Showing posts with label quintin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quintin. Show all posts

Saturday, November 8, 2008

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.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Tryouts Day 3

Well day 3 of tryouts is in the books and my decision has gotten harder. 7 o’clock rolls around and we have 8 players. Players were not exactly early to arrive so at first I was hoping for six, so we could do 3 on 3. Just what I was expecting and just fine with me. At 7:03, after they’ve shot around for a couple minutes, Sammy comes strolling in. 9 is even better than 8 with me, as we then have 3 teams for 3 on 3.

During the intro speech I ask the players to think of what their strength as basketball players is. I paused and then told them that hopefully they had showed me that nights 1 & 2, but if they hadn’t, now was the time to do it. I also explained that if a player was on the bubble, the tie breakers would be their attitude and their defense.

To back up that message about defense, we start off with defensive slides. Quintin, one of my bubble boys, isn’t there so I am focusing most of my attention on Leonardo and Jack. And Leonardo looks much better at this than does Jack. Overall their ability to do this drill is still limited. I still don’t get it. I should mention that we’re only practicing on half a court tonight because there are girl tryouts going on simultaneously.

After the slides we do animal rebounding. They are lined up randomly, and so they are placed into random groups. I put Sammy in the second group and task the players with explaining to him how it works. We played to 5, where there is less luck involved than a game to 3. But interestingly enough Michael, who had finished first in his group before, finished first again. So that bodes well for him. He did a particularly good job of managing to get a shot off inside even under pressure. I know from talking to his coach from last year that he sees himself as more of a perimeter sort of player and also a player who expects a lot of playing time. It seems like it might come down to the idea that if you want the playing time you should expect to be inside some of that time. In the first group Grant finished 2nd, Sammy 3rd, Seth 4th, and Jack 5th. This was Jack’s second last place finish, though to his credit he was in there mixing it up, he just couldn’t pull it off. In the second group it went Matthew, Austin, Mason, and Leonardo.

Next up was the triangle passing drill. With only 8 players there I decide to have them do the full rotation, so everyone plays defense twice, and each of the three offensive positions. One group does manage to get to 10 passes, so that’s good. Less good is that I can’t tell you who. Can’t do that, because the girls’ coach constantly had lines in front of where my camera was setup, so I have no footage from last night. Rather aggravating actually. It is during the triangle passing that Sammy starts to make a case for himself. It is also towards the end of this that Josh shows up. He was one of the football people, so I was definitely not expecting him.

After the triangle passing drill I have them run some relays, which I was not paying attention to, and thought I’d just pick up later on video. While these were going on I was making teams for 3 on 3. Before 3 on 3, I wanted to see some outside shooting, something we hadn’t done at all. I wanted to give them a lot of time for 3 on 3, so we played a game of “Golf”. The idea in golf is to make a jump shot from the elbow. If you miss you don’t want the ball to hit the floor. It’s a rebounding and shooting drill all in one.

We then spent the next 25 minutes doing 3 on 3. And this is where things got interesting. Leonardo made a strong case for himself with his defense. Sammy made a case for himself as well with some real aggressive defense, though doing so without getting beat due to his speed, and he made a surprising number of shots. I don’t exaggerate when I say he has no shooting form. So did he get real lucky? I dunno.

The group had gotten tired with 3 on 3, so we ended with a couple more games of Golf, to make sure I had a sense of their outside shooting, and then a game of lightening, which I ended half way.

I ended tryouts by thanking everyone, telling them how they had shown more and more each night of tryouts, and shaking their hands while thanking them for trying out. Here’s a recap of the players:

Yes
In rough order from who I see as most talented to least:

Alex: He’s going to be our center. Much of the offense ran through him last year and I anticipate something similar this year. Due to his inside strength, and our general lack elsewhere, I think we’ll run a 4 out 1 in offense.

Josh: Despite being short, he’s tough. He’ll be our starting point guard. In fact at the moment he’s the only kid who I trust to both pass and dribble. Now the bad news is that he choked, repeatedly, while shooting layups in 3 on 3. He must have missed 6 or 7 over the course of the time. At the 5B level that’s a lot of baskets to give up.

