Another RL Coaching Dynasty - 4th/5th Grade Basketball Edition

[Atocep]

Hello, you may know me from my coaching 9-10 year old baseball dynasty.

You can use that thread for references if needed. The 3rd post is a quick overview of the players, many of whom, will be making appearances in this dynasty.

My Experience Coaching a 9-10 Year Old Baseball Team in a Rigged League - Front Office Football Central

I decided to do a Dynasty for the team I'm coaching in basketball this season. I initially didn't consider doing one for basketball because I didn't know how interesting it would be. Four practices in, however, it's been one thing after another and I think at the very least I need a place to kind of collect my thoughts. This past baseball season was the most stressful season I've had coaching and in some ways basketball has already topped it.

[Atocep]

Forming the Team

First, as I detailed as a rant in my baseball thread, I brought up the idea of getting our baseball kids together for basketball since it didn't look like they'd be coming back together as a team for this upcoming season. Kind of a last hurrah for a group of kids that had been through some tough times together and had really developed as athletes.

The problem I eventually ran into once it got close to basketball season was that the City Council was strongly considering dropping basketball because they were hit with a 3% budget cut and basketball would easily cover that cut for them. That would leave us with a city with zero basketball options. I kept in touch with the youth sports director at parks and rec from the beginning of October through early December when they finally got the ok to get basketball registrations opened up. Throughout this time I kept the interested parents (Quentin, Nolan, Joey, Magnus, Canaan, and Brendan) up to date with what was going on. All but Quentin's parents said they were in from the very beginning. Quentin's parents didn't want to make a commitment to anyone until registration opened.

My intention was to coach this team with the person I coached basketball with the previous season (Frank). Frank is a good and experienced youth basketball coach that was dealt a rough hand last season as far as rosters go. We started with 8 kids on our official roster, had 1 that just didn't show up, had 1 move two weeks into practices, and had another that showed up to about 25% of practices before quiting midway through the season. So we were left with 5 players; 2 had played basketball before and we were younger than everyone else on top of that. We didn't win a single game. We had some competitive games, including a couple of 3 point loses, but we also lost to the league champion by an average of about 35 points in the 3 games we played them.

As I mentioned, I kept in touch with the interested parents via email while waiting on the final word on whether we were having a season or not from Parks and Rec. I finally sent an email out just before Thanksgiving letting everyone know that basketball was given the green light and registration would open up the first week of December. I got confirmations from everyone but Quentin. Then the day registration opens up I sent out emails to let everyone know and then get an email back from Joey's mom telling me Joey and Magnus are going to play for their coach from last season. Canaan is close to Magnus and Joey so I assumed this meant he was going to play for that team too.

So with no word yet from Quentin it's looking like the original plan has completely backfired and Frank and I are going to be coaching what is mostly a group of random kids.

Shortly after that, though, I get some good news from Quentin's mom. She emails me to let me know Quentin is going to play for me. That means Nolan is definitely with us as well. They've played baseball and basketball together every year since they started playing.

The coaches meeting is called at Parks and Rec less than week before Christmas. We're told rosters aren't final since they were only able to have registration open for about 2.5 weeks and they'll work in any players that sign up through the middle of January. I'm handed my roster and the only players I know are Kaden (my son) and Nolan. I ask the league director about Quentin and I'm told he's on the roster with Joey and Magnus. This, I know, is wrong. I know that when Quentin's parents say they're going to do something they do it. So I show the league director the email I have and then point out that I have Nolan on my roster and he takes Quentin off of their roster and adds him to mine.

This gave Frank and I a roster of 8 and only 3 players that I knew.

[Atocep]

When I Considered Just Giving Up

Once I had my roster and I knew when practices were to start I emailed Frank to let him know. Frank emails me back to tell me that his work hours have are changing after the new year and he won't be able to help coach at all. At this point I'm starting to regret doing this at all.

As I'm calling my parents to give them the info on practices and when games are expected to start I mention to Brendan's dad that I could really use some help with coaching. He was an assistant coach with the team that won this league the year before as his older boy was on that team. Thankfully, he agrees to help.



The Rules and Some Background on the League

- Every player plays 1 quarter and must have some playing time in each half

- 3 second rule is in effect

- 3 point shot is in effect

- Man to man defense only

- Pressing is allowed in the last 2 minutes if the score is within 10

- No stealing (strange rule). You basically can't rip the ball out of someone's hands and you can't steal the ball off the dribble. You can steal passes and you can steal a dribble that gets away from the ball-handler. This rule leads to a lot of arguing with the refs.

- (new rule for this year) Free throws in the last 2 minutes on shooting fouls. Shooting fouls before that result in 1 automatic point and retain position with an in-bounds under the basket. (Before this season there were no free throws at all)

As you can tell by the rules it's meant to be a very casual league, but since it's the only basketball in Lakewood it's become a competitive league and the rules have very slowly changed to support it a little.

Lakewood would be considered by most to be kind of a rough city as well. It shows up in basketball. My first year coaching I broke up a fight between 1st graders, I've seen at least 2 other fights over the years, I've seen a ref go into the stands to argue with a group of parents (said ref doesn't ref here anymore), and we had a ref call 911 on a parent in the stands last season (justifiably). People come to Lakewood for the sports. We live just outside of Lakewood, but the baseball is by far the best in the area as far as competition goes and the basketball is really the only option unless I go out into the downtown Tacoma area or across Lakewood into Dupont.

[Atocep]

Our First practice

Our first practice was on the 8th of January. The team Magnus and Joey ended up on practices before us in the same gym. When I walk in I see they have Magnus, Joey, Sean, Canaan, and Christopher from our baseball team. I don't care at all where the kids play. I'm happy to see as many kids playing basketball as possible. What annoys me here is as I was trying to get this organized and while I was keeping everyone up to date on things there were apparently other ideas being discussed without telling me. A simple "hey, we we're leaning toward playing for our coach from last season" would have done fine. Instead, I heard nothing from anyone other than confirmations up until a week before registration and then to top things off after I walk in Magnus' mom comes up to me and says to me "I didn't know you were coaching, if I had we could have gotten these two groups together or something". I'll be honest, very bad thoughts entered my mind after she said that.

Anyway, I have 7 kids there by the 6:30 start time and one isn't on my roster so I know he was a recent addition. He's actually a kid from the Tigers baseball team we played against this past baseball season. He was on the tournament team we put together after the season and I coached him then.

It's clear based on what I saw looking at the 7 we had then that we were lacking in size, but our guards were going to be impossible for anyone to handle. Then, about 15 minutes into practice the 2 missing players walk in (they're brothers) and one is a big boy so I thought our size problems were solved.

The goal of the first practice is was to simply get a grasp of what Tony (Brendan's Dad) and I would be working with. Some sprints, layup drills, short jumpers, dribbling, passing, ect. All very basic stuff.



The Players


Quentin - Very good ballhandler. Solid shot with a slow release. Quick enough to get dribble penetration for us and a good passer. He's our point guard. The only negative you could really put on his game is he's small.

