Vincennes Lincoln Hoops

As we approach the planning phase for the upcoming school year, I wanted to emphasize the critical importance of incorporating consistent strength and conditioning programs.This is a topic that cannot be overstated in terms of its impact on our teams’ performance and success.

It’s evident that merely conducting summer or pre-season workouts isn’t sufficient to sustain our athletes’ progress throughout the season. Without ongoing strength and speed training, the gains achieved beforehand quickly diminish, undermining the hard work and effort invested in pre-season preparations.

To truly excel, our athletes need to engage in year-round strength and conditioning routines. This isn’t a novel concept; many successful programs across the state have already recognized and implemented this approach.

We have a viable solution at our disposal: the Advanced PE class.

I HIGHLY encourage our athletes to enroll in Advanced PE.

This can provide a structured strength and conditioning sessions during the school day, ensuring consistent participation and progress.

Hello folks… I was asked this question by a parent recently, and I figured others may have the same question as well.

Why the fouls at Evansville North?

When trailing a close game going into the last minutes, it’s a problem if you’re not near the double bonus situation. At North, we had only one team foul going into the last minute and a half. I chose to give a couple fouls so that we could put North at the free throw line later in the game if needed. If you get down under 20 seconds and still need to commit three fouls to put the opposition on the line, it’s likely going to take too long to get the job done.

This year’s rule change regarding the bonus makes this more commonplace because the bonus starts on the 5th foul in the fourth quarter rather than the 7th foul in the half. Conceptionally, it adds three more fouls that need to be committed in some cases.

We also aren’t necessarily looking to merely foul. We are supposed to be going after the basketball without worrying if we foul. Our guys have never quite figured that out. Instead, we often foolishly wrap an opponent up, which technically should be an intentional foul.

At North we then chose to foul under that last minute because they had two players shooting under 35% from the line on the floor. However, we either didn’t listen or got too excited because we kept fouling the wrong guys. We were able to cut a 6-point lead to 2 and missed a three that would have given us the lead, but we never really followed the plan.

Now…I wish I could simply extend our defense and take the ball in that situation, but aside from Josh and Luke, we don’t have the athleticism to get after anyone, especially a 4A ream from the SIAC.

This is what I was thinking. I’m sure there are better ways to do things, but that’s the explanation.

I watch a lot of hoops, and I listen to a lot of coaches when they talk. Mostly, you hear the same ole things, but today I caught a comment that I’d never really thought much about.

IU’s coach was credited with saying that it was getting hard to find kids who knew how to play hard. We talk about playing hard all the time, but it seems that it’s just become a phrase that we use without meaning.

IU’s coach went further, saying that playing hard is now a skill they have to teach in practice. He said that once all kids played hard, some were just better than others.

I’ve rarely coached a team that was the most talented team in the gym. I’ve made my bones by our guys playing harder than the other guys. It’s not happening anymore, but I think that’s likely my fault.

I liken this to my experience coaching foreign kids at the academy. I had a really good player from Brazil that would never dive the lane. He was a very good player, but I couldn’t get him to cut. Early in February, I shouted “Bruno (yes, a Brazilian named Bruno), why the heck won’t you dive the lane?”

Bruno looked at me sheepishly and said, “Coach, what you mean by dive the lane?” At that point I knew I’d been under-coaching.

I assumed Bruno knew what I meant, just as I now assume guys know what it means to play hard. I need to do a better job explaining.

So, if IU has to teach super-athletes what it means to play hard, I’d guess I do too!

We are going to set some non-negotiables at practice on Monday. They will be “Playing Hard” requirements needed to stay on the floor. If you’re related to any player, ask him about them. I don’t want to post them here because they could give opponents an advantage.

OK… I said a couple of Coach Knight stories…here is the second.

We need a little background…I was a short, pudgy kid in 7th and 8th grade. I caught mononucleosis in my seventh-grade year and was really sick. I started to play hoops but got sick and never was able to return to the team. I then played football (offensive right guard) through junior high and watched my brother (who was 6’9” and 220lbs in the 9th grade) play basketball back in the glory days for TH South (state finalists three years in a row).

Anyway, the summer before my 9th grade year (which was still at the junior high back then) I grew 8 inches. I went from one of the shorter guys in 8th grade to one of the tallest in 9th. As I prepared to enter high school for 10th grade, I made the decision to play basketball instead of football. As I look back now, it seems like a risky decision, but I went for it.

Prior to the basketball season starting, Coach Knight came to Terre Haute to host a coaches’ clinic as an effort to support his buddy Charlie Fouty in his election campaign. To my surprise (and somewhat horror) I was one of the guys Coach Neff asked to serve as a practice dummy for Coach Knight. I hadn’t played organized basketball since the start of my 7th grade year.

