What were the ideas from 2025 that coaches couldn’t stop thinking about—the ones that kept showing up in practice plans, film sessions, and staff rooms?
In this Slappin’ Glass Mailbag Episode, we revisit the most compelling concepts covered by Slappin’ Glass in 2025 as well as questions sent in by coaches around the world, unpacking how modern teams are creating advantages on both sides of the ball—and why the best programs are increasingly focused on flow, disruption, and continuity rather than isolated actions.
The conversation begins with a deep dive into “jumping on the pickup” in pick-and-roll defense—a subtle but powerful technique for shrinking passing windows, generating deflections, and creating turnovers without abandoning base coverage. From there, the discussion expands into broader defensive trends around smart aggression, including selective hitting, late-clock doubles, ATO disruption, and how elite teams steal possessions without gambling.
Offensively, the group explores the growing influence of Total Basketball—a philosophy rooted in eliminating pauses between offense and defense, tagging up on the glass, arriving “already playing” in the half court, and flowing seamlessly from one advantage to the next. Coaches will hear how leading programs are emphasizing shape over spacing, simplifying actions to increase pace, and using familiar structures to unlock better decision-making under pressure.
Beyond tactics, this episode also weaves in insights from some of our most impactful off-court and analytics conversations of the year, including:
- Guiding teams into flow states
- Measuring and developing decision-making
- Understanding kill shots, runs, and game-swing moments
- Using analytics that actually help during games—not just on Twitter
This mailbag isn’t about trends for trend’s sake. It’s about how elite coaches are thinking, teaching, and designing environments that allow players to play faster, freer, and more connected—and what those ideas suggest about where the game is heading next.
🎥 This episode is also available on YouTube, with embedded video clips that bring the concepts to life.
Transcript
Dan SG 00:02
Welcome to Slappin’ Glass and our first mailbag episode. This episode isn’t about just what trended in 2025, but about the ideas that lingered, the questions that coaches kept circling back to. We opened up the mailbag to revisit the most interesting themes from the past year, like when to jump on the pickup in a pick and roll, the value of, quote, hitting after timeouts, the pursuit of total basketball, and how to guide teams into true flow. Along the way, we weave insights from some of our favorite non-tactical podcasts that shaped how we think about leadership, learning, and the quiet work behind the work. This conversation is also available on YouTube with embedded video clips to bring these ideas to life. It’s a reflection of what mattered in 2025 and a glance forward at how these ideas may shape the way we coach in 2026.
Thanks for listening. Let’s dive in. One of the big things that, you know, Pat, we were really excited this year was to add Eric Fawcett, bringing him on as the third strongest leg of this operation. Eric, really appreciate you coming on. And we’ve had a blast this year, starting to work with you. Brought so much to our whole platform. And so we’re excited to kind of dive into this end of the year, looking forward, mailbags, mortgage board of fun stuff that’s come across our way. And so, Eric, thanks for joining us. We’re gonna kind of do this a bit different. I will kick it to you to kind of lead us through some of these topics today.
Eric Fawcett 01:30
Thank you so much and it has been just my absolute pleasure to join the team and I’m so excited for what we’ve got going on in the future. It still seems like I’m pretty new having joined in June, but we’ve already done so much and I’m even more excited for what’s in the future.
So for everyone that’s hearing my voice for the first time, I coach in the Canadian Elite Basketball League with the Edmonton Stingers, also work in consulting with different college basketball teams mostly, but also a little bit of work in the NBA and some pro leagues around the world. So have a little bit of the perspective of these two guys as well, which will hopefully inform a lot of what I do. And while this is my first time with the voice being on one of the channels, what I’ve mostly been doing is working on the newsletter and the content as well. And I really want to start with something that we did content-wise that really generated all kinds of feedback. People at all different levels that found this to be extremely interesting, extremely helpful. And as soon as we put it out, there was all kinds of coaches talking about the ways they implement this. And this is the jump on the pickup in pick and roll coverage. Patrick, you were someone who did a lot of the work on the video. Could you just talk a little bit about the concept and what you saw?
Pat SG 02:43
Yeah, quick, like backstory, kind of tying it together to in our SoCal coaches summit, we had on coach Jerrod Calhoun. And this is where he kind of discussed the idea in his talk a little bit. And from there, just kind of dove in.
