10/16 Practice Report

So last night was our first practice (editor’s note: I got through most of this post on Tuesday. Then the bell rang for class and I put this aside where it has languished until now) with the parents meeting having followed. I remain encouraged and upbeat.

When 6:00 rolled around only half the team was there. Gordie, Jack P, Jack M, Noah, and Lucas were the ones there on time. I waited two minutes extra, something I don’t believe in doing, and then started practice. Normally, I start practice with a sit down and overview of the practice, but I postponed this until later. I had been expecting Dante at 6:15, but didn’t know where the H’s or Tom were. Just as I had gotten the team on the line, Tom showed up, which was good.

We started off with doing our animal claws. I said I knew it was simple, but some people always had problems with it. The idea behind the animal claws is to show the correct position on how to hold the ball, something I wasn’t really taught until 8th grade. Several of them got into it (as I told them that they could of course make appropriate animal sounds). Right off the bat, I found that Jack P is one sharp kid. I would give an instruction and he would manage to honor the exact wording of the instruction while still doing something goofy. For now, I find it endearing and fun as it keeps me on my toes. When we did some more serious and challenging activities later, he didn’t do it either which tells me he likely knows how to judge the right situation for such antics.

After we practiced our animal claws we moved onto doing it with a ball. This whole thing took me a little longer than I would have liked because as I went around to each kid to see that they were doing it correctly. It is here that having another person would have helped tremendously, but oh well, what are you going to do?

We were wasting a lot of time at this point as well as they were not paying as much attention as I would have liked. Right as we finished doing the animal claws with the ball the H’s arrived. We then broke up into partners, with one group of three. They then practiced taking the ball from a another player. This is another way to work on grip and reinforces how to catch a pass or pull down a rebound.

I then asked them to form a horseshoe and no one was really paying attention. Gave them until a count of 10 to do it, which I counted out loud. Exactly 1 kid was sitting down. Couple others were mildly going towards it, a few others were trying to figure out what they were supposed to be doing, and about half the team was nearly oblivious, until we got to about 2, that they were supposed to be doing anything. And so it was time for the good ole wind sprint. Made them run to half court and back . The fastest two got to avoid doing it a second time. Didn’t have much of a problem the rest of practice with their paying attention.

After that we gathered around and I did my introduction. Talked about hustle. I asked the question “What is my job on the team?” Only a few players were willing to venture a guess. Clearly they were nervous, as it was a gimme question. We established that it was my role to coach them. I talked about what that meant. Talked about how as players their job was to be supportive of each other and to work on improving themselves. Introduced my system of permissions and suicides. If you hustle (or win certain team games) you earn a permission. If you aren’t paying attention, or aren’t hustling, you get a suicide. Every player starts off with a suicide so you have to end up in the positive for permissions to avoid running at least one. A couple of players had earned a permission already.

We then went into our “continuous motion” drill. Rather than just have the players run laps, I have them do something. For this continuous motion I basically had them do bounce and underhand passes, as well as doing the “steal the ball” while in motion. They started off sprinting, and despite my encouraging them to go at a jogging pace, flamed out after 7 minutes. I expect them to be able to do a lot more than that and soon. I’m hoping that they pace themselves better next time. We then had a water break.

We then did wrist flexes. There is the shooting wrist and the dribbling wrist. According to the Basketball Coach’s Bible, one of several books I’ve read, a few simple wrist drills can dramatically improve performance. As the drills are simple, I went for them.

We then talked about the importance of pivoting, before practicing that. Several of the players had problems, but improved as we practiced. I’m a strong believer in pivots (and cuts) and so they will get better if only through repetition.

Following this we did one inch shots. It forces players to square up correctly and puts the emphasis on the wrists and the legs. It is a hard drill at first and as expected the team struggled with it. However, it really does force players to develop better shooting form and so I will be staying with it. We divided up into three groups and went for into this.

We then went to one foot shots. This allows players to really focus on technique and so we went over proper shooting technique here. As the shot is incredibly shot, there should be a high percentage of shots made. The close shots let them focus on the technique. They take multiple shots from the left, center, and right. After we do this, we are at 7:15. I decide to run our game. Basically it is just a relay contest of the one foot shot. Fun was had. The winners (who I don’t remember) earned a permission.

We then did our suicides, with Brian, Jack P, Noah, Scott, and Tom not having to run any. Jack M ended up with 2 and Dante got a second when, for the millionth time it seems like, he did not touch the ground as he was running.

We then had our end of practice meeting. I complemented them on a good practice. And I gave them their “doggie bag”, which is basically just a homework assignment. For this assignment they were to practice one of three things each day between our Monday and Friday practice: pivoting, wrist flicks, and defensive stance taps. I had planned on getting to defensive taps, but it simply did not happen. Having them practice, however, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world and so I didn’t worry too much about that being in there.

It was then time for the parents meeting which went well. I had 7 of the 10 show up. I knew 1 couldn’t make it. I have since talked to the other two so that’s good. The parents seemed to buy my philosophy well enough. So all-in-all a nice first practice.