Two Points: A Real Life Youth Travel Basketball Team Diary

Barkeep49 · 09-06-2006, 10:22 PM

Intro
This is going to be a dynasty of my experiences as a travel basketball coach for a 9 year old boys travel team. I completed, over the spring/summer, a dynasty detailing my days as a little league baseball coach. I found it helpful for me as a coach, and several people said that they enjoyed reading it. Due to my schedule I anticipate that this will be shorter than that, but once I start writing, I write, so who knows.

Finding a position
As I mentioned a couple of times in my Little League diary I am, at heart, a basketball coach. Well really, at heart, I’m a guy who enjoys working with youth. But when it comes to sports I am a basketball guy. I realized that I had been having too much fun coaching little league and so it was time to step up and try and find a basketball coaching position. I had done some coaching in a semi-competitive high school intramural league. Practices were once a week and games were once a week. Depending on how you look at it, I either do so well, or so poorly, that last year I was co-commissioner of the league. While I was well received as a co-commissioner, and will likely be getting a phone call in a month offering me the position again, I really I missed coaching and decided that I needed to coach a basketball team again.

I knew, from the start, two things, well I guess really three things. First I didn’t want to coach a house league team. I really believe in the idea of personal growth and development that you see in a house league. However, I wanted the more serious atmosphere of a travel team. I have a standing offer from a couple different teams in the league that I could be a coach for them if I wanted, but this sort of somewhat relaxed atmosphere wasn’t really wasn’t what I was looking for. This dovetailed nicely with my second point, which is that I wished to be paid. Baseball is a lot of hours, and I’m happy to give it, but I felt I needed some kind of compensation if I was going to do basketball, which has a longer season. My third thing was that I did not wish to get a position for the Park District in the city where I live. I basically want to keep the baseball and basketball coaching parts of me separate. In baseball I’m a volunteer. In basketball I am a paid coach. This decision, which actually came first, also dictated the travel part, to a large extent, as my city is the only one nearby, that I could find, which pays coaches in its house league.

So knowing I wanted a paid coaching job, I started searching out positions. I looked at middle schools and park districts, primarily. There are several other basketball organizations in the area, but without an “in” there I was unlikely to get a position for one of them. After a lot of thinking I decided to only apply for one job. I figured I would either get the job, and be happy, or not get the job, and spend the time on my teaching/relaxation and coach a team in the league that I had been a part of for a few years.

I applied for a job in a neighboring suburb. This suburb is smaller than the one I live in, but I also taught in the district for a year and have a good grasp of the community. I thought it would be a good fit that way, and also has the advantage that the gym they use to practice is nearly as close as the gym in my own suburb.

The Interview
A couple weeks after sending in my resume I got a call for an interview. It was shortly after the position had closed. With my background, I’d have been surprised if I didn’t get at least an interview. I setup the interview. I thought the interview went well, though afterwards I regretted that I didn’t show enough of my basketball knowledge. The one question where I think I could have shown that, “Describe to me a practice”, I ended up talking more about how you have to be flexible with the talent you work with, varying up the practice so you’re not doing the same thing for too long (and also so you reinforce skills in a different way than you might initially teach them so you give kids multiple opportunities to understand the concept), and doing drills which either allow full participation of having kids “shadow” the ones participating so that there isn’t a lot of sitting. I think it was a solid answer, but I later regretted having taken that approach rather than really showing my basketball knowledge. But I felt like besides not really showing my basketball knowledge, the interview went well. It also helped, I felt, that I supplied a couple of references of parents of kids I had coached.

At the interview, the coordinator indicated that they expected an answer by late in the week of August 28 or early this week. When I hadn’t heard from them yesterday I had pretty much decided I hadn’t gotten the position. It was something I really had coveted and I was, I admit, disappointed. However, with so much going on with the start of school, I didn’t let my disappointment bother me too much and focused my energies elsewhere.

So when I got a phone call today right as school was ended, after having been nervous every time my phone range on Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday, I figured it was my mom and sent it right to voice mail as I was in the middle of doing something. Of course it turned out to be the Park District Person offering me the job.

Tryouts
I have to admit the whole tryout thing is what has me more nervous than anything. Not only is it immediate, tryouts are next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, but I have never conducted tryouts before. I have been told to expect between 12 and 18 kids with the goal of selecting a team of between 10 and 12. 18 kids is a pretty small number, considering I teach a class of 21, so that part is good. I am reading up on tryouts and have begun to put a plan together, though it’s rather rough at this point.

Basically with 9 year olds this will be the first serious basketball they will have played. As such selecting good athletes seems to be important. However, I philosophically believe that too often teams look for athletes rather than basketball players. This could come out of my own experiences as a youth, where I was not an athlete but I had basketball talent, not the least of which was pure size, which was never really cultivated as only the athletes made the travel team. But again at 9, as I know from teaching 4th grade which is what grade most of my kids will be in, there is only so much basketball talent. So a majority of the kids I take will likely be athletes who I am hoping I can shape into basketball players. I admit that I will have a definite bias for soccer players, as I believe footwork and movement is an essential part of basketball, and while this is covered in young soccer leagues, it is often ignored with young basketball players. With only 18, or less, players I can do more basketball drills than I could with 25 kids as there will be less standing around waiting since there are fewer kids who’d need to take a turn.

Besides the athletics, I will say that attitude is a huge deal. As a teacher I know I’ve helped kids mature and grow. However, the kids really deserve the credit since they had reached a point where they were ready for what I had to offer and might have grown and matured just as much with another teacher. In other words, unlike many a woman in a relationship, I am not foolish enough to believe I can change these kids through my miraculous coaching. If a kid doesn’t pay attention, and doesn’t seem to have a willingness to try new things, he best be the 9 year old Michael Jordan, if he’s going to make the team. The willingness to try new things is important. At 9, I don’t really expect them to be able to dribble with both hands, for instance. But if I ask them to dribble with their left hand I’d rather see a kid botch that, than dribble with his right hand proficiently. I can teach them, especially at 9, how to use their other hand. But again they have to be ready.

