Jack’s Blog

Heading to Michael Jordan’s Flight School basketball camp.  This blog will return August 8 - undoubtedly, with some interesting camp stories.  

Read on Wednesday’s Yardbarker site, a comedic interview between The Office’s Rainn Wilson and the Los Angeles Clippers’ Blake Griffin.  Although most of the conversation was in a humorous vein, there were a few insightful moments.  One, in particular, was about “playing on instinct.”  When Wilson asked the Clips’ human highlight film if he ever thought about some of the moves he made, Griffin mentioned how he liked to play on instinct, about how commentators would make comments regarding guys “thinking too much.”  He continued expounding on his ideas, mentioning how veteran guys who might have gotten slower can still be effective because their instincts are better.

The first thought that entered my mind was a quote from my friend and former boss, Jerry Tarkanian.  It was a philosophy he used that worked quite well for decades in a incredibly successful career (which ought to have had him already inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame):

“The more players think, the slower their feet get.”

There are differing styles of coaches just as there are different styles of coaching.  As with the varied ways coaches choose to attempt to win games strategically, the overall coaching philosophy of reaching players and bringing out the best they have to give crosses just as wide a spectrum.When I first got involved in athletics, the most popular coaching style undoubtedly was the one based on fear and respect of authority figures.  Being a “Baby Boomer,” I am part of a generation who saw their fathers rush to serve their country in World War II and be enormously proud of it (mine included).  Speaking at coaching clinics, I often made mention that the difference between the players of my day and the players of today is that, if I ever went home and told my father the coach yelled at me, my dad would “dress me down” and wonder what I did to make the coach so upset (to the point that punishment may have followed), while when today’s player informs his father (or mother) the coach yelled at him (or her), the parent immediately starts searching for the lawyer’s number.

The coaches of this breed usually shared a mantra.  It is, “Tear them down so we can build them back up.”  Those who experienced the most success employing this method are John Thompson, Bob Knight and Pat Summitt - each a Hall-of-Fame Coach, the last of whom is the current leader in career wins.  Each of the three were known for their unquestioned authority and Pat, whom I got to know well during my seven years in Big Orange Country and whom I consider the best coach - man or woman - I’ve ever seen (keep in mind, I coached with and against some of the nation’s best over 30 years), is still famous for her “Stare.”  Many a player and assistant of hers have told me you don’t want to be on the receiving end of IT (caps intended).

A similar style is the coach whose number one key to success lies in the toughness of the team.  Examples of this type range from Billy Martin and Woody Hayes to Bob Huggins and Tom Izzo.  Every name mentioned truly believed/believes in the saying, “A team takes on the personality of its coach” and consider that to be a bonafide compliment.

Maybe in a class by himself for winning the way he did was Vince Lombardi who religiously felt that all players should be treated equally and as one of his star players confirmed, “Coach Lombardi treated each of us the same - like dogs.”  Consider, also, that he might be believed to be the greatest football coach of all-time.

Another popular style is that of the coach who gives his/her players the utmost respect as people, realizing the team is going to be only as good as the players on it perform.  This is not a new philosophy.  It was successfully used by Dean Smith, Tommy Lasorda, Jerry Tarkanian (a coach I worked under who excelled in people skills ) and Tony Dungy.  Modern versions of this coach are Sean Payton, Doc Rivers and Brad Stevens.

Which method is the best method is an easy question to answer.  It’s the one in which the style suits the coach’s personality.  In other words, “To thine own self be true” is a perfect fit for one to decide which type of coach to be.

The one trait that all these highly successful coaches had in common was that they all truly cared about their players.  In addition, there are two other areas I think must be mentioned.  One is that it’s difficult (although maybe not impossible) for a coach to be successful if his or her ego is out of control.  However, the other is a virtual lock for the unsuccessful coach (especially one in charge of adults) and that is you’re digging an awfully deep hole, one which you may never be able to extricate yourself from, if you choose to motivate by humiliating people.  Because, as Lord Chesterfield remarked:

“He makes people pleased with him by making them first pleased with themselves.”

