The Basketball Podcast: EP432 with Brian Earl on Blending Old School with New

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Brian Earl Quotes:

Ï think a lot of people thought that he [Pete Carrill] definitely thought that [the Princeton offense] was the way to win games, but he explained that it was a way with sort of lesser physical talent to win a game by doing it slow and making things hard on the other team on the defensive end. But I don’t think he would have had a problem with us sort of going the other way as I became a head coach.”

“The offensive strategy is ‘get a good shot’ and you’ll see a lot of those Princeton back door cuts under speed faster than when I was a player. And those things open you up for layups, but they also open your teammate up for open shots on the three-point line. If you can shoot the shot and make it, that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

“We try to get good at enjoying passing to your teammate for success. We work on it a lot. There’s a certain amount of leeway that would drive a lot of coaches nuts with what we do in practice, allowing for a little bit of risk taking and throwing some passes. And we will turn it over a little bit, especially early on. But we want them to know that it all is connected, how hard you cut, how much care you put on a pass.  It’s very important in a team sport to be accurate with what you’re doing.”

“If you’re open, you have to shoot it. And then we get into how do we want to potentially press off a make or a miss . . We try to figure out a way to put a little pressure on after a miss, getting on the front foot and making sure we know where the guards and the primary ball handlers are and then seeing how much we can keep the intensity on.”

“Basketball is a great way to get to know each other and to become friends. We had a really tight team that was new to each other last year. And so we try to get them out on the court and playing games as soon as we possibly can and enjoying playing with each other, competing, but also figuring out some of the nuances of our game.”

“In this day and age, you can’t be afraid to pivot on something that you thought was the way to do it two years ago that just doesn’t work with this group.”

“I very quickly learned as a 6 foot 1, semi-athletic kid that Vince Carter is going to go by you if he wants to. And so, sometimes you need to start with what can’t we do? On defense, I would love to have everybody stay in front of their man, but sometimes that gets in the way of coming up with the thing that might work for that team.”

“Maybe the most important thing on defense that I’ve learned over all these years is that someone who talks can get a lot done. But if they’re not going to do it, it’s going to lead to a lot of issues.”

“As soon as you get over the thing that you’re not starting, you can come in there and really make an impact in next group . . they sort of understand that we are getting to the essence of what we’re trying to do, which is play as a team, and whoever’s out there is going to give it their all.”

“I think most of it comes down to how willing are you to cut hard? . . Cut through the contact, cut all the way to finish and that ball might end up in your hand . . we make sure we’re showing our guys what it looks like when it’s done right, what it looks like when it’s not. We celebrate when you cut, don’t get the ball but we got an open shot because you cut.  That’s important as well.”

“If you do a strong enough fake of a cut, the defender is going to get in a spot where he’s going to naturally have to go under the screen . . that threat of cutting for another two point shot at 95% chance of it going in causes people to get out of position for you going to take the hand off and stop behind it.”

Brian Earl Breakdown:

Brian Earl Selected Links from the Podcast: