Here is DAY THREE of the “PACK LINE”.

Don’t forget DAYS 1 & 2 HERE.

Ever since Tony Bennett came to Virginia and I have watched his UVA team play and practice the “PACK LINE”.  Tony’s father, Dick Bennett, is the creator and their teaching and playing of the “PACK LINE” is very good.

UW assistant Mike Neighbors is providing a really good mailing list and is featuring their teaching progression in the “PACK LINE” during the last two mailings.

The diagrams and teaching is below:

“PACK LINE”

I signed up for the mailing list here:

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON WOMEN’S BASKETBALL MAILING LIST

I don’t claim to know the “PACK LINE” well, I don’t preach it’s greatness or it’s faults.  I am just really intrigued by the teams that execute it really well and their ability to control dribble penetration.  Dribble penetration breaks down defense more than anything else.  Any team’s ability to control and contain dribble penetration, does a great deal towards enabling their success.

Enjoy UW’s  ”PACK LINE”, share any thoughts on your usse of the “PACK LINE” – it’s benefits and/or negatives.

I’ll try to share as many as I can get to as we work through the tournaments.

Many people are using the “HORNS” set this season… there’s nothing better than the pick & roll.  Here’s a “HORNS” variation I like, with a couple of different endings.

Good Luck!

That brings to mind the “end game” philosophy… let your team rebound and push, before the defense is set or push into a timeout to run a set play.  There is no right or wrong answer, but having a philosophy is very important.  Having your players know and understand your philosophy is even more important.  Nothing breads a poor team environment than a lack of confidence, either from the staff to the team or from the team to the staff.

I was watching a one possession game the other night where a team desperately needed a late timeout.  They did not have away to get the ball quickly to mid-court, or at least they did not use it.  Subsequently, they used too much time in the back court and the horn sounded before they could get it to the sideline and set up for a good shot.

I immediately drew up this on the back of one of our evaluation forms.  I like the concept and will continue to play with the pieces.

Send your, “Late – Need a Time Out” sets to:  ideas@allbasketballreview.com and I will share them with everyone.

As always, any ideas shared qualify for FREE shipping on all Mental Toughness Training for Basketball books purchased.

Enjoy!

The Virginia – Maryland Women’s game today – 8:30 PM on the ACC’s Regional Sports Network (Comcast SportsNet in the Charlottesville area) with Mike Hogewood (play-by-play) and Christy Winters-Scott (analyst) calling the action.  This match-up always makes me think of the intense rivalry between these two schools in all sports.  The two teams always come out and play hard, the intensity is high and the passion to win is great.

Today’s “Play of the Day” was a few ZONE SPECIALS that are some of my favorites.

Enjoy!

Over 2,000 programs use Scoutware at over 350 college’s or universities.  Those numbers speak for themselves.  I have always believed,

“If you aren’t Scoutwaring, you aren’t recruiting.”

They have provided us with best selling author Seth Godin’s eBook: What Matters Now. I wanted to provide it to you for download, print and share.

What Matters Now

“Big thoughts and small actions make a difference.” — Seth Godin

Godin asked more than 70 authors, consultants, marketing and management experts to come up with one word to take into the new year and to explain why they picked it.  Some of the words include:

Dignity, Enrichment, Momentum, Power, Harmony, Compassion, Passion, Confidence, and Focus.

The book is only 82 pages, but full of great insights and perspectives that we think you will enjoy and find useful.

Enjoy the gift from Scoutware.  Enjoy the end of 2010 and best to everyone in 2011!

Watching Indiana’s 81-62 loss at Kentucky the other evening, IU hung around and played exceptionally well in the first half.  Coach Crean and staff have a variety of good ATO’s (After Time Out) sets – little wrinkles that often lead to open looks for the Hoosiers.  One in particular was a nice UCLA action into a middle roll and replace.   Having a big 4 that can shoot is a plus.

PRINTABLE VERSION

Enjoy.

What is the culture of your team?  College basketball teams are nearing the semester break… is it the same as you committed to and built in the off-season?  Are your standards of behavior in place and the same now as they were before?

