As the title of the thread implies, my main focus is to produce academically bright student athletes. If they happen to win games and some titles, then that would be a bonus on my part
Hence, I will (as much as possible) coach only on schools with a high academic rating, i.e. A- or above. I realize it will severely limit the pool of candidates that I can recruit, but that will be the challenge of this association.
Some of my specific philosophies include
A. Academics
1. Target GPA that they need to maintain while in the program is 3.5. This applies to both scholarship and walk on players. By the time they graduate, their target GPA should be at least 3.8
2. I will not hesitate to cut scholarships if they show poor performance on their academics. This applies even to "star" players
B. Recruiting
1. Target recruits who give high priority on academics, as this will be my main recruiting pitch. I may also target in-region recruits (main pitch: Location) as long as the scouting report says they have very good work ethic.
The following table is not "cut-and-dry", but I have used it in the past to somehow determine if a potential (high school SR) recruit would be able to hit a school's min SAT, given their current GPA
A+ (1100 SAT): min 3.4 GPA
A (1000): 3.0
A- (980): 2.8
B+ (960): 2.7
B (940): 2.6
B- (920): 2.5
C+ (900): 2.4
C (880): 2.3
C- (860): 2.2
D+ (840): 2.1
I included all academic ratings, including those below A-, in case some of you want to use it. Again, this is not 100% exact; you may find some instances where a 3.1 GPA student gets a 1100+ SAT, or a 2.6 GPA student not even hitting a 900 SAT. Use this at your own risk
2. No JuCos, unless they have a min of 2.8 GPA (or make that 3.4 if in case I'll be coaching in an A+ academic institution like Harvard)
3. I will give importance on a recruit's attitude, work ethic, discipline, and basketball IQ. Hopefully, my recruiting asst will have those on his scouting reports
4. Basketball skills-wise, I'll give preference to those with good ball-handling and FT shooting skills (regardless of position played)
C. Offense
1. Favor Inside, if the opposition is not using zone defense. Running triangle and princeton sets could give my team more low post scoring opportunities. Key here is to convince my low post guys to lessen their jump shots (via regular phone calls)
May also use motion (favor outside) and 5-out offense during situational plays. Off freedom is dependent on how the team is knowledgeable on our set plays, so most likely, will run a lot of off freedom at the start (which is why I would prefer to get high basketball IQ recruits)
Practice Time (Off: 55%)
- Motion: 10
- Princeton: 10
- Triangle: 15
- 5-Out: 5
- 3 Zone attacks: 5 each
D. Half Court Defense
1. I won't most likely get good athletes due to a smaller pool of recruits that I will have, so we would employ zone defense most of the time. 2-3 will be our default (starting) defense, but we may shift to 1-3-1 or 3-2 if the situation warrants it.
2. Towards the end of a tight game, we may go to m2m defense, esp if the opponent has a star player that we want to double. Also, I like to use "cross switching" when putting m2m assignments, e.g. I may switch my taller SF to guard the opposing SG, or assign an SG (or even an SF) to guard a scoring PG
Practice Time (HC Def: 30%)
- M2M: 5
- 2-3 zone: 15
- 1-3-1 zone: 5
- 3-2 zone: 5
(*note*: practice time may change depending on the opposition for the next 2 weeks)
E. Pressure Defense
1. How much we will employ pressure defense depends solely on the familiarity of my existing players. But we will continue to practice pressure defense regularly, as we may use it on "special" situations towards the end of the game
Practice Time (Pressure Def: 15%)
- M2M: 5
- 1-2-2: 10
F. Pre-game preparation
1. Use "analytics" as much as possible. For example, the metrics on the opponent's OR% and DR% may give us an idea on how much rebounding intensity (def and off) we need to set. Of course, in-game adjustments maybe necessary. In one of the threads in this forum, CoachC has discussed in detail his algorithm for adjusting off and def rebounding intensity during a game, so I will need to use that as well
Tempo can also be used, to get the opposition "out of their rhythm". For example, we slow down the pace against teams that play high tempo, etc. However, this strategy should be used in conjunction with other metrics like opposition's OeFG%, OTO%, etc. Hopefully, as I play along in this association, I may be able to come up with some set of rules (and share with the readers) on what strategy adjustments to make depending on the style of play of the opposition
2. Off Strategy Mix
I am hoping that our variety of set plays (both inside and outside) would be enough to counter any type of defense. The mix (or % allocation) to each offensive set may vary, before the start of each game depending on the opposition