Out of town on business.  The blog will return Tuesday.

Hall-of-Fame coach Larry Brown used to say high school coaching is the purest form of teaching the game of basketball.  In California, high school coaches are allowed to work with their players year round.  While this can be an invaluable time for coaches and their teams, overzealous members of the profession can, unwittingly, cross the line and put undue pressure on their players - and themselves.

It’s June and every weekend there are tournaments (whether high school or AAU) in which teams can play up to six-eight games.  I’ve found it to be true that when kids are in the gym, they don’t get into trouble.  Recently, I spoke with John Welch, an assistant with the Denver Nuggets (and with whom I served on Jerry Tarkanian’s Fresno State staff).  John is a true basketball junkie, known to those in the business as “Johnny Workout.”  He has strong feelings about kids playing too much.   Too much five-on-five, that is.  John, as well as many other coaching “lifers,” sees two problem areas.  One is not enough attention to fundamentals.  The other, a real bone of contention with Welch, is that kids don’t play enough one-on-one, two-on-two and three-on-three.

John’s belief, shared by many other veterans in the business, is that kids learn much better how to play when fewer guys are involved.  Young guys playing five-0n-five can hit a jumper, leak out for a breakaway layup and hit another shot during the course of the game, then “hide” - and think they played well.  Fewer guys in the game force kids to be more active participants - in pick and roll situations, help and recover, understanding offensive spacing, etc.

Another issue with five-on-five is that it’s a game - meaning score is kept.  Sure, score is also a factor in three-on-threes, etc. but there’s one difference: coaches aren’t involved.  Last night, a few of us “dinosaurs” watched high school competition and saw a varying amount of “coaching intensity”- ranging from coaches encouraging to others enraged.  Somewhere, someone made the claim that losing is unacceptable - ever!

That adage was adopted by a few coaches, some of which became extremely successful.  My feeling is that these coaches would have been successful anyway - without the excessive pressure these spring and summer games inflict upon teenagers.  Yet, due to this desire to excel, too many coaches are coaching like the outcomes actually mean something - and, unknowingly, burning out their most valuable assets.

The consensus among the group I was with is that:

“The only coaches in the country who need to be stressing out this late into June are the staffs of the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat.”

On TNT’s pregame show, former NBA greats Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Kevin McHale weighed in with their opinions of home court advantage.

Kenny’s take was that once teams get to the conference finals, they actually enjoy going into visiting arenas.  Charles said what the home court gives you is energy when you get tired, especially at the end of a game, but that no fan was going to score a basket.  Kevin claimed he liked playing on the road better than at home because all you have to do is play.

Many a team has fallen into the “we’re at home so we’re going to win” trap.  Ask Oklahoma City.  They were flat as could be in their home game Saturday night and fell behind by 30, only to scratch back and make it a game.  At this point in the season (as if you can ever afford to do it), it’s an impossible mountain to climb.

There have been studies done trying to determine the value of the home court and one study concluded the greatest effect it had was on the referees. I can recall Jerry Tarkanian, a coach whose teams seldom lost at home, telling Fresno State players prior to home games:

“Playing at home doesn’t guarantee a win; it only gives us an advantage.  It’s up to us to use that advantage.”

As I watched game after AAU game this past weekend (Alex’s team got to the finals of the tourney, meaning they played four games on Sunday alone), I noticed a disturbing trend in the play of many of the young guys.  For some reason, “taking the ball to the rack” has become the move of choice.

At one time, it was thought that the closer a player got the ball to the basket, the better chance there was for a score and/or the better chance to get fouled.  This wasn’t a bad philosophy.  Today, however, possibly because of kids possessing superior shot blocking skills, possibly because of coaches doing a better job of teaching help & rotate defense, possibly because of the popular “dribble, drive offense” which eschews the mid-range game, when a player puts the ball on the floor, it’s a near certainty he (I haven’t watched enough female hoops to comment but what I have seen, this problem is less prevalent) will take the ball to the basket - regardless of how little a chance he has of successfully scoring.

