Diary Series: Matt McCall, Asst. Coach - Florida

I'm sure everyone has their own philosophies with regards to scouting and a lot depends on who your working for. Coach Donovan is going to watch almost as much as film as the scout coach so its important to be prepared to present a game plan to him as soon as our previous game is over.

The first thing I do before I watch any film on a team is dissect their stat sheets from previous games: 3 pt FG percentage, 3 FGs made, rebound margin, second chance points, and turnovers for both teams. What do these numbers look like in the games they have won vs the games they have lost. Are there any other statistics that stand out with regards to wins and losses.
 
I know some guys like to watch film and have other guys do their edits. I like to do the edits myself. Best way for me to learn their stuff. I'll most likely try and watch their previous five games make edits from those then go back and watch DVDs from a couple of those games especially if they play a team with a similar style of play to us.
 
Once our previous game is over it's important to give Coach some thoughts on things to work on that day in practice to start getting us prepared for our opponent. Usually three things -- both offensively and defensively. 

We try to not bog our guys down with long scouting reports or sets drawn up for them. We want them to know tendancies on each player and three things we have to do on both ends of the floor to win the game. 

After everything is said and done with regards to scouting you can know every single play they are going to run and know every play call but it's all about how you present it to your team. If you're confident and authoritative your guys will buy in!

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