Tryouts Day 1

Yesterday were the first day of tryouts. Going in, I decided that I pretty much liked my plan from last year and would be following something similar this year for Day 1. It was a little nerve racking since 2 minutes before tryouts were to begin we didn’t even have 10 players. Fortunately, 4th grade tryouts ran a little long and so we got a late start with 13 players. I will be taking 10 of the players.

The first thing I do is deliver my speech. I deliver the same speech as last year, with a few tweaks. I think it introduces things quite well.

Our first drill is dribbling. And right away it becomes clear that one kid, Sammy, is not just a BAD dribbler, but is nearly incapable of doing so. We do both left and right handed. And then for kicks we do two handed dribbling. Several kids really stood out. Unfortunately, I don’t quite have names and faces down yet, so I can’t say all of the kids who did well or struggled. I can tell you that, Josh, who was the point guard last year, did well with it. So did Alex, who is going to be the center. Austin, was able to mostly do it, and besides being a lefty, seems like a really fun kid. This year I will be videotaping all of the games and so filmed tryouts. Upon video review I also discovered that Mason hadn’t gone particularly fast, but was slow and steady and in accomplishing it. Having players who can play with-in themselves is always a tricky thing so that’s a definite plus for him.

Following 2 handed dribbling, we do 45 seconds of lay-ups. The best at the layups were Austin, Grant, Seth, and Quintin. Grant doesn’t have the athletic skills that I’ve had on previous teams, but it seems like he might have the basketball skills and personality to be a valuable member of the team. Quintin was one of the favorites of last year’s coach.

At this point, I’d already identified two kids who were likely cuts, which is making me feel pretty good and giving me a fair amount of time to spend thinking about what kind of team we could be, rather than just who has the skills, or not.

Following the layups, and a water break, we did two drills which caused a lot of confusion. The first was just 1 on 1 dribble zig-zag up the court. This is a standard drill, one I know last year’s coach did, and so it amazed me that so many had problems with it. On the other hand, triangle passing, was one I expected to cause more problems and it did. Due to the confusion with zig-zag, I was spening a lot of time remediating and so once again the video came in handy in seeing who could do what. Except that because I’m not super solid on who kids are yet, I couldn’t always tell from the video who was who. Definitely lessened its helpfulness there, but I think I have a way of correcting that for tonight.

After this we played some 3 on 3. One of the things I didn’t like was the fact that a Josh and Michael always called for the ball and acted as point guards for their teams. I’m sure this is a relic of last year’s coaching. While I don’t believe just anyone should dribble the ball up the court, I also think that waiting for one particular kid, especially off rebounds, is not the best idea. I understand why Jon, their coach last year did this, because there is some weak ball handling, but I think I’m going to try and do otherwise. We’ll see how it goes.

The standouts for 3 on 3 were Alex, who is a definite yes at this point, and Seth. Seth, in particular, used ball fakes to his advantage. Overall I was impressed with the help defense that was played.

We then ended with some hardcore running. I don’t normally run them to the extent that we did here, but it lets me see how they act when they’re tired. With only 2 or 3 hours of tryout time per kid, some short cuts are required.

Then it was time to go home where I reviewed the tape. Since I don’t have good impressions of all of the kids right now, I’m going to hold off with a kid by kid run down for the moment. I will say that my two probable cuts are Sammy and Brandon. Sammy was the fastest and most agile kid at practice. He also worked hard on defense. But at the moment he’s a HUGE liability with the basketball. If a kid is better off not with the basketball than with, they can be ok with the assets Sammy brings. But if a kid has the basketball and it’s going to end up with the other team through a missed shot or turnover, that’s no good. The other probable cut is Brandon. He’s a touch slower than most of the other kids, he didn’t shine in any of the drills, and like Sammy, was super confused by much of what we did. A general bad combination. The definite yeses at the moment are Alex, Seth, Josh, and Michael. Michael’s attitude is questionable and if there was more talent to be had, I’d look for a reason not to take him. However, even factoring in the attitude, I think he’s going to end up being one of the 10 best this year.

And that is my overall first impression. They are a definite B level team. Probably a .500 B level team. Basically they are this year what they were last year. Hopefully we’ll have a good season, learn lots of good stuff, and have fun.