This week we’re joined by Tennessee Women’s Basketball Head Coach Kim Caldwell. We discuss the connected system behind her up-tempo style, including creating 20 more shots, crashing four, flowing into full-court pressure, and subbing in waves. We also explore the balance between conviction and adaptation before finishing with Start, Sub, or Sit on communication, decision-making, and execution when players reach their physical limit in practice.
Transcript
Dan Krikorian 02:20
Coach, thank you so much for taking the time out of a, a busy preseason schedule to talk to us today. We’re really excited to get into a bunch of things with you.
Kim Caldwell 02:27
I’m excited to talk hoops, excited to be here on with you guys, so thank you very much for having me.
Dan Krikorian 02:33
Absolutely.
Patrick Carney 02:33
Thank you, Coach.
Dan Krikorian 02:34
Coach, we have to start with your style of play, and anybody that’s got a chance to watch you play over the course of your coaching career knows the wide open style of play, the press and trap and shooting a lot of threes, all those things. And I will not overexplain it.
I’ll let you explain it, but I think it’d be fun to start with what it is and why you’ve believed in it so much as a coach.
Kim Caldwell 02:55
What it is is we are trying to do everything we can possibly do to get 20 more shots than our opponent. So we’re trying to win the turnover game, we’re trying to win the rebounding battle, and we want to get 40 to 45% of our offensive rebounds. We want to turn our opponents over between 20 and 25 times. We want our turnovers to be around 12 or 13, and we want to get to the foul line way more than our opponents.
And, you know, one thing about me as a coach is I’m not really gonna outsmart anyone. I’m not gonna be on that clipboard beating you, wizard drawing plays. And my math is not good, but I do know if you get 20 more shots than your opponent, you got a really good chance to win. And my background is a Division II coach, and so a lot of Division II coaches know that it’s not an equal playing field. Not everyone gets the same amount of scholarship. So we were running with about five and a half scholarships Division II when I first got there, so we had to find a way to have a separator. This is a style of play I played. I played two ways in college. I played slow and I played fast. I played on a team that played six people and I played on a team that played 10 people, and we had a heck of a lot more fun on the team that we could shoot it all the time, and we played a lot of people. And so I don’t think if I had played it, I don’t know that I would fully understand it or love it the way I do now. But it is a great way to play.
It’s a great way for your players to play, especially people that want offensive freedom and like to kind of play with pace and not be put in a box and really want to win and make teams uncomfortable.
Dan Krikorian 04:29
Coach, I want to start with the 20 more shots. Where did you land on that number of shots being a tipping point to where you want to be at in most games?
Kim Caldwell 04:39
I think that’s an interesting thing. That’s a working number for me right now.
In the SEC, the goal might be a little bit lower. It might be 10 to 12. Non-conference for us at this level, it should be around 25 to 30, and so it usually averages out to that. Our Division II model and our mid-major model was around between 17 and 20 more shots than our opponents. Again, we wanted to be really top in the country of that turnover margin and that rebounding margin just to make sure that you get those numbers. So 20 is not a goal we hit often in SEC play, but it is something that should average out throughout the year.
Patrick Carney 05:13
When you want to play fast, and you know, players say they want to play fast, and for recruiting, you know, you kind of present this model. But when you actually get them in the gym, what are the habits you always find that you’re constantly teaching in order to just play fast?
Kim Caldwell 05:28
We do a lot of unteaching. The majority of what we do is, “Don’t run back on defense. Run forward. We’re going to press.” You haven’t been able to rebound your whole career as a point guard. Well, now you need to go crash because you have to be up there to press. Talking about playing that pace of, all right, you’re allowed to shoot it pretty quick as long as it’s a good shot and you have rebounders. We spend a lot of times, especially now that we use a lot of transfers, of getting players out of their box. You haven’t been allowed to shoot threes. Well, you’re now required to shoot threes, so you have to be comfortable doing that.
You weren’t allowed to drive, you were only allowed to shoot. No, we try to make players scouts. That’s one goal we have is, “All right, you’re gonna have a different scout than you’ve ever had.” So we spend the majority of our summer and preseason really pushing the envelope to try to get them out of those boxes, to change that scout, to reteach how we do things. And then we put a shot clock on almost everything early, so we’re running with a 12-second shot clock so they can really understand what pace looks like.
Patrick Carney 06:33
What then are you defining as a good shot, bad shot with this style of play?
Kim Caldwell 06:38
Almost everyone we’ve coached is a capable three-point shooter. So first and foremost, it’s a good shot if you shoot a shot and you have rebounders because, again, when you want 40% of your offensive rebounds, you’re gonna crash with four, you have to have rebounders. You can’t go across… Like, we’ll allow you to shoot threes, we give you the green light, but we’re not gonna let you get a steal and shoot a three if you don’t have rebounders. Unless you’ve hit two and then I’m just gonna ignore it.
But we don’t want to shoot on two people if there’s somebody wide open. Like, there’s freedom. Like, sometimes if you have a poor shooter in the corner and you’re a first-team all SEC player, you shooting on two people is better than you kicking that shot to a non-shooter in the corner. So we talk about that. We break down percentages. We really explain good shots, bad shots, but sometimes we’ll shoot shots. I think females do this too, you panic shoot a little bit. You get yourself in a position and you don’t know what else to do, so you just shoot it. So we’ve been really working on playing off two feet, making the reads, making sure we’re not shooting on three people at the rim, that we’re playing inside out and swinging the ball around.
Dan Krikorian 07:41
Just like to flip it to the defensive side, when you’re playing this style and, and you’re going forward and you’re press and trapping, are there certain types of shot profiles that maybe you’re okay stomaching that, say, most of us wouldn’t? Is there any difference there?
Kim Caldwell 07:55
Yeah, I’m sure there is a vast difference there. The shot we want our opponent to take is a shot not at the rim and a, not a rhythm three, but a, a rough shot round that elbow area, around the logo area, that they don’t necessarily practice, and we want them to shoot it quick.
