Understanding the Grinnell College Basketball System

Grinnell College Pioneers are an NCAA DIII team located in Grinnell, Iowa and have popularized a system of play that focuses on scoring boat loads of points, getting up tons of shots, and making for an exciting style of play for players and fans alike.  In the 2023-2024 season, Grinnell Men's Basketball averages 116.0 points per game while giving up 96.0 points per game.  They average 91 field goal attemps per game while taking 58 three point attempts per game.  Grinnell is currently 12-3 on the season, and have scored as much as 166 points in a game with no overtime periods.  

The goal with this article is to help coaches understand the concept behind the system, why the system was created, and help coaches determine if this style of play is a good fit for your youth, travel or varsity program.  

How can we score as many points as possible?

Let's start with the question everyone has asked themselves.  If you're familiar with traditional basketball, the answer to your questions is, "Get better shots."  The vast majority of coaches want better shots, so they run offense until they get a shot that is dubbed, "Good" or "Great."  For example, instead of taking the first available shot, they'll elect to run offense until a layup presents itself.  The layup is deemed a good or great shot.  

In what is sometimes called, "System ball" it's about getting more shots, specifically, getting more three point attempts.  

So, the question now becomes, "if getting shots is essential, to scoring more points, how we do we get more shots?"

Three ways to get more shots:

1. Increase pace of play
2. Force more turnovers 
3. Produce more second chance opportunities 

Increase the pace of play

So, how does a team increase the pace of play?

• Push the ball and generate early shots before the defense sets up
• Pressure the ball 84 feet the whole game
• Every player has freedom to take early and open shots
• Teach more urgency on offense
• Utilize a 12 second shot clock in practice

There is an interesting results increasing the pace and getting early offense.  Your turnovers will go down, typically, the shot will go up before a turnover can happen. 

How can we force more turnovers?

There are a couple of ways that teams can look to force more turnovers.

• Pressure the ball 84 feet the whole game, this includes after made shots, after missed shots, and after dead balls

How can we get more second chance opportunities?

Another way to get more shots is to increase your shot volume, here are a couple of ways to get more second chance opportunities:

• Send four players to the glass on each shot
• Shoot more 3s, producing longer rebounds 
• Shoot more in transition, these rebounds are more difficult to secure with standard boxout principles

What are the success metrics to measure?

The Grinnell College Basketball System focused on five specific metrics to determine if the system was successful during any given game.

1. 100 Field Goal Attempts
2. 50 Three Points Attempts
3. 32 Forced Turnovers
4. 35% of Rebounds are Offensive Rebounds
5. +25 Shot Differential 

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How can I get as much out of my players as possible?

In order for this system to produce the results you want it to, you'll need maximum effort from each athlete in every practice, every game, and every team event.  Placing an emphasis on 100% Effort is a great goal to establish with all of your athletes. 

How can I have more fun as a coach?

The Grinnell College Basketball System focuses on Hockey Style substitutions, which results in more playing time for everyone on the team.  In order to receive max effort from each athlete, you'll need to keep legs fresh and utilize your bench. 

Some of the byproducts of the Grinnell College Basketball System:

• Happy players, the premium is playing time, and everyone will see the floor
• More fans coming out to watch the athletes play fast, score points, and do it playing hard - together
• Athletes receive more recognition as they start to put up numbers a school program may not have seen in a very long time
• Setting records becomes the norm, you'll score the most points, make more shots, more 3s, generate more steals, and if the metrics are met, you'll win more games

The Grinnell College Basketball system makes basketball fun for the athletes

Conclusion

The Grinnell College Basketball System is not a cure all for team woes or challenges.  The Grinnell College Basketball System can backfire for all of the wrong reasons.  The original reason to implement this style of system was to increase enrollment and recruitment for a small Division 3 college that struggled to find players to field a team.  The system can backfire if you do not have certain types of players.  As a coach, it is your job, role and responsibility to develop your athletes in-season, and in the off-season with ball handling, scoring or finishing drills, and obviously shooting.  The athetes should be shooting a lot of shots year-round.  This system can fail if you do not have athletes that can shoot the ball, handle the ball at a fast pace, or athletes that can't play for more than 3 minutes at this pace. 

The system can backfire in the athletes don't "buy in."  This is very common with athletes that have parents who believe in the traditional style of basketball with walking the ball up, running half court sets, and setting up half court defense.  

Lastly, it is extremely difficult to implement part of the system.  This is a system, Oxford defines "System" as a set of things working together as parts of a mechanism or an interconnecting network.  Therefore if you pick the fast break and transition threes but fall back into a 2-3 zone, you'll likely just encourage your team to take early shots without increasing the pace or forcing teams into turnover situations.