Should We Give It A Try?

[50's PONY]

January 29, 2004
Grinnell's Unusual Style Leads Nation in Scoring
By IRA BERKOW

ALESBURG, Ill. — "Circus Comes to Knox," read a recent headline in the sports section of The Galesburg Register-Mail. "Fasten your seat belts," the article began, "college basketball's biggest thrill ride is coming to town."

There was no slew of midgets — or, in this case, 6-footers — spilling unaccountably out of a backfiring motorcar; there were no Keystone Kops-like characters chasing each other around the hippodrome; there were no jugglers with a half-dozen balls filling the air — it only seemed that way.

The Grinnell College Pioneers are the most high-tailing, high-scoring men's basketball team in the N.C.A.A. this season. They start five players and have only five players on the court at any given time, but — like when they recently played at Knox College — it often looks as if there are many more. They are scoring 128.9 points a game with about 100 field-goal attempts, including better than 63 3-pointers. Two seasons ago, they set the N.C.A.A. record for most points averaged in a season, at 124.9.

The Pioneers even set scoring records when losing, like the N.C.A.A. record, 149, in a game in 1994 in which Illinois College scored 157 (the most that college ever scored).

But Division III Grinnell has won the Midwest Conference championship three times in the last seven years. This season, Grinnell started 13-0 and was in first place in the conference (Knox was 7-5) before losing back-to-back conference road games last weekend at Carroll College, 134-129, and at Lawrence, 125-111.

Grinnell frequently substitutes in three waves of five — like hockey shifts. The players press and hound the other team with such ferocity, they race the ball upcourt with such alacrity and fire mostly 3-point shots so swiftly, giving the sense that there are a half-dozen balls in the game, that sometimes it must appear to the opponent as well as the fans that all 16 Grinnell players are playing at once.

At every whistle, or dead ball, after 35 seconds — the length of a shot clock in men's college basketball — five new players are amassed at the scorer's table, ready to plunge into the game. Everything moves at such a rapid pace that referees have sometimes had to grab Pioneer players by the jersey as they raced onto the court to check their numbers with the official scorer.

Terry Glasgow, the coach of a conference rival, Monmouth College, has been quoted as saying that Grinnell "makes a travesty of the game." He laughed when asked about that in a recent phone interview. "Well, it is way out of the tradition," he said. "To beat 'em, you have to adjust to that tempo."

Tim Heimann, the Knox coach, said: "They're the most refreshing thing to happen to basketball in my lifetime. I travel to see them play when I have a chance. But I hate playing them. Everybody does."

Yet, wherever they play, crowds stream in to see the circus. "We always double our attendance when Grinnell plays here," Heimann said. And on the recent night when the Pioneers visited Memorial Gym on the Knox campus, an estimated 800 fans showed up, as opposed to the usual 400.

And they see a show: it's as though the Grinnell players can't wait to get their hands on the ball. And indeed they can't. And the coach doesn't want them to wait, either.

"I guess I'm about the only coach in basketball who screams only one thing at his players: `Shoot more!' " said David Arseneault, the tall (6 feet 3 inches), broad, balding, 50-year-old genius of this curious system.

Arseneault, in his 15th season and a three-time Midwest Conference coach of the year, normally sits at the rear of the bench, at a distance from the rush of traffic of his players. "Some gyms get so hot that the only breeze is from opening and closing of the door at the back of the gym," he said. "So that's where I sit." He smiles at this, for there is invariably a rhyme and reason to his scheme, a method to his madness.

He explained the team's style of play. "We're trying to perfect chaos," he said. "We have fun. It's almost a lost art in sports."

On offense, Arseneault's theory is that if you can hoist more 3's than the other team — and hit a decent percentage — then you can beat them if they shoot mostly 2's. Grinnell players may even let a 2-point shot by the opposition go uncontested, because they don't want the other team to stall or take the 3; that would disrupt their manic flow and puncture their strategy.

There is more to the Pioneers' unorthodox defense. They never run back to their end of the court after the other team snares a defensive rebound, or when it takes the ball out of bounds after a basket. They press every single time, all over the court, double- and triple-teaming the player with the ball, even when the other team has moved the ball into its halfcourt.

That is one reason they substitute so frequently. "After about a minute of this, you're tired," said Steve Wood, a 6-2 senior point guard, the conference's player of the year last season. He is the team's high scorer at 28.1 points a game even though he only averages, like the others, 20 minutes of the 40-minute game.

