Practice Report

Week two of practices is in the books. Overall, I was pleased with my coaching this week, compared to last week’s so-so job. That said, I really hope that the team we play isn’t with the same coach (so they’re starting from scratch like I am) and not have a year’s worth of common experiences up on us. While the group understands our offense in theory, in practice, not nearly as much. And their defense is aggressive, which I like, but very unrefined meaning if they’re more athletic than we are, we could be in real trouble.

Anyhow, Monday I gave my “quiz” based on the mailing I had sent out before the season started. The results? Not pretty. I gave virtually the same quiz last year, but with one more section (as I had taken out offensive rules, knowing that this would be our early season focus and not really knowing what would be useful to put in there). And the team last year got, as I recall, about as many questions wrong, with 2 more players answering and 1 less section. It was the first time that the team hadn’t impressed me. For every 4 questions they got wrong, it was worth 1 suicide, though every player was allowed 1 “free” wrong answer. Josh, bless his injured foot, actually got every question right. This left them with 13 suicides to run over the course of practice. In reality they ran only 10.5 which was still a bunch. This was about tone setting as much as anything. Reading over some of the posts from last year at this time, it definitely seems like this team is easier to coach than what I had last year. Whether this is because of the kids, or me (I resolved to start tough) or a combo, I can’t say.

Other events at the practice, including running a fast break drill where I emphasized offensive spacing. We also did some work on our offense, introducing passing for the first time. The rule for passing, which is cut to the basket, is simple. There is a whole other layer of passing, which I didn’t introduce. Just getting the simplest of the simple down is our goal for now.

At Tuesday’s one hour practice, I actually let them scrimmage for half an hour. First we did some fundamental work and I taught them 3 inbounds plays, though two are really just varations on each other. All this was done in the first 15 minutes of practice. I was quite pleased with how effectively I ran that time. Next we did some Animal Rebounding. They were happy to be doing the drill which is always nice to see.

In order to have 10 people I brought in Leonardo’s brother, Rodrigo, who is in 6th grade and has tried out (and been cut) the last two years. I did a lot of stopping in order to remind them of various points. There was a lot of extra movement, people were moving cause they felt like it rather than in response to the ball handler, thus defeating the purpose “Read and React”. In good news there was one sweet play where Matthew drove, drawing the defense, and then hit Quentin, who was moving like he should, with a pass resulting in an easy lay-up.

I also did something of debatable wisdom. While practicing the offense we had practiced it as a “5 out” meaning all five players start off outside the 3 point arc. During the scrimmage I made them practice as a 4 out 1 in, meaning we would have 1 player, the Center, who would stay closer to the basket. In the long run we need to run the 4 out 1 in, because Alec, our starting center, is one of our biggest strengths. And to execute on the strengths we need him in the post. Of course not really having practiced this formation, which has its own slightly different spacing, is where the questionable aspect comes in. I think while Alec is in on Sunday we’ll mostly play 4 out 1 in, while playing 5 out, most of the rest of the time.

Overall I think we’re in OK shape. Just about any result would not surprise me, from blow out defeat to solid victory. My big concern is point guard, where we’re weak for the game due to some bad circumstances. Taking a look at our roster here’s my impression heading into the first game:

Alec: Disappeared on offense in our scrimmage. That’s not good. I don’t know if it was the players he was playing with, as Rodrigo who he was matched up against got plenty of looks, him, or the fact that he was being guarded by a kid taller and stronger than him. Rodrigo is very raw and was no doubt fouling and such, which frustrated him. I handled his frustration in a “deal with the problem rather than whining” sort of way which is very atypical for me, and in retrospect not exactly the tone I should have used, even if the message was right. If we win, I suspect it’s going to be on his back.

Austin: He’s going to be our starting point guard. His being a lefty should throw off their defense somewhat since it means he’ll go left rather than right. Of course he doesn’t have too much of a right so after that initial plus, the other team could do some real damage forcing him left. The team nominated him as the best shooter, when I offered to let them out of some suicides if someone could make a basket, which I found interesting and not something I’d have pegged him for. He’s salt of the earth nice, a kid with a near constant smile on his face.

