10 Lessons from T.J. Otzelberger
TJ Otzelberger’s teams at Iowa State are easy to identify because their decisions consistently match their identity.
Throughout the conversation, he explained the trade-offs behind Iowa State’s pressure, how they structure rotations and in-game information, and why competitive endurance matters as much as scheme.
Here are 10 lessons from the episode:
Here are 10 lessons from the conversation:
- Identity Is a Tiebreaker: A usable identity resolves moments when scheme, personnel, and game plan point toward different answers.
- Manipulate Usage, Not Just Efficiency: Aggressive coverage can succeed by transferring decisions from a primary creator to a lower-volume playmaker—even when the possession still produces an advantage.
- Price the Entire Coverage: Evaluate pressure through the combined costs of fouling, short-roll creation, three-point volume, rebounding distortion, and rotation fatigue.
- Predetermine the First Rotation: Removing ambiguity from the initial help decision preserves aggression; complexity can be absorbed later through recovery rules.
- Coach the Constraint: “Create a collision” defines what the offense cannot be allowed to do while preserving freedom in how each defender accomplishes it.
- Protect Standards from Personnel Narratives: Adapt responsibilities to a player’s processing, anticipation, and communication without prematurely lowering the structural demand.
- Train Recovery Capacity, Not Just Effort: Competitive endurance is the ability to make another correct, forceful decision after the possession has already broken structure.
- Filter Information Through Identity: In-game data is valuable when it reveals whether the team’s intended pressure points are actually shaping the game.
- Separate Information Collection from Message Delivery: Assistants can specialize in diagnosis, but the head coach must compress that information into one actionable priority.
- Closing Lineups Are a Live Evaluation: Finish with the players currently sustaining the team’s winning behaviors, not automatically the most talented or highest-status five.
Transcript
TJ Otzelberger 00:00
look at our timeout it’s more like a pit stop in a like an indie car race there’s one coach goes in and quickly puts in the gas one coach goes in and fills up the tires one coach goes in and gives a little track instruction another coach goes in and says hey this is where we stand in the race and then i feel like it’s my responsibility at the conclusion of that timeout to make sure our guys have tremendous mental focus on the next possession
Dan 02:05
Coach, thanks for spending some time with us. We’re excited to have you today.
TJ Otzelberger 02:09
Honored to be on here with you guys. Appreciate all that you’re doing to continue to help all of us as coaches grow and move forward. So thanks for your efforts. Excited to be here today.
Dan 02:19
Thank you, Coach. Coach, we wanted to dive in with this, and it’s, I know, something that your team, especially here at Iowa State have been known for, and that’s defense, pressure, creating turnovers, all those kinds of things, but wanted to start more philosophically on decision-making on defense and how you’re combining pressure and trying to force turnovers with also playing great decision-makers that can make the reads and all those kinds of things.
TJ Otzelberger 02:43
I’d say probably at my core, growing up in Wisconsin, Dick Bennett, Tony Bennett, defensive mindset mentality, to me, winning basketball. I grew up watching those guys coach, Tony’s like a big brother of mine, Coach Bennett, my high school coach really looked up to. So there’s definitely a background in the defense, the pressure, the disruption. Then my career or lack of career as a player, I was somebody that always to find a way to continue to move forward, I had to figure out how to make the other player or the other team not play well. My college coach, Dave Vandermillan at Wisconsin Whitewater said to me one time, it’s not about you, it’s about make your teammates better and make the other team play worse. And so there’s a lot of great coaches from my high school coach, my college coach, my mentors on the defensive side, disrupt, dictate, make the offense uncomfortable. And I think that’s my background as who I am and how I believe things based on the great mentors I’ve had.
When it comes down to pressure, specifically on the basketball, our belief is that there’s differing strengths with on-ball defenders. Some guys are able to extend more than others, some pick up point, I think is something that’s really important. And we’re fortunate we’ve had some elite on-ball defenders in our program. We have one now with Killian Torre, we’ve had Tame and Lipsey. And so what we really aim and work to do in the scoring area for everybody in our team is have a tremendous amount of pressure on the ball, hand activity, your body, where really you’re creating that duress on the basketball to force your opponent to dribble against pressure. And something that really is important to us when you’re guarding the ball in space is that we have what we call a collision, where on that first dribble, we throw our chest in you and we show our hands. That’s a big part of our disrupting. And then anytime there’s a ball screen, any pick and roll situation, we’re always due to the basketball, really trying to put the ball handler on his heels, make him tentative, get him to back up, get him to retreat, prevent his shoulders from being downhill. And so for us, once that ball comes into the scoring area, once you’re 25 or so feet, whatever it is and in, we want to be so disruptive and dictate so much that it supersedes everything else, that pressure. And we want the mindset to be we are going to force you to dribble and we are going to fight for a collision on the basketball. And that is going to be the genesis of our disruptions and our dictating and how we force things or dictate things and try to prevent offense from being able to move the basketball or attack cleanly.
Pat 05:26
When talking about the collisions, I get really curious about anytime with on-ball defense and of course is then pressure defense is how you teach the other four players or whoever’s in the gap or the help to understand if it’s a drive that needs help versus a drive that doesn’t. So if the on-ball player is fighting for that collision and it’s not going to be perfect, we all know that, and then we start to build out rotations and scrambles, how are you helping your guys understand maybe that first decision of is this a threatening drive that needs a help or has my on-ball defender leveled off the drive.
TJ Otzelberger 06:01
Obviously, when you have the collision, you put yourself in an advantageous position because there’s not a direct line drive, right? You’re arcing the drive or you’re dictating that drive to a potential help defender. We err on the side of aggression with everything. So we’re probably as extreme as any would be to dictate, disrupt, and try to generate turnovers.
