Jerrod Calhoun on Defensive Fixes, Great ATO’s, and Player-Led Film Sessions {Youngstown St.}

Inside the Episode

“We have a win forever mentality here, it’s ‘we’ over ‘me.’ Those are things that we talk about every single day and I think that’s why we’ve been able to win here. You know, when we got here, a lot of people said you couldn’t win in basketball. To me, you can win anywhere. There are no obstacles. If you constantly complain about what you don’t have and you’re not grateful for what you do have, you really stunt your growth.” – Jerrod Calhoun

We were joined on the podcast this week by Youngstown State MBB Head Coach, Jerrod Calhoun!

• Defensive Fixes: Coach Calhoun discusses all the varies ways he thinks about solving disadvantage situations defensively, including mismatches, cross matches in transition, blow bys, and much more. He also gives examples of some of his favorite drills to teach the reads for his defense when it comes to help situations. 
• The Art of a Great ATO: During “Start, Sub, or Sit?!” we dive into Coach Calhoun’s ideas on what makes for a great BLOB/SLOB ATO. We explore spacing, screening, and deception concepts. 
• Player-Led Film Sessions: Also during “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”, Coach Calhoun details his thoughts on film sessions and how to make them come alive for players and staff. Tons of great thoughts on building culture, teaching, and player buy-in.

Chapters

0:00 Defensive Fixes and Rotations in Basketball

9:05 Teaching Closeouts and Defensive Rotations

16:35 Mid-Season Defensive Strategies and Solving Problems

20:02 Strategies for Solving Perimeter Mismatches

27:07 ATO Plays and Coaching Staff Empowerment

34:18 Film Sessions and Player Mentoring Importance

44:00 Wrap Up

Transcript

Dan: 0:27

Coach, thanks for making the time for us. We’re really excited to dive in with you today on a bunch of stuff. You’re coming off a terrific season, and the thing we wanted to start off with you on is “defensive fixes” or basically, when you’re in rotation or you’re mismatched or you’ve gotten blown by, whatever it is, and how you’re going to fix whatever goes wrong in a defensive possession. To narrow it in even more your thoughts on rotations and how you’re going to think about solving those fixes defensively.

Jerrod Calhoun: 2:32

You know we look at it as probably the most important aspect of our defense. So we try to put our guys in as many situations throughout practice as we can possibly think of, whether it’s two on one, three on two, four on three, four on four plus one, you name it, and we’re going to try to put these guys in as many situations as possible. The first thing you’ve got to do obviously is communicate. You know, I think that’s a lost art in basketball. That’s why we have our guys lead a lot of the things we’re doing, but we want to try to fix it as fast as we can. So it’s a big part of our defensive philosophy.

Dan: 3:07

And when you say just a general term of fixing it, what is that to you mean when it’s “fixed” defensively?

Jerrod Calhoun: 3:13

Yeah, just evened out. You know, we want to make sure everybody’s matched, everybody’s in their gaps, and then certainly we want to make sure size-wise we’re matched up positionally. But we also don’t want to hit the panic button if we’re not matched up size-wise whether that’s a wing on a forward, down low, whatever the case may be, then we have some principles, if there is a mismatch, how we’re going to fix that situation. You know, our whole philosophy is we want to try to fix it as early as possible in the possession. If we can’t do that in the middle of the possession, that’s where we’ve got to really communicate at a high level and understand our rotations.

Patrick: 3:51

When you’re looking to fix it as quickly as possible. Are you more of a gap defense? Are you more of a lane denial? Are you directionally forcing? How are you talking about closeouts as you start to build out your defensive philosophy.

Jerrod Calhoun: 4:03

It changes year to year, certainly with the transfer portal and the amount of guys in and out of your program. It’s really a personnel-based decision whether we’re going to be in the gap or we’re going to be up the line. This year in particular, we’re very long and athletic and very interchangeable, so we’ll be up the line, on the line. I’ve had teams that have done a little bit of both and that’s the exciting thing that each year you can kind of change if you have to. But this year we’ll be more disruptive on the ball. We’re very big on scout-specific stuff and where we want to force certain guys. That also goes with our ball screen coverage. But yeah, we’ll be up the line, very, very aggressive, trying to extend catches.

Patrick: 4:41

When you do give the help, there’s a rotation coming. In general, are you telling the guy who gives the help to stay on the ball and the guy who got beat will be the one flying and going to scramble and get back to neutral?

Jerrod Calhoun: 4:51

Yeah, I think that’s probably one of the hardest things to decide and I think that’s what makes our game of basketball one of the most exciting sports there is because things happen so fast. So we call it fire anytime we’re in help if we’re the “low man.” We’re very big on our terminology. We want that fire call to be called out early and then, once we’re there, it’s about a one-second double team. And I think the most important thing is coaches always talk about read-drills. Offensively we do every read-drill known to man, whether it’s pick-and-roll, off-ball, screening. But I think a lost art in rotations is reading the offensive ball handler and figuring out if it’s a penetrating drive or a non-penetrating drive. So in the preseason we work on a ton of those drills, just reading the basketball and reading the guy that’s on the ball to see if he needs the help with that one second. What are you telling them to do? There it depends on where the ball is and also the threat of the drive. We want to stop it early outside the lane. Some years, if you have rim protection, I think you can be a little bit more late in your help. But we’re basically making sure that that ball is stopped and the guy that was on the ball can recover. If he can’t, then we’re going to stay in the double team until that guy really stops the ball. That’s in the low position. So I think there’s an art to that. I think there’s a communication level that both guys got to really really be on the same page.

Dan: 6:09

A couple of minutes ago you mentioned how there were some rules or some principles you had, where you would fix, say, a switch or a mismatch early in the possession, if you could, if you don’t mind sharing one or whatever those principles are early in the possession.

