Slappin’ Glass sits down with the Head Coach of the UCSD Men’s Basketball program, Eric Olen. The trio dive into the areas of mature players, teaching and playing to strengths offensively, pick and pop actions, and have fun discussing coaching attire, handling pressure, and teaching cutting during the always fun “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
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Inside the Episode
We were excited to be joined on the podcast this week by UC San Diego Head Coach, Eric Olen, who is in the midst of successfully transitioning the Tritons from a DII powerhouse to DI and the Big West. From maturing players, building around offensive strength, teaching cutting, this episode packs in a ton of X’s and O’s and leadership in under an hour. Here’s a look inside the episode.
Punishing a Press with Transition 3’s
During our “Start, Sub, or Sit?!” segment we went on a small tangent about punishing a press by shooting open threeson the back end of it. The discussion centered around Coach Olen’s thoughts on whether he prefers to slow it down against a pressing team, or keep pace and find early offense opportunities. Here’s a quote from Olen…
“We’re gonna try and be a team that is hard to press. If teams press us we try and put shooting on the back end of it. If we can get two (shooters) on the back end, try and break the press with three, and now you’ve got one guy responsible for both corners…we’re trying to shoot a three. When we put in press offense to start the season we (tell our guys), ‘Hey we’re gonna try and shoot threes at the back if we get pressed.”
Here’s a look at UCSD punishing the press with open three’s last season…
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The Gravity of Shooters
Another discussion we had throughout the podcast, was Coach Olen’s thoughts on using the gravity of shooters within his offense. One particular action to note, is UCSC “burn” or “45” cutting a shooter to clear space, and then immediately sending them off a pindown screen on the backside. This puts the shooter’s defender in a tough spot as they are caught between being the “low tag” after the “burn” cut takes them to the rim, and staying with their shooter as the receive the pindown. Here’s a look at that movement…
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Coach Olen describes the above action like this…
“What we do a fair amount, is have those shooters cut… making those defenders move, and keeping pressure on them. When you take (the defender) away from the action, and then maybe have a ball screen behind where they just left, as a defender you say ‘Ok I have a responsibility to really chase that (shooter)’… and maybe you’re going to get a roll layup out of the ball screen because (the defender) is blindly chasing the shooter to the corner. So trying to have that next thing for them I think adds a lot of value.”
Beyond these concepts the episode also dives into:
- Gameday Coaching Attire… Long Live the Polo
- Helping Players in the Maturation Process
- The Value of Nutrition for young players
- And much more