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.