We sat down this week with Houston MBB Assistant/Head Coach in Waiting, Kellen Sampson. In this terrific conversation we discuss winning the margins, unscripted points, offensive rebounding principles, and explore topics of playing with two bigs, and elite player development sessions during the always entertaining “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Transcript
Kellen Sampson 00:00
The funnest thing to coach the world’s offense. Who doesn’t love coaching offense and running plays and looking at different and unique and creative ways to score the bean? Let’s spend the time and effort and energy all summer installing the nuts and bolts of our defense and then we can get to the fun stuff later. Now you don’t eat your dessert first. You gotta eat dinner, then you get dessert. It’s the same thing here. And the methodology behind it is if we’re running our defense at a really high level, we’re gonna score enough points anyway. We’ll have time to build in our half court offense as we go.
Dan 02:01
And now, please enjoy our conversation with Coach Kellen Sampson. Coach, thank you very much for coming on the show. Congrats again on another fantastic season. I know you’re all gearing up to get at it again. Thanks for making the time for us today.
Kellen Sampson 02:20
Always good to talk a little ball, talk a little shop, made a great year. It was a magical run.
I wish everybody could be around as awesome of a group of guys and human beings as we were this past year. It truly kind of is what makes coaching the best.
Dan 02:34
Well, coach, we’re excited to jump in with a bunch of things today. And what we wanted to lead the show with is something that I think anybody that’s ever watched you guys play over the last number of years is just the way that you win and dominate the margins and unscripted points, all these extra possessions that you all do so well at and I think the philosophy, the teaching, the thoughts behind unscripted points and winning the margins.
Kellen Sampson 03:02
Every time that coach Epson asks all of us on our staff to do an exercise, but close your eyes and imagine or visualize what you want your team to look like on your best of nights when you think you’re at your A game. What does your team look like? What do you envision them being? And there’s a million and a half ways to peel the orange. There’s a million and a half ways to go about winning a game. But for us, there’s a certain level of physicality that’s our brand of ball that we take a lot of pride in. I think it speaks to how we recruit certainly speaks to how we train in the weight room. I think it certainly speaks to how we build our June through really December. You’re still putting things into your toolbox. You’re still fortifying and reinforcing your attitude, your culture, your identity. You’re still adding to the DNA. Once you get to conference play, your foundation is a pretty good version of itself. You’re just adding some layers and things like that. But for us, unscripted points is more against the culture here. It’s the identity. It’s who we are.
It’s how we’re going to go from tight, close, hard fought game to a Houston advantage. And so we identify unscripted points in three areas. Number one is second chance points. Number two is points off turnovers. And then number three is fast break points. And all of those, every unscripted point is an extra effort play. And you say, well, what’s an extra effort? That’s where we find a way to out effort our opponent. And that may mean there’s a little bit of subjectivity there because it’s a little bit of a moving goal post, so to speak, based on the opponent and the given night. But on the nights that our unscripted points are 40 plus, we’re really hard to beat.
We know that when we walk into a fight, there’s X amount of baskets we’re going to get in the half court on the nights that were a first make first shot team, we’re probably going to blow you out. But our whole thing is how do we still win when our ball doesn’t go in? We look at winning games based off the idea that we’re not going to be a first shot, that sometimes you plan for the worst and hope for the best. Best case scenario for us is that we get a bunch of first shot makes. Worst case scenario for us is that we don’t, we still got to find a way to get the zero zeros on the clock, probably to eat those of us or our equalizer. And then a lot of times our deciding factor is our ability to go get our own missed shots. The whole idea there is in the premises is we want to get twice as many second chance points as you get fast break. People always ask, well, how do you send or commit as many bodies as you guys do to the offensive glass? Don’t you worry about transition defense? And our line of thinking has always been best transition defense we have is the fear we put into you about our rebounding. When you’re preparing for Houston, you don’t necessarily spend all week working on your transition offense. You’re spending most of your week working on your tough guy, your blue collar, Army week, all that nonsense, because you’re petrified of what we’re going to do to you on the backboards. So with that in mind, yes, we spend a lot of time working on transition defense, but number one transition defensive tool in our toolbox is our ability to go get our missed shot. That starts with recruiting, right? You don’t recruit a bunch of skinny asses who shoot nothing but corner three-point shooting as foremen and expect to be this dominant offensive rebounding. It doesn’t work that way.
And so there’s a give and a take. Give is maybe we target and prioritize Big Sous ethos and their DNA is to rebound. And then we can make a good rebounder better. It’s hard to make a bad rebounder good, like a shooter. It’s really hard to make a bad shooter, a good shoot. Impossible? No, but it’s hard. And so, well, how do you get your kids to rebound as well as you do? We recruit it and then we get good rebounders better. And then you end up with what we got. But the give is that we sometimes sacrifice at times a little bit of spacing or a little bit of perimeter skill with some of our bigs, because we know our DNA is to go get our own missed shot.
That leads to points off turnovers. Probably the first thing that we’re going to work on when our team gets back in the summers, we’re going to start working on our pick and roll defense. Our pick and roll defense is the disruptor for us. We don’t want to simply keep you in front. We don’t want to simply just make sure that the ball doesn’t hurt us. Our idea is to disrupt the ball handler. And our idea is to generate a little chaos every time you want to pick and roll. Every time you want to use pick and roll defense, because that generates scoring opportunities for us.
We talk a lot about this as we need clean defensive rebounds, but we need dirty deflections. What we mean by a dirty deflection right is it does us no good to generate a deflection and not generate a turnover. Clean rebounds, which means we get a rebound clean and we get an outlet clean. The other team doesn’t get a tip on it. Dirty deflection means that we get a hand on a ball. Our deflections lead to turnovers, which is something that we track, we stat, and we’re determined to win, again, the game within the margins.
We’re determined to turn every deflection into a turnover. That’s an extra effort. You know, we get a hand on a ball, but the other team retains possession. That’s no good. We just lost a scoring opportunity for us. Again, there’s unscripted points, a deflection gotta lead to a turnover. Turnover leads to a two on one, three on two. That’s a scoring opportunity for use. And it’s why the first things that we work on are our disruptors, which is our things that we do within our defensive system and then our fast break points, right? Fast break points for us is a missed shot that leads to a clean outlet and a clean fast break opportunity, anything that leads to your classic fast break opportunities. But again, those are all extra effort things. When you get out in transition, you outrun the defense. That’s an extra effort. If our big does a monster job with a rim run, he generates flies to the honey. And now all of a sudden we’re able to generate a catch shoot three, three point shot and transition.
Kellen Sampson 08:52
That’s a fast break point. Last year, we were the number one points per transition in the country.
We were the most efficient transition team in America last year. And a lot of it is because they were disciplined with running lanes, but we have good three point shooting teams.