Between now and Monday

First I am going to nail down my plan for day 1 of tryouts. With the tryouts there are three days and a kid has to show up to two of them to be considered. A fair amount of kids really do show up to just two, so I can’t hold that against them. But it also makes trying to see a variety of things harder as I can’t teach a drill on Day 1 and assume on Day 2 every kid will know the drill. Anyhow, so I will likely post my try-out plan here sometime before Sunday.

The other thing I am going to try and do is get an assistant coach. I want to have an assistant both because I like being able to bounce ideas off of someone and because it makes life easier having a second pair of eyes and ears. The salary for the position is not large, but really I’m not doing it for the money. I do think of myself as a professional, as noted above. The money is such a small amount compared to what I expect to make hour, that the money is more important for the professionalism it infers than the actual amount. As such I have no qualms about giving some of it to another person. Plan A is to send notices to a local liberal arts college job center and education and athletic departments and see if I can find an assistant that way. I have no idea if this’ll be successful. Plan B allows me to keep the money but still get an assistant. I know many high school students through my various work and would simply try and get one who I know knows basketball to agree to be the assistant. The disadvantages of this are clear, which is why it is Plan B. While tryouts are next week, practices don’t really start until the end of October so there is not a huge rush on this front.

And that’s where I’m at. Comments, suggestions, criticisms, about basketball are always welcome. I also hope you find this an enjoyable read and if there is something I can do to make it more interesting for you as a reader please let me know.

Groundhog · 09-06-2006, 11:39 PM

Interesting stuff, I'll definately be following.

I've thought about getting in to coaching myself actually, and I'll be interested to see how this progresses.

collegesportsfanms · 09-07-2006, 12:57 AM

Great read. I'm actually beginning my basketball coaching career this year, with a Biddy Ball team and a high school team. Should be lots of fun.

Barkeep49 · 09-12-2006, 03:22 PM

9/12/06
Well I did not get my promised weekend post in. But I’m back again.

Yesterday was the first day of try-outs. The structure, once again, is three days long. An hour and a quarter each day. Players must attend two days. Yesterday was the first day of tryouts. In the end I had 16 players show up. The sixth grade tryouts, which were basically running concurrently to ours, had 30. I would have, honestly, thought these numbers reversed as kids would be more likely to try out when they’re younger and have never been rejected from a travel team before.

Rather than going 75 minutes, we only went 50 since I had to go to my school’s open house. So I did lose some considerable time looking at these players. Things also suffered since I was new at this. And running tryouts by yourself? It’s hard. Having a second pair of eyes would have been incredible as there wouldn’t have been nearly the same amount of downtime and I think things would have run smoother. Let’s review what happened.

I pull up to the school at the same time as another car. As I am getting out my car (and taking off my suit jacket) I hear a dad talking to his son in the next car. It was really cute hearing the dad give his son advice. We end up walking the first couple of steps together and I smile at him and say that his dad was offering good advice. Kid seems nice enough. I later learn that his name is, I believe, Miles. (A note on names: In my little league dynasty I used initials as I do want to protect these kid’s right to privacy. I am simply going to use first names, sometimes with last initials, for this dynasty as I think using initials made the kids seem less kidlike and had a negative effect on the overall feel of the dynasty).

As I go to the gym, I meet a guy who works for the Park District. I also meet a step mother of triplets who’s very concerned. She tells me that one of her step-sons, whose name is Bryan, just had an ankle cast taken off. She doesn’t think there will be any effects, but wants me to know. I smile and write down his name so it seems like I’m being responsive. I do feel for the kid, but also am not a psychic and so if this kid is still recovering from the brake, as he no doubt is, I will not be able to see his full skills, which will make things harder. But what can ya do?

I started off by giving a short welcoming speech. I basically cribbed it from a website I found. It talked about working hard, listening, and not being nervous. I even did like I do for my students before a test and told a corny joke before we got started to try and loosen them up. Worked for some, and not so for others. So for our first drill, I divide them up into two groups. As I stated earlier we are sharing a full size gym with the sixth grade team, so we used the side to side baskets for most of what we did. For the first drill, they are to rebound, outlet to me, run down to the other side, receive a pass, and make a lay-up. We do this one time and then the second time I give them a score from 1-5. Everyone ended up receiving a grade of between 3 and 5, including .5 increments. For sports I am used to being handed a team. In that situation I’ve never bothered to rate my players, since they’re my players, and simply did the best I could working with them. So I expect, and hope, that my ability to instantly judge minute differences in skill. I mean it also doesn’t help that these are all 9 year olds and so many of them ARE close together in skill. So we run it through. Some kids are clearly worse at this than others. Of course since I am doing the through, some throws are better than others and so I get to see some kids adjust well and others have trouble. But it’s good information all around.

Following this we did 30 second lay-up contests from both sides. Players were encouraged to shoot with both hands, though some players needed more encouragement during the actual process. This took about a minute a player as it was 30 seconds to do the actual shooting, and then another 30 for me to record the scores and make sure the next two players were ready to go. It was at this point I thought of putting names with numbers so that also took some time. Players were instructed to count the number of baskets made by people at their basket. This started off strong, but by the end only a couple of kids were doing it. Notes were made.

We then did a dribbing/defense drill. Players had to zig-zag dribble while another player defended. I was really just looking for footwork and body posture so I had the defenders hold their hands behind their back. Unfortunately I did not make as careful notes during this drill as I’d have liked.

Finally, we ended with a semi-abridged version of lightening. Abridged because the time was up and I needed to go. This was actually helpful in that I could see them in a semi pressure situation not to mention getting a further sense of their rebounding and lay-up skills not to mention a beginning sense of their free throw abilities.

So what about the players? Well let’s start with the triplet’s, who I will refer to as the H triplets. One of the triplets, David (I think), was by far the best player out there. No one else was close. During the dribbling drill I switched his partner twice just because I wasn’t getting anything useful from his partner because he was so dominating. The kid could not make another shot the rest of tryouts and he’d make the team.

The problem comes with his brothers. Bryan, of broken ankle fame, has an attitude that rubs me the wrong way. As for his skills, they are pretty middle of the road. He claimed not to be bothered by the ankle, but I dunno. As for the third brother, he was pretty middle of the road as well. The whole triplet thing complicates matters. Clearly David is making the team. But then what to do about the other two? This is not a charity, but I do not want to start the season by making a politically intemperate move with the parents. I see no real way I could take two of the three and not the third, unless the third was noticeably worse than other players. One of the three? Seems more doable. But I dunno. I hate triplets.