Grant: Always thanks me for my time. He seemed to do well with the offense until it was a game and then he promptly started to forget to execute it. I still like his court sense, but he’s going to have to figure out how to make it work with-in the structure. His skills are pretty unremarkable to this point.

Josh: I hope he recovers soon. His commitment to the team, even when injured, has been fantastic. He’s, by his own admission, not much of a shooter. But he will be our starting PG when he is healthy, since he’s able to drive and pass. I don’t need shooters. I need people who can help us get open baskets.

Leonardo: He’s out of shape, I think, rather than lazy. I still see the potential there, especially on defense. My goal, and I have no clue how successful I am going to be with implementing this, is to use him for short rotations, 2 minutes or so rather than 4 or so. Hopefully not less playing time, just different playing time. I think this will allow him to be successful, especially on defense, which is my A #1 area of concern. I plan on using him as our primary back-up to Alec, so the short stints could be a good thing as it would allow me to rest Alec as well.

Mason: I’m not sure if I noted this previously, but he’s the only kid on the team who wasn’t on the team last year. He’s fast and has endurance. Monday as we were running our last suicides, he was basically the fastest kid on the court for the first suicide, and he was BY FAR, the fastest kid on the court for the last one. He’s pretty insecure about himself, so I’ve been working hard to give him some legitimate confidence. That said he made a lot mistakes playing PG in our scrimmage. He had a tendency to pick up his trouble when pressure was first starting so that he wouldn’t get the ball stolen from him. This caused more trouble than good. He came up to me after practice and asked how he did. I had him tell me how he thought he did and then gave him the general pointer, don’t pick up your dribble, as well as some advice about how to avoid doing it (using his body to protect the ball, a skill he definitely has in the abstract).

Michael: Sadly Michael won’t be at our game Sunday, most likely. He really wants to be there, and in theory he should be able, but as I’ve told him and his parents, it’s just fine if he’s not there. I’d want him there since he’d be my preference for starting PG with Josh out. His natural spot is as a 3. The kid thinks very highly of himself, almost to the point of arrogance, but he also understands that arrogance doesn’t help the team so he tries saying the right things. It’s a weird combination. I’m trying an experiment where the kids can nominate a player based on hard work and improvement at practice and to my surprise he got 3 votes, the most of any kid (Alec and Matthew got two, Mason, Grant, and Austin 1).

Matthew: He doesn’t look pretty the way he plays, but he gets stuff done. I’m certainly going to work on improving his fundamentals, but I can’t argue with results. Based on the fact that I think he understands the offense the best of anyone at this point, I will be trying him out at PG.

Quentin: The kid most likely to come out of the game for taking a silly shot. He thinks he has a much better jumper than he has. He’ll also take a shot if he can. I noticed the same tendency last year. Taking bad shots is one of the few things I will take a kid out of a game for doing. I don’t think he’s quite bought into me or my way of doing things yet. Hopefully I’ll win him over, especially when we start working on jump shots. If I can help him there, that should go a long way to helping him, not only because he’ll annoy me less, but also because it should increase his buy-in.

Seth: I think I want him to be better than he is. I want him to be an athletic 4, as he’s got a pretty good outside jumper and he’s got the size to be a big. Right now, however, he’s kind of soft. Oh and he’s also lacking some of the athleticism one would need to be an athletic 4. Still a starter at the moment. He will also likely see some time at 5.

The good news is that the drop-off in talent from 1 to 10 isn’t steep. Of course that can be the bad news as well, and interestingly enough I do perceive a definite split in talent from our top 3 (Alec, Josh, Michael) and the other 7, but even that isn’t all that huge.

One final note. One of my goals this season is to remain more sane as a coach. I have worried that this means I won’t put in the effort needed to be successful. I am proud to say that when I’ve needed to be focused on basketball I’ve been focused on basketball. Otherwise I’ve put it aside. If I maintain my sanity I will be a better coach.