Dan 09:07
If I could kind of revert to one of the three points you talked about, which the second chance points and obviously something you all have done so well, I’m thinking now from like the offensive rebounding standpoint, there’s obviously a system to it as well as who goes, how they go. Could you talk a little bit about how you go to the boards, who goes, if there’s emphasis on any system behind the offensive rebounding?
Kellen Sampson 09:30
I don’t think any system works without effort. I could say something’s real smart. So it’s an effort-based system.
What system is it? At least what good system is it? But I do think we do a great job of getting our guys to understand is that it takes two to get an offensive rebound. If you can’t get it, can you get a fingertip on it? One of the things we track is our tips. Activity equals productivity. We’re constantly tracking goes and we’re tracking tips in addition to simply just rebounds. The goes is a bit subjective in that as you’re looking through your eyes, did he go give a great effort? Did he go give a great push on the offensive clash? If you felt like he gave a half-ass effort, he needs to be held accountable for giving that or of an effort on that particular shot. I think maybe the thing that we do as well as anybody is we really emphasize tips. We emphasize the idea of you creating a tip, keeps a ball alive for somebody else to win. We really attack outside shoulders. We’re not simply just trying to run up the spine of a guy’s back. We’re actively hunting and seeking shoulder blades because if we feel like if we can force the guy that’s blocking out, open up his hips and have to move and have to create and generate that effort to keep you off the glass, he’s given a straight line to the front of the rim. If blockout guys are able to keep their feet locked in place and simply just move backwards, you’re a lot easier to block out. When you’re attacking shoulders left and right, and now you’re forcing that guy to really open up, really give a great effort to block out. Most guys, they can’t block out and rebound. The more you can force somebody to hold their block out, hold their block out, that means it’s one less guy that’s defensive rebound. All I got to do right is just get a fingertip on it and bat it. Now, somebody else might be in the position to go win, and that’s really the emphasis, right? His offensive rebounding activity is eventually going to lead to prototip. That may not be the first shot, may not be the second shot, but eventually at some point, you know, that is what wins the river of the rock, the river of the rock. Look, the river’s undefeated. The river’s going to win every time. Eventually, it’s going to cause erosion. We’re going to cause some fatigue. We’re going to wear out the other team. We don’t necessarily always get home against other teams, the starting lineup, but we start to wear down your bench. Once we get a little confidence, once we get a little juice, once we get a little swagger going, either you got a decision to make or you’re going to run your starter into the ground because they’re the only ones who can be productive. And then once they get fatigued, we’re just going to keep coming at you in waves. And the moment you start trying to win, Sir Gremis, we’re just going to come harder and faster at you. And it’s not against us. Again, I think Kansas and Duke are great prime examples, but it’s a 40-minute fight. Our dudes are wired to get it from tip to quit, and you better be committed to blocking us out from tip to quit.
Pat 12:22
With the offensive rebounding, I mean, if guys are giving the great effort that you guys are demanding, is there really any sort of no-goes in terms of how you want them to offensive rebound, or is it really the effort and the desire to go?
Kellen Sampson 12:37
The easiest guy to block out, so all I do is run up your back. So a no-go is look, we’re never attacking the spine. The only chance you’ve got is if the ball bounces directly over his head into where you can get it, it’s the only rebound you can get. We need to get to the left side and we need to get to the right side. And we need to cause the guy who’s blocking out. We got to open up his hips. Most people don’t want to do that, right? They just want to check you. And then they want to go give their own great effort to release and go get it. If you can force them to step slide a little bit left or right, one or two, they certainly don’t want to do it for 40 minutes.
Our point guard, you know, we always have one guy all the way back. I think maybe the thing that with our transition defense is that he’s wired to get all the way back to the top of the charge circle. We’re not giving up transition layups. It’s probably the biggest, maybe key for us. That means our other guard’s going to stop the ball. You know, he’s not necessarily wired to go get his nose on top of the rim. So like our two guard is in a linger position, elbow to elbow. He’s not really getting underneath the foul line. He’s just trying to maybe catch a long rebound or two, but his transition defense starts with the point guard getting all the way back to the charge circle, two guards going to stop the ball. And then we’ll start to build our defense from there. But again, those are the three are given such a great push. Nobody’s leaking out early know that I wish they would be great be phenomenal.
Pat 13:58
And coach, you mentioned, you know, first thing is no transition layups. When you play teams that can shoot it well in transition, you know, how do you account for transition threes?
Kellen Sampson 14:09
The first job is to get back to the charge circle and then do a great job of then eliminating the greatest threat over playing Kansas and their four and five is blocked out and then Zeke Mayo their best shooter is on a burner down this left sideline. We’re not staying at the charge circle. Look, I need to go my job. Typically, because of the way that we off its rebound, we eliminate a lot of rim runs because nobody is recognizing my buddy’s got it. Let me start now. We’re usually hoof to hoof with the rim run because they’re having to spend so much time blocking out. But just that is that the guy that’s at the charge circle, if you don’t recognize an immediate rim run threat, now you can start to match up. A lot of times, you know, from there, it’s just about getting your bigs organized. If they can tag early with their own man because of the block that makes it super simple. There are times that we get a little cross matched, you know, because of the way we push transition defense is important. Our ability to win three on twos our ability to win four on threes is paramount. We’re going to be in conversion a little bit more than most because we’re not sending three back. We’re going to err on the side of oppression. And so we are going to be in transition defense.
Whenever there’s a defensive rebound, we are going to be in transition defense. We’re going to be in a numbers disadvantage from time to time, or a numbers advantage two on two for a little bit more so than your normal team. But we work at it. We get our team together in June. There’s four things we want to be great at or at least four things we want to have installed by the sun. We get to the first day of school in August, but I pick an old defense of a monster are trapped in the post, transition defense and shelter of defense. If we’ve got those four things installed by the time we get to the first day of school means we had a great summer and we’re not good at none of it, but at least it’s installed.
And now we can spend all of September getting good at it. So when we get to the first practice, we’re a little bit farther along with our foundation and now our house, we can start to add the fun stuff. You know, the funnest thing to coach the world’s offense, who doesn’t love coaching offense and running plays and looking at different and unique and creative ways to score the bean. It’s a heck of a lot easier to get your kids excited about that. When they go to practice, then let’s spend the time effort, the energy all summer, installing the nuts and bolts of our defense and then we can get to the fun stuff later.
Now you don’t eat your dessert first. Right. Yeah. You got any dinner, then you get dessert. It’s the same thing here. And the methodology behind it is if we’re running our defense at a really high level, we’re going to score enough points anyway. We’ll have time to build in our half court offense as we go. We’re going to win with our defense early anyway. And then our offense can be a work in progress throughout the course of the year, especially as you get a feel for what your group’s good at. Just sometimes with offense, you need to figure out again, the cards that you have in your hand and then you tailor make it from there.