Obviously, for all of us, you’ve got to determine, right, like, what can you live with and what are you willing to give up? What are you willing to live with? Those sort of things. And what we’ve decided for us is that we would prefer if there’s a decision to be made when, on the top of the floor, we’re squaring in our stands. When it gets foul line or below, we really want to try to have a no-middle mentality, right? We’ve become more square on the top as the rules have shifted and we’ve elected that on the wing, we want to really try to have a no-middle mentality and almost essentially dictate force, push you to that baseline. And so now, look, the notion of help and when do you need to help? For us, when you get in the scoring area, we want to have intense pressure on the ball and we want to make sure that everybody is in that gap, but it’s more of a presentation than it is actually going to the basketball when it’s onto the top of the floor. It’s more of a, I’m there early so I can get to the closeout early as opposed to true help in those spots. But for us, when we’re able to dictate and get the drive, we really want to get the ball to the side. We have more success defensively when we get the ball on the side of the floor, closer to the sideline, the better, and now we’re trying to push that drive to the baseline. And now we want an early rotation, how we coin our defensive positions, we have a goalie and a spy. The goalie is, most people would call the MIG and the spy being, the goalie’s the low man, the lowest man on that side, and our spy is our guy playing two on the backside. And so for us, our goalie rotating early, we want that defender in our ideal world to dictate, disrupt, push him towards the baseline, we want that goalie to come over and we’re going to look the trap along that baseline at six feet, eight feet. We want bodies, we want hands, we want that to be a high turnover situation. The guy on top, when we get you there, we want to smash down and do that sort of thing. So anything on the top of the floor, we have to do an unbelievable job squaring it and guarding the dribble. We work on it every day, close out, guard the dribble. You don’t need any help. There’s always a no middle mindset. And then the drive on the side of the floor is what we’re really trying to fight for because we feel like those go our direction. In terms of off-ball decision making, the goalie is always coming early, like we’d always rather err on the side of aggression and the goalie’s going early, then the true decision making becomes on the backside when teams skip it out, play on the backside, try to get us in rotation.
TJ Otzelberger 08:54
Our spy is the one that always takes the first pass on the way out and our goalie takes the second play on the way out. Now, again, if you said define everything from a schematic and technical standpoint, I would say our defense is far more built on. You will make mistakes, but we will give multiple efforts and keep competing to fix it. And so we don’t stop it very often.
We don’t say, hey, this is the gap help. We say just be continuous, play through it, make the next play.
Dan 09:23
Coach, when it comes to installing and the first month of practice when this becomes like an identity thing, I think you mentioned earlier, not all of your players are created equal from an athletic ability standpoint or even IQ standpoint, decision-making standpoint. Does it stay pretty like, this is what we’re doing, this is the rules as far as our rotating, or when does it become gray and, hey, this is your skill set versus this guy’s skill set and how you talk about that and teach so that everybody knows who they’re on the floor with and how those decisions can be made going forward?
TJ Otzelberger 09:54
From my opinion, based on experience, when we have formulated a hypothesis about a certain player on this is what they’re only capable of defensively, or a five man may not be able to be at the level of the screen every time, or a wing may not be able to close as aggressively and garner a collision, what I think we’ve just given our guys an out, I feel like I’ve regretted any time we’ve adopted that type of mindset, because I think it gives guys an out and once you give them an out, then they’re looking for outs and other things. Three seasons ago, our third year here, Milan Mancilovic was a freshman, and it wasn’t a secret that he was an elite offensive player, wasn’t a secret at all. And defensively at 6’8″, we’ve played him at the three for three years, you would naturally say well he would be a guy people would attack, they would put him in these spots, they will go at him, they will do those sort of things, and so if you said, is it best to say hey, you don’t have to be as aggressive, you don’t have to close as hard, you don’t have to be as physical, I would say what Milan proved year after year, and even last year where he did a really good job, he was part of the number one defense in the country in Ken Palm three years ago, he continued to get better defensively as we demanded more, and I feel like in my opinion, I understand there’s certain guys that read plays quicker, there’s guys that can recover quicker, and we certainly factor all those things in, but we try to operate from a vantage point of saying you are capable, you need to give more and do more, and again, we’re not picking up full court very often, we’re doing everything in the court of court, so I think the guys that maybe aren’t as fast twitch need to be great talkers, they need to be in position earlier, they need to read plays better, and I think that regardless of what your individual skill set is, whether you’re fast twitch, great thinker, great talker, all those things are important, and you might not be great at one of them, but you have to be great at two of them, and that is an accountability thing to me far more than a physical gifted thing.
Dan 12:02
You kind of mentioned it the trade-offs piece or like the taxes you would pay on certain parts of your defense How do you think about the defensive trade-offs with pressure like an example be like the more you pressure the more times teams tend To foul so how do you think about that practice that talked to your team about the types of trade-offs? You’re willing to live with verse not
TJ Otzelberger 12:21
Yeah. So I think the things that we’re really trying to be about or to have our identity be as mentality base over scheme, you know, numbers, analytics, believe the mentality. We want to throw the first punch. We want to be first to the fight. We want to be the aggressor. We want to be the more physical team. I find that oftentimes when you do that defensively, even though there’s certain things the offense can take advantage of, feel like you’re going to be more aggressive attacking closeouts offensively, driving downhill offensively, screening, and going to the offensive glass, cutting. So to me, we’re trying to say that the mentality supersedes the numbers and the scheme.
Everything is about physicality, multiple effort, continuous, never stop playing. So if you said, what are some characteristics and challenges that we experienced as a result of that, as each year’s move forward, we’ve gotten better at not fouling as much. And I think part of it is square in the bowl, more on the top of the floor. And the other part of that is for us, it’s been trying to impose that mentality. And then feeling like that mentality and the competitive endurance, possession by possession, but then also over the course of the game, we feel like we’re really good in the second half. We’re really good the last four or five minutes at maintaining that mentality at a time in the game that can be really challenging. So characteristics, what do we give up more than probably most? More threes, but when they don’t come from the paint, we don’t have as much of an issue. We have a huge emphasis on the physicality, guarding the dribble, the early rotation, and not let it come to the paint. But if you look at the analytics, they’re going to say we give up more attempts. As long as they’re not from the paint, we’re fine with that. Another challenge because of early rotation is defensive rebounding. It’s not as much of a clean block out your man. It’s more rotation rebounding and you might be on the strong side and have to go hit on the weak side, or there might be situation where you just need to go get the ball with two hands above the rim in space. So I think that we’ve negated the filing piece that hasn’t been as much of an issue, but as certainly a concern, giving up more threes and then defensive rebounding. And look, I think it’s when you’re leveraging multiple efforts and the competitiveness that we want to play with and the edge in the spirit, there can be times it’s hard to play four minutes in a row, three minutes in a row, because the effort and energy that you’re allocating is just so great. So even specifically at our five position, if you really give it for two minutes, that might be a good stretch. We prioritize the mentality and the effort and the multiple efforts at such a high level that I think our guys understand, Hey, this is what we might give up, but this is what the benefits are in terms of mindset mentality, more physical offense, score more off our defense, you know, score more in transition, all those things that have been pillars for us up to this point.
