Geno Auriemma: Coaching Q&A

with Geno Auriemma,

• 3x U.S. Women's Olympic Basketball Head Coach (3x Gold Medal; '00, '12, '16)
• 1200+ career wins - Fastest coach to 800, 900 and 1,000 wins, any level, men's or women's
• 12x NCAA Women's Basketball National Championship Coach ('95, '00, '02 -'04, '09 - '10, '13 - '16, '25)
• 24x Final Four appearances;
• 9x AP Coach of the Year; 8x Naismith Coach of the Year; 7x WBCA National Coach of the Year; 6x USBWA Women's National Coach of the Year
• 2012 John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award
• Inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame ('06); Women's Basketball Hall of Fame ('06); National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame ('07)
• 28x Conference Regular Season Champions (21 Big East, 7 AAC) and 27x Conference Tournament Champions (20 Big East, 7 AAC)

Pick the mind of one of basketball's all-time greats with this unique clinic featuring the legendary Geno Auriemma. Coach Auriemma opens the session up to answer questions from the audience and gives you new ideas with his thinking on a wide range of topics, including:

• How to attack different zone defenses.
• Three ways to beat a press.
• Countering aggressive half court defenses.
• His rules for teaching shot selection.
• Can a team play too fast?
• The number one issue that kills any offense.
• And more!

Beating Full Court Pressure

One of the things Coach Auriemma picked up from watching Tex Winters and the Chicago Bulls' practice the Triangle Offense was an "action" that helped beat pressure defenses. Coach Auriemma shows you how to break down a press no matter what they try to take away from you. This action forces the defense to load on one side of the floor and then features a quick ball reversal to the opposite side of the floor, giving the ball handler plenty of open space to attack the extended defense.

You'll even learn how to counter the most likely defensive adjustments that you'll see with this press break. It doesn't matter what the defense tries because you'll see how they can be defeated with quick ball reversals and intelligent spacing.

Quality Shot Selection

The quality of the shots your team takes might be one of the most critical parts to a good offense. Bad shot selection ruins offenses and causes selfishness. Finding the right balance to help your players understand their role while also keeping their aggressiveness high is a challenging task. Auriemma explains his criteria for shot selection through two simple rules. These will create accountability with your players without forcing them to hesitate in games.

Offense vs Zone Defense

Auriemma shows you multiple actions and ideas on how to improve your team's offensive attack versus different zone defenses. You'll learn how to use dribble entries to create openings against a 2-3 zone. Additional strategies are shown to help you intelligently move the ball and to attack the defense with passes into the interior of the zone. You'll also see how to use a diamond alignment to free up shooters versus a 1-2-2 zone and how to get post ups at the rim versus a 1-3-1 with a 1-4 set. Finally, Coach Auriemma demonstrates a play that can free up your star player against a Box & 1.

Open Q&A Session

You'll learn much more from this video beyond just X's and O's. Coach Auriemma provides great insight to his program and the philosophy that has led the most successful program in the country for the past decade plus. Among the many topics he covers, Coach Auriemma explains:

• How to maintain success with your teams over time.
• The characteristics of players you should try to recruit.
• How to overcome a 'defeated' mentality.
• His reflections on his biggest coaching mistakes.
• A tactic he used to get his most recent teams to minimize fouling on defense.

This is a video that will get you to think about what you're doing and what you should consider doing!

Produced at the Spring 2017 Myrtle Beach (SC) clinic.

81 minutes. 2017.