Kaden - Good ball handler, probably 2nd fasted kid to Quentin, but he's quicker than Quentin. No one could stay in front of him last year in this league which led to some arguments with the refs because some teams were trying to diguise a zone to cover him. Needs to work on his mid range jump shot. Is a combo guard that will give Quentin breaks at the point.

Nolan - Without question the best shooer in this league. I don't even know what the other teams have, but I guarantee no one has a better shooter. He's 5th grader with a very reliable shot out to mid-range and he's automatic at the free throw line (made 18 of 20 in a regional free throw contest earlier in the school year).

Brenan - Solid player. Makes his layups. Willing rebounder. Enough size to put him in the post. He's just a well rounded player with no great strengths or glaring weaknesses. A very willing learner as well.

Rafi - The player from the Tigers. Good size. Has never played organized basketball, but has a good shot for this age group. Quiet kid. Willing learner.

Andy - Another that had never played organized basketball. Very rough right now, but it looks like there's enough developing athlecicsm here that he may end up being the kid that improves the most.

IKeika - Short kid that's played some basketball before. Always a smile on his face. He's kind of like the guard version of Brendan. He's well rounded with no obvious holes in his game.

Randy - The bigger of the 2 brothers that showed up late. He's big. He's never played basketball. He's also kind of slow in everything he does. There seems to possibly be some ADD here with some extreme laziness on top of it. Good kid though. I'll have more on him below.

Russell - Randy's brother. Always a smile on his face. Has never played basketball and there are some developmental issues here that go beyond basketball. Serious developmental issues. I honestly wondered why he was signed up for this league and safety was an immediate issue that came to mind. I was more than willing to work with him and see where it goes though. Much more on this below.

Britt - Didn't actually show up to the 1st practice. He was added just before practice #2. He was on my baseball team and goes to school with Magnus and Joey, but wanted to play for us. Left hander, quick, athletic, small. Has never played organized basketball. Should improve a great deal over the course of the season.

[Atocep]

The Plan

The no zone rule limits most defensive strategies. I'm a defense and rebounding coach by nature so we will work hard on those things, but the no zone rule does create some offensive strategies that could be very effective IMO and I think I have a group to actually do the things I've wanted to do in this league.

We're going to run a very basic 3 out 2 in motion offense. First and foremost I'm here to teach these kids how to play basketball. Having them memorize plays (as every other coach I've seen in this league does) isn't teaching them basketball IMO. We're going to work on reading the defense and the players using what they see to move, screen, cut, and attack the basket. I went over this with Tony and he seemed a little skeptical at first but open to trying it out. I know it's likely going to look rough at first, but even a basic motion offense at this age in a no zone league could be impossible to stop. Even better, it actually teaches the kids skills they'll use anywhere they play basketball from here on. It may just look ugly in the early going.

This should give you an idea of the very basics of what we're trying to accomplish:



What I'm teaching the kids isn't rigid though. I want them to understand the options they have on cuts, where they can screen to, where they pass to, and things to look for. It probably sound far more complicated when I explain it than it actually is. I'm very confident that this will work.

[Atocep]

Because of the delay in getting things started this year we have a condensed season. I get 9 practices to work with these kids before our first game and then 1 practice per week once the games start. This means our practices have to move at a quick pace. Much quicker than kids this age are probably accustomed to.

For the 2nd practice I split the team into two groups. The first group was the kids that needed some extra attention paid to dribbling and layups. I took the other group and we we worked on how to properly cut toward the basket, screens, rebounding and jumpshots/layups. we ended this practice with a short scrimmage. I don't like scrimmaging this early, but there was a reason I did it here. My players were itching to scrimmage and I wanted to show them how much work we had to do. It was ugly. It was a 10 minute scrimmage where the ball was taken out of bounds on every change of possession. No one made a basket.

Russell banged himself up 3 times during this practice (nothing serious, but it got my attention) which further reinforced my concern about his safety in this league. I hadn't shared these concerns with Tony yet, but he came up to me after this practice and told me he had some concerns about Russell's safety in this league as well. Tony also has experience coaching kids that need special attention so when he told me safety was a concern of his I knew it was something I was going to have to address.

What I decided to do was call the league director and explain my concerns about Russell's safety. I assumed the league would have already known about his developmental issues and just failed to inform me. They had no clue. The league director canceled dinner plans for Tuesday to come out to watch our 3rd practice. I've coached in this guy's league for 5 years and I think he knows if I have a concern it's probably a legit one.

[Atocep]

For our 3rd practice we start off with our typical conditioning and then begin working on a drill to help with entry passes specifically, but it helps kids at this age with all passes. You see, kids at this age that aren't experienced players (and some experienced players do this as well) tend to get into what I call the armadillo position when they have the ball, get defense pressure, and don't know what to do. They tuck the ball into their stomach and bend over at the waist and hope something happens to bail them out. This, obviously, takes away vision of at least half the court and makes it even harder to get rid of the ball. The drill we did was this one:





Since we plan to run a 3 out 2 in motion offense, drills like this are key. My kids have to know how to pass the basketball. They also have to know how to screen, cut, and move without the ball which is why we've been working on those things.

From there we broke off into two balanced groups. Tony worked with the kids on how to set on the ball screens and how to use on the ball screens. I worked with the kids on how to set off the ball screens and the different cuts that come off of off the ball screens.

Russell banged himself up 3 more times during this practice. I talked to the league director after practice (this was the practice he attended) and he confirmed that there are safety issues here. It really wouldn't be a matter of if, but instead when he would get hurt in a game. He also told me he wasn't very pleased that he wasn't given a heads up from his parents when they signed him up. He put things in my hands. He told me that he trusts whatever decision I make and he'll be ready for a phone call from the parents depending on what the outcome is.

This was Tuesday. I spent an hour after practice talking to Tony on what we he thought we should do. I went home and talked to 2 different friends about the situation and how to handle it. I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday night awake in bed thinking about this. I've never had to deal with anything like this as a coach. It was honestly eating me up.

[Atocep]

On Thursday before practice I called Tony and told him I decided we would have a talk with Russell/Randy's parents after practice. I was going to express my concerns about Russel's safety and explain that even though I'm technically supposed to play every player 1 quarter I wasn't willing to give Russell that much playing time out of fear for his safety. I'm willing to play him and work with him, but he'd only play in situations where I felt comfortable getting him out on the court and there may be games where he doesn't get in very much at all. I'd see where the conversation goes from there, but I asked Tony to be there as a witness to the conversation and he told me he'd help talk to them.

I show up to practice on Thursday evening and I find out that there are some whispers/complaints from a couple of moms from the other group from baseball (the team that practices before us) that our team is stacked. As humorous as it is to have complaints of team stacking coming from a group that was trying to pull over the players that had committed to playing for me, we have a long way to go. We have the potential to be a good team, but we're more than capable of losing to anyone right now.

Practice Thursday started off with some heavy conditioning; I wanted the kids to start learning to play and think while tired. After that we repeated the drill from the video above. This time with the added focus of pivoting into the triple threat position. The drill looked much better this time and I didn't see a single armadillo.

