Welcome to our basketball coaching class presented by basketball Merin and Lucio Sports where we provide a platform for top basketball coaches to dive deep into the details we are excited to have VMI associate head coach and offensive coordinator Xavier Silas in the basketball coaching class at VMI Silas has been a part of one of the most challenging jobs in division one college basketball where he's played a key role in a turnaround Under head coach Andrew Wilson silus is uniquely experienced coach having coached and played in the NBA g-league and internationally while being mentored by an NBA father and Missouri's Dennis Gates and Wyoming Sundance Wick coach Silas welcome to the basketball coaching class I appreciate you having me I've been looking forward to it I have as well and you've been up to so many good things and we're going to talk about passing the art of passing developing passing and especially it's important relative to your offense there at VMI but maybe start framing this for a little bit in terms of the success that you've had offensively at VMI and part of the reasons why first of all it's always about the players we we've gotten some good players that come in that have the IQ uh we recruited IQ and fit and I think part of that fit is wanting to play for each other togetherness squared to me is is in togetherness squared is something that we use it's not playing with each other it's playing for each other and so that's something that we use and um I'm pretty sure Kelvin Samson said that in a in in some type of postgame interview but going from four wins to 13 four wins last year to 13 wins this year is it's all been about passing how many passes we passed during the game and also how we passed the quality of the passes um it's something that we take very seriously something that I I think that is a big part of our our turnaround here at VMI absolutely and offensively definitely your team has become very enjoyable to watch and a lot of that is because the passing I know you're going to show some clips to be able to highlight some of the things that you guys emphasize absolutely yeah I I'll go into it now one thing that you have to know is that uh I talked to Ryan penon earlier in the year uh someone who I was able to coach against in the g-league and I've stayed in touch with him while he's been at Alabama and one thing that they do at Alabama is they they chart of the percentage in which your shot goes up and down based on the quality of the pass right it's about a 14% difference between a good pass and a bad pass on if you're going to make that shot or not all right so in our program it's very important that guys are able to uh pass with both hands let's start there right passing with both hands so here's augustinus cadus who has been great but this little pass with his left hand right into that pocket is very important that's something that we teach it's it's a drift pass it's something that we practice and it seems small seems simple but it's something that the the passer is thinking about and the receiver is thinking about okay here's another one with Ricky Bradley getting downhill okay and once he gets right there left hand he's a right-handed player left hand right into that shooting pocket is very important and he's able to knock that down okay talk this just quickly as I watch these clips about uh number one they're very Dynamic these are off movement sometimes one hand sometimes two to one hand and this is more modern in terms of the approach to passing yes very much I remember learning how to pass as a basketball player and they said it has to be two hands and the thumb has to be down at the end and it's just not it's not efficient to try to do that all the time okay what we teach is deliver the past okay with the hand that makes sense all right so if the defense is on your right side you can't pass with your right hand okay so you need to practice being able to pass with your left hand hand being able to pass with your right hand doesn't matter what hand you are those things are very important okay now another thing that we go we really emphasize is having plays in our package that have passes built in okay and so one thing in this play before I talk or before I show it Sundance Wix and I this kind of came up with this idea that plays there should be plays where the hardest actions to guard are in succession one after the other and you're just having to deal with these these actions okay so what if there was a play that you had to deal with a butt screen and I'll show you what that is in a minute you had to deal with an exit screen you had to deal with a flare you had to deal with a zoom all in the same play and the idea is those actions when you break down the points per possession are very hard to guard by themselves but when you put them back to back to back that's really hard to guard and it also is a great way to build in those passes and get the ball movement and and getting everybody to touch it right and so here's something like that okay so this right there is an opportunity for a butt screen that butt screen is when Ricky Bradley passes it to Lena Holstrom he's able to brush him almost like that football play that they do right and then he would be able to get downhill now he doesn't take that option he passes it to the top okay we come up here we're straight into a zoom action right and this could be a split if we wanted it to all right and then when he comes off coming off of that bounce action we have a back door hard to guard again that back door isn't there we throw it back now we're straight into an exit Okay that exit didn't there Auggie didn't like it okay now we're straight to a a flare okay and we all know that we may slip the flare and that's what we do and we get that bucket okay now with all of those options it's great but one thing that you have to understand is that is six passes and it's not normal passes they're very intentional live passes right and one thing that I got to college so I started in the NBA coaching wise in the NBA we don't really have false motion right that's not something that we really did everything is live in the