“THE TRIPLE DOUBLE” #22 WITH ROB BROST, BOLINGBROOK (IL) HIGH SCHOOL BOYS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 1183
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The 22nd edition of “The Triple Double” with Rob Brost, Bolingbrook (IL) High School Boys’ Basketball Head Coach. Rob, Mike, & Jason hit on three basketball topics in each episode of “The Triple Double”.
- Rob’s favorite part of game day other than the game
- Something new Rob has added to his program this season
- Guarding ball screens
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What We Discuss with Rob Brost
- Rob’s favorite part of game day other than the game
- Something new Rob has added to his program this season
- Guarding ball screens
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TRANSCRIPT FOR “THE TRIPLE DOUBLE” #22 WITH ROB BROST, BOLINGBROOK (IL) HIGH SCHOOL BOYS’ BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 1183
[00:00:00] Narrator: The Hoop Heads Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.
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[00:01:14] Mike Klinzing: Coaches. You’ve got a game plan for your team, but do you have one for your money? That’s where Wealth4Coaches comes in. Each week, we’ll deliver simple, no fluff financial tips made just for coaches. Whether you’re getting paid for camps, training sessions, or a full season, Wealth4Coaches helps you track it, save it, and grow it.
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Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight. But I am pleased to welcome back in for Triple Double number 22. Rob Brost head boys basketball coach at Bolingbrook High School in Bolingbrook, Illinois. Rob, welcome back in number 22. Here we go,
[00:02:17] Rob Brost: man. 22. That is, that’s a lot. I think we’re starting to do more without Jason than we are with Jason. So, I hope he can get back with us maybe for 23.
[00:02:30] Mike Klinzing: 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 Klinzing here with my cohost Jason Sunkle.
It felt completely foreign ’cause I hadn’t said that with him in a long time. Now that he’s getting his PhD or master or whatever, he is getting in 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 numbered.
So it’s few and far between when I can get him to come out. I even texted him tonight at like 10 minutes before we’re going to start. I’m like, bro is on tonight. He ghosted me, man. Nothing. So we’ll see. I’ll keep working on him. We’ll see if we can get him back.
[00:03:13] Rob Brost: I’m a little disappointed that I can’t move the needle with him, but he probably, I know we tried.
[00:03:23] Mike Klinzing: I gave it a shot. 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.
[00:03:48] Rob Brost: Well, this is, this might come off a little, I don’t know, different to some people, I guess. 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.
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 an emergency or something like that. I try to just be by myself for that little bit of time.
[00:05:24] Mike Klinzing: Ideal world, where does that take place?
[00:05:27] Rob Brost: Hope, hopefully at my house. Hopefully at my house. But when we’re on the road, sometimes it’s in a hotel room, sometimes, 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 10 minutes before the warmup gets over and just sit. Myself in the locker room and then that obviously is a shorter period of time and obviously I’m not going to try to fall asleep or take a little snooze at at that point. But I like to just kinda be by myself and 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 assistance are going over game plans with me. No players are asking anything where I can just, just do that and get ready.
[00:06:23] Mike Klinzing: Has your team played any number of afternoon games and how does that affect sort of that pregame prep?
I know when I was playing and when I was coaching that I always loved playing like a Saturday afternoon game at two because you eliminated that time that you were talking about in terms of just sitting around waiting. ’cause again, your whole day. On game day right, is just about the game. Right. You’re just trying to get to the game.
Yeah. And when that game’s at seven or seven 30, it takes a long time for that to get there. And I always loved playing a two o’clock Saturday afternoon game. ’cause 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.
[00:07:10] Rob Brost: Well, it, it just depends on some of the bigger events we go to. we might be in the afternoon or the evening. And so normally if we’re playing around here on a Saturday on a re in a regular game, it’s usually probably five o’clock at night, a little bit earlier than a Friday night game.
Not in the afternoon, but when we go to St. Louis, when we go to other places where we have to travel, then we certainly might have a, an afternoon game. And this year coming up in the Chicago Elite Classic, there’s national competition there. We’re playing an 11:00 AM game. So we really are going to have to adjust for that.
the, the part of me being by myself, if that doesn’t happen, it’s not like I 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 I try to do that and if I get a chance to do it, it’s great. If I don’t. Then I just go with it and get as prepared as possible for the game.
