ROUND TABLE 62 – WHAT ARE THREE KEYS TO PREPARING YOUR TEAM FOR TOURNAMENT PLAY? – EPISODE 911

Welcome to the 62nd edition of the Coach’s Corner Round Table on the Hoop Heads Podcast. Each episode of the Coach’s Corner Round Table will feature our All-Star lineup of guests answering a single basketball question.  A new Coach’s Corner Round Table will drop around the 15^th of each month.

February’s Round Table question is:  What are three keys to preparing your team for tournament play?

Our Coaching Lineup this month:

• Dominic Amorosa – Strake Jesuit (TX) College Prep
• Jerry Buckley – Bishop Kenny (FL) High School
• Erik Buehler – Chatfield (CO) High School
• Joe Harris – Lake Chelan (WA) High School
• Jeff Huber – Elyria Catholic (OH) High School
• Bob Krizancic – Mentor (OH) High School
• Raul Placeres – Maryville College
• Matthew Raidbard – Author of “Lead Like a Pro”
• Nate Sanderson – Mount Vernon (IA) High School
• Don Showalter – USA Basketball
• John Shulman – University of Alabama Huntsville

Please enjoy this Round Table episode of the Hoop Heads Podcast and once you’re finished listening please give the show a five star rating and review after you subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

If you are a basketball coach at any level please check out our Hoop Heads Coaching Mentorship Program.  You’ll get matched with one of our experienced Head Coaches and develop a relationship that will help take your coaching, your team, your program, and your mindset to another level.

Be sure to follow us on twitter and Instagram @hoopheadspod for the latest updates on episodes, guests, and events from the Hoop Heads Pod.

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THANKS COACHES!

If you enjoyed this episode let our coaches know by clicking on the links below and sending them a quick shout out on Twitter:

Click here to thank Dominic Amorosa on Twitter!

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TRANSCRIPT FOR ROUND TABLE 62 – WHAT ARE THREE KEYS TO PREPARING YOUR TEAM FOR TOURNAMENT PLAY? – EPISODE 911

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the 62nd edition of the Coach’s Corner Round Table on the Hoop Heads Podcast. Each episode of the Coach’s Corner Round Table will feature our all-star lineup of guests answering a single basketball question. A new Coach’s Corner Round Table will drop around the 15th of each month.

February’s Round Table question is, What are three keys to preparing your team for tournament play?

Our coaching lineup this month:

• Dominic Amorosa – Strake Jesuit (TX) College Prep
• Jerry Buckley – Bishop Kenny (FL) High School
• Erik Buehler – Chatfield (CO) High School
• Joe Harris – Lake Chelan (WA) High School
• Jeff Huber – Elyria Catholic (OH) High School
• Bob Krizancic – Mentor (OH) High School
• Raul Placeres – Maryville College
• Matthew Raidbard – Author of “Lead Like a Pro”
• Nate Sanderson – Mount Vernon (IA) High School
• Don Showalter – USA Basketball
• John Shulman – University of Alabama Huntsville

Please enjoy this Round Table episode of the Hoop Heads Podcast and once you’re finished listening please give the show a five star rating and review after you subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

If you are a basketball coach at any level please check out our Hoop Heads Coaching Mentorship Program.  You’ll get matched with one of our experienced Head Coaches and develop a relationship that will help take your coaching, your team, your program, and your mindset to another level.

Be sure to follow us on twitter and Instagram @hoopheadspod for the latest updates on episodes, guests, and events from the Hoop Heads Pod.

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Let’s hear from our panel about their three keys to preparing a team for tournament play.

Dominic Amorosa, Strake Jesuit College Prep in Houston, Texas.

[00:03:55] Dominic Amorosa: Dominic Amorosa, Houston Strake Jesuit, three keys to postseason play as rested players, energized players and positivity for the fact that you’re still playing later in the season.

[00:04:09] Mike Klinzing: Jerry Buckley, Bishop Kenney High School, Jacksonville, Florida.

[00:04:16] Jerry Buckley: Hi, this is Jerry Buckley from Bishop Kenney answering this month’s Round Table question, preparing for tournament play. I think the three main keys for us, number one is being fresh, both mentally and physically. It’s definitely a long season, so making sure that the kids have kind of an extra bounce in their step physically and also having their heads clear mentally is a big thing going into those last couple weeks in the season.

Number two is having a real understanding of what you’re trying to get done as a team. What your strengths are what you’re trying to avoid on both ends of the floor, and again, knowing who you are as a team and really having a definitive idea of what you’re trying to get done is a key as well.

