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Hello and welcome to the who Pets podcast.

It's Mike Cleansing here without my co host Jason Sunkel tonight, but I am pleased to welcome back in triple double number 22, Rob Brost, head boys basketball coach at Bowling Brook High School in Bolingbrook, Illinois.

Rob, welcome back in number 22.

Here we go.

Man, 22.

That is.

That's a lot.

I think we're starting to do more without Jason than we are with Jason.

So, you know, I. I hope, you know, he can get back with us maybe for 23.

I don't know if it's going to happen.

I told him last night when we recorded our NBA episode, Rob, I said when I did my intro and I said, hello, it's Mike Cleansing here with my co host, Jason Sunkel.

It felt completely foreign because I hadn't said that with him in a long time.

Now that he's getting his PhD or master, whatever he's getting in education and he wants to become a superintendent.

He's between his four kids and trying to get.

Trying to get.

Trying to get his doctorate.

Yeah, he's.

His days of podcasting are.

Are numbered, so it's few and far between when I can get him to come on.

I even texted him tonight at like 10 minutes before we're Gonna start.

I'm like, bros is on tonight, and he ghosted me, man.

Nothing.

So who.

We'll see.

We'll see.

I'll keep.

I'll keep working on him, see if we can get him back.

If.

I mean, I. I'm.

I'm a little disappointed that I can't move the needle with him, but he probably tried and went like, bro.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

I'm going.

I gave it.

I gave it a shot.

I gave it a shot.

All right, so our three topics.

We'll start with topic number one.

And I threw this one at Rob.

I said, what is your favorite part of game day, other than the game?

So just trying to get a window into your mindset of.

Of what you do during the day and what part of it you like beyond.

Just obviously the.

The best part being being the game.

Well, this is.

This might come off a little, I don't know, different to some people, I guess.

I. I don't like a lot about game day, to be honest with you, leading up to the game, just because it seems like it takes forever to get to the game, at least in my head.

And so I try to, if at all possible, get at least an hour, half hour, if I can fit it in of just time completely by myself, where I don't.

Where I'm kind of napping slash laying by myself, just with my own thoughts, not doing anything, no phone, no anything, and just try to relax for a half hour or 45 minutes, to be honest.

So that's probably my favorite time of game day, but I don't get that half hour, 45 minutes every single game day, depending on if we're home or away or if there's a lot of travel or, you know, some days on game days we have school, some days we don't.

So it's just dependent on a lot of things.

So I try to do similar things every day, every game day, but I'm not superstitious or anything like that.

But I try to find about a half hour, 45 minutes, if I can, where it's just.

I'm just trying to relax and not really think about basketball and really not do anything.

I don't answer my phone unless it's, you know, an emergency or something like that.

I try to just be by myself for that little bit of time.

An ideal world.

Where does that take place?

Hopefully at my house.

Hopefully at my house.

But, you know, when we're on the road, sometimes it's in a hotel room.

Sometimes, you know, when we're on the Road and it's not an overnight trip, then I might not get to do it or I might just go into the locker room, you know, 10 minutes before the warm up, you know, gets over and just sit by myself in the locker room.

And then that obviously is a shorter period of time.

And obviously I'm not gonna try to fall asleep or take a little snooze at that point.

But you know, I like to just kind of be by myself and you know, not even work through the game.

Just, just kind of take five to 10 minutes when we're on the road by myself where no one's asking me something, no assistants are going over game plans with me, no players are asking anything where I can just, just do that and get ready.

Has your team played any number of afternoon games and how does that affect sort of that pre game prep?

I know when I was playing and when I was coaching that I always love playing like a Saturday afternoon game at 2.

Because you eliminated that time that you were talking about in terms of just sitting around waiting.

Because again, your whole day on game day, right, is just about the game, right?

You're just trying to get to the game.

And when that game's at 7 or 7:30, it takes a long time for that to get there.

And I always loved playing a 2 o' clock Saturday afternoon game because obviously you got to the game quicker and then when the game was over you had the rest of the night hopefully to enjoy the fruits of your labor and a victory.

But I don't know how often you guys get a chance to play an afternoon game.

Well, it just depends on some of the bigger events we go to.

You know, we might be in the afternoon or the evening.

And so normally if we're playing around here on a Saturday, on a, in a regular game, it's usually probably five o' clock at night, a little bit earlier than a Friday night game, but not in the afternoon.

But you know, when we go to St. Louis, when we go to other places where we have to travel, then we certainly might have an afternoon game.

And this year coming up in the Chicago Elite Classic, there's national competition there, we're playing an 11am game.

So you know, we really are going to have to adjust for that.

And so, you know, the part of me being by myself, if that doesn't happen, it's not like I, you know, change anything or anything.

It's not like I have to make it happen or I get upset with someone if it doesn't happen because it's never about me, obviously, it's always about the team and our players, number one.

And so, you know, I try to do that and if I get a chance to do it, it's great.

If I don't, then I just, you know, go with it and get as prepared as possible for the game.

Yeah, makes sense.

I mean, I think again, everybody has their way of being able to sort of get yourself in the right mindset.

And as you well know, and anybody out there listening to the podcast who's a coach, the ability to get, or a parent or a human being for that matter, how many of us get a half hour or 45 minutes or an hour to be able to be by ourselves and have our technology away from us at any point during our lives, let alone during, let alone on game day to be able to carve that time out.

