Insanity: A RL Coaching Dynasty

[Barkeep49]

Long story short, GL won in our game against LS. But it was not pretty at all. We jumped off to a nice 4 point lead at the end of the first. I was pleased. We even extended our lead to six at one point in the second. But then LS started pressing and the wheels came off. The team was just totally unprepared for their suffocating man press and that has to be chalked up as my fault. I said as much at half when we were either tied or down by 2. We cranked it back up in the third and extended our lead to 6, once again, before it started to get close. They got back to with-in 3, with 30 seconds left, but Brian hit a clutch free throw (and he was 1-6 from the line for the day) to put us up by 4 and seal the victory.

Overall I’m feeling pretty depressed about our performance. The press tore us up. We fell apart against a good man to man defense. We played good defense, they were forced to take numerous outside shots, which they missed, but then just got POUNDED on the boards. It was a very disheartening victory. We have so much to work on. We’ve now shown we have trouble against zone and man defenses, don’t always box out negating our aggressiveness against a bigger team, have trouble against a press. I’ve liked our defense, but the fact that we’re allowing so many points each game suggests that perhaps our offense is in better shape than it appears and it’s our defense that needs work. Oh yeah I forgot to mention we were 4-11 from the free throw line.

Fortunately we have two real practices this week. After this week, we go to having a half hour less each week and I certainly can use that half hour.

Individual notes:

Andrew – Was absent. This allowed me to really spread out the playing time nicely.

Brian – Killed us with his 1-6 from the FT line. He’s a liability on defense, for the most part. But did put up a good game on the offensive side overall.

Cameron – Played some real solid defense. He actually got some crunch time playing as a result. Is a complete non-factor on offense, at best, and against the superior skill LS showed, was a liability.

Dante – Once again was basically a non-factor. Had three rebounds, but was noticeably slower against their big men, who would often come far outside the post.

David – I’m pleased he didn’t get discouraged with himself when he struggled in the 2nd versus their press. He made some amazing shots for us in the 4th, and was the leader I needed him to be. Not to mention he set an all time high for the team with 5 assists. His play making was terrific.

Jack M – Did really well for us in the first. Unfortunately, after that he seemed to get intimidated by their big men and his efficiency went down. He missed several lay-ups which hurt us.

Jack P – Once again shot efficiently and well. Unfortunately, he played sloppily on defense and fouled, denying us his presence during crunch time.

Justin – The kid is amazing. Was 6-6 on his shooting. However, he only came down with 4 boards against a physical team, kind of what I was expecting from how he did in practice. I hope he’ll benefit the most from the blocking out practice we’re going to do this week.

Lucas – Just didn’t have it. Couldn’t find a way to contribute offensively, and turned the ball over a fair amount on the touches he did find. Defensively he was alright, but struggled against the bigger players that LS has.

Scott – He played well. Unfortunately due to some bad calls he got into foul trouble and ended up fouling out. His 1 rebound, an all time low for him, shows just how badly we were hurting on the boards.

Tom – I didn’t get him the playing time he deserved. The problem, as I’ve said before, is that while he doesn’t do anything too poorly, he doesn’t do anything well.

[Barkeep49]

After a brief respite at home, just long enough to enter the stats for the GL/LS game, it was time to head off to NF. I get to the game a good 45 minutes before the game and find Henry already there. He had thought he could see the B team play, not realizing that we don’t have parallel schedules. By the time the previous game ends the whole team is there. We have time for an abbreviated warm-up. And then the game’s off and running.

Or would be were the first half not painfully slow. We don’t do a good of finding good shots. The shots we did take didn’t go in. Fortunately our defense was excellent and we go into half up 9-7. The game changes pace in the second half, with us scoring 8 points in the second quarter, though 3 of those points came on a last second 3 pointer by Henry that was more luck than anything else. That gives us a 2 point lead going into the fourth. And the 4th is a battle. Unfortunately we just can’t stop their number 10, fouling him repeatedly, and he scores 9 points, 7 on free throws, and we end up losing by 2.

Where I felt bad about the GL victory, I feel very good about the HP loss. At this point, I think it’s somewhat clear that we don’t have the stamina to play 4 quarters. I subbed extensively, giving nearly equal playing time, but even that didn’t help. However, I figured that the one practice a week, and the day before our game at that, would hurt our ability to play 4 quarters. Also not helping was that I didn’t rotate our defends to put our best defenders on 10. This is because they had another player, 40, who was gigantic, and just killed us on the boards. The problems I saw at this game were far less than I had seen last week and certainly less than what I saw with GL. I was real pleased with the game despite the two point loss.

Taking a look at the team:

Adam – Looked slightly less lost out there than normal.

Ben – Did a pretty good job of guarding some taller players.

Danny – Was 0-5 from the floor along with a team high 4 turnovers. He’s a fast kid but he doesn’t play in control of himself, leading to shots which are just a little off and the ball to get away from him.

Gavin – Got banged up inside. He got into first half foul trouble leading him to sit a lot more than he would have otherwise. While he did a good job of guarding their #40, he went 0-3 from the floor, with close shots, and 0-6 from the FT line. But overall a good game

Henry – Scored that lucky 3 pointer. The only one of his 10 shots to be made. However, most of the shots he took were smart shots and his defense was strong. I also think he has the potential to be a good point guard, so I’m going to see if that can’t be nurtured.

Jacob – Once again a virtual non-entity out there, which was a problem because he got so much playing time due to Gavin’s foul troubles.

Jack A – Played pretty well, but not in control. He didn’t get nearly as much playing time this week as last as his dribble penetrating was killing us, as it was unsuccessful and he’d force a shot anyway. It was perhaps a mistake not to have him in there at crunch, but he freelances so much on defense, and is uneven with his shooting, and so despite his athleticism there just wasn’t a spot on the floor for him.

Jack B – Took 4 good shots, but missed them all. He played perhaps the best game defensively, really shutting down his man.

Jon – Was pretty much a non factor during his time on the court, though part of that was due to the good deny defense he played.

Josh – The kid is a gamer. He scored 4 clutch 4th quarter points for us. While his skills aren’t pretty, he does, I feel, deserve more credit for his ability to get things done. However, he was also constantly walking up the court on offense and a little on defense. Seems like a player who I will, perhaps, have to play in short stretches.

Zach – Their star shut him down completely in the second half. His inability to score a basket during the last 90 seconds of the game, was why we lost the close game. Still a good effort for him. Just reaffirms my thought that he doesn’t quite have the skills to take over a game.

Overall it was a good team effort. I am upbeat about our chances going forward, especially when we start to get two practices a week in January.

[Barkeep49]

Well Wednesday’s practice was not a good one. Some of this was my fault, as while I had a list of things that I wanted to accomplish at the practice, I didn’t have a detailed practice plan laid out to give structure. And I definitely didn’t bring my A-Game in terms of handling them. However, some of it was definitely them. Scott, for instance, was absolutely off the wall. And the fact that only two kids had taken time to watch the video of how our zone break actually worked in action, meant that several of them felt emboldened to whine about how this play didn’t work last year. And it didn’t, but that’s exactly why I decided to take a new teaching approach to it.

Besides work on the zone offense, I also wanted to work on blocking out. And they simply aren’t doing a very good job of it. And that has to be my teaching right there. That part is frustrating to me, because I know that the teaching of fundamentals is a weakness for me. So being able to recognize the problem, work hard to put together the teaching points, and then still not be able to teach it? Ugh.

That leads us to last night. When I get to the gym, I arrive to find us locked out and basically the school is dark. The team arrives, but parents don’t leave as we struggle to find out if we can get in. Finally, I try to send the team home, but they won’t go. Just as they start to straggle off, Jack M sees a janitor through a window. And suddenly we have a practice.

I made sure to come into practice with a strong plan. I really struggled putting together the practice. On the one hand we had a lot of fundamentals that I wanted to go over. On the other hand after yesterday’s poor practice I wanted to make sure we had some fun. We started practice a few minutes late as I had to raise the baskets from 7 feet to 10. I word hard to be in a better mood, and in control, than I was yesterday. And overall it’s a better practice. We worked first on setting screens. During the game I played with them, they went a little overboard in terms of setting screens, but they certainly had the idea down, which was good to see. Following this we did some press break work. After showing them the principles I want to see (set screens off the ball, stay away from the corners, pass the ball, and come to the ball to receive a pass) we did a 3 on 5 press. Towards the end of the drill the offense started doing better. I like this 3 on 5 setup more than the 2 on 3 I’d done with HP last Saturday. I think we’ll do the 3 on 5 with HP this weekend as well. David really wants to just dribble his way out of trouble. Well it wasn’t working. I reminded them how they can literally pass the ball far up the court. Scott, being a baseball person, is likely our one who will do that more than most.

To conclude practice I let them scrimmage as a reward for persevering about practice where I was ready to send them home. To pick teams I had them randomly line up and shoot a free throw. The first six to make it were on Team A, the five others on Team B. David was on the team which missed and moaned about how I picked unfair teams again. I pointed out that I didn’t pick the teams. He still moaned. Anyhow, the scrimmage went fairly well. After initially doing well, we started to bunch up on the court, but I reminded them not to do it and it stopped. Overall fun was had.

I’m really glad we had practice yesterday. I feel like some learning was done and put everyone, or at least me, in better spirits after Wednesday. Saturday we play PL at home. I’ve decided if the team won’t follow through with watching the videos I made at home, I’ll make them watch it before the game, as Tom and Dante, who’d watched the videos, were rattling off my teaching points and really seemed to “get” how the pattern might work. Of course they’re two of the sharper kids to begin with, so that might be why they got it. We’ll see, either way on Sunday, I suppose.

[Barkeep49]

Yet another double header day of games for me, and once again GL has the first game. We will be facing PL, the first team of the season who we’re unfamiliar with. In an unusual move for me I ask for the team to be there a half hour in advance. Unfortunately the team isn’t all prompt so we do a bit of a shoot around. Finally, I have the team go into our meeting space and play for them the Zone Offense videos I’ve created on my laptop. Overall, attention is fair for this. The bad part comes when at the end of the game I forget my laptop at the school. So far it hasn’t been found, but I’m still keeping my fingers crossed.

In the pregame talk I stress how this is PL’s firt game of the season so I would like to come out and take them by surprise. And overall this is what we do. Or would have done if we could make a lay-up. We miss just an appalling amount of somewhat open inside shots. I start with a line-up of Tom at point, David, Brian, Jack P (playing post), and Justin. At about 4 minutes in, I rotate this group out in favor of Cameron, Andrew, Scott, Lucas, and Dante with Scott playing point. As I said both groups do fairly well but we can’t make our shots. We finish the first up 6-5.

Things improve in the second quarter. I give some reminders about how we want to play defense and we don’t allow as many easy drives. David is still trying to break the press single handedly but when that doesn’t happen we actually manage to get some good looks. Further, by their speeding up the tempo of the game they start to play sloppily and we create some turnovers which we convert into baskets. We’re up 17-12 heading into half. One thing I was particularly proud of is quality minutes everyone received in the first half. This gives me wiggle room for the second half to either give our weaker players more time, if we pull away, or our stronger players the bulk of the time, if it remains close.

At half I congratulate them on a well played half. We then have a poor 3rd, or rather they have a good 3rd which we helped them to achieve. They do a good job of really cutting off our first pass and convert a lot of those into some easy baskets. We enter the 4th quarter down 27-25. And it’s time for Justin to take over. He rattles off 6 quick points, with a couple of other scoring as well, to give us a 7 point lead. PL cuts it down to 4, with 40 seconds left, after a successful 3 point shot, but we end up with a 43-37 victory.

We did MUCH better in this game than in the last game. PL really struggled with the tight traveling calls our refs call and unlike last week we did a much better job of avoiding this. I had stressed this during continuous motion during our practices and the reminder clearly paid off. We also did much better on the boards this week, despite once again being the smaller team. While we struggled in the 3rd, we made the necessary adjustments for the 4th. I feel like we were the better team and deserved the victory, unlike last week.

Taking a look at our players:

Andrew – He did a great job of helping us to beat our press in the 2nd by being down court but close enough to receive the pass. He had a few open looks at the basket as a result but didn’t score. However, he did find a nice jumper in the second to give him some points.

