Make or Break Season: RL Basketball Coaching

[Barkeep49]

We’re going to try chronicling my basketball experiences once before. I will be the coach of a 5th grade team who will play in the B, or lower of the two conferences. Last year they went 8-6 and busted out in the first round of the playoffs. I’ve coached for the past two years and experienced a fair amount of burnout last year between rough baseball and basketball seasons. I became a patched official this year and considered doing that before ultimately deciding to give coaching one more shot. I’m going to try and give it my all to see if I have the right temperament and ability to be a good coach.

Yesterday were the first day of tryouts. Going in, I decided that I pretty much liked my plan from last year and would be following something similar this year for Day 1. It was a little nerve racking since 2 minutes before tryouts were to begin we didn’t even have 10 players. Fortunately, 4th grade tryouts ran a little long and so we got a late start with 13 players. I will be taking 10 of the players.

The first thing I do is deliver my speech. I deliver the same speech as last year, with a few tweaks. I think it introduces things quite well.

Our first drill is dribbling. And right away it becomes clear that one kid, Sammy, is not just a BAD dribbler, but is nearly incapable of doing so. We do both left and right handed. And then for kicks we do two handed dribbling. Several kids really stood out. Unfortunately, I don’t quite have names and faces down yet, so I can’t say all of the kids who did well or struggled. I can tell you that, Josh, who was the point guard last year, did well with it. So did Alex, who is going to be the center. Austin, was able to mostly do it, and besides being a lefty, seems like a really fun kid. This year I will be videotaping all of the games and so filmed tryouts. Upon video review I also discovered that Mason hadn’t gone particularly fast, but was slow and steady and in accomplishing it. Having players who can play with-in themselves is always a tricky thing so that’s a definite plus for him.

Following 2 handed dribbling, we do 45 seconds of lay-ups. The best at the layups were Austin, Grant, Seth, and Quintin. Grant doesn’t have the athletic skills that I’ve had on previous teams, but it seems like he might have the basketball skills and personality to be a valuable member of the team. Quintin was one of the favorites of last year’s coach.

At this point, I’d already identified two kids who were likely cuts, which is making me feel pretty good and giving me a fair amount of time to spend thinking about what kind of team we could be, rather than just who has the skills, or not.

Following the layups, and a water break, we did two drills which caused a lot of confusion. The first was just 1 on 1 dribble zig-zag up the court. This is a standard drill, one I know last year’s coach did, and so it amazed me that so many had problems with it. On the other hand, triangle passing, was one I expected to cause more problems and it did. Due to the confusion with zig-zag, I was spening a lot of time remediating and so once again the video came in handy in seeing who could do what. Except that because I’m not super solid on who kids are yet, I couldn’t always tell from the video who was who. Definitely lessened its helpfulness there, but I think I have a way of correcting that for tonight.

After this we played some 3 on 3. One of the things I didn’t like was the fact that a Josh and Michael always called for the ball and acted as point guards for their teams. I’m sure this is a relic of last year’s coaching. While I don’t believe just anyone should dribble the ball up the court, I also think that waiting for one particular kid, especially off rebounds, is not the best idea. I understand why Jon, their coach last year did this, because there is some weak ball handling, but I think I’m going to try and do otherwise. We’ll see how it goes.

The standouts for 3 on 3 were Alex, who is a definite yes at this point, and Seth. Seth, in particular, used ball fakes to his advantage. Overall I was impressed with the help defense that was played.

We then ended with some hardcore running. I don’t normally run them to the extent that we did here, but it lets me see how they act when they’re tired. With only 2 or 3 hours of tryout time per kid, some short cuts are required.

Then it was time to go home where I reviewed the tape. Since I don’t have good impressions of all of the kids right now, I’m going to hold off with a kid by kid run down for the moment. I will say that my two probable cuts are Sammy and Brandon. Sammy was the fastest and most agile kid at practice. He also worked hard on defense. But at the moment he’s a HUGE liability with the basketball. If a kid is better off not with the basketball than with, they can be ok with the assets Sammy brings. But if a kid has the basketball and it’s going to end up with the other team through a missed shot or turnover, that’s no good. The other probable cut is Brandon. He’s a touch slower than most of the other kids, he didn’t shine in any of the drills, and like Sammy, was super confused by much of what we did. A general bad combination. The definite yeses at the moment are Alex, Seth, Josh, and Michael. Michael’s attitude is questionable and if there was more talent to be had, I’d look for a reason not to take him. However, even factoring in the attitude, I think he’s going to end up being one of the 10 best this year.

And that is my overall first impression. They are a definite B level team. Probably a .500 B level team. Basically they are this year what they were last year. Hopefully we’ll have a good season, learn lots of good stuff, and have fun.

[Barkeep49]

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.

[Barkeep49]

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.

[rjolley]

Tough call. I'd keep Sammy for his defense, speed, hustle, and upside. But, with the short amount of time to work with them, it's hard to tell how hard it'll be to actually realize some of that potential.

Leonardo would be a keeper as long as he can not gamble on D and let down his teammates. Gambling on D is great when it works, but it usually doesn't and almost always results in a basket, a foul, or both.

Quentin would be a tough choice as well. Seems like he's a solid player and can help the team overall.

Jack seems to be the odd man out of this selection.

Is the reason you're restricted to 10 the playing time? If you keep everyone but 2 don't play much, is that a bad thing? Seems they'd get better throughout the year and may challenge for playing time later on. Or is that something that happens as players get older and it's better for players to not be on the team at all instead of being on the team and not playing?

[Travis]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

Does he have the desire to improve and get better? I just don’t know.

If I'm reading you correctly, the kid showed up after playing/practicing football and still got you to take notice of what he had on the floor despite likely being the most tired kid out there. If he places enough importance on the tryout to make it there for what time he could, I think that's gotta speak at least a bit towards his desire. Whether football is a potential time conflict in the future should weigh in as well, but I'm also a sucker for project/good attitude types.

