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The Basketball Podcast: EP389 with Jim Christian on the Canisius Offensive DNA
In this week’s basketball coaching conversation, Canisius head coach Jim Christian joins the Basketball Podcast to share insights on their offensive DNA.
Jim Christian brings nearly two decades of NCAA Division I head coaching experience to Canisius, with a proven track record of success across multiple programs. He owns over 300 career wins and is recognized as one of the most accomplished coaches in Mid-American Conference (MAC) history, holding the league’s highest winning percentage (.700) and earning MAC Coach of the Year honors twice.
Christian led Kent State to five postseason appearances from 2002–08, including two NCAA Tournament berths and three NIT bids. He later guided Ohio University to a 49–22 record in two seasons, winning a regular-season MAC title and earning NABC District Coach of the Year honors. At Boston College, he oversaw the program’s most successful season in nearly a decade, highlighted by a win over No. 1 Duke and a postseason return in 2017–18.
He also served as head coach at TCU and held assistant roles at Kent State, Pittsburgh, Miami (Ohio), Western Kentucky, and St. Francis (Pa.). Most recently, Christian was part of Kent State’s staff during back-to-back MAC Championship game appearances and a 2023 NCAA Tournament berth.
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Jim Christian Quotes:
“As a young coach, I knew that I was probably not going to get an opportunity as a head coach unless I took some challenging situations . . and then you just make career decisions, you connect with people and just say, ‘I know this is going to be tough.’ You want to challenge yourself.”
“I started with, ‘What’s in the DNA of our offense?’ What I mean by DNA is these are the things regardless of what we run, regardless of what style we play, these things have to be incorporated in everything we do.”
“I use the summer as a huge evaluation tool. I’m evaluating what you can do. So, before I formulate what we run, I want to see who is on my team. I categorize them in two categories. There are some guys that can create their own advantage. I’ve just got to put them creatively in space where they can use the things that they do better than most . . But then, there are some guys you’ve got to create an advantage for them. And you need both.”
“We do a lot of film work. We film everything. We do individual instruction every practice, and they will get four or five clips from me every night. And a lot of them, in the beginning, are all decision clips . . you need to learn from the bad ones and you need to show the best ones.”
“They knew how to play out of what we’re doing. . At some level, if you can’t do those things, your career ends at some level, whether it be high school, whether it be college, whether it be trying to be a professional basketball player overseas. If you can’t play like that with other guys, your career is over.”
“So, I don’t want to just do shooting drills . . I want shooting drills off decision . . Any action that we run, there’s going to be a decision.”
“Our offensive rebounding is this. If I offensive rebound the ball and my shoulders are facing the rim, I can score. If my shoulders are facing anywhere else, everybody already spreads. We yell. ‘Money!’ It’s the best time to shoot threes and that’s when we would hopefully spray it out.”
“We’re judging. Is it a clean rebound by a guard? That means we should be making seven-second plays. We should be sprinting our lanes, making a play. Or is it a delayed rebound? Now we should be running one of our actions.”
“People always ask, when you’re recruiting or whatever, ‘How do you guys play?’ Well, these are the DNA. If you can’t do the DNA, if you can’t make decisions, if you can’t understand the importance of putting pressure on the rim, and if you don’t want to go to the offensive board, it doesn’t make a difference how we play, because those things have to be involved in everything that we do.”
Jim Christian Breakdown:
Jim Christian Selected Links from the Podcast:
Jim Christian
Rob Senderoff
Gary Waters
Stan Heath
Billy Wuczynski
T.J. Saint
Ky Bowman
Drew Timme
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