Rebuilding a Program, a Q&A session with Coach Michael Botkin from Life Christian Academy

This week we have a brief Q&A session with Coach Michael Botkin from the Life Christian Academy (LCA) in Florida. Coach Botkin, who just finished his first season at LCA, took a program that had only 2 winning seasons since 1995 to a very successful 21 win season. His experiences as an assistant coach at both the high school and JUCO level have helped him understand what it takes to turn a program around. Check out what Coach Michael Botkin shares with us on how to rebuild a program:

[Sweet Spot Basketball's (SSBB) questions are in blue, Coach Michael Botkin's (MB) response is in black]

Sweet Spot Basketball (SSBB): What is one of the hardest parts of rebuilding a program?

Coach Michael Botkin (MB): The hardest part about rebuilding a program is getting everybody on board with how hard you must work in order to get things turned around. The program has not been successful for a reason, it is usually due to a lack of effort by the coaches/players/administration/community, etc. I've never seen a team that works REALLY hard lose a lot of games. Getting kids who have been lazy or maybe have not been put in a position to work hard is always the hardest battle. They may have thought they worked hard, but showing up right as practice starts and leaving immediately after it ends, or jogging through drills or going half effort in practice is not working hard. Kids at that stage do not understand the benefits of staying after practice and getting 100 shots up, or practicing 5 days a week in the off-season because they can't see immediate results. Getting kids to work hard and buy into that type of effort is always the first struggle. If you can get them to work hard on a consistent basis, you have a great foundation. 

SSBB: How important is off-season work when rebuilding a program? What type of workouts should the off-season contain?

MB: In the programs I have been apart of, what separated us from previous years teams and/or competitors was how hard we worked in the off-season. We only work on defense in the summer and that is only to prepare for a team camp or summer league. It is RARELY touched on. Kids will tune you out if you start doing defense all the time. We would rather develop some key fundamentals(passing, dribbling, shooting) and then maybe add something to each players game. So if we have a 6'8 center, we would work on him adding a solid 15 footer, or if our 2 guard was not good at dribble pull ups on his right side, we would work on that with him. In Florida, the high school season ends around late Feb for the state championship. We would usually give our kids a few weeks off, then come back and start doing 5 day workouts. How we break up those 5 days has varied. One year we went Mon-Thurs 45 min of lifting, an hour of individual instruction, 30 minutes of team practice(we would go over a new part of the offense or add some wrinkles to old plays) and then on Friday we would split squad up and scrimmage. Or we would go Mon-Wed-Fri in the gym for 2 hours working on individual training, and Tue-Thur we are doing Strength & Conditioning. In the summer we would go 5 days a week, sometimes 2 a days where we come in morning, lift and/or individual instruction. Then in the afternoon do team sessions. In the fall before the season starts, we go 4 days a week and work on individual instruction and each week start adding stuff for the "team". I would give them the last 2 weeks of school off, all of July off( for AAU), the first week of school off as well as the week before the "official" practice begins. 

I believe workouts should be all fundamentals, a TON of shooting. Kids are so bad at shooting these days that they have to get as many shots up as possible doing it the right way. We do basic shooting form work before every workout and practice. We start with something as simple as standing a foot away from the rim shooting it with 1 hand and go all the way to working on reverse pivot shots.

SSBB: How can you get players to buy-in to the process of rebuilding? The parents or community?

MB:  When kids don't "buy in" I always hear coaches say, "if they aren't on board, ship them out". Personally, I think that is silly. If you have enough talent in your program where the best player doesn't buy in and you can get rid of him/her while still maintaining a decent level of success, then good job at landing a good gig. I have been in both cases. At one school we were crazy talented and could afford to do that, and at another school even if we kicked off the manager we would lose some games (laughs). Now, there are certain "non-negotiables" in my program that kids can't cross. But you have to remember that these kids have normally never had this kind of structure/discipline/demanding expectations before. So they may be resistant to change initially, which is completely understandable. You may have to hold their hand and take baby steps with them for the first few months. However, after a few months if the kid is still defiant, then you have to get rid of him. One thing I don't do is coach effort, that is something I demand immediately. If you don't give me your very best, then I can't help you. I will let things go for a while in the beginning, giving them constant reminders on what I want but after a few weeks or a month- I tighten the rope. If effort isn't shown then, I get rid of the problem. 

