Top 5 Podcasts, Playbooks, Tweets, and More...
A List of Lists
Welcome to our “Sunday Mornin’ Newsletter”, where we explore some of the best ideas, strategies, and coaches from around the world of basketball.
Before we turn the page and close the book on 2020, we consolidated and put in order the content that coaches enjoyed viewing, sharing, and listening to the most the past year.
In this Prime Meridian-ish edition of the Newsletter we’ll look back at all the best of 2020, while dipping our toes into the year ahead.
This Edition will cover the:
Top 5 Most Downloaded Podcasts Episodes of the Year
Top 5 Most Viewed Playbook Videos of the Year
Top 5 Most Viewed Tweets of the Year
“Mr. Irrelevant Tweets”… Our Worst/Least Viewed Tweets
Top 5 Most Read Newsletters
Top 20 Sets of the Year
And then, we’ll jump fully into 2021 with Liam Flynn and plans ahead
Let’s dive in…
Before we start, we’d love your insight on how we can best provide the basketball/coaching material that most interests you in 2021, we’d appreciate it. You can do that HERE.
If you complete the quick survey, we’ll send you a free video breakdown of Igor Milicic’ “Matchup 3-2 Zone”(currently only for sale). Thank you!
The Slappin’ Glass Podcast continues to be our favorite thing to do and we’re REALLY excited about all the great guests we’ve recorded/scheduled episodes with for 2021. Before we list the most downloaded episodes we want to thank Elliot Steinmetz, Scott Waterman, Ryan Pannone, Cody Toppert, Mike Taylor, Fran Fraschilla, Ben Cohen, Alan Keane, Daniel Sokolovsky, Mark Amaral, Zak Boisvert, David Gale, Craig Pedersen, David Fizdale, Shawn Loving, Josh Schertz, Moncho Fernandez, Josh King, and Tim Bross for taking the time to give such incredibly insightful and valuable interviews. These coaches’ willingness to chop it up, deep-dive on a variety of topics, and have a little lighthearted fun makes our job easy.
Here were the Top 5 Most Downloaded Episodes of the Year
"X & O Extravaganza" with Zak Boisvert {Army/Pick N' Pop}
An absolute juggernaut of an episode for X and O nerds with one of the best offensive minds in the world. Also, the episode where “Overrated/Underrated?!” was born. We’re forever thankful to Coach Boisvert for being our guinea pig and knocking it out of the park.
European Basketball & The Power of Adding Value with Ryan Pannone {Erie Bayhawks}
The first 45 minutes of the episode is classic Ryan Pannone showing his complete mastery of European offensive and defensive concepts, but the last 15 minutes, where Coach Pannone talks about adding value to people and building a career are truly special.
A "Defense-A-Palooza" with Josh Schertz {Lincoln Memorial University}
If you’ve ever seen Coach Schertz’ Lincoln Memorial teams play you know he’s an unbelievable offensive coach… but in this episode he shows why he’s a 4-Time DII National Coach of the Year as he expertly breaks down all things defense.
David Gale has coached with some of the game’s best coaches (Nick Nurse, Dwane Casey, John Patrick) and shortly after this episode aired was hired as the new Head Coach of BC Nevėžis-Optibet in Lithuania. This episode shows why he’s one of the best young coaches in the world and a must listen for those interested in “Open Offensive Concepts”.
Honing Your Craft with Cody Toppert {Memphis}
Our only regret about this episode is that we hadn’t yet introduced “Overrated/Underrated?!” to the podcast, because there’s no doubt Coach Toppert would have been a one of the more insightful/entertaining coaches to sit on the hot-seat. That said, this episode is absolutely packed with great insights on end-of-game-strategy, player development, keeping perspective, and an amazing “Old School” impersonation. Classic.
And an episode that was just barely outside the Top 5…
Reverse Ball-Screens, "Next Defense", and Developing Solutions with Moncho Fernández {Obradoiro}
As we talked about in our “Year-In-Review” episode, we were pretty nervous for this one. Coach Fernández is one of the top coaches in the world and was willing to explore the in’s and out’s of his “Reverse Angle PNR” strategy.
