Steve Pikiell: Creative Play Calling

with Steve Pikiell,
Rutgers University Head Coach;
former Stony Brook Head Coach; 2016 American East Coach of the Year; 2016 American East Tournament and 4x Regular Season Champions

Have you taken over a team or program that struggles? Do you have a less talented team than your competitors? Are you trying to figure out how to help your team and/or individual players become more competitive?

With this video, you can learn from one of college basketball's best rebuilding coaches! Steve Pikiell has revived programs all over the country and breaks down how he has consistently been able to change culture and help his teams grow into competitive programs. He shares thoughts on how to work with less talented teams and, slowly but surely, help them grow into great teams. He also passes on some great inbound and set plays that will help your athletes get great looks at the basket.

The Importance of Vocabulary and Communication

One of the key points discussed is how coaches can be effective if they develop a "vocabulary" that the players can easily understand. Coach Pikiell presents cues and shorthand types of communication, which can help you pass on the info you want your players to know. By engaging athletes in this way, a positive team attitude can be fostered.

One of the major reasons for organized communication to be utilized is to package plays. Pikiell talks about ways in which his teams have been able to get easy scoring opportunities and utilize counters with creative communication through his Wide Series. In the Wide Series, Pikiell utilizes pin downs screens, floppy screens, curls, and many other actions to get every player involved while focusing on placing players in spots where their best skills can be used to the team's advantage.

The concept of one word changing the action is presented with a number of offensive plays. The reason is to keep the other team's defense off balance by taking advantage of defensive adjustments and to take advantage of personnel.

Developing an Identity

To become a team that makes the turnaround from "worst to first," an identity has to be established. Since no team can be all things to all people, Pikiell talks about some ideas that can be done to develop that identity and have one thing that your team can "hang its hat on."

One idea is the utilization of a 1-3-1 zone defense. The progression of playing a traditional zone defense to using a half-court trap is presented as a way to show how to take advantage of personnel that improves.

Another way is the use of the 2-2-1 press to adjust to different levels of talent. Starting out with a press defense designed to show and drop to slow down an opponent, Pikiell preaches the importance of "no middle, no lay-up, good defense." Other adjustments are shown to take advantage of different degrees of talent with the design of maximizing the skill set of a team.

Getting Victories with Inbound Plays

As a way to build confidence, Pikiell presents inbound plays to show how he was able to go from 'worst to first.' Coach Pikiell shows several baseline inbound plays from a box alignment. The box then goes into double-stack alignments to create more options. Pikiell uses this as an opportunity to show how his simple communication tactics can help kids learn and apply.

Another way to get victories and build confidence with inbound plays is to take advantage of "screen magnets." From a stack alignment, Pikiell demonstrates a play that can get a player open under the basket by setting a screen on the "screen magnet."

Coach Pikiell stresses the importance of knowing your personnel and building a system that fits them. Keeping things simple is an effective way to build upon your sets and schemes, and allows you to adjust depending on situation and personnel on the floor.

Produced at the Fall 2016 Baltimore (MD) clinic.

62 minutes. 2017.