And so I'm sure when you get it, I'm sure it's extremely, extremely valuable.

But at the same time, you can totally understand how difficult that is to be able to carve it out.

Yes.

And a lot of times on game day, you know, in that 30 or 45 minutes, if I'm at home, if we have a home game, I'll get a text from a player or text from my ad or a text, you know, the sophomore bus is late or, you know, the freshman are going to be late.

So that's going to push our game.

You know, all of those things that happen in high school basketball, but that's all part of it.

So, you know, obviously, you know, we roll with the punches and then, and then deal with the things we have to deal with.

All right, let's jump to topic number two.

And this one I made it, as I've said on several questions in the past, I've made it intentionally vague or open ended.

And the question was, what is something new that you've added to your program this year?

And I put in parentheses when I texted this over to Rob that anything qualifies.

So I'm curious as to what direction you're going to take it and what you've added to your program.

So throw it at us.

Well, I don't know if I've necessarily added this, but one of the things that's an exciting piece of our game day experience now that we've added as a school is a video board this year.

So it's brand new to us.

We're still working on, you know, what are we going to do, what videos are we going to show?

Do we have enough time?

What's too Much.

What's not enough?

Can you show a highlight right after a made basket?

Can we do highlights after a game?

When do we do, you know, different things?

We're still working on that piece.

It's literally like a month old.

So volleyball used it in their last few games, and we're just kind of on a trial basis.

And so we're really the first team that gets to use it, you know, right away with their season and with full functionality and all of those things.

And so when you asked me the question, I immediately thought, like, X's and O's stuff or what?

What am I doing this year on the floor that I've never done?

But then I thought, no, this actually is a really cool thing.

I know more schools are getting them, but it's.

It's rare around here anyways for a school to have a video board.

I've seen three or four of the schools have it, but we got ours this year, and so I'm excited about it, but I don't want it to take away or distract our guys.

Obviously, it's going to be great for the fan experience for our students and even for our guys to do some things like you might see at an NBA game or something like that on their Jumbotron or whatever you call it.

Certainly our video board is not as big as, like, what the Bulls have, obviously, but it's.

It's still going to be a pretty cool thing to add to the game experience.

Your guys started talking about the Hype video yet, what they want to do?

Yeah, well, my principal said, hey, should I ask the guys about the Hype video now and we'll just start getting out?

I was like, let's just keep them out of it just for now.

And then once the season hits and we start practice here in.

In three or four days, then, you know, when we do our media day and all of those things, then we'll have a little plan and we'll get some footage for the Hype video and.

And all of those things.

And obviously we'll include some stuff from years past and it'll be good for our program just from the perspective of, hey, we're going to make a montage of the last 10 years, and we're going to put it all in one minute, you know, when we take the floor or when the starting lineups get introduced or whatever it is that we decide to do it.

So I'm excited about that, and it gives, you know, some credence to the guys that really got our program to the level that it's at.

And some of those guys, you know, are.

Are now coaching with me and coaching for me and, you know, and.

And they come back all the time.

So I'm looking forward to everything that the video board can bring in a positive way to us, but I'm not looking forward to, as.

As I said before, of.

Of our guys, like, hey, coach, do you think we can put this on the video board?

Hey, you know, we're getting ready a day before the game.

Hey, coach, I have a new.

I have a great idea for the video board.

Like, and I know that's going to happen, and I know it's part of it, and I'm not going to get upset about it, but I'm going to be rolling my eyes without rolling my eyes because I know, you know, it's all part of it, and I'm excited for it, too, but I just want it to be part of the game experience and not what we're thinking about, you know, the day before a game or something like that.

So I will tell you, Rob, that my daughter, who is in 10th grade, her team, today was the day that they were filming the hype video.

And my daughter has been talking about the hype.

She has been talking about the hype video for literally weeks.

And they did one last year, and one of the girls had a money gun, so she was shooting.

Shooting the money, and the bills were coming out as part of the.

As part of the hype video.

So that.

So that was pretty.

That was pretty cool.

So this year, yeah, the idea was.

And I don't know if you've ever seen this, but you take a piece of glass and you put that over the lens of the camera, and then people come up and they're.

They're signing their signature on the glass in front of the camera as part of the hype video.

So last night, my daughter gets home from practice and she's like, I told the girls that I was going to get the plexiglass.

We have to go to Home Depot and get a.

Get a, you know, whatever.

Get a piece of Plexiglas.

And I immediately am like, I don't really want to drive to Home Depot to go buy plexiglass.

So I start investigating and thinking about, like, what do we have in the house that we can use that will do the same thing?

So the first thing I get is.

The first thing I get is one of those plastic containers of salad, and I take the lid off the plastic container of salad and I show and I Show that to her.

And of course, immediately she's like, yeah, we can.

Yeah.

She's like, no, we can't.

You know, we're not going to use that.

Then I found an old cd and so I had to get a little.

Ranch wrestling in there.

Yeah, yeah, right, exactly.

And so I had the CD case.

That was the next thing I pulled out.

I'm like, look, this will cover over the lens perfectly.

I'm like, we could do this.

And she's like, no.

And eventually we settled on a brand new in its wrapping frame that had a piece, you know, had the piece of glass that you could take out of like an 8 by 10 frame and then put over the thing.