We want them to shoot it under fatigue, where they’re tired. A lot of what we do is pace. We sub frequently. We play a lot of players, so we are really trying to get into our opponent’s legs. And so by fourth quarter, we are looking to see how they’re missing their shots. We’re looking to see if they’re having uncharacteristic turnovers. We’re looking to see if they’re getting in foul trouble because we’re putting that pressure, constant pressure to get them to wear down. So we want them to take shots they don’t normally practice at speed, but I am also very much okay with a quick layup. That is something that’s important if you’re gonna play this way, if you’re gonna play at pace, and why so many coaches are quick to get out of their press is they don’t want to give layups on the back end. As long as the layup’s in five seconds, cool. We’ll get it out and we’ll go fast. Like, it’s a pace thing for me of how many times are we gonna cross half court? Is your point guard gonna be able to play for 40 minutes playing at this pace? I want the score to be 29 to 30 at the end of the first quarter, and then I know the game is being played at our pace. If the score is eight to 12, we’re not winning that pace battle.
Dan Krikorian 09:12
And Coach, maybe following up a little bit on the pace battle, because you mentioned, “Hey, I don’t want to have to be drawing up a bunch of plays or things like that.” You know, a lot of times I feel like when coaches play a more controlled style, some of the levers in a, within a game that they think they can pull are maybe a set here or there or changing up the rhythm of the defense or something like that. When you’re playing this style, what levers or changes of pace do you potentially think about in game that can tip the pace back where you want it?
Kim Caldwell 09:41
A lot of that for me comes from the defensive end, is sometimes when our offense stalls, we need to go turn our pressure up and get a steal, and that’s an easy bucket for us. And then usually I’ve been blessed where I have some really good lockdown defenders where if we haven’t scored a couple possessions, “Hey, we need a steal. You’re gonna have to up this. We need a steal.” And then, you know, steals are pretty contagious, so you steal, score, steal, score, then you’re right back in it.
You kind of have that momentum. That’s a big one. Offensive rebounds, you know, no one goes out there and misses shots on purpose, but go get an effort bucket. Go get an offensive rebound or a second chance three without drawing the plays up in that. Those are really important. And then we like run out layups too. We’re running to the blocks and out, which wears us down a little bit more too, but it usually causes the defender to stick in the paint and allows more corner threes for us and helps our spacing. So we’re running two people down whatever side they are on, hitting your blocks and going to the three-point line and out. But we want those throw ahead passes for the run out layup, too. So just trying to find some ways to kind of pick up the pace, to see one go in and then usually once you see one go in, you can turn your press back on and then go from there.
Patrick Carney 10:47
You mentioned about the substitution patterns and doing three, four, five player substitutions to maintain the pace, maintain the intensity. What are the considerations in terms of how frequent, what is the on-court time that you’re looking to sub?
And then maybe my deeper question is then how do you map it out so that you do finish with the five you want in that game?
Kim Caldwell 11:08
There definitely is a great feel to it, and you can tell when you have the feel figured out and when you don’t. We really kind of try to run two even groups that are even, good point guard, good point guard, post, post, shooter, shooter, driver, driver. And sometimes we’ll go five in and five out every time. A lot of the times we don’t.
A lot of the times we’re subbing when you’re tired. And when you’re pressing and you’re asked to run to the block and out in transition and you are scrambling and sprinting and trying to play with the 12-second shot clock, you can probably do it for five minutes. Your kids with a high motor. Your kids with a low motor, they come out huffing and puffing, and if you’re not coming out huffing and puffing, you’re not doing it right. My team that I had at Marshall, they were so good because they would use every ounce of energy that they had on the floor, and then they would come out and they’d be like, “Praise Jesus, you gave us a sub.” Like, and they would be dying and they’d be like, “Don’t ever leave me in there that long.” And we made a running joke about it, but they were really doing exactly what they were asked to do. And then they have the freedom too, “Okay. Okay, you’re recovered. Go back in.” And it changes their mindset because so often in this game you get subbed for making a mistake. You sit on the bench and you wonder, “When will I go back in? Will I go back in?” And then sometimes you spiral. “Well, that person made the same mistake. They didn’t come out.” And you go down this rabbit hole where you know you’re gonna get to go back in. You can play with confidence. You can play with freedom. We have so many possessions it allows you, okay, you turned the ball over, go get an offensive rebound. It’s, the possession is washed. It allows you to play again. You don’t have to worry. Everyone’s contributing to a loss. Everyone’s contributing to a win. Your team morale is better. Your culture is better. Game days are more fun. And so that has to do with the way we sub.
Dan Krikorian 12:55
Coach, going back to the trade-offs and when a team’s trying to slow you down, just thoughts there on, I think all of us listening to this now have played a team maybe not quite your style, but, like, is trying to speed them up, and one of the strategies is obviously to try offensively maybe to take longer possessions, slow it down. What are your thoughts there when you know a team, like, that’s their strategy?
As a coach, how does that affect maybe in-game decision-making when you see that taking place?
Kim Caldwell 13:22
Yeah, you don’t see it a lot here, but we sure saw it a lot at division II. I mean, a lot to where they would have wide open layups, and they would dribble the ball back out to half court and tuck it under their hip. And that took some time to get used to because you’re not really expecting somebody to turn down a wide open layup. And what it allows you to do in turn is really turn up your pressure. Go for every steal you can possibly get because you’re never gonna get burned on the backside. Do whatever you want. You have no rules. Like, all of you go up there because you know they’re not gonna shoot it. So it really gives you more freedom to be more aggressive on the defensive end because what you talked about earlier, that getting scored on quickly, they’re really gonna have to sit down and work for their points and their buckets.
But what that means is offensively you can’t have very many empty possessions. You have to be deliberate on offense. You have to be taking good shots. You have to really hone in on your offensive, again, shot selection and offensive rebounds. You can be more aggressive on the boards because, again, they’re not gonna score on the back end. They’re really gonna slow the game down. So you would think it would bother you, but it really just allows you to be that much more aggressive. It just takes more time to go on your run, which once you have a team that’s experienced in playing this way, sometimes that can be frustrating because they want to see that run go.
