Tagging Up: A Primer
Scrumming In
Welcome to our “Sunday Mornin’ Newsletter”, where we explore basketball’s best ideas and strategies, and coaches from around the world.
Today’s edition will cover:
Slappin’ Glass Plus: Launch Date and… Jeff Van Gundy?!
Tagging Up: A Primer
Aaron Fearne: Inside the Episode
Best Sets of the Week
Watch | Read | Quote
Let’s dive in…
Slappin’ Glass &… Jeff Van Gundy?!
We’re excited to announce the launch date of Slappin’ Glass Plus, as well as some other fun additions that’ll be available to members of the platform.
Slappin’ Glass Plus will launch on Sunday, May 16th!
We put out many of the details of what’s included in the membership a couple weeks ago HERE, but here’s a quick refresher of what’s included…
Slappin’ Glass TV: 200+ breakdown videos easily searchable and categorized in a Netflix-style platform. (More videos and clinics added monthly)
“Coaches Corner”: A private community for members to share, discuss, and connect with each other. Includes a “Marketplace” and “Job Postings” as well.
Premium “Sunday Mornin’ Newsletter”: Members will continue to get access to this full length, premium newsletter every Sunday (non-members will still receive a lite-version of the SNM).
Monthly Q & A/Clinic Sessions: Once a month sessions covering relevant coaching topics.
And today we’ve got another fun detail to announce for members…
Jeff Van Gundy Mastergroup Sessions
We’re very excited to be teaming up with Jeff Van Gundy to offer a unique small-group coaching and learning experience on a monthly basis, accessible only to Slappin’ Glass Plus members! Additional information/conditions will be provided in the following weeks on the details and how to apply to these sessions.
Pricing
We’ll be offering three different price levels for Slappin’ Glass Plus:
Full Year Membership: $249.90
Half Year Membership: $149.90
Staff/Program Memberships: Inquire about pricing
Next week we’ll talk about T-Shirts, Coffee Mugs, Early-Bird Discounts, InStat, and more.
Tagging Up: A Primer
Our guest on the podcast this week, UNC Charlotte’s, Aaron Fearne, is highly regarded in coaching circles across the world for the way he both sees and teaches the game (much more on Coach Fearne’s podcast in our “Inside the Episode” section below). Over the past few years, an area of particular interest within Coach Fearne’s basketball philosophy is the concept of “Tagging Up.”
Below, we’ll pull back the layers of the“Tagging Up” concept in three sections:
Overall Philosophy - What is It? Why Do It?
Rules and Teaching Points - How it Works
Taxes & Fines - What Coaches Should Be Willing and Not Willing to Pay When Tagging Up
1. Tagging Up - Philosophy
To start, Tagging Up can be defined as:
A system where all 5 players run to the backs of their opponent on an offensive shot, driving them into the paint and remaining matched up with that player in transition defense.
When coaching Cairns Taipans in Australia’s NBL, Coach Fearne was looking for a way to gain extra possessions on the offensive glass, play more physical overall, and become a better transition defensive team.
So, is Tagging up an Offensive Rebounding System, or a Defensive Transition System? As Coache Fearne explains on the podcast… it’s both.
For a visual, here’s a look at the Major Transitional Phases of basketball and where the Tagging Up System sits…
The Tagging Up System is both an Offensive Rebounding and Defensive Transition philosophy, and the rules of the system act as a helpful glue between the two phases of the game.
As Coach Fearne discusses, the benefits of the system can be seen in an increase in offensive rebounding efficiency/extra possessions, decrease in defensive transition baskets given up, and an increase in the overall physicality of a team.
2. Rules and Teaching Points
Part of what makes Tagging Up effective is strict adherence to the rules of the system. Here’s a look at some of those rules, starting with the Offensive Rebounding aspect of the system…
{Tag Up on the High Side & “Scrum In”}
Coach Fearne stresses that this is one of the most important elements of Tagging Up. On the offensive shot, all 5 players need to be aggressively moving toward the basket to rebound and get to the High Side of their matchup. Here’s a look…
Coach Fearne uses the Rugby term of “scrumming” the defense into the lane when attacking the offensive glass from the High Side.
When all players Tag Up and “Scum” their man on the High Side, it not only creates great 50/50 offensive rebounding opportunities, but it also keeps that player’s matchup in front of them, thus making it easier to immediately matchup in transition after either a made or missed shot.
{ Made Shot - Transition Defense }
On a made shot, Tagging Up allows a team to quickly and easily make it difficult to enter the ball in bounds and start their offense. After a shot is made, players will stay with their matchup and continue keeping them in front of them as they deny easy passes…
{ Missed Shot - Stay and Flood Middle }
If all 5 players adhere to the simple rules of going to the High Side of their Tag, and “scrumming” them toward the middle of the key, then it makes the next assignment of slowing and “flooding the ball” after a missed shot much easier and more effective.
If a shot is missed, all players will stay with their Tag as they get back in transition. The player guarding the ball will stay on the ball, the player/s on the the strong side of the floor will sprint back and not allow any straight-line passes up the floor on the same side as the ball, and the other players will “flood the middle” and create a wall of bodies to help mitigate threats up the middle of the floor via a pass, drive, or Drag Screen.
