Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast Sun Oct 6th edition. We’re just over a week since hurricane Helene came through Boone. We’re going to reflect on disaster preparation, talk about not having power or cell phone signal and then work in some Colts and WNBA playoffs.
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What did I notice about having (sort of) no power this week?
loved the head lamps and lanterns
battery powered radio was really helpful
did a lot of things around the house: set up a new tv room, cutting up a tree and getting it by the road led to a more extensive yard, roof clean up
go to bed a lot earlier
inconvenient but also a liberation from a certain kind of obligation. When I was home without power, there was a whole bunch of stuff I couldn’t do: email, all the remaining business with dad’s passing, teaching prep, basketball prep
I still had that motor to do stuff…
There is a disaster relief station set up in the auxilliary gym at Watauga HS in Boone, NC. It’s open from 8am – 6pm.
In supply: incredible amount of water, diapers, c batteries, tooth brushes, tooth paste
Short on this stuff when I was there: laundry detergent, pillows and blankets, ALMOST NO LIGHTS,
Was a steady supply of this stuff that people were taking: canned goods, protein drinks, milk almond milk etc that doesn’t need to be refrigerated, fruit, various OTC meds, cleaning supplies trash bags with gloves etc, baby food, bars, pet food
Thanks for listening to this edition of the Torg Stories Podcast!
It’s Sunday, May 7 and welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. I’m here with my sister Anne and we’ve got more stories to tell, we’re going to go over the NBA playoff picture and we’re going to update our NBA Playoff Player Pyramids. Anne, happy Sunday night podcast!
Bill’s Playoff Pyramid as of 5/7/23
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The idea for starting off tonight is to come up with some criteria for evaluating the stories people tell you. So if you and I are in the car driving up from Charlotte or I’m at App State waiting for a meeting to start, let’s think about that situation and come up with some criteria for evaluating the story.
Grading / Evaluating Stories:
Purpose – to entertain, to inform, to move emotionally, to elicit sympathy or support. (the opposite: why do people seem to tell us things? for company, to have someone to talk to, to fill up silence)
Pacing
Choice of details
Our stories:
Anne : a car trouble story
Bill: a North Miami coaching story
Let’s grade/evaluation our stories. How do we like our criteria?
NBA Playoff Update. Anne, take us through it. My observations:
Jokic. One of the least complaining superstars. Very difficult to guard him 1v1 and one of the best passers in the game which makes him hard to double.
Suns: Booker still getting it done. Durant a level below. They aren’t putting them together in actions, such as staggers. I see what people mean about Ayton. I think it’s just motor, conditioning, and focus. Lots of players like that. Think KD is trending up.
Warriors vs. Lakers: I hadn’t thought about how small the Warriors are. Didn’t know Wiggins is among the most athletic in the NBA. Warriors gotta come back to figuring out how to get Curry open.
Heat. Jimmy is still doing it. Bam is trending up for the Heat. I don’t see how the Knicks do it if everyone in the series stays healthy.
Celtics have more dudes.
Anne’s player playoff pyramid
Playoff pyramid notes:
Top scorers still in the playoffs: Booker 36.9, Butler 34.4, Curry 30.6
Top three pointers made still in playoffs: Curry 4.7, Klay 4.3, Harden 3.3, Tatum 3.1 (Harden has worst % of those but still 36% which everyone would be happy for)
Free throw attempt leaders: Butler 10 a game, Embiid 8.8, Durant 8.4
Rebounds: Jokic 14.3, Looney 14.1, Davis 13.9, James 10.3
Today’s guest on the Torg Stories Podcast is the new head coach at Mars Hill University, Coach Emry Tsitouris. Mars Hill is located just north of Asheville, North Carolina and competes at the Division II level as a member of the South Atlantic Conference. Coach Tsitouris was hired in the spring of 2022 and was previously an assistant coach at Catawba College. Tsitouris played college basketball at both USC Aiken and Belmont Abbey.
Audio File Above of Conversation with Coach Emry Tsitouris
You can also access this episode through the podcast app of an iPhone. Just search for Torg Stories.
YouTube video edition of the episode:
Here are some topics covered in the episode:
The story of Coach hearing about, applying for, and eventually accepting the position as head coach at Mars Hill.
Some of the first things she did on the job.
