SHS’s Dodson Draws On Hatcher
Posted: February 21, 2013
PENN LAIRD — The offense Spotswood High School has run since coach Chris Dodson took over in 2002 is the soul food of basketball offenses — the hoops equivalent of chicken and waffles. It’s familiar and comforting.
“I just know what I’m doing. I know where to go,” SHS junior forward Nikki Lam said. “I don’t have to freak out.”
The offense — called “Duke,” the name of the one play on which the whole system (about 18 plays) is based — might be familiar to area fans: It’s the same one Paul Hatcher used to turn the R.E. Lee boys’ team into a state power.
A pattern offense, it relies on spacing, passing and cuts. It is designed to neutralize weak-side defense and produce high-percentage, low-maintenance shots by giving every player a touch during a possession and working inside-out. It makes use of each player — especially role players — and maximizes their strengths, regardless of ability.
“They execute their offensive sets as well as any team around,” Broadway girls’ hoops coach Bobby Mongold said. “I haven’t seen every team in the state, obviously, but I can’t imagine anyone executing their stuff as well as they do. They have a great system.”
The offense is easy to learn and easier to repeat, and it’s been the cornerstone of the Trailblazers’ success over Dodson’s tenure. SHS won a girls’ basketball state title in 2005 and has made countless playoff runs. Now, the Blazers (24-1) are in another one and face Fort Defiance today at 6 p.m. in the semifinals of the Region III, Division 3 tournament at Brookville High School — and they’ll do it with “Duke.’’
“It’s really crucial, because every time we get into crunch time, or some of our offenses aren’t working, we always go back on that and rely on that play,” senior point guard Bailey Williams said.
Hatcher, who retired in 2011, ran it for decades. He called it the “Passing Game” after adapting it from North Carolina coach Dean Smith’s “T-Game” offense, the “T” meaning “three,” which utilized three post players.
“If you were going to start anywhere in your first year as a head coach, where would you start at?” Dodson said. “And we said, ‘With the most-winningest program in Virginia,’ which was Hatcher.”
Hatcher, who amassed an 897-174 record in 43 years, said he started running it around 1980. He modified the offense with the introduction of more screens and back picks. With Smith, the offense used spacing and passing to get players, particularly the posts, open.
Hatcher said he initially learned the offense from watching UNC games on television and diagramming the plays from an armchair. Later, he went to a number of clinics in Chapel Hill and got to know Smith — who retired in 1997 with a then-record 879 wins — a bit when Smith recruited Lee great Kevin Madden, who graduated from Lee in 1985.
“It was more of a pattern-type of offense, but we had a lot of success with it over the years,” Hatcher said. “And it involves everybody. … The basic thing is that it clears out the weak-side help.”
Hatcher said getting rid of the weak-side help was the major appeal, as was the control it gave his team over the game, because it limited an opposing team’s ability to make big runs.
“As long as you’re scoring easy baskets, you’re not going to get too far behind,” he said.
The offense is now fundamental to Spotswood’s girls’ basketball program. It’s taught in youth leagues and run in AAU programs. By the time players reach SHS’s junior varsity, they’ve already been running “Duke” — at least an incarnation of it — for just under half their lives. The funny part, though, is that Dodson said it was named ‘‘Duke’’ because then-JV girls’ coach Chad Edwards, now SHS’s varsity boys’ coach, liked Duke, Carolina’s arch-rival.
“‘Duke’ has always been the same, no matter what,” Lam said. “‘Duke’ has just been ‘Duke.’”
That’s how it’s become such a comfort offense. The players know it. It’s instinctual. It gets so ingrained that players don’t forget it, even after they’ve graduated.
Dodson said his team scrimmaged a team of ex-SHS players from as far back as 2005 recently, and those players still knew how to run “Duke,” as well as all the sets that are built off that single play — and that kind of memory is key. The repetition is what makes it so effective. (Hatcher said the same thing happened when he brought back ex-players to work his camps.)
In practice, SHS players take the same shots — their best shots — they would take in games. The muscle memory and familiarity reduces pressure and, as Lam said, prevents the Blazers from freaking out.
“It’s so easy,” Dodson said. “That’s the spot you shoot from. I know when I’ve got in that position, I’m comfortable. It’s like being on the free-throw line, or like somebody who’s always going to turn their left shoulder; it’s that move. So it gives us so many opportunities to take — we say, ‘Game shots at game spots.’”
That’s what Hatcher liked about it. It was the precision.
“We broke it down to, ‘Where are you going to shoot from?’” he said. “We worked on it about every day. … They knew where their shots were coming from.”
And it’s something the players, either Lee or Spotswood, will never forget.
