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Winning In The Post-Season
A re-post from a few years ago by request of a few coaches...I don't think there is a specific formula that helps you win in the post-season. Billy Beane always said the MLB playoffs are a "crapshoot," and there is a lot of truth to that. So much goes into winning and losing a game, and in college we are dealing with 18 year old kids. So many results in the post-season come down to the bounce of the ball, a freak injury or an unlucky whistle. And every team has a different personality. What works for one team might not connect with another team - even year after year in the same program.Still, as coaches we have to do as much as we can to get our teams ready to win in a do-or-die situation. The post-season usually offers a little bit of time to rest, adequate time to prepare and a one game season that only continues if you win. A great year can take place in the space of one weekend tournament, but a major disappointing failure is right in front of you as well. So what are the things you think about when trying to get your team ready to win in the post-season?In my 9 years at RIC we had a lot of success in the post-season, posting a 21-3 record in our conference tournament and winning 6 titles in 8 years. Overall we were 34-12 including the NCAA Tournament. We are working had to establish the same mentality at the University of Maine. It's helpful for me to look back on the approach we used that helped lead to our post-season success.Recognize desperation. There is a different emotion in the conference tournament - desperation. It's not the same as the regular season. Most teams are in a one-and-done situation and desperation brings a different level of energy to each game. Talk about it and be prepared for it.Expect the unexpected. During the regular season most teams want to establish their own style of play. They want to play their way. But in a one-game playoff teams are more likely - especially the bad teams - to do whatever it takes to beat you in that game. You might see something different than you've seen all year. Tell your team to expect the unexpected. You might see something you haven't prepared for, don't let it affect the way you play.Scared goes home. We tell our kids to take a chance. To take risks. To make plays. We want playmakers in the post-season. If you are tentative and thinking about the result, you are going home. Sometimes this goes against what you are feeling as a coach - you are nervous about all of the things that might go wrong. But it's important to get your team to play without fear. Give them the license to go out and make mistakes, so they won't be afraid to make plays.Take more time off. We always took an extra day off before the NCAA tournament. We wanted to take 2 days off per week. We still practiced hard, but our practices were a little bit shorter - generally between 90 minutes and 1:45. It's important to resist the urge to over coach and manage every detail of the scouting report. I never wanted to cripple my guys with too much information. Keep their minds clear, stay rested and let them play.Eliminate winning from the conversation. The result is final, and could mean the end. So I never wanted my guys thinking about the results. We talked about who we were, our culture, being ourselves despite the importance of the game. And it was OK to talk about losing. We'd talk about it matter-of-factly, to also eliminate the fear of the result. We may lose, but that's fine if we go out and compete without fear. Keep the emphasis off the results.Don't add new stuff. I never liked putting new stuff in to prepare for a post-season game. The pressure and intensity will be great, you don't want to give your guys more to think about. Trust what you do, and fine-tune it. I don't think we're going to be successful trying to run new stuff in a post-season game.Lighten the mood. Find ways to keep practice light. Cut the intensity by laughing at something funny that happens. Don't get me wrong, have the same intense practices you have all year. But it's OK to find a way to laugh every now and then in the middle of it, so your kids understand - this is a big deal, but it's not the end of the world.Don't be afraid to sub. I've never been a big believer in tightening the rotation down the stretch. Play the guys that have allowed you to be successful. Stay with your rotation. The nerves that force you to keep your key guys on the floor for big minutes can end up costing you in the end. Stick with the rotation and trust your subs. Staying fresh is a big key to winning tough, close games in the post-season.Don't react. Stay on an even keel and try not to react to anything that happens. A quick emotional reaction to stuff that takes place - either good or bad - will get your guys on edge. That's not what you want. Keep it all inside and stay composed, and your tea will too.Have fun with it. You've trained all year to be ready to play in this environment. Loud, energetic crowds are great to play in front of. Enjoy the atmosphere and feed off the energy. Address it with your team and prepare them to enjoy it. Whatever the atmosphere you are going to play in, talk to your team about it so they'll be ready for it.Prepare the same way all year. These games are won in October and November, not March. Your long-term approach should prepare your team to win big games in tough environments. Think about post-season games all year. You should be prepared to win these games with what you do all year long. When you do that, all you have to do in the post-season is be yourself.
The Less I Speak The Better We Get
One thing I've learned over my years as a head coach: the less I was saying, the better my team was performing. If I was doing a lot of talking, usually the team was struggling.
