Respect the fundamentals
It’s a lazy Sunday here for me so I decided to spend a part of it watching some old clips in the NCAA vault. I came across one clip that I thought I would share with you to illustrate a very basic point: At the college level, it’s time to stop relying on your raw athleticism that got you through high school and learn the fundamentals of basketball and integrate them into your game.
Like I said above, this is a basic point so I only have one clip. It is on the necessity of boxing out and you can find it after the break.
Now when Tyler Hansbrough puts up the jump shot, watch what DaJuan Summers does underneath the basket (highlighted below):
Instead of turning and finding a man to put a body on, he turns toward the basket and relies solely on his athletic ability to grab the rebound. Instead, Marcus Ginyard swoops in and deflects the ball away from him, which leads to a basket and a foul for UNC.
What Summers should have done is immediately looked behind him for someone to put a body on. Notice the proper technique by Jeff Green in the above still (and even though his man eventually grabbed the loose ball and scored, it is still Summer’s fault that there even was a loose ball).
Summers was a freshman this season (2006-2007) and you can see even late in the season, he did not grasp the crucial concept of boxing out. He was still relying only on his athleticism to pull down the rebound, instead of putting a body on his man to help him earn the rebound.
I know this is a basic concept but I wanted to throw this up for you because I see it all the time. The fundamentals are important and once you get to the collegiate level, you can no longer rely solely on your strength and jumping ability to grab rebounds. You need to seek out a man, put a body on him and let the rebound come to you. You may not always grab the rebound, but preventing a situation as seen above (giving up an offensive rebound which leads to a possible 3 point play) is a much worse scenario.