Dan Krikorian 14:36
Coach, that leads to my next question about what timeouts look like for you. What are the discussions about? Is it more effort, changing pressure coverages? Like, when you’re playing this style, what are the most discussions like in a timeout?
Kim Caldwell 14:50
We’re talking about where are we on the rebounds, how many offensive rebounds we have, where are we at. We’ll do some schematic things about this is what they’re doing in the press, this is what we need to fix. Normal conversations.
Offensively, we’ll track our paint touches. Are we getting to the paint for a paint touch? All right, we’ve gone three, four possessions in a row, and we haven’t got an early paint touch, which really predicates our entire offense as we need to get the ball in that paint. We’ll talk a lot about their press offense and what we want to change and alter defensively, and then we’ll talk a lot about are we playing at the right pace, are we actually running. We’ll evaluate our shot selection, our offensive rebounds, what is our percentage. And then again, like, obviously scout specific things that every coach does about their key players, how we’re doing on our ball screen coverage. Help side seems to be a problem for us, and where are we at in that?
Dan Krikorian 15:41
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Patrick Carney 16:49
You’ve mentioned it a lot in your offensive rebounding and trying to turn it up if teams are trying to slow you down. If you’re gonna crash four or five, are you giving them any rules? Like, just crashing five versus tagging up five, you know, and telling them, like, “Get, get to the back, push, try to drive them in, scrum it up,” versus just, “Go be aggressive, pursue.” What are you teaching within your program in terms of how you crash five or offensive rebound?
Kim Caldwell 17:15
So we want to go with four. We want to send one back.
We send our shooter, if it’s a three-point shot, we send our shooter back, and so that always takes some time because you know you have your fans that yell, “Follow your shot.” And you’re like, “They’re not allowed.” So you combat that a little bit, and that’s, again, unlearning things. And if it’s a drive, a shot inside the three-point line, then we send back whoever is the closest to the top of the key, and they’re our get back person. Everyone else is crashing. And because we shoot so many threes, we do, we say build a house because you can’t all run under it. They’re gonna be long rebounds, and we have some drills that are really annoying drills that are a certain amount of rebounds. The ball can’t hit the ground. That teaches you it’s easier to take two steps in than it is to run back, and you can’t all run to the same spot. And so we want a couple under the rim, and we want a couple around the elbow area to track down the long rebounds on that end. And then we have to be up there to press anyway, so usually when our press match-ups are not good, it starts on the offensive rebounding attempt. You’re not crashing, so you’re not matched up. You should be standing beside someone that was boxing you out. That’s now gonna be your man. ‘Cause we match up to the closest person, so you’re not finding a body, or you’re not finding your number. You’re finding whoever is right next to you. So when we’re slow to match up in the press, it usually correlates with, hey, we’re not really crashing
Patrick Carney 18:37
And when they do get the defensive rebound, the order of operations, are you trying to get that person in a speed dribble? Are you trying to trap that offensive rebound? Are you trying to look for a run and jump? I’m sure it’s a little bit of everything, you know, but the order of operations or how you then try to build out the pressure immediately on a defensive rebound.
Kim Caldwell 18:57
We’re trying to heat that ball handler up as quick as possible. Usually it’s a big, everyone else, it’s, we call it musical chairs.
You find the chair, and that’s your man. If it’s a point guard on the big, we don’t care. We should run it. We’re gonna run and jump out of everything. So you should run and jump twice before half court to where you’re not still on the same person you were matched up on. And so we don’t ever want to put two on the ball because any time we put two on the ball, especially at higher levels, they are going to go score on the back end. They’re going to get that ball out of that trap too quick, and then we’re not going to be able to recover. So really pointing to your man, matching up. Once they start dribbling, then we’re in our run and jump.
Patrick Carney 19:34
With run and jumps, do you distinguish if I’m the closest defender, they’re dribbling in front of me to go, or are you trying to get, you know, the blind run and jumps? Does it matter or just, like you said, put heat on the ball?
Kim Caldwell 19:45
We’re doing both. We’re trapping, we’re jumping, we’re stunting and staying. With your better teams, you kind of give them the freedom. It’s funny.
The best teams I’ve ever had at this, you go back and you look at the film and they’ve never been right. You can’t even find a clip that’s right, but you tried really hard. You guys were on the same page. You got the deflection. You got the steal. You can’t copy it. You can’t mimic it because you’re really giving them the freedom to err on the side of aggression.
Be aggressive, be aggressive. Don’t help up in the back. Don’t let anyone behind you if you’re that rim protector. And then you got to fly around. You got to fly out of your traps. We’re trying to get steals from behind. We’re trying to get back tips. We’re trying to just continue to keep that pressure on once the ball crosses half court.
Dan Krikorian 20:26
You’ve won a national championship doing this. You’ve taken a mid-major to the NCAA tournament. You’ve taken Tennessee to Sweet 16, beaten power conferences, you know, teams doing this.
But I know you were quoted last year kind of talking about maybe a plan B at times and not sure if that was the right call or all that. I guess my question is more conviction versus adaptation as a coach and any learnings that you’ve had over the course of your career so far in running this style, but then also when you get to points where you’re trying to just figure out a certain team and season and how you can kind of toggle between those things.
Kim Caldwell 21:01
That’s a question that is really important for anyone that wants to press and play fast, and a lot of times over my career, I’ve had coaches call me and ask about the way we play and how we do it, and the first conversation I always have with them is you’re either going to do it or you’re not. You can’t put this press in and do it just a little bit at the time. You have to do it all the time.
Now, you can change it. You can adapt it. You can, sometimes you can change your stunts. You can change your patterns. You can put multiple presses in, but your offense and your defense have to be connected. It has to flow. It’s an entire system of basketball on both sides of the ball, and last year we didn’t have that.
