March Coaching Notebook

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

Trubisky Rising (SI.com) -“But Coach,” Trubisky continued, “I don’t want to play because Marquise struggles. I want to play because you, Coach [Larry] Fedora and everyone on this team believes that I can help us win ballgames.” -“That really propelled him into that offseason that hey I’m going to go win this job,” Heckendorf said. “We came into the offseason and I told him if you want this job, you have to go get it. He had this feeling that, ‘I’m not going to let this happen again. I’m going to be ready to lead this team going forward.’”

How Matt Rhule rebuilt Baylor’s recruiting class from scratch (SI.com) -“I don’t shy away from what happened here,” Rhule told Sports Illustrated in his office Tuesday morning. “I haven’t. What I tell people is we’re not only going to fix the problem, we want to be an example of what you can do in the future. If you want to come here, you can be the change, build a legacy not defined by things that happened before you got there.” -“I really feel that he’s going to be hard on them,” Brigham says. “He’s going to love them just as hard. As strict and tough as he’s going to be on them, he’s going to love them just as hard.” -“It took him a couple years to build the culture,” says Ed Foley, who worked under Rhule at Temple. “But once it’s built, it’s rock solid. Matt left the program in great shape from a culture standpoint.”

David Thorpe, ESPN -There’s an energy required to play elite defense. Very few guys can carry the load offensively and play elite defense. -OKC uses the phrase “Stick Hand” when it comes to contesting shots.

Kansas football: Tony Hull guiding Jayhawks’ recruiting success (SI.com) - “They don’t have to go to other schools and other conferences and wait two or three years to play,” Hull said. “They can come and make an immediate impact. What competitor do you know who doesn’t want to make an impact and leave a legacy as someone who started something?”

DeMarco Murray’s words mean something to Jason Witten (ESPN.com) -Murray, who led the league in rushing in his final season with the Cowboys in 2014, told ESPN he reached out to Elliott after Dallas drafted the Ohio State running back. Murray said he told Elliott to follow Witten. -“I appreciate DeMarco saying those kind words,” Witten said. “We had a great run together. But DeMarco earned that to the year that he had. Zeke’s very talented. You can see that. And he works at it. I think that excites me a lot as a veteran player to see a young guy come in and have high expectations but also to want to surround himself with the right guys and do it the right way. I’ve been impressed with that so far.” -This was specific advice DeMarco Murray offered Zeke Elliott: "From day one, make sure he stays with 82. Everything and everywhere he goes be there by his side watching and listening. He will show him the way on and off the field."

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

Celtics rookie Jaylen Brown already earning Brad Stevens’ trust (CBS Boston) -“I understand that development from an outside perspective is judged based on minutes in games because that’s what everybody sees,” Stevens explained. “Development is based on, to us, how much you’re growing day to day in everything you do. So I don’t consider that to be a huge part of somebody’s development if they’re ignoring the other stuff that really matters, and getting really good. You have to earn your time. You have to bring something to the table that adds value to winning, and there are a lot of guys competing for that.”

The unconventional career path of John Lynch (MMQB.com) -“It does,” he said. “I’d caution you, one thing Monte Kiffin always said to us was that the worst three words any football player can say are, ‘I got it.’ I’m right at the beginning stages. We’re right at the beginning stages. We’re taking on challenges every day. But I can tell you, I’m not overwhelmed, each day I come in and there’s a routine.” -“There’s a lot of parallels,” he says, comparing those Bucs with these 49ers. “There’d been constant change, so the thought process as a rookie was ‘don’t get close to the guy next to you, because he may not be here in a couple weeks. Don’t let your wives make friends, because they’re not gonna be here.’ That was the culture. Everybody talks about Tony [Dungy], and Tony was certainly integral. But before that, Rich McKay came in and brought some stability—we’re gonna draft good winning players that have certain traits, and football character. Then Tony came in and gave it more stability—these are the schemes we’re gonna play. We’re not deviating in Week 1 or Week 2 if it’s not working. We’re sticking to them.” -Two pieces of advice stuck with Lynch. First, Elway said “hire some good people around you,” which Lynch now jokes was to Elway’s detriment, since Lynch’s first hire was one of Elway’s best people—new 49ers VP of player personnel Adam Peters. Second, Elway told Lynch that he had to learn to close his door, which seems simple, but relates to time management as a boss. Day 1, all I wanted to do was turn on the tape of the San Francisco 49ers to see what we have,” Lynch says. “And it wasn’t until 4:30 that I finally turned the tape on, because I was meeting people, meeting the trainer, going through the office. But that was very important too. That’s how it is. … You also have to learn to close your door. You need your quiet time to yourself where you can just get stuff done.” -“Part of the interview process was, 10 characteristics of a GM, go 1-10 on what you’d be strongest at,” he says. “And I just followed my heart. Setting the tone and vision for a building, that was 1. Negotiating salary cap and contracts, right off the bat, I had that as 10, because I haven’t done it. So listen, I’m gonna have to rely on some people. But I will learn that, because I think to be good at it, you can’t just say, ‘that’s my guy over there.’ You gotta learn it and be a part of it.” -Getting that alignment was a stated goal of CEO Jed York’s during the GM/coach search, and it looks like San Francisco has that at this early juncture. On Tuesday, Shanahan gave a lengthy, detailed presentation for the scouts on what his staff would be looking for at each position. And that adds detail to the character traits Lynch has talked to his scouts about seeking. One that Lynch calls “critical” is football character. “You gotta live it and breathe it,” he says.

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

How Frank Vogel is making Terrence Ross feel at home in Orlando (538.com) -After the three, Dante Marchitelli, a Magic sideline reporter for Fox Sports Florida, explained the genesis of the call: “During the timeout, coach Vogel told Terrence: ‘We’re gonna run this play, and it’s exactly the same play you ran in Toronto. Every time you ran it against me, you got a dunk or a three, so I expect exactly the same thing on this play.’ And lo and behold: wide open for a three there.”

Bob Huggins won’t change who he is, like it or not (ESPN.com) - No one has been sent to the treadmill, Huggins' preferred hamster wheel of torture. The treadmill is set for 45 seconds at 15 mph and designed to help players not repeat their mistakes. "We had a high school kid visiting ask one of our players, 'Tell me what I need to do to train for the treadmill,'' says Larry Harrison, Huggins' associate head coach at WVU and his assistant at Cincinnati from 1989 to 1997. "Our guy says, 'Man, you're missing the point. You can't train for the treadmill. You want to stay off of it.'' - From his father, Huggins not only inherited the three-hour practice, but he also found a deep respect for defense and an intolerance for laziness. The only players Huggins can't coach, he says, are guys who don't care. When his assistants go out recruiting, they concentrate on how a player interacts with his coaches and teammates and how he works in practice as much -- maybe more -- than how he performs in a game.

Falcons one step from title thanks to this one-word mantra (New York Post) -Dan Quinn comes from the Pete Carroll coaching tree, so it is not surprising he is loaded with slogans and catch phrases and has a different name for each day of practice. But one of the slogans has stuck, and his players say it is a reason they’ve reached Super Bowl LI, where they will face the Patriots in Houston. That word is “Brotherhood.” -“The best teams I’ve been a part of have been good in the locker room and it’s carried over on to the field,” Quinn said recently. “That’s certainly the case. You can feel how tight these guys are. They have a real connection to one another. They take that responsibility very seriously.” -It started last April when Quinn, entering his second season as head coach, invited a group of Navy SEALs to spend four days with his team. Among the topics stressed were teamwork, leadership and communication. Somewhere along the way, “brotherhood” was mentioned and Quinn made it priority. -“We believe in it,” he said this week, “we feel it and this is probably the closest team that I’ve ever been on.” -“It shows what they’re doing as coaches and what we’re doing as players is working,” Neal said. “We’re starting to mold together. Our brotherhood is so close, we’re accountable. When we make a bad play we feel bad because we feel like we let our brother down and that’s what makes this defense so good.” -“It gets competitive,” he said. “Dan mentions the brotherhood and it’s tight and it’s real. But one of the central themes of our organization is competition and it comes to life on the ping-pong table. It’s created relationships with guys that have been good.”

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

Michael Lombardi (Ringer’s “The NFL Show”) -The “4 P’s of Scouting” • Poor Scout • Production Scout • Picker Scout (the guy who picks on one thing) • Projection Scout -That’s called “Sustainable Values versus Situational Values.” Belichick makes every decision based on sustainable values, ‘How am I going to look in the year 2017-18?’ Most teams operate in situational values which means ‘What’s the best thing we can do right now?’ That’s where he takes advantage of the marketplace. He is one of the few traders in the market who is dealing with sustainable values while everyone else is dealing with situational values.