Pat 17:03
You talk about winning conversions that you’re in these four on three, three on twos, then again, maybe just trying to dig a little bit deeper. What else do you guys find yourself teaching to when you’re building your transition defense and you’re in these conversion situations to help, like you said, win that margin?
Kellen Sampson 17:20
Well your IQ, right? It’s like you said, if I’ve got the negative side of a four on three, somebody’s got to take the ball and that two people’s got to guard three because you’re going to match up. You’re not going to screw the ball up. I’ve got a ball. Two people’s got to guard three in that scenario. And so I’ve got to protect first knowing that I can run a hell of a lot faster forward than I came back. So I’ve got to get deep enough to see the whole play can’t buddy run in transition. I’ve got to get my head off the ball where most people screw up is that once the other team has the ball, you can’t screw around with it and start trying to take needless gambles or you start trying to run up on the ball. No, no, no, they got it. It’s theirs.
This is basketball. It’s not a dictatorship. You don’t get to just control it all night. They get to have it. Sometimes they got it. I got to get my ass back and I’ve got to sprint by head of the ball. The best defenders are the best detectives. They collect the best information as quickly as they possibly can.
All right. Balls on the left side. I’ve got no rim runner. I’ve got two people on this right side that are both three point shooters. You gotta be able to process all of that information. He said, okay, I’ve got, you know, 45% shooter coming down. That’s streaming down the sideline. I’ve got a 34% shooter that’s coming down the slot. Who am I shading to? I’ve got a 45% guy in a corner and ball thrown to the slot. How hard’s my stock, right? Those are all conversion details that your guys better be in a position to process.
But the X’s and O’s are the non-negotiables. I’ve got to get ahead of the ball. I can’t make any of those decisions. I can’t begin to become a detective until I get my ass in front of the ball. Right. But again, it’s an effort thing. I’ve got to give a crazy awesome effort to the front of the room on the glass. I didn’t get it. I got to give a crazy awesome effort to now get in front of the ball so I can be a detective to start collecting my information. Once I collect my information, then I can make great basketball decisions for the university of Houston. Right. And I think that that’s where when you’re talking about winning, we got to win with conversion. It starts with effort. There is nothing you can do in basketball at a high level that doesn’t begin with effort.
And then from there, my basketball intelligence, my basketball IQ needs to really take over. Again, we’re playing Kansas and here comes KJ Adams, you know, coming down in this trail spot, but I got Zeke Mayo in the corner. Look, I can probably play two, play games, play games with KJ until he gets into a scoring area. By that time, what’s my teammates doing? I’ve got two monster shooters of the same accord. Don’t worry about the corner. I better solve. Hey, I’ve got two guys that are really good shooters. Man, that first one that he throws it to, I better go take it. Then I got to trust that my teammates got my back one way or the other. Those are the conversion details that you better be good at if you want to win.
Dan 21:29
Coach, this has been awesome so far. We want to, no pun intended, transition now to a segment on the show that we call start, sub, or sit. We’re going to give you three options around a topic. Ask you to start one of them, sub one of them, and sit one of them. And then we’ll discuss your answer from there. So coach, if you’re ready, we’ll dive into this first one. All right. We touched on a little bit in the beginning, a little bit about spacing and offense and all the fun stuff, the dessert. We’re going to get to the dessert, the fun side here on this first question for you. And it’s about playing with two bigs. And so start, sub, or sit, toughest to teach when it comes to playing with two bigs, meaning teaching those two guys how to space around each other, how to play with each other when they’re on the floor at the same time. So option one is teaching them how to play together and transition. Option two is teaching how to play in and around a pick and roll together. Option three is re-triggers of the offense. So loose ball, dribble drive, offensive rebound, how they re-space around each other. So start, sub, sit, playing with two bigs, transition, pick and roll, or re-triggers.
Kellen Sampson 22:36
Start would mean it’s the easiest to teach or the hardest. Most important to teach. I think the most important thing that you can teach, right? So start is your trigger, your reset.
Most good teams take away your sets. Friends, we were in the Final Four. I bet 10% of our scoring was a design set call. And that’s more of a tip of the cap to Florida and Duke with the way that synergy is with the way that it’s just really hard to get. Call a set play, run it, get the action, right? Teams are wired to take that away. So it becomes about your play after play movement. It becomes about your play after play action. Now you start bringing in variables, right? I have to account for three people, the ball, my partner, which is my other big, and then the two other guys that are on the floor. And it’s a bit more subjective in that scenario. It’s a little bit like teaching zone offense. Zone offense is so subjective. The highest IQ guys are the best zone offensive guys. They can read, react, and find the dead spot or find the soft spots the fastest. It’s the same thing with your play after play spacing. It’s not scripted. I can’t necessarily tell J1 Roberts where to go. He’s got to feel and read it. And it’s got to happen instantaneously. And he’s got to be in great concert with a number of different things. So that would be my start.
My bench would be pick and roll. Absolutely. I think everybody’s offense in some form or fashion is wired around some sort of a ball screen. And so whatever spacing you feel, I always tell the coaches this, don’t necessarily look at something and think, wow, I really like that. We need to do that. Get your team to do what you’re comfortable teaching. Because if you’re comfortable teaching it, you’ll be able to troubleshoot the problems with it yourself. If you’re trying to teach somebody else’s, you don’t know how to fix it. You’re coaching through somebody else’s eyes, and that never goes good. Because once your players feel indecision or they feel like you’re not competent in that particular area, they start losing trust. Once players lose trust, you’re dead in the water. So whatever spacing that you feel the most comfortable teaching, run with it.
You’ll be good at it. Feel the same way about pick and roll. Well, how do you defend a ball screen? Defend the ball screen the best way you feel comfortable teaching. And then get your guys to do it to the best of their ability. Your guys will feel confidence from your confidence. That’s where a lot of coaches make a mistake is they see something on TNT here in the playoffs. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Golden State runs it because they have Steph Curry and Draymond Green, who literally could make football plays work on basketball. They’re that good. Taking an idea and then making it your own is always the best way. Don’t do something that you see us do, but you’ve got no idea how to teach it, how to install it, how to troubleshoot it, how to answer questions. First thing a guy’s going to do when you’re introducing something new to them is they’re going to start going 20 questions.
Kellen Sampson 25:27
And inevitably, you’re going to get annoyed and frustrated because you don’t know the answer. So you’re just going to tell your kids, just play hard and it’ll work out.
You just lost all the trust, imaginable monster guys. Because all of a sudden they think, man, coach don’t know what you’re talking about. Coach just drawing shit up again. So, and then I would bench transition. If your bigs are in transition offense a lot, I mean, you’re a hell of a lot better than the team you’re playing, right? You’re in a numbers conversion a lot. That’s probably the thing that’s least important. If you’re having to run a lot of half court offense, it means you’re playing a team better than you. So you better be organized or you’re playing at least a team in your weight class.
