So these Saturday practices? Seriously bad for my sleep schedule. 9 o’clock rolls around and we’ve got 5 people there on time. I decide we’ll play a game of golf. By the time I give the explanation of golf the 10 who are coming today are there (Jack B was unexpectedly absent). We play a game of golf and it is wildly successful. I just don’t understand what it is about the game that makes it so popular. The concept is that you don’t want points. Each time on a missed shot that your ball hits the floor your team gets a point. A team can lose a point by making three consecutive shots. What is it that makes this a popular drill at this age? I dunno but since it encourages good habits (following your shots & figuring out the angle the ball will come off, while still trying to make them) we’ll play it now and then.
After this we did a shooting continuous motion. I made the mistake of only setting up the court to use 5 baskets and this meant that kids got bunched once in a while under the basket. The shooting percentage after 10 minutes was definitely down, but not horribly so. That’s a good sign. I also forgot to have them shoot any free throws at this practice. Granted that was one of the places on the circuit but I really need to do a better job of having the teams shoot free throws more consistently.
Following this we went into our shell drill. I kept it the same as last week, player could dribble, but others could not move. They did a really good job when there were 4 players out there. So I decided we’d add a twist and put in the 5th player in the post (who was given limited options for movement). The defense didn’t do nearly as good of a job against this setup, which is strange since there was someone in the lane to clog it up. Prior to starting this drill I announced that I would be picking the 4th best defenders to start and then either someone to be the ball handler, or if one of those four was a good ball handler, the 5th best defender. Based on this criteria I think we’re looking at a starting five of Jon, Ben, Henry, and Danny. Danny would be a great point guard except his decision making has been suspect, considerably lessening his value there. However, I’m not really sold on any of the players ability to play point. If that’s true we’re in trouble since a good point guard is irreplaceable at this age level.
We then went into Animal Rebounding. This is where Danny’s defensive skills really shined. After finishing first in the guard group last week, I put him in the post players group this week and he finished second. No one else of particular note in this drill. Many of these players were clearly uncomfortable with the physical nature of this drill, but that’s kind of the idea.
Following a water break we played a game of golf, best 2 out of 3, though the same team won each time. Our next drill was a fast break drill, where players line up on the free throw line extended, I call out a player’s name, that player has to run back and touch the free throw line, while simultaneously passing the ball to a player who starts a fast break. The good news is that we handled this drill very well on offense. The bad news is that we handled this drill very poorly on defense.
We ended practice with the 3 on 3 full court switch drill. It was fine, though not great. After this we ran our suicides. The negative here was that Jon was SLOW running his. I think he might have been just holding back, as he actually failed to meet the time limit for one of them, and sprinted to make them on the last one, though he was going slowly so I think he really was just spent. Something for me to keep an eye on.
Overall, I think the team has potential. I don’t know how good our defense will be when we get in a game situation.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
GL Practice
After the tumultuous nature of the practice on Wednesday I was pleased to have a practice run without a hitch last night. I get to practice super early as I wanted to have a chance to just shoot around myself. And to my amazement, waiting in the gym 25 minutes early is Tom. We both just shoot around for a bit and I ask him who he thinks will be next person to come. He takes Cameron. I take the triplets. I was right, though Cameron did arrive fairly early.
Promptly at 7:30 we start practice and it is time for the Quiz part 2. It’s basically the same quiz as before except I changed the vocabulary section (and made it easier) and changed the Yes/No questions for the offense. I grade as they do continuous motion. I go through grading and I had already decided to give them a 1 question leeway. I also decide one question isn’t fair, so I don’t count that. In the end the team has earned 10 suicides (or rather 20 half suicides). Dante, in our free throw practicing, has made all of his practice free throws and he had told me at the first practice he worked over the summer to get up to 90%. After he shot his two free throws following continuous motion, I asked if he could do it under pressure. He said he didn’t know, so I decided to put him to the test. I tell the team that Dante will shoot 2 free throws and can knock-off 2 suicides for each one he makes. Dante goes ahead and makes both. It was beautiful. We run the first three suicides there.
After a water break we go into our shell drill. This time I let the offense move around, at half speed, but they cannot dribble. Brian, thinking he’s found a flaw, points out after one correction that there’s no point in guarding his man when he’s far beyond the 3 point line. I agree. We do a fairly good job with this, maintaining the right distance for on ball, 1 pass, and 2 passes even with the men in motion. One interesting moment: I had blown the whistle to make a coaching point. I make the point, and David quickly goes over to the team and whispers something quietly. I have them reset, give somebody the ball, and all of a sudden there’s a pass to a wide open Lucas for a shot, thanks to a screen David had set. I remind them that they need to call out screens. It was a nice thought by David.
After this, we go into Animal rebounding. I had divided them up into roughly centers/forwards and guards. In our first group, Scott came out on top, god bless his aggressive heart, with Justin finishing in last. In the second group it was Jack M who finished first, with Cameron finishing a strong second, and Andrew who finished in last. Someone, I forgot who, said that he thinks it was unfair since the two new players both finished last. I pointed out that Cameron finished second in his grouping, though I have to admit that the new comers are at a disadvantage there. Justin in particular looked like a deer in the headlights during the drill. I expect he’ll figure out a way to do better. More disconcerting to me was Brian who simply decided he wasn’t going to try. When it got down to 3 he put forth some effort and avoided finishing last, but his lack of effort there cost him a starting spot. I haven’t decided if we’ll do this again Thursday to have a chance to redeem himself, but giving up on a drill because it’s tough is simply not OK. Since I have a lot of kids who could make a case for themselves as starters, and more importantly finishers, a player doing something like this helps me focus. I think at this point we’re looking at a starting five of David, Scott, Lucas, Justin, and either Dante or Jack P.
Following Animal Rebounding, I introduced our new out of bounds play. I had each player run through the play once at each position they might be at. We’ll be spending a fair chunk of time at our next practice perfecting this. It was interesting that most of the team, when I said we’d have a new out of bounds play, were happy about this. David, however, liked the old play saying he got a lot of good shots (he did this privately, so I was happy to discuss it with him). This was, to a certain extent, true. However, I think any out of bounds play is going to work for David. My response was that I needed a play that could be understood and executed by the team, and which would result in a few direct scores.
Finally we concluded with some 2 on 3, 3 on 2. The 2 players did a MUCH better job of getting the ball across half court. Cameron, in particular, showed improvement at not picking up his ball. At tryouts he made a strong case for himself, but had been unimpressive at our first few practices. This practice was a reminder that I picked him to be on the team for a reason. If he’s inconsistent, hopefully as we move through the season he’ll develop some consistency.
We then concluded with our other half of suicides from the quiz. Justin failed to finish one of them on time so they had to re-run one. When someone who was standing on the opposite side of Justin and didn’t see this, asked who didn’t finished, I was glad that my immediate response was “the team”. I gave Brian a chance to give them some added time for the first two by making a sink or swim free throw and he missed. I then offered someone the chance to try and make two free throws to give them a minute for the last suicide, which would basically let them jog. Andrew took up the challenge and missed. I can’t decide if this kid thinks he’s better than he really is, or if he’s struggling to make the adjustment from the shorter hoops they use in Small Fry, what he played last season, to the 10 foot hoops we use. It’s probably a little bit of both.
After that it was time to go home. Except that I didn’t get to head straight home. Tom’s father forgot to come pick him up so Tom and I got to spend 15 minutes hanging out together. He’s a very serious young man. We started talking about shows we Tivo and he mentioned the Simpsons, Family Guy, “and of course the News”. We then talked a little bit about the wild fires in California. Wednesday when we were heading out of practice he mentioned how he barely ever had to run a suicide last year because he got a lot of permissions. I had agreed that this was true, and added it’s the reason he made the team this year because he’s such a hard worker. Thinking about it later, I realized that this was the wrong message to send to him. So when we were shooting around tonight before practice I told him that I wanted to change what I said last night. I told him that he made the team not only because he is a hard worker, but also because he is a good basketball player and in fact that Coach Jon had him as one of the top ten players out there. This is a kid that needs to hear that he’s got the basketball skills to keep up with everyone else.