Thibodeau plotting T’Wolves Rebirth (USA Today) -“The hype and stuff like that, I think that’s for you guys to talk about,” Thibodeau said. “For us, it’s to understand what we have to put into each and every day, and what goes into winning to make the commitment to improve. And if we’re doing everything the right way, if we’re practicing the right way, if we’re preparing the right way, if we’re studying the right way, I think good things will happen. And we’re trying to measure ourselves as to whether everything is being done at a championship caliber level, so if we’re doing that, I think we’ll continue to improve. I don’t want to put a lid on what we can do or can’t do. I think we’re young. We have pure hearts. We have to grow and mature, and I think that will happen. But we have to put the work into it each and every day.” -“I’d try to view a bunch of teams that were in different stages of competing – some young, rebuilding teams, some that were in the middle, some that were championship caliber,” Thibodeau said. “I didn’t know what the next challenge would be, and I wanted to be prepared. I had an opportunity to talk to owners and general managers, head coaches, assistant coaches, scouts. It was a great way to just study, learn, get new ideas, and then at the end of the season to sit back and say, ‘These are the things that I’d really like to add.’” -“I just think it’s how technical he is with every single thing,” Towns told USA TODAY Sports. “I mean literally (if you’re) a foot off, then it’s a wrong rep for him (in practice), so it’s amazing the technicality he puts behind it – not only the defense, but offensively.” -“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Thibodeau said. “We were 12 games out of an eighth spot last year, so we know that we have to commit to our improvement, we have to put the work in to it each and every day, and I think we have a willing group. We have some really good young players that are hungry to win, but there’s a price that we have to pay and we have to learn and grow.”

Rhoades has Rice thinking ‘Big Dance’ (Republican Herald) - “We had a plan. We knew it would take some time, and we stuck to it,” Rhoades said by phone Monday. “It was hard. Some nights were harder than others. But we stuck to the plan. Brick by brick, player by player, making smart decisions in recruiting, we found guys that wanted to play for us. We jumped in head-first, not just stressing doing the right things in basketball, but the importance of the value of the education they were going to get at Rice.”

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

Dan Rockwell, Leadership Freak -Every expression of gratitude informs others how you value people, behaviors and results.

Latest twist in D’Antoni offense: taking pick out of pick-and-roll (Houston Chronicle) -The Rockets run more pick-and-rolls and pick-and-pops than any NBA team. But they usually don't actually set a pick. -From Clint Capela rolling to the rim to Anderson back-pedaling to the 3-point line, if the Rockets see a big man move himself out of position, rather than standing still to set a screen, they move rapidly to take advantage, a part of D'Antoni's offense that teams are adopting the way they did his pace-and-space style a decade ago. -"He is the first person I've ever seen teach the basic elements of pick-and-roll differently," said Hornets coach Steve Clifford, an assistant under D'Antoni in Los Angeles who now uses the style with his big men in Charlotte. "Offense, it always was you want a solid screen that sets up the guy with the ball's ability to create separation. That sets up the roll. He does it, as soon as you hear the defensive player (call out of the defense) and that guy moves, you go then. With them, their best plays, they don't screen. He's the first person in this league to teach it like that. It makes the pick- and-roll quicker and for a lot of guys, it's a much better way to play." - "I don't need to stay to set the screen," Capela said. "I only stay when the defender is actually in front of James. But when he steps that way, I know all I have to do is dive. That creates a situation it's two-on-one with James handling the ball and I get lobs. Past coaches, they wanted me to set the screen. I always knew that sometimes you don't need to set it because the defender is thinking about you setting it. You're already open. That sometimes opens our shooters and sometimes I'm open for the lob pass." - With Anderson, if his man is expected to "hedge" or "hard show," defenses in which a big man steps out to help on Harden off the dribble, Anderson can read that and back away before his man can get out to him at the 3-point line. "It depends how the defense is guarding," Anderson said. "I can slip the screen and get right out of there. It messes up the coverage. I go to screen, feel where my defender is guarding me and get out of that screen as fast as possible. James does a really good job reading what I'm going to do. There are occasions it's important to hit the man. If a team likes to show (having a big man step out on Harden) really hard, I can go in there and hit James' man and he's got a wide open path to the lane if they're worried about getting back to me." -"The reason you set a pick is to get the point guard or whoever has the ball an advantage," D'Antoni said. "Defenses are being taught now that when you see the pick and it's being called out, you jump to the position. That gives the offense an advantage. The big helps. Just go. You get a two-step head start. You don't get tangled up with people. You just go."

Jon Coffman, IPFW -Simplify your scouting. Get away from “here is what they’re going to do to us and how they’re going to score on us.” -Frame your scouting work to your players as “We are going to take these 3 things away” and “These are the 3 ways we’re going to score on them.”

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

Beyond the Arc with Kemba Walker (The Ringer) -“I never knew what having a consistent deep ball would have done for me,” Walker said. “It helps me get to the basket a little more. It helps me find my teammates a little bit more. It slows the game up a little bit more. I can use my speed coming off pick-and-rolls. It just opens up a whole different aspect of the game.” - “He does a lot of things naturally,” said Hornets assistant coach Steve Hetzel, who was previously a player development coach with the Detroit Pistons. “The way he shifts his body. He’s got unbelievable footwork. He has rhythm. He has a way that he moves that benefits him, much like a running back in football. He’s able to get wherever he wants on the court.” -“He’s one of the players, that what you apply and what you give him, he takes and makes it his own,” said Hetzel. “Driving into a big that’s already at the level of the screen — like, he doesn’t do that anymore. He baits them and lets them go away, or he splits them right away or, if they’re back, he engages them to make certain passes that he’s looking for. He just has a much better understanding of what different defenses are trying to accomplish.” -“To me, practice was like, for a religious person, going to Mass on Sundays,” said Calhoun. “It’s a place a lot of us find solace. I think Kemba found that. He wasn’t a troubled kid at all, but one of the reasons he avoided the streets was that the gym was a refuge.” -“I watch Kemba in the NBA, night after night, and he still plays for the joy of the game,” said Calhoun. “It’s an amazing thing to see, and I think it’s one of the reasons he’s one of the top … scorers in the league right now. He’s one of those guys who truly, truly loves playing basketball. He’s one of the best people I’ve been involved with. He’s a terrific player, but we’ve had some great players. He’s really a special, special guy. ”

Indiana follows Yogi Ferrell’s lead into Sweet 16 (ESPN.com) -Intensity and drive have long defined Yogi Ferrell, whom Indiana coach Tom Crean describes as "one of the great workers I've ever been associated with." What changed during his senior year at Indiana is that he now channels that fire toward leading those around him. -"He was a floor general, but he also had to be a great listener on that team," said his mother, Dr. Libby Ferrell. "He tried to be a leader his sophomore and junior year, but I don't know that necessarily people were looking up or listening to him. We had some bad seeds on those teams that we had to get cleaned up." -Yogi and his father, who had some disagreements over Yogi's court demeanor as a sophomore, had long talks this summer about what makes a leader. Don't come back as a senior unless you're willing to really take charge, his dad told him. "I took that very much to heart," Yogi said. "I was going to do everything in my power to make this team better and listen to the coaches, to see what they want and relay it to my team. This is my last go around and I wanted to make it as special as possible." -"Early on, I didn't want to get on guys or talk to them about what they needed to do," Ferrell said. "But Coach Crean has stuck with me, and I just started to realize that for us to be successful, I was going to have to do that more."

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

Why KU’s Bill Self has adjusted his thoughts on shot selection (kansascity.com) - Sometimes important changes can be small ones. Kansas’ offense is on pace to be the most efficient of any under Bill Self, and a contributing factor could be an adjustment in the coach himself. Self, who has previously been a stickler for shot selection, brought up something interesting during a weekly press conference in mid-January: “I think I’m giving my guys a little more freedom to shoot it early, which I think sometimes is good and sometimes it’s not good,” Self said. “But the good thing is they’re playing with a freer mind.” -Self explained why he believed the approach shift was necessary. If KU had a dominant low-post scorer of the past — say, Joel Embiid — he’d be more likely to tell his guards to not force anything in transition in hopes of getting that player a touch. With this team, though, the guards are the playmakers. Self realized the reins might need to be loosened on what he considers a good shot. -“We’ve always been a team that wants to score fast. But (outside) of scoring fast, if it’s not there, give the defense a chance to break down, because we’ve always played through our bigs,” Self said. “Now it’s more like, ‘No, go score however you can whenever you can.’ I think we’re trying to score more before defenses get set maybe than in years past.”

