Nevada Smith on "25" Speed, Confusion Zones, and Crashing Five | Siena

I think anything in transition that gets below the free throw line really puts the defense in a bind. The great transition defenses still don't really run to help side or the rim right away. The elite ones might, but you're still going to catch them out of position, especially if you're driving it from the midline. We want the ball in the middle as early and often as we can and then kick to the sides to make sure like the helps not sitting and waiting for you. We don't drill it up the sideline. We want to play in the middle of the floor. We throw it ahead and we fire up a three that's a good shot for us. We're good there. Our offensive rebound numbers and transition are higher than any other time outside of a Miss Leop. So we love those early quick threes, whether it be in the corner in the slot. Obviously corner threes are gold for us for most teams, but we just want to high value shot for us. Hi, I'm Dan Cricorian and I'm Patrick Carney and welcome the slapping glass, exploring basketball's best ideas, strategies and coaches from around the world. Today we're excited to welcome CNN men's basketball head coach Nevada Smith. Coach Smith is here today to discuss differentiating speed from pace, creating confusion zones for the defense and playing to empty pick and rolls on offense. And we talk increasing offensive rebounding margins and mastering pick and roll reads during the always fun start, sub or sit. The practice lab is now live inside SG plus. It's a new space for building with Drew Dunlop around practice design, player development and helping coaches bring ideas from film and workouts onto the floor. A place to study practice ideas, tinker with the constraints and take something back to your next session. Drew walks through each idea with voice over breakdowns, looking at what the drill is teaching, what cues players are learning to read and how coaches can shape the task for their own players and system. It's another major addition to SG plus. Alongside our film breakdowns, newsletters, podcasts, extras, clinic presentations and growing coaching archive. You can explore the practice lab now on SG. And now, please enjoy our conversation with Coach Nevada Smith. Coach, thank you so much for hopping on. We're really excited to dive into a bunch of stuff for you today. Appreciate you guys having me on. Obviously I'm an avid listener and you guys do so much for the game. It's an honor to be on here with you guys today. Appreciate that. Thanks coach. All right coach, we're going to go right to the offensive side, which I know you love. I won't be pulling teeth to go here for you. Let's talk about pace and something, a conversation that comes up quite a bit. We've talked about it here on the show a lot and there's all different shades of it and wanted to start with this angle on it and that's how you decide and know what the right pace is for your team for that season and what goes into that decision. All the things that go into figuring out how fast or slow we're going to play. Yeah, I think the first thing is you have to differentiate speed versus pace. So speed is how quickly we go from defense to offense, whether it be a maker of miss. So I think that's the most important thing is we want to get the ball below the free throw line or a valued shot in the first five seconds, whatever we want to do. So we want to push it as fast as we can. A lot of teams are we want to pitch it ahead, pitch it ahead, pitch it ahead. I'm good either way, as long as the ball gets below the free throw line. The one caveat to that is if we take a dribble throw it up and we take a open slot three for a good shooter, like that counts, any good shot in the first five seconds or get it below the free throw line. So that's our speed kind of goal. We always talk speed before pace. The pace definition, how quickly you shoot doesn't help. It's just you take early shots or not. I think some of the pace analytics are they're good. If you want to prove a point, but I don't think they show much other than you shoot fast. If we do the right things, we're going to shoot fast. So I'm not really worried about it too much. I think to your question of how we go about building that, we break down practices through different segments. So we do a skill segment, vitamin segment, and then a speed segment very early into practice, where we're putting these guys through different speed drills that we do, whether it be different one on one games, different shooting drills, five on five, three on three, where the shot clock's low, where we're trying to really make sure we're doing a great job of getting our 25 speed on the floor, getting the ball on the right spots on the floor and in the right guys hands. I don't shouldn't say it like this, but it's true. I don't care about turnovers. We don't pass the ball enough because we shoot quick to be a high turnover team. I don't think any team I've ever been a part of has been a high turnover team. I like when they turn it over early because it teaches me what guys can't do and what we can do as a group. So we don't even worry about turnovers unless they're unforced, same mistake turnovers, but if you're making a hard effort speed, where we're going to get a great shot from it, whether it be a wide open corner three, a play at the rim, something we're getting a guy in the air, turnovers are going to happen. Don't care. Some travel turnovers, we're trying to make a play at the feet, whatever. But I think once we do some of those things in the pre-season at the beginning of practice, it'll tell us how fast we can play and how fast we can't play. We're going to recruit the players faster we can. So for us, the speed kind of takes care of itself. The one thing we do do, and I've stolen this from Coach Crutch and Coach V is in the summer, we do a lot of 150 point games where we're just playing up and down with different restrictions, different parameters, different bonus options where the speed is a factor. And we learn right away that one, it's a great conditioner. Two, they learn how to play. And three, the rest of our summer workouts are pretty much all individual. So they're really getting a time to put into play what we've been working on in our individual workouts. So that really helps. It basically by itself dictates like, okay, we got to be in great shape, and we're going to be in great shape. And it's going to vary, right? Like there's always going to be guys that aren't as fast, that aren't as good playing that way. But once we can roll to find what we're looking for at them, it becomes pretty fun. Going back to you said below the free throw line, and I believe five to six seconds, how did you get to that? Why below the free throw line in that amount of time? How did you land there? We did a study in Marquette, and that kept coming up to the number. We call it 25 seconds. We want the ball below the free throw line or a valued shot up. I changed a little bit of Marquette. I'm going back to it this year here. The elite ones might, but you're still going to catch them out of position, especially if you're driving it from the mid line. We want the ball in the middle as early and often as we can, and then kick to the sides to make sure like the helps not sitting and waiting for you. We want guys to hug their man, and then when we make a play, make a pass, drive it to the paint. The paint usually open. Big guys trail behind. We want to collapse everybody. Once we collapse the defense, we're playing close out basketball. That's our whole thing. So yeah, 25 seconds. We want to get the ball up there. Like I said, if we throw it ahead and we fire up a three, that's a good shot for us. We're good there. Our offensive rebound numbers in transition are higher than any other time outside of a mislayup. Obviously corner threes are gold for us. For most teams, but we would just want a high value shot for us. Pigea heads are great, but we're not absolutely saying we have to pitch the ball ahead. We have to skip the ball. We have to do this now. We're just trying to get the ball to a certain spot in a certain time. And if we do that over time, really good options are going to be available for us. When you talked about your practice segments, and maybe this is a question marrying both in terms of your skill and your speed segments. If I can start with maybe from an individual perspective, when you get to your skill or even your speed segments, what are the skills or the techniques that you've kind of learned over the years playing with this pace that you're going to be throughout the season working on your guys and in your program? The biggest area that we work on early in practice in our skill session is finishing. We're going to get to the rim and shoot 50% of our shots at the rim. And a lot of the pull-up midi get to the rim debate is what you're going to take and contested one and that usually leads to routes on the other end. Well, not if you shoot them in a high percentage or you learn how to put the ball in spots where they can't guard it. So we do a lot of finishing pre-practice in our skill sessions. Finishing off of drives that we