Ecological Lacrosse Podcast ep. 6 - Princeton Offensive Coordinator Jim Mitchell

Jamie Monroe here. I'm excited to introduce this new show called the Ecological Lacrosse Podcast. The goal of this podcast is to help coaches of all levels learn to apply modern skill acquisition concepts to their teams in a cutting edge.

but practical way. In this podcast, we will discuss lacrosse in the context of principles of play and through the lens of ecological dynamics and a constraints-led approach. I guarantee adopting an ecological approach to your coaching will not only help you win more games, but it will create the best possible experience for your players and it will change your life. Welcome back to the Ecological Lacrosse Podcast. Today I'm excited to introduce...

Princeton assistant coach and offensive coordinator, Jim Mitchell. Jim, so fired up to have you on the show, man. How you doing? Doing great, Jamie. Thanks for having me back on and honored to be part of and honored, inspired, humbled to be a part of this, especially considering the great guests you've had so far. And we've had some conversations about this topic, so I'm excited to see where this one goes.

Yeah, totally, man. I'm really excited about this new podcast format. I'm sure it's not as interesting for some people as it is for others, but I don't care. I think for you and me, we're going to have a good time talking about it. Well, I think a lot of these conversations are the types of conversations coaches really have. I think you're getting a little bit beneath some of the surface level concepts.

ideas you know it's it's great knowing coaches journeys I think that helps frame some of these conversations but being able to go a little deeper as to how we actually apply you know some of these concepts I think is really valuable for those who are out there actively trying to

you know, evolve as coaches. For sure. Which is what we're all trying to do. So let's talk about that. The first thing on my list was your evolution as a coach. Can you talk a little bit about... how you feel like you're evolving from as a coach and through your work and thought with this type of ecological approach.

Yeah. You know, I came up as a defensive coordinator for the first half of my career, which is really valuable. You know, I think, you know, it's a little bit more black or white and you really do learn offenses. a lot about them and um and you spend a lot of your time kind of focusing on the you know identifying the main themes that come up and what adjustments you're going to make and when i first became an offensive coordinator you just start to go off

what was most frustrating to me as a defensive coordinator. And a lot of that was what happens after the scripted part. When you're just playing, how do you defend that? And that's when you just have to be good at defense. And that's the part that gets hard. So when I first started coaching offense, I think I knew I wanted to get in that direction. I just don't know that I had the tools or the confidence.

to do that and then having a chance to coach some really talented players, both at Rutgers with, with Jules Henenberg and Christian Mazzone and company, you know, coach those guys for a few years and started loosening up the reins and, you know, we're playing a loose version. pairs at the time. And as it turned out, you know, sort of the quality of the opportunities we were creating without me micromanaging it were certainly equal or I would say greater than, you know.

were equal or greater than if I told him what to do all the time. So then coming to Princeton, having the opportunity to work with Michael Sowers for a shortened season, you know, I had the confidence to move him around a little bit the way I did with Jules Henenberg and just have more principal styles.

Things we're trying to accomplish as a unit, but not necessarily having to have a play call or a set we're always playing out of. And that, you know, we were off to a great start. Things got shut down. And then over COVID in 2021. We've talked about this before, but a significant silver lining of that time was getting to know you better. And for us, we had about 15 guys on campus in 2021 where we weren't going to play a season. We weren't going to.

do a lot of six on six and riding and clearing. It was just purely skill development and sort of going down that principle slash ecological route. in those moments gave me the confidence just watching the skill acceleration during that time period to really go full principle based. when we come back. And so I've done that ever since. I've evolved in that and then combining that with a lot of more of the ecological dynamics.

if I think, you know, continue to help push the principal based offense further. And, but it's not perfect. You know, I don't always, you know, I go back to some of the things that I've always known or that do work. And sometimes you do build in some structure. But I do think I've continued to evolve more in the direction of trying to architect the environment as opposed to drawing shapes and expecting people to do it perfectly. Yeah.

Great rundown. I think it's so interesting that you're a defensive coordinator first. And honestly, with the CLA, you have to be equal both. It's always offense and defense. Any look that you want to give yourself offensively. is going to come from the defense. And you must know the principles of play on both sides of the ball to give yourself that right look, whether it's the offense giving the defense a look or the defense giving the offense a look.

And I want to make this statement and see what your opinion is. I think defense is naturally more ecological than offense. Do you agree with that statement? And if so, why? And if you don't, tell me why. I'd say nowadays you're sort of forced to be that way. I guess it all depends on the offense you're going against. If it is very scripted and back when there wasn't a shot clock, you really could.

run different scripted looks over and over again until you wear a defense down like you didn't really have to play out of it if you didn't want to. So I don't think you necessarily, you know, there's an element that you always need to be ecological. I mean, things are happening around you all the time. You can't just follow a script defensively, just like you can't really follow a script offensively. You're still, you know, the perception action is happening, whether you're

It is. It is. It's kind of a trick question. But, I mean, at the end of the day, like, you're going to have to defend what they do and you don't have control over it. And it's funny because sometimes I feel like defensive coordinators. know this lars talked about it on the podcast he's like well as you know i i can only you know

I can only puppeteer against puppeteers, you know. And so when it starts getting, you know, more principles based on the offensive side, it must be more on the defensive side. But just generally speaking, defense is... always more like that because you don't actually have the ball in control. Whereas when you're on offense, you can be very, very controlled and reductionist if you want to be.

in the way that you're going to simplify and try to get your guys to play. But I think it would have been a great experience for you being a defensive coordinator heading into your experience as an offensive coordinator too. Definitely. Yeah.