Dan 26:03
melding in our conversation from the first part of the show with just your culture and your identity, when you’re playing with two non-shooting bigs per se, I know they could shoot but that’s not their first thing they do well, what are the offensive considerations that you all have to think about to make them still effective outside of going and getting offensive rebounds? But when you’re in flow, how you still help them and your other, say, three playmakers still be effective in the spacing you have on the floor?
Kellen Sampson 26:31
The first thing you’ve got to do is certainly as a coaching staff is recognize that what are their blessings for us We had Jwann roberts this year who was not a three-point shooting big. Okay, we know what the minuses what are our blessings For us having J’Wan Roberts was a blessing not a burden and the player himself can’t feel like he’s a burden on the offense And so you’ve got to do a great job Initially with the people the personal side of it making the kid the player feel super confident and competent with what they’re doing because it doesn’t matter what scheme or what if he can’t execute it if he doesn’t know and one Of things we had to get tears He had to know who what how where he was going to score them all Society and the outside world is going to do a great job of telling him what he came to We needed to do a great job of telling him what he could do and Do a great job of explaining over and over again.
This is what makes us dynamic So starting with a mid pick and roll We had him get to the ball side dunker wherever the ball was You’re in the ball side dunker now when our roller released He was released into a short roll area in a diagonal on an opposite angle that Automatically gave us an action that we could definitively run We knew we can get into a mid pick and roll. Okay.
Great. Your job is to put your nose on the ball Now when we play to the short roll or we could play to a long roll and we could you know Leave a guard in the corner. We could shake behind but we knew definitively Where our non shooting being was going our guards knew that by putting him directly in front of the ball His man was not going to help in any kind of way And so now it was my those who’s in or Elgin and crier there started to be some known if they’re in a drop coverage I’m going to be able to play to the pocket all day long and play back to the big and now we can play it To the weak side of the floor or again all of our bigs They couldn’t shoot threes, but they could definitely play one-on-one from the elbow with the shooting that we did have They were not going to help off any ball side corners.
I thought that on any mid post catch I would say that the other adjustment was we didn’t necessarily play any low post basketball Because it’s just too much of a car pile up We played a little bit more in the mid post now We could work dunk at a dunker or big Scott You were a we’re a mid post middle team all of our bigs were wired to get middle on the touch if they’re getting middle I’m working under if they counter back to the baseline. I’m working under we did a lot of two-on-two You know read your partner read react partner drills Where we’re just relocating based off of a middle drive or a baseline drive get screwed up a little bit if they counter But most of the time if they’re countering it doesn’t matter what the other big because he’s countering because he’s scoring And so balls going up.
Hell you actually hope he reacts to the ball. Now. There’s nobody to block out You just got to get creative and understanding Where do you want your roller to release if you’re getting in to pick a row basketball if you’ve got bigs who can score? I would put them more in the mid post and less on the low post and so that you’ve got room Underneath the basket to relocate and open up offensive rebounding and tips and things like that I would say that was the other thing is you’re not relocating simply for your partner score. You’re relocating To improve your offensive rebounding angles one of the things that again it goes back to our unscripted points But we’re almost unswitchable Because you don’t want your guard blocking out our pigs, right? And so we are almost again, we may not have bigs who really shoot it or stretch it But when they set a ball screen, we’re almost always going to force you into some sort of coverage call or a tactic or drop or something because you don’t want to switch your guards on our big Because once that ball hits the rim, it’s our best switch counter again.
Is it a burden or a blessing? So we know we’re gonna get a coverage call We know we’re gonna get a drop or you’re gonna hedge us or you’re gonna do something Well, all of our bigs are good in short rolls and they can all play 15 feet in and we worked at that and that’s something I would again They were never bad at it, but they were good at it. We made a better at it I think that one of the things too is they’re all bad three-point shooters You’re not making a bad three-point shooter. So don’t put Maximum investment in minimal gains put maximum investment in maximum gains I don’t know we could have spent all day every day With some of these guys in the three-point shooting and maybe got them to 30 31 percent Which still isn’t good enough to win or we could sell out with their ball handling We could sell out to their playmaking. We could sell out to the footwork We could sell out to being able to score with their back to the basket being able to score, you know turn face There’s a number of different ways to take their player and skill development Again, you just have to have great self-awareness What are they the closest set doing to helping you win a game double and triple and quadrupling down?
We look at our calendar this way We ask our guys to be unbelievably stupid, crazy self-less from June to April. But once we get to April and May, that is the time in the calendar that allows them to be selfish.
Got to take inventory of yourself. Is this still the program you want to be in? Yes. Hey, great. Okay. Hey, this is the time of year where you can explore some areas or parts of your game, maybe that you didn’t the previous year. And if you get far enough along down that road that, okay, hey, look, let’s keep this thing going all the way through June, July, August. Great. Okay. We’ll reassess the September if this is something that you’re far enough along to help us with. It’s not, look, need you to be self-less. Let’s focus on the things that’s going to help us win games at a crazy high level.
Pat 32:10
To follow up maybe on the example you talked about, you know, that you guys play middle ball screens with the strong ball side dunker and looking to play through that pocket past that short roll. Do we really like to play after the play and maybe if that ball goes to the short roll and if they’re going to go to like the second side, maybe start to play an empty side action, whatever it may be, a throw and chase or a handoff. How are you looking then again, looking at the partner big to play off of an empty side action? So, in the end. So, in the end.
Kellen Sampson 32:37
So empty side actions just going to trigger a weak side flare. So anytime there’s an empty side pick the role and the opposite big is we’re always going to flare in on the backside. And now I’m flaring into a dive, I’m flaring in, we can turn that into a wiper action, just depending on what the ball does, but you’re never standing and watching middle pick and roll. I’m ducking in, I’m getting to the dunker. I’m just holding my defender accountable that he can’t play the role on the weak side, same thing, right?
Is I’m either flaring or I’m flashing. If there’s an empty side pick and roll and my man takes the roller, I’m flashing all day, everything empty side pick and roll and they’re in a drop coverage, man, I’m flaring over the top is now on against a drop. My guard’s going to be able to get to the elbow, which means I can see the opposite side of the floor. Those are two easy to install actions that make your non shooting big. Feel like he’s a part of the offense. And there are things that he can do with great urgency and confidence that makes him feel like he’s a part of the show. I think so many times you get these non shooting bigs and you’re simply asking them to be Tito at some point, they got to know there’s something in the office that makes it feel like Mike, because you’re going to get them to be a high, high level Tito. If they’re every once in a while, they get to have the microphone themselves.
