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

Happy Sunday! Welcome to all the newest subscribers from around the world!

ICYMI: Last week, we revisited the ever evolving chess match in the Spanish PNR and how defenses are controlling the action with the "Hedge & X-Out." Read the newsletter HERE.

This Week at a Glance:

🔒 SG Plus Content: Forced Curls - Off Ball Screening​

🎧 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Clare Murphy

🥇 Best of the Week: SLOB & Ram Entry​

📬 Youtube Mailbag: Submit Your Question HERE.

📚 Interesting Reads: Winning Alignment

✍️ 2026 NABC Convention! Sign Up HERE.

Forced Curls

For much of basketball’s history, off ball screening was a central pillar of offense. That began to shift in the late 2000s as the ballscreen became the sport’s dominant action.

But as players have become more athletic and defenses increasingly sophisticated in guarding the middle third ballscreen, off ball action has come roaring back. Coaches across all levels are again searching for creative ways to free shooters for clean looks and send guards downhill off curls.

There’s just one problem.

While defenses may not be as systematically drilled in guarding a pin down as they are a high ballscreen, they’ve become very good at disrupting the action altogether. When an opponent begins hunting looks for their team’s best shooter, defenses often respond with a top lock to keep the shooter out of the action, or simply switch the screen to eliminate the threat of a clean jumper.

Recently, we’ve explored strategies for punishing the top lock {🔒}. Today, however, we’re focused on creating the coverage we want against a pin down, a late trail that allows the shooter to catch cleanly while pulling the screener’s defender out of position, unable to stunt the shot or stop the first dribble of a curl.

To study how this can be done, we’re looking at one of the most intriguing and potent offenses in college basketball over the last several seasons: the UConn Huskies.

Under Dan Hurley, UConn has deployed a series of multi-layer screening actions designed to soften the defense, manipulate coverage, and ultimately create the clean looks every shooter hopes to see.

What You’ll Learn

• How sacrificial curls open space for the real scoring action.
• How layered pin downs (double and triple pins) soften aggressive coverages.
• Why these actions disrupt top-locks and switching defenses {🔒}.

Twice As Nice

Fundamentally, the actions we’re looking at today all follow the same principle: use an initial action to force the defense to react, placing them in a disadvantaged position to defend the real scoring action that follows.

A simple wide pin can certainly be effective. But against aggressive coverages, offenses often need to move the defense first before arriving at the more dangerous pin down.

This is exactly what UConn accomplishes by pairing two consecutive pins within the same action.

Zooming In: In these multi-layer pin down sets, the first shooter is instructed to curl, and curl hard, with the passer giving a legitimate look to them at the rim. This serves two important purposes:

1. The screener’s defender will often sag toward the paint, protecting against the curl that could easily become a layup.
2. The low man can get pulled into help. Even a brief step toward the paint can be enough for the second cutter, coming off the next pin, to create the separation needed for a clean catch.

It’s important to note that UConn frequently runs these actions against aggressive defensive coverages. That means even if the low man doesn’t drastically overhelp, any movement toward the paint, or even staying planted, prevents them from getting into a top-lock position on the second pin. And with the screener’s defender already dropped to contain the curl, there’s often no additional support left to disrupt the action.

For more on the concept of pinning a helping low man, see our previous breakdown of Monaco’s horns pin action {🔒}.

Because of the defense’s aggressive coverage, you may also see a top lock on the first pin. In those situations, the guard must still complete their cut through the paint and apply pressure on the rim, whether by fighting over the top or backcutting, whatever it takes to force a reaction from the screener’s defender and the low man.

Sacrificial Curls

When talking about sacrificial cuts it's often a burn from the 45 to create a double gap or make room for a pop, or even just to set up an empty side ballscreen. For UConn, however, you’ll see sacrificial curls. And they are fully committed to selling the action. The curl is executed with real pace and real intent, which becomes a critical ingredient in the play’s success.

If the first curl doesn’t pose a legitimate threat, if the defense doesn’t feel pressure to react, then the second pin is no more effective than if the offense simply walked down the floor and set a basic wide pin. Because the curl is sold so convincingly, the screener’s defender must respect the threat. In many cases they’ll drop toward the paint to protect the rim, which removes them from any position to impact the second screen.

Pace is critical on the forced curl. If the curl is too slow or the cutter fails to exit the paint with the same urgency they entered it, their defender can linger in the paint, clogging the space for the shooter to curl behind them. As shown above, when the forced curl is executed with proper pace, the defender is left chasing their matchup out of the paint, blind to the action unfolding behind them.

Technical Note: Attacking off the screen, UConn’s shooters are adept at reading the screener’s defender and recognizing when to use a “push” dribble {🔒} to build on the advantage, or a single controlled split-leg dribble to avoid the stunt while keeping their defender on their back.

Thrice As Nice

Two consecutive pins are effective, but if you’ve watched UConn, you know the layering rarely stops there {🔒}. Using the same principles, a forced curl to soften the defense and creative angles to force trails, UConn will occasionally push defenses into a blender with a triple pin, starting the intended shooter as the first curler.

With the same principles in place as the double pin, defenses are already at a disadvantage by the time the secondary and tertiary layers of the action arrive.

In the triple pin, the same shooter comes off both the first and third screens, creating an especially difficult angle for the defender to recover and impact the catch. Curling wide from under the rim, with the screener set at a flat angle toward the arc, the trailing defender is immediately put in a compromised position.

Simply put: it’s a very tough chase.
​
You’ll also notice how UConn often pairs this action with a ballscreen occurring simultaneously on the strong side. The screen isn’t necessarily designed as the primary scoring action, but it serves two important purposes.