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by Travis

If I'm reading you correctly, the kid showed up after playing/practicing football and still got you to take notice of what he had on the floor despite likely being the most tired kid out there. If he places enough importance on the tryout to make it there for what time he could, I think that's gotta speak at least a bit towards his desire. Whether football is a potential time conflict in the future should weigh in as well, but I'm also a sucker for project/good attitude types.

It was Josh, player 1A in making the team, who came after football. Sammy just showed up late. I too am a sucker for good kids, who are eager and excited and teachable. Mason, for instance, falls into that category. One thing I didn't mention is how hard of a time Sammy had picking up some of the drills we were doing. His basketball IQ is very very low right now and so that no doubt gets in the way of even learning how to do the drills to make you better. With a player like Sammy I can teach him how to do certain skills, but if he's going to learn it, it'll mean, to a certain extent, putting in time outside of practice. The 2.5 hours a week of practice, plus the game, isn't going to be enough time to learn what he doesn't know how to do now.

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by rjolley

Is the reason you're restricted to 10 the playing time? If you keep everyone but 2 don't play much, is that a bad thing? Seems they'd get better throughout the year and may challenge for playing time later on. Or is that something that happens as players get older and it's better for players to not be on the team at all instead of being on the team and not playing?

At this age I like to get everyone at least 10 minutes of playing time out of a 28 minute game. This is a competitive team, but kids don't get better on the bench. Some games a player is going to see more or less time, but that's what I like it to average out. I found last year, with that 11th player, the 10 minutes are going to come at the expense of the best players. I also found it personally harder to rotate 11 players than 10. I took 11 on my GL team last year because the talent was there, and honestly I should have taken a full 12 and re-evaluated the 10 minute commitment. This year I'm not leaving talent behind. I'm either leaving behind a player with some strengths and flaws who'll probably just come along at a steady pace (Quintin) or a player with potential who might or might not realize it (Sammy). In my mind, Jack has been cut and Leonardo has made the team.

[Barkeep49]

After watching the tape on Quintin again I decided to go with him over Sammy. Leonardo also made it, while Jack did not. Quintin has enough pluses, but the biggest plus was that Sammy was so slow in learning new things. Hopefully Sammy works on his game some and tries out again in 6th grade.

[Barkeep49]

Well we are two practices into our season. Sort of. Yesterday, we had only four kids. More on that soon.

As I did last year with GL, before our first practice I sent out an information packet. This year I changed it up a bit. I shortened the defensive section, eliminated the offensive section, because of a new system I’m trying there, and added a goal setting page. I think this mailing really helps to set a tone for the season. All of the kids except Grant and Michael remember their goal setting sheet.

At the first practice we started by going over team rules and expectations. This took about 15 minutes, though there was interaction and questions in there so it wasn’t just me talking. I still wish I could figure out a way to impart the same information but not do it in fifteen minutes. The way I do it works, but I would love if there was a way that worked better.

The Sunday before our first practice I called everyone to remind them of the practice time and place. I learn then that Josh, our anticipated point guard and probably one of the two best players on the team, is going to miss practice with a foot injury. Before Friday’s practice, I learn that this foot injury is more likely something with the growth plate putting him out at least two weeks.

After the intro talk we did our continuous motion exercise with dribbling. Continuous motion is my version of conditioning. The idea that the players are (obviously) continuously in motion, though I always incorporate basketball skills with it. This CM is the most traditional one I do where players do laps, using both right and left hands. At the end I do some sort of partner passing, for Monday’s practice we did bounce passing. The group managed to go 8 and a half minutes before they were spent, which wasn’t too bad for a first practice, though less than the 10-15 I think a team needs to be able to do to be really effective. There were also certain kids who were either plainly out of shape or just lazy. The trick is for me to figure out which is which.

Next we had a water break. But before the water break started I gave everyone a water bottle. One of my goals this season is to run a tighter practice. I want to make sure I’m always 100% prepared, as I had some practices last season with GL where I had a practice skeleton but that was it. With one team to coach vs two I am not going to tolerate that from myself. So to help run a tighter practice, I want to cut down on the water break time, but not cut down on the amount of water drunk. By giving them water bottles, I hope to avoid the drinking fountain bottleneck that occurs otherwise.

Back from water break we did our Fundamental 5. This part of practice is there to make sure that in the hustle and bustle of the season the simplest fundamentals are still taught. It’s called Fundamental 5 because the idea is to spend five minutes or so on it. Just long enough to teach or review a skill not so long as to be boring.

Following this I started to introduce our offense. The bad news was that I made a mistake. As the offense is new to me, I mixed up the passing fundamental (which wasn’t our focus) and the penetration fundamental (which was). Fortunately, the mix-up wasn’t too severe and at the second practice I explained I’d “adjusted” the offense based on what I saw. In a case like this where I’ve already built up some credibility I would admit my mistake, but as the players are still learning whether they can trust me or not as a coach I decided this was the route to go.

The offense we’ll be using this year is called the Read and React. The basic idea is to teach players what they should be doing on the court based on reading what the ball handler does. There is a structure to the offense, but there are no plays. I’ve always liked structured offense and this offense simply takes many of the concepts I had been trying to teach and codifies it in a simple and easily understood way. That’s the good news. The bad news is that because there is a formal system, rather than my “rules” there is a lot more stuff to learn. And for our first game I don’t think they’ll have learned everything. More accurately, while they will have been taught much of what they will need to know, I can’t expect them to have mastered it.

As we were going through this I made an even bigger mistake. I had asked them to have some man to man defense. Except the 4 players played zone. And while I was knew something wasn’t quite right with the defense, I was too honed in on the defense to think about what it was until I was driving home. Whoops.

Following our offensive work we played some dribble knockaway which they definitely enjoyed. Following this we did “the human knot” team building exercise. The group worked remarkably well together and were able to figure it out very quickly for a group of 5th grade boys. I feel like we did something else at practice, but my notes aren’t with me as I type this up. All in all it was a good first practice from them, less than stellar on my part.