Pat 33:55
You mentioned that ceiling in, and if we got to move off of that, whether it’s a middle penetration from a guard or a big and they’re in that dunker, is it a read you’re teaching, is it a feel, whether if that dunker maybe seals his man in, maybe for the catch, but maybe to allow his teammate to turn the corner for a layup, versus kind of spacing under the drive to the opposite dunker, opposite side.
Kellen Sampson 34:18
You got to have a feel for what is your defender doing? If he’s standing straight up, yeah, we’re bringing action right to his kitchen. And that’s, I’m getting to a rim seal. I’m going to pin in and I’m going to try to get a shooter dependent on maybe on a middle penetration to slot guard, went and stopped the ball, man, I’m going to screen my own cause I got action to the corner on a corner fill, man, if he’s doing a great job with me and he’s fighting that three quarter, man, he’s preoccupied with me, I’m probably getting a layup off the roller.
Again, it goes into the subjective nature of it. You got to do a great job at detailing out all of the different ways they can be impactful and you got to drill it, drill it, drill it. And we’ve got a couple of different GAs here who are battered and bruised because of duck ends or they’re getting screened in all the time, but defenses are too dynamic or too diverse to simply just give the same look all the time. There’s a read and react component to the best spacing teams are probably the best read and react teams. Look, if you’ve got a non-shooting big, he also can’t be dumb, can’t play dumb and unskilled, not win again. Is he a burden or a blessing? If he’s dumb and he’s unskilled, then he’s a complete burden. You got to make a decision. They’re a bunch of rotation.
Dan 36:46
Thanks for the support and now back to our conversation.
Pat 36:49
Our last start sub sit has to do with elite player development. And we know you guys put a huge emphasis on it year-round, in-season, off-season. So we’d like to give you three elements of a player development session that you would think is the most important to really having an effective session. On top of all the stuff you’re going to do, what do you think would be the most important element of an elite player development session? Is it option one, the conditioning element?
Kellen Sampson 37:20
Yes. Nothing else matters. I would say this, it’s amazing what I can get done in 90 minutes compared to 30. There’s only so good I can make you in 30 minutes at a time. Until we increase your work capacity, we’re putting a really, really hard limit, hard cap on ourselves. If I’ve got a 45-minute session planned, and you can only make it through 20 minutes of it, what are we doing? Nothing else matters. You don’t need to see me. You need to go see Allen Bishop Anyway, the other two, hey, start. Start. Start. Start.
Pat 37:50
Okay, well then I’ll ask you for your sub and your sit the challenge point of the drill, you know, whether it’s a time M\made shots so many in a row so many out of five whatever or the game like representative environment You attempt to create within the drill
Kellen Sampson 38:06
Those two are almost linked together, right? All you’re trying to do in a player development setting, I think there’s two components, is you’ve got to work fundamentals. There’s got to be a period of time where you’re working on the fundamentals of it. Oh, hey, working on a specific footwork, or if I’m working the basics of a shot or whatever. That’s a time where, man, it’s okay to miss. It’s okay to fail. I think anytime you’re in a player development session with a kid, there’s got to be a period in there where he doesn’t have to be perfect. We’re just building some fundamentals. We’re building some good habits. And in that part of it, we’re way more process driven than results driven.
I like to back door any fundamentals with some sort of concept drill. Look, I’m not telling you what to score on, or I’m not telling you what move to use. We’re giving a couple of live reps here, and then there’s always got to be a timing goal. And we’re always training the competitor. When you talk about in shape, I think there’s two pieces there. You’ve got the physical conditioning, then there’s the competitive stamina. Physical is a don’t pass go, don’t collect $200 sort of thing, right? No matter how competitive you are, if your body looks like a shipless donut, we’re hit. But there’s also a competitive stamina that we’re always training as well. Do you have the mental fortitude to out punch, outlast, out compete, out fight, out scrap your opponent. And a lot of times in club development, the opponent’s the clock. Opponent is the make miss numbers. It’s filling the blank. There’s always an opponent. I’m always trying to beat on opponent. And that’s the competitive stamina that we’re always trying to build.
You can’t simply have a fundamentals session without a competitive session. We’re not after the boys and girls camp championship here. We are actively trying to beat somebody. But every second, there’s got to be some built in time where guys are allowed to fail a little bit and build the right habits and let’s get it right. And then we can move on from there.
Pat 40:09
When you got their work capacity right, when you got their competitive stamina right, you talked a lot about it. We look at the offensive side, the IQ of players being a smart player, there’s a lot of subjective gray areas that are going to occur. Maybe this now goes into the read react drills, the game-like environments you guys think about. But how do you think about making players better in those subjective moments of the game?
Kellen Sampson 40:32
Yeah, look, I think self-awareness, we’re in the middle of a concept drill and you’re a really good straight line downhill right-hand driver. My man, is your opponent here? Is he taking away your right hand? No, take it every time. Make the defender have to take away something, encourage, discourage. I’ve got to make him so fearful of my strength. I’ve got to make him so afraid of my fastball that he’s giving me the counter. I don’t want to shoot a contested over the top left-hand shot. I’d rather have that an uncontested shot because I out-leveraged him with my right hand. That’s an active conversation within our drill work.
Look, if the defense is going to give you the choice, take the low-hanging fruit every time. You could still make a great wine off low-hanging fruit, right? You’re going to play bad defenders. Don’t let bad defenders off the hook because you over-complicated a simple game. We say it all the time, basketball rewards simple. Do an awesome collection of simple things. You’re going to get rewarded. Don’t choose complicated. Look, part of the basketball IQ piece of it is having great ownership and self-awareness of my own game. I can make that shot. Yeah, but you also miss it. I’d rather you shoot shots that you, I’m not going to miss that shot, not I can make it. And until you get to this place where, hey, look, I ain’t going to miss that shot, then let’s move on to something else. Let’s get good at simple and then let’s start layering simple on top of simple on top of simple. But at no point in time in any of our development stuff, are we going to really dive into complicated? We’re going to get awesome at simple. We don’t work a lot of five dribble combo moves. We don’t work a lot of complicated things. We’re going to get really good at how do we catch the ball? What foot are we catching with so that I’ve got a strong foot jab? Most kids when they shoot, most righties when they shoot are left hip dominant. Their left hip is their spring. Okay. Well, that means my right foot is my dominant jab foot. That means when I shot fake jab and I’m working on my triple threat things, I need to learn how to load my left hip. Well, if I see hands down, I can shoot it. That’s simple. I’m not even dribbling, right? We’re going to get really good at simple and then we’ll layer simple on top of simple as we go.
