Basketball Coach Unplugged (A Basketball Coaching Podcast)

https://teachhoops.com/

Title: What Does It Really Take to Be a Coaching Family?

Subtitle: Coach Collins sits down with his wife for an honest conversation about the season behind the season

Show Notes

Every coach has a support system at home that never gets a microphone. This episode changes that. Coach Collins is joined by his wife for a candid conversation about what the coaching life actually looks like from the other side of the gym, the parts nobody puts on a highlight reel.

What...

https://teachhoops.com/ — Coach Collins' coaching resource site, 14 day free trial (also said as "teachgroups.com" and "t-tubes.com" in the transcript, both transcription errors for TeachHoops)

https://coachingyouthhoops.com/ — practice plans and season planning, the one stop shop pitched in the sponsor reads

https://heysammi.com/ — text based team communication app, spelled out on air as H E Y S A M M I (Sammi with an i)

Coach Collins and Coach Steve tackle one of the most common questions in youth basketball: how do you get kids to stop jacking up bad sh...

https://teachhoops.com/
https://coachingyouthhoops.com/
https://heysami.com/

SHOW NOTES

Coaching Youth Hoops with Coach Steve Collins and Coach Bill Flitter

Another one straight from the Coaching Youth Hoops Facebook group: what is the biggest character lesson you are trying to teach your players this season? The guys take it seriously, because as Coach Collins puts it, the life lessons taught through sports matter more than the sport itself. That only works if somebody connects the dots out loud. This episode...

https://teachhoops.com/⁠

Second week of December, a kid knocks on the office door, sits down, and says he thought he was going to start. Most of us have lived that exact moment. And the hard truth is he usually has every reason to believe it, because nobody ever sat him down and told him anything else.

This episode takes the role conversation and runs it through a modern lens. Simplicity wins. If your role talk needs a whiteboard and eleven minutes, the kid is not listening, he is waiting to find out if he is...

https://teachhoops.com/
https://coachingyouthhoops.com/
https://heysami.com/

Coaching Youth Hoops with Coach Bill Flitter and Coach Steve Collins This one came straight out of the Coaching Youth Hoops Facebook group and it lit the group up: how do you get kids to focus and concentrate during practice? Coach Collins opens with the honest answer, a CYO season he calls the worst coaching experience of his 20 year career. Talented team, could have won everything, and the attention span was next to zero. From there the guys get practical about what actually m...

https://teachhoops.com/

How quickly can one basketball game become an entire story in an athlete’s mind?

A player has a great opening night and thinks, “This is finally my year.” Another struggles and immediately thinks, “Here we go again.” A player gets fewer minutes than expected and decides the coach no longer believes in them. A teammate has a breakout game and suddenly someone else begins wondering whether they are falling behind.

In this episode, Coach Collins explores one of the most important mental-performance lessons athletes and coaches can learn: one game is ev...

https://teachhoops.com/teachhoops-memberships/2000/

https://www.thechampionshipcoach.com/

When Your Tank Is Only 80% Full, Is It Time to Walk Away? 

Episode 2000: Coach Bill turns the microphone on Steve Collins for a conversation about 37 years on the sideline, three state titles, one 7 and 14 season, and what the game actually owes the kids who never become stars. For the 2000th episode of Coach Unplugged, the format flips. Coach Bill takes over the questions and Steve sits in the guest chair for the first time, fresh off a state finals run and the first fall in ne...

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The fastest way to change your program is not a new offense. It is the people sitting next to you. In this episode we get into how to choose assistants, what to look for beyond basketball knowledge, and the warning signs that a hire is going to cost you more than it gives you.

Hire for character before basketball IQ

You can teach a system. You cannot teach loyalty, work ethic, or how somebody treats a kid who is not playing. We talk about what to watch for before...

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Taking Timeouts: Are You Calling Them Too Late?Why the 30 seconds you spend in a huddle matters more than the play you draw upEpisode Overview

Every coach has been there. The other team rips off an 8 to 0 run, the crowd is up, your point guard is looking at the floor, and you still have all your timeouts in your pocket. In this episode we break down when to call it, when to let your team play through it, and what actually needs to come out of your mouth once...

https://teachhoops.com/

This episode is powered by TeachHoops.com, the platform that helps you grow from an X's and O's coach into a CEO-style program builder who wins championships. Today we unpack a philosophy that will reorganize how you think about offense: space before advantage. Most transition offenses fail because players chase the advantage — the layup, the mismatch — before the floor is spaced, and the whole possession collapses into a crowded mess. We walk through what elite spacing actually looks like in the first four seconds of a possession: which spots must be filled, in what orde...

https://teachhoops.com/

Every coach has done it. You lose by 12, and Monday's practice becomes a punishment session. You win by 20, and you skip the thing you were supposed to fix. In this episode we dig into the gap between what a game result feels like and what it actually tells you, and how to build a practice plan that survives both a bad night and a good one.