Jerrod Calhoun: 6:27

Especially in a pick and roll situation, in a tag situation, we want to make sure we’re tagging at the elbow. A lot of times we’ll X out with our point guard for rebounding purposes. I think one of the things that doesn’t get talked about enough is, if you don’t fix situations, you’re really going to suffer on the defensive rebounding position, because guys are out of position. So we want to X out a lot with our point guards. We want to make sure our wings are cracking down. That’s on pick and roll coverage in transition. A lot of times we’re going to send three to the glass. I think that’s one of the most important parts of your defense is you’ve got to figure out how many guys you want to send to the offensive glass. Then we call it a “half back” and a “full back.” There’s pickup points on the floor that we talk about. Then we want to get guys to their weak hand. We want to make sure that if we’re playing a right handed guy, we’re getting them up the left side. That’s all done through scouting.

Patrick: 7:22

Coach, just following up on the half back and the full back in your transition defense. What are their responsibilities there?

Jerrod Calhoun: 7:27

On a make, we want to pick up really right about the three point line on a miss. We want to pick up a little bit further, probably right before half court. The full back has to be the deepest guy of anybody on the floor so he can’t let anybody get below him. He’s got to get ready to attack, most of the time, the first pass. We’re constantly doing a lot of things where we’ve got one or two guys running back into the play. We’re playing mismatch basketball. We’re playing in an advantage on offense. The two guys that are running back into the play whether it’s a five on three or whatever the case may be those guys are the full back is kicking out. One of the guys is running opposite the ball. I think what happens a lot is guys run to their man. We’ve got the tape down, the old school approach teaching them to run into their gap. We really, really emphasize transition D every day.

Dan: 8:18

On the transition defense and within this umbrella of fixing stuff, you just mentioned a second ago about mismatch basketball in transition. On an average possession where missed rebound you’re transitioning back. Guys are maybe cross matched in some way. How do you talk to them about when to switch back if they can? Or is it the same principle as you just mentioned, especially coming out of transition?

Jerrod Calhoun: 8:41

Yeah, I think that’s a really, really good question, Dan. Obviously you want to be, most of the time, two passes away. We have a rule that we’re not going to panic if they do throw the ball in the post. We understand exactly where our trap’s coming from. If we need to trap and load that box but really want to do it, two passes away. You’ve got to be very, very strategic with that. You’ve got to teach that. We call it the bump out. You’re literally just bumping out back to your man.

Dan: 9:05

Going back, as we’re hitting on rotations and transition, and I know one of Pat’s favorites is closeouts and the art of the closeout, when it comes to how you’re teaching it. But then what happens on a blow by in this fix it bucket we’re talking about?

Jerrod Calhoun: 9:22

We’ll start with the closeout first. Everybody has a philosophy right? Inside hand, one hand, two hands. You know, we basically label all our shooters. So when we’re in our scout we have three levels of shooting. So that kind of determines how we’re going to close out on particular guys. But I’m in the belief of two hands. We want to throw two hands up. I think the more hands you see, the more difficult the shot’s going to be. Is that right or wrong? That’s like the topic of do you leave the corner on shooters. It’s a debatable topic, but I think you have to have a belief. And then, whatever you’re going to do, you have to rep. We start most of our practices with three spot closeouts, where we’ve got guys in each corner, coach in each corner and a coach up top and we’re going to work on the three step closeout. We’re not real big on the chop. We’re going to slide pretty much a three step slide and throw two hands up. We’ll run a whole series of that. So we’re big on the two hand closeout. And then, if you are getting blown by, that’s where you have to be good off the ball. You know, obviously it starts with the closeout, but you know, nowadays offenses are so hard to guard, right? So I think you actually have to teach rotations. A lot of coaches don’t believe in teaching these rotations. So we’ll actually do blow-bys. Funny, you mentioned that in a five on four setting where we’ll throw the ball to anybody on the floor and we will blow by that guy in a bad closeout and we’ll play out of that and I think you can be strategic in the number of drills you can do and they’re all fix it drills, right, they’re all things that you have to figure out on the fly, different parts of the floor.

Patrick: 10:54

Could you just elaborate on the three step slide and your footwork when closing out?

Jerrod Calhoun: 10:59

Yeah, I mean, if we’re on the right side. You know, our philosophy is to keep the ball on the baseline. We’re going to lead with our left foot. We’re going to finish with our left foot. On the opposite side, on the right side, we’re going to, you know, lead with our right, but we’re going to be dominant and make sure that we’re not giving up middle. You know, I think it’s again, it comes back to your principles of where do you want to force the ball. You know, some coaches in the pack line just say keep it in front. With us, we want to keep everything toward the baseline. Really, we talk about keeping them in jail, right? So anything below that free throw line on the right or left side is our jail area and we want to keep them down there. We don’t want them to get to the elbows and put us in rotations. We know where our rotations are coming from if we keep them in jail.

Patrick: 11:42

When we look at on ball defense and you’re going to shade to that baseline, but as they start to dribble, do you want them to get to square-up? Where maybe a good baller can cross over? And now get to the middle?

Jerrod Calhoun: 11:57

Yeah, I think that happens a lot, Patrick, to be honest with you, when you’re first starting to teach it, guys become open. Right, it’s an open stance, you know. We put tape down in the kind of the gray area where we want to force the ball. Do a ton of those drills in the preseason through our skill development and constantly working on closeouts, and the biggest thing we teach is keep your chest on the offensive player’s chest Anytime our chest is not square with their chest, we open up, whether that’s toward the middle or toward the basket. And that’s when you’re working in straight lines as an offensive player. Offensively, that’s what you want, but defensively we want to get them east-west and we really don’t want to help. You know, when they drive baseline we don’t want to over-help. So we talk about inching out quite a bit, reading that drive, you know. So we’ll do a lot of read drills where we have to read that drive and whether do we inch out or do we stop the ball. And if we stop the ball, then the guy you know that’s playing two is going to have to read and react to what the guy that’s doing and help. So we do a lot of four on four, a lot of three on three to teach that. But you know, the biggest thing is to keep your chest on that offensive player’s chest.

Patrick: 14:06

You talked about the read drills a couple of times and then at the beginning to distinguish between non-threatening and threatening drives. I mean, we don’t want to go through all of them, but one or two of the drills that you do like to use a lot that helps your guys read and understand your defense.