We had a slow half court offense, a fast full court offense, a fast full court defense, and a slow half court defense. And we had plan Bs and we had the option of, “Oh, we’re just going to get back on defense.” And we had the option of we’re going to walk the ball up the floor. And you have to be married to it. You have to be committed to it. And you always are going to adapt as a coach. You’re always going to adjust to your players and your personnel. But the way to play this, it takes strong player belief and strong buy-in, and your team has to be committed to wanting to play this way.
And they have to understand it, and they have to love it, and they have to be willing to sacrifice minutes and shots and points for winning and for the team and to do that. There’s a strong education piece that comes with that. For us, we’re strong in recruiting, getting ahead of that, of this is what we are going to do. This is how we see using you. We’re not changing that. But, you know, you have to burn the boats. Once you take the islands, you have to burn the boats. That is the mindset.
It’s a kill or be killed. Come back with your shield or on it. Like that’s the mindset of playing this way. And once you waver, it’s going to be really hard to go back and find your identity. And I’ve known that, and I’ve never experienced it until last season. And then I just felt helpless a lot on that sideline.
Patrick Carney 23:04
When you are convicted to this style and there’s going to be runs, you know, you’re going to make runs, the opponent is going to make runs. Going back to, yeah, the conviction versus adaptability, a late game when it’s close.
With this style of play, what is really considered a safe lead or what is considered maybe late game when you know you’re capable of these spurts? Does anything change within this style? Do you adapt to anything that you think has proven out to, like, help you close out that game or maybe not, let’s say, blow a lead?
Kim Caldwell 23:37
Correct. You know, I have done both. You have to know your team that you have. I’ve had several teams that once we start to slow it down, they start blowing the lead. And you can be up twenty-two with five minutes to go, and you slow them down with five minutes to go because you’re doing the math on the possessions. And they go empty possession, empty possession, turnover, and they start playing not to lose. And then I’ve done it the other way, where we’ve been up thirty-three, and then we’ve continued to play fast, and we let the other team back in it. But then we pull away at the end because we have one more run in us. You really got to know your squad. You got to know what the threshold is. And for me, the majority of the teams I’ve had, you can’t really slow it down before that three-minute mark.
You can talk about your shot selection. You can talk about, hey, the clock is in our favor. But once you take a team that is comfortable playing fast and you try to slow them down, even if it’s on an offensive rebound, pulling them out and slowing them down- They’re better playing fast because that’s the way we practice. That you really gotta have thick skin, and you gotta believe in what you do, and you gotta believe in your team while the other team’s mounting that comeback. But on the flip side, the majority of my teams too have been down going into the fourth quarter, and we’re not worried. The players aren’t worried. The staff’s not worried. It’s just another day, and we end up winning by 15, 20 in regulation. And obviously that’s more D2, more mid-major, but that’s just a part of it. You become accustomed to the rhythm and the chunks that scoring come into, and you don’t panic either way.
Dan Krikorian 25:14
When you get in those under three minute situations, does anything change in maybe the shot selection? You’re talking with your team, like, “Okay, under three, like, hey, these are the gold shots we want or something that we’re aiming for”?
Kim Caldwell 25:26
Yes, we do. We’ll talk about, “Hey, we don’t necessarily need a quick three. We need layups. We need inside out threes.” We’ll change our substitution pattern. We’ll pull our press, and we’ll make our press different. We’ll either take it all the way off or we’ll put a slower press in or just go straight man. We’ll talk significantly about trying to get to the foul line versus fouling, trying to not give them easy buckets, give them rest. And it’s really important to limit their offensive rebounds because too when a team is trying to mount a comeback, you gotta turn up the intensity on your defensive rebounds ’cause those are back breakers for you too.
We’ll talk about shot selection. We’ll usually call more sets. So we don’t have a team that really looks over at their coach a lot and asks for the sets. It’s usually under, under that three-minute mark. Once you see a two, it can be 2:59, but once you see a two, then they’re looking over at your coach. You’re calling their set.
Dan Krikorian 26:12
With this style of play, how do you think about timeouts and using timeouts? You know, with you subbing on regularly and the benefit is to keep playing, keep the ball in, in play.
When do you use a timeout and your philosophy on calling timeouts?
Kim Caldwell 26:26
Yeah, I think again, you gotta adapt to your team. You have to adapt to your team.
You have some teams that they don’t flinch, and they don’t care, and you can play them. And sometimes it’s even a team with a game by game basis. But I think back to our Sweet 16 game. To go to the Sweet 16 when we were playing at Ohio State, the game was neck and neck. We were down significantly. Before halftime, we’re up about 30, and then we slowly blow it, and then they take a lead, and, like, our team never blinked. I knew that they were okay, so I didn’t have to use them because I could see and feel that they were okay. And then sometimes you’ll have them start looking at me or sometimes you just gotta jump them. Wake up. The game has started. And I’m cool with burning an early timeout. Let me burn one in the first five minutes to get your attention. But you do have to adapt that team by team. There’s a lot of times I’ve come home with timeouts, and my husband’s like, “Well, what were you keeping them for? You want to call them tonight?” “Like, you lost the game. You needed the timeout.” And I’m like, “Oh, okay.” You know, you have those, but I would much rather finish a game. I think to start, to answer that question, to start my coaching career, I coached three games without calling a timeout. Like, my first three games, no timeout. Like, I don’t want to use them. We’re subbing you quickly. I can talk to you when you come over here. We can have this conversation. I think it’s an area of growth that you can continue to play with, but the way we sub, I’m gonna get your group in front of me very frequently to make the adjustment I need to make, and then I’m gonna put you back out there without using them. We have media timeouts that are 47 years long. I’d like the game not have any.
Dan Krikorian 28:02
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Coach, this has been awesome so far. Thanks for going so deep into all that stuff.
We do 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 them, sub one of them, and sit one of them. So Coach, if you’re ready, we’ll dive into this first one.
