There is only one way to rebuild Chicago State basketball

You will not find a more hopeless program in D1 college basketball than Chicago State. A flat broke university that the State of Illinois seriously considered closing a couple years ago, there's no money, no boosters, and they're forced to play in the D1 wasteland conference that is the WAC, requiring a brutally long road trip for all of their games.

No one in D1 wants to play them unless it's a Power 6 program that needs an easy early-season blowout.

Lance Irvin last offseason took a men's head coaching job that no one wanted, and regardless of his ability to recruit or coach he's not going to get much mileage out of a 2-star group of cast-offs and walk-ons. They're not going to outplay programs who have more talent, more resources, let alone any program that has better coaching. They're not going to out-recruit kids against D1 programs who all have a lot more to offer than Chicago State in every category other than playing time.

So what can Irvin (or any coach that comes after him) do to move this program forward?

There is honestly only one way, one that need only requires effort and repetition.

They've got to play absolutely relentless full court man to man defense, every single possession. On offense, they've got to grind the clock with a basic motion passing game (it doesn't have to be the Princeton offense, but if they could learn it that would work), take open inside looks whenever they get them, and otherwise take good open shots near the end of the shot clock.

Teams don't play full court man to man defense correctly. They typically play it as a press, where you close out players in the backcourt, except then a) they try and press the ballhandler to the sidelines, instead of just playing him close and making him work around that defender, plus 2) defenders back off as soon as the ballhandler gets around the first guy, and let the offense freely advance over the timeline.

It's one thing to close a guy out, to quickly step to a ballhandler's face and defend him close. But your hands and footwork once you're there, the second part, is often forgotten.

An astute ballhandler, if they can't pass out of the close, will immediately try and go around the defender. Most guards are quick and can easily outrun defensive positioning... unless the defender knows how to Bounce and Reach.

Bounce and Reach is the process of stepping back (bounce), then stepping back into (and as necessary disrupting) the defender's path (reach). Done right, this provides the defende a controlled way of staying in front of his man, much more so than the more typical recovery-chase after a driving or advancing ballhandler. You typically should even do it when the ballhandler is stationary or otherwise not advancing with the dribble, re-positioning yourself so the defender lacks a convenient dribbling path around the defender.

This allows you to tightly defend ballhandlers in the backcourt as well as the frontcourt. A key reason full court ball-defenders give up and run back once the guards dribble around is because, whether or not they closed out well, they lack knowledge or ability to bounce and reach. They have no personal Plan B once the ballhandler drives or otherwise dribbles past them, and it's up to help defense to save them.

Also, a key reason coaches shy away from close outs in general is because many modern coaches now teach their players to counter a close-out in the half court by driving around it. This is smart for the above reasons: A ball defender who closes out without any plan B is simply beaten unless his pure athleticism allows him to stay ahead.

Here's the thing with close-outs in the full court: Few ballhandlers will drive the rim from 50-90 feet away. Even if they do, even if they can beat the ball defender, the rest of the defense can step up and help as needed to switch and close out themselves.

And, of course, most players closed out in the backcourt will seek to pass out of it. Then you close out the recipient of the pass (which is easy, because the target can't move while the ball's in the air), and repeat the process. If a potential steal is there, you do what you can to take it. Otherwise, close out the receiver and they once again have to work around it.

You can effectively create an obstacle course of tight defense in the backcourt simply by closing out, then bouncing and reaching to maintain position as long as possible until the ballhandler passes out of it or otherwise escapes.

And, even if they get the ball across the timeline before 10 seconds, you continue closing out, continue bouncing and reaching, and just make the offense work as much as possible to set up and run their offense.

This takes only effort and solid footwork. There's no need to reach in. Keep your hands up and back, and simply look to deny or contest a shot. Because of the effort the offense will require, steals will often create themselves since teams have to play perfectly to work around this kind of defense, and teams won't.

On offense, you need not hustle as hard, but guys off the ball should constantly move and cut to the ball. Ballhandlers should look to make a quick pass or take an open shot in lieu of dribbling. If in doubt, position the offense in more of a 5 out (everyone working from the perimeter), and work from there. Inside scoring opportunities should come from open cuts and drives, rather than posting up and dumping it in. If all you've got are outside looks, spot up and take a three, or if a shooter consistently cans midrange jumpers take that. But make the defense move and shift and adjust. And if they sit back in the paint, take open threes and seek to kill them like that until they come out to meet you.

Don't complicate it beyond that. You already aren't going to outcoach most teams, or recruit better talent. So just grind them up. Make their 40 minutes miserable.

