JC on NoReferees.  One takeaway is he really doesn't like pass-first point guards.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6016D2unPp0


 

I thought the No Refs podcast discussion was worthwhile and it was interesting to hear JC talk a little bit more "unfiltered" about how he likes to put together a team and about his offensive and defensive philosophies. I think some coaches use the crutch of not having "their guys" too often, but it's clear that under JC his offensive and defensive philosophies require players with certain attributes in order to be successful.  

That's a great article; couldn't ask for anything more positive than that!

Worth noting that Eamonn Brennan wrote this article.  Brennan covers college basketball nationally for The Athletic (wrote for ESPN before that) and isn't someone covering solely a local or regional area.  There's no way to know for sure but chances are that more eyeballs will be reading this than what otherwise may have been the case.  Great publicity.

One enlightening part of this article had to do with the "coaching upbringing" which JC received from Bob Johnson at Emory and Henry.  JC served as his lone assistant and Johnson would force JC to watch tape on various offensive and defensive schemes used by other programs.  JC would then have to "teach" these offenses and defenses back to Johnson, who was a stickler for detail.

This served to open JC's mind to play a variety of different ways, I suspect based on the personnel he was coaching.  Like perhaps some of you, I had assumed that JC was "a VCU guy" who would coach his teams to play very fast at both ends, shooting quickly on one end and attempting to force turnovers on the other end.  This past season was a great example of how JC needed to adjust.  Frankly, his team lacked the depth and overall athleticism to pull off a "havoc" style of defense.  He redefined "mayhem" as running guys off of the three point line, but could not utilize the full court pressing and trapping more than just on a handful of occasions. 

This is all not to say that JC doesn't have certain coaching principles.  He is flexible enough to realize what can and can not be accomplished given the team he is coaching.

Interview with coach Omidvar.  Deep dive on recruiting.  Love the enthusiasm.

Oops missed that you had posted here BM. 

He's so good in interviews, because he's REAL.

Yeah you know when he first got here I was a little nervous because coach-speak can quickly devolve into empty platitudes but I think there is no doubt that JC means what he says and that he is genuinely excited to be a coach at GW.  That does not mean that in 5 years he won't decide to take another promotion, but I think he's being sincere when he talks about his team and GW as a whole.