And basically, yeah, the concept is within your pick and roll coverage, when the ball handler goes to pick up, a lot of times we on both the fender chasing over, we say to, you know, get back square. But if you see they pick up in a non threatening, you know, neutral spot, to rather jump on the pickup, you know, leave your feet. Because at this point, you know, you’re kind of playing the odds that they’re looking to pass it. And I think it’s just a great way to generate steals without compromising your base coverage. But a good technical detail to kind of pick up some steals just as you see that ball handler, you know, whether they’re getting deep, and they’ve kind of been leveled off by the big going to pick up looking to spray corner or throw off the dribble as you recovering just to jump, jump with high hands. And, you know, once it’s kind of those things, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And you see a lot of teams doing it and a lot of different coverages doing it. And just the effect of it. And it’s something that I’ve been continue to look at, especially with the hedge and plug coverage being so popular over in Europe, you know, you see it all the time there and then building it out like to the weak side rotation, kind of that, that x out defender, you’re also just raising up when they see a ball handler being neutral and not a threat looking to pass and just getting deflections, getting tips and kind of generating some steals.
Eric Fawcett 04:12
That is something that I really like about the concept is the ball handler is never going to be more open than when they make their pickup. Obviously every split second after the pickup, it gives an opportunity to recover as the defense. So the moment he picks it up is when the passing window is the largest.
So to shrink that window by making yourself big and another concept that East Tennessee State reached out about it and they talked about how they call it back pressure. And I kind of like that wordage, that verbiage as well as with that kind of concept of providing that kind of secondary, like again, not initial pressure, but back pressure. And like you said, too, the ability to anticipate what would be the next pass, whether it’s that corner skip right away. But if they get a little bit of a step deeper, maybe it’s a fill behind and then it is that back pressure jump. But it was really interesting stuff. But Dan, what were you kind of seeing, looking through that edit for the first time? And we talked a little bit about some of the benefits, but maybe even some of the negatives or things to consider with it.
Dan SG 05:12
Well, one of the things I liked about it was, and Pat just kind of hit on it, but it’s not something that’s outside necessarily of your base coverage and it can just be applied within what you already do. There’s a couple of other things that we’ve done in the past on Soft and Glass that I thought kind of fit into this category.
One was dribble handoff coverages and the hand work of whoever’s guarding the guy giving the dribble handoff, how their hand shoots in from the inside to kind of disrupt a dribble handoff, which can be a very tough action to guard. This is another case of where just your hand work and where you jump and kind of get deflections blows up what is a potentially tough coverage. And the other thing is a while back we did like on X outs or close outs, where instead of closing out straight to let’s say someone on the wing when there’s someone in the corner, you’re closing out and jumping to cut off the path to the corner. So it’s situations like where it’s your base coverage, it’s what you do defensively is normal, but then like adding like the hand work and the lane pressure at the end. So that like in the jump on the pickup situation, you know, defensively, you’re in a compromised situation when that ball handler is picking it up and they’re looking to make that next that next pass. But what I like is it’s just a subtle way to take away the next most obvious pass or at least make it have air time. I mean, getting deflection of steel is obviously the ultimate thing. But really what it does, you look at a lot of the film is it just takes away where the first easy read of the ball handler is gone, or it’s more forced, or there’s more air time on the pass out so you can get back to whole. So I kind of just I really liked it as, okay, you have your normal coverage pick and roll or you have your clothes out and how you close out to the corner or you have your hand off coverage. And here’s just another like subtle, very smart way that teams can implement this and sort of blow up some of the more difficult coverages to guard. Now, like Pat said, the one I guess potential drawback is if you do get caught in the air and they’re able to move the ball and cut or you could be compromised. But I feel like just hard for an offense to really take advantage of that from what we saw from the film. And we’re looking at Richard Patino when he was at New Mexico was a lot of the film that we got really good stuff. I mean, just interesting to think about how maybe you don’t do all of it. But can you add something like that into what you already do? I thought was a really big takeaway for me from the whole thing.
Eric Fawcett 07:33
Yeah, looking at some of the ways that it could be kind of countered, you sometimes will see that that short roll given go where someone will the ball handler will get his defender in the air on the pickup, try to hit maybe a short roll and then make a basket cut. But it’s one of those things. Do you think you’re losing a game? Like, do you think you’ll give that up 20 or 30 times in the game? Like, probably not you give it you might give it up once or twice.
