(Former) Ohlone Coach John Peterson Talking Basketball
A look back to December 5th, 2013... Loyola Marymount University Men's Basketball Assistant Coach, John Peterson, speaks on his experience as Ohlone College Men's Basketball Head Coach during his 2013-2014 campaign. We hope you enjoy...! - GT Basketball
It's the nature of the beast that community college basketball rosters have a high turnover rate but it seems especially so for Ohlone Coach John Peterson. That's because a large number of his players move up after a single season.
Yet he again quickly melds together a set of newcomers into a unit each season.
Getting 12 to become one is approaching some sort of magical alchemy.
So how does he get this synchronicity to take place?
Recently, we had the opportunity for a Q-and-A with Coach Peterson about this subject plus more.
Q - In your recruiting, what are the traits you look for most in prospects and why?
JP: Character, desire to want to be coached hard and work to get better, ability to shoot/pass/dribble (must have two of the three and shooting is one of them), competitive spirit. First and foremost, we have completely gone away from recruiting guys who we don't think will fit what we want in terms of attitude, which includes a myriad of things. So we have elected not to recruit some very good players because we would rather have to deal with them twice a year (if they end up playing against us) on game night as opposed to 365 days year. Not to say we would have gotten them anyway, but the older I get the less nonsense I want to deal with that doesn't relate to winning and getting better. And it has allowed us to spend more time coaching and less time babysitting, which benefits everybody in the organization. And at the end of the day I want to be happy with who I am spending the majority of my day with.
Q - The term 'high basketball IQ' is tossed around a lot -- what does that term mean to you? If someone came to you and said 'I want to have a better basketball IQ' -- what would you suggest?
JP: I think our current group has a relatively high IQ…know how to read counters, know how to recognize defensive tendencies and adjust, understand and embrace the formula we establish for winning (and why you lose), know what the right decision is on the floor and when to make it, understand time/score possession, understand the concepts of space as they relate to offense and defense, etc. For us the greatest teaching tool is practice and game film, both of which we watch daily. But most importantly, if you don't have an open mind to learning and adjusting your game as you move up the ladder, it becomes difficult to become a smarter player.
Q - Say I'm a 6-foot-3 freshman guard in high school and 'evaluators' say I have college potential. Very broadly, what would you advise me to focus on, an action plan of sorts -- in the next few years
JP: Learn how to shoot. Every coach wants players that can make open baskets, and they find a place in the rotation for those can that do it well. I watch my own kids play in aau events in the elementary and middle school level, and everything is about getting to the rim. Fundamentally, as a whole, great shooters are few and far between. And it is difficult to find people that can teach shooting. Parents want skill trainers, and a majority of skill trainers spend their time on ball handling and not enough time on how to shoot, how to score, how to create separation from your defender, playing 1 on 1 or 2 on 2, how to use both your feet to your advantage, etc. I see a lot of skill work against a set of cones, but you don't get the luxury of having a cone defend you on Friday nights. My suggestion is to find a trainer or a coach that can teach you how to shoot and score…that is money well spent.
Q - Individuals possess different learning strengths and weaknesses, with some able to understand what is being taught through oral instruction (verbal) while others need to see it on paper (visual) first and still others learn by doing (physical) and, of course, there are combinations of all these learning styles. Is this something coaches take into account in teaching concepts?
JP: I think good teachers do, and there are a lot of them out there at the high school level in particular. The best are able to recognize a weakness (or strength), correct it through whatever method the player understands best (kinetic, visual, auditory, etc.), and then repeat it until it is mastered. It's an arduous process, but often times the process of becoming great is monotonous.
Q - In my experience, community college coaches generally want to keep a player for two years (the best thing about freshman is that they become sophomores) if possible but it seems the majority of your guys are able to move after one year. Is that something you and the player decide on ahead of time or just the way it has worked out?
JP: My responsibility as a JC coach is to prepare and move guys on to the 4 year level. And of course I want to win while we are trying to do that. And the kids we get all want to move on. JC was never the first choice for any of our players on this level. If we have a guy that wants to leave after one year and is academically eligible, we do everything we can to make that happen. It makes our job as coaches harder because of the higher turnover rate on our roster, but this isn't about us. Casey Norris is a great example…he could have left for any one of about 10 D2 offers at the end of last season, which we would have been fine with. But he elected to return to try and get a D1 offer, and hopefully that comes to fruition for him. If it doesn't, at least he can say he gave a complete effort to get it done. We are not caught up in how many guys we have go to D1. To me that is irrelevant…our job as a staff is to make sure they get their school paid for and have a chance to play and win at the 4 year level. I've been fortunate to coach on both the D1 and D2 levels prior to coming here, and without question the experience of the guys I coached on the D2 level was better than those I coached on the D1 level, in large part because we won a ton of games. If a player says he wants to go D1, we try to help that become a reality. But there are a ton of factors that go into being good enough to play on that level, most of which we as JC coaches don't control. The majority of JC kids that go D1 were already D1 caliber players before they showed up on campus. It's very rare for a kid with a low skill set to go to JC and turn himself into a D1 player…it happens, but not often. If my own children ever get the chance to choose between going to D1 and winning 10 games versus going to D2/NAIA/D3 and winning 80% of their games and playing in the postseason, I would hope they choose the latter. Winning is way more enjoyable. The scholarship money is the color green regardless of the level.
Q - One of the most difficult things to achieve is getting five to play as one yet you annually accomplish it -- you have 11 new guys this season yet have started out 7-1.This is probably a question you could write a lengthy college thesis on but how do you go about getting your newcomers up to speed with what you want them to do offensively and defensively? Are there certain techniques or processes, on and off the court, that aid in quickening the learning process?
JP: The winning is in the picking…we are fortunate to have really good players (and very passionate, knowledgeable assistant coaches). High character/high IQ guys that go to class, show up on time, allow me to coach them hard, understand that the better we do as a team the better everyone does in terms of scholarships (very few 4 year guys want to scholarship players from losing programs) and are highly competitive. I think competitive spirit in a vastly underrated skill set. There are guys that want to win, and there are guys that need to win. We have a lot of guys that need to win. Big difference. And because we have so few distractions, we are able to spend our time working on getting better. We spend a lot of time in the preseason together off the floor in competitive environments (softball game against our softball team, bowling tournament against our women's hoop team, kickball, water polo, etc.)…anything to get them to compete together outside the gym. And they appreciate the fact that the guy in the locker next to them is not a turd, which helps the overall experience. And the collective high IQ allows us to take our time and teach slowly in a competitive environment on a daily basis. They embrace the fact that everyday is another opportunity to get better and improve their chances of winning and moving on when they are done playing at Ohlone.