What we cover:

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Every coach hits a wall at some point. A roster problem, a parent problem, a practice that just isn't clicking. Imagine having a veteran coach on speed dial to talk it through. That's exactly what happens in this episode, as Coach Collins jumps on a one on one call with a TeachHoops.com member.

This is one of the most valuable perks of a TeachHoops membership: real conversations, real answers, and advice tailored to your program instead of generic tips from the internet.

Listen in as they tackle the questions...

Long Show Notes

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Where does real improvement begin? Most athletes immediately think about more workouts, more shots, more film, more confidence, or becoming mentally tougher. But in this episode, Coach Collins argues that development starts somewhere much simpler and much more difficult: seeing yourself honestly.

This episode takes a deep dive into self-awareness and why athletes cannot improve from the person they wish they were. They have to begin with who they actually are today. That means understanding what happens when pressure rises, what causes confidence to disappear, what triggers...

https://teachhoops.com/

https://teachhoops.com/

If you step into gymnasiums across the country, almost every head coach has the word "CULTURE" printed in bold block letters across their team gear, painted on their locker room walls, or featured prominently in their social media graphics. They host long pre-season meetings talking about family, toughness, and championship standards.

Yet, when the freezing temperatures of mid-January arrive, when the team drops three games on the road, or when a star player gets hit with a tough whistle, that "culture" instantly disintegrates into finger-pointing, passive body...

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What makes a team memorable long after the final buzzer? In this episode, Coach Collins takes a deep dive into one of the most important leadership questions in coaching: is winning enough, or does a truly lasting program have to mean more than the scoreboard?

This episode explores the idea that the teams people remember most are not always the teams that won the championship. Often, they are the teams that made people feel something. They played with joy, grit, togetherness, resilience, and identity. They reflected the values of their school, their...

www.teachhoops.com

What would you ask a coach with decades of experience if you had him all to yourself for an hour? In this episode, Coach Collins sits down for a one on one call with a TeachHoops.com member, the kind of conversation every member gets access to when they join.

No scripts and no filters, just two coaches talking through the real challenges of running a basketball program. Whether you coach youth, middle school, high school, or beyond, you will hear practical ideas you can take straight to your next practice.

https://teachhoops.com/

My kids do not play hard. It might be the oldest complaint in coaching, and in this episode Coach Collins argues that most coaches are diagnosing it wrong. When a team does not play hard, we tend to treat it like a character problem. That kid is lazy. This group is soft. But playing hard is not a personality trait. It is a standard, and standards have to be taught, defined, and celebrated just like any skill in the game.

The episode starts with a revealing test: if you asked five of...

https://www.winthepreseason.com/pre-opt-mc⁠⁠

⁠⁠Teachhoops.com⁠⁠

⁠⁠CoachingYouthHoops.com⁠⁠

⁠⁠https://forms.gle/kQ8zyxgfqwUA3ChU7⁠⁠

⁠⁠Coach Collins Coaching Store⁠⁠

Check out. 

[Teachhoops.com](⁠⁠https://teachhoops.com/⁠⁠)

14 day Free Trial

Youth Basketball Coaches Podcast

Apple link: ⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coaching-youth-hoops/id1619185302⁠⁠

Spotify link: ⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/0g8yYhAfztndxT1FZ4OI3A⁠⁠

⁠⁠Funnel Down Defense Podcast⁠⁠

⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/funnel-down-defense/id1593734011⁠⁠

Want More

⁠⁠Funnel Down Defense⁠⁠

⁠⁠https://coachcolli...

https://www.winthepreseason.com/pre-opt-mc⁠

⁠Teachhoops.com⁠

⁠CoachingYouthHoops.com⁠

⁠https://forms.gle/kQ8zyxgfqwUA3ChU7⁠

⁠Coach Collins Coaching Store⁠

Check out. 