Most of the other kids didn’t make a huge impression on me one way or another. Miles, who I think is a good kid, doesn’t seem to have the talent. Then there is the case of David 2. David 2 did every little thing asked of him, but displayed no real talent I could find. I’m looking for a reason to take the kid, as kids like that can help glue a team together, but right now his athleticism doesn’t seem to warrant his making the team. I have marked down 6 kids who I need to see a little more of, but I think would be likely candidates.

There is also the case of Asher. Asher, unless he blows my socks off, is one of two kids who I just can’t see making the team. And I feel bad for the kid, because he reminds me of me at the age. Tall and with no real control of his limbs who tries hard. He could benefit from some instruction, which I’m guessing he’s never really gotten, and lots of practice. I will be finding a way to make sure he hears about the lots of practice part at some point. But again Asher is not likely to make the team.

So heading into Day 2 I’ve got perhaps ¾ of a basketball team. Tonight my plan is to start with zig-zag dribbling, without a defender, and asking the dribbler to switch hands each time. We’re then likely to do a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 drill, emphasizing passing. We’ll do a “hot shots” drill where there are three different stations at each basket (we’re going to use all three tonight to speed this up) and they need to make as many jump shots as possible in a minute. We’ll conclude with some 3 on 3 or 4 on 4 depending on how many kids show up.

I should have another update for you tomorrow on how day 2 went.

Barkeep49 · 09-12-2006, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Groundhog

Interesting stuff, I'll definately be following.

I've thought about getting in to coaching myself actually, and I'll be interested to see how this progresses.

Glad to have you around for the ride.

Quote:

Originally Posted by collegesportsfanms

Great read. I'm actually beginning my basketball coaching career this year, with a Biddy Ball team and a high school team. Should be lots of fun.

Wow talk about a disparity of kids. I'm guessing you'll be working on VERY different skills there. Is the high school team a school team or an intramural team of some sort?

RPI-Fan · 09-12-2006, 08:35 PM

...following...

wade moore · 09-13-2006, 12:03 AM

Woohoo! Another Barkeep Youth Team Dynasty!

Barkeep49 · 09-13-2006, 10:05 PM

I was hoping to get this typed up before I went to tryouts today, but it was not to be. The last two days have been very informative. I really feel like good grasp of most of these kid’s skills. This is certainly a change from the first day. So that part is good. The part that is bad? Right now I have a basketball team of 9 players. I have two players on the cusp and I could end up taking one or both of them and don’t know which it’ll be.

Yesterday we did a few drills. We started with a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 weave drill. Then we went to zig-zag dribbling. They were always to use the hand they were dribbling towards, so left if going left, and right if going right. I was actually very impressed overall with how well many of these kids were able to dribble with both of their hands. However, I decided, upon further reflection, that the width we were doing was too small. We ended up repeating this today first thing so that we could use the full court before the 5th graders arrived. I was able to see a lot more distinctions when we did it tonight.

We also did several passing drills with two man teams doing a slide with chest and overhead passes, along with a jogging bounce pass back and forth. We also did a 45 second, how many 6-9 foot jump shots can you make. We ended with some 3 on 3 games. The 3 on 3 games? Disaster. I learned very little worthwhile. I feel like we did something else, but it is forgotten at this point.

Coming out of day 2 a huge burden was taken off my shoulders. All three of the H triplets were going to make the team. Bryan, our friend with the broken ankle, is a fairly good guard. I really don’t like his attitude, but it is not so bad as to be a major problem. Scott seems like he’s going to be a good forward. I still have no clue where I’m going to play David, who was once again the best player on the court. I mean he’s likely the best ball handler we have, but he’s also one of the taller players, on a team that is fairly short. Anyhow, this is the sort of problem that I like to have, and I have a bit to figure things out.

Also showing real promise was Dante. He’s one of the two tallest kids out there, besides Asher (who was the kid who reminded me of me in 4th grade). Dante showed good to very good abilities to dribble, shoot, and rebound. He’s exactly the sort of center I had hoped to have: A thread (as much as any of them are) from the outside and able to handle the ball. Fits into the motion offense I expected to run.

Let me diverge from the tryouts here for a second. I went into tryouts with an open mind. I haven’t really choreographed what I expected the offense or defense to be because I wanted to see their skills first. But, as I knew the community, they were what I expected. Mostly a group of short kids. Their dribbling skills were better than I expected and their shooting about what I thought it would be. Anyhow, my plan is to spread the floor, as even tall 4th graders don’t tend to be huge, and teach them how to move without the ball in order to create inside shots. Most of these kids cannot shoot, really, beyond 12, and for many 10 foot is the outer range of where they should be shooting.

Anyhow, so Dante makes the team. Leaving the gym that night I knew that we had a team of 5:
The Hs, Dante, and Jack P. Jack P is another taller kid with good dribbling and shooting skills. He’s a step below Dante in height, and could see some limited time at Center, but will more likely be seeing time in the 3 and 4 spots.

I went home and entered the numbers for both the objective and subjective drills. Came up with a weighted and un-weighted formula to rank them with. Based on that analysis I got two more players; both surprised me at the time as they had not really made an impression, but based on observations tonight both definitely deserved it. Noah was one of them. A shooting/point guard, even possibly a small forward, he’s got a great first step for a penetrating dribble and is a very accurate lay-up shooter. The other player to make it was Jack P. Interestingly, I had a fairly hard time telling Noah and Jack apart for a bit as they both have about the same skin tone and have the same hair cut. I do think I have it down now, though. Anyhow, Jack did very well defensively and showed good ability to dribble with both hands. He’ll be a point/shooting guard for us.

