Practice + Game

The signs did not portend for a good game yesterday. It wasn’t because of Friday’s practice. Friday’s practice was a good practice. We had 7 players suited up, Alex was out of town, Grant was injured (more about this shortly), and Michael was not going to be there. We did our shooting continuous motion and frankly there shooting? Not so hot. We also did a concentration drill, where they had sheets with numbers randomly displayed from 1-100. I would announce a number and they would then have to find the next number, cross it off, and so on for 45 seconds. The catch was the second time we did it, they had a partner who was allowed to distract them as they were doing the sheet. Fun was had. I think there is also value in this sort of activity so we’ll likely come back to it. We also did some 3 person work on the fundamentals of our offense. The biggest focus was on rebounding. We did a couple drills working on jumping for the ball as well as judging the angle of the shot. Unlike some previous Friday practices the energy was there.

The first bad sign was that Alex was not going to be there. Along with Seth Alex is one of two kids that has been rebounding. He is also one of our better scorers. The second bad sign was Grant’s injury. He suffers from a condition (whose name I forget) which basically causes pain due to bones growing faster than the muscles. He was having a flare up and this was still inflamed so no Grant yesterday. This was somewhat expected, at least after Friday. The third bad sign was when Matthew’s mom calls to let me know that he had a minor procedure done and would be unable to play. So now I’m down to 7. Seven is still workable. And to their credit both Matthew and Grant attended the game. The last bad sign was when we only had five players to start the game. Leo and Quentin were not there. I figured they got lost. But that put us at 5 players.

Last year I would have been upset at this. This year I’m trying to feel the Zen. And I tried to impart this on the team.

And the good news is that I needn’t have worried. The other team came out in man to man. Only they had no help defense. They also completely overplayed their person, not staying between them and the basket. And so we had an obscene number of easy lay-ups. They also didn’t understand the idea of stopping the ball on a fast break so we had a bunch more of those. By the time Leo and Quentin finally arrived in the second quarter, after I’d given up all hope of seeing them, we were up by a lot. We even held them to just 1 point in the second quarter. I had to hold the team back in the second half. We coasted to an easy 37-20 victory. It was nice because every player there got to score a basket. Michael destroy them in the second half with 8 points, almost all off fast breaks. Josh also showed an ability to drive past them nearly at will.

We play them again Saturday. More than anything I feel bad for the other team. I wonder how much practice time they’d had. Their basic man to man was SO off that I have to think not much. They also never even attempted to press us (for obvious reasons we didn’t attempt to press them). Everyone feels good after a big win. The goal will be to working hard this week at practice as we play this same team again and also play KW. KW is notable because it is the team which upset this group of kids in the first round of the playoffs. I know they’ll be excited about that game.

Game 2 + Practice

Well another game and another practice are in the books. Fortunately, Sunday saw us win 28-21 bringing our record to 1-1. We played well, with Alex leading us towards victory with 10 points, including 4 of 7 shooting from the line. We were up the whole game, by as much as 10. The real key of the game was transition points. On a fast break we made our shots, they didn’t. Our rebounding still is our weakest link, giving the other team way too many 2, 3, even 4 shot possessions.

One big note is that at last Friday’s practice Austin told me he preferred playing the two with Josh in at one. Our ball handling skills aren’t all that strong this year, so this was not news I wanted to hear. This meant Michael suddenly became our back-up point. Michael struggled being asked to play both point at times, center at times, as they had a very athletic big man and so when Alex was out Michael offered us the best match-up, as well as 3, his “natural” spot. I had told Austin that we were going to need him at point on Friday. I tried it on Sunday and frankly we still need Austin at point. Austin isn’t going to be the playmaker Josh is, but he’s also not going to turn the ball over, and that is quite important.

We had a good practice yesterday. We reviewed footage from the game which I had put together and was something I think the team enjoyed. It wasn’t a highlight reel as much as taking a close look at a few plays. We spent some time working on rebounding skills, but the vast majority was spent on teaching proper shooting mechanics. In particular worked on using the legs to power the shot, and also worked on the release and follow through, with-out the ball. This part will be especially helpful for Quentin whose release is flat and awkward. It wasn’t the most thrilling of lessons, but it was fundamentals which are needed for future growth. It laid the ground work.

A note of concern is Leo who has been injured or not feeling well for what seems like half our practices, yet feeling perfect for both our games. I honestly can’t tell if the kid has a lingering injury and is fighting through it or is trying to get out of practicing. I had started him Sunday in hopes that this would motivate him if it was a motivation issue. Yesterday saw the same inability to practice. I then talked with him expressing my concern over his injuries and telling him how it would be better if he didn’t really practice at all this week or play on Sunday in order to give his body time to recover than to keep trying to play while not giving his body a chance to heal. We’ll see if that approach works.

Friday Practice

We had a lackluster Friday practice. Unlike our previous lackluster practice, I brought the energy and enthusiasm (making a conscience effort to make sure I did so). I did a quick recount of some things I had noticed while watching film and we then went into our continuous motion. Unfortunately for us the girls who practiced before us ended 5 minutes late, which definitely cuts into a 60 minute practice. On a complete tangent I think that the coach of the girls is horrible. They spent the 30 minutes I watched them trying to learn how to run 1 play. 1 play. She also only rarely referred to her players by name. More often they were “you”.

We did our dribbling continuous motion. I had made the point that we want to be playing as well or better at the end of the games as compared to the start and that this wasn’t true on Wednesday. I said that this was an opportunity for them to get in better shape, but it was up to them to take advantage of it. The message seemed to sink in as there was a faster pace to the dribbling.

For the fundamental 5, I demonstrated on an 8 foot basket the virtues of shooting with an arc. We then went into our shell drill, allowing us to practice both offense and defense, though my instructional focus was on defense. I was simply having them working on passing and cutting, as that proved to be a weakness for us, and it also presents a good challenge for the defense. The good news is that in the drill we definitely got better at being in a good position, while going at ¼ speed, on defense. The bad news is that it took us way too long to do and several players were not focused or paying good attention. Quentin also showed difficulty with what to do on offense. He neither was good at cutting towards the basket after making a pass nor did he understand how to move on offense after someone else made a pass. We made improvements here from most people on both offense and defense, so that was good. In particular Josh seemed to better understand the importance of cutting after a pass, which is good because he makes a lot of perimeter passes. Of course due to the lack of focus this whole part took the lion’s share of our practice.