It seems like you definitely, your route was similar to like mine, I think, in the sense that we just started diving into. Teaching skills in a lot of small sided environments without really knowing the details or the theory behind ecological dynamics. And it was really fun and it was enlightening and it was. It was exciting. And that was what your 2021 year was. And I think simultaneously it was principles-based offense that started to guide you down this path, maybe more so than anything else.

Can you talk a little bit about how your pro coaching has impacted your understanding of how to apply principles to a team, especially given the fact that you don't get to practice? So it's just a very different type of constraint for you in trying to get a team to play great team offense. Yeah, the pro lacrosse is a great, a giant constraint. The speed of the game, the shot clock, you don't have the opportunity to...

have multiple layers offensively. Usually you don't really get to set things up. There's a lot of perimeter pressure. The defense has to cover the two point line. So there's a lot of friction.

um in in that sport so and without this without the the real skill development um you do have to you know realize what you have and how you can use it really quickly and so i think you know the It is a constraints led approach when the environment is as fast and physical to really, I think, focusing on principles is actually very freeing.

So coming over from the college game and not having to try and install a bunch of different offensive stuff that I had success with in college, not that we didn't do some of that, but just coming over with the principles, a lot of them sort of. adapting straight from what we do at Princeton where it comes to using deception as an all-encompassing principle, being AAA in the two-man, always arriving alone in the two-man, really having accountability and the quality of the picks we're setting.

You know, reading and reacting, the coverage schemes we're going to see. You know, they're really aggressive on picks. At the pro game, they tend to be very aggressive and switch a lot. So, you know, you have some counters built into that.

Also, are they sliding very quickly? Do we need to set up, just like in college, if someone's declaring from the backside behind a two-man game, you need someone in there to follow that slide to kind of collapse the defense and find the numbers advantage on the backside? So I think a lot of those things... The simple coverage solutions are there. And when you sort of strip away what guys need to do all the time and instead focus on the principles we keep going back to.

you know, we're able to have some success offensively, but passing a lot was a really simple one. Just. passing the ball more. A lot of times you're just trying to get your quickest advantage, get your best player with the best advantage of the ball and go from there. But I found if, you know, just like in college, if you swing the ball through X across the top or tease the two man game and swing it.

The defense isn't going to be as organized on the backside. You're constantly keeping them in that churn, that blender, in that network. So I think just some of those basic principles moved over shot selection.

When you do have a short shot clock, you might not be able to always probe and only take the shots that you really want to take if you had an 80-second shot clock. But being that everyone's... out there is pretty capable of creating a good advantage um you still don't have to settle for the first look you get um and just you know that that's changes

based on your opponent and contacts and everything, but just continuing to have those ongoing conversations as the type of quality looks we can get and just not settling for less than that. Yeah. Those are just a couple of things that, you know, immediately transferred. Amazing.

What are some of your favorite constraints that you might use with a pro team or with Princeton to get them to move the ball? What are some constraints that you use to get them moving the ball the way you want them to move the ball? Well, I'd say, you know, at Princeton, we have a lot of time for the drill work. So just using different versions of shot clocks, we have the ball maybe on one side for eight to 10 seconds. If you don't create advantage, you have to swing it to the other side.

Or, you know, if you're trying to get the ball through X, you know, you maybe have a point system that rewards offense created with the ball going through X. You know, or, you know, you have to start, you have to tease the two man and then swing the ball on the other side to start your possession. That's just sort of required before you create offense. So those are just general things. I mean, I used to like count passes, but I just.

That takes away, it sort of fights against what you're trying to accomplish, which is that perception action coupling. And if you're just throwing the ball a certain amount of times, you're counting it. But just sort of rewarding the behaviors you want to have. We actually did that battleship, that battleship constraint yesterday for the first time. And it's awesome.

Because your guys have to feed off ball actions. They have to move the ball. They have to look for opportunities for nations if that's what you're running. So just finding ways to reward the behavior you want. And we're always trying to find ways to do that.

I had sent a tweet out earlier today asking people if they had questions for this podcast. And one of the main questions was like, all right, this is great for college lacrosse, but how does it work for younger kids? And honestly, what you just said.

you know, would work for younger kids. You just have a shot clock on the side. You want them to move the ball from one side to the other? Put a shot clock on the side. Look, if nobody can throw and catch, you're probably not going to play very good lacrosse anyways. But the bottom line is that it's the principles of play that kind of win you and lose you games. And ball movement is something that I just feel like Prince of Lacrosse, you know, since.

Since 2022, when you went to the Final Four after that 21 season, you guys have moved the ball exceedingly well. And I think the better you move it, the more you win, too. You know, in 2023, you guys.

Had a tough schedule, a little bit of a tougher start, but you guys really started moving the ball and got hot towards down the stretch. And I'm sure that's something that you're going to continue to get guys doing. How do you find the balance between...

Creating advantages in ball movement. We've talked about this a fair amount. For some guys, this is so easy. For some people, they need to dodge and re-dodge a few times to make it happen. How do you find that balance? Are there some constraints that you use? as it relates to trying to give people more time if they need it or not? I think that's a good question. I think a lot of it depends on how you're being defended.

Sometimes you can't just dodge your way to the goal if a team's automatically going to slide to initiating dodge or they really are freezing everything on the backside and just trying to get constant ball pressure. You can't just... dodge your way to the goal. So, you know, seeing teams like that, you know, what you want to do is you got to be a little bit more outlet oriented.