And then finally, obviously preparing for your opponent. I think for us, a lot of it’s just really focusing on personnel, knowing their strengths and weaknesses. Obviously you want to have a good idea of what they’re going to run offensively and defensively as well. But understanding personnel at that time of year is definitely a key thing.  Not only their starters, but some key contributors off the bench as well.

[00:05:20] Mike Klinzing: Erik Buehler, Chatfield Senior High School, Littleton, Colorado.

[00:05:27] Erik Buehler: Hey, what’s going on Hoop Heads? This is Erik Buehler from Chatfield Senior High, and this month we were asked what we do to prepare our teams for tournament play. I think one of the keys is get healthy, stay healthy.

We usually don’t practice too long. A lot more mental reps with film and kind of chalk talk, walking through what we want to do with our game plans, getting some short, intense practices in, making sure that we’re just cleaning up all the little things that we might be struggling with or what we need.

To execute in, in those games and against those opponents that we play. Lots of film study and just probably playing a team you haven’t played yet since you’re getting into the tournament and there’s no league play anymore. So that’s what we do. Hope everyone out there is doing well and we’ll talk to you guys next time.  Thanks.

[00:06:20] Mike Klinzing: Joe Harris, Lake Chelan High School, Lake Chelan, Washington.

[00:06:26] Joe Harris: Hello, Hoop Heads. This is Joe Harris from Lake Chelan High School with this month’s round table question, asking us coaches. What are three things that we would do to help prepare our teams for tournament play? As we began to approach the postseason part of our schedule, there were several things that we would do to get our teams ready for the tourney.

First and foremost, we wanted to keep our players as fresh as possible, both physically and mentally, in the postseason. And to do that, we would shorten our practices down. Normal practice time would be an hour 45, two hour long. We’d shorten that down to an hour, hour and a half max in the post season.

Number two we work on things in the half court as try to dial things in a little bit, add some short competitive toughness drills. As we wanted to emphasize that each possession has a little more value in the post season. And the third thing that we do as we prepared for post season. We just went back to the foundation of our program.

We wanted to reinforce the processes that had gotten us to this point. And then we needed to rely on each other more than ever. I hope this is something that has helped you and best of luck. If your season winds down and you prepare for the post season. Thanks again.

[00:07:39] Mike Klinzing: Jeff Huber Elyria Catholic High School in Elyria, Ohio.

[00:07:46] Jeff Huber: Hi, this is Jeff Huber of Elyria Catholic Boys Basketball and this month’s Round Table question is, what are three keys to preparing your team for post-season play? I think the first and foremost. Key is to continue to have competitive practices. I know a lot of programs scale back the volume of work they do as they get towards the end of the season.

And I think there’s a lot to be said for that in terms of keeping players fresh. But while you might dial back the volume, I think it’s really important that you keep up the level of competitiveness. One, I think it makes your practices more fun and more exciting for players. And two it keeps them sharp for the types of environments that they’re going to see once the postseason arrives.

A second area I think is crucial is continuing to work on skill. You know, when you, when you do start to shorten your practices and as you get to the end of the season, there could be a tendency to cut out skill work and almost exclusively focus on team concepts. And while that’s important, at the day, if you got better players, you’re going to have a better team.

So still finding time to work on your shooting, on your finishing, on your decision making. I think that’s a second key aspect. And then finally, I would say, make it some time to work on special situations. One, players enjoy these. It’s kind of a fun thing to intersperse into your practice. And two, it also prepares them for situations that they may come across in games.

You certainly don’t want to get into a key tournament game. And come across a situation that you haven’t really worked on. So by preparing for as much as you can in practice, it gives your players confidence when they see those situations in the game. So those would be three things that I would focus on as we get down the stretch run here.  Thanks.

[00:09:19] Mike Klinzing: Bob Krizancic, Mentor High School, Mentor, Ohio.

[00:09:25] Bob Krizancic: Coach K, Mentor High School, three important factors for our program when we enter tournament play. One, we shorten practices. Talk about great execution and business like in 75 to 90 minutes. Two, we watch a lot more films. We look at tendencies, players, and teams.

And three, we really work on end of game situations. 10 seconds, 5 seconds, 90 seconds. Up, down, so many, foul trouble, the whole bit because as you get into the tournament, there’s going to be close games. Best of luck to everyone.

[00:10:05] Mike Klinzing: Raul Placeres from Maryville College.

[00:10:11] Raul Placeres: Three keys to preparing your team for tournament play. Number one, being mentally and physically fresh. I think this time of the year is really important for your players. To have both of those having their legs under them being mentally fresh in regards to being excited about the week’s tournament and what can be accomplished in this important week.