We ended with a couple quick rounds of lay-ups “Champs and Chumps” won by Seth again. I emphasized using the backboard. It will be a pregame point of emphasis as well, so hopefully we’ll do it. Having no real idea about the quality of our opponents I remain optimistic about our chances and hopefully we’ll see some improvement.

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.

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.

First 2 practices

Well we are two practices into our season. Sort of. Yesterday, we had only four kids. More on that soon.

As I did last year with GL, before our first practice I sent out an information packet. This year I changed it up a bit. I shortened the defensive section, eliminated the offensive section, because of a new system I’m trying there, and added a goal setting page. I think this mailing really helps to set a tone for the season. All of the kids except Grant and Michael remember their goal setting sheet.

At the first practice we started by going over team rules and expectations. This took about 15 minutes, though there was interaction and questions in there so it wasn’t just me talking. I still wish I could figure out a way to impart the same information but not do it in fifteen minutes. The way I do it works, but I would love if there was a way that worked better.

The Sunday before our first practice I called everyone to remind them of the practice time and place. I learn then that Josh, our anticipated point guard and probably one of the two best players on the team, is going to miss practice with a foot injury. Before Friday’s practice, I learn that this foot injury is more likely something with the growth plate putting him out at least two weeks.

After the intro talk we did our continuous motion exercise with dribbling. Continuous motion is my version of conditioning. The idea that the players are (obviously) continuously in motion, though I always incorporate basketball skills with it. This CM is the most traditional one I do where players do laps, using both right and left hands. At the end I do some sort of partner passing, for Monday’s practice we did bounce passing. The group managed to go 8 and a half minutes before they were spent, which wasn’t too bad for a first practice, though less than the 10-15 I think a team needs to be able to do to be really effective. There were also certain kids who were either plainly out of shape or just lazy. The trick is for me to figure out which is which.

Next we had a water break. But before the water break started I gave everyone a water bottle. One of my goals this season is to run a tighter practice. I want to make sure I’m always 100% prepared, as I had some practices last season with GL where I had a practice skeleton but that was it. With one team to coach vs two I am not going to tolerate that from myself. So to help run a tighter practice, I want to cut down on the water break time, but not cut down on the amount of water drunk. By giving them water bottles, I hope to avoid the drinking fountain bottleneck that occurs otherwise.

Back from water break we did our Fundamental 5. This part of practice is there to make sure that in the hustle and bustle of the season the simplest fundamentals are still taught. It’s called Fundamental 5 because the idea is to spend five minutes or so on it. Just long enough to teach or review a skill not so long as to be boring.

Following this I started to introduce our offense. The bad news was that I made a mistake. As the offense is new to me, I mixed up the passing fundamental (which wasn’t our focus) and the penetration fundamental (which was). Fortunately, the mix-up wasn’t too severe and at the second practice I explained I’d “adjusted” the offense based on what I saw. In a case like this where I’ve already built up some credibility I would admit my mistake, but as the players are still learning whether they can trust me or not as a coach I decided this was the route to go.

The offense we’ll be using this year is called the Read and React. The basic idea is to teach players what they should be doing on the court based on reading what the ball handler does. There is a structure to the offense, but there are no plays. I’ve always liked structured offense and this offense simply takes many of the concepts I had been trying to teach and codifies it in a simple and easily understood way. That’s the good news. The bad news is that because there is a formal system, rather than my “rules” there is a lot more stuff to learn. And for our first game I don’t think they’ll have learned everything. More accurately, while they will have been taught much of what they will need to know, I can’t expect them to have mastered it.

As we were going through this I made an even bigger mistake. I had asked them to have some man to man defense. Except the 4 players played zone. And while I was knew something wasn’t quite right with the defense, I was too honed in on the defense to think about what it was until I was driving home. Whoops.

Following our offensive work we played some dribble knockaway which they definitely enjoyed. Following this we did “the human knot” team building exercise. The group worked remarkably well together and were able to figure it out very quickly for a group of 5th grade boys. I feel like we did something else at practice, but my notes aren’t with me as I type this up. All in all it was a good first practice from them, less than stellar on my part.

At Friday’s practice, I knew going into it that 4 of the 10 players would be missing due to a birthday party. Josh’s dad emailed me with the injury update so that was 5. I get a call about 45 minutes before practice from Leonoardo’s mother telling me he fell and is it ok if he misses practice. What we can do at a practice with 5 vs 4 is dramatically different, but I do excuse him. I wonder about the injury since Leonardo was one of the kids who was either out of shape or lazy, but what can you do? Hopefully it was a legit injury but he’s alright, if that makes sense.

At the practice I start very upbeat and explain what a great practice we’re going to have with only 4 players. This is the end of my enthusiasm not because they were doing anything wrong, but because I was dead tired and just had no energy left. This is a shame because it was, after all, only the second practice.

At the practice we did our defensive footwork continuous motion, did a Fundamental 5 breaking down one of the parts of the layup (since the team’s layup form was abysmal at tryouts), spent time reviewing the offense, which saw the four players practicing, Michael, Seth, Matthew, and Mason, getting lots of good reps. Next we did the Mikan drill, which works on put backs. First I had each kid do it individually and then I partnered them up and paired the two teams against each other. We then continued on to some Animal Rebounding, which saw Matthew win, due to some smart rebounding, followed by Michael, Seth, and Mason.

We concluded practice with some ball handling work. First I had them just shout out the number of fingers I held up. We then did this while moving. I did this slowly at first, and then sped up how quickly I did it. After a couple of trips up and down with this, moving at a good speed, I turned it into a game where they would dribble forward while I held up an even amount of fingers, while dribbling in place holding up an odd amount. I have seen Red/Light green light, which this basically was, in coaching books before, but the odd even twist was something I hadn’t seen and something I liked because it forced them to think about what they saw, just as they would in a game. At the end of practice we ran suicides. Mason was the only one who had one, and he had two. Everyone had earned a permission for beating the time I thought they could do the CM for before people started to show fatigue. Unfortunately, Mason lost Animal Rebounding (which gets a suicide) and forgot his Doggie Bag (which gets a suicide). So he had two suicides to run. To their credit first Michael and then Matthew stepped up to run a suicide with him.