Brian – Had a couple of nice assists by getting the ball into the post, but was otherwise unremarkable.

Cameron – You could have forgotten he was on the court for all that he or his man touched the ball. I didn’t notice on defense if this was due to skill on his part or lack of skill on the person who he was guarding part.

Dante – The drop-off in rebounds between him and Justin continues to be noticeable. Dante had 1 rebound in 12 minutes to Justin’s 8 in 16 minutes. Dante does play good man to man, which is nice, as his man was out on the wing quite a bit even and Dante played him perfectly. But when Dante’s in the game I need to count on others to get that board, which is also a bit disappointing from a center. He did have a nice shot in the 4th quarter from farther out, so it was nice to see him regain a little of his offensive touch.

David – David is still the best player on the court most days. But the difference isn’t as great as it once was, and he hasn’t realized that things he was once able to do don’t work for him anymore. For instance, despite my not playing him at point that much, his 11 turnovers were nearly as many as the 13 the rest of the team committed. He continues to be a weak link on press break. I’m confident that with some coaching David will be able to continue to maximize his talents in a positive way for the team.

Jack M – When I did the complete swap-out in the first quarter Jack said how it was embarrassing that he was the only one not going in. I said, that with 11 players that’s going to happen to one person, but I did feel for him. I gave him a little crunch time play as a salve though when it got to the very end of the game I pulled him in favor of Dante’s free throw ability, and Jack felt frustrated at this. I didn’t play Jack at point which I think was the right decision, and a reason why our overall turnovers were down. However, if he’s not playing point he’s suddenly having to compete with a bunch of other players for minutes and so finding him time is going to be something I’ll have to pay attention to.

Jack P – He looked really good. His real skill comes in driving the baseline, rather than from the top of the key. Where as last year he wouldn’t make those shots, this year he has been. I asked him to play post and he responded with a solid 4 rebounds. I played him the whole 4th quarter. If he continues to shoot as well as he has been he’s going to make a strong case for being just as indispensable as David or Justin come crunch time.

Justin – Speaking of Justin, he continues to be the biggest reason why we’ve won this year. His ability to dribble, and do so from the left side (being a lefty) just catches people off guard. PL had to take their biggest player, and best rebounder, off the floor in the 4th after Justin dribbled by a couple of times, so that mismatch He hasn’t shown an ability to score from the right (I can’t remember a basket of his on the right side), so that’ll be something we’ll want to work on to improve his overall game. He is, in his quite way, our best player by far at this point in the season.

Lucas – Lucas hasn’t shown that explosiveness and spark that had me ready to have him be the centerpiece of our offense were the triplets not to have returned. I wonder if this is because he’s not starting, not getting into a rhythm or what. I think I might let him play a consecutive quarter and see if he just needs time to get into the flow. Otherwise I’d have to think that with his continuing to be short, he’s going to have to change his game, and work with him on making that transition.

Scott – Scott’s been my biggest disappointment this year. In fact he’s been my only disappointment. He’s been unfocused and unmotivated. I asked him in the 3rd quarter to go in and play point. He whined about playing point. So I said, no problem and had Lucas go in and play point instead. However, having made my point I did sub him in a minute or so of game time later and not at point. I’m going to tell him pretty bluntly that he will be a regular starter again when I see him putting in the effort and giving the attention that I expect. I feel he’ll respond well to this direct approach. That said, he rebounded nicely (pun intended) from the poor post game he had against LS, with some tough defense and 8 boards, though his 0-5 from the floor, with many if not all of those being lay-ups, was a little discouraging.

Tom – I’ve really done a disservice to Tom. I started him and played him a little in the first 3 quarters. Then the 4th came around, and I knew I needed to play him some more, and I didn’t. Tom has, by far, the fewest minutes on the team right now. He doesn’t deserve that Granted he’s not doing a whole lot for the team when he’s out there, but he deserves the chance to play. We play WK next and I worry, given that he already has confidence problems, about giving him some substantial playing time against a team we’re going to struggle against. However, in either the WK or LV, which is our next game after WK, I am going to find some substantial playing time for him and I’m going to make sure not to short change him going forward.

I like where we're at heading into our game against WK, who if you recalled absolutley demolished us when we played them in a scrimmage last spring. If we can play them tough, win or lose, it'll show our 3-0 start is no fluke and that we are a team to contend with.

HP update will come tomorrow.

[Izulde]

Some rough patches here, but overall I'd say you're still doing well. Hard to argue with 3-0 and while you're 1-1 with HP as of this writing, it sounded like you just had some horrible luck with missed shots in the loss and yeah that sucks, but it happens sometimes.

[Barkeep49]

Sorry that I’m a day late on this. I simply didn’t have time yesterday to write this up.

The notable event from warm-up is a warm-up drill that WM did. They had their players stand in an arc around the basket. Two players would have the ball. One would shoot. If he missed whoever the ball bounced to kept it. If he made it the coach passed it to another person. The other person would then shoot. It was a nice, low activity, warm-up drill.

WM comes out fouling. It is their first game, and it shows. They get into bonus, and double bonus, before the first period is over. Unfortunately the free throws all go to Jack A who is one of our worst free throw shooters and he only makes 1 of 6. Equally unfortunately, Josh gets into early foul trouble, which is a shame because he scored 6 points in the first. We go into the second up 8-6. In the second we extend our lead, with a variety of kids scoring. Josh basically sits the whole quarter out as he picks up a quick 3rd foul. With about 90 seconds left Jack A gets hurt and I put Josh back in. I tell him if he gets a 4th foul I’ll need to sit him the whole 3rd so he needs to be super careful. Right away there is one play that the ref rules a block but could have gone either way. Later on there is a play where Josh backs away. His dad, who is standing on our sideline, rather than sitting with the parents, yells at him. When there is a stop I explain to him that because Josh had so many fouls he was under instructions to be super careful. His dad apologizes to me and then as we are going out to meet at half, apologizes to Josh.

Since we’re only playing with 8 players, as Ben and Jon are in Arizona and Gavin’s at a hockey tournament, my big message is to just rest. We’re playing alright. Not terribly well, as our man defense is looking poor at times, but not terribly either. The good news is that we do a much better job of breaking the press than we had in previous games. The third quarter is basically a wash. In the 4th quarter they switch to a zone, and we struggle. We never lose our lead, but it gets mighty close. Part of this is due to the fact that we have two kids, Jack A and Danny, foul out and commit 14 fouls in the half, and so we are forced to finish with 6 very tired players. That’s just absurd and we’re going to have to improve on that as many of them were of the kind of fouls that aren’t great. With 30 seconds left we’re up by 4. They manage to get a quick steal and basket. They manage to get another quick steal but miss the shot, get the rebound, but Zach rips it out of their hands. He starts to dribble it up, gets the ball stolen from him. WM drives in, and in my opinion gets fouled, but there’s no call. We pull out the victory, but it was not a pretty win. The kids seems as despondent as I’ve ever seen them at the end of the game.

We have some clear areas to work on. The good news is that the effort we put into beat a press seems to have worked. The bad news is that we have a whole bunch of other areas to work on.

Taking a look at the players who were there:

Jacob – Without Gavin, and the twins, we counted on his inside presence more than ever. And while he showed a good court sense, he didn’t have the athletic ability to back it up. He got numerous balls stolen from him, in that he’d get the rebound and then they’d force a jump ball. His dribbling isn’t as good as everyone elses so that means when he’s open deep on a fast break he can’t convert. He was the only kid not to score.

Zach -- He struggled the most when they switched to a zone. His ability to drive was effectively neutralized and he had trouble, despite instruction, in making the switch in strategy. He did do a good job, however of basically locking down their best player during the 4th quarter.

Jack A – He continues to be a work in progress. I’m not sure we made any progress this week though. He needs more reinforcement about how to play man to man. His drives also weren’t as effective as normal, though I’m not quite sure the reason.

Henry – Played point for us a lot of the time he was in. Not a great point guard, but I think he’s got the most there so I’m going to be putting in the continued effort to try and grow his skills. He made two crucial free throws late in the 4th to put us up by 4 after they’d cut the lead to 2. He’s not a great free throw shooter so I give him lots of credit in coming through in the clutch.

Josh – Scored 12 of our 30 points. Would have had more if I hadn’t had to sit him so much due to the fouls in the first half. Like I said he’s a good shooter, though many of his other skills, such as hustle, dribbling, or defense, could be better. Does seem to understand, better than the rest, the key to breaking presses which is good. I gave him some time at point and we might try that some more to see how it works.

Danny – I didn’t think he deserved to foul out. Not quite sure where the fouls came from, in other words, as I thought he was playing tough, but clean man for most of the game.

Adam – A tad slower and less athletic than many of the kids out there. He tries hard, but the results just aren’t there. I’ve found that I’m giving him a lot of negative feedback, so I’ve resolved to be far more positive with him, despite there being less to be positive about.

Jack B – A solid scrapper. Probably our best defender at man to man. If he were taller he’d be a dynamo. Played exactly the kind of game I’d hope for him to play.

With that we’re off for the rest of the week. I’m not sure when my next update will be. GL starts it’s new Monday for an hour, Wednesday for an hour and a half practice schedule so there might be a practice update or two. Otherwise HP plays two games Dec 2 so look for an update after those.

Originally Posted by Izulde

Some rough patches here, but overall I'd say you're still doing well. Hard to argue with 3-0 and while you're 1-1 with HP as of this writing, it sounded like you just had some horrible luck with missed shots in the loss and yeah that sucks, but it happens sometimes.

I agree that my 5-1 combined record isn't too shabby. However, I try to look beyond the wins and losses, when possible, because they're my third priority.

GL has played 12 quarters of basketball. I've been happy with how they've looked in 5-7 of them. Now the fact is they've won and that's good. But I think it's a testament to their talent, more than growth or ability. But perhaps I'm just being too harsh on them. We'll have a better idea after we play WK, who we know will be good.

HP, on the other hand, has basically played well, with the exception of the second half against WM, that 10 of 12 quarters. I think I will be a lot happier with HP once we go to twice a week practices, as there is so much I'd like to teach them and only so much time to do it.

[Barkeep49]

A week of practices has gone by with GL and I’m pretty pleased overall with both practices.

Monday saw the start of our one hour practices. The sixth grade team practices before us. I would like to scrimmage them at some point, though admittedly I have a lot less to lose than does Jon (coach of the 6th grade team).

With only an hour on Mondays we’re not going to waste anytime and I tried to convey that urgency to the team, successfully I think. I said since we’d only done open gym two times we were going to try it two more times if the team wanted. Overwhelmingly they did. However, while this open gym was better than the last one, in that more people choose to just shoot around, I think with the missing half hour that after next week open gym will just fall by the wayside for the time being (it doesn’t make sense to do at our Thursday practice space because it only has 2 10 foot baskets).

After that we did our Princeton continuous motion drill. They always clamor for this drill, I think because it hadn’t been as physically demanding. When we got to three balls suddenly they weren’t standing around as much (the reason I think they liked it), but they got very sloppy. It was disappointing. However, when I gave them a goal for how many baskets to make in 2 minutes they made it. I emphasized that is how they should be running the drill the whole time.

After free throws and a water break we went into our shell drill. We did some pretty good work with that, but the work also told me we need to be doing this more regularly. I know how important the shell drill is and so I need to make sure I continue to use it as a change of pace drill, despite it being one they don’t like and which has players sitting out.

Next with them in two groups, we did some work on making full speed layups. We again met our goal, which was nice. We then concluded practice with “bubble” in two different groups. One player is on the free throw line with the rest in blocks. If a player misses and the next player makes it they’re out. David and Jack P were out champions. We did a championship round with David winning. Since the drill was popular we’ll use it again. It was time to go home.

Yesterday we had our second practice. I get there early and find that there is girls house league practicing in the space. I was very impressed with how upbeat and positive the coaches were. I felt bad for one of the teams since there was only one father/coach and it was clear he didn’t really know what he was doing (for instance they were scrimmaging and he was basically encouraging them to all be close to the ball to get a pass. While that’s fine for 3 on 3, it’s bad news in 5 on 5). One of the teams doesn’t quite end practice on time so we start a few minutes late.

I start us off with our defensive slide continuous motion. After they go for about 6 minutes, with better quality than before, I set a team goal: Using two lines going one at a time if everyone finishes in 2:20 we’ll go for a minute more. Otherwise we’ll go for 3. We finish with 10 seconds to spare.