Kim Caldwell 28:21
Okay, let’s do it.
Dan Krikorian 28:23
Okay. This first one has to do with what we’re calling practice tipping points, and I’m gonna give you three things that you think are most important when players reach a physical limit early in the season. Your start here is gonna be, like, what’s most important to keep coaching when they’re hitting their physical limit in practice early? So start, sub, sit, most important at a practice tipping point.
Option one is their communication. They can’t fall back on their communication even when they’re reaching that tipping point. Option two is their execution in whatever it is that you’re wanting to execute. Or option three is continuing to coach their decision-making when they’re tired. So start, sub, sit, communication, execution, or decision-making at that practice tipping point.
Kim Caldwell 29:10
I wanna start the communication. I gotta know. I can’t coach you the same. I have to know, and we have a team rule that is communication. You have to communicate with me. You can talk to your athletic trainer. You can talk to our strength coach, but you gotta come talk to me. And on our staff is really good about, “Well, you gotta go talk to coach.” And I don’t want to have a day where I just think you’re dogging it, or you’re disinterested, or you don’t want to be here when you maybe have something going on, and you can’t feel your left toe. I just need to know what’s going on.
So that’s number one. I can’t make any adjustments or anything like that. And then I want to sub in, I’m still gonna coach your decision-making, and I’m gonna let your execution. You’re missing some shots. You’re short on your layups, whatever it may be. I know that you’re not doing that on purpose, so I’m gonna go ahead and sit that one. But I’m gonna continue to coach you. You should still be able to see the game. You should still be able to clap for your team and give some energy. You should still be able to do something to help this team try to win the next game once they hit that point.
Dan Krikorian 30:12
Coach, I want to start with your start, which is the communication. Going deeper on, like, what kind of communication you want player to player, especially when you’re an hour and a half into practice.
They’re starting to reach the ti- they’re tired. What are you and your staff demanding communication peer to peer?
Kim Caldwell 30:30
The best teams I’ve ever had, my leaps and bound championship teams I’ve ever had, and I know we’re gonna be good when we start saying we don’t have to coach what they say. We don’t have to coach who they say it to or when they say it. They start saying, watch your tone. Like they start coaching tone and delivery. They can take it. They all want to be coached. They all will respect each other. The respect level is there. But you have some players that can take a negative, harsh tone player to player, and you have some players that can’t. And when we can start coaching tone and everyone feels comfortable speaking, everyone feels comfortable taking feedback, it’s just about delivery. I know we’re going to be a good player-led team, which is what I always want. But that to me has been the big difference.
And then, you know, when you’re in the weeds in the thick of it, your players have to be able to talk to each other. I spend a lot of time telling my players, you need to teach them that. Stop whining at them. Like teach them, show them what you saw, pull them aside, explain it to them as opposed to say, you should have caught that pass. Tell them that they were a little bit too low below the block or tell them that you want the pass higher. Like you guys have to learn how to communicate under duress and move on. When your culture is about winning, they can handle the message. It’s just sometimes, again, especially for girls, it’s more about tone. And that’s when you know you’ve got to go in the right spot.
Speaker 5 31:51
When you play the style you play and you recruit the players that want that, that are into that, how do you find riding that level where they’re amped up, they’re pressing, they’re trapping, they’re playing fast, they’re playing hard? So it stays in a certain band so that it’s not crazy.
It’s not like over the top. Or how do you find that balance to be at that level with your players and staff and, you know, the whole thing?
Kim Caldwell 32:15
Yeah, that’s great because I’m sure sometimes it looks crazy. Then there’s sometimes I’ll go back and I’ll watch full game like, oh, this looks like it’s going in a flow, in a rhythm and the right pace. It’s just fast. You’re just playing a lot of people. You have some teams that can play like mad woman and fly around and be chaotic and make it look ugly, but still score the ball. And you have some teams that it looks a little bit different. And so that kind of goes back to adapting to the group that you have in front of you. Right now, I have a group that’s going to make it look sloppy, but we’re going to come away with the ball. All right. Now I have a group that, hey, none of you did anything right, but you had your hands up and you ran really fast. We got the end result that we wanted. I’m okay with that.
I’m okay with having effort be what defines you and defines your team. So it’s going to change and it’s probably going to change some game by game too. You know, you’re going to have those teams that really try to slow you down. You got to be more particular with your possessions. It needs to look prettier. And you have those teams that are going to run with you, then you can muck it up a little bit.
Speaker 5 33:14
When you want to play this style, what’s the practice methodology? How do you have to practice?
Kim Caldwell 33:19
You have to practice full court for about two hours. The majority of our drills are up and back. Even if it’s a two on one on one end, we’re coming or one on two one end, we’re coming two on one back. We’re finishing the majority of our plays on the other end of the floor. We’ll do a lot of ODO, DOD. But again, even small sided games, we’re running up and down the floor just to work on playing at an advantage on offense, playing at a disadvantage on defense, working on scrambles, all of those. And we run in practice and we’ll run in practice all year long. And that won’t change.
You have to be in shape. And most system people that play this way play their way into shape. And I’m probably the one that’s going to tell you, no, we’re going to run our way into shape. And so sometimes that means, I mean, it’s always in the practice plan. And sometimes when it’s not, they make you mad anyway and you run them anyway. And sometimes they have a great practice. I’m looking at them and saying, this is the best practice we’ve had in a month. Get on the baseline. And they’re like, what? I’m like, this is not a punishment. This is the requirement to the freedom that you get to play with. Love you, sweetie, but we’re going to run. And they know that. They understand it. It eventually gets easier for them to where we’re running four 24s and they don’t even care. Like, oh, that’s it. Good. We can do that. It takes a while to get them there into that mindset. But you’ve got to be in your best shape. And a lot of my losses have come when I’ve failed to hold the line of being in shape. And the hard part is being in shape and looking fatigued and tired because the season is hard look the exact same. And that is something that is really hard to do this style of play is you can look exhausted or you can look out of shape and they look the same.