Next, hopefully by now as a coach and as a staff, you’ve basically defined the roles of those guys on your team that are getting the great bulk of those minutes. Out on the floor. And lastly, preparation by now this will be the third time you can potentially face one of your conference opponents.

So having the proper adjustments in mind knowing they’re out of time outsets special situation stuff is really important. But again, being physically and mentally fresh, having roles defined. And just being as prepared as you can possibly be, I think, gives you a very, very good chance to play your and be your best self during tournament time.

This is Coach Placeres, Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Maryville College.

[00:11:24] Mike Klinzing: Matthew Raidbard, author of Lead Like a Pro.

[00:11:31] Matt Raidbard: Hey, Hoop Heads Nation, this is Matt Raidbard back here with you for another Hoop Heads Round Table. And even though it isn’t quite yet March, I’m still extremely excited to be talking about this month’s question. What are three keys to preparing your team for tournament play? You know, in Coach Speak, we talk a lot about one game at a time, one game at a time, focus on the next game.

But when it comes to February, when it comes to March, that’s even more important. And that’s why I think in preparation. It’s gotta be one day at a time, one practice at a time, one play at a time, one step at a time. Break it down as much as you can to those fundamentals, and then build it up to that one game at a time.

But you can’t win that one game unless you win that one half, unless you win those plays, and that’s why building it up is so important to success in February and March. The other keys I think are really managing the load on your players and understanding that it’s a long season that you need to be tapering but also peaking, right?

So really hone in on what are the things that we need to be emphasizing? What are we really going to be going to? What’s our bread and butter? What are some new tricks you want to pull out of our sleeve come February and March to help us be successful, keep people on their toes, but not sacrificing all of those things that we do so well, right?

Focus on your identity. Keep hammering it home every day in practice. Keep working on it, make sure that you’re managing your athlete’s load, but also still pushing them to keep that competitive edge and that hunger, right? It’s a fine balance, but it’s so important that you strike the right one so that your athletes are in top physical shape, you’ve reduced injuries as much as possible, and you’re peaking without putting on too much load trying to prepare for every different scenario.

And then the last key to succeeding in March, to me, is all about culture and attitude. You need to have that belief that when you get to February and March, you are going to be the one standing. You are going to do whatever it takes. It’s never going to be perfect. Don’t focus on it being perfect. You don’t need to play perfect to win.

Even the Cinderella’s don’t have to play perfect to win, but they do have to believe. They have to believe in the lead up, they have to believe in practice. They have to believe all season. They have to believe in the last summer when they were putting that work in that translated to this season. If you’ve got that belief, you’ve got that strong culture and you’ve got that positive attitude where everybody’s rowing in the same direction.

Everybody believes in one another and you’ve been cultivating that all year. You’re going to put yourself in the best possible position to succeed at this time of year, which is the greatest time of year. NCAA tournament time.

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Nate Sanderson, Thrive on Challenge.

[00:15:35] Nate Sanderson: Hey Mike, this is Nate Sanderson from Thrive on Challenge. You know, we’re right in the midst of our postseason tournament. We just started on Saturday, a couple of days ago, getting ready for a regional semifinal here coming up in a couple of days. And you asked this question of what are three keys for us to postseason?

I’ll share a couple of things that we’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of over the years. First of all, when our regular season wraps up. We have a team dinner before we start post season play, before our first round regional game, that we call the Scout Team Dinner, and there’s a couple fun traditions that we have there number one, our rotation players make dinner for our reserves that have been on the scout team for most of the season in practice, just as a way to sort of Honor their commitment and the value that they brought to helping us to prepare for our opponents throughout the season.

And obviously that becomes really important that you get a good look from your scout team in the post season. But just doing that as a, as a offering of gratitude for their commitments to whatever the team needs has been really good just to bring us together and I think refocus them on.

The importance of their contributions and allows us to really appreciate them as we’re getting ready to get into that postseason journey. Another thing that we do at the scout team dinner is our seniors will kind of give a short presentation. They’ll each talk a little bit about just what basketball has meant to them over the course of their career.

We really encourage them to think of their basketball timeline and going back to Second, third or fourth grade when they started playing and what the game itself has meant to them, and then talking about what the program and their experience in their four levels in high school, four years in high school has meant to them.

And then finally having them just share a little bit about this year’s team. And that’s been a really cool moment for our seniors to just appreciate their teammates and coaches. And I think it gives perspective for the rest of the team to understand. Number one, if we’ve done this right, it should mean a lot.

And I think that’s positioned us in a place where freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, they can’t understand what it feels like to be a senior. There’s a different sense of urgency when you’re going into these elimination games, knowing that your basketball career, this thing that you’ve loved and enjoyed for so long, May be coming to an end.