So, where is Mars Hill? What’s it like there?
How has the roster changed since you took the job?
What are you looking for when it comes to a Mars Hill player?
What was with the combine portion of your elite camp?
How would you describe your preferred style of play?
Coach Tsitouris is center in her long sleeve “Mars Hill Lions” shirt
What do you notice when you watch these shooters shoot?
This isn’t a “how to shoot” or a “how to teach shooting” video. I’m trying to answer this question: when I watch these shooters, what do I notice?
What shooters did I watch? Steph Curry, Sue Bird, James Harden, Klay Thompson, Kyle Korver, and JJ Redick.
Who are some of my influences when it comes to teaching shooting? Indiana HS Coach Sam Alford, his son Steve’s workout videos, Dick Baumgartner, Dave Love and Drew Hanlon.
When I have questions about shooting–for example, where should the guide hand be placed?–I try to watch video of great shooters and look for the answers.
I think of this video and post as a sort of video remix about shooting. Yes, I am using short screen grabs from other people’s YouTube posts the way I might use a quote from a writer’s article writing my own research paper. As a kind of Works Cited, I will link you to each video I screen grab for this project. I hope you will check out some of those YouTube channels and that my linking to them sparks some great conversation / content about shooting.
A belief I have about shooting: good shooters don’t shoot the same way. There are multiple ways to be a good shooter. By the way, I believe the same thing about writing.
For this video analysis, I looked for mostly catch and shoot situations. Great shooters don’t shoot the ball the same way every time. Sometimes the situation–off the dribble or sprinting off a screen–demand the shooter do something different when it comes to footwork, balance, or the path the ball takes from catch to release.
Here’s the screen capture from my study of Steph Curry, Sue Bird, James Harden, Klay Thompson, Kyle Korver, and JJ Redick.
After watching the shooters in the above video, what did you see worth bringing to this discussion?
Here are some of my thoughts after watching those shooters:
A consistent shooting motion can overcome minor mechanical flaws related to some idea of an ideal shot. I need to chill out about some more minor things I see with the players I work with.
Left / right footwork for a right handed shooter is a good starting place. Step toward the ball on the pass with the left foot and put the right foot down on the catch.
The pocket is where the ball is taken on the catch. Teach the pocket as a ball width away from the stomach and slightly toward the side of the body of the shooting hand. I first heard the pocket described that way by Dave Love.
Rather than keep the ball close to the body as it travels from the pocket to the release, the ball travels away from the body to the set point in what looks like a half circle. The upper arms, forearms, and hands can move together as one to the set point. See examples in video above.
I teach what I call rhythm shooting. This rhythm includes taking the ball down to the pocket as needed, (if the ball wasn’t caught there) flexing the legs, and then the ball starts to rise toward the set point just ahead of the legs starting to push and extend. The timing of that process, which is one fluid motion with no stops, is what I mean by rhythm. The word tempo also comes to mind.
I prefer the shooter and the ball go up and toward the basket. Many players have something (hand, jump, footprint) that goes somewhere not toward the hoops. A very common flaw is for a player to drift a lot if they are catching on the move. Some twist of the body is fine and this can become more pronounced depending on what kind of shot is being taken. Of course as players’ skill evolves, they will make use of fade aways, step backs, and drifting in a direction to get away from the defense.
When I finished this project, I wondered where the players I work with look when they shoot. I think they can watch the flight of the ball, the front of the rim, or the back of the rim, but I realized I had not talked much about that to the players I work with.
I do have a routine I use when I start working with a player on their shot. Perhaps that is a future post.
Here is a list of the videos I used in making the video on this page. Again, I am thinking of these videos in my video as quotes I would use in writing a research paper.
and the travel season that follows in March, April and May.
Charlotte on the left and Izzy on the right. I’m holding my Father’s Day presents: Bird on the Left and KD on the right.
Many of you know the cycle: fall workouts on the court and in the weight room, the school season, and the travel season that follows in March, April and May. June is for high school team stuff and July is back to the travel circuit heading to places such as Louisville, DC, and Indianapolis. Since the basketball never stops, it’s tricky to find moments for reflection, goal setting, and starting a basketball journal such as the one I’m hoping for here. With the school year beginning, it seems as good a time as any to start the project. Up first: where (or is it who) are we now?
