Pete Gaudet – Q&A: The Hoops Scientist

If basketball was a science, then Pete Gaudet would be found in the lab all day: mixing the right chemicals to make the perfect compound, perfecting the timing, jotting down his results and then mixing again to sharpen up his final product, and then meticulously detailing each piece of information and piecing everything together to make his work better and better.

The way Gaudet looks at it, basketball is a science. The American coach, who has been appointed as head of the Indian Sr. National Women’s team, brings with him over 40 years of experience coaching hoops at American High School, College, International, and Professional level. But when asked about why he accepted such a drastic change of scenery to come and coach in India, he answered: “At the end of the day, the basketball is still round, and my workstation is still the gym… Basketball is still basketball.”

And there are few people more versed in the chemicals that comprise the compound game of basketball than Gaudet: Over the course of his career, Gaudet has coached both men and women at the highest levels of American college basketball, including positions at West Point, Duke University, Vanderbilt, and the Ohio State University (OSU). He has extensive technical and international basketball experience to add to his resume.

While at Duke, Gaudet won two NCAA men’s championships as Assistant coach to the legendary Mike Krzyzweski (Coach K). He made seven Final Fours, coached eight All-Americans, three national players of the year, and 12 NBA draft picks, including Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, and Danny Ferry. When Coach K took a leave of absence in early 1995, Gaudet was promoted to interim head coach.

Gaudet and Coach K also worked together with the Army basketball team, and before joining Duke, Gaudet coached Al Arabi, a club team in Kuwait. He has travelled to over 25 countries in conjunction with baseball, conducting clinics in Italy, Nigeria, Italy, Korea, Senegal and Canada.

After Duke (1983 - 1995), Gaudet worked at Vanderbilt and OSU, holding both men’s and women’s assisting coaching positions at Vanderbilt and was a women’s coach with the latter. While in OSU, Gaudet wrote a book called ‘Practical Post Play’, which is an essential guide for post players and coaches.

At OSU, he worked with Tamika Raymond, who was the former coach of the Indian Women’s team, and encouraged Gaudet to take the job after her. Last month, Gaudet was signed alongside two other world-class coaches for Indian Basketball – Kenny Natt (Indian Senior Men’s team) and Zak Penwell (Strength & Conditioning Coach).

Gaudet is currently working at the National Coaching camp at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex in New Delhi as the team prepares for the 24th FIBA Asia Championship for Women, to be held in Omura and Nagasaki, Japan, from August 21-20, 2011.

A week into his time in India, I got the opportunity to speak with Gaudet about the challenge that lay ahead of him.

Hoopistani: Why did you choose to take this coaching opportunity in India?

Gaudet: I was very intrigued about this job when I first heard about it. I was contacted by [former India Women’s coach] Tamika Raymond about it, whom I used to work with at OSU – she told me that it would be a great experience for me. She told me that the girls love the game, but that they need teaching.

In the past, I had usually avoided the Head Coach position because it doesn’t come with the basketball teaching/developing opportunities. But here, I knew that I would be able to teach the game. In the past, I have worked with players of all levels, and with men and women.

I understood that IMG/Reliance was going to be presenting me with a good challenge here in India. Plus, coming to another country wasn’t a problem for me – I have coached around the world!

Finally, in the past I had mostly worked with college players, with whom you have to balance playing and studying times, as they are still students. With this opportunity, I can work with this team on my own time.

Hoopistani: As you said – you have coached around the world. Tell me a bit about your experiences.

Gaudet: In College, during the regular season, I had to work with the team. But in the off-season I had the option of taking part in specific camps around the world. I’ve enjoyed working with post players a lot, and have been a regular attendee of Pete Newell’s Big Man Camp in Hawaii. Internationally, I have done clinics in Nigeria, Korea, Italy, Qatar, Israel, and Canada, and also travelled to Yugoslavia, Spain, Greece, and Serbia.

In Kuwait, I coached a professional club team for eight months. This is my first time in India.

Hoopistani: What have been some of the highlights of your career so far?

Gaudet: I’ve spent 40 years in basketball as a coach, and the best thing that I’ve experienced have been the relationships that I have established with players and other coaches in this time. It has been great to have mentored so many basketball players.

Aside from that, I treasure the two National Championships that I won with Duke (1991 and 1992).

With Duke, Vanderbilt, and OSU, I have been proud to have been part of teams who have competed at the highest level of NCAA College Basketball, playing against some of the best teams.

Hoopistani: How do you expect your challenge in India to be different from that you faced in the US or in the other parts of the world?

Gaudet: My India challenge is about being here and now, and not about anything I’ve done in the past. Players are players – Just like the players I’ve worked with before, these players in India have a championship in which they are trying to compete. My job will be to prepare a team of advanced players and make sure they keep improving.