Pat 42:47
Working off of that, I think that’s a great philosophy, just that simple philosophy. You mentioned too, in the previous art subset, that with your bigs, one-on-one from the elbow, that’s kind of where you want them to operate from the development standpoint and maybe the technical side of what are the simple things you guys prioritize when playing one-on-one from the elbow. No one is…
Kellen Sampson 43:06
we’re going to do a great job on our foot. We’re going to do a great job at understanding what do I want to catch it. And then from there, if the defender’s playing me, if the defender’s on my back, if I’m confused in the slightest, I’m catching on reverse pivoting, it starts there. Most people screw up.
You’ve got that prime real estate, let’s say at the elbow. Don’t screw up on elbow catch and end up catching it close to the three point line because we don’t know how to catch it with the right foot. Second thing is off the catch, we’re going to play the triple threat first. Let’s take our time. Let’s account for all pieces on the chessboard and the checkers board first, because I’m not going to catch and immediately drive myself into a trap. I need to let defenders go through.
Okay, I got a dominant shooter here in this ball side corner. I know I’ve got space there because they ain’t healthy. Pass or went where? Okay, let the chessboard find itself before I do anything. I’m going to generate an advantage off my triple threat before I do with my dribble. The dribble is a wonderful way to generate an angle. The dribble also is a great way to shoot yourself in the foot. Your jab series, your triple threat series keeps all chess pieces accounted.
I can still see while I’m in my triple threat series. Yeah, one-on-one basketball is all about your right angle. It’s all about generating an angle to the basket. So from there, I’m just trying to open up hips. I can open up a defender’s hips. Now I can come speed first, power second. The best isolation players master the delicate dance of speed and power.
I think it’s the same thing with football and edge rushers. They know when to come with speed and they know when to come with power. Most defenders, when we’re teaching it, you start a defender with speed and you finish him with power late. It’s hard to come with power early and then generate speed late because you’re going to run out of real estate. But if I can come with enough speed early and then I can big step, big elbow my way to the direction I want to score late, we want to work at finishing to the basket. I got two chances to score if I finish to the basket. I got a chance to get the ball to the net and I’ve got a chance to get to the foul line. I want to give myself both chances. I’m not going to eliminate myself from both scoring opportunities.
Dan 45:09
Coach, in watching you all play in this conversation today, you’ve talked about a lot, it’s just your identity, knowing who you are, you know, getting to the simple, dominating the margins on those things.
But when yourself and the staff does come across something new or has a new idea or wants to try a tweak or variation, what’s the process that that idea has to go through for to make it into the program in some way? about, you’ve talked about a lot of things that you’ve talked about, you’ve talked about
Kellen Sampson 45:36
And I think it’s important that you always are involved next year. Year 12 for us at Houston, every year, our identity and our culture never changes.
Each team requires more and more creativity. It’s got to make sense for that team. There are certainly examples all across the basketball landscape, both domestic and foreign, that you can always pull and you can always learn from. There was a great drill. Chief and I were at a high school workout. We were watching the girls team was finishing up before the boys team came. And they were doing this, a great conversion drill that we stole, but maybe five or six years ago, we installed it and still do it to this day. It was a wonderful teaching tool.
Coach, you installed drills as a teaching tool to better help your guys understand five on five. This particular drill, it was a great teaching drill for teaching how we wanted to install our transition defense. I think that as you’re installing new ideas or new concepts, it better have great relevancy to your current group, not just off the wall idea. It better apply to the current group, the more film and the more video evidence you have of why that helps articulate your vision better.
Chief wants us to be outside the box thinkers. And he says it all the time. The best drills are the drills that you just think of spontaneously because you’re 10 toes into the moment with your guys. And you think of a quick, you know, three or four rep drill that helps teach the things that you’re trying to teach the best. If it’s an offensive concept, it better be something that applies directly to our group. I think that is that you better have awesome, awesome, awesome self-awareness about the cards that you have in your hand and then whatever you’re installing, it better best help them win the game.
Dan 47:22
Coach, very well said. You’re off the start, sub, or sit, hot seat. Thanks for playing that game with us. We’ve got one final question to close the show, but before we do, really appreciate you coming on, sharing all your thoughts today, and congrats again on the great season.
So thank you very much for coming on today. Appreciate you guys having me. Our last question that we ask all the guests is, what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach?
Kellen Sampson 47:43
I learned how to do all of the film stuff. I learned how to cut my own film. I learned how to create my own highlight tapes. I learned how to do all my own edits, things like that. Unfortunately, I don’t have to do it anymore.
But it’s amazing. Probably the best piece of advice I got 16 whenever I started. So I was a GA summer of 07. I finished up in spring of 07 as a player and I got started summer of 07. Is the best advice I got was an older coach told me, you need to master everything that falls a computer in college basketball. So at the time, it was mail-outs were really important as a recruiting tool. Being able to cut film on a laptop, not going deck-to-deck was just starting to, deck-to-deck was all but eliminated by 07. Basically, there was this new wave in college basketball of taking things digitally. I got in right at that wave. I made it my, I knew nothing. I could barely turn a computer on at the time. So whether I was a graduate assistant at both Indiana and then later Oklahoma, one of the reasons Jeff Capel hired me as a special assistant was because I did all of coach’s edits. He knew he could go to me and I could make a highlight tape. I could put together anything he needed me to put together, and we developed a trust level there. I created value for myself because nobody else in our office was as efficient. You could just boom-boom, make it happen as quickly as I could. Then when I went to Stephen F Austin, we had one graduate assistant, but we had no support staff. So the fact that I could do all of the video stuff gave me a lot of value. Same thing at Appalachian State. We didn’t even have a GA when I went to App State. It was just the reassistance and the head coach. So being able to do all of my own video stuff just gave me a lot of value and gave me a lot of opportunities. There was a lot of growth learning opportunities. I was able to watch a lot of basketball that way. I tell young guys here all the time is, number one thing you can do is every part of a college basketball program that has to do with a computer mastery. Word, Excel, cutting your own tape, creating videos, things like that. Then the next thing is you’ve got to have some mindset for how to raise money. It’s the number one add value to a staff thing any young person can do, is to learn how to fundraise. We’re in an NIL era, right? And so everything that you want is on the other side of fundraising right now. Whether it’s program wise for your donor or booster club, it doesn’t matter. Learn everything you can with a computer, which is what I did in 07. And then I would take it on a step further. And if you’ve got some sort of foundation in fundraising, you’re going to add awesome and tremendous value to yourself.
Dan 50:28
All right, Pat, it’s always fun to, as you and I were just mentioning, kind of jumping on here, get a chance to go under the hood for a second, some of these great legendary culture programs in the game. And, you know, when I think when people think of what are some of the toughest, best cultures, you know, around of late in the States here, I know you’re over there in Germany, then there’s great international cultures as well. But like, and Houston is towards the top as far as just how they play and the identity and all the success that they’ve had. And it was fun today to get in with Coach Sampson into some of these things that they do so well.
Pat 51:07
with you. I really enjoyed them where the conversation came out of it. And digging into, I mean, maybe I’ll start it here with my kind of first takeaway. I’ll kick it off with the overarching theme. And I think your last question before the best investment really said it well is just the beauty of simplicity and that they keep things as simple as possible. And I think that allows them then to be a team with relentless energy, a relentless motor. I mean, we’ve heard about before, if your guys are thinking, they stink. And I think, of course, there’s new enjoy getting into when we looked at defense and offense and the subjectivity. But for the most part, they want to keep everything simple for these guys because of the effort and motor that they’re going to demand. That’s what really stood out to me.
I won’t meander, I’ll throw it back to you. But in that first bucket, kind of just hearing, like you said, the philosophy, the foundation that what they’re trying to install then allows them to do everything else from there.
Dan 52:00
Yeah. And what I really enjoyed about this conversation and what we got to, and I think what hopefully coaches take away from this is, of course, if you watch Houston, they have tremendous athletes that play hard, and they demand that effort. And that is no small task of a coach to go find those players and make them play that hard. There’s also a philosophy in a strategic way that they go about it and think about it. There’s obviously a lot there.
It’s not just, just send a bunch of guys to go get offensive rebounds and we’ll be good. That was what was fun about today is really getting a little bit more insight into these unscripted points, winning the margins that matter. The points of turnovers, the second chance points, and the fast break points. And they had numbers on, hey, we want to score two times as many second chance points over your transition baskets, I think was what he said. Those are things that they take so seriously that they really truly believe leads to winning. And I think as the episode went on, you could just sort of feel even, this is sort of taking from some of the start subset answers, the tremendous amount of insight into every single thing that they do to build up their players in the way that their players should be built up. So they give them ultimate confidence in the areas they know they can be successful in, and then they try not to spend too much time on areas that they’re not. And so I think in that first bucket, I just enjoyed hearing the sort of buildup and the underpinnings of, yeah, they take winning the margins really seriously. It’s obvious if you watch them play, they do, but it’s something that from recruiting to player development, to film, to practice, to stats.
Pat 53:38
I enjoyed that part when we got into offensive rebounding, you know, what are the do’s the don’ts don’t just run to the back of their spine because yeah, that only gives you maybe one chance to get in board just flies long, but really trying to how do they put that pressure on the defense so that it helps their transition defense, which another part of the conversation I enjoyed on but yeah, this is what physicality looks like. It’s not just being, of course, when we got pulling from the player development part, and he talked about the conditioning the competitive stamina. I think that’s also goes in the physicality, but kind of nailing them down on those details, the techniques that he talked about, I really appreciated and enjoyed hearing him.
Dan 54:16
for sure. I will give you a quick miss of mine here in the first bucket, not by Coach Sampson of course, but I wondered about how they discuss shot selection just within their cultural umbrella because there’s such good offensive rebounding teams, but there’s some level of shot selection they talk about and you talked about player development, who you are and the type of isolation things that they want. But some of the best rebounding teams are also teams that take the best shots because the other four players know where that shot is coming from. They’re usually in spacings that allow them to go crash the offensive rebound. I think teams that come down and our average shot selection teams sometimes aren’t great offensive rebounding teams because those guys aren’t ready to go get it.
Where the teams that understand their spacings and who they are and who’s going to shoot it from where. I think I would like to follow up more because he kind of got into a little bit with the two big spacing with the start-sub-sit. You could kind of start to feel like, okay, this is why also there’s such a good offensive rebounding team because these two bigs on the floor know how to play with each other and when to space, when to flare, they’re around the ball all the time. So when those shots go up, they’re there already. Maybe would have asked, maybe not just like a straight simple shot selection question, but how that kind of bakes into the whole philosophy of the margins.
Pat 55:31
We had a great conversation.
I believe with coach Julie folks kind of on this similar vein She was a tagging up team and just talking about predictable shots Really helped their offensive rebounding and their transition defense versus kind of the unpredictable unscripted shots that can kind of rise in possessions then really stressed their ability to tag up and conversely get back on defense
Dan 55:55
Yeah. And if you think about two, like you’re saying, you know, if you get two non-shooting bigs who they know, like the other three guys know, like they’re not shooting threes. So they’re not worried about where those guys are going to shoot or if they’re going to shoot it, or if a guy feels like he’s on a heater one day and picks and pops and letting a few fly. Like, and then your team’s like, they know where the shots probably are coming from. And so I think that’s part of it too.
Pat 56:16
Yeah, they find themselves in a predictable space here as well. I think that also plays a role in finding themselves constantly in these similar spacings that they’re used to and kind of understand the patterns, the movements from there, then keeping the recap moving here and going through coach Samson’s conversation, I’ll throw it to you for our second takeaway.
Dan 56:35
Since we’ve already sort of talked about it a little bit, I’m just going to go into my start subset, which was playing with two bigs. And you and I were talking a little bit before the show about on our SG plus platform for on SGTV, how many different two big transition spacing and half court spacing, deep dives and things that we’ve done at this point. We were kind of going through just all the considerations that teams might need if they’re going to play two non-shooting bigs and still be successful. And so this was a great day to have that conversation.
And I wanted to just point out, I really liked, you brought up some tactical stuff of the dunker to dunker movement, the short roll. If they go to a two man game, what does that guy do that opposite big do? And he talked about the backside flares or the flash stuff. I really liked getting into those things. That was like fun kind of like tactical part. And I think coach Sampson, you could tell has a good mind for how to use these non-shooting bigs. I’m sure he’s had to do that over the course of his career, like really figure out, okay, if we’re going to be this good in these other areas and the points of turnovers and rebound and all that kind of stuff, do you have to give up a little bit potentially? And he mentioned having to do that. Yeah.
Pat 57:43
Going into this, I think this was a start subset we kind of highlighted and we’re excited to talk about. He mentioned it straight at the top too when he’s talking about culture and recruiting.
You don’t see too many pick and pop foremen on Houston because it usually doesn’t mesh with their identities. One quote he said that I really liked was when I’m talking about the bigs can’t shoot it, well, are they a blessing or a burden? And giving them confidence, he talked about avoiding maximal investment and minimal gains, investing where they’re going to get the most return. That was kind of the overarching theme when they talked about why they’re just going to play on it. Not only, but in the middle third, the second big on the strong side dunker, and just the freedom it gave them within the comfortability. And again, they kept it simple, but from there, knowing the simple, knowing the spacing, this second big was going to find them and it gave him the freedom, the allow to grow is the IQ within it. So like we talked about, I thought it was fun hearing him talk about the flare-in or the sealed or middle drive we go on or all that kind of stuff that we love to nerd out on. But again, going back to it was just keeping it simple first, and then building the complexity from there.
