Several years ago, Louisville men’s basketball coach Pat Kelsey embarked on an offseason study of Michigan State. He wanted to better understand how the Spartans, led by Hall-of-Fame coach Tom Izzo, always seemed to be among the best teams in the country despite an apparent reluctance to embrace some of the sport’s new-wave, offensive ideology trickling in from Europe and the NBA.
Kelsey was fascinated by the way Izzo reached eight Final Fours and won 11 Big Ten regular-season titles while embracing wildly different principles. He considers Izzo to be “one of the greatest coaches in the history of college basketball,” in part because of the sustained success.
The Spartans were not, as far as Kelsey could tell, adopters of the “free throws, rim-shot 3s” approach that seems to be infiltrating the game at a remarkable pace. But night after night, month after month, season after season, Michigan State always won. How?
“What they emphasize, they’re great at,” Kelsey told me last month. “One of those is offensive rebounding, you know? Coach Izzo became one of the great offensive rebounding gurus.”
Kelsey was one of numerous coaches who told me that a drastic rewiring of how offensive rebounding is viewed, valued and taught across the country has helped fuel college basketball’s current offensive explosion.
Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo walks out of the tunnel before a game against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights. (Photo by Adam Ruff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
This season, nearly three times as many teams are averaging at least 120 points per 100 possessions than any of the last 30 seasons, according to KenPom. As the NCAA Tournament approaches, 71 teams are securing offensive rebounds on at least 34% of their field goal attempts, a number that was only at 27 teams five years ago. There are 315 players averaging at least two offensive rebounds per game this season, up from 251 five years ago. All shapes and sizes are now crashing the glass.
When coupled with what we explored in Part 2 of this series — the evolution of shot selection as teams lean more heavily into analytics and 3-pointers — it becomes easier to understand why offenses are operating so efficiently this season. More offensive rebounding creates more possessions, and more possessions are now ending with made 3s than ever before. Second-chance points, perimeter shooting and offensive efficiency all go hand in hand.
“Part of the secret sauce is the rebounding,” Texas head coach Sean Miller told me. “When teams used to heave up all those 3s, what they were sacrificing is they would miss and they couldn’t get a rebound. Now, you’re rebounding on 3-point shots like never before.”
In Part 3 of this series, we launch ourselves into the world of offensive rebounding, as college basketball’s keenest minds explain how crashing the glass is contributing to what might be the greatest scoring season in the sport’s history.
[THE BLUEPRINT: Offense-First Player Acquisition | Shot Selection]
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Ryan Conwell #3 of the Louisville Cardinals towards the Clemson Tigers. (Picture by Katie DeVaney/Getty Pictures)
Miller: In the event you monitor it and begin to take a look at Ultimate Fours, one widespread theme that the majority, if not all, of these groups had was they’re prolific on the offensive glass. There’s at all times exceptions, however the groups who rebound the most effective, the second-shot alternatives, to me, went the furthest within the match. Clearly, that has rather a lot to do with offensive effectivity. The sport modified in Europe, after which it modified within the NBA, copying Europe. Now it’s labored its solution to school the place groups are crashing the glass on 3-point photographs, and so they’re crashing the glass extra with perimeter gamers than ever earlier than.
Kelvin Sampson, Houston: Not everyone tries to attain off an offensive rebound anymore. They seize it, they throw it again out and shoot a 3. I’m satisfied we’re going to have some video games the place if a staff takes 50 photographs, 40 of them are going to be 3s. After which that triggers or mandates the way you’re going to recruit.
Grant McCasland, Texas Tech: I feel what everybody has at all times completed is taught what they’ve been taught, which is take [the ball] proper again up while you [get an offensive] rebound. And I’d have been in that camp once I first began 20 years in the past. Why wouldn’t you try this? You then study concerning the dagger 3, and you then see the numbers behind it, and I feel persons are beginning to lean into that extra typically, clearly some greater than others.