You can't really get caught in too many unscripted off-ball actions just because there's going to be ball pressure so quickly. When you slide, you don't have a lot of time to sort of process those. So what you want to do is try to keep those defenses. a constant state of recovery. At least that's what we try to do. But if they're a little bit more man conscious and they're pressing out a little bit more adjacents and, you know,

maybe denying or heavily influencing your ability to reverse the field and dodge off of ball movement before they can get set, that's where you got to emphasize those re-dodges. A simple example of that is if you dodge down the alley. and the defender at X leaves that spot on the pipe. He's not holding that space at all.

and flies out to either deny that pass to x or to be able to get sticks to the gloves really quickly that gives you a nice opportunity to re-dodge in that low alley and then you know the slide you know that adjacent player isn't even influencing at all. So just, it's just simple guidelines. I'm a big guidelines guy.

I'm not huge on rules. I mean, there are certainly some non-negotiables that I think do, you know, do transfer, but you know, overall, you know, just guidelines when you see these situations, whether, you know, whether it's a certain pick coverage. or you see the pipe defender playing act like vacate earlier. There's a couple of things you can do to take advantage of that. You know, that, that isn't just moving the ball. Yeah. I love it. And then one topic that has been such a.

Important one for me in my development as a coach and my understanding of the CLA is variability. And you and I have chatted about this. Where's your head at with with creating variability, knowing that the game itself. is incredibly variable. You just rattle off a bunch of different ways that people can cover you guys, whether it's sliding early or pressing out, different coverages on picks. How do you attack that?

from a from a player development perspective well first of all you know variability you've mentioned this on a couple of your of your recent podcasts you know that functional variability which is the ability to adapt and change movement patterns to achieve a goal basically

You need to score goals, how that actually happens. We're not all that concerned exactly how, just knowing that every single time we shoot the ball is going to be a little bit different than the time before. So trying to create an environment where we get that in practice. variability and finishing is an obvious one. You see all types of different finishing angles and fakes that you can do, but also the shooting, the mid-range shooting or backside dodging.

There's so much variability in how you can gain advantages in those areas. So I think just being a little bit more open minded as are you accomplishing the task you set out to achieve, which. you know, my case as an offensive coordinator is usually scoring, you know, and less worrying about how you held your hand, how you held your hands or what specific dodging technique that you named that you use, knowing that you have these as tools, but really, you know, what.

seeing your efficiency, actually executing the task you need, and then sort of deconstructing that as necessary, whether that deconstruction means changing constraints, or sometimes maybe helping, you know, accentuate a certain technique, which I still think you can do that. I still think some players when you teach them.

certain techniques to get a defender to shift his weight or split dodge with a certain angle, attack the front foot, whatever it may be. I still think that sometimes those things can unlock variability from players. And then as an offensive coordinator, one of...

or principles is compass versatility. That's for me as much as it is for the players and just thinking about a compass north south east west and just where along that compass you know we can gain advantages it's a very simple way to describe it but you know what players on our team are going to get north south um or that's really what they do best maybe moving through the ball when they catch it, getting downhill, you know.

where could the slides come from? What type of spacing do we want to have? What's a team likely to do when we do that? And then when you think about maybe picks, you know, sometimes teams do a really good job in the high wing, you know, kind of. maybe letting you get to a side and doubling from behind or just doing different things, chipping and hard hedging and sort of sending you wide. So sometimes teams are really defending.

in certain angles of a compass really well. But if then you then look along goal line extended, some teams are just really aggressive at goal line with everything. So it can give you an opportunity to slip those. Or maybe sometimes you have a defender who's great with angle below the cage, but you put them above the cage and you move it around a little bit. So as I'm looking as I'm.

you know, preparing for an opponent. I sort of just look around the, the compass of the field. And even when that's angles, you know, do we want to set certain pick angles against a team that seems to be impactful either because other teams have done it? or because it's something that we feel like we're pretty good at that maybe they haven't seen a lot of. So I think that's a good way to stay variable instead of just running a certain action.

Whether a nation's action has sort of a traditional way you'd run it, maybe you could run that bottom up. Or swing nations. So just sort of taking the actions and... and uh and players who who excel at certain things and moving it around intentionally based on your opponent and the context they're in yeah that's a good that's you know getting

running actions in lots of different places is a good you know it's a good battleship scoring constraint where you're like all right we have to create you know shots or score goals off of this action in all in like four different spots or in these whatever your whatever your spots are that allow your players to become intentional

about the variability. I really, going back to the variability topic, I love the answer you gave talked about functional variability where, okay, we don't really care about how they accomplish the task. If they're accomplishing the task. Right. That's that's really what we don't care about what it looks like or exactly how they're doing it. Now, we we we might actually really care that they learn how to accomplish it in different ways.

I mean, if somebody accomplishes a task in the same way all the time, they will be more predictable than if they can learn how to accomplish the task in different ways, whether it's. shooting releases whether it's the way that they dodge whether it's the you know the different spots on the field right so i think that's an easy way for a coach to be more intentional about it um

and then well jamie you say that i mean when you go back to dodging i think creating advantage is being you know something we're all tasked with doing as coordinators and offensive players and just being very mindful of the ways you can create advantages and then we all know running at a guy making more

one move and go and being a better athlete, a bigger, stronger athlete, that still works. It really does. And then having the requisite spacing behind it to accelerate out of a dodge and those things work. But if that's all you do.

There's going to be a lot of teams that can defend that and it becomes predictable and it doesn't mean it's no longer creating advantages, but you're maybe not able to keep those dominoes falling after you gain that advantage just due to the predictability and how much the defense is sort of.

practiced that where if you can get that same guy to slow down a little bit and we've talked about this a little bit like short dodge and bait a defender or have a defender hedge and then go back and that's when you beat them as you get a little closer to the goal And then still off ball, people are still moving. So it's a little bit harder to freeze if you're trying to freeze during the threat of the dodge. So, and then you, maybe you bring a pick over or maybe.