create, finishing off cuts that we create, finishing off just beating your guy to the basket. A lot of the skill work we do at the beginning is predicated on finishing. Now we do a lot of other stuff. I believe every pass should be thrown one handed. So we do a million one handed passes within the finishing segment. Guys can't always do it, but we want to see if they can. And we want to work on it just because a lot of defenses teach, hey, when two hands go to the ball, get home. Well, if two hands never go to the ball, we should have an extra half second. So we're trying to throw every pass one handed if we can. So that's built into the skill sessions. We do some shooting things, but usually the shooting drills we do in that are coupled with something else. It's coupled with a rebounding drill within the shooting drill, a passing drill within the shooting drill, a cutting drill within the shooting drill. So we're trying to chunk a bunch of different skill sets into one. And a lot of them end with you go two foot one foot. Why? You go outside foot inside hand inside foot outside hand. Why? What do you do best? Is there a finish that you can't make? I'm very big on. Tom Brady didn't throw many left handed passes. So let's try to score with our dominant hand. We're dominant hand finishing team. Whether that be you can force us weekend, all you want. We're still going to get where we want to get to. But how can we finish both strong hand weekend? What are the ways we can do it? I don't technically believe in offhand floaters. I think they're really hard to make. And I think when guys make them, you see it on the internet and they post it because they don't make it very often. It's like a highlight dunk. Right handed guys make a left handed floater. They put it out there while you made one. one out of seven. I don't think that's what we're looking for. But can we give you enough options? Can we give you a menu that you can pick from? Different guys are really good at different things. I use Tyler Colick as an example. He was one of the worst finishers in the country as sophomore year at Marquette and he turned himself into a top 10 finisher in the country as last two years because he was maniacal about the process of making it at full speed with no one on him, making it at full speed with some type of contest making it full speed with a body. We just did it so much. He got so good at it. I believe it's a learned skill. He got rid of the ones he didn't like. The ones he couldn't make. We do a finishing tree with every guy on our team, whether it be our seven one big kid to our six two point guard. They do the same finishing drills every day, not saying they're going to do them on the game. But we want to see it. We want to see, can you do it? Is it give you another option? Is there something you do that we don't do that we need to throw in there that you can work on? I don't mind fade away shots on the midline from four eight feet. We get in there, we shoot those a lot in our finishing segments. Different ways to get the ball over shop blockers. We calm shot assists. All right, you got a big shop blocker. Let's bring that guy over and just get all over his hand. We're good either way. We work on all that stuff in the skill segments and it flows right into what we're trying to do from a speed perspective. And coach, if I can just follow up, you said you're a big proponent of one handed passes, how you settled on that, and how you're teaching one hand passes when you want to attack rim and get into the paint and be able to spray it out. Yeah, we're trying to buy half seconds. Like we're just trying to find half seconds on the floor. And like I said, a lot of teams teach two hands of the ball go home. So we never want to give guys that extra movement where they can get that half second back. I think when guys get really good at it, you're just creating a close out where the guy catching the ball has a little bit more time to make a decision. What are you going to do trying to take a peek at your defender? You're going to shoot it. You're going to drive it. You're going to show him the ball. Like what's your menu? What are you going to choose? We do stuff where we get the two foot. We call them foot throws. We do them every single day. Basically, what are people called stride steps? We do foot throw drills every day. Okay, open up. See what you got. See a cutter, see an open three. Can you throw with one hand? You're dropping it behind your inside hip. How are you making the passes? What passes are going to be available? Obviously on the move, those passes are tough. There's a lot of old school coaches that think you need to throw every pass with two hands. I've never been in that camp. I think if you need to throw it with two, go ahead. I think in a perfect world, we throw them all with one. Even little kick corner passes on a slot drive. We just want to push it out when they commit to you. Just throw it to them. And it comes with a lot of work and reading and it's things we do every day. We do a drill every single day where we throw one right hand, one left hand at one hand and pass over and over and over and over again for two and a half minutes in an early vitamin that you just see improvement over time. And there are certain guys, you know what? They can't do it. Okay, you can add your second hand, but you got to make sure you put more on at them. You got to gain that half second somewhere. So I think it's important. It's a skill for us. It's a skill we work on. It's something I think you can't get better at. So why not work at it? Talked about the first five to seven seconds below the free throw line. Where do you find yourself teaching next when it comes to? Okay, we didn't get a shot in the first seven to eight seconds. How you keep the speed or what speed you want to keep playing at once that first early advantage per se isn't there. The ball in the players kind of dictate what's next, right? So depending on how the floor looks, can we get into some type of our flow, whether that be playing on the side of the floor, which we do a lot, we probably do it more than anything in the country. Can we get into an empty side, either pick and roll or some type of get chase action that, you know, one of our goals lead the country and empty pick and rolls to one of our goals. Can we do it? I don't know. I think we can. We'll be close anyways, but can we find those, right? Can we do a good job with however the floor is spaced at not pausing, not holding? Can we find a bad defender on the strong side of the floor and put him in the action? Can we find a bad defender on the weeks out of the floor and put them in the primary help spot? Are we good enough IQ wise to do simple and elite level? And that's what we do. We only really work on our flow stuff in the summer and we work on our minds and can we do certain things? Can we put the worst defenders in the spots we want them? Because I think the one thing, and you hear people say different terms for different guys, right? And we call them suckers at different points. You hear them, you know, I've heard guys call them different things like we just say, who are we going at and why? So we're going at number three because he's bad in help. We want to put him in as many help spots as we can. We're going at number 12 because he can't guard the ball. We got to get him on the ball. You know, there's an elite defender. We don't want to go at number one. He anticipates everything. We want to put him in a spot where he has to make reads where he can't anticipate any passing lanes. Can we recognize that? I think we'll get better at it. I think we'll be better at it in February than we will be in October, November, but it's something we talk about a lot. We're a huge KYP team. Know your personnel, know your position. We do it times two. And that's both ends. That's offense and defense. You got to know what you're doing on both ends of the floor about the guys we're trying to go at and know the positioning of what's next. It's on defense where you supposed to be on offense. Okay, if the ball goes here, what's next? What's my job? I have two options typically on every pass, every movement, every drive. Just got to make sure that we don't miss a prescribed cut. When we do that, it kind of clogs us when we do a great job of seeing our prescribed cuts. It's pretty fun to watch and pretty fun to play. Coach, could you just go a little deeper on why you want to lead the country and empty pick and rolls versus some other type of pick and roll area or setup? I think it's the hardest guard from a help standpoint. You really have to be comfortable leaving your man and the closest help guy typically is the guy guarding the top guy on that three man side. And we space further out on the floor the most. So are you going to be comfortable if that's an elite shooter going to the nail? I hope so. I don't know if teams will. I just want as much space as possible to create a driving lane, create an advantage with the screening action, put one and a half guys on the ball for a half second, which is all we're trying to do. And then get to close out attacks. How are we attacking it? What are we