Jerrod Calhoun: 14:19

The best drill that we do is a four on four plus one. So there’s four offensive players. We start the ball in the middle of the floor. So right from the jump we’re trying to determine where we want the ball to go. So if it’s right handed driver, we’re going to get them left. So we have four guys that are matched up, one on the ball getting it out of the middle of the floor, the other three guys are matched and one guy is open. That’s the plus one. He’s around the basket and his rules are he can only go block to block and he can post up. He cannot leave the paint. So the only rule the offensive players have is they can’t come down and throw it in there initially. So as the ball is coming down the floor and the first pass is made, everybody’s rotating. It’s a very live, very realistic drill. Everything we try to do in our program is very realistic. It’s game type situations and it’s a very difficult drill because all four guys have to do their job and then on the offensive glass you have five guys going to the glass with only four guys rebounding. It’s a great rotational drill because you’re outnumbered and you have to have great ball pressure. If you don’t have great ball pressure, it’s a very difficult drill. So we’ll put five minutes on the clock and one team will be on offense for those five minutes. The other team will be on defense and then we’ll switch it and what we’re trying to do is keep track of the number of stops in five minutes. At any point in any of our drills we get a kill, which is three stops in a row, you win that drill. So our players have a real understanding of what three stops in a row can mean throughout the course of a game.

Patrick: 15:53

With the offensive player on the block after the first pass. Can they dump it into the offensive player?

Jerrod Calhoun: 15:58

The furthest guy from the ball has to rotate and actually front the post. You can three quarter if you’d like, but we teach front in that drill because we don’t want to get buried. So you get some cross matches there, you get some toughness drills there, and then everybody has to move when the ball moves.

Patrick: 16:14

Are you putting a shot clock? Is it 14 seconds for the offense defense? Is it a whole 30? What kind of shot clock are you working with?

Jerrod Calhoun: 16:20

Yeah, I think that’s a great question, Patrick. So all of our drills, whatever drill we’re doing, that particular drill will do for about 20 seconds because we’re going to envision it took 10 seconds to get the ball up, but I think you’ve got to be strategic in the way you’re structuring your drills with the shot clock.

Dan: 16:35

When it comes to fixes or playing through disadvantages. I guess this would be more, maybe mid-season, when you come across an action that another team runs that just gives you problems defensively. One, how you think about trying to solve that and then, two, how you would drill that, let’s say, mid-week before a game with I don’t know, a flare-slip or whatever it is. It’s just a problem with your team.

Jerrod Calhoun: 16:58

We have a couple ways we structure our defense. You know, in the summertime we’re going to be really, really big on closeouts, on our principles, and as we get into the preseason we want to make sure by the time we start that first scrimmage, every guy in our program understands our philosophy, whether it’s how we’re guarding the post, how we’re rotating, how we’re guarding a cross-screen, how we’re guarding a flare screen. We had 10 practices this summer, so we’re going to be a little bit ahead of the game as we get into the pre-season. But we’ll do a deep dive. We use a few different people that help us study the different actions that we’re going to see really over a three-year span. So I have a guy up in Canada, Eric Fawcett, call my special ops guy and that’s one of the things that I actually just sent him is he’s going to take a deep dive and study exactly what five or six teams have done inside the Horizon League. Of course the game changes, right that’s the beautiful thing about basketball so you may have to change on the fly. I think the best coaches can make the other coach at the other end think a little bit throughout the game whether it’s just a minor adjustment, whether it’s how you’re going to guard a cross-screen or a down-screen, but we will break that down here soon in the pre-season really in about six to seven weeks, kind of every action that we think could possibly give us problems, and then, if it gives us problems during the season, certainly we’re going to talk it out. We always ask our players. They’re the ones that have to play the game. So if any time the coaches, we can’t come up with that solution or we may think there’s two solutions, we will let our players actually vote on some of those things and talk about those things, because they’re the guys that actually have to guard the actions.

Dan: 18:40

If you find certain actions that maybe give your team pause or give your team trouble, but then also when you’re facing another player that no matter what action they’re in, they’re just so elite that they’re always an issue, and I guess same question then, how you think about trying to solve and fix those during the season.

Jerrod Calhoun: 18:56

You have to have a strong conviction of what you’re doing. So we had two of the best scorers in the country inside our league last year. So the first time we played them, some things worked, some things didn’t, but I think both the staff and the players came to the conclusion of ‘we’re going to take the ball out of their hands.’ Whether it was a very, very aggressive hard hedge and ball screen coverage, whether it was a very aggressive stunt on pin down action, we’re going to make their best players see a lot of bodies. They’re going to see sometimes four bodies, right. So we did a lot of things where we would blitz the ball screen. Whether they were in isolation, we would force the double because we don’t want the best players to beat us. We want to have somebody else beat us. At our level we have some great guards inside the Horizon League. So it’s constantly trying to figure out what your ball screen coverage is going to be, what your isolation coverage is going to be, and then what’s your off ball screening actions? What’s that coverage going to look like? Right? Those are kind of the different layers with guard play, with post play. That’s a little bit different.

Patrick: 20:02

You mentioned these perimeter isolations with top players, or maybe even going back when you’re in a mismatch situation on the perimeter, you said forced to double. So I just like to fall upon just how you like to solve perimeter mismatches.

Jerrod Calhoun: 20:14

Well, there’s two ways you can do that right. You can force to the ball screen and obviously you can double. If it’s just a straight isolation, you may double off a non-shooter. There’s some ways you can do that. Or you can also just force baseline and then very, very aggressive, hard double. So our guys know you may not have to stop the guy, but you can’t let him get a shot off. You want to take him to your help where that double team’s going to occur. So sometimes we’re playing against a really good guard and he’s on the right side of the floor and he’s not as good going left. We may not double there. We may just flat hedge it and make him make a skip pass with his left hand. But if he’s on the left side and he’s in his dominant hand and we know he’s a really good player getting downhill, going left to right, we may blitz that ball screen. There’s different ways I think you can think of how to attack certain players to get the ball out of their hands. It’s not just with the ball screen coverage.