[Teachhoops.com](⁠https://teachhoops.com/⁠)

14 day Free Trial

Youth Basketball Coaches Podcast

Apple link: ⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coaching-youth-hoops/id1619185302⁠

Spotify link: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/0g8yYhAfztndxT1FZ4OI3A⁠

⁠Funnel Down Defense Podcast⁠

⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/funnel-down-defense/id1593734011⁠

Want M...

https://teachhoops.com/

Episode Summary

In this episode, Coach breaks down why teachhoops.com was built and why basketball coaches need more than random drills, plays, clips, and opinions. The modern coach does not suffer from a lack of information. The real problem is knowing what fits, what to use, when to use it, and how to turn ideas into a complete program.

TeachHoops is presented as a coaching system — not just a website — built to help coaches save time, organize practices, diagnose team problems, build better habits, and coach with confidence.

Mo...

https://teachhoops.com/

The box score says your team played great defense. Two blocks, four steals, plenty of highlights. So why did you give up 68 points? In this episode we tear into one of the most common lies in basketball: the idea that blocks and steals measure defensive quality. They don't. More often than not, they measure gambling, and gambling gets you beat.

The stat that actually correlates with winning never shows up on the highlight reel. It's the deflection. A hand in the passing lane, a tipped dribble, a fingertip on the entry pass...

https://teachhoops.com/

Basketball Coaching Hours

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https://teachhoops.com/

What is really getting in the way of performance? In this episode, Coach Collins takes a deep dive into one of the most overlooked leadership ideas in coaching: sometimes the biggest gap is not between a player’s talent and success, but between their potential and their ability to access it consistently under pressure.

This episode unpacks the idea of interference and why so many coaches misdiagnose the problem when performance drops. Instead of asking what a player, coach, or team needs more of, Coach Collins challenges listeners to ask a better qu...

https://teachhoops.com/

If you look at the landscape of modern coaching development, you will see a massive sea of isolation. Head coaches spend late nights sitting in empty gym offices, staring at raw tape, trying to solve complex spatial spacing leaks, assistant staff alignment issues, and parent boundary friction entirely on their own. They download random drills off social media, try to force-feed them into a 120-minute practice script on Tuesday afternoon, and then wonder why their team’s execution feels clunky, robotic, and disconnected when Friday night arrives.

In a level 4 transformational program, yo...

https://teachhoops.com/

If you look at the landscape of modern coaching development, you will see a massive sea of isolation. Head coaches spend late nights sitting in empty gym offices, staring at raw tape, trying to solve complex spatial spacing leaks, assistant staff alignment issues, and parent boundary friction entirely on their own. They download random drills off social media, try to force-feed them into a 120-minute practice script on Tuesday afternoon, and then wonder why their team’s execution feels clunky, robotic, and disconnected when Friday night arrives.

In a level 4 transformational program, yo...

https://teachhoops.com/

Today's episode is brought to you by TeachHoops.com, home to thousands of organized drill videos, defensive breakdowns, and course templates — everything in one click instead of scrubbing through random YouTube videos. In this episode, we install the LockLeft defensive framework: a simple, teachable system built on one ruthless idea — force every ball handler to his left hand, every possession, all game long. We cover the core rules: how on-ball defenders angle their stance to take away the right hand, how help defenders shade to shrink the left side of the floor, and how the...

https://teachhoops.com/

Are your goals helping you achieve something, or become someone? In this episode, Coach Collins breaks down why the best athletes do not just focus on outcomes—they focus on the habits, character, and daily choices required to deserve them.

Writing down a big dream is easy; the hard part is becoming the kind of person who can carry it. This episode dives deep into the true purpose of goal setting, why becoming always comes before achieving, and how goals only matter when they change your behavior in the present moment. Coach Co...

https://www.thechampionshipcoach.com/

www.thechampionshipcoach.com

Episode Title: Are You Ready to Apply for The Championship Coaching Fellowship?

Great coaching requires more than effort, information, and a collection of plays. It requires clarity, accountability, honest feedback, and a plan that fits your actual program.

In this episode, Coach introduces The Championship Coaching Fellowship, a year-long coaching experience for serious basketball coaches who want personalized support, stronger systems, and a clear path toward building a championship-level program.

