James “Satch” Sullinger coached basketball from 1983-2011 at Grambling State, Oberlin College, East High School (Ohio) and Northland High School (Ohio), and is a former administrator with USA Basketball. He was the 2010 Naismith High School Coach of the Year and won the 2009 Division-I Ohio State Boys Basketball Championship at Northland. This is the fourth and final installment in our series with him. We recommend checking out our earlier chapters: Saved by Coach, Satch Sullinger Begins Legacy as Leader; Accountability Starts From Top Down, Says Sullinger; and Sullinger: NCAA Should Match NBA Move, Impose 2-Year Min.
If you want to play for Satch Sullinger, you better defend and rebound.
Like the rest of the world, basketball is in a constant start of change. The game is different now than it was five years ago, and it was different then from 10 years previous: strategies change, skills change, rules change. But some things don’t change.
“Offense sells tickets, but defense wins championships,” Sullinger said. “It’s easier for me to go up under the hood of that Lexus right there and pull wires and stop it from running than it is to make it run, so defense wins championships. Rebounding the ball, scoring in the paint, is what the game is about.”
There’s an extra step required for successfully defending, though, and it’s a crucial one under any circumstance.
“What’s the period to the statement of defense?” Sullinger asked. “If I defend somebody and make them miss a shot, it doesn’t mean anything if I don’t get the rebound. That’s why rebounding is so damn important. It’s the period to the statement of defense. If I can play defense, and I can rebound, I’ll be alright. I’ll win. That’s the key. It doesn’t have anything to do with threes to me.”
The former coach is referring to the emphasis on three-point shooting in the game the last few years. But it isn’t that he’s inherently against the deep ball, it’s one-dimensionality he can’t stand.
“Here’s the part that people fail to realize: no one is fouling the jump shooter,” he explained. “I’m going to the cup, you foul me, all of a sudden, you’re in the penalty early in the game. Every time you foul me, I get to shoot free throws. If all I’m doing is pulling threes, you’re not getting penalized for being in foul trouble, because I’m not going to foul a three-point shooter. But when I start going to the cup and post the ball inside, guess what? I’m getting free throws. If I see you’re in foul trouble, and every time you touch me, I’m shooting free throws? Hell, I’m going to the cup, I’m going inside. You collapse to stop that? Now the inside-out jump shot is a little more wide open, and now you can feed it. But what I call windshield washer offense where the ball just goes around the perimeter to a jump shot, it’s terrible basketball.”
If an opposing team relies too heavily on one player’s shooting, Sullinger said it’s easy to stop. If someone has particular spots on the floor where they’re deadly, you take those away. If that doesn’t work, you can focus on who feeds him or her the ball. In the end, the goal is to disrupt rhythm, and he said there are tons of way to do so.
“Somebody has to give him the ball. Who gives him the ball all of the time?” Sullinger asked rhetorically, awaiting the correct answer of the point guard. “So, I can’t stop (the scorer), but I can take away God: the guy who gives him the ball. Make someone else do it, which interrupts offense.”
One way coaches have devised to solve this problem is to cut out the middle man. If your point guard is also your scoring guard, there is no distribution God necessary. Sullinger doesn’t like this trend, though.
“When your point guard is your leading scorer, you are not a very good basketball team,” he said. “When you take 14 to 15 dribbles, now either you’re shooting or passing. If you’re passing, guess who you’re looking to? Option number two, right? That’s the offense. Now, if you take 14 to 15 dribbles, it’s late in the shot clock. I can face guard the second and third options. I make the fourth and fifth options beat me, and when they get the ball, they have to shoot it right away. They don’t have time to get to their comfort zone, and plus, they’re not used to shooting. They’re not going to beat me.”
The stats might look good at the end of the game, but that doesn’t matter if your team doesn’t win, Sullinger said.
“Thirty-two points doesn’t mean anything in an L. Thirty-two only means something in a W,” he explained. “Here’s my justification for that: the worst team in America at any level in any gender has a leading scorer and rebounder. If it doesn’t equate into a W, what good is it?”
As fans, we watch from the stands and on TV and form opinions from what we have available. But there’s tons that occur behind a curtain or intangibles fans couldn’t possibly see. For example, it might seem obvious that a coach should do something, but it wouldn’t be as obvious if you knew everyone’s injury status like the coach does. So, how can people tell if there’s quality coaching happening?
“The first thing you do is watch your bench. You watch the players who aren’t playing,” Sullinger said. “That tells you whether there’s coaching going on or not. What’s the demeanor of the guy when he comes out of the game? Is he cheering his team on or is he pouting? That shows whether there’s coaching going on or not. Do they work hard? Do they dive on the floor for the ball? That means coaching is taking place.”
