Basketball Coach Unplugged (A Basketball Coaching Podcast)

https://teachhoops.com/

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How to lead your staff, your captains, and your practice gym through an early losing streak, and what to measure when the scoreboard is not on your side yet.
It is a Saturday morning in mid November. The coffee went cold an hour ago, your team is oh and three, and practice starts at nine. What do you say when you walk into that gym? Coach Steve Collins has been there, and early in his career he handled it badly. Starting oh and four with a team that looked good on paper, he changed the lineup twice in one week, installed a new offense, and ran his players after every loss. They lost the next two as well, because his players were not just losing games. They were losing their coach.
In this deep dive, Steve lays out what he learned about leading through an early losing streak. He covers getting your staff aligned before you talk to the team, giving your captains a real job, keeping practice tone steady instead of angry, charting the things your team can control, and refusing to let a November record change who you are as a coach.
Part 1: Staff and Captains

The real danger of an early losing streak is not the record, it is the panic

Steve's oh and four start and the week he changed everything at once

Meeting with your assistants first and leaving the room with one message

The young assistant Steve asked to be the steadiest guy in the gym

Sitting down with captains, asking what they are hearing, and giving them concrete jobs

Keeping the team talk short: what we do well, what we fix this week, and that you believe in them

Leaving out excuses about referees, the schedule, or sickness so players learn to own it

Why players remember whether you looked scared more than anything you said

Part 2: Practice and Perspective

Why angry practices make tight teams play tighter

Building small wins into practice so players feel success somewhere

Charting deflections, charges, paint touches, and first half turnovers

The locker room whiteboard with goal and last game numbers that the captains eventually updated themselves

Showing players controllable numbers on Monday, honestly, good and bad

How charting helped turn an oh and four start into eleven wins in the last fifteen games

Staying the same coach through the losses so your players trust you in February

Finding someone to talk to so you do not carry a losing streak alone

Chapters

00:00 Coach Unplugged intro

00:15 Opening hook: oh and three on a Saturday morning

01:10 Pre roll: TeachHoops.com practice plans and progressions

01:33 The oh and four start and the week of panic

02:21 Takeaway 1: Staff on the same page first

03:40 Takeaway 2: Bring your captains in early

06:16 Takeaway 3: Steady practice tone, not angry

07:30 Mid roll: TeachHoops.com competitive drills and practice plans

07:56 Takeaway 4: Measure more than the scoreboard

09:37 Takeaway 5: Do not let the record define you

11:10 The challenge

11:22 Post roll: TeachHoops.com

This week's challenge: Pick three things your team can control, chart them in your next game, and show your players the numbers on Monday.
Format: Deep Dive, two parts.
Resources: Practice plans, competitive drills, scoring systems for practice, coaching courses, and on court clinics at https://teachhoops.com/
Recorded at the Fifth Quarter Studios in Madison, Wisconsin.
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How to run a first film session your players actually learn from: short clips, positives first, one theme, and players doing the talking.
The first film session of the season usually goes great for the coach. The coach talks for forty five minutes, makes every point, and walks out feeling like a teacher. The players just sat in the dark. Coach Steve Collins remembers the night he looked over and found a sophomore fully asleep, head on the desk, during a full game breakdown, and realized the problem was not the kid. It was the session.
Now that most teams have a few games on film, Steve walks through how to turn film from a punishment into the best teaching tool in your program. He covers keeping clips and sessions short, opening with what your players did right, choosing one theme per session, handing the conversation to your players, and connecting every film session straight to the next practice.
Part 1: Getting Them in the Room

Why film so often feels great to the coach and endless to the players

The sleeping sophomore and the night Steve stopped using film as punishment

Keeping the first session to twenty or twenty five minutes with eight to twelve short clips

Previewing every clip twice and limiting yourself to one sentence per clip

Practical setup: clips cued up, lights half on, phones away, faces visible

Opening with good clips, and the junior role player who boxed out for a month after seeing himself on screen

The two to one ratio of positive clips to corrections

Part 2: Making It Stick

Choosing one theme per session so players can see the pattern for themselves

Picking the theme by asking what cost you the most points, not what annoyed you the most

Asking "What do you see?" and letting the silence do its work

Why players believe a teammate more than they believe the coach

Letting captains run clips, and the point guard who ran the last five minutes of every session

