The Basketball Podcast: EP338 with Aaron Roussell on Coaching the Princeton Offense

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Aaron Roussell Quotes:

“For us, it all started with transition. We start there. We may start the framework of what it looks like quickly in the half court, but I really try to make sure that this is not a half-court offense. This offense, the spacing starts as soon as we get the rebound.”

“We don’t do a lot of set actions, but we have our actions and then maybe our ‘plays’ are just stacking those actions on top of each other.”

“We’re a little bit more traditional pack line [defense]. We’re not out there getting a lot of steals, so our offensive possessions might be a little bit quicker, our defense possessions might be a little bit slower. But we are, we are charting how many times we are getting into an action before 26, 27 on the shot clock.”

“We’re trying to get into an action as quick as possible. Your decision, and it shouldn’t be me calling it, but you need to trigger an action in those first three or four seconds for this to work at the optimal level.”

“We do post our guards quite a bit and our posts shoot the heck out of it. And so, I think we’re able to do some things differently with some of those splits with who’s cutting to the basket and not saying, ‘She’s the better shooter, so we want her popping, you’re the better cutter, so we want you going.’ It’s a little bit more based on the read of what the defense gives us there.”

“Let’s not make these things so complicated, right? We have a couple impactful transfers right now. I want them to be able to play right away. I want them to understand things right away and be comfortable early. And so I think by doing that [keeping things simple] it allows them to maybe jump in and make an impact a little bit earlier.”

“There were a lot of low scoring games, and I joked that, ‘Somebody in this league’s got to start scoring points.’ Why not us? Let’s play a little bit faster, let’s play more free and maybe shoot the three a little bit more. I think we started recruiting a little bit more to that just to be different than everybody else.”

“I think every offense, no matter what you’re running, the principle of it, the first foundation, that first brick is the cutting. I think it’s essential in our offense because of the spacing. Five out sounds great . . you’re spreading everybody out and all this. Five out is not the best spacing offense unless you have some off the ball movement.”

“When somebody’s not looking and you’re able to get uninhibited to the front of the rim, take that cut . . it goes back to everything we’re trying to get. We want things at the basket. The threes and everything else will come from that.”

“So much of what we’re doing right now is trying to get people into rotation, trying to get people into long closeouts. Defensively, we’re trying to prevent that. You’ve got to take advantage when the defense makes a mistake and it’s just so hard against great offenses these days to not make a mistake defensively. The mistake you then make offensively is not taking advantage of that mistake on the defensive side.”

“One thing for us as coaches, we had to let loose and remind ourselves, we don’t need to nitpick at every decision they [the players] made, especially in the summer. I know there’s a time for roles. There’s a time for all of this stuff.”

“I think we’ve got to be careful and not get set in old ways of what used to work. We won a championship this past year. We were good. If we ran the same thing that we ran in 2019 with that championship team, we wouldn’t have won this year. It would not have worked. So, I think you have to be adaptable as a coach. Find new things, be willing to look and listen to staff members when they have differing ideas.”

Aaron Roussell Breakdown:

01:47 Coaching Philosophy and Influences
03:51 Impact of Social Media on Coaching
05:51 The Princeton Offense
07:58 Teaching and Implementing the Offense
16:04 Adapting to Different Game Situations
23:13 Challenges and Strategies in Coaching
27:45 Analyzing the Scary Matchup
27:59 Adapting to Trends in Basketball
28:56 The Importance of Cutting in Offense
29:29 Challenges of Five-Out Offense
30:12 Teaching Cutting and Spacing
39:07 Encouraging Creativity in Players
42:39 Connecting Offense and Defense
44:39 Learning from Global Basketball Practices
46:06 Footwork and Player Positioning
49:23 Stacking Actions for Offensive Advantage
51:51 Continuous Learning and Adaptation

Aaron Roussell Selected Links from the Podcast:

Aaron Roussell

Flip Saunders

Chris Mooney

Tex Winter

Stan Van Gundy

Jacob Gilyard

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