Coach Brian

Basketball Coach • Stat Nerd • Sports Guy

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

Would love to see her transform a few things.

1) The right foot step bothers me as a left-handed shooter. Use the other pivot.

2) Her guide hand turns out toward the basket on her release. It needs to be less involved. Don’t rotate your hand.

3) Watch her follow-through. There is very minimal snap (although she does seem to get decent rotation on the ball). I’d like to see a cleaner snap follow-through.

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

Coach Close spitting coaching GOLD here. Every point was on point and I would advise all of the couch coaches to listen to what she’s saying.

[White Gold @iknowWhiteGold]

Finally a real coach that doesn’t slam Caitlin and wait for it…is echoing what the fans (who everyone is saying aren’t knowledgeable) are saying..who woulda thunk it

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

My timeline certainly seemed a lot different!

[Chloe Peterson @chloepeterson67]

CC on what this game does for morale: “I'm gonna say this in the nicest way possible, but hopefully it makes a lot of people just be quiet. I know there's always going to be conversation, and I totally respect that, and I always understand that, but the sky is not falling.”

[FeverStats @FeverStats]

Kelsey Mitchell now has the 6th most 25-point games by a guard in WNBA history.

[Clint Goss @NFLDraftDome]

Iowa S Bob Sanders would knock the living hell out of you

💍Super Bowl; NFL DPOY (2007)
🔹2× All-Pro; 300+ tkls; 8 seasons
🔹4.4 speed; 41.5 vert
🟡2nd Team All-American
🟡3× 1st Team All-Big Ten
🔹Injuries suck

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

I have been saying the same thing and all the couch coaches are telling me I’m wrong so here is a clip of a player saying the same thing.

[Ricky G @jrichardgoodman]

What coach Jay Wright did better than most coaches he taught his players to play off of 2 feet that's a Villanova thing 👊

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

@FalcSake @kenswift I’m not disagreeing that it wasn’t the best coaching or the best scheme. I am saying that there are other variables at play and that one game in the first 1/3 of the season shouldn’t dictate firing a coach who’s made the conference finals two years in a row.

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

@FalcSake @kenswift I’d like to see KM, AB, CC all at 30+ and Sophie, Lexie, Monique at 25+

MHA at 20+

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

Yeah I don’t believe that is as true at the professional level to the extent you think it is.

Professional athletes do not need motivational speeches to play basketball.

They have their lives, future, a ton of money, and careers on the line. There’s only 210 spots in the WNBA. They can get replaced at any point. Win one for the gipper is nonexistent.

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

What was the foul situation in the 1st quarter? They committed 8 fouls. Ok, so that right there is throwing off the substitution pattern right from the get-go.

What is the injury situation or minutes restriction? Clark, Hull, Boston, Billings are not all free and clear for 40 minutes per game. Right there again will create more combinations.

Who is failing to execute defensively? Often times when coaches want to see something specific, if players aren’t executing then they get pulled. Like it or not, it happens.

You can blame a conspiracy all you want. We’re talking about one game that went poorly and all the sudden everyone is hitting the red panic button.

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

@GideonMarvel1 @kenswift I don't believe effort needs to be coached. You can hold players accountable for lack of effort, but effort and attitude shouldn't need to be coached.

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

Well accusing her of intentionally trying to lose to "prove a point" is a bit extreme.

Substitution patterns, challenges, and all of that can be evaluated and that's totally fine. But as far as what's happening with them defensively, it's equally the players and coaches who need to be held accountable.

They'll work it out.

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

What would these greats have done with a 4-year NCAA career?

How would the college game have prepared and developed them for the pros?

Do their early careers look different, better, the same?

Do they win National Championships?

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

@TripleDoubleXO We don’t want them to hear terms or see concepts for the first time in November.

We may not be installing every little thing in the Summer, but we are absolutely using our language and our basic stuff.

Most of it is carry over from the previous season anyway.

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

It is absolutely both the players and coaches fault right now.

The players aren't executing. Which means the coaches did not prepare them well enough.

Both can be true.

As far as switching, in the pros you have to do more switching that you probably want. It's the nature of the beast. If you don't switch, teams will carve you up on those screens. They're too good at penetrating and/or shooting.

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

No doubt. They absolutely should. But the reality is, they aren't.

So do they just continue trudging forward because they should know how to do it?

Or should they try to evaluate what is broken and make adjustments?

Because I believe in fixing it first.

Lexie Hull, one of their better defenders, started out injured and has played 19.5 minutes per game this year after playing nearly 30 last year.

KK Timpson played 7 minutes a game last year and now has a much bigger role.

Monique Billings was brought in to replace Natasha Howard, a former DPOY. She has had a slow start due to injury.

Even Sophie is trying to get back into the flow of things after a big knee injury.

They need the time to gel, figure things out, and get their basic schemes down. Yes, they're professionals playing against other great professionals. The problems still exist no matter the level.

Here were the minutes breakdown against Portland:
Aliyah Boston - 25
Caitlin Clark - 21
Lexie Hull - 15
Monique Billings - 8
Ty Harris - 12
Raven Johnson - 9

Sophie, KK, and Kelsey Mitchell were your primary players in that game.

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

The Portland game 100% exposed them. I think that was one of those outings where you "go back to the drawing board" as they say and that's what they say they're doing.

8 games into a 44 game season, I think it's okay to pump the breaks and get it fixed first.

So yes, it does need to be coached but it also needs to be executed. Let's see if that happens over the next 3 or 4 games.

[Coach Brian @Pick6Club]

This is misleading information.

When Harper first joined the Bulls in 1994-95, he played 65 of his 77 games without Michael Jordan.

During that time, he was only playing 22 mins per game, taking 7 shot attempts and averaged a mere 7.5 points per game.

He had played the last 4 seasons accumulating empty stats on bad Clipper teams and had blown his knee out completely. By the time he came to Chicago, he was a completely different player without the explosiveness he once had.

Although his scoring dipped, he ended up transforming his game, especially defensively, and became a key piece on the championship teams.

He was never an All-Star in the league.

Chris Bosh, on the other hand, was not only an All-Star in 5 of his first 7 seasons, but a 2nd Team All-NBA player but by 2010 was widely regarded as one of the top bigs, next to Tim Duncan, Dwight Howard and Dirk Nowitzki.

The year prior to joining Miami there were 9 players who averaged at least 10 rebounds per game. Bosh led them all in scoring with 24.0 PPG

Two completely different and unrelated situations.

Ron Harper on the decline. Chris Bosh in his prime.

Straw Man 101