You had a two-man game, but that pick defender vacates, ghosts out of the way, and it becomes a quick one-on-one without an established hop behind it. And you miss all those affordances if you're just going full speed all the time. So I think it's a... be very mindful, even if certain players are more, um,

you know, are more gifted in one area and another, or, you know, what sort of got them here. You're not trying to take that away. You're just looking to maybe even optimize that by showing them other ways to do things. And in the end, just having that functional variability. So true.

It's funny because you connected me with Michael Sowers and I've been spending a lot of time with Michael watching film and talking about his game and things like this. And he sent me a text the other day, which was, Jamie, you got to do a reel on slowing down. Coming from the fastest guy who's made a living on being the fastest guy. And now he's realizing that slowing down makes him more...

difficult to guard. He's always got his speed. I would always say that. Like, Michael, your speed's always there. You know, when it's there, take it. You know, it's just that sometimes it's easier to slide to you when you do that, when you go that hard. um and so i think i think it is really interesting to kind of think about how to create variability in all of these um in practice of variability so you can be more adaptable you know you might just find that

With certain teams, you can use your speed and you're getting downhill and you're getting what you want. But the dominoes theory that Alex Sarama talks a lot about in basketball, which is as soon as you... get a slide, it's like dominoes falling, right? Just so everybody knows what it is. First slide, second slide, third slide, collapse, whatever it is, it's like dominoes falling. Truth is in lacrosse that can work great, but sometimes if you allow the dominoes to be on time.

They're going to be more successful. When one domino is like tipping and then doesn't go. And now all of a sudden they're late. It makes all the dominoes late and it makes coverages late. It makes second slides late. It leaves the crease more open. It creates slower. rotations and your ability to slow down will oftentimes do that. And some players do this naturally. A lot of people, almost everybody could do it. But what are your thoughts about that little corollary to the dominoes theory?

Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. Slowing down is really hard, I think, for American players, especially ones who are athletically gifted. Something I say to almost every athletically gifted young player I get to coach. is if I could do anything for them, it would be to turn their speed down to 70%. You're athletic enough to do what you need to do on the field, but you can't use it as a crutch. It can't be your only tool.

But training that is hard because I think, you know, one concept I've learned through this approach, the principles and ecological dynamics is separating. the environment if you have if you're trying to teach skills and it becomes and you're you're trying to execute them in a fight or flight type situation So if you're going ones versus ones, your starters on O versus your starters on D, man, it's going to be hard to slow down. You have to build those pathways in small group stuff.

You know, where there's a little bit of a, you know, for lack of a way to put it, kind of a safe space where you can try things, make some mistakes. It doesn't mean the environment's not competitive, but it's not fight or flight. You're not physically punished for making a mistake. Or if you slow down and they get a poke check on you as you slow down, we'll just keep playing.

or in six on six and ones versus ones, getting ready for the game, that's not the time maybe necessarily to really try to work on those things. And that's tricky. And there's a transfer. Like, I don't know if there's one thing I need to get better at. It's, you know, figuring out how to, that transfer from the small group skill stuff to the actual game. You know, when poles are hunting and chasing and blowing up doubles and everything.

all of a sudden your affordances go to zero pretty quickly when a double team is on you and you're sprinting for your life. So I think it's that transfer. Just being aware that you're providing opportunities both in that skill setting where you sort of take a step back as a coach. It can be messy, as we talked about, but just sort of allow those skills to emerge that you're trying to get through constraints.

And in the specific drill setups you use. And then as you transfer that to the real six on six, the real game, you know. evaluating how they're able to transfer that. And then maybe some of the ways you need to change when you go back to your small group stuff to have better success in that. But there's some guys who are great in the small, on the small field, small group, like O versus O.

short sticks for short sticks but then as soon as poles are out there chasing around it goes right back to running as fast as they can as hard as they can they're going to slam right into that chip that pick uh so getting them to slow down and have that stick protection and have the confidence

To do that requires, you know, some people requires a lot of time and a lot of effort. Others pick it up a little bit more naturally. And certainly that's where the multi-sport thing plays a big role. If you play box lacrosse, you can't just dodge full speed.

on your way to the goal and basketball too you can't just cross over dribble and sprint to the key and sprint to the they're not backing up and getting the run at you in basketball but that's just because same in box because you just don't have space to do it um

But you can in field lacrosse, and you should. I mean, obviously it works, and it's something that, you know, your Boston Canons team had an amazing balance, honestly, of some guys that could really split the both hands and go downhill and really shoot it on the run and probably even shoot it. shoot twos from that range, as well as, you know, attack men that didn't do that and Canadians and off ball guys. I mean, that was probably one of your, you know, most, you know, incredibly sort of.

interesting groups of skill sets to be able to coach what you say. Yeah, definitely. And I think that's where you're talking about tempo. I think sometimes we just want to play faster and faster and kind of just. outrun, outpass with great tempo, and that can work. But if you have a player like Asher Nolting, who's maybe the best at the world at playing a little bit slower.