I felt good about this practice. I hate the fact that we have only an hours worth of practice time on Friday and hated the fact that only 4 kids were at the practice, but it was a good practice. They all learned stuff, and hopefully left feeling good about themselves.

The bad news is that I simply can’t see us being ready on Nov 2 to play games with only 2.5 more hours of practice time. I think next year I am going to reschedule games to ensure that I have 3 or 4 weeks of practice time before we start our season. Better to double up games later in the season when we know what we’re doing than start before we’re ready. Of course that’s no help for this year. Of course losing this practice for most of the people wasn’t much help either. No matter, as I’m committed to coaching the best I can, and if the team comes through, great. If not, not. That is beyond my control.

GL Update

It’s been a while since I’ve written an update on GL except for my short update. Basically Brian had gotten out of control at practice this had a negative effect overall on the team and their concentration. I had not been terribly happy with the team’s performance since winter break except for the MP2 game. We beat LV the following day 34-32, in a game we almost blew. That Tuesday we played our arch-rival JCC, and they basically were in control the whole game earning a 5 point victory. Last weekend we played HP. We took an easy 25-18 victory, brought only that close thanks to a late 3.

The common theme to all of these games is the lack of a killer instinct that defined us so well last season. It seems as though we were merely going through the motions, coasting more on talent than anything else. And frankly I’ve got to think that’s my coaching in some way. In some way I’ve either failed to find the right motivational buttons to push, or even worse, my coaching has made them worse. However, considering that HP has only got more aggressive as the season has gone on, I don’t think it’s that my coaching has made them worse.

So here I’ve been generally unhappy with the team. And it hasn’t meant much because we’ve been winning. Actually in some ways it’s worse because I’ve been unhappy with the team, and the team has been winning, meaning there’s a disconnect between how the team sees itself and how I’m seeing it. I resolved after HP game that something I needed to do was have more fun coaching the team. I was not having fun, and part of that was because of the attitude problems. But if I started having fun that would, I hoped, break the cycle and help mitigate the attitude issues I was having. Also of help with the attitude? Brian did not play against HP after I sent Dad a long email outlining his unacceptable behavior at just one practice. I was quite hopeful going into last Wednesday’s practice that we’d have a good practice before the HP tourney (we had no gym space on Monday). But Wednesday’s practice was canceled due to a snow storm, so we went the week before the HP tourney with-out a practice.

And so this weekend we had the HP tourney. And all of the things I’ve feared finally came to pass. We lost our first tourney game to an inferior team composed mainly of players from MP and MP2. We got down by 10. We attempted a comeback, with 2 three’s by Andrew being a big help, but came up 2 points short. We then got annihilated by LS. You would never know that we’d beaten them twice. Of course the next day they went on to beat AH, so clearly they’re a team which has improved considerably. The LS game was an example of a game where we were just outclassed. Those games don’t bother me. However, because of the tournament structure after we lost to LS we basically were eliminated from advancing. And so it goes back to the first game where we lost to a team that we beat. The good news, or at least I think it’s good news, is that we beat the final team in our pool. This team had beaten both of the other two teams and had the #1 seed out of our pool so it’s not like they were a bad team. I’m glad that we didn’t finish 0-3, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder if that won’t interfere with the wake-up call.

This weekend should be interesting. We play three teams all in the bottom half of the standings. Will we once again go out and play just good enough to win or will we play up to the talent level that we have?

I don’t know. I do know that coaching has, as of late, brought me very little joy. I have to write-up a few HP games, but basically the story is the same one that it’s been all season: they play their hearts out, even if they’re not always playing well, but that frequently just isn’t good enough and they lose. And worse than that is the fact that the games Brian has been at, HP has played particularly poorly. I keep feeling like we’re on the edge of getting over the hump, but we just can’t do it ever and that is incredibly frustrating.

So I have a talented team which is underperforming and another team which isn't underperforming but neither are they making progress. It's just a maddening combo. If it weren't for the fun I'm having with HP at practices and even during games, despite the losses, I shudder to think how I'd be feeling at the moment.

So it's not all bad, but there's a lot of bad accompanied by the feeling that as coach that the problems are in areas where I could be making a difference. Motivation is I feel one of the few areas that a coach can make an impact. And while a good coach can only make a slight difference in the winning or losing of a team, that's all HP would need: a slight positive difference. And so in the end the poor play of both teams falls on my shoulders and I just hate doing a poor job at something at which I try so hard and care so much about.

GL Practice Report

If I haven't already I'm pretty damn close to losing GL and I am fairly despondent about that fact.

GL Post-Winter Break Report

Well it’s been too long since I’ve last updated. I talked in my last post about the need for a break. I made the very consciencous decision to basically ignore basketball for my 3 weeks off. It was wonderful and exactly what I needed.

Today I’m going to focus on GL. I hope to get an HP update (which will have less to cover) later this week. We reached about the midway point in terms of league games with both teams so I will also be doing a mid-season overview soon.

On to GL’s update. We’ve had 3 games since Winter Break ended and have met with varying levels of success.

GL vs EV
EV is a major city. When I played middle school basketball they were always a team that would just run over us. Anytime my middle school beat any of the EV middle schools every student in the building would know about it since it was a major upset. They are big. They play basketball well.

However, for whatever reason, their 5th grade team is unremarkable. But a problem arises. We are scheduled to play them on the Sunday before winter break ends for GL. And I will be missing the triplets and Justin. In other words four out of my five best players, with only Jack P being there. I attempted to reschedule, with out success, as they claimed they had no open gym time. It was, to say the least, more than a little frustrating.

Still I like the team I have. Jack M and Lucas both played much larger roles for us last season than they have had the chance to play this year. I go into the game cautiously optimistic. My confidence diminishes somewhat when Andrew doesn’t show. That leaves us with 6.

The first quarter we look good. We also have a bizarre sequence where early on the EV coach, for no good reason, rubs the ref the wrong way and gets a technical. It was a completely unjustified call. At the end of the first quarter we’re down 8-6 but that’s because they destroyed us for a bit with their zone trap. We seem to have gotten the hang of how to beat it and I become hopeful that we can contend this game.

