How Do You Spend Your Practice Time?

This same guy that played for this famous professional told me something else interesting. And this confirmed what I learned about 10 years into my coaching career. He said that during all the years that he had played at the higher levels - NCAA DI and professional - his practices consisted of about 80% offense and 20% defense.

Why is this important to you the youth coach? Because offense wins championships, not defense. We will save that nugget for a later discussion, but what you need to learn from this is that your practice should be spent with your kids doing something with the ball. Dribbling and shooting mostly. If a player can put the ball on the floor - playing any position! - and can shoot it, there will be a place for him on most teams. And you can address that starting right now. Practice offense. Practice dribbling so your guys can create their own shots, and practice shooting off the dribble, and practice catching and shooting. That is what you should do for most of your practice. If not all of it.

Hey, This Professional Coach Agrees With Me

Okay, I don't this professional coach. I've never talked with him, never met him. But I was talking with a guy the other day who had played for this professional coach. And, no, I don't know this guy, we're not friends, I just met him once.

Anyway, we were talking about how so many of the high school coaches - and AAU and youth coaches - believe the system makes play, and not the players. He told me that when he had played for this coach (yes, all of you know the name) they used only 3 entries. And they never, ever used a pattern. No, what they worked on offensively was true motion, reading the defense and reacting, taking what the defense gives you and exploiting it.

New Blog Address

http://www.coachingyouthbasketball-coach.blogspot.com/

A Thrilling Win 10-9

One of the teams in our program won a game the other day 10-9. Of course we were disappointed with the offense, but there is a silver lining in that.

The other team sat back in a 2/3 zone and bottled up the inside. Good strategy if your purpose is to win games. But these were 5th and 6th grade girls. Winning games is not our purpose, learning to play the game is.

No, what had us so pleased was that our girls consistently attacked this zone on the dribble in the gaps. They brought two players to them then they tried to make a move to score or pass. It rarely worked, as you can see by the score. But they tried. And failed. And failed. And failed. But they kept trying. Their was no set play, no pattern, just reading the defense and making a decision based on what they saw. Their decisions were wrong a lot, but the decided and went with it.

We thought their play was fantastic, and their offense was even better. And we only scored 10 points. Eventually, there will be no defense that can shut them down because they will be able to make moves, dribble in traffic, shoot jumpshots, or attack in any way they wish. We are giving up short term success - as a 2/3 zone is, or a pattern offense is - for the sake of long term success.

More Motion Offense

I heard the other day of a coach bringing in a "consultant" to address their stagnant offense problems against a wide 2/3 zone. Here is where the value of teaching your kids real motion comes in.

I saw the game where their offense was so limited against this zone. The problem they had was that they tried to attack this zone with a patterned offense. As you know from this blog, if you use a pattern offense, you're kids will learn primarily the pattern, rather than what it takes to attack this zone. Or any zone.

So the consultant came in and put them in a high - low pattern. All of that sounds great, but my question is: you needed a consultant to figure out that a high - low set would attack this zone? If these kids had known motion principles they could have attacked this zone the last game.

This is where youth coaches, again, can positively effect players years after the kids have left their program. Teach your guys to read the defense and go where the open spot is. Then teach them how to score from that spot. Dribble moves, one-on-one moves, things like that. Problem solved.

More Shooting

We've been talking about shooting lately. Last Saturday I saw a kid we've been working with on shooting a jumpshot and shooting it under pressure. He's finally starting to do it. His shot selection was excellent, except for one. More on that below. But he was guarded by bigger, faster guys yet he still could get his shot off clean. It was beautiful.

The shot that MOST coaches would discourage was a fifteen foot fade-away. Most coaches of teams of his age would discourage a fade away all the time. But we recognize that this kid is going to need a fade away to compete as he gets older. Remember, we are trying to get this kid to compete with the best in the country. He had a bigger kid on him, and he turned and leaned away and shot it. It was high and smooth and really a nice looking shot. He just missed it. I will bet that he will making that shot consistently within a year.

This kind of expansion of a kid's game is what you should be encouraging, rather than discouraging. But you got to have the guts to let him fail.

Do You Want Your Guys To Shoot The 3?

A while ago I talked about how to best position your players so that they can shoot the three when they want. My contention was then, and it is now, that you, as their youth coach, can do more to make the effective shooters than anyone else.

Here's how it came up. I was watching a freshmen boys team play, and they were down two with under a minute to go. They shot three 3 point goals in the last minute and made one of them. Not a bad percentage. But the two they missed didn't even have a chance of going in for this reason: they couldn't get the shot off cleanly because their shooting pocket was too low.

Remember how we talked about how you should demand that your players raise their shooting pocket so that they could get their shot off in traffic? This should be done somewhere around 7th grade. They should be strong enough to raise their pocket and this will give them enough time to perfect. If you have girls, you may want to wait until 8th grade, but no later.

And this is critical: you must be willing to go an entire season of your guys missing these shots. You must be willing to let them shoot it, and miss it. And keep shooting it, and missing it. That's your contribution as a coach who is working toward a larger goal.

We Didn't Even Know The Score

Recently, I was asked to sit on the bench with another coach for a game. He coaches a team that is pretty well developed, they are on the right track. The kids are learning dribble moves, post moves, moves to create shots, that kind of thing.

So we're sitting their and calling out this and that, a lot of "don't body up" and "rotate" and "move your feet". Basic stuff. And we're really into the game, just watching the kids and enjoying their effort. Now the gym was set up so that the coaches and players on the benches couldn't see the game clock. So we're well into the second half before either of us checked the score. And when we did, we both thought we were behind. That was okay, we were playing a much bigger and better team and our guys were giving a very good effort.

It wasn't until the last miinute when the other team started fouling us that we realized we were really ahead. I think that's a place all youth coaches need to be. Where the score is really irrelevant MOST of the time. Not all the time, but most of it. Because your real intention is to teach the game, not necessarily win the game.

I am one of those guys where most people would look at me and think I am a winning is everything kinda guy. Nope, not me at all. I am a "the will to win is everything" kinda guy. I think you should be to.