After free throws and a water break we work on our zone breaker. I made the mistake of not running it through without a defense first so Justin and Andrew have forgotten what they’re supposed to do and Lucas is also confused about what he does, even though he was doing the same thing as what he did last year and there was some confusion from Jack P, though that’s understandable as he’s in a somewhat new role this year. While overall the defense stopped our groups, the players were doing a better job of improvising and starting to figure out how it worked. I was also particularly pleased with my teaching in that there was a lot of good whole group and 1 on 1 instruction. I really do think the play can work this year, but we’re going to need to do a lot more work so that’s what we’ll do.

Next we did some 1 on 1 work. It was a simple, stay in defensive position while your partner zig zag dribbles up the court. It’s become apparent that my team needs work, and sure enough this is true. I matched them up roughly according to speed and quite a few players had trouble keeping up. I might even do this as a continuous motion, as that’s what it essentially turned into, though when we have 11 players (Cameron was sick) it gets trickier. Defensive stance and sliding is one of the few fundamentals I feel that I taught well last year and most of the players, when reminded, will do them. So it’s a matter of getting them to execute at a higher level.

After a water break, we did the last drill of the evening. They were in two teams doing our 3 on 5 press break drill. Brian got very whiney during this drill when he didn’t like one of my calls and Jack M got a little whiney. In general I think I’ve let things get lack with that area and am going to pull it back in a little before it gets out of control. The offense did a better job early on at breaking the press but the victories became much harder won by the end. One of the big problems had been David dribbling out of trouble. He did a better job of not doing this by having him be the in bounder so he would frequently be the one to receive a pass back. In general it didn’t tangle him up as much and kept others back to help.

And it was then time to go home. I feel like there was some good learning this week, especially considering we didn’t have a game over the weekend to focus us. If we can sustain this level of practice next week, when we play WK, if we look bad I won’t feel like it’s because of lack of preparation. A big focus next week will be us installing our own press, in addition to continued emphasis on our man to man defense, a little work on the zone offense, and the return of the Mikan drill.

[Barkeep49]

Yesterday saw a rematch against WM. Saturday at practice we worked on our man defense, both positioning, and avoiding fouling (we did the whole drill with them holding shirts behind their backs so they had to move their feet and couldn’t reach in) via the shell drill and a 1 on 1 dribbling drill. We also worked on our press break. We did that and our passing continuous motion (which we won’t repeat in the larger of the gyms we practice in since it’s just too far for them to make the passes). It was an OK practice.

Anyhow the game does not start off well for us as we quickly find ourselves down 3-0 after a foul, made shot, and made free throw. We don’t score a basket at all in the first 4 minutes and trail at the end of the first quarter 11-2. The thing is we were actually playing really good defense. We were moving our feet. We were forcing them to take shots with hands in their faces. We were helping out. It was good stuff. Unfortunately WM shot about 75% in the first half (and I’m not exaggerating by much). We also got hurt by our lack of rebounding. That lack of rebounding isn’t too surprising as I hadn’t really focused on it in a while. One of those things we just haven’t had time to do.

We play a little better in the second quarter and are down 15-8 at half. We do even better in the 3rd and we enter the 4th quarter down 23-19. We’re in this game. And this is where my vow of giving all players real playing time costs us the game. For about the first 3 minutes of the quarter I have Jon, Henry, Danny, Gavin (who I was planning to play the whole quarter), and Jacob. My hope was they’d keep the game close and I could then put in a better group late on. Except that this grouping got destroyed by their star guard. By the time those 3 minutes were up we were down by 13. Good news is that I then had a group of Gavin, Danny, Zach, Jack A, and Josh finish the game. We only lost by 7. While I’m not sure I whether Danny belongs in that group or not, the other 4 are super solid and just wreaked havoc on the other team, to the point where WM was forced to sub back in their starters.

Overall it was a good game. We did the best job yet of playing man to man, really moving around like we need to. On the minus side we shot very few layups as they just shut us down inside both offensively and on the boards. And it didn’t help that WM made just about every shot they took in the first quarter. Oh well. Taking a look at our players:

Jacob – He got lots of playing time in this one. He didn’t lose the ball nearly as much, but then again he didn’t have the ball in his hands nearly as much. He’s still just a tad below the talent of the others, and his lack of speed really hurt us on defense as they had their post players out on the perimeter a lot.

Henry – Henry did not have a good game. He, at point, was too insistent on driving in rather than setting up others. This after the fact that he played 13 seconds in the first quarter because he lofted a 3 as point.

Jon & Ben – I honestly had a real hard time telling them apart this game. I tried them both at PG. Not the answer, as the decision making isn’t there and neither is the talent. I need them to be tough enforcers defensively and they didn’t give me that this game. Oh and Ben’s shooting was just atrocious both before and during the game.

Zach – He told me didn’t want to play point, and since WM was coming out in a zone, I didn’t have him as point much. Still one of our top candidates for that position. I wonder how good my coaching has been for him though. His ability to take over a game, shown so clearly in house league and our first game, has been nonexistent lately. I wonder if I’ve coached that out of him or if he’s just facing superior competition.

Jack A – When I need a dose of aggressiveness I can unleash Jack A. That is the kid will go for the ball, relentlessly. I’m working with him on how to still guard his own player.

Jack B – The smartest player on the court. He’s always in the right space at the right time. He also blocked out. He’s trying out for a small fry team, where there is a height cap and the basket is only 8 feet. He could be a superstar.

Josh – He continues to be a gamer, stealing the both several times during the 4th to really help us get back into it.

Gavin – By the end of the 4th quarter he was rebounding. He’s new to the whole post game, and is making improvements, but it’s not where his heart is at, so the instruction I’m giving him is only being absorbed slowly.

Danny – Played probably his best game of the season, though he continues to play just barely out of control. But it’s getting better.

Adam – Scored no points, took no shots, had no rebounds, no turnovers, and I could go on. A big 0. He’s the weakest player on the team. Kevin was around at the start of the practice and asked “Has Adam been struggling?” I said yes and he said that Adam was the 11th player put on the team.

Overall I can’t be too upset at the game. They’re getting better in a lot ways. But WM was a better team last time we played them, and we got lucky. They were a better team this game as well and we got unlucky. We have flashes of real excellence, but have a lot of holes. As I feel like I say every time I post about HP, I’m going to be a lot happier when we start practicing twice a week.

HP is 3-2 on the season.

[Barkeep49]

Yesterday was GL’s big match up against the defending league champions, WK. We played a valiant game, but in the end came up short. The problem with the game has less to do with any players playing and more to do with my coaching.

I had written down my planned subs for the first 3 quarters in advance. With my having placed a lot of self pressure to be more competitive than we were when we scrimmaged them last year (and got killed), I wanted to make sure that I got every player the quality playing time they deserved. I then would ad-lib the 4th quarter depending on where we were at.

The first half goes remarkably well. We are up by2 at half, 19-17, in large part thanks to good free throw shooting. This has been a real emphasis with the team this year, since most of them are strong enough to shoot a set free throw without having to jump, so it’s nice to see that practice and instruction paying off.

Bad coaching part 1 comes at the start of the 3rd. The way I did subs was sub at 7:00, 4:00, and 1:00 minutes each quarter. With the exception of a couple of odd 1 minute shifts players were basically playing 3 or 4 minutes at a stretch. Well to start off the 3rd quarter I put in a group of Jack M, Andrew, and Cameron at the same time and WK just ate them alive. I knew I was potentially asking for trouble with that grouping, and sure enough there just wasn’t enough talent on the court. I thought about calling a time out, but frankly didn’t know what I could say to stop the momentum. When their shift was up we were down by 9.

However, going into the 4th we had managed to narrow the lead to 2. Bad coaching part 2 now comes into effect. I send out my best 5, which that day was David, Justin, Scott, Lucas, and Brian to start the quarter. Except, and knowing that they’re going to press, I don’t really define what role each player would play. After two quick baskets, I call a time-out and explain their roles.

Basically the 4th quarter is a see saw. However, with Jack P not at the game, I don’t make any subs for too long (bad coaching part 3). I do get Dante in there for Lucas, who just had nothing left (he’d already played a house league game). Problem is that based on how long he’d played I knew I’d have to sub for Justin at some point. Did I? Nope. And so basically I have four kids who sit on the bench for most of the 4th quarter. Tom and Cameron don’t care and start some spirited chants while we’re on defense. Andrew and Jack M? They are both clearly unhappy after the game and my guess it’s about not having played in the 4th, and since they’ve both been on the bench a lot during 4th quarters I guess I don’t blame them too much.

We ended up losing by 6, but it was really closer than that as with about a minute left we were down by only 2. WK scored a basket, using their considerable height advantage to full effect, something they’d done all day.
So I coached to win, something I don’t regret too much. However, I did a poor job of doing even that while also not spreading around the playing time, and when giving playing time not giving the players a chance to be successful.

Next week we have a HP practice Saturday morning followed by a game that afternoon. Sunday GL has a noon and 2:30 double header, so fatigue will likely be an issue once again. Hopefully I will do a better job of coaching though.

[Barkeep49]

I had a few simple goals with GL this week. We needed to work on a play to break the press, we needed to make some progress on our zone offense, and we needed continued work on man to man defense. Unfortunately with these as our goals it meant that we’d have slightly more drudgery than normal.

Monday we did our conditioning and I then taught the press break. Fairly good work was done on it and I was cautiously optimistic about how it would go on Wednesday. When we did it yesterday it seemed like they had mostly learned the play. There were a few refinements necessary, but overall they seem to have a good grasp on the basics. Unfortunately, for reasons I’ll discuss shortly, we didn’t actually get to try this against real defense, so we’ll be doing some live practice against WM. Hopefully it’ll go well.

Monday we also did Champs and Chumps with a contact lay-up drill. Scott, naturally, did well in this. While the whole team could benefit from this drill I was doing it mainly for him. When I commented to him on how well he was doing in this versus in the game he made some sort of excuse.

Overall Monday was an alright practice. Wednesday, however, was anything but alright. There was the initial problem that the gym was sweltering when we got in it. While they were doing our defensive continuous motion I took the time to open some windows. I was about to have the team do the defensive slide against the clock when I was called aside by a GL park district rep. Seems that the principal has been unhappy with our kids running through the school. I didn’t quite understand the complaint, but promised to address it with the team.

After doing our continuous motion I tried to do the work with the press break and it was silliness all around. It took far longer than it should have. It then took way too long to do our work on the man to man defense. The focus was poor. Finally, after a few sprints, I got most of the team to focus and so while our work wasn’t stellar it at least wasn’t poor.

We concluded practice with work on our zone offense. Unfortunately without having practiced it recently our skills had slip and we really had to go back to the basics. It was to my great disappointment that we only accomplished these three drills and didn’t get to do any of the more fun drills I had planned. We did get a little golf in there, and a little bubble, but that was it.

Fortunately we have our game Sunday just against WM, as our game against LV, who is currently in 1st place, was canceled. WM is one of the weaker teams and by not having a game which will push us to the limits first we should have a much better chance of pulling it out.

I plan on going with a starting five of David, Andrew, Scott, Dante, and a player to be named later.

A few notes on some players:

David: In my focus on my coaching decisions Sunday I didn’t give David his due. He scored an amazing 22 of 41 points for the team. He was on fire missing only a few of his shots and generally moving the ball around well. It was by far his best performance of the season and it certainly came at the right time.

Jack P: Missed our game Sunday to be at the Bulls game. This was not received well by some other players on the team who were also going to the Bulls game. Things got worse when he missed Monday’s practice because he and his dad both forgot. He’d have been the 5th starter were it not for this faux pas.

Brian: Even after I had settled down most of the players he refused to be settled down. He also flat out refused to play good defense in our shell drill, constantly insisting on cheating to try and steal the pass. At one point I stopped the practice and sent everybody for a water break except him to no avail. I also held him after practice when I got to the heart of the matter: he was frustrated by not having started. After his openly defiant attitude during practice (such that his brothers were basically telling him to just stop arguing) he knew he wasn’t going to start Sunday. However, we did agree that if he gave me a week of good practice after winter break that he’d get the start.