For a little fun to end the year, we put together this mashup of the best blooper moments from the “Overrated/Underrated?!” segment.
Thanks again for a great year and your support of the show.
We loved exploring the playbooks of some of the best coaches in the world and the details of what made them so good. Here were the Top 5 most viewed playbook breakdowns on our YouTube Channel:
Motion Offense: The Complete Guide 2020 {Voice Over Film Study}
Željko Obradović {Offensive and Defensive Concepts} Voiceover Film Study
Moncho Fernandez Offense (2 Breakdowns)
We’ll be completely honest, we have no idea what will or will not “do well” on Twitter. We just try and post what we think is the most interesting and valuable stuff we come across. That said… and judging from the most viewed/shared Tweets of the Year we should spend more time looking into “Jump Stops”, “Press Kills”, or start every Tweet with “Brad Stevens”, that seems to help.
Here are the most viewed Tweets of the Year:
And just a few views out of the Top 5 was…
Not everything came up “smelling like roses” this year. Despite some good intentions, here are the Tweets that either fell flat, didn’t get much love, or was an idea that the world just didn’t need.
A very early, shameless attempt at getting some new followers. This “click-baitey” “Steph Curry Hook Pass” edit deserved its 17 views... 12 of which were our own.
We thought this would be a clever marketing opportunity, to have our Slappin’ Glass logo appear right as Marcus Smart blocked a shot off the glass in a playoff game. Wait until they see this one! No dice.
We thought Twitter’s algorithm might vault us to unparalleled success once they got a load of our newly acquired Adobe Premiere Pro editing skills in this clip using Mario and Luigi bobbleheads to highlight the “Tandem Guard Responsibilities” at the top of Igor Milicic’ unique 3-2 Matchup Zone. Not quite.
Maybe bobbleheads and stuffed animals edits just aren’t our sweet spot?, as we failed to make the world see how interesting it was that the CBA was using giant stuffed animals as fans once they started playing games again.
“Four Point Plays” on back-to-back possessions by the same team! That’s crazy! That’s historic! What a great find! Crickets.
And speaking of bloopers…luckily we caught this unique off-ball defensive terminology moments before it went live…
We really enjoy being able to further drill down on basketball topics here in the Newsletter. Here were the Top 5 Most Read Newsletters this year.
Over the last week we released YouTube breakdowns along with Special Newsletters and PDF’s highlighting our Top 20 Sets of 2020. Here they are…
Top Sets #20 - #11
Top Sets #10 - #1
2021 and the Year Ahead
Now…onto 2021. We could not have asked for a better guest to tip-off the Slappin’ Glass Podcast in 2021 then Australian Professional Coach, Liam Flynn.
Coach Flynn is well known in international coaching circles for being a high-level teacher and communicator, and both of those things stand out in our newest episode.
Among many topics, we explore:
Critical Communication Strategies
Creating and Taking Away Space
Playing “High in the Gaps” on defense
“Start, Sub, or Sit” (Brand new segment)
The best investment in his career
And more…
There’s a ton of great stuff in this one as Coach Flynn really knows how to break things down into digestible chunks. Hope you enjoy.
If you have a few extra seconds, we’d really appreciate a Rating and Review on Apple to help the podcast continue to grow. You can do that HERE. Thank you to those who have!
The Year Ahead
We are excited by the possibilities and opportunities of 2021. We’ve had such a great time getting to connect and share the game with so many coaches from all over the world and we look forward to much more of that this year.
Besides continuing with the Podcast, Newsletter, and in-depth Video Breakdowns, we also plan to explore other fun areas and will be teaming up with some great coaches and companies to make that happen.
Thank you again and Happy New Year,
Dan and Pat
slappinglass1024@gmail.com
Tools We Use
We’ve really enjoyed using InStat for video, analytics, and more. Slappin’ Glass newsletter subscribers can get 10% off.
If interested please email us!