With the NCAA men’s basketball season tipping off Monday and Penn’s season opener coming a few days later, Ivy Hoops Online caught up with new Quakers head coach Fran McCaffery for an extensive Q&A about his coaching philosophy, players and the state of the sport.
Ivy Hoops Online: When you first started looking at the roster and started self-scouting what you were inheriting, what stood out to you as kind of the plus traits of what you had, and what were some areas which you felt like you could really start coaching people up from the get-go?
Fran McCaffery: Well, the first thing is, we had a full roster. As you know, a lot of times when coaches take over these days, you have a lot of departures, and you’re looking in the portal.
You’re looking at if there are any freshmen still available, or high school kids/incoming freshmen still available. So for me, I was just impressed with the guys that we had who stayed true to the program, and then when we did some workouts in the spring, they were really working hard. They were really trying to learn what we were teaching. So I felt really good about the culture and the desire to be good and desire to learn, and we’re going to be playing uptempo. I bought in right away, knowing we had a recruiting class coming in that coach Donahue recruited that I thought was really good, you know. So I connected with those guys to make sure that they felt loved and we still wanted them, and they all came, and then we hit the portal and got lucky to get TJ Power and Lucas Lueth, two really good players, impactful players, and so that further created even more depth, which is great. As you know, in this league, depth is crucial when you have to play Friday, Saturday. So I’m very pleased with that.
And then you start, as you pointed out, start developing positions. You know, we have a number of different players that we’re trying to groom for the point guard position. We have different options there: AJ Levine, Dylan Williams, Jay Jones, Cam Thrower, Alex Massung. Some of those guys obviously can play both spots, and some can maybe even play three spots. But I just was really excited about the versatility, the depth.
Also, in the frontcourt, we’re big, we have a lot of big guys, and that’s oftentimes, as you know, very difficult as well. Do you have enough size? Do you have enough shooting? Do you have enough depth at the point? And I feel like we do.
IHO: I don’t need to rattle off a bunch of defensive metrics to you, but this team last year finished 323rd overall in defensive efficiency [per KenPom]. There were red flags around turnover rate, opposing three-point percentage. What are some of the key structural fixes that you put in on the defensive end, and what are some of the elements of your defensive style of coaching you think might help put this current collection of players in position to succeed?
FM: Well, the first thing you did was make a direct correlation with turnovers and defensive efficiency. If you’re turning the ball over, that team is going to score in transition, they’re going to shoot a high number. So it starts with how you can’t turn the ball over. You know, we can talk about defense and whether we’re well and how we guard ball screens, but if you turn the ball over, it doesn’t matter what you do, the other team is going to shoot above 50% and you can’t have that happen.
So we’re primarily a man-to-man defensive team that will press at times. We’ll mix in some zone. We’ll change our coverage on ball screens. But as you know, that comes down to competing. Take care of the ball, make the other team play defense, get a good shot opportunity, get your defense back so you’re not scrambled and giving up open threes and giving up drives to the basket because you closed out on the side of the guy.
But make sure you get a good shot opportunity every time and get your defense back. That’s the key.
IHO: One thing that I picked up from watching a lot of the games as they happened last year was that there would be occasional struggles to rotate out to secondary shooters. If you see a team make an extra pass, if you see someone open on the wing or in the corner for an open three, what are the elements of communication that need to be in place to rotate out better and prevent those kinds of secondary shooter opportunities?
FM: Well, some of those come from second shots in general. So if you want to be a good defensive team, you’ve got to get that first rebound, because the percentage on second-shot opportunities is incredibly high, as you know, whether it be just a putback or a kick-out three, because you’re giving up second, third, fourth-shot opportunities. So you’ve got to get the first rebound.
In terms of the closeout stuff, all right, that’s all communication. Mine/yours. You know, if you have two guys running to one, that’s going to be a problem. They’re going to make one more. Everybody’s going to do the same thing. So if I’m closing out, I’m saying “Mine,” so you know to go to the next guy, and don’t run to the same guy that I’m already guarding. So it really is communication and mental toughness to get that first rebound.
IHO: So when your hire first got announced, I tried to learn as much as possible about your coaching style from listening to as many podcasts with you on as I could while I was running. One thing that I really enjoyed listening to was when you would talk about the nuances of playing in transition and trusting guards and bigs with the chances to make quick decisions out of structure. What’s the ideal decision-making process you want to see from your guards in transition? What do you kind of define as the line between aggression and recklessness in those unstructured opportunities?
FM: Well, you nailed it. I mean, that’s the key to it all, OK? And if you heard me on other podcasts, then you heard me say this: We play fast. We don’t play nuts. That is the key.
So we’re going to get the ball down the floor quickly. We’re going to attack a split defense. But sometimes teams get their defense back, they’re not split. All right, so you score early, you score late. You don’t just put your head down and drive into a pack of people because we said we’re playing fast and spit it up, or put up a 12-foot finger roll that has no chance to go in. But if we throw the ball ahead to a good shooter and he’s wide open at the three-point line with 27 seconds on the shot clock, we would shoot that about 99 times out of 100 because I got my best shooter. He’s open. Shoot it.
You know, I don’t feel like I have to stand up and call a play so that everybody knows I’m the smartest guy in the building and that we just diagrammed a genius play. No, he’s already open. They don’t have to run screen-to-screener or complicated picking action. He’s already open, but he’s not moving.
So it’s all ball movement and recognition. Do we have somebody open in the post? Are they switching downscreens? Are they switching ball screens? So we’re not running over the top of the guy who’s hard-hedging and getting an offensive foul, all right, or hitting the slip guy when they switched and it gets stolen. It’s important that our guys know and understand how to play fast, but how to play under control.
IHO: As guys learn the system, what are some of the — maybe in practice — mistakes that might be made out of aggression that you’re willing to forgive, if it might show that they’re starting to understand the system or that they’re willing to make those kinds of decisions?
FM: Quite frankly, in the beginning, we had guys doing exactly that. Pushing it hard, sprinting the floor, and just playing so hurried that they’re throwing passes just a little bit behind the guy, or an alley-oop a little bit too high. So the key is to keep that attack mentality, but still be able to play at pace. So kind of fast, slow, slow to fast, and sometimes there’s this prevailing feeling of “I have to make a play.”
No you have to move the ball and let him make a play.
All right, maybe it’s a one-dribble kick. Maybe you can get three or four dribbles and draw three guys near the rim and kick it back out, and then he can drive the closeout. So it takes a while to understand that concept and then effectively be able to perform on a consistent basis at a level where we’re always going to have more assists than turnovers.
IHO: You mentioned around the point guard position that there’s a bunch of different candidates that could kind of fulfill that role. Philosophically, what are the traits that you want to see out of a point guard that’s structured to succeed in your offense?
FM: So basically, what my point guard has to be able to do is he has to know and understand how to engineer victory.
So I’m not looking at you to lead the league in scoring, but I want you to score, all right.
I don’t want you to feel like you have to always call for the ball, that you have to be the guy who delivers the pass and so that way he gets an assist. No, sometimes the best play is no play at all. Get the ball moving. Get it moving. At the same time, understand the time and score. Are we in the bonus? Are we in the double bonus? Do we have fouls to give? Is it a three-possession game? Is it a two-possession game? Do we have timeouts left? Do they have timeouts left? Are we pressing late, and is everybody on the same page? It’s your job to make sure they are. That’s what engineering victory means, and that’s what we need our point guards to do.