From there we moved to a drill to teach our rebounders how to make an outlet pass and how to fill the lanes on a fast break. Half of the group had a gold practice jersey on to split into "teams". I put Kaden/Quentin to the side where they would normally receive an outlet pass with Kaden in a gold jersey. I then had 2 gold players and 2 without gold on come out under the basket. Tony would put up a shot. If gold got the rebound they would turn and get an outlet to Kaden who would push the ball to the middle of the court while the 2 rebounders then the lanes on the sides and take it down for a layup. If 2 that weren't wearing gold got the rebound they would outlet to Quentin and do the same. The idea here was to get some work on boxing out/rebounding, get them familiar with looking for Kaden/Quentin on a quick outlet pass, and then build an understanding of how to properly fill lanes on a fast break. As usual with kids this age, the drill was a mess at first but began to look fairly decent by the end.

The last thing we worked on this practice was installing the basic Motion set. We explained that we have 3 guards and 2 post players, I showed the basic set with the point guard up top, the guards on the wing, and the two post players on the block. I then showed the kids what we're going to do when Quentin/Kaden call motion up top. The post players come up to the elbows, the 2 wings go to the post, and the post players then screen down for the guards to pop out to the wings.

We then went over some of the options each group has. The post players can cross screen for each other, flash to the high post and then screen down for the other. When the ball is up top and passed to a wing the person on point can then screen away for the other guard who can then either curl to the basket or pop out to the top of the key to cycle the basketball.

I'll be honest, at first this went way over a few of their heads, but as we went over it and broke things down they began to pick it up. When I turned them lose to just run it I kept it simple; 3 passes before we look to shoot (we'll build up to 5 and then 10 as they get a better understanding of things). Considering it was the first practice we've worked on this and it was only 20 minutes of introduction it went surprisingly well. I believe the kids started to see that the drills we're doing were building them up to do this. Move, Screen, Cut, Attack the Basket is what I preach and it's what I saw when they were trying this for the first time.

After practice was the part I was dreading. Russell's mom wasn't at practice for the first time, but his Dad was there and making his away over to us as we were walking over to where he had been sitting. He started things off by simply asking me if Russell would get to play. I was honest and told him that Tony and I both have serious concerns about his safety in games because they're more physical than anything we had seen in practice up until then. Russell's dad was fantastic, which was a huge relief, but it didn't make things much easier once I found out more about their story.

The Dad didn't sign these kids up to play. The mom apparently did it without telling the dad and didn't notify Parks and Rec that there are developmental issues. The dad said he was happy to see them get out of the house and get some excercise, but he could see that this isn't something Russell should be doing. I told him I'd be willing to get him into games when I'm confident about his safety, but outside of that I'm not willing to make any commitments to playing time. I also told him that with only 2 coaches and 1 court to practice on we don't have the resources to get him the attention I'd like to get him, but we were willing to work with him to the best of our ability.

We went on to talk for probably 30 minutes and the dad told us that he was just going to pull him. I told him if that's what he wants to do there are 2 options: he could ask for a waiver to move Russell down to the 2nd/3rd grade league or if he isn't comfortable with that he can go to Parks and Rec and ask for a refund, which wouldn't be a problem.

I also found out that there are some issues that extend beyond basketball that are quite sad. According to the dad the mom "doesn't live in reality" when it comes to these two kids which is how they end up in situations like this one. I told him he is welcome to paint me as the bad guy if it keeps the peace at home; just as long as it's clear that safety is my concern. The parks and rec director knows what's going on and I told him he's prepared for a angry parent phone call if it comes. He told me not to worry about it, that it's something he needs to handle, and thanked us.

That was Thursday, I gave the league director a call Friday morning to let him know what was going on and that's where we stand now. Nothing I've ever done as a coach was a difficult to deal with as this. It's something I'm never going to forget. The director told me that Tony and I handled this as we could have been expected to as coaches, but I definitely don't walk away from this with a good feeling.

[BYU 14]

Handled that quite nicely IMO and the Dad sounds like a good guy that gets it.

Any chance you might keep Russell on board as a team manager or something like that, so he could still be involved?

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Handled that quite nicely IMO and the Dad sounds like a good guy that gets it.

Any chance you might keep Russell on board as a team manager or something like that, so he could still be involved?

I would be all for keeping him in some role like that; anything that has him in a uniform and feeling included in some way. However, the impression I got from the dad was there are some major family issues and this is where he is going to finally put his foot down and try to get the mom to see reality. That's why he said Russell won't be back. I'm not expecting Randy back either, but either way we'll work with what we have.

Our next practice is on Tuesday. They have my phone number and email address, but I'll be surprised if I see them again. If I do I have a feeling the mom will want to have a talk with me.

[Izulde]

I thought of the team manager thing, too, but also foresaw trouble with the mom, given the family dynamics at play.

And yeah, I gotta say you handled the best way you could have, Atocep.

[Atocep]

The last week has been hell. There's a stomach flu going around that got Kaden, then me, plus 3 other kids on our team this week. On top of that I woke up to a quarter inch of water in my bathroom on Wednesday.

We practice Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:30. At 6 on Tuesday I got a call from Russell and Randy's mom and my first thought was, "oh shit, here we go". It wasn't bad though. She didn't seem to understand the conversation I had with their dad. She asked me if Randy was still welcome at practice and I had to explain to her that there wasn't an issue with Randy at all; he was more than welcome to come to practice. Then I had to explain the safety issue I had with Russell and how I didn't make the call entirely on my own; I had feedback from different people. She took it better than expected. On top of that, I don't know what they said to Randy, but he showed up at practice Tuesday a different kid.

We always start out with conditioning. We run lines for the first 5 minutes or so of practice to get the kids used to playing and thinking tired. For the first time since we started Randy didn't finish last running the lines. From there I introduced the 3-man weave. For those that aren't familiar:



As expected, it was ugly at first but after a few trips through the kids had figured it out fairly well. As I was giving instruction Randy was paying attention and any time I asked him a question the answer was always "yes coach or "no coach".

Next we split into 2 groups. Tony took one group to work on kids receiving a pass, going into the triple threat position, giving a pump fake, and driving. I worked with the kids on backdoor cuts and throwing bounce passes to backdoor cutters.

After that we moved to working on our Motion Offense. This time we took it past the first couple of steps and introduced the entire set which can be seen here:



It's a very basic motion offense, but it should be incredibly effective for us (assuming we run it correctly). The most complicated offense I've seen the entire time I've coached in this league has been simple plays that are numbered and memorized.

We closed things up Tuesday with a light scrimmage. We didn't have enough to do a full 5 on 5 so we didn't get a chance to work on the offense in the scrimmage (we should be able to next week), but it was a big improvement from the first scrimmage. We got our outlets to the guards, I saw a few screens, and we put the ball in the basket a few times. What I didn't see enough of was movement. I still have a couple of kids that seem to think they have to stick to their man on the offensive end as well as the defensive end of the court. I also need to see more screens and better screens (they're sloppy right now).