Pat 15:30
Continuing off of this conversation, this kind of trade off the tax you’re willing to live with, when we look at your ball screen coverage, and primarily when you’re blitzing and you mentioned you’re going to put two on the ball, how do you view the short roll? And we see a lot in Europe, the hedge and plug, we hear don’t help up, we see teams that come aggressively. What are the factors or circumstances you think about and how you just want to defend the short roll when you’re going to be so aggressive on the ball on the ball screen?
TJ Otzelberger 15:55
So what we have to look at, again, for us, I would say 90 to 95% of what we do defensively in the game is daily habits, consistency of those habits, more effort, less adjustment, less adaptation. We’ve decided to play the defense that we have because our feeling is that most of the five men we play against, we would say we would be in favor of our opponent trying to find a plan to get them the ball consistently, and we would live with the outcomes that come from them. Now, with that being said, it’s our hope that we’re into the basketball with active hands and that our big whether he’s trapping or he’s just at the level, that it’s not a direct pocket pass on a bounce with momentum that carries your shoulders to the paint, that it’s a floated under duress on your heels type of pass. So that gives our five men a recovery to be able to get back into the play.
So if you’re playing down the middle third, and you just set a step up per se, and you want to play that big on the pocket, our hope is that it’s going to be a floated air pass, whereby the first dribble x five is going to be back into the play physically confronting it. And then for the time being, you know, your help defenders, our goalie, our spy, our guys that are decision makers, we’re stunting early, we’re definitely placing a premium at the goalie at the rim, not leaving the rim and making sure that he has a confrontation there if you take that on. And then what we have to make decisions if we are to play somebody that has an extremely skilled five man, that we feel this guy actually can make play after play after play and really put us in a bad spot to beat us. Now we have to look at varying coverages, but I feel like that’s the five to 10%. Whether that means we switch it, whether that means maybe our guard jumps back a little bit different things that we’re looking at right now, to mitigate that scenario where x five truly is a playmaker. Again, we’re trying to play against saying that most teams, the guards are used to making the majority of the plays. So let’s make the five man make the plays, even if that means sometimes he comes up naked because of, you know, whatever screening action puts him on the short roll or puts him in the pocket in an advantage. But our recovery is something we work on every day from the ball screen to the recovery. And then those stunts and decisions is something we’ve been drilling every day, even this summer on what that decision making needs to look like. And then like I said, the last piece is when you get for us, game prep isn’t worrying quite as much about what plays other teams run, but more so understanding when I’m the spy and I know these two players are on the backside, who’s the elite shooter, who’s more apt to cut having knowledge of those type of things.
TJ Otzelberger 18:51
So that decision making that you’re talking about off the ball can be put into play. But I would say the answer to almost every question in our program is more physical, more into the basketball, more aggressive, talk louder, earlier, sooner, rotate faster, quicker, hit harder than it is to I may or may not have a saying of do the tough guy stuff, not the smart guy stuff, like just play harder.
We’ll figure it out. We’re going to make mistakes. It’s an imperfect game and it’s continuous. So let’s get really great at making mistakes and fixing them.
Dan 19:26
You’ve mentioned a few times about you’ve recently become more square-stanced in the middle third maybe than you were in the past, and I guess I just wonder why and what’s led you to feel that’s a better option.
TJ Otzelberger 19:37
Well, in the first two years we were at Iowa State, how the block charge was officiated, we almost wanted to encourage slot drives with a collision ride, the dribble, and then the goalie steps up early. And if the offensive player were to leave his feet, you would often see that called the charge. And so in our first two seasons here, we would get two, three charges a game that we would take on that play or play very similar to that.
And then what happened is the rule shifted where you had to be there before the offensive player made that final movement into the attempt and now getting there, it’s going to be called a block. Like you’re not going to be able to get there in time based on our scheme and rotation. So I think that’s one. I think number two is when you’re more square, you’re able to more physically get that collision that we’re seeking. You’re really working to catch that first dribble. You’re almost like a linebacker, a middle linebacker, waiting for the running back to hit the hole. And now you’re pursuing him, showing your hands and physically with your lower body and your chest. So it’s a greater sense for a collision. And I think when we started, we were probably a little more stubborn. Like we’re going to make the ball go to one side or the other. I think we’ve gotten better at playing against teams when they really try to attack down the middle third and what that decision-making looks like. And maybe in our first couple of years, we were more committed to it has to get to a side and then we have to keep it on the side.
Dan 21:07
With your stance square in the middle, and then on the wings, it being more no middle, and then combine that with putting two on the ball, I guess the teaching points communication on foot angles and where the screen’s coming from and the big knowing where they’re going to hedge because it obviously can be different on the side as it is in the middle third and I think any teaching that you found with that.
TJ Otzelberger 21:30
Yeah, I think the more we can push it to the side of the floor, people certainly try to flatten and widen the floor at times against us and, you know, whether they’re trying to play the pocket and maybe reverse it to the other side or whatever it may be. And I think for us, whenever we’re able to push it to the side or get it more on the side of the floor, it becomes almost more of a trap.
And I think our hand activity, our ability to dictate and disrupt, we want to create a very passive approach to offense. We want to have you on your heels, backpedaling, retreating, thinking, you know, trying to remove all those aggressive instincts if we’re able to. So the stance, you’re not getting into the stance until the big calls the stance, right? Like we have our stance on the top and our stance on the wing. And then when you get into the basketball with physicality, once you hear the big and the screen being called, I would just say that’s where the communication piece becomes so important because the timeliness of that, certainly there’s going to be folks against us that try to enter it and rip it away before we get there or pass and follow and rip it away before we get there and those sort of things. But that’s why we have our stance as a no middle mentality. And to me, being above that top foot and having the collision anytime it comes middle, but also being able to compete for that collision on the baseline side as well. Look, early rotations and communication, I think for all of us, it’s like you’re starting with an A and now you’ve got to keep the A and I don’t care what defense you play. So I think we all want that.
Pat 23:02
You mentioned something I thought was really interesting. You just said competitive endurance is what you’re after with your program and your guys.