doing? How are we cutting around it? It's pretty wide. No, we're a five out team that would never five out. We're always four around one in some capacity, whether it be a cut, a drive, a roll off a screen, but we're always five out or four out one and stuff, you know, not permanent typically. It's within the five out movement spacing. Can we confuse a defender? We make them stay longer than he has to. Can we make him get out quicker than he wants to? And that's kind of the game we're playing. And you know, if we can dictate where the defenders are, which is easier said than done, but when you can and you get the guys that can really think the game, you can put some real pressure on the rim, on the paint, and on the three point line. Coach, maybe if I could do a slight pivot within all this, talked a little bit about attacking certain type of defenders in different space scenes. Where does your mind go? Is, you know, an offensive coach when the weakness of a team you're playing as a defense is kind of hard to attack or not obvious where maybe they don't have a lot of terrible on ball defenders. The rotations are good. You don't have a matchup you like. Like these games where it's kind of hard to have an immediate advantage. What do you do when there's a tough problem to solve offensively? I'm under the belief that great offenses impossible to guard. The defense is always reacting unless they are going to do something to make you react, which pretty much gives you two on the ball. So we are comfortable with what we do, creating space, creating gaps, creating two on the ball, creating different confusion points throughout the half court that you can't be good at everything. If you're good at everything, you're in one national championship, we probably aren't beating anyways. But hopefully we calm confusion zones. There's different confusion zones on the floor that we just want to put guys in and see if they make the right movement, right call. I think the hardest thing in basketball is to get teams to talk. So we want to put you to the test on that. We also want to attack your defensive absolutes. Like whatever you teach and practice day one, we're going to try to exploit. We want your guys talking to themselves. We want your guys talking to their coach about coach with the killing us with this. We got to get out of this. That's what we want. That's when we excel. So if you teach, hey, we're going to attack the roller like you better believe we're going to attack you attacking the roller like if that's something you do day one and we can see that. It's pretty easy to see when you're watching teams play like what their main like one or two values are that they do every single time. Like we're going to go at it, you know, pack line teams typically. We do a great job of attacking because we're just going to move you around and create gaps because of the way you play. Old Texas tech, Chris Beard teams, they're going to force you baseline. Like we're going to get the ball to the middle and then you're going to have to react. Everything you don't want to do, everything you preach can't happen. Like there's ways to do it and we got to make sure we put your defense in a spot where hopefully it breaks. And when it does, you're going to option two, option three, which you don't practice as much as option one. Coach, you mentioned a second ago confusion zones. Could you dig deeper on that? Maybe what is one of the confusion zones and how you're helping your guys or the actions you want to be put in that around that or the spacing around these zones? The biggest one is on guard to guard actions 95% of teams switch. They might actually be more than that. So what point and each team's different at what point do those two defenders not quite know what to do? How close can you get how far away can you be to where those two are like, I don't know if it's a screen or not, I don't know if we should switch it and make them communicate. You know, typically the first round of the first four minutes of the game, you're feeling that out and then you're using the next four, next four, next four of okay, let's change up the zone, let's change up the point. We've been touching. We don't need to touch. Let's go a step early. Let's find the point where they don't know what they're doing, where they don't know switch stay and then we're looking at different areas on the floor where it's at my help is at your help. Make them talk, make them communicate, put them in a position where they got to do the really hard things all the time, which you know is easier said than done, but it is the guard guard stuff we do every day. We start switching everything in practice because we see it the most and then we add stuff in later just because what we're going to do, but we want to get really good at attacking switches because most of the teams are going to switch us. So how do we do it? What do we attack? What are we looking for? bad defenders, confusion zones, close-out points, where can we create the most space? So we're talking about that all the time, and everything we do, and we're literally just doing our flow stuff for most of that stuff, and you know, we upset action to get the ball in certain spots on the floor, but we don't like the perfect game as we call them nothing, but ATOs and after free throws. That's perfect. That's all we want to call, if we can rely on teaching our guys how to play, and them just hooping and playing, then we're in pretty good shape. It's time to renew your NABC membership for the new season, or if you've never been a member, join for the first time. 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Then, as studying your time at Marquette and the offense that you guys were running and maybe within your flow now, you always space pretty high in the slot, you know, like you said, when you're talking about the empty side to kind of put that nail closest defender in a tough spot, where do you teaching the offensive player in that slot? Because they are very high in the slot. So if the ball is coming, I guess, getting them comfortable with being able to play so high and away from the three-point line. It's a huge adjustment. It's one of the first things new guys to, you know, play in the way we play talks about after week one. They're like, "I'm not used to this spacing. I'm not used to being in the park line. I'm not used to being way up here. It's different." I'm like, "Well, once you learn how to play within it, you'll understand why we do it." And they all do. The big thing with me is we always want to play downhill. If you're always that high on the floor and you stay above the ball, you're always going to play downhill. When you get too low, you've got to go uphill in the downhill. I think you lose a lot. I think you lose your advantage on a defender. I think it's more difficult to get a shoulder by that way. It's a little more difficult to make a move after. We teach a lot of like downhill drives, quick change of direction, quick change of pace. What are we doing to get by by? But up there, it's different, right? So you're working on shooting from up there. You're working on movement around the action. You're working on, "Okay, what are my reads? Ball goes here. Ball goes here. What do I do?" And we do that all the time. Once you get it, the hardest thing to do is to get it after the actions kind of happen and we change sides of the floor to get back up there. It's initial spacing action. It's not a complete spacing idea for the possession. Once the ball starts getting in, the paint, once the ball starts moving, we want to be in scoring zones with all five players. When we're setting it up and pulling the out and trying to create advantage, we want you to be up there. We want you to go to your normal spot and see if we can make a play and create some confusion that way. But it is a lot of work trying to teach those guys how to play from up there. But I think once they get it, they love the options they have, they love the menu that they get, and they start understanding where their shots are coming from, which is what I think is so important and why we play so much in the summer is guys work. This day and age, the individual development is way better than I can remember from a standpoint of guys actually doing it. Now some of it is great and some of it is bad, depending on who you work with and what you're trying to work on. But once you understand where your shots are coming from and how you're getting them, you can really start implementing that into everything you're doing individually. And I think that's really big. And when they see it and they start seeing success, you get true buy-in. If we did it and we stunk, I don't know if they would do it as much as we do it now. You do it in your drilling shots and you're getting by and you're like, wow, that's pretty easy. And maybe we stink on defense, but we do a great job of getting the shots we wanted getting downhill. So hopefully we play against the same defense that we play, but it does take some getting used to. But I do think the benefits of it can be pretty high. One last spacing question, since I kind of put you on the topic, the corners, whether