Season End

 basketball, Girls, Pee Wees  No Responses »
May 092012
 

I haven’t had the time to post on here like I’d like to.  I could probably do some after hours at home…but I’ll get in the middle of a thought and be pulled away from the computer for some reason.  Since I wasn’t able to update occasionally, I’ll post one summary of the entire season.  It might be long, it might be short…it depends how long winded I get.

The 6th grade girls season is fairly short, seemingly even shorter than the Jr. High seasons.  Out of the gate I had 20 girls playing for me.  That is quite a large number for Bottineau, which usually sees participation in the 10-13 kids per grade range.  Working with that many kids was a little challenging.  I had around that many for the boys Jr. High, but I also had the entire middle school gym for practices.  For the girls I only had 1/2 the court.  I made the choice early that depart from my focus on conditioning and work more on basic skills.  Conditioning was still important and we did some of it, but it was probably 1/2 of what I’d done all year with other teams.  Having this many kids also afforded me the opportunity to sub people in and out so the “lack” of conditioning didn’t really show up during games.

In the beginning of the year, just as I’d done with the boys, I set my goal to be the tournament at the end.  I was going to make decisions during the season that might cost us wins, but it was going to give the students the opportunity to develop a bit more.  It is my opinion that far too much emphasis is placed on winning at these early ages.  Most teams have one decent to pretty good player.  If you focus on that pretty good player, run screens and all that for them…it’s not too difficult to win the game.  In the end this doesn’t really develop anyone and hurts even that pretty good player.

I made the decision to focus on the pick and roll for our offense.  No matter who brought the ball down someone would “set the edge” and roll to the hole.  That’s it…that was our offense…pick and roll pick and roll.  Off that pick and roll, we worked on the movements for the other girls on the floor.  The biggest idea I pounded into their head was to dive to the rim…always dive to the rim.  From everything I’ve seen, it’s natural for athletes to stand in one place and think they are open.  I wanted to ingrain the idea of moving…the easiest way to do that was to have them dive to the rim.  Another concept I had to pound home was to have the girl step infront of the defender.  Make sure you are between your defender and the ball so there is a clear passing lane.  And that was really it.  Three basic ideas that I wanted to have them really focus on.  After work with the Jr. High girls, I had determined that these ideas where what I wanted them to go into next year with.

I mentioned earlier that I made decisions that potentially cost us wins.  Having 20 kids, I decided to break up the team as much as I could for games.  I’d break them down into 2 groups of 10 for jamborees.  If we had 3 games, each team got one game and the entire team got one game together.  We had two regular road games, so I broke the team up for these games as well.  I didn’t want parents to travel to see their kid play for 3min.  Also, I think this helps the kids develop a little better.  More min in less games is better IMO.  I decided to break the teams up as evenly as I could.  I didn’t stack a team to win, because that would have caused the other team to get slaughtered.  The girls learn more in a close loss than they will in a blow out win.  This did end up costing us some victories, but in watching the girls it certainly helped their development.

There were three girls that really surprised me with their progress over this year.  All of them improved, some a great deal and some just a little bit…but each one of them improved to some degree.  In my mind, at this age, that is a success.  The three girls I mentioned though I can point to their improvement coming because of breaking up the team.  They had opportunity for more min, but because “the talent” was spread out, those three got the opportunity to step up in to an important role.  It took a few games…but man did they really come through.  In practice I could see that little bit of skill and potential peeking out…then they started to show it in games and I think the positive feed back coupled with the extra time helped them try harder and harder.  They did very well and I look forward to seeing how they develop in the years to come.  Hopefully next year they are able to have prominent roles and don’t end up getting buried again.

We had two tournaments this year.  One that I didn’t know was going to be a tournament, I thought it was just a regular jamboree.  The team played hard and we ended up with 3rd out of 8 teams.  Not bad for an early season tournament.  At that point we had worked on no offense, just basic individual skills…so I wasn’t disappointed.  The last weekend of the year was the tournament I was shooting for.  I had told the girls we are going to be playing for first and some people’s play time might be diminished a little bit.  I told them I was going to play the girls that gave us the best chance for success.  That might seem like it goes against what I said earlier about too much emphasis placed on winning at this age, but I don’t think it does so much.  We started the season with a goal of winning the tournament at the end of the year.  I made choices during the season that I knew would probably cost us games, but would help in the over all development.  I also think it’s important for the kids to understand why they are being asked to make sacrifices and why they might be in positions where they lose games.  They can’t really understand “I did this so when you are in high school….”.  Parents don’t really understand that either…they like to win.

The first game of the tournament went well, the girls worked out the rust a bit and we won fairly easily.  The score was within 10 points, but the margin of victory felt larger than that.  The 2nd game was the one I knew was going to be tough.  We played a mohall team that we beat at the beginning of the year, but lost to a couple of times since then.  It was going to be either them or us for first…both of us knew that.  Mohall never really got a look at the entire “A” team for this grade level, and I was hoping that would be to our advantage.  Before the game the team was dealt a couple pretty harsh blows that would haunt us.  One kid got hurt with a sprained ankle in the prior game.  She sat out almost all the first game and was hobbling pretty good afterwards.  I made the decision to tape her ankle and have her play the second game…normally I wouldn’t do that at this age level, but it was my kid so I can make that decision as a parent and coach.  She seemed to get around on it fine during the game, but it was in her head and I think she was protecting it a little bit.  The second blow was that my backup point guard was sick and elected to sit out this game.  I do have a couple of other girls that could handle the ball…but the difference between those girls and my starting point is significant.  The difference between my backup and starting point is not so much.

The game started and it was clear very quickly that the refs were going to call things much closer than we had ever seen before in a game at this level.  I’m not going to bash the refs, the calls were even both ways.  They were fair as far as I was concerned.  Calling things closer though made us adjust the way we play.  Unfortunately we didn’t adjust quickly enough and my starting point got in to foul trouble early.  She sat out for quite a chunk of the first half.  This was a pretty harsh blow now having my #1 and #2 guards out.  We had a couple of girls try to bridge the gap, but we lost some ground.  We went in to 1/2 time down by 8 points.  It doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but with girls at this age group 8 points is quite a bit.  The 2nd half started off a little better, but we just couldn’t make up that ground.  The girls fought, played decent defense and didn’t drop back more than 8 points but couldn’t chip away at it either.  I called a time out with 5 or so min left on the clock to give the girls a pep talk.  They responded and cut in to the lead a little bit…but just couldn’t tip the scale.  I called a time out with 2 min left to setup a press…and that helped a little but we still didn’t get over the hump.  We ended up dropping the game by 4 points.  This was the championship game and we came up a bit short.