Patrick: 21:09

If they isolate. And let’s say your strategy is you’re going to double off of a non-shooter. If that double has to come from basically cross-court, how do you communicate that? Or is it always well, we know we’re forcing baseline, so make sure the double’s coming from the baseline side, just the communication. Or how do you think about it when it’s a non-shooter, cross-court, running to double?

Jerrod Calhoun: 21:27

Yep. So we played against the best scorer in the country last year, Antoine Davis, multiple times. He really makes you think, he really makes you coach defensively. So in the middle of the floor we were at elbows and blocks. So a lot of times when he had the ball in the middle of the floor he saw two bodies behind him. So he’s not able to get loose. And a lot of times we wouldn’t run at the non-shooters, we would hard stunt and allow those guys to shoot the ball. You know you’re double-teaming but you don’t want to give up layups, you don’t want to full-rotate sometimes. So we’ll designate certain guys. Where we’re not running at those guys, we’re hard-stunning and we’re allowing them to shoot. In essence, we’re giving up some of those shots. We kind of thought, hey, if we can take him out of the equation, we have a great shot.

Dan: 22:15

In game, if something’s not working defensively, what’s the line for you of sticking with something, having conviction of a defensive coverage, versus alternating something or making a tweak. And if it’s just a gut feeling, if it’s an analytics question, if it’s a mixture of both, if you’re going to adjust mid-game defensively?  

Jerrod Calhoun: 22:36

You know our league last year was Thursday, Saturday, so I think you have to go in, you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, with a plan A and a plan B, whether that’s ball screen coverage, whether that’s post-defense, any of the actions that those teams are running that could give you problems. I do think you have to have a backup plan. I’m not one to do something that we haven’t practiced, so we’re going to have those things in our back pocket. Whether we use those after a timeout, early into the game, I think strategically you can do that to see if it’s going to work. That might be a mixture of a zone defense a possession or two, so you’re not totally panicking when things go bad. But we always have a plan A and a plan B. Analytically, we certainly are going to study the numbers. We know the top five to ten players going into a season, what kind of pick and roll coverage they like, where they’re really good and then things that they struggle with. So we know, going into those games we’re going to have the understanding that we {for example}, might be in a drop coverage. We typically have three different ball screen coverages throughout the season. It could be our channel, which is our drop. It could be a very aggressive hedge. It could be a switch. We want to have that backup plan and then I think there is a feel process to it. You know I’m going into my 12th season, I certainly wasn’t as good in the first couple years of making those adjustments. But then I think you have to trust your players throughout the game. If you’re going to do something you have to ask them. I think sometimes if you’re not sure you’ve got to ask them. And then certainly you have good assistants that have that scout, that have put a lot of prep time in it and you’ve got to be able to listen to your assistants. I’m constantly asking throughout the game what they’re seeing and those timeouts happen really fast. They got to have a voice in that timeout.

Patrick: 24:19

You mentioned that you’ll like to test out your plan Bs early in the game after a timeout. Do you like to, even as the game’s continuing if you know they are going to probably set up an offense to come out and change maybe your pick and roll coverage or maybe press? Or do you always think about maybe, hey, this possession doing something a little bit different, just to throw a wrench, and probably what they’re preparing and drawing up?

Jerrod Calhoun: 24:38

I’ve learned that through many coaches in our conference. We’ve had some unbelievable coaches inside the Horizon League and you know I’ll take you back to what I said earlier. I think the best coaches make the other guy coach a little bit and make those players think a little bit. So if you give a steady dose of one thing throughout the game, unless you’re the better team, I think great coaches can adjust to that. After the first timeout they’re going to draw up some things and talk about some things with their players that can hurt those coverages. So we want to do it early, probably within the first eight minutes of the game, see how they react and then probably three or four times throughout the game. We want to do some different things defensively after timeouts where we can get our team set. We’re not having to do it on the fly, but I certainly think you have to practice those in the preseason and also your scrimmages. You know, I think that’s the time where you’ve got to throw some different things and see how your guys react to quick on the fly adjustments.

Patrick: 25:32

Have you found, when you are implementing this, their practice or scrimmage, I guess the best ways to communicate it, so the players retain it and they execute it?

Jerrod Calhoun: 25:41

We do a special off segment where we’ll just, defensively and offensively, I’ll take one team offensively and we’ll go against you know some different things that you know the defense hasn’t seen. We do a lot of teaching through those things early in practice. Also, offensively, we do what we call “gator execution.” I may be clear at the other end of the court and you know I’ll draw something up and they have 10 seconds to go execute it. So just constantly getting our guys in uncomfortable situations and sometimes I’ll roll the ball out where now they have to go retrieve the ball, get to their positions on the floor and go execute a sideline out. So I think you can do that also defensively as well.

Dan: 26:25

Coach, this has been awesome so far. We want to transition now to a segment on the show we call “start, sub or sit.” So we’ll give you three different options around the topic, ask you to start one, sub one and sit one on the bench. 

Coach, this first question has to do with the art of a great ATO play. I’m thinking kind of sideline or baseline, out of bounds here. It’s something that you guys were very successful at, specifically last season, and so I want to give you three options, as you’re devising an ATO, that’s in the forefront of your mind. So start, sub or sit. Option one is Deception, so creating something that just has some kind of deception within the set. Option two is space, so basically running something that creates space for whoever you’re trying to get the ball to. Or, option three, for that great ATO is the location that you want that ball to be thrown into on that ATO? 

Jerrod Calhoun: 28:01

Yeah, number one, I would start with spacing. I don’t care what you run, whether it’s an ATO, a Full-court play, a half court play, a sideline, out of bounds, I think you have to have great spacing. So we talk a lot about spacing, but I think, within spacing, a big art of it in ATO is screening right. So you have to be able to teach different screening angles in your spacing. So spacing would certainly be my starting point. I would probably say deception would be next. That would be my sub, I think, between you guys your podcast. I can’t tell you how many ATOs or families we now have a new thing that we do as a staff, myself, and our offensive coordinator. So every night I go through Twitter. I think my wife thinks I’m just on there looking and reading articles, but I’m actually sorting through different actions and we actually now put those as part of our package and we study those almost every single day. So I think you could be very, very deceptive on the things You’re running and then disguise those right. I think the art of a good play is disguise and being deceptive.