That gave me 7 players who I knew would make the team. I also had ruled out two. Asher was one of them. He actually turned out to be a great rebounder, but really all the other parts of his game are just terrible. My decision was reaffirmed when I learned before tryouts tonight that he’s actually had extensive basketball training. Hence the reason why he surprised me by knowing of the “hot shots” drill. For a kid who has had all the background he’s had, his fundamentals are just appalling. I thought he was a kid who might just need a thousand lay-ups so he could not look like an octopus when he shoots. But that likely is wrong. He just doesn’t have it. Oh well. Asher also drove me nuts since he took every opportunity he could to sit down. I asked him if he was tired, and he said no. I let him know that he shouldn’t sit down then. Anyhow Asher was out.

Also out was Matt. Matt was one of only two kids, along with Miles not to attend day 2. Matt was slow and unskilled. No real getting around it. I actually wondered if he’d even show up today. He did and my limited observations only more than confirmed what I thought.

That left 7 kids who I was undecided about:
Miles
Tom
Nick
Cameron
David R
Lucas
Gordie

Tom was a virtual lock to make the team. The real problem was that he was a noticeable step below some other kids at some important skills for both the 1 and 2 positions, which were the spots he seemed most comfortable at. He did have good hustle and a good sense of how to move on the court. Considering the offense I want to run this latter trait was what made him a virtual lock to make the team. In fact were it not for his thoroughly mediocre shooting scores I’d like have already put him on the team.

Nick was nearly put on the cut list, but I decided to leave him off. However, he did not come tonight and as such his performance did not improve, making him an easy cut. He did have fairly good defensive skills, though not hugely better than several other players. This means this plus was more than negated by his terrible offensive skills. He wasn’t a particularly great hustler either. He also sucked his shirts. I know this last thing might seem inconsequential but it was actually a fairly big minus in my book. I want my players to play fearlessly out there. That was one way I made basketball teams was because I was (and am) fearless on the court. I’m not afraid to take a charge or set a hard pick or dive for the loose ball. Anyhow, I want fearless players and a kid who sucks his shirt at age 9 is not a fearless kid..

Then there is Cameron. Cameron is a blob. He doesn’t do anything great, but he doesn’t do anything poorly either. More about Cameron later.

David R was the kid who yesterday I just loved his attitude. I continued to love his attitude. I went into tonight looking for something, anything, to justify putting him on the team.

Lucas, was a kid who I didn’t have much of a sense for. His weighted scores, which gave more weight to the objective things we’d done, were so-so.

Finally there was Gordie. Gordie showed moments of skill. However, I knew heading into the day that he’d be a borderline player, with me not wanting to take him. The reason for this was that he was CONSTANTLY not paying attention or needing me to call him over or asking him not to shoot a basket while some other kid was doing his shooting drill. Before tryouts started today the 5th/6th grade coach asked me about him. I told him that he was borderline leaning towards no. The coach explained that he knew the family well and had coached his brother on a couple of teams, and that the brother had the same personality. Good to know it runs in the family.

Miles had not impressed me during the first night’s tryout. However, he was the kid who I first met who had a good spirit. I thought that perhaps there was more that he was capable of, that I simply hadn’t seen. Before tryouts tonight I met his father. His father has an unbelievable background, having founded the 4th grade travel team, done all sorts of JCC sports, founded, and is currently president of, a small fry team. I really liked the guy. It gave me renewed hope that Miles would have more to show me.

Several players had told me they’d be a minute or two late. So when the opportunity arose with 4 of us there to play a game of knockout, I took it. I won. We then played two more games, with more kids joining in each time, which I also won. I’m sure it’ll be a big relief to you to know that I could beat a bunch of 9 year olds. The players all really enjoyed it though, which was good. I let the kids play a fourth game, which only got about ¾ finished before we started practice.

As I mentioned we started with full court zig-zag dribbling. After doing full court once we did to half court and back as the 5th graders were starting to trickle in. Next we played a game of “Man in the Middle”. The kids were about 10 feet apart. Person in the middle. The two people on the outside could throw chest or bounce passes to their partner while the man in the middle tried to intercept. This did not turn out nearly as well I had hoped and I ended up speeding it up, though I did get to see a couple of kids do the sort of passes I wanted to see.

My goal tonight was to focus on 6 kids who I didn’t know about. By the end of man in the middle, and based on seeing him play lightening, I knew that Miles, bless his heart, just didn’t have what it took and neither did David R. I really liked both kids, but a travel basketball team just is no the right place for them right now. In happier news, Lucas had impressed me during knockout and continued to impress me during the first few drills and moved into the likely make it category.

Next we divided into 3 teams of 4, as there were only 12 players there. Besides Nick, the H triplets were not there (which was not unexpected). I tried to put 1 center person (which ended up being Asher, Dante, and Lucas), 1 forward (Jack M, Tom, as if he could play forward his playing time would be greatly increased, and Cameron), and 2 guards. I also tried to roughly balance the teams talent wise. I also told the kids who to match up against, though I did not state what position I’d put them at.

The scrimmage proved to be quite informative, in the confirm what I already know sense. Asher, for instance, not only can’t shoot but LOVES to shoot. To the great annoyance of his team mates. Noah impressed me with his ability to penetrate. Lucas tried to play guard until I told him “if you make the team you will be at forward or center, so play there”. He didn’t like it but gave the position his best, which was nice to see. He did a nice enough job. It became clear that Tom could not play forward. That’s a shame as it greatly reduces his utility since I have enough guards, even if I use the 3 as a semi-guard, as is likely. He did, however, again show his ability to move around without the ball to great effect.

More frustrating was Gordie who proved an ability to shoot quite well and also played better defense than I’d seen previously. The kid is also short, even for this team, something I haven’t mentioned before. His annoying traits were still present, though more restrained tonight. In our later drills he would once again prove quite the adept shooter.

Cameron once again did nothing poorly, but neither nothing outstandingly well. This would be the theme with his running as well, which was our next part.

Using two groups I had them do a variety of drills which required them to run/dribble to half court, and back. Miles actually showed a surprising amount of speed, but his control was poor and his left hand weak, so no loss there. After doing the running, I immediately put them back in their three groups and had them each shoot three free throws. Cameron actually did fairly well here.

