Jamion Christian is a former Division I head coach at George Washington, Siena and Mount St. Mary's leading multiple teams to the NCAA Tournament. He has joined Aaron Torres Media as a college basketball analyst for the remainder of the 2022-2023, sharing his thoughts on things across the game.
Today is his mid-season checklist, explaining what you should look for in your team - and which programs should be worried.
It's mid-January, and we're officially hitting the dog days of the college basketball season.
We're past the holidays and knee deep in league play, where everyone knows everyone else's strengths and weaknesses.
So, with some teams entering the week struggling - Duke, UConn, Arizona to name a few - how worried should you be about your team.
As someone who has been part of the college game for the last 20 years, and been a head coach for 10, here's a checklist.
How tough has your schedule been?
To truly understand how good your team is, you have to start with an honest self-reflection of who you've played. The best teams typically play a tough schedule. They want to test if what they do works; and they want to find out earlier in the season, rather than later. “Teach me early so I can train you late.”
So if you're entering league play with a record around .500 - are you bad, or was the opposition good? Conversely, if you're undefeated or have one loss, were you really tested - or did you play a bunch of buy games.
This is the time of year where teams are starting to find out one way or the other.
Injuries
The physical grind of a basketball season is like living three lifetimes. Injuries and player availability are everything. Coaches love to plan. Hell the profession is about making and iterating on a 3–5-year plan that you may never see come to fruition.
So, the hope is to play lineups and rotations as soon as possible at the beginning of the season. Injuries can punch you square in the mouth. Losing a player for the season allows a coach to plan and build a strategy around not having that player. Having a player with nagging injuries is worse than the season-ending injury. The afflicted can’t practice. We don't know if they will play until the day-of or moments before the game. The dreaded “game time decision” holds up the entire process. If you're a team with either of these injury scenarios be hopeful and hang tough with your guys.
Take Arkansas for example. They have had some major injuries throughout that roster. Yet they still remain a super talented group who are so dangerous to play.
The questions are: does Eric Mussleman have the experience in his past to adjust? Yes!
Has Eric Mussleman adjusted groups in the past before? Yes.
If the answers are yes to these questions, then Arkansas remains a tough team.
Expect them to grow and change as the season moves forward. There may be some ugly days in the immediate, but the end of the season could provide tons of optimism going into conference tournament and NCAA Tournament time.
Hang tough!
Conference vs my favorite team's style of play:
I always find it funny that in football we acknowledge the importance of style of play in almost everything that they do, but in basketball it's like it doesn't exist. Style of play matters! Do we play two bigs or one? No point guard vs multiple point guards? Do we have no centers at all?
All of these variables impact and they impact most in conference play.
For example, Arizona and UConn play big lineups. It works great in non-conference play because most of the teams you’re going to see will not have this front line power. But once in the Pac 12 or the Big East leagues - that have so many combinations at the center and power forward spot- the defensive responsibilities change. Suddenly these big lineups are forced to guard on the perimeter or in the pick and roll more often. Suddenly they aren't just allowed to protect at the rim, they have to protect action and movement.
Style of play matters and it takes time to adjust.
How much time do you have to adjust? Are your best wins in short-prep opportunities?
Why does the preparation time even matter? All those non-conference tournaments that we love in November and December are usually 12-hour preparation opportunities. That's right, when you play a noon game at the Maui Invitational or Battle 4 Atlantis, you usually have less than a day to get ready for the next one.
But conference play is different. Conference games are typically at least 48 hours of prep time, sometimes more. Your conference opponents not only know your strategy, they know your head coach, how that person thinks, and more importantly how he/she is going to respond. These are all elementsthat can be used against you in conference play.
First the good, if your team was dominant in the short prep situations this can be a great omen for the conference tournament and the NCAA Tournament. It means your team has a physical component that is hard to strategize against in a short amount of time. Could be your size, pace of play, one dominant scorer (Kemba Walker) that is hard to game plan against on only a few hours' notice.
The bad conference is going to be a humbling experience. The cute after timeout plays, the back doors plays that worked in November: you’re not going to get these when your opponent has had multiple days of preparation.
The best coaches take your specials away and are going to force you to dive deep into your play book for easy baskets.
Jamion Christian is a former Division I head coach at George Washington, Siena and Mount St. Mary's leading multiple teams to the NCAA Tournament. He has joined Aaron Torres Media as a college basketball analyst for the remainder of the 2022-2023, sharing his thoughts on things across the game.
Follow Jamion on Twitter - @JamionChristian