And it’s and maybe that’s just the tax that you pay. But that is something that, yeah, I think could be really effective in a lot of different coverages. And I also think about, yes, it will hopefully come up with deflections and steals. But I even think about how maybe at the high school level, if out of a pick and roll, you’re able to hit a corner skip, maybe that that’s good enough to get an open shot. But then if you get up to the college level, the difference between a pass that’s in the shooting pocket and out of the shooting pocket is the difference between a contested shot or an open shot. And if you get to the pro level, the difference in hitting someone in the shooting pocket or not is whether or not they’re even able to get that shot off or not. And I think about if you just change the angle enough that the pass is no longer one that is hit in the pocket, but is one that’s a little bit out of area or off target, like that, that could be enough, even the more you get up level. So I think that’s big. But of course, the ultimate goal would be, can you get a deflection? Can you get something going the other way? That’s numbers. And I think that that speaks to a bigger trend. Right now, we’re looking at talking about different coverages and things that teams can do within different coverages. A lot of it is geared towards how can we create more turnovers? So how is that something you guys have looked at and thought about in the last year?
Pat SG 09:09
we’ve looked at a lot. And, you know, of course, talking about this is one we talked to, we highlighted like the steel to spin. I know UCLA does it a lot with Coach Cronin, we looked at some other teams just, again, within their coverage, if they you know, team that’s pretty heavy in the gap or plays more kind of a pack line, let’s say, but if they see a drive going away, and, you know, a dribble of playing blind, we’re most likely they’re going to try to spin if you kind of funnel into that short corner, again, leveling off a drive, where the most thing is they’re gonna either spin back or strike, you know, kind of that strikes up, just send in the double, again, stuff like that, where I feel it smart aggression, let’s say, and it doesn’t compromise your base, you’re not just blindly doubling out wildly doubling.
We’ve also looked at like a ton of like hitting. Yeah. And now maybe this is like finding the right moments, whether end o’clock isolations, you know, coming out of ATOs, like just smart ways to maybe roll the dice and steal a possession. Now these are ways maybe getting away from like jump on the pickup like technical, but more like raising your aggression tactically. I think those are really clever ways to things that, you know, I’ve enjoyed looking at and just seeing how teams do it, you know, probably the team I watched the most is like Valencia this year, I mean, this is they’re doing a lot of what we’re gonna probably talk about today. And one of the things that you can just see it’s in their base, like anytime it’s under 10 seconds and like offense breaks down and the offense starts to isolate, like without fail, they just send the hit and the corners know and like they raise up to get that try to put pressure on that one pass out and just for those listening to maybe what a hit is real fast.
Pat SG 10:42
Yeah, it hit is basically where you’ll send the double usually from the full side two or more side You send the top guy to go double the ball So a lot of times we’ve seen it either end of game isolation to of course take it out of a primary score Or I think two teams are using cleverly like you’ll switch so you have a big on perimeter mismatch and then they’ll go Double it as you know, the offensive guy kind of starts to go to his bag Ready to make like the quick pass out So that’s what I refer to as a hit and valencia right now is has put it almost into their defensive DNA and like they’ll do it whether it’s you know, the first minute of the game to the last minute of the game
Dan SG 11:19
Yeah, and I’ll just add, and thanks for clarifying what hitting is, is not what my kids were doing to each other right before we recorded here. But one of the things that I was gonna add on top when Eric was asking about disruptive stuff or jumping on the pick, these other things is, we’ve done a lot, and I think we see it a lot in Europe, just these hits or ultra-aggression on sideline out of bounds, end of quarter, ATOs too, where a team is just kind of just not ready for it.
I think one of the things that reminds me, and then one of the, a thing that we did, maybe two years ago now, was these traps in the back court where if a five or four man takes it out, throws it to your point guard and just starts jogging up the court, well, they’re just gonna go hit double the ball into the back court while your five man’s just blindly running up the court. So, like I said, those are a little bit more turning up the pressure. They’re a little less, like you said, technical, but I think interesting ways of, after timeouts, sideline out of bounds, sometimes baseline out of bounds, I think like your team offensively is not always ready to handle a quick trap because you’re coming out, we’re trying to run this set, we’re trying to go to this guy. They’re just trying to remember that.
Pat SG 12:34
of the play that you just drew up. Yeah.
Dan SG 12:36
Three of your guys weren’t even listening to Time Out. They were trying to, you know, and all of a sudden, boom, you jump on them. So I think those are the interesting little things like we’ve seen.
Eric Fawcett 12:45
And this is really interesting as well. So I really like to look to other sports for ideas of innovation, analytics, which I’m sure we’ll come into at a couple of different points in this conversation. But just looking at what some of the bigger analytical breakthroughs have been in different sports, whether it be baseball, American football, European soccer, and of course, what we do, something that seems to be a general trend in all sports is that when you look at the kind of breakthroughs in terms of tactics and analytics, it’s almost always to tilt in a more aggressive strategy. There has seldom been developments in sport that have been, okay, let’s wind back the aggressiveness.
