• Former Rhode Island College assistant coach Matt
O’Brien enters his second season as an assistant coach at
UVM.
• A native of Providence, R.I., O’Brien was the
primary assistant coach at RIC for three seasons and the team went
69-21 during his time on the sidelines.
• A 2005 graduate from Elmira College, he also has experience
working multiple basketball camps including the Eastern
Invitational, Hoop Group Events, Providence College and Princeton
University.
Diary Series: Matt O'Brien, Asst. Coach - Vermont
'The First Six Weeks'
A few years ago the NCAA made a change to their preseason rules by allowing full team workouts starting on September 15th. Prior to the 15th, we have two hours a week for workouts but can have no more than four players in each workout. Previously, Division I programs were only allowed to have these workouts up until the start of practice until the closest Friday to October 15th. This has prompted an interesting question: do you use the two hours a week for player development or do you begin to implement your team concepts?
From talking with other coaches while recruiting this fall, it seems that all programs organize these first six weeks differently.
Some coaches feel that using one or two hours a week is not enough to really get into depth with developing your team’s offense and defense. If you begin installing your offense on a Monday then have to wait till the next Monday to pick it up again; how much is going to be retained after seven days? Other coaches feel that the first five or six weeks is a great time to spend on individual development. This aspect can sometimes get left out of practice planning once you get into your season.
Here at Vermont, we decided to use the best of both worlds in our preseason. We used our two hours a week before September 15th for individual development. Our players always work extremely hard so we do not have to spend time getting them in the “right mindset” of working hard and competing. Our staff is able to get right to teaching and developing the skills that we need for our offensive system.
Once we get to September 15th, we started our team workouts. We would use an hour for that and an hour for individual development. That single hour goes quickly and does not allow for any wasted time. Consider that an early season practice session is usually 3 hours long, we really were only able to get 1 and 1/3 of a practice in. But as we get ready for practice, we have accomplished a lot in that short amount of time. In the four one hour sessions we focused on installing our base offense and a secondary offensive package. The advantage gained is that we are able to hit the ground running much quicker than we could if we did not use this time.
With the second hour a week, we continued to utilize our player development program. As we got closer to our start date and saw correctable problems in our practice film, we began to merge the positional groups. For example, we were struggling with our ball screen offense so to fix this, we used part of the individual. After working out for 30 minutes within their position groups, we combined the two groups and worked on ball screens. There was improvement from the previous practice session, and even greater improvement in our next full practice.
Being able to sort through these problems quickly is a huge advantage with practice beginning last week on October 14th. By the start of practice, we will have fixed problems, developed our players, and installed our base offense. There is not a right or wrong answer with how you utilize your pre season, but having a plan is critical to your success especially early in the year.
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