Speaker 5 35:03
With the quick substitutions, you talked about, you know, maybe a lineup’s going three to five minutes or your most conditioned player is going five minutes. What considerations do you get to drill length?
Kim Caldwell 35:13
Oh yeah, this is something my dad taught me. I played for my dad. I coached with my dad for four years before he passed away. He’s the reason I wanted to coach.
I wouldn’t even have had the nerve to take the head coaching job if he didn’t quit his high school coaching job and come help me. And I was putting practice plans together. You know, anytime you’re a brand new coach, you don’t really know what to put on the length. And he looked at me and said, “Don’t ever do a drill longer than eight minutes.” And I stuck with that. And so we don’t ever do a drill longer than eight minutes. And our practices, for most people, it’s very chaotic. It’s little instruction, very little stoppage. We’re going from one drill to the other. We’re throwing the ball out, figure it out, go play, because that’s how we want our games to be. The only reason I will ever use a whistle again is to get our male practice players to stop. Our girls can hear my voice, but those guys will just keep playing. Like, bro, I know you heard me stop. So I’ll get the whistle out so that they will stop. But other than that, we’re not really calling it dead. If we’re calling it dead, it’s a two-second correction. We’re back out there. We’re finishing the play. We’ll have dedicated days where we stop it and we’ll talk about that as a staff. All right, we’re allowed to stop it on this drill. But other than that, we’re just pulling them off, giving them the feedback about what they need to fix. If we see the same thing happening three, four times in a row, we’ll stop it. We’ll teach it again, less than five seconds, and then we’re getting back out there and doing it. It’s pretty fast paced. It’s pretty chaotic. I want a big roster. So we have 15 kids on our roster. We have about 20 practice players. There’s a lot of people in the gym. That’s what I want our practices to look like.
Patrick Carney 36:46
The conversions, offense to defense, defense to offense are so important, and the consideration you think then when a drill ends, so if it’s an up back, but you know that last possession is also an opportunity to preach your offensive rebounding, your transition defense. I guess what considerations or how do you factor that in in finishing a drill and not just allowing it, a shot goes up, and we just stop?
Kim Caldwell 37:11
That’s something I’ve always battled with, and I think I’m gonna answer this right, and if I don’t answer it right, let me know. Let me rephrase your question and see if we’re on the same page.
So, like, we’re going to do offense, half-court offense, full-court defense, full-court offense, and you’re talking about the end of that last offensive possession?
Patrick Carney 37:29
Correct.
Kim Caldwell 37:29
Yeah, I’m gonna get someone on film walking off. Like, “You can’t wait to get off the floor. You didn’t try to rebound. You didn’t call back. You can’t wait to go over there and get a drink.” You catch them on film once, they tend to tighten it up.
But we also have an automatic for every time you don’t do something. So if you don’t crash, you have an automatic. Like, we have these sleds that are, like, weighted machines. “All right, you didn’t crash. Go get on the sled.” If we’re in our arena, “All right, you didn’t call back, and you’re supposed to be our back man, up to the top of the arena and back down.” We have these things that they know, and eventually they just start doing on their own. Like, “Crap, I didn’t crash. I subbed out. I was ready to get on the sideline.” So they just go ahead and hold themselves accountable. But if they’re not, again, we got a single coach to player. We have 13 people on our coaching staff. They better be getting on them and saying, “Well, no, she didn’t crash. She didn’t finish the play.”
Dan Krikorian 38:19
Coach, my last question, the staff coaching question on how do you all know what to do next? How do you know when you’re in the right direction? What needs work next? Like, what’s the process for you and as a coach?
I mean, you’ve had these great teams. How do you know what the next thing they need is, say, that next day or next game? What’s that process like?
Kim Caldwell 38:38
Yeah, that’s great. That’s a question where once we really get into the thick of it in games, all of that, I like to do my practice plans myself. I like to sit in my office quietly and go through what I need. But I will send out a text on days where I need help, which is the majority of the time, “What do you think we need today in practice?” And it’s a lot of the same things over and over, and my coaches will just send me, “We didn’t do this right, so we need this drill. We can look at this, da, da, da. We got scored on this a lot of ways. Here’s the film. I’ve already cut the film up. I’ve sent it to Tia. Let’s show this and then rep this.” We’ll do what a lot of people call different things at pre-practice. So again, I’m not a coach that likes to play five on O or dry run things. It’s always competitive. It’s always playing against each other. And so if there’s something we need to really walk through, I’ll make the sacrifice and put it in pre-practice and let my assistant coaches do it and teach it, so it doesn’t slow our practice down once we’re in the thick of it. And so we do that before we stretch. This is what we’re gonna work on, so that, again, once we’re in practice, we’re going up and down the whole time.
Dan Krikorian 39:42
Coach, you’re off the Start, Sub, Sit hot seat. Thanks. That was a ton of fun to dive into your practice stuff there, so thanks for playing that game with us. Hey, we got a final question to close the show, but before we do, really, really appreciate your time.
This was a interesting, fun, wide-ranging conversation, so thanks for coming on today.
Kim Caldwell 39:59
Thank you very much for having me. A lot of my time I don’t spend talking about basketball, so this has been great.
Dan Krikorian 40:04
Awesome. 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?
Kim Caldwell 40:12
The best investment I have made in my career as a coach has been taking a pay cut or not worrying about money and going to a job where you can win. And my husband and I would– He was the men’s coach at Glenville State, and I was the women’s coach, and he was the head coach. And we would oftentimes turn down maybe an assistant coaching job at a Division I to be a Division II head coach or turn down a Division I head coaching job that you knew you couldn’t win at. You take that, and we would call it an investment in ourselves.