This style of play was arrived at by trial and error. Mostly, error. The Grinnell teams that Arseneault inherited when he took the job in 1989 were terrible. They had won only four games in the previous three seasons. And they didn't improve appreciably under Arseneault, who played — conventionally — at Colby College in Maine.

"Well, we weren't winning, and the morale was awful," Arseneault said. "And then we were playing mostly eight or nine guys. The rest of the players were unhappy not playing. Remember, these are high achievers in about everything they do."

Grinnell, a liberal arts college with 1,400 students in a small, tree-lined central Iowa town, ranks among the best academic institutions in the country, often considered in the same breath with Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt and Northwestern. "So the players who weren't playing generally quit the team after a while," he added. "In the last part of the season, we wouldn't have enough players to scrimmage."

In time, Arseneault thought to solve the problems by using a system that he had seen another coach use when he was coaching at the University of Guelph in Ontario. That coach had used two sets of five players and played them for about four minutes at a time.

"I was impressed with how synchronized the two groups were," Arseneault said. "I thought, if you can get 15 players of at least close to similar ability, you can use them all on a regular, rotating basis, and in shorter spurts."

He added that a number of his players might not even make other teams in the Midwest Conference, but if they could hustle, shoot 3's adequately, he might have something. And he does.

The fortunes of the Grinnell Pioneers began to change. Happiness began to reign, and games began to be won.

"Because everyone plays, we're more of a team than other teams," Wood said. "There are some negatives. I'm frustrated when I feel I'm going good and then have to come out of a game after 45 seconds. But then, I'll be back in in about another minute and a half."

Paul Nordlund, a 6-8 sophomore, has realized his dream — of being a virtual point guard. But then almost all the players play virtual point guard. Most of the players are listed as guard in the program, with a few forwards. There is no center.

"This is the best time I've ever had playing basketball," Nordlund said. "There's great camaraderie because everyone plays, and plays about equal time. And personally, in most instances I'd be posting up inside. But here I can run and gun. It's great."

Nordlund and his brother, Steve, a senior, are from Madison, Wis. "I was home over Christmas and saw a W

[EastStang]

I was coaching a youth team one time, and we pressed full court the entire game. One poor team couldn't get the ball in bounds and the league had a no time out rule for the first quarter. So, the score at the end of the first quarter, I kid you not, was 45-4. I've always wondered why more schools don't do that.

[Pony_Fan]

sounds like fun.

[Charleston Pony]

SMU definitely would benefit from an up tempo game. much more entertaining for the fans, although to go anywhere in the NCAA Tourney, you have to have a good half court game and shoot FTs well. I've always liked the idea of playing everyone on the roster and going full bore for 40 minutes. It's just more fun.

[50's PONY]

After listening I repeat once more -- why not!

[Red Horse]

This article on Grinnell summarizes my thinking about what we should do NOW.

This is not new - Loyola Marymount did this under
Paul Westhead many years ago. Nolen Richardson's
40 minutes of Hell was very similar when he was in his heyday at Arkansas. Heck - Billy Tubbs did this when he was at TCU to a modified degree because he wanted to break 100 pts every game.

I grew up in Rockford, Illinois and our high school coach had this philosophy also. He figured that if we got 100 shots per game we would score at least 35-40 baskets per game and win. He was successful with it.

It is wonderful for the fans, for the players, and for the school. It is entertaining; all players feel they are contributing; the crowds grow; and the school makes more money.

I even sent an email to Dement when he first got here and pleaded with him to use this kind of philosophy because he had the horses to do it. He wasn't even using most of Shumates recruits who sat on the bench. I believe he was trying to run them off - people like Erion Harries and Jobari Hearne and others.

Use more players, press all over the floor all the time, and use your defense to create offense.
Keep fresh players in the game to keep the pressure on. You might even have a team labeled the "bandits" or the "wild Animals" or whatever, which would have the job of hounding the other team with relentless pressure for 3-4 minutes.

We have quick subs who can do this - Pearson,
Bennett, AikenheAd, Ryan Hopkins, and Dement's son. Rack is fairly fast for a big man. Even slower players like Miller, Atkins, and Reay can do it for short periods of time. Anyway,
I won't belabor this. I just know it is fun and
everyone involved likes to do it.