I am not excited by the prospect of playing against WM’s tall player and not excited about playing in their gym, with the spectators sitting so closely behind the bench, but I am confident that we should have a good chance to rebound after our loss.

[Barkeep49]

Yesterday was an HP basketball doubleheader: a practice and a game. We started off with practice in the morning. I got an email Friday telling me that Gavin wouldn’t be there that weekend. No explanation, no nothing. Basically I’ve decided that I should view Gavin as a bonus. Hockey is clearly his #1 sport and he makes it to basketball when he can. Frankly I’d rather not have him at all than have the problem of dealing with the fact that he’s one of our better players, and thinks of himself as such, but doesn’t have the same commitment that the other 10 players do. Also not showing up to practice, and without advance warning, is Ben. Jon tells me he’s sick.

At the start of practice I tell them that if they can make 60 layups, starting from the 3 point line and going on two baskets, in 2 and a half minutes that we won’t do continuous motion. Normally continuous motion is a nonnegotiable part of practice but with the game later in the day and this team having had some endurance issues I decide that giving them a way out is a good idea.

Next I teach them a very simple movement against zone defenses. Basically it’s just a 1-3-1 with the 1 running the baseline while the others swing and penetrate. I tell them that whoever wins in Champs & Chumps later in practice will get to name the play.

We then did our “take away” drill. I think this paid dividends during the game.

We then spend a good amount of time on our shell drill. It was nice because with only 9 players it meant only 1 kid was sitting out at a time. Further it’s a relatively low activity drill, but an important one. So we spend more time on this than normal. While they’re not at the point I’d like, I’m not sure any group of 9 year olds will ever be at the point I’d like. They are definitely getting better with keeping track of their man and the ball and so I started focusing more on the help line.

Next we did the contact layup drill I’d done with GL. Not surprisingly they struggle with it more than GL did, being a year younger smaller and less experienced. Josh W basically dominated this drill staying on the championship court nearly the whole time. We got to the last round and I could tell Jack A was going to win as Josh had tired out and Jack had figured out the drill fairly well. I told them that Josh would get to name our zone offense play even if he lost, though Jack would get the permission from the drill. This mostly appeased Jack who did go on to win. Doing surprisingly poorly in this drill was Jon who basically was on the bottom court the whole time.

We did a couple of games of golf and then concluded with a 4 on 4 full court “no excuses” scrimmage. Probably not the wisest move considering I didn’t want to tire them out.

Overall it was a good practice and I let them know it. I then went home to relax for a few hours and I get a call from Jon and Ben’s mother. She lets me know that BOTH of them have strep throat. So neither of the twins will, understandably, be at the game.

I had warned the team that WK’s gym was small and that good defense would be the key. When I get to the gym I am reminded just how true those words are. The gym is small, with the spectators and the bench practically on the court. During the pregame speech I remind the team that while the court is small that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use the whole court.

WK opens up surprisingly flat in the first quarter and end the quarter with a 6-2 lead. Or rather it would have been 6-2 if Jack A hadn’t made a shot from nearly half court at the buzzer. But then because we’re sporting we let up 4 quick points and we’re back to a close game. They have several players who are much taller than we are. Fortunately we do a good job of keeping them from getting easy shots. Still they catch up giving us a score of 15-12 at half. Each team scores 6 in the third so we maintain a precarious 3 point lead. They start off hot in the fourth and get us down by as much as five. However, Jack A, Zach, and Josh absolutely clamp down on them with some great full court press, which is basically just full court man to man with some permission to double team a player. We claw our way back into it and with a little less than a minute get up by 2, thanks to a gimmick play I had them run. Throughout the 4th we’d been off and on with our press, mostly to keep them off balance. Coming off a time out I tell the players to drop back to half court, let them in bounds the ball and then come up and apply our press. Works like a charm. There’s about 24 seconds left when they get the ball. We get a defensive stop with Zach getting the rebound, but unfortunately they tie him up for a jump ball giving them about 2.5 seconds to run an inbounds play. Fortunately they come up short and we pull out a victory, 33-31.

I was real happy to go to winter break with a victory, especially to also have it be our first road victory. Just as importantly all of the players got substantial playing time and all of them played in the 4th, though I did end the game with our best five (that day) of Zach, Jack A, Jack B, Josh, and Danny for the last 3:45 or so.

Taking a look at our players:

Jacob – Left the game frustrated. He committed a lot of turnovers, as was usual, and failed to come down with any points. That and being our only “big” at the game he was guarding guys considerably bigger and heavier than him and so that likely wore him down as well. I’m going to have to make sure to give him some encouragement after break.

Zach – When he’s playing well he’s our best player. And yesterday he was playing well. He shut down some of their bigger guys. He scored 8 points. He was all over the boards. He stole the ball repeatedly. Caused numerous jump balls. It was wonderful.

Jack A – Thinks he’s a much better shooter than he is. Stole the ball numerous times in the 4th but didn’t score on any of them. He remains raw, but there’s a lot of talent to be had and I think it’s starting to get better.

Josh – Led the team in scoring again with 11 points and led the team in steals. It got him in a little trouble in the first quarter, but he did a better job of moving his feet more in the later quarters.

Henry – Wasn’t at his best and injured himself in the 4th limiting his play time in that quarter, though he wouldn’t have been in at crunch time anyway.

Danny – A surprising non presence this game. He did a good job with his positioning in our defense, but otherwise an unremarkable game.

Adam – Stands around far too much on offense and continues to struggle on defense, though he’s improving there.

Jack B – Quietly went about scoring 8 points. His basketball smarts paid off in the 4th with his being in the right place to score two crucial baskets after we’d forced a turnover on the press.

HP’s record is now 3-2 heading into winter break for about the next 3 weeks. The good news is that when we come back from break we got to two practices a week which will definitely help us.

[Barkeep49]

GL went into our game against WM with confidence. We had played them last year in the HP tourney and beaten them with some ease. WM was also was 0-2 entering into the game. Before the game there was a problem with Cameron, who had never received his away jersey, an issue I’d completely forgotten about. Fortunately, in the end it all worked out as Cameron wore Lucas’s jersey from last year, which only worked as a solution because Jack M had brought HIS jersey from last year.

I went with a starting five of Andrew, David, Dante, Scott, and Jack P. And with 1 minute gone we were up 7-0. This felt more like it. WM called a time out and that killed some of our momentum and they were able to claw their way back into it thanks to the efforts of their very talented #4, who my brother nicknamed “Andre” (as in Andre the Giant). At the end of the first quarter we actually were down 12-9. The good news was that because of WM’s awkward setup it was hard for players to see the score. We came out strong in the second quarter with Andrew, David, and Justin scoring all of our 14 points to take a 23-21 half time lead.

The third quarter was a quick quarter with our scoring only 6 points and their scoring 8 points, all thanks to “Andre”. We got down early in the 4th but clawed our way back into it. We tied it up for good with 30 seconds left in the 4th. We had done some full court pressure, but it didn’t work too well. We really will have to work on how to press because with our speed we need that tool in our arsenal.

We went into the 3 minute over time period and the other team just collapsed, unable to make a shot (and most of them were not very good shots), while we got 4 points, and a couple of other good looks. Fortunately for us the other team was not in foul trouble and so we basically just stalled the last 40 seconds of the game. They did get the ball back with 9 seconds to go and I told my players to basically just stand there with their arms up. Let them shoot the 3 or whatever but don’t foul. Our time dutifully complied, they shot their 3, which missed, and we won. Their coach, who was a real nice guy before the game, was less than gracious after the game.

Frankly we were a lot better than this team. I’m glad we got the win. The question is why we had a close game at all. Part of it was because they made a whole bunch of lucky shots (the ref commented to their coach during the 4th that he should buy a lotto ticket). Part of it seems to be that we let up a little after our initial run and couldn’t regain the energy. But part of it has to be on me. And the frustrating thing is that I don’t know what it is, so I can’t start doing X, Y, Z in order to improve myself or the team. I don’t feel like I made any costly decisions this game, unlike last, so that’s good, but I don’t think I did anything to help us win either.

But perhaps it’s simply exhaustion. This was the last basketball related activity I’d do for 3 weeks. And despite that I still woke up and my mind immediately went to basketball Monday and Tuesday morning. I love the game and enjoy both my teams. However, I need to break badly. After writing this post I am basically done with basketball until our game January 6th and so hopefully I can get recharged.

[Barkeep49]

Well it’s been too long since I’ve last updated. I talked in my last post about the need for a break. I made the very consciencous decision to basically ignore basketball for my 3 weeks off. It was wonderful and exactly what I needed.

Today I’m going to focus on GL. I hope to get an HP update (which will have less to cover) later this week. We reached about the midway point in terms of league games with both teams so I will also be doing a mid-season overview soon.

On to GL’s update. We’ve had 3 games since Winter Break ended and have met with varying levels of success.

GL vs EV
EV is a major city. When I played middle school basketball they were always a team that would just run over us. Anytime my middle school beat any of the EV middle schools every student in the building would know about it since it was a major upset. They are big. They play basketball well.

However, for whatever reason, their 5th grade team is unremarkable. But a problem arises. We are scheduled to play them on the Sunday before winter break ends for GL. And I will be missing the triplets and Justin. In other words four out of my five best players, with only Jack P being there. I attempted to reschedule, with out success, as they claimed they had no open gym time. It was, to say the least, more than a little frustrating.

Still I like the team I have. Jack M and Lucas both played much larger roles for us last season than they have had the chance to play this year. I go into the game cautiously optimistic. My confidence diminishes somewhat when Andrew doesn’t show. That leaves us with 6.

The first quarter we look good. We also have a bizarre sequence where early on the EV coach, for no good reason, rubs the ref the wrong way and gets a technical. It was a completely unjustified call. At the end of the first quarter we’re down 8-6 but that’s because they destroyed us for a bit with their zone trap. We seem to have gotten the hang of how to beat it and I become hopeful that we can contend this game.

Unfortunately the second quarter blows a big hole in that plan. Their trap becomes even more effective and we can’t get a shot to fall. I don’t have the stats in front of me but Jack P reverted back to his old low shooting percentage ways. As we needed more from him I can’t be too surprised about this, especially as most of his shots came from the side, a place that is far more difficult to make it from.

During the 2nd quarter, Andrew’s mother arrived and told me that he was at tennis. Father had been told to pull him from tennis to get to basketball, but had not done so. He was now very upset both about losing at tennis and about being late to the game. She said it sounded like he wasn’t going to show and if that was alright. I pointed out that we had 6 kids and could really use him. He showed up during the 3rd quarter.

And in the 3rd quarter we were playing a 2-3 zone. With the exception of some quick time at a practice on how to beat a zone, I’ve never really taught zone defense. Half time was a crash course in such play. I did it simply because we were now down by 14 and all six of our players were spent. If we were to mount a come back I figured it would have to be in the 4th. I basically hoped it would give our players a chance to rest a little while keeping us, somewhat, in the game. And it did exactly that. We actually ended the 3rd down by 2. A reminder about how dominant zone can be at this age, when a group that is basically unfamiliar with it can learn it well enough to hold a team’s scoring down.

In the 4th I unleashed the dogs. Unfortunately we couldn’t make a shot. We were ALL over them with our press. Lucas played like an absolute demon, stealing the ball any time he got close to it. We played hard and scrappy to the end, losing 40-28, but I couldn’t be upset with how they played. They played their absolute hearts out. Bad shooting, and fatigue did us in. I’m quite confident that with our top 4 there that the game wouldn’t have been close. In fact if we even had 8, I think we’d have won since fatigue wouldn’t have been nearly the issue that it was with 6.

GL vs GV
Due to some other commitments of mine we were forced to only have our 1 hour Monday practice the week back from break. Fortunately we play one of the bottom dwellers, GV, for our first game on Saturday. GV comes out in a bad 1-3-1 which we struggle to beat. Most of our points came off transitions. We were patient with the ball but it was basically just a “pass the ball around the perimeter” fest. Fortunately we just far out striped them in raw ability. Our rust showed pretty clearly as we weren’t intense and we weren’t scrappy. We phoned in a 27-16 victory. I am proud of the fact that we only allowed 16 points. I knew from talking to LS’s coach that GV was a poor shooting team. I told our team that we’d let them take the outside shots and focus on getting rebounds and they did this well. It ought to have been a rout, but our offense just never got started. We won because of superior talent, not because of how we played and I told the team as much. I knew that this sort of lackluster play wouldn’t cut it against AH, who we played that night.