Dan: 29:09

Taking aside these three options for a second, you mentioned your offensive coordinator and I think it’s just interesting. I know we’ve talked before a little bit about how you have your staff, have different Coordinators and things like that, and so could you just go a little bit deeper on why you do that and what they do for you? 

Jerrod Calhoun: 29:24

I’ve been really really blessed. I’ve worked with great coaches, right. So I’ve worked with, you know, two Hall of Fame coaches. I played for a Hall of Fame coach in Rollie Massimoni, the old Villanova, Cleveland State, and UNLV coach. Really, it started for me to start developing my philosophy. Jeff Young is one of the best coaches in the country that nobody talks about at the Division 2 level. Won an NAIA National Championship at Walsh with him in my first year of coaching. Coach Bob Huggins at West Virginia. And one thing I took from a lot of these guys is you have to empower your assistants. The players can’t just hear one voice. Basketball is too long of a season, so I think the best way you empower people and give them belief is give them a big-time responsibility. So with our offensive coordinator, he is really looking at all the different defenses that we could possibly see throughout the year, right. That’s what he’s doing in the offseason and in the preseason he’s really helping install our different {play) families and our offensive philosophy. And then, when it comes to scouting, he gets to study all those different defenses of all the different teams in the non-league. So what I’ve tried to do is every year flip flop, right? So if you’re an offensive coordinator one year, now you’re gonna go to the defensive coordinator. So when you leave you’re able to become a head coach. You’re very well balanced on both sides of the ball and I think that really helps guys. I’ve been really, really fortunate. I’ve had great assistants, got guys in the NBA, the G League, certainly division two level, multiple guys that are division two head coaches. So I take a lot of pride when those guys get jobs, but you know, there’s one thing to get a job, but you want those guys to be successful once they get the job. So when you teach them and you work with them and you learn with them, they’re ready to go when they leave you.

Dan: 31:08

Coach, well said, on all that, I want to kind of pivot back to the start sub, sit question for a second, and you talked about space. For those listening, I’d like to paint the picture of sort of like a baseline out of bounds situation and how you think about space and practicing those kinds of situations.

Jerrod Calhoun: 31:25

I think it starts with the inbounder, the first thing we want to try to do is go steal a basket. When the inbounder gets the ball. All four guys that are in play understand we’re starting as soon as he gets it. Some coaches will start it when he hits the ball. We’re gonna start right away. Whatever action we’re trying to do, the first thing he’s gonna do is look opposite to the opposite block. Let’s say we’re in a one-four low or we’re in a box setting. A lot of times that opposite man is sleeping and we’re just gonna tug our ear. So if the guy that’s on the opposite block tugs his ear, we’re gonna try to just get him the ball up that initial inbound. But you know it really comes down to scouting, whether it’s, you know, do you want to get a post up? Do you want to get an isolation? Do you want to get a some sort of off-ball screening action? It depends on how they’re guarding those actions. But I think the biggest thing that goes, you know un-talked about, is screening late game. You know everybody has these plays. But if you don’t screen, those plays aren’t gonna work. And then we talk with our guys about coming off screens late and hard rather than early and soft right. I think a lot of guys start to rush. They panic in those situations. 

So we want to try to manufacture 40 points for our guys throughout the game, whether that’s on walk-ups, after timeouts. We want to be one of the most elite teams in the country. We feel like it’s our obligation to our players to be able to score in those different areas. So we do blob situations, sideline outs, daily. We don’t wait till a week before the first game to implement those. We have what’s a number system, so everything on the baseline is a number. So our guys know exactly where they’re going based on the number. All five guys one through five are labeled and we could just say, hey, ‘43.’ What that means is four is over the ball, three is opposite the ball and then the highest available number is gonna be ballside. Stole that many years ago from Xavier and we’ve never changed in 11 years. You know you just keep the number system and change your different actions. But all of our actions are two names. You know I’m not smart enough to remember three names. So it could be ‘fast punch.’ It could be ‘43 down.’ You know everything is just two words.

Patrick: 33:32

You mentioned the importance of screening at the very beginning, of screening angles. So what’s the most relevant when you’re teaching your screeners and understanding their angles and these ATOs?

Jerrod Calhoun: 33:41

Depending on personnel, you know, once again, it’s kind of a read, it’s kind of looking at the different coverages of how you’re being played. You know, is the guy in a drop? Is it an aggressive hedge? You may not need to screen, you may ‘ghost out’ or what we call a ‘brush.’ We just have to teach, first of all, the different coverages. ‘Hey, if you see a flat hedge, if you see a drop or you see a nice, you know these are some of the different reads’, but we drill these every single day in skill development. There’s probably not a day goes by that we’re not working on some sort of screening angles. You know, Patrick, it’s personnel driven. A lot of your screening stuff is personnel driven, but we want to make sure that we’re screening people. That’s number one. You know, that we’re connecting on our screens, we’re gonna track that, we’re gonna reward that and we’re gonna talk about that a lot in our film sessions of hey, you know ‘we didn’t wait on the screen or we didn’t connect on the screen.’ I thought that was one of the biggest areas coming off our Spain trip that we’ve got to get better on. But we were very unselfish. I thought we moved the ball. We scored the ball, but we were a little bit rushed in our screening. You know when the flip screens right,? So on, step up screens reading their feet, all those different types of things we work on.

Patrick: 34:55

Our next “Start, Sub, or Sit” has to do with film, but we labeled it ‘non-tactical film benefits that you derive from your film sessions.’ So start sub, sit with your start being the most beneficial for you. Is it reinforcing your culture? Is it developing player leadership growth? Or is it, option three, providing the coach’s perspective on how they see the game and what they’re noticing?