I had announced, while giving them a chance to rest after a suicide that there would be no practice next Wednesday (Halloween). That gives us 1 practice before our first game. I have to admit to being a little nervous about this since our first game is against MP1, a team who we can beat, but who could also beat us. If we’re going to have a winning season, we’ll need to win games like this. Hopefully with David back in full force, and with the addition of our new players we’ll have a winning effort.
Promptly at 7:30 we start practice and it is time for the Quiz part 2. It’s basically the same quiz as before except I changed the vocabulary section (and made it easier) and changed the Yes/No questions for the offense. I grade as they do continuous motion. I go through grading and I had already decided to give them a 1 question leeway. I also decide one question isn’t fair, so I don’t count that. In the end the team has earned 10 suicides (or rather 20 half suicides). Dante, in our free throw practicing, has made all of his practice free throws and he had told me at the first practice he worked over the summer to get up to 90%. After he shot his two free throws following continuous motion, I asked if he could do it under pressure. He said he didn’t know, so I decided to put him to the test. I tell the team that Dante will shoot 2 free throws and can knock-off 2 suicides for each one he makes. Dante goes ahead and makes both. It was beautiful. We run the first three suicides there.
After a water break we go into our shell drill. This time I let the offense move around, at half speed, but they cannot dribble. Brian, thinking he’s found a flaw, points out after one correction that there’s no point in guarding his man when he’s far beyond the 3 point line. I agree. We do a fairly good job with this, maintaining the right distance for on ball, 1 pass, and 2 passes even with the men in motion. One interesting moment: I had blown the whistle to make a coaching point. I make the point, and David quickly goes over to the team and whispers something quietly. I have them reset, give somebody the ball, and all of a sudden there’s a pass to a wide open Lucas for a shot, thanks to a screen David had set. I remind them that they need to call out screens. It was a nice thought by David.
After this, we go into Animal rebounding. I had divided them up into roughly centers/forwards and guards. In our first group, Scott came out on top, god bless his aggressive heart, with Justin finishing in last. In the second group it was Jack M who finished first, with Cameron finishing a strong second, and Andrew who finished in last. Someone, I forgot who, said that he thinks it was unfair since the two new players both finished last. I pointed out that Cameron finished second in his grouping, though I have to admit that the new comers are at a disadvantage there. Justin in particular looked like a deer in the headlights during the drill. I expect he’ll figure out a way to do better. More disconcerting to me was Brian who simply decided he wasn’t going to try. When it got down to 3 he put forth some effort and avoided finishing last, but his lack of effort there cost him a starting spot. I haven’t decided if we’ll do this again Thursday to have a chance to redeem himself, but giving up on a drill because it’s tough is simply not OK. Since I have a lot of kids who could make a case for themselves as starters, and more importantly finishers, a player doing something like this helps me focus. I think at this point we’re looking at a starting five of David, Scott, Lucas, Justin, and either Dante or Jack P.
Following Animal Rebounding, I introduced our new out of bounds play. I had each player run through the play once at each position they might be at. We’ll be spending a fair chunk of time at our next practice perfecting this. It was interesting that most of the team, when I said we’d have a new out of bounds play, were happy about this. David, however, liked the old play saying he got a lot of good shots (he did this privately, so I was happy to discuss it with him). This was, to a certain extent, true. However, I think any out of bounds play is going to work for David. My response was that I needed a play that could be understood and executed by the team, and which would result in a few direct scores.
Finally we concluded with some 2 on 3, 3 on 2. The 2 players did a MUCH better job of getting the ball across half court. Cameron, in particular, showed improvement at not picking up his ball. At tryouts he made a strong case for himself, but had been unimpressive at our first few practices. This practice was a reminder that I picked him to be on the team for a reason. If he’s inconsistent, hopefully as we move through the season he’ll develop some consistency.
We then concluded with our other half of suicides from the quiz. Justin failed to finish one of them on time so they had to re-run one. When someone who was standing on the opposite side of Justin and didn’t see this, asked who didn’t finished, I was glad that my immediate response was “the team”. I gave Brian a chance to give them some added time for the first two by making a sink or swim free throw and he missed. I then offered someone the chance to try and make two free throws to give them a minute for the last suicide, which would basically let them jog. Andrew took up the challenge and missed. I can’t decide if this kid thinks he’s better than he really is, or if he’s struggling to make the adjustment from the shorter hoops they use in Small Fry, what he played last season, to the 10 foot hoops we use. It’s probably a little bit of both.
After that it was time to go home. Except that I didn’t get to head straight home. Tom’s father forgot to come pick him up so Tom and I got to spend 15 minutes hanging out together. He’s a very serious young man. We started talking about shows we Tivo and he mentioned the Simpsons, Family Guy, “and of course the News”. We then talked a little bit about the wild fires in California. Wednesday when we were heading out of practice he mentioned how he barely ever had to run a suicide last year because he got a lot of permissions. I had agreed that this was true, and added it’s the reason he made the team this year because he’s such a hard worker. Thinking about it later, I realized that this was the wrong message to send to him. So when we were shooting around tonight before practice I told him that I wanted to change what I said last night. I told him that he made the team not only because he is a hard worker, but also because he is a good basketball player and in fact that Coach Jon had him as one of the top ten players out there. This is a kid that needs to hear that he’s got the basketball skills to keep up with everyone else.
I had announced, while giving them a chance to rest after a suicide that there would be no practice next Wednesday (Halloween). That gives us 1 practice before our first game. I have to admit to being a little nervous about this since our first game is against MP1, a team who we can beat, but who could also beat us. If we’re going to have a winning season, we’ll need to win games like this. Hopefully with David back in full force, and with the addition of our new players we’ll have a winning effort.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
GL Practice
Well last night most definitely did not go as planned. As I pull up to the school I see a lot of cars parked and two buses waiting outside. I figure there is a volleyball game going on. This isn’t unusual and I just figure we’ll likely be starting practice a few minutes late. No big deal. Except I go into the gym and find out that it’s the middle school conference tournament. And that they are in the championship round. And that they could be going another 30 minutes, depending on how the current game turns out. Well that’s a problem. My first thought is to see if I can use the small gym next door. Thanks to a helpful custodian I get in contact with the head of maintenance who says it’s a no go because of safety concerns due to there being ropes in that gym. So I now have 10 5th grade boys waiting somewhat impatiently for something to do. Someone, Jack M I believe, had suggested we go and get something to eat. I decide that this is exactly the right idea. I tell the Park District representative to expect Andrew in a few minutes and to have him wait there. Andrew has a religious school conflict and will be arriving 15 minutes late on Wednesdays.
And I’m off with 10 boys to a local restaurant for ice cream. All in all it was a good time, even if my nervousness at the expedition didn’t allow me to fully enjoy it. The only hiccup came when Andrew’s mother walked in, informing me that the Park District rep didn’t tell him and so he was sitting there by himself rather nervously. So I herd the group back. There is a slight problem as they cross the street without me being present (a no-no given the liability concerns) so the kids get to see me actually run, which surprises them at how fast I can go. We get back as they are doing the trophy presentation. I get the team sitting on the stairs as they finish that up. There is then the transition time, which thanks to the hard work of the maintenance crew goes remarkably fast. And, as I thought, we finally start practice 45 minutes late.
I was going to introduce a new continuous motion drill, but that idea goes out the window and instead we do dribbling and partner passing. But not before we run a suicide as it took me unnecessarily long to give out the simple instructions. It helped set the tone that we were back in basketball practice mode.
After continuous motion, which went so-so given that many of them had ice cream in their bellies, we went into our shell drill. Already there is improvement with how I want it to go. Last week we just practiced passing the ball around and our positioning. This week, I let the ball handler penetrate in. As the drill went on, and people got their reps, there was definitely an improvement on getting the ball where we wanted it. We did that for about 15 minutes. We stopped when David penetrated in and got an elbow to the eye for his efforts.