Kids are taking wild shots - double clutching, leaning into defenders in a pitiful attempt to draw a foul, taking the ball directly into the teeth of the defense with a near certainty of the shot being rejected - and when the ball doesn’t go in (surprise!), turning to the officials, expecting (begging) to be bailed out by a whistle.

Throughout the weekend, I’d see player after player, in Alex’s games or those I watched in between, throw up (pun intended) bad shots.  The memory of being in the Fresno State locker room at halftime, listening to Jerry Tarkanian frantically explaining this concept to the Bulldog players who were guilty taking bad shots was vivid in my mind.  Jerry’s poignant question kept resonating.  “Why do you guys keep taking bad shots?

What do you think - a miracle’s going to happen?”

The questions have been asked: How can a mid-major make it to the National Championship game two years in a row and is there anything for the “big boys” to be worried about after two mids make it to the Final Four?  Parity might be the short answer.  Dig a little deeper and we uncover another reason.

The reason the, for lack of a better term, BCS teams, are so well represented is that they get the best talent.  Duh!  They have the greater resources, whether they be in the area of recruiting budgets, travel, gear or facilities.  Consider this: While Butler and VCU certainly have very good players, there isn’t one player on either team who was seriously recruited by either UConn or Kentucky.  Conversely, there isn’t one player on the Huskies’ or the Wildcats’ roster that the Bulldogs or Rams could even get a home visit with.

So how can the so-called mid-majors compete with the BCSers head-to-head, especially at NCAA tourney time?  The theory is simply this: The two most important ingredients in post-season play are talent (which the big guys have) and experience, e.g. juniors and seniors (which are usually what the mid-majors squads consist of).

On the biggest stage, the smart money goes with talent.  But let’s not forget that, had Gordon Hayward’s shot been about three inches over, UConn would have just defeated the defending national champions.  Last night, it was clearly about the more skilled squad rising.  Alex Oriakhi scored inside where Andrew Smith (and even the usually relaible Matt Howard) couldn’t.  Kemba Walker has greater ability to make a twisting drive to the hoop than any of Butler’s guards.

So, on a night when neither club could hit the bull in the butt with a bass fiddle, the more talented team came out on top.  Will this trend continue?  Due to the one-and-done rule, probably.  However, if the Jared Sullingers of the basketball world start returning to campus and the Shelvin Macks leave early, the run may come to a screeching halt.

Than again, when schools like Butler and VCU pony up the cash (it’s being reported that VCU raised Shaka Smart’s base salary from $325K to $1.2 mil) to keep their coaches (who obviously love their players and their employers), the coaching edge no longer automatically belongs to the BCS leaders.

Rest assured that, at the very least, the NCAA won’t lock their players out.  Or make them play best of seven.  These NCAA tournament games have been exciting, if not works of beauty.  As Jerry Tarkanian summed up this year’s tournament:

“The games have been close, but not very well-played.”

It’s what you get when pitting less talented upperclassmen against very skilled youngsters.

If ever there was a coach’s coach, that person was Jerry Tarkanian.  One night an audience member at his radio show asked Jerry why he became a coach.  He pondered his answer for a few moments and, while others in attendance thought he was trying to find the exact correct words, finally said, “It’s the only thing I could do.”  It’s also the only thing he ever wanted to do.

In all the years I’ve known him, I can honestly say I’ve never heard him criticize another coach.  Obviously, he thinks some coaches do a better job than others but he will applaud a coach he doesn’t know just as much as one of his cronies.  He truly appreciates what coaches have to do and the way they do it.  He has strong beliefs regarding certain areas of coaching but understands that other coaches can be successful employing different systems.  And, differences in philosophies and all, he admires them.

I was a little surprised when, on the final Jerry Tarkanian Show of this season, he assessed the play in this year’s March Madness as follows: “I don’t think the overall play has been very good this year.  The games have been close, and exciting, but they haven’t been well-played.”  Notice there was no criticizing the coaching, just the quality of play.

