Exploring basketball's best ideas, strategies, and coaches around the world

Happy Sunday! Welcome to all the newest members from around the world.

ICYMI: Last week, we kicked off our 2025 Socal Coaches Summit session replays with South Bay Lakers HC Zach Guthrie's presentation on "Rethinking Pre-game Routines & Warmups." Read the full newsletter recap HERE.

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This Week at a Glance:

🔒 SoCal Coaches Summit Replay: Jerrod Calhoun - Unique Matchup Zone Principles & Favorite "5-Out" Actions​

🎧 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Bob Richey {Furman}

📢 Dr. Dish Semi-Annual Sales Event!

🥇 Best of the Week: Empty-Side Spains & Horns Entry​

📚 Interesting Reads

Let's dive in...

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Program Building, Matchup Zone, And 5-Out Actions

We were honored to host our second annual SoCal Coaches Summit a few weeks ago, and want to sincerely thank all who attended as well as the incredible coaches who presented. The event was a tremendous learning environment and a valuable opportunity to connect and network with fellow coaches from across the region.

Over the next several weeks, we’ll be sharing session replays from the event, continuing with Utah State head coach Jerrod Calhoun who shared a wealth of information on how he has built multiple successful programs, the building blocks of his "Fist" matchup zone defense, and his favorite 5-out actions.

Below are some of the key highlights from each of the major themes Coach Calhoun shared during his session at the Summit..

Practice Design

Having won at every stop in his career, Fairmont State, Youngstown State, and now Utah State, when Coach Calhoun talks about the building blocks of a program, it’s worth leaning in. Along with his insights on alignment, sacrifice, and efficiency, he shared the framework behind how he designs his practices:

1. Create Communication​
To establish a culture of communication, Calhoun and his staff make sure they hear from every player within the first two minutes of practice. This gives the staff a quick read on the team’s energy and emotion that day, and allows them to deliver what the group needs most.

2. Cutting​
Because of Utah State’s unselfish style, cutting is a daily priority. For 5–8 minutes, they drill cuts in different spacings and timings, with the goal of either getting all the way to the rim off the ball or creating space for teammates. The results speak for themselves—last season Utah State ranked 7th nationally in cutting efficiency.

3. Read Drills​
“The defense is telling you what to do.” That phrase drives this portion of practice. Players are placed in situations where they must recognize coverages and make the right decision, with a particular emphasis on reads below the free-throw line.

4. Defensive Concepts​
This block focuses on the details of their defense, including their matchup zone. Teaching terminology, rotations, and “random attacks” prepares players to defend in disruptive, unpredictable ways.

5. Create Competition​
Finally, practices always returns to competition. Whether 5-on-5, 4-on-4, or 3-on-3, score is always kept to maintain intensity and replicate the feel of live games.

"Fist" Matchup Zone

Finding ways to win in challenging jobs has been a hallmark of Coach Jerrod Calhoun’s career. One of the tools he’s used to level the playing field against more talented opponents is the “Fist” matchup zone defense. Originally created by Coach Ralph Willard and later popularized by Mick Cronin and Darrin Horn, Calhoun has adapted and made it his own.

Open Stances

Calhoun introduces the defense as “five guys guarding the ball”. This captures his emphasis on every player playing in an open stance, with their chest pointed toward the ball. Defenders are taught to show length and “get to the yard”—Calhoun’s term for the midline of the paint.

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Random Attacks: High Post Digs

While many zone teams work to keep the ball out of the high post, Utah State takes the opposite approach. They invite the entry pass because it sets up opportunities for what Calhoun calls “random attacks.”

These are aggressive, opportunistic plays on the ball, often by defenders at the top of the zone. Any time a ball handler in the middle of the floor turns or dribbles away, it becomes a green light to attack, disrupt, and create steals.

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Varying Ball Screen Coverages

Even in a matchup zone, opponents will still look to ball screens, and Calhoun mixes coverages to keep offenses off balance.

On any first-side ball screen, Utah State ices the action. This keeps the ball on one side of the floor, stacks the strong side, and baits pocket passes that defenders can jump for random attacks.

When the ball is reversed and a big chases into a screen, Utah State shifts to a hard hedge, giving the offense a contrasting look and breaking rhythm.

📺 For much more on Coach Calhoun’s matchup zone {🔒}, check out our full breakdown video now on SGTV!

Favorite Five-Out Actions

Utah State featured an explosive offense last season, ranking 20th nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency, and they did it largely through their versatile five-out actions.

Every action begins with the point guard in a wing or slot position, the five trailing into the play, and the other three players completely interchangeable. This structure allows Utah State to disguise their intentions from a common alignment while also flowing seamlessly into actions out of transition.

A consistent theme in their five-out system is constant movement. Players are taught that cutting, lifting, and filling behind are more valuable than holding stationary space. With all five players engaged, the floor is always dynamic.

Shape In 4, Action In 6

To maintain tempo, Utah State emphasizes getting into proper five-out spacing within four seconds, and executing an action within six seconds.

Once in action, Coach Calhoun stresses the importance of finishing cuts, decisive movements toward the rim with sharp changes of direction. Timing is also critical: players must avoid leaving too early and disrupting an ongoing scoring action, which keeps the floor balanced and advantages intact.