At Friday’s practice, I knew going into it that 4 of the 10 players would be missing due to a birthday party. Josh’s dad emailed me with the injury update so that was 5. I get a call about 45 minutes before practice from Leonoardo’s mother telling me he fell and is it ok if he misses practice. What we can do at a practice with 5 vs 4 is dramatically different, but I do excuse him. I wonder about the injury since Leonardo was one of the kids who was either out of shape or lazy, but what can you do? Hopefully it was a legit injury but he’s alright, if that makes sense.

At the practice I start very upbeat and explain what a great practice we’re going to have with only 4 players. This is the end of my enthusiasm not because they were doing anything wrong, but because I was dead tired and just had no energy left. This is a shame because it was, after all, only the second practice.

At the practice we did our defensive footwork continuous motion, did a Fundamental 5 breaking down one of the parts of the layup (since the team’s layup form was abysmal at tryouts), spent time reviewing the offense, which saw the four players practicing, Michael, Seth, Matthew, and Mason, getting lots of good reps. Next we did the Mikan drill, which works on put backs. First I had each kid do it individually and then I partnered them up and paired the two teams against each other. We then continued on to some Animal Rebounding, which saw Matthew win, due to some smart rebounding, followed by Michael, Seth, and Mason.

We concluded practice with some ball handling work. First I had them just shout out the number of fingers I held up. We then did this while moving. I did this slowly at first, and then sped up how quickly I did it. After a couple of trips up and down with this, moving at a good speed, I turned it into a game where they would dribble forward while I held up an even amount of fingers, while dribbling in place holding up an odd amount. I have seen Red/Light green light, which this basically was, in coaching books before, but the odd even twist was something I hadn’t seen and something I liked because it forced them to think about what they saw, just as they would in a game. At the end of practice we ran suicides. Mason was the only one who had one, and he had two. Everyone had earned a permission for beating the time I thought they could do the CM for before people started to show fatigue. Unfortunately, Mason lost Animal Rebounding (which gets a suicide) and forgot his Doggie Bag (which gets a suicide). So he had two suicides to run. To their credit first Michael and then Matthew stepped up to run a suicide with him.

I felt good about this practice. I hate the fact that we have only an hours worth of practice time on Friday and hated the fact that only 4 kids were at the practice, but it was a good practice. They all learned stuff, and hopefully left feeling good about themselves.

The bad news is that I simply can’t see us being ready on Nov 2 to play games with only 2.5 more hours of practice time. I think next year I am going to reschedule games to ensure that I have 3 or 4 weeks of practice time before we start our season. Better to double up games later in the season when we know what we’re doing than start before we’re ready. Of course that’s no help for this year. Of course losing this practice for most of the people wasn’t much help either. No matter, as I’m committed to coaching the best I can, and if the team comes through, great. If not, not. That is beyond my control.

[Barkeep49]

Week two of practices is in the books. Overall, I was pleased with my coaching this week, compared to last week’s so-so job. That said, I really hope that the team we play isn’t with the same coach (so they’re starting from scratch like I am) and not have a year’s worth of common experiences up on us. While the group understands our offense in theory, in practice, not nearly as much. And their defense is aggressive, which I like, but very unrefined meaning if they’re more athletic than we are, we could be in real trouble.

Anyhow, Monday I gave my “quiz” based on the mailing I had sent out before the season started. The results? Not pretty. I gave virtually the same quiz last year, but with one more section (as I had taken out offensive rules, knowing that this would be our early season focus and not really knowing what would be useful to put in there). And the team last year got, as I recall, about as many questions wrong, with 2 more players answering and 1 less section. It was the first time that the team hadn’t impressed me. For every 4 questions they got wrong, it was worth 1 suicide, though every player was allowed 1 “free” wrong answer. Josh, bless his injured foot, actually got every question right. This left them with 13 suicides to run over the course of practice. In reality they ran only 10.5 which was still a bunch. This was about tone setting as much as anything. Reading over some of the posts from last year at this time, it definitely seems like this team is easier to coach than what I had last year. Whether this is because of the kids, or me (I resolved to start tough) or a combo, I can’t say.

Other events at the practice, including running a fast break drill where I emphasized offensive spacing. We also did some work on our offense, introducing passing for the first time. The rule for passing, which is cut to the basket, is simple. There is a whole other layer of passing, which I didn’t introduce. Just getting the simplest of the simple down is our goal for now.

At Tuesday’s one hour practice, I actually let them scrimmage for half an hour. First we did some fundamental work and I taught them 3 inbounds plays, though two are really just varations on each other. All this was done in the first 15 minutes of practice. I was quite pleased with how effectively I ran that time. Next we did some Animal Rebounding. They were happy to be doing the drill which is always nice to see.

In order to have 10 people I brought in Leonardo’s brother, Rodrigo, who is in 6th grade and has tried out (and been cut) the last two years. I did a lot of stopping in order to remind them of various points. There was a lot of extra movement, people were moving cause they felt like it rather than in response to the ball handler, thus defeating the purpose “Read and React”. In good news there was one sweet play where Matthew drove, drawing the defense, and then hit Quentin, who was moving like he should, with a pass resulting in an easy lay-up.

I also did something of debatable wisdom. While practicing the offense we had practiced it as a “5 out” meaning all five players start off outside the 3 point arc. During the scrimmage I made them practice as a 4 out 1 in, meaning we would have 1 player, the Center, who would stay closer to the basket. In the long run we need to run the 4 out 1 in, because Alec, our starting center, is one of our biggest strengths. And to execute on the strengths we need him in the post. Of course not really having practiced this formation, which has its own slightly different spacing, is where the questionable aspect comes in. I think while Alec is in on Sunday we’ll mostly play 4 out 1 in, while playing 5 out, most of the rest of the time.