Unfortunately the second quarter blows a big hole in that plan. Their trap becomes even more effective and we can’t get a shot to fall. I don’t have the stats in front of me but Jack P reverted back to his old low shooting percentage ways. As we needed more from him I can’t be too surprised about this, especially as most of his shots came from the side, a place that is far more difficult to make it from.

During the 2nd quarter, Andrew’s mother arrived and told me that he was at tennis. Father had been told to pull him from tennis to get to basketball, but had not done so. He was now very upset both about losing at tennis and about being late to the game. She said it sounded like he wasn’t going to show and if that was alright. I pointed out that we had 6 kids and could really use him. He showed up during the 3rd quarter.

And in the 3rd quarter we were playing a 2-3 zone. With the exception of some quick time at a practice on how to beat a zone, I’ve never really taught zone defense. Half time was a crash course in such play. I did it simply because we were now down by 14 and all six of our players were spent. If we were to mount a come back I figured it would have to be in the 4th. I basically hoped it would give our players a chance to rest a little while keeping us, somewhat, in the game. And it did exactly that. We actually ended the 3rd down by 2. A reminder about how dominant zone can be at this age, when a group that is basically unfamiliar with it can learn it well enough to hold a team’s scoring down.

In the 4th I unleashed the dogs. Unfortunately we couldn’t make a shot. We were ALL over them with our press. Lucas played like an absolute demon, stealing the ball any time he got close to it. We played hard and scrappy to the end, losing 40-28, but I couldn’t be upset with how they played. They played their absolute hearts out. Bad shooting, and fatigue did us in. I’m quite confident that with our top 4 there that the game wouldn’t have been close. In fact if we even had 8, I think we’d have won since fatigue wouldn’t have been nearly the issue that it was with 6.

GL vs GV
Due to some other commitments of mine we were forced to only have our 1 hour Monday practice the week back from break. Fortunately we play one of the bottom dwellers, GV, for our first game on Saturday. GV comes out in a bad 1-3-1 which we struggle to beat. Most of our points came off transitions. We were patient with the ball but it was basically just a “pass the ball around the perimeter” fest. Fortunately we just far out striped them in raw ability. Our rust showed pretty clearly as we weren’t intense and we weren’t scrappy. We phoned in a 27-16 victory. I am proud of the fact that we only allowed 16 points. I knew from talking to LS’s coach that GV was a poor shooting team. I told our team that we’d let them take the outside shots and focus on getting rebounds and they did this well. It ought to have been a rout, but our offense just never got started. We won because of superior talent, not because of how we played and I told the team as much. I knew that this sort of lackluster play wouldn’t cut it against AH, who we played that night.

GL vs AH
It’s been interesting that this year in several of our games we’ve come out very strong in the first few minutes before fading a little. This is the exact opposite of what we did last year when we’d start off slow, often very slow, before finding our footing. So for the first few minutes against AH it looked like we might have a shot. But then AH’s superior talent came through as they went on an 11-0 run to end the quarter. We once again played hard for four quarters but were outclassed and lost 40-28. That’s alright as there’s not a lot you can do about that. What I’m more upset about is the fact that we continued to take outside shots against AH’s man to man. We have become afraid to drive and pass inside. Normally the other team is bigger than us, but I refuse to concede the paint, a place we can get to with cuts, screens, and some aggression.

Practice
So it was with that philosophy that I planned yesterday’s practice. As I was sitting at home, I got charged up about basketball for the first time since break. I was upset with how the team played in both games and I became determined to do something about it. This determination showed, I feel, as we had a really good practice.

We had a quick discussion of what we did well in both games, and we could have done better against GV. No one brought up what I consider the most amazing thing we did during the weekend: David, Lucas, and Brian all drew charges against GV. I hadn’t really ever talked about doing this, as I think 5th grade is a little young, but it fit in the general idea of playing tough that is my goal for the week. In recognition of this feat all three players started off even on their permissions/suicides (the motivational/discipline tool I use).

I decided, for the first time I think in my two seasons of coaching, to skip continuous motion at the start of practice. Instead we went right into Animal Rebounding, the drill I use more than any others to promote aggression, and inside play. Next we did a new drill. In this drill players were on two teams and each had a number. One team was on one side of the half court circle, the other on the opposite side. I would then roll a basketball towards one side and call a number and then roll the basketball to the other side and call a different number. The players whose numbers I called played 1 on 1 for 15 seconds. If they scored their team got a point. No score equaled no point for their team. They really enjoyed this drill. Brian and Scott both moaned that their opponents were fouling. In Brian’s case he was slightly justified as Andrew plays rough, but mostly legal; part of it just is that Brian doesn’t like contact. On the other hand, Lucas, bringing his hockey skills to bear, knows how to be dirty without getting caught. I warned him his team would lose substantial points if I saw him playing dirty. Scott issued no more complaints after that. It was noticed how Tom didn’t score frequently but neither did he let his opponent score much either.

We then did another drill, which I don’t recall what it was. Finally we ended with some 3 on 2, 2 on 3. We hadn’t done this for a while, but it proved to be quite successful. They played hard on defense, and did the sort of things on offense that are required for success. I was quite pleased.

We end our practice with those needing to run, running, and went home. Wednesday will, with the exception of some work on our half court trap, be more physical drills, but fun ones. Hopefully they’ll be tough and excited for the games this weekend. More on these games, and a midseason review of the players, to come tonight.

GL Practices

I had a few simple goals with GL this week. We needed to work on a play to break the press, we needed to make some progress on our zone offense, and we needed continued work on man to man defense. Unfortunately with these as our goals it meant that we’d have slightly more drudgery than normal.

Monday we did our conditioning and I then taught the press break. Fairly good work was done on it and I was cautiously optimistic about how it would go on Wednesday. When we did it yesterday it seemed like they had mostly learned the play. There were a few refinements necessary, but overall they seem to have a good grasp on the basics. Unfortunately, for reasons I’ll discuss shortly, we didn’t actually get to try this against real defense, so we’ll be doing some live practice against WM. Hopefully it’ll go well.

Monday we also did Champs and Chumps with a contact lay-up drill. Scott, naturally, did well in this. While the whole team could benefit from this drill I was doing it mainly for him. When I commented to him on how well he was doing in this versus in the game he made some sort of excuse.

