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.