He's got good feet, but he's not a sprinter. It's just allowing for that. Just talk to me about how, hey, sometimes we really want to have great tempo. Catch an axe, whip it to the backside, dodge before they can recover and feel good about it. But also realizing that... if we're going to constantly create the best advantages possible, you know, he's going to have to slow down and other guys too.

you know, slow down. And it doesn't mean maybe visually it doesn't have that same feel that, you know, when things are just operating at a, you know, high octane speed, it's very rewarding visually when you see that. But again, you know. We're trying to achieve a certain goal, a certain task. So if certain guys are way better at slowing down, let's get better at slowing down around them and finding where the defense can be predictable.

based on the advantages that player is capable of creating. Right. And sometimes playing fast is great, but if playing fast is... at the expense of creating better advantages you know the whole the whole point is to create advantages so that you can create dominoes and actually ideally have control over those dominoes so they're not even falling over on time

You know, that's why you might want to do some things in different ways. That's why the people run two-man game. It's why that sometimes Dodgers that square their guy up and slow down, you know, become – it's a slower way to actually initiate. But it doesn't have to be slow. And that's a topic that we had too. I mean, you can still say, look, I don't really care how you guys create advantages, but you've got an eight or 10 second shot clock on the side to do it.

And so if you want to take a run at a guy and do it that way, great. If you want to square your guy up and use some jabs and make it harder for the defense to know when you're going. So they can't pre-rotate and be sort of creeping into the slide because you're approaching your guy from seven yards away. You can accomplish that however you want.

And not only does that allow for some functional variability, but it also allows you to say, hey, I actually want you guys to do it in different ways. Let's not just keep doing it the same way every time. The same way you're going to have the defense. guard you in different ways. I mean, it's been incredible to listen to you rattle off a million different coverages and defenses that you face. And that speaks to the variability in games and why it's so important to have your players.

to be adaptable that way. Yeah, I think we all love big advantages. You all love it. get into your best matchup and you have an O guy stuck on defense and you can just run right by him and score, you know, theoretically, but it usually doesn't work that way. And, you know, figuring out how to keep the dominoes falling, um, is another. conversation that you constantly want to have with your team. Just because you slow down.

doesn't mean you can't be incredible with dominoes. It's just sort of maintaining that advantage once you get it. Like what type of spacing do you want to have? Are we trying to drift here? We're trying to clear through. You know, we're going to pick on the backside or we're going to allow for space for a Dodger on the backside after we've created that advantage. So, you know, it's the guy, the McCormick, Brian McCormick. He's I think that's his name. He's one of the guys who's.

in this field, the ecological dynamics field. And he wrote a book that's an easy read called Saba, Small Advantage, Big Advantage. And it's the same idea as Domino's, you know. constantly creating small advantages and turning them into big advantages. You know, sometimes you get the big one right away, but if a team is supporting the dodge...

or it's not as easy to gain advantages as you'd like. Just give it to one guy. You can run by someone and draw that slide. Again, you just want to be not just how you create them, but how you connect them, how you connect those advantages and turn from. you know, a small one to a big one, which essentially is dominoes. Another way we say is just keep the music playing. You know, if we can constantly keep that defense in recovery or drifting or having to sort of.

stretch and snap back in without really communicating like that's sort of what we call you know they're just sort of playing kind of hanging on um That's what we're trying to accomplish when we gain those advantages, whether it's from a long dodge up top or a short dodge.

I think being able to slow down and then speed back up is as important as the opposite. Totally. I remember doing a podcast a couple years ago with Princeton great Tommy Shriver, and he was talking about... connor fields and um he was like the thing about connor fields is that he's so he's such a great dodger but he's so hard to slide to because you can never really tell if he's beating this guy or not

And so sometimes the bigger the, you know, to the statement, we all love big advantages. Yeah, we do. Breaking somebody's ankles would be a great thing to be able to do on a regular basis, but it is a little more. easy for the defense to at least get into what they're going to do. Whereas when there's indecision, like, is this guy really beat? You know, is, is this, you know, all of a sudden you don't slide and you're like, guys, why didn't you go? You know? And so it's it.

Again, it speaks to functional variability because a lot of players do it in different ways. And it also speaks to getting huge advantages is a great thing. But at the end of the day, it's capitalizing on advantages.

the next biggest thing and let's talk about that capitalizing on advantages you talk about creating advantages you can do it in lots of ways you can do it with you off the dodge you can do it off the two-man game you can do it off of the bomb movement that creates approaches you know these are just for the dodges you can do it off of drifts

It's capitalizing on advantages that oftentimes is where people struggle because they can beat their guy every single time, but they're running right into slides. maybe not using their body enough to kind of buy themselves time and buy themselves space to be able to body and bounce or re-dodge or hesitate or slow a slider down or move the ball quickly enough or have the spacing off ball. What are some of the things that you talk about?

about in terms of like not just creating advantages but how you use various constraints and what you talk about principles of play wise to capitalize on advantages yeah so offensively

When we really oversimplify things or when I'm talking to guys about playing time or where they are with their unit, I go back to creators, connectors, and producers. We're all trying to create advantages, connect the dominoes, and then produce, actually put the ball in the back of the net, which is a huge part of it. Coach Wojek talking about that. They had guys at Notre Dame that finished advantages very reliably.

And that's like, and that's when you have a historically great group when you can really do all three things very fluidly. And also you could script your way to some success when needed and then also just let them go a little bit. So I think that's a group that was really able to do that. But connecting advantages, I think. There's two sides of it. Off ball, trying to create advantages without the ball. So that's those off ball, two-man games, maybe being a little less...

rigid and having an outlet in front or behind the ball. Although that's always a guideline again, but this is, you know, to me a big difference between a rule and a guideline guideline is like generally something you want where rules you have to do it. So generally we do want outlets in front and behind the ball so we can reverse the field, take advantage of the, um,

you know, of the numbers situation if we draw two. But, you know, some teams, again, if they are... maybe playing a little bit more aggressive man-to-man defense, you know, if you're using off-ball two-man games, you can do a great job, not even, obviously you want to get open for goals, but occupying A and then disrupting defenders.