Overall I think we’re in OK shape. Just about any result would not surprise me, from blow out defeat to solid victory. My big concern is point guard, where we’re weak for the game due to some bad circumstances. Taking a look at our roster here’s my impression heading into the first game:

Alec: Disappeared on offense in our scrimmage. That’s not good. I don’t know if it was the players he was playing with, as Rodrigo who he was matched up against got plenty of looks, him, or the fact that he was being guarded by a kid taller and stronger than him. Rodrigo is very raw and was no doubt fouling and such, which frustrated him. I handled his frustration in a “deal with the problem rather than whining” sort of way which is very atypical for me, and in retrospect not exactly the tone I should have used, even if the message was right. If we win, I suspect it’s going to be on his back.

Austin: He’s going to be our starting point guard. His being a lefty should throw off their defense somewhat since it means he’ll go left rather than right. Of course he doesn’t have too much of a right so after that initial plus, the other team could do some real damage forcing him left. The team nominated him as the best shooter, when I offered to let them out of some suicides if someone could make a basket, which I found interesting and not something I’d have pegged him for. He’s salt of the earth nice, a kid with a near constant smile on his face.

Grant: Always thanks me for my time. He seemed to do well with the offense until it was a game and then he promptly started to forget to execute it. I still like his court sense, but he’s going to have to figure out how to make it work with-in the structure. His skills are pretty unremarkable to this point.

Josh: I hope he recovers soon. His commitment to the team, even when injured, has been fantastic. He’s, by his own admission, not much of a shooter. But he will be our starting PG when he is healthy, since he’s able to drive and pass. I don’t need shooters. I need people who can help us get open baskets.

Leonardo: He’s out of shape, I think, rather than lazy. I still see the potential there, especially on defense. My goal, and I have no clue how successful I am going to be with implementing this, is to use him for short rotations, 2 minutes or so rather than 4 or so. Hopefully not less playing time, just different playing time. I think this will allow him to be successful, especially on defense, which is my A #1 area of concern. I plan on using him as our primary back-up to Alec, so the short stints could be a good thing as it would allow me to rest Alec as well.

Mason: I’m not sure if I noted this previously, but he’s the only kid on the team who wasn’t on the team last year. He’s fast and has endurance. Monday as we were running our last suicides, he was basically the fastest kid on the court for the first suicide, and he was BY FAR, the fastest kid on the court for the last one. He’s pretty insecure about himself, so I’ve been working hard to give him some legitimate confidence. That said he made a lot mistakes playing PG in our scrimmage. He had a tendency to pick up his trouble when pressure was first starting so that he wouldn’t get the ball stolen from him. This caused more trouble than good. He came up to me after practice and asked how he did. I had him tell me how he thought he did and then gave him the general pointer, don’t pick up your dribble, as well as some advice about how to avoid doing it (using his body to protect the ball, a skill he definitely has in the abstract).

Michael: Sadly Michael won’t be at our game Sunday, most likely. He really wants to be there, and in theory he should be able, but as I’ve told him and his parents, it’s just fine if he’s not there. I’d want him there since he’d be my preference for starting PG with Josh out. His natural spot is as a 3. The kid thinks very highly of himself, almost to the point of arrogance, but he also understands that arrogance doesn’t help the team so he tries saying the right things. It’s a weird combination. I’m trying an experiment where the kids can nominate a player based on hard work and improvement at practice and to my surprise he got 3 votes, the most of any kid (Alec and Matthew got two, Mason, Grant, and Austin 1).

Matthew: He doesn’t look pretty the way he plays, but he gets stuff done. I’m certainly going to work on improving his fundamentals, but I can’t argue with results. Based on the fact that I think he understands the offense the best of anyone at this point, I will be trying him out at PG.

Quentin: The kid most likely to come out of the game for taking a silly shot. He thinks he has a much better jumper than he has. He’ll also take a shot if he can. I noticed the same tendency last year. Taking bad shots is one of the few things I will take a kid out of a game for doing. I don’t think he’s quite bought into me or my way of doing things yet. Hopefully I’ll win him over, especially when we start working on jump shots. If I can help him there, that should go a long way to helping him, not only because he’ll annoy me less, but also because it should increase his buy-in.

Seth: I think I want him to be better than he is. I want him to be an athletic 4, as he’s got a pretty good outside jumper and he’s got the size to be a big. Right now, however, he’s kind of soft. Oh and he’s also lacking some of the athleticism one would need to be an athletic 4. Still a starter at the moment. He will also likely see some time at 5.

The good news is that the drop-off in talent from 1 to 10 isn’t steep. Of course that can be the bad news as well, and interestingly enough I do perceive a definite split in talent from our top 3 (Alec, Josh, Michael) and the other 7, but even that isn’t all that huge.

One final note. One of my goals this season is to remain more sane as a coach. I have worried that this means I won’t put in the effort needed to be successful. I am proud to say that when I’ve needed to be focused on basketball I’ve been focused on basketball. Otherwise I’ve put it aside. If I maintain my sanity I will be a better coach.

[Barkeep49]

Sunday should have been our first game. Because of a work commitment I was getting to the game exactly at the time I had asked the team to be there by (I generally try and be the first person there). I find out that there is no one at the school to lower the baskets or turn on the lights. The coach of the team we were playing at attempted to find another place to play or a way to get someone to set-up this gym, but it was to no avail. Our parents were very nice about the whole thing. The good news for me was that I used the half hour while the other coach was trying to figure stuff out to hold an impromptu practice. We did some good work running our offense. It still looks very chaotic. But there was far more purpose in their movement. I still worry about our defense, as it has continued to not receive the attention it deserves.

We didn’t do any explicit man to man work at yesterday’s practice either. However, it was a good practice. With the beginning of the season a lot of the practice had been slower paced than I would have liked. This was still somewhat true yesterday as we spent about 25 minutes doing goal setting, after our Fundamental Five on the triple threat position. However, after that it was a very active practice. We did our shooting continuous motion. It was quite revealing to see just how poor some of their forms are. Grant in particular does a lot of chest shooting. I purposefully ran the continuous motion before having done any real shooting work, because I wanted to see where they were as a baseline. The good news was that a few were able to make some minor adjustments as they went on, both on their own and from my suggestions, and were able to end better than they started.