[00:08:24] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, it 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 right 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.
[00:09:01] Rob Brost: Yes. And a lot of times on game day 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 a text from my ad or a text the sophomore bus is late or the freshmen are going to be late so that’s going to push our game. all of those things that happen in high school basketball.
But that’s all part of it. So obviously we roll with the punches and then, and then deal with the things we have to deal with.
[00:09:31] Mike Klinzing: Alright, 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.
[00:10:00] Rob Brost: 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 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. 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 right away with their season and with full functionality and all of those things.
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. 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.
[00:11:51] Mike Klinzing: Your guys started talking about the hype video, yet, what they want to do.
[00:11:55] Rob Brost: Yeah, well my principal said, Hey, should I ask the guys about the hype video now?
And we’ll just start getting out? And 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 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.
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. when we take the floor or one starting lineups get introduced, or whatever it is that we decide to do it.
So I’m excited about that, and it gives. Some credence to the guys that really got our program to the level that it’s at. And some of those guys are, are now coaching with me and coaching for me 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 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 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 the day before a game or, or something like that.
[00:13:38] Mike Klinzing: 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. Yeah. 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,
[00:14:11] Rob Brost: yeah,
[00:14:11] Mike Klinzing: 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.
[00:14:25] Rob Brost: Oh yeah. In front
[00:14:26] Mike Klinzing: 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 whatever, get a piece of plexiglass and I immediately am like, I don’t really want drive to Home Depot to go buy plexiglass. Yeah. 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?
Yes. So the first thing I get is, the first thing I get is one of those plastic containers of salad. 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, this is great. Yeah, we can’t, yeah. She’s like, no, we can’t. we’re not going to use that.
Then I filed an old cd, and so I had the C Clear. Get a little wrestling in
[00:15:15] Rob Brost: there.
[00:15:15] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. And so I had the CD case. That was the next thing I pulled out. I’m like, look, this’ll cover over the lens perfectly. I’m like, we can do this. And she’s like, no. And eventually we settled on a brand new, in its wrapping.
Frame that had a piece had the piece of glass that you could take out of like an eight 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, right?
Yeah. 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,
[00:16:00] Rob Brost: yeah.
[00:16:00] Mike Klinzing: Is dunking. And I told her that we should have our best player who’s. She’s five three, but she’s an incredible player.
And I’m like, we have to, you have to get the basket lower so that get the right camera angle so nobody can tell how low the basket is. Yeah. 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 man if, if they don’t have enough on their own already.
[00:16:33] Rob Brost: No, I feel like the Raiders are way behind in hype video, so I feel like, well, we need to, we need to maybe get some more ideas or maybe we should just make it a couple of my guys have been like, Hey, when I get introduced for the starting lineup.
Can I do like the flex 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’re starting? Like what are whatcha you? But anyway, so just some funny stuff has come from the video board conversation. Like I coach. Do you think they can.
Show a picture of me making a three when I get introduced, I was like, you’ve never made a three pointer in your career, so, and you shouldn’t be shooting any. So, so anyways, it’s, it’s brought up some, some good fodder already for what we’re going to 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 and everything that comes with it.
[00:17:55] Mike Klinzing: You picked out all the movie clips and the little the, the little short videos when the other team misses a free throw. You can have the ah, you can have the sound effects and all the different things that go along with the with the video board.
I’ll say,
[00:18:09] Rob Brost: yeah.
[00:18:09] Mike Klinzing: So yeah, the clank, yeah, those are always, those are always good. I will say, whatever you do, you’re going to have a hard time to topping the University of North Carolina’s hot 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 coming in and highlights. Somebody comes on and says. Whatever, it’s Ed Coda coming on and saying, this is Carolina basketball.
It’s Marcus page. Coming on and saying, this is Carolina basketball. It’s Tyler borough 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.
[00:19:30] Rob Brost: No, I’m pretty sure that we’re not going to be able to get Michael Jordan to say, this is Raider basketball.
[00:19:37] Mike Klinzing: Probably not from the end of our hot video. 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 my shirt has the, and as I walked around and we went down and Carmichael where his.
Built after his career at North Carolina was over. And so went into Carmichael and just walked around the campus 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, ’cause again, when he was at North Carolina and whatever, 19. 82, 83, 84. I’m like, yeah, 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, yeah, 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. 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. Yes, 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’ve told them that, Hey, someday your likeness is going to be plastered all over this campus 5 million times.