in the initial transition phase, where do you see that in terms of, are you telling the guys get dead corner, get elevated off the baseline? How do you like to fill that corner area and where you're telling guys the space? We use an imaginary line from the top of the block, so we want to be below the top of the block. In a perfect world, when we shoot, we want to be high foot right on the top of that block, but it's never perfect. Just kind of give you the most square. We want straight shots from the corner. If we can, we want the ball to release and go right to the middle of the basket. Just gives us the best chance of making the shot, gives us the best chance of rebound in the miss. And one thing we do that's different than most teams, we never cut through from the corner. So a lot of teams in transition, if they're stacked on one side, they'll cut the corner. But we never, ever do that. We kind of want to race to the corner. The corner always gets shots for us or the corner always ends up making the best play. So it should be a race to that corner. Both of them if you can, but if you're all on one side, go ahead, line up. Doesn't matter. Just space accordingly. We'll figure it out. Our whole thing is get to the rim. We want to get the rim as much as we can. We don't want to take extra defenders down there so they can stay there. We want them running out to you at the three point line because hopefully we have threats out there that they're worried about, which leads the paint open for, you know, a second or two, where we can maybe get in there and make a play. You see so much now too on middle penetration teams will cut the corner and kind of the Clyde cutting, whatever you want. Does anything change on you, how you're cutting system? You know, you mentioned you never want to cut through from the corner. Are you always trying to hold corners? You'll cut differently or if there is a middle penetration in the half court, different rules. Half court, we will cut from corner slots, dunker. We'll cut everywhere. Just want to move the defense. Keep the defense. The one thing that cutting does, you might not score. But your guy is going to make contact with you most of the time, which kind of eliminates a help defender. So cutting for us, we have prescribed cuts. We have cuts that are random, both are great, both are important to what we do and both can be from anywhere. The big thing is we got to replace ourselves when we do. We do leave certain spots. Look, if you cut a corner, we want to replace the corner. If we, you know, we cut a slot, it's not as important, but the way we play, the way we space, the way we drive and look, corners are a pretty big proponent of how we do things. We want guys there if we can, even if they're a late fill after a cut or after a drive. We've talked about pace a lot and how fast and speed in the movement. Are there times during the game that you feel you need to slow it down or control it? I know time and score late and all that, but like, let's just say, it's either too fast or team struggling with reads, when now in game might you or might you not slow it or control it more if it's not going the way you want. Very rare. We pride ourselves in being better in that game than everybody else. So we want that game, even if it, you know, we take a couple of question of ones. We turn it over a couple of times. We got to believe in our process and what we do and keep going. When I was in the D league and now G league, I struggled to make that change. I love the old developmental league. I always told the guys, you got 44 minutes, I'll take the last four. Well, take your home when we need to and we will slow it down at that point. We'll slow it down in certain situations where it makes sense for us to do a two for one or whatever we want to do, like those situational basketball plays we will, but for the most part, we never want to put the brakes on. Our guys know that it's a roller coaster the way we play, like we're going to have 20 point leads that evaporate and we're going to be down 20 and we go up 20 in the same game. So they understand that mentally it's not the same is probably what they're used to and they got to get used to it and next play mentality and wipe it away. Like we can overcome any deficit and we hopefully can overcome any run a team makes, but from a standpoint of slowing it down, not very much now. What will in those last four minutes you change? You just mentioned how volatile the style of playing can be up 20 down 20, but if you're in the close game of the last four minutes, what will you be mindful of or try to dictate? The first 36 minutes will give us the blueprint of what we're trying to do in the last four. Is there somebody that has a going? Is there a matchup we like? Is there a defender we don't want to go near? Is there someone we want to put in a certain spot, both our guys and their guys? We're kind of figuring all that out through the first 36 minutes and then we're going to execute it at the end, we'll always have a plan for what we want to do, pregame, but most of the time you might use the base of that or the shell of that, but something else in the game is popped up or use a play early in the game and you're going to, you know they made an adjustment and you want to kill that adjustment late. So that's what the offensive competition coaching is, right? Can we make the right adjustments in the last four minutes? Can we get the ball to the right guy in the last four minutes? Have we worked on that enough where they're comfortable in whatever package we want to run at that point of the game? And then can we execute it? You know if we do the right thing, get a vitamin three and miss it, it's that good or bad. We always talk about process is the most important thing until November 2nd and then you know results kind of matter. So are your guys tough enough mentally to handle doing everything right and losing, doing everything wrong and winning? Are we good enough with our set stuff because we won't have a million things? Are we good enough with what we want to do in those situations? And then can we come off the board and make a couple adjustments within what we do or maybe something completely crazy that we haven't done all year? Can we do that? And we work on that stuff a lot. So not saying we're going to be great at it, we'll improve at that. We'll be better in February than we are in November with that kind of stuff. But we'll have a menu and then the menu is always going to be ever changing even throughout the game, whether they change or match up, whether they switch something that we weren't expecting. You know, you're always having plan B plan C. We want to transition out of a segment we call start sub or sit. We're going to give you three options around a topic, ask you which one. you'll start, which one you'll sub, and which one you'd sit on the bench, and then we'll have some fun discussion from there. So coach, if you're all set, we'll dive into this first one. Let's roll. Okay. First one has to do with offensive rebounding and thinking about how to increase the margins there, basically overall how to be a better offensive rebounding team. So these are three different considerations or things from that standpoint. So the first option is teach your team how to attacking on the release of the shot, basically just like their instincts to go once that ball is released. The second option is reading the shot location, like where is that shot coming from, and that's how we're going to crash or where we go. And then the third option is really teaching rebounding areas, like where you're going to all the time on the fly to the balls. So start, sub, sit, attacking on the release of the shot, reading where the shot's coming from, and then demanding the rebounding areas. Sit rebounding areas. Where you on the floor is going to determine where you're going for the most part. So I'd probably not worry about that one too much. The other two are tough because it is, I think they go together. For us, I would say where the shot's coming from is start. That's going to tell you kind of how the shot might come off, which I think is pretty important. We want to go on the release for sure, but I do think if you're a second late sometimes, it's advantageous to you because you can see what your defender's going to do. If he's going to hit, he might check and you might stand there and he might turn inside the other way where you get a clear run. So I would say that's for us probably the most important thing. I don't know if I'd say that for every team, but the onus we put on our shot selection. A lot of it is based on offensive rebounding. So it's important that we know what shots we take and where we take them from and where the ball might go and then probably sub on the release. I think it's important I do and we teach it, but I think where the shots come from are probably for us just a tiny bit more important for us to really win that one or two percent margin that we're trying to get. On the whole, how much emphasis is put on this whole thing for you, like what part of your, you know, offensive philosophy is what you're doing in this rebounding