This was a solid practice and a step in the right direction. We have a long way to go to get to where we want to be though.

[Atocep]

Last night's practice was supposed to the first where our offense was to go up against a defense. We were missing 2 kids (stomach flu) so that wasn't going to happen. Instead it became a fairly straightforward practice.

Conditioning was followed up by some more work on the 3-man weave. This is what I plan on opening up our pre-game warmups with because, as I explained to Tony, it is far more organized than what other teams do and if that gives us a mental edge over the other team before the game starts then it's great for us. On top of that we work on passing on the move, cutting, and layups all in one drill. There's really no downside to it.

Next we split into two groups again. Tony did some more work on the triple threat, pump fake, and drive drill. I wanted to get the kids work on catching the ball and going up with it without needing a dribble (or 1 dribble at most). So this is the drill we did:



The rest of practice was spent working on our offense. Andy had missed practice on Tuesday and was a little behind so we wanted to get him caught up. Randy wasn't picking it up that well so I ran it with him (I was at his side throughout the offense) while explaining his cuts and passes. That's when I got another sign that Randy had changed. After going through it a couple of times I got a "thanks coach" followed up by a "I think I've got it now coach". Very nice to see.

We talked a bit about the cross screen in the low post from the video above along with a curl screen that I like to see on the wings, which if not open, the player then cuts back to the top of the key to receive a pass. Those are the things we're going to score a lot of points off of, but we're not quite ready to make them a priority yet. I have the kids thinking enough right now as it is.

Another good practice. We're definitely seeing progress and we have another 5 practices before our first game. Next week we'll continue to work on the offense, but drills will shift to a focus on defense and boxing out. We'll also introduce our 1st in-bounds play.

[Atocep]

Unfortunately, I got news this week that one of the teams in our league has dropped out. I have no idea what happened, but I assume a coach backed out of coaching the team and no one else stepped up. I know there was a team and I know there was someone to coach it at one point and something changed.

What that means for us is there really isn't much of a season. We're now left with 3 teams and only 2 months of basketball since the season started off so late and the league has to give up the gyms at the end of March.

Tuesday we picked our conditioning up a notch and moved directly into some layups and jumpers with a heavy focus on the rebounder boxing Tony out under the basket.

After that we worked on our transition defense. It was a very simple drill with players spread on the baseline and 2 defenders starting out at the 3 point line. I would pass the ball to one of the players on the baseline and they would start a fast break with the 2 defenders communicating to stop the ball, force the pass, and delay the possession long enough for "help" to show up or force a jump shot. This required a great deal more instruction than I anticipated. Kids want to try to pick up the ball at half court rather than retreat to the 3 point line area, the person that would call ball wouldn't actually stop ball (they'd watch them dribble right by), and the person that took ball would want to try to play the first pass as well (leaving a player wide open under the basket). On the offensive side we had kids that wanted to go too fast leading the break and get out of control, we had kids that wanted to throw the skip pass from the right lane to the left lane (and watch the pass get intercepted), and I had Kaden trying to be magic Johnson and try to make passes he just can't make yet (good idea, he's just not physically developed enough to do what he wanted). It cleaned up quite a bit toward the end, but it was something I made note that we would be working on again Thursday.

The next drill we did was to work on our on the ball defense. We split the kids into 2 groups and Tony and I would dribble to half court with the kids providing defense on the ball. I preach over and over and over to play defense with your feet instead of your hands. This was my chance to reinforce that mindset. So from a proper defensive stance the kids would slide step with us as we dribbled and if we picked up our dribble they were to immediately pressure us. Out of the group I worked with Nolan (wants to play defense with his hands instead of his feet) and Britt (never played basketball) were the kids that needed work, but it actually went very well.

Lastly, we worked on our offense against a live defense for the first time. We worked on the cross screen in the post when the ball goes to a wing and the curl screen when the person up top screens away. As I expected, these were open almost every single time. We're not close to running the offense perfect (or even well really), but the kids are beginning to understand what to look for and where the open man should be when the have the ball.

Unfortunately, I struggled throughout this practice with the kids paying attention, talking while a coach was speaking, or bouncing a ball while a coach was speaking. With about 15 minutes left I decided I'd had enough and they lined up on the baseline and ran a combination of laps and lines for the rest of practice. We then spent some time rehashing what I expect out of them. I don't think it's going to be a problem again. It's 4th-5th graders and I'm always going to struggle to keep their attention, but this practice crossed the line (and that line is probably very clear to them now).

[Atocep]

For Thursday I planned on continuing our focus on rebounding and boxing out. I stared things off with the 3 man weave to get things moving. These are looking better and I feel confident using them as a pre-game warm up now. They're not going to look perfect by any stretch, but the weave (followed up by layup lines) is a better warmup than simply doing layups for 15 minutes.

After the weave we did our transition defense drill again. I had to stop it to walk through what happens after the first pass a couple of times, but overall both our fast breaks and our defense looked much sharper. We now have kids that at least somewhat understand how to fill lanes on a fast break and kids that understand what we're looking for when you're outnumbered on a fast break.

Next was something meant to be fun for the kids while driving home the importance of boxing out and getting the competitiveness in them going a bit. I placed a ball at center court and paired the kids on the outside of the midcourt circle. We had 8 kids at practice so the numbers worked out perfectly. When I said go 4 kids had to box the other 4 kids out as long as they could and prevent them from getting to the basketball. Our boxing out was pathetic. I expected it to be as bad as what I saw. Kids at this age just struggle with the concept for a variety of reasons (they forget, they're not comfortable getting physical with kids their age, and it's just not something that's typically stressed before junior high). They typically have no problem pushing back on a coach and boxing out, but put them in a situation where they have to box someone their own age and they won't do it. My goal here was to at least get them comfortable trying.

Once we were done with that I let the kids scrimmage 4 on 4 for 15 minutes. It wasn't pretty. I have 2-3 kids that seem to think they have to guard their man when on offense as well. We're setting screens on the ball now, but I'm not seeing any off the ball when I'm not calling for our motion offense to be run. Still lot of work to be done and 3 practices left before we play.

Next week we'll continue to focus on rebounding. We're also going to start focusing on off the ball defense. We'll be installing our 1st in bounds play and we'll continue to work on running our offense. Right now we're reaching the point where I need 5 that can run it and we'll go from there. Ideally, by the first game we'll have enough that know it that we can keep 4 out there that know it at all times, but we have a ways to go before we're there.

On a side note, I'm coaching our first baseball practice of the season tomorrow morning. It's hard to believe.

[Atocep]

The past couple of practices have been a series of highs and lows. I clearly see the skills developing as we've hammered them since our first practice. The obvious problem we have right now is we're not playing as a team and the kids tend to forget everything they've been taught as soon as you put a defense on them. This is to be expected at this age. As the kids get more comfortable on the court the skills will come to the surface, but for now we look fantastic at times in practice and then look like a disorganized mess in scrimmage type situations.