So.

So that according to her today, that was a big.

A big hit and what I was trying to get them to do and what your team might want to consider.

And again, now this is a girls team, so it's.

It's relative.

I told her they'd have to lower the basket.

But the University of Tennessee, you've seen their pregame dunk where the one guy goes up and dunks and everybody else jumps at the same time that the dunker is dunking.

And I told her that we should have our best player, who's.

She's five foot three, but she's an incredible player.

But I'm like, we gotta.

You gotta get the basket lower so that, you know, get the right camera angle so nobody can tell, you know, how low the basket is and then get everybody to do that.

So I don't know.

She had a scrimmage tonight and we were at the scrimmage, but then she got home and I was already podcasting, so I didn't get to ask her if the.

If the dunk made it into the.

Made it into the hype video or not.

But there's two ideas for you to throw at that you can toss out to your players if.

If they don't have enough on their own already.

No.

I feel like the Raiders are way behind in hype video, so I feel like we need to.

We need to maybe get some more ideas or maybe we should just make it.

You know, a couple of my guys have been like, hey, when I get introduced for the starting lineup, can I do like the flex, you know, on the video board?

Of course not like in the line, like when it announces my name.

And I said, well, I'm.

How do you know you're starting?

Like, what are.

What are you.

But anyway, so just some funny stuff has come from the video board conversation, like, hey, Coach, do you think they can show a picture of me making a three?

You know, when I get introduced, I was like, you never made a three pointer in your career, so.

And you shouldn't be shooting any.

So.

So anyways, it's brought up some, some good fodder already for, you know, what we're gonna do and the hype video and all of this stuff.

And one kid wanted to go, and I've seen other teams do this, like, go to the fire station and then get on a big fire engine.

And then the whole.

I mean, just, I mean, I said, if you guys work half as hard on your game as you do on these ideas for this video, this, we.

We might have something.

So anyways, but I'm excited for the video board and what, what it can bring to the game day experience, for sure.

And then, you know, and everything that comes with it.

You picked out all the movie clips and the little, the little short videos.

When the other team misses a free throw.

You can have the, you know, you can have the sound effects and all the different things that go along with the, with the video board.

I will say, yeah, so, yeah, the clank.

Yeah, those are always.

Those are always good.

I will say, whatever you do, you're gonna have a hard time topping the University of North Carolina's hype video that I just saw on Monday night.

Because as you were talking about having the past players and paying homage to guys who have come through your program and having highlights and condensing all that into a minute.

So North Carolina has a similar theory of their hype video.

And they have clips of past players and they have clips of their current team, and then they have guys from the past, alumni coming in, and after they play a couple highlights, then somebody comes on and says, it's whatever.

It's Ed Cota coming on and saying, this is Carolina basketball.

It's Marcus Page coming on saying, this is Carolina basketball.

It's Tyler Hansbrough coming on and saying, this is Carolina basketball.

But of course, at the end of the highlight video, the last guy to come on to say this is Carolina basketball is Michael Jordan.

And so it's very, very difficult to top going through all of the history of North Carolina.

And then the very last guy that comes on the screen is Michael Jordan saying, this is Carolina basketball.

It's.

I mean, you're not, you're not going to do much better than that.

Let's put it that way.

No, I'm pretty sure that we're not going to be able to get Michael Jordan to say this is Raider basketball.

Probably not for the end of our hype video.

You know what's funny though, Rob, is as I walked around Chapel Hill on Monday and obviously as I told you before I got a chance to go in the locker room and just see and just all the Jordan stuff that is around and you know, my shirt has the Jumpman logo.

And as I walked around and we went down and walked into Carmichael Auditorium where Jordan played his home games because the Dean Dome was built after his career at North Carolina was over.

And so went into Carmichael and just walked around the campus and, and walked down on Franklin street and just all the different businesses and whatever.

And I just kept thinking in my head, and I know that Michael Jordan is way beyond this in terms of his level of fame and just where he's at in his life.

But I always think back to, because again, when he was at North Carolina and whatever, 1982, 83, 84, I'm like 12, 13, 14 years old.

And so I remember reading articles and seeing him when he first got to North Carolina and there was an article in Sports Illustrator where he was standing in his dorm room and he had like an umbrella over his shoulder.

And at that point he's like a 19 year old kid and obviously has no idea what's in store for him for the rest of his life.

And I think about him showing up on that campus then and showing up on the campus now where literally you can't walk five feet without seeing, without seeing the Jumpman logo somewhere on a building, on a mural, on a piece of clothing, in the locker room, on the arena, like literally everywhere.

And to think that here you showed up again as an 18 or 19 year old kid and if somebody would have told them that hey, someday your likeness is going to be plastered all over this campus 5 million times, what would have had to have gone through his head at that point?

Yes, it's just, I mean, obviously now it makes sense and whatever, but in that moment it couldn't have made any sense.

And then I, I'll tell you one other thing that was really cool at the, at the Carolina hall of Fame Museum, the Carolina Basketball hall of Fame, they had two different letters that Dean Smith had typed on a typewriter with typos and crossouts and obviously no, no computer, no word processing.

Back in the day that he sent, that he sent to Jordan in between like his freshman, sophomore, I think sophomore and junior year of things that he had to work on.