Let’s play more conservatively. It almost always is, oh, we can crank up the intensity. We can crank up the aggressiveness in this way. And when I look back at our year of content, particularly on the defensive side of the floor, and Patrick, I mean, you did a really good job of laying out some of the stuff we’ve looked at this year, most of them were about being more aggressive in different coverages. I think about different places to double from was another one that we talked about doubling the post from the top, which was something a lot of teams were scared to do because it was a shorter three-point look. But as we even talk about what we did this year content-wise, looking towards some of the trends of the game in 2026, do you think that just cranking up the aggressiveness, being more aggressive, what do you think about that trend? Is that something you think that’s going to continue or what’s the case there?
Pat SG 14:22
To your question, Eric, when you hear you ask it, like my mind goes to that. Like, you know, we talked about ways to dial up maybe some, some steals, but just overall, I feel like defense is just finding ways within their personnel with whatever they’re comfortable to be disruptive. So, you know, like we talked about, we looked at a number of ways to double the post from the top, double off of cuts. And I think that’s where my mind goes.
And we’re just, as you continue to watch the season play out, just where different teams are finding ways to be as disruptive as possible. You know, and I think this is why we’re seeing a lot of tagging up. Yeah. In my mind, of course, to get offensive rebounds, but to build their defense immediately on the board and not, you know, we had coach, uh, Francesco Tabellini on who’s now with Paris. And I mean, he tags up and he talked about canceling the pauses and, you know, we’ve, we’ve talked about tagging up a lot and, and this whole system behind it, but where I like, I’m really curious now as teams kind of amp up pace, amp up disruption and tag up. Like can they then also start to build in like, you know, on successful tags, these moments to then like even press or run and jump out of it, like to even dial it up more, like if you are a tagging team, can you get more running jumps, you know, and really try to just make everything disruptive for the offense is where my mind goes. And where I just, I see the game over the last couple of years, really with defenses, like not so much sitting back, but more taking the fight to the offense. I think, you know, we’ve had great conversations analytically and it always kind of bears out that offense has the biggest say on, let’s say the defensive analytics of the opponents and not let the offense have so much say as they already do have.
Dan SG 16:00
Fortune favors the bold, right? It’s something, but it’s true.
Eric Fawcett 16:07
Yeah, and, you know, seeing the way that the game is officiated, I would say, in most leagues around the world and seeing just how offenses are getting more sophisticated. And it also just seems like there was perhaps an era where you could sit in a very conservative coverage and maybe, you know, just play drop, pick and roll coverage and that would be enough. But it just seems like as things get more sophisticated, you were talking Fortune favors the ball. I was thinking of a game of a game theory strategy, type of dominated strategies. And it just seems like when the way the game is officiated, the way the game is played, it just often seems like a offense that is executing at a high level will beat a defense that is executing at a high level, perhaps because of the edge of just the way the sport is structured or perhaps the way it’s officiated. But it does seem like, yeah, the days of just being able to be totally conservative and waiting for the offense to beat themselves is probably not going to work in a lot of good leagues.
And, you know, Patrick, as you were kind of talking about tagging up and that kind of immediate transition from offense to defense, I think that might enter into one of the bigger trends that us three have been talking about that a lot of people are talking about around the basketball world. And we aren’t the first person to coin this, but we’ve been talking about it as total basketball, a throwback to the total football or total soccer concept that kind of started in the seventies, some say earlier on the soccer side. But yeah, just this kind of game that really starts bringing the game 94 feet, not just in a full court pressing kind of standpoint, but tying in offense to an immediate transition to defense and trying to almost attack in a full court way, just like you might press. But, you know, Patrick, when you kind of think about tagging up and how it connects that offensive defense and maybe the concept that we’re talking about is total basketball. What does that mean to you and what you might see in 2026?