There is certainly a cause and effect conundrum involved with it. Am I talking more because the team is struggling and they need direction, or are they struggling because I am doing most of the talking?
Obviously I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to your team. But the more you talk, the more dependent they become on you for direction. The more they expect to be told what to do. The less ownership they take of their own situation. They become compliant, showing up every day willing to do what they are told.
Set the tone, establish the approach, and ask a lot of questions. Get your team to talk as much as you can. Of course you have to make sure you are sending the right message. But understand the more you get your team to talk - and the less you talk - the better you will be.
Kobe on Mental Toughness
"When you are going through a really tough time... being mentally tough means you can take your mind someplace else, and concentrate on that other thing, to the point where the thing that was bothering you is no longer a focus, so you don't feel it anymore."
Understanding Your Culture
"You don't understand your culture by talking to your management team. You understand your culture by observing how your new employees behave."
- Ben Horowitz, What You Do Is Who You Are
Your culture is the behavior of your players. It's not the framed pictures on the wall or the slogan on the back of your shooting shirts. Your culture is the behavior that comes about based on the shared beliefs in your organization. Culture is action, not words.
The above quote from Ben Horowitz resonated with me as the best way to understand your culture. You aren't going to truly understand your culture by talking to your veteran players. What you believe in, and what you expect from them, are already ingrained in their minds. They have heard you talk about what's important over and over, and they know what you want them to say. They probably aren't that comfortable saying, "You know what, coach, we've got some issues to fix," even if they are able to understand that something is wrong. Like you, they might not see it until it becomes a big issue that starts to impact the results.
To truly understand your players, watch how your newcomers behave. They will come into your program trying to figure out the best way to fit and and to be successful. They will seek out the quickest avenue to do that. If there is a shortcut, they will probably find out. If they are allowed to act a certain way they will probably do so. They will follow the lead of the veteran players and their behavior will tell you a lot about your organizational culture.
Don't ask your players about your culture. Observe what they do, especially your new players. They will tell you what your culture is all about.
Selflessness
A good example of it from Alabama's John Petty, Jr. that says a lot about the culture Nate Oats has built in a short time.
Much like persuading a score-first guard to become a reliable defensive cog, Oats sold Petty on the notion that tapping the pause button was the best thing for him. Oats brought Petty’s mother into the discussion. He remained in contact with the player. Petty returned after missing one game, and he’s now Alabama’s second-leading scorer (13 points per game) and leads the team in 3-pointers (56). He watches full games, per Oats, and offers thoughts on Alabama’s keys to winning instead of waiting for the coaches to tell him. In a loss at Oklahoma, Petty was at the scorer’s table, set to check in, as the group on the floor went on a run. At the whistle, Oats couldn’t decide whom to take out. So Petty solved the issue: He told Oats to leave that group on the floor, and he returned to the bench.
Leadership In An Elite Culture
"Empower your people to be decision makers. The less control you have as a leader, the more power you give to your team, the better your chances for success. That's the real key to leadership in an elite culture. It may be set in place and directed by the leader, but it is built, maintained and nurtured by the participants."
Entitled to Nothing, p. 162
Order the book here: EntitledtoNothingbook.com
Leadership and Buy-In
"Leadership isn't getting them to buy-in to what you are selling. Leadership is getting them to buy-in to something they believe. Creating that dynamic is a difference maker."
Entitled to Nothing, p. 20
Purchase Entitled To Nothing Here
Game Speed
When I was the head coach at Maine I got to know Stump Merrill a little bit. Stump was a UMaine graduate who played baseball, and went on to play professionally before a long coaching and managing career. He managed the New York Yankees for three years when I was in high school in New York.
I got to talk to Stump a few times about coaching and building a team. Stump used to say that baseball was the only sport "where we never practiced at game speed." I had never heard that before, but it was a good point. In baseball they throw batting practice at 75-80 miles per hour and they don't hit the ball that hard when taking infield or outfield. They also play so many games during the season - usually 162 games in about 180 days - that they can't really practice that much or go that hard. It bothered Stump that they never really practiced at full speed. "Why would you want to get comfortable doing things at half-speed?" he would say.
One of the most important things we can do as coaches is to train our guys at game speed. I agree with Stump, it doesn't make any sense to get used to going half-speed. I've never liked walk-throughs or "lighter" days. I understand that the players need rest and you have to take care of their bodies over a long season. In my mind if they need a day off, give them a day off. Or you can certainly shorten practice to reduce wear and tear. But don't bring your kids in and get them used to going at less than full speed.