During Roy Williams’ emotional press conference following the Tarheels’ loss to Kentucky for a spot in the Final Four, he made the statement that if a person wasn’t involved with either team, then it was just a great college basketball game. I remember thinking how that wasn’t really the case.  There were more traveling violations, charges, unforced turnovers and bad shots in that game than in most any contest in which either UNC or UK was involved.

For my money (check my 3/20/11 blog), the best played game of the tournament (at least of those I watched) was the Florida-UCLA tilt.  The others, I agree with Tark, have been nail biters and fun to watch, but not especially works of art.  Unless the team you were rooting for won.  As Goethe said:

“We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.”

The first time I met Jerry Tarkanian was the summer of 1974 when he brought his two sons, Danny & George, to our summer basketball camp at Washington State.  He was just starting to make UNLV a power, after turning Long Beach State into an NCAA tourney team, so when any of us coaches got a chance to talk hoops with him, we took advantage of it.

Throughout the years, I’d bump into Jerry, e.g. in 1976 when I was a grad assistant at Oregon and he brought his Runnin’ Rebels team to Eugene for the first and second rounds of the tournament (we were practicing for the NIT), during my stay at Tennessee in the 80s when we played them in the Las Vegas Classic and when I’d scout SEC teams playing in their Xmas tourneys and in the 90s when he was color commentator for our televised USC games.  Then, in 1995, I joined his staff at Fresno State as Director of Basketball Operations.

As I’ve mentioned in this blogspace on numerous occasions, his approach to the game was basic, but definitely his own.  Here are some of his ideas and how they compare to today’s game.

1) He didn’t believe kids got tired, especially during March Madness because of the extra length of the times out - which is why he’s not at all shocked that UConn was able to win five games in five days, and continue their stellar play.

2) He did not want his players to be “loose” before a game.  “I want their veins popping, their muscles bulging, I want them sweating, . . .”  That’s why, if he were coaching today, it would be doubtful his players would be dancing before a game.  After a win, turn up the volume and boogey.

3) I asked him earlier this season on his radio show what he thought about the three-point shot when it was introduced.  “I always liked it.  I thought it was a fairly easy shot - as long as the right guys were shooting it.”  As far as shooters going through slumps, “I’d always tell my ‘2 guard’ to keep shooting - even if he missed five in a row.  I’d say, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll make the next five.’ ”

4) Dealing with foul trouble: “I’d usually keep the guy in the game.  My philosophy was, ‘He’s not doing me any good sitting next to me.’ “  Naturally, if his team had a big lead, he might pull him, but he felt players usually understand how to play with fouls.

5) Although he employed different defenses throughout his career, his defensive philosophy was, “It’s better to play one defense great, than a lot of them average.”  Shaka Smart might want to debate that thought.

6) He used to equate the term “poise” with “cool guys,” so saying his team was poised was no compliment to Tark.

As can be seen, some of his beliefs are shared by today’s coaches, while others aren’t, meaning the old adage is still true:

“There are a lot of ways to skin a cat.”

As Jerry Tarkanian says so often, getting into the NCAA Tournament is a reward for a good season.  Losing in it, however, as every team but one does, almost seems like a punishment.  Although I never was part of an NCAA tourney squad as a player, I was an assistant on three different staffs that made a total of six NCAA tourney appearances (along with ten NITs - two of them Final Fours).  When your team is eliminated (yeah, in the NIT, too), you experience such an empty feeling, it’s hard for the fan, media member or any other person who’s never been in the arena as a competitor, to comprehend.

Recent cases in point: Jamie Dixon, head coach at Pitt, who’s done such a marvelous job at a football school, in a football city.  He’s raised the bar that his former boss, Ben Howland, set extremely high.  He had his club in the Top 5 all season.  Yet, he’s now being criticized as the guy who “can’t win the big one” because of another premature departure in the postseason.  He can solace in the fact that past “title holders” include Dean Smith, Jim Boeheim, Rick Pitino and Roy Williams.

Ben Howland, UCLA, was under heavy scrutiny for having a losing season last year and, while winning a first round game this year, came under fire for almost blowing a big lead to Michigan State.  This is the same guy who took over a program that was built on sticks when he got there and he shortly thereafter took the Bruins to three consecutive Final Fours.

