Do You Foul or Defend When You're Up Three With Eight Seconds Left?
https://teachhoops.com/ CoachingYouthHoops.com/nuke: clean sports hydration made with coconut water. Use code youthhoops25 for 25% off You're up three. Eight seconds left. Their ball. Do you foul or do you defend? Coach Collins figures a room full of coaches would split right down the middle, and honestly, he's done both. The real point of this episode isn't the answer. It's that you can't find the answer in the foxhole. If you haven't decided it before the game and repped it in practice, your players won't pull it off when the gym is shaking. Last season Madison Memorial went 27 and 3. Six or seven games came down to the last two minutes, including a double overtime game and a four overtime game, and Memorial won every one of them. Coach Collins doesn't call that luck. He calls it a group that talked to each other, a staff with a plan, and a lot of reps. What we cover Foul or defend, and the variables that change the answer. Where's the ball? Has their best shooter fouled out? How many timeouts and fouls to give do you have? And have you actually practiced fouling? "We need a three" versus "we can take a three." Every player hears the second one. Coach explains why you have to spell out the difference ahead of time. The two points a minute rule. After 20 years of charting his league, Coach shows when a deficit moves from "stay the course" to "what are we doing now": down ten with six minutes left, down eight with four, down six with three, down four with two. Game decision charts. Like the laminated card a football coach carries, Coach built last minute sheets for when you're up, down, on offense and on defense, then shrank it to a single card he can grab during a dead ball. Coaching through noise. "In the biggest game of the year, you won't hear me. You won't hear your grandma." Sectional finals in a packed high school gym are louder than state in front of 17,000 people. If they can't hear you, they need to see you. Colors, numbers and hand signals. Coach's stoplight system: red means don't you dare shoot it, yellow means think about what Coach would want, green means go. Numbers run the defense. A fist calls the offense. Timeout cards and the "55" call. An assistant holds up timeouts left and possession as players walk out of the huddle. And 55? Say it out loud. It sounds like foul, without yelling "foul" in front of the official. Who does what on the bench. One assistant on timeouts, bonus and the possession arrow. One on the signal cards. One on matchups and foul trouble. The head coach owns the final call. How to foul, and who to foul. Everyone says foul. Nobody teaches