Since we were not going to get first place, I elected to play the girls that had been sitting for the day.  All of them were angry about not getting much time, and I don’t blame them.  You practice to play, and now not being put in the game is frustrating.  I told them all this in the huddle before the game…I told them I’d be mad too.  I told them to go out there and earn their play time.  They worked hard and played quite well.  The girls hustled after most every ball and there were only a few lapses of focus and concentration.  We ended up winning that game by 2 points.  I didn’t want to drop it, so I scattered in some of the girls that had played quite a bit that day…but the bulk of the time went to girls that hadn’t played.  I think, overall for the day, the play time wasn’t so bad…everyone got in a bit.  For each individual game though…the time was skewed.  We didn’t end up getting first, which was a little bit of a disappointment to me, but the girls played hard all through the day and showed quite a bit of improvement over even the previous week’s games.

We ended the year with a 1/2 squad game against TGU.  We had played these girls earlier in the year in bottineau and won.  Today, with 1/2 a squad…we did very well.  The girls held them to single digits and we put up 30+.  The ball was moving and everyone was getting 5-7 foot shots…so many close shots missed.  If we had made an expected number of shots (I expect 30%) we would have put up around 50 points.  The girls were moving the ball and getting that many offensive opportunities.

The girls improved in virtually every aspect of the game.  Defensively, they started rotating to cover open people without thinking.  They moved the ball around well and started to look for other people with a better look at the rim, and on the fast break they started to look to give up the ball instead of thinking about them having to score.  Overall, I think these girls are well prepared to enter Jr. High…whether it’s me that coaches them or someone else.  They have the basic skills to build on and be successful.

Set the Tone

 basketball, Boys, Girls, jr. high, Pee Wees  No Responses »
Apr 262012
 

Mike Matheny sent a letter home to little league parents explaining how he plans to run a little league season.  In the letter he sets the tone right off with the parents, letting them know that he is in charge and they are to be supportive but not try to wedge in on the coaching aspect.  I like a lot of what he said, and in the coming year I plan on including some of the ideas he has.  The only part I would avoid in my letter is the comments about religion.  I don’t think it’s necessary to be religious to be a good person.

link

Mike Matheny Letter To Parents

Message from Kevin Seitzer - Mike Matheny is the new St. Louis Cardinals Manager.  Mike lived with me in Milwaukee his rookie year.  He’s one of the most respected, wonderful people you will ever be around.  Mike coached his kids after retirement and this is a letter to the parents on his team.  This may be the BEST letter I’ve ever read regarding youth baseball and is exactly what “The Mac-N-Seitz Way” is all about.  Please enjoy and help us get there!

Letter from Mike Matheny…..

I always said that the only team that I would coach would be a team of orphans, and now here we are. The reason for me saying this is that I have found the biggest problem with youth sports has been the parents. I think that it is best to nip this in the bud right off the bat. I think the concept that I am asking all of you to grab is that this experience is ALL about the boys. If there is anything about it that includes you, we need to make a change of plans. My main goals are as follows:

(1) to teach these young men how to play the game of baseball the right way,

(2) to be a positive impact on them as young men, and

(3) do all of this with class.

We may not win every game, but we will be the classiest coaches, players, and parents in every game we play. The boys are going to play with a respect for their teammates, opposition, and the umpires no matter what.

With that being said, I need to let you know where I stand. I have no hidden agenda. I have no ulterior motive other than what I said about my goals. I also need all of you to know that my priorities in life will most likely be a part of how I coach, and the expectations I have for the boys. My Christian faith is the guide for my life and I have never been one for forcing my faith down someone’s throat, but I also believe it to be cowardly, and hypocritical to shy away from what I believe. You as parents need to know for yourselves and for your boys, that when the opportunity presents itself, I will be honest with what I believe. That may make some people uncomfortable, but I did that as a player, and I hope to continue it in any endeavor that I get into. I am just trying to get as many potential issues out in the open from the beginning. I believe that the biggest role of the parent is to be a silent source of encouragement. I think if you ask most boys what they would want their parents to do during the game; they would say “NOTHING”. Once again, this is ALL about the boys. I believe that a little league parent feels that they must participate with loud cheering and “Come on, let’s go, you can do it”, which just adds more pressure to the kids. I will be putting plenty of pressure on these boys to play the game the right way with class, and respect, and they will put too much pressure on themselves and each other already. You as parents need to be the silent, constant, source of support.

Let the record stand right now that we will not have good umpiring. This is a fact, and the sooner we all understand that, the better off we will be. We will have balls that bounce in the dirt that will be called strikes, and we will have balls over our heads that will be called strikes. Likewise, the opposite will happen with the strike zone while we are pitching. The boys will not be allowed at any time to show any emotion against the umpire. They will not shake their head, or pout, or say anything to the umpire. This is my job, and I will do it well. I once got paid to handle those guys, and I will let them know when they need to hear something. I am really doing all of you parents a favor that you probably don’t realize at this point. I have taken out any work at all for you except to get them there on time, and enjoy. The thing that these boys need to hear is that you enjoyed watching them and you hope that they had fun. I know that it is going to be very hard not to coach from the stands and yell encouraging things to your son, but I am confident that this works in a negative way for their development and their enjoyment. Trust me on this. I am not saying that you cannot clap for your kids when they do well. I am saying that if you hand your child over to me to coach them, then let me do that job.

A large part of how your child improves is your responsibility. The difference for kids at this level is the amount of repetition that they get. This goes with pitching, hitting and fielding. As a parent, you can help out tremendously by playing catch, throwing batting practice, hitting ground balls, or finding an instructor who will do this in your place. The more of this your kids can get, the better. This is the one constant that I have found with players that reached the major leagues….someone spent time with them away from the field.

I am completely fine with your son getting lessons from whomever you see fit. The only problem I will have is if your instructor is telling your son not to follow the plan of the team. I will not teach a great deal of mechanics at the beginning, but I will teach mental approach, and expect the boys to comply. If I see something that your son is doing mechanically that is drastically wrong, I will talk with the instructor and clear things up. The same will hold true with pitching coaches. We will have a pitching philosophy and will teach the pitchers and catchers how to call a game, and why we choose the pitches we choose. There is no guessing. We will have a reason for the pitches that we throw. A pitching coach will be helpful for the boys to get their arms in shape and be ready to throw when spring arrives. Every boy on this team will be worked as a pitcher. We will not over use these young arms and will keep close watch on the number of innings that the boys are throwing.

I will be throwing so much info at these boys that they are going to suffer from overload for a while, but eventually they are going to get it. I am a stickler about the thought process of the game. I will be talking non-stop about situational hitting, situational pitching, and defensive preparation. The question that they are going to hear the most is “What were you thinking?” What were you thinking when you threw that pitch? What were you thinking during that at bat? What were you thinking before the pitch was thrown, were you anticipating anything? I am a firm believer that this game is more mental than physical, and the mental may be more difficult, but can be taught and can be learned by a 10 and 11 year old. If it sounds like I am going to be demanding of these boys, you are exactly right. I am definitely demanding their attention, and the other thing that I am going to require is effort. Their attitude, their concentration, and their effort are the things that they can control. If they give me these things every time they show up, they will have a great experience.