Overall Monday was an alright practice. Wednesday, however, was anything but alright. There was the initial problem that the gym was sweltering when we got in it. While they were doing our defensive continuous motion I took the time to open some windows. I was about to have the team do the defensive slide against the clock when I was called aside by a GL park district rep. Seems that the principal has been unhappy with our kids running through the school. I didn’t quite understand the complaint, but promised to address it with the team.

After doing our continuous motion I tried to do the work with the press break and it was silliness all around. It took far longer than it should have. It then took way too long to do our work on the man to man defense. The focus was poor. Finally, after a few sprints, I got most of the team to focus and so while our work wasn’t stellar it at least wasn’t poor.

We concluded practice with work on our zone offense. Unfortunately without having practiced it recently our skills had slip and we really had to go back to the basics. It was to my great disappointment that we only accomplished these three drills and didn’t get to do any of the more fun drills I had planned. We did get a little golf in there, and a little bubble, but that was it.

Fortunately we have our game Sunday just against WM, as our game against LV, who is currently in 1st place, was canceled. WM is one of the weaker teams and by not having a game which will push us to the limits first we should have a much better chance of pulling it out.

I plan on going with a starting five of David, Andrew, Scott, Dante, and a player to be named later.

A few notes on some players:

David: In my focus on my coaching decisions Sunday I didn’t give David his due. He scored an amazing 22 of 41 points for the team. He was on fire missing only a few of his shots and generally moving the ball around well. It was by far his best performance of the season and it certainly came at the right time.

Jack P: Missed our game Sunday to be at the Bulls game. This was not received well by some other players on the team who were also going to the Bulls game. Things got worse when he missed Monday’s practice because he and his dad both forgot. He’d have been the 5th starter were it not for this faux pas.

Brian: Even after I had settled down most of the players he refused to be settled down. He also flat out refused to play good defense in our shell drill, constantly insisting on cheating to try and steal the pass. At one point I stopped the practice and sent everybody for a water break except him to no avail. I also held him after practice when I got to the heart of the matter: he was frustrated by not having started. After his openly defiant attitude during practice (such that his brothers were basically telling him to just stop arguing) he knew he wasn’t going to start Sunday. However, we did agree that if he gave me a week of good practice after winter break that he’d get the start.

I am not excited by the prospect of playing against WM’s tall player and not excited about playing in their gym, with the spectators sitting so closely behind the bench, but I am confident that we should have a good chance to rebound after our loss.

GL Practices

A week of practices has gone by with GL and I’m pretty pleased overall with both practices.

Monday saw the start of our one hour practices. The sixth grade team practices before us. I would like to scrimmage them at some point, though admittedly I have a lot less to lose than does Jon (coach of the 6th grade team).

With only an hour on Mondays we’re not going to waste anytime and I tried to convey that urgency to the team, successfully I think. I said since we’d only done open gym two times we were going to try it two more times if the team wanted. Overwhelmingly they did. However, while this open gym was better than the last one, in that more people choose to just shoot around, I think with the missing half hour that after next week open gym will just fall by the wayside for the time being (it doesn’t make sense to do at our Thursday practice space because it only has 2 10 foot baskets).

After that we did our Princeton continuous motion drill. They always clamor for this drill, I think because it hadn’t been as physically demanding. When we got to three balls suddenly they weren’t standing around as much (the reason I think they liked it), but they got very sloppy. It was disappointing. However, when I gave them a goal for how many baskets to make in 2 minutes they made it. I emphasized that is how they should be running the drill the whole time.

After free throws and a water break we went into our shell drill. We did some pretty good work with that, but the work also told me we need to be doing this more regularly. I know how important the shell drill is and so I need to make sure I continue to use it as a change of pace drill, despite it being one they don’t like and which has players sitting out.

Next with them in two groups, we did some work on making full speed layups. We again met our goal, which was nice. We then concluded practice with “bubble” in two different groups. One player is on the free throw line with the rest in blocks. If a player misses and the next player makes it they’re out. David and Jack P were out champions. We did a championship round with David winning. Since the drill was popular we’ll use it again. It was time to go home.

Yesterday we had our second practice. I get there early and find that there is girls house league practicing in the space. I was very impressed with how upbeat and positive the coaches were. I felt bad for one of the teams since there was only one father/coach and it was clear he didn’t really know what he was doing (for instance they were scrimmaging and he was basically encouraging them to all be close to the ball to get a pass. While that’s fine for 3 on 3, it’s bad news in 5 on 5). One of the teams doesn’t quite end practice on time so we start a few minutes late.

I start us off with our defensive slide continuous motion. After they go for about 6 minutes, with better quality than before, I set a team goal: Using two lines going one at a time if everyone finishes in 2:20 we’ll go for a minute more. Otherwise we’ll go for 3. We finish with 10 seconds to spare.

After free throws and a water break we work on our zone breaker. I made the mistake of not running it through without a defense first so Justin and Andrew have forgotten what they’re supposed to do and Lucas is also confused about what he does, even though he was doing the same thing as what he did last year and there was some confusion from Jack P, though that’s understandable as he’s in a somewhat new role this year. While overall the defense stopped our groups, the players were doing a better job of improvising and starting to figure out how it worked. I was also particularly pleased with my teaching in that there was a lot of good whole group and 1 on 1 instruction. I really do think the play can work this year, but we’re going to need to do a lot more work so that’s what we’ll do.

Next we did some 1 on 1 work. It was a simple, stay in defensive position while your partner zig zag dribbles up the court. It’s become apparent that my team needs work, and sure enough this is true. I matched them up roughly according to speed and quite a few players had trouble keeping up. I might even do this as a continuous motion, as that’s what it essentially turned into, though when we have 11 players (Cameron was sick) it gets trickier. Defensive stance and sliding is one of the few fundamentals I feel that I taught well last year and most of the players, when reminded, will do them. So it’s a matter of getting them to execute at a higher level.

After a water break, we did the last drill of the evening. They were in two teams doing our 3 on 5 press break drill. Brian got very whiney during this drill when he didn’t like one of my calls and Jack M got a little whiney. In general I think I’ve let things get lack with that area and am going to pull it back in a little before it gets out of control. The offense did a better job early on at breaking the press but the victories became much harder won by the end. One of the big problems had been David dribbling out of trouble. He did a better job of not doing this by having him be the in bounder so he would frequently be the one to receive a pass back. In general it didn’t tangle him up as much and kept others back to help.