So if you're a team that wants to sort of declare late your help a little bit later and you're caught up in defending off-ball actions, that can make it very difficult to do that. And then in turn, like we talked about, if your first slide is late, well, then your second slide is going to be late. And then when you do start moving the ball, you're going to find those advantages. So I think it's really important to both talk about the ways you can gain advantages.

off the ball you know with with picks and screens and little actions um and also spacing i think sometimes you see this in box a lot like you see like um groupings of space as opposed to like the nice balanced field where we when we draw up our sets you know our one three twos or one four ones we're looking for this this balance per se where sometimes if you have like a pod of three guys that kind of come together and then separate after the whole defense is there too

So sometimes you can get great spatial advantages by a bunch of guys standing together. And you could say, well, one guy could cover three. And that's true if everyone stayed together all the time. Sometimes when you come together and then separate, especially against a team that's playing like heavier man-to-man concepts, you can gain some great advantages that way.

And provide opportunities for Dodgers. Like in Big Little. Like if you're playing Big Little and above the cage, they're heavy man conscious. You get an opportunity sometimes to go 2v2. Because if you're kicking and screening, you're creating... piles of defenders and therefore in another area there are none or there's one or two so i think that's a um something we spend a lot of time emphasizing is the off ball um off ball stuff you know we've done a lot of other constraints for the

You know, 2v2 plus 1, 2v2 plus 2, a lot of different variations of that. You know, for example, the battleship constraint. was a great one yesterday of just really getting guys looking to feed off ball actions and also guys, not just setting like an up pick or a down pick, but really, really. processing how to create an advantage coming out of that. And then, you know, you play some teams that are very health conscious or they have a real defensive system.

or they're forcing a certain direction or they're sliding to everything. And that's where, you know, outlets become really, really important. Because if there's going to be, like I mentioned earlier, if there's going to be that ball pressure really quickly, you got to have a little bit more confidence that, you know, your pass.

The next guy, he'll be the guy that maybe can create that bigger advantage or continue to knock those dominoes down rather than you constantly dragging a double and trying to reverse the field and allowing for defense to reset back to their shape. I think being able to do both is really, really important. You know, and that's where sometimes like, you know, some traditional offensive spacing and sets like can be good. You know, if a team's sliding all the time.

it's nice to have some predictability about where your guys are going to be. But in general, I think being adaptable, you know, both not just to opponent, but within possessions, you know, to be able to best. find advantages off ball with spacing. I guess I'd say more of the priority of what we're trying to do off-ball. Are we trying to occupy and disrupt defenders and create off-ball openings? Or are we trying to beat the recovery with ball movement and kind of keep...

of defense in that steady state of sliding in recovery. For sure. And then it comes down to the – it's facilitating ball movement, right? It's being able to facilitate the ball movement. And you don't always need to facilitate it with an outlet behind and in front. Not always. Sometimes you very well may. Like you said, if they're –

sliding to everything and trying to press out, you might want to be able to just get it to the backside quicker. And that's where the traditional, look, all of the traditional offenses were built on important premises of spacing. and ball movement and capitalizing on slide and recover with great spacing, every single one of them. I think where sometimes the traditional offenses lose out is that just they lose out on the –

on the premise of unpredictability and variability, because the more predictable it is, the easier it is to guard. It's just that simple and deception in general. So, you know, being able to figure out how to facilitate the ball movement when you need it and, and not. and not be in the way because sometimes those those outlets become spacing um

it barriers to the ball and you lose out on some off ball stuff. So if you're always just focused on having an outlet, you may not have the spacing for the dodge that you want. You may not have the off ball actions that you want. You may not. And also maybe you'll be a little more predictable. So that is the fun.

One part about trying to craft an incredible principles-based offense is finding that balance. And I think that, you know, again, it's team by team, you know, some teams like, like Loge was talking about, look, they, they create advantages so easily.

They defer more to spacing. Another team might need to run more actions. People aren't just aren't going to slide to them as fast. And for that reason, all of those actions will A, get them off ball looks and B, will wrap people up in covering off ball. that they can get to the net and be able to score.

And it can be even personnel based within your own offense. You know, we have some guys that just see the off ball two man game really well, get a feel for if they're, if they're switching everything, kind of slip through or kind of time up a back door cut or a beta defender to chase you around us.

and put them in that curl position where even if they're not open for shots, you're really, really occupying the attention of the defense the whole time. Then there's other guys who may be capable of doing things like that in a drill setting.

But once you get all the big sticks out there and you're playing, that's a guy you probably want more to facilitate ball movement. So they're not catching the ball, like moving away from the defense. So they might still get involved in off-ball actions, but you're just a little bit more aware.

where the ball is and making sure you're out hip square into the defense when you're catching it. So you have a little bit more time to process, you know, what you have on the backside. Right. So back to the whole Domino series, I was just reading a quote. I don't know. I watched something on Twitter yesterday talking about Alex Sarama. In basketball, his whole thing is, hey.

We're going to use triggers or actions to create dominoes. And once dominoes are falling, everything's off. It's all about spacing and keeping the dominoes going. And that's basically the same thing in lacrosse. The difference is. Maybe in lacrosse, I think you don't really want dominoes to be able to fall on time all the time. I think it's actually a bigger benefit to the offense when you make the dominoes late, which is why it's so hard to guard.

You know, these, you know, like we're just talking about like all the hesitations and bounce outs and redodges and don't let them slide on time. But you can't always control that. Some teams are going to go faster and earlier, in which case, yeah, we're going to probably just be looking for the dominoes type spacing to facilitate ball movement, not allow one guard to and, you know, be able to create lots of actions backside.