Jerrod Calhoun: 35:19

Patrick. All three of those are very, very important. So that’s a very, very tough question, but I would say your culture. You have to start with your culture every day. I think everything you do really stops and starts with your culture. So our guys need to understand, if people walk into the gym, here’s what we’re supposed to do from the warm-ups, here’s what we are expecting from our warm-up to the way we’re communicating right, uur language, what certain things mean, what we expect off the court. So we’re going to reinforce our culture every day. I don’t think it has to be 10 to 20 minutes. I think it can be as simple as one minute. We’re constantly putting different slides together, culture slides every single day and just re-emphasizing, right starting with your core values, to maybe some different things that you’ve seen through different emails we’ve gotten on our guys. We want to share those positive, impactful, meaningful moments in our program because our guys need to understand it’s not just about winning basketball games. We have a Win Forever mentality here. It’s we over me. Those are things that we talk about every single day and I think that’s why we’ve been able to win here. You know, when we got here, a lot of people said you couldn’t win in basketball. To me, you can win anywhere. There are no obstacles. If you constantly complain about what you don’t have and you’re not grateful for what you do have, you really stunt your growth. And we talk about a growth mindset every day in our program, and that’s just not just basketball. So I would start there.

Patrick: 36:47

For sure, and I would assume then probably the second would be that the player leadership growth that comes out in the film sessions on that, just how you try to get them to talk and lead the film sessions?

Jerrod Calhoun: 36:57

I think a lot of times coaches can talk too much. You’ve got to be very, very concerned with that and I’ll ask our managers, I’ll ask our players, I’ll ask our coaches. You know, each day somebody different’s got to lead that film session, whether it’s the offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, special situations coordinator. But to me the most important people in your program are the players. So we’ve had them do scouts for scrimmages. So now they understand they’re working collaboratively on what a scout looks like and the amount of work and the prep through individual clips. Eight offensive clips will have two or three different guys lead those offensive clips and then eight defensive clips. Typically we do about 15 clips a day, no more. So when we get into a film session we’re going to hit on culture, we’re going to talk about what we’re doing in today’s practice, see how everybody’s day went, and then we’re going to go into those clips and I think it’s really important to understand what your players know and then what they know has more impact on what they can help teach their teammates.

Dan: 37:59

The film session. Is it always pre-practice or is it time for it post-practice? When does it actually happen?

Jerrod Calhoun: 38:04

I think it’s like a warm up. You know, I think you have to change your warm up and I think you have to change your film sessions. So sometimes we’ll do it in the film room and sometimes we’ll do it on the floor. Sometimes we’ll do it in our back hallway where they’re standing. We mix our film sessions up, I’d say probably in the pre-season, a lot more than we do during the season. But I think you also got to, you know, after an off- day, you’ve got to be direct to the point and get on the court. When guys have had an off day, sometimes we’re in slow starts. 

I think it’s the coach’s job to know that, to know the temperature of the team. So those days we may go in the back hallway and it’s projected on a wall and those film sessions will be a little shorter and sweeter. Film is a huge part of learning and growing and teaching. So then when you get to the court, now you’re reacting. If you’re constantly slowing the practices down, players are going to dread coming to practice. So we want to go about 90 minutes. We want to work on their skill. Guys love working on their craft, whether it’s finishes, we do a ton of finishes early in practice, not just off two feet but every kind of finish. We’re going to work on shooting the ball, we’re going to get into a read-drill, but we want to switch those things up. But we want to be short, sweet and be very, very attentive. So when we hit the floor, we’re reading, reacting and we’re teaching in that film room.

Patrick: 39:23

You mentioned you work on finishes. What finishes are important to your program?

Jerrod Calhoun: 39:27

We have about eight different finishes. We label them all NBA players’ names. Every finish is based on a read and how the defense may play. So if they’re on the outside of you, we’re working on an inside hand finish. If a guy’s trailing you, we’re working on what you saw Russell Westbrook make a killing on, literally off two feet, and now he’s stretching out. We may work on avoiding the defense, which is our Euro, our James Harden. So I think there’s so many finishes that are important. I think it’s just teaching those players when to use them. So now it becomes natural when they get into the game. So a lot of times when we’re defending them, whether it’s our managers or our coaches, we’re forcing them to make that finish. So we do a lot of those different read drills within our finishing series package, usually early in practice. 

Patrick: 40:18

Getting back on your culture and preparing for the pod and talking with you, you mentioned you have a mentorship program for all of your players. What is it? 

Jerrod Calhoun: 40:23

We talk a lot with our players about ‘where do we want to go with basketball’? Some guys want to play for four years and then get in the real world and their basketball careers will be done after college. Some want to keep playing, but what we try to do is basically match our players. So we had 14 players last year. 15 players match those guys up with a man or a woman, doesn’t matter, an individual that they have an interest in outside of basketball or life after basketball, or it could be life with basketball. So it could be, Kendrick Perry played in Malaga, Spain, last year. A former player probably did six to eight Zooms with our freshman last year, John Lovelace. And just providing them a way to learn and grow outside of the coaching staff and something that they’re very interested in. So I thought it was really, really good, and something that we’ll always do here. My assistant, Mantoris Robinson, played at Winthrop. We got that from him. It’s been a really, really neat thing to see all of these guys talking about their mentors and what they’re learning throughout the season, because I think once you get into the season, Patrick, you really lose sight. You get very tunnel vision and as you get older, you’ll realize this too. You know, if you’re well rounded and the players see that and they see you really care about them, you’re going to win forever. And you’re not just going to win basketball games, but you’re going to win in life. So it’s a really important piece.

Dan: 41:50

One last follow up on the mentorship stuff and how involved you are as the head coach in any of these conversations, or like recapping what they talk about. What’s your role in all of it?

Jerrod Calhoun: 42:00

Yeah, I’ve sat in on quite a few of the meetings, whether it was in person or on Zoom. I leave it up to the players. I’ll be as involved as they want. Let’s say they can’t get a hold of their mentor. You know their mentor is not communicating with them, which we never had that problem. But we really explain to the mentors what we’re trying to get out of this, what this means to our players, and it’s really like a dating site. You basically match them up with what they want. So we sit down and we talk about that. We talk a lot about it in our program. We kind of build a box within our players and it’s just energy giving behaviors, things that they can control and things that are important to them. We kind of outline that before the start of the season. We put it in their locker room and it’s just a constant reminder that these are things that you value, along with our mentor program.