The best situation for all of us is for you to plan on handing these kids over to me and the assistant coaches when you drop them off, and plan on them being mine for the 2 or so hours that we have scheduled for a game, or the time that we have scheduled for the practice. I would like for these boys to have some responsibility for having their own water, not needing you to keep running to the concession stand, or having parents behind the dugout asking their son if they are thirsty, or hungry, or too hot, and I would appreciate if you would share this information with other invited guests…like grandparents. If there is an injury, obviously we will get you to help, but besides that, let’s pretend that they are at work for a short amount of time and that you have been granted the pleasure of watching. I will have them at games early so we can get stretched and loosened up, and I will have a meeting with just the boys after the game. After the meeting, they are all yours again. As I am writing this, I sound like the little league Nazi, but I believe that this will make things easier for everyone involved.

I truly believe that the family is the most important institution in the lives of these guys. With that being said, l think that the family events are much more important than the sports events. I just ask that you are considerate of the rest of the team and let the team manager, and myself know when you will miss, and to let us know as soon as possible. I know that there will be times when I am going to miss either for family reasons, for other commitments. If your son misses a game or a practice, it is not the end of the world, but there may be some sort of repercussion, just out of respect for the kids that put the effort into making it. The kind of repercussions could possibly be running, altered playing time, or position in the batting order.

Speaking of batting order, I would like to address that right from the top as well seeing that next to playing time this is the second most complained about issue, or actually tied for second with position on the defensive field. Once again, I need you to know that I am trying to develop each boy individually, and I will give them a chance to learn and play any position that they are interested in. I also believe that this team will be competitive and when we get into situations where we are focusing on winning; like a tournament for example; we are going to put the boys in the position that will give the team the best opportunity. I will talk with the boys individually and have them tell me what their favorite position is and what other position they would like to learn about. As this season progresses, there is a chance that your son may be playing a position that they don’t necessarily like, but I will need your support about their role on the team. I know that times have changed, but one of the greatest lessons that my father taught me was that my coach was always right…even when he was wrong. The principle is a great life lesson about how things really work. I hope that I will have enough humility to come to your son if I treated him wrong and apologize. Our culture has lost this respect for authority mostly because the kids hear the parents constantly complaining about the teachers and coaches of the child.

I need all of you to know that we are most likely going to lose many games this year. The main reason is that we need to find out how we measure up with the local talent pool. The only way to do this is to play against some of the best teams. I am convinced that if the boys put their work in at home, and give me their best effort, that we will be able to play with just about any team. Time will tell. l also believe that there is enough local talent that we will not have to do a large amount of travel, if any. This may be disappointing for those of you who only play baseball and look forward to the out of town experiences, but I also know that this is a relief for the parents that have traveled throughout the US and Canada for hockey and soccer looking for better competition. In my experiences, we have traveled all over the Midwest and have found just as good competition right in our back yard. If this season goes well, we will entertain the idea of travel in the future.

The boys will be required to show up ready to play every time they come to the field. Shirts tucked in, hats on straight, and pants not drooping down to their knees. There is not an excuse for lack of hustle on a baseball field. From the first step outside the dugout they will hustle. They will have a fast jog to their position, to the plate, and back to the bench when they make an out. We will run out every hit harder than any team we will play, and will learn how to always back up a play to help our teammates. Every single play, every player will be required to move to a spot. Players that do not hustle and run out balls will not play. The boys will catch on to this quickly. The game of baseball becomes very boring when players are not thinking about the next play and what they possibly could do to help the team. Players on the bench will not be messing around. I will constantly be talking with them about situations and what they would be doing if they were in a specific position, or if they were the batter. There is as much to learn on the bench as there is on the field if the boys want to learn. All of this will take some time for the boys to conform to. They are boys and I am not trying to take away from that, but I do believe that they can bear down and concentrate hard for just a little while during the games and practices.

I know this works because this was how I was taught the game and how our parents acted in the stands. We started our little league team when I was 10 years old in a little suburb of Columbus, Ohio. We had a very disciplined coach that expected the same from us. We committed 8 summers to this man and we were rewarded for our efforts. I went to Michigan, one went to Duke, one to Miami of Florida, two went to North Carolina, one went to Central Florida, one went to Kent State, and most of the others played smaller division one or division two baseball. Four of us went on to play professionally. This was coming from a town where no one had ever been recruited by any colleges. I am not saying that this is what is going to happen to our boys, but what I do want you to see is that this system works. I know that right now you are asking yourself if this is what you want to get yourself into and I understand that for some of you it may not be the right fit. I also think that there is a great opportunity for these boys to grow together and learn some lessons that will go beyond their baseball experience. Let me know as soon as possible whether or not this is a commitment that you and your son want to make.

Thanks,

Mike Matheny

 

Boy’s Jr. High

 basketball, Boys, jr. high  No Responses »
Mar 142012
 

Been real busy with lots of stuff so I didn’t get the time I would have liked to post as things were happening this season.  I guess more accurately, I didn’t make the time to post.

It was an up and down season for the Jr. High boys this year.  The biggest challenge for these guys was numbers.  I started the season with 5 7th graders, 2 had pretty harsh back injuries, 1 is a hockey player and then there were the 2 others.  1 back injury was a slip on the ice just after practice started and the Dr. sat him down for a couple weeks.  One has what looks to be a pretty serious back problem that is going to take lots of work to correct.  The hockey player is a solid athlete, but he made it clear in the preseason meeting that he was setting hockey as his priority.  He would make practice and games when hockey didn’t interfere…and over all I’m fine with that.  It won’t work when he gets into high school, but at the jr. high level I’m fine with it.  He gets a little bit more conditioning and different muscle movement.  There is a slight change for injury, but overall I don’t think that’s significant enough to stay out.  Of the other 2, one is tall and pretty athletic, the other is a shorter guy and a pretty good player.  Both have the potential to be good players at the high school level.  This caused me to play some 8th grade at the 7th grade level…so I had to count quarters and all that.  For the 8th grade that played lots of min in the 7th grade games it was a good thing.  They got more time on the floor, touched the ball more and had to play bigger roles on the team than they would have if they had just played with the 8th grade group.

For the 5 starters on the 8th grade team, we had all the starters for 4 games.  We won all those games…and the majority of the other games were within a couple of points or went to OT.  There were 3 games we got blown away in, two of them were Monday games.  These boys didn’t have good practices on Mondays so it’s not surprising they didn’t have good games on Monday’s.  Going forward I’m going to have to find a way to get the energy level up for the early week game/practices.  Maybe have an open gym shoot around on Sunday or something…just so Monday doesn’t feel like the first day of the basketball week or they aren’t shaking off two days of rust.

