How Martin is using old-school tactics to teach defense

No one likes to run for punishment. Anyone that’s played sports at any time has looked down the length of a court or a field and felt that pit in his/her stomach and felt legs turn to jelly just before having to run until deep breaths start to sting.

It teaches players a lesson, which is why Frank Martin is using that to help teach his defense.

He isn’t using a field or court, but a treadmill that sits quiet at practice until players don’t want to learn or continuously mess up on defense.

“I’ll just holler their name and they have to fly off the treadmill right into the drill and do it the right way or they’re going to go right back to the treadmill,” Martin said. “So you know what’s happened? I’m not as crazy as I used to be. They dislike the treadmill instead of me now.”

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Martin has been installing his brainchild of a defense for the last 10 days, and it’s important to the success of any team he’s coached over his 10-year career that’s included five tournament trips and a Final Four.

So if a player isn’t trying or isn’t correcting his mistakes while learning the defense, he’s relegated to the treadmill.

Before Martin wanted to make players run on the court, but after some advice from strength and conditioning coach Scott Greenawalt, players are forced to spend as much time as the coaches want huffing and puffing in place as practice happens in front of them.

“Because like my old rear end with bad knees, I can still run on the treadmill. And if I try to run on the street, my knees swell up and I can’t walk for two days. So I think running on a treadmill is easy. I said to Scott make them run on the court. He said no because if they run on the court then they’re not going to make time.”

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But the treadmill isn’t something Martin came up with alone. It’s something that was spawned over decades ago when he was with now West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins at Cincinnati and Kansas State.

Huggins is the grandfather of defense that’s spawned a new wave of defensive-minded coaches like Martin, Mick Cronin at Cincinnati, Andy Kennedy at Ole Miss, Illinois’s Brad Underwood and University of Chicago’s Mike McGrath, all of whom learned at some point under “Hugs.”

Like everything, though, the treadmill philosophy has evolved and morphed into something different under Martin. He used to make the entire team run if someone was lackadaisical on defense, but thought that doing so could be unfair to players doing things the right way.

“I’ve learned that if you got 12 guys that are trying to do everything the right way, and you got two that are just not wanting to learn or be on the same page, you got to fix that,” he said. “Basically to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘Be on my side or be on that side.’ Then that allows me to help the guys on the right side.”

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The Gamecocks have been working on installing their defense since mid-October with Martin imploring the use of the dreaded treadmill to emphasize his talking points that much more.

So far, it’s working and he’s been pleased with how his young team is absorbing that kind of information.

“It’s not pretty, but it’s been a lot better than I thought it was going to be for first year guys. It’s been pretty good,” he said. “Like typical first year guys we’re still getting beat off the dribble, and we got to fight that. But I don’t see a lot of hand checks, which are troublesome for us considering how we play. I don’t know; I’m pretty pleased right now.”