The MVP Race (Vertical Podcast) -“You mentioned the culture. That’s the one thing that for the last 20 years, the Heat have been one of the best franchises in professional sports. It doesn’t matter who is in it – whether it’s Alonzo Morning or Tim Hardaway, D-Wade, Lamar Odom, Shaq, or LeBron. There’s a way you have to conform to be a part of the Heat. You have to subject yourself to extreme fitness and intensity on the defensive end. There are certain things that are established and when they talk about the ‘Heat DNA,’ they mention those things. LeBron learned so much from the Heat organization and he’s brought so much of that with him to Cleveland. It was important for him to bring that same kind of mentality to the Cavs. The ‘Heat Way’ just cannot be overlooked. They always find a way to bounce back. Sometimes a culture can be just as impactful as having a great free agent pickup.” -Woj: “One of my favorite moments with Steph Curry was last year I was out in Oakland doing a podcast with Klay Thompson and the Warriors were just coming off a long road trip and it was an off day. We were walking through the gym and there was Steph in the gym with one of their workout guys. No one else was in the gym, everyone was taking the day off. There he is alone in the gym and he’s doing some 2-ball drills. You want to know why this guy is great? Klay told me that it makes him feel guilty. Like ‘If he’s in there, should I be in there?’ That’s what those two have had – they push each other. That’s why I know Steph will find his way out of this. Everyone is going to hit a tough spot. You like your chances of guys working their way out of it who approach the work and are even-keeled people.”

While Celtics show patience, Jaylen Brown races ahead (ESPN.com) - I’m not sure I would have thought that [Brown] would be where he is right now, just because I thought that he had a lot of things that he really would have to improve on to be able to add value to winning at this level," Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. "And he’s proven that he can pick things up on the fly and that he can play at a high level. I know there’s going to be ups and downs with anybody -- and certainly with a 20-year-old -- but he’s got a chance to be pretty darn good."

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

Pressure’s on for Northwestern with first NCAA Tournament bid in sight (USA Today) -For so long, all Chris Collins could do was sell himself — and his idea of what Northwestern basketball could be. -“When you look at all the coaches that have eventually built top programs like a Coach (Tom) Izzo (at Michigan State), a Coach K — When they all started, there was a group of guys that believed in those guys before they were those guys,” Collins told USA TODAY Sports. “For Coach K, it was Johnny Dawkins and Tommy Amaker and Jay Bilas. For Coach Izzo, it was Mateen Cleaves and those guys from Flint. And then they make it big and then kids want to follow that. Pretty much every coach down the line has that beginning of those guys that believed in them before they were Hall of Fame coaches.” -“Those guys were following a vision, a pipe dream, and we didn't really have anything to show for it,” Collins said. “We had an older arena — there are no banners — not great facilities, no winning tradition. Basically, they just believed in what my dream was. To see those guys be at the forefront of building it, it's made it a lot easier now. I tell recruits that all the time. I say, ‘I’ll always be indebted to those guys because it's easier for you to listen to me now because we're winning.’ ” -“I believed that I could be part of something really special, something that had never been done,” McIntosh said. “At a lot of schools, there’s not that opportunity. … There was no legacy here. There were no banners hanging, no jerseys hanging. The belief that you could leave your own legacy, you could be the first to ever do it — that was something really appealing.” -“At the beginning of the year, you talk about your goals, and of course, we talked about being an NCAA tournament team being a big goal of ours this year and believing we can do it,” Collins said. “Then, we’ve been really good about, at least with the guys, not talking about the tournament because to me, I don't think it's relevant.” -“At the beginning of the year, you talk about your goals, and of course, we talked about being an NCAA tournament team being a big goal of ours this year and believing we can do it,” Collins said. “Then, we’ve been really good about, at least with the guys, not talking about the tournament because to me, I don't think it's relevant.”

Tim Cluess turns Iona into power with mentor’s 12-7-4 policy (New York Post) -But Cluess, in many ways, has become the primary vessel to Morris’ old-school hoops values. Back in the day, you could always tell a St. Agnes kid on the favored Long Island basketball breeding grounds of Prospect Park (in East Meadow) and Hickey Field (in Rockville Centre) because they were the ones with the T-shirts or the shorts that had “12-7-4” stitched on them. As in: 12 months a year; seven days a week; four hours a day. The rings that Iona’s 2016 MAAC champions received last year? They were etched with the secret code: 12-7-4. So were this year’s practice uniforms. -“We bring players here who want to have the opportunity to play in games like that one, and who are willing to pay the price to make that happen,” Cluess says. “We know how hard it is to win a league like this.” -“If you love basketball and you coach it the right way,” he says, “you’ll get a chance to change lives, every day.”

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

Hope after desolation: How New Orleans captured its first post-Katrina league title (Yahoo.com) -To Slessinger, salvaging the faded newspaper clippings, dusty photos and broken trophies in those boxes was about more than merely decorating the basketball office’s bare white walls. It was also a way of reminding his players that league titles and NCAA tournament bids were attainable goals at UNO even if it sometimes didn’t feel that way “When I got here, nothing around us told the story of how great our program once was,” Slessinger said. “It was hard for my guys to understand how good things once were here when we didn’t have a conference, we were playing an independent schedule and we had absolutely no chance of reaching the postseason. I needed them to know the story. I needed them to know what we could do.” -“It’s an amazing, amazing accomplishment,” Slessinger said. “You have to have an undefeated attitude every single day if you’re trying to redo something to this magnitude. You’ve got to be tough as hell, you’ve got to be willing to work and you’ve got to hold firm to what your values are. You’ve got to stay on the guys every day about working hard, getting better and seeing how high we can go.”

Marcus Smart taking charge, making hustle plays for Celtics (ESPN.com) -"I think he’s got two things: One, he’s not afraid to put his body on the line," said Celtics coach Brad Stevens. "No. 2 is he’s got great instincts to beat people to a spot. I think he does a good job of knowing people’s tendencies, knowing what they want to do, the directions they want to go. But then he plays with multiple efforts to get there. And then, you know, it’s easier said than done to be willing to step in front of some of these guys driving the ball. He does that over and over." -"It just shows that I care more about my team than myself and that I’m willing to give up my body," said Smart. "It takes somebody real selfless to take a charge. You got to be real unselfish to take a charge, because you know you could possibly get hurt. You know you’re going to get hit. But you’re not thinking about that. You’re thinking that this is something that’s going to help my teammates and my team."

The Ethan-vention: Happ’s rise to stardom at Wisconsin (SI.com) -In the unofficial annals of Wisconsin basketball, it is known as The Ethan-vention. A wiry freshman from a small town and a high school of about 400 students was having difficulty adjusting to a more demanding existence, competing against future first-round picks that had reached a Final Four only a few months earlier. So if Ethan Happ got fouled during open gyms in that summer of 2014, he looked for calls and received blank stares. If his 175-pound frame took a hard bump on a screen, he pouted. If he had a shot blocked, he might not hoist another. If he got dunked on, he’d all but surrender on every possession that followed. “Ethan,” says forward Vitto Brown, “was one of the softest guys we’d ever met.” -The Badgers didn’t need their lone newcomer to key a championship push then. They needed him to stop being annoying. So Brown summoned his fellow sophomores to the apartment he shared with Happ. At some point, they told their young teammate, the stars on the roster would leave and Happ would have to contribute. To do so, Happ had to start behaving theirway. “The

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES less flowery version of it was ‘Man up,’ basically,” says forward Nigel Hayes, one of the attendees. No one made Happ admit his problem. They just browbeat it out of him. -Before Randy Happ left for work every morning, he printed out two spreadsheets, attached the papers to a pair of clipboards and then hung those clipboards on two nails driven into the side of the garage. These were his sons’ prescribed summertime basketball workouts, a dozen exercises that required about an hour to complete. Sometimes Randy took half-days and did the workouts with his boys, Eric and Ethan. Mostly he checked the sheets when he got home and hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed. He rarely was. “It was all on them,” says Randy, a former player for Division III North Central College in Naperville, Ill. -There was nothing favorable about Ethan Happ’s chances during his first year in Madison. The Badgers were coming off a Final Four season and were led by Frank Kaminsky, a senior 7- footer and national player of the year favorite. The outward expressions of frustration may have irked Happ’s peers, but he had good reason to be irked. He was getting his butt kicked daily. “I had no post moves,” Happ says, “and the first three months, I would just get blocked or Frank would score on me every single time.” Once he adjusted his mental approach, Happ began an invaluable big-man internship. After an arduous decision to redshirt—“I didn’t want to have a year where I played six, seven, eight minutes a game, if that,” Happ says—he became a practice foil for all of Wisconsin’s post players, primarily Kaminsky. Happ had a history of absorbing opponents’ tactics into his own game; Randy Happ remembers former UCLA forward Kevon Looney chicken-winging his son for rebounds during an AAU tournament, then seeing Ethan use the same technique in ensuing games. Similarly, every time Kaminsky bested him, Happ took note of how and why it happened. “You see him back-tap and steal in the post—that’s something I did to him all the time,” Kaminsky says. -It imbued Happ with confidence that he could produce. And Kaminsky was a willing tutor, largely because he saw himself in a freshman scuffling to get by. “I remember how frustrating it was to me,” Kaminsky says. “I knew what I was capable of doing. I just didn’t know how to do it.” So Kaminsky would instruct Happ to slow down, to take what the defense gave him instead of predetermining his move to the rim. The lines of communication remain open; when Creighton double-teamed Happ into a seven-point, four-turnover night in a Nov. 15 loss, he called his former tormentor for advice on defeating traps. Happ won’t declassify the tactics he and Kaminsky discussed, saying only, “It’s helped.” -“It’s ingrained with our guys how much we have to touch the post,” Gard says. “[Happ’s] vision and his feel for the game put him in a position where he can make plays from in there. He’s a very good facilitator and has a good feel for people around him, and where guys are, and he is very comfortable. Some guys are not. Some guys, you throw the ball on the block and you swear you pulled the pin in the hand grenade.”