T.J. Otzelberger, Iowa State: In the event you catch [an offensive rebound] on steadiness within the paint, go proper again up and rating. In the event you catch it off-balance or out of the paint, spray it for a 3. That’s one thing we work on each single day. Having Milan Momcilovic on our staff, a lethal 3-point shooter, that’s often the pathway to getting him the most effective 3s that we will get him.
Miller: It’s known as nook crashing, 3-point crashing. There’s one other time period, tagging up, which principally everyone goes [for the rebound]. I’ve been doing it for 21 years as a head coach. That time period and that philosophy didn’t exist only a few quick years in the past.
Jon Scheyer, Duke: When you consider the mathematics recreation, there’s been a shift. Groups are far more aggressive crashing offensive glass, which creates extra alternatives there. I feel that’s type of the possession battle.
McCasland: These are numbers video games [and] the way you win the sport is creating extra alternatives and getting extra photographs than your opponent. After which, clearly, that’s a high-percentage shot, no less than statistically, the kick-out 3. Why wouldn’t you attempt to make the most of one thing that’s received the next share of success and will get you extra possessions?
Kelsey: You take a look at our offensive rebounding numbers for lots of years, we very a lot worth offensive rebounding. There was a man on my workers a number of years in the past, Dave Davis, who was a well-known Division II coach. He had a bunch of 6-foot dudes, and so they led the nation in offensive rebounding a number of years on the D-II degree. … He wrote a doc known as the “Rebounding Manifesto,” and he was our rebounding coordinator and coached it and introduced that philosophy to us. You take a look at his groups and the best way they shot 1,000,000 3s, they performed extremely quick, they crushed the offensive rebounds, and he simply owned that.
Our large factor is when you get an offensive rebound and also you’ve received a clear end, a clear take a look at the rim, you higher make it or get fouled. If not, clearly search for that kick-out 3. It’s one thing that we have a good time.
Miller: There are further possessions now that didn’t exist years in the past as a result of groups — and Illinois could be Exhibit A — they shoot a ton of 3s, virtually 51% or extra of their photographs are from 3. However when you take a look at how they rebound the ball, it’s completely different than it ever was. And there’s all these further possessions that I feel make them extra environment friendly and provides them extra factors per possession than groups 5, six years in the past who didn’t try this.
Matt Painter, Purdue: It begins with possessions. In the event you flip the ball over rather a lot and also you don’t get rebounds, you’re in all probability not going to be environment friendly since you don’t have as many possessions. So the No. 1 factor is, if you wish to be environment friendly, don’t flip the ball over. … In the event you can play with out turning the ball over and you’re a very good offensive rebounding staff, you routinely have a bonus.
In the event you’re only a one-trick pony and also you’re actually a perimeter-oriented staff, you higher study to have the ability to drive the basketball. You’ve received to have the ability to get to the free-throw line in some capability, whether or not that’s off the glass, whether or not that’s within the submit or whether or not that’s driving the ball.
Ben McCollum, Iowa: It looks as if groups are focusing a bit bit extra on offensive rebounding, however I feel that goes again to the identical principle of there’s not as a lot toughness and grit to field out. A man that’s been to 3 completely different faculties or is getting paid some huge cash, his final curiosity is to make it possible for he persistently packing containers out, proper? And so, you then get O-boards, after which, naturally, with offensive rebounds, they both kick out or return up.
Kelsey: Rebounding is a mentality as a lot as it’s a approach. It’s grit, it’s hustle, it’s nastiness, it’s toughness, it’s all issues that we wish to be generally known as. However we put such a price on offensive rebounding. Each day we measure sure issues, and one in all them is offensive rebounding. We grade our guys on each single alternative: Did you do your job, or did you not? And as you may think about, that takes hours to grade and to guage. However since we make investments a lot time on it and the gamers know that’s vital to me, we’re often good at it.
Come again on Thursday for Half 4 on this collection, which explores how on-court processing and particular person decision-making has expanded from level guards to all 5 positions, which is rendering school basketball smarter than it’s ever been earlier than.
In The Blueprint, our in-depth, long-form collection takes you inside a number of the most wonderful tales in sports activities.
