First HP Practice

So I had my first practice with HP 4A and it was thoroughly OK. 9 AM on a Saturday is a hard time to be having practice. Things are worse when it’s 80+ degrees outside so the unair-conditioned gym, which didn’t even feature a fan, was hot. The kids are still figuring me out (I only got 1 laugh which is unusual). Finally my teaching was fine, but not great. That’s all the negatives. The positives are I think some good skills were learned.

As expected, people were late. Only three kids were there on time. Everyone who was expected by 9:06 so that was good (the twins and Danny were unable to make it). I did my introduction speech. I talked about who I am and my goals of improvement, fun, and winning, in that order. I talked talked about our rules (be respectful of self, others, and the game). I also introduced suicides and permissions. These are my motivational tools. A kid gets a suicide for bad things, while gaining a permission for good things. At the end of practice if a kid has more suicides than permissions they have to run a suicide. Oh and every kid starts off with a suicide.

We started off with how to hold the ball. I didn’t make this as fun as last year with the animal noises. I don’t know why not. A bad spur of the moment decision. After practicing this, and practicing grabbing the ball, we started our continuous motion. They flamed out after only 7 minutes; the goal is 15. I want to get there fairly quickly, but it’s harder having the once a week versus twice a week practices to get there.

Next we talked about what it means to be respectful of others and as part of that I did a listening demonstration. After that we went into wrist flexes for a while. I then went off plan and we played two games of dribble knock-out, hoping that would loosen them up some. Only kind of happened. Dribble knock-out is a game where the players are in a space and must continuously dribble, while trying to knock the ball out of the hands of their peers. If they lose control of the ball, or step out of bounds, they’re out. The boundries get progressively smaller as people lose.

Next we practiced pivoting, and we ended by practicing using our legs for our shots. We concluded practice with a relay race game. In the end only two kids would have had to run a suicide if I’d been honest, so I faked it and said no one earned one.

So the skills were there. The energy and excitement were not. GL’s team had (and has) an amazing amount of love for the game of basketball. That love simply isn’t there with HP. Perhaps that’s some of my disappointment. Anyhow, here’s a run down of the kids.

Adam – Said perhaps two words the whole practice, but was a hard worker.

Gavin – Gavin was one of the kids on time. He’s also going to be a kid who’s going to need a lot of management. He lacks a lot of self discipline and does stuff like shooting a half court shot at the end of our continuous motion drill. He actually got two permissions, but still would have been one of the kids running due to bearing the only kid to earn a suicide, and then another one later on for good measure.

Henry – Henry is going to be another difficult player. I think the skills are there but there is that attitude as well. He finished in second place in one of the games of dribble knock-out and started to argue. My response was (sympathetically) “Oh Henry. That’s too bad. You had earned the permission I talked about to the person who knocked away the most balls, but just earned a suicide for arguing with me.” I did it well as he was angry at himself and not me.

Jacob – Seems like a nice kid. He’s got some weight on him so he’ll be a post player for us, most likely. He seems good, but not great or even very good (which would actually apply to a lot of these kids).

Jack A – Did every little thing I asked of him. He ended up with three permissions, which was impressive. Not quite sure where his skills fall compared to others (he wasn’t at the clinic and what I saw today is hardly indicative of overall skills) but if this is his real attitude he should learn a lot this season.

Jack B – See Jacob.

Josh – The other kid who would have had a suicide. Not a particularly hard worker (though not lazy as I might say Gavin is). I remain unconvinced that he belongs on the A team. RATHER unconvinced.

Zach – A really fun kid. His shooting form needs work.

So that was this practice. Not quite sure where we’re going to go for next weeks practice, which will be more defensive oriented I know. I’ll probably do ball handling as well. We’ll see. I am hoping that with the twins there the excitement will improve since I imagine them being leaders and they do have a love of basketball.