And there was like a, again like an eight, you know, a numbered list of eight things that, you know, you really have to try to become a better dribbler when you're in traffic and you want to keep the ball low so that you can do.

And just again, all these things.

And like I said, with things as you remember, again, you and I are of the era where at some point we turned in assignments on a typewriter and not a word processing document.

And things are white.

Things are whited out.

And the.

The answer, there's strikethroughs through an entire word.

And here's this, this letter from Dean Smith to Michael Jordan.

But, yeah, you're not, you're not topping the Michael Jordan this is Carolina basketball hype video.

Doesn't get any better than that.

We're definitely not topping that.

And, you know, that's an awesome experience.

And, you know, that is.

That is a good, good story for sure.

It is.

It is.

All right, topic number three, and this one, I thought usually we try to stay away from X's and O's a little bit, but I thought that this topic was kind of worth investigating, just kind of getting your thoughts on it in a couple of different.

Just kind of how you approach it.

And so the topic is, how do you guard ball screens?

And I think that there's a couple things that go along with that.

One is, do you have an overriding philosophy of this is how we would prefer to play it, all things being equal.

And obviously there's some different ways you may do it, depending upon the other team's personnel and whatever.

But is there a certain way that you would prefer to do it and then to go along with that.

As.

You are, as you're figuring that out, how do you then go about practicing guarding ball screens during practices?

So those are, I guess, the two angles that I had.

And you can obviously take it, you know, whatever direction you want to go with it.

I mean, I think this is a debate with my staff and I every single season before the season starts, what are we going to do with ball screens?

And in particular, the last three or four years, you know, everybody is running ball screens of some form or fashion or something.

Even if it's a dribble handoff to get into the ball screen, there's some sort of ball screen action that almost everybody is running.

So I think we've evolved in our ball screen coverage in that we, you know, change it from year to year, if that makes sense.

Our.

Our overriding philosophy is we want to keep the ball out of the lane, obviously, and then we Want to contest three point shots.

And so those are our priorities.

Those have remained consistent.

How we guard the ball screen to get to those things sometimes changes even from game to game and player to player.

And so, you know, we, like last year we just, we switched up one through four and then we high hedged with our five because he wasn't as comfortable guarding in open space and those types of things.

So the ball screen coverages is, are ever changing, I think.

And this year we're going to do something, I think, a little bit different.

And on the outside thirds of the floor, we're going to do it one way, and then on the middle third of the floor, we're going to do it another way.

And some of it evolves, right?

So we, you know, one year we decided we're going to blitz every ball screen, right?

And it was very successful for us for the first three or four games.

And then we traveled out to Iowa and we played a kid that people might know, AJ Green, who's now with the Milwaukee Bucks at my alma mater at Cedar Falls High School.

So they were ranked number one in Iowa and we were ranked two or three in Illinois.

And we, we got to the Cedar Falls High School gym where I played, and we were going to blitz all the ball screens, especially when AJ Was the ball handler.

And they proceeded to ball screen us in the middle third of the floor, only because they knew that's what we were doing.

And then they had just numbers on us for the rest of the night.

And so, you know, that's what I'm talking about, about the evolving.

And then even at halftime, then obviously we made some adjustments.

We cannot trap, especially AJ in the middle third because he's a willing passer, this, that.

But nobody was screening kind of in the middle third in our first three or four games, so it never really came up.

And so I know that sounds like, yeah, you're the coach and one of the best teams in the state and you didn't really go over how you're going to, you know, guard ball screens in the middle third.

We were, I don't know if naive was the right word, but we thought, well, if we get him in the trap and get the ball out of his hands, then we're in good shape.

Well, he's a willing passer and they had another kid by the name of Campbell, who's now the starting middle linebacker for the Detroit Lions.

He was on the team, too, football player, but I mean, he had about seven dunks in the first half.

And so the Point that I'm trying to make is you, your ball screen coverage kind of evolves relative to the opponent, relative to your experience and all of those things.

And so, you know, I think this year we had this debate at our staff meeting a week ago and we hashed it all out and what we're going to do.

And so, you know, I think on the outside third, we're going to do it one way and then the middle third, we're going to do it another way.

And so, and with certain personnel we're going to high hedge a little bit as well.

And I think mixing it up from time to time is also helpful that you're not doing the same thing over and over and over.

And so we're going to add some blitzing in there too and some trapping and those types of things.

So I would say the philosophy and the baseline is remained the same.

We don't want people in the lane and we don't want to give up catch and shoot threes.

And how we guard the ball screens, you know, is going to change individually, but those two, you know, parameters are going to stay the same or those two standards of what we want are going to stay the same.

How does that look then in practice in terms of your team working on those ball screen coverages?

What do you do?

How do you design a drill, a practice setting that enables you to work on what you're trying to work on at a given moment in a season or with a particular opponent?

So we'll, we'll take probably three or four of the most common actions that teams run just in general.

For example, zoom action, horns, stuff, stuff like that, you know, double high ball screens, whatever, whatever set you want.

And we'll take three or four of those and we'll start on Monday's practice, our first practice, and we'll start defending those types of actions, the most common actions that teams use in general.

And then we will start defending those in short sighted games and then we will explain what we want and then we will start playing.

And it does two things because we're going to run those actions as well so we can practice offense and defense at the same time.