Among yesterday’s “losers” was none other than Mike Krzyzewski whose Duke Blue Devils were, after leading by six at the half against Arizona (and the only reason they weren’t ahead by 20+ was a 25-point performance by Derrick Williams), embarrassed by the high energy Wildcats.  Now, second guessers all around the country will be analyzing (criticizing) the best coach in the college game about his decision to play freshman point guard Kyrie Irving, who missed nearly the entire regular season (and ACC Tournament).

A few of the talking heads have questioned the wisdom of Coach K with the idea that Nolan Smith took over the point guard position when Irving went down and played magnificently - earning such praise as being a potential Player-of-the-Year candidate.  While that argument appears to have merit (because they lost and Smith played possibly his worst game of the year), don’t think for one second that had Mike chosen not to play Irving after doctors had cleared him and, naturally, Duke had lost, he wouldn’t be second guessed by the very same indivduals.

Can’t you just hear it now?  “Krzyzewski has the best player in the country - the guy everybody who knows anything about basketball is saying is the #1 pick in this year’s NBA draft - and he doesn’t use him!  What could he have possibly been thinking?  A weapon like that and you keep him on the shelf.”

The question about whether to play Irving and risk disrupting the team’s marvelous chemistry was bantered about on studio shows and talk radio - with no conclusive answer.  Of course, those who, at that time, suggested it would be wrong to do so are now throwing out their shoulders patting themselves on the back - as if they knew Smith would have such a poor performance.  Their comments today would undoubtedly have much less volume had the Dookies prevailed.

On one of the post-game shows, Tom Izzo, a fellow who knows a thing or two about winning, was asked that exact question and his response, tongue-in-cheek, was right on point:

“It’s a problem I’d like to have.”

Yesterday I heard from some loyal readers - as well as some new ones - regarding the blog being a little too tough on referees, that blaming others for our failures has become an all too frequent means of justifying our own shortcomings.  I recalled another post from days gone by (3/6/08) and thought it might shed more, and perhaps, a different light on the subject.  

Mamas, if you want your babies to grow up to be loved, do everything in your power to discourage them to be … referees.  If there’s one area of agreement by fans from Anywhere U. to Everywhere State, it’s that the refs have, at one time or another, screwed their beloved team (and some will swear it was done intentionally).  The majority of coaches share an identical belief and, depending on the team’s record, it may have been many times they were subjected to the “bad whistle.”

I was in charge of communicating with the conference’s supervisors of officials in each of my last three college positions (Toledo, USC, Fresno State) and when people tell me I have good people skills (an area in which I take a great deal of pride), never did those skills  come in more handy than conversing with the head of a league’s officials.

To begin, I would always start the conversation with how tough a job basketball officiating is and how, when taken into account, the game is made up of players, coaches and officials, and the last group makes the fewest mistakes in any given game.  That wasn’t just blowing smoke - I truly believe it … but, as I’ve told every supervisor of officials, including Bob Kayajanian, who oversees high school officials in the San Joaquin Valley (and who invited me to speak to his group while I was coaching at Buchanan (CA) HS), the biggest difference in the first two groups and the refs is that, when the game is over, players and coaches have it on their record and will watch videotape of it until their eyes bug out … while the officials go on to referee a game the next night.

In today’s world of officiating, there is more and more training for officials in the off-season (on the court and video as well) and the true “homer” of yesteryear has gone the way of the buffalo (especially in college) because of the inordinate number of televised games there are.  You’re putting your tenure as an official in serious jeopardy if you’re seen in replay after replay, game after game, blowing call after call.  Reputations are difficult to shake in all areas of life, but try to keep your job when you’re known as the guy who doesn’t have the nerve to make the big call against the home team in front of a hostile crowd - or you’re known as the opposite - the guy whose ego is such that he takes pleasure in inciting the home team’s side.

