SPECIAL TEAMS FOR CHAMPIONSHIP TEAMS

As the head basketball coach at Michigan State University, I have never hidden my fondness for the gridiron. Football and its strategies have always played a big part in my coaching philosophy. My best friend since childhood is San Francisco 49er coach, Steve Mariucci, and I find nothing more enjoyable than watching a “Green and White” victory on a fall Saturday in Spartan Stadium. Therefore, it seems only appropriate that one of the areas that I feel has led to the success of our championship program is an area emphasized by all great football teams. Hall of Fame coaches, from Vince Lombardi to Mike Ditka, have all stressed the importance and impact that “Special Teams” have on the outcome of battles waged on the football field. In the Michigan State basketball program, we firmly believe that our “Special Teams” have been a key ingredient in our four consecutive Big Ten titles, three consecutive Final Four appearances, and the 2000 National Championship.

Knowing that so many games are decided by six points or less, and that the majority of NCAA Tournament games are decided by even less, we decided to focus on five areas that would make up our “Special Teams.” It is our goal to have our “Special Teams” produce fifteen to twenty points per game. If we can achieve this goal, close games can become very comfortable wins and, more importantly, devastating losses can be turned into exciting victories.

The Five Areas of Our “Special Teams” are:

1. Jump ball situations

2. Baseline out-of-bounds

3. Sideline out-of-bounds

4. Free throw situations

5. After time-out plays

Jump Ball – Get the Game Started Right

We want to set the tone and tempo of the game from the opening tip. Our scouting report will cover if we can control the tip or, if we lose the tip, which direction our opponent tends to tip the ball. For example, if we feel that we cannot win the tip and our opponent consistently tips the ball to the backcourt, then we will set up a play to steal the tip and run a set action in order to get a high percentage shot immediately. Our mindset is to begin every game in the “attack mode” and score our first basket before the defense has time to set up. You would be surprised at how many times a defense can be caught off guard on the very first possession of the game. If you can control the tip, I would suggest coming up with two different quick hitters your team can run and feels confident in. We end every game-day shoot around executing our tip play, always concluding the practice on a made basket. It’s great for a team’s confidence to know that they have a plan to start every game with a quick lead.

Baseline Out-of-Bounds – Attack When They Relax

We take great pride in scoring on what we call our “BLOBS” (baseline out-of-bounds). You will be pleasantly surprised at how many baskets you will score if your team develops the mentality that they have a great offensive advantage when taking the ball out along the baseline. We work on our BLOBS every day, spending ten minutes of practice time. We execute our BLOBS at game speed, calling out which option we want the shot coming from. We will also scrimmage live on BLOBS, with each team getting five opportunities to score. Again, we constantly emphasize how important this aspect of the game is to our team’s success. In many cases we will put in special plays for each opponent. If our opponent had a difficult time guarding a BLOB in their previous game, we may “steal” that play and put it in for that specific game. One thing we always do in this situation is review that play on game day and inform our players that we will run that BLOB on the first out-of-bounds opportunity.

Sideline Out-of-Bounds – Get an Open Three

Many teams’ main objective in their sideline out-of- bounds (we call them SLOBS) is to get the ball into play safely. Again we differ in this philosophy because we want to use every potential scoring opportunity to attack the defense in a situation that they might not spend a lot of practice time on. At Michigan State, we try to run our variety of SLOBS to get a quick, open three-point shot. Many teams defend SLOBS by flattening their defense and we have found great success in screening this defensive set and bringing our shooters to an open area for a high-percentage three-point shot. SLOBS are a great time to catch the defense relaxing and reward your offensive execution with a great-looking shot from the three-point line.

Free Throw Situations – Turning a Miss into Points

A main emphasis in our championship program has been on dominating our offensive backboards. In many games, our best offense has been the missed shot. Obviously, it would be great if our team never missed a free throw, but since even the best teams only shoot 75 percent from the free throw line, we decided to also emphasize attacking the offensive glass during a free throw situation. I’m sure every coach can recall a game that was won or lost on an offensive put back off a missed free throw. Although there are many different techniques or actions you could use to attack the glass on free throw situations, the most important point is that you get your players to go to the boards and go hard. Just like the chart we use to determine the percentage of how often we go to the offensive boards in our offensive sets, we also use the same chart for our free throw situations.

After Time-Out Plays – Execution and Discipline

There may be nothing more frustrating for a coach than to call or diagram a play during a time-out only to have it improperly executed on the floor. To combat this problem and to increase the focus and execution of our after-time-out plays, we will periodically call time-out during practice to diagram and set up a play. We will do this at any time during practice, during a drill, after sprints, or even when the team is shooting free throws. The players grow accustomed to increasing their concentration and executing a play during this important time. We have had great results because of this practice habit. In our 2001 regional final game versus Temple this past year, our players executed and scored on seven out of our nine time-out plays. All the credit should go to the players because they conditioned themselves to be successful in those important situations.

There is no doubt that one of the reasons why our team has been so successful in these “Special Teams” areas is because we emphasize them in practice. We will work on at least two areas of our “Special Teams” every day in practice and also cover all five areas during our game-day shoot around. Our players are highly motivated and take great pride in turning what some would consider boring aspects of the game into exciting opportunities. Just like in the great game of football, “Special Team” can have a major impact in the game of basketball as well.