The Championship Coaching Fellowship is not:

a...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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TeachHoops Podcast Show NotesEpisode Title

Soccer Fans Waited 106 Minutes for One Goal. You Can't Handle a 45 Second Possession?

Spain just won the World Cup 1-0 with the only goal coming in the 106th minute, and over a billion people called it a masterpiece. Meanwhile, if a high school team holds the ball for 45 seconds, the gym loses its mind and the shot clock debate explodes all over again. In this episode, Coach Collins uses the biggest sporting event on the planet to take a hard, honest look at the shot...

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Welcome to 5th Quarter Studios in Madison, Wisconsin. In this episode of Coach Unplugged, we dive straight into an uncomfortable question that might just ruin your week: Why do your drills look great, but your games look bad?

Be honest with yourself. You’ve lived this exact nightmare. Tuesday’s practice was a masterpiece. The three-man weave was humming, the shell drill was textbook, and the baseline energy was electric. But when Friday night comes around, your team looks like a group of complete strangers who have never shared a floor.

He...

https://teachhoops.com/

You can devour every single podcast episode on this channel, fill up a dozen legal pads with advanced multi-ball drills, and spend hours analyzing spatial cutting geometry. But at the end of the day, passive consumption will only get your program so far. Every single gym ecosystem faces its own highly specific, highly isolated operational leaks.

Maybe you are staring at a roster trapped in a robotic rut of coach-fed compliance and you can't figure out the exact socratic constraints needed to jumpstart their Decision IQ. Maybe your assistant coaches have grown...

https://heysammi.com/ 

Hey Sammi Podcast Spotify

Hey Sammi Podcast Itunes

why does my 13 year old suddenly want to quit sports? SUBTITLE: how to find out what's really going on when your teen won't talk DESCRIPTION:

why do teenagers suddenly quit sports they love? a mom in portland wrote to me because her 13 year old daughter went from sleeping in her jersey to done, overnight, and won't say why. in this episode i answer the questions parents of teen athletes ask most. why won't my teenager tell me what's wrong? should i l...

https://teachhoops.com/

Every single coach in the country is sitting on one. One conversion they know they absolutely need to have, but continue to push off. A player who needs a heavy dose of the truth regarding their body language. An assistant coach who is quietly slipping below the program's operational standard. A parent whose unrealistic expectations need an immediate, firm boundary reset. A team leader who has quietly drifted away from the collective vision.

And yet, the conversation waits. Tomorrow becomes next week, next week becomes next month, and a minor operational leak...

https://teachhoops.com/

Summer basketball is a wild landscape. You can walk into a gym for a weekend shootout and find yourself facing a high-major AAU-loaded powerhouse in the morning, and a developing squad that can barely cross half-court in the afternoon. If your team treats these games like standard winter matchups, you are introducing a massive operational leak.

When you play a team that is vastly superior or inferior to you, the scoreboard becomes completely irrelevant. If you base your success on the final tally, you will either leave the gym with fake confidence...

https://teachhoops.com/⁠

If you spend enough time around the grassroots basketball ecosystem, you will inevitably hear coaches, parents, and directors argue over a seemingly endless debate: Winning vs. Player Development. The traditional crowd tells you that if you aren't cutting down nets and chasing trophies, you are failing your program's legacy. The developmental crowd argues that rings don't matter if your bench players aren't getting equal minutes and your stars aren't showcasing individual isolation packages for scouts.

In this episode, we step directly into the "Truth Room" to expose this debate for what it tr...

https://teachhoops.com/

If you spend enough time around the grassroots basketball ecosystem, you will inevitably hear coaches, parents, and directors argue over a seemingly endless debate: Winning vs. Player Development. The traditional crowd tells you that if you aren't cutting down nets and chasing trophies, you are failing your program's legacy. The developmental crowd argues that rings don't matter if your bench players aren't getting equal minutes and your stars aren't showcasing individual isolation packages for scouts.

In this episode, we step directly into the "Truth Room" to expose this debate for what it...

teachhoops.com

Episode Title: Are Your Drills Teaching Players to Read… or Just Run to Spots?

Every coach wants smarter players — better decisions, better shot selection, better reads, and better basketball IQ. But too often, practices are filled with drills where players already know exactly what to do.

In this episode, Coach breaks down how to turn ordinary drills into decision-making drills that actually transfer to games.

Players do not become better decision-makers by running routes.

They become better decision-makers by making decisions.

If practice is too clea...