“No, I’m gonna stay at this pay, stay at this job for one more year, but it’s gonna pay off in the future for the right job.” It’s an investment in your future, and I think that’s really important, and I think that’s important to continue to do at whatever level you are. It’s something I’m even learning now of making investments with your time, or, “Okay, I need to go spend some money on this because I need to get better in this area,” or, “I need outside help with media training or this,” da, da, da. It’s an investment in myself in the future. But I think the biggest thing through my career is being very selective in the job that you should take, whether the world thinks you should take it or just because it has a Division I label on it or even if you have to maybe disappoint some people because it’s not the right fit for you. Don’t take a job you can’t win at. Invest in your future in this profession.
Dan Krikorian 41:39
All right, Pat. Hey, first of all, I just want to give you kudos. You had a couple of banger questions in the middle there. You were really on it today, so kudos to you there.
But mostly kudos to Coach Caldwell. Hey, that was really fun to have her on. Just such an interesting system.
Patrick Carney 41:55
Yeah.
Dan Krikorian 41:55
Especially, like, the high major level and just seeing that and talking through the trade-offs and all the things that she thinks about, and so really appreciated her depth today and how deep she went into everything, and so a really fascinating conversation.
Patrick Carney 42:07
Yeah, and I appreciate the compliment. Appreciate Coach Caldwell coming on, making me look good with some of my just tangent to a tangent to a tangent, but it was really fun.
I think we played against it. You’ve coached against it, and as everyone preaches more and more pace and offensive rebounding, it was fun to have her on and just her thoughts on it, her philosophy, how she teaches it, and what she holds important was a really fun conversation and really insightful look into this type of play.
Dan Krikorian 42:35
For sure. Well, let’s get into the takeaways, and for the first one, I’ll throw that to you.
Patrick Carney 42:40
Yeah. So we mentioned there were a lot of tangents that I think led to some really great conversation pieces.
I’ll start with the first bucket when- The system that she’s trying to play, and it’s always interesting, like what’s important to them within the system. You know, everyone talks about we wanna play fast. What are the measurements they’re using or what are they trying to preach to their team? And then also the habits. I think that’s the other thing we hear a lot is, yeah, you can recruit it, sell it, oh, we’re gonna play fast, we’re gonna play free, yada, yada, yada, but then the players really don’t know what actually they have to sacrifice in terms of how much running they have to do, the possession lengths or their lineup lengths. You know, that it’s gonna be shorter spurts because you are gonna be asked to play at such a higher intensity than you’ve ever played before. So with that in mind, like just hearing her talk about like the metrics that they wanna be plus 20 in field goal attempts, and, uh, she gave a good caveat, you know, whether it’s conference, non-conference, but kinda averages out. 40 to 45 offensive rebounding rate, I believe.
Dan Krikorian 43:38
Yep.
Patrick Carney 43:38
20 to 25 forced turnovers, and then what was it? 12 to 15 free throws, but then also a free throw metric, you know.
So what they’re using and what kind of measure the health of their offense at any given point during the game, and you asked a good follow-up yourself on the timeouts, and she referenced this is what they’re gonna kinda look at and preach to the team, their turnovers, their reboundings especially offensively, just as metrics to either we need to speed teams up, we need to play fast or whatever that given game is. And then looking at, again, the, the habits, I thought we got into some really good conversations about shot selections, and then she said that, you know, they’re gonna really invest heavily in player development because they’re gonna demand that you shoot threes here. And hearing her then discuss like what is a good three-point shot in this selection, I thought it was a great point. Rebounding, having someone there to rebound is like first and foremost, especially if, like you said, they’re trying to get 40 to 45 rebounding rate. And then playing on like with a 12-second shot clock in mind, which on its face makes sense. You wanna play this way, you’re not looking to get deep in shot clock. So I’ll throw it back to you because there’s a lot more left within that conversation, but just first and foremost, like yeah, the metrics that are important to them and kind of the, the habits that they need to, as she mentioned, like the habits they need to break first to make this system go.
Dan Krikorian 44:59
Yeah. So where I’ll pick up from your stuff ’cause I think you hit a lot on the, the tactical analytics, the metric stuff, which was like really good behind it, and I think the other, I thought, big takeaway and the other honestly like really interesting part of having a coach on with more of a, like say like unique style like this is just the psychology of it.
Patrick Carney 45:20
Mm-hmm.
Dan Krikorian 45:20
The whole thing, from the coach to the player, what they care about. So it’s like the psychology, the trade-offs that they’re willing to live with I think is really interesting, and I think this is where I found like a lot of value in the first bucket was first talking about like the types of shots that they’re willing to live with.
And then it was really good at the end when, you know, we talked a little bit about her last season and going to like a plan B, trying to figure out with that roster how to win games. The conversation about having full conviction of what you do while also trying to adapt to an ever-changing season and roster and you’re just trying to win games. And regardless of what system you play, like that discussion and that conversation is one that of course every single staff is having all the time. And I thought there was a lot of good stuff in there from her about what she learned about that, and obviously she kind of talked about doubling down on like well, if you’re gonna do this style, you gotta do it. You can’t, you know, try to back it off and her learnings from trying to do that. And so I thought there was a lot of good stuff in there. It was also interesting to hear her thoughts behind it.
Patrick Carney 46:27
That was a really fun part of the conversation because it’s such an interesting kind of case study ’cause they do play such a extreme style, but it’s a decision, a trade-off we all face no matter how we play on, yeah, what is something we should change or adapt or something we should double down on. We talk a lot about the culture, the standards, like those are the non-negotiables, but when you really look at like playing style, playing fit, it’s always a fine line between, yeah, I, I think we hear coaches say like, “Do we just need to do it harder?” versus, “What do we change?” And sometimes it’s a very gray area and not so easy to navigate there, so it was fun to hear her thoughts on this as well and just what she learned there because it only comes through trial and error, I don’t think you can really say, because it is so team specific and we all wanna try to find what’s best for our teams and help them out. But yeah, do you maybe end up giving too much too soon or, you know, it’s conceding too much ground too soon and then you give players outs or excuses.