GL vs AH
It’s been interesting that this year in several of our games we’ve come out very strong in the first few minutes before fading a little. This is the exact opposite of what we did last year when we’d start off slow, often very slow, before finding our footing. So for the first few minutes against AH it looked like we might have a shot. But then AH’s superior talent came through as they went on an 11-0 run to end the quarter. We once again played hard for four quarters but were outclassed and lost 40-28. That’s alright as there’s not a lot you can do about that. What I’m more upset about is the fact that we continued to take outside shots against AH’s man to man. We have become afraid to drive and pass inside. Normally the other team is bigger than us, but I refuse to concede the paint, a place we can get to with cuts, screens, and some aggression.

Practice
So it was with that philosophy that I planned yesterday’s practice. As I was sitting at home, I got charged up about basketball for the first time since break. I was upset with how the team played in both games and I became determined to do something about it. This determination showed, I feel, as we had a really good practice.

We had a quick discussion of what we did well in both games, and we could have done better against GV. No one brought up what I consider the most amazing thing we did during the weekend: David, Lucas, and Brian all drew charges against GV. I hadn’t really ever talked about doing this, as I think 5th grade is a little young, but it fit in the general idea of playing tough that is my goal for the week. In recognition of this feat all three players started off even on their permissions/suicides (the motivational/discipline tool I use).

I decided, for the first time I think in my two seasons of coaching, to skip continuous motion at the start of practice. Instead we went right into Animal Rebounding, the drill I use more than any others to promote aggression, and inside play. Next we did a new drill. In this drill players were on two teams and each had a number. One team was on one side of the half court circle, the other on the opposite side. I would then roll a basketball towards one side and call a number and then roll the basketball to the other side and call a different number. The players whose numbers I called played 1 on 1 for 15 seconds. If they scored their team got a point. No score equaled no point for their team. They really enjoyed this drill. Brian and Scott both moaned that their opponents were fouling. In Brian’s case he was slightly justified as Andrew plays rough, but mostly legal; part of it just is that Brian doesn’t like contact. On the other hand, Lucas, bringing his hockey skills to bear, knows how to be dirty without getting caught. I warned him his team would lose substantial points if I saw him playing dirty. Scott issued no more complaints after that. It was noticed how Tom didn’t score frequently but neither did he let his opponent score much either.

We then did another drill, which I don’t recall what it was. Finally we ended with some 3 on 2, 2 on 3. We hadn’t done this for a while, but it proved to be quite successful. They played hard on defense, and did the sort of things on offense that are required for success. I was quite pleased.

We end our practice with those needing to run, running, and went home. Wednesday will, with the exception of some work on our half court trap, be more physical drills, but fun ones. Hopefully they’ll be tough and excited for the games this weekend. More on these games, and a midseason review of the players, to come soon (most likely tonight).

[rjolley]

I remember a variation of the number-calling 1-on-1 contest. Fun times.

The 3 on 2, 2 on 3 sounds similar to the continuous fast break drill we ran. A very good drill to teach the defense to work hard until help gets there in the form of a trailing defender.

Glad to hear the seasons moving along well. Tough losses, but that happens. Sometimes, the other team is just better, no matter how hard you play.

[Barkeep49]

RJ: Thanks for the feedback. I think though we might be thinking of different things with 2 on 3, 3 on 2.

For this drill there are 5 players on the court for a team. Three are in the frontcourt, 2 in the back court. So when the ball is in the front court it's a 3 on 2. The two must then get the ball across half court, with both players having touched the ball in bounds, while the three attempt to steal.

[rjolley]

Yeah, that's what I pictured from your mention of it earlier. Sounds like a lot of fun.

We ran a drill a little different. For this one, there would be 3 on 2. When the defense got control of the ball, he would have to make a good outlet pass to the next player, and then it would be 3 on 2 the other way. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Our continuous fast break was similar.

You'd start off with 3 on 2, maybe from a 3 man weave, maybe starting from just beyond half court. Once the ball crossed half court, the next player on the team would have to run and touch center court from the sideline, then sprint to help his teammates while they tried to stop the other team. When the team scored, or there was a turnover, the 3 would fast break the other way, with 2 defenders waiting and a third waiting to come in and help.

Ah, the memories of playing hard so that you didn't have to run sprints after the drill...and the chance to give your teammates a little grief over a good block or a good shot.

[Barkeep49]

Half way through the season seems like a good time to take stock of where the teams are at. First up is GL. I am doing this from work, so I have no stats in front of me, and am instead doing this based on my recollection, except for what I can get from the league website.

Team Overall
We stand at 5-3. A record of 10-6 would likely give us the somewhere between the 4th and 6th seeds in the playoffs. There’s good news there though. The winning percentage of the teams we’ve lost to is .710 and the teams we’ve beat is .406 with an overall total of .510. Basically in losing to WK and AH we’ve lost to two of the strongest teams in the conference. The EV loss is just unfortunate. A good test will be this weekend against LV. They’re 6-0. They likely think they’re hot stuff. But 5 of their 6 victories come against teams in the bottom 6 places. They’ve also beat LS. In other words, LV is exactly the sort of team, like LS, that we need to beat, to show that we belong in a strong second tier versus a middling tier. But basically we’re an upper half of the conference team. This is better than I expected. I expected to be somewhere between 7-9 and 9-7. At this point, and based on our remaining schedule (the winning percentage of our remaining opponents is only .400) I’d be disappointed with 9-7. My goal is 11-5 though 13-3 would not be unreasonable. So overall the team is exceeding my pre-season expectations, but basically meeting my in-season expectations, in that we’ve won the games I’d expected to win, lost the three I expected to lose, though I’m still proud at how close we came to an upset against WK.

The Players

Andrew – He’s shown slow, but steady progress over the season. He fancies himself a much better shooter than the statistics show, especially at the free throw line. He’ll miss shot after shot after shot, even in practice, but still think he can make it. I support the positive attitude, since to a certain extent it does make him better than he would be otherwise. His big problem is that he stand around far too often on offense, waiting for someone to pass to him so he can take his shot. He’s working hard to improve on defense, though I feel those demands have never really been made on him before. I think it’s a shame that he wasn’t on our team last year since I think he’d have grown a lot as a player on that team. Alas. I see him having a lot room for growth, even if he only continues his steady advancement.

Brian – I’m glad Winter Break was when it was. Brian and I had had a few problems before break and the time off likely did us both good, though more him than I since I tend to be good about letting bygones be bygones. During the first part of the season he played well on offense. His commitment to defense wasn’t what I wanted it to be, and this was indeed the source of a lot of our tension. He’ll take too many risks & not move around like he should. I would, however, still consider him one of our top 5 players, but he’d be the 5th on that list. But the bigger problem, as alluded to above, is not his ability but his attitude. He’s a pessimist through and through and he shares his pessimism out loud and in a cancerous sort of way. I hope to do a better job of coaching him in the second half of the season to mitigate his negative aspects. But, as always, it’s a balancing act. Hopefully the two of us won’t fall down.

Cameron – Since break he’s decided he’s a shooter. So he’s shot a bunch of shots. And made about 2. Perhaps he could shoot, if he were shooting closer. His shooting arc, for instance, is much improved. His shots all look good, but keep missing. I have decided we’re beyond simply luck. I made a comment about it at yesterday’s practice to him. I expect we’ll see some change there. His defense has improved dramatically from the start of the season, but that’s not surprising. Basically whatever we work on at practice improves with Cameron since this is his first serious basketball season. He basically plays 7-10 minutes a game, but this doesn’t seem to phase him in the least.

Dante – Dante’s been a disappointment. He looked from tryouts and early practices, like a greatly improved player from last year. In reality he’s turned out to be the 5th grade version of what he was last year. He can sometimes have a soft accurate shooting touch. But he is slow. He disappears against bigger players. He fails to pull down the amount of rebounds you’d hope from somebody of his size. Even worse his free throw shooting has gone from rock solid to mediocre and I haven’t been able to figure out what he’s doing differently to help him get back on track. Still he’s a great kid to have on the team. I have found that playing him and Justin together often allows Dante to play better than he would otherwise, though this of course doesn’t help in terms of spelling Justin either from fatigue, or when he’s having a bad day.

David – A step above every other player on the team. However, at this higher level he’s simply incapable of consistently taking over a game at will. He still can take over a game, as he showed for a bit against AH and WK, but it’s not necessarily something which can be sustained. His inability to shed defeners has meant that he’s start taking a lot more outside shots hurting his overall efficiency. Turnovers had been a problem for him at the start of the season, but it’s gotten better, as he rises to the competition. Part of that is that I’ve avoided playing him, for the most part, at point guard until the second half. This lets him get in a groove without trying to force it too much. He’s gotten frustrated with me at times due to my tactical weaknesses at times. However, while the frustration is apparent to me, he keeps it to himself. His own struggles have meant that he’s not quite the active team leader he once was, despite still holding that position in the eyes the other players due to his skill.

Jack M – I give Jack a lot of credit. He’s matured quite a bit. I really worried what kind of effect he’d have on the team. While he was clearly discouraged in the game against AH where we were down by a lot in the 4th, he’s coping with it better. When we did all sorts of physical drills in practice, the sort that he would whine about incessantly last year, he said not a peep despite getting roughed up due to his small size. He’s the shortest player on the team and being short presents obstacles, but rather than complain and moan, he works to overcome them. I really didn’t expect it from him. I’ve rewarded him with additional starts, verbal praise, and try to get him as much playing time as possible. If he were playing Small Fry, or some other competition where he wouldn’t be dwarfed as much as he is, he’d likely be a star. I really hope he grows.

Jack P – He was doing better before winter break. He played particularly slow on Saturday. But overall we needed him to make a higher percentage of his shots while still keeping his explosiveness. He’d done this. His potential is quite high, but he’s not quite part of the social fabric of the team, which means that he doesn’t get the credit he deserves from the other players. This is nothing new. Still I’ve been happy with the progress he’s shown in taking his play to the next level and will be encouraging him to continue to do this.

Justin – He feels most comfortable on the perimeter with the ball. He’s got a sweet shot, so it’s hard to discourage this, but I think I’m going to have to, to a certain extent. We need him inside grinding away. Being a physical presence inside isn’t easy for him, but unlike Dante he’s not quite as soft, despite being nearly a rail. He’s so eager to learn I feel like I’ve failed him in that I don’t get him the 1 on 1 attention that he craves and could benefit from. Having him in the game generally makes us a much better than when he’s not in the game.

Lucas – Lucas, until very recently, had been the biggest disappointment. You might recall that when I thought I’d be losing the triplets (see note below about this) I had faith that he could be our dominant player. I hadn’t seen that. Until our game against EV. And it was then that I remembered something crucial about Lucas: he needs sustained playing time. Some players do better when they play a little, rest some, play some more. That’s how I am. Lucas is the opposite. It takes him a while to get in the flow of a game. I am hoping that EV is a turning point in that it reminded Lucas what he can do and also reminded me of how to use him.

Scott – Definitely the most underrated player on the team. It seems trite but he wants it more than the others seem to, but is happy to be in the background while his brothers get the limelight. He is simply too small to shut down kids much bigger than him as he used to be able to do, but he still has that post player mentality. He’s BY far the toughest player on the team. Not sure how much he’s improved so far this season, though.

Tom – Tom breaks my heart. He thinks so poorly of himself and he knows that others disagree with him, but he feels what he feels. He doesn’t realize how special he is, which is, to be fair, part of what makes him special. All that is old news. We were talking before the game against GV and he told me that he doesn’t enjoy team sports. And I believe it. He said that he’s just kind of in the pattern of signing up for the team so then he plays and when it comes time to sign up again he does, but he doesn’t enjoy it. I tried to find out, unsuccessfully, whether he doesn’t enjoy playing in the games (as he feels the pressure) or whether he just doesn’t enjoy the whole experience. But this is the kid who when we’re doing chants on the sidelines does it wholeheartedly and with abandon such that it draws in even kids like Brian and Jack M, who aren’t naturally inclined to such rah rah antics late in the game when they’re not in it. And the sad thing is he belongs. He can be an absolute shutdown defender. More than that his shot looks so pretty yet is off and I’m simply not a good enough coach to figure out what he is doing wrong, which upsets me.

