Written by Rick Torbett on March 20, 2009 – 3:05 PM
Jeremy Hartman, Varsity Girls Head Coach, Robert E. Lee High School
2008-2009 Highlights
• Virginia State AA, Division 3 Runners Up
• District Champions
• Region Champions
• District and Region Coach of the Year Award
Wow! What a ride it was! The 2008-2009 girls basketball season for Robert E. Lee High School was one that will be remembered for quite some time. It was a season of “new” so to speak: a new young point guard, new faces, new atmosphere, new uniforms, and a new offensive philosophy… the Read and React Offense.
I had only learned and researched the Read and React just a few months before the season started. Once I began reading about the offense I became extremely curious and ultimately purchased the DVD set. After watching Coach Torbett give the rundown on the Read and React I was hooked. It made entirely too much sense! I began introducing some of the R&R drills to establish habits and my players loved them. It quickly became a hit among my players. I decided to dive head first into the system and began implementing it right away.
The implementation of the offense was not without some hiccups. The first layer needed the most time to master because our players were not used to circle movement: it takes time to get them moving in the right direction. The drills to build habits helped tremendously, however. As the offense grew by layers so did the confidence of our team. In fact, our movement became so good against a man defense that teams gave up and started playing us mainly zone.
In our first season in using the Read and React we finished 23-6. We won our district with a perfect 8-0 record and then won our district tournament. We also won our regional tournament and moved into the state tournament where we lost in the Virginia state AA, Division 3 championship. This was with three freshmen starting and my 6’1” post player sidelined for most of the season with a knee injury. I was also awarded the Coach of the Year awards for our district and region.
The Read and React is most logical offensive system I have ever seen in the game of basketball. Its simplicity allows players to play instead of thinking which allows them the chance to shine and use their natural abilities. I can honestly say, the Read and React was a key component in our success this season.
Congratulations coach! Could you give me an idea how much practice time you spent your first year implementing the offense? We have just started to implement this summer and I was curious.
Rick, how many layers did Jeremy have in by the time he made the playoffs?
Watching some of the video highlights on your website showed a smooth running machine. What are the expectations for how long it takes to incorporate the whole offense or is just mastering one layer at a time enough?
Are you still presenting at the All Sports School Clinic in Seattle on October 10?
Scott Ashmore
Ram Coach & Scott:
We put in roughly only the first 6-7 layers of the offense. Of course, the adjustments for what we like to do offensively against zones were different layers as were our basic offensive sets. In my best guess I would say we had anywhere from 8-10 of the layers installed.
As for practice time, I changed up my normal practice habits. Coach Torbett says sometimes you have to be unconventional in your thinking and I was. Our warm-up to start practice was 15 minutes of the drills to build the habits. Then we did our dynamic stretching and our skill development work. The last 45 minutes of practice was devoted to implementing game situations and running our offense against a defense and correcting when necessary.
There were ups and downs and in January (just like Coach Torbett said) we hit a dry spell and just couldn’t seem to get over the hump, but we pushed through and by tournament time we were running on all cylinders because things started to click with the girls. We have all of our kids coming back so we’ll review and build this year, adding more layers. Hope that helps!
Feel free to email me if you have any more questions: jhartman@staunton.k12.va.us
Scott,
There are too many variables for me to say how long it takes to incorporate the whole offense. I would need to know how much time per day is spent; how many days per week; the level of skills that your players bring; etc.
But, it’s not necessary for every layer to be mastered. The first five will give you a working offense. Can you have a working offense by your first game, given 2-3 weeks practice? Yes. Will it be perfect? No. Will it get better every day that your players play it? Yes - but of course any offense will get better; however, with time, the R&R gets better EXPONENTIALLY.
Perhaps your question is one that I will pose at each of the Read & React clinics next month. Maybe I can crunch some data and we can draw some conclusions if the pool of coaches who’ve run it for at least one season is big enough. It would be interesting to compare Youth teams, High school teams, and College teams.
And yes, I’m still planning on presenting at the October 10th clinic. Hope to see you there.