Our first game is tonight and I honestly don't know what to expect. I came into this season with the goal of teaching these kids things that aren't typically taught in this league and preparing them for junior high tryouts/team next year. While I'm seeing great skill development in these kids they aren't really playing together yet. You will not find another team here that is doing the 3-man weave, a modified version of the UCLA drill, or running an actual offense. These are all things that will help these kids down the line. I'm just not entirely sure it's going to help them win right now.

Due to the late start to the season they've trimmed the playoffs out of the schedule. My initial plan was to have these kids ready to peak for the playoffs. By then they should have had an understanding of how to run our motion offense, have a good gasp on the things we're teaching them, and feel comfortable using their skills in games. What I'm left with is a short season with a group of kids that have a lot of potential.

So a little bit of doubt has started to creep into my mind. There's a part of me that thinks I could have taken the easy road and taught them a couple of gimmick plays, had them scrimmage for most of every practice, and be more prepared for a short season of play. I know these kids will be better players the way I'm coaching them but I don't know if we'll be a better team in time to play up to our potential this year.

[Atocep]

Our first game is in the books and we got ourselves a 26-15 win over a team that had already played (and won) a game last Thursday. Kaden, Nolan, and Quentin scored all but 2 of our points (Rafi scored a basket late and added 13 rebounds). Brendan missed a couple of wide open layups due to nerves but set a monster pick at the top of the key that freed Kaden up for a wide open layup.

Our offense wasn't exactly a thing of beauty, but it's going to get better as the kids get more comfortable out on the court and the nerves die down. Defensively we got after them and at times frustrated their players by taking away passing lanes and swarming the ball in the paint. What needs the most work is our rebounding. It's something we've worked to death and I didn't see a single box out until the 4th quarter.

Our first side-out inbounds play resulted in a wide open layup and they immediately called a timeout and didn't defend us on the side-outs anymore.

After the game we were complimented by the refs on our organization and our player's knowledge. Everyone played at least 10 minutes so I don't think there should be any complaints from parents.

Overall, it went better than expected based on our last scrimmage. We just need to work on getting our offense down a bit better and boxing out for rebounds.

[Atocep]

For practice this Tuesday we worked hard on boxing out, went over our in-bounds plays, installed a new play for under the basket, and worked on our offense while having some of the kids that don't quite get defense yet some work there.

The new play we installed is called diamond. We have one person lined up right in front of the basket (preferably a point guard), 1 on each elbow, and one person at the top of the key. On the slap of the ball the person in front of the basket cuts toward the corner on the side that our in-bounder is in-bounding from, the 2 players on the elbows cross straight down to the opposite box in the low post (the player that is lined up ball side always cuts in front to avoid collisions), and after the 2 elbows players cross the player at the top of the key charges straight down the lane toward the basket.

So here is the setup:



And here's what the play looks like:



All in all it was a good practice. Honestly, one of our better practices and I was feeling confident heading into our game tonight.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Random observations from a late-comer to the thread.

-- I think you handled the situation with Russell about as well as humanly possible. Props.

-- First thing I thought of reading the really unusual rules (no stealing? Srsly? WTF?) was "Hmm ... what about a really aggressive half court trap?"

-- My other thought was "better you than me brother, better you than me". I'd have a liver the size of Texas after a season of this. Props again.

[Atocep]

Our game tonight was against the team that has the other half of my baseball players because a couple of parents decided they wanted to do something different. It's a game my kids were really looking forward to and to be honest it's a game I was looking forward to a well.

Anyway, this team practices before us and I talk to the 3 dads that helped me coach baseball that have kids on this team and their practices consist of about 30 minutes of layups and jump shots and 30 minutes of scrimmaging. The moms love this coach, but the there's been grumbling from the dads since the beginning of practices because they didn't feel skills were being developed. So as I mentioned above, I was feeling very confident going into this one.

The game started out with us winning the tip and getting the ball to Kaden who was matched up with a player much slower than he is. Kaden did a cross over, went right around him for a layup, and we were in complete control from there. Our first side-out in-bounds play resulted in another wide open layup and it was 10-1 before they called timeout and 14-1 at the end of the 1st quarter. At halftime it wasn't much better. I had cleared my bench by then, but it was 24-1 at the end of the 2nd and they had turned off the score (league rules when the margin is more than 20).

The 2nd half was just more of the same. The starters played the first 3 minutes of the 2nd half before I started subbing liberally again. Everyone played at least 15 minutes this game. Final score was 38-7.

The dads from baseball were great after the game. They came up and talked a bit after the game and they want to have a "coaches meeting" next weekend at the pub. Magnus' dad actually said "is 24-1 the best you have?". Sean's dad (officially the head coach in baseball) said it looked like our kids had actually learned things. Really great guys. Win or lose I love talking to them. Interestingly enough, not a single one of the moms talked to me.

We're still not boxing out well enough. Our offense looked much better, we defended fantastically, and we did a good job of moving the ball. I really didn't have much to complain about after this one. We have 3 practices to work on some things, install some simple offensive plays when we're not calling for motion to be run, and get some fun drills in there for the kids.

I'm going to try to find us a game for next Thursday, but I have my doubts that I can find anyone. I'd much rather get some sort of game for the kids rather than doing 3 practices, but we'll see.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Random observations from a late-comer to the thread.

-- I think you handled the situation with Russell about as well as humanly possible. Props.

-- First thing I thought of reading the really unusual rules (no stealing? Srsly? WTF?) was "Hmm ... what about a really aggressive half court trap?"

-- My other thought was "better you than me brother, better you than me". I'd have a liver the size of Texas after a season of this. Props again.

The Russell thing is still something that bugs me. As I've mentioned, if I'm ever in a position where I have to make cuts it's going to seem easy after dealing with that.

I've been pushing the rules thing for a couple of years. Lack of steals is one of the big things that bothers me. I finally got them to relent on free throws (even if just a little) this year. It's a work in progress.

I've learned two things in my time coaching baseball and basketball. 1.) There's nothing more rewarding than coaching kids and seeing them grow as a player and as a person. 2.) There's also nothing more frustrating than parents who want to ruin things. Canaan is the one out of the players on that other team I feel really bad for. He signed up thinking he was playing for me and with his friends from baseball because that's what he was told would happen when his dad was told how to fill out the form by one of the moms. He's not happy and he lets me know it every Saturday at baseball practice (I'm coaching him and Nolan again in baseball this year).

[finketr]

No stealing.. uh.. wow..

Having said that, I officiated grade 4-8 boys, 7-8 girls, and JV high school back in the day.

For the 4-6 grade boys, played on a 3/4ish size court without 3-point lines (this is 1986-1989 era time), there was no inbounds press inside the free throw line extended and you had 5-10s to advance beyond the free throw line and I forget if after 10s it was a violation or you were fair game. There's no half-court line so there's no "over-and-back" rule in place. If you retreat behind the line, you're fair game. It also featured running clock until the last two minutes of the game and the score is within 7 points (i think), and overtime was untimed and the first team up by 2 points won.