So it's not just a defense drill and none of our things.

And we've really, I don't know if matured as a coaching staff, but we don't do like, okay, this is when we're working on defense, this is when we're working on offense, we incorporate both of those things all the time.

So when we're playing our short sighted games we will take, you know, double high post action, for example, and we'll play three on three with one ball handler and two, two high ball screeners.

And then we'll just play off of that.

And so whether we high hedge it, whether we blitz the first one, whether we, you know, ice depending on what third of the floor it is, you know, we'll work on all of those different ways to do it so that when we get to games, if we need to change those things, we can.

And it's not the first time they're introduced to that, if that makes sense.

So they've defended things various ways and then also that helps us on the offensive end because teams are defending us obviously with multiple coverages as well with the posts or with the ball screen action.

And particularly this year with, you know, with our point guard being one of our, you know, obviously a primary ball hand, but one of our best players, they're going to try to take the ball out of his hands, I'm guessing a little more than they've done in the past.

So we got to work on those things from the other side of the ball as well.

So I think we've done a really good job as a coaching staff of when we drill things, we're drilling things on both sides of the ball really all the time.

So we'll play short sighted games to directly answer your question, we'll play short sighted games with however, the coverages that we want and then with the actions that we're going to defend the most.

And then obviously once we've scouted the team, then we'll take their top three or four actions and replace them, the general ones, with the ones that the team is running against us.

And so in our short sighted games, that's what we will work on.

And so we score what we want to see.

And this has been a big concept of ours for the last 10 years.

So if you don't want to see step in threes and you don't want to see the ball in the lane, then just give those things a lot of points and, and then the other, the other team, that's what we're going to try to do.

We're going to try to get shots in the, in the lane and we're going to try to get step in threes because they're worth five points instead of one.

Okay.

And so, and then when you're defending, you want to take those away because if you give up a five pointer, your team's going to lose and then you're going to have to do something that you don't want to do.

And my guys are competitive, so you know, they're yelling at each other like, no step in threes, nothing in the lane like before the thing even starts.

And so they understand what we want and the scoring, what, what you want to see helps all of that.

So whatever you want to see, give it a lot of points.

And so.

And conversely, what you don't want to have them do on offense, give that a lot of points on offense and then the defense will take that away.

And so you, Sometimes we don't even tell them what we're working on.

We just say, okay, give us the double high post and a ball handler.

Hey, shots in the lane are worth five, step in, threes are worth five.

Play.

And then they just defend on their own knowing those concepts and they have to figure out how to stop those things.

And of course they'll ask, can we hedge?

Can we blitz the screens?

Can we?

I.

Yes, yes.

You, you can pick whatever you want to do.

At times, of course, sometimes we tell them what they're going to do, especially at the beginning.

But by the first, maybe third week of the season, our short sighted games, they're deciding what they want to do and they have to figure out how to get the stops.

And so if we've had a game where we are having problems defending, you know, a side, side pick and roll, if they score on a side pick and roll, it's five points.

So then obviously the defense tries to take that away.

So scoring what you want to see has been a huge, huge concept for us.

And it just gets your kids competitive, number one.

And it gets them competitive about the right things.

And you can make the right things become the right things because that's the points that you're giving.

And so that's, that's something that I don't know if a lot of teams do, but we do that in almost every drill.

Like you'll, you'll hear it even on Monday.

Coach, how much is this worth?

If they score off of this, how much is this worth?

Because they're so used to me telling them, okay, this is worth five, this is worth one.

And so you can do it both ways, right?

If you want your offense to get better at making an extra pass?

Well, if you score on a click click boom, that's what we call it, click click shot.

If you score on a click Click boom, that's 10 points.

Okay, well now your team is going to work on making the extra pass and so you can mold it to whatever you want and your kids don't really even know that you're necessarily working on that.

They just know what the points are and then they get good habits and then they develop good habits and then you see those habits in the game and so it's giving up a little bit of control.

But you, that's what, that's what happens in the game.

You don't have any control at that point.

They have the control and that's what you want.

So you want them used to having control and just knowing what you want.

We want shots in the lane and we want step in threes and conversely, we don't want to give up shots in the lane and we don't want to give a step in threes.

And so it sounds simple but it's really a lot harder to execute than, than it, than it sounds.

We'd score for you during those games.

Yeah, either our manager or sometimes he gets too flustered sometimes and, and I'll have an assistant coach do it because our guys are like, no, no, that wasn't an extra pass.

That wasn't.

So I try to keep that to a minimum because we're there to get better, not to argue about the score.

But my point is they're so competitive and they want to win and that's how we set it up.

So it does things on a multiple levels and we layer it meaning that we're working on our ball screen coverage, but we're also working on offense.

We're also working on decision making, we're also working on competitiveness and that's what I mean by the layers of things.

We're not just like it might say ball screen coverage on the practice plan.

Like it'll say short sided game with ball screen coverage.

So that's what it says.

But the game is whatever I make it.

And so, you know, I can tell you what we're going to do on our first practice already.

Like we're going to play a ton of short sighted games, 3 on 3 and 4 on 4 and we're going to make it really competitive and we're just going to give them parameters to play under and then they're going to play.

And so it's, that's already happening.

Obviously we'll do some fundamental skills, we'll do some full court stuff, we'll obviously do a lot of transition stuff.