And it was then time to go home. I feel like there was some good learning this week, especially considering we didn’t have a game over the weekend to focus us. If we can sustain this level of practice next week, when we play WK, if we look bad I won’t feel like it’s because of lack of preparation. A big focus next week will be us installing our own press, in addition to continued emphasis on our man to man defense, a little work on the zone offense, and the return of the Mikan drill.

GL Practices

Well Wednesday’s practice was not a good one. Some of this was my fault, as while I had a list of things that I wanted to accomplish at the practice, I didn’t have a detailed practice plan laid out to give structure. And I definitely didn’t bring my A-Game in terms of handling them. However, some of it was definitely them. Scott, for instance, was absolutely off the wall. And the fact that only two kids had taken time to watch the video of how our zone break actually worked in action, meant that several of them felt emboldened to whine about how this play didn’t work last year. And it didn’t, but that’s exactly why I decided to take a new teaching approach to it.

Besides work on the zone offense, I also wanted to work on blocking out. And they simply aren’t doing a very good job of it. And that has to be my teaching right there. That part is frustrating to me, because I know that the teaching of fundamentals is a weakness for me. So being able to recognize the problem, work hard to put together the teaching points, and then still not be able to teach it? Ugh.

That leads us to last night. When I get to the gym, I arrive to find us locked out and basically the school is dark. The team arrives, but parents don’t leave as we struggle to find out if we can get in. Finally, I try to send the team home, but they won’t go. Just as they start to straggle off, Jack M sees a janitor through a window. And suddenly we have a practice.

I made sure to come into practice with a strong plan. I really struggled putting together the practice. On the one hand we had a lot of fundamentals that I wanted to go over. On the other hand after yesterday’s poor practice I wanted to make sure we had some fun. We started practice a few minutes late as I had to raise the baskets from 7 feet to 10. I word hard to be in a better mood, and in control, than I was yesterday. And overall it’s a better practice. We worked first on setting screens. During the game I played with them, they went a little overboard in terms of setting screens, but they certainly had the idea down, which was good to see. Following this we did some press break work. After showing them the principles I want to see (set screens off the ball, stay away from the corners, pass the ball, and come to the ball to receive a pass) we did a 3 on 5 press. Towards the end of the drill the offense started doing better. I like this 3 on 5 setup more than the 2 on 3 I’d done with HP last Saturday. I think we’ll do the 3 on 5 with HP this weekend as well. David really wants to just dribble his way out of trouble. Well it wasn’t working. I reminded them how they can literally pass the ball far up the court. Scott, being a baseball person, is likely our one who will do that more than most.

To conclude practice I let them scrimmage as a reward for persevering about practice where I was ready to send them home. To pick teams I had them randomly line up and shoot a free throw. The first six to make it were on Team A, the five others on Team B. David was on the team which missed and moaned about how I picked unfair teams again. I pointed out that I didn’t pick the teams. He still moaned. Anyhow, the scrimmage went fairly well. After initially doing well, we started to bunch up on the court, but I reminded them not to do it and it stopped. Overall fun was had.

I’m really glad we had practice yesterday. I feel like some learning was done and put everyone, or at least me, in better spirits after Wednesday. Saturday we play PL at home. I’ve decided if the team won’t follow through with watching the videos I made at home, I’ll make them watch it before the game, as Tom and Dante, who’d watched the videos, were rattling off my teaching points and really seemed to “get” how the pattern might work. Of course they’re two of the sharper kids to begin with, so that might be why they got it. We’ll see, either way on Sunday, I suppose.

HP Update (With a little GL thrown in)

We had a practice on Wednesday with GL. It was uneventful; hence I have not posted about it. As I will be trying to keep up on both teams as the season moves forward, I will likely just not posting about certain practices in order to keep things reasonable. Especially come January I would guess I would only post about each team’s practice once a week. Information from practice will also find its way into game reports as appropriate. This has been a long way of saying, that this will be an HP focused entry.

HP House League Games
Thursday GL had no practice because the gym wasn’t available so I went to see the house league teams I hadn’t seen play yet. Where I was impressed with the level of play the previous week, this week’s play was thoroughly unimpressive. There was a lot of drive and shoot without much passing by my players. Not too much different from our game, frankly, and not the type of basketball that will win it for us in the long run. Worse is the fact that there are, in reality, two kids on our team who I think will be able to consistently drive past their men in travel, but in house all of our players have that ability. I’m guessing my players have fun, but it does not help them become the kind of players I’d want them to be. Part of the difference, a large part, is that last week it was Kevin officiating the game. This week it was some random high schooler. Kevin knew how to strike the balance between making the appropriate foul and travel calls, and ignoring calls. The kids who officiated Thursday made no travel calls in the 3 games I saw and were far too inconsistent with foul calls. Basically it was organized street ball, which is fine, but could be so much more.

Josh, was still battling whatever sickness he’d had on Sunday. His team played a double header, losing the first. His team then won the second game, against a team that had far superior talent, by 1. But they did it with-out Josh in the second half, as he initially sat himself owing to renewed coughing and general not feeling well. When he then appeared like he was going to go back in for the final 5 minutes, his mom and I conferred and I told Josh that he wasn’t going in. Josh told his coach.

There wasn’t nearly as much for me to cheer about as there had been before. I cheered every good pass that was made, as there were so few of them. The positive to come out of the game was my continued belief that Jack B knows basketball. It’s a shame that he’s by far the shortest kid out there. I’m going to start him anyway tomorrow.

HP Practice

Had a fairly good practice, with all 11 players practicing. Ben tells me the doctor has cleared him to play with-out his boot and Josh is mostly recovered from his illness though I do sit him during continuous motion and our scrimmage when I hear the cough. I had two goals (well maybe closer to three) for the practice: work on breaking the press, and work on dribbling with our heads up and making passes, besides doing our normal continuous motion conditioning.

For the first part we do a 2 on 4 get the ball across half court. Overall it was fairly successful. Hopefully that success will carry over to tomorrow if/when NF comes out pressing.

We also did a drill where they had a partner and attempted to pass a tennis ball back and forth while not dropping the tennis ball or losing control of the ball they were dribbling. This seemed to work well as when they started dribbling during our scrimmage later they mostly did it with their heads up.

