by David Archer
Men’s basketball coach David Arseneault designed his fun-and-gun style for teams that plain stunk so his players could have something to talk about after they lost. However, the system has been so successful that other coaches have started to experiment with the Arseneault way.
“I have probably conferred with over 500 coaches over the past ten years,” said Arseneault, and indeed many high school programs have adopted similarly record-smashing game plans. So far, though, the only other coaches in the country who run Arseneault’s system at the college level are University of Redlands men’s coach Gary Smith and Muhlenberg College women’s coach Ron Rohn.
Rohn and Smith said their players were skeptical when introduced to the new style of play. However, Rohn’s players grew increasingly enthusiastic throughout the preseason, especially after they exhausted an intramural team of men with the substitution pattern in a scrimmage last November. Then the season began, and the team’s quick success erased any lingering doubts.
“When we opened the season with two 100-point games in our tip-off tournament, there was no going back,” Rohn said.
Players at Redlands initially disliked the limited playing time and complained that the short shifts made it difficult to establish a rhythm. In addition, they “detested” yielding easy points on defense, a necessity for the system to work properly.
“Our players do enjoy the system now,” Smith said. “At least most of them do.”
Smith used an up-tempo strategy in the 1980s and 90s but deserted it in 1995 before deciding to try Arseneault’s strategy in the 2002-03 season. Last season his team possessed enough depth and enough shooters to make it work, Smith said. The idea appealed to Smith because it might help him win more games but also because it’s a bit offbeat.
“I must profess a personal preference for being somewhat different and for playing at an extreme end of the spectrum,” Smith said. “I felt it would be a good way to shake things up as we were not doing too well.”
Nineteen games into the season Redlands sports an 11-8 record and sits in fifth place in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. What’s more, Smith suggested the team has yet to work out kinks in the system, as this is the first year the team has employed the strategy in its entirety.
But even if they have not ascended to conference dominance under the system—and Arseneault says, at core, the system is not about winning—they have demonstrated the inherent excitement in the system by passing the century mark in all but three games this season, through Feb. 7.
“Our program is very popular with our students and local community,” Smith said. “People love to watch us play.”
And like the Grinnell men’s team, Smith’s charges have become one of the hottest road tickets in college basketball. “They want to see what this nonsense is all about at Redlands,” Smith said.
Rohn, on the other hand, is a newer disciple of Arseneault’s. He learned of Arseneault’s system in 2002 after Grinnell played a nationally televised game against Division I foe Drake University. His previous strategy emphasized speed, pressing defense and three point shooting, and after watching the Drake game it became clear that Arseneault’s way could enhance what the Muhlenberg women had already started.
Rohn’s strategy, however, does not exactly replicate Arseneualt’s. He has had to tailor the system to the physical differences presented by coaching a women’s team. For instance, Muhlenberg attempts half the three-pointers Arseneault’s team attempts because his players “can’t rise up and shoot over a defender from 20 feet,” he said. In addition, he said his players cannot get the ball baseline to baseline as quick as the men.
Muhlenberg is the only Division III women’s team playing currently using this peculiar strategy, and they’ve met some success so far as they stand in third place in the Centennial Conference through Feb. 7. Moreover, the team has scored at least 100 points in five games and at least 90 points in 11 games.
Rohn added that the team now outdraws the men’s team on many occasions and has attracted fans who once thought women’s basketball was boring. Muhlenberg sets school and conference records all the time, Rohn said. They also have a chance to set NCAA records before the season expires.
But at the same time, Muhlenberg’s success in numbers is somewhat beside the point. Rohn did not switch styles to win more games, but to “have more fun” and to establish “better team chemistry.” At the beginning of the season his team had 18 players, and whereas some systems might plausibly accommodate so many actors, Arseneault’s way actually thrives on more players. The new style has also made his players “feel very important, and the self esteem gained has been wonderful,” Rohn said.
Such results may seem like unintended consequences of the system. However, the positive psychological influence of playing in Arseneault’s system represents the essence of the strategy and coaching philosophy. When Arseneault designed the system he fielded a poor team accustomed to losing, which left players with low morale.
“I was just interested in increasing player participation,” Arseneault said. “I thought if a few of them could score a few more points, or get some meaningful court time, then I would be helping them gain a more positive experience.”
The coaches communicate with each other by email on a weekly basis and, in addition to Rohn and Smith, Arseneault has over the past several years been contacted by hundreds of curious coaches, most of which coach high school teams.
Despite the increasing influence of Arseneault’s way in some coaching circles, it remains unclear if two teams running this system have ever competed against each other.
So is there a chance fans will see a game between Grinnell and Redlands any time soon?
“I imagine the day will come when Coach Smith and I arrange a game,” Arseneault said.
“It would be quite an event,” Smith said.
The Grinnell men’s basketball team, and their unique “system,” developed by head basketball coach Dave Arseneault, is one of the staples of Grinnell College. This system revolves around creating defensive turnovers and taking a multitude of three-point shots. Five new Pioneer players rush into the game every minute-and-a-half to keep up the fast-paced action. Opposing teams find they have trouble keeping up the intense clip the Pioneers play at, and since its introduction at Grinnell College, the “system” has been very successful, with Grinnell winning conference titles in two of the last three years.
Despite the success, Coach A, as his players and fans call him, has taken heat from basketball purists for his unique invention, and at the same time, has had some success in teaching other coaches his methods.
“To each his or her own,” said Arseneault. “I can’t control what other people think or say about us. All I know is that my players are happy and we have entertained a lot of people over the past decade.”
The Pioneer players have had to go through some changes from their high school basketball background in order to be successful at Grinnell. From seniors to freshman, the “system” calls for mass participation and faith in the program.
“I admit at first it seems a little crazy,” said Patrick Choquette ’04, “but once your mind and body speed up to the style of play you realize that it’s the same game ... only a tiny bit quicker. To be successful in our system it takes the same skills and fundamentals that it would take to be successful at any program in the country.”
“I feel really fortunate to be able to play for a team that plays such a fun style of basketball,” said Trek Langenhan ‘07. “I enjoy being a part of something so unique. There are hundreds of college basketball teams out there but the system sets us apart from most of the others.”
The success of Arseneault’s system and of this year’s Pioneer squad has Grinnellians and members of the media talking across the country. But the Pioneers know that, especially given that they’re the defending conference champs, they’ll be a marked team come playoff time.
“The attention does give opponents an extra reason to be gunning for us,” said junior Matt Brown, “so we can never expect to catch anyone off guard. But at the same time, all of the attention is just one more thing for us to draw off of too. It’s exciting to know that people are taking notice of our success.” – Kevin Byrne
The system is complicated, but come game time Grinnell has just five simple but effective goals. “We are something like 60-3 over the past 10 years when we accomplish all five goals,” says head coach David Arseneault.
• Take 100 shots per game
• Have half of your shots be 3-pointers
• Force 32 turnovers
• Offensive rebound 33% of your misses
• Take 30 more shots than the opposition
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