3. Taxes and Fines
Like any system or style of play, nothing is perfect, and comes with their own set of risks/rewards. We talked with Coach Fearne about “Taxes” of Tagging Up (the cost/risks a coach is willing to live with) and the “Fines” of Tagging Up (the costs/risks you’re not willing to pay and that’ll get you beat).
We’ll start with Fines, and the situations that’ll really hurt your team when running the Tagging Up System.
Fine #1 - Shooter Not Staying with Closeout
A question we talked about with Coach Fearne on the podcast was what the shooter needs to do after they release the shot? The answer: after they release the shot they need to stay with the player who closed-out on them, whether it was a short close-out or a fly-by. The Fine for not doing this can be a wide-open layup on the other end since there is not a designated player “getting back” like in most systems…
Fine #2 - Outrunning the Coverage
Question we ask…What if I have a great offensive rebounder? Can I just let him/her go and hunt the rebound wherever they want? Coach Fearne says…NO…rules are rules, and here’s why. In the Tagging Up System, if a player outruns their matchup and doesn’t get the rebound, they leave the offense with a potential numbers advantage in transition…
Fine #3 - Running Under a Block-Out
Again, this is where the discipline of the system really comes into play. As tempting as it will be to run underneath a block-out to try and get a rebound (instead of always getting to the High Side), much like the “Outrunning the Coverage Fine” above, failure to get the offensive board will again leave the offense with a numbers advantage in transition…
The Taxes…
Though they’re also no fun to pay, taxes are the expected costs out of your pocket for your modus operandi.
According to Coach Fearne, here are a few of the Taxes coaches must be willing to pay when running the Tagging Up System:
Cross Matches in Transition- There will be plenty of times that a Defensive Big closes out on a perimeter shooter, who then becomes his matchup in transition.
Minimizing the Tax: Though it takes a high level offense to effectively take advantage of a mismatch in transition, coaches can 1) work on their defense safely switching back to a preferred matchup once the ball gets into the half-court, or 2) Doubling a Post if a Guard is caught battling an inside mismatch.
Offensive Rebounding Fouls: With the overall aggressiveness and physicality of the Tagging Up System, coaches will have to live with more offensive foul calls as their team “scrums” for the rebound. This is a Tax Coach Fearne says he’ll gladly pay as the benefits of extra possessions and a physical edge outweigh the risks of a couple offensive fouls a game.
Minimizing the Tax: On the podcast, Coach Fearne talks about teaching points and conversations he has with players after they get into foul trouble and need to be more cautious about how they go about Tagging Up.
Tremendous Mental and Physical Effort Required: This system is not for the soft, selfish, or lazy (what system is?), as it requires both physical and mental effort over the course of an entire game.
Minimizing the Tax: For one, finding the right type of players to buy-into the physicality of the system. Second, building both the mentality and the concepts of Tagging Up into every drill in practice so your players are fully ingrained in the system throughout all phases of the game. Again, Coach Fearne discusses this on the podcast as well.
To pair with today’s newsletter, here is our breakdown video of the Tagging Up System, thanks to Coach Fearne for many of the clips here…
Coach Fearne has also produced his on Tagging Up video that you can purchase through his website here…
Aaron Fearne: Inside the Episode
We talked about a lot more than Tagging Up with Coach Fearne in this week’s latest Slappin’ Glass Podcast. As mentioned above, Coach Fearne is highly regarded as a full 360 thinker and teacher of the game, and we were happy to explore many of those areas during our conversation including:
Building Player-Led Cultures
Techniques and Practices used in Australia and New Zealand to build dynamic cultures all year long
How they form “Leadership Groups” and who’s on them
How they define team characteristics and goals
Their Post-Game Analysis exercises
Tagging Up: See Above!
“Start, Sub, or Sit?!”
Rugby, Cricket, or Australian Rules Football
Attacking Ice Coverages: Flip the Screen, Release and Throw back to DHO, Attack Baseline and Hit Roller
Special Play Packages: SLOB, BLOB, Full Court Press Breaks
Playing through the Post: Top of the Key, Elbow, or Block
Handling Stress and Adversity as a Coach
We thank Coach Fearne for his time and sharing the game this week. You can listen and download the whole episode here…
Best Sets of the Week
Some of the best we saw in the week that was, including Zenit St. Petersburg (Euroleague), Gabriel Deck (OKC), SLAM Ostrow (Poland), Bayern Munich (Euroleague) and Pesaro (Italy).
Watch | Read | Quote
Watch:
Merrimack (NCAA D1)
San Lorenzo (Argentinian LNB)
Phoenix Suns (NBA)
Read:
From Ars Technica: When Asked to Fix Something, We Don’t Even Think of Removing Parts
From Julian Shapiro: What You Should Be Working On
From The Ringer: The Harsh Realities of an NBA 10-Day Contract
Quote:
“Simplicity has a way of improving performance by enabling us to better understand what we are doing.” -Charlie Munger
Thanks for reading. We always appreciate a share of the newsletter to those you think would find it useful. You can that here…
Have a great week coaching,
Dan and Pat