NBA and so what I try to teach my teams is look like every single thing is live we don't try to have false motion everything has to be something where you're a threat and when you have that and you're doing these actions and you really break it down that's something that that we find some success in it strikes me as I watch that number one it's conceptual right this isn't completely scripted in terms of we know exactly what's going to happen it's dependent on reading not just the defense but your teammates as well but the part that connects to passing for me is the hard part about passing as you referred to the way we used to teach passing biomechanically the hard part is not biomechanical the hard part is the decision of the type of pass in the moment based on what the advantages absolutely absolutely and going into that now we always talk about passing as on the passer and it's not only on the passer it's on the receiver as well and so when you have this pass first mentality now the reason I say past first mentality is we or I should say I studied how many times we pass when we win versus how many times we pass when we lose now of course any old school coach will tell you when you pass more and the ball moves and it pops you're probably G to win right more than you lose okay and that was the case for us so we have a number as a team when we get to that number we win 100% of our games 100% of our games it's a fact that we have it's tried and true okay so when have that pass first mentality and that's what I mean when I say pass first mentality with our team the receivers are on they're they're as focused as the passer because they understand that we're trying to pass the ball I have to be ready and so here's an example right here so right there he's expecting that pass as much as the passer is expecting to pass it and that's the culture that we have to that we have to to build same thing here so he's expecting that late pass as much as the passor expecting the pass it okay I love that framing of just putting some responsibilities not just the passer it's the receiver and I love that fact know it's speaks to constraints and I know you're well spoken about constraint L approach the benefit of a constraint is obviously it shapes learning the potential negative is that they just follow the constraint to say that we want to pass it this many times and we're going to win the danger is that your players just start to pass without a reason to pass right absolutely absolutely and you know what when you're playing hard playing together and staying aggressive I think that that kills the opportunity to just worry about the constraint right so you're in the game you're and I'm we know that's the goal but I don't even think we we talk about the goal during the game it's a before the game thing and and at halftime I might peek my head in and say hey we're at this amount of passes we know we're supposed to be halfway but it's not a something that we do during the game now during the game all we're all I'm preaching aggressiveness 05 decisions five mentality find each other and when you're open shoot it and it comes out in the wash okay so here's another example but same thing the receiver's ready to go passor right on putting it on the button and we're exactly where we want to be all right same thing here 0. five55 okay now these like you said these are concept this is no longer a play we're we have put them in the position in practice to understand our Concepts and what we want to do when the pr play breaks down and we are trusting our guys at this point to go and find something in our world right in our world and how we want to do it okay another one okay so T gets downhill gets to that box good shot will take it he got down into the lower part of the paint now if you're going to preach 14% passes and that's what we call them 14% because we want the Best Shot for our guys and that means that we're going to hit them in the shot pocket you have to practice tough passes now this is a pass that we practice which is opposite Wing to that corner the Low Man's all the way over helping okay and we practice this pass and it's something that because we've practiced it so many times everyone's ready the passer is ready for it the receiver's ready for it same one here same one and we called that Joby pass right that over thehead kind of p and that's something that we always do now you just reemphasize the 14% what does that number mean I'm noticing and we've always we've all noticed this but with Alabama's staff they charted everything and they said look it's a 14% difference all right when you pass a good pass it's a 14% difference on if the guy's going to make it or not and so what we did was we took that put it into our our program and it's something that's seems so Elementary and so simple and something that as a coach everybody and players too everybody oh the pass makes the shot but after studying it and after really making it a part of our culture our players yell 14% to each other if it's off they're yelling hey 14% right because it's a part of our culture but it's also something that's very important the object of the game is to score more points than the opponent and we're trying to do that and we're trying to take every measure to make sure that's possible there yeah love that love the connection between a lot of these Concepts to obviously style of play principles of play and that's such an important part of this now you've referenced a few times some of these Dynamic passes can you go into how do you actually practice them because this is not a static standstill pass back and forth type of drill no not at all there's a few ways one in every single pass in our practice it's live okay no matter what we're doing is I think people get caught up in okay for this 10 minutes we're going to practice this you can't do that the entire time we're on the court whether we're doing something and a player is rebounding the ball and passing it to another player or coach we are emphasizing 14% And I'm talking about not just emphasizing holding them accountable and we are on them for 14% And that means a snap pass follow