He spent the summer guiding the national team at the world championships. It was there that he learned of a conditioning drill that involves dribbling and shooting. He liked that idea, and when he returned home, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski told an assistant, “We’ll condition with it, in addition to lifting.”
“Coach,” the assistant reminded him, “you can’t do that.”
“I forgot,” Krzyzewski says, referring to NCAA Rule 17.5.2.2, Subsection E. You know, the one that prohibits the use of a ball in conditioning drills before the official start of practice.
Krzyzewski continues.
“Then [the assistant] said, `Maybe we could get a big roll of tape.'”
Krzyzewski is stopped here, stopped by the gale of laughter that greets the visual.
“No. This is not funny,” he finally picks up, serious as a heart attack. “This is happening. You don’t think this is happening? . . . We’re not going to do that.
“Now why wouldn’t you let them have a ball? Go practice the piano. But you can’t have a piano. Imagine you have a piano. Isn’t it stupid? Really.
“Are they rolling up tape in Italy or Greece or Spain? Let ’em have a damn ball. Please. Can we please have a ball?
“I remember when I was growing up, in older homes in Chicago, you’d have ledges around the door. You’d roll up a sock, pretend that was a basket. You’re a kid and you’re doing that.
“We’re still doing that. We’ve got to roll up a big sock, and it doesn’t bounce. It’s crazy. But that’s the type of thing we have because we keep getting restrictive and [rules makers] worry about coaches coaching too much.”
No `fun’ in fundamentals
They are bigger and stronger, faster and longer, and often they can fly and frolic with eagles.
They can dazzle with a dunk, mesmerize with a move, astonish with feats of legerdemain that leave audiences agape.
They can freeze a defender with a crossover, find a teammate with a no-look, drop three-pointers with the same ease as slipping coins into the slots.
But ask college players to ball-fake, to spin-dribble, to simply make a free throw, and often they are as lost as a kindergartner on the first day of school.
No single reason can explain the chaos that unfolded in last spring’s NCAA tournament. No simple theory can explain George Mason’s surprising run or Bradley’s pair of upsets or a team like Northwestern State knocking off Iowa in the opening round.
Yet a broad outline can be drawn, one that suggests that such craziness is now a permanent part of the landscape, and dominating it is nothing more than a single word.
That word is fundamentals.
“Absolutely,” says Kansas coach Bill Self, whose Jayhawks fell to Bradley in the opening round. “[A lack of] understanding how the game should be played.”
“There’re not as many good shooters that play today,” says Texas Tech coach Bob Knight. “I don’t think we pass the ball as well as we once did. . . . I think the development of fundamentals worldwide has increased, while here it’s decreased.”
“You know, you talk to everybody over 45, and the huge majority would say [fundamentals] are worse,” says North Carolina coach Roy Williams, whose Tar Heels fell to George Mason in the second round. “I’m sort of in the middle. . . . But I think it still is very much a cerebral game, and those who are fundamentally sound, fundamentally strong, still have better opportunities than the high flier who is not a very fundamentally strong player.
“But it’s not just the knowledge of fundamentals. It’s the knowledge of playing together. It’s the knowledge of handling adversity. Our guys, in the George Mason game, we got off to such an easy start, our guys thought it was going to be easy. Well, [George Mason had] juniors and seniors, and a couple of them were fifth-year guys. They said, `Hey, this is just three minutes of a ballgame.’
“So they come back. And all of a sudden they take the lead, and instead of our guys saying that was just their run, that was three, four minutes of a ballgame, our guys panicked. So it’s not just fundamentally sound play. It’s a fundamentally sound attitude.
“The experience factor? Talent bridges a gap. But it doesn’t bridge all of it when experienced teams are good.”
Degrees of talent
North Carolina still corrals better talent than George Mason. Kansas still corrals better talent than Bradley. Clearly there is more to this. And it is this: the talent itself.
