Court Sense - John Giannini

Court Sense

by John Giannini

NEW, 256 pages

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About Court Sense

The best basketball players and coaches are known not only for their success in the sport but for the manner in which they manifest their knowledge and abilities in playing, coaching, and teaching the game.

Oscar Robertson, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Steve Nash, Diana Taurasi, and other great players past and present share a special grasp of what is needed in every situation on the court and how to maximize their own effectiveness as well as that of their team. Teams coached by John Wooden, Phil Jackson, Pat Summitt, and Mike Krzyzewski won many championships because of their coaches’ amazing ability to teach, motivate, discipline, and unite players to perform to their potential individually and as a group.

Court Sense highlights all those qualities that make players and teams great, and it provides practical ways to improve any intangibles that might be lacking. The first half of the book covers all the basics a player must have in place, on and off the court, in order to excel. The second half features the six Cs that are crucial to on-court performance: coachability, communication, cohesion, capacity to lead, competitiveness, and concentration.

Author John Giannini brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the subject as a former collegiate player and veteran coach who has earned a PhD in sport psychology. His insights and advice are combined with real-life examples and supported by stories shared by these top coaches:
John Beilein, Tony Bennett, Tom Crean, Jamie Dixon, Steve Donahue, Joanne P. McCallie, Sean Miller, Oliver Purnell, Bo Ryan, Tubby Smith, Sharon Versyp, and Jay Wright.

Playing like a winner first requires preparing like one. Use Court Sense to your advantage and you’ll be one step closer to cutting down the nets.

About John Giannini

John Giannini, PhD, is the head men's basketball coach at La Salle University, which competes at the Division I level in the Atlantic 10 Conference. He has led La Salle to its best Atlantic 10 record in school history. Giannini accepted the job at the Philadelphia-based school in 2004 after a successful eight-year stint at the University of Maine, where he became the winningest men's basketball coach in the school's history and turned the Black Bears into a perennial force in the America East Conference. Prior to that, Giannini amassed a remarkable 168-38 record in 7 seasons as head coach at Rowan University. He also brought a Division III national championship to the Glassboro, New Jersey, school and was named Coach of the Year.

Giannini's collegiate basketball career began as a player at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. He continued his education through graduate school and in 1992 earned a doctorate in kinesiology with a specialization in sport psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While at Illinois he served as a graduate assistant coach for two years, including the 1989 season when the Fighting Illini made it all the way to the Final Four.

Coach Giannini applies many innovative motivational, communication, and instructional techniques with his players. As a result, his teams have been known for their effort, teamwork, and attention to the fundamentals.

Giannini, his wife, Donna, and their two daughters reside in Mullica Hill, New Jersey.

About Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules. Basketball is one of the world's most popular and widely viewed sport.

A regulation basketball hoop consists of a rim 18 inches (45.7 cm) in diameter and 10 feet (3.05 m) high mounted to a backboard. A team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the hoop during regular play. A field goal scores two points for the shooting team if a player is touching or closer to the hoop than the three-point line, and three points (a "3 pointer") if the player is "outside" the three-point line. The team with more points at the end of the game wins, but additional time (overtime) may be issued when the game ends with a tie. The ball can be advanced on the court by bouncing it while walking or running (dribbling) or passing it to a teammate. It is a violation (traveling) to walk with the ball, carry it, or to double dribble (to hold the ball and then resume dribbling).

Various violations are generally called "fouls". Disruptive physical contact (a personal foul) is penalized, and a free throw is usually awarded to an offensive player if he is fouled while shooting the ball. A technical foul may also be issued when certain infractions occur, most commonly for unsportsmanlike conduct on the part of a player or coach. A technical foul gives the opposing team a free throw.

Basketball has evolved many commonly used techniques of shooting, passing, and dribbling, as well as specialized player positions and offensive and defensive structures (player positioning) and techniques. Typically, the tallest members of a team will play "center", "small forward", or "power forward" positions, while shorter players or those who possess the best ball handling skills and speed play "point guard" or "shooting guard".

While competitive basketball is carefully regulated, numerous variations of basketball have developed for casual play. Competitive basketball is primarily an indoor sport played on carefully marked and maintained basketball courts, but less regulated variations are often played outdoors in both inner city and rural areas.

The strategies also evolve with the game. In the 1990s and early 2000s, teams played with more "isolation". Teams that had one superstar would let one player, usually the point guard or shooting guard, run most of the offense while the other four offensive players get out of his/her way. Nowadays, teams tend to play with more teamwork. The "Center" position has evolved to become more of a taller "Small Forward" position. Since teams play more teamwork, ball movement has evolved with the game, and more jump shots have been taken as a result.

There are two main defensive strategies: zone defense and man-to-man defense. In a zone defense, each player is assigned to guard a specific area of the court. In a man-to-man defense, each defensive player guards a specific opponent. Man-to-man defense is generally preferred at higher levels of competition, as it is intuitively easier to understand and avoids mismatches between players who play different positions. However, zone defenses are sometimes used in particular situations or simply to confuse the offense with an unexpected look.

Offensive plays are more varied, normally involving planned passes and movement by players without the ball. A quick movement by an offensive player without the ball to gain an advantageous position is a cut. A legal attempt by an offensive player to stop an opponent from guarding a teammate, by standing in the defender's way such that the teammate cuts next to him, is a screen or pick. The two plays are combined in the pick and roll, in which a player sets a pick and then "rolls" away from the pick towards the basket. Screens and cuts are very important in offensive plays; these allow the quick passes and teamwork which can lead to a successful basket. Teams almost always have several offensive plays planned to ensure their movement is not predictable. On court, the point guard is usually responsible for indicating which play will occur.

Defensive and offensive structures, and positions, are more emphasized in higher levels in basketball; it is these that a coach normally requests a time-out to discuss.

Court Sense