Michael: I don’t have a good handle on his personality yet. This is a kid who, while my back was turned, both shot at a basket while waiting for a drill (definite no-no), but also sprinted when I asked him to go do something, again with my back turned. He definitely had some negative words for his fellow teammates. So I think there is the potential to be a leader there, but he’s far away from it right now. Good news is that he can do all the big things, shoot, dribble, defend, rebound, fairly well making him a nice overall package. As I indicated he’s a possible 4 player for us.

Seth: This kid has real potential. He’s the second tallest player on the team after Alex, but doesn’t have the fortitude to play big yet. Hopefully that can be developed. What I really like about him is his good attitude & his ability to have explosive speed with the ball. If he can improve his shot, he has the ability to take over a game, something that Josh and Alex have, but Michael lacks. Jon, last year’s coach, said he got much better as the season went on, hopefully there will be similar growth this year. As a starter he would probably play the 3 position, or small forward.

Austin: Here’s a kid who doesn’t have that ability to take over the game, but he’s not going to cost you a game either. If we were playing tomorrow he’d be our starting 2, which as I tend to coach is less a shooting guard and more a release valve. I tend to like my most athletic players at the 3 spot, where they can work both inside and out, or at point directing the offense.

Grant: If Michael can’t cut it as a 4, it would likely fall to Grant. The kid’s ball handling isn’t terrific, but he does have a terrific sense of humor and seems liked by his peers, which is always good for a team. He’s good at lay-ups, which is good for a 4. He made extreme efforts to thank me at all the tryouts, which was a nice show of respect, even if it was most likely parent urged.

Matthew: Probably our back-up point or 2 guard. Prone to mental mistakes at times, he can still be a solid ball handler. He wore a hat the first day of tryouts which didn’t even register with me until I saw the video. Frankly I find something about him off personality wise, and if there were more options I wouldn’t take him on that basis alone. However, this wasn’t a huge group trying out so I will take what I can get.

Mason: Before last night I’d have placed him much higher. He’s definitely the shortest player on the team. There were times tonight where another player just took the ball away from him. In this he reminds me of where Jack, a player on my GL teams for the past two years ago, was when in 4th grade. By the time he was done in 5th grade he’d learned how to avoid giving up the ball purely because someone was bigger and stronger. Mason has a good deal of basketball IQ and can see the court well. I would prefer for him to be our backup point guard, so hopefully he start to figure out strategies, with some coaching included, on how to not be taken advantage of.

Bubble Boys

Leonardo: He’s willing to take risks on defense to get that big score. That can be quite problematic as it leaves us vulnerable. He has, however, probably the best court vision of anyone outside of Josh, and will frequently make that pass to make it happen. Jon mentioned that he grew a lot last year, as I don’t believe he’d ever played organized basketball at all before this. Before last night it was basically between him and Quintin, but he showed me enough during 3 on 3, to say I should take him. Particularly because I think he can play back-up center. He doesn’t have the height, but does have the bulk, and this helps free me to use Seth to better effect. He came through on defense, and I said I was looking carefully at that, so he has become a yes.

Jack: He was an almost for sure yes coming into night 3. However, I watched him closely and can’t see what he does well. That was the charge I gave at the start of the tryouts: think of what you do well and show it to me. He seems like a nice enough kid. But what role or purpose would he have on the team? I’m not all that enthused about a kid like Matthew either, but it’s clear that Matthew’s skills warrant being on the team. Not so with Jack.

Quintin: It was disappointing not to see Quintin there. Unlike with Jack, Quintin does have real strengths. Quintin has a good sense of the floor, on both offense and defense. He doesn’t have the footspeed to always do what he needs to on defense, but he knows how to be in help, for instance, something I didn’t see watching other kids. He’s not going to b e an attitude problem in anyway, and would likely be happy with whatever playing time he got. Someone like Jack might be a little more skilled than he is, which is why going into today Jack was the yes and Quintin the maybe. But Quintin has definite things he brings to the table, if not much of a perceived upside.

Sammy: I thought for sure he was going to cut himself and was not surprised when we got started and he wasn’t there. But he arrived late and gave a very good tryout. He uses his speed to excellent effect on defense. When we would press the ball, Sammy would be an absolute nightmare for the other team. Only problem is that once we got the ball, he becomes a nightmare for us. Even if his shot is better than his form suggests, and I’m not convinced that it is, his ball handling is atrocious and a liability in any type of fast break situation, like the kind created by his steals. He would be a project. Does he have the desire to improve and get better? I just don’t know. The upside that Quintin lacks, is here in spades, but Quintin is definitely the better basketball player at this moment. Would that still be true in February? I dunno.