Major programs skim the cream, players who often dominated in high school with their physical skills alone. They enter college with little knowledge of fundamentals, and then–restricted by rules like the one forgotten by Krzyzewski–have limited time to be coached. Finally, with an eye long trained on the pros, those players are off to the NBA after just a season, maybe two, well before they had a chance to master basics.
Midmajors are left to pick up the remains, players who succeeded in high school on more than physical skills alone.
“I even take it to a more personal level,” says Bradley coach Jim Les. “I was a self-made player. I had to be a student of the game. I had to pay attention to detail and fundamentals and outwork and outthink the other guy.
“I tell our players, `You’ve got more athletic skill than I ever had. Now let’s work and develop the right fundamentals, the right techniques, the right work habits.’
“I don’t think there’s any question, having players in your program for three and four years–after two years it’s not so much coaching anymore. You’ve taught. Now it’s repetition, perfection of those fundamentals. Those fundamentals help level the playing field for us.”
More Top Picks Camp Kitchens
The field was certainly level last March in Dayton.
That is where North Carolina, led by freshman Tyler Hansbrough, fell to George Mason, which started two 23-year-old seniors, a 22-year-old senior and a pair of 20-year-old sophomores.
This was also true of the field in Auburn Hills, Mich., where Kansas–all freshmen and sophomores–fell to Bradley’s eight-man rotation that included three seniors, three juniors and a sophomore who would soon be a first-round pick.
“So you’ve got a fifth-year senior, (the Braves’) Marcellus Sommerville, going against Julian Wright (then a freshman),” Self says.
“Marcellus is 24, and Julian’s 18. Julian’s going to be a fabulous player, but strength factors into the equation too.”
Fifteen shots
None of these factors is soon to change, which promises more upsets come March.
That prompts this memory from Self, who did talk to one of his young Jayhawks last summer. This was during that period (you haven’t forgotten Rule 17.5.2.2, Subsection E, have you?) when he could not work with his player, that period when his player could be just a normal student.
Self knew he had played a two-hour pickup game a day earlier.
“How many times did you shoot the ball yesterday?” he asked his player.
“Ten.”
“How many shots did you take going game speed to get loose before you played?” Self asked.
“Game speed? Well, two or three, maybe. Five. I don’t know.”
“In other words,” Self says, “he took 15 shots in a two-hour stretch. How do you get better doing that? Blows my mind.”
Talkin’ about practice
They talk of a midmajor’s excitement when it finally gets a chance to dance on center stage.
They talk of the dearth of great teams.
They talk of major players’ aspirations–the NBA–and how that can be more important than winning.
They talk of the absence of intimidation.
They talk of the chip on the shoulder of the midmajor player, the one who wants to show all those major schools just what they missed out on.
They talk of the value of longevity and the cohesiveness it breeds.
Yet the focus of most conversations is still fundamentals and how little time there is to attend to them and how it most harms programs whose players rush off early to the NBA.
The final story here then shall go to DePaul’s Jerry Wainwright, who last summer helped coach the under-18 team that won the world championship with a victory over Argentina.
“Every kid on Argentina shot the ball the same, shot it perfect,” remembers Wainwright, who identified five Division I prospects on that team. “Every kid passed it. Every kid shot-faked.”
Later, curious, Wainwright asked the Argentinian coach why they wouldn’t be coming to the U.S.”Well, in the off-season (from the start of school to the official start of practice), you can work out with your players only two hours a week, right?” said that coach.
“Yeah,” Wainwright replied.
“How can you get good at anything in two hours a week?” the coach asked.
“Man,” Wainwright says, “it was like sticking a needle in my eye. He was right. You can’t. Piano players can spend endless hours with the piano teacher. Drama, we’ve got one of the best theater schools in the country. You want to talk why our weaknesses show? You don’t have a chance to work on your weaknesses.
“What’s that do? Allow ’em to be regular students?
“Wait a minute. They go in the gym anyway and play without supervision, without coaching. So there’s no way to polish that diamond. What’re you doing to your product there?
“Are you kidding me?”
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