So I think it is variable. And I think figuring out how to capitalize on advantages, how you want to create your advantages and how you want to capitalize on them, there's just so many great constraints.

Hey, do you have some good dominoes type of constraints that you've been doing in practice that are teaching guys how to get in the right spots? Crawley in my podcast a couple of weeks ago, John Crawley, head coach at High Point, talked about.

You know, how important it is for the offense to have their head on a swivel and how important it is for them to be scanning because not just to make the next pass in a very zero seconds decision type of manner, but also just where to be exactly. So one isn't guarding two. So you're not. not too far out or not too tight in. Do you have any cool constraints or things that you've been doing lately that are helping with that type of fast paced, fast decision, zero seconds decisions and spacing?

Well, one phrase that I think is good, you hear this about defense all the time, is, you know, always evaluating the quality of the on-ball defense. You know, and obviously that's very important. for the decisions you have to make. But offensively, I think there's a version of that too where you're constantly evaluating the quality of the dodge or the likelihood of the advantage gained from the matchup and also...

where your defender is in reference to that. And certainly when you're adjacent to the ball, that's a major requirement. So again, you know, is it Colter Maxey?

against the short stick is my, you know, my defender, where's my defender? Is he hedging really, really low and looking to support that? And maybe I'm going to be looking to follow this slide or is it, you know, a you know an all first team all-american defender against a younger attackman where you know that defender is adjacent and starting to you know maybe maybe sit in the hedge a little bit to sort of stop the Dodger, but definitely opened up more towards you where you want to, you know.

drift or clear through or pull them out of the equation as opposed to sitting there ready for a one more that might not happen. So I think just constantly being able to... evaluate that like who's dodging what's the likelihood that we gain an advantage from this and then where's my man relative to that so I think that's just a good way to like as you're watching film just hit pause like what do you guys see and I think that's a

An easier way to develop some off-ball IQ is just using that simple phrase. And then taking advantage, I think, or how you can... best use the advantages you get. A good drill, and I think this might be one that you did a reel of as well, is the over-under constraint. We do that quite a bit. uh the four v fours you know either with just oh guys or so guys or if you want it to be a little bit more competitive and more friction you use the d guys

And that's where you can do it in different settings, but you can just, you know, if you want to do it in a regular 4v4, two-man games, two-man on each side. This is where you say over, under, or switch. And so you tell the defender. what they have to do when that pick comes, either have to fight over or go under. And, you know, you give them a couple seconds to execute it enough that they can like.

adjust accordingly but not enough that they feel great about it uh and then so offensively it allows you to knowing what the defender is going to do you know off ball it allows you a little bit more time um to time up your actions if you're going to set an up pick with a backdoor cut and then a flash to the middle. If you know a defender is going to fight over the pick and you're going to make that late adjustment.

step upfield and clip that defender like that's a good indicator of of the time when your hands will become free as a dodger and then the likelihood that another defender on the back side is gonna have to come and help so that's just a really good one for just

getting some comfortability in the different pick coverages and how you can influence them. Now, eventually, you know, you have to make these things happen as opposed to them automatically happening. But I think it's been really good for us off ball. when you know the likelihood of when an advantage is going to be gained and then the timing to cut off of that. For sure.

So if you're playing a battleship game and you need to get a nation's a give and go and off ball, you know, slip, curl and pop, and you know that the ball side is about to do. Some kind of nations are giving go with an over or switch call. You might just call under. Guarantee yourself being open. Now you're the feeder. You know that that action is about to come and you want to be able to facilitate the ball movement.

and be able to help those dominoes with that nations are given go look, which is, by the way, principles of play also go ahead. Yeah. And it gives you some of that. If then, like if they do this, then we do that, but with variability, like it's not. It's not black and white. So you still have a lot of things that could happen. You're just able to be a little bit more predictive as to when the best advantage will be there. Yeah, for sure. I think one...

One game I think I've told you about this game before that we've been doing lately that is really good for this. We've been doing it on small nets. So we've been doing it with like sort of a three on three setup. But to be able to have. The sub game. So we play like a three on three. The offense is tasked with running in action. And then somebody on the offense is going to sprint to the equivalent of a midline, but not as far.

And then from that midline, you get to sub in offensively when you slap hands and then all of a sudden that guy can go and then the defense running out has to slap hands with the defender waiting at that midline. Now they can run in and you've got this really, really fast advantage.

It becomes a three-on-two with the trail, really, but it becomes out of – you never know where you're going to be because you're making the offense run some actions. And so now they have to get into spaces that are going to be perfect. for being able to deliver the ball to that guy who's coming in to be able to get into shooting spots, not too far out, not too tight. Obviously with a six by six net, you can start running that with some bigger groups, but all of that sub game stuff that you do.

is basically dominoes. And a lot of teams make a living on that in early offense. And that was just one that popped into my head that I've been doing lately that's been pretty cool for getting kids to... immediately realize that I can't allow one to guard two. So if they position themselves such that they're jamming up themselves or their teammates with their spacing, it's an automatic turnover.

Like you have to, you have to, you can't allow one to guard two and you got to make zero seconds decisions on the play. What type of space would you set that up with? Like how far would they have to run or how much space would you have to come on with that advantage? So when we do it on a basketball court. With a 3.5x3.5 net, we end up doing it where the subs that are coming in are on the other side of midcourt.