Then it was time for a game to conclude practice. We played “3 on 3 switch”. In this drill players play a game of 3 on 3 full court, except when I yell “Switch” the offensive player places the ball on the ground. The offense then becomes defense, and the defense becomes offense. The last twist is that the person who placed the ball on the ground is not allowed to guard the person on offense who picks up the ball. I learned this drill from the HP boys varsity coach. It’s a drill that works on mental transitions. To be honest I was not in a good coaching mindset at this point and simply didn’t give the instruction or pay the careful attention that I should have. However, I did feel like they were doing a better job of communicating their defensive assignments by the end of the drill, which was a major goal of mine.
Tonight is the return of the quiz. I already know, from talking in the shell drill, that they understand that part of the quiz better. Hopefully, the scores will be much improved. Otherwise it’s going to be an exhausting practice for them tonight. I had wanted to introduce our sidelines play and also do animal rebounding. So those, the quiz, the shell drill, and our 3 on 2, 2 on 3, will be a full practice for tonight.
And I’m off with 10 boys to a local restaurant for ice cream. All in all it was a good time, even if my nervousness at the expedition didn’t allow me to fully enjoy it. The only hiccup came when Andrew’s mother walked in, informing me that the Park District rep didn’t tell him and so he was sitting there by himself rather nervously. So I herd the group back. There is a slight problem as they cross the street without me being present (a no-no given the liability concerns) so the kids get to see me actually run, which surprises them at how fast I can go. We get back as they are doing the trophy presentation. I get the team sitting on the stairs as they finish that up. There is then the transition time, which thanks to the hard work of the maintenance crew goes remarkably fast. And, as I thought, we finally start practice 45 minutes late.
I was going to introduce a new continuous motion drill, but that idea goes out the window and instead we do dribbling and partner passing. But not before we run a suicide as it took me unnecessarily long to give out the simple instructions. It helped set the tone that we were back in basketball practice mode.
After continuous motion, which went so-so given that many of them had ice cream in their bellies, we went into our shell drill. Already there is improvement with how I want it to go. Last week we just practiced passing the ball around and our positioning. This week, I let the ball handler penetrate in. As the drill went on, and people got their reps, there was definitely an improvement on getting the ball where we wanted it. We did that for about 15 minutes. We stopped when David penetrated in and got an elbow to the eye for his efforts.
Then it was time for a game to conclude practice. We played “3 on 3 switch”. In this drill players play a game of 3 on 3 full court, except when I yell “Switch” the offensive player places the ball on the ground. The offense then becomes defense, and the defense becomes offense. The last twist is that the person who placed the ball on the ground is not allowed to guard the person on offense who picks up the ball. I learned this drill from the HP boys varsity coach. It’s a drill that works on mental transitions. To be honest I was not in a good coaching mindset at this point and simply didn’t give the instruction or pay the careful attention that I should have. However, I did feel like they were doing a better job of communicating their defensive assignments by the end of the drill, which was a major goal of mine.
Tonight is the return of the quiz. I already know, from talking in the shell drill, that they understand that part of the quiz better. Hopefully, the scores will be much improved. Otherwise it’s going to be an exhausting practice for them tonight. I had wanted to introduce our sidelines play and also do animal rebounding. So those, the quiz, the shell drill, and our 3 on 2, 2 on 3, will be a full practice for tonight.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
HP Practice
We did not get off to an auspicious start with our HP practice today. At 9:00 we had half a team. Now granted at 9:02 4 players came in, but not the promptness I would have liked. I did start on time though so all those players were marked as late. Gavin came in just as I was finishing my practice introduction. Jack A? A complete no show.
We started off with doing our defensive continuous motion. They sort of dogged it in the middle but finished strong. They went just a tad over 6 minutes before I switched them into the relay race. Following this we practice our shell drill. I’m running a fairly conventional man to man scheme with HP whereas with GL, I am running more of a scheme. We’ll see how each works. Basically the HP team showed that they don’t have the basketball IQ that GL has and I don’t think it’s just because they are a year younger.
Next we did Animal Rebounding for the first time with the group. They were mostly getting a sense of the drill. What was interesting was that in both groups the first person to get 4 points, Jacob with the post players and Jack B with the guards, finished in 4th place. Ben and Danny won. Considering Danny was on the board of going between the guards and forwards I’m glad he won.
Following Animal Rebounding we did Triangle Passing where the 3 offensive players form a triangle and the defenders try and stop them from completing passes. Henry was the star of this drill, stealing the ball 3 out of the 4 times he was on defense. We then went back into the shell drill.
Finally we concluded with 3 on 2, 2 on 3. There was not as much figuring out as there was with the 5th graders but it was still a good drill. For instance, for the first time I saw why Josh made the team (he’s a pretty good shot). It was interesting seeing who played tough defense and who didn’t. In the didn’t category was Adam. I told him as much after practice. I had tentatively considered him a starter, but if he doesn’t play defense that won’t happen. Also dropping in my eyes was Jacob. He played hard the whole time, but his skills were weaker than many. In the good category, besides Henry, were the twins. Both played hard on defense and on offense.
Unfortunately I somehow forgot practice ended at 10:30 rather than 11 and so I had to end abruptly. Overall I’m pleased with how practices have been going. We simply don’t have enough of them. I can already tell that this once a week business is going to really hurt us between now and January when I get the team twice a week. So far the team seems to be enjoying themselves, and I think there’s learning going on, so those parts are good. Hopefully we’ll be able to compete when the season starts. We have two more practices before our first game to get there.
We started off with doing our defensive continuous motion. They sort of dogged it in the middle but finished strong. They went just a tad over 6 minutes before I switched them into the relay race. Following this we practice our shell drill. I’m running a fairly conventional man to man scheme with HP whereas with GL, I am running more of a scheme. We’ll see how each works. Basically the HP team showed that they don’t have the basketball IQ that GL has and I don’t think it’s just because they are a year younger.
Next we did Animal Rebounding for the first time with the group. They were mostly getting a sense of the drill. What was interesting was that in both groups the first person to get 4 points, Jacob with the post players and Jack B with the guards, finished in 4th place. Ben and Danny won. Considering Danny was on the board of going between the guards and forwards I’m glad he won.
Following Animal Rebounding we did Triangle Passing where the 3 offensive players form a triangle and the defenders try and stop them from completing passes. Henry was the star of this drill, stealing the ball 3 out of the 4 times he was on defense. We then went back into the shell drill.
Finally we concluded with 3 on 2, 2 on 3. There was not as much figuring out as there was with the 5th graders but it was still a good drill. For instance, for the first time I saw why Josh made the team (he’s a pretty good shot). It was interesting seeing who played tough defense and who didn’t. In the didn’t category was Adam. I told him as much after practice. I had tentatively considered him a starter, but if he doesn’t play defense that won’t happen. Also dropping in my eyes was Jacob. He played hard the whole time, but his skills were weaker than many. In the good category, besides Henry, were the twins. Both played hard on defense and on offense.
Unfortunately I somehow forgot practice ended at 10:30 rather than 11 and so I had to end abruptly. Overall I’m pleased with how practices have been going. We simply don’t have enough of them. I can already tell that this once a week business is going to really hurt us between now and January when I get the team twice a week. So far the team seems to be enjoying themselves, and I think there’s learning going on, so those parts are good. Hopefully we’ll be able to compete when the season starts. We have two more practices before our first game to get there.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
GL Practice 2
Well we had practice #2 tonight for GL and it was a good practice, the first for me out of the four between the two teams. I’m so excited I was having trouble falling asleep despite being pretty tired today. Part of the reason for this success? I ran them ragged at the start. With the team running its suicides people were tired to begin with. I then did a little talk about our upcoming schedule and did a demonstration of defensive positioning. Between this little talk/demo and their water break they had recovered enough that we went into continuous motion.
This was our defensive continuous motion drill where they practice sliding and posture along with running backwards. To me it’s more boring than our dribbling drills however the team liked it, because it was different. It had been my goal to spice up continuous motion this year and I think the team has appreciated that. I think I’ll introduce the last continuous motion, which is a shooting continuous motion, next Wednesday. Anyhow, they were dying somewhat doing the defensive drill and were getting sloppy with their running so after 6 minutes I put them into two teams and did a relay race with the winning team being done and the losing team having to go for a minute more. The losing team lost because of Dante, who wasn’t full recovered but insisted on going. I really should have put my foot down for this relay but didn’t.
We then spent some time in the shell drill to work on our man to man defense. Our goal this year is to force the ball to the corner and keep it out of the lane so the positioning for our man to man is a little different than traditional. Cameron really struggled with his positioning as did Lucas and Jack P to a lesser extent. Lucas’s struggles didn’t surprise me (he’s more an instinctual player and the intellectual side of the game is hard on him) while Jack P’s struggles were surprising to me.
It was then time to run the second half of the suicides, as each kid ran about half of their assigned amount at the start. We followed this up with two free throws. Our shooting percentage? Not so hot.
Finally we ended with a new game. While the shell drill had been somewhat useful, this game is what made the practice from an OK one into a good one. I need a better name for the game, but for now I’m calling it 3 on 2, 2 on 3. The way it works is that there are 5 players on each side. However, players are only allowed to go on half the court. 3 players are allowed in the front court (offense) and only 2 in the back court (defense). One team’s offense starts with the ball. It then plays as a game of 3 on 2. If the 2 player team gets the ball, either because of a turnover/rebound or after a made basket, they must then get the ball across half court with both players on the team touching the ball in bounds. Meanwhile the 3 player team is allowed to press/trap/etc.
It took them a little while to figure out how to do the drill correctly but once that happened it turned into a great drill. There was lots of aggressive defense and it really applied the pressure of a full court press. Not surprisingly, it was David who first figured out how to work the drill, though in the end his team lost. After the first grouping I applied an offensive shot clock of first 15 seconds and then 10 seconds, which Dante kept track of as scorekeeper since this was too physical of a drill for him to participate in.
It really started to let me see how they might act in a game. For instance, players on both teams started yelling at Tom to shoot when he was open, which he started to do. He didn’t make a shot, but they were good shots. Conversely, Andrew got criticized for his shot selection by members of his team. During pre-practice shoot around he was shooting 3’s and they were not smart shots for him and I told him as much. But it has no where near the effect of the team saying it. I think that’s the thing I’m most proud of: our team has a culture of shooting smart shots. I’m proud of it because while there was that desire there, this is an area, more than others, where I think I really imprinted my belief on the team, and now that culture is being spread. Anyhow, besides Andrew’s shot selection, he wilted somewhat under the pressure of the press. The kid who struggled the most with the press, making bad choices in his dribbling and passing? Cameron. He was constantly picking up his dribble when pressured, creating all sorts of problems for him. Jack M and Brian also got frustrated while on the 2 person teams, which is par for the course with them. Jack M really did a good job but he was paired up with Cameron and so Cameron’s troubles frustrated Jack. Jack P also struggled on the 2 person team more than I was expecting, but that could have been because his partner was Andrew, who as I mentioned seemed overwhelmed. Besides David, Scott did really well, really orchestrating the press when he was on the 3 man team. Justin showed the greatest improvement from start of the drill to the end. The game is neat because a team can rattle off 3 or 4 baskets in a row, without the other team being able to get the ball past half court, so the points can change fairly quickly. It was a winner and I think I’m going to use it with my HP team this Saturday as well.
The other news from today is that JCC contacted me about scheduling some games this year. I wanted to make sure that playing them would be ok with Justin and when I asked him about it before practice was completely pumped about the idea, so I think that’s a go. I’m not sure that I want to do more than 1 game against them, as they have an A and a B.
With only 4 practices left before our first game, I’m thinking we should be ready, and I’m excited about it.
This was our defensive continuous motion drill where they practice sliding and posture along with running backwards. To me it’s more boring than our dribbling drills however the team liked it, because it was different. It had been my goal to spice up continuous motion this year and I think the team has appreciated that. I think I’ll introduce the last continuous motion, which is a shooting continuous motion, next Wednesday. Anyhow, they were dying somewhat doing the defensive drill and were getting sloppy with their running so after 6 minutes I put them into two teams and did a relay race with the winning team being done and the losing team having to go for a minute more. The losing team lost because of Dante, who wasn’t full recovered but insisted on going. I really should have put my foot down for this relay but didn’t.
We then spent some time in the shell drill to work on our man to man defense. Our goal this year is to force the ball to the corner and keep it out of the lane so the positioning for our man to man is a little different than traditional. Cameron really struggled with his positioning as did Lucas and Jack P to a lesser extent. Lucas’s struggles didn’t surprise me (he’s more an instinctual player and the intellectual side of the game is hard on him) while Jack P’s struggles were surprising to me.
It was then time to run the second half of the suicides, as each kid ran about half of their assigned amount at the start. We followed this up with two free throws. Our shooting percentage? Not so hot.
Finally we ended with a new game. While the shell drill had been somewhat useful, this game is what made the practice from an OK one into a good one. I need a better name for the game, but for now I’m calling it 3 on 2, 2 on 3. The way it works is that there are 5 players on each side. However, players are only allowed to go on half the court. 3 players are allowed in the front court (offense) and only 2 in the back court (defense). One team’s offense starts with the ball. It then plays as a game of 3 on 2. If the 2 player team gets the ball, either because of a turnover/rebound or after a made basket, they must then get the ball across half court with both players on the team touching the ball in bounds. Meanwhile the 3 player team is allowed to press/trap/etc.
It took them a little while to figure out how to do the drill correctly but once that happened it turned into a great drill. There was lots of aggressive defense and it really applied the pressure of a full court press. Not surprisingly, it was David who first figured out how to work the drill, though in the end his team lost. After the first grouping I applied an offensive shot clock of first 15 seconds and then 10 seconds, which Dante kept track of as scorekeeper since this was too physical of a drill for him to participate in.
It really started to let me see how they might act in a game. For instance, players on both teams started yelling at Tom to shoot when he was open, which he started to do. He didn’t make a shot, but they were good shots. Conversely, Andrew got criticized for his shot selection by members of his team. During pre-practice shoot around he was shooting 3’s and they were not smart shots for him and I told him as much. But it has no where near the effect of the team saying it. I think that’s the thing I’m most proud of: our team has a culture of shooting smart shots. I’m proud of it because while there was that desire there, this is an area, more than others, where I think I really imprinted my belief on the team, and now that culture is being spread. Anyhow, besides Andrew’s shot selection, he wilted somewhat under the pressure of the press. The kid who struggled the most with the press, making bad choices in his dribbling and passing? Cameron. He was constantly picking up his dribble when pressured, creating all sorts of problems for him. Jack M and Brian also got frustrated while on the 2 person teams, which is par for the course with them. Jack M really did a good job but he was paired up with Cameron and so Cameron’s troubles frustrated Jack. Jack P also struggled on the 2 person team more than I was expecting, but that could have been because his partner was Andrew, who as I mentioned seemed overwhelmed. Besides David, Scott did really well, really orchestrating the press when he was on the 3 man team. Justin showed the greatest improvement from start of the drill to the end. The game is neat because a team can rattle off 3 or 4 baskets in a row, without the other team being able to get the ball past half court, so the points can change fairly quickly. It was a winner and I think I’m going to use it with my HP team this Saturday as well.
The other news from today is that JCC contacted me about scheduling some games this year. I wanted to make sure that playing them would be ok with Justin and when I asked him about it before practice was completely pumped about the idea, so I think that’s a go. I’m not sure that I want to do more than 1 game against them, as they have an A and a B.
With only 4 practices left before our first game, I’m thinking we should be ready, and I’m excited about it.
First Practice and Coach's Meeting
First GL Practice
Despite Wednesday not being a particularly busy day for me at school, I was surprisingly focused on work and not waiting with anticipating for the practice. I had become seriously distracted by basketball around GL’s tryouts and I was a little worried that with the start of practices that this distraction would return. Fortunately it didn’t.