What would’ve 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, it, it couldn’t have made any sense. And then 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. Yeah. That he sent, that he sent to Jordan in between like his freshman and sophomore, I think sophomore and junior year of things that he had to work on. And there was like a, again, like an eight a numbered list of eight things that you really have to try to become a better drib 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, and you and I are of the era where at some point we turned in assignments on a typewriter and not, yes, no doubt on a word. Processing document doubt 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. So Michael Jordan, but yeah, you’re, you’re not, you’re not topping the Michael Jordan. This is Carolina basketball. No. Hi. Hype video. It doesn’t get any better than that.
[00:22:46] Rob Brost: We’re definitely not topping that. And that’s an awesome experience and that is, that is a good, good story for sharing.
[00:22:55] Mike Klinzing: 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. Just kind of getting your thoughts on, on it in a, 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 at all things be well, and obviously there’s some different ways you may do it depending upon the other team’s personnel or 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 whatever direction you want to go with it. I
[00:23:50] Rob Brost: 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.
everybody is running ball screens of some form or fashion or something. E 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 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, . 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 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 pre proceeded to ball screen us in the middle third of the floor only ’cause they knew that’s what we were doing. And then they had just. Of the, so . That’s what I’m talking about, about the evolving and then even at halftime then obviously we made some adjustments. We could not trap, especially AJ in the middle third because he’s a willing passer this, that, and, 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 guard ball screens in the middle third. We were, I don’t know if naive wa 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 Team two 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 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 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 has 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. is going to change individually, but those two parameters are going to stay the same, or those two standards of what we want are going to stay the same.
[00:28:20] Mike Klinzing: How does that look then in practice in terms of, yeah, good.
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, at a given moment in a season or with a particular opponent?
[00:28:41] Rob Brost: 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. 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.
And then we will start defending those in shortsighted games. And then we will explain what we want and then we’ll start playing. And it, 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 step, 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 shortsighted games we will take double high post action, for example, and we’ll play three on three with the 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 ice, depending on what third of the floor it is 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. ’cause teams are defending us, obviously with multiple coverages as well with the posts or with the ball screen action. And particularly this year with with our point guard being one of our obviously a primary ball hanger, 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 have 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 shortsighted games.
To directly answer your question, we’ll play shortsighted 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 shortsighted 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 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 just 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. ’cause 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 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.
Oh, 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 shortsighted 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, are having problems defending 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, 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. ’cause 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. 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. You 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
[00:35:16] Mike Klinzing: he’d score for you during those games.
[00:35:18] Rob Brost: Yeah, either our manager or sometimes he gets too flustered sometimes and I’ll have an assistant coach do it. Because our guys are like, no, no, that that wasn’t an extra pass. That wasn’t, and 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.
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 shortsighted game with ball screen coverage. So that’s what it says, but the game is whatever I make it. And so I can tell you what we’re going to do on our first practice already. Like we’re going to play a ton of shortsighted games, three on three and four on four, 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 at some point in every practice we’re playing shortsighted games for majority of the of the time.
[00:36:39] Mike Klinzing: 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 that aren’t directly involved in the play. And clearly, depending on kind upon the kind of coverage that you’re throwing at a team, what those guys on the backside are doing.
It can be different, right? If you’re going to, if you’re going to, if you’re going to go out and you’re going to blitz a ball screen, well, you can’t have three guys who aren’t involved in that ball screen sitting back and just relaxing, right? Yes. They have to be rotating and moving and doing those kinds of things. So I, I can see how the system of awarding points can get guys to move and react on the backside.
Yes. And then, but how do you guys talk?
[00:37:30] Rob Brost: 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. The tag is incorrect, then that’s 10 points instead of just five, 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, 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. The drill and the coverages, but then you’re layering competitiveness on it. And then we keep score of how many games each P person wins, not only for a practice, but for the entire season. So for example, fre bro 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. This is you, man. This is how much you win in practice. And so sometimes we’ll make the teams different and all of those things, and sometimes we’ll stack the teams. Sometimes we’ll put the guy that has the leading score in wins with some subpar players, et cetera.
So 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.