This is probably Chicago State's only plausible path to relevance. I don't know if Lance Irvin is the guy to get them there. But either way this is worth a shot.

Basketball Low Post Essentials

It takes more than being big to play the low post in basketball. The post position requires just as much technique as running the point, playing the perimeter or playing the wing. On offense, low post skill is vital to giving your team a scoring threat inside, plus opening up opportunities for your outside shooters as well as drives to the basket for the guards.

Position matters. On offense, you ideally want to receive the ball at the middle of the edge of the free throw lane. Too far inside and your defender can cut off a good look at the basket, as well as available angles to get the ball inside. Too far outside and your best look will be a long shot, with poor prospects for an offensive rebound if you miss since you're so far from the basket. And of course, if you're in the free throw lane, you can get called for a three second violation.

Your opposing defender typically knows this, and will try to cut you off from your desired position. Beat that defender to the punch and get as close to your ideal spot as possible with a strong stance:

- Feet wide apart to ensure a strong base.
- Butt out to create space between you and the defender.
- Arm up, firm and strong if the defender overplays you to one side to ward him/her off.
- Opposite arm and hand extended in space to give your passer a clear target
- Back straight to maintain leverage when the defender challenges your position.

Solid drills can involve working on any of these aspects individually. But make sure to perfect all of them in practice until they are second nature. They are vital to successful position in the post and, subsequently, successful low post play.

1. Move towards the pass when it comes.
2. Jump stop as you receive the ball, to stop in a strong position.
3. Keep the ball head high with your elbows out. This protects the ball from the defender as you prepare for your next move.

With the ball in hand, look for the defender to either a) overplay you to one side or b) for everyone you see on defense to show weakness or an opening to one side. From here, you can either:

- Pivot and take an open shot
- Pivot and drive to the hoop
- Find an open outside shooter and feed him/her the ball.

Proper technique and positioning while playing the post gives you all these options, and helps you open up the offense as well as your own options. From this fundamentally sound base, you can practice different approaches. Allow yourself to improvise in scrimmages and non-competitive games to discover approaches and strategies that work for you.

Playing until the clock says 0:00

Two Texas private high school girls basketball teams, The Covenant School and Dallas Academy, played on January 13, with Covenant winning a 100-0 nailbiter.

It was a bit of a mismatch, and a lot of people on the periphery aren't happy.

Some details on the game itself:

A parent who attended the game told The Associated Press that Covenant continued to make 3-pointers -- even in the fourth quarter. She praised the Covenant players but said spectators and an assistant coach were cheering wildly as their team edged closer to 100 points.

"I think the bad judgment was in the full-court press and the 3-point shots," said Renee Peloza, whose daughter plays for Dallas Academy. "At some point, they should have backed off."

Dallas Academy coach Jeremy Civello told The Dallas Morning News that the game turned into a "layup drill," with the opposing team's guards waiting to steal the ball and drive to the basket. Covenant scored 12 points in the fourth quarter and "finally eased up when they got to 100 with about four minutes left," he said.

Dallas Academy, a school geared towards enrolling kids with learning difficulties like dyslexia and ADD, has to field a girls basketball team from a student body with only 20 girls total. And not all of them possess suitable athletic ability to even play sports, let alone well. The eight girls Dallas Academy did get to play this season... well, let's just say Louisiana Tech assistants aren't banging down the door to recruit them. The school hasn't won a game in four years.

School directors for both sides, district directors and the media have criticized Covenant for their merciless running up of the score well after the game had been decided, though, honestly, this game was practically decided before tipoff: Never mind that 3A Covenant was playing 2A Dallas Academy: Dallas Academy's team would have a hard time with a well-stocked junior high squad. These girls are just playing for the experience, and not too skill-equipped for competitive interscholastic high school basketball.

Even the winning school felt bad about the blowout. REAL bad.

Now officials from The Covenant School say they are trying to do the right thing by seeking a forfeit and apologizing for the margin of victory.

"It is shameful and an embarrassment that this happened," Kyle Queal, the head of the school, said in a statement, adding the forfeit was requested because "a victory without honor is a great loss."

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One of sports' great arguments concerns the matter of running up the score. Once a superior team gets far ahead and has the game well in hand... do they continue playing hard until the game is over, or do they ease off the gas and give the losing team a chance to save some face? This is actually a heated topic in many a sports discussion both online and off. Some say you should never quit trying. Some say once you know you've got the game won, you should allow the other team to save some face.