But you know, at some point in every practice we're playing short sighted games for majority of the of the time.

Same way you're thinking about the ball screen coverages and the guys that are directly involved in the screen.

Right.

Obviously some of the system that you just talked about in terms of what you score impacts the guys who are on the weak side or away from the ball who aren't directly involved in the play.

And clearly, depending on a con upon the kind of coverage that you're throwing at a team, what those guys on the backside are doing can be different.

Right.

If you're gonna, if you're gonna, if you're gonna go out, you're gonna blitz a ball screen.

Well, you can't have three guys who aren't involved in that ball screen sitting back and just relaxing.

Yes.

They got to be rotating and moving and doing those kinds of things.

So I, I, I can see how the system of awarding points can get guys to move and react on the back side.

Yes, but how do you guys.

Well, coach, then we'll give points for that.

So I'll assign a coach to.

Okay, you're in charge of watching the tag guy or the backside or whatever your particular team calls the rotation guy or whatever your terminology is.

Then I'll say, hey, assistant coach, you watch the tag guy and everybody that tags correct gets a point, or everybody that doesn't tag correct doesn't get a point.

Or if they score and the tag is incorrect, then that's 10 points instead of just 5.

Something like that.

And so again, we just score what we want to see.

So we give everything points.

Everything is worth something.

And so if you want to emphasize anything, just give points to it and keep score.

And then like I said, then you're layering your practice with not only working on the skill and the drill and the coverages, but then you're layering competitiveness on it.

And then we keep score of how many games each person wins, not only for a practice, but for the entire season.

So for example, Trey Bros might win 80% of the time depending on what drill it is.

And then Steve Jones might win half the time.

Well, he sees that on the board like, this is you, man.

This is how much you win in practice.

And so, you know, sometimes we'll make the teams different and all of those things, and sometimes we'll stack the team, sometimes we'll know, put the guy that has the leading score in wins, you know, with some subpar players, etc.

So, you know, we, we do whatever we, we want to make the emphasis and to make the practice be layered.

Meaning that we're working on multiple things all at the same time.

Yeah, it makes total Sense.

And I think when I watch a game and I see teams defending a ball screen, I would say that a lot of the times the ball screen itself isn't the problem.

It's what the other three players who are not involved in the ball screen end up doing.

Because those three players are asleep or they're just, yes, hugging onto their own player and they're not seeing what's going on with no doubt, the ball screen.

And I think that the.

The ability to be able to impact and teach that through the system of games and points like you just described feels like it would be a natural way to be able to get kids to see, like, hey, I have to do this in order to be able to be successful in this game.

And as you said, the competitive piece of that just brings it out in everybody.

And to me, I think that's a great way to be able to teach it and put an emphasis on it, because like I said, I feel like defending the screen itself.

When two players are involved in a ball screen, like, they might not defend it perfectly, right.

But they at least know that they're in an important action and they better be doing whatever it is that they're being asked to do and at least trying to defend.

Whereas I think especially at the high school level, you just see so many kids off the ball who, they'll get out of a stance or they'll just look away for a second, or they just lose sight of where their player is, and all of a sudden somebody's getting an easy layup because they just weren't engaged.

And I think keeping those other players aren't.

It is really important.

And to your point, offensively, then that brings up the other part of the offense piece.

We tell our guys the first action is easily defensible, which is kind of what you were saying, but the second action is really hard to defend.

And so that's why you see all these, like, zoom actions in Spain, because there's a high ball screen followed by a back screen.

So the ball screen might not necessarily be what the play is for, but the next action after that is really hard to guard for exactly what you described.

And so most of our actions are double actions.

You know, dribble handoff to a high ball screen Spain action where there's high ball screen and then a back screen.

So, you know, the double actions are much more difficult to guard.

And even elite high school teams have a hard time guarding the second action as opposed to the first, because most teams just work on just exactly what you said.

Defending the first action, then drill stops.

Okay?

But now when we get to the elite level, which hopefully our team will eventually get to, we got to start defending double actions because most really good teams are running double actions because they're playing other really good teams that can guard multiple actions.

And so, you know, it's.

It's a chess game to a certain extent, but on the other hand, it's.

The competitiveness really comes up, becomes a big piece of it, because if you mess up, competitors are just going to try to fix it.

And we talk about that all the time.

Like, if you messed up, just fix it.

Like, fix it as fast as you can.

Don't pout about it, don't whine about it, just fix it.

And so.

And we don't really tell them, hey, well, if you miss this, then do this.

Then I'm not a huge guy on technique.

I tell them what I want the result to be, and they need to get to that.

And so if they can't figure that out, then I got to go back and help them figure it out.

But usually they're so competitive that they will figure it out because they, you know, either don't want to disappoint or they're just competitive.

You know, all of the things that I talked about earlier about layering your practice.

Yeah.

And it's easy when there isn't that scoring element to it, no doubt, to be disengaged off the ball.

I think that when I watch high school basketball, both on the boys side and then the girl side, the number of players who, when they're not involved directly in the action as a defensive player, that are disengaged, even if it's just for a second.

And it's something that I've been telling my daughter repeatedly, I'm like, look, every time you get beat, it's because you've relaxed for just a split second as your girl catches the ball.