Then it was time for “half court suicides”. A suicide, for those who don’t know, is where a player runs from under the basket, to the free throw line, back to under the basket, to half court, back, to the opposite side free throw line, back, and to other the other basket and back. The drill is grueling, but is a staple of basketball training because it is good conditioning and also gives players a chance to work on change of directions, again an important skill. Anyhow, a half court versions are considerably less difficult. Of course they ended up running 4 variations which again was somewhat tiring. They did have a short break in between runs as we had two groups, but the players did tire. Then it was another three free throws. The shooting percentage, not surprisingly, dropped off for the second three. I then gave them a water break.

One important note: Dante clearly was not hustling during this. I got on him and still he did not hustle. Later I would learn there was a reasonable explanation for this.

We next did a drill where there is a player who passes in to someone who posts up. That player is being guarded. I only allowed the poster, as I called him, to take one shot. I also stated that there could be no fade aways. It was interesting seeing who turned inside, and who turned outside. The first 5 kids, meaning nearly half, turned outside, until Miles turned inside and became only the second player to actually make the basket. We ran through this twice.

Finally, we ended by doing left handed lay-ups, dribble from the right side to take a shot from about 12 feet on the left side, right handed lay-ups, and doing the jump shot with dribble from left to right.

I gathered everyone around, thanked them for another great day of try outs and explained how the team would be posted. I was asked what days practices were and I said they were currently scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays. Dante groaned. Turns out he plays travel soccer year round and those are the days they practice and there was even some overlap in the time. This was bad news, as Dante was making the team no doubt. It means I need to talk to Katie, my Park District contact, about changing that Wednesday practice, as Mondays are the best day of the week for me scheduling wise.

Anyhow, I went home. Immediately, of the six I crossed off Miles, Matt, Nick, and David R. Tom and Lucas made the cut. That leaves me with 9 players and only Cameron and Gordie left to make a decision about. Of the two, Gordie is more talented, no doubt. But the question is: is he coachable? Then there is Cameron. His skills aren’t as present, but I know he’ll work hard. Of course he doesn’t bring anything to the team dynamic and while not being a minus is good, being a nothing, is well, nothing. And Gordie at least will have moments where he’d likely add something good.

I think in the end I’m going to take Gordie and not Cameron, though I could take both if I wanted since 11 is still manageable and gives a little more breathing room for sickness/injury. Of course if everyone is there it makes for an incredibly awkward number to practice with. So that remains the last decision to make. I will likely make it by the time I wake up tomorrow. And truth be told it’ll likely be Cameron and not Gordie. But time will tell.

Barkeep49 · 09-13-2006, 10:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RPI-Fan

...following...

Glad to have you along.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wade moore

Woohoo! Another Barkeep Youth Team Dynasty!

You're too kind. I'm going to do my best to make sure you don't have to pester me to finish this one

.

Also, let me reiterate that comments, questions, sharing of your own experiences are always welcome in this dynasty.

Barkeep49 · 09-16-2006, 04:00 PM

Thursday morning I woke up and made the final cut, Cameron. When I was telling the story to a friend, explaining how I took Gordie he quipped “So your receiving corp in football would be TO and Randy Moss?” Have to admit that stung a little. I did retort that taking Cameron was the equivalent of putting in Kerry Collins in as your QB “nice enough but do you really want Kerry Collins?”

So basically right now we’re in a month long hiatus. My first practice is scheduled for October 23. With the Monday/Wednesday combination being bad news for Dante, and my own having commitments on Wednesdays I looked for a different day of the week for practices and came up with… Friday. Can’t wait to spend 6-7:30 on Fridays in a gym. Fortunately, after 5 weeks we can switch to Tuesdays for the rest of the season, which runs through the middle of March, making the season about 5 months long all together (and making the 10 weeks of Baseball seem like a sprint).

With the dynasty going on hold, essentially, for a month, though I will post any updates as they might happen, I thought it would be good to try and introduce the players. I’ve talked about many of these players already but let’s look at BK’s 2005-2006 9 YO Travel Team.

I’d debated a few different ways of organizing this list. I’ve decided that I’m going to go by offensive position and with-in position skill, as I see it now. All players will be expected to learn 2 positions eventually as with only 10 players I need a good deal of flexibility in the players I can put on the court, especially for that game that’ll inevitably happen in February where one kid is sick, another has a twisted ankle, and a third is in Vail for the weekend.

Before I break it down by skill let me explain, roughly, what each of the responsibilities will be for each player in the offensive I am working on finalizing. This obviously could change as I work to break down what I want to run into a level that I know can be well taught to and learned by 4th graders.

1 Spot – Your traditional ball handler. He is going to be the player who’ll normally take the ball up the court. Will have primary responsibility for getting back to prevent fast breaks, but depending on where in the offense we are, this could fall to the 2 or 3 player as well.

2 Spot – Stays primarily on the perimeter, though he will sometimes penetrate. Will often be the first look for the 1 player or else setup the first look (via screen). Has secondary responsibility for getting back to prevent fast breaks.

3 Spot – In many ways the trickiest spot in the offense to play. Has both perimeter and post responsibilities, though because of the talent will be on the perimeter more than the post. Along with the 2 will be the first look for a pass from the 1.

4 Spot – Is primarily involved in post play, though not exclusively. He will come out of the post often either to help screen or in order to clear space for the 3 or 5. Is the least likely to shoot the ball.

5 Spot – Your traditional center. Primarily in the post. Is almost always responsible for rebounding.
You will notice that I talk about perimeter play. This is a tad misleading as while they often do their work there, I do not really want my team shooting, for the most part, beyond 10 feet. This means that we’re using the outside to create space/opportunities to work it inside. I expect to see a lot of zone so we’ll be working on zone busting skills such as quick (and skip) passes. Also important will be the concept of screening to get someone the ball not for someone with the ball.

And without further ado, this time for real, let me present my 2006-2007 9 YO Travel Basketball Team. An asterisk means that if I fielded a basketball team tomorrow they would be starting.

½
*Noah (primary 2) Obviously positions are still fluid at this point. I have slotted Noah here tentatively because of his skills, but his size might find him in more of a 2/3 role before things are all said and done especially as we have, as expected, a surplus of guards. As mentioned before, I like his penetration skills, which shows his ability to dribble so he could even end up finding himself playing more of a 1. While his shooting form might not be the prettiest, he is accurate. During the scrimmage I said that the next time he drove in he should find a team mate to pass it to and he did exactly that suggesting he is willing to implement instruction. He did a few other things, such as mostly pay attention, that suggest he will be teachable (or in this case coachable).

