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The Art of War and of Coaching Girls’ Basketball
Malcolm Gladwell has unearthed another gem. It is the story of Vivek Ranadive, an immigrant from Mumbai who founded a software company in Silicon Valley. Mr. Ranadive volunteered to coach his 12-year-old daughter’s basketball team. The girls on her team were not tall, were not good shooters and were not good at handling the ball. Mr. Ranadive had never played basketball before. He took his team all the way to the national championship tournament.
How did he do it? The same way that Lawrence of Arabia defeated the Turks with a handful of Bedouins. Just read the story.
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8 Responses to “The Art of War and of Coaching Girls’ Basketball”
Terrific article. Just “lost” half an hour to it, but it was worth the time.
Thanks for the great article. Of course, it should be noted that a full court press has disadvantages as well. If I was more even in strength with a team, would I get enough steals to make up for the easy layups they'll get when the court isn't defended as well near the other basket? And of course, as was pointed out at the end, the referee may not be as kind to all the hand play involved with really strong defense.
Also, the real indictment here, for the Turks, as well as the 30% of goliaths who lose, is that they lacked the adaptability to change strategy when an opponent did so. When they do change, or decide to stick it out, they are much tougher to beat.
This article has been so thoroughly debunked that I am surprised that anyone is taking is seriously. Basic fact checking would show that Gladwell was wrong about Rick Patino and the University of Kentucky. In addition, the girls basketball team under discussion had a ringer in the form of a player who ended up playing college basketball at Duke.
Pressing in girls basketball benefits system coaches that have the time to train their player in how to run the press.
SD Does it bother you that the coach and story was pushed by 'brown skins' nstead of those blond Aryans?
Rudi, I do not understand what you are saying. Even the article mentioned that the pressing team was generally made up of white girls and that they could easily beat all blakc teams.
My problem with the Gladwell did not bother to check his sources. Girls basketball at the high school level has been dominated by teams of white girls who know how to press. Check out Joe Lombard at Canyon High School in Texas who is one of five high school coaches in the U.S to win 100 games. He was been running the full court press, let the best player take most of the shots for three decades.
In reality, Princeton University under Pete Carrill is a better example of how undersized, less talented teams can consistently win. It involves playing a slow down, back cutting game and always get back on defense to force every score to be made with a hal court set.
Superdestroyer, I appreciate the input. The most interesting point you make is about the ringer on the junior girls team who wound up playing for Duke. Assuming that's true, it could really undermine the story.
I'm the furthest thing from a basketball expert — perhaps that was self-evident. In considerable detail, Steve Sailer makes some of the same points as you do about Rick Pitino.
But even if Gladwell generalized somewhat recklessly about basketball strategy on the basis of one example, the girls team story would illustrate an important point (if it were fully true). Many games — including real war — have unspoken rules that can be exploited by players with a fresh perspective.
Now I need to check into that ringer…
I don't know if the thread is dead, but the Duke ringer didn'y play, she assisted with coaching and stuff.
After Craig signed on, he recruited his daughter Rometra, who played Division I basketball at Duke and U.S.C. Rometra was the kind of person you assigned to guard your opponent’s best player in order to shut her down. The girls loved Rometra. “She has always been like my big sister,” Anjali Ranadivé said. “It was so awesome to have her along.”
I remember Rometra Craig. As an aside, I watched her play in a game at USC. She entered college (Duke) in 200, then transferred to USC and graduated in 2004.
The New Yorker article in infuriatingly devoid of dates for the basketball aspect of the story, but unless it was early 90's, if Rometra was involved, she was a coach, not a ringer.
http://usctrojans.cstv.com/sports/w-baskbl/mtt/…