area? It is as important as our personnel will dictate it. I think we have great offensive rebound personnel with this year's team. We are going to fly around. There's going to be times we send five. If you want to play with us speed wise, go right ahead. You want to get a rebound and push because we crash five. Hopefully we don't give up a run out. But if we don't, the pace is probably going to turn to how we want to play anyways. And we just want to be more aggressive. We're aggressive offensive rebound mindset. We'll have rules. We spend a ton of time reading the ball flight, which I think isn't taught as much as it used to be. We got, and I tell our guys all the time, like don't think you're just getting managers and coaches to rebound for you. Like you need to rebound so you can learn flight of the ball. We played tips, the old tips game to learn flight of the ball. Shot goes up. There's two guys underneath that they got to tip it in. Then they got to read the ball. And that to us is a skill that's not taught enough. And that's an easy way to do it. They just play that game over and over and over again. And they're reading the ball the time. They're understanding where the ball bounces and why different shooters. The ball comes off differently. So we spend a lot of time on that. And then it's just you want the ball or not. A lot of it is just go get it. Just want the ball with the other guy. I do think you can get better rebounding the ball. It's a skill that you can improve on. But I do think you recruit rebounding. You recruit rebounding on both ends. It's what guys do. It's a skill. When guys do it at a high level, they pretty much always do it at a high level. I think it's the one translatable skill that usually is never off. Sometimes you get a shooter that doesn't translate. But if you have an offensive rebounder, they're always going to offensive rebound because it's just in their blood. Follow up quickly on your offensive thoughts on offensive rebound. And let's just take out the okay rebound. It's an easy put back. But the ones that you get that are a little outside the zone. What do you want offensively after that to just take advantage of that ex possession? The big thing is if you don't grab it, how quickly can you find a spot on the floor that we want to take up? Don't waste time. Obviously we're crashing. We're inside the arc. Find a spot that we value. Find a place behind the line. Find a spot behind the defense. One of the places on the floor that we talk about as quick as we can. Once we do that, our thing is if you rebound the ball and you can see it, you can see the rim and you feel like you can make it. Go ahead. If you can't, let's look to kick it out. We don't want to dribble because usually there's a ton of hands in there. We want to keep it in between your shoulders if we can. Make the right play. If everyone goes out and now you ideally have a chance to maybe make a play one on one, go ahead. If you don't love it, you know, play uphill, play to someone outside the arc and let's get to a second action. You know, tip dunks are extremely valuable from a obviously point per shot, but also just the emotional standpoint that that can really help you in a game, especially a big game. But we also know that doesn't happen at time. So we don't work on a million tip dunks, but we do work on tipping the ball out. We do work on tipping the ball to teammates. We work on getting a hand on it, getting hands free. I thought Cody had did a great job at Marquette teaching rebounding to our guys. Thought we got better at it. We've stolen a lot from that. And we talk a lot about like, okay, if you're opposite corner for us, the weak side corner is such a huge rebounding spot because of the way we shoot the ball from three. You have to be able to rebound that spot on the floor. You have to be able to get your hand on a couple. You have to be able to read a couple. We track ball flight. You got to be good at that ball flight and understand if it's, you know, if the balls right on, it's either coming directly to your wedging. If the balls off right or left, get to the middle of the floor. Don't go under, get to the middle of the floor. It's going to come out there. Just get a hand on it. You don't have to grab it. Understand where your teammates are going to be. We do spend a ton of time on it. Coach, talking with the weak side corner and, you know, the rules, structure, whatever you want to call that, you're going to give that offensive rebounder. In terms of, you know, when you are going to crash five, the other four positions above the break, top of the break, top of the key, are you giving them any sort of technique, structure other than we just want aggressive and read ball flight and crash? Aggressive ball flight. Understand where the ball's probably going to go. You got to calculate some things pretty quick. Got to make a decision. I think when you go, unless you get under the basket, you're not making a wrong decision. You can make a decision that's better than another one. And then the shooter always has a decision if they're going to go or not. You know, we want them to make sure that their number one objective when they go to release a shot or so to make it the only time we really want them going is like you see it when really good shooters know where the ball's going to go and they shoot it. They kind of run in. I think that's fine. I think most of the time shooters not going to go. These going to be the back guy, you know, the corner three point shooters are going to kind of shoot and work their way up as the balls in the air. That's kind of what guys just naturally do. And then when we shoot a corner three, we just got to make sure someone's in the middle of the floor. It's still going, but putting pressure on your guy that's trying to either tag your box or whatever they're going to do and make a decision that way. If we can take it the next step, the debate between tagging up that maybe has a little bit more structured rules. You get to your back versus just we want to crash five, be aggressive. And when you're going to crash five, what is the sticking point or what have you found within just building the next step of your transition defense and maybe in terms of just helping the guys identify their matchups? Yeah, I think if we were to press, we would do tagging up, but we don't. I'm not every possession anyways. So we just want to go. I think the one thing that you got to be really good at is whoever is going to probably be at the top of the key back most of the time, there's got to be a leap in numbered break situations where they're trying to get a kick, trying to get a tip, trying to make the other team because you're going to give up some two on ones. You're going to give up some three on two's, maybe some three on ones. Can you make that make enough passes where our guys can get back in the play? Can you get a kick to reset it? I mean, that's a huge play. You're on a two on one. You get a kick. I mean, that's as good as making the greatest block ever at the rim. Honestly, really just to set you up and you're like, oh man, the other teams like God would last two points. You know, 1.65 points are gone. We'll never get them back. So we do a lot of two on one transition stuff where we put the guy that's going to be back a lot in those situations. On both teams, all right, we're going at, you know, player A, player B. They're back the most. Let's go at them today. Can they get 50 percent? You win 50 percent? Those battles are probably pretty good. From a standpoint of shots, not saying 50 percent makes just, can you make them do what you want 50 percent of time? Like, they have an advantage. You're probably going to give something up. I think that's big. And I think the first two or three steps after the other team has the ball, depending on who you are. If they rebound the ball and I'm a elite defender and I just want to poke at it, then maybe you give us an extra second. Not go for a steal, not put myself in a bad position, not get behind the ball, but kind of poke and make them turn, make them look, make them go the other way that gives us enough time to kind of run back, sprint back. You know, we don't have a man in transition. We're just matching up. We're fine with our smallest guy taking their biggest guy. It's not a big deal. We just want to make sure that we control the basket, control the ball, and then put the ball where we want to put it from a KYP standpoint. Coach, thanks for going through that first one with us. Our next one, we're calling this point guard mastery. And I'm going to give you three skills that you can help teach your point guard to manipulate a defense. And so the start would be the skill that you think is the most disruptive to your opponent's defense. So point guard mastery, the first one is just helping the point guard understand changing screening angles, being able to just adjust screens, work with their screeners on changing a screening angle. The second one is understanding how to commit a second defender. The third one is understanding opponent rotations. Easy first one. We're going to sit the screening angle. Our screening angle is