And maybe from a more like design practice setting, how do you think about instilling that competitive endurance and the philosophy that we’re gonna just be able to outcompete teams longer over the course of 40 minutes?
TJ Otzelberger 23:22
I think your practice habits for all of us need to be reflective of your identity and how you go about doing things. There’s certainly a time in our practice for teaching and we spend a lot of time teaching on film and whether it’s individual film or film as a group, but when we’re on the floor, we don’t want to have lulls in practice. We want to go right from one thing to the next thing. We want to sprint from repetition to repetition. We value as coaches more coaching on the fly than stopping things because we want everything to feel like a fight and you’re under duress and it’s continuous.
It’s going to keep going and there’s going to continue to be opportunities. It doesn’t mean we won’t have specific practices where we talk about spacing concepts offensively or things that we can do along those lines, certainly do that, but we try to foster as much as we can in the things that we do every day that it feels game-like. There’s a winner, there’s a loser, there’s things you need to do to be successful in this endeavor and that everything’s competitive. You want to build, you look at like we were just fortunate to have four-year player Tame and Lipsy who like is so wired to want to win at everything that sometimes you design a certain concept or a drill and he’s the guy that figures out how to beat it and you’re the coach. You’re like, well, you know what? That’s on me. I should have had a better idea because credit to him. We said, if you get it in a paint touch, that’s worth two points, so then he’s like a battering ram just running through people that keep getting in the paint and stack up points, then throw it off the backboard to himself to get two for an offensive rebound as well. I think it’s messaging, I think it’s communication. We talk a lot about what we will do. We will have a collision. We will hit bodies with force. We will turn people over, we will trap in the post, our post-fire, we will do these things. I don’t know, we try to have an alignment with everything that we’re doing. We know we play against really good coaches, really good teams, really good schemes, and we just try to lean in in our environment for our guys to just compete in everything they do every day and we try to set things up, give them that opportunity.
Dan 25:26
The world’s best coaches are curious, prepared, and never satisfied with surface level answers. That’s who we built SGPlus for. Each week we study the game’s most useful ideas, from offensive actions and defensive coverages, to practice design, player development, teaching points, and in-game adjustments. For coaches who want to see the game more clearly, keep expanding their understanding, and sharpen how they teach it, join serious coaches at every level of the game at slappingglass.com today. Install week is where preparation either pays off or catches up with you. The staffs that come in with sports code and fast model already dialed in look completely different from the ones still figuring it out. Film, plays, and scouting all need to be ready before day one. Huddle makes sure they are. Pre-season is the test. What you set up in August determines how fast you actually hit the ground running. Learn more at huddle.com slash slapping glass today. Coach, this has been awesome so far. Thanks for all your thoughts there. We want to transition now to a segment on the show. We call start, sub, or sit. We’re gonna give you three options around a topic, ask you to start one of those options, sub one, and sit one, and then we’ll dive in and discuss your answer from there. So coach, if you’re ready, I’ll give you this first one.
TJ Otzelberger 26:43
Do it.
Dan 26:43
Okay, the first one has to do with as a head coach in-game information that you most need or want as a head coach from your staff to help make decisions and adjust in the game. So start, sub, or sit. First option is line-up info. So substitution patterns from your team, other team, how that line-up information is stacking out. The second option is shot profiles, where their shots are coming from, where your shots are coming from, just getting a quick idea as to how those look. The third option is, we just call them program stats, so maybe something that you internally are tracking, deflections, charges, all those things people might keep track of, something that you would want to know how your team is doing. So start, sub, or sit, in-game info you want as a head coach.
Line-up info, shot profiles, or program stats.
TJ Otzelberger 27:37
I would say start would be program stats for us, disruption, deflection, steals, turnovers, offensive rebounds. We want to win the possession game. We want to be a team that generates more turnovers and wins the rebounding battle. And as a result to me, that’s at the forefront of everything.
So start the program stats, sub the lineup stats. I think lineups are important, but I think with our substitution, we prioritize effort, energy guys, giving multiple efforts, competitive endurance. So that even supersedes a matchup. We might try to attack or a specific scheme or this guy guarding that guy. Sit, I would say is shot profile, because to me, if a team playing, like certainly, I think we’d all be in agreement. You don’t want the team to score uncontested, get shots at the rim. But if we’re talking about high volume threes or are we somebody that says you can’t take any mid range for any reason, we’re not as extreme that way. Again, everything is more mentality based. Are we coming downhill? Are we doing it out of aggression? Are we doing it because we surrendered? Are we, you know, doing it that way?
Dan 28:46
Coach, before maybe diving on any one of your three answers here, as a head coach, over the course of your career, what do you feel like in-game is most important for you to have control of? There’s so many things that are happening, sets, calls, fouls, substitution, name all the things. What have you felt that is most important for you personally to control as a head coach on the sidelines?
TJ Otzelberger 29:09
How do we refocus our team to have a next play mentality? Again, for us mentality is more than scheme and more than information. So what we found over time is a lot of times it could be a turnover, a shot attempt, maybe someone doesn’t finish a great assist and we have mental fatigue, frustration with what happened offensively, and now we jog back on defense or now we react to the officials. So for me, above and beyond all of the basketball, what we really work on is body language, getting to the next play, fixing our mistakes, understanding you’re going to make mistakes. It’s a part of it.
And there’s going to be things that don’t go your way, but fix it immediately. So to me, it’s the mental focus to be entirely present on the next possession, regardless of what happened on the previous possession. And I would take that far over knowing what play call is or what play they’re running or what scheme or concept they’re trying to use to exploit for us and pick and roll, we want to prioritize guys that are mentally prepared to win the next possession, no matter what.
Dan 30:13
One of the things that I’ve admired from afar, watching your teams over the years, when you’re talking about coaching with force and collisions and physicality and aggression and pressure, and then keeping that controlled in a sense as well. So where your timeouts are constructive, guys are emotional, they’re physical, you’re keeping that next play mentality.
As you know, it’s a really hard thing to do so that things stay where they’re at. How do you find the balance of having such an aggressive physical mindset and also a very much like we’re in control of this situation as well?
TJ Otzelberger 30:44
To me, leadership for myself, our coaches, is more about your actions than your words, right? So exactly what I just said to you, I better have great composure on the sideline. Our guys better know the compete that we have and the fight that we have, but also being able to appropriately channel that so that you’re not reacting, responding. You don’t have the hangover from one negative play to stack up negative plays, and now you can go down a rabbit hole of stacking negative plays. So I think it’s something we work on every day.