And yeah, you're ready to play once she catches it, but by then she's already made a decisive move and you're a half step behind.

And now you've had to follow her because you're not there.

And so keeping players engaged who aren't involved in that primary action, I think, as you said, is.

Is really key.

And also the offensive, defensive element of what you're describing too, right.

Where, yeah, you're working on defense, but your offense is also working on the same thing, because the same way an elite defense has to be able to defend two actions in a row, an elite offense has to be able to execute two actions in a row in order to be successful against other good teams.

And so it's just, again, as you said, it's.

It's layer upon layer of figuring out and teaching and going from your step one of defending the ball screen and the type of coverage that we're going to run.

All right, that's step one, and we got to execute that.

But then there's the next layer of are you tagging the role man who's rotating to who?

How does that look?

And what are we trying to give up and what are we trying to take away?

And I like the idea of what you said in terms of it doesn't matter what the ball screen coverage is.

We have two principles.

We don't want to give up standstill threes, and we don't want teams getting in the lane on us.

And so no matter what we do, ultimately we want that to be the result.

And how we get there may not look the same on every play.

It may not look the same against every action.

It may not look exactly the same depending on where on the floor those actions are taking place.

But ultimately, we know whether we succeeded or failed not by the technique we used or where we stood or what happened.

Ultimately, the only thing you're judging is, did we keep balls out of the lane?

And do we not give up a wide open standstill 3 as a result of what we did?

And if we.

If we accomplish those two things, then we've done what we wanted to do out of the ball screen coverage regardless of.

Regardless of.

Of what it was initially.

Right?

So there's no doubt about it.

And, you know, I get emails, probably three or four a week, like, how do you do this?

What do you do?

And about a month ago, a guy said when you close out, you tell them to chop their feet or take long strides or.

What do you tell them?

I don't tell them any of those things.

Do you tell them ten fingers to the sky?

Do you tell them two hands up?

I don't tell them any of that.

I don't say any of that.

I say no contested threes and nobody in the lane.

Okay, close out.

Go.

I don't care if he, like, somersaults into it.

If he results in what I want, then it's fine.

And so especially old school coaches don't really like that.

They like to, you know, control it.

And ten fingers to the sky in one hand and then trace with your right.

Do it, dude.

If they have to think about that, then they're not going to be thinking about keeping the guy out of the lane.

So, I mean, it's tough enough to close out and take away the three and keep them out of the lane, but that's what I'm asking you to do.

If.

If he's worried about, do I have four fingers to the sky or do.

Is my thumb pointed perpendicular?

No, no.

My chopping my steps here, dude, I don't care.

You can.

You can tie your feet together.

It doesn't make any difference.

And so I'm probably a little bit too far on that end.

And even my assistants are like, now, come on, Coach.

Like, we got to give them, like, some parameters.

And I would say I am giving them the parameters.

No.

No open threes and nothing in the lane.

So anyways, now I kind of went off the ball screen coverage into just what my philosophy is.

But I could talk about this stuff all night.

And I know people don't want to hear the Rob Roast philosophy.

They can just buy the videos and do that.

There you go.

Yeah.

The result is the pro.

The result is the process.

The process is the result in a lot of ways.

Right.

It's just.

We've got to get.

We've got to.

We've got to get to that.

I want to go back to something you said about keeping track of the scores and the wins and the losses over the course of the season.

When you get to the end of the season, obviously you go back and you look at that stuff.

How closely does that mirror what the eye test tells you and what you think you are seeing over the course of the season?

Do you ever.

And obviously you're monitoring it along the way.

So it's not like you get to the end of the season, you're like, Holy cow, our 14th guy was the leader in winning percentage.

Right.

I know that doesn't.

I know that doesn't happen.

But just as you're tracking it, how closely does it track with what you're seeing in terms of production during games on a daily basis?

It usually tracks.

I would say most of the time, it tracks like, kind of how you think it would.

And I'll give you an example.

Now, this wasn't a practice, but this was like our open gym.

And we.

I just.

I just say what the teams are.

I don't coach them.

I don't tell them what to do.

And we had a plethora of Division 1 coaches there.

And, you know, then I'll switch the teams up and they could play.

And, you know, I would say about Halfway through one of the open gyms, one of the Division 1 assistants there was like, I think Trey's team just wins every single game, no matter what, no matter who you put him with, he wins every single game.

And so that was true.

Now, obviously, his team didn't win every single game.

And then sometimes I would put him on with guys that are might not play at all or might not make the team, and then see how he deals with that.

And so you get to learn about your players when you're keeping track of the stuff that matters.

And so winning kind of becomes a habit, and it kind of becomes just what you do.

And the habits lead into good decision making.

And then when you have good habits and good decision making, that leads to wins.

And so, you know, it doesn't guarantee winning, but it makes it much more likely.

And so.

And when you can cultivate the layers, like I was talking about earlier, of competitiveness on top of sound philosophy, all of those things layer on each other, then you have something.

Whereas if you're just worried about technique or you're just worried about the competitiveness, then you're going to be missing something.

But if you can layer all those things and, and you see the top coaches do it all the time, and that's what they do.

And so, you know, I'm not saying we're some of the top coaches that we know what we're doing.

I'm just telling you how we try to do it.

And it's been, you know, pretty successful for us to, to this point.

Absolutely.