The Coach

I do some things well. Problem is that I do a lot of things not so well. Like knowing the perfect way to counter a 1-3-1? I forget sometimes. It’s not engrained with me. I have to work at it. And I do work at things. That determination to be better is one of my strengths as a coach. But the problem is that with my coaching two teams I’m distracted. And I was burned out. It wasn’t until I was planning yesterday’s practice that I got a fire and drive and a vision of what I needed to do for the first time since the season started. But that was, to a certain extent, because I was able to focus on just GL. The mental space that I’d devoted to learning and growing my use of tactics? That’s all be taken up by my mental space doing the big picture stuff, the stuff I’m good at, with another team.

The other problem is that I don’t do nearly enough 1 on 1 stuff. Some kids like Justin beg me for it, and of course I help them then. But others who could use the help don’t get it. And that’s a shame, since I do have skills to offer them. Skills that I hate taking away practice time to teach, since it’s so valuable and there always seems to be some other more pressing need that we need to work on and improve. It’s a time like this that I miss having an assistant coach who I could turn over a group drill to while I do some work with a player or even vice versa.

My coaching two teams though has caused this team to suffer. But I think that just might be the way it has to be. I give myself a C- as a coach so far this season. The things that I’ve done well come from my understanding of knowing that if a team does X its chances of victory are greater, where other coaches might not always appreciate the importance of X. For instance I think our lack of scrimmages helps us far more than it hurts us, since it frees up time for other, more focused activities. I think my emphasis on having a high shooting percentage as a team is a HUGE advantage for us over other teams. But beyond these lessons I just don’t think I do such a good job of growing their skills. On my list of priorities then, I do poorly on #1, improving their skills, I do very well on #2, having fun, and #3, winning games, I do pretty well in how I prepare a team even if my in-game tactics don’t help us as much as they ought to.

Looking Forward

This weekend should be an interesting one for us. We play MP2, which seems to only barely belong in the A conference, on Saturday. We should beat them in a game that I would think would be like GV: We’re comfortably ahead the whole game though never feel dominating or in control. On Sunday we play LV. I really don’t know how good they are. This is a game that’s a must win for us. It’s a game I’d be hyping a lot more were it not for what comes on Tuesday. On Tuesday, with no practice on Monday due to Martin Luther King Day, we play JCC. A JCC team that I’ve learned not only tried to recruit away the triplets, but, according to Brian who would definitely know such things, tried to recruit Lucas with the lie that the triplets had already gone over to JCC. They are, not just rivals, but our arch enemies. Hopefully good will win over evil.

Coming soon, an update on HP’s last game and on Thursday (most likely) a midseason report for them.

[rjolley]

When we faced a 1-3-1 set, we countered starting with 2 out top, 2 big men at the elbows, and a swing man roaming the baseline. The guards look to the baseline for the swing man. Once it goes to the wing, the post players should get to high-low. This can be done with a simple slide and replace, the strong side post can go pick for the weak side, then roll opposite, or the weak side can flash hard to the strong side post. From here, the swing man can look for either post, rotate the ball back through the strong side guard, or look for the skip pass. You can also have some guard action of picks, if you like.

From your lineup, I would think David would do very well as the swing man, Justin and Scott in the posts, and maybe Jack M and Tom on the top. Basically, the swing should be your best shooter and passer, the big men should be able to pass well, and the guards should be good shooters.

One of the soft points of a 1-3-1 is the corners. If the back defender comes out to guard the corner, then a good pass into the post, high or low, or a skip pass to the weakside guard will be open. If the wing comes down to guard him, then a quick swing of the ball should find one of the guards open, or possibly the post men if they're moving to open spots. The one thing the swing man can't do is hold the ball too long. He'll be prone to a trap in the corner.

Sorry, didn't mean to step on your coaching. Just thinking of one of the ways we would attack that zone. We would attack a one guard on top zone (1-3-1, 3-2 in most cases, 1-2-2) with 2 guards and a swing man, and a two guard on top zone (2-3) with 1 guard and 2 wings. Always worked well in practice, and, for the most part, in games.

[Barkeep49]

Thanks for sharing your tactical wisdom. Basically we have been attacking from the corners with the 1-3-1. However, they simply don't have the shooting range for the kind of shots they get.

[rjolley]

Yeah, that's a problem sometimes at that age group and the reason a 1-3-1 is very effective at that level. If you have post players who'll move for the ball and will pick for other players, and perimeter players who can pass the ball, you can get some open midrange looks. Also, found a couple of pages (http://www.coachesclipboard.net/131zoneoffense.html and http://www.guidetocoachingbasketball...king_zones.htm) that have some 1-3-1 offenses.

If your low post player can get the back line guy on his back, your swing man can take a few dribbles in and shoot in front of him. If the defender gets around him, a good pass to the post should be open. And the high post player should be open if he takes a step down the lane. Have to watch spacing, though.

Without good shooters, they should pack in the zone. At that point, setting a pick for the swing man and patience are the keys. And passing the ball into the high post to a good passer can open up a lot of things.

A zone can be very frustrating when run correctly. But if you get the defense to move, openings should come. Then, it's up to the players to make good decisions and to take good shots.

(If I'm saying too much, just let me know. Talking basketball tactics is one of the things I enjoy about the sport.)

[Barkeep49]

Sorry for the lateness of this update. I’ve been very busy lately and just haven’t had time to write this up. However, with an unexpected stomach bug keeping home from work today I’ve finally got the time.

After the behemoths of last night I was a little worried about what we’d face today. Fortunately looking at the team they weren’t nearly as intimidating as their 5th grade counterparts. HP was holding a 6th grade tournament and so we were playing after one of those games.

I decided to start the five players who were at both practices (only seemed fair) so it was Adam, Jacob, Ben, Jon, and Jack B getting the nod at the start of the game. I was not excited about this group of 5, but they did really well. Of particular note was Adam whose defense was noteworthy. In fact it was the first time he played like I’d seen him play in house league. Perhaps he’s adjusting to the size and speed of the game, at last.

The game is close in the first half actually ending tied at half time. The bad news is that we got into extreme foul trouble. The refs called a weird game with all too many jump balls, but that doesn’t excuse our fouls. I give one of my better half time speeches. I go over to the book to look at how things are and I discover that their #3 is basically their whole offense. I tell my team to focus on him, with his having scored 8 of their 14 points. The third quarter does not go our way and we’re down 25-22 heading into the 4th. The 4th quarter is just insane. Our offense clicks with tons of different kids scoring. We keep getting to with-in 1 but never manage to close the gap all together. In the end it’s our fouls that od us in with their team going 7-8 in the 4th. In particular we fould #3 all too often and he made us pay for it.

It was a disappointing loss because it was a close game and we just couldn’t pull it out. The refs didn’t help with several seemingly obvious fouls against AH not being called in the second half. Oh well.

Quick run down of our players:

Jacob – Continues to get good wide open shots and continues to fail to make them. Was a little better in the post than normal

Job – Made 4 foul shots for us and a 4th quarter basket. One of his better games

Zach – After a poor first half I had him concentrate on running the baseline and this proved more successful for him. In fact on the first play after I told him to do this he got a wide open shot (which he missed) and Jack B was like “Good coaching, Coach”. I told him after the game to expect me to use him more in this way in the future.

Jack A – Fouled out and really didn’t play that well. Got very upset about fouling out.

Josh – Played well in the 4th but had looked lack luster until then.

Ben – Probably our MVP having scored 6 points in the second to keep us in the game.

Henry – A non factor on offense and defense

Gavin – Sat a lot, but played fairly well in the 4th, despite letting his temper get the best of him. In fact he cost us a realistic shot at a 3 by slamming the ball down after they made a shot with 8 seconds left. I was NOT pleased.

Danny – Didn’t turn the ball over a ridiculous amount so that’s improvement right there, and added 4 points to boot.

Adam – Played some terrific defense in the 1st and grabbed some crucial 4th quarter rebounds, quite impressive considering his size.

Jack B – Not one of his best games, not really having done anything on offense or defense for us.

We have two games this weekend, tomorrow against WG, and Sunday against MP. I hope to get the mid season review up before the game tomorrow, but we’ll see.

[Barkeep49]

RJ: Not too much talking at all. We actually did a couple of drills focusing on getting the ball into the post even with heavy pressure on Wednesday. This included a post passing drill where they simply tried to feed the ball into the post as much as possible in 30 seconds, and also a 5 on 5 game where they could only score in the paint and one step outside of it, below the free throw line. I am hopeful we'll do better getting inside shots this weekend. In fact I'm hoping that we control MP2 enough that I can institute post shots only in the 4th, but I don't want to get ahead of myself .

[Barkeep49]

Well I just got home from GL’s game against MP2. The good news was that before our game, NF was playing MP in 4A. MP is HP’s 4A opponent tomorrow so I got some scouting time in.

Before the game I decided to go with “hockey subs” for the first half. I figured that MP2 shouldn’t be as good as us and so I wanted to make sure that all of my players got some quality playing time. I decided I was going to sell it to the team as the idea that we didn’t play all that intensely last weekend and so this would give them the chance to be intense for 2-3 minutes. I wanted to see all out ball for the time.

The first quarter went well with our team scoring numerous transition baskets. However, we were fouling like crazy. In the second quarter we didn’t do well responding to their press at all, turning it over numerous times which lead to a lot of easy baskets. After being up virtually the entire first quarter we entered half time down by 1.

At half time I talked about how in MP couldn’t keep up with us and so that the second they got the rebound or the ball they should be thinking about getting it up court. It was the 3rd quarter that made all the difference. They couldn’t sink a shot nor could they ever seem to setup on defense before we’d gotten back. They only scored 1 in the quarter but that was due more to misses than our being good. Our 14 points, however, was not luck. I felt real good entering the 4th up now 29-17.

I gave lots of playing time to Cameron, Tom, Andrew, and Jack M who’d gotten less playing time than they deserve in other games. David only saw about 1 and half minutes in the 4th yet still managed to score 4 points. They made a nice little mini-comeback in the last minute of the game, narrowing our lead from 10-7, but even then I had one of my weakest 5 out there.

All in all a good solid victory. In fact it’s our game all season where I felt like we were in control, except for the second quarter. And I think a big part of that was the hockey subs. In the 3rd when we made our run, we were fresh and ready to go. They, however, had exhausted themselves with their press in the second. If I’d wanted we could have won a lot more, but like I said I gave lots of playing time to players who hadn’t played as much.

This was the sort of solid victory I wanted, and expected, heading into tomorrow’s must-win against LV.

[rjolley]

As a post player, any drill that stress my teammates get the ball into the post is a great drill.

[Barkeep49]

I didn't mention this explicitly but our work in getting the ball into the post, and driving, in general, paid off. We shot only a few jump shots, and they were mostly from reasonable distance, and after we'd worked the ball some. It was extremely gratifying to see what we'd done in practice pay off in the game.

[Barkeep49]

After the very satisfying win against MP2, I was excited for HP’s game against WG. I know that they, based on their record, weren’t a great team. We would only have 7 players for the game, with Jack A at a soccer tournament, and family obligations for the twins and Gavin.

The good news was that WG wasn’t a big team, except for one player who was just an absolute monster. I knew he’d be a problem for us. The first quarter was a back and forth affair, ending up with us down 7-5.

Then in the second we took off scoring numerous baskets in transition and having the good fortune of having Adam, who has surprisingly emerged as our best free throw shooter, getting fouled on a couple of shots allowing him to go 3/4 from the line. Even better our defense was ferocious. We got their dominant player into foul trouble and the team just didn’t play well with out him. We took a 13-7 lead going into half. That’s correct: we didn’t allow a point the entire second quarter.

Unfortunately that’s all we had. Josh had sat out most of the first half after rolling his ankle in the first quarter, so he was fresh for the second half. Unfortunately their center, #50, took over the game. By the 4th quarter we were just sluggish. Our defense wasn’t as strong as we needed it to be. We were down by 5 with less than 30 seconds to go. We managed to get a lay-up. We then came VERY close to get a 5 second violation which would have set us up for a 3 point attempt, but unfortunately it didn’t work out. We then almost did get another 3 point chance at the end of the game, but Josh couldn’t make it happen and so we lost a disappointing game.

