just, we don’t want to worry about it. Just throw it in and let’s play. Yeah. We don’t have to worry about it, but we’re also going to be proactive. And I think that’s on both sides of the ball. That’s what we’re trying to do. Whether you’re on offense or defense is be less reactive and more proactive and force your opponent always to be countering you or reacting to what you’re doing.
Dan 59:16
Yeah. And just to add to your point and kind of wrap up this first takeaway, you and I talked about baseline out of bounds a lot. We’ve talked with other coaches on how you guard it and there’s a lot of ways to be good at it. There’s some teams that are really good at it and they don’t switch and they just stay attached to their man. And that’s good too, but it was fun today to hear coach Shulman’s thoughts.
Pat 59:35
So Dan, keeping it rolling along here, I’ll throw it to you for the second takeaway from our conversation here with Coach Shulman.
Dan 59:42
Yeah. So for takeaway number two, I had tough to decide here, but just going with the conversation around reading a room that was from our start subset on career traits. And he got a self-assessed technical foul by just starting everything and refusing to play the game, basically. It was good. And we knew going in, this was a tough one because they’re all so important, but I just liked the conversation around reading a room. And I thought he gave really just good coaching wisdom throughout all the answers. I mean, he started all of them and they’re all really important and he detailed why they were. But I think he talked about the experience as a coach of being able to read, have a sense of your team. He talked about taking them to pizza one night in a movie versus just overly practicing them to death. He had a good story in there about his friend who was a pro golfer, seeing them play and then losing that game by 25 and saying, hey, I think he had a good quote, like you can’t learn or can’t grow when you’re tired or exhausted. So I enjoyed the conversation around reading a room.
And I think that’s something you and I are always after here on the podcast. It’s beyond fun for us to detail the tactical decisions and detail how you run even going back to the first bucket, some of the decisions on the deep zone and all that. But the art of everything is also what we’re always after, which is things it’s hard to be taught, which is reading a room, understanding your own team. And I think it goes back to what you said, understanding who you are, understanding who your team is. There’s not a clinic you can attend or a video you can watch to really gain that knowledge. It’s something that you got to personally work at. And I think he spoke well about his journey into that.
Pat 01:01:22
Part of the conversation really showed off the great perspective he has not only on coaching but on managing a season from reading a room and like seeing the big picture and I think just understanding as a coach what we’re going to be judged on or whether you know what our season is going to be looked on is how will we do in you know he said February, March for college or right around the end of the season leading the playoffs. That’s crunch time and when things really matter that you be good and I think kind of holding that picture in mind allows you to then earlier in the season kind of frame things better for as a coach is it’s hard to you know we always talk about saying consistent but it’s hard it’s really hard to stay consistent in our emotions and our attitude you know when winning losing you know it hurts the high as the lows and I think that would shown across that he has his perspective on just seeing the big picture and then how do I manage the team to make sure we’re in March, February we’re playing the best basketball we’re capable of and sometimes like I said it has maybe wiffle ball and maybe pizza sometimes maybe getting on them and then it also bleeds into like you know he mentioned what does he want to be good at it’s baseline out of bounds it’s they’re switching defense or whatever but knowing that this is what I want to be good at he had a great quote it’s got to be important to you before you lose
Dan 01:02:38
Yeah, my last thought on this kind of reminded me of we talked with Dylan Murphy, head coach of the Osceola Magic G-League recently. And with Coach Murphy, we were talking a little bit about how you look at or analyze practices or games. And Coach Murphy was talking about trying not to have knee-jerk reactions throughout the season and seeing the big picture. And obviously they play a lot of games in the G-League and just seeing farther down the road has been helpful for him.
And it reminded me of this here with Coach Shulman of just losing a couple games he mentioned earlier there on the road at BYU in Utah with a young team of eight freshmen. He’s not going to lose his team then, I thought was really good. And quickly the other point was Stan Van Gundy talked about segmenting a season as an NBA coach into seven or eight game stretches. So you kind of have a better sense of your team over the long haul and having these little benchmarks for your team to hit and seeing how they’re playing within those smaller runs and seeing down the road. I thought it was really good conversation there.
Pat 01:03:38
Yeah. Just follow up with coach Murphy. He gave a great analogy, like pushing the big rocks. I thought that was a really good analogy.
Metaphor. Which one is it? Metaphor metaphor. Yeah. You have a really good metaphor of pushing the big rocks when kind of looking at what you should be or should not be addressing with your team.
