The Two What's of Scouting

Scouting is important, but sometimes we forget what the outcome is supposed to be.  The outcome of scouting is to win (just like most of the things we do in coaching).  Its not enough just to 'know' what the other team is going to do.  There are two 'What's which need to be considered:

What - the other team did

When - the other team did it

Why - the other team did what they did

What - the other team will do in a given situation

Quite often when we scout we only annotate what the other team did.  But the context of 'when' they did it provides a lot more information.  Time coded information can help a lot with this.  These things combined will, hopefully, resonate and you will be able to work out 'why' they did it.  This might be because of an individual tendency, because of a technical 'hitch', a mental/emotional issue, or, if you are good (and/or lucky) it will help you understand the philosophy of what they are doing.

Even this doesn't help the coach in itself.  Understanding Why is only of benefit to your team if you can use this understanding to work out WHAT will happen in particular situations during the team, in order to exploit them.

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