Episode 186: Molly Miller, Full-Court Pressure and Playing Uptempo

Guest: Molly Miller, Grand Canyon University Head Coach   Grand Canyon University head coach Molly Miller joins the Basketball Podcast to discuss full-court pressure and playing uptempo.   Miller holds the highest career winning percentage (.892) of any NCAA men's or women's basketball coach at Division I, II or III levels with at least five years of experience. The two-time Division II Coach of the Year ended her Drury career with the DII national runner-up in 2019 and an undefeated, top-ranked 2020 team when the national tournament was canceled because of COVID-19.   Miller made an immediate impact at GCU by guiding her Lopes to the program's first WAC Tournament championship game appearance. She did it by instituting her style of full-court pressure defense and uptempo offense.   In 2020-21, GCU ranked second nationally for steals (13.4 per game) and turnover margin (plus-8.4 per game) while also coming in fourth for turnovers forced (23.3 per game).   Miller maintained Drury's tradition upon becoming head coach at age 28 and she ascended the program to reach the 2019 Division II Final Four and post a 32-0 record in 2019-20, when the Panthers were ranked No. 1 every week in the Division II poll. If an undefeated mark does not state Drury’s dominance under Miller enough, the Panthers also led Division II in scoring margin for her last two seasons there. Drury won by 27.9 points per game in 2018-19 and 28.5 per game in 2019-20.   Breakdown 1:00 - Buy-In 5:00 - Starting with Defense 8:00 - Building Up Drills 12:00 - Getting the Ball Over Halfway 14:00 - Full Court Pressure Preference 17:00 - Run Jump 20:00 - Randomness 21:00 - Using Different Terminologies 24:00 - The Tagging Concept 26:00 - Attacking the Weak Side 29:00 - Tools for Better Switching 32:00 - Managing Substitution 35:00 - Analytics that She Valued 37:00 - Unorthodox Approach in Recruiting 39:00 - Defense is the Priority 42:00 - Unstructured Offensive Possessions 47:00 - Scouting Reports 50:00 - Inbound Set Plays 54:00 - Conclusion Molly Miller’s Bio: Bio: https://gculopes.com/staff-directory/molly-miller/573 Twitter: https://twitter.com/MollyMiller33   Basketball Immersion Website: http://basketballimmersion.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/bballimmersion?lang=en YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/basketballimmersion Facebook: https://facebook.com/basketballimmersion Immersion Videos Check out all our all-access practice and specialty clinics: https://www.immersionvideos.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.