Playing without the ball is something every offensive coach preaches. 5 out of 6 guys, and 6 out of 7 girls do not have the ball at any given time!
Coach Dunn similarly wrote a great blog about off ball defensive keys. What jobs are you doing without the ball? How are you communicating?
Today, I want to introduce the idea of scanning. This is a term that is often used in soccer. I asked one of my FCL Athletes last week how much her soccer coaches used the term scanning, to which she said, "all of the time!" So why not lacrosse?
In my 24 years playing and coaching, the word has certainly come up, but not in the context of a skill. The idea of scanning is so important because it is a way to take in information. The field is constantly changing, players are moving, as is the ball, and opportunities come and go. It is obvious to teach players to scan the field with the ball in the stick. Eyes up! See cutters!
The great ones scan the field without the ball in their stick too. We can see the back of a defenders head. We can see how the D is about to rotate. Who's the next teammate I should throw to upon catching it. Should I shoot upon catching it?
Check out this video "Seeing Ahead", as Logan Wisnauskus scans the field and reads the defense. Johns Hopkins Coach John Crawley loves this term and thinks it is under taught. I think it is exactly in line with the term scanning. Seeing ahead allows you to take information in and better inform your next decision, prior to getting the ball.
The below tweet is from developmental hockey coach Ted Suihkonen. Ted is a great follow and posts a lot of great thoughts around cognitive processing, game environments, and decision making.
I love the line about how the eyes are the "gateway to collecting information" and that they are the "highway to the brain for decision making" - bingo! Scanning the field more and more frequently will improve our decision making!
Lastly, I'll leave you with this incredible article about Lionel Messi. I apologize that it is a paid Athletic.com article, but it is truly worth the read.
Not surprisingly, Messi was an outlier for how much of his space gain was “passive” — as in walking or jogging, not running. Yet he still managed to occupy more valuable spaces than almost any other Barcelona player while generating some of the most valuable spaces for his team-mates.
This article touches so much on Messi's tactics in taking space, reading the seams of the defense, and assessing where to move to create offensive advantages. He is wisely choosing his spots for max capacity. Most of the game he is scanning the field, collecting information, and figuring out how to manipulate the defense.
I spoke a bit to Xander Dickson last week, one of the top attackmen in the country. He's a master off the ball. He scans the field, lulls defenders to sleep, and finds the soft spots. Checkout my YouTube breakdown on him, and OWN this new term... scanning!
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