Sacrificing For the Team:
Possibly the biggest thing that a point guard must do is sacrifice for the team. If the team is going to be successful, the point guard must learn what his role is, and that usually means that something will be sacrificed. Coach Meyer likes to use this phrase for learning roles. He says, “Roles: Learn, Understand, Accept, Fulfill.” Once a person in our program learned his role, there was surely going to be much sacrifice.
I’ll use myself as an example for this one. As a freshman at NSU, I played about seventeen (17) minutes a game, backing up our starting point guard. At the time, the majority of my shots were three pointers. Of the 64 shots I took during the year, 38 of them were 3’s. That’s 59% of my shots. The next season, as a sophomore I was the starter and my role changed. Coach made it clear that he didn’t want me shooting 3’s (mainly because I couldn’t shoot that well), but he instead let me know that my role was to distribute the ball to our big guys down low, find our shooters outside, don’t turn the ball over, and be the best defender I could be. Coach said more than once that he didn’t care if I ever took another shot, just as long as I did the little things to help the team.
At that point, I had learned my role. It was pretty easy to understand it as well. We had great players, so let’s get them the ball. Next, I had to accept my role. I think that this is the toughest part for any player, but I was willing to accept it. I loved to be on the floor, and I would rather pass than shoot anyways, so the role was accepted. Lastly, I had to fulfill my role. I think that over the next three years, I had fulfilled my role. We won three conference titles, I led the league in assists and assist-to-turnover ratio each of those years, and I won the conference Defensive Player of the Year award when I was a senior. I also took a whopping 10 3’s my junior season, and I bagged that idea all together my senior year when I didn’t shoot any. I was able to sacrifice for the team and it worked out for everybody. As a point guard, you have to realize that there are certain sacrifices that must be made if the team is going to be successful. For each point guard, the sacrifices will be different, but as a point guard you have to learn what your role truly is. More importantly, you have to decide if you’re going to accept your role for the good of the team, whatever that means for you individually.
The Physical Aspect of the Game:
I am what coach calls an “AWB.” I am an Average White Boy. I am maybe 6’1” and I don’t think that I have either blazing quickness or a great vertical. But, I would say that I pushed myself hard in the weight room and in trying to obtain the best body that I could possibly have. After my redshirt year, I weighed over 200 pounds, and while I was definitely strong, I realized that it was time to tone up and try to be the best athlete that I could possibly be. I had no problem getting motivated because I wanted to play the following year and because Coach Meyer was proclaiming me as “The Pillsbury Doughboy.” I didn’t have the quickness to guard college players, and I didn’t have the quickness to drive and get around college players. From that point on, I really tried to be the best athlete that I could be, and I tried to gain advantages in every way possible.
By the next season, I had trimmed myself down to 190 pounds, and both my quickness and vertical increased. I started to focus more on eating right and getting enough sleep, and I definitely saw gains immediately. My last two years of playing I was blessed to have a phenomenal strength coach, Derek Budig. Coach B had worked with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and at the University of Texas – El Paso (UTEP), and he brought an amazing amount of knowledge and enthusiasm to our strength program. He was able to take our entire team to new levels in strength, conditioning, flexibility, and doing the little things. Coach B taught us how to really eat right, down to the smallest details, and he was able to show us how to gain advantages against the competition by preparing yourself physically and mentally.
I guess the point is that to be a college athlete in general, and to gain advantages against the competition, you have to prepare your body physically. Although I did see great increases in my quickness and vertical jump over the course of my career, I was still at the very best a player with average quickness. Because this wasn’t my strength, I became as strong as I possibly could to use that to my advantage. When I had to defend a guy that was much quicker or bigger than I was, I could usually use my strength advantage to make up the difference. As a college player, you have to learn both what your strengths are, and your weaknesses are. You have to find a way to minimize your weaknesses (for example, I had to work really hard just to get average quickness and vertical), and you have to find a way to exploit your physical strengths (my strength was lifting power) to maximize your potential. Especially as a point guard, you will play against small players with great quickness and you will play against larger players that may not be as quick but have the size advantage. Regardless, you have to find a way to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses if you want to be successful. I know that if I didn’t work hard in the weight room, if I didn’t try to eat right, and if I didn’t learn how to rest and repair my body, I wouldn’t have played because I didn’t have great natural skills. If you are trying to be the best player that you can be, and if you want to raise your game to the highest level possible, really think about committing yourself to the little things (eating healthy, getting rest, gaining flexibility) and you will definitely see a big increase in your productivity on the floor.