This was the first “full” season of the read and react offense for any age group I’ve worked with.  I don’t want to call it a full season because of the way practices work out for our Jr. High kids.  A full season for them feels like it’s only 1/2 a regular season for the high school.  Everything gets really compressed for both the boys and girls.  It’s tough to implement change during the season due to the lack of practices.  For the most part, the boys seemed to really understand the concept in practice.  For whatever reason though, during the games they would freeze up.  They are so use to the mechanical robotic way of playing that when they have options they freeze up…at least that’s my assessment.  During the games, when they did actually run through the cuts and reads…we got a layup almost every time.  They saw this and understood it…but I think a touch of laziness infected a couple of guys during our offensive sets.  It’s a shame too, because this 8th grade group has a ton of potential.  They have each position covered, and a few bench players that fill in well or bring their own uniqueness to the floor (spot up shooting being the big one).

When we started the season, I had the tournament at the end of the season in my sights.  I didn’t much care about any games between the beginning and then…I just wanted a great performance in the tournament for both teams.  Both teams opened up the tourney very well.  The 8th grade played a team that we over matched pretty handily.  It would have been easy enough to choke, or play down to their level…but we focused on the things we wanted to do and executed well.  They moved well on offense, ran the break…I was satisfied with their performance.  The 7th grade, on the other hand, played far and away better than I had seen them play all season.  Guys were diving on the floor…crashing the boards, they worked the ball inside…it was nice to see.  We went into over time, and won by 4 or 6 points.  It was the type of performance I expected from them all year.

The second day of the tourney brought a challenge for the 8th grade team.  We were again short one of our key starters.  He’s a post player, a solid in shape guy who also handles the ball quite well.  We went from 8 guys to 7, which is big when you figure in potential foul trouble.  Also, to make those numbers I brought up the taller quicker 7th grade player.  He plays with all kinds of hustle and, as I said before, has the potential to turn into a pretty nice player….the issue with bringing a guy up like that is the basketball IQ difference.  He can somewhat fill that gap, but no one can replace what we lost being short that guy (or any of our top 7 for that matter).  We came out of the gate hard and it was a back and forth game.  The challenge we faced from the opponent was their very tall (6’5″) and quite athletic big man.  Our strategy was to run them hard, they (he specifically) are not as conditioned as us, and to smother their guards.  It’s a sound idea and if I had to play those guys again I would do the same thing.  I do have a few complaints about the officiating but I’m not laying the blame for the loss entirely on them.  I do give them 50% of the credit though…there were some aspects that were called very poorly.  The biggest problem came at the end when we were down a couple of points and couldn’t get a foul called.  My guys were slapping at the ball…running in to them…nothing, no foul calls.  One key play, their guy literally ran down the side line out of bounds with the ball and didn’t get called for it…with the official watching him do it!  My jaw dropped…I hollered, their coach looks at me, nods and says “yep, he was out”.  Huge play..would have been our ball at our end with a 3 point deficit.  We were shooting pretty hot…big opportunity taken from us.  I was not happy about how this game was called at all.  There came one point where their coach and I were yelling “foul” as my guys were mugging their player…no whistle.  It’s shocking that the officiating would change from calling the touch fouls to not calling the muggings when we are clearly going to foul.  Everyone in the building knew we were going to foul, the officials knew but didn’t call it.  All this teaches the boys is that if they want to get a foul call they need to tackle someone or make contact in such a mannor that it might potentially cause injury…just to get the call.  That’s not a safe situation.

The 2nd game for the 8th grade was against a fair opponent.  The boys were really morally beat down from how the previous game went and you could see it in their play.  Over the course of this game we ended up with 4 guys with at least 4 fouls and 2 guys fouled out early in the 4th.  The foul count at the end of the 3rd quarter was 7 to 3.  Normally if you see a spread like that you think one team is settling for jump shots…but nope, not the case.  My guys were crashing to the rim and getting knocked literally on their asses.  This game was officiated far worse than the previous.  The officials calling things so lopsided has a couple effects on the game.  First it obviously puts one team at a disadvantage, but it also takes a mental toll on the players.  They start to feel like they are being picked on or whatever you want to call it.  As a coach, it’s my job to train the players to work through this, not to think about it and just focus on the game.  I do what I can, but this type of mental conditioning and toughness takes years to develop.  At this age level, they are doing fairly well.  Once again, this game was one where they called tons of fouls on us then at the end when we were going to foul we couldn’t get them called.  I had 3 guys surrounding the ball, all tackling the guy, they actually pushed him back, he walked they clung to his arms…nothing.  I was disgusted.

The boys played hard, there were a couple of mistakes but that’s to be expected at this age.  They didn’t make any huge errors over and over again and they certainly didn’t make any more mistakes than the teams they played.  Us being down a guy though did mean that we had to play that much more mistake free to get the win(s).  I am happy with their effort and with their over all progress for the season to this point.  I was a little skeptical at points, but when it came to tournament time they seemed to execute quite a bit of what I’ve been trying to teach.  Going forward I think this group will do well if they keep working in the off season.

The 7th grade team struggled mightily on the 2nd day.  For as great as they played the first day…they played that poorly the 2nd day.  I’m not sure what the difference was, if it was early…maybe a few guys didn’t quite get enough sleep or something…I dunno.  It just wasn’t a good day of games.  I’m not going to sit and rip on them though, every team has bad days and this day just happened to have 2 games in it.  They played on the same level for both games.  We came back on Tuesday and played against mohall, one of the teams that they lost big to on the 2nd day of the tourney and we beat them…so I’m chalking it up to an off day.  Over the course of the season this team has come quite a ways as well.  They still have some work to do, but they are getting there.  There is one guy that played for the first time this year, and while he still needs to develop the skills, he does excel in the hustle areas.  He dives for the ball, runs hard up and down the floor, rebounds well…he does some of the things well that are hard to teach.

It was a fun year, and it will be interesting to see how these guys develop over the course of their high school careers.

vs. Westhope

 basketball, Boys, jr. high  No Responses »
Feb 052012
 

We have finally gotten a couple of games under our belts.  Unfortunately, we still have a couple more games before we get 2 practices in a row.  One game isn’t really enough, at this age, to see what areas need more focus…2 is though.  I would like to see the season structured in such a way that we got a couple of games…then at least 1 practice…then maybe a couple even 3 games in a row if necessary.  That early practice is vital though.

One of the struggles the team is having is that I’ve completely changed the way they think about offense.  I’m trying to train them to react to what they have and not live is so much of a structured world.  I believe that for their long term development this is best… unfortunately it is not conducive to them winning in the now.  The initial concepts of the offense are simple…but it’s so different and allows them just enough freedom that they are having a hard time with it.  It involves them playing together more so they can recognize situations at the same time.  Maybe one player sees a back cut open, the guy with the ball also needs to recognize that opening and feed the ball.  On the surface “pass and cut” seems to be so simple…but the actual execution of it effectively is not appearing to be so simple.

