The Basketball Podcast: EP341 with Chris Victor on Joy, Unity and Defense

Chris Victor Quotes:

“I think a big part of coaching college basketball is the development of the players in your program and not just on the basketball side, but them growing as men . . A big part of what we do is making sure that they’re developing as basketball players, but also, are they developing as leaders? Are they developing as men? Are they going to be ready to succeed in the real world after basketball?”

“We talk about the four pillars of our program. One of them is investment . . What are you investing in yourself first, with 24 hours in a day and so many distractions for these kids now, what are you investing in? What are you putting your hours in? What are you putting the mental capacity you have for a day? Where is that going? And then we expand that to the unity part. Are you considering with that investment, the players on your team, family members, your friends, the relationships you’re in, and really being a leader with this, but also thinking about the opportunity to grow by giving yourself to something bigger.”

“What does compete mean for us? It’s, ‘Are you giving your greatest effort?’ We’re also relentlessly trying to find solutions to win.”

“We create our own joy. So, what’s the mentality that you’re walking into practice with? What’s the mentality whatever event you’re entering, whatever moment in your day that you’re entering, what’s the level of joy that you’re bringing to that event, to that time of your day?  We compete a lot in practice and we let our guys play a lot. Whether it’s three on three, four on four, five on five, we get joy out of that competition, and we try to keep the practices fast moving.”

“I want everyone in our program to feel a piece of the ownership. I think one of the mistakes I made as a young head coach was you have all these ideas in your head of what you want to implement and how you want your program to run. And a big mistake that I made was trying to do everything myself . . and keep all the responsibilities on my shoulders.  And I learned very quickly that’s not the best way to do it. You find the right people, whether it’s coaching staff, whether it’s players, undergraduate managers, graduate assistants, and you give them power and give some responsibility to them.  It’s only going to raise the level [of the program].”

“We’ll guard one-on-one very often and . . defensively we want to dictate. We don’t want to be reactive. So, everything we do is aggressive. Everything we do is for our guys to understand that it’s your job to dictate to the baseline side and not be reactive to what the offense is trying to do.”

“Once you’ve dictated baseline, it’s not okay to get beat. It’s not okay to give up a paint touch on the baseline side. You still have to what we call ‘hold the line.’  So, when you start your stance and you’ve dictated the baseline side, we draw that line down to the baseline where we want to force the offensive player and you have to hold that line.”

“How much space can you give the offensive player without giving up a three? How much space can you give them and still pressure the basketball? It’s really working with each guy individually and understanding that it’s not going to be the same for every player on your team. You’ve got to teach different ways to different guys.”

“One thing we always talk about when we’re one pass away is being able to impact the basketball. So, not just up the line in a stance, but anytime the ball is bounced, anytime there’s a player trying to attack, your job one pass away is to impact the basketball.”

“One of the things that is tough is getting the idea in our guards’ minds that it is not okay to be hit and accept the help . . It’s not okay to allow the ball handler to use the screen and accept the help. We do not want the offense to create an advantage or create rotations behind on our defense with the big that high on the floor. So, really changing the mindset of our guards is, just refusing to be screened, not accepting the screen, and refusing to be hit and being able to guard your guy one on one.”

“So, if a big sets a screen and slips or if a guard ghosts the screen, as soon as we see that ghost, we’re calling ‘square’, just allowing our guy on the basketball to understand there’s no more screen being set. You are now back to one-on-one. Get back to your one-on-one defensive principles.”

“We wanted to build this program with experience. We wanted to build it with the guys that have been here, that we recruited when they were young. And having that continuity has been huge.  We’ve been very fortunate in recruiting the right people and the right players and they’ve really enjoyed their experience. They’ve felt their development on the court. They understand their development off the court, and they appreciate it.”

Chris Victor Breakdown:

Chris Victor Selected Links from the Podcast:

Chris Victor

Ken Ammann

Larry Krystkowiak

Darrion Trammell

Cameron Tyson