When you aren't going game speed, you are establishing bad habits. Whether it's during 5-0, shooting drills or a scout session, it's critical to train at game speed. We all say it a lot as coaches - "game speed," - yet I don't think we always live up to the standard or hold our teams accountable for it. In practice you are training your team in the habits they need to win a game. If you are going at a slower pace to give them a break or some rest, you are getting worse. There's no reason to get used to going half-speed.
Stump Merrill
Great Teammates
The best teammates are capable of doing their job while also having a genuine curiosity and concern for those around them. It isn't that easy to do. Many of us need to be focused on one thing, just the task at hand, to do it well. It's one of the reasons why communication on the court is more challenging than it should be - because it's hard. It's hard for a lot of people to do what they are supposed to do, especially in an intense environment, while also thinking about others.
Great teammates have that ability. They can invest fully in their own performance and invest in their teammates at the same time. The best teammate I have ever coached played for me my first two years at Rhode Island College. His name is Tony Pierlioni, and he was a 6-9 center for me who started on our elite 8 team in 2007, his senior year.
Tony showed up every day genuinely concerned about the team first. It was just in his nature. He wanted to make sure the team was alright before thinking about himself. Tony's best friend on the team was John Weir, another 6-9 center who came to RIC in the same class. John was also a terrific teammate. Tony and John never played together. They played the same position, so pretty much when one of them was playing, the other wasn't. When one of them played well, the other hardly played. Originally John was our starting center, but I made the change to Tony early in the year. I never had to think twice about one of them getting selfish about playing time. One of my best memories at RIC is seeing John Weir catch a dunk in a game, and Tony exploding off the bench to cheer for him
The best teammates are genuinely curious and concerned about those around them. They put the team (and their teammates) ahead of themselves. They just don't naturally think about themselves first, probably an uncommon trait. But they also have the ability to do their own job, handle what is coming to them, while still thinking about the rest of the team. That is what makes the best teammates really special. It's never about them, it's always about the team. But they can do their job to help the team without focusing inward.
Do you have the ability to do your job effectively while also being curious and concerned with those around you? It's not the easy. But if you can do it, you can be a great teammate.
The Brain Is Your Bitch
“The moment you have the audacity to start believing in the not-yet seen, your reality will begin to shift. THE FOLLOWING IS HUGELY IMPORTANT SO PLEASE PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION: You have to change your thinking first, and then the evidence appears. Our big mistake is that we do it the other way around. We demand to see the evidence before we believe it to be true.”
“The Brain is Your Bitch”
Gonzaga Basketball
A good inside look at the most unlikely powerhouse in college basketball history.
https://www.si.com/college/2021/02/11/how-gonzaga-zagged-daily-cover
The Rhode Show
A local interview with Brendan Kirby of The Rhode Show about leadership and the book.
https://entitledtonothingbook.com
Group Culture
Group culture is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. We sense its presence inside successful businesses, championship team, and thriving families, and we sense when it’s absent or toxic. We can measure its impact on the bottom line. (A strong culture increases net income 765 percent over ten years, according to a Harvard study of more than two hundred companies).
- Daniel Coyle, The Culture Code
Three Things Leaders Often Don't Understand
Three things that took me a while to understand as a leader.
The Less Control You Have, The Better
I always use a military phrase with my teams - "In command, without control." That is our goal. I've learned over the years that the less control I have as the head coach, the better my team will play.
It's a common leadership mistake. Traditional leadership is the boss in front of the group, in full control, telling them what needs to be done. That will create compliance. If they are good teammates, they will do what they are told. Your team has more than that in them, I promise you. But it's natural to feel like, as the leader, I have to show I'm in control. I tell them what to do. That's not the way to get the most out of them.
Leadership is about empowering your team, giving them control. They are the ones who have to make the decisions in the heat of battle. Your job is to train them to make those decisions without thinking twice.
If you feel like you have to have control as a leader, take a step back.Don't be fooled into thinking that leadership is about control. It's about empowering your team.
Listen More Than You Speak
Leaders are supposed to deliver the message. They stand in front of the group, set the tone, explain the approach and make the process clear. The leader does the talking. That's what traditional leadership models tell us.
I've learned so much more about how to coach my team by listening to them. The more I listened, the better leader I became. More importantly, the better the team became. The connection you make with your team as a group, and as individuals, comes from listening to them. It helps you understand who they are, what makes them tick and how to drive them.
