GREAT OFF-SEASON CHECKLIST VIA MITCH COLE AND AGGIE BASKETBALL

Another great email newsletter from Coach Mitch Cole of our men's basketball staff here at Texas A&M!  I've posted a couple before but I strongly encourage anyone that has not signed up to get these monthly emails from Mitch to do so -- everyone is packed with great information.  Email Mitch and request to be on the list and you will regularly get stuff that will help your program.

Here is a sample from the one that was sent out today -- timely because it's about summer improvement:

SUMMER THOUGHTS

More and more, coaches are finding that the summer is when the most improvement can occur for our players and our teams. Every level from High School, to AAU, College, and the Pros, there are limits to what coaches can and cannot do regarding time spent with our athletes. Regardless of the limitations, coaches need to find the best approach within the rules to insure that the players are developing and improving throughout the summer. 

Below are a few Categories with questions/ideas that staffs should consider regarding PROGRAM GROWTH in the summer:

Skill Instruction
Do we have a plan for our players Development this summer?

If we can’t work with them, have we effectively communicated which areas they need to grow in and improve?

Is there a way we can get our older players to initiate time in the gym with the rest of our team?

Recognition, awards and charts can be a good way to provide incentive for improvement in the summer.

 

Strength and Conditioning
Are we measuring improvement from our athletes? Do we have checkpoints every 6-8 weeks? (Recognition for summer improvement could be a way to keep them motivated during the off-season.)

 

Are the methods we are using productive, but still interesting and fresh to avoid burnout?

Do our athletes understand the importance of rest, nutrition and safety in training?

Send them interesting articles on pro athletes and their testimonials on how they achieved greatness through hard work!

 

Open Gym
Is there a regular time for the players to shoot and play pick up games? 

 

Are the pickup games competitive? (Lost are the days when you played in a packed gym of players dying to get on the court, but knowing if you lose, you may sit 3 or 4 games waiting to play again!) Can we create that environment?

Most pickup games hardly resemble a real game. How can we make open gym more game-like? Consider shooting Free Throws for fouls, starting possessions at half court, extra points for put-backs, etc. 

Basketball Camps
Do our camps provide a healthy balance of fundamental skills teaching, shooting competitions, and 3v3 or 5v5 games?

 

Are our older players engaged in camps, willing to participate and impact the younger kids in the area?

Are we working to build our camps and promote the program in the community? 

T-Shirts and gear are natural Billboards for your program. Buy T-Shirts in bulk and provide as many as possible!!!

Academics
Are we aware of the “at-risk" guys in our program that might need to recover classes or get ahead in the summer? Losing a player due to grades can be a program killer!

 

It’s been said that most students fall behind in the summer in Math and Reading. Can we incorporate a plan that might stimulate our players to read, write, or be engaged academically? 

Weekly communication with links to articles, or book suggestions followed up with conversations could be useful.

 

Team Building
Is there a time in the summer to get together as a team and cast a vision for next season? 

 

A short trip to a baseball game, a Team Camp, a mid-summer “Weekend of HOOPS,” a Sand Volleyball game, BBQ? 

Weekly communication with positive messages or articles on TEAMWORK and STRONG RELATIONSHIPS

Are we thinking through how to eliminate distractions to our team’s growth? 

 

Staff Development/Rest
Are we growing in knowledge as a staff each summer? 

Challenge each coach to think through a few new ideas that might help in each of the above categories. Have someone on the staff take different categories like Motivation, Offensive and Defensive Concepts, new and improved Strength and Conditioning ideas, work a different basketball camp, or read a few books on leadership development, etc.

Lastly, is the staff taking time to get away? Sometimes great ideas begin to form when we have removed ourselves from the day to day activities. Recharge the batteries before the fall arrives! 

PEYTON MANNING'S ORANGE FOLDER

I recently finished reading a book titled "The QB: The Making of Modern Quarterbacks" by Bruce Feldman.  It was a fascinating read about what goes into a good quarterback these days through the eyes of development "coaches" that work individually with the athletes.  But the chapter "Manningland" was worth the cost of the book alone, taking a look at some of the things that makes Peyton Manning great.  Over the next few days I'm going to share a few outstanding passages from Feldman's book on Manning.  The first deals with Peyton's amazing grasp of details along with his desire to always do more than was originally required of him:

An hour before the eighteenth annual Manning Passing Academy began, ninety minutes north at LSU, Tommy Moffitt, with his barrel chest and Paris Island voice, was getting nostalgic. Asked about Peyton Manning, the Tigers strength coach took a big gulp of air before reaching into his desk and pulling out a bright orange folder with the name MANNING scribbled across the front. Moffitt, the strength coach at Tennessee when Manning was the Vols star QB in the mid-90’s, had shown all Tiger freshman when they reported to school this frayed old folder that contained pages of the workouts he’s prescribed for the quarterback during the summer going into his senior season. Inside, the printed sheets of paper were covered with notes Manning had jotted down, showing the player’s attention to detail and indefatigable level of preparation. There were some crossed-out poundages of prescribed workout routines where Manning pushed himself to do five or ten pounds more than Moffitt had anticipated. Everything was accounted for and documented with check marks and pluses along with margin notes such as “threw good on the outside 1 on 1… 7x Hills Threw… Agilities/Sand.”

Moffitt told all his newcomers at LSU that he had never-in twenty-five years-seen anybody as meticulous in their preparation as Peyton Manning. The weathered orange folder was Exhibit A, an artifact worthy of its place in Canton once Manning took his place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

“I tell them all, ‘Right now, you’re a better athlete than Peyton manning ever was or Peyton Manning ever will be,” Moffitt said. “But this-THIS!-is what makes him so special. His preparation and his attention to detail and the things he does that nobody else told him, that, ‘This is what you have to do to be great.’”

Moffitt’s favorite highlights of Manning’s career didn’t take place in Neyland Stadium. They happened around the Vols’ football complex at odd hours, when almost no one else was around. Such as the time Moffitt heard a tap on the window to his office. Manning was outside. He needed help. Said he had a bunch of VHS tapes in his SUV that needed to go upstairs. Moffitt came outside to Manning’s old black Oldsmobile Bravada and did a triple take when the senior quarterback opened the trunk.

It was jammed with tapes of every practice, every game, every opponent. Tight copies. Wide copies. End zone copies. Four years of film study. The ingredients to Manning’s secret sauce. They ended up with two full shopping carts and kept unloading and filling.

Or the time Moffitt watched from his office window a nineteen-year-old Peyton tying a surgical cord to a goalpost and the other end around his waist so he could work on his drops from center. Back and forth. Back and forth. For what seemed like hours. Moffitt had never seen any other quarterback dothat, and certainly not doing it on his own, without any coaches or teammates around.

“Nobody here told him to do that,” Moffitt said.

 

OFF-SEASON THOUGHTS -- DAY #7: CREATIVE STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING

OFF-SEASON THOUGHTS -- DAY #7: During this 10-day period, we are going to load up our blog on thoughts that are relevant to developing or improving your off-season program.  We will delve on off-season topics from player development and drill work to motivation and team building.  It will be our sincere wish that over the next 10 days we can provide you with at least one item or thought that will help you and your program.

A part of summer has to be the improvement of strength and conditioning.  I have been blessed to have coached at some places with some outstanding performance coaches including Jen Jones here at Texas A&M.  What the best do is that they work the student-athletes in a fashion that they can enjoy that work as much as possible.  A big key is coming up with new and fresh ideas.  It is difficult for today's athlete to maintain good energy with  a monotonous, daily, regimented workout -- whether its on the basketball court, in the weight room or out on the track.  Jen is always coming up with great ways to get our strength, speed and explosiveness developed.  It's why I enjoyed this video of Florida's men's basketball team and their Summer Strongman Competition.

SABAN ON COMPLACENCY AND ESTABLISHING A TEAM'S IDENITY IN OFF-SEASON PROGRAM

The following comes from an article from AL.com written by Mike Herndon.  You can read the article in it's entirety here.

Alabama coach Nick Saban said before his team's loss to Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl in January that he detected a slip in its mindset and focus late in the 2013 season.

Saban believes a team's identity is forged during off-season conditioning and strength work, and he never felt like the 2013 team fully embraced it the way past teams had.

 

"I don't think our team, coming off beating Notre Dame a year before, ever did that a year ago," he said. "They were a little complacent, a little satisfied. Where we always prided ourselves in hard work, all the sudden we resented it."

 

This year, Saban said: "We probably don't have the talent in some positions we've had in the past, but this team has a much better attitude."

 

"Our fans think success is a continuum -- it's going to continue forever and ever," he said. "The problem is, it's just momentary. As soon as you put that trophy down, you have new challenges."

How do you meet those challenges? Saban said success is founded on three things: vision, commitment, and discipline. 

 

His definition of discipline: "There's something you know you're supposed to do that you really don't want to do. Can you make yourself do it? Then there's something over there that you really shouldn't do, but you really want to do. Can you make yourself not do it? Those two decisions we have to make probably a couple hundred times a day.