Jack P (primary 1) First let me say there is a definite chance that I have the Jacks backwards. I think I have it straight, but am not sure. Anyhow, short Jack, has a nice dribble and can do it with both hands. Is inconsistent, which is actually a complement at this age, at dribbling with his head up. He’s a pretty scrawny kid. Has an average attention span for a 4th grade boy, which is to say not a whole lot.

Gordie (primary 1) Gordie is a small kid. However, he’s got a good shot and better range than some of the kids taller than him. I’ve discussed him pretty indepth in my last post so not a whole lot to add here. I will just stress that the negatives that I talked about before could really impact his role on this team.

Tom (primary 2) It might seem weird that he is ranked below Gordie, who was the last player to make the team, but of course it wasn’t Gordie’s skills holding him back. I was really hoping Tom would have been be able to play a 3 for us, but he’s not there yet and I’m not sure that trying to make him into a forward, even a soft forward, is the best use of his practice time.

2/3
*Bryan (primary 2) Bryan is a very solid player all around. Not quite as solid is his personality. On more than one occasion he made a negative comment during tryouts. Something like that I am quite confident of my ability to stomp out. I simply don’t tolerate it. In fact I will likely be opening our first practice with my saying something to the effect of “I’m the coach and I’m here to help you grow and to help you win. Your job as players are to listen to me and to support your teammates>” Or something like that. Anyhow, Bryan is tentatively slotted as a 2/3 as I think we have some better dribblers than him, though he does have a good crossover.

3/4
*Jack M (primary 3) The more I see of him the more he impresses. He did well in our lightening game, I believe, and seems pretty solid all around. I also really liked his attitude which goes well with his, seemingly, easy going nature. I hesitate to comment too much about kid’s personalities as for the most part they’ll be different creatures in a tryout situation, what with the nerves, than during the course of a basketball season.

Scott (primary 3) The least talented of the triplets, though still pretty darn good, he seems like he’ll be well suited to these positions. Not a whole lot to comment here.

4/5
*Dante (primary 5): Again I feel like I’ve talked about him a lot. I will say that I was tempted to inquire about the soccer playing backgrounds of my players and feel particularly pleased to learn that someone I thought highly of is also a competitive soccer player as I feel good soccer players often can easily be turned into good basketball players.

Lucas (primary 5): Poor Lucas seemed somewhat surprised that I saw him as a forward/center. He seems like a real good kid. Here’s another kid who I see a fair amount of potential in and hope to see him really grow as the season progresses.

???
*David I’m not sure where to place him. I wished he had been at the 3rd day of tryouts since I think I’d have gotten a better grasp. And perhaps I am overstating his skills, but then again maybe I’m not. He’s likely going to be our point guard, because of his ball handling skills, but he could end up really at any of the positions 1-4, though realistically 4 is not likely going to be where he’d end up on offense.

I will try and post as I come up with firmer plans for things, but in all likelihood, as mentioned before, the dynasty is on a brief hiatus until practices start in October.

collegesportsfanms · 09-16-2006, 08:21 PM

Barkeep, the Biddy team is mine, I'm running it, and it's a 7-8 year old team, so the big thing is to teach the basics. We had our first practice Tuesday night, and it's going to take a lot of work. No really strong ball handlers yet, but it will come in time. The main goal for that team is just to make sure the kids learn the basics and have fun anyways.

As for the high school team, it's a girls team, and I'm the assistant. It's a fairly small private christian based high school, so the goals for that are a little different, in that the AD wants me and the head man to make sure the girls learn discipline, sportsmanship, things like that. The head coach has a wealth of knowledge, having coached small college and semi-pro ball before, so I really think I can learn a lot from him. He's put me in charge of coaching the junior varsity team, and junior high team if we have one.

Poli · 09-16-2006, 08:27 PM

I'm sure you'll do well in this, knowing how much you know about basketball.

collegesportsfanms · 09-16-2006, 08:33 PM

Barkeep, I love the dynasty, keep up the good work. Sounds like you got a pretty nice squad. I hope practices work out for you. I understand how you feel about Dante though. Most of my kids also play either football or soccer, so I won't have my full team until after those sports are over. Some questions for you, is this your first experience coaching basketball, or have you done it before? I don't remember reading about it, but I could have overlooked it.

Izulde · 09-16-2006, 09:03 PM

I haven't checked in before now, though I wish I would've, because I love your dynasties.

My one comment is that I would've taken Cameron instead of Gordie. You say that a nothing is a nothing, but with Gordie's negative personality traits, a nothing is better than a negative. But then, I focus a lot on team chemistry.

I'll be eagerly following this, as I've never coached a tryout team in any form, but really would like to some day.

Barkeep49 · 09-17-2006, 07:22 AM

Phew. I was shocked when I woke up this morning and saw we had jumped from 9 posts to 13. Thanks everyone for the comments.

Quote:

Originally Posted by collegesportsfanms

Barkeep, the Biddy team is mine, I'm running it, and it's a 7-8 year old team, so the big thing is to teach the basics. We had our first practice Tuesday night, and it's going to take a lot of work. No really strong ball handlers yet, but it will come in time. The main goal for that team is just to make sure the kids learn the basics and have fun anyways.

As for the high school team, it's a girls team, and I'm the assistant. It's a fairly small private christian based high school, so the goals for that are a little different, in that the AD wants me and the head man to make sure the girls learn discipline, sportsmanship, things like that. The head coach has a wealth of knowledge, having coached small college and semi-pro ball before, so I really think I can learn a lot from him. He's put me in charge of coaching the junior varsity team, and junior high team if we have one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by collegesportsfanms

Barkeep, I love the dynasty, keep up the good work. Sounds like you got a pretty nice squad. I hope practices work out for you. I understand how you feel about Dante though. Most of my kids also play either football or soccer, so I won't have my full team until after those sports are over. Some questions for you, is this your first experience coaching basketball, or have you done it before? I don't remember reading about it, but I could have overlooked it.

