Their job is to make the head coach look good. And to leave opposing players in tears.
When the brackets are revealed on Selection Sunday, the players celebrate. Parents make travel plans. Head coaches knock out media responsibilities. The assistants in charge of what’s known as “the scout” dig in.
“You’re going to be invisible,” said Illinois coach John Groce, who assisted on NCAA tournament teams at Butler, Xavier and Ohio State. “Especially if you’re doing the scout on a one-day turnaround, you’ll be up all night drinking pots of coffee.”
In 2008 Steve Masiello was an assistant for Rick Pitino at Louisville. The third-seeded Cardinals drew Boise State — and then the winner of Oklahoma-St. Joseph’s, giving the coaches three teams for which to prepare. The sixth-seeded Sooners had Blake Griffin, the athletic freak averaging 14.9 points as a freshman.
Following Pitino’s instructions to “never leave him in single coverage the whole night,” Masiello helped devise a devilish plan that called for trapping him anywhere near the rim and telling 5-foot-10 Andre McGee to “go find Griffin and be a gnat – annoy him.”
The strategy worked better than anyone could have imagined. Griffin attempted just six shots in 30 minutes, turning it over three times in Louisville’s 78-48 demolition.
“We bothered and disrupted him,” Masiello recalled.
Penn State coach Pat Chambers was on Villanova’s staff in 2009. None of the coaches rejoiced when it was revealed that 14th-seeded American would be their first opponent because coach Jeff Jones “ran a million (offensive) sets and had four seniors — a lethal combo,” Chambers said.
Looking ahead to a round-of-32 matchup, head coach Jay Wright assigned the UCLA scout to Chambers, a sign of flattery given that the sixth-seeded Bruins were favored to take down No. 11 VCU. (Some staffs involve all their assistants by breaking up the scout into offense, defense and personnel. The assistants at Duke, Chris Collins recalled, got along so well that they doled out their own assignments.)
American led Villanova by 10 at the half, but the Wildcats survived. That put Chambers on the clock — tipoff in less than 48 hours — to prepare Villanova for a UCLA team with future pros Jrue Holiday and Darren Collison.
Chambers believed he’d be properly prepared when he could do two things: Answer Wright’s questions “with conviction” and put himself in the mind of the UCLA head coach.
“Once I felt I was Ben Howland,” Chambers said, “then I was ready.”
More Top Picks Best Tripod For Iphone
Villanova won by 20, losing in the Final Four to eventual champion North Carolina.
The NCAA tournament brings an unusual element because it’s the only time when the NCAA permits coaches to scout a future opponent live. CBS cameras showed the current Duke triumvirate of Jeff Capel, Nate James and Jon Scheyer watching Friday’s St. John’s-San Diego State game from press row.
CBS analyst Bill Raftery commented that the assistant who prepares the scout in a loss “takes it on the chin.”
Collins, a Duke assistant from 2000-13, said coaches will not only try to get a feel for the size and speed of the players, they’ll sit near the benches to hear which plays the coach is calling. The play-calls are not cloaked in secrecy, as in football.
After live scouting, the Duke coaches would retreat to a hotel suite to work through the night while downing snacks and Diet Cokes. Depending on how late the round-of-64 game was played, Collins said he’d be lucky to catch one or two hours of sleep before presenting the scout to the team the next morning.
Another interesting element of the tournament: When the brackets are revealed, the coaches with the most friends in the business have an edge. They’ll scour the teams played by their opponents, hoping to hit up coaches for key tips.
“Your really close friends will be more liberal (with information),” Collins said. “But we respect guys who say: Out of loyalty to our league, we’d rather not do that.”
Collins recalled that at Duke, a video coordinator would record nearly every televised game, thanks to a dozen satellite dishes. But those game libraries are no longer necessary because of a company called Synergy Sports Technology that logs nearly every Division I game and provides analytics to more than 90 percent of the schools.
The detail that Synergy makes available is incredible.
Dive into Notre Dame’s offense, for example, and you learn that the Irish are the nation’s most productive team against man-to-man defenses but less effective against zones (still ranking in the top 15 percent). Only 5.6 percent of their offense is generated by low-post play.
Jerian Grant dribbles away from screens on pick-and-roll plays 16.8 percent of the time. He occasionally splits the defenders (3.8 percent) and rarely takes an early jumper (1.5 percent).
Want to show your team every turnover that Grant has committed this season? All 79 have been cataloged — along with his 236 assists.
And how about every team’s out-of-bounds plays?
In scouting its next opponent, Notre Dame coaches can find out which Wichita State players have struggled at the foul line in, say, the last five minutes of games decided by five points or fewer.
Before the digital age, coaches went “deck to deck” with VHS tapes to put together a scouting report, copying game film onto a blank tape. Now the challenge is managing the reams of information.
“We get every percentage, every shot taken,” said Masiello, who might emerge as a candidate at DePaul after guiding his Manhattan College team to consecutive NCAA tournaments. “With a short turnaround, should you concentrate on a team’s six sets – or how to beat their man (-to-man) defense? The last thing you want to do is give your kids too much stuff. Get through the sizzle and go right to the entrée.”
Twitter @TeddyGreenstein