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Author: Rick Torbett

Installing the Entire Read & React in 5 Days

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The Read & React Offense took over a year to produce and I’m pretty confident that I covered every detail of every layer of the offense. But regardless, I continue to hear the following question: “What is the best method for teaching the Read & React?” And regardless of THAT answer, the follow-up question is always, “How long will it take?” So, when Mike Bona, coach of the Emmanuel College Lady Lions, asked me the same question, I boldly answered: “One week! In one week, I can put in the entire Read & React – all 20 Layers!” And he took me up on it! Now, some of you are saying, there’s no way an entire team can master the Read & React in 5 practices (11 hours). And I agree! What CAN you MASTER in 11 hours?! I wasn’t shooting for mastery - I was shooting for the team to acquire the ability to run the entire offense in this short, condensed amount of time. And they did!
To best understand what I did in these 5 practices and why I did it this way, let’s look at the 3 BASIC STAGES OF SKILL ACQUISITION*:

Hand on BasketballYou picked up a basketball because it was fun, right? It was fun to play with your friends and get some exercise. But then your idea of fun began to evolve. Competing began to give you a thrill. Your team winning began to be the definition of real fun. But a team can only be as good as the individuals that make up the team, so you decided to become better. In fact, you want to be “a cut above” the rest and pull your team up with you. Now, playing against average players is not good enough anymore. In fact, whatever the level of your competition, you have a desire to play on the level above them. Basketball is still fun for the same reasons it’s always been, but now the fun goes deeper; it’s now tied up with getting yourself and your team to the next level - maybe even to a championship. If you’re at this point in your life, then you’re ready to train like a champion. There’s not room in this article or any other single article to map out all of the details for training like a champion. So instead, let’s look at the big picture:

Every great endeavor starts with an overriding purpose and a vision of something bigger than yourself. This “vision” will get no traction if it remains only your vision. Your vision must become theirs; in other words, the coach is responsible to create the Team’s Vision. Here are some key ingredients you’ll need:

Turning Things AroundThis letter from Rick Torbett to a concerned parent covers his advice on Motivation, Confidence, Defining Success, Parent-Coach Relationships, Assigning Blame, Handling Adversity, Staying Positive, and creating a Winning Mentality. From: A concerned parent (edited down to the basics of the e-mail) I need to know how to teach my son and his team how to have a winning mentality. This school has lost for many years, and the community does not support the program . He needs also to learn how to have confidence. He is a great shooter. He can shoot free throws under any kind of pressure. He just has these slumps where he can't make a basket if his life depended on it. The slumps seem to be

You’ll need a workout partner for this one, but it’s worth the trouble. A workout partner adds 3 things to your training:
  1. An element of accountability
  2. A defender that you can see and read rather than just imagine.
  3. Intensity: a partner will naturally raise the effort and concentration that you put into your workout.
The first goal of this workout is to get in a wide variety of 50 shots. I should call it a 100 shot workout because both players will get in 50 shots each in a little over 20 minutes. If each player keeps up with the number that they make, then all they need to do is multiply by two and they’ll have their percentage; Very easy to turn into a competition. The workout covers the 3 ranges of shots: outside the arc, the mid-range, and finishes on the goal. The second goal to the workout is to get each player to associate certain shots with certain actions of the defender. An example would be if the defender closes out short, then you should shoot and not drive. A third goal can be seen in the shots where the shooter must ignore the presence of the defender and focus on making the shot. I’ve heard psychologist say that success rates below 50% do not do a good job of reinforcing behavior. They say that the higher the success rates are over 50%, the stronger the reinforcement becomes. Now, what’s that got to do with this workout?

Reprinted with permission from Carson-Newman Men's Basketball. Carson Newman, under Head Coach, Chuck Benson is another of the Tribe's Read & React College Basketball teams. JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – For the first time since the 2001-02 season, Carson Newman (15-4, 8-3 South Atlantic Conference) has swept a season series with Tusculum (5-11, 3-8).  Carson-Newman held Tusculum to one field goal over an eight minute span in the first half while going on a 13-2 run and never looked back in a 73-43 win Wednesday night at Holt Fieldhouse. The win was the most lopsided in the series since the Eagles last swept TC more than a decade ago.  Carson-Newman knocked the Pioneers out of the SAC semifinals with an 88-51 win. Carson-Newman has locked down defensively in February.  Following Wingate's 52-point performance last Saturday against C-N, the Pioneers' 43 points are the fewest scored on the Eagles this season. "We knew they were more inside oriented than outside," Carson-Newman head coach Chuck Benson said. "We wanted to take away that.  Some of that was our guys taking it away, some of that was just not being their night.  But the numbers we gave up, those are impressive." The Eagles defense set new season lows for points (43), field goals (14), field goal attempts (45), field goal percentage (31 percent), three pointers (two), three point field goal attempts (12), three point field goal percentage (16.7 percent) and assists (six) allowed. Carson-Newman produced three double figure scorers, with Ish Sanders (Cleveland, Tenn.) scoring 18, Jared Johnson 14 (Springfield, Mass.) and Antoine Davis (Rustburg, Va.) adding 11. 

Written By JOE STEVENSON (as appeared in the Northwest Herald on Sunday, January 13th, 2013) Every year, Rich Czeslawski heads to the NCAA Final Four to watch basketball, network and, perhaps most importantly, learn. Czeslawski had just finished his first season as Crystal Lake Central’s boys basketball coach in 2007 when he headed to Atlanta for the Final Four. While there, he attended a coaching clinic and caught a glimpse of the future. The clinician, Rick Torbett, is considered one of the foremost basketball teaching authorities in the world and distributes teaching videos on betterbasketball.com, many of which involve his Read and React offense. At that clinic, Czeslawski saw the future of his program with Read and React, an offense that can be taught in layers, offers flexibility against man or zone defenses and can be difficult to scout. In the ever-evolving world of offensive basketball, Read and React is the latest system to offer coaches ways to attack by utilizing spacing, providing flexibility based on personnel and allowing teams to create offense through coordinated effort. Dribble-Drive Motion, motion and Princeton are other popular ways that use some similar concepts. “We went to Read and React three years ago. It’s a very intelligent way of teaching a free-flowing offense,” Czeslawski said. “(Cary-Grove girls coach) Rod Saffert is running it. (Prairie Ridge boys coach) Corky (Card) is running it. I don’t really feel it’s a fad offense; it’s a way of teaching offense. You’re teaching offense and empowering players.” While Czeslawski has had good talent with which to work in those three seasons, he thinks Read and React has helped the Tigers go 60-12 over that stretch. When Czeslawski invited Torbett to Crystal Lake last summer, there were 40 coaches who attended a roundtable discussion to learn more about Read and React. Johnsburg boys coach Mike Toussaint was one of them, and while he had not fully implemented it with his varsity, the Skyhawks’ feeder program and lower levels are running it.

The four laws of learning are explanation, demonstration, imitation and repetition. The goal is to create a correct habit that can be produced instinctively under great pressure. To make sure this goal was achieved, I create eight laws of learning -- namely explanation, demonstration, imitation, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, and repetition." -Coach John Wooden
If only Coach Wooden could have lived long enough to see the Read & React! You would think that his quote came from a Read & React Coaching Clinic! The Read & React DVD takes care of the first three laws:
  1. Explanation
  2. Demonstration
  3. Imitation The next 5 Laws of Learning the Read & React are left up to your practice plans: