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The Basketball Podcast: EP405 with Scott Fitch on Developing Connected Competitive Teams
In this week’s basketball coaching conversation, Fairport High School and USA Basketball head coach Scott Fitch joins the Basketball Podcast to share insights on developing connected competitive teams.
Scott Fitch is one of the most accomplished and trusted coaches in the USA Basketball pipeline, with more than two decades of sustained success at the national, grassroots, and high school levels. In January 2025, Fitch was named Head Coach of the 2025 USA Basketball Men’s U16 National Team, a role in which he led the program to a 6–0 record and the gold medal at the 2025 FIBA U16 Men’s AmeriCup. He was also selected as a court coach for the 2025 USA Men’s Junior National Team April minicamp in San Antonio, continuing his long-standing involvement with USA Basketball’s elite development pathway. These appointments represent the latest in 20-plus coaching assignments with USA Basketball.
Scott Fitch has also been the head boys basketball coach at Fairport High School in New York since 2001. Fitch has been honored five times as the Monroe County Coach of the Year, twice as the Section V Coach of the Year and twice All-Greater Rochester Coach of the Year. He led his team to back-to-back Section V Championships in 2006 and 2007 and to the state final four in 2007. In 2016-17, Fitch led Fairport to a 22-2 record, a section title and the state championship game.
Fitch has played a central role across multiple Junior National Team minicamps, including April and October 2024, and has contributed at nearly every level of the USA Basketball youth system. His previous national team experience includes serving as a court coach for the 2022 USA Men’s U17 National Team, an assistant coach for the 2022 Nike Hoop Summit Team, and head coach of the 2019 Nike Hoop Summit Team, which earned a victory under his leadership.
Earlier in his USA Basketball career, Fitch served as a court coach at the 2021 USA Men’s U16 National Team training camp, as well as an assistant coach for the 2018 USA Men’s U17 National Team and the 2017 USA Men’s U16 National Team, further establishing his continuity and impact within the program.
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Scott Fitch Quotes:
“I started speaking because I had a couple of my players that were getting hurt in their social media world and I saw the impact it was having on their lives. And so, I started having schools ask me to come speak on it. I became passionate about it. I think the speaking helps you in every facet of life. It gives you a comfort level in front of people. It makes you really choose your words wisely.”
“When I was coaching before I started speaking, I probably used too many words. I wasn’t concise. And I think when you do that, you lose people. I definitely feel like it’s helped me with my verbiage, and I think also the kids connecting with what I’m trying to say to them. I think it’s helped me meet them in their world a little bit better.”
“We have three modified B teams. There’s seventh and eighth grade, two freshman teams, one JV and one varsity . . I’m at a public school, so I’ve got to coach what I have. I think the more you connect your program, number one, it’s more enjoyable. Number two, you make a bigger impact.”
“On Saturdays, I run practice for all my modified kids. So, I’ll have 80 kids in the gym and I’ll run the practice. Not only do I get to know their names and get a feel for who they are, they get a feel for me and my energy. I also, through the week, will be going to the games of the modified. I’ll see what we need to work on, and then I can teach that. And my coaches will hear me teach it and my words and how I like to teach it, so they can be extensions of me.”
“It’s hard when you’re not getting playing time and you’re putting in all the work. My high school team, we’ll film the bench. At USA Basketball, we film the bench. We see who’s connected, who’s cheering for each other, who’s really engaged and who’s not. And we expect everybody to be engaged. And part of our role as a coach is to pour into every kid. Just because he’s 12th man doesn’t mean I don’t pour into him. He’s got to feel that connection.”
“I’ll have a couple practices a year where I will send my top six guys home. We’ll do shooting drills and I’ll send them home and I’ll practice with my bottom eight. And my thing is, I want them to know I want them to get better . . I think doing little things like that, they help the buy in, but they also help the season be successful. If those kids are not improving, then we’re not improving as a team because they’re not pushing the starters the way they need to push them. It’s hard to be that guy, but yet that guy dictates a lot of our success.”
“When I started with USA Basketball about 10 years ago, I got reminded the value of truth. At that level, you’ve got these kids that are so special, but a lot of them don’t have people that are telling them truths. They all want to be in their inner circle when they make it to the league and they’re willing to lie to them because they want them to transfer to their high school or they’re an AAU coach and they feel like they’re competing for them. At USA Basketball, we get a chance to be real. We get a chance to tell that kid exactly what we’re seeing and feeling. I’m not trying to gain anything,”
“When I left my USA Basketball experience for the first time, I got reminded that those tough conversations are where growth happens. That’s where we get better.”