through on the pass wherever you're at make sure that it's a solid pass now that's one way the other way is coaches should never pass to players when they're shooting they should never I like after practice if you if your players are getting shots up players should be passing to players now you can pass to a player that's going to pass to a player that's fine but a the pass that goes into the shot should always come from that's a rep and I like to steal reps I love such a mundane point but almost every college practice I go to it's coaches passing to or managers passing to and I could not agree more no you can't do that because that's not game like that's not efficient to me I'm I'm such I'm all about efficiency how can something be more efficient and to me you you are wasting reps if you're standing back out there I'm gonna I am going to put my best foot forward when I'm passing to a player into his shot right but you know what in this socon tournament on Friday I'm not going to be passing to our Shooters right and so where can we steal a rep after practice before practice instead of the coaches and managers passing hey I'll pass to a player and that player passes to to our player and it better be right and it better be 14% And if you and if the right hand is on the outside then it better be with your right hand if the left hand is on the outside it better be with the left hand all right let's steal those reps can I just add to that I get it why coaches do it because a player will get more shots in a shorter amount of time right but the trade-off is they don't get representative shots representative passes from a teammate that actually throw them so sacrifice some of the volume of reps and get more realistic is what you're saying absolutely and I don't you know the passing rep is just as important as the shooting rep so you're actually dou ding your reps that's how I look at it you're doubling game reps you're not just getting a guy getting shot reps you're getting a guy that's getting passing reps and shot reps and so now to me that's 50% more production and I think that's huge and it's something that we try to do when we can and it's a huge part of what we do it's such an amazing point to be able to highlight for people and uh again whether you change or you don't change this will stimulate your thinking about how you develop passing because I think coaches generally one of the things they would suggest is all players don't know how to pass nowadays but it's because we've taken away so many pass opportunities from them we do Perfection drills where there's no decision associated with the pass or literally in your example they're not passing how do you develop passing you pass how do you develop dribbling you dribble can you give us some more examples of how you hold them accountable Within game based play Within practice to these passes another one I stole from you with with our time at Missouri which is when you I'll have a guy start on the wing and you're going to drive now there's two other people corner and opposite Wing okay when he drives and gets downhill I have one Defender that's gonna choose which person that he's going to guard that's a game time rep game time read and you still are holding them accountable to make that 14% And then sometimes he guards he doesn't guard any of them and you going to have to finish and so that is another way where you know as many times as we can put guys in gam like situations where they're making reads and you're still holding them accountable to make game shots and passes that's something that we do and it's as simple as having one Defender three players and you're making a read on who to pass it to and who's open it's really simple isn't it just add a Defender and you add this distracting information this visual Uli that represents the game and I think too often we get caught up and I know you've experienced this caught up in what's game like is game speed oh we got to be 100% intensity but we know that passing is not always 100% intensity right there's these different changes of speed these different changes of level so talk to us about that as well this Dynamic part of passing I also it's always a 100% focused though not we talk about intensity one thing that we talk about and this is a Dennis Gates thing is no gaps we can't have gaps right we we can't blink and with passing it's all about it's not like a very strenuous physical thing but are your hands up ready to catch the ball right to have a clean or are you bringing your hands up while it's happening right you should already have your hands up okay if you're bringing your hands up that's a gap right okay now when you catch it are you following through on that pass or are you flicking it okay so all of these things uh are and and you know you don't have to have a drill specific to this it's a mentality in a culture all the time so when we talk about passing being Dynamic it's just something that you have to stay on the guys about on every single rep so we have a one more drill where very simple everybody just stands around the three-point line and we swing it all the way around that drill has so many opportunities to coach passing are you down and ready to receive the ball as a receiver then when you get it what's the energy like taking the ball from receiving it and passing it for that one more right there's so many opportunities the coach passing and I think that we we let go of the Rope a little bit as a little bit as coaches because it's just something that we're not thinking about but we should be right where do you stand and again a lot of old cliches exist in basketball where do you stand on jumping to pass I think that it's necessary sometimes basketball is like jazz there yes there is a script there is a sheet of music that that the song we read the song as a musician a jazz musician they're gonna they have a a script a sheet of music but as we know they go off script all the time and that's what makes Jazz with basketball we have plays but we're going to go off script and you know why because there's a lot of good coaches that are going to make you go off script right and