Orlando Magic Playbook

Coach Troy Culley shares an amazing playbook on the Orlando Magic.  It has a wealth of X's and O's.  It has everything from sets and quick hitters, to sideline out of bounds to baseline out of bounds plays.  Thanks Coach Culley for sharing such a great resource.

Orlando Magic Playbook

Scotland SLOB Isolation Play

I thought that this sideline play would be a good play to run with a short shot clock.  Not only do you have the isolation on the entry, but I love the rub action for a hand-off with the person in-bounding the ball.  So many times, defenders forget about the guy throwing the ball in and he/she can get a good look at the basket.

Scotland SLOB Isolation Play

Indiana Fever: Box Out SLOB

Here is a nice scoring sideline out of bounds action used by the Indiana Fever.  I like how it overloads the ball side and then looks to get a lob back over the top.  Would be a good end of quarter hitter with only a few seconds left.

Indiana Fever: Box Out SLOB

Late Game Sideline Out Of Bounds

If you are looking for some ideas on getting quality looks from a SLOB situation at the end of a game, you should check out this resource.  There are a variety of different scoring actions for specific time and score situations.  All things that we should have in our playbooks for that one time when you need it.

Late Game Sideline Out Of Bounds

Mark Swasey: Special Situations

I am excited to join Coach Preheim's website as a blogger on the sport of basketball. I have enjoyed many successes and suffered many failures as a player and coach over the past 30 years in the game. This past year has been the first year since 1980 that I have not either been playing or coaching. It has been invigorating and has renewed my passion for the sport. I was very lucky to have grown up in New England, watching the Celtics, Lakers, Sixers, Piston rivalries and listen to Johnny Most make the calls on the radio. There has never been a time quite like that era and it was the foundation of my love for the sport.

Basketball brings out the human spirit like no other game. It draws upon so many different aspects of our nature. To play the game takes 5 individuals on the floor, with one ball and a hoop. Such a simple concept and yet so many variables come into play. Developing a team of individuals, who are willing and able to sacrifice their own ego's amidst the many outside voices which prey on those ego's, is the challenge of virtually every successful coach.


In my opinion, the mental aspect of the game will remain the most important. It is that part of the game which can keep a coach up late into the night, stressing, worrying about the state of mind his or her players are in. I see the game as two parts, mental and physical. I will spend some time with this blog on the physical as it is that area which is easiest to understand and is more black and white. Diagramming plays and furiously taking notes is something that I enjoyed doing throughout my career as a coach. I have gathered incredible amounts of information from coaches around the world, who were willing to share. Now I see this as a great opportunity to share some of what I have learned and give back to the sport.


There are endless different and unique ways to play this game. I will argue that virtually every way to play has already been long discovered and tried, somewhere at some time. Just as an example, I have found reading books by Clair Bee and implementing some of the plays and concepts he used in the 1920's to be just as effective as utilizing a scheme from any current major Division I coach presented at a coaching clinic or watched on video. It is not possible to use every different style or incorporate every set out there, into a playbook. A coach must determine what suits their team best and what they are comfortable in presenting. I have made the mistake, many young coaches make. Early in my career I would run different sets and use a style of play just because a certain Division I coach who I favored ran it. It came down to trust and I would trust the success of certain coaches to help me design a system for my players. Rarely would those systems work just on their own. The mistake I made was not taking into account that each coach is different, each team is different and while one thing may work for one coach, it certainly doesn't mean it is guaranteed to work for another. What I found is that the most successful teams I ever coached had “one voice and one vision.” I had to sell those teams to the fact that what we were going to run and how we were going to run it was absolutely the only way for that team to play. I had to learn how to gather all the great information that was out there and package it in a manner that was uniquely ours, and which the players would take ownership of. As coaches we have to sell this, especially early in our careers or when taking over an established program. When a certain level of expectation becomes the norm, a coach does not have to sell quite as much. But even then, the maintenance required is tremendous.