As I get to practice I hear Scott and Cameron talking. Scott says how there were a lot of good kids who didn’t make the team so maybe we’ll do alright against other teams. I’m glad to hear him say this. I thought about eavesdropping longer, but decided against it.
We go into the gym and they start shooting around. David and Scott decide to shoot 3 pointers. David then goes on to make a ridiculous 15 of 20 that he shot. As others come in there is quite a bit of 3 point shooting and the team, as I expected after tryouts, definitely have a better shot of making them than they did last year.
Finally it is time for practice to start. Andrew, as expected, is late, while Tom is surprisingly not present at all. Due to the coach’s meeting that night we only have an hour for practice.
And I then proceed to spend a fair amount of time talking. Granted it’s an interactive conversation, but still a lot of my talking. One of the first things I talked about was how last year I hated the 3 point shot. It isn’t because I hate 3 points, it’s because it wasn’t normally a smart shot. I said this year I hate the shot less because some of the time it will be a smart shot. I have a feeling we’re still going to see a few too many threes, now that the restriction isn’t absolute, but I will deal with that in time. I begin to set up the them that I want to focus on this season: We can’t let up for a moment because every game we go into we’re at a disadvantage. I talked about how we’re a town of 8,000 and we’ll be playing towns of 60,000. Talked about the three goals. Laid out the expectations and rules. Lots of good stuff.
And then it was time for the ball busting move. I had sent out the letter with vocabulary and the introduction to the offense and defense. I even asked, when I talked to a few of them on the phone last week, if they had any questions. I got a lot of “nos”. So it was time for the quiz. First part was matching vocab to its definition, second part was asking what our defensive goal is, third part was identifying different spaces on the floor and then ranking those areas from strongest to weakest for us. Finally, there was a Yes/No section about our offensive rules. I’d have never done this with a team I didn’t know, but I think it set the right tone of higher expectations. There was some moaning and groaning, but less than I expected.
Now what was less than ideal? My grading of the quizzes. My answer key was wrong. I had planned on grading them while they did continuous motion but even mucked that up. It was a mess. In the end rather than giving them the feedback that night I simply said I’d return them to them tonight. They will be running half a suicide for each question they got wrong. Their scores were
I had told them that while we’ll be running individually this time, a week from Thursday there would be a similar but not identical quiz and that time we’ll be running as a team, with a 1 question wrong lee-way. I really expect the scores to go up now that we all know that I’m serious.
After everyone had taken the quiz as I started to grade I had them play a game of Golf. Golf is a shooting drill. Teams line up on the elbows. They take a shot. If the miss the shot they must rebound before it hits the ground. If the ball hits the ground the team gets a point. If a team makes three shots in a row they lose a point. First team to 7 points loses. Our golf winners, Jack M, Jack P, Justin, Lucas, and Scott, will each get to run one less for the permission they’d earned, except for Scott that simply cancels out the suicide he owed me for his conduct at tryouts (something I talked to him about before practice began).
We did a little continuous motion. Brian’s endurance has really improved, even though he was slightly hobbled by his knee (he’d just had his stitches taken out). Justin continues to impress with his solid ball handling skills and good endurance. Not to mention he’ll be the only person not owing a suicide due to his great score on the quiz combined with his Golf victory. There was quite a fair amount of groaning when I said we’d be building up to 15 minutes of continuous motion this year, versus last year’s 10. They only managed to complete 8 last night. We’re doing a much more physically demanding continuous motion tonight so I hope to see them stay at 8 despite the more demanding expectation.
After practice I had a short parent’s meeting. The emphasis was on staying positive and setting up the expectations that the schedule wasn’t going to be as nice as last year owing to GL having limited times for home games. After some quick goodbyes it was off to the coach’s meeting. But not before Brian asked me as we were walking out side, “Do you know who the starters are going to be for our first game?”
Coach’s Meeting
Well there were a lot of games for me to reschedule. And mostly they got done. My organizational system was good for making sure I didn’t double schedule myself (though I’ve already realized I made one mistake) but not as good for allowing to notify the league of the changes I had to make. And boy were their changes. Fortunately, it looks as though we’ll be able to keep all of our home games. This is a big relief as I honestly worried about scheduling some of them. It does mean that we have quite a few Saturdays and a few double header games. There’s going to be a lot of basketball for me in the days to come, that’s for sure.
Despite Wednesday not being a particularly busy day for me at school, I was surprisingly focused on work and not waiting with anticipating for the practice. I had become seriously distracted by basketball around GL’s tryouts and I was a little worried that with the start of practices that this distraction would return. Fortunately it didn’t.
As I get to practice I hear Scott and Cameron talking. Scott says how there were a lot of good kids who didn’t make the team so maybe we’ll do alright against other teams. I’m glad to hear him say this. I thought about eavesdropping longer, but decided against it.
We go into the gym and they start shooting around. David and Scott decide to shoot 3 pointers. David then goes on to make a ridiculous 15 of 20 that he shot. As others come in there is quite a bit of 3 point shooting and the team, as I expected after tryouts, definitely have a better shot of making them than they did last year.
Finally it is time for practice to start. Andrew, as expected, is late, while Tom is surprisingly not present at all. Due to the coach’s meeting that night we only have an hour for practice.
And I then proceed to spend a fair amount of time talking. Granted it’s an interactive conversation, but still a lot of my talking. One of the first things I talked about was how last year I hated the 3 point shot. It isn’t because I hate 3 points, it’s because it wasn’t normally a smart shot. I said this year I hate the shot less because some of the time it will be a smart shot. I have a feeling we’re still going to see a few too many threes, now that the restriction isn’t absolute, but I will deal with that in time. I begin to set up the them that I want to focus on this season: We can’t let up for a moment because every game we go into we’re at a disadvantage. I talked about how we’re a town of 8,000 and we’ll be playing towns of 60,000. Talked about the three goals. Laid out the expectations and rules. Lots of good stuff.
And then it was time for the ball busting move. I had sent out the letter with vocabulary and the introduction to the offense and defense. I even asked, when I talked to a few of them on the phone last week, if they had any questions. I got a lot of “nos”. So it was time for the quiz. First part was matching vocab to its definition, second part was asking what our defensive goal is, third part was identifying different spaces on the floor and then ranking those areas from strongest to weakest for us. Finally, there was a Yes/No section about our offensive rules. I’d have never done this with a team I didn’t know, but I think it set the right tone of higher expectations. There was some moaning and groaning, but less than I expected.
Now what was less than ideal? My grading of the quizzes. My answer key was wrong. I had planned on grading them while they did continuous motion but even mucked that up. It was a mess. In the end rather than giving them the feedback that night I simply said I’d return them to them tonight. They will be running half a suicide for each question they got wrong. Their scores were
Justin -1.5
Cameron -12
Scott -8.5
Brian -4.5
Lucas -13
Dante -11
Andrew -5
David -6.5
Jack M -9
Jack P -9.5
I had told them that while we’ll be running individually this time, a week from Thursday there would be a similar but not identical quiz and that time we’ll be running as a team, with a 1 question wrong lee-way. I really expect the scores to go up now that we all know that I’m serious.
After everyone had taken the quiz as I started to grade I had them play a game of Golf. Golf is a shooting drill. Teams line up on the elbows. They take a shot. If the miss the shot they must rebound before it hits the ground. If the ball hits the ground the team gets a point. If a team makes three shots in a row they lose a point. First team to 7 points loses. Our golf winners, Jack M, Jack P, Justin, Lucas, and Scott, will each get to run one less for the permission they’d earned, except for Scott that simply cancels out the suicide he owed me for his conduct at tryouts (something I talked to him about before practice began).
We did a little continuous motion. Brian’s endurance has really improved, even though he was slightly hobbled by his knee (he’d just had his stitches taken out). Justin continues to impress with his solid ball handling skills and good endurance. Not to mention he’ll be the only person not owing a suicide due to his great score on the quiz combined with his Golf victory. There was quite a fair amount of groaning when I said we’d be building up to 15 minutes of continuous motion this year, versus last year’s 10. They only managed to complete 8 last night. We’re doing a much more physically demanding continuous motion tonight so I hope to see them stay at 8 despite the more demanding expectation.
