As much as I used to love watching film and looking at stats, nothing beats when you’ve actually played a team and are getting ready to play them again.
Like I’ve talked about, you know your conference opponents better than anyone else, but once you’ve seen them the first time through the schedule, you can see up front what their new players look like, any new schemes they’re running and most importantly, what did and didn’t work in the first matchup.
My approach to rematches was always two-fold. What did we come in to the first game wanting to do that we were successful and unsuccessful doing? Maybe it was keeping them off the offensive glass, which we did but was that because they shot such a high percentage from the field or did we really get after it on that end? Or maybe we knew we had to take care of the basketball but instead played right into their defensive scheme and put ourselves in bad position.
Second, what did we not see coming at all that we have to adjust to? I told the story in an earlier post about a 3-2 zone that threw one of my teams out of whack. And that’s when the chess match begins. What are they gonna do to counter our counter, etc, etc.
Conference games are always more competitive and the rematches really go up to a new level because of everything learned in that first matchup from both the stats and the video.