For the full clinic replay of Coach Calhoun’s five out actions, including play calls and penetration reads, along with his thoughts on program building and matchup zone principles, watch the complete session now on SGTV.

Together with Dr. Dish

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Slappin' Glass Podcast

🏀 Slappin' Glass Podcast w/Bob Richey

On this week’s episode of Slappin’ Glass, we welcome Bob Richey, Head Coach of Furman Men’s Basketball, for a masterclass on sustainable program building, player development, and offensive innovation. Over the past eight seasons, Richey has transformed Furman into one of the most consistently successful programs in college basketball, averaging more than 20 wins per year while competing at the highest levels of the Southern Conference and beyond.

In our conversation, Coach Richey shares how his philosophy was shaped by studying leaders like Rick Byrd, Bob McKillop, Jay Wright, and Lenny Acuff, and how he’s blended those influences into Furman’s unique style of play. We unpack his approach to:

• Sustainable Winning: Why top-down alignment across administration, staff, and players is critical, and how identity-driven decision making simplifies recruiting, culture, and daily choices.
• Player Development: Building year-over-year growth by aligning skill work directly with system play, creating an environment where smart, skilled, and tough players thrive.
• Offensive Innovation: Exploring concepts like “playing without pause,” offensive “bridging” from attack to action, and balancing Princeton-influenced structure with pace, freedom, and decision making.
• Defensive Identity: Richey’s reflections on how Furman can evolve on the defensive side of the ball, including measuring what matters most, systemizing coverages, and balancing rim protection with three-point defense.
• Practice Design: How to maximize learning and decision-making through competitive small-sided games, varying stimuli, and teaching spacing, timing, and re-spacing at a high level.
• The Art of the Dribble Handoff: A deep dive during our Start, Sub, or Sit segment into angles, pace, and counters within DHO actions.

Coach Richey also shares his belief in lifelong learning, the role of reading and studying outside programs, and why continuous innovation is essential in today’s coaching landscape.

Together with Hudl

Hudl Powers Every Possession

If you’re already using tools like FastDraw, FastScout, or FastRecruit—you know how essential they are to your workflows. And now that they’re fully part of the Hudl ecosystem, they’re more powerful than ever. From film and play diagrams to scouting reports and custom recruiting boards, everything flows together. One system. Built for high-performance programs.

​Learn more about Hudl and their variety of products or subscribers to Slappin' Glass can also directly email Winston Jones of Hudl at winston.jones@hudl.com.

Tactical

📺 Empty-Side Spain - RIP Screen • Stack Screen​

"Several variations RIP screening a shooter into an empty-side stack screen."

✚ Pair With: Coach Sergio Scariolo emptying out the weakside behind a middle third Spain Ballscreen.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our transition breakdown with a rim-running 4-man turning a rim seal into a Spain Ballscreen.

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📺 Horns Entry - Pin Down • Flare Passer​

“A motion-based horns set designed to shift the defense and create a top flare shooting option."

✚ Pair With: Several Horns iterations using a shooter as one of the initial Horns screener.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our recent breakdown on attacking the tag with a pin down screen off the Horns ballscreen.

Interesting Reads

📚 How Dan Campbell's 'Kneecap Speech' Forever Changed the NFL and the Detroit Lions​

"Here's what I do know -- that this team is going to take on the identity of this city. And this city's been down, and it found a way to get up. It's found a way to overcome adversity," Campbell says. "So this team's going to be built on, we're going to kick you in the teeth, all right? And when you punch us back, we're going to smile at you, and when you knock us down, we're going to get up. And on the way up, we're going to bite a kneecap off.

"And we're going to stand up, and then it's going to take two more shots to knock us down. And on the way up, we're going to take your other kneecap, and we're going to get up, and then it's going to take three shots to get us down. And when we do, we're going to take another hunk out of you.

"Before long, we're going to be the last one standing. That's going to be the mentality."

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📚 Rest in Motion​

For almost everybody, inaction is boring. That's why we pick up books, go exploring, and take up hobbies. The ground state is an active state, not a passive one.

The actual reward state is not one where you're lazing around doing nothing. It's one where you're keeping busy, where you're doing things that stimulate you, and where you're resting only a fraction of the time. The preferred ground state is not one where you have no activity to partake in, it's one where you're managing the streams of activity precisely, and moving through them at the right pace: not too fast, but also not too slow. For that would be boring.

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📚 Becoming a Magician​

Often without noticing, your progress in aspects of life or all of it unconsciously becomes linear. You made a certain amount of money last year, so you aim to make some ‘reasonable’ proportion more this year. But you are largely using the same tools to get 2x as you used to get x, and so you end up with diminishing marginal returns as you wring the remaining juice out of the initial strategy. The ‘describe the version of you that seems impossible right now’ trick I described above is largely an attempt to bypass that part of my brain that dismisses the work of magicians as crazy and starts allowing it to make the necessary shifts required to become the kind of magician I am envisioning.

The way to extraordinary growth and changes often involves a fundamental ontological or ‘lens’ shift in how you see the world. Magicians are wearing not just better, but fundamentally differently shaped lenses to the rest of us.

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Quote of the Week

Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan, Pat, and Eric

info@slappinglass.com

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