After practice I had a short parent’s meeting. The emphasis was on staying positive and setting up the expectations that the schedule wasn’t going to be as nice as last year owing to GL having limited times for home games. After some quick goodbyes it was off to the coach’s meeting. But not before Brian asked me as we were walking out side, “Do you know who the starters are going to be for our first game?”
Coach’s Meeting
Well there were a lot of games for me to reschedule. And mostly they got done. My organizational system was good for making sure I didn’t double schedule myself (though I’ve already realized I made one mistake) but not as good for allowing to notify the league of the changes I had to make. And boy were their changes. Fortunately, it looks as though we’ll be able to keep all of our home games. This is a big relief as I honestly worried about scheduling some of them. It does mean that we have quite a few Saturdays and a few double header games. There’s going to be a lot of basketball for me in the days to come, that’s for sure.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
HP Practice 2 and Assorted Notes
HP Practice 2
Practice 2 is now in the books for HP. The practice was OK and it wasn’t because of the players, it was because of me. The players were attentive, listened well, were eager to learn and have fun. And I came to practice prepared with a full practice plan and a clear idea of what I wanted to accomplish. The fun part was mostly accomplished as we played two dribbling games that most of the players seemed to enjoy. No problem with anything I did there.
The problem is that my instruction seemed OK. The ball handling instruction was hardly spectacular but was fine, and since this was the focus of the practice that’s a good thing. However, my defensive instruction, something I value far more in the long run, was not something I was proud of. Basically I feel like this practice was held back from being a good one because I wasn’t on top of my game mentally (I think the 9 AM practices are rough on me even though I get full nights of sleep beforehand). I also feel like my strength as a coach comes in teaching team skills rather than individual fundamentals, so it figures that the practices when I focus on the fundamentals (as it should be at the start of the season) are going to be weaker.
The nice thing is that these players have given me far less problems when it comes to listening than I had last year with the team. Tiring them out at the start of practice with continuous motion no doubt helps (this team isn’t in as good of shape as last year’s team). In fact we’ve been overwhelmingly on the positive in suicides rather than negatives, with only Gavin finishing in the negatives today. So that’s all good.
While I know that I can help kids accomplish the fun of basketball, it’s a reminder that I’ve seen good basketball coaching and while I like my style and methods I don’t always have the skills to be as effective as I’d like.
GL Update
GL’s practices start this Wednesday. I’m really excited. Due to the coaches’ meeting I will only be practicing for an hour rather than an hour and a half. We’re going to have a parents meeting afterwards.
Bad news is that Dante is out. He sliced open his foot walking on glass. All concerned seem to agree that this was a lesson Dante won’t have to learn twice. His stitches are due to come out this week and his doctor said it would then be a week or two before he could do physical activity. Speaking of stitches, Brian also has them but assures me they’ll be out by Wednesday and he’ll be fine to run.
I’m real excited to get started with this team again. I had sent out an information packet and as I was making reminder phone calls when possible I talked to the players and asked if they had any questions. All assured me they didn’t. Good. So when I throw a quiz at them, they’ll be ready. My message is going to be that we’re all going to have to move our games up this year and this will, I hope, set the right tone from the start.
Coaches’ Meeting
Wednesday, besides the first practice for GL, is also the coaches’ meeting. This is our chance to schedule games and boy will I be doing some scheduling. As it stands basically every weekend there is some kind of conflict that will need to be resolved, whether it’s lack of gym space in GL, or my having to be in two different places at the same time for the two teams. It is going to be a long frustrating night. Making things worse is that a lot of GL’s home dates are on dates that the gym is not available. There was this same problem last year, but we had home and home dates so normally it was just a matter of switching these. This year, there are 15 teams in the conference. We play a slate of 16 games which means that we only play 2 teams twice. This means that if we want to keep our home court advantage we might have to schedule on Saturdays, something I’m not sure is possible or have two games on one day, or give up our home court advantage. I figure, realistically, instead of 8 home games we’ll likely end up with 5 or 6 home games. Just another challenge for us to overcome.
Practice 2 is now in the books for HP. The practice was OK and it wasn’t because of the players, it was because of me. The players were attentive, listened well, were eager to learn and have fun. And I came to practice prepared with a full practice plan and a clear idea of what I wanted to accomplish. The fun part was mostly accomplished as we played two dribbling games that most of the players seemed to enjoy. No problem with anything I did there.
The problem is that my instruction seemed OK. The ball handling instruction was hardly spectacular but was fine, and since this was the focus of the practice that’s a good thing. However, my defensive instruction, something I value far more in the long run, was not something I was proud of. Basically I feel like this practice was held back from being a good one because I wasn’t on top of my game mentally (I think the 9 AM practices are rough on me even though I get full nights of sleep beforehand). I also feel like my strength as a coach comes in teaching team skills rather than individual fundamentals, so it figures that the practices when I focus on the fundamentals (as it should be at the start of the season) are going to be weaker.
The nice thing is that these players have given me far less problems when it comes to listening than I had last year with the team. Tiring them out at the start of practice with continuous motion no doubt helps (this team isn’t in as good of shape as last year’s team). In fact we’ve been overwhelmingly on the positive in suicides rather than negatives, with only Gavin finishing in the negatives today. So that’s all good.
While I know that I can help kids accomplish the fun of basketball, it’s a reminder that I’ve seen good basketball coaching and while I like my style and methods I don’t always have the skills to be as effective as I’d like.
GL Update
GL’s practices start this Wednesday. I’m really excited. Due to the coaches’ meeting I will only be practicing for an hour rather than an hour and a half. We’re going to have a parents meeting afterwards.
Bad news is that Dante is out. He sliced open his foot walking on glass. All concerned seem to agree that this was a lesson Dante won’t have to learn twice. His stitches are due to come out this week and his doctor said it would then be a week or two before he could do physical activity. Speaking of stitches, Brian also has them but assures me they’ll be out by Wednesday and he’ll be fine to run.
I’m real excited to get started with this team again. I had sent out an information packet and as I was making reminder phone calls when possible I talked to the players and asked if they had any questions. All assured me they didn’t. Good. So when I throw a quiz at them, they’ll be ready. My message is going to be that we’re all going to have to move our games up this year and this will, I hope, set the right tone from the start.
Coaches’ Meeting
Wednesday, besides the first practice for GL, is also the coaches’ meeting. This is our chance to schedule games and boy will I be doing some scheduling. As it stands basically every weekend there is some kind of conflict that will need to be resolved, whether it’s lack of gym space in GL, or my having to be in two different places at the same time for the two teams. It is going to be a long frustrating night. Making things worse is that a lot of GL’s home dates are on dates that the gym is not available. There was this same problem last year, but we had home and home dates so normally it was just a matter of switching these. This year, there are 15 teams in the conference. We play a slate of 16 games which means that we only play 2 teams twice. This means that if we want to keep our home court advantage we might have to schedule on Saturdays, something I’m not sure is possible or have two games on one day, or give up our home court advantage. I figure, realistically, instead of 8 home games we’ll likely end up with 5 or 6 home games. Just another challenge for us to overcome.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Reader Response
Reader Radii writes:
Yes I'm coaching in the A level with both my teams. HP players are required to be part of their house league so until January, while house league goes on, HP only has practices once a week. Definitely puts us at a disadvantage. GL starts Wednesday and that'll continue to be 2 practices for an hour and a half each.
Reader rjolley writes:
I would definitely encourage you to if you love the game. Coaching has been a far more rewarding experience than I'd ever imagined.
Ugh, 9am practices are going to be hard to deal with. Good luck with that. Also, you moved up a level basically to be coaching this year, correct? Why only one practice a week?