So the clinic starts and I’m trying to hide in the back of the pack of guys. The first drill is a full court dribbling drill, and he chooses Doug Shouse to demonstrate. Doug was an unbelievable athlete; he later made the Olympic team as an alternate high jumper before the USA unfortunately boycotted the Olympics. Anyway… Doug cruised up and down the floor and had two massive slam dunks at each end. I was impressed… until Coach Knight went completely nuts about him not going hard enough. If you’ve never seen a Knight teaching moment, let’s just say Coach gave him a proper dressing down.

At this point I was ready to throw up. What had I gotten into? I wanted no part of this.

Coach started describing his next drill which was a full court perimeter shooting drill. This relaxed me a little because I was sure I would not be selected for this. At this juncture of my “career,” I was a 6’6” center back in the era when centers played in the post. Surely David Conrady, one of the best guards in the state, would knock this drill down with ease.

To my disgust, Coach threw me the ball. My task was to sprint up and down the floor taking top-of-the-key jumpers. In my head I kept hearing the tirade about not going hard enough…I also remembered I likely hadn’t shot a basketball in front of more than 200 people ever in my life; there were a couple thousand in attendance here. It was a recipe for disaster! The only consolation for me was there was another guy going the opposite direction, so I hoped most would be watching him!

The whistle blew…I dribbled as fast as I possibly could. The first shot…barely draws iron. The second shot…not really close…I think I finally banked one in because God felt sorry for me, but it wasn’t pretty for sure. I then awaited my public beating.

Coach Knight blows the whistle and says… ”That wasn’t the best shooting I’ve ever seen, but that’s what I mean by going hard. You get better when you go hard!” He continued with something about it might be advantageous for me to get a few more shots in, but he had complimented me, and he did this after I thought I’d looked like a fool (which I likely did). I was sold … I’d have run through the wall if he asked!

Looking back, I’m sure Coach Knight could see my desperation and lack of confidence. He chose to teach his lesson by correcting the best athlete in the school rather than railing on the baby in the bunch. It was certainly quite an experience for my first organized basketball memory.

This week’s loss of Coach Knight was another blow to many of us. I grew up living for IU basketball games. When Martha the Mop Lady would start humming and singing on Channel 4 at the start of Indiana Farm Bureau’s Pre-game Show, I’d get chills. I also couldn’t wait for Saturday mornings…I felt so sorry for Ole Chuck Marlow when he had to do his Bob Knight Coach’s Show after a loss…but they were so entertaining!

Over the years, I was fortunate enough to have a couple close encounters with Coach Knight. I thought I’d share one or two today.

The picture posted here is of Coach Knight with my former manager at South Vermillion seated behind him during a game at Texas Tech. Ben Monticello was absolutely the best student manager I ever had; he was more like an assistant coach. Ben was so good; he was offered a chance to manage for Coach Knight in Lubbock.

I posted a picture that many of you saw on Facebook of the first of two Rockville High School groups that drove the two-day trip to Texas on a short bus. We hauled ourselves out there for summer team camp. We were able to do this because Ben was there, and he had set us up with a perfect trip.

When that first group arrived in Lubbock, they were immediately met by a local television station who was enthralled by an Indiana team coming to Texas in support of coach Knight. From there, things kind of snowballed. Our kids were treated like rock stars, and many were interviewed on television. They were given the complete recruiting tour. There were whispers most places we went that …”There’s those guys from Indiana.” Everyone had seen the movie, Hoosiers; It was a great experience.

The odd thing was… this group was not overly talented. It was just my second year in Parke County, and we went around .500 during my first year. We were all guards and no post players. On this trip I took 7 high school kids and my oldest son who was going into the 8th grade. The craziest part was that we started winning and didn’t stop. We had installed a pressing, running, and three-point shooting system, and we started believing in ourselves.

The media kept reporting on “that Indiana team” and we became the talk of the camp. On our third day we were warming up for a game against a team who had won a state championship in Colorado. The other coach didn’t know who we were, and he came down to make some small talk before the game. He told me what a great season they’d had the previous year, and things were very casual until asked where we were from. When I said, “Indiana,” he turned around and walked away. The next thing a knew he was yelling, cursing, and screaming at his boys that they had better get ready. We came out and hit 11 straight three-point shots and buried these poor guys.

On the last night of the camp, Coach Knight hosted a coaches’ gathering. He provided pizzas and pop, and then sat around with us for two or three hours answering any questions that were presented. I remember being a little gun shy at first because I’d seen some classic meltdowns over the years when someone asked him something silly. But… he was amazing. Being from Indiana, he spent several moments swapping Hoosier war stories. It was one of the most memorable nights of my life.

Every part of the trip was fantastic, a life-long memory the both the kids and me for sure.