Dan 58:52
Yeah, I mean, he started the re-triggers, which I think you and I have, you know, been talking to coaches all off season so far about various ways that teams think about re-triggering. And I think that the secret sauce for all these great offensive teams is there. It’s in the re-trigger. It’s in the play after the play. It’s in the principles and not, I guess, a big surprise then that he started that. And especially too with how disruptive they are defensively, they’re going to have all these possessions where it’s not a pretty set. I mean, he even mentioned too, like they think 10% of their baskets in the final four were off of set plays. And I think just a continual conversation we’re having with all these coaches about, man, the best teams know how to re-trigger, they know how to re-space, they know how to continue the play after the play, all the movements, the cuts, the slides, the synergy of playing together.
And you got another sense of that here today. So Pat, keeping it moving, we’ll go to our last takeaway and I’ll kick that back to you.
Pat 59:50
away. I’ll go to my start subset when we looked at player development. I thought this flowed nicely off of our offensive start subset.
And again, just continuing to echo their whole culture, their motto of when you want to look at just like relentless competitors. I believe he started conditioning. Was that the one? Yeah. Yeah. We had to ask him a couple of times to clarify, but it was conditioning, but I think it just, I mean, I think we kind of also had the inkling when we put it together that he was going to. And after having that conversation, total sense, because if they want to be a relentless competitor, if they want to just bring the energy, bring the juice, it needs to start with their ability to one, go through a workout at the intensity required. And as mentioned, not just we want to do a 45 minute session after 20 minutes, they need a water break. And then also to, I think the next layer he talked about that I really enjoyed was the competitive stamina as well. So getting their guys first before they really get into, I mean, he talked about the fundamentals, but like the skills and technique, it’s like, first, they need to be able to go through a whole session, whether it’s a practice with the right intensity, the right effort, and with the right kind of mental fortitude that they’re going to compete. All.
Dan 01:01:03
I’ll just quickly, I had one of the quotes I liked, it might be stolen from you too, but when kind of got into some of the player development stuff about giving yourself two chances to score, I believe was one of the quotes and teaching guys how to use both speed and power, that is a nuance thing and being able to score for yourself, but also get to the free throw line. The conditioning thing, I kind of jotted out a note and this is just sort of tossing it back to you here, but it is one of the interesting things, I think in the era of there’s increasing, I think rightfully so, but increasing amount of discussion about representative learning design, CLA constraints, how those things transfer the learning.
I think some of the trepidation at times for coaches that I hear or even just for myself, sometimes when you based off how you put a drill together, it’s like, does it feel like these guys are going hard enough or are they playing the drill? I’m not saying you can’t have a ultra competitive representative CLA drill, but I’m saying is like when sometimes when you have these drills that are exploratory and they’re learning the skills or whatnot, and then you also want to just be busting their tails so they’re just like completely drained. I’m not saying they can’t go together, but I think you talked about this with me too, it’s like there’s some drills where maybe it’s a little less representative in design, but man, are they going hard and they’re drained and their physical level is at a certain place. And how do you marry those two things? And I know you can and all that, but sort of, I guess a question I was going to have for you was some of your experiences and I was thinking about that within this conversation.
Pat 01:02:38
I think coach Sampson hit on at the end when you asked about kind of like implementing new ideas, coming to the table with new ideas. And I think it speaks to like you have kind of your culture drills, I’m sure you want to call them your toughness drills, but drills that maybe don’t have great transfer to five on five, but they teach something that’s important to your identity and how you’re going to play that have real value.
And then of course, I think when you look at like the CLA, the representative environment and everything’s a piece of the pie, we’d like to steal that from Butch Drew Dunlap. I think that’s where like the CLA, these represented environments have their value, where, okay, now if we have the right effort, we have the right intensity, the cornerstones of who we are, there’s no question that and they’re going to bring that to that drill, because there’s no other option, you know, that like all they know, right. And coach Sampson, I wrote down a quote or a philosophy they have on drills when they were just talking about stealing a drill from a women’s team, you know, they view drills as a teaching tool to understand the five on five. And so, I mean, to me, that’s obviously then like, I think, you know, another way of looking at CLA representative environments, how does it help them? I think he was referring to like the conversion drills, you know, right, putting them in situations that they’re going to face to teach the subjective stuff they talked about, coach Sampson spoke really well on like defensive subjectivity when it comes to transition to even these conversions of knowing, okay, who’s the better shooter where and how does that affect your stunt, you know, these are the drills, that’s where the CLA the rubber have their value because I think probably the most effective way to teach this guy a new freshman and new transfer to understand the decision he has to make in this situation is not by scripting it out, but putting it in different environments that are just going to produce these situations.
Dan 01:04:24
Yeah. I think that’s why this stuff is not just like one or the other all the time.
That’s the, I guess the art of the back and forth of coaching is there maybe are some of these more toughness type drills where it’s like, you got to go hard. This is what we’re doing. We’re not necessarily exploring right now. That’s not the right term.
Pat 01:04:41
But no, I think, sorry, I just finished helping your point. I think, you know, I talked about the competitive stamina. So I think once they called that, and then it’s, you do these constraints that have challenge points. I think that’s as a coach, like finding the balance where it allows the transfer to occur based on the constraint, but the guys are gonna compete through the constraint.
You know, well, okay, well, this is the new rule of the game. I wanna win this game and I’m gonna compete hard. I’m gonna go with hopefully the constraint, developing a skill, developing a concept. And of course that’s the coach to figure that out. But to your point, maybe you need just these challenge point drills to build kind of the identity, the character you want in your players.
Dan 01:05:21
Yeah, that’s the fun part about all this stuff. So, Pat, I gave one of my misses earlier about the deeper dive on the shot selection, which I’m realizing we also did talk a little bit about shot selection during player development.
He kind of touched on some of those things, but anything else from your end that you would have went deeper on.
Pat 01:05:39
Yeah, I alluded to it a little bit, but he had another really good quote that the best defenders are your best detectives. We got it a little bit in the conversion, like I mentioned, about just knowing who’s the better shooter, how it affects your stunts, slash closeout, or understanding these gray areas of basketball.
We talked a little bit about offensive IQ, but I wish I followed up on the detective, your best defenders, and teaching defensive IQ.
Dan 01:06:05
Yeah, I think a whole other conversation about their defense and their defensive coverages would have yielded similar, interesting discussions and all that kind of stuff because not only do they rebound and get back, but they really defend. And so that would have been interesting as well.
Well, once again, we thank coach Sampson for coming on, congrats to him and Houston on all the success. Thanks everybody for listening and we’ll see you next time.
Pat 01:06:34
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit slappingglass.com for more information on the free newsletter, Slapping Glass Plus, and much more. Have a great week coaching, and we’ll see you next time on Slapping Glass.