Pat SG 18:01
were kind of this idea was put in my head and where we’ve kind of continue to see it grow is I think with Coach Asolo and we had an opportunity to interview him on the pod several years ago and I think he talked about not necessarily calling it whether they coined it total basketball but how he views his offense I think I would just encourage anyone go back to listen to that and you know that’s kind of like from the moment you get the ball like it’s all about advantage-seeking and hunting the first advantage building your offense and he spoke on it really well and to your question yeah I mean you know you look at I think the other advantage when you tag up is like you see teams too like they’ll hedge in the backcourt now you know I think it’s two sides of the same coin in terms of backcourt screens we see offenses too are using it you know if teams are gonna pick up well let’s set an earlier screen get our guard going downhill and and play from there we’ve seen teams use a number of great pick good fed screens staggered screens these 77 screens that I really are originating the backcourt and again offense are just going but a and then on the other side like I said you know teams are choosing to hedge like they’re not just gonna yell at the guard to get under and the bait like they’re up there they’ve tagged up like again they’re gonna use this moment to keep being aggressive or vice versa the offense is gonna use it to punish your aggression you know this is where I’m really curious to see the game like how teams are actually moving their offense further back especially as pace continues to increase or everyone looks at these pace numbers recently too as teams are shooting free throws to set up your next play but again looking at it like well they’re gonna pressure like I think Valencia right now comes to my mind where their press break is like rolling right into a pistol and they’re able to just generate these early scores because yeah they’re choosing not to cancel the pause like they’re gonna go these moments where maybe you think it’s a lull they’re gonna use it to spike the pace and just get after it
Dan SG 19:49
I think it’s one of our friends from ACB or coach in Spain that has the great term I think that the Spanish use which is arrive playing. It’s not like your defensive rebound you walk it up and then you start playing offense in the half court Like you are entering the half court plane Whatever it is your system And I think I’ve always really liked that term of just like let’s not wait till we get to the half court to begin playing Like as soon as we defensive rebound we’re playing I think you and I were talking a little bit before the show about really great podcast with Michigan State women’s basketball head coach Robin Fralick last year Years start running together. I think but like I believe it’s last year But she talked about the best teams are great in the small conversions of the game I think that’s what you also mentioned with like tabellini talked about that as well like canceling the pauses like there’s no pause between a defensive rebound and our like We are starting right now We’re playing and I think seeing it more and more like as defenses seem to be more aggressive Maybe picking up in the back court offenses are just countering with higher screens middle third Screens where it’s just impossible to keep the ball pressure one and then they’re just starting their offense and flowing from there I think at our Coaches summit our so-called coaches summit.
I think Eric you were there coach Calhoun has a term Utah State about shaping for action and six or something like that where it’s like You got four seconds to find your shape. We should be in some kind of action within six seconds So like maybe this leads into like one of the all-time fun circular conversations about pace but like how one thing I always take away from our podcasts is Each coach’s view of pace and not necessarily like the time the shot is taken but just the pace of getting into your offense The flow when’s your first action and whether or not that shot comes in the first four to six seconds or the last four to six It’s just like the pace of your offense is there and I think that goes back to like the total basketball Like it starts on the rebound just playing with that great pace in the first six seconds where they just get an action They just get a trigger whatever it is a wide pin bolts You know pistol action where you want it to be as good as possible Maybe create a first advantage But then how quickly the best teams then just flip it and just get to another action right away Well, I think that’s a good question
Eric Fawcett 22:03
And that’s almost why I really like Calhoun’s use of shape versus spacing. Because spacing, like, oh, we need to go and we need to get into these exact spots to kick off our offense, is very different to let’s get to an approximate, like let’s get to a shape that even if this shape is moved four feet to the left, it’s okay, because we’re in the shape we want.
And maybe we’re talking semantics, but it’s almost like, and you guys see it all the time, it’s like the ugly stagger is the one that works and it’s the perfect one that you’re well positioned to defend. Or if you set that 77, where both screeners are exactly where you want it, it’s defended well. But if it’s like a little bit messy and the space is actually like technically further away, but the defense doesn’t guard it as well, because it’s messy and they’re not used to guarding it. That’s almost why I even like some of that shape versus even spacing as a conversation.
Pat SG 22:51
I go back to our conversation with coach chiago splitter and I think within like this whole Total basketball approach that we’ve started calling it now I think you see a lot of these things play very simplistic and not in a bad way But in like they start simple and they just build the pace through that like chiago splitter They at Paris whenever time there was let’s say a dead ball or they were gonna run a set It was always out of the Iverson and just like getting the guys comfortable in the Iverson in their transition or arrive offense and the spacing And just demanding pace out of it and I think from there, you know Then you build the execution the details which make it so deadly because now you have pace and execution But never sacrificing the pace and I think teams have found that through keeping things simple and just having playing more of a shapes Or spacing this is how the pace can get ramped up right away And I think like in a way, you know Offensive come very simplistic and that’s how then you can build reads because guys get comfortable And again, we talked about was coach splitter like they’re seeing similar actions all the time And you’re just getting more reads out of it more reads and practice in the games rather than dwelling on execution dwelling on a number of different sets a number of different triggers is like We’re probably gonna have three or four and then just getting really good at reading out of that And then I think then you can get the creativity then you can put different guys in the different actions It doesn’t always have to be perfect But just the familiarity that these teams have been constantly playing in puts this defensive in like these gray areas
Eric Fawcett 24:22
Well, and that’s something too, I really like as we talk about defensive coverages getting more aggressive trending that way, particularly in pick and rolls, I think one interesting counter to really aggressive pick and roll coverages is just to set that pick and roll from a really weird spot. Like if you want to see a team really like execute their pick and roll coverage at a really high level, just go set a standard spread ball screen in the middle third, because that’s what they’ve practiced.
