How Lubbock Cooper High School Promotes Competition and Accountability
Jordan Green
Chief Experience Officer
Jordan has spent years traveling the globe growing the game of basketball through organizations such as Athletes in Action and Nike. He has had a decorated basketball career as a three-year starter at Texas A&M University, where he was a two-time team captain and left a legacy of excellence with a statue on the university’s campus. He went on playing professionally with the Spurs organization for 3 years, winning a championship in the inaugural year of the G-League in 2018, and gained international playing experience in France for one season. As the CXO, Jordan drives product development and strategic content to grow Ballogy’s overall reach with today’s athletes. He was responsible for leading the research and development of the Ballogy Skills Assessment. Prior to Ballogy, he spent two years in business development at Ernst & Young as a Service Quality Manager. Jordan’s passions lie in leaving the game of basketball better than he found it and spending time with his wife and son.
The coaching staff at Lubbock Cooper High School, located in Lubbock, Texas implemented Ballogy at the beginning of the off-season last year. We have followed the varsity team’s development closely ever since and recently sat down with James Rike, an Assistant Coach at Lubbock Cooper to discuss his experience.
How has Ballogy training impacted your program?
Our players love the BSA (Ballogy Skills Assessment)! So do I. I even took the shooting test and I scored a 64.
They’ll come in before school and after school wanting to take their BSA again to beat their teammates’ scores. We had a kid hit a 92 on the BSA this off-season, which is 2nd on the global leaderboard.
With our younger players, we are currently working through their fear of failure. When we assign training tasks, the app does a great job of requiring our players to work on their game, compete, and put themselves out there. We’ve implemented the Star Shooting drill in practice and the guys are working on that drill daily.
We’ve been impressed by how our players have responded to the competitive nature of the app. It has led us to include timed competitive shooting in every practice. We have made sure to set the time allowed for a drill to a lower amount in order to challenge our players and reinforce going game speed. We always preach going game speed, but our players only feel it when we put them into positions that mimic the game. We also print out the Ballogy leaderboards and put them on the wall to make sure they see where they stand on a daily basis.
How does your staff efficiently identify your players strengths and weaknesses?
The BSA allows us to pinpoint where we want our players taking shots from in the game. With the data the app provides, we’ve been able to tell one of our players that every time he catches the ball at a certain spot and has a look, let it fly.
In our timed shooting drills in practice our players are able to see their data over time and we make sure that they know how they are progressing each week. Without using data, we can’t present a strong case for telling a player they aren’t a green light shooter.
How has having the ability to give virtual feedback to your players streamlined your team’s development?
In our program, accountability is everything. We want to know that our guys are doing the work that we want them to do outside of practice time and Ballogy helps us accomplish that. We know who’s working hard and who isn’t and that tells us everything we need to know.
Does any player stand out as someone who has improved using the Ballogy app?
One player in particular stands out to me. He showed me that he had the drive to get better. The first time he took the BSA he scored a 42. The next day he was in the gym taking the shooting test again. Seeing your score really motivates our guys and they want to beat their teammate’s score as well. Ballogy is like a video game and our kids like video games and using their phones.
How has having Ballogy allowed your players to get better on their own?
We assigned weekly workouts over the summer on the app and we have seen significant improvement in some of our players. The kids who really bought in and recorded their drills have come back to the school shooting the ball better, handling it better, and playing with more confidence.
James Rike currently serves as Lubbock Coopers HS Assistant Coach. He has been coaching for over 25 years. He started off as a grad assistant for Texas Tech University where he played his collegiate ball. With stops at Tech, Cooper HS, Athens HS, Springtown HS, and Flower Mound HS Coach Rike has seen a lot of high-level hoops in his years.