Preparing for Baylor: An Evening with Coach K

Imagine that you’re Coach K. You’ve had a solid evening. You’ve survived with a hard fought win over Purdue. You take the elevator up to the penthouse suite of Houston’s Four Seasons hotel. Assistant Coach Chris Collins in tow.

You slide the gold plated magnetic key into the magnetic lock and push your way in, anticipating the real work that’s about to begin.

You pop in a tape your intern gave you. It’s a montage of various highlights of the Baylor Bear’s tournament thus far. After an hour of watching you decide to throw out the St. Mary’s game as an anomaly. Instead you spend the bulk of your time focusing on the SHSU and ODU games in preparation for tomorrow’s walk-through.

This is what you see:

You see a triangle two and some matchup zone from SHSU.

Baylor struggles when their only two perimeter threats are thwarted. Hmmm. Write that down Chris.

You notice ODU simply leaving guys on offense. Who are they? Looks like they like to leave Jones and Acy alone on the perimeter.

Coach K: “Chris, over here, Chris, yes the balcony’s great, we have work to do. Write this down. We can leave Jones and Acy on the perimeter like we did with Chris Kramer this evening against Purdue. Chris, go*damnit, yes, I saw the f****** skyline. Write this down. One man zone with Singler when Jones is in the game. Zoubek bangs with Lomers, Thomas needs to keep Udoh off his spot, help over the top with Singler when Udoh catches it in the post.”

Coach K: “Mother****er. Chris, those little airplane booze bottles are 20 bucks a pop. Cut it out. Are you getting all this?”

Coach K: “Okay, listen to me Chris, Nolan gets Tweetie. I want Smith to hound him like we did that little bastard from Cal. What was his name?”

Chris: “Coach, does this bathrobe fit?”

Coach K: “Chris, focus. Smith gets Carter. Once Tweetie gives the ball up, he doesn’t get it back. Got it.”

Chris: “Got it. Hey Johnny Dawkins told me you used to give him subtle coaching nuggets of wisdom to prepare him for a head coaching gig. Like Pat Morita Karate Kid type stuff. So I’ve been thinking, was there some kind of inner meaning to the ‘pu**y pink tie’ comment you made to me this morning? Because if so, I totally get it coach.”

Coach K: “Dammit, Chris. Tweetie!”

Chris: “Tweet what?”

Coach K: “The guard. We pressure him, keep him from getting the ball back once he gives it up. Also, let’s go under the ball screens until he makes one or two deep ones. Let’s keep him out of the lane and see how they react.”

Chris: “Okay coach. I just tweeted that. Good stuff. Keep it coming. Your readers eat that stuff up.”

Coach K: “F*** me. Is this why Michael Jordan wanted to shank your dad? Never mind, let’s talk about this LaceDarius kid. Great shooter, surprisingly good athlete. This is where we have to be careful. I don’t want Scheyer chasing this kid all game. Jon has struggled shooting the ball for most of the tournament, and running through 100 screens chasing a guy like LaceDarius isn’t going to help with tired legs.”

Chris: “LaceDarius!” Snort. Chortle. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha.

Coach K: “Chris he’s really good and this is really important. Let’s alternate Scheyer and Singler on him. Tell the kids to chase Dunn off jumpers and trail the screens. If he wants to put it on the deck, let him. No rhythm jumpers.”

Chris: “LaceDarius! Lace in YO FACE!” Snort. Chortle. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. “Lace-Darius! I’m sure he’s got plenty of rhythm coach. Right coach?”

Coach K: “Chris. Shut the hell up. Baylor plays zone, let’s talk about their zone.”

Chris: “Coach, I miss Taymon Domzalski. Remember when I bet him that he couldn’t swallow Cherokee Parks’ authentic hand-woven Comanche dream catcher? The paramedics had to pry open his freakishly large head. That was so funny.

Remember? You couldn’t get Joey Beard to stop weeping. Beard was so embarrassed that he had to transfer. Great memories, Coach. That’s what I love about this program. It’s like a big dysfunctional family.”

Coach K: Sigh. “Taymon did have a giant head…but, ugh, Taymon? Dammit, the zone, Chris, Baylor plays zone. So the rec-spec kid from Sam Houston just flashed in the high post all game and knocked down jumpers. Especially with Lomers in.

Lomers doesn’t move well so he’s not going to be able to get to the elbows to contest high post jumpers and they don’t want to pull Udoh away from the bucket.

Let’s flash Kyle there and run offense through him. They don’t want Lomers running out at Singler and their guards will struggle to dig down and bother Kyle’s shot especially if Scheyer is on the opposite wing.

When they go small to combat our high post attack, we’ll be able to get some work done on the offensive glass with Zoubek. I don’t think Udoh can play physical with Brian.

So their outs on defense are Thomas and to an extent Smith if he’s not shooting well. So we need to find a way to make them guard Lance Thomas.

Let’s play Thomas in the short corner behind the zone and force the Bears to keep Jones or Udoh at home with one eye on Lance.

I want Nolan Smith to try to penetrate and probe the zone for cracks especially on their freshman Anthony Jones’ side, but I want most of Nolan’s energy spent and focused on taking Tweetie out of the game on defense. We slow Tweetie down and we win. And no, Chris, don’t tweet that. Chris? Chris!! Christ.”

Chris: Snoring. Snoring. “What Coach?”

Coach K: “Chris, go back to your f****** room and stay there until I send a manager for you. And take off that damn bathrobe. Awww jeeez, leave it on. Really? I didn’t need to see that s**t. Sonafab***h, you’re not right, son.”

Chris: “More inner meaning. That’s why you’re the man Coach. Always wax on wax off with you. The MASTA’!”

Chris howls and then gives the patented Duke defensive floor-slap before exiting the room.

“Let’s go De-vils. Clap. Clap. Clap-clap-clap…Let’s go Devils! Clap. Clap. Clap-clap-clap.”

All the way down the hall to the elevator bay.

“I wonder if William Avery wants to get into coaching,” Coach K says aloud.

For Scott Drew’s point of view here’s a great Duke vs. Baylor preview .

Kevin writes the leading college hoops blog March To March .

Follow him on Twitter: @MarchToMarch