You need to get Five Point Play, by Coach K and Donald Phillips - it is the book to read right now. It's about the 2001 championship season - and there's parts that are so relevant to this season that it's almost eerie!
For example, when Carlos Boozer gets hurt late in the season, Coach K decides to revamp the team by going up-tempo, using speed and 3 point shooting to protect the paint, which is now their weak area. He describes this strategy to his players:
“I want us to sprint for 4 minutes. Then we’re gonna get that TV timeout (2 min). Then we sprint for 4 minutes again. Look at it like we’re going to beat them for 4 minutes.”
Then on defense, they use trapping schemes at the top of the key – pushing their opponent’s ballhandler further out. The faster tempo was also a lot of fun, letting the players play more freely because there was no time to call out set plays.
I really found his encouragement to his players fascinating:
“No one is allowed to say they’re tired. Your character in this drama never gets tired. And you guys on the bench . . your role is to tell them they are not tired – over and over and over again. Tired is not allowed.” (p141).
Wow. This is really our best chance at a national championship! Very much like Villanova in 2005-06, which used a 4 guard attack to earn a #1 seed and beat BC 60-59, only to get into foul trouble, shoot poorly (4 of 23 from three), and lose to a much bigger truck in Florida in the Elite Eight.