Listening is the most valuable and underused leadership skill. The more you are speaking, the less effective you are as a leader. Listen to learn, listen to connect, listen to motivate. Listen to lead.
It's Not Yours, It's Theirs
Too many of us as leaders take it personally. When a team member makes a mistake, we react like they embarrassed us, as if they ruined our masterpiece. Every mistake is not a reflection on you as a leader. Get over the mistakes and make your team better. The overall culture, approach and success of the group is what reflects your ability to lead.
We care a lot, we want to have success, and we are under a lot of pressure. It's natural to hang on to it tight, squeeze it hard to get more out of it. But we have to learn to let it go. It's understandable to want total control. The problem is that's not the best path to high performance. If you are controlling everything, I guarantee you are holding your team back in some way.
Your organizational culture is simply the behavior of your group. Hopefully a shared set of beliefs guides that behavior. You help set the standards and explain the importance of what you believe in. But they own it. They are bought in to being a part of it (a requirement to be part of the team), and they make the culture work. You guide them, but your team members are really the leaders.
Trust your team. Give them room to own it. Let them make decisions. Your team can sustain a high level of elite performance when you understand it's not actually your team - it's theirs.
More Things I Believe
- If you want a tough team, get tough players
- If you want to make your team tougher, put them in tough situations in practice and hold them accountable for the result
- If your team lacks the right leadership, it has to come from you
- In late clock situations someone else is almost always open - pass the ball
- Not every point guard is good in a ball screen
- Every game being available for scout has created too much game planning - we forget to focus on what we are good at
- You can't just tell your team to communicate - you have to tell them what to say
- If your players don't know the plays in a game, it's your fault
- Feeding the post isn't that easy
- Spread out benches and coaches in golf shirts should be here to stay
- I've never had a team that was too tough
- They'll walk if you let 'em
- Paper scouting reports are essentially useless
- Over-scouting makes your team worse
- A point guard who throws a one-handed pass off the dribble with his weak hand is definitely good enough
- Shooters need to think about their feet more at a younger age
- Paint touches help get you to heaven
- The restricted arc has not had the intended effect
- We should all teach our help side defenders to jump straight up
- It's almost always a block
- If I were in high school, I'd make sure I could make two shots - standstill threes and free throws
- You can never practice time and score enough
- Missing a free throw on purpose is hard
- I'm still fouling up 3 every time
- Fouling on purpose is also hard
- The players see everything - they don't need to hear it to know it
- Players who can guard the ball one on one are extremely valuable
- There are way too many illegal screens in every game
- Officials do a great job ignoring head coaches instead of sticking them
- A head coach who says he "never" calls the director of officials actually calls him after every other game
- Indecision is a decision
- We don't spend enough time on BOB defense
- It shouldn't be illegal to foul on purpose
- We need to work on not stepping out of bounds in the corner
- Traveling remains the most inconsistent call in the game - if it looks funny, the whistle blows
- Great shooters can play at any level
- Points off turnovers doesn't mean what you think it means in the box score
- The best advantage you can have as a player is the ability to guard someone who can't guard you
- When I come back I want to be a face 4
- If you have two guards who can really guard the ball, your defense can be special
- A 5 who can drill 3s makes your offense really hard to guard
- It's easier to slow the pace down then speed the pace up
- Being older doesn't make you a leader
- Rebounding margin isn't a thing
- One elite competitor can change the tone of your practices
- I hate that you can run into an offensive player after he hands the ball off and get a whistle for an illegal screen
- They have to start calling post defenders for walking underneath a post player when he's finishing his move
- When you are trying to get open against full court pressure, keep running
- The best teams practice good habits
- When you accept anything at a lower standard, get used to it
Entitled To Nothing - What They Need Vs. How You Feel
An excerpt from my newly released book "Entitled To Nothing."
The book is available at entitledtonothingbook.com.
What They Need Vs. How You Feel
We were down 19 with about 5:00 to go in the first half when I called that third timeout. The guys came over to the huddle, and I just laughed. I couldn’t help it. I said “Wow, guys, what did you eat before the game today. We look like we’re playing with a football out there. Is everyone okay?“ I was literally laughing in disbelief at how bad we were playing. I wasn’t really sure what to do, but I knew adding more tension to the situation wouldn’t help. I wanted them to laugh at themselves. I thought back to practice and said, “Look, I know who we are, and this isn’t us. We are a lot better than this. I’ve seen it every day. So just promise me you’ll keep competing for each other no matter what the score is, and I’m sure we’ll get back to being ourselves.” I didn’t make any drastic changes or declarations.
just tried to re-center our team and get them to relax. I really trusted who we were every day, and I wanted them to do the same.