One of the main issues with executing the ideals of this offense is that almost every player who has ever played the game in the history of basketball is inherently selfish.  Everyone wants to score there is nothing wrong with that…but it’s the process I’m having them go through to score that is difficult to get across.  I want them to give up the ball to score…I want them to pass to get open.  In their minds, at this age, the way to score is to get the ball…no matter where you get the ball.  With what I’m trying to train, that is not the case.  They need to pass the ball so they can make the movement to be open.  Our warm up drills focus on spot up shooting drills, pass and catch drills…all of which you shoot as soon as you catch.  Pass and cut, a guy fills in..pass.  If you aren’t open, back cut…it seems simple.  If someone is covering you to the point you can’t receive the pass, you will inherently have a step on them in the back cut to the hole.  Jab step out to get them further out of place and then break to the hole.  In the 2nd half of game 2 they were starting to get it, and we got a couple of chip shots…so it’s coming along.

The first game wasn’t a really good test of where we are as a team this early in the year.  We played westhope, which I was informed before the game plays some of their younger guys in the JV team.  I don’t have a problem with us playing age appropriate guys that play JV…the problem I had was they would have had several weeks worth of a head start on practice.  In the 7th grade game we played a mix of 7th and 6th grade boys.  I play a mix of 7th and 8th grade boys.  I have four 7th graders…so I play five or so 8th grade.  At the beginning of the year I was toying with bringing up about three to four 6th grade kids to play, but I wasn’t completely clear on the rules governing their participation.  Also, I have 12 or so 8th grade boys and mixing them in the 7th grade game is a good way to give guys more time per night.  This game I was short 3 players.  1 was in hawaii, another was sick a day and started the season late so he didn’t have sufficient practices to play and another is out with an unbasketball related back injury.  All of these players would have played in the 7th grade game…1 would have played in the 8th grade game.

The game started pretty rough, our guys were standing around and just unenthusiastic about playing.  They made some horrible passes and just didn’t execute well.  Size wise we matched up well with westhope and execution wise we were both about even.  Still it doesn’t mean I was happy with the effort.  Given that we were playing a few 6th grade kids I expect a much better performance from our team.  They boys did alright though and we ended regulation in a tie.  The OT didn’t go our way for the most part.  They were up by 2 with a few seconds left on the clock.  I told my boys to go hard for the ball and see what happens.  We fouled and put them on the line for a bonus with 2.7 left on the clock.  Now pay attention…we’re down by two, 2.7 on the clock they are at the line for a bonus and their coach decides to pull his guys back off the lane.  Seeing this, I told the near ref that I want a time out as soon as we are able to call it.  If my guys get the rebound instantly I want a time out.  I’m not “pre calling” a time out…what I’m doing is making him aware of when I will call a time out so as soon as I signal I can get it.  This is very common at all levels of sports where the coach can call a time out.  I’d done this a couple of times during the game…I would say something like “as soon as we cross the 1/2 line, gimme a time plx” he’d watch play and as soon as they cross the line I’d signal and he was prepared to look at it.  Nothing wrong with this type of conversation.  I did this in our 2nd game as well.  When we were bringing the ball up, I’d make eye contact with the ref, point to the other side of the 1/2 line and mouth time out…everyone knows what’s up, the ball crosses, he looks at me, I signal.  So…2.7 left on the clock.  Their guy misses, my guy rebounds I say “time out”…nothing..my guy looks around confused (I’m sure he hadn’t been in a position where the opposing team wasn’t lined up on the lane with him before) he looks around..not sure if it’s 2 shots or what…takes a couple of steps towards one of the refs and tosses him the ball.  The ref calls a foul, the clock had started as soon as he touched it…horn sounded.  I immediately talk to the other ref “whoa, I called time…you knew it was coming..what’s up”  He agrees, talks to the other ref and I get 2.4 back on the clock.  It seems reasonable that something comes off.  The other ref wasn’t happy…even when the first ref explained it to him and told him of the mistake…he wasn’t happy.  The thing is I said it to the other ref at a distance of about 15-20 feet, loud infront of the crowd.  No one from the opposing team’s crowd said anything in objection to this…they heard me talk to the ref.  I was talking across the opposing coach…he didn’t object, he had heard the conversation and knew what was coming.

So, 2.4 on the clock.  I tell my boys “we are going to toss it {kid’s name} at 1/2 court, your going to take a couple of dribbles…and just stroke it”.  We break the huddle…and the wrong kid starts going forward to catch the ball (didn’t we just talk about this…man) I yell from the bench, “no {name} is shooting”.  The correct kid comes forward, catches the ball…turns…dribbles a few times and lets it go about 5 feet behind the 3 point line, the horn sounds in the air and the ball hits nothing but the bottom of the net…game over, us by 1.  The kid is a good spot up shooter and of the guys on the floor he had the best chance of hitting the shot.  Still, there is a certain amount of luck involved in something like that.  Their guys were too concerned about fouling to play any defense on him at all.  If I was in a similar situation, he had 2 (I believe) fouls before we were in the bonus…I’d have fouled him on the ground…twice…and seen what happens.  A game that close could go either way.  Even if we had lost, our performance was close enough to theirs that if we met them in a tournament we might have beat them.

The 8th grade game was next.  When the game started they quickly overwhelmed us.  They executed the fast break very well.  Knocked on our heels like that, the boys didn’t really know how to respond.  I should have probably called an early time out and chatted with them a bit, but this early in the season I wanted them to try to play through it some.  The first quarter ended 2 – 14…I was not happy.  In the 2nd the boys came out of their shock and played quite a bit better…we put up 10 to their 2 going in to the half 12 to 16.  This gave us a bit of a confidence boost and a chance going in to the 2nd half.

The 3rd quarter we came out of the gates slow again…we only put up 2 points for the quarter to their 6.  We got to the rim alright, but we missed too many layups (the same problem the girls had).  Also, one of the main reasons we didn’t score many this half was due to a decision I made at the beginning of the quarter.

Westhope had 1 player that put up 1/2 of their points in the first half.  Going in to the 3rd he had 4 fouls.  I decided we needed to work on him which would yield us 1 of two results.  Either we would get him on the bench with 4 fouls or we would tire him out on defense and he wouldn’t be able to work as well on offense.  I cleared out the side and put the guy he was guarding into the post.  He had explicite instructions to foul him out.  I didn’t care about points…I wanted him out of the game.  The guy that was posting him up had no fouls…so things were in my favor.  The refs let quite a bit go in the post for both players.  My guy was rougher than he needed to be getting to his position, their guy was pushing him quite a bit.  After a couple of trips down the floor one ref finally called a double foul (one on each player).  This worked in my favor, putting one on my guy and 3 on him.  We get the ball back and go right at him again…this time we got a quick whistle and his fourth foul.  I stand by the decision to go after their leading scorer like that, putting a guy in foul trouble is a part of the game.  In retrospect, if I had known it would take that much time and our offense would be stale for that long I might have gone with a different approach.  I have a 7th grader that is a really nice post player, if I had to do it again I would have put him in and hopefully their guy would have matched up on him…and we would get the fouls quicker.  He didn’t score the 3rd quarter and put 4 up in the 4th.  1/2 his point total from the first half.

