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.