Short YouTube clip featuring Ethan Khoza discussing recruiting with UConn coaches Dan Hurley and Geno/Gina Auriemma. The coaches emphasize prioritizing offensive skills when recruiting—Hurley: "I'm recruiting offense"—and Auriemma: scoring ability is critical to winning ("If you got enough guys that are going to score a thousand points, you're going to win a lot of games").
I saw this clip of Dan Hurley, who's the men's coach at UConn, and Gina Auriemma, who's the women's coach at UConn, two of the most successful coaches in the country. One thing that they talk about was recruiting and the type of players that they recruit, the type of players they're looking to bring in.
And I'm going offense. I'm recruiting offense. Oh, yeah, I've made that mistake. I will not make it. You know, I'm recruiting offensive players that, that are tough, that will be willing to defend for you, but I'm no longer going defensive. Hard playing guys that we're going to have to try to teach them to play great offense. I think that's.
No, no, that's an impossible teach. I've tried it. If you got enough guys that are going to score a thousand points, you're going to win a lot of games. I don't care how good they are defensively.
Can you play offense at a high level? Now, I know I mentioned earlier about defense being important. It is important. If you can't guard a soul, you probably won't get recruited. But first of all, if you don't have a skill you're elite at, obviously we talked about that's a problem. But also, you don't understand how to play good basketball. You don't understand when to pass the ball. You understand when to drive, when to shoot. How do I come off of this pin down here? How do I use this ball screen? How do I use this dribble handoff? How do I create a good matchup for myself? How do I create a mismatch for my teammate? How quickly do I identify those things when I'm playing so that we give ourselves the best chance of scoring? As important as it is to have those physical skills, you also have to have the mental skills, the basketball IQ to understand when to do what, how to do those things consistently at a high level. And that ultimately is what college coaches want. They want to bring in players who already know how to score, how to not just score, but how to play good offense, how to create for the team. And that's going to lead to a lot of wins. Because if you're a good enough athlete, you can learn how to play defense. If you're a good enough athlete and you're willing to play hard, you can learn how to play defense. But it's really, really hard and you don't have a lot of time or attention to give as a college coach, to teach a player or multiple players. How to play offense.