Fathers, Sons and Basketball: The Mark Price Story (Charlotte Magazine) -Lenny Wilkens, Mark’s coach, said he had to shorten the length of practice after drafting Mark because of the intensity he brought to his workaday routine.

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-“He’s a lot different than other coaches because he’s all about teaching,” says Jon Davis, the 49ers’ point guard. “If you mess up, he’s not gonna scream at you. He’s gonna stop and tell you what you did wrong.” -“Kids just wanna know that you care, and I think that’s particularly true with young players.” Mark tells me. “You want them leaving this program feeling like they’re part of a family.”

The Invisible Superpowers of Steven Adams (SI.com) -Steven Adams chugs along. Bumps from opposing defenders barely register. The grabs and hand checks common among grappling big men are dispatched quickly. Adams absorbs these physical manipulations and keeps moving, turning a crowded lane into a path of little resistance. This is an invisible superpower. Even the most brilliant, well-scripted offense can fall apart in the face of challenged logistics. The hang-up in running layered, coordinated action is that it demands synchronicity. Smart defenders know this—and just what they can get away with off the ball to disrupt it. A great defense gets stops by constantly jostling, contesting not just shots and passes but actual movement. By putting bodies in the way of where opponents aim to go, a defense controls the terms of engagement. Adams ensures that at least one train always runs on time. No matter what’s in his path, Adams will get to his spot to screen or dive or carry out his specific responsibility within the Thunder offense. Opponents are shrugged off so casually that Adams appears to move around the floor unencumbered. It took years to get to this point. Years of building strength and adapting to the physicality of the league, the sum of which opened up the game for Adams. -What made Adams more accessible—and ultimately made him one of the highest–volume pure roll men in the league—was a change in positioning. The natural tendency for rollers is to line up their body with the basket itself. As they turn out of their screen, they run right toward the front of the rim. This is great for lobbing the ball over the top, but not much else. The opportunity to throw a pocket pass disappears almost as soon as it materializes. Working alongside Russell Westbrook, too, meant that Adams’s quick roll would have to align with one of the fastest and most erratic drivers in the game. What worked in some games and against some matchups wasn’t feasible in others. -Squaring up to the ball made Adams more viable. There are times where it still makes the most sense for an athletic 7–footer to make a play for the rim, particularly when the offense has built in the space for it. The very threat of that action is valuable. Part of the reason Adams is involved on a much more consistent basis, however, is that now when he rolls, he does so sideways. Adams lines up his entire body toward Westbrook—shuffling along as Westbrook shook his way through. -“I just look at the angle of his body, really,” Adams said. From that, Adams can discern how quickly he needs to move and where, and what angle to take himself. The goal is to take that small passing window and extend it. Every step buys another beat. Staying synced up with Westbrook takes what had been a set, limited opportunity and turns it mobile. No matter where Westbrook goes in between the screen and the rim, that pocket pass will be there to overburden the defense with another killer option. “What's making that easier is the guards, they're doing a good job of moving while I'm rolling just to get their man outside so I don't

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES actually get hit,” Adams said. “That's what it comes down to. The dudes are worried about him so then they jump over and it gives me a lane to go down easily. So it's pretty much our execution, really. Like 80% of it is our execution.” -Turning every pick-and-roll into a variable speed exercise has been good for Adams. Things tended to spiral out of control in Adams’s younger years when he caught the ball at full speed. Repetition has tempered some of those woes, but this kind of positioning also helps Adams to shield the ball from potential help. Most defender hoping to swipe the ball away now has either Adams’ elbows to contend with or his entire body to work around. Any others are cleanly in his field of view. -No matter the exact spot of the pass, a sidestepping Adams always catches the ball with options. Hard, straight–line rollers bank their action’s success on a single outcome. Either the finish is there or it isn’t. Adams makes his move with counters in his back pocket, namely the option to transition smoothly from a pick-and-roll catch into an impromptu post-up. This is the future of the play type. Stodgy, deliberate post play is all but dead in the modern NBA— endangered by advances in team defense and aggressive denial of post entry. It eats up too much clock for too little return. Post players who can catch on the move, seal effectively, and quickly parse movement all around them, however, can build on the pick-and-roll in a way that exploits a defense’s moment of disarray. -The way for non-shooting bigs to score in today’s NBA is not with an endless array of post counters. It’s with simple, reliable moves that can be executed out of fluid situations. Adams has reached that comfort level with his hook shot and as a result, he shoots 48.4% in the high paint—the space within the lane but outside the restricted area—according to NBA.com. -“Coaches do a good job of explaining to me what is actually open,” Adams said. “So if I do get the pocket pass, if I do receive any contact from the weak side then there will more likely be a pass somewhere in here.” He motions to the weak-side wing. “That'll be open. They tell me to shoot it because they want me to be more aggressive attacking the rim and stuff. That's kinda like my first thought and then passing second.”

Pregame pick-up games helping Heat reserves improve their games (PalmBeachPost.com) - Before most home games — when it’s not on the second night of a back-to-back set — a group of Miami’s bench players take part in a few 2-on-2 and 3-on-3 pick-up games. They play two or three games up to seven with made shots either counting for one or two points, and they play using a full court. -“That goes back all the way to the championship culture,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of his team’s pregame ritual. “All of our teams have done that. For a long time that was James Jones, Rashard Lewis, UD and Mike Miller up there playing 2 on 2. Years before that, it was Mike Doleac and (Jason) Kapono. It’s always been part of the culture.” -“Based on the night, our rotation, our minutes, sometimes you play, sometimes you don’t,” Haslem said. “So we all started coming up here playing 2-on-2 full court to get some work in and get some conditioning and get in a rhythm and get a feel for the game. It’s just a tradition that’s carried on. Obviously, none of those guys are here now so I’ve been carrying that tradition on by myself the last couple of years with the new guys that we have here.”

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-The pick-up games have helped Johnson make better and quicker decisions. When playing on the Heat’s practice court, he tries to limit himself to three dribbles before either shooting or passing. “It’s three dribbles, two dribbles sometimes,” Johnson said. “That’s all the dribbles you’re allowed. That also helps you in games to get off the ball. You make a move and it don’t work, get off it. You don’t want to keep pounding the rock.”

Inside Brian Kelly’s Notre Dame Overhaul (SI.com) -To rejuvenate the Irish on the field, Kelly orchestrated a complete overhaul of his staff, program and, most significantly, himself. There’s a new offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special teams coach and strength coach. In total, he hired 17 new staff members in the football staff. “We failed and I failed,” Kelly told Sports Illustrated in his office last week. “I think like any successful person.… They don’t say I’m a failure. I looked at what adjustments needed to be made.” -The adjustments came directly from feedback Kelly received when he interviewed 93 players after the season. Former receiver and student coach Corey Robinson saw a “lack of professionalism” and “undisciplined” habits from players. Senior captain Mike McGlinchey pointed out “the finishing and training of our team got a little stale.” Senior walk-on Grant Hammann suggested Kelly needed to be around the team more. Their answers, apologies, complaints and suggestions provided the blueprint to fix a program that felt too corporate, a coach who’d grown too distant and a missing intensity in the weight room. “There wasn’t a spark and attitude around our building,” says McGlinchey, “of guys wanting to compete and wanting to win.” -In other words, Kelly took a deep breath and changed nearly everything. “If you think about the why, and why we’re doing this, it’s a lot clearer,” he says. “Why did we do this? Why did we go through all this? Why did we hire all these new coaches? We did it because there’s a tradition of excellence that I need to live up to. Period. I didn’t live up to it, and I’m going to make sure that never happens again.” -“The most difficult [decisions] I’ve ever had to make in my 26 years,” Kelly says, “These coaches literally were part of building your program to get you where you are today. To make those changes, which were necessary, are gut-wrenching.” -Some of the best information about the issues in the program came from walk-ons like Hammann. About 20% of the team is comprised of walk-ons, and they didn’t hold back in the interviews. “Because you’re on your way to med school, Brian Kelly isn’t controlling your future,” Swarbrick says with a chuckle. -Kelly admits he did a poor job developing leaders, as early defections to the NFL thrust unprepared players into the role. So Kelly overhauled the captain selection process, with seven captains being chosen immediately after the season instead of during summer camp. -The entire off-season has been restructured, starting with locker location. Instead of being grouped by position, the players are scattered at random. Each section of the locker room is organized into eight neighborhoods, with young players Kelly has earmarked as potential future captains titled “neighborhood bosses.” Essentially, Kelly started a captains training program.