Dan 01:03:57
Absolutely. Last takeaway, I’ll kick back to you on basically anything from the pod.
Pat 01:04:03
Yeah, my last takeaway was from our switching conversation and the last start subset specifically when we got into the player conversation first. And I’ll give you credit when we were coming up with this question, which three pressing questions we want to ask. And I thought the, what we want to switch was the missing link that we were struggling to come up with. So credit to you there. I mean, he obviously started it. So it was important to him, but yeah, just being clear in what you want to switch. And I liked his clarity. That was ball screens, DHO and players. And then he went right into the flares. And I think he kind of knew that’s where we were going to take it because we’ve had a big appreciation for flares and just the beauty of them and the struggle to defend them. Flares are friends. Friends of players. So circling back to my first takeaway, I mean, he talked about just the value of being different and that it’s just going to dead in everything. And kind of, you know, he said, of course, you know, you got to discuss how you want to switch, how you want to guard the slip or the knife, I believe you called and that stuff, then you address and practice, but overall just like keep your life simple. Yep. And it’s a tough action to guard, but if you switch it, I think you take away a little bit more gray.
Dan 01:05:11
Absolutely. I think he mentioned he started sleeping better at night when they did switch those actions instead of the millions of things that offenses do to gain an advantage in those DHO, the pick and rolls of flares. He got into, and I’ll add to your point, he didn’t care much about the mismatch, that that’s something where, okay, yeah, so what we’ve run the pick and roll, we get a mismatch at the post, but we’re going to come probably double it anyways. I think he mentioned. So it wasn’t something that really kept him up at night as much.
And so the other thing I liked within all that, I think he talked about teams are going to score how he wants them to score. He talked about kind of working backwards with your defense. If teams are scoring how they want to score, hitting threes, getting to the rim, shooting more free throws than you, like you’re going to lose, but if you’re not going to shut people out, but if you’re able to set up a defense that for the most part gives up shots that you want and teams are going to have to beat you that way, then you can sleep at night more. And I think switching allowed him to do that more, especially those actions to say, listen, we’re not going to get beat on the shake throwback catch and shoot three. You have to beat us on an ISO after a mismatch or go to the post and make another play. And I just like the insights there, too. Yeah.
Pat 01:06:25
To his philosophy of not fouling, you know, maybe this is a miss, I should have followed up or tried to connect this thought. But if he’s switching and deadening, kind of everything, then you’re chasing less, there’s less close outs because you’re not really having to pull in on tags. Yeah, you’re not chasing hard over DHO’s work. I mean, if you just put in the blenders, you’re going to probably lead to more possibilities to foul. And like he said, he kind of worked backwards, like even if you have a great three point shooting night, but if we don’t foul, so we take away your free throws, we’re going to sit in the gaps. We’re going to jump. I mean, another side note, I thought he raised a great point when, you know, they were so jumped to the ball heavy. That’s why teams started flaring on them. But if they’re going to protect the rim, they’re not going to foul. Like even if a great three point shooting night, it’s still going to put us in the game because we’re going to take away everything else. And so going back to I, I think it’s a miss, I would have liked to just kind of dig deeper on like his overall philosophy and how switching aids and them not fouling.
Dan 01:07:19
Well, great stuff there. You just mentioned a couple of little misses anything else from your end miss wise not from coach Shulman Of course, but we could have gone deeper on
Pat 01:07:29
Kind of staying on the same conversation of the switch. He did mention mismatch rebounding was maybe one point he would think about or kind of could give him some stress. Then he also referenced how they work on boxing out every day too. So just how he approached solving when the shot goes on mismatch rebounding with his approaches, philosophy or tactics, anything of that nature.
Dan 01:07:50
Yeah. I think I would just add a quick miss from me was I thought his best investment answer was terrific investing in older coaches, mentors, and investing in players. And you just get the sense throughout the show that he’s, like you said, become who he is. He knows who he is. And I think that journey as a coach is unique to all of us, but it’s always interesting to hear more about it. And maybe it just would have been interesting to dive into some of those stops that he’s had or some places that he’s been at and what he’s learned from would have been interesting too to dive a little deeper on. Pat, anything else as we start wrapping up the show here?
Pat 01:08:26
No, I’m good. Thank you again, Coach Shulman, for your time.
Dan 01:08:29
Really appreciate it. Absolutely and we wish you luck as you get started there at Central Arkansas. Thank you everybody for listening. We’ll see you next time.