“They’ve got to understand you value them and you’ve got to show that. A lot of the stats that I share, I don’t talk about points. I talk about offensive rebounds. I talk about creating turnovers and tips and all the hustle and energy plays, because that’s where you’re going to win and lose games.”
“I’m a strong believer in a culture and setting a gym that cultivates success. And at USA Basketball, we have to set a culture within three or four days, which is hard to do. But it’s also made me an incredibly aware of picking my words every time I interact with them. I have to make an impact. I think the culture is laid every time I speak to them. And I’ve got to make sure I’m cognizant of that.”
“Before we start a window [short session], I’ll make five bullet points to me that they’ve got to have when they leave here. And so, regardless of what I’m teaching, those five bullet points have to come across and they have to have that.”
“We do a lot of teaching through playing. We want reps and we want to let them be them. So, a lot of four-on-four, a lot of three-on-three . . and this is the most fun I’ve had coaching. Letting them play, letting them learn. You’ve got to create an environment that allows them to make mistakes so they can feel free. And then, when they make the mistake, we talk about why, so they can learn, so then they can build on it.”
“We want to play with pace. I play with pace in my high school and also at USA Basketball. A negative outlet is an outlet where a point guard or an outlet guy is running back to the basketball.”
“We had a point guard that was an elite player. He’s one of the best that I’ve ever coached. And we ran things through him, but we got him down the floor because we educated him that getting the ball ahead to him downhill before the defense is set, that’s very appealing to a point guard that likes to get downhill. The other thing is we introduced boomerangs where when you pitch it ahead, we’ll throw it right back to him and get him downhill. So that point guard got rewarded [for running the floor].”
“I feel like you’ve got to teach them what pace feels like and then draw back. And you can draw back in different ways. You can settle them down, we can call an action, we can do things to settle down. We can play off two feet. We can give them tools to help them play more under control with patience. But I think the pace feeling, you’ve got to feel it before you can pull it back.”
“We don’t want people to run plays. We want to have to make plays. We want to make them uncomfortable . . I don’t want people to rest against us. We want them to be uncomfortable. That’s something that we take a lot of pride in, and we don’t want you to be the weak link. Don’t be that guy that isn’t doing it when everybody else is.”
“Every drill is out there on YouTube. Every kid who wants to be good can pay and go to an individual workout guy. So, all those things now are not differentiators anymore. So now, as coaches, how do we differentiate? One is by connecting with our players, it’s creating that culture piece. And then the other thing is seeing what your team needs and meeting the needs. And passing is one that’s a huge one. If you can’t pass the basketball, it doesn’t matter what you do, you’re in trouble.”
“I don’t think you can play defense at a high level if you don’t talk. When you’re talking, you’re engaged. So number one is, I can hear my defense. Number two, I can see if people are comfortable. If they’re comfortable, then we’re not doing it well. And then number three, is just effort. Are we flying all over the floor? Are we diving on the floor for loose balls? And for me, those are the quick assessments.”
“If we’re not playing hard defensively, then we’re not getting better offensively. You can’t have that. My practices are ultra-competitive. It doesn’t matter what we do. We are competing, and there’s a winner and there’s a loser, and at the end, we’ll pay a penalty quick, and then we go right to the next one. But I want competitive kids, and if I want my offense to truly be good, then we’ve got to compete defensively in that drill.”
“I think the robot player is becoming extinct because they don’t have basketball IQ. Basketball is a reactionary sport. The defense is never the exact same way twice down the floor.”
“I get asked from our NBA scouts all the time, ‘Are they competitive?’ They still ask, are they competitive because that’s a separator at that level. But what I’m hearing more and more is, ‘Do they have IQ? Do they know how to play? Can they react? Can they learn?’ And if those guys are asking me that question, it’s telling me the importance of it and that we’ve got to create that for those USA kids.”
“What I started doing was just trying to really focus on the process and really buy into that. You really embrace every minute with my kids and with my coaches and the results will take care of themselves. Do I want to win? Heck, yeah. But if I focus on the other stuff that I control, I think it’s made me a happier coach and a better coach . . I can control my preparation. I control how I interact with every kid. I can control my actions. And so when I did that and shifted that, I’ve been happier.”
“The thing that drives me is my kids, so I’ll do whatever I need to do to learn the game or teach the game in a way that impacts them in a positive way because I care about them. And I think the coaches that have been in a long time, they have that care and that passion for their kids.”
Scott Fitch Breakdown:
Scott Fitch Selected Links from the Podcast:
Scott Fitch
Jeff Fitch
Tyrese Haliburton
Jalen Suggs
Isaiah Stewart
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