[Atocep]

On the no steals thing, the guy that runs the league has said he sees it as a developmental league and he feels that stealing at this age makes kids afraid to dribble and thus no dribbling skills are developed. So he allows stealing of passes and if you lose the dribble the ball is fair game, but you can't steal while the player has control of his dribble. I'm not defending it as I don't necessarily agree, I'm just explaining the thinking here. I think he needs to realize that he may feel it's a developmental league with the lack of a competitive option here it's become a competitive league and a good coach develops his players regardless.

I've had 3 or 4 people (2 of them my family) tell me over the past couple of days that they feel bad for the team we just beat since we did beat them 38-7 and it was 24-1 at halftime and they've asked if there was anything we could do to "let the other team have fun too". I then have to explain that it's a no steals league, no zones, and there's no pressing until the last 2 minutes of a half if the score is within 10. So it's not like my kids were just taking the ball from them repeatedly. We were simply playing basketball and their kids weren't coached to. I also subbed as liberally as I possibly could (everyone played around 20 minutes except Randy who doesn't have the attention span to make it 20 minutes out there and even he got 15+). It was my kids' 2nd game of the season as well and they need to learn and develop like everyone else. I wasn't going to put arbitrary rules on them to keep them from scoring or allow the other team to score at this stage in the season.

Now I won't deny that it didn't feel good after the shit the baseball moms pulled on me. Add to that the fact that I actually coached against that coach my first year of coaching (K/1st basketball) and he was an arrogant ass then. However, 4 of my baseball players were on that team and 3 of them have dads that helped me coach my baseball team. It wasn't fun seeing how frustrated they were getting.

I'm still trying to find us a game for next week. The closest middle school to us has a "no cut" policy for 6th grade basketball and carries three 6th grade teams right now. I've sent out word that we're willing to play their "C" team next week if they're interested. It would be a good test for my kids and at the very least would likely be a good reminder that we're not a good team yet.

Sadly, because of City Council bullshit and a team dropping out after practices had already begun we're left with only 3 games. Although I honestly wouldn't be able to extend this season any further than it already is as we'll start practicing baseball 3 days per week around the 1st of March.

[Atocep]

Before tonight, we hadn't played since the 21st so there really wasn't a need to update this. However, we did have an issue pop up over that time.

With no game last week the plan was to hit drills Tuesday, have some fun at practice on Thursday, and then this Tuesday we'd do some game prep. Unfortunately, nothing went as planned.

Practice last Tuesday was going to focus on getting into a proper triple threat position, use of pump fakes, and some simple footwork around the basket type of stuff. However, we showed up to practice with the attitude that we're better than everyone else and we really don't need practice. Quentin was far and away the biggest offender there. He has a tendency to mess around when we're working on something he feels he already knows, which typically leads to laps being run. This practice it was the to the point of being distracting. I pulled him aside as practice ended and had a talk with him and I was not pleased with the answers I was getting so I decided I would have a talk with his dad. The problem was neither his mom or dad were at practice to pick him up. So I planned on talking to one of them before practice on Thursday. As luck would have it practice was canceled on Thursday because the school needed the gym (and they let the city know Thursday morning.

At that point I decided to send an email to his dad and tried to be as diplomatic and nice as possible. I regretted handling it by email, but I wanted this addressed by the next practice. I know the parents from coaching Quentin in baseball and he's a great kid; he just needs a little talk every now and then. I explained that he was being a distraction at practice with his behavior along with the fact that he tends to show frustration when we're doing drills that work on things he feels he already knows. I told the dad he's a great kid and that I'm willing to coach him anytime, but Quentin needs to understand where I'm coming from on this and he needs to show up to practice ready to practice. With the short season we have there's only so much room I have for the "fun" things the kids love so there's no way I can make every drill and every practice fun for everyone; especially with the huge disparity in talent levels that we have. The goal, instead, is to make the experience fun as a whole.

Well I heard nothing back. That, honestly, made me a bit nervous. As I mentioned, I coached Quentin in baseball and have never had an issue with his parents but the fact that I didn't get a response had me thinking I was going to have an interesting conversation at practice Tuesday.

Tuesday's practice came around and I was there early waiting to talk to whoever dropped Quentin off. At 6:30 (start of practice time) there was still no sign of Quentin. Then right as I was getting the kids to line up along the baseline to start practice Quentin and his dad walked in. His dad asked if he could talk to me for a minute and brought Quentin over with us. He then made Quentin apologize for his behavior, spoke to me for a minute (said he didn't want to handle this by email so he just waited for the next practice), spoke to Quentin, and then let me talk with him. His dad also stayed for the entire practice to make sure he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. It couldn't have gone better.

Tuesday's practice went better. We were rusty after not playing for a week, but we got through the things we wanted to get through. The problem was there was still a sense of these kids feeling like they just have to show up in order to get a win and it carried over into our game today.

[Atocep]

In warm-ups tonight it was clear we weren't ready to play basketball. Too much goofing off, too many not paying attention, and not enough kids focused on even little things like rebounding in layup lines. It was bad and it carried over into the game.

We were playing the Jazz, who played in our first game of the season. Their approach to this game was to basically let us do what we want and their kids would do as little as possible as to not get lost/confused (at least that's what it looked like). They would not defend our side out plays. They played a very soft man on under the basket plays. Their defense played very soft and their goal was to not get taken out of a play by our screens.

We were still able to jump out to an 11-2 lead, but we weren't playing good basketball. Way too many mistakes that we typically don't make and it caught up to us in the 2nd quarter. What ended up being an 11 point lead at one point early in the 2nd quarter was down to 4 at halftime (17-13).

At halftime I sat the kids down and had a talk with them. I asked them what the score was when the game started to make the point that nothing we did before then matters today. I told them there isn't a trophy waiting for us when we walk through those gym doors and they need to pick it up and play our basketball.

The 2nd half went much better. Our kids played with better focus and intensity and the changes the Jazz made against us started to come back and hurt them. We're getting free in-bounds with no pressure while they're turning the ball over on probably 1/3 of their side and under the basket plays. Nolan started taking and knocking down the mid range jumpers that they were giving him to avoid getting screened out of a play, and Quentin was doing an excellent job of getting into the paint and distributing the basketball. Kaden was probably the one affected the most by their defense. His game is drive and take short jumpers in the paint or easy layups when he beats his man. They were playing so far off of him he didn't have much to do (although he did score 8 points on 4/5 shooting).

The final score was 35-17. Everyone except randy played more than 15 minutes (I think randy was at around 12 or 13). I did get some grumbling from one kid who happened to play about 20 out of the 40 possible minutes and played all but maybe 5-6 minutes of the 2nd half. We have to many kids looking to defer to Quentin, Kaden, and Nolan instead of looking for their own shot right now. I told those kids after the game that if the shot is there then take it. Don't play passive.