It was an essential lesson in leadership for me that day, and it really came out of necessity. I didn’t know what to do, really, but I knew the team had earned my trust with their approach. What they needed in that moment was more important than what I felt, and my leadership needed to reflect that. It’s easy to get that one back‐ wards, with our emotion ruling the message. Watching my team get worked for 15 minutes wasn’t a lot of fun, and I experienced a range of negative emotions. I wasn’t feeling very good. But my team didn’t need to know that. What they needed was something to help them get out of their funk. Something to break the tension, not add to it. They needed a reset, and a reminder that I believed in them.
Think about it when your team is struggling. You have to handle how you feel, and negative emotions in a bad situation are natural. But you have to lead based on what your team needs and put your own feelings aside. Leading with your emotions, while it might feel natural to you, is not productive. What your team needs is so much more important, and generally not tied to your emotions. It’s one of the truly great challenges of leadership. Set aside how you are feeling and figure out what your team needs, and they will respond.
Finally, after that third timeout in the first half everything started getting back to normal. We started to play a lot looser while picking up the intensity a bit, and we chipped our way back into the game. We got back to being ourselves and got more comfortable. We finished the half with a flurry, and when we hit a three at the half‐ time buzzer it cut our deficit to seven.
At halftime our locker room felt like the winning one, even though we were down a touchdown. Our guys were feeling like themselves again. I just said, “Fellas, they made a huge mistake. They never put us away. This game is ours!” I wanted to feed off the positive emotion we had built.
We went out and played great in the second half, and Coast Guard put up a good fight. It was a great college basketball game. We won a close game in the final minute, one of the more satisfying results we had all year. And a win, because of how it happened, that I’ll never forget.
The lesson that day was a great one. You want your players to trust you, but to get there you have to trust them. I trusted my team based on what I had seen us do every day, and 15 minutes of awful play wasn’t going to change that. I knew that practice every day revealed our true character. I had to trust them.
When your team struggles, figure out what they need. Remove your emotion from the situation and focus on their true character. It’s not about how you feel, it’s about what they need. It is an incredibly challenging and essential balance to find as a leader.
Indecision
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
- Rush, Freewill
Indecision is a choice.
Indecision is also a common leadership mistake, one I think coaches make too often. Making strong decisions is not easy. You have to make sure you are informed. You want to be unemotional when you make the decision. If you have a staff, you want to get their opinion.
You also know that as a coach, your decisions carry significant weight. They will have an impact not only on your team, but your decisions can make a major difference in the lives of your players. You don't make any meaningless decisions. And the scoreboard is public. Every decision affects your team and can lead to wins and losses. There is no hiding from the pressure that comes from making decisions.
I come across many teams and coaches that suffer from indecision. A tough choice has to be made, and the most comfortable thing to do is not to make one. Let's see how it plays out. Maybe it will work itself out. Let's not do anything drastic. It's comfortable being indecisive because you don't have to own it. As long as you haven't made a decision, it's not on you. It's on the players who are in the middle of the situation. It's a go-to comfort zone for many leaders.
There is a lot of insecurity in leadership, and certainly in coaching. I've seen a lot of leaders afraid to make a tough decision because they either don't know how, or don't want to handle the consequences. To make the right decisions, you have to be well-informed, you have to have the pulse of your team, and you have to know the personalities on your team. You have to be really invested and strong in your convictions. It's not easy. But it is leadership.
One of the teams I coaches at RIC that struggled during the regular season (by our standards) had a player on the team who struggled with adversity. He was one of our best players, a starter on the team and a veteran presence. But when things didn't go his way, he struggled to handle it.
I managed the situation the entire year, thinking I was doing the right thing by the team. The situation needed a decision - either you are bought in, or you are out - but I didn't make one. My choice was indecision.
When the year was over, I realized in talking to the team that it had a significant effect on them. My indecision was clearly a choice. We were going to put up with his issues, because he was a good player. And it hurt our team. Luckily, before it was too late I made the decision to remove him from the team, and we went on to win our conference tournament and go back to the NCAAs.
Your team can be paralyzed by indecision. I'm not saying jump to conclusions or make rash decisions. But when you have a situation, deal with it. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
John Chaney
Growing up I was fascinated by how tough John Chaney was on his players, yet after they graduated they all would take a bullet for him. A true legend who made a huge impact.