Podcast: Sacred Heart coach Jon Basti on player, team development

Jon Basti, coach of reigning MAAC champion Sacred Heart, joins the "Chasing The Goal" podcast this week.

On this episode of New England Lacrosse Journal’s “Chasing The Goal” podcast, hosts Kyle Devitte and Owen Hart talk with Sacred Heart head coach Jon Basti.

A Connecticut coaching legend, Basti is a 1999 graduate of Fairfield University with degrees in both politics and history. He was a member of the Stags’ 1996 and ’97 MAAC championship teams, before going on to coach at Eastern Connecticut State, Fairfield, Lafayette and Hartford.

His first season as the head coach at Sacred Heart was in 2014. Last season, the Pioneers won the MAAC and earned a berth in the NCAA tournament, where they fell to UAlbany. His record at SHU is 62-92.

Watch the full podcast below on YouTube. It’s also available on all major podcast platforms. If you enjoy it, please leave a rating and a review. Watch more episodes on the Chasing the Goal podcast channel.

Here are some excerpts from the pod.

Owen Hart: Lacrosse is a pretty dogmatic sport. Are there any really dogmatic beliefs or systems or rules that you have, and or are willing to share on a podcast for other teams to listen to? 

Jon Basti: Look at it this way — if you have a kid, one of your best players, and this is what he does well … he’s really he’s a good shooter, right? That’s his job and a lot of your offense is based on getting that shooter the ball; you’ve worked on that all year. He’s worked on that every day and on his own time. You’re putting that guy in a position to score.

Now you try to switch that kid to make him do a different thing: “We need you to play like this, but you only have three days to do that.” Is that kid really going to get better and change what he’s going to do in those three days? No, he’s not. It’s nearly impossible to do.

Your team is the same way. You practice every single day and you work every single day on doing certain things that you think your team is good at. So trying to change that week to week, I think, is very, very difficult. Especially 18- to 22-year-olds, who’ve got a million things going on.

This isn’t the NFL. You know what I mean? We’re not here 24/7/365 being able to have meetings all day and breaking down film. You have limited time and resources to do certain things. That’s why we decided we’re just going to focus on ourselves, and what Sacred Heart can do to be successful against the next opponent.

Kyle Devitte: I want to ask you about something that coaches hate talking about. I’m sure you can guess what it is — the transfer portal. How do you feel about it? How does your program use it? 

Jon Basti: Well, first of all, I don’t hate talking about it. I think it’s an important conversation that needs to be had more consistently because there are different ways to approach it. I think it’s a good tool to use. It could also be something that’s negative. But it could give people opportunities that they may need and it gives people second chances, opportunities to move forward in their careers in a different way.

You never know why somebody is transferring. Sometimes it’s issues that are not great. Sometimes they want to be closer to home. They want to be at a smaller school. They want to be at a bigger school. They’ve realized that they may not be able to deal with the rigors of playing at a certain level, and they want to move up a level or down a level.

So that’s how we approach it and how I view the transfer portal. I think the NCAA really manages it well. And I think they’ve gotten better at it, and putting more rules together and more stipulations and limiting the time you can go in, which has been a huge benefit to everybody.

@TheKyleDevitte
[email protected]

More Episodes