But if you run it really wide and the ball handler is going towards the sideline instead of going towards the middle of the floor, suddenly it’s a little bit of a gray area for that. Okay. If we’re like just saying it’s some kind of aggressive hedge or even, even the hedge and plug, you know, if you’ve got, if someone’s on the right wing and they’re going towards the middle of the floor, that’s a really good opportunity to hedge and plug. I think it becomes a little bit more gray if they’re going towards the sideline and how are you can, you know, it’s the, the concern of that ball handler going towards the corner as opposed to the middle of the floor is a very different situation in my opinion. So, so Dan, I just, I just really liked that concept you talked about, about like, how can you start your offense from different places and how can you, yeah, and how can you screen from, from different angles? And I think that that will be also one way that teams can counter really good, really aggressive pick and roll coverages.
Dan SG 25:36
Yeah, I love watching Ben McCollum’s teams play because he had a quote that, I mean, sticks with me to this day, which is, you know, they’re always trying to complicate the simple. So it’s like, we’re going to set up a simple ball screen, but we’re going to set it a bunch of different ways that a bunch of different angles are twisted the last second to where the synergy between the ball handler and person set in the screen is there, but the defense it’s impossible to guard it two or three times.
Pat SG 26:00
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that could do where you start seeing all like those hot stove screens and just constantly like screen, re-screen, screen, re-screen. And just like once they find the angle, then they create the over and they get out and the guard has the right aggression on it. But it’s, yeah, to your point, complicated, simple, and they just have like the patience in it that they know they’re going to get it.
They’re going to get the angle they want. Like the offense is always right.
Eric Fawcett 26:51
I just thought we’d move on a little bit to some of the off-court content that you two were doing this year. Some of the best podcast episodes you had weren’t necessarily tactics or on-court coaching. It was some of the off-court stuff.
And some of the impact that will have is as we talk about what are the trends in the sport, how are things going to develop in 2026 and beyond, where are the ways that we can get our players better and grow the game. It might be some off-the-court stuff that can help with decision-making and elements of that. So Dan, can you maybe kind of recap some of your favorite conversations and on the podcast with some of this maybe more off-court or at least less tactical minded kind of guests in conversations?
Dan SG 27:32
Yeah, there was so many this year, Pat and I always do enjoy these sort of decision-making group flow, group dynamics, leadership conversations, because as much as we love diving into odd angle pick and roll screens, I mean, at the end of the day, trying to get your group to play hard, to be together, to believe in something, and we all know that is the secret sauce of coaching is getting those things done. So this isn’t even necessarily just popularity or download wise, but some of the ones that just, I think the feedback was just a lot our way in a really positive manner.
We started the year off with round two of Dr. Gio Voliente, and he was talking about fear, performance anxiety, finding flow states, success and failure. And I just go back to that conversation myself a lot throughout the year, and just how someone who does this for a living and works with teams can help us as coaches think about helping our players find this freedom on both sides of the ball and group dynamics. I thought Dr. Sarah Sarkis came on and talked about how you can guide your team into flow was really, really impactful and how hard it is to do and how hard you have to push your group and create friction. Like she talked about friction creates flow. And so that was the one that just a ton of feedback from coaches in a positive way. And then last one before I pass it to Pat for more comments, but Scott Wiley from S2 Cognition just gave a really interesting conversation for what they do for S2 Cognition where, they are testing for all these different types of cognitive abilities. And then like what you do with that as a coach and how you can think about training decision making, putting groups and lineups together. I mean, they do a lot with NFL and NBA drafts where you’re just looking at how a player breaks down information cognitively. And when you have that information, how as a coach can you then do all sorts of things with it from recruiting to player development to structure of your offense and defense and just even helping players on and off the court. So those three to me like have stuck with me and we’ve got a ton of stuff on it. But before I go on anymore, Pat, I’ll kick that to you. Cause I know there’s others from your standpoint.
Pat SG 29:36
I’ll just quickly second, I mean, more or less everything you said. But yeah, I really enjoyed getting the chance to dive into decision making.