Yes I'm coaching in the A level with both my teams. HP players are required to be part of their house league so until January, while house league goes on, HP only has practices once a week. Definitely puts us at a disadvantage. GL starts Wednesday and that'll continue to be 2 practices for an hour and a half each.
Reader rjolley writes:
Thanks for the updates, Barkeep. One thing I've always thought about was coaching basketball more. Figured I'd give back to a sport that gave a lot to me. Maybe I'll be able to find a place here to help out and get into it again.
I would definitely encourage you to if you love the game. Coaching has been a far more rewarding experience than I'd ever imagined.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
First HP Practice
So I had my first practice with HP 4A and it was thoroughly OK. 9 AM on a Saturday is a hard time to be having practice. Things are worse when it’s 80+ degrees outside so the unair-conditioned gym, which didn’t even feature a fan, was hot. The kids are still figuring me out (I only got 1 laugh which is unusual). Finally my teaching was fine, but not great. That’s all the negatives. The positives are I think some good skills were learned.
As expected, people were late. Only three kids were there on time. Everyone who was expected by 9:06 so that was good (the twins and Danny were unable to make it). I did my introduction speech. I talked about who I am and my goals of improvement, fun, and winning, in that order. I talked talked about our rules (be respectful of self, others, and the game). I also introduced suicides and permissions. These are my motivational tools. A kid gets a suicide for bad things, while gaining a permission for good things. At the end of practice if a kid has more suicides than permissions they have to run a suicide. Oh and every kid starts off with a suicide.
We started off with how to hold the ball. I didn’t make this as fun as last year with the animal noises. I don’t know why not. A bad spur of the moment decision. After practicing this, and practicing grabbing the ball, we started our continuous motion. They flamed out after only 7 minutes; the goal is 15. I want to get there fairly quickly, but it’s harder having the once a week versus twice a week practices to get there.
Next we talked about what it means to be respectful of others and as part of that I did a listening demonstration. After that we went into wrist flexes for a while. I then went off plan and we played two games of dribble knock-out, hoping that would loosen them up some. Only kind of happened. Dribble knock-out is a game where the players are in a space and must continuously dribble, while trying to knock the ball out of the hands of their peers. If they lose control of the ball, or step out of bounds, they’re out. The boundries get progressively smaller as people lose.
Next we practiced pivoting, and we ended by practicing using our legs for our shots. We concluded practice with a relay race game. In the end only two kids would have had to run a suicide if I’d been honest, so I faked it and said no one earned one.
So the skills were there. The energy and excitement were not. GL’s team had (and has) an amazing amount of love for the game of basketball. That love simply isn’t there with HP. Perhaps that’s some of my disappointment. Anyhow, here’s a run down of the kids.
Adam – Said perhaps two words the whole practice, but was a hard worker.
Gavin – Gavin was one of the kids on time. He’s also going to be a kid who’s going to need a lot of management. He lacks a lot of self discipline and does stuff like shooting a half court shot at the end of our continuous motion drill. He actually got two permissions, but still would have been one of the kids running due to bearing the only kid to earn a suicide, and then another one later on for good measure.
Henry – Henry is going to be another difficult player. I think the skills are there but there is that attitude as well. He finished in second place in one of the games of dribble knock-out and started to argue. My response was (sympathetically) “Oh Henry. That’s too bad. You had earned the permission I talked about to the person who knocked away the most balls, but just earned a suicide for arguing with me.” I did it well as he was angry at himself and not me.
Jacob – Seems like a nice kid. He’s got some weight on him so he’ll be a post player for us, most likely. He seems good, but not great or even very good (which would actually apply to a lot of these kids).
Jack A – Did every little thing I asked of him. He ended up with three permissions, which was impressive. Not quite sure where his skills fall compared to others (he wasn’t at the clinic and what I saw today is hardly indicative of overall skills) but if this is his real attitude he should learn a lot this season.
Jack B – See Jacob.
Josh – The other kid who would have had a suicide. Not a particularly hard worker (though not lazy as I might say Gavin is). I remain unconvinced that he belongs on the A team. RATHER unconvinced.
Zach – A really fun kid. His shooting form needs work.
So that was this practice. Not quite sure where we’re going to go for next weeks practice, which will be more defensive oriented I know. I’ll probably do ball handling as well. We’ll see. I am hoping that with the twins there the excitement will improve since I imagine them being leaders and they do have a love of basketball.
As expected, people were late. Only three kids were there on time. Everyone who was expected by 9:06 so that was good (the twins and Danny were unable to make it). I did my introduction speech. I talked about who I am and my goals of improvement, fun, and winning, in that order. I talked talked about our rules (be respectful of self, others, and the game). I also introduced suicides and permissions. These are my motivational tools. A kid gets a suicide for bad things, while gaining a permission for good things. At the end of practice if a kid has more suicides than permissions they have to run a suicide. Oh and every kid starts off with a suicide.
We started off with how to hold the ball. I didn’t make this as fun as last year with the animal noises. I don’t know why not. A bad spur of the moment decision. After practicing this, and practicing grabbing the ball, we started our continuous motion. They flamed out after only 7 minutes; the goal is 15. I want to get there fairly quickly, but it’s harder having the once a week versus twice a week practices to get there.
Next we talked about what it means to be respectful of others and as part of that I did a listening demonstration. After that we went into wrist flexes for a while. I then went off plan and we played two games of dribble knock-out, hoping that would loosen them up some. Only kind of happened. Dribble knock-out is a game where the players are in a space and must continuously dribble, while trying to knock the ball out of the hands of their peers. If they lose control of the ball, or step out of bounds, they’re out. The boundries get progressively smaller as people lose.
Next we practiced pivoting, and we ended by practicing using our legs for our shots. We concluded practice with a relay race game. In the end only two kids would have had to run a suicide if I’d been honest, so I faked it and said no one earned one.
So the skills were there. The energy and excitement were not. GL’s team had (and has) an amazing amount of love for the game of basketball. That love simply isn’t there with HP. Perhaps that’s some of my disappointment. Anyhow, here’s a run down of the kids.
Adam – Said perhaps two words the whole practice, but was a hard worker.
Gavin – Gavin was one of the kids on time. He’s also going to be a kid who’s going to need a lot of management. He lacks a lot of self discipline and does stuff like shooting a half court shot at the end of our continuous motion drill. He actually got two permissions, but still would have been one of the kids running due to bearing the only kid to earn a suicide, and then another one later on for good measure.
Henry – Henry is going to be another difficult player. I think the skills are there but there is that attitude as well. He finished in second place in one of the games of dribble knock-out and started to argue. My response was (sympathetically) “Oh Henry. That’s too bad. You had earned the permission I talked about to the person who knocked away the most balls, but just earned a suicide for arguing with me.” I did it well as he was angry at himself and not me.
Jacob – Seems like a nice kid. He’s got some weight on him so he’ll be a post player for us, most likely. He seems good, but not great or even very good (which would actually apply to a lot of these kids).
Jack A – Did every little thing I asked of him. He ended up with three permissions, which was impressive. Not quite sure where his skills fall compared to others (he wasn’t at the clinic and what I saw today is hardly indicative of overall skills) but if this is his real attitude he should learn a lot this season.
Jack B – See Jacob.
Josh – The other kid who would have had a suicide. Not a particularly hard worker (though not lazy as I might say Gavin is). I remain unconvinced that he belongs on the A team. RATHER unconvinced.
Zach – A really fun kid. His shooting form needs work.
So that was this practice. Not quite sure where we’re going to go for next weeks practice, which will be more defensive oriented I know. I’ll probably do ball handling as well. We’ll see. I am hoping that with the twins there the excitement will improve since I imagine them being leaders and they do have a love of basketball.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Reader Response
Reader Coach R - NJ writes:
All very true. And it's why I wasn't regretting my decision about who to take, so much as feeling guilty about cutting Noah.