That brings our record to 3-0 and no one has been within 10 points of us yet. If we don't come out ready to play then it could happen very soon though. Believe it or not with the 5 game schedule we wrapped things up tonight. We're 3-0, the Jazz are 2-2 with both losses to us, and the Cougars are 0-3. So for the next 2 games I'll be shifting our starters around a little to get everyone a chance to start at least 1 game. That is honestly what kids seem to equate playing time to; who started?

I may have found us an extra game as well. I tried to see if the middle school team would be willing to play us, but no luck there. I did get a call from the head of the league telling me that the top 4/5th grade girls team wanted to play us as they're rolling through their schedule fairly easily. I told him we're more than willing to play anyone he has for us so I'm waiting to hear back on a date for the game.

[Atocep]

Another game and another lesson learned for the kids. We played the team we beat 38-7 a few weeks ago and we didn't come out playing our best basketball, but we weren't really playing poorly. We jumped out to an 8-1 before some frustrations on our end along with some rather lucky shots for them brought the score to 14-8 at halftime.

The problem we're running into and it was starting to frustrate my kids is that no one knows how to defend our motion offense so they just sit back, playing way off their man, and try to not get taken out of a play with our screens. They essentially let us do what we want and hope we miss jump shots rather than get wide open layups. In the first half we were still getting a lot of layups along with the short jumpers, we just weren't making them. We honestly could have been up by 20 at the half if we had been making a normal amount of easy shots.

So at halftime we talked about our offense and about some tweaks we can make when they're cheating off of us like that. The main change we made is to have our best dribble penetration guys (Quentin/Kaden) dribble penetrate. Their players were playing so far out of position to keep from getting screened it was leaving the paint wide open. Quentin's job in the 2nd half was to simply beat his man with his dribble if they wanted to pressure him with the ball up top (which is odd since they don't have anyone that can actually keep up with him or Kaden off the dribble). Kaden's job was to use the down screen and instead of popping out to the wing he was to pop straight up the paint to the high post.

Here's what it looked like after our change:



That is how the last two teams we've played have defended us. With the 2 and 3 guys cheating out toward the wing to avoid being screened.

After making those changes we opened our lead up to 32-8 with 6 minutes to go before I completely called off the dogs and we ended up winning 35-14.

We have the girls team next Thursday and I had 3-4 parents say they hope they give our kids everything they can handle. They feel our kids are getting a bit full of themselves. I didn't think that was the case this week. Last week I think it definitely played a role in us only leading by 6 at the half. This week our problems were just bad luck on easy shots and us not adapting on the fly to what they were doing against us.

Next week will be interesting. Boys at this age typically aren't comfortable playing against girls and girls tend to have a chip on their shoulder when playing against the boys. I have a feeling we're going to have to play our best basketball.

EDIT: I also wanted to add that Britt and Randy started this game. I promised my kids everyone would get a chance to start a game and those were the first two that got the chance. Randy also set a monster screen that freed Quentin for a layup in the 4th quarter and he immediately turned to his parents in the stands and puts his firsts up in the air. It was fantastic to see.

[Atocep]

Well, the girls team we played tonight was really, really good. It's a team that's been together multiple years, is made up entirely of 5th graders, and they practice more than the once per week we do. Very good team.

They had a girl that was probably close to 5'6" and a couple of other girls that were around 5'3"-5'4" (basically much bigger than us). They also play fast break basketball. They had 2 guards that can really run with the ball and looked to push at every single opportunity. Our strength is in the half court game when we can set up and run our offense.

We started out by trying to match their speed and not playing our style of basketball. All that really led to was a bunch of turnovers and no points for either team 4 minutes into the game. I called a timeout to settle my kids down and remind them to run our offense and play our basketball. Out of the timeout we calmed down and scored 6 straight and more or less controlled the rest of the half by slowing things down.

Right before the half, with about 30 seconds left, we had an opportunity to run a play my kids have been dying to run all year. We have a play for side out plays when the defense extends pressure with less than 2 minutes in a half (with less than 2 minutes you can press full court).



We have the point guard stand away from the stack and try to sell that we're going to just try to throw a simple in bounds play to him. If his defender is up on him then on the slap of the ball he cuts while the 3 players stacked turn and screen. The in bounds person lobs a ball out toward the basket for the point guard to run under and, if run properly, have an easily layup. If the defender is playing off the point guard on the other side of the stack then we just pass to the point where he is. If the point guard cuts and isn't open the 2 guard then pops out to receive a pass after setting his screen.

We ran the play absolutely beautifully. Wide open layup that put us up 9 going into the half. It definitely didn't feel like we were up 9 though.

In the 2nd half we went back to trying to play fastbreak basketball and that combined with the fact that my boys were apparently not willing box out girls made things very interesting. The refs also seemed like they were doing some AI rubber banding to tighten the game up.

They slowly whittled down our lead until we were up 5 with about 4 minutes to go. That's when we ran into a few things that led to my water bottle sailing into the bleachers behind me (no one sits behinds us so it was just a tossed water bottle into bleachers ). They crossed half court with the ball, their point guard picked up her dribble just over the line, my player did exactly what he was taught to do and pressured the hell out of her. With a ref maybe 5 feet away and staring right at her she stepped back into the backcourt (not on the line, but the entire foot over the line), held her foot there for 2-3 seconds, and then stepped back over. No call.

Our next trip down the court a girl swipes the ball knocking it off of Quentin's knee and it goes to their player. A big no-no in a no steals league. No call.

Then they come down the court, drive in for a layup, make the shot, and draw the foul. With it not quite being under 2 minutes there's no free throw. Instead it's an automatic point. They then go to the scorer's table and discuss things with the scorekeeper for a couple of minutes before coming out and saying the shot counts, they get the point for the foul, and they get the ball out of bounds as well. When I ask for clarification on why the hell they're also getting the ball out of bounds I was told "because the rules don't state otherwise". To which my response was "but common sense does".

Sidenote: over the past 3 games its become clear that we're not going to get the benefit of the doubt on calls. Our team is being ref'd distinctly different than other teams (there are things I don't really mention here like 3 second calls against my team but not others, ect) and we're ref'd much differently than our games were early in the season. I honestly don't mind it too much. In the heat of the moment I get pissed and have the occasional word with the refs, but it's just something for us to overcome and it hadn't come close to having any real impact on a game. Tonight it nearly had impact on the result of the game and that would have pissed me off.

Despite that we were holding onto our lead until they knock down a 3 with about a minute to go that cuts our lead to 1. We come back down and Kaden gets a wide open layup off of an inbounds play under the basket that puts us back up 3. They immediately push the ball back down the court and get another layup plus the foul. However, with just 30 seconds or so left they have to shoot a free throw to try to tie. The free throw misses and after a brief scrum we come out with the ball with about 15 seconds to go and dribble out the clock for a 1 point win to run our record to 5-0.

I should also mention that since the girls were considered the home team and were to provide the basketball we played the game with a size 5 ball rather than the size 6 that my kids are used to. During the 1st timeout I mentioned above it was what all of my players were complaining about in the huddle. So we didn't shoot the ball particularly well and it was understandable.