We address every day. We talk about it every day in practice. We correct it. We mentor accordingly. We build that mindset. But I think for all of our coaches, even if you look at our timeout, it’s more like a pit stop in a, probably in like an Indy car race. There’s one coach goes in and quickly puts in the gas. One coach goes in and fills up the tires. One coach goes in and gives a little track instruction. Another coach goes in and says, Hey, this is where we stand in the race. And so all of our four assistants that we’ve utilized have a voice during the timeout. And then I feel like it’s my responsibility at the conclusion of that timeout to make sure our guys have tremendous mental focus on the next possession, whether it’s an offensive possession or a defensive possession. So I just think it’s a consistency of messaging and it’s a standard of accountability that for young people, they’re all looking for discipline and direction and holding them accountable to that. But I think it’s a willingness to maybe do that even above some of the basketball things or the scheme things or the match-ups or some of those other things that could be happening.
Pat 32:24
My follow-up has to do with your substitution patterns. And you mentioned that the effort that you guys want to play with, guys are going to go three, four minutes at times and you’re going to need to get them out so you can maintain that effort.
How much are you thinking about then as your staff and how you substitute so that at the end of the game, if everything’s going well, you know, in a perfect world, you have the right 5 again at the end of the game, and you haven’t extended someone too long, they’re fresh to finish the game.
TJ Otzelberger 32:54
as the head coach i do our substitutions right and i do that based on certain things for each guy like if you’re a five man and you’re at the level of every ball screen appropriately i’m gonna assume that you’re in the right mental and physical condition to continue to play if you’re responsible to go the offensive glass and you go every possession i’m going to assume the same right just like if you’re a defensive guard and you get our defense set and have a collision so there’s different things for each player that are going to be those indicators for me during the game of what happens i’m not somebody that necessarily looks at it and says well the most important minutes of the game obviously we all know at the end you want to be at your best but to me how we get there can be a lot of different ways so i don’t look at it some coaches like if we talk about the two fouls we’re very liberal on playing guys with two fouls i’m not saying there’s not a time where you’re at home and you’re up by 15 and why take any risk because it doesn’t appear necessary but then there’s the risk reward or the tax you pay the decisions you need to make that way so we’re trying to look at the game incrementally possession by possession and then time out to time out and when you look at what we demand from fives in our program and i think those guys we’ve had a lot of five men that have gone on and continued playing professionally is because they understand the necessary effort every single possession and how that’s not sustainable for long periods of time so i don’t think as much about keeping guys fresh for the end i look at it more by saying when you get down about those last five minutes who have been the five most winning players in this game tonight who have been the five guys whether it’s as a unit or who have been the five most productive in terms of winning that have earned the right to finish the game and give you that best chance so again i’m really big on the competitive endurance it’s really hard for me to understand how if you play 28 minutes you’re not as tired but in 32 you’re exhausted or certainly there’s some games that are more taxing than others there’s games that have longer media timeouts because of tv for one reason or another there’s games that just have more fouls called more stoppages right so even that to me is interesting because i think you’re trying to look at your team and say is this guy right now taking shortcuts is he looking for a way out or is he competing with an elite mindset on each individual possession and i think guys that are competitors and winners they find a way to dig deep when it’s the most and i think it’s more mindset than i believe in actually like physical endurance i think your mental goes far more before your physical goes it’s more about mental toughness
Pat 35:44
All right, coach, our last start subset for you, we’re gonna get to some offense now, finally. We’d like to ask you what travels best on the road from an offensive standpoint in a hostile environment.
So option one, being your ability to attack rim, just rim pressure, pain attacks. Option two, ability to offensive rebound. Or option three is just decision making, the ability of your players to make good decisions, sound decisions in a hostile environment.
TJ Otzelberger 36:20
I would start decision making and the reason being is that I think that the decision making to be tough with the basketball and create an advantage puts you in a great position offensively and I think that that simple decisions, understanding on the road, oftentimes that the magnitude of the environment, the crowd, especially in our league, we play in some really tough road environments, simple decision making, quick ball movements, understanding the advantage creation and the pick and roll situation, off ball screening, those decisions to me set up everything else. It starts with let’s make great decisions, let’s put ourselves in a great position and then the other things will follow.
So then I would sub offensive rebounding. I think if you look at any of the best teams in the country, you know, we’ve done a study over the last few years, the best teams are great in transition defense and they’re great at offensive rebounding. But I believe the transition defense is largely predicated on live ball turnovers, like the teams that have live ball turnovers. So that’s where I’d favor, A, the decision making to take away live ball turnovers, putting your offense at deficit, then B, ability to offensive rebound and generate additional possessions, bring that physicality, make the extra effort plays, find ways to get yourself through lulls offensively or where the ball’s not moving as much.
And then I would sit the ability to create rim pressure because I think the rim pressures created more as a, you know, the early decision making, but certainly understand the value of putting pressure on the rim. And that’s the premium. Like for us, we want paint touch, we want rim points, I think all elite offenses have two point field goal percentage as a huge component. And how do you do that? How do you get there? But for me, just starting out with the decision making, not turning it over, being really effective on the offensive glass, and then believing doing those things will create and open up our ability to attack the rim.
Pat 38:27
And talking about your defense, the mentality, the toughness, how you want to practice, how do you think that has then translated or benefited your offense?
TJ Otzelberger 38:38
The first, I think when you do physical things and you get used to doing hard things that lends itself to doing those same things offensively, I think the guys who get more collisions, drive it through contact more effectively. The guys who are physical ball defenders tend to cut off the corners around the 45 with greater force and physicality. The guys who sprint to the rim and are physical, if it’s a five man ceiling, I think all the things that we do physically defensively pave the way to play more physically offensively.
Second, by being the aggressor defensively and having a high turnover defense, we’re able to score more in transition and create more transition opportunity. We feel that the best advantage is before the defense is set, whether it’s a number advantage or a matchup advantage or a positioning advantage to try to create as many opportunities, steel, deflection, block, rotation, long rebound, where we can put our offense at immediate advantage before the defense has opportunity to get set.