We enter the 3rd quarter 14 – 22.  8 points wasn’t huge, and we might be able to make it up but we had to play better in the 4th than we had the entire game.  Starting the 4th the boys seemed to play a little harder.  I had them run a couple of high picks to setup one of our outside shooters for the 3 ball, and he hit a couple.  they converted a couple of layups, so we were slowly chipping away at their lead.  Now that we made a couple behind the arc they brought their defense out some and the inside was suddenly opening up.  Seeing this, he slashed to the basket…and disaster struck.  He got fouled and came down hard…twisting his ankle…bad.  He waved me off and managed to struggle to the line for the 2 shots…missing them both.  He took 2 steps down the floor and dropped.  He couldn’t put any weight on it.

I got him off the floor, his parents came to the bench and my wife went to get him some ice.  Since there were people tending to him, I focused back on the game.  Him coming out was a big blow to our offense and we never fully recovered.  We ended up dropping the game by 12 points.  He went down with about 3min left, he’s a solid free throw shooter so without the injury I expect he would have made at least one of 2 with a good chance at making both.  That puts us at a 4 point deficit with lots of time left.  Who knows, maybe we would have been able to fight back.  But, injuries happen and the team has to move through it.

After this game, I was not happy with the results.  When a few days passed, thinking back and looking over the score book (as I do when I write these posts) it wasn’t near as bad as I thought.  The boys need to move more, box out better and work on the defensive rotation…but overall we played decently against a team that had more practice than us.

Teaching

 basketball, Boys, jr. high  No Responses »
Jan 222012
 

This past weekend both highschool basketball teams (boys and girls) were in action against the Minot Ryan Lions. There are a couple of schools in Minot that when we play against they bring both their teams. From an economic stand point it kinda makes sense I suppose. It gets to be a lot of basketball…but right now I’m in to watching it. I had planned on being there for the early afternoon game to watch how my girls play with the freshman team, the wife was also going to come with. I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay for the varsity games, but I found out the day before that I would need to be there for the beginning of the girls varsity game to run a video for the 2nd graders to sing to. Not a huge deal, but it gets to be quite a long day. I wasn’t sure of the logistics of the video, so I showed up at 11am to work out the video and sound. The varsity game ended around 9, for a weekend day that gets to be quite a while in ye old school house.

I am glad we stayed for the entire boys game. It was a close game…but more interesting than that Ryan had a guy on the team that looked just like me when I used to play. He was a wide body, belly over his belt, got winded fairly quick…but he was agile and could score around the rim…just like me when I played. One of the things that he, me and every other decent wide body I’ve seen play the game, does well is shield their shot with their body. I’ve tried to explain how to do this to some of the players I’ve coached, but I can’t come up with a good way to show them how to do it. I know several of the boys were at this game, and I’m hoping when monday comes they will be able to recall how this guy played as I’m talking to them and they can make the connection.

Basketball is a physical game…and the boys are going to be getting a lot of contact down low. One thing I’m trying to teach them is to not avoid the contact, seek it out, initiate it and control the contact with your body. If you embrace the fact that shots under the hoop are going to be body to body shots, if you control that contact with your body and learn how to keep the opponent off your shooting hand they will become far more effective post players.

Something else that I am going to try to explain to them and reference this game is the difference between a good player and a great player. Our varsity team has a very good player who is the star of the team. He can score, is good defensively…all that. In my mind though, the difference between a good player and a great player is a good player gets his points, can control the tempo of the game and keeps his team in the game till the end. A great player will bring out the best of his teammates. Sometimes it’s necessary to forgo your own shot at the beginning of the game just to get your teammates involved. What a lot of good players don’t realize is that once you get every one involved it makes scoring opportunities easier to come by for the “star”.

We still have two weeks before our first game, so there is a lot of training left to do. I’m really curious to see how these boys come together as a unit. There is a lot of potential there, but since I wasn’t involved with them last year…I have no idea what their competition will look like.

Oh, and since I watched my girls play ryan’s freshman team…I was able to see that when we went to Ryan and got beat up on…we were playing their freshman team. One of the girls, the main one that shut us down in the lane, saw significant time on Ryan’s JV team. Utterly ridiculous…but that is getting to be a more common story. As I watch the teams that either gave us a significant challenge or that beat us down…their main players are starters on the freshman teams and seem to see time on JV. I don’t get it…

Read & React Day 2

 basketball, Boys, jr. high  No Responses »
Jan 182012
 

I introduced the boys to the first level of the read and react on day one.  For about 15min at the end of practice we ran through 5 out pass and cut.  It was pretty rough.  I expected them to get it right away.  What I didn’t take in to account is this is most likely the first time they have been exposed to something like this.  We ran it for around 15min on the 2nd day and they ran through it much better.  Even the guys that were struggling the most with it started to click.  I was just as surprised by their sudden understanding as I was about their lack of understanding the first day.  I am, by nature, an impatient person.  Ideally I’d like to be able to explain something and have them grasp it right away…obviously that doesn’t happen.  On the up side, I did originally plan on spending these first 3 conditioning days working 15min each day on the 5 out first layer of R&R…so by the end of these 3 days the boys will understand the pass and cut layer.  Given that I’d planned on taking 3 days for them to get it…why am I surprised that it looks like they will understand it after 3 days?  Clearly while I was planning things out I had a very realistic goal, but when I got on the floor and my natural coaching desire to push them kicked in I expected more.  I think that’s fairly normal.

As I’m evaluating how fast they are digesting the system and how many practices we have I’m starting to see that it’s not worth the money to buy the “complete dvd set” for the read and react system.  At one point I had contemplated it.  I’m interested in all the various drills you can run to enhance the player’s understanding of the system.  Given the relative shortness of the 7th and 8th grade season, I’m not going to be able to go deeper than about 4 layers.  I can find out information and technique for those layers on youtube.  Beyond that, I can create a few different drills on my own for them.  The only way I could see the dvd set being worth the price is if you are the varsity coach and you want to start implementing this over the course of years.  Where I would have to start over every year..the varsity coach could bring guys into the system and not have to start from the beginning each time.  Also, if he pushed it down to the Jr. High level he would be able to get deeper and deeper with it at the high school level.

I’ve been trying to make the connections for them in their heads between the drills we are doing.  One warm up drill we pass, cut to the hole, catch the ball and hit a layup.  In the 5 out drill we pass, cut to the hole, don’t get a pass, fill the empty spot.  We did a post up shooting drill yesterday, pass in to the post, relocate, post kicks it back out..take a shot, after the post player passes out, they work to the other side of the lane, catch a pass and make a move to score.  It re-enforces the pass and move concept and adds in some shooting and post work.