And, you know, of course, we looked at it a lot with like the ecological design, the stuff we’ve done with Drew Dunlap, but getting the chance to kind of look, let’s say under the hood and look at the components of decision making. And as you mentioned with Scott Wiley, and what they’re doing at s two, we had on Brittany Loney. And she also really spoke well on again, just what goes into decision making, how we process decisions, how we receive information. And she talked about the four different quadrants. And to me, that was really eye opening. It made me think too, I mean, especially as a coach, and like, trying to assess, okay, where your strong points are, and how you receive information versus maybe some of your blind spots. And Dan, you always asked, I think the great follow up question, just like how you build your staff to kind of compliment, like the group think and the the staff decision making. And so that was really enjoyable to me. And I mean, I always learn a lot when we bring all these, you know, these kind of people on the peripheral of coaching and human performance, sports performance, psychological development, stuff like that.
Eric Fawcett 30:44
I think one of the kind of through lines between all the guests that were really good was the way that they had really tactile, this is how you can measure, this is how you can quantify things that I think as coaches we know is important, but they’re tough to quantify. And for every single one of them who had wasted to quantify those things, that’s what I thought was just so special about all those conversations.
And I would also just add maybe one more in the SoCal Coaches Summit, we put on Johnny Tower from St. Thomas talking about the way to quantify intrinsic motivation. That is just something that’s just stuck with me ever since. Because again, just another thing that I think we all know that we want intrinsically motivated players, we want intrinsically motivated coaches. But how do you measure that? And he had some very useful ways to do that. And I thought that that was super helpful. So maybe just one last thing we should touch on here, that was a trend of our podcasts as we keep talking trends. We closed out 2025 with a couple of podcasts talking about analytics, Ken Pomeroy, Jordan Sperber on the same episode, and then Evan Miyakawa, who is very good as well. So Patrick, just talking about how we can gain some advantages on the margins. We talked about doing that with some off-court stuff here, now talking about analytics. Those were just some recent episodes you guys did. Curious what your takeaways were from there.
Pat SG 32:03
keep it kind of simple and concise. My biggest takeaway, and I know Dan, we’ve talked about it was with Evan Miyakawa is talking about the kill shot, the importance of the value that can play and winning or losing.
And so when teams would he described the kill shot as when teams go on 10 runs, and like the probability then that leads to winning the game, you know, whether you can go on more 10 runs into your opponent or just make multiple 10 runs. But then on the other side of coin too, and which Evan spoke really well on was that probably the greater impact was on your team’s ability to not give up 10 runs. In general, that got me really thinking and I know Dan, you know, we’ve talked about it as you’re in a position as a head coach and how that kind of, you know, talking with your staff to like kind of just chart 10 runs or chart when you guys are maybe close to giving up a 10 run and how that can impact kind of in game strategy.
Dan SG 32:57
for sure. That was one of the big takeaways. Just as a coach, you kind of felt that like, hey, if we go on a 10-12-0 run or give up a 10-12-0 run, we’re in trouble. So it was nice. Evan gave a lot of data behind why that is important and when that happens, all those kinds of things. So definitely have just added that to my thought process during the game.
Can’t always stop it. Tried to turn the lights off one game and have really the gym. But you got that in the back of your mind. Yeah, that 10-0 run is big. So when do I need to maybe call timeout or those kinds of things. The other thing I think it was both in Jordan and Ken’s conversation as well as Evan’s is just there’s a lot of interesting analytics versus useful analytics and what’s cool to look at on Twitter versus what helps your team. And I think within both of those conversations, we were trying to really get into that stuff, like box score at halftime. What should you really look at? What’s a predictor of second half success versus not? And going back to like the four factors, two-point field goal percentage. I think it was Ken maybe talked about whoever shoots higher three-point field goal percentage in the first half, if the score is kind of close, usually it swings the other way in the second half. So that’s been in my mind too this season for sure, looking at that. And so I think within both those conversations, that stood out to me. And then lastly, I think just within all of this, I keep thinking about two-point field goal percentage defense. And I think the predictor of a really, really great offense and defensive team, it seems to be that that is a big time marker. Like what are you giving up from two percentage wise and that’s not good. And then how are you scoring it from two is a big predictor for a lot of reasons. One is a lot of times, big time shots, games that are tough down the stretch playoffs, it does come down to like tough twos or great defense is don’t always give you that wide open three or you got to make a tough basket. So that’s one. And I just think too, we talked about over and over the better defensive teams protect the rim, don’t foul.
Eric Fawcett 34:54
Yeah, that’s something that, you know, just kind of in my personal study, looking at really good offenses in Europe and in college basketball. There are some really good offenses that shoot a ton of threes, make a lot of threes. There’s a lot of really good offenses that don’t take a lot of threes, don’t make a lot of threes, and you can kind of be successful both ways.