I think that would be the second part. And then third, I think there’s a mental effect for both teams. If you’re able to prevent teams from scoring because your defensive intensity and your collision and your physicality and those things, you know, you’re doing them at a high level and you consistently do them. I think you can break the spirit of the other team. And many teams have more of an offensive mindset tend to not be as intentional defensively when they’re not scoring or when they’re not feeling good about their offense. And so whether it’s, we’re forcing you to play differently through a different player, attack a different scheme, have maybe a different preparation for the way we do things. We also believe there’s a mental part of sometimes there’s such a thing as a team that their spirit is a little bit broken, that they don’t score it as well.
So now that maybe they don’t talk and switch and rotate as well on the other end. So I think all three ways I see benefit for our defense.
Dan 40:43
you go back in the history of your career, one of the things when you’re at South Dakota State is one of the top offenses in the country. And that was a way for you to win and win that league and you had Mike Dom and all that stuff.
And then the last few seasons, a dominant defense, although last year, your offense is one of the top 25 efficiency, I think offenses are higher as well. But like more of a defensive led focus potentially is from the outside, just that trade off for you or thinking about winning in different places and winning different ways. And that shift for you from South Dakota State, UNLV, Iowa State.
TJ Otzelberger 41:16
So South Dakota State, the coach prior to me going there, Scott Nagy did an unbelievable job. They had a great program. They recruited winning players who blocked out, shared the ball, and believed in the culture and the team of the program. I’d recommend for anybody when you become a head coach for the first time, take over a program like that that has a rich tradition of success and that’ll help you a lot.
But beyond that, I mean, again, I even look at the guys that were assistants they had there at the time have all moved on successfully in their career because they did such a great job, right? And so to come in and have this player Mike Dom, we literally had an offensive advantage every possession, every possession for the three years we were fortunate enough to coach him because his elite offensive ability relative to the defense he was playing against gave us an advantage every single possession. Now I was fortunate to work for really good offensive coaches, Greg McDermott, Fred Hoiberg, very elite, creative, outside the box thinkers, concepts, and those sort of things. We really tried to lean into that at South Dakota State because when you looked at the team that we were fortunate enough to inherit and the elite individual player that Mike Dom was, we felt like we had an offensive advantage and we could score in waves. We had a lot of shooting, a lot of skill. We were a team that didn’t turn the ball over very often and we felt like we could keep pouring on the gas offensively and it was almost like at some point we felt like we would have that run. We’d hit three threes in a row, we’d have that 12-2 run and that the game would break open for us. And so as a result of thinking that was our best way to be successful in the Summit League at South Dakota State because we were fortunate to inherit a very well-coached program with an elite player that we looked at it from the vantage point of, okay, if this is true, our offensive firepower because of that one advantage every possession and our skill in shooting and unity around should be so great that defensively we need to stay a body in front of a body. Let’s not put Mike in challenge spots where he’s going to be in foul trouble. Let’s just kind of keep our defense intact, stay underneath everybody, body in front of a body. And if it turns into a jump shooting contest that we believe on any court at any time, we’re going to have a great chance to win. And I think it was really, like I said, I credit the coaches before we were there and who they recruited and how they built the program. It was a fortunate situation to be in. And I think that also leaning into what I learned from McDermott and Huyberg and then letting Mike have the creativity, move them all over the floor and utilize them in a lot of ways, made him a tough cover.
TJ Otzelberger 43:57
Having worked more years as an assistant at Iowa State under McDermott, Huyberg and Prohm, and learning in this league that the defense, the athleticism, the coaches, the programs are at such a level where even the guy who’s the number one pick of the draft, and we’ve had a lot of number one, number two, number three picks in the big 12 this last year, a lot of guys in the lottery. And so even with an extreme elite offensive player wondering, is it realistic to have that same advantage that we had at South Dakota State? Would it work that same way? And can you consistently get that guy?
Because, you know, I’ve seen Kevin Durant do it. And I felt like the banster this past year was pretty good, but like, that’s how good good needs to be. Right. And so when we came in philosophically, we looked at the program and said, all right, what’s going to be important here? We need to develop some pride, some unity. We need to be a team that’s really frustrating to play against, annoying to play against. We need to be a team that finds a way to hang into the game and then like find a way to win over the last few minutes, just make one more play. And so as we did that, we tried to follow the same thing that South Dakota State coaches did before we were there. Get great kids who are tremendous workers, who are high character, who are going to have great habits, how you do anything is how you do everything. Everything in our program must look like winning before we’ll start to win. And let’s just get to work. And I think anybody that watched us that first year at Iowa State, when people came in to speak to our team, and we had a lot of really high level speakers and coaches pretty much told us you guys stink, but at least you play hard, right? And so ultimately, we were able to build some confidence through those habits and get some wins early that validate things for our guys. But I feel like from a sustainability standpoint in the big 12, evaluating the Iowa State job, more fortunate in the upper Midwest, blue collar, hardworking, tough, physical, there’s guys that fit that model. Not many times as a head coach fortunate to work for the last three head coaches to learn and grow through those experiences. And so we were able to do that and put together, I think each job is different. You have to value it and look at it relative to the league. What can you be? Who can you be based on who can you recruit? And so I felt like it’s probably two opposite situations in one, and we’re fortunate to inherit Mike down and have that. And then here, really trying to get put a system in place that’s going to be far more about developing young men to be successful in life and what they need to do. And then those habits in time will permeate the program and the wins will follow at some point. But we didn’t take anything for granted. We still don’t because we know how fragile it is. But we believe in the way we do things here from an habit standpoint across the board, even beyond the basketball, the things that we do.
Pat 46:58
you started decision making on the road. And when you look at decision making and more specifically like limiting turnovers, how much do you think then do you put emphasis?
Well, we want to limit turnovers. Let’s make sure our spacings right how we’re spacing around the ball, or is it giving clarity to the decision maker, whether it’s limiting his role or the game plan, or is it really coming back to we need to give these guys better skill development.
TJ Otzelberger 47:23
So, we take tremendous pride every day in the skill development, so I think we’ve seen guys make big jumps. We haven’t been a program that’s gotten a lot of five-star guys, but we feel like we’ve developed guys in our program that have become all-conference players and played at a five-star level. And so, our coaches, our assistant coaches, do a tremendous job, player development, day-in and day-out, to work on that all year. We’re working on it year-round.