He goes on to ask:
I call it Animal Rebounding. You put 4 or 5 players underneath a basket. The goal is to get 5 points. You get a point by getting a rebound, scoring a basket, blocking a shot, or stealing the ball. You are only allowed a limited number of dribbles (except to bring the ball back into play from out of bounds). You're not allowed to kill another player, but fouls are not called. When a player gets 5 points they exit the drill. I run it so that the first player to exit does 3 push-ups, the second 5 push-ups, third 10, fourth 15, and fifth does 15 and a suicide. I start with like size groups but about half way through the season I mix it up more as that really helps the little guys get used to being banged around when they drive into the post. It was the second most popular drill we did last year.
Reader path12 writes:
I took 11 kids. I could have taken 12 without any problems. The problem comes in playing time. So yes I'm limited in team size, but the decision for 11 was my restriction, not an external one.
And yes the whole getting cut thing sucks. That was me for every time I tried out from 4th grade to 7th grade. And for the most part I don't feel bad about it. Last year's decision between Gordie and Cameron, which considering how Cameron came out at this years tryouts might have been the wrong one, isn't one I regret. I also don't regret cutting Miles, who I think is an unbelievable kid who loves basketball, or Kevin, who made a real case for himself as a post player.
But Noah, yeah I'm having trouble with Noah. I feel like all he did was do everything I asked of him. I keep feeling like he upheld his part of the bargain: He listened to what I had to say, he attempted to do what I suggest, and it worked so he listened to more of what I said, he showed he loved the game (by playing it all summer long), and my part was to give recognition to that. Don't forgot it wasn't a case like with Miles where the attitude was all there but the athleticism, and to a lesser extent, basketball talent wasn't. Noah wasn't the most athletic kid, but he had basketball talent. The kid might drive me nuts at practice, but that doesn't mean he didn't want to learn, it just means he drove me nuts. That's my problem not his. So once I imputed a flaw on his attitude, something that is true with Jack M, than it became about talent and athleticism, where Jack M had him beat. But the accounting I gave him there wasn't fair. He has far more positives there than negatives and there is a reason that people both online and in person were telling me that. I regret it because I like to live up to my word, Noah thinks that I do live up to my word, and so he's not, I'm guessing, going to be mad at me for being cut, but instead say he wasn't good enough. But based on the criteria I laid out, he probably was.
When you get down to the last 2 or 3 kids who will make the team, its all subjective. You cant predict whether the kids you select there will turn out to be lifelong basketball junkies or if they will become disinterested and go on to play other sports.
The players that you didnt select, including some of those who were definite no's could turn around and decide to play the game and become future hs stars.
In other words no matter what you do, you are going to make mistakes. You can just try to pick your team in the fairest possible manner so that you have a team that you can teach and train and coach which will be attentive and work and play together.
All very true. And it's why I wasn't regretting my decision about who to take, so much as feeling guilty about cutting Noah.
He goes on to ask:
One question - what is your aggressive rebounding drill?
I call it Animal Rebounding. You put 4 or 5 players underneath a basket. The goal is to get 5 points. You get a point by getting a rebound, scoring a basket, blocking a shot, or stealing the ball. You are only allowed a limited number of dribbles (except to bring the ball back into play from out of bounds). You're not allowed to kill another player, but fouls are not called. When a player gets 5 points they exit the drill. I run it so that the first player to exit does 3 push-ups, the second 5 push-ups, third 10, fourth 15, and fifth does 15 and a suicide. I start with like size groups but about half way through the season I mix it up more as that really helps the little guys get used to being banged around when they drive into the post. It was the second most popular drill we did last year.
Reader path12 writes:
Aren't you limited exactly to team size? If you don't think taking Jack was a bad move, who could you have let go in order to retrain Noah?
I feel for all the kids who get cut. That happened to me a couple times and it sucked.
I took 11 kids. I could have taken 12 without any problems. The problem comes in playing time. So yes I'm limited in team size, but the decision for 11 was my restriction, not an external one.
And yes the whole getting cut thing sucks. That was me for every time I tried out from 4th grade to 7th grade. And for the most part I don't feel bad about it. Last year's decision between Gordie and Cameron, which considering how Cameron came out at this years tryouts might have been the wrong one, isn't one I regret. I also don't regret cutting Miles, who I think is an unbelievable kid who loves basketball, or Kevin, who made a real case for himself as a post player.
But Noah, yeah I'm having trouble with Noah. I feel like all he did was do everything I asked of him. I keep feeling like he upheld his part of the bargain: He listened to what I had to say, he attempted to do what I suggest, and it worked so he listened to more of what I said, he showed he loved the game (by playing it all summer long), and my part was to give recognition to that. Don't forgot it wasn't a case like with Miles where the attitude was all there but the athleticism, and to a lesser extent, basketball talent wasn't. Noah wasn't the most athletic kid, but he had basketball talent. The kid might drive me nuts at practice, but that doesn't mean he didn't want to learn, it just means he drove me nuts. That's my problem not his. So once I imputed a flaw on his attitude, something that is true with Jack M, than it became about talent and athleticism, where Jack M had him beat. But the accounting I gave him there wasn't fair. He has far more positives there than negatives and there is a reason that people both online and in person were telling me that. I regret it because I like to live up to my word, Noah thinks that I do live up to my word, and so he's not, I'm guessing, going to be mad at me for being cut, but instead say he wasn't good enough. But based on the criteria I laid out, he probably was.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Meeting with HP Varsity Coach and Current Thoughts
Last night there was a meeting with the coach of the HP varsity basketball team. It was a good meeting. I got a nice zone offense to try with my 4th graders who don’t have as much ability to make skip passes, the big problem with the zone offense I tried to use last year with GL. From tryouts I think that offense, which I like better, will work this year with GL 5A, but I have a backup now for that as well. I also picked up a few useful drills, that I’m excited about and will be using. It was also nice that some of the biggest points that impacted on others, were things I already did. Things like having shooting drills be competitive or not ignoring how to catch the ball (though I did pick up a nice new drill on how to do this). But I will say that one thing that really hit home was how “Basketball is a game of mental transitions”. This was so true and will be a new teaching point I want to use on occasion, as a reminder.
It’s also nice since I get to take all of this positive energy and excitement and translate it into a practice. Saturday is our first HP 4A practice. I will be following pretty closely my plan from last year. We’ll start off with some talk about expectations, follow it up with some conditioning work, some wrist work, how to pivot, how to jump, do some very basic shooting stuff, and call it a day. It’ll be a real day for fundamentals.
My plan had been to kind of just copy what I had done last year with this 4th grade team. However, reading things over from last year I discovered that I was quite unhappy with how practices went before games started. So while I’m keeping the first practice the same I am going to have to do some serious work on the practices that follow.
One other final note. I am not somebody to regret things. I have made some bad decisions in the past, some decisions I shouldn’t have made, but I don’t tend to regret those. After I make a decision I move on, since there’s nothing I can do to change the past. However, the decision not to take Noah continues to linger at me. I think I was wrong to not take him. I’m not sure I was wrong to take Jack over him, but I was wrong not to find a way to take Noah. I talked a good game about what was important to me, and Noah took me seriously, did what was asked of him, and was close enough that he deserved better from me.
It’s also nice since I get to take all of this positive energy and excitement and translate it into a practice. Saturday is our first HP 4A practice. I will be following pretty closely my plan from last year. We’ll start off with some talk about expectations, follow it up with some conditioning work, some wrist work, how to pivot, how to jump, do some very basic shooting stuff, and call it a day. It’ll be a real day for fundamentals.
My plan had been to kind of just copy what I had done last year with this 4th grade team. However, reading things over from last year I discovered that I was quite unhappy with how practices went before games started. So while I’m keeping the first practice the same I am going to have to do some serious work on the practices that follow.
One other final note. I am not somebody to regret things. I have made some bad decisions in the past, some decisions I shouldn’t have made, but I don’t tend to regret those. After I make a decision I move on, since there’s nothing I can do to change the past. However, the decision not to take Noah continues to linger at me. I think I was wrong to not take him. I’m not sure I was wrong to take Jack over him, but I was wrong not to find a way to take Noah. I talked a good game about what was important to me, and Noah took me seriously, did what was asked of him, and was close enough that he deserved better from me.
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