I am an assistant coach for the girls basketball team at Watauga High School in Boone, North Carolina, and I teach completely online writing classes as a lecturer at Appalachian State University. Teaching online means that I have a lot of flexibility about when I do the job and so am free for morning workouts and practices after school. I find I have way more time to prepare to coach than I ever did when I was teaching at a middle or high school.
I have two daughters. The oldest, Charlotte, is a high school sophomore. Eighteen months ago, as her last middle school season came to a close and the CDC was confirming the first case of Covid-19 in the United States, Charlotte set the goal of making the varsity team for her freshman season. We had a few weeks of travel basketball but then the season was cancelled. We couldn’t get into a gym, and so I hung a goal in our garage that could only be nine feet high because of the height of the ceiling.
Izzy posing with the Watauga graphic she made under our garage hoop. This is where our pandemic training began.
The girls and I worked on ball handling, agility, finishing, and post moves. Like a lot of other people, I invested in more weight equipment and as the weather warmed up, Charlotte, her sister Izzy, and I logged what now seems like an incredible four months of six days a week of outdoor workouts in our backyard and at Junaluska Park in Boone. We got up early to avoid the heat and tried to get our workouts in before the sun rose above the trees. A surprising number of people passed through the park each day, and we made many new acquaintances. Charlotte did reach her goal of making the varsity, and she started all twelve of our games during the pandemic-shortened season. I’m proud of what she accomplished.
Charlotte as a freshman playing for Watauga High School in Boone, NC
My youngest daughter Izzy is an eighth grader, and up until this past summer, I felt like she might just be along for the ride when it comes to basketball. When Charlotte and I had plans to workout, we’d always ask Izzy and she’d agree to go with varying amounts of enthusiasm. Although I tell her she’s always free to decline the offer, I’m not sure how free she could really feel to stay home. Charlotte would probably be the first to tell you that Izzy can pick up a ball handling move faster than she can and is more of a natural shooter, but over the years, I have just been unsure of how badly Izzy wants to work to improve.
Last season, for the first time in Izzy’s life, she was on a team where she didn’t play very much. It was the first time that our school system took the eight K-8 schools that feed into the high school and made a district wide middle school basketball team. The competition to make the team was tougher, and while Izzy did accomplish that, she rarely played in the games. Izzy didn’t say anything to me about not playing. When she’d hop in the car after a practice, she was always happy and chattering about things her teammates had done or funny things her coach had said. Izzy liked her teammates, her coach, and took pride about her team’s undefeated season.
Izzy and Charlotte in Lentz-Eggers Gym at Watauga HS
What I did notice about Izzy in the weeks and months that followed her season was that Izzy started to go out and work in the backyard on her own. When Charlotte and I were gone for high school workouts, Izzy would join my wife Megan for Peloton workouts at the house. A player really can’t just decide one day to start working very hard on their game. A player has to also decide to get in shape. Working hard on your game takes a lot of cardiovascular fitness. Izzy became a more enthusiastic runner of the big hill outside of our house, and I no longer have to prod her to keep running all the way around the mile loop we run at Valle Crucis Park by our house. For most of Izzy’s life playing basketball, she could get by because she could handle the ball with both hands, shoot layups with both hands, and consistently make wide open shots. Like most basketball players, and probably all athletes and maybe anyone who pursues a goal in or out of sports, Izzy came to a point when what she was doing to prepare to play in games was no longer good enough for her to succeed on the floor. It’s one of the great things about playing sports. A challenge rises up; we have to work to meet it or give up. So far, it’s been a pleasure for me to watch Izzy respond to the challenge.
Not too long ago, Izzy hit a rough spot of missing a bunch of shots while doing a transition / run-the-sideline drill. “Keeping working,” she told herself. I jumped on her comment and told her it was one of the best things I’d ever heard her say in a workout. Charlotte and I have also latched onto the phrase and it’s become a simple mantra for the three of us. Keep working. Rough spots are coming on and off the court because that’s part of what it is to be human and that includes playing playing basketball: there are missed shots, turnovers, bad losses, and days that we struggle to bring energy to our work. We often don’t get the results we want as quickly as we expect. Izzy, Charlotte, and I will ride those up and downs together and, like Izzy says, we’ll keep working.