[00:39:22] Mike Klinzing: 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 doubt screen, no doubt. End up doing. ’cause those three players are asleep or they’re just
[00:39:46] Rob Brost: yes,
[00:39:47] Mike Klinzing: hugging onto their own player and they’re not seeing what’s going on with,
[00:39:50] Rob Brost: there’s no doubt, the
[00:39:51] Mike Klinzing: 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. When two players are involved in a ball screen, like they, 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, yeah, they’ll get out of a stance or they’ll just look away for a second, or they just will lose sight of where their player is and all of a sudden. Somebody’s getting an easy layup because they just weren’t
[00:40:52] Rob Brost: Yes.
[00:40:52] Mike Klinzing: Engaged. And I think keeping those other players aren’t it. Yes. Is really important.
[00:40:57] Rob Brost: 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.
dribble handoff to a high ball screen, Spain action where there’s a high ball screen, and then a back screen. So 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 have to start defending double actions because most really good teams aren’t running double actions because they’re playing other really good teams that can guard multiple actions. And so it’s, it’s a chess game, chess to a certain extent, but on the other hand, it’s the competitiveness really comes.
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 mess it up, just fix it. Like fix it as fast as you can. Don’t p 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 have to go back and help them figure it out. But usually they’re so competitive that they will figure it out because they either don’t want to disappoint or they’re just all of the things that I talked about earlier about layering your practice.
[00:43:15] Mike Klinzing: 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 girls 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.
Yes, 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 ’cause 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. 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. ’cause 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. 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 have 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 stand still 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 outta the lane and did we not give up a wide open standstill three as a result of what we did? If we accomplish those two things and we’ve done what we want it to do outta the ING coverage, regardless of, regardless of, of what it was initially, right.
[00:45:39] Rob Brost: So there’s no doubt about it. And 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. Any of those things.
Do you tell him 10 fingers to the sky? Do you tell him two hands up? What? I don’t tell him 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. Especially old school coaches don’t really like that.
They like to control it and then 10 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 outta 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, no. Am I chopping my steps or, 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, no, come on coach.
Like we have to give them like some. Parameters. I, and I would say I am giving them the parameters. No th 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 Gross philosophy.
They can just buy the videos and, and do that.
[00:47:22] Mike Klinzing: There you go.
[00:47:23] Rob Brost: Yeah. The
[00:47:23] Mike Klinzing: result is the pro, the, the result is the process. The process is the result. Yes. In, in, in a lot of ways. Right. It’s just all of that. We’ve have to, we’ve have to. We’ve have to get to that. I wanted 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 a 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? Yeah. 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
[00:48:12] Rob Brost: on a daily basis? It, 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 one coaches there. And then I’ll switch the teams up and they can play and I would say about halfway through.
One of the open gyms, one of the division one 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 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 of those things and you see the top coaches do it all the time and that’s what they do. And so. 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 pretty successful for us to, to this point.
[00:50:12] Mike Klinzing: 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 whatever. I’m better than this guy, or I’m better. And hey man, you’re winning. Percentage is 15% and this guy’s winning percentage is nine 92%. Well, guess what? At some point, regardless of what we’re measuring or how we’re measuring it, if one guy’s winning it at 92% clip and the other guy’s winning at a 15% clip, there’s something, there’s something going on there.
We doubt.
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 doubt moment to moment doubt 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 have 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 doubt 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 though we 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 doubt. That’s what’s going to drive our team forward. And so 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 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 and come like, I have to close out.
I’m on, I’m on this side of the floor. I have to come up with my foot this way, or coach is going to yell at me. Doesn’t really matter if I figure out a way to stop the player. there 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.
No doubt. 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’s to forget what it’s like to be a player. No doubt. 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 players’ lens.
’cause 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.
[00:55:16] Rob Brost: 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 we play really fast and I get a ton of questions and emails from our videos about how you tell them to sprint the first three steps, and then stride step the when they get to half court and then turn and look.
No, 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 it’s, all of those things build on each other. And 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.
[00:56:30] Mike Klinzing: 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, it never goes the way we anticipate Rob. So we, that’s, it’s, we were, we were, we were through the fir we were through the first two topics today and I think like 18 minutes and then, right.
We decided, well, let’s go an extra 40 on the on the ball screen coverage. So good stuff tonight, Rob. I really appreciate it. Triple Double number 22 and to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we’ll catch you on our next episode. Thanks.
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[00:57:54] Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.