I think the levels I’m going to implement are the pass and cut, feed the post with a laker cut, drive and bounce off, dribble at, and the back pin.  It doesn’t sound like much…but when you think about how these athletes have been trained to this point, it gets a little difficult.  Most athletes at this age are trained like robots, they go to this spot…set this screen, move here…blah blah blah.  There are obvious problems with this, there is no creativity, there is no taking advantage of the defense sleeping, guys are not always looking for the ball and they are not always looking to pass the ball.  The players need to be aware of proper spacing…they need to not just know to do something, but why they are doing it.  Once they start to make those connections the game comes alive and so many other areas open up to them.  Doing the natural progression some athletes will come to this on their own…but I think using the read and react techniques they will gain a deeper understanding of the game.

Time will tell.

Boys Jr. High first day

 basketball, Boys, jr. high  No Responses »
Jan 172012
 

Not a whole lot to report after the first day.  The boys showed up and overall worked hard.  I did expect them to be a little more rowdy than they were…they were pretty well behaved.  I did end up with more on the team than came to the preseason meeting or than the boys that were there thought would play.  There is about 16 boys.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I lost 1 or 2 in the next couple of days though.  I’d hope they wouldn’t quit, I told them several times that the first little bit is going to be rough but it will get easier and easier every day.  I’m going to see how many in each grade I have today.

We started out with the very basics of the read and react.  It was a little rough for them, but by the end of the quick drill about 2/3 of the team seemed to have a good idea how the first level is done.  I’m expecting the ones that seem like they are having the most difficulty are the 7th graders, but we’ll see today.

So far, their attitudes are good and the skill level is around what I expected.  Lots of them need to work on shooting though…they are still doing the grade school shoot from the face or neck technique.  they need to realize they are older and stronger so that ball needs to move over their head.  That will take some time and dedication on their part.  It’s always tough to change something that someone perceves as “working”.

@Langdon

 basketball, Girls, jr. high  No Responses »
Jan 112012
 

The game at Langdon was the last Jr. High girls game for this season. The games were originally scheduled to be JH, JV, and V. They called a week before and said they didn’t have enough kids to play the JV game…so the JH game was set to be against 7th & 8th with some of their lesser skilled freshmen. That sounded fine to me, as I have 6 8th grade that will be/have been playing with the freshmen team.

We get there and I’m watching them warm up…they seem like a very sharp team. If this is their lower skill players their upper end must be pretty good. Whatever, it is what it is. The girls will go out and play hard. I spoke with their coach briefly before the game…he told me this was their JV team and he would be playing a couple of their varsity starters. He confirmed with me that we brought our 8th grade team. After talking to him, he said they do in fact have a Jr. High team. I was a bit confused as to why we were not playing that team.

I let the girls know out of the gate what they were up against. I told them about mid season that I expect some of them to be challenging for starting jobs on the c squad and a couple of them to have a really good shot at some time on the JV team. I told them this would be a good test for them, and to come out gunning.

For this game we had 3 refs, 8min quarters and a shot clock. I didn’t expect the shot clock to come in to play at all really…even on our slow days we don’t slack that much on offense. I saw the 3 refs as being beneficial to us…a lot of our game is based on free throws. It seemed like more refs would mean a better chance for accurate calls. The 8min quarters I was a bit concerned about. My rotation is based on 6min quarters…so I’d have to make an adjustment. It’s not really as simple as a rotation adjustment though. The girls have been conditioned for that type of game…their speed and endurance relies on getting rest at specific times. I had hoped using time outs and subbing could make up for that…during a normal 6min game it’s got to be pretty bad before I’ll take a time out.

The girls started off very well. They were running the floor, moving the ball…getting easy layups, defensive stops…I was quite impressed. At the end of 1 quarter we were up 13 – 11. That is probably the biggest point total the girls have put up in a first quarter all season. It was clear after this quarter though they were more winded than usual. I did burn a 30 sec time out to set up a press breaker…they executed well, but it didn’t give them the rest I had hoped for.

I lay the blame for their being winded on myself. I didn’t have a practice after xmas break started. The starters were practicing with the high school, and at some point one of the other girls started working with them as well. So that left me 6 girls that were not getting practice. Also, the freshmen practice doesn’t focus on conditioning as much as I do. Just different coaching philosophies, I’m not going to say ones better than another. Couple those things together and we have a team that was a bit different than the one we had before the break. Clearly this is what college football coaches feel like during bowl season! Working with/against the freshmen has helped these girls a bit. They are seeing different and higher level competition every practice and clearly that’s paying off. I wasn’t sure how they would respond. Two of them I figured would work very hard, then there were a few that started out kind of in a “shell” with me. They seemed timid on the court and really didn’t like physical contact. With the freshmen team they are building on what they have been trained to do…and are working out well (IMO).

Starting the 2nd quarter of this game, we started to let up a bit. A lot of the mistakes we’ve been making all season at times started happening all at once. We were not rebounding, our defensive rotation was slow and our passing got very sloppy. Any one of these mistakes would have made for a difficult game for us…all of them at once opened the door wide for them, and boy did they take advantage of it. We started to fall behind and seemed all out of sorts. At this point, I started subbing in the other girls that would be done after this game. I wasn’t sure how we would open up in the 2nd half, so incase the starters came out and played inspired basketball I wanted to make sure that everyone made at least an appearance.

Given this was being treated like a JV game, there are certain expectations of team behavior. Generally at half time with my teams I do not go in the locker room. I huddle them up, give them a quick break down of what needs to keep going right and what we need to work on…then it’s water and shooting around. During the JV and Varsity games they expect you to go into the locker rooms. I wasn’t going to until I saw they had half time entertainment lined up…little kids (3-4th grade) playing some ball for the crowd.

We went into the locker room, and it was the longest half time I’ve been a part of. I believe you do your coaching in practice, and come game time you just make minor corrections. While we made several mistakes over and over again…they are all common and really don’t need that much conversation. Instead of lecturing or drawing many plays on the white board, I gave the girls the opportunity to talk with each other. Several of them had things to say, and all the information was topics I would have covered. They talked about technique, expectations and things of that nature. What that didn’t do, which I was most pleased with, was rip on each other and yell about the negative things that were going on. We were down 30-15 and they were trying to work together to correct things and not just blaming each other for problems. After the entertainment finished, we took the floor…instead of warming up, the girls huddled up with each other at the bench and again tried to encourage each other to work hard and do all they could in this game. I think they even prayed. I’m not a religious guy…but I’m not going to discourage them from making choices to do that stuff. As long as they are not pressuring other teammates and making them uncomfortable, it’s fine.

The second half didn’t go well. We continued to have the same problems, which was unfortunate. When it became clear we were not going to close the gap, I again put in the girls that were going to be done after this game. This caused the score to be a little more lopsided that it would have other wise been, but these girls deserved some time.