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-He and new strength coach Matt Balis also ratcheted up the competition, with the entire team broken up into eight teams and an off-season scoreboard kept on things like weight room performance, academics and community service. There’s an intricate point system, with teams docked points for things like poor locker cleanliness, something Kelly admits took a huge backslide compared to his first year. And Kelly reserved the right to stop any player and make him sing the alma mater on the spot; missed lyrics mean a team loses nearly 30% of its points. So far, 25 Irish players haven’t missed a note. “We’ve seen great improvement in the way guys come to work and where the focus is shifted,” McGlinchey says. “Guys understand what’s on the line if they don’t do things the right way. There’s been a dramatic improvement in that regard.” -Without a snap of spring ball played, the most noticeable changes have come in the weight room. Kelly admits too many “accommodations” were made for players, which led to a collective slip in physical and mental toughness. Kelly points the finger at himself for allowing the culture to get there. In his interviews, the players noted a consistent desire to want to be pushed and challenged more. Coming into last season, Notre Dame won 21 games by seven points or less in Kelly’s tenure. Last season, they lost seven and won just one one-score game. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out you are missing something,” he says. “We were missing that component, that mental performance component.” -How the revived energy and competitiveness in the weight room translates to the fourth quarter will ultimately be the measure by which Balis is judged. McGlinchey credits Balis for resuscitating the program’s juice, as stale has become spirited. “We didn’t have the mindset or ability to keep our foot on the gas pedal,” he says. “There wasn’t a spark and attitude around our building of guys wanting to compete and wanting to win.” -“My ego does not need to be satiated in any shape or fashion,” he says. “I want to win for Notre Dame. That’s why I did this and made the tough decisions that I made. If I wanted to call the offense, I would’ve just kept those guys and said, ‘Hey move over I’m coaching.’ I want to win for Notre Dame and that’s why I made these decisions.”

The Changing of the Blazers: Why the team is starting to have fun (CSNNW.com) -The joy comes from a month of adapting and become more proficient in this new trapping, scrambling defense. It is a style the players implored coach Terry Stotts to consider before a Dec 2 practice, instead of their predictable and conservative pick-and-roll defense that sagged off the shooter to entice mid-range shots and conceded switches, and thus mismatches, without resistance. -The thinking among the players was a trapping and doubling defense played to their strengths. The Blazers are not a particularly imposing bunch, but they are supremely athletic, agile and lengthy, and this style not only heightens their activity, it forces them to remain mentally engaged because of how much and how often they must scramble and rotate. -“It’s a defense that I think excites us, and plays to our strengths,’’ Plumlee said. “We have a lot of long, active, quick-footed guys, especially when you look at Chief (Aminu), Moe, Noah (Vonleh). We have a lot of length, so we can take advantage of that.’’

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-“It raises the level of intensity; you have to be more focused,’’ McCollum said. “You can’t be as lackadaisical because you know there are rotations to be made. The different traps … you have to always have your head on a swivel and always see your man and the ball.’’ -“I would say one word to describe our defense was connected,’’ Plumlee said. “Guys were covering for each other, those rebounds and loose balls … I don’t know if we come up with those earlier in the season. Our guards coming in and rebounding like that was a huge help.’’

From Emory & Henry to the Big Dance: The man behind college basketball’s unlikeliest coaching tree (NBC Sports) -Johnson had a way of connecting with people from all walks of life. From the cafeteria workers to the janitors to the maintenance men, he knew the name of everyone on campus. He never walked into the lunch room through the front door. He’d come in the back, swapping stories and handing out t-shirts and asking the cooks about their kids. -Not only did he learn how to run a basketball program, but Johnson ensured that Young learned as much as possible about basketball at the same time. At one point soon after Young was hired, Johnson shipped him off to Nashville for a week just to spend time with legendary Lipscomb head coach Don Meyer. He hung out in the offices, he sat in on practices, he even parked Meyer’s car during his daily lunch runs to Captain D’s. Jimmy Allen, Army’s head coach, was sent on that same trip. Nathan Davis, too. -Two seasons were all you were afforded by Johnson. You entered the program, you gave him everything you had and he taught you everything he knows. Then he would send you on your way. He did this at the detriment to his program. Continuity is key at any level, but particularly in Division III, where budgets are small, scholarships don’t exist and the athletes compete because of their love for the game and their loyalty to their teammates. Putting that much time and energy into molding a kid into a capable assistant coach is not an easy endeavor, not when the process begins anew every 24 months. But that’s the way Johnson worked. -“There are a lot of head coaches that don’t want to let go of their assistants because they’ve just got to train somebody new,” Sherry said. “Bob’s outlook was you’ve got two years with me, after two years you need to go learn something from somebody else. He loved moving his assistants along.” -Seeing the people he developed, both coaches and players, thrive in their post-Emory & Henry career meant more to him than wins and losses, and he was as competitive as they come. One of the first tasks he required of his assistants was to call every one of his former assistants. He didn’t have the weight to get anyone a job, but he had a network that could be worked. Jimmy Allen, who just finished his first season as head coach at Army, played for Johnson for four years before becoming his assistant. When his two years were up, he went to Navy, where he helped get Davis on staff after Davis left Emory & Henry. Allen left Navy to join Young’s staff at Wofford when Young was named head coach. Davis eventually left Navy and went to Colgate, where he spent one season working for Emmett Davis before taking over as the head coach at his alma mater. When Nathan Davis left, Emmett Davis hired another Emory & Henry product, Jon Coffman, the head coach of the Fort Wayne team that upset then-No. 3 Indiana in November.

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-Christian’s rise, however, is the most emblematic of Johnson’s steadfast refusal to allow his protégés to accept anything less than what they deserved. After leaving Emory & Henry, Christian got a job as an assistant at William & Mary, a job he got through Nathan Davis. After Christian’s first season at William & Mary, in 2007, Johnson decided that he would finally step down as Emory & Henry’s head coach. Christian, who was 25 years old at the time, interviewed for the job and was told that the position was his. Until Johnson weighed in. “I think you have bigger things ahead of you,” Johnson told Christian. “I’m not going to hire you.” -“He’s the most well-read man I’ve ever met,” Sherry said. He made it a point with his players and his assistants to develop them as men, not just as coaches. “From Day One, we met as a team and coach is talking about how you act in the classroom, how you do things, how you carry yourself, how you treat people,” Allen said. “You’re not going to miss a class. It wasn’t about basketball. It was about you as a person.” He challenged his coaches intellectually. It wasn’t uncommon for him to tell his assistant to drop whatever they were doing, read a 300 page book and meet him on his deck for beers that night to discuss it. -For Davis, it was Johnson’s ability to balance his personal and professional lives that stuck with him. Davis had never been around a coach that was married. He had never learned from someone that put everything he had into coaching while ensuring that he was a good father and a good husband at the same time. “That was important, understanding that it was OK to balance your life and it was OK to have kids and to want to spend time with them,” Davis, who is married with a young son, said. “You could do this job and do those things, and that was very valuable to me. It’s something I carry as much as anything.” Johnson had a way of pushing people without pushing them too far. He could lead without being suffocating. He inspired loyalty because the people in his program knew he would do everything he possibly could to help them. His door was always open, and when he didn’t have time, he made time. “He didn’t make you feel like he cared,” Allen said. “He showed you he cared.”

Mike Zimmer’s mettle was forged before working for Bill Parcells (ESPN.com) -"We're all products of our upbringing in this business," Parcells said. "When we transitioned defensively in Dallas [to a 3-4 scheme after I was hired], it was something he wasn't familiar with at the time. It was a new scheme for him, so he learned it and coached it. This guy is a football coach. He's not interested in any ancillary issues, he's not caught up in anything but coaching football. He's sleeping and eating it. That's what he does. I like that. That's the way I was brought up." -Go back before Zimmer's tenure under Bill Parcells, to the fields of suburban Chicago, where his football education began at the side of a man who started each season in the shifting sands of prep football, searching for an answer to the question, "How can I win with this team?" Bill Zimmer's teams ran the run-and-shoot while it was still just a novelty. He was among Illinois' first coaches to shift from the sideline to the press box, so he had a better view of the entire field. He'd drive to coaches' clinics at gilded college programs in Alabama or Nebraska, returning with reams of information on things he could use in his own program. His last playoff team in Illinois, after years of "Air Zimmer" offenses, ran the wishbone because that's what its players could do well. Fondness for, or comfort in, the way things used to be done was no excuse not to evolve.

