College Basketball’s Sign Stealing Stories

Michigan’s football program is currently under investigation for a sign stealing scandal that’s rocked the college football world. Using “illegal technology” to record your opponents is obviously crossing the line, but some good old fashioned scouting and dumpster diving never hurt anyone. We asked the good people of college basketball to reach out with their best sign stealing stories and they did not disappoint.

Some of the best sign stealers in college basketball are the GAs that cut up film for their assistants.

That little guy at the end of the bench screaming out actions? He’s more valuable than you think!

— Trilly Donovan (@trillydonovan) October 26, 2023

The Halftime Locker Room Board

“I was a student manager at (redacted school). My job coming out of halftime during home games was always to take the ball rack the other team was using and put it away. The coaching staff and I had an understanding that I stay as long as possible and see if I can hear or see anything about strategy coming out of the half. 98% of the time I wasn’t able to get anything because college coaches aren’t that stupid.

But when we played (redacted school), I was standing there and their coach had the first play of the half drawn up on his board. He had the position numbers on it and everything – and it was facing me. I went over to tell one of our coaches and they told the team to watch out for it. Sure enough, that’s what they ran. One of our players stole the ball and we scored to start the half.”

The Dumpster Dive

“Freshman year as a manager at (redacted school), (redacted) was still the coach. We were at (redacted school) for the night before shootaround. I was always instructed to look in the trash cans of the gym for any intel. I found a torn up practice plan. It was covered in spit and Gatorade. I had to tape it together and bring it to an assistant. Took me about two hours.”

Fan Engagement

“Not involved with the program directly, but I was one of the leaders of an SEC student section the past two years. Arkansas holds their play calls up on a white board angled away from our bench. We would motion their play calls to our friends on the bench who would call them out to the team.”

Kicking The Can

“I was a SEC manager whose job was getting plays during the game. I got Frank Haith at Mizzou so mad he had his associate head coach stand to block me from seeing him during the game. He cussed me out. We kicked their ass. (After the game) their star player kicked the toilet so hard it shattered.”

KYP

”I was a GA at (redacted school). We had a conference opponent cancel 12 hours before the game. We got a D3 team to fill in. Got stuck with the whole scout and stayed up till 2am. I knew every single one of their plays. I described an entire BLOB with basically no one in the stands and one of their players turned to our bench and said “I didn’t even know i was supposed to do that.”

Sharing Is Caring

“Not sure if everyone else does this, but we had a good system going in the (redacted conference) about sharing signs. There was rarely a school I couldn’t reach out to the video coordinator or DOBO and get signs on just common knowledge with everyone. But (redacted school), those guys had every play call. I don’t know how they did. He would send me their call sheet on people and it would be the whole playbook. (Redacted coach) gets on their tails about having that too.”

*This person sent me the entire conference’s coaches with notes on how well they disguise their calls…it was very thorough*

Eyes On The Prize

“2017 Emerald Coast Classic: St. Bonaventure vs Maryland. I was a manager at (redacted school). (Redacted coach) watched Coach Schmidt call every single play all night. I couldn’t believe it. Not a great story, but the first time I saw it happen so overtly in person.”

Getting Creative

“I’ve stolen scouting reports on the road right from opposing benches. I’ve also gotten 3-5 scouting reports/play cards from rooting through the trash on the road and at home. Sometimes I’ll take a flashlight and tried to decipher not fully erased dry erased whiteboards. Not always a huge ROI.”

Hotel Printer Stories

“I was a manager at (redacted school) and (redacted coach) always had us scrub the print queue clean after we printed practice plans and scouting reports at hotels. We were at an MTE and I found (redacted school’s) entire play sheet on the print queue. Didn’t help us much because there were no explanations, but it felt like finding gold in the moment. We’d also run fake plays in shootaround at away arenas and would have to walk around and unplug or turn off every camera in the building around. Had to do it in an NBA arena once.”

“We played in an MTE in Austin, TX. Since it was an MTE, all the teams were staying at the same hotel and shared the same business center to print stuff. I went to print out the scout and in the copier found a copy of (redacted school’s) practice plan (someone on their staff made copies but forgot the original in the copier). It had all of their play calls written out for their 5-0 practice segment. I was able to match up a lot of them to the actual plays and because there was no one at the MTE, we could hear all the play calls. We won the game and I bet the calls gave us a 4-6 point advantage.”

The Flip Cards

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