And I think that gives us an appreciation that allows us to play for each other. As much as we’re playing to win and survive and advance in the tournament and, and maybe get a state berth, our kids really start to coalesce around the idea that Peyton Simpson loves basketball. She’s been playing since first grade.

You know, she’s going to go on and play in college, but. She’s had a tremendous experience in our program over four years and doesn’t want it to end. And when you start to see that, I think that’s really motivating for the rest of our team to want to play for her and to play for our other seniors so that they can stay in this uniform and that this team can stay together for as long as possible.

Now, a second thing that we’ll do at some point, and this is typically in the first practice, after our last regular season game, we will be very deliberate about talking about how practices change, how roles may change in the postseason, and what’s expected from everyone. And so, we’ll talk about for our scout team, our reserves.

Like they aren’t going to get reps anymore. You know, they’re not going to get into our offense. They’ll get some shots in practice. But for the most part, their job is to give the best representation possible of our upcoming opponent. And we give them kind of the analogy of they’re like the flight simulator.

We talk about how the U S army in the 1930s, when they were delivering mail and, and they were flying airplanes all over the country, but they didn’t really have a training program on the ground. And they were losing all these pilots because they would get into bad weather or they would lose their way geographically and crash in the mountains or they would crash on landings because they didn’t have experience and when they made a mistake in the air, it cost them their life.

And so it wasn’t until the army adopted the flight simulator where they could practice these things on the ground and if they crashed into a mountain or if they made a wrong turn or they forgot to put the landing gear down, they weren’t dead. They could learn from their mistakes without being dead.

And really, that’s what we’re looking for from our scout team in practice is the best look possible so that we can turn the ball over, we can allow open shots, but we can see it and we can fix it before we’re up in the air, so to speak, when it really matters in that game. We’ll also talk a little bit about our bench and rotation players.

We’re very clear that we’re going to substitute to win the game. We’re going to substitute to stay alive. And we’ve had a relatively consistent rotation throughout most of the season, where our starters are getting roughly 24 to 28 minutes, and our three bench players are getting 8 to 12 minutes a game.

I would hope for that to be able to continue. But if we have to play our starters for 30 minutes to stay alive, we’re going to do it. And everybody has to be okay with that. And I think that we assume that as coaches, but we’re very deliberate about them understanding that this is live or die and we will substitute to live for as long as possible. The other thing that we’ll talk to our players about in this meeting is the things that they control that could have an impact on their performance. And that’s particularly off the court. So we talked to them about the importance of hydration. We talked to them, the importance of sleep.

We talk about not hanging out with sick people, right? Like we’re going to be at our best when we have. Our eight player rotation is perfectly healthy, perfectly rested, and perfectly hydrated. That gives us the best chance to reach our potential. And it may seem like a little thing, but there’s plenty of science out there, there’s plenty of research studies out there, that demonstrate that dehydration and a lack of sleep can have a statistically significant effect on an individual’s to perform certain athletic tasks, including shooting, which is A bit of a big deal when you get into the postseason.

And finally, Mike, when it comes to just dealing with the pressure of those win or go home games, we spend a lot of time over the last couple of weeks of the season, really from senior night on, talking with our team about what they appreciate most, what they enjoy the most about being part of this team, what they will miss the most when the season inevitably does come to an end.

And the reason that we have them reflect on that Early or before the season is actually over is because we want to be able to position these postseason games as an opportunity for them to enjoy those moments while they’re still there. And that’s a phrase that we use a lot with them, a lot with our seniors.

We know we have a semi final game coming up in two days. The game after that’s not guaranteed, but we know we have two more practices together. We know we have one more game together. We know we have one more team dinner together, and we don’t want to miss those moments. We don’t want to miss what we’ve enjoyed about being together and about the way that we practice and how much fun it is to be around each other.

We have at least three more days to enjoy that. And I don’t want to miss that thinking about what happens if we don’t win in that semifinal game. I want to be present. I want our players to be present and we really try to again, help position them into that place by getting them to reflect on the things that they’ll miss before they’re gone.

And other than that, just like most coaches out there, we’re big into routines. Lots of routines. The game, game day routine never changes. Our seats in film never change. Our bus seats never change. Our pregame meals don’t change. Like, we love the comfort that comes with those rituals and the consistency of our preparation and Hopefully by the time we get to the postseason, we’re well ingrained in how we do things, but we take, again, a lot of comfort and a lot of confidence in our process, and we want that to be consistent.