What do we have to lose? We are already losing.
And in the bad scenario that Dement should lose his job - Jimmy Tubbs, former assistant here, would be a great pick to come back and do this.
He coached this type of game when he was a high school coach at Kimball and won a couple of championships. Look at Carter H.S., Lincoln H.S., and Kimball. They all play this kind of
"in your face ball". Bring it on.

<small>[ 01-30-2004, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: Red Horse ]</small>

[mrydel]

Ya gotta have the right kind of people to do this. Nolan's 40 minutes of Hell got him so well known that he grew it into 40 minutes of short, quick BB players that got themselves stomped by TALL, quick, BB players. That was the demise of Arkansas, and Nolan's job. Yes, he won the National Championship, but that is what led other teams to counteract the strategy, and within a short period of time, Nolan had a non competitive team. Watch the Razorback rebuilding program if you want to see how one should be done. The Arkansas team next year will be considerably taller with a 7'+ and a couple of 6'11" kids and plenty of 6' 9" and up. And they are maintaining speed, but these type of kids can not keep it up non stop for 40 minutes. You want fast and you want quick but you also need tall in order to maintain control under the basket. It is not just a matter of saying lets go full speed for 40 minutes. I think if we did that we would find that a 40 point loss might be the norm rather than the exception.

[Red Horse]

Originally posted by mrydel:
Ya gotta have the right kind of people to do this. Nolan's 40 minutes of Hell got him so well known that he grew it into 40 minutes of short, quick BB players that got themselves stomped by TALL, quick, BB players. That was the demise of Arkansas, and Nolan's job. Yes, he won the National Championship, but that is what led other teams to counteract the strategy, and within a short period of time, Nolan had a non competitive team. Watch the Razorback rebuilding program if you want to see how one should be done. The Arkansas team next year will be considerably taller with a 7'+ and a couple of 6'11" kids and plenty of 6' 9" and up. And they are maintaining speed, but these type of kids can not keep it up non stop for 40 minutes. You want fast and you want quick but you also need tall in order to maintain control under the basket. It is not just a matter of saying lets go full speed for 40 minutes. I think if we did that we would find that a 40 point loss might be the norm rather than the exception.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

It sure would be nice to have some of those fast, quick 7 ft people you speak of but what about right now. If we are going to lose anyway why not give this a try. We have commits from two more quick kids for next year to add to what we already have.

Evidently you didn't see Loyola Marymount play and I don't remember that they had the kind of tall players you are talking about. We have shooters on our team who averaged in the 20's/game in high school. What do we do to them that they can't shoot now? I contend it is the system we are running that doesn't give them open shots. Running the floor and getting transition shots is exciting and gives wide open looks.

Anyway, I'm not talking about winning the national championship at this stage. I'm talking about putting fun back into basketball.
You might want to catch teams like Carter, or Lincoln, or Kimball - some night. They play this kind of ball. It is a little more structured than the Grinnell approach; but it has many of the essential ingredients. Nolen's teams were always competitive. He was not as effective toward the end of his stay at Arkansas, but there may have been other reAsons for that.

Letting more people play now will develop guys like Bennett, Pearson, Rack, Miller, and Reay.
Dement has been using these people more but using them in the same old repetitive offensive system.

<small>[ 01-30-2004, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: Red Horse ]</small>

[mrydel]

I am an advocate of run and gun, but (and I know the can of worms this statement will open up), I tend to rely on a coach to use what he has to the best of their abilities. If these kids are not designed to play this style then they will be embarassed doing it, and that will not be enjoyable for anyone. If the coach has been misplaying their abilities then why has he been here 9 years? I truly think the talent level has to be much higher to withstand that kind of full speed offense, and definitely the bench needs to be deeper. High schools tend to have a more even level of players and it is easier to do this type of offense.

I could be very wrong but I do not recall Denver winning a bunch of NBA championships with their high scoring full speed ahead offense. Yes they were exciting, but I would like to see a win in some sport played by SMU. If that win is a 2-0 basketball game, right now I will take it.

Please know that all of this is just my opinion. I am not trying to argue or dispute what you say. If I thought for a moment that they could handle a change like this in midseason I would support it 100%.

[OldPony]

I rem4ember the KU fans laughing at Richardson's 40 minutes of Hell and calling it 40 minutes of Heck. They were well coached and broke it easily. I wonder how we would do anything like that. Paul Westfield recruited shooters because almost all of their shots were 3 pointers. We don't have anyone who can make a 3 pointer. For SMU, its too bad there is a shot clock. If we could stall, we might win a game.