dictated by the screener. So our point guard will manipulate it after that. And so they got to be on the same page, but it's more up to the screener. Getting multiple guys on the ball is definitely start. That's everything we talk about. That's everything we do. That is the most important part of being a point guard for us. I'm going to go on a little tangent. You go. get a job and you get a lot of people saying you got to recruit this guy, you got to recruit that guy. And for me, and for our program, the most important position is the guy with a ball. And you've been blessed. You know, we had Tyler Colock, we had Cam Jones, we had Nigel James on our ket, we had Elite, Elite, Elite players with a ball. And possession point cards, I think are great guys that can get you in an offense and can talk and start your defense. They're not going to be what we look for ever. Like we need some type of dynamic skill, whether it be scoring, passing, defending, getting to the rim, creating havoc, whatever it is. But if you're just a good, solid point guard who gets you into their stuff, that's how your coach would describe you. Like we're never going to recruit you no matter what. So anyways, that's my little tangent of point. And then understanding how to read the defense, I would, you know, sub, it's probably the hardest skill to get. But once you get it, you kind of have it. It's like riding a bike. Once you figure out who moves where and why and the first three possession of the game, you're going to understand what they're trying to do. Colock was the best at that. He would come over. I got it. I know what they're doing. All right. Okay. Good. Just kind of give him a little pat on the ass and move forward because he kind of had the rest of the game. And you kind of help him, they adjust. So we're not all blessed to have that. I understand. I think once you can get them to a level that they can really understand like why they're doing it and what movements offensively trigger their defensive rotations and where they go. Once you get it, you can't forget it. You just kind of know it. And then you can pick people apart. And then if you find teams that do it a different way, then you really got an advantage because what we do is probably going to really disrupt them. But yeah, getting to on the ball for any player is number one. That's the number one. In my mind, that's the number one key to winning basketball games on the offensive end is getting two people to guard the ball. You mentioned valuing dynamic skill, so driving, shooting, passing it. Maybe I pull away from a point card, but just within your flow, if you have that dynamic shooter outside of calling set pieces for them or ATOs, after made free throws, how are you helping them? Or maybe it's more helping your offense understand the power that they have with their shooting to commit to to the ball and getting like I said, more out of flow, out of maybe some randomness. Yeah, I love exceptional skills. I love guys that man, he's a high major shooter, but he can't do anything else. That guy's perfect for us. We love guys that do something at a level that maybe is higher than us, but maybe they have some other skills that aren't as high as what we are and how can we put those guys together. But I think if you can have five guys on the floor that they all do one thing in an elite level and they all know it and they all can play to it. It's really, really hard to guard. I think shooters are the one thing that we run most of our plays for and run most of our set action for because in flow, they get some screens, they get some plays. They're always going to shoot a ton in transition, so we work on that with them a lot, but they're little set packages. I think for shooters, it's really important. I think for the bigger guys, it's really important. Most of the drivers are going to find their way just through the flow of getting to the basket. You have some things for them, but I think kind of what you said, the shooting, the elite shooters, we're going to typically do most of our baseline, sideline out of bounds for them. If not for them, for them to create advantages for everybody else, they're going to be something that you have to worry about them on every single special, just to put pressure on the defense. You always need to worry what the shooter is. If you can put two on the ball, in my mind, you're on a special, you're playing four guys against five. You got to be great at manipulating movement, creating an open space, an open gap, and finding ways to get a shooter, a shot, a big guy slip, something that is harder to create just in random flow stuff. To follow up with the start with the dynamic point guard driver, someone who can break the paint, maybe it ties back to your one hand passing all the way to beginning, but what are you working with them to help them understand? Not only like, yes, you've committed to because two are standing in front of you, but maybe the gaps, they're too far in the gaps, leaning two way, yeah, we have that shooter. You don't even maybe need to make that dribble or it's just one quick dribble and kick it versus over dribbling, I guess is probably the question, helping them understand when the advantage is created without over dribbling. We talk about offensive defensive balance offensive. We strive to be on balance defense. We want to attack them when they're off balance. A simple one is, let's say it's just a two guard front and we drive it middle and the guy in the opposite slot is kind of coming in ready to shoot. His defender is coming to help. We want to throw the ball and his body weights moving towards us because then he has to stop, land himself, get on balance, push away. If he's already planted and you throw it, they're going to push away and get there a little quicker. Again, we're trying to find half seconds somewhere. I think that stuff for us is important and how we can break the plane, how we can get in there, how we can do different things. Every guy is going to be different with their strengths and the pain. Every guy is going to be different with the way they read the floor, how they use their feet or they get off one foot or they better off two, can they do both, can they do one. I think guys that are really athletic have to be able to learn how to do both. There's times that you have to go off to, like everyone's going to teach you one, one, one, one. And there's times where bad athletes play off one and they need to create that gap separation, use their shoulders, use their bodies, like Tyler Colick had no dunks, but he was so good at, he could make both foot one hand, two hand spin, whatever you wanted him to do, he had it in the bag and he was so good at understanding like when to use a one foot finish and why not two. Those guys have the ball so much, you're living with some mistakes. Like if those guys are making all our decisions and they have three turnovers but they have 11 assists, that's pretty good, right? Even eight and 40 good. The end of the day you're looking like, oh man four turnovers, I don't care. You have the ball time and you have four turnovers, that means our team's under 10 probably, so that's pretty good for us. But I do think some of the pad stuff people do finishing can be good but it also can be bad. You talk about creating contact and you're just creating off balance drives where you're seeking out this contact that's not typically there. Like you never really go and just throw your shoulder into something. So we want the pad like on you the whole time. Like if you can move it a little bit, create those subtle movements to get a little separation, to work on your timing of how can I throw off my defender's timing where they're jumping later than I am. I think that's the biggest thing in finishing. Just running in and hitting a pad really hard like what does that do? That just teaches you to get a charge. I don't know. You just have to get off balance if I get the two feet. You know, I think each guy's different but we do a lot of different things. I think the finishing, the passing, the movement, getting the two feet, the throwing your foot, I think all that stuff is in the paint. It's below the logo. We want to get in there as much as we can and if we're getting in there the process of finishing it or making the right play, we'll keep getting better this summer. We missed a million layups but we got there a million times. So you know what I'm good with it. We'll get better at making the layups. We're getting better at understanding what guys are getting what plays at the rim and how they can finish it at a higher rate. So I'm great with that. The hardest part is getting there. Earlier you say what the sit about how it's the screeners job to create the right screen angle. How do you work that dynamic between the ball handler and the screener on getting that correct angle and who's reading who and what they're trying to read to create that advantage? We don't do a ton of group work but the guy with the ball and the guy that says most of the screens do a ton. I think it's important that they play twos, they're playing two unos, they're playing with GAs and managers understanding