Tuesday, August 30, 2011

30 DAYS TO A CHAMPIONSHIP: A SYSTEM OF PLAY

Jim Boone: As we continue through our fall workouts, we want to go beyond just teaching fundamentals.  We want to piece it all together to a culture of playing basketball the West Virginia Wesleyan way.  As a coach you can't just want to win. You have to decide how you want to win -- as well as how you want to lose.  What is going to be acceptable to you as coach regardless of the results.  Over the course of my career, there has been a lot of thought that has gone into our system of play.  Here are a few thoughts:

1. Our System of play is tailored to fit the skills and attributes of our individual players, as opposed to trying to plug our players into roles that are convenient, but do not fit them.

2. The foundation of our program, like all championship teams, is our defense. Therefore, everything we do centers around our team becoming great defensively (D-2 Key Result Area).

3. Our Strength Program is a major factor in our physical development, and another resource that we utilize to gain the “Winning Edge” (D-2 Key Result Area).

4. We have had the following programs visit us in the past 18 months to obtain a deeper understanding of our winning offensive and defensive philosophies: Wake Forest, Xavier, St. Bonaventure, Augusta State, Wright State, Winthrop, Lander, University of Tennessee Women and Presbyterian College to name a few.

We are committed toward building positive relationships with each of the young men in our program. We feel very strongly that the relationship we develop with our student-athletes is the very fabric of our success.

Without truth, there can be no trust.
Without trust, there can be no relationship.
And without relationship, the chances of achieving success decrease dramatically.


Excellence is a process: winning and losing are just points of reference along that continuum.