When it comes to specifically approaching a game, I think we look at far more like, what is our identity and our skill set? What can we do? And then, how do we apply that in terms of attacking and being the aggressor based on the choices that the defense is going to make? And so, there’s certainly, for all of us, creating the advantage. Where do you get the advantage? And going into a specific game, it’s like we alluded to earlier, when teams play against us. The pocket, right? Like the short roll. That’s an area when two come to the ball, that can be a distinct advantage. So, there’s other teams in our league where we continuously try to play short-rolling pocket, just like they’re doing against us. I think it’s determining where those other advantages exist for your team. Do they exist by, you feel that quick, simple ball movement can create a closed-out attack and you can play off that attack? Is it a miscommunication that you can create through guard-to-guard screens, movement, ghosting a screen, things along those lines? So, how we look at it philosophically is, A, how do we get an advantage? B, how does that advantage lead to a paint touch? Then it goes back to the decision-making in terms of right play, right time. So, I think we want to develop the skills. We want to be who we are and who we can be. And then we want to find things within the realm of a game that we feel we can exploit to our advantage or that we can find that just put our players in position to be successful. And then I think their confidence, again, everything to me comes back to the mental part. I’m probably sick in terms of how much I think everything in life is mental, every situation is mental, and mental fortitude, mental endurance, competitive endurance is the key over everything. But I do think there’s such a thing as your guys’ togetherness, your guys’ confidence, your guys’ swagger, all those things also play a role in it as well.
Dan 49:41
Coach, you’re off the start, sub, or sit hot seat. Thanks for going through those two options. Both of us has a lot of fun. And we got a final question to close the show. Before we do, really, really appreciate your time today and all your thoughts.
This was a tremendous conversation. So thank you for coming on.
TJ Otzelberger 49:55
really appreciate it. And like I said, Jeff Van Gundy, who I look up to as a mentor and somebody that has been a role model for me, he thinks the world of you guys.
I know he’s had experiences on here and it’s an honor to be here, an honor to be with you guys. And I appreciate what you’re doing for all of us continuing to move our game forward and continue to put resources there for coaches. So thank you very much.
Dan 50:17
Thanks coach, appreciate that. Coach, our final question that we ask all the guests is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach?
TJ Otzelberger 50:25
Yeah, I mean, without signaling out an individual player or players, I would say that I’m somebody that has belief that the best way to show someone you love them is to spend time with them. It’s to invest in that time and being fully present.
And that doesn’t mean there’s not difficult conversations, honest conversations, confrontational conversations. I think love is being truthful in the moment and spending that time. And so, again, I mentioned somebody like Mike Nam at South Dakota State, and I mentioned Tame and Lipsy many times here. It’s not just spending the time with that one person, even though those are two guys that I think transcended the trajectory of each program. Mike did it at South Dakota State and Tame and Lipsy did it for us here. But I think it’s investing in people. It’s being present. It’s being there. I think we all live in a world of social media, scrutiny, comparison culture. We all go through so many things. And so to me, the greatest investment is the one that we make in young people each and every day to help build those skills for them to be successful in life, not just as athletes, but as husbands, fathers, neighbors, community members, brothers, sisters, business owners, you name it. And I will always believe that the best investment is investment in people.
So from a self-accountability standpoint on a daily basis, how I evaluate if I’m doing my job to the best of my ability, it’s how present I am and how much time I allocate to the young men in our program off the court outside of practice, because to me, that shows how much I love them, how much I care about them, and how much I truly have their back. And that’s something that we work really hard to do each and every day.
Dan 52:18
Pat, hey, let’s dive into this recap. What a terrific conversation.
It’s like no surprise. Just after spending an hour plus with coach Oselberger, anybody that’s watched his teams play, that you can just tell their identity, how they play, it’s the success he’s had. And then, you know, not having it on the podcast, it’s not surprising, it’s not luck. Absolutely.
Pat 52:40
Absolutely. Like you said, watching them on film, it just jumps out at you from obviously what they’re trying to do from a schematic standpoint, let’s say, but also just the energy and effort they play with. Needless to say, we were super excited to get Coach on. We grateful for his time today.
He did not disappoint. So looking forward to this recap and going over several of the takeaways we may have had throughout. So on that note, Dan, I will kick it to you to start with your first takeaway.
Dan 53:09
historically great defense over the last few years at Iowa State, and there was a lot of clues and things like that within this conversation as to what they do, doubling the ball, their foot angles, the rotations. I think we got into a lot of nice tactical things, but I think my biggest takeaway was our conversations about trade-offs and taxes, the reasons why they do what they do and why he thinks the way he thinks.
So that was one, and then he says something about, I think you asked him about practice, and I really liked his quote about everything feels like a fight or something to that expense. I think that summed up really nicely, like when you watch his teams play, I’m sure when coaches say they play, Iowa State, that’s what it feels like. It feels like a fight in the physicality he used. I love the term collisions over and over. So my big takeaway is just that obviously is a main driver of the program and who they are and their identity, and it’s in the water everywhere. And the way he talked about everything, it just came back to that, that it’s uncomfortable to play against. It’s a fight. They’re going to make you do things you don’t want to do, and they’re going to do it with extreme effort and togetherness and physicality. And that’s just coming from the top. It’s coming from Coach Oselberger, and he exudes that. And so I think you can tell when a coach comes on here and they embody the system that they teach so fully. And I think that came through in spades today.
Pat 54:37
Completely, you know as I kind of play it back in my head and you’re in coach talk The one thing that really jumped out to me is the importance and he said it over and over like if anything He was gonna demand more effort and not rely on adjustments always coming back to just whether it was Coaches defense that Iowa State or you know any other coverage that we’ve highlighted and really liked I think it all comes back to the ability to be clear and how you teach it and then from there with the clarity comes the effort the intensity and the ability to make multiple plays because You know, what’s the saying, you know when you think you stink and I think with elite defenses you see these programs just are so good at building clarity and how they build their base out and We kind of try to nerd out and defensive decision-making and how you read dives line drives and he spoke correctly that it’s you know We’re gonna just value aggression and so it goes back to them They’re clarity like be aggressive if you’re uncertain if that drive needs help or not Just go be aggressive and they drill that okay So if the goalie is gonna pull over then the spy is gonna X out, you know And so there’s the clarity behind it to where I know if I’m in the goalie I go I’m gonna go aggressive and I think that probably 90 80% of the way there being a good defense and then my other big takeaway and you mentioned was how he spoke about the collisions and What I liked about it is again, we always try to think about okay.