After feeling so good about the coaching I’d done with GL it was a particularly depressing game against WG. We committed a ridiculous amount of turnovers. Worse, I wasn’t on my coaching A game and Brian was there watching and commenting. In other words I didn’t look good in front of my boss. It was particularly frustrating. I went home upset at their lack of conditioning and upset with myself for not being a better tactical coach.

The next day is a new chance as we play MP, a team which I got to see Saturday against NF. I learned that they basically run variations on the pick and roll over and over again and who their 3 best players were. It was good information to have.

I had decided that night that after our running out of steam that hockey subs would be the way to go and so that’s what I do. I prepare a group of 4 and a group 5, expecting to have the twins back for the game.

And the first quarter starts off with us really pushing hard, exactly what I wanted to see. And then weirdness ensues. About 45 seconds into the game the ref gives MP a warning about no pressing. It seemed pretty unjustified, as 4th graders aren’t always the quickest to make the transition. I was surprised, but figured big deal. Game goes on. About 2 and a quarter minutes in, with my first group of 5 ready to sub in, one of their players does the MILDEST of presses and the ref t’s them up. Their coach is understandably upset but argues in a completely respectful sort of way. The coach then says something to his players and HE gets t’ed up. Absurd. Fortunately I know my rules and so I get Adam into the game to shoot the FTs. He misses the first two but makes the second two after I tell him that technicals are the hardest free throws to make. For a kid that age having everyone staring at you when you are the only player around has to be unnerving.

The first quarter proceeds with us playing an upbeat tempo and MP just not able to handle us on offense. We are up 12-8 at the quarter. In the second quarter they sort of collapse and we take a 20-12 lead going into half. Their coach does a good job of calming them at half but the rest of the game is essentially a wash with a final score of 28-21. In the end we wore down, we didn’t have the energy in the 4th that we had early on, but fortunately we’d built up enough of a lead that it didn’t matter.

Assorted notes:

Zach had a sudden asthma attack at the end of the WG game. That certainly didn’t help us in the waning moments. Fortunately he’s fine. I told him he needed to let me know if he’s ever feeling the symptoms so I can get him out. He said that it came on suddenly. He played without issue against MP.

We were warming up in the side gym before the game against MP. I went into the main gym briefly to give our official roster and when I come back Gavin’s dad is coaching the team on man to man defense. Gavin’s dad, as you might recall, was very hot to help at the start of the season, however, he was gently rebuffed. Now Gavin was a surprise show up since his mom had said he would be unavailable all weekend. Anyway so Gavin’s dad is in there giving advice about not turning their backs on man. I tell him I would prefer him not to say anything so that there is a clear message. He responds that he wasn’t doing any harm and that the team doesn’t know how to play man defense. Now, this is where I should have been less nice. Here’s a guy whose kid has missed several games, who can’t come to practices on one of our scheduled days, and whose kid had missed several of the practices on the day he could come, lecturing me. And if this had happened after the game I would have realized he was talking about his own kid, who, no surprise considering how much practice has been missed, doesn’t know how to play man. This has stayed with me a bit and I am progressively more upset about it. Ok so maybe I was better off, given this guy’s temper, of being nice. My response simply was that we worked hard at it every practice & we’re getting better. He backed down after this, thankfully.

Jacob finally got some of his shots to fall, thankfully. Next to Gavin, his parents are definitely the highest maintenance so his success combined with team success makes my life easier.

We shot the fewest shots all season that made we wince.

Jack B continues to just sort of disappear out there. He plays great defense, on and off ball, which is worth something. However, his short size means that he sometimes gets scored on because of that. And he’s not been in the right place, as he was earlier in the season, for a good look on offense.

[Barkeep49]

GL had a couple games last weekend that I have not gotten around to writing up. I hope to find time this week to do that.

This weekend HP participated in a tournament sponsored by AH. The fourth grade bracket was the largest of the tournament with 12 teams participating. It was structured such that we would play 3 games in pool, with the winner of each pool plus a wild card advancing.

Our pool consisted of a team who I wasn’t familiar with, SC, JCC”s 4th grade team, and PL, which I thought was the one we played, but in the end I think was the PL in the B league (there was no A and B bracket for 4th grade). The games would consist of 2 twenty minute halves. The clock would only stop on timeouts, and in the last minute of the first half, and the last two minutes of the second half.

Our first game was against SC. If you could call it a game. They pressed right from the start, despite tournament rules having suggested this wasn’t the case with 4th grade. Basically the game was over in the first five minutes. I had decided to go with hockey subs, aka subbing out all of the players every 2-3 minutes. The game was never close, but we played extremely hard the whole time. We made particularly good use of the bounce pass to beat their zone on several occasions. We were outclassed by this team. In fact I would be bold enough to say GL would have trouble against this team. After the game the coach spoke very complementarily about our team. I felt the same. The game was a blow-out, but we never stopped trying. It was good to see, despite the 46-22 final score.

Our next game was against JCC’s 4th grade team. And we played just horrendously. I started us off with a press, which was meaningless and led to some uncontested layups. We were finding decent, but not great, shots on offense that we then missed. We were down by 6 at half. I had decided not to do hockey subs in the second half in hopes that we could get back into it. We came out in the second half and played even worse. With 8 minutes left we were down by 12, after having been down by as much as 15. Remember that in a normal league game if we score 12 points in a 7 minute quarter, with the clock stopping the whole time, we’d have done fairly well. Starting at about 10 minutes I had become a broken record of “Get the ball”. Finally at the 8 minute mark, after my having said it probably 20 times by that point, we started going for the ball. And we just started on a completely improbable comeback. Basically we just out play JCC, with them missing the few shots that they do get off. With just under 35 seconds left we get to with-in two. However, we get two good shots at the end, one of which was basically a wide open Jack A shot inches from the basket, that we can’t get to fall. We lose.

After the game I have to decide on what version to give the post game speech. I decide to end it on a negative note, the opposite of what I normally do. I complement team on the amazing effort they showed during the last 8 minutes of the game, and everyone had gotten playing time in that stretch even if I did rely more on a core of Josh, Zach, Jack A, and Danny to get it done for us. But I then really point out that the only reason we needed to make an improbable comeback was because of our weak play in the first 32 minutes. That we should never have put ourselves in that position to begin with. I tell them to all get a good night’s sleep so that we can come out playing better during Sunday’s games.

This morning we play PL’s B team. And just as it was a mismatch between us and SC, it was a mismatch between us and PL. We were up by 10 after 5 minutes, and that was as close as they ever got, despite the fact that I had us start to play defense inside the three point arc and in the second half told them to only take shots in the key (which they only semi-listened to). We win 40-19 and I’m proud of the type of game I saw.

That leaves us with our “cross-over” game to finish out the tourney. We end up playing SC’s B team. The game is a nail biter the whole way, with no team ever having a lead of more than 4 points. SC is taken aback by our frantic pace at first, but their coach ends up employing his own “hockey subs” to compensate in the second half, to great effect. Unfortunately, SC is a fast team and so they minimize the number of layups we’re able to convert off of our steals. Further, they do a good job of getting the ball up the court at the end of the game for some easy points. But the real story of the game was the foul trouble we got ourselves into. They were in double bonus for a substantial part of the second half. Jon got 4 fouls in the first half, meaning he basically sat most of the second half. Danny and Jack A managed to foul out. It wasn’t good. In the end we just couldn’t pull through and lose by 5, thanks to some late free throws they made.

SC was, most likely, a better talented team than we were. The fact that we were able to make it a competitive game, despite only having 9 players, and less effectively during the second half due to foul trouble, speaks well. Overall I’m happy with how we played. However, we need to win more of these close games. The team wonders about itself. I am hopeful that the HP tourney, which is only going to have 5 or 6 teams, could be a chance for us to get a surprise 1st or 2nd.

Taking a look at our players individually for the weekend:

Adam: He’s really growing. He continues to be clueless what to do when we’re not on the fast break. However, his defense has improved dramatically EXCEPT that he can’t guard a cutter to save his life. He must have given up 10 points on give and gos in the SC game. Just utterly clueless. That said he does a good job of pressuring and stealing the ball while committing almost no fouls.

Ben & Jon: They struggle more with our more upbeat play and are good at intercepting passes and helping on defense, but struggle with guarding a player with the ball. On offense they aren’t quite as fast as others and do better with the chance to cut and move, which is something we need to do more of. They have an nontraditional shot which is quite ugly, if effective for the moment, and one that I’m working with them on changing.

Danny: He’s done a much much better job of not being reckless with the ball. This is good because he’s able to dribble with the ball at about 95% of his sprinting speed, and his sprinting speed is fairly fast. He’s particularly adept at intercepting in bounds passes, but struggles, as in this game, at getting in front of the ball and stealing without fouling. He was not much of a factor at all on offense this weekend. His dad and I talked today at breakfast (which we went to in-between games) about the need for him to look to pass rather than just drive.

Gavin: Once again was out of town due to hockey. Basically I’ve just decided that he’s not around enough to treat as an equal member of the team. While we will continue to do hockey subs, he will sit out more frequently than others. I will be letting him know this next Saturday when he is at practice. It’s a shame because he’s definitely one of the best players on the team. But he’s not made the commitment others have, his play has suffered for it, and it’s simply not fair to the kids who have made the commitment.

Henry: Henry is a bit of a ball hog. He takes ever shot he thinks he can get away with, with many that he’d have been better off not taking. The frustrating thing is that he can’t make his layups on the fast break. He was open NUMEROUS times during the JCC, PL, and SC B games for layups and he made only a couple of the shots. It’s a frustrating thing all around. I also had to give it to him on the bench during the JCC game for being negative. He got the message and improved there the rest of the weekend.

Jacob: He’s finding shots in his range, and making them. More than any other player on the team, he’s taken my preaching of using your legs along with a high arc to heart, and so I feel fairly good about the improvement I’ve helped to contribute to in his game. Of course, he’s still a defensive liability, unable to really shut down kids who are even slightly bigger than he is, though he’s doing a better job of rebounding against those bigger kids.

Jack A: He’s raw, but he plays ferociously. Right now his defense is better than his offense, but his offense is making progress. His blown shot at the end of the JCC game was just heart breaking, absolutely heart breaking. He missed Saturday’s practice because he mistakenly thought we had a game. It’s a shame since we worked on driving and kicking it out, a skill that he could sorely use help on improving. He’s got a weird gait, such that it constantly seems like he’s injured when he’s jogging up the court, and he tends to display the all too typical 9 y/o behavior of over exaggerating his injuries. That said he’s a big reason why our all out going for the ball works, since he’s single minded in that effort. Sometimes this is a problem on defense, but happily teams didn’t exploit that this weekend.

Jack B: He’s benefited from our upbeat pace, which has opened up the court and allowed him to do the little things, particularly on defense, that he does so well. He’s got the best court vision on the team, but doesn’t quite have the ball handling skills to execute on that court vision, which is why he has found himself usurped by others at point. Still it was good to see him pull down numerous rebounds this weekend, and generally be a defensive menace. I hadn’t liked his play lately and this was a real positive turn.

Josh: His dad thinks he’s lazy. I can’t really disagree. Part of this means his conditioning isn’t what it should be. He is probably the best outside shooter we have on the team, but since I so actively discourage outside shots, that’s not the greatest skill to have on our team. That said he does much better in our aggressive “get the ball” defense than when we play a more regular man to man. He doesn’t commit the effort required there. Hopefully at some point he’ll mature in this respect.

Zach: He was feeling ill on Saturday and missed our games today. He would have been the difference in the SC B game. He remains our most complete player, and does an excellent job of shutting down kids much bigger than he on defense. His play was a big reason we got back into the game against the JCC. It was a real shame not to have him today.

HP’s schedule remains brutal. Next weekend we face undefeated NF, and then have the HP tourney. We could beat NF, I feel, with a good game, and a respectable showing in the HP tourney is possible given the small size. Hopefully we can make all that happen.

[Barkeep49]

If I haven't already I'm pretty damn close to losing GL and I am fairly despondent about that fact.