Following a water break we, we did Champs and Chumps with the Mikan drill. Champs and Chumps is basically where there is some sort of 1 on 1 contest and after a round, the winner moves up to a “higher” court while the loser moves down. Seth and Alec both excelled here, while Leo, someone who based on his size I need playing at least defense against bigger guys, did not.

Finally we played 3 on 2/2 on 3. In this drill 3 of the players from a team are on one half of a court, the other 2 on the other half. The 3 players are on the offensive side, so when they have the ball it’s 3 on 2, with a 15 second shot clock. When the 2 have the ball, their goal is to get it past half court, with each of the 2 people having to touch the ball in bounds. It’s a good drill to teach some skills of what not to do when getting pressed, while also teaching how to trap and take advantage of a 3 on 2. Mason got killed in this drill, while Alec, Austin, and Michael showed some good stuff.

It was then time to go. It was good practice, because I feel I was much better about giving instruction and making sure they knew what they were learning. We debriefed, for instance, after 3 on 2/2 on 3 to talk about some of the things they had learned. I will then take the lessons they talked about and explain to them how the press break they’re going to learn (next Monday probably) applies those principles.

I feel better about our game Wednesday in terms of where we are at after our practice yesterday and our session on Sunday. We’re playing a team which is physically big, so it should be interesting.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

To their credit first Michael and then Matthew stepped up to run a suicide with him.

This made me think about something you said from a previous post.

So I think there is the potential to be a leader there, but he’s far away from it right now.

Sounds like he took at least step in that direction.

Sorry if I seemed amazed here but considering I've got a 5th grader myself, I can't imagine for a second any of the kids in his class/grade stepping up to do that ... and you had two of them. Remarkable IMO.

[Barkeep49]

I agree Jon. I think they're pretty remarkable in that sense. That's just one example of people stepping up and doing something small to help a teammate. At the end of champ and chumps, for instance, it was Matthew and Mason playing for the last spot and there was a lot of encouragement given to both. But there's also a lot of discontent about ball hogs. And from what I've seen, there's a good reason for this. It's an interesting dichotomy.

[Barkeep49]

Well the long and the short of it is that we lost. And contrary to what I felt like at the time, we lost because we couldn’t make close shots, something revealed when I watched the tape. In particular Alex couldn’t make a close shot to save his life, going 1-16 on the night, none taken more than 10 feet away from the basket. Others faced similar difficulties in making a shot.

The good news is that we did a serviceable job with our offense. We were getting good looks. There were some basic concepts, like cutting after a pass, which we failed on, but otherwise were doing well. I wasn’t terribly impressed with how we moved the ball around, but the officials were.

Our defensive rebounding was abysmal, we actually had more offensive than defensive rebounds (they out rebounded us on both ends of the court). In general our defense wasn’t so great. I thought it better at the game than on tape, but our lack of practice showed. That’s going to be a major focus for us tomorrow.

Overall, I can’t say I’m unhappy with how they played. I don’t feel like they played all out for 28 minutes, especially at the end, but overall it was a good performance. If Alex makes half his shots instead of losing 26-19, we win 33-26. Hell if Alex makes a 1/3 of the shots, it’s still a 27-26 victory.

Oh well. Some time tomorrow to try and improve for our game on Sunday.

[Noop]

Barkeep I haven't read your entire post (Kinda of long sorry ) However I do have experience coaching kids that age. (Won a few championships with the most recent being this pass summer)

Are you sure giving kids that age an offense is best? I normally give them plays but inform them that I want them to know where to stand. And use the plays to teach spacing.

As for the defense depending on the rules I would have them play 1-1-2-1 or a 2-3 about after a score and man2man when they have to get back on defense.

For an hour practice it would breakdown like this...

5 - Talk
10 - Warm Up (Running, running, running)
20 - Defensive drills
5 - Water Break
15 - Lay Up Drills
10 - Some kind of game like lighting or full court man to man

- If there is time I would go over some more defensive stuff.
- I keep practice at a high tempo, I don't accept walking at all.
- I encourage what I call character plays where they will dive for the ball, fight for rebounds, etc. building toughness (however this varies from child to child because some kids aren't there physically.
- Also in order to build a team nature if someone messes up constantly everyone will run.

I will stop here since I am not sure if this advice is welcomed.

[Barkeep49]

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.

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by Noop

Barkeep I haven't read your entire post (Kinda of long sorry ) However I do have experience coaching kids that age. (Won a few championships with the most recent being this pass summer)

That's pretty cool. What level was it at? Congrats on your successes. And yes I do go long sometimes, but am trying to be more brief this season.

Are you sure giving kids that age an offense is best? I normally give them plays but inform them that I want them to know where to stand. And use the plays to teach spacing.

My number 1 goal is not to win, but to have them develop as players. I think the time spent practicing plays, which work maybe 20% of the time, could be better spent working on other areas of their game. The thing I like about the Read and React is that it is a structured offense, but one which teaches them skills, such as the floor spacing you talk about, which they can then take with them to whatever teams they're on in the future.

As for the defense depending on the rules I would have them play 1-1-2-1 or a 2-3 about after a score and man2man when they have to get back on defense.

Frankly at this age I think a 1-3-1 is by far the most effective defense a team can run. But I also think teaching zone at this age doesn't advance my #1 goal of teaching them fundamental skills. I do think you hit the nail on the head though with the value of changing defensive looks. I had run 100% man in the past, but am going to be teaching a trapping zone to show as an alternate look in the 4th quarter. It's a compromise for the sake of winning, but one which I don't think compromises too much.

For an hour practice it would breakdown like this...

5 - Talk
10 - Warm Up (Running, running, running)
20 - Defensive drills
5 - Water Break
15 - Lay Up Drills
10 - Some kind of game like lighting or full court man to man

That seems real solid. I go a little heavier on the warm up, what I call continuous motion, but otherwise my practices are planned out very similarly.