So me and my big pen talk about how my decision has been easier than in years past. And if Sammy doesn’t show up last night and perform the way that he did it is. I take Leonardo & Quintin, and cut Jack. Now though, I’m in a much stickier situation. I have until 4 today to make up my mind and I’m going to use all the time I have to sort it out, as who I think I should take changes by the hour.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Tryouts Day 2

Day 2 of tryouts is in the books. Sammy and Brandon, the two likely cuts from yesterday, weren’t there, leaving us with 11 players. We started off with dribble suicides, which didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know. I have a pretty good feel for who can dribble, Josh foremost among them, and who can’t, pretty much everyone else. After this we did Animal Rebounding, my absolute favorite drill. It’s my favorite because it teaches aggression, it teaches rebounding, it teaches how to get a shot off with three guys in your face. In Animal Rebounding you want points. You get a point every time you get a rebound, make a shot, steal the ball, block a shot, or cause two jump balls. Normally we play to 5, but to expedite things during tryouts we played to three. At three there is some definite luck involved, but upon watching the video the winners of our three groups, Josh, Seth, and Michael, were all worthy winners. We’re going to do this again tonight, and due to a football game I’m only expecting 8 or so, and we’ll play up to 5. Between the two games, I should have a good feel for their abilities in this game. I was encouraged that I heard a couple of players say they felt the game was fun. That’s a good thing.

After Animal Rebounding we did full court lay-ups. Basically everyone got the same range of scores, of 5-7, making it worthless. We did it for 45 seconds and it tells me that 45 seconds just isn’t long enough it seems to get a range. Though the drill was useful, since when I watched it on video I was able to get a sense of the kids’ layup form, most of which was poor.

I’ve ragged a little on their fundamentals, which in some ways is unfair. They are a B-level team and B-level team are going to have problems with fundamentals. And while I intellectually know the importance of teaching good fundamentals, I haven’t done the greatest job in the world of actually doing so. I have some structure changes to my practices that I think will encourage them to be used better, but I still recognize this as an area where I can coach better.

After full court lay-ups we did a 3 man weave, which was our first passing sort of drill. This was where a few kids showed some good basketball IQ, or at least good previous instruction, as they knew some of the subtle things to do, like running wide, to do the drill well.

We then ended with some extended 5 on 5, with some no dribble 5 on 5 in the last few minutes. They did it without complaint and did it in many ways more effectively than my 5th grade team did it at the END of last year, so that was all good.

Basically I have a team at this point and a fairly good sense of their strengths and weaknesses. I know I said that I was going to go kid by kid, but I don’t think it would change much from where I’m at today, to tomorrow. So when the team is finalized I’ll start going over the players.

So I have 8 definite yeses. I have one almost definite yes, Kevin, who just rubs me the wrong way in some sense. Not sure why, but as I watched the video last night he went from a maybe to a yes. But something about him & Grant, who does well on all of the objective stuff we do and when I watch him does well subjectively, raise flags for me. And they’re both nice kids, or at least can appear so at tryouts, so it’s not an attitude thing.

That leaves basically 1 spot for two kids. The two kids on the bubble or Leonardo and Quintin. Right now I’m leaning pretty strongly towards Quintin. I watched everything these two did very carefully on video and they each have their strengths and weaknesses, but overall it seems like Quintin slightly outshines him. In particular I like two things about Quintin. One is he’s always trying to play defense. I’d say Leonardo has better defensive skills, but he’s also less likely to hustle back, and he’s more likely to leave his man to attempt to make a steal. The second is that Quintin seems to have a good sense of how to move on offense. He was always moving around doing something productive, whether it was a cut or a screen, or balancing the court. I would say the biggest plus for Leonardo is his passing. It would appear to be top 4 or 5 of the whole group. I haven’t done a lot of passing stuff, but this has seemed true from what we have done. Hopefully both will be there tonight so I can gain that much more information on them. But unlike in the past two years I don’t feel the same dilmena about the final players I’m going to choose.