Dan: 42:47

Great stuff, Coach. You’re off the start, sub or sit ‘hot seat.’ Thanks for playing that game with us. That was a lot of fun. Enjoyed your answers there. So, coach, before we end this show, we’ve got one last question for you, before we do, thanks for all your thoughts and for going into such detail with us today. This was a lot of fun. 

Our last question that we ask all the guests is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach?

Jerrod Calhoun: 43:13

You know that’s a really really tough question, but I would say just the relationships and the bonding and the memories of coaching and understanding why you got in it has really been the biggest investment for me. I think I’ve changed over the years. I think I got into this thing thinking it was all about wins and losses, but as you invest the time and energy to really get to know people and spend time with them players, managers, coaches that investment alone will last you a lifetime and it’s so neat to see all these guys doing great things players, coaches and managers.

Post Show Wrap-Up

Dan: 43:53

Alright, Pat, let’s jump into this wrap up. We were just kind of talking to Coach before and after a little bit, but it was fun for us to kind of get into the nuts and bolts with some defensive stuff too. I think that’s something just throughout the summer. Obviously, offense is always a fun quick go-to, but anytime getting to the weeds defensively is interesting, especially with a team that was as good as Coach Calhoun’s was last year. So I really enjoyed getting right into defense and all the nuts and bolts of it.

Patrick: 44:19

I’m glad we settled on it before and in preparing, Coach was nice and shared a whole list of things that he’d be willing to talk about and what they do with their program. So yeah, it was like a buffet for us. And then getting into how they fix problems and the rotations and especially, I think, drills they do like, what makes them good at this, how they work on it day to day, we covered a lot. I really enjoyed his time and him sharing.

Dan: 44:41

You and I talked about it beforehand a little bit about different schemes and building a scheme and whether it’s pick and roll or coverages all the different things that you can do. Obviously, I think what we enjoyed about this and what we’re interested in is how do you fix it when inevitably on most possessions something does break down, there’s a mismatch, you’re a step late, you get blown by, whatever it is and what an elite defense looks like, talks about, and drills to try to rectify those things, because ultimately, most possessions are going to have that element to it.

Patrick: 45:16

Yeah, and, like he mentioned, trying to fix them as quickly as possible because if they linger then you’re obviously going to suffer on the defensive rebound. I think it was your question about the rules of thumbs of when to switch. He mentioned being like two passes away is usually a good time. I mean they also don’t want to give you like they’re panicking. It’s not a panic button, but if you’re two passes away, it’s a good time. Let’s get that fixed, that switch and from everything, starting with the transition but then solving mismatch from the post double. I like the conversation we had about perimeter isolation and where they are on the floor and closing in the elbows or doubling off a non-shooter. There’s all these things you’ve got to think about because it’s inevitable You’re going to be in bad matchups, you’re going to be in rotations, and how they work on them, what their solutions are, strategies for fixing them.

Dan: 46:01

There were two past episodes. One’s a really a deep throwback and then one’s a little bit more recent, that kind of reminded me of this. More recent one was Scott Waterman and we talked a lot about how he liked to teach through advantage, disadvantage drills and how playing four on three or whatever it is really helped with the rotations and that players naturally understood the movements and how quick they needed to get to places, and so he loved to teach through those things. So kind of reminded me of that when it comes to the fixes and how you get back to neutral, I saw that parallel and then also the way that coach Calhoun kind of discussed, and I believe it was a question I asked him about problem actions and how you think about solving flare slips or staggers or whatever it’s an issue for your team. Mike Taylor, a long long time ago with the Polish national team he talked about, I think on that podcast he had like a checklist of like 40 actions that they would try to get through in the preseason. These are 40 of the actions that we’re going to see 99.9% of the time. If there’s something else obviously that would be a scout thing. But just working through that checklist in the preseason, and I got the sense from Calhoun and he said it too is that’s what they’re going to do. Obviously, they went on a foreign trip this summer so they had 10 practices, but then when they get into preseason they’re just going to be able to drill all the things that they see that hurt them most often.

Patrick: 47:23

Well, I know he mentioned too with his what did he call him? His special assistant or special assistant coach? That’s just scouting all the actions that they saw in the Horizon League, like the last three years, categorizing them and then, like you said so we know this, and our preseason is built off of this and from there on the week to week, especially, like you said, when you’re playing Thursday, Friday and you have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday it’s hard to get bogged down. And, yeah, let’s again go through a cross-screen or cross-screen-down-screen. We know this action, we worked on it. Here’s our plan attack.

Dan: 47:50

Yeah, I get the sense too. He probably has all those nicely labeled so his team just knows like, hey, this team’s going to run these types of actions or even to be able to call it from the bench. If the player doesn’t know that a play is called when the opposing team calls out ‘Texas’ or something, they don’t know what ‘Texas’ necessarily is, but if the assistant knows, hey, it’s going to end in a, whatever their term is, you can kind of help communicate that as well. I just thought that was really good. Kind of baked into all this was just the way he thinks about building out the defense and all the things that can hurt them. 

Patrick: 48:28

And I think you and I both; I’ll double down on the four on four plus one drill. Really enjoyed that as well, we always enjoy and I mean whether it should be like a reoccurring segment of just like what’s your favorite drill, but when coaches share a drill and this one I haven’t heard, I really enjoy it. I’m going to steal it for sure. Putting that post player in there. I’ll start early on the ‘misses’ of why settling on the post player being the one free guy. Or if they ever experiment with a perimeter player being free, maybe it just that the drill then becomes too hard to navigate for the players. But like the drill, having that one post player free and then he’s always got to be somewhat guarded or denied and it’s just forcing your mismatches after the first pass, forcing rotations and fixes and getting three stops to the kill, the automatic win.

Dan: 48:58

He did mention it’s a heck of a drill, which I don’t disagree with. The other thing I liked that he said was he mentioned about how, on offense, we have all these reads and that we teach players to read. And then he talked about defensively, sometimes it’s more black and white, but wanting players to read, especially when it comes to a drive situation or whatnot. I guess I’ll throw another podcast out, but Liam Flynn talked about the difference between a wide drive versus a line drive on the podcast a while back too, and it reminded me of when he was saying it. I forget the exact term that he used, but straight line or attacking versus non-attacking drive and just teaching your help side defenders to read it. I think you might have asked them when to go when you don’t go.

