jimotis4heisman
Banned
its called crack and i think this coach is on it.
http://www.dispatch.com/sports-story.php?story=dispatch/2004/12/14/20041214-E1-03.html&chck=t
Frantic offense has Marietta basketball team piling up points
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
ROB OLLER
Call him a mad scientist if you want, but Doug Foote’s breakneck brand of basketball is based more on math than microbiology.
The Marietta College men’s basketball coach is all about crunching mindnumbing numbers.
Such as:
10 — The number of seconds the Pioneers play pressure defense before either forcing a turnover or saying, "Aw, the heck with it. Give ’em a layup."
12 — Seconds of offense that Marietta limits itself to on each possession.
40 — Seconds that Pioneers players spend on the floor before being replaced by a fresh five.
And that’s just the beginning. Foote wants 94 shots from the field, 47 of which should be three-pointers. And 32 forced turnovers. While most coaches concentrate on X’s and O’s, Foote focuses on multiplication tables, the most important being 3 times 3 beats 3 times 2 every time.
The gist of Foote’s philosophy is that you usually win if you make more three-point shots than your opponent makes twos.
Elementary, my dear Einstein.
"It’s all mathematical formula, stuff that’s way over my head," chuckled Matt Croci, the coach at Kenyon who witnessed Marietta unleash its frenetic fury against the Lords in November.
The result wasn’t what Kenyon had in mind — the Lords lost 133-100 — but it also wasn’t the norm for Marietta, which is 1-7 using its new "Daytona 500 on hardwood" approach to the game.
The Pioneers average 101.9 points per game but allow 122.1. That’s like wearing a dress jacket to a black-tie dinner. Nice, but not nice enough.
"I love (the strategy). It’s just tough to get beat 127-100. We’re not getting enough steals," said Foote, who found the unorthodox system in Iowa, where Grinnell College unveiled it nearly 10 years ago as a way to compete against schools that attracted better recruits. Grinnell improved almost immediately and during the last decade has won its league three times and qualified for the NCAA Division III tournament.
If at this point you’re snickering and scoffing at a basketball system that intentionally allows layups — "the faster you score, the faster we can score" goes the reasoning — you’re not alone.
Foote knows that switching systems from the half-court game of last season to the whatchamacallit of this season has drawn the disdain of peers in the Ohio Athletic Conference.
"It’s a thing in our league where there are a lot of old-timers — and I’m one of them — who coach half-court-oriented basketball, and this wouldn’t set well with them," Foote said. "I’m sure that back in the coaching gossip sections people think I’ve lost my mind."
Instead, Foote has simply lost the kind of pride that is born of stubbornness and inflexibility. While some coaches would be loathe to implement an experimental offense, Foote figures he owes it to his players and the program to pull out all stops in hopes of getting Marietta over the hump.
The guy deserves credit, not criticism.
"It’s one of those things where I’d like someday for us to play at the next level, get to the NCAA Tournament," said Foote, who has coached the Pioneers to the middle of the OAC pack during his 13-year career at the school. "I was looking for something to get us over, to help recruiting and bring fan involvement."
Foote thought he’d do something like Muskingum coach Jim Burson did when he brought a Princeton-style offense to the Fighting Muskies.
"No one else did it and it was unique to the area at the time," Foote said, adding that coaching the Grinnell system is more complex than just rolling out balls and letting players fire away.
"It’s a lot easier to coach kids who are walking it up and throwing it inside than to coach kids running 150 mph and trying to get a shot off in 12 seconds," he said.
Maybe more impressive than Foote’s decision to dive into the Grinnell system is the mettle he is showing in his pending decision to jump back out of it. The coach intended to have the Pioneers run and gun all season, but a series of injuries to key shooters — in this system teams have to be able to fill the net — and a slower-thanexpected adjustment to the game plan have resulted in a disappointing record.
Every Marietta opponent has scored at least 109 points, including this Dec. 4 jawdropper: Heidelberg 136, Marietta 120.
"It’s one of those things where if we stayed with it we may end up 1-25, but we’d get a lot of positives out of it other than wins and losses," Foote said. "But I’d hate to do that to our five seniors."
Even if it was partly the seniors’ idea to turn two lanes of offense into an interstate highway. That’s right, players love what Foote has done, including opposing players who are running up school records against the Pioneers. "It’s almost like open gym," Foote said. But played on a calculator.
Rob Oller is a sports reporter for The Dispatch .
