Sunday should have been our first game. Because of a work commitment I was getting to the game exactly at the time I had asked the team to be there by (I generally try and be the first person there). I find out that there is no one at the school to lower the baskets or turn on the lights. The coach of the team we were playing at attempted to find another place to play or a way to get someone to set-up this gym, but it was to no avail. Our parents were very nice about the whole thing. The good news for me was that I used the half hour while the other coach was trying to figure stuff out to hold an impromptu practice. We did some good work running our offense. It still looks very chaotic. But there was far more purpose in their movement. I still worry about our defense, as it has continued to not receive the attention it deserves.

We didn’t do any explicit man to man work at yesterday’s practice either. However, it was a good practice. With the beginning of the season a lot of the practice had been slower paced than I would have liked. This was still somewhat true yesterday as we spent about 25 minutes doing goal setting, after our Fundamental Five on the triple threat position. However, after that it was a very active practice. We did our shooting continuous motion. It was quite revealing to see just how poor some of their forms are. Grant in particular does a lot of chest shooting. I purposefully ran the continuous motion before having done any real shooting work, because I wanted to see where they were as a baseline. The good news was that a few were able to make some minor adjustments as they went on, both on their own and from my suggestions, and were able to end better than they started.

Following a water break we, we did Champs and Chumps with the Mikan drill. Champs and Chumps is basically where there is some sort of 1 on 1 contest and after a round, the winner moves up to a “higher” court while the loser moves down. Seth and Alec both excelled here, while Leo, someone who based on his size I need playing at least defense against bigger guys, did not.

Finally we played 3 on 2/2 on 3. In this drill 3 of the players from a team are on one half of a court, the other 2 on the other half. The 3 players are on the offensive side, so when they have the ball it’s 3 on 2, with a 15 second shot clock. When the 2 have the ball, their goal is to get it past half court, with each of the 2 people having to touch the ball in bounds. It’s a good drill to teach some skills of what not to do when getting pressed, while also teaching how to trap and take advantage of a 3 on 2. Mason got killed in this drill, while Alec, Austin, and Michael showed some good stuff.

It was then time to go. It was good practice, because I feel I was much better about giving instruction and making sure they knew what they were learning. We debriefed, for instance, after 3 on 2/2 on 3 to talk about some of the things they had learned. I will then take the lessons they talked about and explain to them how the press break they’re going to learn (next Monday probably) applies those principles.

I feel better about our game Wednesday in terms of where we are at after our practice yesterday and our session on Sunday. We’re playing a team which is physically big, so it should be interesting.