Well it sounds like perhaps the two teams aren't as different as they might seem at first. It's good to hear you're focusing on dribbling with your Biddy team since that's a skill that 7 and 8 YO can really master. I have to say I'm thankful to all the coaches who clearly stressed this for my players at a young age since not having to teach them from scratch how to dribble, and especially since they seem like they can dribble with both hands. What kind of practice schedule do you have with both teams? Sounds like you'll really be living basketball. I hope you keep all of us informed.

This is my first experience coaching a team like this. I have previously coached in a semi-competitive high school league. However, I've never coached a team (in any sport) that wasn't just handed to me and this is my first chance to really have a team that practices seriously (the HS team would practice once a week for an hour for about 3/4 of the season and not at all during the other 1/4). So it's a big jump in terms of what I've done before.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ardent enthusiast

I'm sure you'll do well in this, knowing how much you know about basketball.

Thanks so much for the confidence. I hope you follow along because then I can say "Yeah I've written things that were read worldwide"

.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Izulde

I haven't checked in before now, though I wish I would've, because I love your dynasties.

My one comment is that I would've taken Cameron instead of Gordie. You say that a nothing is a nothing, but with Gordie's negative personality traits, a nothing is better than a negative. But then, I focus a lot on team chemistry.

I'll be eagerly following this, as I've never coached a tryout team in any form, but really would like to some day.

Glad to have you back along. I was tempted to send out PMs to the people who I knew had followed my other dynasty but figured that was tacky and I didn't.

As for Cameron and Gordie, I hear you. And I have to tell you that normally I'd agree with you. However, what won me over in Gordie's favor was the difference between how he got along with his teammates, pretty well, and how "coachable" he was. Now obviously even the coachable aspect can have an effect on team chemistry, obviously but that was how I convinced myself to take him. Perhaps I will come to regret the decision. I don't know and we'll find out. But if I had taken Cameron he'd have been the 10th man and his playing time would have been very limited which can be a frustration in itself. Anyhow, I will no doubt be keeping you abreast of what happens with Gordie and since it is my first time picking a team perhaps I'll learn something for the next time. I do appreciate the feedback and please know that I realize you could very much turn out to be right, though I do feel comfortable right now with the decision.

collegesportsfanms · 09-17-2006, 10:42 AM

I will sure do my best to keep everyone informed, but I can't make a full dynasty report out of it. lol

Barkeep49 · 10-06-2006, 02:21 PM

Coaches’ Meeting

Finally have an update. Last night was the coaches’ meeting for the league. Turns out there is an A and a B division for the league. My team plays in the B division, which is the less competitive/smaller city league. I get to the meeting and find Emily, who if you remember is my Park District contact. She hands me this ridiculously thick manila envelope and says “Here are some employment forms for you to fill out.” Let’s just say that if the whole packet was indeed forms I would be filling them out from last night until forever. In reality, more than half of the packet is a part time employee manual.

I also get, for the first time, a list of my contact information. Finally! This gives me the ability to start calling and talking to my players and their parents, something I’ve wanted to do before the first practice. Now I scan over the list and there isn’t really any surprise until I get to the name of Noah.

Noah, if you recall, was the one who was the last person who made the team. I look at Noah’s last name and I see it is a familiar name. It happens to be the last name of a kid who I taught and who was, to put it nicely, strange, not to mention severely depressed, and who had trouble focusing. Now the good news is that the parents really liked me. This is good not just because I have one set of parents who like me, but hopefully it’ll also mean that they will put in a good word with the other parents, whatever that is worth. But, of course, the bad news is that my quick read on the kid was likely correct.

The main purpose of the meeting is to firm up the schedule. We play our first game on November 19th, giving us about a month, or eight practices, to get ready before the first game. Our first game is against my home town, and will be a home game. I am excited to be playing them right off the bat as I talked a fair amount with their coach last night and he seemed like a good guy. I also have the advantage of knowing some of the players on the team. Not sure what kind of advantage this actually is, since I don’t actually know how well any of them play basketball, but it must be some sort of advantage, right?

I am lucky to have off several days coming up and one of my goals is to get a tentative agenda for the practices laid out. 12 hours hardly seems like a sufficient amount of time to get a basketball team together with all I want to do.

Besides the rosters, the other important thing that happened last night is I got a copy of the league’s rules. So basically we play a real game of basketball. 4 quarters, with seven minutes in each quarter, foul-outs, bonus, the whole shebang. I get 3 full time outs plus 2 30 second time outs each half. 3 point lines, where there are some, etc, etc. The one league particularity is that teams can only press in the 2nd and 4th quarters with no press allowed if a team is up by 10 or more points in the 4th.

Updates will be forth coming as I make phone calls and put together a tentative 4 week practice schedule.

Barkeep49 · 10-08-2006, 04:17 PM

So I've made exactly zero phone calls. This is partly because I absolutely positively depise the phone and so I have to work hard to overcome my natural aversion to it. It is also because I don't have a "script". I haven't figured out exactly what I want to say to the parents in these phone calls. The kids? I know exactly what I want to talk to them about. I would do better in person. I am going to have to get over it soon though as the clock is ticking.

Eaglesfan27 · 10-08-2006, 04:35 PM

I missed your previous youth dynasties. I'm going to go back and read them. This is a great read. Keep up the good work.

Barkeep49 · 10-10-2006, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

I missed your previous youth dynasties. I'm going to go back and read them. This is a great read. Keep up the good work.

Thanks. You are way too kind. I really do appreciate the kind thoughts.

Barkeep49 · 10-10-2006, 09:16 PM

Well I made my phone calls tonight. Only I came up with a good solution. So I don’t want to talk to the parents on the phone? Well then I won’t. Instead I simply reminded them of the time of our first practice and announced a parent’s meeting after the practice. I like to do things in person, so I’ll do it in person. I was pleased with that solution to my mental Gordian Knot.

I had seven phone calls to make and I completed 5 of them. Of course I only reached 7 of my players. That’s the disadvantage to having three kids from one family. I really do have a fear that they’ll go on a trip or something and someone will be sick and someone else injured and we’ll have 5 players. But hopefully that fear will not come to fruition. Hopefully they’re all about the sports and won’t miss a game or practice all year. That’s the hope.

