“He who controlleth the backboard, controlleth the game” – Adolph Rupp
“Your defense will save you on the nights that your offense isn’t working” – Adolph Rupp
“Help one kid at a time. He’ll maybe go back and help a few more” – Al McGuire
“Winning is overemphasized. The only time it is really important is in surgery and war” – Al McGuire
“It doesn’t matter how athletic or skilled a player is, if they have a low I.Q., they won’t be very good” – Alan Stein
“People do not differ in their desire to win; they differ in the price they are willing to pay to win” – Alan Stein
“Commitment means staying loyal to what you said you were going to do, long after the mood you said it in has left you” – Anonymous
“Talent sets the floor, character sets the ceiling” – Bill Belichick
“On a team it’s not the strength of the individual players, but the strength of the unit and how they all function together” – Bill Belichick
“Mental Toughness is doing the right thing for the team when it’s not the best thing for you” – Bill Belichick
“Until you can reach in and grab that kids heart, you can’t coach him” – Bill McNees
“You can easily separate ‘team guys’ from ‘me guys’ by how they accept coaching. The guys that accept it are about winning” – Bill Parcells
“Winning coaches look for opportunities to praise. Anything that reflects a commitment to the team is praiseworthy” – Bill Parcells
“A team divided against itself can break down at any moment. The least bit of pressure or adversity will crack it apart” – Bill Parcells
“Desire outweighs footwork when it comes to crashing the glass” – Bill Self
“Champions behave like champions before they are champions” – Bill Walsh
“Winning is about having the whole team on the same page” – Bill Walton
“Systems win! Believe in your system, and then sell it to your players” – Billy Donovan
“False Hustle = cheap fouls, lunging, reaching, etc” – Billy Donovan
“If I can’t expect someone to be accountable off the floor, how can I expect them to guard a pick and roll? Or get a rebound?” – Billy Donovan
“If you don’t feel you have something to prove every day, you’ll never improve” – Billy Donovan
“As players see themselves getting better through skill sessions, they will want to get in the gym more” – Billy Donovan
“I’m still waiting for perfection. In the meantime, I’ll settle for persistence” – Bo Ryan
“I didn’t get into teaching and coaching for the number of wins or the money. It was a passion for trying to help young people” – Bo Ryan
“Shot fakes and ball fakes work. No one uses more than Wisconsin. It’s amazing how many people don’t use them” – Bo Ryan
“I recruit hungry kids who love the game and want to get better and feel they have more questions than answers” – Bo Ryan
“Do your best when no one is looking. If you do that, then you can be successful in anything that you put your mind to” – Bob Cousy
“I dribbled by the hour with my left hand when I was young. I didn’t have full control, but I got so I could move the ball back and forth from one hand to the other without breaking the cadence of my dribble. I wasn’t dribbling behind my back or setting up any trick stuff, but I was laying the groundwork for it” – Bob Cousy
“Basketball is not an equal opportunity game. If you can’t shoot it well, you don’t get to shoot” – Bob Donewald
“A bad day coaching basketball is better than a good day doing almost anything else” – Bob Hurley
“This is basketball, not figure skating. You don’t get extra points for degree of difficulty” – Bob Hurley
“Developing better people should be the number one goal for any coach when dealing with kids” – Bobby Orr
“I never think about missing a free throw. All that goes through my mind when I’m at the line is seeing the ball go through the bottom of the net” – Brad Daugherty
“There’s a disposition great defenders have — a genuine pride that scores are a problem, people that score on me is a problem” – Brett Brown
“I always laugh when people ask me about rebounding techniques. I’ve got a technique It’s called just go get the damn ball” – Charles Barkley
“I know that I’m never as good or bad as any single performance. I’ve never believed my critics or my worshippers, and I’ve always been able to leave the game at the arena” – Charles Barkley
“Kids are great. That’s one of the best things about our business, all the kids you get to meet. It’s a shame they have to grow up to be regular people and come to the games and call you names” – Charles Barkley
“If you are afraid of failure you don’t deserve to be successful” – Charles Barkley
“It’s discouraging to make a mistake, but it’s humiliating when you find out you’re so unimportant that nobody noticed it” – Chuck Daly
“Defense doesn’t break down on the help, it breaks down on the recovery” – Chuck Daly
“Players have to buy into your system and be willing to accept the role, you, as the coach, have assigned to them” – Chuck Daly
“Offense is spacing and spacing is offense” – Chuck Daly
“If you’re going to have to beg them to play, it’s not going to work” – Chuck Daly
“I’m a lot better coach when I have really good players” – Chuck Daly
“Leadership is difficult. It is a lonely responsibility. The best leaders are servants. It is always about others” – Dale Brown
“The only lasting form of discipline is self-imposed discipline” – Dale Brown
“The best teams have chemistry. They communicate with each other and sacrifice personal glory for the common goal” – Dave DeBusschere
“Basketball is a game of sacrificing yourself for the next guy, being a team that takes good shots, and taking the right shots” – David Blatt
“You’re always going to face criticism, you’re always going to face challenges, but those things are there to make you stronger and more committed” – David Robinson
“Our job is to teach young people how to do things that make them successful on the court, in the classroom, and after graduation” – David Shaw
“There has never been a great ‘silent’ defense” – Del Harris
“Practice to beat the best” – Dick Bennett
“We cannot accept in victory what we would not accept in defeat” – Dick Bennett
“For us to be successful on defense, we must get back and stop the basketball, eliminate easy baskets, keep the ball out of the lane, and bother the shooters” – Dick Bennett
“Most of my learning and philosophy regarding coaching basketball was developed after great frustration” – Dick Bennett
“What you lack in talent can be made up with desire, hustle and giving 110% all the time” – Don Zimmer
“Pressure works, not by stealing the ball, but by changing momentum” – Donnie Jones
“The great thing about basketball is you work as hard as you can to individually get better so that your team can win” – Doug Collins
“Don’t ever have a rule that you won’t enforce with your best player” – Doug Collins
“When your teammate looks you in the eye and holds you accountable, that’s the greatest kind of leadership there is” – Doug Collins
“Work as hard as you can to become as good an individual player as you can to help your team win” – Doug Collins
“It is as big a mistake to turn down a good shot as it is to take a bad one” – Ed Murphy
“Coaching is a profession of love. You can’t coach people unless you love them” – Eddie Robinson
“Every time you compete, try harder to improve on your last performance. Give nothing short of your very best effort” – Elgin Baylor
“Coaching is easy. Winning is the hard part” – Elgin Baylor
“At the end of the day, no matter how well you score, you’ve got to be able to stop people” – Eric Musselman
“If your bigs rim run at full speed it not only increases the potential for a quick layup, but opens up court for guards” – Fred Hoiberg
“Yeah, I’m going to try to win the national championship next year. But I’m not going to kill myself doing it. I’m not going to kill my players either. You really start to realize there’s a lot more to what we’re trying to do then winning games” – Geno Auriemma
“I don’t hire good coaches, I hire good people. If they turn out to be good coaches, too, that’s a plus” – Geno Auriemma
“Everyday we are going to fight lazy and soft. It’s completely unacceptable. You have to be demanding” – George Karl
“When your best player puts it on the line every day, the other guys can’t cut corners” – George Karl