The G-Unit: The best mid-season adjustment I ever made

The bus was quiet. Not a sound. That was always the rule after we lost a game, and even the cheerleaders knew it. I stared at the seat in front of me while my assistant coach Matt Asher drove the bus back to school from the SEMO Christmas Tournament.

"How many did Dom have?" I asked him.

"Forty-five," he answered. He glanced at me in the rear view mirror, and we both just shook our head. He had to be thinking the same thing I was thinking, "If we can't beat a good team when he scores forty-five points, how are we ever going to beat a good team?

Jackson had just beat us in a close ballgame. They had a really good team that year. They would finish the season with something like a 24-5 overall record and lose in the district finals to Tyler and Ben Hansbrough's Class 5 State Champion Poplar Bluff Mules. Two of Jackson's losses came to Poplar Bluff that year. Another loss would come to us about 10 days later. How did we get from this quiet bus ride home to beating them in a rematch?

We created "The G-Unit."

Our program was coming off of a two year stretch where we averaged about 82 points a game (winning a state championship) and then 90 points a game (district champs, set a 3 point record). We were undersized and had shooters all over the floor. Those teams pressed, trapped, ran, and shot their way right past opponents.

Our current team could do the same thing, just not nearly as well as those teams had. We were bigger, stronger, and maybe just a little slower than those teams were. But we were also deeper, and our players were tough and smart. Of all the teams I've had in my career, this was by far the toughest team I ever coached, and as a group, they were the smartest team I ever had.

The next day was Sunday, which meant it was an off day for the Christmas Tournament. We had practice at the gym Sunday at two. I don't remember how I came up with this idea, but somewhere between the bus ride home and that practice I came up with the idea for the G-Unit.

At the time the "G-Unit" was a rap group led by 50 cent, and they were popular. I thought the guys would think it was really corny, or they'd think it was kind of cool. The truth is they probably thought it was both! I sat them down in the floor at the start of practice, and I unveiled a "fancy" chart (it was actually just poster board)...

* Grab 4 offensive rebounds, and you get a sticker. (like a helmet sticker)

* Grab 4 defensive rebounds, and you get a sticker.

* Grab 6 overall rebounds, and you get a sticker.

* Come up with 2 steals, and you get a sticker.

* Take a charge, and you get a sticker.

You see, in basketball there are only 5 ways your team can get the ball. One, the other team makes a shot and your team takes it out. That's bad. You don't want that. It means they scored.

Two, they throw it out of bounds or travel. You'll take that if they give it to you, but most times, at least against good teams, that is just an unforced turnover.

The other three ways are how your team actually takes the ball away from the other team. You get a stop and grab a rebound, you come up with a steal, or somebody takes a charge. On our team, we call these "Hustle Points."

The concept of Hustle Points wasn't new. We'd been using this for years. What I was doing with the G-Unit was basically setting "levels" for Hustle Points and attaching rewards (a sticker!) if you hit that level. My goal was simple. I wanted us to gang up, and as a group, collect as many Hustle Points as possible.

We rotated 10 players, and outside of Dom, no one player was going to put up monster numbers. I just hoped that the idea caught on, and that as a group, they would accumulate enough rebounds, steals, and charges to impose our will on opponents.

From our group of six forwards, they had several games that three or four of them hit that 6 rebound mark. One particular forward, Zak McIntyre, checked back for our team. So he was never going to get 4 offensive rebounds. To compensate, Zak focused on defensive rebounds and became a great charge taker on our team.

When you added up what that group of forwards did on the glass, they were getting a combined 30-35 rebounds on any given night. Add to that the 9 rebounds (best on our team) that Dom got from his point guard position, and we were really starting to dominate the glass. We had multiple guys that started taking charges. Our guards were hustling for steals and deflections.

What the G-Unit theme really did was give our team a new identity. We went from a running, pressing, trapping team to a team that was still up tempo (about 72 points a game), but they would just physically dominate you. They figured out they didn't have to blow you out to be good. They could have a 3 point lead in the fourth quarter and just start to pummel you one stop at a time.

I watched that lead go from 3 to 5 to 7 to game over a lot of times that season. Like my superintendent Rhonda Niemczyk said at the time about that team, they were just "hard to beat." The combination of the G-Unit and a great point guard like Dom was just devastating.

Last night on the JWT Live Show we talked about mid-season adjustments. This story here about the G-Unit is the best adjustment I ever made. Like I said, we turned around and beat Jackson by 1 point a week later. That group went on to win the Stoddard County Championship, beating Dexter, who went to the Class 4 Final 4, and then we won the Class 1 State Championship.

That was all made possible by an awesome group of guys who were willing to buy into a silly idea named after a rap group that hardly anybody even remembers!