Fundamentals:
The last part of the point guard mentality has to deal with fundamentals. To play basketball at a high level, you must have a high skill level. As a point guard, you can’t just only be a great shooter, you have to also be a great passer, a great dribbler, skilled defensively, etc. Throughout the course of my career, I was able to improve my fundamentals so that I could play at the highest level possible for me and, more importantly, so that I could help the team as much as possible.
As I mentioned earlier, I’m not a great shooter by any means. Coach worked with me throughout my career, and while I felt that I could hit the shot if given the opportunity, it was best for the team if I didn’t shoot. Our team always had a number of great shooters, so they needed to take the shots. What this meant for me is that I had to perfect all my other fundamentals and use whatever strengths I had to my advantage. Offensively, I decided to take pride in becoming a great passer. If I wasn’t going to be a shooter on the team, I knew that I better know how to pass or I wouldn’t be able to contribute much, which meant I probably wouldn’t have played much. Instead of sulking when coach told me not to shoot, I worked on becoming a great passer, and I think it really helped the team. I also turned into a threat driving the ball. Even though teams knew I wasn’t going to take the outside shot, I still had a knack for getting into the lane and distributing to a teammate for an open shot. When I was a freshman at NSU, I had a very difficult time getting in the lane, but by working on the fundamentals of driving (Coach spends a lot of time with footwork, explosion, etc.) I was able to be a valuable part of our offensive attack.
As a point guard, you must work hard on all the fundamentals to help your team. It seems to me that the biggest area offensively that is hurting in today’s game fundamentally is the art of passing. The majority of players can dribble, and there are always great shooters, but the art of passing seems to be lost. It’s amazing to me when I see that a point guard has more turnovers than assists. If you want to help your team win, minimize your turnovers by making high-percentage plays, and work on passing to your teammates where they can do something with the ball. It doesn’t help a shooter when he gets a pass at his ankles. Learn how to make a play that is efficient for the team. This is the responsibility of the point guard. I was never the fanciest point guard but I was efficient because I was able to get people the ball where they could do something and I didn’t turn the ball over much. As a point guard, you should have a goal of having an assist-to-turnover ratio of at least 2:1 (2 assists for every turnover). My senior year, my ratio was 3:1, and this helped give our team a chance to win.
The other part of fundamentals that is always overlooked is fundamentals on defense. I truly believe that anyone can be a great defender if they want to be. The biggest challenge on defense is wanting to shut a guy down and having enough pride to get upset when your man scores on you or when someone else’s man scores when you weren’t in the right position defensively. However, there are many fundamentals defensively that can give a player a big edge. During my junior and senior year, I had to guard the other team’s shooting guard because our shooting guard, Jarod Obering, was about 5’8” and he usually would take the point guard for size reasons. Much of the time, I would have to guard players that were four, five, even six inches taller than me and more athletic than me, so I had to use every trick possible to keep up with them. Luckily, I learned through Coach how to position my hands and feet initially to discourage a quick shot, and through practicing footwork and different defensive slide techniques, I was usually able to cut my man off when he tried to drive. It’s difficult to get into all the techniques now, but I must emphasize that if you want to become a great defender, learn technique. Coach Meyer showed me so many things that I never knew before defensively, and it gave me a great advantage. To be a complete player and help your team as much as possible, you must be a great defender. The point guard sets the tempo not only on offense, but also on defense. Everybody is watching the way you defend when your man is coming up the court, so you have the power to set the tempo and influence your team’s defense.