The following special situation plays are an adaptation from a clinic Hubie Brown conducted several years ago that I was able to attend. The play is broken down into four unique options and can be used in situations ranging from .3 seconds to 5 or more seconds remaining on the clock. I liked to use these as an end of game or end of half plays if there were fewer than 8 seconds on the clock. Each option must be practiced and is assuming the ball is being taken out of bounds on the sideline 1-2 feet below the hash mark. The positioning of the ball on the sideline is very important for any of these options to work. I would occasionally blow the whistle during a practice, and set up a 5-5 full court situation and have the point guard dribble the ball to the correct spot and call a time out. Several games were won at the buzzer over my career because of the team’s ability to execute one of these options.

I recommend teaching the skeleton movement of the play first. Then, still in 5-0, show each option to the players and put time on the board so they can see how much time actually elapses when the play is executed. Inevitably there will be some shocked players and maybe even coaches as to how little time some of these options actually use up. Then start running the options 5-5 and have some fun with it. Once the players get a sense of how much time it takes for each option, they begin to relax and are better suited to execute when in an actual game environment. I would often try and end practice with one of the options and many times a practice hero was born, off to the locker room amidst the cheers of his/her teammates.

The options are as follows - "Corner", "Flash", "Flare" and "Lob". I welcome your feedback (markswasey@gmail.com) on this post and on the options themselves. Best of luck with it, should you choose to incorporate any or all of the options into your playbook.

SLOB Special Situations

2012 Olympic Playbook

Just Release ---- 2012 Olympic Basketball Playbook

My 2012 Olympic Playbook has now been released.  I recorded all of the Olympic Men's basketball games and analyzed the different offensive actions and compiled them into 1 resource.  It amazes me how the International game of basketball is played and coached.  There are so many great International coaches out there.  They are so creative with their offensive schemes.  I have even implemented some of the actions used in International basketball into our high school playbooks.

2012 Olympic Basketball Playbook

Lon Kruger: UNLV Playbook

Here is a great resource of some offensive plays that Lon Kruger ran when he was at UNLV.  Coach Kruger is currently coaching at Oklahoma and just recorded his 500th win against Northwestern State.

Lon Kruger UNLV Playbook

Anatomy of a Timeout: Tip #5

One of the toughest places to inbound the ball is from a deep corner sideline.  You can be limited in your options if you don't plan accordingly.  Therefore, at the end of a game, what do you need to cover when you have to inbound the ball from the deep corner?  Personally, I like to have a Zipper action to start of the play because this will get a passing angle for the in-bounder.  Furthermore, I like to have the post player setting the down screen post up hard looking to get a direct pass from the corner man.

From there, you now have a wide range of options that you can use depending on your style of play, your end of game actions and what you have previously practiced.

I have added a couple of sample plays that could be used or modified to fit your players strengths for this situation.

Deep Corner SLOBs

2012 NCAA 24 Hour Marathon Schedule

Tuesday November 13, 2012 the NCAA 24 Hour Marathon will begin.  The scheduled games will be as followed:

Midnight: West Virginia at Gonzaga


2 a.m.: Davidson at New Mexico

4 a.m.: Houston Baptist at Hawaii

6 a.m.: Stony Brook at Rider

8 a.m.: Northern Illinois at Valparaiso

10 a.m.: Harvard at Massachusetts

12 p.m.: Temple at Kent State

2 p.m.: Detroit at St. John’s

4 p.m.: Butler at Xavier

7 p.m.: Michigan State vs. Kansas (Champions Classic, Georgia Dome — Atlanta)

30 minutes following MSU/KU: Duke vs. Kentucky (Champions Classic)


This is one of my favorite times of the year as there looks to be some great match-ups.  Last year I compiled a playbook, called 2011-2012 NCAA Marathon Playbook, with different plays used in the games from all of the teams participating in last year's event.  I plan on releasing another playbook this year as well.