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- His father's annual question was programmed into Mike Zimmer's cell phone during his first training camp with the Vikings, popping up each morning as a kind of north star for the new head coach. However flexible and innovative his father was, though, Mike Zimmer also admired things about him that would not change. "My dad was a guy who wasn't afraid of anything. Ever," Mike Zimmer said. "[He was always] driving you, pushing you further." -"One of Zim's strengths is the ability to identify what he sees as positives and weaknesses in a player, and how he's going to utilize the positives to fit what we do, but also to adjust what we do," Spielman said. "One of the big examples of that was in our first draft together with Anthony Barr, who people didn't think was going to be a fit here. We've been together for three drafts now; we have a pretty good understanding of what he's looking for, and he has a very good understanding of our process. Communication is the whole key."

How the Brooklyn Nets are rebuilding from nothing (ESPN.com) -Atkinson accepted the challenge knowing that futility would be his companion for the foreseeable future. But what Atkinson can't accept -- what he won't accept -- is when the players depart from the ethics Atkinson is determined to impart, in the name of building a Spurs-like winning culture. What Atkinson can't stand is when the players lose their resiliency, when an 8-0 run balloons to a 12-0 run, then 18-0, because in their haste to make it better, his team strives to recapture momentum all at once with a grand basketball gesture that falls literally and figuratively short. - In those situations, Atkinson pleads, "Get back to your habits!" Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't, so when Brook Lopez takes 12 dribbles from the 3-point line, or Randy Foye glides over the screen instead of going hard through it, or Trevor Booker fails to retreat quickly in defensive transition, the evidence awaits the coach at 4:30 the next morning, glowing on a laptop in a dimly lit office that should be dark -- and vacant -- at that hour. - When they finally met, Marks outlined a vision that included a top-shelf analytics group, a performance staff that touches each player daily with designated individual sessions, regular interactions with mental health experts, revamping the family room to create a more welcoming environment for wives and children and parents, and expanding the already gleaming practice facility on 39th Street in Brooklyn with an additional $1 million in improvements. At the core of his vision, he explained, was a long-term plan of developing consistency and excellence that would require years, not months. -"I was clear in our meeting," Marks says. "I told them, 'If you are looking for a quick fix or similar to what you did before, I'm the wrong guy.'" -Prokhorov agreed to all of it, as well as the hiring of Atkinson as coach. Atkinson, a former Knicks and Hawks assistant who is known as one of the most innovative player development coaches in the game, tacked on his own wish list: implementing an up-tempo style, a staff of assistants fit enough to lace up their high tops and participate in full practices and a philosophy of spreading minutes evenly across the roster rather than relying too heavily on stars such as Lopez and Jeremy Lin. - Marks made a few other changes. What was once a generic conference space is now the team's "war room," where the coaches, analytics staff and front office spar with one another over how they can improve their team. Marks had the team's mantra carved into the glass of the war-room

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES window: "A united team driven by high character, competitive and talented people working unselfishly to achieve sustainable excellence." Inside, on the war room's white board, Marks has scribbled, "If you interrupt that means you aren't listening," a fervent belief espoused by Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. -When Atkinson was the architect of Linsanity in New York, he prepped Lin for his meteoric ascent by delivering a brutally honest salvo: ‘You're too selfish.’ -"We'd be watching film, and he'd put his head down and go," Atkinson says. "I'd show him that, and he'd say, 'I think I can take that guy.' And I'm saying, 'No! Make the right play.'" While the two often clashed, Lin said, he never doubted Atkinson's interest in making him a better player.

Utah Jazz’s Dante Exum learning to live in the fast lane (ESPN.com) - "What's happened with him is, as he's gotten more physically capable, kind of back to where he has been, he's explosive," said Jazz coach Quin Snyder, a former Duke point guard trying to teach Exum the intricacies of playing the position. "He's fast. He's got a gear. What's happening to him now is it's like having a really, really fast car and you're learning how to drive. When you drive slow, it's a lot easier to read the billboards and make the right turns and catch the lights. For him right now, that car is revved up and it's an adventure sometimes. But pretty soon, he'll learn the lay of the land and stay on the road." -"It's a process," Snyder said. "As I've said before, I'm not going to get too high if it looks like he had a really good game, which he did tonight. And I'm not going to get too upset if he doesn't play as well, like he did last time we were here. That's just part of the process. That's what young guys go through. The key thing is for him to continue to learn." - "I've been watching tape, watching film, working on it, and the biggest thing that's happened is just the slow dribble coming off the pick-and-roll so I can kind of assess and see what I've got and see what the big does," Exum said. "I think that's helped me a lot. I've got to continue to keep working on that and working on those reads." - "Using that [car] analogy, I need to learn to kind of slow down a little bit before I put my foot on the pedal," Exum said. "A lot of guys are able to just stay in front of you if you're just going 100 miles per hour, and that's something I've got to learn. I've got to learn about playing with a little bit of pace, and when I catch them out of position, that's when I put on the jets."

UNO’s ascension under Slessinger a story of pride, perseverance and now wins (NOLA.com) - He knocked on doors across campus and spoke to nearly every Catholic men's club in town. He dressed in a crawfish costume at the school's annual Crawfish Mambo fundraiser in May. And every Thursday he manned the grill station in the school cafeteria, recruiting students to attend games over cheeseburgers and fries. "He is a force of nature on campus," said Adam Norris, UNO's Chief Communications officer. -"When I get to the gates, they're not going to say, Hey, you won that 2017 (Southland Conference) championship. Good work. Come on in. They're going to say was Nate Frye a good husband? Was Christavious Gill a good father, and was Tevin Broyles a good worker and did his job well and honestly? I think that that's how my life will be judged. Not by wins, but by how my players lived their lives 20 years from now. That's what really matters."

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

-"He says this religiously, 'You have to have an undefeated attitude,'" Morel said. "We've been defeated a lot, but the attitude and the belief that it can happen has never been defeated. -"He's like a father to us and some of us actually call him dad sometimes," said Frye, the team's third-leading scorer with a 10.5-point average. "... We see it every day. When (Holden) is here and when Nola's here we see him being just a good father and we know it's not fake. It's true, genuine love, and that what he's telling us, he practices himself at home. He practices what he preaches."

Kenny Atkinson: “I really believe that I have to pay my dues” (Yahoo Sports) -“I think whether you’re coaching the Warriors or whether you’re coaching the Nets, it’s the same mentality,” Atkinson said. “It’s like you just say, ‘How can we help these guys?’ I think the challenge for us is to keep coaching in a positive way and not beating them up every day.” -“We’ve only touched the beginnings of this, and it’s going to take time, but I’d like to see what Caris looks like in two years, what Joe Harris looks like in two years; what Justin [Hamilton], even though he’s a little older, what can he be as he gets more comfortable with the system,” Atkinson said. “I believe so much in development, and I believe that guys can improve, and so I just throw myself into it. When you’re in it every day and you’re like, ‘Man, this guy can be better than people think. This guy can be better than that,’ that’s really what drives you every day. And you know in the back of your mind, ‘Can Joe Harris eventually be a starter or rotation player in this league?’ It pushes you.” -“You want it so bad for those guys because they are really putting everything into doing everything we ask,” Atkinson said. “They listen. I’ve been on other teams where you come into the locker room after a 15-point loss, and there are guys scattered, sad faces, little groups huddling up. These guys have been amazing. I’m just blown away. Sean and I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy task. We needed guys that were going to be able to keep pushing through and guys with high character that, despite the won-loss record, they’re going to come in here with a smile on their face and keep working their tails off, and that’s exactly what we’ve gotten from one to 15. The positive attitude helps you get through. I use the word spirit a lot, because it’s such an important word to me. A negative spirit, you feel it when you walk in a gym or a film session. I have rarely felt that here. We push these guys pretty hard, but everyone wants to be coached, accepts coaching. That attitude, that work ethic, that’s eventually going to pay off.”

