Inside a Quinnipiac postgame film session, and how constant studying helped beat Iona

Doug Young (5) passes inside as Quinnipiac battled Iona Sunday. (Photo by Quinnipiac Athletics)

By Ethan Hurwitz (@HurwitzSports)

HAMDEN, Conn. — Hours after Quinnipiac’s 79-74 win over Iona Sunday afternoon, the coaching staff will be hard at work, even though the Bobcats’ next game isn’t for another week.

Later tonight, each member of the Bobcat roster will get game film—already chopped up and labeled—for their viewing pleasure. The latest videos to be in their inbox will show a gritty win over a feisty Gaels team, one that had junior forward Amarri Monroe grab yet another double-double (20 points, 10 rebounds). 

It was his 11th double-double of the year, and his fourth in as many games. When it comes to how he will break down his performance, Monroe has his own process. 

“I watch it through once, not really focusing on anything specific, and then I’ll probably go back,” Monroe said. “(The coaching staff does) a great job of separating like offense, defense and whatever. They label everything. So it’s easy for us to kind of break it down. We don’t really have to do it ourselves. They kind of tell us what to look for and what to watch.”

What he will see on tape is a Bobcat team that, from what Monroe said postgame, likes to play from behind. The first 20 minutes were a slugfest, both sides trying and failing to grab any true momentum. After the break, a blow to the gut sidelined Monroe for almost eight minutes.

“If they get good shots, I’m not on them. But (if) the right guys are shooting it, there’s a food chain, and they understand where they are in the food chain, certain guys have much greater liberty than not to take open threes,” Quinnipiac head coach Tom Pecora said on how the team adapted without Monroe. “So that’s really the key. But when you get good looks and they don’t go down, you gotta have trust in them, especially if it’s guys that put in their work and they come in, they shoot every day, which just about all of them do.”

It’s the behind-the-scenes work that has lauded big performances from senior guard Doug Young (who’s racked up 33 points in his last two games) and freshman guard Jaden Zimmerman (16 points against the Gaels). The latter recently set his career-high in scoring at Sacred Heart just two days prior, and is taking the freshman leap he knew he could make.

“I’m confident in myself, and I’m confident in my ability,” Zimmerman said postgame. “Always playing with the older kids, like open runs. I’m always playing with older people, even when I played at AAU, I was playing up. So I’m just confident.”

Both Young and Zimmerman are getting an extended look on the floor, in part because of some recent ball handling struggles from Savion Lewis. His eight turnovers were second-most in a single game by a Bobcat at the Division I level, but his ability to block out past games is one Pecora knows all too well. 

“The one thing Sav does is watch a ton of film,” Pecora said. “So he’s going to watch this game tonight, I’m sure, multiple times, two or three, see what they did to him and how he could have done a better job.”

So what will the Bobcats’ veteran point guard see on the Iona film? He’ll see a player who’s sometimes a bit too passive—though assists have always been his bread and butter—and teams trying to prey on a Lewis who won’t drive to the rim. 

“We’re going to edit it, chop it up, and we send our guys stuff so they get it on their phone tonight, and through tomorrow, he’ll come in, he’ll watch tape with the coach,” Pecora said. “When a team treats you like this, this is what you gotta respond with, because that’s what’s going to happen when opponents see that tape. You know what I mean? They’re going to see the same thing.”

Sure, the Bobcats are winning games, albeit not as controlling as they may have hoped. But a lot of that can be attributed to the film sessions and how they get brought onto the floor during practices. Pecora has praised his assistants for watching an abundance of video, and the way it’s translated during practice has paid off.

“What we do is in the beginning of the week, we’ll go over some cuts that, the second team you’re playing, without even letting them know it’s (the other team’s) stuff,” Pecora said on December 6. “So tomorrow, when we go through, (they’re like) ‘Oh, shit, we did this Tuesday.’ That way you kind of grease the skids for that. So that’s kind of how we move forward with confidence.”

The Gaels were able to make some inroads during the second half of Sunday’s game. A big performance by senior guard Dejour Reaves (15 points, six rebounds, six steals) gave the visitors a five-point lead seven minutes into the second half, and a number of steals put some pressure on Quinnipiac. 

But then the Bobcats, who remained in the MAAC’s top spot with a 12-3 conference record, dug down and found the answers on the floor, the answers that they already knew were coming.

“I watch a few times just to get a feel for the game,” Monroe said on why he watches so much video. “It’s kind of a cheat code, you know, watching yourself or watching your opponent, which is why I promote watching film a lot. It’s like a cheat sheet for a test.”

After playing two games in three days, Quinnipiac will get an off day tomorrow. Tuesdays are typically a slower day, one where Pecora’s staff will start to install some of the team’s upcoming opponents. Now deeper into the MAAC schedule—with players on both sides banged up—it’s critical to get some of what Pecora calls “skill days.” 

Iona’s game plan was simple, even without big man Yaphet Moundi (he missed Sunday's game with an illness): Try and take away the Bobcats’ best players and force them to beat you on the perimeter. But once Monroe went down, others began to step up.

“We could have cranked up our pressure, cranked up our defense,” Iona head coach Tobin Anderson told IonaHoops.com’s Guy Falotico postgame. “That’s a dangerous team. They’ve got a lot of weapons. We don’t have as many weapons, so we gotta be sound defensively.”

But according to Monroe, they already knew some of the Gaels’ plays, attributing it to team-wide film sessions and pre-game reps. 

“I appreciate the coaches, the time you take into making the film. We get film sent out every night, and then we come back in the morning and watch it all together,” Monroe said. “So it’s very important, and you can see, like on the court, we know some of their plays. It’s because we watch the film. We obviously rep it before the game. So film is definitely a huge part of our program.”