Scott Flemming is nearly one year into his second stint as the India National basketball team coach, having previously been at the helm from 2012 to 2015. The American has also had coaching experience in the NBA Development League (G League), travelled to several countries to impart his knowledge and has also been the Technical Director of the NBA Academy in India.<\/p>\n
Speaking to\u00a0The Hindu<\/i>\u00a0on the sidelines of the recently-concluded South Asia Basketball Association Club Championship at the Nehru indoor stadium in Chennai, Flemming spoke about India\u2019s Asia Cup qualification and the resultant takeaways, shaping the team\u2019s identity as a great three-point shooting team, the pathway for Indian basketball\u2019s progress and more.<\/p>\n
ALSO READ | Haryana men, Tamil Nadu women teams reign in National under-23 basketball<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n Excerpts:<\/p>\n In 5×5, India beat Iraq and the higher-ranked Bahrain in the final qualifying tournament to secure a FIBA Asia Cup berth for the 11th consecutive time. In 3×3, it made it as far as the quarterfinals of the Asia Cup. What are your thoughts on that?<\/b><\/p>\n March has been a good month for the Indian team, both 5×5 and 3×3. Really proud of our guys. We were missing a few players due to injuries. The guys really played well. We had a good two weeks of training, which we hadn\u2019t had for a while. It was a solid two weeks of putting our system back in and everything.<\/p>\n We got off to a good start against Iraq and didn\u2019t look back and won that by (a margin of) 20 (97-77), and then played a Bahrain team that was 15 spots higher than we were (India 81 and Bahrain 66) in the rankings. After we beat Iraq, we thought we were probably going to get into the Asia Cup and we now are, after beating Bahrain (81-77).<\/p>\n We played pretty good defence. We\u2019re a three-point shooting team and we came out and did it again. It bites you every once in a while when you\u2019re not hitting them but I think we hit 15 and 14 threes in those games. That\u2019s what we do and that\u2019s what we\u2019re good at.<\/p>\n And then, of course, the 3×3, I felt good. I\u2019ve been coaching these boys since they were 14 years old. They had already played a lot of 3×3 together and I really give them a lot of the credit. I\u2019ve seen them growing up through the NBA Academy and then onto the National team. I did a little bit of tweaking, but I will give them most of the credit for what they did.<\/p>\n We beat three teams ranked higher than us (Iraq and Bahrain in 5×5 and Chinese Taipei in 3×3) and I\u2019ll tell you, we really could have beaten China (India lost 19-21 in 3×3). And China ended up losing by two (points) in the final (China lost 19-21 to Australia). We really feel like we belonged with the best teams in Asia.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n Where did that two-week training take place and what was the focus in that period?<\/b><\/p>\n We trained in Chennai and we had the training camp up in Delhi, which was during the Indian National Basketball League and it was just kind of hectic and hard. We\u2019d been training before that, but we had two straight weeks of just getting our system kind of back in. Because when they leave and they come back, they forget a lot of what we did and they\u2019re in different systems from different coaches. That\u2019s the difficulty with the National team. But I felt like we had two weeks of re-establishing our system: how we play and what we want to do.<\/p>\n What are the major takeaways from the wins against Iraq and Bahrain?<\/b><\/p>\n There are a few things we\u2019ve got to do well. One of them is that we\u2019ve got to be a good half-court defensive team. We have to rebound the ball well and we did pretty well in those games.<\/p>\n Palpreet (Singh Brar) had 16 boards in that second game. And then we have got to really move the basketball and look for open men. We can\u2019t just come down and put it up. But if you had noticed, a lot of our baskets were inside out. We\u2019re driving to the basket, we kick it back out.<\/p>\n We can\u2019t just stand out there and shoot threes. We\u2019ve got to be a threat going to the basket. When we become a threat to the basket, then we\u2019re hitting all those threes.<\/p>\n ALSO READ | India outwits Bahrain 81-77 to qualify for FIBA Men\u2019s Asia Cup 2025<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n There are some things that we struggle with but there are some things we do well, we have to make sure that we take care of those things. I felt we played pretty good basketball. We had a few runs against Bahrain where we let them back in the game, but we answered them every time. We weathered the storm and then came right back at them.<\/p>\n What do you think is currently lacking in Indian basketball?<\/b><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been asked that for 10 years. We\u2019re behind some other countries, but we\u2019re certainly catching up. This is a country where cricket is the religion. Basketball is coming up, but it\u2019s still nothing like in the country I\u2019m from or in countries like China, Iran, or the Philippines, countries where basketball is the number one sport.<\/p>\n The other thing is that they have Pro Leagues. We\u2019re kind of getting there. We\u2019ve got the INBL and we still need a long way to go. When there\u2019s a good established Pro League here, that\u2019ll make a difference because a lot of these countries have that and these players are going to get to play against better players than just against each other.\u00a0<\/p>\n Our National team has no one to play here in India. We have to leave the country to get competition because the best players are on the National team and we don\u2019t have as many. The numbers are getting larger and we\u2019re a really young team too. The peak of this team is going to be in three or four years because we\u2019ve got a lot of players in their early twenties on this team.<\/p>\n When these guys get to be in their mid-to-late twenties, that\u2019s when we\u2019re going to be at our best. We\u2019re going to try to get there as quickly as we can and we already have in many ways. But if people are patient, three or four years from now, we\u2019re going to really be a team to be reckoned with.<\/p>\n What sort of realistic goals can we expect the team to achieve in 3-4 years?<\/b><\/p>\n There are big goals and there are short-term goals. When I got here, I said my goal was to win one game because they hadn\u2019t won a game against anybody higher-ranked than them for 10 years. The first goal was to win one game (against a higher-ranked team). And if we win one game, then our next goal was to make the Asia Cup. We\u2019ve done that. <\/p>\n Now we have a goal to do well in the Asia Cup. I won\u2019t give you a certain number right now, but we need to win some games and make some noise in the Asia Cup. I think we\u2019ll try to win the Asia Cup but I think it\u2019ll probably be more doable as time goes on. <\/p>\n You have to be realistic and be patient with the team as well. There wasn\u2019t a lot of winning for a long time. We\u2019ve now won three games in less than six months against quality opponents (Kazakhstan, Iraq, and Bahrain), with two of them (Kazakhstan and Bahrain) ranked higher than we are.<\/p>\n People should be encouraged by the direction in which it\u2019s going, but we have a long way to go. I talk to our guys a lot about narrowing the gap with the Chinas and the Koreas and the Irans. <\/p>\n It\u2019s been close to a year now in your second stint as the India coach. What improvements do you see in the team? <\/b><\/p>\n You have to have a system of play when you have a team like this, a National team. We\u2019re not going to just roll the balls out with just talent, height and athleticism and beat people. We\u2019ve got good players but we need to put a system in place to really emphasize their strengths and try to hide their weaknesses. <\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t always work but I think overall the guys have bought into it. It really helps to have some steady training and it helps also to play some other people. We played a couple of times in Dubai (by the end of last year) and we had some trips planned but they didn\u2019t work out. Hopefully in this next stretch, we\u2019ll get to play some more exposure games too. <\/p>\n