- If there is time I would go over some more defensive stuff.
- I keep practice at a high tempo, I don't accept walking at all.
- I encourage what I call character plays where they will dive for the ball, fight for rebounds, etc. building toughness (however this varies from child to child because some kids aren't there physically.
- Also in order to build a team nature if someone messes up constantly everyone will run.

I will stop here since I am not sure if this advice is welcomed.

I really appreciate your advice and comments. I always am trying to learn and improve.

[Izulde]

I lagged behind last year and got a late start this year, but I think you've got some interesting challenges ahead of you this year, with how schizophrenic this team seems to be in some of the qualities you've mentioned. Kind of ironic too, since you mentioned your own sanity.

[Noop]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

That's pretty cool. What level was it at? Congrats on your successes. And yes I do go long sometimes, but am trying to be more brief this season.

I have coached all age groups from 10& Under to 18 & Under; I have won a championship with all age group although not in the same season. (Goal for next spring and summer) It is a very competitive league especially the 14 & Under division because that is where the talent is because the older kids can't play if they have played highschool ball for that season. This past season we won 3 out of the 4 championships (My 18's lost in the second round)

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

My number 1 goal is not to win, but to have them develop as players. I think the time spent practicing plays, which work maybe 20% of the time, could be better spent working on other areas of their game. The thing I like about the Read and React is that it is a structured offense, but one which teaches them skills, such as the floor spacing you talk about, which they can then take with them to whatever teams they're on in the future.

I agree with this 100% especially for that age group. I have been coaching for over 3 seasons so most of my 10's have been in system since the beginning.

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

Frankly at this age I think a 1-3-1 is by far the most effective defense a team can run. But I also think teaching zone at this age doesn't advance my #1 goal of teaching them fundamental skills. I do think you hit the nail on the head though with the value of changing defensive looks. I had run 100% man in the past, but am going to be teaching a trapping zone to show as an alternate look in the 4th quarter. It's a compromise for the sake of winning, but one which I don't think compromises too much.

I will agree again because the first thing I taught was man2man and brought the zone last season because our league has a rule about playing man when your up by 20 or more.(Dumb rule in my opinion) I think switching it up offers them a chance to learn how to read and react.

However in my opinion the thing that makes me the happiest isn't winning but rather having my team playing hard. I get more excited by a player diving for the ball and making a hustle play then I do with a cross over or a long three. I think what I brought to my teams that was missing before I took over was a winning culture and a winning attitude.

Teaching at that age is the most important because alot of kids without the proper coaching end up with terrible habits. I would suggest Better Basketball DVDs if you want hints on certain things.

My main thing is instilling the correct attitude and change their thoughts from hoping to win to working hard as possible to win.

Sorry so long.

[Noop]

As for my typical practice schedule I rarely every do shooting drills because most kids can't make a shot pass a certain distance. I teach them how to shoot and during those games(like lighting) I encourage them to use the form I taught them. However I discourage shooting during the game because in my experience it is futile.

[Barkeep49]

Noop: The message has been loud and clear that the way we're going to win is by shooting close to the basket. This team doesn't have the talent to make outside shots. That said I will be employing the Swish method to try and teach them some good form, as many of the players listed better jump shot as a goal. Like so much else if they know the right way to do it now, hopefully as their athletic ability increases they will have the skill. I have also stressed, however, just how many shots one needs to improve their jump shot and that much of this work would have to be done on their own.

Izulde: Glad to have you aboard again. So far my sanity is going well, but the season has just begun and the stress is still relatively mild.

[Barkeep49]

Well another game and another practice are in the books. Fortunately, Sunday saw us win 28-21 bringing our record to 1-1. We played well, with Alex leading us towards victory with 10 points, including 4 of 7 shooting from the line. We were up the whole game, by as much as 10. The real key of the game was transition points. On a fast break we made our shots, they didn’t. Our rebounding still is our weakest link, giving the other team way too many 2, 3, even 4 shot possessions.

One big note is that at last Friday’s practice Austin told me he preferred playing the two with Josh in at one. Our ball handling skills aren’t all that strong this year, so this was not news I wanted to hear. This meant Michael suddenly became our back-up point. Michael struggled being asked to play both point at times, center at times, as they had a very athletic big man and so when Alex was out Michael offered us the best match-up, as well as 3, his “natural” spot. I had told Austin that we were going to need him at point on Friday. I tried it on Sunday and frankly we still need Austin at point. Austin isn’t going to be the playmaker Josh is, but he’s also not going to turn the ball over, and that is quite important.

We had a good practice yesterday. We reviewed footage from the game which I had put together and was something I think the team enjoyed. It wasn’t a highlight reel as much as taking a close look at a few plays. We spent some time working on rebounding skills, but the vast majority was spent on teaching proper shooting mechanics. In particular worked on using the legs to power the shot, and also worked on the release and follow through, with-out the ball. This part will be especially helpful for Quentin whose release is flat and awkward. It wasn’t the most thrilling of lessons, but it was fundamentals which are needed for future growth. It laid the ground work.

A note of concern is Leo who has been injured or not feeling well for what seems like half our practices, yet feeling perfect for both our games. I honestly can’t tell if the kid has a lingering injury and is fighting through it or is trying to get out of practicing. I had started him Sunday in hopes that this would motivate him if it was a motivation issue. Yesterday saw the same inability to practice. I then talked with him expressing my concern over his injuries and telling him how it would be better if he didn’t really practice at all this week or play on Sunday in order to give his body time to recover than to keep trying to play while not giving his body a chance to heal. We’ll see if that approach works.

[Barkeep49]

The signs did not portend for a good game yesterday. It wasn’t because of Friday’s practice. Friday’s practice was a good practice. We had 7 players suited up, Alex was out of town, Grant was injured (more about this shortly), and Michael was not going to be there. We did our shooting continuous motion and frankly there shooting? Not so hot. We also did a concentration drill, where they had sheets with numbers randomly displayed from 1-100. I would announce a number and they would then have to find the next number, cross it off, and so on for 45 seconds. The catch was the second time we did it, they had a partner who was allowed to distract them as they were doing the sheet. Fun was had. I think there is also value in this sort of activity so we’ll likely come back to it. We also did some 3 person work on the fundamentals of our offense. The biggest focus was on rebounding. We did a couple drills working on jumping for the ball as well as judging the angle of the shot. Unlike some previous Friday practices the energy was there.

