Bryan Mullins' Identity Drills: Critical Skills & Defensive Drills That Build a Winning Team Culture

with Bryan Mullins,
DePaul University Assistant Coach;
Southern Illinois University Head Men's Coach from 2019 to 2024;
Loyola University Chicago Associate Head Coach from 2018 to 2019;
Loyola University Chicago Assistant Coach from 2013 to 2018;
part of Porter Moser's historic 2018 season;
2018 Final Four and school record 32 wins;
played collegiately at Southern Illinois;
Member of the 'Saluki Hall of Fame';
school record for assists;
2x MVC Defensive Player of the Year

From his days as a player for Southern Illinois University – where the Salukis were one of the top defensive teams in the country (and he was 2x MVC Defensive Player of the Year)– to now as a head men’s coach at his alma mater, guiding the same program he helped propel to the top - Coach Mullins knows how to build a mentally tough, hard-nosed defense. In this on-court instructional video, Mullins outlines the fundamental principles that made his Salukis program one of the toughest defensive teams in the country.

Communication, Fundamental Defensive Drills

On-court communication builds organization, trust and teamwork within the players of your program. Coach Mullins begins things highlighting extremely valuable, yet simple things that you can add to your practices include echoing drills and calls, being mentally present in film sessions through questioning, and helping players become leaders by giving them responsibility.

These things can take your program to the next level and can help you create and build an identity as a team. 

Another way to help foster creating your team’s identity is through an emphasis of defensive technique and teaching key principles of winning basketball teams. Coach Mullins creates confident players and helps his players build an identity of ‘We can’t be beat on the defensive end.’ Mullins showcases several terrific drills that help this process. 

In the ‘Box-Out Drill,’  players work on their big step to prevent easy drives to the basket.

In the ‘Through-You Drill,’ players are focused on walling up and reaching for the lights so as to not draw a foul when a player picks up his or her dribble.

In the ‘Close-to-the-Body Drill,’ players work on positioning themselves in the gap and stunting against a drive. Players learn to quickly prevent any backdoor layups from happening when they get close to the body.

All of these drills are simple and help to teach them to be solid on the defensive end. 

Offensive Fundamentals

Another way to build an identity as a competitive team that opponents don’t like to face, is to improve your players confidence in their ability to score the basketball. In the ‘More-Shooting Drill,’ players focus on valuing the basketball and being solid on the offensive end; players work on their drives, jump stopping at the rim and passing out of the paint – all looking for an easy score.  This allows your players to feel confident and maintain poise while playing under pressure, which continues the process of building a team that possesses a tough, hard-nose identity.  

Ball-Screen Defense

In modern basketball, defending ball screens is a must. Having a defense that matches your players fundamental ability is important. In this section, Coach Mullins introduces the ‘Ball-Screen-Defense Drill’ and explains how using ‘the big step’ defensively provides your players with confidence to go over the top of screens. This is a great, continuous drill that makes players stay present during practice and forces them to use their fundamentals.  

In the ‘Ice Drill,’ players work on the fundamentals of using an ice ball screen and preventing easy drives or pocket passes into the post.  

Building a tough, hard-nosed identity is what makes teams confident and turns a good team into a great team. Defense is where teams can build this staple of a team identity. Coach Mullins has been a tough as nails defensive opponent since his earliest playing days. Now, as the head coach, he continues to implement and reinforce the same rock solid fundamentals he learned as a player and learned to apply as an assistant at Loyola and now as head coach at SIU!.

This is a must-have video to add to your collection and the first step in helping you build a winning team identity!

59 minutes. 2023.