Why is basketball such a difficult game to call?  Number one is the athleticism of the players, who are getting bigger, stronger and more talented each year.  Throw in that you’d better be in outstanding physical shape to keep up with kids who are decades younger than you (a coach hates nothing worse than a referee who misses a call because he’s out of position).  Also, has it ever crossed the fan’s mind that players get to sit down at times out while referees have to stand?  Or that, if a player’s tired, he signals his coach for a sub?  Some referees don’t even get water!  And - officials don’t get subs - except in NCAA Tournament games.  How about the games that go into an overtime (or several) period or those played at altitude?

Fresno State had a semi-final WAC Tournament game in Albuquerque during Jerry Tarkanian’s first year of coaching at his alma mater.  It was against the hometown Lobos, a tough enough task in and of itself, but made more difficult by the fact that the winner was to play Utah (who’d won earlier in the evening, was resting at their hotel and already knew it was in the NCAA Tournament (due to having a gaudy record and winning the regular season league championship) and possessing the best talent of any WAC team, the following night.  As if that wasn’t enough, it was widely known the WAC was definitely going to get two teams into the Big Dance and just as certain was the fact that it definitely was not getting three invites.

The game was extremely high-paced and physical, making for a super tough assignment for the evening’s trio of men in stripes.  UNM prides itself on playing at high altitude, advertising it as the teams (and referees) exit the playing floor with a sign claiming you’re at 7,000 feet.  The “Pit” is thusly named because it’s dug into the ground, i.e. you enter at the top row of the arena.  Everything’s downhill from there.  The crowd noise descends at an ear-splitting decibel level.  A nip-and-tuck game, the Bulldogs were ahead by three points with seconds to go when one of the Lobos cast a three-point attempt from the corner.  Fresno State’s defender contested the shot, but by no means, came anywhere close enough to foul the New Mexico shooter.

The official, a gregarious and well-liked, but terribly overweight and older gentleman, called a foul.  To this day, I sincerely believe he was breathing so hard because of the pace of the game and all of the above-mentioned factors, that his huffing and puffing caused his whistle to make a sound.  I’m dead serious - I don’t think he meant to make that call.  Either that or he’d lost so much oxygen to his brain that it affected his vision.  To the Lobos shooter’s credit, he knocked down all three attempts, the ‘Dogs barely missed a half court shot at the buzzer and eventually lost … in three overtimes!  I coached for a total of 35 years and it was the single greatest game I’ve ever been associated with - and we lost because of an official’s mis-call.

One day, a few years ago, I was sitting with a highly successful coach who had just announced his retirement.  We were watching our kids (my son and his grandson) play and when I asked him why he retired, and he looked at me and said, “I love coaching as much as I ever did and would still be doing it, but I just couldn’t put up with those guys anymore (he pointed to one of the refs ).”  There may have been an adjective between “those” and “guys,” I’m not sure.

Another difficulty coaches have with the officiating crew is how insulated they are (see yesterday’s blog).  Hey, they’re an integral part of the game, they’re getting paid (pretty handsomely at the Division I level) and often, they have a tremendous influence on the outcome of the game.  They should be fair game for the media - and I think the day is coming where that will be the case.

Earlier in the blog I mentioned I had the responsibility to communicate with the officials’ supervisors.  After a particularly bad call or calls (especially ones which had a major determination on the game’s outcome), I’d have to get together a series of film clips (in the early days, spliced by me, but later on, with the position of video coordinator, by whomever filled that job) and send it in to the conference office.  More times than fans know, the supervisor would agree (maybe not on all the clips in question, but a majority).  Of course, by that time “the horse was already out of the barn” and I’ve yet to experience an overturn in any college game.  Officials have been reprimanded, however, to the severity of not being allowed to work conference tournament or post-season games (case in point, the St. John’s-Rutgers fiasco).

This stings more than the ref’s rep since those are the higher paying gigs.  On an interesting note, one of the WAC supervisors told me, “Jack, when Jerry complains I listen, because he does it so seldom.”  Tark’s game focus was legendary, but that’s what led the guy to make such a bold statement.

As difficult as it is for fans, but especially players and coaches, when it comes to the officials and their calls, they all need to remember John Wooden’s famous line:

“Although you may lose, no one is defeated until he starts blaming someone else.”