 

"You have to have an ability to be where your feet are," he added. "Most people worry about what's going to happen in the future ... Be where your feet are. Focus on today."

CONVERSATIONS WITH JIM FOSTER (PART II)

Back in 2003 I flew to Columbus, Ohio to spend a couple of days with Coach Jim Foster. He was kind enough to open his program up and spend time with me discussing a variety of topics. I have always had a great deal of respect for Coach Foster back from his days at St. Joe's through his time where we competed against each other during his tenure at Vanderbilt. Over the next few days I will share some of the notes I took from our discussions.


DEVELOPING POOR HANDS
First, why is she missing passes...bad eyes?...taking eyes off pass?...poor hands?
Medicine ball work is good for hands
A player with poor hands must work on it everyday.
Bad Pass Drill - player's back to passer...turns for catch on verbal call
Always stress 2-hand catches
A player with bad hands places responsibility on the passer as well.
Motivate poster by telling her she is "protecting the passer"

STRENGTH TRAINING
Coach Foster likes squats for post players to develop base
Use bench press position as a visual for players that only use one hand to post up.
Coach Foster: "We want you to post up like you bench press.  Can you bench press with just one arm?"

INDIVIDUAL WORK
Breaks players into groups by position in the middle of practice for 15 minutes for individual work.

In 4 Player Workouts, Coach Foster will work 2 Post/2 Perimeter at times and other times keep the post players together...when post players are together, he spends a lot of time working on X-Out options.

For footwork, relies on strength coach for agility and on their own basketball specific drills for footwork.

SHOOTING
Coach Foster is big on just having one coach responsible for shooting...at Ohio State Coach Foster is the individual shooting coach...doesn't want different coaches giving different things to shooters to work on...lock in one area and improve it.
Coach Foster talks to players about shooting in 3rd person.
4 ways to miss a shot: short, long, off right, off left
Short & long are depth perception problems
95% of all misses to right or left deal with guide hand
The better the shooter, the more competitive you must be with her.

RANDOM COACHING THOUGHTS (PART VII)

SELF-IMPROVEMENT

LOU HOLTZ: "The only things that change you from where you are today to where you are going to be five years from now are the people you meet and the books you read."

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

DENA EVANS: “You are your #1 critic. But you should also be your #1 fan.”

SERVANT LEADERSHIP

TOM OSBORNE: "The essence of teamwork is servanthood."

STAFF

DALE BROWN: “Actions talk around here, so my interactions with my staff are essential in giving the right impression to the players. If the players see that the head coach and the staff have good cohesion, then the team will fall in line, also.”

STATISTICS:

DEAN SMITH: "People tend to look too much at numbers and not enough at where those numbers come from."

STRENGTH TRAINING

RICK MAJERUS: “Hard to have a great basketball program without a great strength program.”

SUCCESS

JIMMY TILLETTE: “The most overrated attribute for success in life is ability by itself. Character and intelligence have a way to defeat ability by itself. And if you combine the three, you have something special.”

SYSTEM

PETE NEWELL: “There are no short cuts to success. Some coaches in their eagerness to win quickly do not have the patience to work toward the refinement of their inherited theories and will switch to a system of play which has brought success to others. The change in system may bring initial success through the element of surprise, but it will not be a guarantee for lasting success.”

TALENT

RED AUERBACH: "Talent alone is not enough. They used to tell me you have use your five best players, but I've found that you win with the five who fit together best."

TEACHING

BOB KNIGHT: “A primary goal of teaching anything is the advantage that learning gives to people over their competitors who haven’t been as well taught.”

MARQUETTE RIDES STRENGTH TRAINING COMMITMENT TO SUCCESS

Thanks to J.P. Clark of the men's staff here at UCF for pointing out this article on Buzz Williams, his Marquette team and their commitment to strength and conditioning.  The article comes from the Washington Post and was written by  Eric Prisbell.  Here are some excerpts:

“We have a football mentality,” said guard Todd Mayo, the younger brother of NBA player O.J. Mayo. “That’s just how we are bred. That’s what Buzz (Williams) teaches; he wants a physical team.”

It is a makeup now rooted in his Marquette basketball players, who Murray State Coach Steve Prohm said look like a parade of linebackers or defensive backs without shoulder pads and helmets. After watching Marquette before a second-round NCAA tournament matchup, Prohm joked to his team that the Golden Eagles look like they all should be in spring practice at Alabama or Louisiana State.

“Those guys, those bodies are awesome,” Prohm said. “They are some physical, physical guys. They look like they should be top-10 draft picks in football.”

