A look at Toledo — the most efficient offense in 2022–23

For today’s post, we’re going to take a look at the Toledo Rockets from the MAC.

Although Toledo didn’t make the NCAA Tournament (tough loss to a very good Kent State team) and lost to Michigan in the first round of the NIT, they had the #1 most efficient raw offensive ranking in the country according to KenPom.

Here’s a look at their stats:

I put together a video breaking down some of their offensive plays from their games against Kent State and Michigan.

You can watch that here.

A few notes while I was watching film (and things you can apply to your team):

Toledo does a fantastic job of getting their best players shots where they can be successful — as a coach, it’s our job to make this happen for our players. When we just sink into “this is what we run” or “this is just our offensive scheme”…we lose opportunities for our teams to be more efficient. Play to your strengths.

• What can you learn from this? Watch your players play in open gym, AAU/summer ball, etc. See where they are most effective on the floor, the types of shots they make (even if unconventional), where they are at their best. And then find ways to get them those types of shots in your offense. And then trust them.

You can tell Toledo is in the weight room — they aren’t afraid of contact, they attack the rim hard, and they aren’t resistant to banging inside

• What can you learn from this? Get in the weight room. In and out of season. Make it a priority, give your kids chances to bang around in practice, and then watch the good things flow.

You can also tell they specifically work on how to handle drives being stopped by the defense — multiple players had the footwork down pat for when they were cut off when they drive AND multiple ways to finish

• What can you learn from this? Toledo HAS to drill this stuff over and over again for it to be such an obvious part of their offensive attack. It can do you absolutely no harm if you teach your kids how to handle drives being stopped in your offense because I’m fairly confident you aren’t getting layups every play. Your philosophy might not be to go to “Barkley” or dribble postups…it might be to pivot and look for kickouts, look for backdoors, or keep the dribble alive and retreat. Whatever you want, emphasize it and you’ll see it in games.

Thanks for hanging out while we watched some film on Toledo.

Hopefully you got at least one thing that you can bring to your team or program.

Until next time!

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