Hirst’s Reagan boys rolling into playoffs
The Express-news recently interviewed Reagan boys basketball coach John Hirst, whose Rattlers just clinched a district title, about the inspiration for his motion offense, the team's midseason transformation and his playoff expectations.
Reagan's Aidan Richard averages 19 points and five rebounds per game while shooting 52% from the field.
Q: How has the team developed this season?
A: “Aidan returned and is an exceptional high school player. But we really didn't have anybody else who had a ton of quality minutes. He was our only returning starter, and we knew some guys had some ability, but until you go out there on the big court, you don't know. And so, I think it was a combination of things. I think we had as challenging of a schedule as anybody in the state in non-district play.”
Q: Why did you choose to play tough teams like Lake Travis, Stony Point and Dallas Carter in non-district play?
A: “We knew that we were going to lose a lot, but we also knew we had some good young players coming in the pipeline. But they had to play against good talent too. And so if we wanted to continue competing for district championships and try to make runs in the playoffs, they needed to see good teams and players. And so we tried to schedule as hard as we could.”
Q: Richard sat out a couple of games due to injury at the start of the season. Is he fully healthy heading into the playoffs next week?
A: “He's fully healed, and we've won 11 games in a row with him back. He's obviously played great in that stretch, and it's not just because he's a great player, but also because he's a great leader. But when he was out, it was hard because we had guys trying to step into different roles. But it was also a growing experience. I think that really helped us down the road. We were playing teams that were really good. We were out of our comfort zone because we didn't have our only returning starter, and I think all those things are great growth opportunities.”
Q: What have you seen out of Kenneth Manuel this season? He’s the team’s second-leading scorer, averaging 12 points per game.
A: “We felt like he had a really good spring, summer and fall, but until you're a starter and you got to get out there, it's just different. He was a little inconsistent through nondistrict and in our tournament play, and he really had some growth in that stretch. Once we've gotten to the district, he plays much more confidently. He understands what we're trying to do better and how we want to do it.”
Q: How does your motion offense help the Rattlers win games?
A: “I was visiting an assistant coach at Texas Tech, and I was telling them that I've been watching a lot of film on (former Villanova men's basketball coach) Jay Wright, and I love the fact that they didn't have the number one pick in the draft. They had really good players, but a lot of times, they were undersized, but they were so hard to guard. So, I just started thinking, what do we hate to guard? Then, we started playing around and looking at videos. We watched many
Villanova videos, and it really was just the kind of stuff that we dreamed up and then kept working. We're not going to go out there and, in most years, just out-athlete teams. We'll have to have a different style. We've got kids that have generally pretty high basketball IQ, and we work on trying to improve that.”
Q: How do you teach your players to understand your offensive philosophy?
A: “It's really hard. But for us, if you want to be successful in this program, this is what we have found works. And we've been fortunate enough to have some success. A lot of it is about ball movement and people movement. A lot of it is about shot discipline.”
Q: How did it feel to win your 500th career game this season?
A: “Well, it means that I'm really a lucky guy. I've coached a lot of really great players and have had incredible assistant coaches. We've had tremendous community support. It really says something about parents when they'll let us coach their kids, and everywhere I've been, we've always had parents who didn't always necessarily understand where we were going, but they gave us the benefit of the doubt and let us coach their kids. Then personally, I've had incredible family support from my family. A lot of sacrifices that my family members, my wife and children and my parents have made in support of our program.”
Q: How are you preparing your team to be ready for the playoffs?
A: “We try to play our best basketball at the end of the season, like whatever the best version of us we can be. We want to be that in the last two weeks of the regular season and then roll that into a playoff run, and it doesn't always happen that way. But right now, we're healthy. We don't have any illnesses or injuries. Some teams have more individual talent, but I don't think there are very many teams that have grown together as much as this team has. We're really excited, and they're just an awesome group of guys to go to the gym with every day. It's nice when you don't have to go in the gym and coach effort.”