The cultural ebb and flow of any given season is drastically different every year.  How each coaching staff manages those waters and fits all the pieces together is often the key to being able to win close games against similarly talented opponents, upsetting better teams and losing games to team you shouldn’t.

There are many, many teams right now looking at themselves and feeling as though they aren’t quite where they want to be.  Underachievement.  Injury.  Tough losses.  Losing season after higher expectations.

A business process can provide us an in-season idea.

For 100 years, KONE had been a global leader in the elevator and escalator industry.  In 2007 new CEO Vance Tang was alarmed at the lack of customer focus and inconsistent operational discipline.  He expected more from KONE — and he viewed leadership development and culture change, ultimately focused on the customer, as the best way to get there.

A process called Transforming Your Organization was implemented by the CCL with the KONE senior leadership team.  The senior leadership team members did not delegate leadership development.  Rather, they started with themselves.

Right now, in-season… look first at yourself and your staff.  Don’t be in a hurry to use the age-old excuses, “the players won’t do what they are supposed to do.”  ”We need better players.”  That may be true, but find a way to change the culture, now, in-season – salvage what you can.  The answer is out there, find it.  What changes can you make, minor or major, to help your team and program for the better after exams?  Trust in each other, talk to each other, and get ideas from fresh eyes and coaches you trust.  Anyone can have a great thought or idea.  Look at every facet possible.

According to Vance,  ”We (KONE) had to appreciate that we had to change ourselves first in order to change the culture.  We spent time on feedback, trust and dialogue. Now we can openly challenge each other and achieve better outcomes because we can all be on the same page and work much faster.”

Challenging each other and getting on the same page… two important keys for self-analysis and improvement in any type of successful organization.

Then came the next step: engaging the top 100 KONE Americas leaders in a two-day event dedicated to strategic direction and, just as significantly, the changes in mindset and leadership needed to enact the strategy.  Vance began by laying out the vision of getting from No. 4 to becoming THE industry leader. The senior leadership team members then did something remarkable.  They engaged in dialogue among themselves while onstage in front of everyone.

Get in the conference room and talk… no idea or thought is stupid.  Open it up.

KONE leaders talked about how they were changing personally and as a leadership team facing big changes.  They explored the leadership style necessary for achieving their new vision and plotted concrete steps to reach it.

A two-day event may not seem possible for you in-season… but you will have some time with the players in exams.  Dedicate time: i.e. early office time, late office time, time during recruiting travel… two hours a day for five days specifically on this project.  10 hours between now and New Years Eve.

Even the positive outcome will still be a work in progress for the remainder of the season and there is no guarantee that the ship will be righted.  BUT, if you don’t invest the time, open-mindedness and self-analysis approach, it’s guaranteed no change will occur on it’s own.

The change at KONE remains in progress.  Customer satisfaction has tripled and employee engagement has reached world-class levels. Safety incidents dropped over 70 percent.  Market share and profits rose significantly despite the global recession.

Transforming Your Organization “is not a step-by-step plan.  It’s not an HR program.  It’s a more complicated journey of shared leadership.  We had to learn how to collaborate and be interdependent in order to make this journey,” says Chuck.

Invest in your staff, players, and people.  Enter the journey of shared leadership, empowering the value of every member of the program.  If you have them around, use each person’s gifts and strengths.  Grow and look at any source for an idea, an edge.  It just might change your entire career.

Adapted from: Creating Cultural Change

via Center for Creative Leadership

We will all be out in crowds during this Holiday Season, whether it is with team travel, recruiting or Holiday shopping for our families.  This would be the prime time for someone to steal your identity.

PLEASE watch this brief video and pass the link on to others.  It would be awful to have this happen at anytime, but especially during the Holidays.

Thank you Chris for sharing!

Recently, I have been seeing a great deal more FLEX variations and DHO’s (Dribble hand-Offs.)  I really like both actions and added a few of the better things I’ve seen here.

PRINTABLE VERSION

So many games on lately!… It’s an amazing and busy time.

Enjoy.