Friday, August 6, 2010

To whom this may concern...

I am talking to you Dan Muscatell. I am talking to all of you on twitter begging me for more blog. I know you missed me, little did I know that you were craving more blog. I put it on the to-do list and then moved it straight to the top.

Montana Coaches Association - 2010 Clinic
This event gets better every year for me. It's not that the speakers are any better or that I learn more, but it is that I know more people. I love the speakers and always get something from every presentation, but I get just as much if not more from going to lunch with Coach Mouat or sitting down at the steak fry with Coach Gordon and Coach Tait.

The MCA wasn't all wonderful. The two low-lights came from within our own department. First Coach Huse (Head Men's Basketball Coach) calls me out of the crowd during his presentation on defense and proceeds to put me in closeout drills and defensive slide drills. Thanks Coach. The second 'incident' was Thursday at lunch. The MSU Volleyball staff "bigtimed" us and chose free wifi at Jimmy Johns over lunch with Coach Close and I at Chili's.

Overall I had an amazing time, caught up with some good friends, and made some new ones!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Dribble Drive

OK, lets get back on the horse. I am just finishing my Sac State scout and don't have another one until we play Weber State on 2/6.

It is time to start checking in with me and I will get something worth reading in the next few days!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Good Coaches


I had a wonderful meeting today with Dr. Craig Stewart about the class that I will be teaching this fall: HDPE317 Basketball Coaching Theory. We had a great conversation about the direction of the class and some of the characteristics of good coaches. I felt like the conversation had just started and before you knew it, we had been talking for an hour. Made me think that it could make a good blog topic. I am going to try and make this a recurring feature, help me out by posting ideas about what you think makes a good coach.

Time Management
Good coaches are good at time management. I think it probably comes down to a more basic skill of organization, but we can talk about that some other time. Dr. Stewart made a great point saying "Time is the only thing you and your opponent have exactly the same amount of." I thought that was great! How efficient can you be in practice? Do you start on time? Do you end on time? Do you allow enough rest? Do you allow too much rest? Do you get to everything you want to cover in practice? Are you consistently 30 minutes behind schedule? These are very important questions and I think you will find the good coaches are very skilled in time management.

Let me know your thoughts...

Monday, August 31, 2009

Internet and Recruiting

Recruiting is a form of marketing and in marketing you need to go to where your customers (recruits) are. Today they are on the Internet!

Recently, we have made the Internet a critical part of our recruiting plan here at Montana State University. Today’s student athlete is on the Internet, they all have their own email, they are on Facebook and if they see a cool video on YouTube, they pass it on to twenty of their friends.

Email
A few years ago we started using a software company called Scoutware (http://www.scoutware.com/). Scoutware is, at its core, a web based database and graphic email program. There is so much that Scoutware can do and we are working hard to take advantage of its capabilities. One of the main features of Scoutware is the ability to create graphic HTML email. Every email we send with Scoutware allows us to use sharp graphics such as an Erica Perry action photo, or pictures of our beautiful campus. In every email that I send, Scoutware allows me to add my picture at the end of the message which allows recruits to put a face to the message.

Blog

Our next step into the web was “Bin’s Blog.” This is something that we wanted to do with the msubobcats.com website a few seasons ago, but settled on having Jamie Thornton write a play blog instead (It was great by the way!). Coach Binford’s Blog http://coachbinford.blogspot.com/ was launched in May 2008 (after a small push by recruiting guru Dan Tudor) with personal stories about family, vacation and Tee Ball. It has since grown into a blog about different topics like leadership, pride, and a very popular series called “Take it to the Next Level.” Next Level is a collection of ideas and strategies for athletes that want to be the best they can be, whether it is youth basketball, high school, college, or professional. Currently, Coach Bin’s Blog has over 6,600 hits from all over the world including Europe, Asia, and a few very loyal readers in Australia!

YouTube
One of the hardest jobs I do is also one of my favorite responsibilities as an assistant coach at MSU. This is the production of our end of the season highlight video. I work very hard and take great pride in the production of this video. As the videos grew in popularity with our players and Fast Break Club members, we were looking for an avenue to share these clips with more fans and also with recruits. YouTube was the obvious forum, and after a little trial and error, we were up and running at www.youtube.com/msuhoopster. Currently we have 43 videos uploaded to YouTube including highlight clips, off the court outtakes, player interviews, and our very popular “Cat Shorts” series. “Cat Shorts” is a series of commercials filmed with the purpose of showing what kind of amazing (and funny) athletes play for Montana State University Women’s Basketball.

Future
As new technology becomes available and we see it as a positive avenue for our message, you can be sure that we will be all over it. On the immediate horizon for Montana State University Women’s Basketball are Twitter and Facebook accounts. See you on the Net!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Film Friday!!!

One of the hardest parts of my job is watching interested film. Ok, its not the hardest part of the job, just a part of the job that I never get to cross off my to-do list and something that is just difficult for me.
I am very goal oriented and get really excited about big time projects. I love the idea of putting together a YouTube commercial, getting it loaded and crossing it off the list. During camp season I can cross off things like: get officials, set up lunches, hire coaches, daily agenda, sign up forms, etc. Interested film isn't like that.
Interested Film is game film sent to us by kids that want to play college basketball. It is really a great strategy for kids to send in their best games for us to watch because if we haven't seen them play, how could we recruit them? We get a fair share of highlight videos which really does us no good. Even I look like an All-American in a highlight film! :)
So I have for the past few weeks designated two hours each Friday as "FILM FRIDAY!" I know that I will never be done watching interested film, but at least I can cross it off my list once a week.

Have a great weekend!