We did in fact spend the last half hour with one of my rare scrimmages. Now granted the first fifteen minutes was spent with no dribble. They actually adjusted fairly well to this conditioning, and, on the whole, spread out far more than my GL team has while running the same drill. Of course matters were helped slightly by the fact that Gavin and Jack A, playing on the same team, were defending other people’s men as much as their own. Gavin’s man, in particular, was often open due to Gavin not playing defense. After a period of complete no dribble, I allowed them to dribble in the back court, and press, and then allowed them to have one dribble in the area of the lane, which was never really used. For the last 7-8 minutes I let them dribble as much as they wanted, but they needed to have at least 5 passes to 3 different people. They also couldn’t dribble with their heads down. They didn’t struggle too much with this requirement, but it still cut way down on the number of shots created simply though penetration, which was my goal. They also couldn’t dribble with their heads down, something that happened surprisingly infrequently considering how they’d played in house league and at our first game. I hope that the tennis ball drill’s effectiveness carries over to tomorrow.

Next week we must do some man to man defense work. But overall, I was happy with the practice today.

Tomorrow’s Games

GL plays LN. LN who did very well in their first game, winning 44-27. I expect a tough game, but again a winnable game for us. LN has never seen David play before, so I think that’s a plus for us. And rumor has it that they’ve added a good new player, but so have we in Justin, so that should cancel each other out. I was going to give Andrew a start, in recognition of his being the only player to ask to sub out last game, but he’s out of town this weekend so that rules that plan out. So I think we’ll go with a starting lineup of Jack M (in recognition of his hard work during practice), David, Jack P, Lucas, and Justin. This is an aggressive group who will penetrate well. If we can set the pace as up tempo, I’m confident we’ll be able to out run them in the long run. At least that’s what we did last year.

HP plays NF. This is the same NF team that gave us a tough go in the play-offs though I didn’t remember until I read my game write-up for it that we’d gone with equal playing time for the game, which hindered us. More troubling from that write-up? The fact that our lack of point guard really killed us in the game. Uh oh. We could be in trouble. I will be going with a starting 5 of Zach, Jack B, Ben, Jon, and Gavin. I think they match-up well and give us a fairly versatile group to start.

I think both games are winnable for us and am cautiously optimistic I will be the coach of two 2-0 teams at this time tomorrow.

HP Practice

Good news was that, for once, I wasn’t exhausted going into practice with HP. However, the practice wasn’t great, wasn’t bad, but not great either. The fun started before practice. Ben shows up in a foot boot. He had previously been under the “don’t do something if you were in pain” order. Ben decided to hear “you can do whatever you want”. He’s a maybe for tomorrow. Josh had been sick but showed up to practice. So we’re down two men despite everyone being there.

For continuous motion we practiced dribbling, with my placing a large emphasis on doing it with the head up. Following this, we spent some time in a half court scrimmage practicing just moving around, essentially, on offense. Giving them a “position” to play just seemed to throw them off, more than anything. I think I would have been better off saying “you 5 go in and play” on some level. Gavin was particularly upset at being told he was going to be a center. This after already being told, when he started chucking up shots during our water break post continuous motion, that if he shot like that in the game he would come out. Not a happy day, for Gavin, all things considered.

Following this we played a game of golf, then did our triangle passing drill. It was then time to practice our inbounds play. I basically taught them a simple stack in/out cut and a free lance play at the free throw line. Later on, after we’ve worked on picks, we’ll probably do a box play or two. The way we did the stack is simply to alternate who cuts towards and away from the basket, based on whether it’s an odd or even number called out. Most of the players had no problem with this, though a few struggled.

After that it was time for the “here’s how games” work. I talked about subbing in and then kneeling down, and telling the player who’s subbing in for you which player you were guarding. The nuts and bolts of substitution. I then did a much better job of explaining my philosophy about subbing, then I did with GL on Thursday and even took some questions. Jack A asked a good question, for instance, about what happens if you get tired. Would then mean you would get less time. I explained that when a player gets tired, I try to get them back in when they tell me they’re ready. I felt good about this part. However, I just felt like the rest of practice wasn’t as filled with instruction as I would have liked. I think I really need to start including teaching points on my practice plans, and using my practice plans when I’m doing the practice (as I’ve basically done the practice plan, but from memory).

I haven’t gone into nearly as much detail with the HP practices as I have with the GL practices. Part of this is simply reflecting that I am more tired for HP practices than GL. But also, because I don’t have quite the same bond with the HP team as I do with GL and so I simply have less to say about them. I sincerely hope that this changes, as I don’t want to be that parent who favors one child over the other. I am really hoping once we’ve been in the breech together, after a few games, that the bond will start to form. But in the mean time it seems like a good time to do a team overview:

Adam – I really want to like this kid. Or rather I do like this kid. I really want to like his basketball skills. However, while he’s close on a whole bunch of issues, the complete package just isn’t there. He is aggressive, which I like, but his man to man is weak. He can penetrate well, but then gets trapped and doesn’t know how to get out of it. In the long run I think he could turn into a real good player, but he’s not quite there yet.

Ben – The stronger of the twins, when he’s not in a foot cast. Despite not being a tall player he’s definitely going to be an inside presence for us. He had predicted he would be playing a 2, but I explained, “No no. It’s more like 3 or 4”. He’s also a great teammate. Today, for instance, when he had the cast on and was sitting out to the side he was cheering on his teammates in a great manner. He was a definite starter, but now with being a maybe for tomorrow, I’m not sure. I think I will start him if he’s able to play, but just really limit his minutes. I’d much rather have him for January, February, and March, then play him some in November and lose him the rest of the season.

Danny – Kid’s got a great smile. He’s pretty quick and a good slasher. I think he has the potential to be one of our stronger players. When we were doing triangle defense, he did a great job of getting his hands up and deflecting the pass and otherwise disrupting the passing lanes. He will be starting tomorrow. His dad, while all smiles kind of rubs me the wrong way for no real reason. I don’t want to say he’s creepy but that’s the best word to describe how he rubs me the wrong way. Off-putting perhaps? Whatever it is, I can’t really put my finger on it yet.

Gavin – Our center, despite his protests. Attitude is going to be an issue with him more than ability. Well decision making and resulting attitude. He doesn’t have a sense yet of how to play the post, but I anticipate that will develop over time. I had said I was going to start the 5 best defenders, which he is not. However, with Ben a maybe, it looks like Gavin could very well get the start in his place.