This was by far the best competition we've played and that same girls team plays the team we've beaten by 31 and 21 points (the Cougars) next Thursday. Their size will probably be an even bigger issue for that team and I wouldn't be shocked if they beat that team worse than we have. It will probably come down to whether their coach calls the dogs off and plays her bench half the game like I did. The Cougars did beat the Jazz before our game tonight for their first win of the season. We play the Jazz before the girls team plays the Cougars next week.

I'm incredibly pleased to come away from this game with a win. It was easily the most exciting basketball game I've ever coached in. Probably the best youth game I've been a witness to. We didn't play our best basketball, but we still played well. I can't overstate how good this girls team was. They really were impressive.

Our next and final game this season is next Thursday against the Jazz. We need to take care of business and close out this season so I can focus on my baseball team.

[Atocep]

Tonight was our last game of the season. We weren't able to practice this week because Tuesday morning I was told the school needed the gym that evening. We were also going to be without Brendan for at least the 1st half and I found out about an hour before the game that Rafi is sick and wouldn't be there. So that left us without both our starting post players and an assistant coach (since Brendan's dad is the assistant coach). However, since we weren't playing the girls team from last week I really wasn't expecting any problems.

The game started off rather typically for us. We jumped out to an 11-2 lead and then slowly let the other team back into it as we lost focus a bit and I started rotating subs in.

Nolan picked up his 3rd foul early in the 2nd quarter (playing defense with his hands instead of his feet) and sat the rest of the half. He's a an important part of our offense as he's a great shooter. He opens things up for Kaden and Quentin off the dribble and he's tall enough to be a factor on the boards.

So without Nolan, Rafi, and Brendan we honestly didn't have a whole lot out there in terms of scoring potential for most of the 2nd quarter. Kaden and Quentin had to carry us for a long stretch and they did a good enough job to get us to halftime with a 15-7 lead.

The 2nd half got a bit ugly. We opened the lead a bit early in the 3rd quarter and then their players started getting frustrated and it seemed like they were taking out on my kids. It started with Andy getting a rebound, holding the ball over his head, and then a player on the other team coming in behind, grabbing the ball, and ripping straight down to take the ball away. It's hard to describe, but it looked bad. As I've mentioned, it's a no steals league and the kids know better than to grab the ball like that and the force he used to rip the ball from behind ended up hurting Andy's shoulder. He went down to the floor crying and then got up and came straight to the bench before I could even get out there. Like I said, it's hard to describe, but it was the ugliest play I saw this year. Rather than a simple "steal" violation and the ball out of bounds the ref called a foul on the play and gave the kid a warning. This is a kid that was pulled aside at least twice this year by the refs and told to knock off the elbows, pushing, and slapping he does off the ball on the guy he's guarding.

Not long after that the ref stopped play to tell Britt and the kid he was guarding to cool it. I was following those two on that particular possession and I'll first say Britt is an irritating defender. He gets up on his man and his combination of quickness and size (he's very small) means he'd glued to you. There was an elbow used on Britt to try to push him off and then a shove and then Britt gave a shove back. It went back and forth for a few seconds as they ran around before play was finally stopped and they both received their warnings. After that Kaden had a fast break and was pushed to the ground rather blatantly. That was followed up by another fast break where Quentin was coming down the court with the ball and the trail defender caught Quentin with an elbow to the head. At that point I finally had enough and told the refs that if they weren't going to tighten things up I was going to pull my kids off the floor.

Between the 3rd and 4th quarter I had another talk with one of the refs and I told him "they're clubbing us out there" and he said he'd get control of things in the 4th quarter. At this point I think the score was 25-10. I was more focused on the play on the floor and keeping subs rotating rather than what the score was.

Early in the 4th we had another incident on a fast break where one of my kids ended up on the ground and their coach actually made a comment about it not being acceptable and called a timeout. Honestly, that particular play I just saw as something that happens and didn't have a problem with it. We had a kid stop for a pump fake on a fast break and he basically got tackled because the trail defender left his feet. It was good to see that their coach saw that things were getting ugly out there and it wasn't my kids initiating it.

Not much happened from there. I just kept rotating subs and let the kids play. Final score was 32-15 in what was a boring game outside the stretch of physical play.

We stayed and watched the girls play the Cougars and it wasn't as bad as I was expecting although the girls could have made it a lot worse. The final score in that one was 50-25. I watched the tall, skilled girl they have grab a rebound and go coast to coast for easy layups at least half a dozen times. She probably had close to 30 points and 20 rebounds and 10 blocks. Seriously.

Despite my frustrations at times, I did talk to the refs after both games were over to tell them they were the best combination of refs we've had in this league. 2 years ago was the high school refs that didn't call anything and then went into the stands to argue with parents. Last year was 1 good ref and 1 ref that didn't call anything. Both of these refs were very active and while not making the correct call all the time, they were doing their best and willing to accept criticism and learn from it.

The refs also plan on recommending the same things I'll be recommending after the season. They said the no steals thing makes their job incredibly hard because it's a really hard thing to judge sometimes and it's not something you're really trained to watch for as a ref so you miss it on occasion. They would also like to see the games move to 8 minute quarters with a clock that stops and free throws on all shooting fouls. Basically, let the kids play basketball.

All in all it was a great season. We never trailed at any point in our 6 games. My kids learned how to run an offense, how properly space the floor, along with how to set screens and use screens. I'm confident the kids that move into middle school next year will be way ahead of the other kids there. Most importantly, the kids had fun and every single one of my kids played a lot of minutes. Randy played his 10-13 minutes per game and everyone else played at least 15 minutes per game and usually more. The growth I saw in Randy is the type of thing that makes doing this worthwhile.

With Kaden moving into middle school I don't know if I'll coach again next season. I might, but I haven't decided yet. I may take a year off as basketball and baseball for 5 straight years is draining.

What sucks is as I'm sitting here typing this out I've come to the realization that I probably won't get the opportunity to coach Kaden in basketball again. At the same time, it's amazing as a parent to coach your child to a season like we had this year; especially after not winning a game last year.

[Atocep]

I spoke with the head of the sports division of parks and rec today and recommended the 4th and 5th graders move to standard basketball rules: 6-7 minute clock that stops, free throws, and steals. He was very receptive of it and said he'd get feedback from the refs to see what they think of it. After talking to the refs last night I'm confident they'll be all for it.

Kaden moves on to middle school ball next season so it won't help any of his teams, but it should make for better basketball development in the future.

[finketr]

you can still have a running-ish clock if you make it 8 minutes. stops for timeouts and last 2 minutes of each half..

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by finketr

you can still have a running-ish clock if you make it 8 minutes. stops for timeouts and last 2 minutes of each half..

I'm going email him a list of my recommendations for next year and something like that will probably be part of it. It sounds to me like it's something he wants to do it's just a matter of finding the right amount of time for quarters since the games need to be over in an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Under the current rules they're reliably over in an hour and it makes things easy for him with the schools.

[finketr]

yes. the 8 minute running clock as described worked to have games done in 50 minutes (barring overtime)