Connor Wheeler - Creating Good Offense with Good Shots
by Iowa Basketball Coaches Association
Description
If your players can’t tell a good shot from a bad one in the moment, this course gives you the exact language to fix that. Connor Wheeler breaks down the framework behind Iowa’s top-20 offensive efficiency, built on a simple idea, good offense starts with clearly defining what a good shot actually is.
Wheeler walks through how to create advantages by getting two defenders on one offensive player through ball screens, pin downs, or post-ups, why paint touches matter even without a dominant ball handler, and why rim decisions, not just getting to the rim, separate good offenses from bad ones. He then introduces Iowa’s shot-grading system, covering uncontested rims, open threes, and free throws as shots to strive for every possession, contested-but-necessary shots that keep a player’s gravity working for the whole offense, and lower-value shots that are still better than a turnover but not what you’re building toward. He ties it all together with the concept of player gravity, using Bennett Sturtz and Cooper Koch as real examples of how one player’s shot-making opens up easy shots for everyone else.
This is a complete, teachable system for helping players recognize and hunt the right shots instead of just telling them to play smart.
Enroll now and give your team a shared language for what a great shot looks like, every single possession.
Lessons
The Coach
Connor Wheeler is in his second year on the University of Iowa men’s basketball staff under head coach Ben McCollum, whom he joined after working with him at Drake. He has eight years of college coaching experience, with stops at Drake, Southeast Missouri State, Southern Illinois, Southern Miss and Missouri. He also played college basketball. He is from Carbondale, Illinois, and, according to the clinic introduction, is the son of a legendary Illinois high school coach in the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He grew up attending clinics and IBCA meetings, so presenting to the Iowa coaches is a full-circle moment for him. At Iowa, McCollum gives his staff a hand in everything, but Wheeler gravitates toward offense, and his clinic topic was creating good offense through good shots.
The Iowa Athletics bio fills in the rest of the path. Wheeler began at Missouri (2016-2018) as a graduate assistant and video coordinator, then held video, player development and basketball operations roles at Southern Miss and Southern Illinois. At Southeast Missouri State (2022-2024) he was an assistant coach, helping the program win its first Ohio Valley Conference Tournament title and earn its first NCAA Tournament berth in more than 20 years. At Drake (2024-25), the team won a school-record 31 games, both Missouri Valley Conference titles and a second-round NCAA Tournament berth. At Iowa, he helped the Hawkeyes reach the Elite Eight in 2025-26, their first in 39 years.
As a player, Wheeler was on Illinois Wesleyan’s 2012 NCAA Division III Final Four team, earned all-conference and all-region honors at John A. Logan College, won the 2014 NCAA Division II national championship at Central Missouri, and finished his career at SIU Edwardsville. He earned a bachelor’s degree in human and family development from SIU Edwardsville and a master’s degree in educational, school and counseling psychology with an emphasis on positive coaching.
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This Course Includes
| 24 hours on-demand video |
| Streaming from mobile and TV |
| Lifetime access |
| Certificate of completion |
| 100% money back guarantee |
Course Info
| Rating: | (0) |
|---|---|
| Caterory: | Basketball/Offense |
| Duration: | |
| Videos: | 20 |