But if you’re really looking for through lines and trends between teams that are really good offensively or really good defensively, it starts with a rim. It’s still so important. And that’s something that just continues to be, the more I study it, the more it is apparent that while there’s a lot of different approaches to the three-point line that can work, man, it is hard to be a good offense or defense if you aren’t converting both offensively and defensively at those parts of the floor. So that becomes a focus for me.
Dan SG 35:37
Yeah. And just to add to your point, we had Casey Alexander on Belmont head coach who was an interesting conversation because they were one of the highest field goal percentage teams from two in the nation last year, but they didn’t shoot a whole lot of them, but he would talk about what it didn’t matter to him because like their offense was what it was.
They generally are a lot of threes, but that conversation you talked about like their player development, how they actually talk about scoring around the rim. And it’s a thing for them because they know, you know, when they get it there, they got to put it away. They got to score it. So that was a good conversation that can point people to as well.
Pat SG 36:09
Dan, who was it that said that, yeah, the championship team, the teams that win make layups and it sounds simple, but it is you take it for granted that yet. If you’re not converting at the rim or the teams are settling for maybe floaters or these, you know, tougher than need be shots, they’re not the teams that are winning late in the season.
Eric Fawcett 36:25
Yeah. I mean, the topic about really winning the paint, winning the rim, I mean, it also even goes back to the three point line for me, like how are good three point shots created? Well, often it’s because of a paint touch going on the way out. So if you are not a threat to finish at the rim, you’re not getting those paint touches. Well, you’re probably not going to be creating those open threes anyways.
So I think that even talking in a lot of conversations, talking about dominating the three point line, getting good quality looks. Well, I feel like a lot of it starts with like, well, can you put pressure on the rim? And to be, do you put pressure on the rim? It’s like one thing to touch the paint. It’s another thing to have players who are a threat to finish that make layups like we’re talking about. So that’s another reason for me, even again, teams that might not shoot a ton at the rim. Still, a lot of them are putting a lot of good pressure on the rim.
Dan SG 37:10
Yeah.
Pat SG 37:10
And I think it was coach Osborne down that said that Teams your teams make layups. Yeah Dwayne Osborne. Yes
Dan SG 37:18
Yeah, good call. Coach Osborne, now Youngstown State, because he had a couple of times as Division II head coach, led the country in effective field goal percentage and we talked a lot about them making twos.
Eric Fawcett 37:29
Yeah, and going back to some of the analytics conversations, it was great to talk to a couple of people who really kind of dominate the space in American college basketball, but also some guys doing some cool analytics stuff in Europe. I think I’d be cool guests this year to maybe get a little bit of that perspective.
Dan SG 37:44
just a small interesting thing from Europe to America is just Europe’s view on substitution patterns. And the differences, I mean, I think you’ve seen it like a little bit in the media and the NBA with Isalo, Memphis, what Tiago splitter in Portland, shorter stints so they can play harder, you know, and of course, players love to play longer stretches, feel the flow, but like tracking how Europe thinks about substitution patterns, I think is an interesting conversation.
Pat SG 38:13
Yeah, it ties right into like, but we talked about that with the tagging out system, the total basketball, just like how you kind of maintain that pace and that level for the whole 40 minutes. And I think the substitution ties into that.
Eric Fawcett 38:26
Well, guys, I think that might be a great place to end it. I’ll throw it back to you for some final words, but just let me say it was an absolute honor to join the team this year.
It’s an absolute honor to join this little episode here and get in a conversation that absolutely flew by. So thank you so much. And to the listeners, it’s great to have you join us and thank you for following along this year, but I’ll throw it to you guys for some final comments.
Pat SG 38:49
Yeah, Eric, as always, we’re happy. I think our biggest trend was having you join us this year, for sure.
And we’re looking forward to keep growing, keep building, keep noticing what teams are doing and using these chats to continue to just discuss what we’re seeing, keep talking hoops and kind of sharing and coaching conversations we’re having with coaches across the world.
Dan SG 39:14
And I’ll just close with reiterating thanks to everyone who’s listened, read, subscribed, you know, wherever it is that you find us, we appreciate it. It’s been awesome.
Obviously, yeah, as I’ll double with Pat, Eric, having you. So I look forward to more of that. And, you know, for us, we’re always open to thought suggestions, questions, you know, a lot of the better ideas we get come from, you know, someone throwing something our way or somebody in their league is doing something really interesting. And we’re always up for a rabbit hole. And so to close, thank you, everybody, for what you do and for your support. We absolutely love trying to, you know, help this game and the coaching community, because we all know how near and dear it is to us and how fun it is. And so I thank you all.