The one rule for player talk: discuss the action, not the person

Opening the next practice with the same theme and the same words from the film room

The see it, fix it, see it again loop that builds trust in film and in you

Building a season long teaching library of your own players' best clips

Chapters

00:00 Coach Unplugged intro

00:15 Opening hook: the first film session of the year

01:12 Pre roll: TeachHoops.com teaching clips and practice plans

02:15 Takeaway 1: Short clips, short session

03:44 Takeaway 2: Positives first

06:08 Takeaway 3: One theme per session

07:31 Mid roll: TeachHoops.com practice plans and courses

07:58 Takeaway 4: Let the players talk

09:40 Takeaway 5: Film shows up in practice

10:58 The challenge

11:12 Post roll: TeachHoops.com

This week's challenge: Run your next film session in under twenty five minutes, open with three positive clips, and ask more questions than you answer.
Format: Deep Dive, two parts.
Resources: Practice plans, drill libraries, teaching clips, courses, and on court clinics at https://teachhoops.com/
Recorded at the Fifth Quarter Studios in Madison, Wisconsin.
https://teachhoops.com/
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A coaching mentor once asked Hubie Brown for the one drill he would run every single day. Here is that four on four on four transition drill, and why the best teams beg to do it.
Years ago, before he ever coached, a legendary Seattle coach was working as a sports reporter and got the chance to interview Hubie Brown. He asked one question: if you could only run one drill every day, what would it be? The answer became a favorite for a guest coach on this episode, who now calls it simply the Hubie Brown drill.
Coach Steve Collins asks for a golden nugget a younger coach could take straight to practice, and gets a full walkthrough. It is a cutthroat style, three team transition drill with constant action, built around a four on two advantage, two trailing defenders, and the volleyball line. The guest explains how it is set up, how players will try to cheat it, why it doubles as a great tryout tool, and the one rule that forces players to actually break pressure. The best part might be the simplest test of all: good teams love this drill, and bad teams hang their heads when you call it.
The Setup

Where the drill came from: a Seattle mentor, a reporter's question, and Hubie Brown's answer

Good teams love it, bad teams hate it, and what that tells you

Three teams of four, cutthroat style

Four on two, with two defenders waiting on the sideline

Why the volleyball line matters, and using painter's tape if your gym does not have one

Letting the trailing defenders run in once the ball crosses the line

Running It Right

How players cheat by creeping down toward the action, and how to stop it

Why the action never stops: score, then press right away

Trapping, denying the point guard, and adding your own defensive rules

Using it as a tryout: two hours of this shows who can really play

Numbers: six per team works, and you need at least twelve

The key rule: no throwing it over the top to a player behind half court. Break the pressure.

Chapters

00:00 Coach Unplugged intro

00:14 Pre roll: TeachHoops.com

01:06 The golden nugget question

01:38 Hubie Brown and the one drill a day

02:34 Good teams love it, bad teams hate it

02:59 The setup: four on two and the volleyball line

04:54 How players cheat the drill

05:22 Mid roll: TeachHoops.com free trial

05:50 Score and press: the action never stops

08:10 Using it for tryouts

08:38 How many players you need

09:34 The rule that forces them to break pressure

10:38 Post roll: TeachHoops.com

This week's challenge: Run the Hubie Brown drill for ten minutes this week and watch which players lean into it and which ones hang their heads.
Format: Guest coach conversation.
Resources: Transition and press breaker drills, practice plans, and courses at https://teachhoops.com/
Recorded at the Fifth Quarter Studios in Madison, Wisconsin.
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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ai-sports-coach/id6831782683

Welcome to Episode 1 of The AI Sports Coach with Steve Collins, recorded at the Fifth Quarter Studios in Madison, Wisconsin.

Steve coached high school basketball at Madison Memorial for 27 years, winning three state championships and fourteen straight conference titles. Today he runs TeachHoops, helping more than 200,000 coaches around the world. In this launch episode, he explains what this show is about and why every coach, in every sport, should be using AI right now.

In this episode:

The question every coach should ask about the hours they put in each week

The moment AI clicked for Steve, and how it helped his team go 27 and 3 and reach the state finals

What large language models are, in plain English, with no tech background needed

Five ways AI saves coaches time: scouting, game prep, analytics, communication, and social media

Why AI will never replace your coaching

The assistant coach that never sleeps

One simple tip to get better results from any AI tool

Your homework for this week

Timestamps (approximate):

0:00 Intro

0:15 How many of your hours actually made your team better?