Parents have 1 thing in mind: their child. They have the very best intentions for their child and you as a coach have the best interest of the team. Those two things will always conflict. I heard a great story by one of the best football coaches in Florida. It goes like this: "Johnny" didn't play much and his mom (after a game of him not playing much) came up to him and started yelling and asking questions on why Johnny doesn't play. The coach sat back and let her release all her anger. When she was finished the coach then called "Johnny" over and told him "'Johnny', I am going to need your pads please." Obviously confused by his coach's request "Johnny" asked "Why Coach? What are you talking about?" The coach replied, "you now play on your mom's team." I laugh at that all the time. 

SSBB: What happens if your rebuilding year finishes as a losing season? In your opinion does that take away from the rebuilding process?

MB: Only you as a coach can determine if your season was a success. I think in the first year, if you can answer yes to three key questions, then it was a success. The three key questions are: (1) Did your kids play as hard as they could?, (2) Did they do everything that was asked of them?, and (3) Did they improve throughout the season?

I also believe you have to judge where your program is at, and where it should be.

When my staff and I took over Osceola HS(FL), Osceola had only had one losing season since 1980. In 2008 when we came in, they had missed the playoffs for the past 6 years. Though they had finished just above .500 for the past few years and they still had talent in the program, they lacked discipline. We just had to install discipline and structure into our new program. So for us anything but making the playoffs would have been a "failure". That may not always be the case. Only you can judge where your program was, is, and where it should be to determine if the past season was a success.

SSBB: What kind of focal points do your practices have when you are rebuilding a program?

MB: Teams generally lose because of the following:

-Poor shot selection

-Turnovers

-Lack of rebounding

-Giving up transition points

So as a coach if you can get your kids to:

-Take good shots

-Not turn the ball over

-Get even or close to even on rebounding numbers each game

-Don't give up easy points(taking the right shots, getting back on defense, etc)

Play really hard, and focus on those 4 things, and you will win more than you lose. 

There is another quick story from my time at Osceola that illustrates this point well. When we got to Osceola, one of the things we noticed was that past season team averaged 21 turnovers a game. That is a CRAZY amount. So we shifted our thinking to an idea we called: 'Pass with the 2's'. What that means is that as a passer you pass with 2 hands, 2 eyes, 2 feet. I started studying turnovers and realized that over 90% of turnovers occurred because a player either: tried to give a no look pass, tried to give a 1 hand pass, or tried to pass in the air. Stressing 'Pass with the 2's', we were able to cut the turnovers down to 10 per game (though that was still a little high for us). You HAVE to value the basketball, you can't just give it away especially on the HS level where you don't have the best shooters in the world.

My practices are always detailed to every minute, there is always a point or reason as to why we are doing things. So if we want to emphasize not turning the ball over, we will work on the 'Pass with 2s' and build from that. 

Something I am very big on is fundamentals. I am almost obsessive about them, to the point where my kids get tired of me talking about it. I like to pay really close attention to footwork and how a player gets ready to shoot or pivot for a pass. I also look at how a pass is made to a kid who is ready to shoot and where it is put(meaning: is it put in his shooting pocket or is the pass low where he has to reach for it?). Some coaches are anal about how they dress going to games or the kids sitting in the front row of classes, all of that is good. But I am anal specifically when it comes fundamentals. 

SSBB: Is it more important to work on strength and conditioning or actual basketball skills/IQ when rebuilding a program?

MB: I think strength and conditioning (s&c) is an important factor in success, especially conditioning. But I also think that there should be a strong emphasis put on mental toughness, I believe that is a skill that really enhances a player. Granted, I know no team will win a lot of games if they are out of shape. I would rather spend all my time building the basketball skills and IQ than I would in S&C. I can't do S&C all year, I usually try to get them going on an occasional team run once a week. I think even that they get to run a little while they play pick up games and then if you pick it up a month or two before the season starts and you should be fine. Try not working on basketball skills/IQ until the start of practice and see how far that gets you. Any coach can make a team run a lot, but can a coach get the players to really understand basketball and be able to use the knowledge that is taught to them in the game? That is the challenging part. 

Something that I really try to emphasis is this quote. I don't know who said this so I have no clue who to give credit to.  This is a quote I really try to live by this when rebuilding a program. It goes: "to grow, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable." 

Everything in life that is worth having is hard to obtain. Is winning this district/conference/league/division/state title something you want? In order for us to move forward and fight for this goal, we as a team have to be extremely comfortable in adverse situations that normally make people uncomfortable or want to quit. So maybe we do 2-a days for a week and go at 6am in the morning, or maybe it means we don't touch a ball for a few days and only work on defense, or it means we are comfortable being pressed and can battle through that. You have to be calm in chaos. 

Sweet Spot Basketball would like to thank Coach Botkin for his time. His answers provide a lot of valuable material for any coach trying to rebuild a program. 

thirteen.