sometimes you're going to have to jump out of bounds and throw a drift pass right sometimes and because of that I like to try to practice those things that are quote unquote Off Script right and you have to because basketball is naturally going to make you do something that you don't necessarily want to do and most likely you haven't practiced but if you can figure out those things and this is what you're about right if you can figure out those things that basketball is going to make you do and then practice them then you have an advantage and that's something that coming from you and and your tree that we try to do that's closable problem solving and the more absolutes you give players the less opportunity they have to solve a problem right so if you say you absolutely must jump stop on every pass and you must point 10 fingers towards the target all this other stuff then you're limited players rather than affording them the opportunity to be able to solve a problem and I think you know that having played at so many different levels NBA internationally g-league and coached at all those levels which is a remarkable thing such a unique background you have and you're so poised to be a future head coach because of all these experiences but you played with players that if you said they have to do everything traditional they wouldn't be able to solve the problem would they you know what you hit the nail on the head with something being able to play play all over the world and see different people do different things in different ways so things can be so different even with feeding the post right in another country they may feed the post completely different than we do we do the traditional catch it fake a pass to make a pass okay in Greece they may not they weren't taught that way they may not have been taught that way and so for me to see all these different ways is it's way it's you can skin a cat in a lot of different ways you really can and that's what I've learned with my experiences is listen and was funny we have a lot of international guys on our team so we have a Swedish national team player a Turkish national team player and a Lithuania Lithuanian national team player and all of them do things differently they get into their shots differently they get into their layups differently different free throw routines even down to the way that they get ready for games right and you can't get so caught on oh there's only one way to do something because if you do you're leaving a lot of opportunities out there for your players and it's a disservice to him Coach syus like I'll be honest I'm not sure I've been a part of a better conversation about passing and then developing passing and we haven't shown a drill no and and you know what we don't have a passing drill right it's me and our coaching staff and we have a a an amazing Coach Andrew WIS does a great job of just holding us accountable to to coach every rep and when you have a leader and a head coach that makes you coach every rep then you start to realize oh wait a minute I could be coaching this oh I could be coaching that and one thing that I just started to obsess about is the passing right because at the end of the today we know how much it affects scoring and being the offensive coordinator I hang my hat on how much we score and trying to outscore to other team and there's you won't come to our practice and see a passing drill now you'll see passing in our drills right and you'll see them being held accountable probably more than you ever have to the type of passes and with the game speed and game intensity for passes on every rep because we that's something that we believe in and I think that everybody can do that I think it would make the game better if everybody did it one last thing as we wrap this up obviously future goals to be a head coach you on that path you keep working you've had so many great experiences including this one at VMI what is some advice to coaches young Rising coaches like yourself about continuing to stay focused and develop your craft so that you can continue to grow it's a competition right and and all of us are competitive and so how are you out working your competitors and when I say the competitors how are you outworking the other assistant coaches in your position and are you grinding are you getting in earlier than them are you watching more film are you bringing the energy more than them for me my advice is to compete continue to compete because it's not only going to make you better it's going to make everybody else around you better it's going to make your competitors better right I it's going to make me better if I see someone that's doing something and if feels like they're outworking me then I'm going to try to outwork them and so for me I think that's it I I think that as as young coaches we can get caught up in oh we've arrived oh they gave me assistant coach or associate head coach or we've arrived so we can chill and we can go and and go hang out and grab a coffee I don't think that's necessarily the case and of course making sure that you find that balance CU that came off really crazy and I am but you also have to find that balance with your family and your loved ones and your significant others and your kids to make sure that you're there for them as well and to me I approach it as competing at that too being able to show up for my family as much as I can and be there and be the best present dad that I can be when I can especially during the season as we all know it gets crazy I love that approach and uh I know from many of our offline conversations that uh you're a hungry learner you ask great questions and you're always just looking for a better way and I love that approach and it's going to serve you well as you continue to rise in this career of yours and uh yeah I can't thank you enough for creating this amazing resource on passing and the value of passing thank you so much coach Silas I appreciate it Chris good I appreciate you having me I love what you do thanks for watching the basketball coach class be sure to like subscribe and share and check out Luci sports.com and basketball.com today