[Barkeep49]

It’s been a while since I’ve written an update on GL except for my short update. Basically Brian had gotten out of control at practice this had a negative effect overall on the team and their concentration. I had not been terribly happy with the team’s performance since winter break except for the MP2 game. We beat LV the following day 34-32, in a game we almost blew. That Tuesday we played our arch-rival JCC, and they basically were in control the whole game earning a 5 point victory. Last weekend we played HP. We took an easy 25-18 victory, brought only that close thanks to a late 3.

The common theme to all of these games is the lack of a killer instinct that defined us so well last season. It seems as though we were merely going through the motions, coasting more on talent than anything else. And frankly I’ve got to think that’s my coaching in some way. In some way I’ve either failed to find the right motivational buttons to push, or even worse, my coaching has made them worse. However, considering that HP has only got more aggressive as the season has gone on, I don’t think it’s that my coaching has made them worse.

So here I’ve been generally unhappy with the team. And it hasn’t meant much because we’ve been winning. Actually in some ways it’s worse because I’ve been unhappy with the team, and the team has been winning, meaning there’s a disconnect between how the team sees itself and how I’m seeing it. I resolved after HP game that something I needed to do was have more fun coaching the team. I was not having fun, and part of that was because of the attitude problems. But if I started having fun that would, I hoped, break the cycle and help mitigate the attitude issues I was having. Also of help with the attitude? Brian did not play against HP after I sent Dad a long email outlining his unacceptable behavior at just one practice. I was quite hopeful going into last Wednesday’s practice that we’d have a good practice before the HP tourney (we had no gym space on Monday). But Wednesday’s practice was canceled due to a snow storm, so we went the week before the HP tourney with-out a practice.

And so this weekend we had the HP tourney. And all of the things I’ve feared finally came to pass. We lost our first tourney game to an inferior team composed mainly of players from MP and MP2. We got down by 10. We attempted a comeback, with 2 three’s by Andrew being a big help, but came up 2 points short. We then got annihilated by LS. You would never know that we’d beaten them twice. Of course the next day they went on to beat AH, so clearly they’re a team which has improved considerably. The LS game was an example of a game where we were just outclassed. Those games don’t bother me. However, because of the tournament structure after we lost to LS we basically were eliminated from advancing. And so it goes back to the first game where we lost to a team that we beat. The good news, or at least I think it’s good news, is that we beat the final team in our pool. This team had beaten both of the other two teams and had the #1 seed out of our pool so it’s not like they were a bad team. I’m glad that we didn’t finish 0-3, but at the same time I can’t help but wonder if that won’t interfere with the wake-up call.

This weekend should be interesting. We play three teams all in the bottom half of the standings. Will we once again go out and play just good enough to win or will we play up to the talent level that we have?

I don’t know. I do know that coaching has, as of late, brought me very little joy. I have to write-up a few HP games, but basically the story is the same one that it’s been all season: they play their hearts out, even if they’re not always playing well, but that frequently just isn’t good enough and they lose. And worse than that is the fact that the games Brian has been at, HP has played particularly poorly. I keep feeling like we’re on the edge of getting over the hump, but we just can’t do it ever and that is incredibly frustrating.

So I have a talented team which is underperforming and another team which isn't underperforming but neither are they making progress. It's just a maddening combo. If it weren't for the fun I'm having with HP at practices and even during games, despite the losses, I shudder to think how I'd be feeling at the moment.

So it's not all bad, but there's a lot of bad accompanied by the feeling that as coach that the problems are in areas where I could be making a difference. Motivation is I feel one of the few areas that a coach can make an impact. And while a good coach can only make a slight difference in the winning or losing of a team, that's all HP would need: a slight positive difference. And so in the end the poor play of both teams falls on my shoulders and I just hate doing a poor job at something at which I try so hard and care so much about.

[Barkeep49]

My last post was a rather despondent post about losing Glencoe. It’s been a rocky coaching road I’ve had since then.
Long story short, that post proved not to be an overreaction. Later on in the month they played in the HP tournament, where they were knocked out in pool play (recalling that they were the defending champions). I had hoped that was going to be a wakeup call, but instead just further lost the team. And when I say the team, that’s not really fair. I really lost two of the triplets who played for me. They were 3 of the 5 best players on the team and the team leaders and caused some bad habits in a couple of the other players. The ethos of our practices was not good. And I accept full responsibility for it. I’m still learning and growing as a coach and to succeed need to invest time. I simply did not invest the time in the team, really either of the teams, that was needed to be as successful as I’d like. Part of that was coaching two teams. Part of that was a new job. Part of that with GL was the players I had and my failure to maintain a tone at practice that was needed. The management aspect of a team should be a strength. It’s very disappointing that it turn out otherwise.

In the end GL finished 3rd in league play, and bombed out in the second round of the playoffs, exactly what I thought they’d do. I nearly didn’t arrange for an end of season dinner, but I decided that no matter how the season had gone (and by some objective measures accounts it had gone well) I should have one. I announced there that I wouldn’t be coming back to the team. I received far more thanks than I was expecting. For instance, Lucas had slid into the bad habits group, but his parents both talked to me individually about how much they appreciated all I’d done and how I’d had the right priorities. This was, of course, an issue because my focus on player development over winning was not what the triplets’ father wanted. He wanted them to win. And win big. And if we’d have played zone, he would likely have been on board. But I think zone doesn’t teach the defensive skills that will help players at the next level.

Of course this goes back to one of weaknesses as a coach. While I say I value player development, I’m really not nearly as good as I’d like at teaching it. My real strength is on teaching team fundamentals as opposed to player fundamentals. So it’s not like individuals are ignored, but because I coach by myself I’ve tended to try and focus on things that have as many players as possible involved at a time to maximize our very limited practice time.
So that was GL.

And then there’s HP. While things weren’t going so well with GL in early February, I was pleased with where HP was at. While we weren’t winning a ton of games, we were competitive. And then Small Fry happened. Small Fry is an even more select program than the one I’m involved in and a whole bunch of my team’s players made that team. We had played well in group play during the HP tourney, coming from behind to almost win a game against an undefeated team (NF for those with good memories) and coming from 12 points behind with 3 minutes to win by 4, a nearly unheard of turnaround at this level. But that was with the whole team. Come Sunday and bracket play we lost more than half the team to Small Fry leaving us high and dry. And this is what it would be like going forward as the whole team placed more of a priority on Small Fry than HP. So we lost the next day, but not by a whole lot. I still felt good about things.

Until Brian and Eric, my bosses, talked to me. They wanted me to slow down play. Get the kids more in control. So I did what they said. They were the bosses after all. And we were not competitive in any of our remaining games. But I had decided that come the playoffs I was going to coach to give us the best chance of winning. Regardless of what they said.
So of course Small Fry had to strike again. There wasn’t supposed to be a conflict between the two playoffs, but there was. And so when this all came down I said I needed one of two kids, Zach or Danny, because I needed a ball handler. So Brian and the Small Fry guy divide up the players and I was supposed to get Danny. This would have been OK. Of course Danny decides to go to Small Fry instead. So we play a valiant effort, but lose. And that’s that. It was dispiriting, in a whole different way than GL.

I ended basketball in a really bad place. I needed the change of sport. I needed to go through it with another person, something I’d have with my co-coach Steve. I needed some success. I will cover baseball in my next update.

[Barkeep49]

So unlike in past years where there was a break between baseball and basketball seasons, this year indoor baseball practices had already begun before basketball ended. This was the difference between doing travel and house league. So after the disappointment of basketball, I’m not exactly firing on all cylinders as we get ready for baseball. And the weather makes things worse. We played our first tournament at the end of April and we had exactly 1 outdoor practice before then. We’d seen kids hit a live baseball twice and never in any sort of game situation. At several practices we’d done pitching so I thought I’d had a good feel for that. And we spent a LOT LOT LOT of time working with groundballs so I thought we’d be OK there.

We come to our first tournament and it’s like 8 year olds playing 9 year olds. Except that our opponents were also only 8. In that first tournament we faced teams that play year round and boy did it show. That said we were on the short end of the talent stick. And it was painful. Our best pitcher in the first game pitched two innings of lights of pitching. And after that we were lost. We went through 4 pitchers in one inning at one point. It was not good. And our hitting didn’t have a chance against their pitching. And while our groundballs were OK our throwing resulted in error, after error, after error.

On the other hand, the house league team we were coaching overflowed with talent. It didn’t hurt that we had the best player that we’d seen in the 4 years of doing it. The kid pitched almost nothing but strikes and he could hit homerun after homerun. And half the team could pitch. We won only about half of our regular season games, but that was OK, or at least we thought it was. However, in the last couple of games we tried to switch on to playoff mentality. This was all similar to previous years. And our team couldn’t make the jump. We lost our last game, closely, a game we should have won easily. And in the first round of the playoffs we lost to a team we’d beaten handily the first two times we played them. It was a disappointing end to the season.

But the real thing was that while the travel team was struggling and struggling mightily it was good to have this other team in our pocket. Of course the house league season ended well before travel and so then it just became all about a team who hadn’t won a game. If I had to assign responsibility I’d say 80% of it lay with a lack of team talent. Most of the kids belonged on a B or C level travel team. We played nearly all A level teams. They simply couldn’t expect to match-up and they didn’t.

But that other 20% is the fault of Steve and I. Some of it is that we didn’t step up our coaching. We had many more opportunities, but we didn’t really take advantage of them until later on in the season. Not coincidentally as our coaching improved so did our team, though we did get an assist by playing teams who were B rather than A on a more regular basis. A good example is a player who we had who dropped his shoulder. First there is the issue that I am simply a poor hitting coach. Steve is much better than I and recognizing faults with hitting. But Steve, while able to diagnose the problem, isn’t very good at fixing it. So we had this kid who dropped his shoulder and we knew it. Finally during the last tournament of the year, I really started doing 1 on 1 work with him where we would do soft toss, meaning I was throwing to him from the side. If he would drop his shoulder, he’d have to step-out and do five practices swings, correctly. Good practice swings too not just half-hearted ones. And he made progress. It was good. But it also came too late.
Then there were the parents. Losing teams are almost always going to have difficult parents and our team was no exception. And, as I’ve already stated, we do bear some responsibility for the poor performance, which never helps. Much better to have irrationally irate parents since it’s much easier to wave off (though that’s still what Steve and I did to a large extent).

All this wasn’t too great, but what pushed me over the edge from being a long painful season to one filled with anger was what happened with Eric and Brian, who run the program for the Park District. The big issue came when Mark, a parent who was the team’s logistics guy, wanted to schedule an extra game. Except Steve and I weren’t available. I because of a genuine commitment, Steve because his commitment to a team waxes and wanes with the success of the team. I’m sure mine does as well, it’s just easier to notice in someone else. So we told Mark that we didn’t want to do the game. He then absolutely goes off on us, but more so me, in an email. Steve wants to call Mark that night and tell him off, but I convince him to call Brian instead. It appears that Eric and Brian have our backs. Except they don’t and the game ends up getting scheduled, after much consternation. Essentially we get left out to dry. Steve and I were particularly opposed to the game since we hadn’t won a game, but knew this would be a team we’d have a chance against. Sure enough we won. Certainly didn’t help our image with some of the parents. I gave serious consideration to resigning on principle, but decided that there was only a month left in the season so it wasn’t worth the hassle.

So we finished the season. And overall it was a positive end to the season. In particular we played very well in our last tournament and actually had a chance to move out of bracket play, so that was pretty cool considering how few games we were competitive, let alone won, the whole season. It was nice after a terrible season to end on a high note.

Our season ended with a July 4th tourney, as the team was designed to let people go to overnight camp. And when baseball ended my whole outlook lightened up. During basketball I gave serious consideration to officiating rather than coaching this fall. And I’ve gone through the process of becoming a patched basketball official. However, I felt that I needed to give coaching one more shot. I hope it’s a good experience. I know I’m a better coach now than when I started. The question is whether I’m good enough. And I simply don’t know. So we’ll see.

Try-outs are on Monday and it has occupied nearly the same mental space as it did last year. Last year I would think about it constantly. This year I’ve done a lot of work on improving my skills, but when I’m not doing that basketball hasn’t crept into my thoughts or sleep like it did last year. I don’t know if this is a good thing, as I learn how to better develop the stress, or a bad thing signifying that I’ve emotionally tuned out. Like I said we’ll see.