[email protected]
http://www.dispatch.com/sports-story.php?story=dispatch/2004/12/14/20041214-E1-03.html&chck=t
Frantic offense has Marietta basketball team piling up points
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
ROB OLLER
Call him a mad scientist if you want, but Doug Foote’s breakneck brand of basketball is based more on math than microbiology.
The Marietta College men’s basketball coach is all about crunching mindnumbing numbers.
Such as:
10 — The number of seconds the Pioneers play pressure defense before either forcing a turnover or saying, "Aw, the heck with it. Give ’em a layup."
12 — Seconds of offense that Marietta limits itself to on each possession.
40 — Seconds that Pioneers players spend on the floor before being replaced by a fresh five.
And that’s just the beginning. Foote wants 94 shots from the field, 47 of which should be three-pointers. And 32 forced turnovers. While most coaches concentrate on X’s and O’s, Foote focuses on multiplication tables, the most important being 3 times 3 beats 3 times 2 every time.
The gist of Foote’s philosophy is that you usually win if you make more three-point shots than your opponent makes twos.
Elementary, my dear Einstein.
"It’s all mathematical formula, stuff that’s way over my head," chuckled Matt Croci, the coach at Kenyon who witnessed Marietta unleash its frenetic fury against the Lords in November.
The result wasn’t what Kenyon had in mind — the Lords lost 133-100 — but it also wasn’t the norm for Marietta, which is 1-7 using its new "Daytona 500 on hardwood" approach to the game.
The Pioneers average 101.9 points per game but allow 122.1. That’s like wearing a dress jacket to a black-tie dinner. Nice, but not nice enough.
"I love (the strategy). It’s just tough to get beat 127-100. We’re not getting enough steals," said Foote, who found the unorthodox system in Iowa, where Grinnell College unveiled it nearly 10 years ago as a way to compete against schools that attracted better recruits. Grinnell improved almost immediately and during the last decade has won its league three times and qualified for the NCAA Division III tournament.
If at this point you’re snickering and scoffing at a basketball system that intentionally allows layups — "the faster you score, the faster we can score" goes the reasoning — you’re not alone.
Foote knows that switching systems from the half-court game of last season to the whatchamacallit of this season has drawn the disdain of peers in the Ohio Athletic Conference.
"It’s a thing in our league where there are a lot of old-timers — and I’m one of them — who coach half-court-oriented basketball, and this wouldn’t set well with them," Foote said. "I’m sure that back in the coaching gossip sections people think I’ve lost my mind."
Instead, Foote has simply lost the kind of pride that is born of stubbornness and inflexibility. While some coaches would be loathe to implement an experimental offense, Foote figures he owes it to his players and the program to pull out all stops in hopes of getting Marietta over the hump.
The guy deserves credit, not criticism.
"It’s one of those things where I’d like someday for us to play at the next level, get to the NCAA Tournament," said Foote, who has coached the Pioneers to the middle of the OAC pack during his 13-year career at the school. "I was looking for something to get us over, to help recruiting and bring fan involvement."
Foote thought he’d do something like Muskingum coach Jim Burson did when he brought a Princeton-style offense to the Fighting Muskies.
"No one else did it and it was unique to the area at the time," Foote said, adding that coaching the Grinnell system is more complex than just rolling out balls and letting players fire away.
"It’s a lot easier to coach kids who are walking it up and throwing it inside than to coach kids running 150 mph and trying to get a shot off in 12 seconds," he said.
Maybe more impressive than Foote’s decision to dive into the Grinnell system is the mettle he is showing in his pending decision to jump back out of it. The coach intended to have the Pioneers run and gun all season, but a series of injuries to key shooters — in this system teams have to be able to fill the net — and a slower-thanexpected adjustment to the game plan have resulted in a disappointing record.
Every Marietta opponent has scored at least 109 points, including this Dec. 4 jawdropper: Heidelberg 136, Marietta 120.
"It’s one of those things where if we stayed with it we may end up 1-25, but we’d get a lot of positives out of it other than wins and losses," Foote said. "But I’d hate to do that to our five seniors."
Even if it was partly the seniors’ idea to turn two lanes of offense into an interstate highway. That’s right, players love what Foote has done, including opposing players who are running up school records against the Pioneers. "It’s almost like open gym," Foote said. But played on a calculator.
Rob Oller is a sports reporter for The Dispatch .
[email protected]
