Things You Did Not Learn in School - From Don Meyer

My wife just started her first year as a full-time teacher this school year. She is teaching 6th grade at a local middle school. One of the school policies is that students are allowed to turn in assignments late and still earn full credit. There is also a re-test policy that students can improve any major test grade. What is that actually teaching these young people?

I have had players that have a tremendous sense of entitlement. These players have it in their head that they deserve special treatment or playing time and the like. It is my belief that they have been enabled by people of influence, be it coaches, parents, or in the case of my wife's students, their schools.

So digging through some old coaching notes, I found a great handout from Coach Meyer that speaks to this. I will be posting this in every single one of the University of Dallas men's basketball player's lockers:

To the High School/College Graduate:

Things You Did Not Learn in School

1. Life is not fair - get used to it.
2. The world won't care about your self esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
3. You will not make $100,000 a year right out of school. You won't be a vice-president with a company car until you earn both.
4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
5. Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping - They called it opportunity.
6. If you screw up, it is not your parents' fault so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
7. Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning your room, and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are - so before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades. They will give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
9. Life is not divided into semesters, you don't get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
10. Television is not real life. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go get jobs.
11. Be nice to nerds. Chances are you will end up working for nerds.
12. Smoking does not make you look cool; it makes you look moronic. And ditto for purple hair, pierced body parts, and tattoos.
13. Living fast and dying young is romantic, only until you see one of your friends at room temperature.
14. Get up when you fall down.

Ending the Trend

One of the hot topics on Twitter amongst coaches this week was feeding the post and how post passes are leading more to turnovers than completions. Coach Eastman mentioned a lot of post passes get deflected or stolen. He goes on to say "give up position for possession". Rick Allison replied to this saying, "avoid bad passing angles." While I agree with both coaches, I think that there is a disturbing trend in the game that contributes to the problem before it gets to either of these points.

I teach our post players much in the same way Don Meyer teaches his post players: work early for position. In this manner, it is easier to make the post feed for the guards and the biggest reason is it makes it much easier to score. In that same breath, I agree with Coach Eastman in that it is much more important to value the basketball if an errant pass is made. I tell our guys to treat the ball like their cell phones (seems that's the most important thing in the world to a young man these days).

Coach Allison brings up a great point as well. I have seen a tremendous drop in guards' ability to feed the post. It has become a lost art of sorts. We get college players that still don't grasp the concept of breaking the angle on the wing by taking a hard dribble or two in order to make a post entry pass.

The trend I am seeing that really makes post passing even more of a challenge is that players are not squaring up on the perimeter when they catch the ball. If they do square up, they have a tendency to stand straight up and down with the ball above their head becoming very easy to guard; not to mention weak and off balance. The old "triple-threat position" has become passe.

In my end-of-the-season reflection, I wrote down that next season we need to emphasize the catch-n-square. I want our perimeter players to sweep through on the catch. I teach reverse pivot square ups. By using the reverse pivot, this creates space between the offense and the defensive player. It allows the offense a valuable split second or two to view the floor and read the situation.

On the reverse pivot square up, the offense has an opportunity to "sweep through" the defense's arms with his elbows. Leading with the elbow, ripping the ball through quickly and low will knock the defender's hands out of the way. This also eliminates exposing the ball t the defender and eliminating deflections.

If perimeter players will execute this, it will enable them to see the post and make a read. At this point we can begin to teach breaking the post feed angles, feeding the post, and releasing to the ball on the pass.

Mental Discipline by Coach Meyer

As the season hits the "home stretch", mental discipline becomes the separator of the good teams and the great teams. I am very proud of my post players in regards to this as they have really taken to the idea that it takes something special between the ears to accomplish great things. We have discussed this frequently and they have truly responded in a major way. Many of the 12 points Coach Meyer mentions in the following, our posts have bought in to.

It's How You Play the Game: Mental Discipline
1. Communicate with teammates vs. talk with opponent (or officials, opposing school crowd, opposing coaches, etc... They all have the same mental effect.)

2. Taking a charge vs. backing away from a charge.

3. Calling out and communicating assignments on the freethrow lane vs. violations at the freethrow line.

4. Take charge or block shot to a teammate vs. wild leaping or goal tending.

5. Smart foul vs. dumb foul

6. Intense position pressure defense vs. wild lunging defense.

7. Poised offense vs. anxious offense.

8. Use the glass or grab the ball vs. don't use the glass or tip.

9. Inside game vs. outside game perimeter lapse.

10. Make lay-ups vs. miss lay-up and they score.

11. Positive one; look for ways to win vs. negative one.

12. Great effort each possession vs. great play syndrome.

Don't let weak people bring out the weakness in you.
Intensity and technique lead to hustle plays.
Play against the game.

Team attitude: Philippians 2:1-5