The term 'running up the score' comes from the argument that continuing to play hard after the game's clearly been decided shows bad sportsmanship and disrespect towards the other team. The argument is that once the game is in hand, you should play your backups, run out the clock and give the other team some dignity, if not some breathing room.

Interestingly enough, the term and concept are unique only to sports in the United States. Granted, other popular sports around the world don't lend themselves to running up the score like American football or basketball do.

Soccer: Scoring a goal is very difficult in soccer, and it's rare to stake yourself to more than a 2-3 goal lead, a dominant margin of victory but hardly an embarrassing blowout akin to running up the score. Plus, you can only substitute a small handful of players per match (usually 2-3, no more than 4-5), so you still need to leave many of your best players on the field. Also, given the small handful of goals in a typical match, it's very easy for a losing team to suddenly score a goal and get right back in the match.

Baseball: Pitching and hitting are both difficult acts. Big rallies that produce 10 run leads are often quite flukish: yes, they can be a byproduct of talent, but you can't produce them at will against inferior opposition the way a football team can produce first down after first down against an inferior front seven. Like soccer, the other team can rally from seemingly large deficits with some luck, and if you pull starters, you can't put them back into the game, so pulling the starters can hurt you if the other team comes back.

You also can't necessarily 'ease off': a hitter must maintain his proper swing to not throw off his performance in subsequent games... and the other pitcher still has to throw strikes. If, say, hitters decided not to swing out of courtesy, but the pitcher can't locate, he could still walk a lot of guys and maybe force in some runs, which itself is even more embarrassing to the losers than if the winning team just continued hitting as usual.

Also, blowouts just don't happen that often in baseball. Every now and then you take a bad loss, but losing teams generally don't curse the other team for, say, making a 10-1 deficit a 15-1. They usually consider it their own damn fault for pitching and fielding like crap.

Cricket: Each side only gets 1-2 chances on offense per match, so running up the score IS the idea! You damn well better run the score up as far as you can, because you don't want the other guys running it up more than you do.

Boxing: Got a problem with the other guy piling on the scorecard? Can't fight back worth a damn? Take a punch. Go down. Stay down. Wait for the ref to count to 10. Problem solved.

But America has sports that facilitate scoring and operate on a clock, thus lending themselves to the possibility of looming blowouts that emerge well before the contest has concluded, which creates the winning team's dilemma: 'do we keep playing hard and make a big loss worse for them, or do we stop trying, just so they can get back some dignity?'

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So, was Covenant as "disgraceful" as school officials claim they were in pushing the floor well after they clearly had the game won? I'll say yes and no.

No, it's not disgraceful to continue playing hard for every minute you're on the floor. There certainly may come a time where you meet your match and you'll want to have the experience of playing a full four quarters or nine innings or three periods, and you won't get it if you take the rest of the night off every time your game is decided well before the buzzer. Give Dallas Academy credit for never quitting and keeping their heads up when they clearly were getting their asses handed to them. But give Covenant credit for playing a full game instead of hot dogging the last two periods. Neither team quit trying, and there's more honor in that than the district may want to admit.

However, yes, it was disgraceful for Covenant to keep the starters out there when the game was clearly in hand. Covenant has a bench with reserves: coach Micah Grimes should have given extended minutes to every girl on that bench. It's not like the 12th girl on the bench gets to play a ton. Yes, they should have run their offense/defense and tried to execute plays to their best, and it's quite likely the Dallas Academy girls would have still been overmatched against the weakest team Covenant could possibly throw out there. But it would've loosened the strings a bit, would have offered a lot more value to both teams than the extended pimpslap that resulted, and maybe the Dallas Academy girls could have scored a basket or two to save some face. There was no need to get Covenant's point guard 48 points or shut out Dallas Academy.

College basketball coach Billy Tubbs had a thing for letting his Oklahoma teams run up the score. When criticized about this, he offered up the following, "If they don't like it, they should get better."

Ultimately, sports are a competitive endeavor, and when you play a 60 minute ballgame, the idea is to give your best effort for 60 minutes. Teams get criticized for quitting during the game, and go figure society also criticizes teams for not quitting during the game. Some compromise by taking knees, running generic sets and playing the backups. I'm a believer that every player on the field should give their best as long as they're on the field. But once a game's in hand, the coach should do his best to get everyone on the team who doesn't regularly play some playing time, not only to give the other team a chance to save face against lesser competition, but to take the opportunity to get those infrequently used players some cherished action. They can try and use different strategic sets and see how they look in a low-pressure situation.

Blowouts can present an opportunity, not to run up the score, but to give others a chance, whether they're on the other team or yours.