UC Davis Head Coach Jim Les joins the Slappin’ Glass Podcast to discuss the daily habits behind elite performance, building trust before asking for hard truth, and creating a team environment where productive conflict can be handled quickly. Coach Les explains why urgency starts with what a staff is willing to tolerate, how written player goals can sharpen accountability, and why “the game knows” has become a central teaching idea in his program.

On the tactical side, he breaks down UC Davis’s use of Princeton and chin action, the value of a dynamic catch before the pick and roll, teaching split cuts through clear order of operations, and using multiple offensive modes during a game. The conversation closes with ball-screen coverage complexity, deciding whether to fix or cover a team weakness, and the coaching investment that has kept him learning for more than two decades.

Episodes Chapters

02:51 The traits of elite players and teams

03:22 Urgency habits and editing your life

08:40 How Coach Les changed as a communicator

11:17 Protecting the head coach’s voice

13:40 The game knows

15:47 Building a pre-practice habit system

18:17 Teaching passing off the dribble

19:36 Productive conflict inside a team

22:27 Staff communication and alignment

25:06 Investing in relationships with players

28:51 "Start Sub or Sit" Princeton into pick and roll

30:15 Dynamic catches and sprinting into the screen

32:03 Why Princeton punishes good defensive principles

34:55 Teaching split cuts and the feeder is the leader

36:36 Attacking the closeout before the ball screen

38:12 Using multiple offensive modes

40:02 "Start Sub or Sit" changes in coaching philosophy

41:41 Scaling ball-screen coverage complexity

45:19 Fixing a weakness or covering it

47:05 Coach Les’s best career investment

49:07 Slappin’ Glass recap

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