Henry – He’s small but he doesn’t play it. He’s a sharp kid and so he’ll be someone I use as an in bounder a fair amount. The one thing that bothers me is that he dribbles really high. Now since he’s short it’s not too much of a problem, but it does make it far easier to steal the ball from him than it would be otherwise. He’ll be starting tomorrow.

Jack A – He took losing very hard in his house league game. I like that. As I said he’s got a real good jump stop and can making a moving lay-up. I tried him a little at point and that’s not the right position. And not just because he has a tendency to travel, by semi-catching the ball as he’s dribbling. He is, I think, a gamer so I expect him to do better tomorrow than he had been at practice.
Jack B – Unlike Henry, he’s a small player who plays his height. I think he’s got some good instincts and could be developed into a better point guard than he is now, but he’s not there yet (as he has a tendency to pick up his dribble at the first sign of trouble). For the time being he’ll be seeing less playing time.

Jacob – I basically gave my assessment of him the other night. He’s got a great grasp of basketball fundamentals, but lacks a lot of the athletic ability to execute. Because of his size he’ll get some good chances to play. I’m going to be very curious what his WS says about him.

Jon – He’s a kid who I’m going to play in spurts, as he gets tired easily. I told him this and he seemed comfortable with that idea. Shares much of his brothers aggression and good nature. He’s also a lefty versus his brother being a righty which is kind of interesting. So he’s going to be a starter but will likely also come out after only a couple.

Josh – He’s a bit slower than most of the other players on the team. And he doesn’t do some things all that well. But every now and then he shows a flash of something, such as today when he executed a perfect through the legs and behind the back crossover, that shows that he belongs, something I didn’t think was true of him at first. But as I can’t figure out how quite to use him, he too will likely see less playing time tomorrow if it’s a close game. Of course if it’s a blow-out I’ll likely leave him in more just so I can figure him out a little better.

Zach – Reputedly the best player in the grade. This is probably true, though he’s not going to be able to take over a game the way David can, or at least I haven’t seen it yet. He is the best of a bad crop at point guard. Unlike with GL where I would feel comfortable putting half the team at point (literally), I don’t really trust any of the players to play point. But someone has to do it, and for now it’s going to be Zack.

So that’s our team. Brian told me some real nightmare stories about some of the PL coaches, so we’ll see how that goes. But I’m excited at having a chance to play a game and see how we stack up.

GL Practice

I got to practice 15 minutes early and there wasn’t a kid in sight. In fact the first kid, Jack M, showed up about 6 minutes before practice began. Then, all of a sudden, the whole team was there, except Andrew (who was late again). When it looked like the team was all going to be late, I was awfully tempted to name everyone who as at practice on time starters for Sunday’s game.

After the overview of the practice, we went into continuous motion, similar to the one I did with the HP team last Saturday. Their shooting, overall, looked quite good. In particular Scott looked good, as did Andrew (after the first minute or two and he relaxed). Jack M, on the other hand, cramped up early on. He did push through it, which was nice to see versus last year when he would just give up in continuous motion. Jack P, looked as smooth as ever in what he did, but couldn’t make a shot to save his life. After continuous motion I had them shoot their two free throws. And this is where the Discontent of David settled in. He went 0 for 2 in his free throws. He has not been shooting well, overall, in his free throws. This is not good considering David will likely get more “in game practice” then any other player on the team. David was clearly unhappy with how he did there. I talked to him some to try and reassure him, but didn’t do a good job as he played unhappily the rest of practice.

After this, I used a no dribble scrimmage to work on our floor spacing and offense. They actually did so well with this, that rather than doing the shell drill, we continued to scrimmage, with dribbling only being allowed in the front court. Of course as soon as I announced this the defense went down the drain. However, overall they did a good job with trapping, and even doing a little encouraging of getting the ball to the corner. I would like to see us collapse a little more when they get into our house. After this it was time for two more free throws.

We then practiced our in bounds play. I am cautious optimistic about it since: A. They ran it correctly, versus last year when they never seemed to run it correctly. And B. Even knowing what the play was, we were still getting some looks.

We then played a few games of golf, from different spots on the floor. I had the last game be from behind the 3 point line, to emphasize how many more shots are missed from there. Where as teams were regularly getting 2 or 3 in a row from the first two spots, no team ever strung together more than 2 from the three point line, and that happened only once.

After this we did some of our 3 on 3 switch drill. They continue to do a good job of communicating pick-ups here. It was then speech time as I talked about our first game. I’m not real happy with how I said what I said, so I’m going to say it on Sunday in a better manner. Overall, I had been focusing on team skills and getting us ready, at the expense of fundamentals, these first few practices. I feel like our new players are fairly well integrated into our structure at this point, which is good. I think we’re ready for MP on Sunday. I don’t know if we’re ready for some of the new teams, such as EV, but I predict a solid victory come Sunday.

Unfortunately I’m still not sure where I stand with starters. I had toyed with the idea of doing something radical, such as making Lucas or Scott our starting point guard. However, in an effort to mitigate (unsuccessfully I’ll add) the Discontent of David, I named David our likely starting point guard talking about his ability to handle the ball well. I worry now that this only added to the Discontent as he heard extra pressure rather than praise. I think I’m going to have a pretty frank talk with him asking how I can help him giving him a few different ways I might do that.

So we have David starting at point. Justin will be starting at center and Scott will be in the line-up as well. Lucas is one of the 5 best on the team, but I kind of want to keep in him in reserve to give us a good spark with the first substitution group, and might even insert him at point there. If it’s a close game, however, he’ll be in there at the end of it. I’m really tempted to put Dante in as he’s been playing really well in practice, with the exception of his foot still slowing him down some. But that also causes substitution pattern problems as it would mean I would have both of my big guys out there at the start. Dante is likely capable of playing through the first quarter without a rest, however, so the idea of going big is tempting. Brian redeemed himself with some good defense last night and so I’m tempted to forgive him his bad drill in Animal Rebounding from last week. The group of Brian, Dante, David, Justin, and Scott is one which makes us “big” (as Scott continues to be able to play far above what his height and weight would indicate). So as of now that’s my starting five. I absolutely might change this between now and Sunday.

HP Practice

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.