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In this episode of the Hardwood Hustle Basketball Podcast, Alan Stein (Stronger Team) and Adam Bradley (Ball Hogs Radio) tackle the question, ‘who is responsible for your development?’ So often, basketball players and coaches make excuses for their lack of progress by blaming it on circumstance (not enough...

by J.P. Clark, Boston Celtics, Assistant Skill Development “I don’t want to be any good.” “I am not interested in becoming the best I can become.” “I want to be mediocre.” Have you ever heard any of the above statements spoken from an aspiring player? The answer to that question is most likely no. These statements are never spoken, ever. You see, as players, really as humans, we all have an innate desire to be great; to become special. Deep down, we all want to live to our greatest potential; to become the best we can become. The question is how do we fully maximize our talents? How do we live to our full potential? Today, I am going to share with you The 5 Keys to Fully Maximize Your Talent.

In this episode of the Hardwood Hustle Basketball Podcast, Alan Stein (Stronger Team) and Adam Bradley (Ball Hogs Radio) share how the childhood game of musical chairs can help you be the best basketball player or basketball coach you can be! They will show you the steps you can take to...

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.

There are a lot of things that differentiate Better Basketball from the rest of the basketball instructional market: we spend more time in development of our products than anyone else we've built the Tribe to offer ongoing support for coaches who have bought into our system we have...