In the words of legendary American poet Bubba Sparxx: Booty, booty, booty, booty, rockin’ everywhere. Booty, booty, booty, booty, rockin’ everywhere.’ Booty ball is a phrase coined by Illini basketball coach Brad Underwood, and hey, once again, the University of Illinois is at the forefront of innovation.
After all, this is the university where the web browser was invented, and the founders of both PayPal and YouTube matriculated.
Brad Underwood on Jalen Pickett’s “booty ball” style of play pic.twitter.com/fwD43g0ZWp
— ??T ??IG?T (@itsAntWright) March 10, 2023
While booty ball may as well be the theme of the 2023-24 Illini basketball season, it was only the phrase itself that they invented. The actual style of play was started by former Penn State star Jalen Pickett.
After PSU beat the Illini, for the third time in 2022-23, both Underwood and Coleman Hawkins described what Pickett did to them as booty ball.
“It’s really, really hard to guard,” Underwood said after being eliminated from the Big Ten Tournament in their first game.
“When you can keep possession of the ball for 12, 13 seconds and just keep backing up, and you have no recourse in how you guard it because you can’t touch them, it becomes very challenging.”
For what it is worth, Pickett didn’t care for that label, and he described his play as simply “physical” while Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry chuckled at the notion.
The graphic above gives you a good idea of what booty ball actually is. Basically, you are supposed to “BACK THAT THANG UP!” It’s posting up, backing in, and just making your posterior critical to success. It’s a way to create spacing and room to get a shot off via the post-up.
It’s also interesting to see a guard heavy team do this, because posting up has always traditionally been more of a big man thing.
But you know the state of hoops these days: “small ball,” “positionless basketball,” buzzword, buzzword, etc.
With the death of the true center, it’s guards and forwards doing this now, and Underwood plays a lineup of one true guard and four guard/forwards (or swingmen) every game.
Booty ball is also a classic case of “good artists borrow, great artists steal.”
Or “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”
The Illini are currently ranked #13 in the polls, won the Big Ten Tournament and earned a #3 seed in the NCAA Tournament (we’ll have more on previewing that match in the next post.
So it is working for them.
And this little wrinkle is reminiscent of another time Underwood innovated.
See the screen grab above. Remember the football style formation on the baseline, from the 2020-21 season? Here is a link to explanation of that tactic.
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to Ravens Wire, part of the USA Today SMG’s NFL Wire Network. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times. You can follow him on Twitter.