Patrick: 49:40

Or when they can start to inch out. As he says yeah, read the drive, you can also then begin to inch out. So now your rotations are smaller, or your closeouts.

Dan: 49:48

Yeah, I liked how he was building reads into his defense, just like he does his offense, like he even mentioned too, I think, depends on your length and athleticism. Maybe you can help later because of your ability to contest a shot versus someone like myself. I would need to be there for two days to help you know before the rotation. But, like he mentioned, just those reads and knowing your personnel helps him. All this fix it talk. Who are you? What’s our scheme? Can you get there in time? Are you reading the drive? So there’s obviously a ton in there that I loved.

Patrick: 50:20

Yeah, my last point and I think it transitions well to ‘start sub, sit’ because it was kind of sprinkled in there throughout, is asking players and getting player feedback and getting their input to, of course, to make them feel part of it, but to learn from them and see what they’re saying and promote sharing. Like he said, I think with their rotational philosophy with their defense, you want to make sure they know what we’re trying to do and the importance he put on dialogue with players and then, as we move into the ‘start sub, sit’, where he said just the importance of also having other voices within the team and that it can’t just be one voice the whole time, was another takeaway. I like that he started hit on and that was sprinkled throughout the whole podcast.

Dan: 50:55

Yeah, I think we’re just kind of into the ‘non tactical benefits of film session’ ‘start sub, or sit’, because that’s where he talked a lot about that. And then he also talked about his assistants and being coordinators and then obviously the mentorship program and I think throughout you just get the sense of how good of a job he does at getting those other voices, having people that he trusts impact his team so that, like I said, he’s not just the only one dominating every single thing all the time. And I enjoyed how that crept into a lot of our conversations, of just how he elevates his assistants or wants his players to lead a film session, or reaching out to the mentors. I thought that was really, really good. 

Patrick: 51:38

Well said, I think too. I mean we knew we wanted to follow up about the coordinator position and now he has an ATO coordinator offense defense and, like he said, I mean in terms of giving them responsibility and then switching it, I like that maybe from season to season he switches the role, just trying to build a well balanced coach that can go on and hopefully be successful but is prepared to be a head coach. I guess another miss is as a head coach, if he I’m assuming he did, because he mentioned it being well balanced or you know, should you have areas of specialization as a head coach to be known on one or two things, versus being a man of many cats? Would have been something I wish. I kind of followed up when you mentioned the well balanced and having them work both sides of the ball.

Dan: 52:22

Yeah, I think I know all of us have an area that we probably feel is our biggest strength as a coach and then obviously if you’re going to be a head coach you have to at least be adequate at a lot of things. But what I liked, especially for assistance coming up, is to have an elite skill set somewhere does help you, I think, in your career jobs. Talking to people you know, hey, this guy’s really good at this or this or that, and then as you grow obviously you kind of round yourself out a little bit.

Patrick: 52:49

Yeah, before we move on, maybe within the ATO conversation, I like the conversation we got into with his number system and play calling and keeping it to two things and a number system to kind of structure the format and then the action behind it.

Dan: 53:03

Yeah, that was also a miss of mine. That would have been interesting to have a whole other conversation about offensive vocabulary and building out. He mentioned the word families a couple of times. You hear that a lot about. You know play families and just we had to kind of hold ourselves back a little bit because that could have been a whole other thing. About what families, how do you decide? How do you build them? What’s the vocab like? And you gave like a little indication there with the 43 underneath out of bound stuff. But I could have gone for a long time on that.

Patrick: 53:30

Yeah, because it’s interesting. I mean, it is super important that you name everything, but obviously, with everything named, how do you then communicate it in game, live with the crowd? And we hit on a little bit with Coach Cito Alonso too. Just the difficulty sometimes if it’s not like a clear hand gesture, if it’s two words or multiple words. Always an interesting conversation, just how you think about abling your plays or communicating your plays in a game.

Dan: 53:52

Now yeah, and Coach Cito Alonso had the plus two minus two layer on top as well so. Spain’s another level.

Patrick: 54:00

Yeah, that’s for sure. And with the start subset I asked on the film room. Just through our research we knew he used film law for culture and also as a way to have players lead and speak up. So I enjoyed hearing his thoughts on that, the length of the film and how many clips he uses, and then, of course, maybe coming off the day off, even using film less and just getting them back in the gym and all the whys that were behind that. But I think the conversation I really enjoyed and was another one we wanted to get to was the mentorship program that he sets up for all 13 players. Just enjoyed hearing what it is and I thought it was a really cool program. I liked your follow up to just his role within that mentorship program, his involvement. I thought it was really cool something I don’t think we’ve run across yet in our conversations too, with mentorships but not giving every player having a mentorship and trying to help facilitate that.

Dan: 54:50

This is obviously great because, yeah, you’re connecting the player to somebody, that they’re thinking beyond the four years that they’re going to play, and really cool, and I think too is a way to build also just the community around your program, right, so those 13 people and their families are going to be huge supporters, come to games, all the things that you want have a really inside investment to your program. I think just once again highlights Coach Calhoun bringing in other voices and building a culture that’s just not him top down dominating but is kind of permeates throughout through all these things. So I think we hit on our misses. So I don’t know, unless there’s any other misses you want to bring up here the very end.

Patrick: 55:29

The one other one was maybe and I mentioned it to you before I came on he wants to have 40 points scripted or through ATOs dead balls and I just would have liked to ask why because I’m pretty sure there has to be an analytical idea behind it Whether they think, if they can get 40 and then they’re usually going to get 25 in transition, they’re getting now 65, 70 points and they think that’s the percentage they can win at. Just a quick follow up on that is just why he kind of settled on 40. I think it’s always interesting.

Dan: 55:55

Agree, that would have been another segment for sure. Well, we thank Coach Calhoun once again, wish him and his team the best of luck this season. And, pat, we’ll do this again next time. Thanks, everybody.