Well one-on-one defense How are you teaching position angles footwork? I’m sure they are But I think kind of comes back to this growing theme that I know we’re talking about Conceptual defense and it’s just your job is to make a collision on the ball when they dribble it they need to collide with you you need to get hit them and if you put that goal in the mind of your defenders and you drill it daily and you preach it dreary like They’ll figure out the technique. They’ll figure out what they need to do, but they know what the goal is
Dan 56:28
I thought it was somewhat subtle, but a really great takeaway. I asked him about foot angles in the middle third versus outer third and no middle and like why, cause he mentioned it a couple of times before that we decided to go more square in the middle and I thought his answer to why they adjusted was great and really interesting. I particularly love hearing great coaches who already at the highest level and already have great defenses, why they adjust something. And I thought that was a really good answer.
Just about the fouls and how they were calling the block charge and then how they were solving certain things just made it a little bit easier. And I thought that was just a good takeaway to, I honestly just like to hear him talk through why he would adjust that. Cause he was already so successful in other ways. All right, Pat, moving on to our next takeaway. I will throw that one to you. I’ll go to.
Pat 57:21
the offensive side when we talked about what travels on the road, get a little offense in here, he had some incredible offensive teams with South Dakota State and that was clearly like their competitive advantage being more offensive firepower. Now you watch Iowa State and as you pointed out like they don’t ignore offense, they had a good offense this year but I think it’s for sure you’d say their competitive advantage is on the defensive end and I just really enjoyed hearing.
I don’t know if it’s progression is the right word but why at South Dakota State what factors, what were the mitigating circumstances that they wanted to be, let’s go lean into the offense versus at Iowa State we’re going to be more defensive minded let’s say. Thought it was a really good explanation and kind of again just pointing out what is your separator and leaning into it to find success and I think that’s what we love about this podcast and the game there’s so many ways to win but then the other takeaway I had and then I’ll throw it to you was just how we thought their mentality kind of helped them offensively and I especially like the part just making them better cutters because they know how hard they need to cut because they’re facing a defense that’s physical every day. I thought that was a really good point on top of of course you know driving if their drivers are constantly feeling collisions, going to make them more persistent drivers let’s say that are attacking the paint because they’re going to play through I’m assuming the collision so I really like tearing the points of just again not getting like overly tactical or in the weeds but just from a full part philosophical standpoint practicing every day drilling this kind of toughness this mentality defensively how it just bleeds into the offense and as a trickle down effects and everything they do on both sides of the ball.
Dan 59:03
Yeah, in all these conversations, there’s a ton of nuggets with the one you’re talking about with the offense travels. Yeah, I’ll just double down on hearing him talk about why they adjusted the Big 12, what kind of players you need to win, what actually wins versus where they’re at.
Honestly, too, just really cool of him to give so much credit to the former staff at South Dakota State. Yeah. That’s really cool when coaches pass that off and the great work that someone else did. I thought that seemed to sum up coach in a nutshell too about willing to shine light on someone else within it too. I thought it was really cool. And then he did have a nugget in there though about the offense travels, about the best teams in the country, great in transition defense, and then great offensive rebounding wise. And so I think he mentioned that a little bit within what they look at when they’re on the road, as well as like two point field goal percentage, which you and I have talked about on here, a lot of the best teams both defend and shoot the best two point field goal percentages, or at least at a very high rate. So I thought that was really good as well.
Pat 01:00:00
Well, yeah, one other nugget I liked again in this offense versus defense kind of identity and I think we’ve all heard it like defense fuels offense or vice versa if everyone’s touching the ball and offense then they’re going to be more willing to commit to defense and both have their pros and cons but I thought he had a really good point I think when he senses it in their opponents that teams are more reliant on their offense and if they can take their offense out of it and they have a couple bad possessions that they start to notice their opponent hang their heads kind of shrug their shoulders and that’s another reason why he just kind of leaning into this defensive mentality because they’re harder to break with that mentality when it’s their defense is kind of their cornerstone versus their offense maybe that’s an oversimplification but I think that is also a really good point and I think it bleeds into a little bit when we talked about substitution and the stats and just talking about how they’re always constantly trying to refocus their players and timeouts and build next play mentality and I think maybe getting through defense you can get that buy in versus you know if they’re hanging their head after they made a couple you know miss some shots or struggling to score but yeah you can always rely on hey it’s effort on defense we need the effort to come back that next play for sure as we wrap it up here any conversation topic we missed you would have like to have gone deeper on with coach today
Dan 01:01:23
The in-game information start-subsit was highly valuable as well, and I think we touched on a number of things. I would have loved to have gone a little deeper on end-of-game stuff, and he mentioned he’s going to play the five winning players at the end, you know, and that can change. And there was a ton of great stuff in there just about substitution patterns and how guys are playing and all that. I just thought it was really, really good.
He also touched on the timeouts being like an indie race type of deal. It would have been interesting to maybe dive a little more on the science and art of a timeout and how that’s structured so the guys are getting the information they need and it’s not overload. And I thought it was great, and I also was very curious if we would have had more time to go deeper on that. And then I’ll just lastly put, I really appreciated his original answer. He mentioned that it was like the program stats was his answer to it, but that I think I asked him the fault of basically what he feels like his job is mostly as a head coach on the sideline. And he talked about reinforcing our team next play mentality. He feels like it’s the most important thing or something to that effect. I thought that was really good.
Pat 01:02:35
Yeah, I’ll go back to the lineups. And when he did talk about he’s like always just tries to play the five guys that he thinks are impacting winning that day, I wish I had followed up with is that I mean, probably a little bit of everything as we know, but a gut instinct, is there a plus minus and adjusted plus minus?
Is it the culture stats? Like, I guess, what is he weighing? So, you know, he’s kind of taking the emotional decision out of it. And yeah, fact based, let’s say on terms of who actually is having the biggest impact on winning that game. And again, making sure they’re playing the right five at those moments.
Dan 01:03:12
for sure. And then just a note at the end, I thought his best investment answer was awesome too. As they all are, but I thought his was particularly great today. So well, once again, we thank coach Oselberger for coming on and being so thorough.
We appreciate everybody for listening and we’ll see you next time.
Pat 01:03:34
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.