An inside look at the week John Beilein cemented himself as Michigan’s head coach (mlive.com) -Gathered in a huddle on the sideline, Michigan players looked up from under lowered brows, stewing with anger. They left the floor in Saturday's semifinal against Minnesota chirping, pointing fingers, calling out each other's defensive mistakes. The Gophers had turned a 16- point first-half deficit into a 55-55 second-half tie. The Wolverines were starting to crack. Finally, it seemed, the week caught up with them. Beilein looked at them. They looked back at him. "I've been here for four years and what coach B told us in that huddle was probably the most powerful thing that I've heard since he's been my coach," Zak Irvin said Sunday, remembering

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES back. It was about where they'd been and how they got here. It was about playing for each other. "There was no strategy in that huddle," assistant coach Jeff Meyer said. "It was about life." -In his postgame press conference, Beilein opened by calling the game "a great opportunity to sit back and watch them play ball again." For a coach whose preparation borders on obsession, that was a theme for the week. Other than dealing with officials, he appeared to enjoy coaching as much as ever. After games, he emphasized living in the moment. He used the word "blessed" often. He got choked up a few times. A devout Catholic, this was a week that stirred the spirituality.

Advice college basketball coaches would give their younger selves (USA Today) -Coach K: “I think I was really lucky at 28 to take over a 7-44 program at Army, my alma mater, and to have to do everything — and my wife had to do everything, and our whole family got involved. We ended up 73-59, and we learned how to win by looking at everything, counting pennies. Then we needed to do that to build Duke. So I wouldn't change it. I think we've maintained that family and looking for pennies. I think we've maintained the hunger because it was ingrained for eight years in our life.” -Jay Wright: “I don't think anything has changed in that you've got to coach because you love the relationships with the players and your coaches. That's what's got to drive you. If that's not what you really enjoy, the day-in day-out relationships with your players and your assistant coaches … because they're kind of like players, your assistants. They're going to move on, and you're going to feel good about their success. You're going to feel good about your players' success. I just got a great call from Randy Foye before I came in here. It just made my day. I was coming in here in a great mood, and that's what you've got to be in it for in college. If you're just in the Xs and Os and the basketball part of it, you're probably better in the NBA. The longer I'm in this, I still believe that's true. I think the most successful coaches, that's really what they're in for.” -Izzo: “I wish I had done a little better job of working more efficiently — not getting less done, but doing it more efficiently … Balance, whether it be with my family or with myself. I think coaches burn out, too. It’s about finding a way to enjoy other things. I think it hurts you because it doesn’t give you the perspective that you need to have.” -Roy Williams: “How demanding the season is in terms of your stamina. You can’t try to win your February games your first week of practice. I’d do a little bit of a better job trying to plan for the whole year instead of trying to beat them to death every single day and push them as hard as I could. Trying to emphasize the long-term goals much more, and keep that in mind for the kids. -Sean Miller: “When you're emotional, you're irrational. At the beginning, whether it's during a practice, during a game, right after a game, at halftime at a game, if you just take your time and let some time pass, it's amazing how you see it completely differently eight hours later, or the next day. I'm still probably the emotional, passionate coach. Even now, that's something I try to guard against. And it's important that the staff that you’re on is the same way, but also that they kind of help. Because the head coach has a lot going on, and I think when they can recognize, ‘Hey, not now. Let’s wait. Let’s take a look at the film. Let’s deal with it tomorrow.' Or, 'I'll deal with that, you don't have to.'

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

-Chris Holtmann: “When I first got into coaching, I certainly had goals and aspirations. I wanted to coach the highest-level player I could coach. But if it got to the point in the offseason where I was obsessing over it, it really did take away from what was important, and that was being as effective as possible in my current situation. I’ve learned even more being a head coach now for a few years and also it goes for starting out in coaching is this: Don’t compare yourself to other people. Don’t compare yourself to other coaches and other paths that guys go on. It’s hard to do when you’re young, and it’s hard to do in general. “I think the challenge is to try to stay away from the comparison track. There are some guys who have built-in advantage, whether it’s playing or a network of people they know. If you’re constantly comparing yourself to other people, you can go down a road that’s not healthy. Embrace your path, do as well as you can do and stay committed to that. See what happens.” -Jim Boeheim: “It will not make you the best coach you can be if you’re worried about every little thing. You need to delegate to your assistants because it gives them power, it gives them more buy-in to what you’re doing, and I think the players recognize that the assistant coaches are very valuable. It’s a fundamental thing, when you’re younger, to kind of get over yourself — and the idea that you have to do everything. -Mike Brey: “Don’t try to do everything, and don’t try to get it all done in one day. Understand there’s a pace to it, and pace yourself through it. But be confident enough — and it’s easier said than done because you’re not as experienced — or try to be confident enough to delegate to staff so it’s not all on your shoulders. I wish I could have done that better at Delaware. … I think I spread myself so thin with all the details and trying to cover everything I didn’t give enough thought to my team. I think that’s where I’ve gotten better — getting away from the office or the day-to-day grind with a great staff, and I have more time to think strategically about my guys and my team during the season. That I was not as good at (early). I think sometimes a practice plan was hurried and maybe not as organized when I was a younger coach because I was doing a million things up until 20 minutes before practice.”

The red-hot Miami Heat are Erik Spoelstra’s coaching opus (Vice Sports) -On inverting pick & rolls: "A lot of teams will do it out of a time-out or very, very irregularly, and these guys have made it a huge part of their system, and it's just unique," Stevens said about the Heat. "Maybe it's the next step in small ball that [Spoelstra is] onto, but I think at the end of the day it puts you in a predicament when the bigs are handling the ball and the guards are setting the picks. Sometimes they have two picks up top and it's a heck of a deal, it's a tough deal to guard."

Chasing The Shot (The Ringer) -“Kris has always had the confidence from the first day that he got to Villanova that he was the best shooter in the gym,” Arcidiacono said. “[The Shot] only helped him prove his point.” -“I don’t want The Shot to be the best thing I ever do in my life, to be the highlight of everything I do in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy about it. I just don’t dwell on it.” When I recently spoke to Jenkins, he said, “That one shot isn’t the highlight of my life, and I don’t want it to be. I just want to continue to get better.”

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

The ex-Seton Hall star behind the team’s NCAA renaissance (New York Post) -When Seton Hall won the Big East Tournament last year, Kevin Willard told Shaheen Holloway to cut the final strand of net from the Garden hoop. It was a symbolic gesture from the Pirates head coach. Without Holloway, his associate head coach, lead recruiter and the former Seton Hall star point guard, the program’s return to relevance wouldn’t have been possible. “He’s instrumental in [what we do] every day,” Willard said. “He’s been the guy that’s been by my side. He gives a great perspective to these guys.” -After watching recruits play, Holloway will often tell them, “do you want the truth or the truth?” He will be blunt, point out areas of needed improvement. “Guys appreciate that,” he said. “Most guys, when you tell them things, but you can also show them, it’s more impressive. Now that I’m still young enough to get on the court to show them what I’m talking about, it makes things go to a different level.” -“He was hungry, and I wanted a young staff at Iona,” Willard said. “I loved the fact he had a belief like I did that player development was key.”

KAT leads the way in Wolves victory over Clippers (StarTribune.com) -When asked about senses of urgency Wednesday, Clippers coach Doc Rivers said, “I felt theirs. They were wolves, and we were not.” -“When you look at the past couple years and where we are now, it says we’ve made a big jump,” Thibodeau said. “I think you have to get close to winning first, and then the winning happens. Right now, we’re starting to understand that. To me, it’s taking care of the little things. If we take care of all the little things, the big things take care of themselves. We say it all the time: The magic is in the work. There are no shortcuts to this. There’s no easy way out. … There’s a price to be paid for winning.”

Harry Giles finally looks ready to play big role at Duke (ESPN.com) -This is how it looked: Harry Giles wasn't thinking basketball. He was playing basketball. And if a clear-minded Giles suits up for the already red-hot Blue Devils in the NCAA tournament, the next three weeks could be very interesting. -"All year long, when I wasn't playing, coach said everybody would get their time to step up and win the game," Giles said. "That was my time. Now's my time." -His teammates tried to buck him up. Allen, who has suffered his own crash of confidence after seeing his season go from national player of the year candidate to suspended outlaw to sixth man, talked to Giles frequently. "I said, 'You might be playing limited minutes. You might feel like a role player, but you're not,' " Allen said. " 'You're extremely talented, and when you get out there, act like it. Don't be shy. Don't be trying to play into a role. Do what you can do.' " -Giles is a 6-11 human emoji. He does not merely brighten a room when he walks into it; he owns it. Krzyzewski didn't care about points. He didn't ask for rebounds. He wanted his emoji back. "I said, 'You didn't get an ACL on your enthusiasm,' " Krzyzewski said. "Like, you're the most enthusiastic kid I've ever been around, and you're not bringing your enthusiasm. That was never hurt. But I think you're not using it."

