Noah LaRoche | better than a layup

Here’s Part III in our “Charlie Coles” series on the evolution of offensive theory and best practice.

If you’ve been following along, you’ve met Charlie, the colorful and highly successful coach of Miami of Ohio back in 1999, the last time the school played in the NCAA tourney prior to this past season’s appearance, and learned of his fascination with all things offense – its enduring principles and axioms, its elements and underlying structure.

In his honor, Part II took us on a pseudo archaeological dig in which we explored “artifacts” of three different offenses we called Doc, Mac, and Noah.

Recall that these offenses were developed and played in eras spanning roughly 100 years, yet were remarkably similar to one another, even as they responded to vastly different circumstances, rules, and “customs” particular to their own spot on basketball’s historic timeline.

In Part I, we met the late Charlie Coles, the highly successful and colorful coach of Miami of Ohio who, in addition to coaching, taught a highly entertaining course in basketball theory during his 16 years at the university.

Charlie’s focus was offensive theory. In both the gym and classroom, he searched for the key that would unlock its secret code, revealing its enduring principles and best practices, its elements and underlying structure.

With your help, I promised to continue his quest, but before we can assume Charlie’s role as code breaker, we’ve got to become archaeologists… we’ve got to excavate different offenses from different eras and study the artifacts we find.

That’s the only way to unpack offense’s secret code.

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better than a layup

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