The first bad sign was that Alex was not going to be there. Along with Seth Alex is one of two kids that has been rebounding. He is also one of our better scorers. The second bad sign was Grant’s injury. He suffers from a condition (whose name I forget) which basically causes pain due to bones growing faster than the muscles. He was having a flare up and this was still inflamed so no Grant yesterday. This was somewhat expected, at least after Friday. The third bad sign was when Matthew’s mom calls to let me know that he had a minor procedure done and would be unable to play. So now I’m down to 7. Seven is still workable. And to their credit both Matthew and Grant attended the game. The last bad sign was when we only had five players to start the game. Leo and Quentin were not there. I figured they got lost. But that put us at 5 players.

Last year I would have been upset at this. This year I’m trying to feel the Zen. And I tried to impart this on the team.

And the good news is that I needn’t have worried. The other team came out in man to man. Only they had no help defense. They also completely overplayed their person, not staying between them and the basket. And so we had an obscene number of easy lay-ups. They also didn’t understand the idea of stopping the ball on a fast break so we had a bunch more of those. By the time Leo and Quentin finally arrived in the second quarter, after I’d given up all hope of seeing them, we were up by a lot. We even held them to just 1 point in the second quarter. I had to hold the team back in the second half. We coasted to an easy 37-20 victory. It was nice because every player there got to score a basket. Michael destroy them in the second half with 8 points, almost all off fast breaks. Josh also showed an ability to drive past them nearly at will.

We play them again Saturday. More than anything I feel bad for the other team. I wonder how much practice time they’d had. Their basic man to man was SO off that I have to think not much. They also never even attempted to press us (for obvious reasons we didn’t attempt to press them). Everyone feels good after a big win. The goal will be to working hard this week at practice as we play this same team again and also play KW. KW is notable because it is the team which upset this group of kids in the first round of the playoffs. I know they’ll be excited about that game.

[Barkeep49]

It was a successful weekend.

Saturday saw us dismantle GV just as we had last week. I had challenged the team to allow fewer points scored and they did. Mason had a particularly good game scoring 6 points. Mason’s taken only 5 shots this season and has made 4 of them. Guess he has gotten the “take smart shots” message. The game was actually pretty close at half, 14-9. I told the team they needed to push the ball up the court more and we scored 14 3rd quarter points to safely put the game out of reach.

Today was more of a struggle. First our opponents were HUGE. They had a kid at least 6 inches taller than our tallest players. Our team was pretty intimidated by the size. They also used a very aggressive trapping zone. Our team did a good job of beating the trap, but had trouble making the shots in the first half that we got. In fact there was no score for virtually the entire first quarter and we entered half down 8-5.

We had much less trouble in the second half. We never had more than a 7 point lead, and really basically just maintained a 5 point lead for the 4th quarter. It got tense at times and the game was quite physical so it felt close. It was good for the team to win a close game, something which our first three victories didn’t provide. I’d still like to see us come from behind in the 4th and win, as that would show another layer of toughness and resolve, but not being in a position to have to come from behind is a good thing overall.

A big credit for today’s victory goes to Leo who got very hot in the 3rd quarter and made a bunch of open shots, the same kind we’d been missing earlier, Michael who made two clutch free throws towards the end of the game, and Seth who shot better than his season shooting percentage of less than 25% (all of them 10 footers or less), each whom contributed 8 points. The team as a whole deserves credit for being active on the boards and causing their three most talented players to get into foul trouble by being aggressive. The final score was 28-25.

[Barkeep49]

Here is a video I made of basically our last 7 possessions from saturday's blowout. They were instructed to run the offense with at least 3 passes as we were up by a lot at this point. You'll see that this instruction wasn't always followed.



Possession 3 does a particularly good job of showing how the kids are supposed to move and rotate in the Read and React offense. 1 is a pretty good possession as well, as it shows how players are supposed to cut in if their defender cheats above the 3 point line (this is also apparent in 2). 4, 5, 6 are all us not running it so well (despite scoring in 6). In 7 we did a pretty good job, though Leo (53) was not where he was supposed to be.

[Barkeep49]

It’s been a while since I’ve updated simply because with Thanksgiving we’ve not had a game in a while. We have a game tomorrow, but I thought that it would be a good chance to go kind of give a state of the team a third of the way through the season, especially because I’ve been briefer in my write-ups to date.
In alphabetical order:

Alex: The kid still hasn’t figure out how to make a shot in a game. He does it practice, in game situations. In competitive situations. In rough situations. But can’t come through in a game. That’s OK, because he’s been solid defensively and has consistently rebounded. Rebounding has been a team weakness, though I’ve started incorporating a simple throw the ball up against the backboard for the next person to rebound into our pregame warm-up and that seems to have led to some better results.

Austin: He’s definitely more comfortable not being the focal point of the team, AKA not the PG. However, when Josh was gone for a weekend he stepped into the role and preformed adequately. He does a particularly good job of being willing to pass the ball up the court. He’s averaging over 3 assists a game, which is a lot considering our team averages 30 points a game. Additionally, in our last three games (two of them where he was playing point) he should have had at least 2 more assists each game if a player hadn’t missed a wide open lay-up from a pass of his.

Grant: He is pretty consistently below average across the board in skills. He’s probably #9 on our depth chart in terms of talent. He is, however, a great member of the team in terms of attitude and humor.

Josh: Against the large KW team we played we definitely missed his ball handling, which is funny considering he’s the 2nd shortest kid on our team. However, the kid hasn’t been at practice, in forever. As in not since November 17th. When his mom called me to tell me he wouldn’t be there Friday (he was originally supposed to be there Monday but his plane was delayed) she said he was quite worried about playing time. I didn’t reassure her. Overall our team is definitely better with him than without him, but with his not having played for so long I have no idea what kind of physical condition he’s in.