Regardless of who we’re playing, regardless of where we’re at in the tournament we really take a lot of pride in how we prepare, and I think our kids have a confidence level in that. That certainly we’ve had good results, at least this year during the regular season, and they believe, to a player, that what we do works.

And if we just keep doing what we’re doing, the game is fair. The game is going to reward the better team. And so we just do our best to play our best when it matters the most. And the game’s going to honor that effort if we are, in fact, the better team.

[00:24:11] Mike Klinzing: Don Showalter, USA Basketball.

[00:24:17] Don Showalter: Hi, Don Showalter here from USA Basketball. Three keys to preparing your team for tournament action as you get ready to do that. First of all, number one is spend some time on special situations. Time and score is going to be really important as the games get further on in the tournament, they will get, they will get much closer and be more competitive.

So you need to really spend time on time and score, out of bounds plays, crucial situations that may arise during the game. Number two is. Do not slack off on skill development. I think one of the reasons that a team always continues to do so well in tournaments is because they still spend time each day in practice with skill development.

And I think that really helps the team as they pursue going far in the tournaments. And I think number three, lastly, I think communication emphasis is really important in tournament time. You know, what to communicate, how to communicate it on the court, but also off the court. I think you need to have every member of your team into the what’s going on on the court, help with communication from the bench.

And then help with communications on the floor. So those three things I think are going to be really important in, in determining how well you do in tournaments. Thank you.

[00:25:46] Mike Klinzing: John Shulman, University of Alabama, Huntsville, and the 720 Sports Group.

[00:25:53] John Shulman: Yes, this is John Shulman, head coach at Alabama Huntsville.

And this month’s question is what are the three keys to preparing your team for tournament play? It’s a great question. We’re all kind of heading into tournament play right now. We’ve been really fortunate to be good at tournament play. I would say the number one key is, are the, you better make sure your team’s still having fun playing.

As coaches, we think there’s nothing other than basketball and there’s nothing in life other than trying to make it to the next round of the tournament. Your kids are tired. They’re fatigued. In high school, they may be ready to go to track and field, or maybe ready to go to play baseball, or ready to go to spring break in college at spring break.

The weather starts getting nice outside. You better make sure your kids are having fun. Because if they’re miserable, you’re going to lose in tournament play. Period. So, I think you better keep things light. We played Wiffle Ball actually last week. Just to take a day and a good mental health day. So, I would say number one, you better keep your mind fresh and your legs fresh.

If you can keep your mind and legs fresh, you do have a chance in tournament play. Two, I don’t I do think you have to have a couple Tricky things in your bag, but don’t get too tricky. You better, you better be good at something. And you know, I firmly believe that in tournament play teams get tighter.

Teams get teams are, first of all, they’re tired, but they get tighter. They get more nervous. I think you can play some zone in tournaments. I think you can our three non negotiables that we’ve had are no free throws, no second shots. And no points in the paint. If you can do that in tournament play, you really got a chance to be good because people are going to have a tougher time making a bunch of threes on you in tournament play.

One, they’re fatigued. Two, they’re tight and people get nervous in tournaments. So, so that’s what stick with what got you there. And, and then you go out to throw in a rank or two off and under OB play or off a side OB play and see if you can still a bucket here and there, because most games in tournament play are going to come down to the wire.

So just see if you can still a basket here, a basket there. And just I mean, you can over prep, you can just try to be concerned about you and your team and don’t be so caught up in trying to make sure that you’re consumed with everything else that tournament play goes fast and you play one bad game and it’s over.

So be concerned about you. Make sure you stay fresh. Make sure your kids know that you love them and you appreciate them. And then go for it. And risk it all. That’s what we talk about in tournament play. Risking it all. You know, rip open your chest, expose your heart, and risk it all. You know, cause you’re not assured of the next day.

It could be the last time you put uniforms on. So risk everything you got and go for it. And then you’re going to have to live with the results and be able to do that. And if you risk it all, then you can do that because if you risk it all, just be honest, then you can reach a level of ecstasy when you win that big one.

But you’re going to be devastated if you don’t. And that’s what it’s all about. It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about going for it. And if you risk it all, you’ve gone for it. So hope this helps. Good luck in tournament play. Finish strong, keep people off foul line, rebound that ball. Keep people out of the paint, you got a chance to have some success.

And in turn offensively, get to the foul line, get to the paint and get a second shot. Hope this helps. Good luck. Appreciate Mike and what he’s doing for the basketball community. Thanks.

[00:29:52] Mike Klinzing: Thanks for checking out this month’s Hoop Heads Podcast Round Table. We’ll be back next month with another question for our all-star lineup of coaches.

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[00:30:51] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.