0:50 Meet Steve Collins and the mission of the show

1:50 The moment AI clicked

3:15 What AI actually is

4:00 Five places AI saves you time

6:15 Will AI replace coaches?

7:15 How to get started, plus your homework

8:20 Wrap up

Tools mentioned: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok

Your homework: Pick one thing you don't want to do this week, like an email, a scouting report, or a social post. Let an AI tool take the first swing, then tell Steve how much time you got back.

Connect with Steve:

TeachHoops: teachhoops.com

Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and share this one with a coach who needs their evenings back.

"AI is another assistant coach. It's an assistant coach that never sleeps."

AI for coaches, coaching with AI, ChatGPT for coaches, Claude, Gemini, Grok, sports coaching podcast, high school coaching, basketball coaching, youth sports, scouting reports, practice planning, coaching time management, Steve Collins, TeachHoop

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You're up three. Eight seconds left. Their ball. Do you foul or do you defend? Coach Collins figures a room full of coaches would split right down the middle, and honestly, he's done both. The real point of this episode isn't the answer. It's that you can't find the answer in the foxhole. If you haven't decided it before the game and repped it in practice, your players won't pull it off when the gym is shaking.
Last season Madison Memorial went 27 and 3. Six or seven games came down to the last two minutes, including a double overtime game and a four overtime game, and Memorial won every one of them. Coach Collins doesn't call that luck. He calls it a group that talked to each other, a staff with a plan, and a lot of reps.
What we cover

Foul or defend, and the variables that change the answer. Where's the ball? Has their best shooter fouled out? How many timeouts and fouls to give do you have? And have you actually practiced fouling?

"We need a three" versus "we can take a three." Every player hears the second one. Coach explains why you have to spell out the difference ahead of time.

The two points a minute rule. After 20 years of charting his league, Coach shows when a deficit moves from "stay the course" to "what are we doing now": down ten with six minutes left, down eight with four, down six with three, down four with two.

Game decision charts. Like the laminated card a football coach carries, Coach built last minute sheets for when you're up, down, on offense and on defense, then shrank it to a single card he can grab during a dead ball.

Coaching through noise. "In the biggest game of the year, you won't hear me. You won't hear your grandma." Sectional finals in a packed high school gym are louder than state in front of 17,000 people. If they can't hear you, they need to see you.

Colors, numbers and hand signals. Coach's stoplight system: red means don't you dare shoot it, yellow means think about what Coach would want, green means go. Numbers run the defense. A fist calls the offense.

Timeout cards and the "55" call. An assistant holds up timeouts left and possession as players walk out of the huddle. And 55? Say it out loud. It sounds like foul, without yelling "foul" in front of the official.

Who does what on the bench. One assistant on timeouts, bonus and the possession arrow. One on the signal cards. One on matchups and foul trouble. The head coach owns the final call.

How to foul, and who to foul. Everyone says foul. Nobody teaches it. Go for the ball with both hands, foul on the catch, and never foul a three point shooter. Coach shares a tournament win that came down to knowing which two players his team could not put on the line.

The intentional miss, and a timeout trick you've probably never thought about. Down two, four seconds left, no timeouts, the clock running while the other team just stands out of bounds. Coach calls a timeout he doesn't have, takes the technical, and stops the clock, because otherwise the game is already over.

Chapters

0:00 Coach Unplugged intro

0:59 Welcome and what this clinic covers

2:20 Coach Collins and the Madison Memorial story

5:15 Up three with eight seconds: foul or defend?

7:30 We need a three versus we can take a three

8:50 The two points a minute rule

9:40 The last minute game decision chart

10:45 Going seven for seven in close games

12:37 Communication when nobody can hear you

15:05 Colors, numbers and the stoplight system

17:23 Timeout cards and the 55 call

19:47 Who does what on the bench

22:09 How to foul and who to foul

23:49 Calling a timeout you don't have

Coach's challenge: Pick three end of game situations your team hasn't repped yet. Make the call as a staff this week, write it on one card, and practice it before your first game.
Resources: The game decision charts, timeout cards and all 112 special situations Coach mentions are available through TeachHoops. Practice plans, courses and clinics at https://teachhoops.com/. Questions? Email Coach at steve@teachhoops.com.
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