After Marquette muscled its way past sixth-seeded Murray State, 62-53, the Golden Eagles sat in a locker room — some wearing ice packs, others wearing knee pads — as if halfway through a two-a-day football session in August training camp. And Todd Smith, the man most responsible for instilling gridiron attributes, stood with arms folded and his back to the wall.

“What is unique about all these guys is that they keep coming back every day for the same torture we put them through,” said Smith, Marquette’s strength and conditioning coach, whose offseason program includes “anything and everything.”

Players pull 250-pound sleds. They climb rope until fingers blister. They slip their fists into boxing gloves and pound a body bag. And they use a real football and play a variety of football-related games, rotating quarterbacks in the two-hand touch matchups to keep things fair.

At first, Smith said, players want to quit. Some throw up. But the team’s weight room is not nicknamed “The Confidence Room” for nothing. Perhaps no Marquette player has made bigger strides in conditioning and confidence than junior point guard Junior Cadougan, who ruptured his Achilles’ tendon as a freshman.

“It is just a crazy, radical situation,” Cadougan said. “It’s torture, but it’s from the heart, it’s love. He is not doing it to torture our bodies, but to prepare us for situations like this” in the NCAA tournament.

A big reason Williams already has had conversations with several NFL teams about Crowder potentially trying out is because of the skills the sculpted 235-pound senior honed in Smith’s offseason program. “He just kills you,” said Crowder, the Big East player of the year.

After players survive the summer program, they prepare for two more phases before traditional basketball practice begins in mid-October. There’s individual work with Williams, and there’s the early October “Boot Camp,” 12 sessions that include various forms of two activities: running fast and running faster.

Players said the offseason work has steeled them mentally and physically for the NCAA tournament. Wilson said he saw Murray State’s big men fatigue in the final minutes of the round-of-32 game.

Following a victory over rugged Florida State on Sunday, Cincinnati’s Yancy Gates called the Seminoles physical, but certainly no more so than some Big East teams, namely Marquette. What the Golden Eagles lack in Florida State-like size, they make up for in strength and power.

“We’re small,” Wilson said. “But we take a lot of pride in being physical and stronger than everybody.”

Read the entire article here: http://wapo.st/GDAtoK

TIM GROVER: HOW THE GREAT GET BETTER

Talk about a great way to tip-off a super weekend -- Felicia Hall Allen started this year's Assistant Coaching Symposium by making it possibly for us to travel to Attach Athletics' gym to watch Tim Grover and his staff working out some players.  Tim is credited for helping Michael Jordan get to the next level.  I enjoyed the afternoon in the gym and will be posting some notes later but until, here is some video footage you might enjoy.

MUHAMMAD ALI ON TRAINING

“Running is the source of my stamina. Early in my career I learned to run until I’m tired, then run more after that. The running I do before the fatigue and pain is just the introduction. The real conditioning begins when the pain comes in; then it’s time to start pushing. And after that I count every mile as extra strength and stamina. The reserve tank. What counts in the ring is what you can do after you’re tired. Training is tough and boring; sometimes it helps to have something to think about and take my mind off of the pain. Champions aren’t made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them — a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”

MAXIMUM EFFORT IN THE WEIGHT ROOM

Courtesy of www.Stack.com you see why the great players are truly great -- WORK ETHIC in the weight room and in the off-season.

Steve Nash

http://stacktv.stack.com/video.aspx?videoID=1875312691_2&ref=athlete4

Danny Granger

http://stacktv.stack.com/video.aspx?videoID=1751349676_3&ref=athlete120

A series of videos on Dwight Howard in the weight room

http://stacktv.stack.com/athlete.aspx?athleteID=43

A series of videos on Brandon Roy in the weight room

http://stacktv.stack.com/athlete.aspx?athleteID=153

MAJERUS ON STRENGTH TRAINING

Hard to have a great basketball program without a great strength program.

I take pain-staking time to hire the best strength coach.

Down on the block we find out who is the stronger.

Strength training develops confidence and poise.

If you are not committed to having the best strength program you can have, the you aren't committed to having the best program you can have.

Stretching is overrated -- social scene -- players stretch on their own time...if we have practice at 3:30 then practice starts at 3:30.

Strength training is another area where "we get better together."

Once practice starts, we lift three days a week...during the season, two days a week.

Once the season is over we jump back into it hard...once the games are over, don't bail on the weights.

Majerus reviews weight charts once a month. Chart everything you do in the weight room -- it's like keep score.

Strength coach must be held accountable. It his only job. He doesn't recruit. He is not involved in academics. He just does strength training.