1. It occupies the attention of help defenders, forcing them to process multiple threats before suddenly needing to defend a layered off-ball screening action.
2. It creates a clean passing angle and space for the ballhandler to deliver the pass on time and on target to the shooter coming off the final pin.

UConn’s layered pin actions show how modern off-ball offense can manipulate coverage the same way elite teams manipulate ball screens. By forcing trails and occupying help defenders with sacrificial curls, the Huskies create the exact conditions their shooters need to thrive. Often, the shot is decided long before the final screen is even set.

👉 Become an SG+ member to unlock the rest of this newsletter, the full breakdown, and access to all the referenced material above.

Additional Study Material

• ​Cutting the Stunt {🔒}
• ​Xavi Pascual's Off Ball Screening Techniques {🔒}

Together with NABC

Develop as a coach and grow as a leader at the 2026 NABC Convention!

Join coaches from all levels of the sport April 2-6 in Indianapolis for the industry’s premier professional development and networking event. The NABC Convention features five days of X&O clinics, educational sessions, award ceremonies, division-specific meetings, networking receptions and more – all alongside college basketball’s championship stage in Indianapolis!

If you’re a basketball coach, you belong at the NABC Convention! Learn more and register now at nabc.com/convention.

🎙 Clare Murphy on Shared Narrative, Connection, and Building Team Cohesion

In this week’s episode of the Slappin’ Glass Podcast, we sit down with master storyteller and communication expert Clare Murphy to explore how narrative, connection, and shared experiences shape the cultures of high-performing teams.

Working with leaders across sport, business, and mission-critical organizations, Clare has spent decades studying how humans actually absorb meaning, build trust, and transmit belief. Her core idea is simple yet powerful: culture isn’t built through information—it’s built through story, shared experiences, and the everyday moments that shape how teams communicate and relate to one another.

Throughout the conversation, Clare helps coaches rethink how they approach team communication, leadership, and culture-building, from the stories we tell our players, to the narratives we carry about ourselves as coaches.

We also explore how storytelling can be used to accelerate cohesion within teams, why great cultures rely on flexible leadership and shared ownership, and how simple rituals, traditions, and reflection practices can strengthen belonging within a group.

Clare also challenges coaches to reconsider some of the most common communication environments in sport—such as the halftime locker room—and how leaders can better regulate emotion, simplify messaging, and transmit belief during high-pressure moments.

The conversation ultimately centers on a powerful idea: the stories teams share and the narratives leaders embody become the foundation of culture itself.

What You’ll Learn

• Why shared narrative and storytelling are powerful tools for building team cohesion
• How coaches can use stories and rituals to strengthen trust and belonging within their teams
• The concept of “membership over leadership” and how flexible leadership can strengthen team culture
• Why information overload often undermines communication in high-pressure moments like halftime
• How leaders can transmit belief, confidence, and clarity through presence and emotional regulation
• The role of co-creating team narratives with players to build ownership and accountability
• Why coaches must examine the stories they tell themselves about their leadership and identity
• How building a trusted peer network or coaching “tribe” can accelerate development and combat coaching isolation

Listen to the entire episode below...

Together with Hudl

Built for coaches who want clarity, not complexity.

If you’re already using tools like Instat or Sportscode, you know how powerful they can be. Hudl Academy is designed to help coaches get more out of the technology they already have, and confidently add what they don’t.

The Hudl Analyst Academy walks coaches through Instat, Sportscode, and the broader Hudl ecosystem, with clear, practical instruction on film workflow, tagging, breakdowns, and analysis that actually translate to winning.

​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

📺 SLOB Post Trigger - Pin Away • Spain​

"Flowing the post trigger into the stack screen off the sideline inbounds."

✚ Pair With: Using gaggle screening out of baseline and sideline inbounds at the elbow to create unpredictability and disrupt defensive matchups.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our "Film Room" session with St. Louis HC Josh Schertz on how they teach both Split and Gaggle screening.

📺 Ram Entry - Corner Exit • Delayed Pin​

"Bilbao flowing into a delayed pin down out of their Ram entry with a corner exit."

✚ Pair With: Bilbao using another variation of its Ram Screen with a corner exit.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Offensive concepts for punishing off ball stunts from the passer.

Got a coaching question? Ask us.

Our Monthly Mailbag on YouTube is your chance to bring real coaching questions directly into the Slappin’ Glass conversation.

Each month, we select and break down questions from coaches across the game—covering tactics, team concepts, leadership, podcast topics, and anything else you want us to dig into.

📩 Submit your Mailbag questions HERE, and keep an eye out for the next Mailbag episode dropping early February on YouTube.

Interesting Reads

📚 How to Get Winning Alignment​

When we dug in, we found the problem: They had compliance, not alignment.

People were saying yes because it was easier than raising concerns. Objections lived in hallway conversations rather than in meetings. The problem was that they were optimizing for a low-conflict culture.

But conflict holds wisdom.

📚 The Art of Becoming "Socially Wealthy"​

And for the introverts or people who feel like they're awkward in social settings, the best thing you can do is practice. "You need to practice interacting," Dr. Smith says. "Confidence comes after experience — not before. The only way to feel more comfortable and less anxious is to go practice the uncomfortable thing repeatedly."

📚 Making Decisions, Easily​

In particular, there is one idea that has stuck with me over the past 18 months.

It’s this simple question: What's the next most obvious step?

Quote of the Week

Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan, Pat, and Eric

info@slappinglass.com