Leo: The kid gives his all that’s for sure. He is on the floor an amazing amount of the time diving after balls. He came through huge against KW which was great to see. He grew a lot last season and perhaps we’ll see him continue to grow this season into a good player.

Mason: He’s made nearly every shot he’s taken this season, which is great. Most games he is a bit of a nothing on the court. He plays hard and works hard, so he’s definitely learning and growing. However, as the shortest and scrawniest kid on the team he’s got to learn how to play bigger than his size and how to make sure bigger and stronger kids. I’ve been working with him, giving some tips, and hopefully they work. Nice story though. He’s also playing in house league and said he started telling me about the first practice: “Everyone just stands around on our offense. The point guard gets a screen from the center and either shoots or passes to the center. But everyone else just kind of does nothing. You’re such a better coach.” I explained that considering I was being paid to coach I should be better. One advantage though I hadn’t really thought of with the Read and React is that even if a kid isn’t getting a lot of touches they probably still feel involved because they’re always moving and doing something that has value.

Matthew: Our smartest player. As an example, we were doing “Bull in the Ring” where one player is in the post and has to receive passes from his teammates on the perimeter, all while being defended 1 on 1. His score, thanks to smart movement, was nearly half his teams points. Had an unfortunate injury which kept him out our past three games. But he’s fully recovered now. While he doesn’t add much on offense, he is a tenacious defender, especially for his size.

Michael: He leads the team in steals and is able to convert many of those steals into fast breaks, which leads to points, and so he is also our team’s leading scorer. He is, along with Josh and Alex, one of 3 players who is clearly a step above the others.

Quentin: The kid has no jump shot. Like none at all. Every shot is a set shot. He’s a very high percentage shooter though. If he can learn to shoot a lay-up I’ll have done some good coaching this season. Sadly his defense is weak so he’s more of an end of the bench sort of guy.

Seth: His shooting percentage is abysmal. If he learns to keep his head up when he moves his shooting percentage will rise. This is a funny criticism, because he’s the kid most likely to pass it way up the court on a fast break. He’s been a hard worker and I think has definitely improved so far this season.

Overall we’re 4-1 and tied for first place with WM (3-0), the team who beat us. We’re also the only team who has played more than 3 games. Every team we’ve beaten has a losing record, as does our opponent tomorrow, so it’s really hard to tell if we’ve just beaten a bunch of bad teams and are a good team, have beaten a bunch of bad teams and are an average team, or have beaten some not so bad teams and are a good team. Our offense is looking better and better every week which is good. Our defense hasn’t progressed at quite the same speed and will be more of a focus as our offense sets to go into refinement mode rather than learning mode.

I think my coaching overall has been solid. I haven’t done as much shooting instruction or breaking down and reinforcing individual fundamentals as I would like, which is bad. I need to recommit myself to those things because they’re important and deserve time. I think I’ve handled the players well while also not making myself obsessed. Hopefully more good things will come.

[Barkeep49]

Another long break between updates, though that has been a function of schedule as much as anything.

We had a very disappointing loss to DF on Dec 7th, 31-18. They jumped out to an early lead and were up after the first quarter by 5. We then closed to with-in 3 at half and 1 at the start of the 4th quarter. Unfortunately we fell apart in the 4th quarter as they scored 14 points, nearly as much as they scored the rest of the game. The real problem came after they made the first of thee 3s, which put them up by 5. The team just fell apart and while I called a TO fairly quickly, the run continued after the time out. Some of this was lucky shooting as our opponents shot 5 of 6 from 3 point distance. Some of this was the fact that our team struggled mightily against the zone and didn’t create turnovers, as the 18 points was by far the fewest points we had scored.
The bad news was compounded by the fact that the tournament we were supposed to play in the following weekend was cancelled. This meant, with winter break thrown-in, we will have gone 5 weeks when we play another game tomorrow.
The good news is that I was able to schedule a scrimmage yesterday against the 4th grade boys, which have a really fantastic team. The bad news is that if we’d have been keeping score, I think we’d have lost. They basically have forgotten several aspects of the offense. The good news is that the one weakness that I had noticed at DF, and had subsequently focused on, cutting to the basket and passing to those cutters, is hugely improved and was happening several times during the scrimmage. The bad news is that more fundamental aspects, such as rotation and spacing, was weak/forgotten. Hopefully there will be time before the game tomorrow to run through our basic offense.

And honestly if our basic offense were all that was struggling I’d be OK. But our defense has been weak, and continues to be weak. They seem to get the idea of needing to help on defense, but they seem to think they can do this by walking there, so the help gets there too late so a shot can be had.

Even this, while unacceptable, could be countered somewhat if the team could press well. However, the team seems unable to trap. At Monday’s practice we even ran a 3 on 5 drill, and the 5 defensive players were nearly hopeless in stopping the 3 offensive players. It basically means that if we get behind in a game we’re going to have to rely on our porous defense to make stops, rather than in creating turnovers. I have installed a trapping zone, which works fairly well, but I refuse to use that just to create wins. Not to mention it would lose its effectiveness if we played it for too long. It will be a 4th quarter change of pace defense. So basically let’s hope we don’t down by more than say 6 points cause between the lack of defense, lack of press, and lack of mental toughness, we’re in trouble.
Which brings us to tomorrow. It’s frustrating since I still don’t have a good grasp of how hard our opponents will be yet since, our opponent, WK, has played to and beaten DF, who just stomped us, and lost to KW, who we beat, though not decisively. So perhaps they’re of about equal talent to us. I do know that if we played the way we played yesterday we won’t stand a chance. Hopefully we’ll be able to kick it into a different gear. We’ve kind of stalled in our progress since about the 3rd game. I’m hoping that as we review and refine we’ll be able to take our play into a new gear for the last two months of the season.