I mean, it makes sense on every level.

Right?

You want to be able to teach your guys in a way that gets them to do and accomplish the goals that you're trying to accomplish.

That's number one.

And then number two, when you have a tracking system that then you can point to and say, kid, it's like, hey, man, I'm, you know, whatever, I'm better than this guy or other.

And hey, man, your winning percentage is just 15, and this guy's winning percentage is 92%.

Well, guess what?

At some point, regardless of what we're measuring or how we're measuring it, if one guy's winning at a 92% clip, the other guy's winning at a 15% clip.

There's something, there's something going on there that we can point to that that leads to winning.

And one of the things that I guess I'll end on this point with, with everything that we just talked about, and it's, it's something that I'VE tried to get across to my players that I've coached, and something that I've tried to get across to my own kids, and that's that there's so many different ways that you can contribute to winning, that somebody who's sitting in the stands, whether it be a parent, whether it be a casual basketball fan, whether it be whoever.

I'd say 98% of the people who are sitting in the stands don't have any idea of what impacts winning moment to moment in a basketball game.

And so I always try to get across to players, my own kids, like, you can miss a shot, or you can do X or Y or Z, but what can you be doing every moment you're on the floor that can impact winning?

Sometimes it's, you just got to run the lane hard, and when you do, the defender drifts over to you, and now another kid gets a layup.

Nobody sees that.

Nobody understands that who's in the stands.

But that's a winning basketball play.

Didn't take any talent to do that.

It just took you playing hard and competing.

And I think ultimately, when you measure those wins and losses, that's what you're measuring.

You're measuring the things that can't be maybe directly measured.

But anybody who knows and understands basketball values players who do those little things that impact winning, that don't show up in the box score.

And I think that's what, that's what we've been talking about here and always started the discussion with, how do you defend the ball screen?

I think ultimately what we got to is what impacts winning.

And what impacts winning is you give kids a goal of, hey, this is what we're trying to do.

And then we figure out how to do it.

And when we figure out how to do it, that impacts winning.

And that's what's going to drive our team forward.

And so I, I just think the way that you've put that together and the way you've organized, it just makes complete sense.

When you think about, again, how do I want to get to the ultimate goal of being a good team?

Defending ball screens.

This is how I get there.

And if I get there, then I'm impacting winning by putting that process and those goals in place.

And, and how you do it to your point, doesn't necessarily matter.

Like, I don't have to close out with my baseline foot back or my right hand up, or like, I think about all the things that even when I was, when I was playing, you know, and come, like, I got to Close out.

I'm on, I'm on this side of the floor.

I got to come up with my foot this way or coach is going to yell at me.

Does it really matter if I figure out a way to stop the player?

You know, there's, there's things that, when you look at it, make intuitive sense.

Especially I think sometimes coaches forget that what players are, are seeing and what players are doing and they get so, they get so focused on what I'm doing as a coach and how important that is that we forget that ultimately the players are the most important thing.

And I think we, the longer, the longer you're in coaching, the easier it is to forget what it's like to be a player.

And for whatever reason, I feel like I've always continued to, despite the fact that I'm 55, Rob, I still continue to for some reason and haven't played a basketball game in any way, shape or form for 13 years since I tore my ACL.

For some reason, I still think of myself as a player.

And so when I, when I hear things that coaches are doing or saying, my first lens, honestly, is to go back to when I was 21, 22 years old playing college basketball and think about the framework of if I was playing, would this make any sense to me and would I like to play in this drill or this system or this practice?

And that's kind of the lens that I always kind of look at coaching through is through that player's lens.

Because so often just coaches, I think, forget what it's like to be a player.

And I think whenever I talk to you, I always feel like you, you put, you put the players, I don't know, first is the right way to say it in terms of how you design your practices, but your thought process is what's going to allow my players to.

How can I put them in the best position to succeed and teach them what that looks like?

And what you described today when we talked about ball screen coverages, I think hits that philosophy perfectly.

Yeah.

And I, I think I appreciate the, the words and the kind words about how we do it.

And I probably go to the extreme, but I think a lot, the more technique you give them, the more they're thinking about that instead of what they're actually supposed to be doing.

And so, you know, we play really fast and I get a ton of questions and emails from our videos about how, you know, you tell them to sprint the first three steps and then stride step the, you know, when they get to half court and then turn and look.

No, I, I don't tell them any of that.

I tell them to get from where they are to where they're going as fast as possible go.

And the more instructions you give them, the slower they run.

And so, you know, it's all of those things build on each other.

And you know, I think a lot of coaches want to be in control and that's fine.

And if that works for them, that's fine.

And I'm probably too far on the other end and we've lost some games because of that for sure.

But I want our guys to kind of have the decision making power if that makes sense.

And then obviously if we need to draw something up or we need a set or all of those things, then then fine, I can give them that for sure.

Good stuff Rob.

And I think all three topics tonight were interesting.

We definitely went the longest on the last one, which I don't know if I necessarily.

It's, it never goes the way we anticipate.

Rob.

So we, we were, we were through the, we were through the first two topics today and I think like 18 minutes and then right.

We decided, well, let's, let's go an extra 40 on the, on the screen coverage.

So good stuff tonight, Rob.

Really appreciate it.

Triple double number 22.

And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode.

Thanks.

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