“It’s really simple,” Williams said. “Once you learn how to do it, I think you’re always going to remember how to do it. I’m sure anyone’s that played here remembers how to run ‘Duke.’”
“I just know what I’m doing. I know where to go,” SHS junior forward Nikki Lam said. “I don’t have to freak out.”
The offense — called “Duke,” the name of the one play on which the whole system (about 18 plays) is based — might be familiar to area fans: It’s the same one Paul Hatcher used to turn the R.E. Lee boys’ team into a state power.
A pattern offense, it relies on spacing, passing and cuts. It is designed to neutralize weak-side defense and produce high-percentage, low-maintenance shots by giving every player a touch during a possession and working inside-out. It makes use of each player — especially role players — and maximizes their strengths, regardless of ability.
“They execute their offensive sets as well as any team around,” Broadway girls’ hoops coach Bobby Mongold said. “I haven’t seen every team in the state, obviously, but I can’t imagine anyone executing their stuff as well as they do. They have a great system.”
The offense is easy to learn and easier to repeat, and it’s been the cornerstone of the Trailblazers’ success over Dodson’s tenure. SHS won a girls’ basketball state title in 2005 and has made countless playoff runs. Now, the Blazers (24-1) are in another one and face Fort Defiance today at 6 p.m. in the semifinals of the Region III, Division 3 tournament at Brookville High School — and they’ll do it with “Duke.’’
“It’s really crucial, because every time we get into crunch time, or some of our offenses aren’t working, we always go back on that and rely on that play,” senior point guard Bailey Williams said.
Hatcher, who retired in 2011, ran it for decades. He called it the “Passing Game” after adapting it from North Carolina coach Dean Smith’s “T-Game” offense, the “T” meaning “three,” which utilized three post players.
“If you were going to start anywhere in your first year as a head coach, where would you start at?” Dodson said. “And we said, ‘With the most-winningest program in Virginia,’ which was Hatcher.”
Hatcher, who amassed an 897-174 record in 43 years, said he started running it around 1980. He modified the offense with the introduction of more screens and back picks. With Smith, the offense used spacing and passing to get players, particularly the posts, open.
Hatcher said he initially learned the offense from watching UNC games on television and diagramming the plays from an armchair. Later, he went to a number of clinics in Chapel Hill and got to know Smith — who retired in 1997 with a then-record 879 wins — a bit when Smith recruited Lee great Kevin Madden, who graduated from Lee in 1985.
“It was more of a pattern-type of offense, but we had a lot of success with it over the years,” Hatcher said. “And it involves everybody. … The basic thing is that it clears out the weak-side help.”
Hatcher said getting rid of the weak-side help was the major appeal, as was the control it gave his team over the game, because it limited an opposing team’s ability to make big runs.
“As long as you’re scoring easy baskets, you’re not going to get too far behind,” he said.
The offense is now fundamental to Spotswood’s girls’ basketball program. It’s taught in youth leagues and run in AAU programs. By the time players reach SHS’s junior varsity, they’ve already been running “Duke” — at least an incarnation of it — for just under half their lives. The funny part, though, is that Dodson said it was named ‘‘Duke’’ because then-JV girls’ coach Chad Edwards, now SHS’s varsity boys’ coach, liked Duke, Carolina’s arch-rival.
“‘Duke’ has always been the same, no matter what,” Lam said. “‘Duke’ has just been ‘Duke.’”
That’s how it’s become such a comfort offense. The players know it. It’s instinctual. It gets so ingrained that players don’t forget it, even after they’ve graduated.
Dodson said his team scrimmaged a team of ex-SHS players from as far back as 2005 recently, and those players still knew how to run “Duke,” as well as all the sets that are built off that single play — and that kind of memory is key. The repetition is what makes it so effective. (Hatcher said the same thing happened when he brought back ex-players to work his camps.)
In practice, SHS players take the same shots — their best shots — they would take in games. The muscle memory and familiarity reduces pressure and, as Lam said, prevents the Blazers from freaking out.
“It’s so easy,” Dodson said. “That’s the spot you shoot from. I know when I’ve got in that position, I’m comfortable. It’s like being on the free-throw line, or like somebody who’s always going to turn their left shoulder; it’s that move. So it gives us so many opportunities to take — we say, ‘Game shots at game spots.’”
That’s what Hatcher liked about it. It was the precision.
“We broke it down to, ‘Where are you going to shoot from?’” he said. “We worked on it about every day. … They knew where their shots were coming from.”
And it’s something the players, either Lee or Spotswood, will never forget.
“It’s really simple,” Williams said. “Once you learn how to do it, I think you’re always going to remember how to do it. I’m sure anyone’s that played here remembers how to run ‘Duke.’”