More than good basketball plays, I want to have good basketball players. Yes, you can’t have control over the players you have, but my challenge will be to ensure that every day when they leave practice, they realise that they have become better players.

You can have no ego about a change of scenery like this. Whether you are working with the best players in the world or not, basketball is still basketball. At the end of the day, the basketball is still round, and my workstation is still the gym. It’s still 5-on-5. I have worked with professionals and with 10-year-olds, and I have enjoyed both, because teaching basketball is very satisfying – it has got nothing to do with having superstars. Young players have an advantage in that they are more receptive to improve themselves.

Hoopistani: What have you learnt about the Indian team in your short time with them?

Gaudet: The women’s team have been very receptive to the knowledge I have shared with them. They understand that they have to perform at a high level. The most important thing is that they love to play the game of basketball.

Hoopistani: How will you hope to raise the level of the team’s performance?

Gaudet: My background is in defense, and that is what I believe in. I want them to enjoy playing defense, and learn the importance of stopping the opposition players. It is important to find players with the skills and passion for defense.

Basketball is a creative game, and I also believe in giving the players’ the freedom to be creative. But they have to be good enough to handle this freedom.

We may not have the biggest or the strongest team, but we have enough athletic ability to be good defensively and find a way to counter size with quickness.

It’s important to find out what each of the specific players is good that, and then make them enjoy it. Hopefully, I can get all of the players to contribute to the team in some way.

Hoopistani: In Geethu Anna Jose, you have a dominating post player who was also the only Indian to be offered WNBA trials. How do you plan to maximise her talents in your team?

Gaudet: Using Geethu in the post will be one of our weapons. She has the right skill-set to be successful. But in a full game of basketball, post players do not actually get too much time on the ball. For Geethu to be effective and make the most of her time, the other players in the team have to get her the ball. Post players like Geethu can’t reach their full potential without the help of the others.

She will also then be able to free up the other players, to provide them with driving lanes to score and with open three-point shots.

Hoopistani: Looking ahead – do you think the game of basketball has a future in India?

Gaudet: If we can make the most of the commitments made by IMG/Reliance, with the Basketball Federation of India (BFI), we can really hope to see the game improve here. I want to see this sport gain more popularity, see more basketball gyms, and more kids playing the game.

The popularity of the sport can grow through the Indian team’s performance – if this team if able to perform well, maybe they can set up the building blocks of a future for the game in India.

Hoopistani: What are your goals for your term here in India?

Gaudet: I want to raise the standard of the game here and show young people that, if they work hard, they can end up playing at a high level. I want them to approach basketball not just for the game but to achieve great things.

From the WNBA to India - Tamika Raymond takes on a brand new challenge

Soon after it was announced that the Indian Sr. Men's team will be led by American coach Bill Harris, formerly of Wheaton college, there was a collective flurry of celebration over the basketball networks around the country. "Yes... FINALLY... gud going... All the best Mr. Harris..." Facebook pages announced the news deliriously with ALL CAPS and Twitter updates were retweeted with glorious abandon. No, Harris wasn't the saviour for Indian basketball, but he was definitely an important foundation as the team built itself towards respectability before the 2010 Asian Games.

There was just one niggling problem.

Pratima Singh, India's Women's National player, shared her grievances first: "why not for the girls team.... this is not good...," which she later followed on by "humare baare main bhi to soche koi (someone think about us, too)!"

The rest of the girls watched jealously for a few days, as Harris landed in Chennai and started his era with the Senior Men. Indian players, particularly the women, are known for their hunger to keep learning, keep exploring, keep improving... Just like the men, they wanted their leader, too.

And it didn't take long before their wish was granted. After a thorough search for coaching talent in the USA, the NBA found recommended a former WNBA player and NCAA D1 assistant coach the BFI. BFI's Secretary-General Harish Sharma presented Tamika Raymond to the Women's squad.

Raymond brings with herself the perfect balance of experience and approachability. She is still young, only two years retired from her career as a professional basketball player in the WNBA, which is the most competitive women's basketball league in the world. After being drafted sixth overall by the Minnesota Lynx in the 2002 WNBA draft, Raymond played for the Lynx for six years, before taking her talents to Connecticut to play for the Sun for a year in 2008.

But being a professional player wasn't enough: Raymond also began to work as assistant coach at Ohio State University in the off-season, juggling both careers of a player and a coach with ease for several years. After five years at Ohio State, she took up the assistant coaching job at the University of Kansas. Both these institutions have great basketball programmes and play at the highest level of college basketball in the US – NCAA Division I.

But this is her first gig as head coach – and with a wonderful twist of fate, she finds herself in South India. "I was doing some work with the NBA internationally, and I heard that they wanted my name in the pool of people being considered for the India job," Raymond said, "I thought it was a great situation and so I agreed."