So let's just say five yards farther than, than mid court. And it gives about enough spacing to be able to get it done. We've tried to do it with big, with bigger numbers, but with small nets like that, it's pretty challenging with a small net. Now with a six by six net, you can definitely do it with more like a four on four. in there and a sub coming in. I also think you can do it with different angles that I think would be really cool. I mean, it's not that dissimilar to –

you know, the old Bill Tierney drill that I learned way back when, where you just sort of sell a defender out and you've got that advantage. But the difference here is that, you know, it's all even until that subs coming in and there's a trailer on him. So it just gives you a little bit of, it gives you sort of that. domino spacing concept that i think is very very tricky and um

Immediately you have to find yourself in the right space and you got to scan to make sure in that right space and also scan to make sure you're making the next right pass. You know, whether it's right back to the person who gave it to you or whatever. So I think all of these really high tempo type of scenarios.

That's been a pretty good one. Double team drills are really good that way too. Double team, when you double team and start getting, you know, doubles on the ball and rotations and dominoes falling, I think those can be really good ways to try to get people.

out of the mode of not really paying attention to what's happening on the ball, which is really what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, the double team constraint's great, like in a 3v3 in a constrained space where they have to double every two-man game. Yeah. That's good because the third man, either that defender defending the third man has to drop in and sort of help if you go to hit a slip or he can sort of press out.

So you can't throw it to the third man as an outlet. So you have to really process the type of reads that you would do while being very uncomfortable. So that's a drill that players, like, you know, they might not enjoy it in the moment because there's no chill in that drill.

but it does have a valuable transfer to it. And I also like the idea of your drill too, the subbing one. I think that's a really good opportunity to have players come on with that advantage and be able to, you know, that's where a great opportunity to use. pump fakes and body language to sort of freeze the help or maintain the advantage in, again, somewhat of a realistic way.

You know, even like when you're downhill, you beat a defender up top, the slides a long ways away, you know, it's going to come, but can you control that slide with your body language a little bit? I think you probably get some of that out of that. Yeah, it's cool.

Mitch, last question for you. What would you say that you're going to do this year with this ecological approach that you're excited about in the way that you're preparing your team? might be something new that you've learned? Well, that's a good question. I think just using the lens a little bit more, you know, the more I've, I've been using the principles based offense. I think, you know, coach Wojcik really like, I identify with what he said word for word.

If someone were to say, describe your offense, we may not have hit the heights that he has with his unit, but what we're basically trying to accomplish and why, I would say listen to it. his podcast. I guess you can listen to this one now too. But yeah, I mean, just how we process it, using the principles, adapting them, realizing that sometimes you got to let players be themselves and self-organize around them. And then you try to create an environment or architect that environment.

that gets those skills to emerge instead of the, as he referred to the information processing, you know, where you tell someone how to do something, you teach them how to do it, they get the muscle memory. And all of a sudden in that moment, they like choose that skill to use. as opposed to constantly, you know, adjusting that environment. And again, trying to, you know, the term of the podcast here, trying to get that functional variability where it's the repetition without repetition.

What example of something that's been a challenge, whether it's a skill or... a concept or an action or something that you're trying you want your player or players or team to do and it's been challenging and how you might address that in a different way Well, I think it's constantly probably feeding the off-ball actions. Because sometimes if you feed an off-ball action that's not really there, that can end your possession.

because you're trying to backpedal. So I think it's just knowing, like I mentioned, you know, that over-under drill where like you can find some predictability and, you know, not necessarily when you're running a play or running like a mumbo look. Where you do have that specific read, but sort of getting feeding off all actions in the flow of the offense. And I think what I've learned is that is where you do want to be, even though we are relatively position list.

There are certainly guys who you can throw open and other guys that you can't. So it is sort of merging, you know, instead of just sort of applying all these principles and skills to everybody, when it comes to actually winning the game and operating at a really high level of efficiency, you do have to, you know.

focus on some of guys' specific skills. And I know that sounds super obvious, but it is something that, you know, if you're running a principal... offense you have to be intentional to make sure sometimes even though self-organization will always happen you know i don't have to tell our guys to get the ball to colter maxi when it's a little lower you know he's like creates a ton of advantages so they know that but it's like notre dame you know they said jake taylor

He's the best crease guy in the country. But if he just stays on the crease all the time, you're going to be really predictable. But when you watch Notre Dame play, when push comes to shove, like... Jake Taylor, he ends up in there. So I think it's just when there's a need to be intentional that you do that.

And hopefully that'll unlock some of our scoring directly from off-ball actions as opposed to more just disrupting the defense and maybe allowing a little bit more space and time for the on-ball, dodger, or pair. Yeah, so feed selection.

you know, as part of it, right? I mean, it's like shot selection, feed selection, but being able to feed. And the constraints, and you said, and the constraints, it's just trying new things and getting better at it. I think Coach Crawley's... podcast was incredible and he rattled off like hundreds of cool constraints yeah

Again, I need a notebook to write a bunch of those down and just being just kind of constantly as being open minded. And when I look through practice and as a program, I think we're trying to be more ecological, too. if we can sort of apply that lens to other areas of the game and as a team maybe start to use that lens. I mean, I explain a lot of the why behind it. We have bright guys. They like that. They like to know the why.

And for them to kind of use constraints on their own and get their feedback, I think that's something that especially now where last year we were really young. So it's just getting everyone to understand the way we play and why we play. And I think this year we get a chance to, you know. dig a little deeper into that and truly, um,

and truly be diverse in how we attack teams, not just coming from me and my ability to look through this lens or get a little bit better at it, but our whole team sort of processing the way we learn more of the same. Yeah. I love it. Mitch, can't wait to watch you play this year. Love talking lacrosse with you. Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing so much great knowledge. Thank you, Jamie. You've been an incredible mentor. I look forward to keeping these conversations going.

Thanks, brother. Have a great season and we'll be in touch. Thank you.