when do I want to flip the screen when do I want to twist the screen? What angle do I want? Where's my defender that matters that my guys below me or my guys going to be in a coverage above me. So that's a symmetry that we try to get going as early as we can and then it's important that both guys can communicate what they want. The big guy can come up and communicate a nonverbal queue of what they're going to do and the guy with the ball has to set it up because if he does it then it's going to be a legal screen. I'm really hard on big guys and really forgiving to the guy with the ball. I'm not a great thing to say for our future big guys that come in but if you have an illegal screen it's on the big and you know what if they're moving early just get out of there don't hit them. If they move before you get there just don't hit them. It's simple to say but I think every legal screen is the screener's fault because you don't have to make contact. If they're not setting it up the right way just get out. We'll live to fight another day. We'll live to make another action. But having those nonverbal and verbal cues with those guys have a connection of symmetry you know the one summer that cam Jones and oh so we could all spend together just doing that daily every day rep after rep after rep after rep. I had to privilege of working for coach Spowe. That was his thing. We're just going to rep it more than everybody else and we're just going to be better at it than you because we rep it so much and I think it really does pay dividends for things you do the most. I don't think you need to do it for everything but I think the things that you're going to do the most you need to be really good at. The teams that get spread too thin and they're just kind of average at stuff maybe good at a couple things. I'd rather be excellent one or two things and then we'll figure out the rest. Coach you're off the start subset hot seat. That was a ton of fun. Appreciate you going through that with us. We've got a final question to close to show before we do. Thanks again for coming on. Congratulations on the new job. This was an awesome conversation today. So thank you. Appreciate you guys again for having me and I love listening to you guys when we get a long car ride or a walk I'm getting too old. I can't believe I'm saying it. I don't run as much as I used to but a nice steam and a walk. This is perfect content. Appreciate a coach. Here I find a question to close the show that we ask all the guests is what's the best investment that you've made in your career as a coach? Yeah, you know, I obviously listened to you guys. I put a lot of thought into this because it's important for us to grow the game to the younger generation. I think the one misconception out there is the networking piece that you just got to get to know a million people. I think that's great. It's good. It can help you in certain situations. I think you need to have a group of four or five people that will tell you the truth that can be honest with you in every situation. About 23 years ago we got a texture and a five guys and we talk every day and you can ask them anything. They're all basketball coaches bearing levels and we can talk about life. We can talk about current events. We can talk about basketball. We talk about jobs when that stuff comes up but you know the answer you're getting is genuine. It is what you need to hear even when you don't want to and you're going to get something that is thoughtful that the person cares about you. you're not gonna get the generic answer back. I think that's really important. I think having a core group of people that you can bounce things off, it just helps. We do a Zoom every year. My network is so small, I just invite the same people. And we talk about different topics because I'm big on trust, I'm big on making sure that people don't ask you the same questions at the final four, like, how was the season? How's your recruiting class? Like, I don't care. I don't, how's your wife? How's your kids? You got a player going through a certain situation? How are they doing? How are you doing mentally? How you did last year, how your recruiting class is, whatever, don't ask me that stuff. If you do, I'm gonna make up an answer anyways, just because I refuse to answer that stuff. But when you can start asking and getting feedback on more than surface level stuff with people, I think that's when the true growth happens. You can network and know a thousand people, but are those thousand people gonna respond when you get fired, are they gonna answer you? You know that the four, five, six of your main people that you rely on for stuff will be there within any situation you could find yourself in. Good, bad, life, basketball, so I think investing in the people more than the surface level has changed my life, has changed the trajectory of my basketball journey. I wouldn't be here without those guys. (upbeat music) All right, Pat, hopping into this recap, coach Smith, someone that's come highly recommended by a lot of coaches we trust and got to know him a little bit over the last month or so and just did not disappoint today as far as just his thoughts on the overall game. And is someone that will be fun to study as we go into this season? - Yeah, as you mentioned, highly recommended for another different coaches and how he teaches his philosophy. Really looking forward to this pace conversation. Like I said, it's one we've had often, but as you alluded to at the very top, like as so many shades, as so many levels of gray and can mean so many different things to so many different coaches. So it was really fun to finally get him on the pod and dig into offense and pace with him in Harris' thoughts. So I'm excited for this recap and I'll kick it to you with the first takeaway. - Yeah, so kind of recording this, coming off of the heels of our SG SoCal Summit and tons of coaches from all across the country came and spoke and connected at the socials before and after, which have come to be some of the most fun part of the weekend. Talking about pace was like one of the things that just kept coming up and the difference between the slowest, fastest, where the advantages are, how do you create it for seven seconds, last seven seconds? Just all the fun things you can imagine and so leading into this today was fun to just go in with that conversation in mind because it's just one of the most important, I think, decisions you can make as a coach about what you're gonna do with your team. It's not just about, like as he mentioned, and this is where I'll start getting into his takeaways. It's not just about the pace of how fast you shoot. I thought one of the best things he did was right away say, a pace and speed are two different things. I don't really care so much about the pace because it's just sort of an analytic that maybe gets overblown. I care about the speed and how we do things and how fast we do things and why. So I think that was my big takeaway was right away him distinguishing those two things. We've talked about that a little bit before as far as, like, hey, pace is a number based on how fast you shoot but what about the re-triggers and the first five to seven seconds and all that. So I really, really like that. So he kind of called it the 25 speed, I believe, at the top is within five seconds, we want to get that ball below the free throw line. And if you remember a while, while back, when we had Cal Poly, slow head coach, Mike DeGeorge on, one of his assistants run to Boa, did a study with maybe as Uruguay, basically just looking at when the ball got below the free throw line in X amount of seconds, the efficiency of that possession bore out to be higher than if you didn't. So I think going back to like the way back machine, going to those things and just looking at why that's important to get that ball below and how that bears out. I'm always impressed when we have these conversations that the convictions of the coach, no different today with coach Smith, but the conventions, the principles, the level of actual, like, detail that goes into it all. I think sometimes too, you can hear pace. I just want to run fast, we want to shoot early, and that's just what we're preaching, but there is like so much nuance to it. That's always like the big takeaway from me, just like the level of detail and thought that these coaches really put into how they build out their pace, build out their programs. So that's like the overarching takeaway. I think another thing that he kept kind of hitting on too is just like ways to just gain 0.5 of a second, whether it's the one-handed passing, the offensive rebounding. He talked about in terms of building and their transition defense if they can just make their opponent think, hold up, dribble aside, just winning 0.5, and I think it goes back to the speed, you know, how they try to do things, just to win the smallest of margins, that 0.5, and it makes them such a huge difference in possession battles, PPP, where your shot's going, your ability to break paint, play against a scrambled defense. So that was my first one, the 0.5, kind of also ringing throughout the conversation. Moving