Dan Krikorian 47:25
It’s one of the most interesting part of all of our jobs ’cause it’s so dependent on what kind of season you’re having.
Patrick Carney 47:31
Yeah.
Dan Krikorian 47:32
It’s fun to tweak and adapt when you’re winning and everybody feels good and the locker room’s together and it’s like, “Oh, let’s try this little cool variation and let’s do this.” We’re talking about maybe adapting like a philosophical adaptation too, rather than like tweaks or variations.
But I mean, we all know there’s no one listening that hasn’t gone through a skid of a season or lost a couple in a row, and like your team is looking at you for answers, and sometimes it can be hard to say like, “Well, if this isn’t working, let’s just keep giving the same answer but demand more without potentially losing them.” And so like as a coach, that’s a tricky spot to be in. You wanna give them reasons to believe that you can win the next game, and if they believe that maybe a different style or a tweak or variation of what you’re doing is gonna help them play together and have a chance to win, it’s easy post-season to look back and say, “Oh, I shoulda…” But like shoot, when you’re early January like going through it, that’s tough.
Patrick Carney 48:24
Yeah.
Dan Krikorian 48:24
I thought her answer was just great. I thought it was just an interesting part of the conversation and one we could have literally probably every coach on here.
Patrick Carney 48:30
Yeah. I think big takeaway is coaching is hard.
Dan Krikorian 48:34
Yeah.
Patrick Carney 48:34
So Dan, on that note, let’s keep it moving. I’ll throw it to you for the next takeaway.
Dan Krikorian 48:40
I’ll go to the start sub sit on the practice tipping points, and especially right now, you know, we’re recording this pre-season for a lot of us, early season. And these early season practices, you’re like trying to get your team to a point of where they’re feeling it physically, mentally exhausted to know where to push next and push through that barrier. So I think what’s important to a coach when you see your group at that threshold, what do you demand next? I think is just interesting.
And so for her, the communication, the start I thought was great. And just kind of getting into how they’ve got to continue to communicate with both her and each other when they’re playing the style, when they’re tired, when they’re a little injured. And then I think it got into your really nice, as we said earlier, your home run follow-ups about what does that look like in practice? When are you trying to like maybe a constraint or a thing at the end of a drill? I thought that was really good stuff.
Patrick Carney 49:31
Yeah, I agree. I think this style of play, I don’t believe you can just kind of practice, and I’ll quote unquote, “in the normal way.” Like it’s a lifestyle, like she said, it’s complete conviction. So you do have to be aware of how you practice and train this way.
And I think we’ve had it with like Coach Flitter too, like in terms of just if you’re gonna demand such high intensity, you have to really be considerate of your drill lengths. You gotta be mindful that everything is a transition, is a full court. To her point too, how you finish the drill as well, because that’s also such an important piece, these conversions. So just to have, okay, it’s the last possession shot goes up. Okay, now we take a breath. We need to finish the drill the right way because it is honestly one of the most important parts of this style of play, whether it’s, like she said, getting out wide and for kick aheads or being in a position to put pressure on the ball right away. So those are the stuff that you, I think when playing this way, like are really have to be mindful of and considerate of when practice planning and how you do things there. And then the one other takeaway that I really like, you know, you would think, okay, we’re gonna play up and down, but she was still a big advocate of we’re gonna also do running. Like, yes, the practice is gonna be intense. Our drills are gonna be up and down, but then advocating for we’re still gonna run. And I love her quote, “Running our way into shape is a requirement for the freedom you get to play with.” I love that. I thought that was really well said.
Dan Krikorian 50:51
I also love how the women will stop on her voice, but the practice player guys just keep playing.
Patrick Carney 50:56
Yeah, yeah.
Dan Krikorian 50:57
Yeah, just relax. Yeah.
Patrick Carney 50:58
Yeah.
Dan Krikorian 51:00
Tons of stuff today. Was there any misses from our end? Not from Coach Caldwell, of course, but anything felt like maybe you and I could have gone deeper on had we had more time?
Patrick Carney 51:07
It was clear we both kind of talked about it before hopping on this recap was I think it would’ve been really fun to also explore the scouting, the defensive scouting or preparing for opponents. The style of play, like what do you really prepare for? What information then do you give your players about an opponent? You know, we’ve heard over and over, the more information you get, the more it slows them down.
So I guess what is important to give, to share, and then also just the way you’re playing, like what really changes anyways. You know, that’s an oversimplification for sure. There is some stuff, that’s why I wish we had asked it, but how it then plays into your scouts, just knowing, well, regardless of the opponent, we’re gonna play fast. We’re gonna take these threes, we’re gonna trap, we’re gonna press, we’re gonna yada, yada, yada. So-
Dan Krikorian 51:49
Yeah
Patrick Carney 51:49
… that would’ve been fun to explore as well with Coach Caldwell and just how they prepare scouts and what information they do share with their players.
Dan Krikorian 51:57
Yeah. My miss is in the same vein as yours.
I wish I would’ve asked her about preparing for great opposing guards. ‘Cause I think that’s the one thing when you’re playing against this style, if you’ve got one or two great decision-making, ball-handling guards that can get your team into the shots that they don’t want you to take, how do you prepare for that? You’ve got a speedster guard that can get through the press or just high level decision makers that are hard to trap. Like what are the considerations there? Because you play a team with okay guards, like, and you press and trap, it’s like we can all imagine what happens to that team.
Patrick Carney 52:33
Yeah.
Dan Krikorian 52:34
But it can be different when you got players that can really handle the ball, and I wish I would ask her just about, and it goes along with your scout, how do you discuss that? How do you change your pressure?
How do you mix things up to accommodate for great guard play?
Patrick Carney 52:44
Yeah.
Dan Krikorian 52:45
Well, once again, we thank Coach Caldwell for coming on and giving such a great interview today. Thank you everybody for listening, and we will see you next time.
Patrick Carney 52:59
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+, and much more. Have a great week coaching, and we’ll see you next time on Slapping Glass.