The season went well for these ladies and they improved a great deal. The parents and the girls themselves seem happy with their improvement and seem to want to improve themselves even more. At the beginning of the year, they seemed like a group that was content to “just play”. Once they discovered that they actually have the potential to be a very good team their drive kicked in to gear and they worked very hard. I’m happy with the progress they have made, but I’m disappointed we won’t get another month or so to work on things. If we could add a game or tournament and spread everything out over another month I think we’d have a pretty decent season for them.

This group of girls has a very solid core to build on. They have 5 starters, none of them being forced into positions they are not natural for. They have a few reserves that can easily fill in…they have a very nice grouping. The major deficit of this team is their lack of another slashing point guard. I tried giving a few different girls time handling the ball but we just didn’t have the practice time to develop someone as much as I’d like. I would love to have had another slashing point, but even a “ball control” point guard would have been good. There are a couple of girls that could fit this role, but they have not had the playing time with the ball in their hands to develop as much as they should have. Next year, with the freshman team, these other girls will get more game time with the ball in their hands…that should help out their development quite a bit.

It will be interesting to see how these girls develop over their high school years.

Boys Jr. High

 basketball, Boys, jr. high  No Responses »
Jan 062012
 

The short season for the Girl’s Jr. High is almost over.  There is one game left and no practices.  6 of my 8th grade girls ended up getting moved up to play with the freshman team.  That leaves me 5 or 6 that I could have had practice with.  I elected not to for various reasons.  A week after the girls final game the boy’s Jr. High season will be starting.

I had a pre-season meeting with the boys to get a feel for who would be playing and what kind of numbers I’d be looking at.  For whatever reason…there are not many guys playing.  I expect hockey has quite a bit to do with this.  In the 7th and 8th grades it becomes highly difficult to be involved in both hockey and basketball, in high school it’s virtually impossible.  Between the two grades I have 12-13 guys.  4-5 7th grade and 8ish 8th grade.  One of the 7th grade guys plays hockey, so I’m not sure how that’s going to work out.  What I’m going to try to do is keep the top 5-6 8th graders off the 7th grade team.  Everyone else will dress and play in the 7th grade game.  I don’t like playing the upper level starters in the lower level game.  Maybe I’ll end up doing that anyway, I don’t know.  I’ll need to keep track of quarters played, the boys are only allowed 5 quarters a night…that is different from what I thought it was.  In high school they are allowed 6 quarters a night.  I looked up the NDHSAA rules and there is a subset for Jr. High (nothing for 5th and 6th from what I could see).  The boys are going to have to be in better condition than the other two teams I coached so far this year.  The pee wee’s and 8th grade had enough players to work in that we could cover up some conditioning issues.  The boys will not have this luxury and are going to have to learn to vary the pace of the game.

One of the major differences between the way I’ll run the first practices with the boys as opposed to the girls is I’ll start drilling the read and react system from day one.  They are going to start working on spacing concepts, and build on things little by little.  I think the 5 out work the rotation idea will meld decently with the first 3 days of conditioning.  It’s pretty fast paced and I’ll call out changes of direction once they get going so they start to fully understand what I’m looking for.  It’s too bad I didn’t get hipped to this system until the girls were done with their first 11 practices.  I tried to implement the principles but there just wasn’t enough time.

I’ve worked out two basic outlines for 90min practices.  One for conditioning and basic skills, the other for more offensive work.  I’ll paste them in here so anyone creeping the site can take a peek.  The first few days are going to be a little rough for the boys, but once their bodies get use to the physical activity they will handle things much better.  Every season I get such a kick out of how much the athletes complain about the running…then watch them towards the middle of the season when we do the same amount of running and they still have gas in the tank.

Conditioning:

high knees

butt kicks

karaoke

backwards

dribble

dominate down forward back backwards

off hand down forward back backwards

2 balls down forward back backwards

(7min)

layup warm up drill (10min)

fast break drill (10min)

2 crushers

1 crusher

(5min)

water (5min)

Defense reaction drill (sprint to 1/2 court, shuffle back to the side line between baseline and 1/2 court, drop step and shuffle back to starting point. Sprint to free throw line, shuffle to side line, touch side line and shuffle back to mid free-throw line, sprint to the end line, jump x10 trying to touch the rim/backboard/net)

(10min)

partner dribble/shuffle drill (7min)

passing drills:

partner shuffle

sprint

3 man weave

(10min)

2 crushers (3min)

water (5min)

2 crushers (3min)

free throws/water, 2 shots, then 2 sprints with your arms in the air. 10 shots (15min too long)

5 out spacing drill (remainder of practice)

3 crushers

Offensive:

high knees

butt kicks

karaoke

backwards

dribble:

dominate down forward back backwards

off hand down forward back backwards

2 balls down forward back backwards

(7min)

layup warm up drill (5min)

fast break drill (5min)

2 crushers

1 crusher (5min)

water (2min)

shooting drills:

chair box shooting (10min)

catch and shoot (5min)

2 crushers (3min)

water (2min)

number box out (10min)

2 crushers (3min)

free throws sprints, 10 (15min)

read and react training (rest of practice)

3 crushers

The first 15min or so of practice is the same every day “warm” warm ups, then the 2 quick drills.  I really liked the layup/jump shot drill when I started it with the girls…and the fast break drill works on a few different skills that are important.  These plans are not set in stone and will only take us through the first 8 practices.  During that practice week when we start games, we’ll work on more shooting drills and spend time developing a press breaker.  For the first 10 practices we are not going to work on defense at all.  It’s going to be totally focused on offense.  If they are willing to work hard and are in good shape I think the defense will take care of itself for the most part.  The last practice before the first game we’ll talk a little bit about defense and what we want to do.  Overall though, I think if they work hard and communicate defense will take care of itself.

We have 11 practices, then 4 games 2 practices and another game.  It would be nice to have just one game right off, then another practice or two before we start to have multiple games in a row.  I’d like to see how they perform in a game then look to make some adjustments.  Like the girl’s season though we’ll see what adjustments we can make on the fly.  I like how we have a tournament at the end of the season though, it gives us something to work for.  During the girls season we looked at it on a game to game basis, but it would have been really nice to have a tourney at the end to measure how far they have come and give that extra incentive to the competition.

I’ve looked forward to starting every different coaching season this year, and the boys are no different.  It is nice to watch them develop into a team and work out the different hitches and bad habits they have developed over the years.  It would be nice if the season was longer though.  With the girls, it felt like they are just getting on a roll and starting to understand what I’m preaching.  The different concepts are starting to come together…and then we stop.  I’m not sure these shorter seasons are the best for their overall development, but it’s what has been established by the schools in this area.  From what I understand, many of these kids play on offseason traveling teams…so they get more time in the gym.  Those are nice to get them playing together more and have the ball in their hands.  It would be nice if these leagues were all 3 on 3 so everyone touched the ball more.

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