February 10, 2011

NCDS: Dave Balza, Head Coach - Florida Gulf Coast ("Late Game Situations")

 

The best way to describe the past 10 days would be “down to the wire.”  We had three games and all were decided in the last possession or in overtime.  We’ve had just one other game all year that was decided that way.  We feel very blessed to have come away with three wins in those four games.  I had someone look up our record in close games the other day.  While our overall record during this transition period has been disappointing for us, in our four years of Division 1 play we are 19-10 in games decided by less than 5 points or in overtime. 

As we near the midway point in league play, it is always interesting to me to see the number of games decided by a possession or two.  If you are like me, you love to tune into a game on TV to catch the last few minutes of a close game.  We always preach to our players the importance of every possession, and often it is a possession early in the game that sways the outcome more so than the last minute.  Yet, how teams handle late game situations may be the most enjoyable part of the game.  Though the average team goes down-to-the-wire in less than one-third of their games each year, there is a lot of time and practice that goes into being successful in the waning minutes.

We start to work on late game situations about one week into practice.  We generally designate about 10 minutes per practice to situations.  The first four days or so, we mostly have chalk talks or cram sessions, where we address generalities.  One day, for example, we will talk “Offense when ahead” and the next may be “Defense when behind” and so on.  From there, we get into specific scenarios.  We walk through what our basic concepts are, such as alignment to get the ball in full-court when ahead, how and when to foul, and even how to miss a free throw intentionally.  We then skull / drill our late game actions, so even without a timeout, our players know what to do down one possession with over or under 5 seconds. 

Once we feel comfortable that the players know what we want to do, then we work in different scenarios to see if they can execute them live.  For a couple days, I or one of the assistants will talk them through a timeout.  Then we will have a few days in which they “coach” the timeouts.  We always try to work some situations into our scrimmages with outside opponents so that we can try them live against others as well.  As we get close to our first game, we will split our scrimmage segments up into shorter time frames so that there are more situational opportunities.

One of the tough things that you might rarely think about when it comes to the mid-major conferences is that there is a possibility that you may not get to utilize your late game preparation a lot in your non-conference play.  This year, for example, our early season consisted of games with Indiana, Ohio State, Arkansas and Miami.  While we certainly prepared for late game situations, we did not get to use them in any of those games.  Thus, we had a “refresher” course for our team as we got into conference action.  We would generally do this even if we had multiple close games, as roles change due to injuries, line-up adjustments and the like.

While we didn’t get to utilize our prep a lot early in the year, we have had quite a few opportunities, as I mentioned, over the last couple of weeks. Last week, we lost a home game by 3, won a road game by 2 and then won a road game against our arch-rival on the road in triple overtime.  Now understand, we have a young team.  In fact, two of our best free throw shooters are freshmen, so you can imagine the dynamic that adds to late game scenarios.  They are good players, though.  In the two wins, we were led in scoring by two sophomores and two freshmen.  One of the freshmen hit a trey to send the last game into the third overtime.  He also went 9-for-9 from the free throw line and helped seal that game in the final OT.

It has been a tough season from a win-loss perspective.  This young team has been coming on strong of late, though, so the future is extremely bright.  The late game successes have helped our team’s psyche, and I am convinced that all of the early preparation in that area has given them the confidence that will ultimately turn this group into a team to be reckoned with in the league for years to come.  As I told the media after that 3OT game, I couldn’t be prouder of this group!

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Dave Balza
Head Basketball Coach
Florida Gulf Coast University