But the biggest difference from other coaches I’ve covered is Boyle’s emphasis on defense and rebounding. That’s not just coachspeak. During the scrimmaging, a team accumulated points only by making defensive stops. No points were awarded to the other side for baskets made.
Interesting.
“We’re trying to change the culture to getting (defensive) stops,” Boyle told me. “That’s what we want to be the most important thing to our players.”
Also, and this is a big also, any time in a scrimmage that a player fails to box out during a rebound, that player’s entire team has to run wind sprints.
“The no box out is immediate punishment,” Boyle said. “It stings a little bit. If you’re in the middle of a scrimmage and you’ve just gone up and down the court three or four times, then one of your players misses a box out – it creates peer pressure to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“The two things we’re stressing every day is getting stops and rebounding the basketball.”