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

Tournament adversity nothing new for Beilein (Detroit News) -“I don’t show it, but I think they know I really care about them. I’m always on them to better at what they do and that probably gets old to them,” Beilein said. “We can get more out of you. You see it at various times. I’m sure there’s a lot of times they are griping. I’m demanding. I’m really demanding on what I want them because I want them to be at their best one day.”

Life’s work: an interview with Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski (Harvard Business Review) -The only time I’ve felt burnout was actually after my first back operation, in the mid-1990s. I returned to work after two days. Then, about a third of the way into the season, I lost my physical and emotional strength, and I had to step away for a few months. In the nine years before that, we had gone to seven Final Fours. My schedule was nuts. And I never took time to critique how I was handling things. I was just moving forward. But that setback prompted me to change a lot: delegating more responsibilities, not micromanaging, being a different type of leader. Since then, my energy and hunger have never wavered. -On recruiting: “I have a great product: a track record of excellence. Guys coming in get better in every way. But that’s true for other programs, too. So it’s not about persuading or selling. It’s about telling the truth—who you are and how you’ll do it—and then trying to learn about the player and figure out if that’s what he really wants. You might find it’s a perfect situation for him. Or that others work too, which means you might not get him and maybe that’s better. We also look for three things: the talent to be on a championship team; a love of academics and a willingness to work, because they’ll need that at Duke; and character, which is maybe the most important. Are they good guys? Team players? How do they interact with their parents, teammates, teachers?” -On the key to motivating a team: “You have to show motivation yourself. They have to see it in you on a day-to-day basis. The older professionals understand that you have to show up every day, no matter what, no excuses. With 18- to 23-year-olds, consistency is harder. So you have to hold them accountable and ask questions: ‘Why didn’t you show up today? Do you have a strong enough desire to improve? Are you afraid of something? Is it your sleeping habits or your diet?’ Eventually you get to a point where they’re motivating themselves.” -With a college group, I’m teaching and they’re learning. I’m changing the limits of what they think they can achieve, speeding up the pace, letting them know they’re not the only good singer in the group, helping them play together, learn from one another, and trust that if they fail, someone will be there to help. With the U.S. team, some of their best practices are better or more appropriate than mine. So we adapt to one another, and all take ownership. Communication is a big thing. I talk to each of them about their habits and favorite plays. -On how West Point changed him: “I believe West Point is the best leadership school in the world. I learned there that in order to change limits, you will look bad at times. You will fail. But that’s not where you stay. You figure out how to get better and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Failure is not a destination. Weakness becomes strength. You need to be a lifelong learner and believe that you can improve. Also, it takes teamwork. You’re not going to do it alone.”

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

48 hours with the most underrated coach in college basketball (Men’s Journal) - He treated the extra 25 minutes like they were a joy ride in a Lamborghini, while a joyless Pitino stalked the sidelines unleashing a barrage of profanity even a novice lip-reader could decipher. “They tie themself up in knots,” Brey says of his players. “It’s my job to untie the knots.” -A three-year absence from the NCAA Tournament followed, and it was the only time Brey seriously considered leaving South Bend. “I was thinking, 'Maybe it’s good business to reinvent [myself], because if I go to a fourth NIT or nearly miss, they’re going to be really on my ass,” he says. Krzyzewski’s influence was critical to Brey’s return. “Don’t do something crazy,” Brey recounts as the takeaway from a conversation they’d had. Coach K advised him to walk around campus and remember what he was trying to build. He needed time to recruit and develop players — and get those players to buy into his process. The hallmark of the Brey era in South Bend has been the development of talent over a four-year period. The Irish returned to the tournament in 2007 and have missed it only twice since then.

Out of the rubble: How Northwestern finally broken through to claim its NCAA tournament bid (SI.com) -Students now play pickup hoops there, and it’s where Law was on Selection Sunday last year, going against teammates Dererk Pardon and Jordan Ash in rotating games of one-on-one while they monitored a live stream of the NIT selection show on Law’s phone. They had accepted missing the NCAA field, but their 20–12 record didn’t pass NIT muster, either. Feeling pain and rejection in March—even from the NIT, which the Wildcats have reached just seven times—is a very Northwestern thing. “The conversation that night,” Law says, “was that if this team wants to get anywhere, people like us have to dedicate ourselves to finally making this place good.” -When McIntosh made his recruiting visit that summer, Collins pitched Northwestern’s NCAA tournament drought as an opportunity—to be part of the first team to do something worthy of hanging in Welsh-Ryan. “You could leave your mark,” McIntosh recalls Collins saying. “People will always remember who did it first.” -Two days after a Feb. 21 loss at Illinois, Collins urged his team to think back to the preseason, asking them, “If I had told you that on Feb. 23, you’re going to be 9–6 in the Big Ten and you’re going to be 20–8 on the season, how happy would you be? What would you want to do with it, then?” Collins asked. “Would you play with a lot of passion and excitement, or would you want to get the season over with, like a lot of other teams here in the past have?”

7 Mark Cuban Regrets in Life (Inc.com) -"I think my regrets have come from not quite putting in enough effort, which has kind of motivated me for the next time. My regrets come from kicking myself in the ass for saying, 'Okay, there was an extra hour in the day you could have used. There was this time when you decided to sit and eat dinner, and catch a breather and catch your breath, instead of keep on going. To me you have to grind to be successful, and my regrets have come from maybe I didn't grind hard enough. Or maybe there's somebody out there outworking me. That's just not acceptable."

ZAK BOISVERT – MARCH 2017 COACHING NOTES

A Final 4 almost changed Jay Wright; that’s why Nova’s title won’t (Washington Post) -This is what they work for, all those coaches who start as assistants at a place like the University of Rochester, who move on to a Drexel and then up to a Villanova and then across the country to a UNLV before getting that chance to build their own program at a Hofstra that leads to the primo head job, back at a Villanova. They work for that moment in 2009, when Scottie Reynolds drove the lane and willed the ball through the basket, sparking the kind of delirium that defines March. Coaches, even great coaches, aren’t guaranteed appearances in the Final 4. And here was Jay Wright after Reynolds’s shot: 47 years old, 15 years into his career as a head coach, 8 seasons in at the Philly school for which this Philly kid wasn’t quite good enough to play. “You feel like your program has arrived,” Wright said, and it had, because this was the Wildcats’ fifth straight appearance in the NCAAs, and Reynolds’s game-winner against Pitt gave them their 30th win, and darn it if they wouldn’t play North Carolina in a national semifinal the following week in Detroit. -But for Wright, for Villanova, there isn’t a straight line from 2009 to 2017, and how he handled the first trip informs how he handles himself now. “I felt like getting to the Final Four, it’s my job to make sure everybody from Villanova gets to enjoy it,” he said. -So from the moment the Wildcats arrived in Detroit, there were boosters and former players and administrators and alumni and rallies and distractions. He wanted it all. Yet five minutes into the game against Carolina, he realized one team had arrived to win a national championship, and another team (his) was just happy to be invited and effectively had no chance. -Instead he said “Yes,” and he overcommitted. Trips to ESPN and speaking engagements replaced time around the basketball offices, around his staff, around his team. He was acting like he thought a Final Four coach should act, doing what he thought a Final Four coach should do. In the moment, he didn’t see how that made him borderline fraudulent. -“Each organization, whether it’s a Fortune 500 company or a college basketball program, hangs its hat on a uniqueness,” said Billy Lange, who sandwiched two stints as a Wright assistant at Villanova around a seven-year run as the head coach at Navy. “Then they embrace that uniqueness. What you learn is that it comes down to the type of people that you have around you. Villanova is not Kentucky, just like Google is not Apple. He had to see that.” -“It was easy to get em, and we just took em,” Wright said. “We recruited them on the basis of just being pros, and then when they got here, we tried to talk to them about our family, our culture. They were looking at us like, ‘Wait a minute. This isn’t what I signed up for.’ And that was on me.” - When the Wildcats break each huddle, they shout: 1, 2, 3 attitude! “Any time we had a humbling experience, we’d lose a game or be struggling, that’s what he would say: ‘Attitude,’ ” Arcidiacono said. “It didn’t matter what the situation was, if we were #1 in the country or whatever. Be humble. Be hungry. He didn’t change that.” -“There’s less fear of failure than when you’re building a program the first time,” Wright said. “We thought, and we talked about it as a staff: If we fail, we’re going to fail our way with good guys that believe in Villanova. We’re not trying to emulate Kentucky or Kansas. It was kind of cathartic.” -“One of the things I’ve learned along the way,” he said last month, “is how fragile this all is.” He found out, after 2009. Now Jay Wright has two additional experiences in his rearview mirror: a national championship and 13-19. With Villanova poised to make another run, it’s hard to say which is more important in determining how Wright will handle each step going forward.