"My past experience is surely to help me with this new responsibility," she added, "At Ohio State, I worked with an older coach who stressed on the fundamentals of perfecting the women's basketball by breaking down and studying every bit of information about the game. At Kansas, I worked under a younger coach who believed in exploring new concepts and disciplines of training student athletes."

"Being young and a former pro-athlete myself, I feel I will be able to relate very well with the girls here. I hope I will be able to understand their issues better and we can all work together."

Raymond has been in India for less than two weeks, but she has already organised the team into following a strict, regimented training schedule. Time is scarce – the Asian Games tip off in a month, and India will have to be prepared to face the likes of China, Korea, and Thailand in their group.

But no matter how good a coach, it is the players who inevitably decide on the success of a squad. So far, Raymond seems to be happy with the group she has been given to work with. "The girls have responded well to the practices we have had so far," she said, "They're very talented, proud, and respectful, but the best thing is that they are like sponges: they want to keep learning, they want to keep working in the gym, and want to care for the game of basketball. All this combines to show for the great energy that they have in practice."

Raymond also commented that the Indian Women were strong in their basketball fundamentals, and seemed to have high basketball IQ and retention.

As the team shapes up, Raymond envisions a squad that is strong defensively but also is efficient with its offensive execution. "I want us to be a smart team in our tactical approach and I want us to play hard," she said, "I think if we do that, we can perform pretty well at the Asian Games. I have seen the statistics from the previous games that these girls have played and I think we can improve on them."

Raymond noted that there are various ways in which the team can be improved, and they can do it by following certain aspects of the US model. "In the US, there are certain extra things that the players do which takes them to the top," said Raymond, "There is more stress on weight training, on a strenuous conditioning regiment, and tactical breakdown of offensive and defensive fundamentals."

"We have a lot of talent there, so there is no reason why India can't achieve its potential in basketball. Yes, we have a long way to go, but we're all working together to improve the game here: I really admire the work the BFI has been doing in India."

That race towards improvement is in full swing. Basketball in India was getting all the right kind of support from IMG-Reliance and the NBA – and now, with the hiring of the two American coaches for our senior teams, the players feel confident to start learning. Start delivering.

The girls didn't have to wait too long or complain too much. They have their coach, now, and they have a mission. There was no reason to be jealous of the boys anymore. Facebook statues rejoiced and the ‘Like' thumbs went up as the news of Raymond taking charge of the Sr. Women's team spread. Even Pratima Singh was satisfied.

"THANK U...:)," she commented, "WE R HAPPY..."

If Raymond's team continues to play hard, the rest of us will be very happy, too.

Tamika Raymond appointed to lead Indian Sr. Women's National Team

Tamika Raymond has been appointed as the head coach for the Indian Sr. Women's Basketball team for the 16th Asian Games slated to be held in November. Raymond will be working with the Indian team in Chennai before leading them for the Games, which will be held in Guangzhou (China) from November 12-27.

Raymond was appointed coach by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) following a comprehensive search by the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) for coaches in the U.S., and after interviewing several candidates, Raymond was selected. The National Basketball Association (NBA) assisted BFI in identifying potential U.S. coaching candidates.

Raymond will also be supported by IMG-Reliance who is in partnership to support BFI in developing basketball in India.

Raymond is a former WNBA player and NCAA Division I Assistant Coach. She spent seven seasons (2002-2008) in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), six with the Minnesota Lynx and one year with the Connecticut Sun. She also served seven years (2003-2010) combined as assistant coach at two NCAA Division I colleges: Ohio State University and University of Kansas.

"The players in this team are definitely talented," said Raymond, "I am hoping to put in some work with them so that they can become a tactically smart team with good fundamentals and strong defense. We still have a long way to go but I think this team can show some improvement perform pretty well at the Asian Games."

"It's a great challenge and I admire the work that the BFI is doing in raising the level of basketball in India."

Harish Sharma, the Secretary-General of BFI, welcomed Raymond to India. "We are excited to have Coach Raymond in India. She will bring her experience after playing in the world's best women's league - the WNBA - to our players, and she has also worked as an assistant coach in a tough D1 college competition. We are hoping that she can share her coaching expertise with the girls in India to improve our performance for the upcoming games."

"The BFI is grateful for the assistance of the NBA in helping us to bring her here," said Sharma, "Furthermore, our partners at IMG-Reliance will also continue to work with us to look after the coach's needs."

Raymond's job began in Chennai from Monday, October 4th as she began holding work-outs with the players. She will evaluate the talent available and work with his selected squad to train for the upcoming competition over the next few months.

Raymond’s appointment was announced soon after the appointment of William R. Harris, another American basketball coach who was appointed to lead the Indian Sr. Men’s Basketball Team to the Asian Games a week ago.