through that first bucket, I really then enjoyed the Confucian zones when he talked about just guard guards and really working on these areas where the defense can be the most susceptible. And then I thought what was really interesting too was them trying to lead the country and empty side actions. And, you know, I enjoyed hearing them as to why and he thinks how favorable that is for the offense and the stress it puts on the defense. But those two things later in the conversation, I really enjoyed hearing his thoughts on. And I'm with you. We've on SETV done a deep dive breakdown on that Marquette deep spacing with the empty side stuff and he was huge obviously part of those teams in that offense and so it was kind of fun today to pick his brain on why and obviously the details behind it. So I really did like that empty stuff and his reasoning to where you've got to commit that defender to help on it and then what you're going to do on the back side to kind of try to attack that. So I really enjoyed hearing that as well. And then just one last thing to add, he had KYP times two was just a huge part of what they do and who am I and also who am I playing against and just that knowledge helping them within their flow. So a ton of just like really, really good teaching points nuggets on a conversation beyond just let's play fast and get downhill. It was really a good nuance conversation there in the first bucket. To keep things moving Pat, our next takeaway, I'll throw that one back to you. - I enjoyed both start subsets. Obviously we wouldn't put one out there. We weren't curious about. So I don't think I'm breaking any of these there but I think it's gotta be the offensive rebounding. Offensive rebounding and pace are the conversations we're always coming back to and I think where there's real margins to be gained. And I like the three we came up with the attacking on the release, the shot location, the rebounding areas and getting to hear his follow up thoughts, especially the emphasis he puts on reading ball flight. So one we didn't have in there. He talked about the tip game, the importance of tips and coming out of reading that ball flight. More specifically, I think within offensive rebounding, of course the conversation's always how many to send but you and me are finding ourselves in a lot of conversations of, well, if you're gonna send all five, do you tag up or just crash? We had a good conversation with class. Does it sometimes restrict your most gifted offensive rebounders? Does it de-incentivize them? In a way that then it's not really yielding the results you're hoping for. And so hearing coach Smith's thoughts on just like crashing the importance of the week side corner that they'll probably put a little bit more discipline some rules to there and that they have to get tips but just on really trying to ramp up the aggression. I think it's like the next kind of real interesting conversation that's being had right now in terms of all offensive rebounding. Yeah, I mean, well, first just I did really like his start which was reading the shot location and he mentioned that it's just so important that they take great shots because when they know where the shots are coming from and then they crash all five or four and one back then they have a better chance of knowing where that ball is going to go now and increases your numbers. I think we've talked about this on the show. We've had guests talk about it but if you're gonna say tag or send a lot you can't tag bad shots. Quick follow-away twos or crazy spinning layups where you slide into falling out of bounds. Your team's just not ready to go forward and tag. So the better shot you take, the better chance you have getting the miss is what he was getting at too was reading that shot location. So I really like that. And then just to double down on your point, this is just conjecture at this point. I think based off the conversations we've had all spring and summer and a number of offensive rebounding conversations that are being had. Few years ago when tagging became more popular or starting to become more popular, I think the thing was well, if you don't tag perfectly, then you're gonna get crushed in transition. And maybe four or five years later, some of these teams that are tagging and maybe not tagging perfectly or sending four or five. And they're not getting crushed because teams are just so concerned about getting the rebound instead of leaking out. There's more film and data on like, well you know what? Just keep sending more guys because you're actually not getting peaked in transition no matter what. Teams are so concerned about the defensive rebound. The numbers are barren out even better. Like just keep going forward. You might give up one or two but I think coaches are not overreacting as much to one or two leakouts here and there as opposed to just the overall benefits of sending more whether you tag or just have them all go. I agree, like you said, the numbers are barring out the value of that extra possession to be gained. I think what coach Smith said and maybe then the teams that are understanding this and really gonna be aggressive, What they do point out. emphasis on is in like the disadvantaged two versus ones. And I think our conversation with Kellyn Samson from Houston. Yeah, it was good. They talked about how they really then, yeah, we're going to crash. We're going to go hard. We'll give up some, but we're going to then also try. Okay, well, let's maybe the next step behind that is like, let's get good at getting comfortable in these two on ones. And again, going back to, can we just get a kick out? And as coach Smith said, that's as good as maybe just a block shot at the rim, you know, it buys another half second to get everyone back. So I think like that's the next step that teams are trying to find out is like it's still advantageous. We'll be in these situations. We'll maybe the next step is putting our most common guys who are going to be maybe the guys they're going to find themselves most frequently at the top of the key. Like, well, let's get them comfortable in two on ones. Let's try to find some ways so yeah, can we save it 50% of the time. But even the 50% of the time you're getting scored on, I think the numbers still bear out the advantage, the fruit that can come from crashing all five still outweighs the couple possessions. You're going to be in some disadvantage transition numbers. Yeah. Were there any areas that we missed that we could have asked them about or sport deeper? I think what jumped out was his speed segments. We did dive into it. I asked about the skill that within the speed they're trying to work on try to develop. I would have loved to just kind of keep going down that rabbit hole. Maybe like conceptual. He mentioned like some three-man drills. So maybe just building out concepts within playing with speed that they try to do within the segment. So I wish I had followed up a little bit there. Yeah. For me, there's no misses from Coach Smith. But early on, he talked about Jim Crutchfield playing the 150 point games at Nova Southeastern and how they would do it. I just missed on asking him what constraints he put on that to what that looks like. I've heard that a lot playing to 150 gets in the shape, you know, like all the things that are positive of it, but maybe going a little deeper into what that game actually looks like. I score it and incentivize certain things, especially early in the season. So like I said, that wasn't a miss from Coach, of course, because he mentioned it and we didn't ask him. But then I just also want to say I thought his best investment answer was terrific. And we've had like a run here of really, really great best investment answers. It reminded me of so Stan Van Gundy a long time ago mentioned that in coaching, you want to have people you like working for, but then you also need friends, people that are going to tell you the truth and like be there when it should hits the fan and like the difference between acquaintances, people you work with, and then also like true friends in the industry. And it kind of reminded me that a little bit about having a group of four or five that you kind of come up together different levels. And we'll just tell you the absolute truth on anything and how like the power of a small group like that obviously is beneficial for your career, for jobs, or openings like all the things he mentioned. This was a really cool answer, so I enjoyed listening to that at the end. It also reminded me of Coach Sundance Wix. He talked about Foxhole friends. Yes. They kind of sentiment there. Absolutely. Well, once again, we thank Coach Smith for coming on. It's a terrific conversation today. Thank you everybody for listening, and we'll see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit slappingglas.com for more information on the free newsletter, slapping glass plus, and much more. Have a great week coaching, and we'll see you next time on Slapping Glass. Who do we have a name yet for this thing? I have like slapping backboard. Slapping glass. Slapping glass? That's kind of funny. I like that. What was the role of slapping glass? [BLANK_AUDIO]