Nothing of real note from any of the parents except Dante’s father. Dante, as you recall, is the one who plays travel soccer all year long, in addition to basketball. Dante’s Dad was the only one who inquired into my philosophy about winning and such. He liked what I had to say. He also got in how Dante doesn’t really like suicides. I hope it’s just that particular drill as opposed to running, since, as Dad and I joked about, Dante is going to be running A LOT. He’s going to run in soccer and gawd knows he’s going to be running at basketball.

I spoke to most of the kids on the phone as well. I’d forgotten how awkward the phone skills of 4th grade boys can be, since well, I don’t normally talk to 4th grade boys on the phone. Anyhow, I was very pleased with the conversation I had with Noah. He seemed excited and was able to carry on more of a conversation than his peers. Phew.

So that’s tonight’s update. I’m getting very excited. I see no reason we can’t be good and win some games and that’s exciting. I think I have a nice group of kids, and that’s good.

wade moore · 10-17-2006, 03:03 PM

sweet, hadn't checked in awhile, good to see updates.

Good plan on talking to the parents. Phone can be awkward and this way everyone hears the exact same info.

Swaggs · 10-17-2006, 11:12 PM

Hadn't checked the dynasty forum in awhile.

I am enjoying this one. Keep up the good work.

Barkeep49 · 10-21-2006, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wade moore

sweet, hadn't checked in awhile, good to see updates.

Good plan on talking to the parents. Phone can be awkward and this way everyone hears the exact same info.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swaggs

Hadn't checked the dynasty forum in awhile.

I am enjoying this one. Keep up the good work.

Well in fairness there hadn't be a whole lot to read as of late. But never fear as in the next post I have the long overdue update from Monday's first practice. I am expecting to crank out the next update this weekend, well before Monday's practice.

Barkeep49 · 10-21-2006, 09:38 AM

10/16 Practice Report
So last night was our first practice (editor’s note: I got through most of this post on Tuesday. Then the bell rang for class and I so this languished until now) with the parents meeting having followed. I remain encouraged and upbeat.

When 6:00 rolled around only half the team was there. Gordie, Jack P, Jack M, Noah, and Lucas were the ones there on time. I waited two minutes extra, something I don’t believe in doing, and then started practice. Normally, I start practice with a sit down and overview of the practice, but I postponed this until later. I had been expecting Dante at 6:15, but didn’t know where the H’s or Tom were. Just as I had gotten the team on the line, Tom showed up, which was good.

We started off with doing our animal claws. I said I knew it was simple, but some people always had problems with it. The idea behind the animal claws is to show the correct position on how to hold the ball, something I wasn’t really taught until 8th grade. Several of them got into it (as I told them that they could of course make appropriate animal sounds). Right off the bat, I found that Jack M is one sharp kid. I would give an instruction and he would manage to honor the exact wording of the instruction while still doing something goofy. For now I find it endearing and fun as it keeps me on my toes. When we did some more serious and challenging activities later, he didn’t do it either which tells me he likely knows how to judge the right situation for such antics.

After we practiced our animal claws we moved onto doing it with a ball. This whole thing took me a little longer than I would have liked because as I went around to each kid to see that they were doing it correctly. It is here that having another person would have helped tremendously, but oh well, what are you going to do?

We were wasting a lot of time at this point as well as they were not paying as much attention as I would have liked. Right as we finished doing the animal claws with the ball the H’s arrived. We then broke up into partners, with one group of three. They then practiced taking the ball from a

We were wasting a lot of time at this point as well as they were not paying as much attention as I would have liked. Right as we finished doing the animal claws with the ball the H’s arrived. We then broke up into partners, with one group of three. They then practiced taking the ball from each other while keeping the grip.

I then asked them to form a horseshoe and no one was really paying attention. Gave them until a count of 10 to do it, which I counted out loud. Exactly 1 kid was sitting down. Couple others were mildly going towards it, a few others were trying to figure out what they were doing, and about half the time was nearly oblivious, until we got to about 2, that they were supposed to be doing anything. And so it was time for the good ole wind spring. Made them run to half court and back . The fastest two got to avoid doing it a second time. Didn’t have much of a problem the rest of practice with their paying attention.

After that we gathered around and I did my introduction. Talked about hustle. I asked the question “What is my job on the team?” Only a few players were willing to venture a guess. Clearly they were nervous as it was a gimme question. We established that it was my role to coach them. I talked about what that meant. Talked about how as players their job was to be supportive of each other and to work on improving themselves. Introduced my system of permissions and suicides. If you hustle (or win certain team games) you earn a permission. If you aren’t paying attention, or aren’t hustling, you get a suicide. Every player starts off with a suicide so you have to end up in the positive for permissions to avoid running at least one. A couple of players had earned a permission already.

We then went into our “continuous motion” drill. Rather than just have the players run laps, I have them do something. For this continuous motion I basically had them do bounce and underhand passes, as well as doing the “steal the ball” while in motion. They started off sprinting, and despite my encouraging them to go at a jogging pace, flamed out after 7 minutes. I expect them to be able to do a lot more than that and soon. I’m hoping that they pace themselves better next time. We then had a water break.

We then did wrist flexes. There is the shooting wrist and the dribbling wrist. According to the Basketball Coach’s Bible, one of several books I’ve read, a few simple wrist drills can dramatically improve performance. As the drills are simple, I went for them.

We then talked about the importance of pivoting, before practicing that. Several of the players had problems, but improved as we practiced. I’m a strong believer in pivots (and cuts) and so they will get better if only through repetition.

Following this we did one inch shots. It forces players to square up correctly and puts the emphasis on the wrists and the legs. It is a hard drill at first and as expected the team struggled with it. However, it really does force players to develop better shooting form and so I will be staying with it. We divided up into three groups and went for into this.

We then went to one foot shots. This allows players to really focus on technique and so we went over proper shooting technique here. As the shot is incredibly shot, there should be a high percentage of shots made. The close shots let them focus on the technique. They take multiple shots from the left, center, and right. After we do this, we are at 7:15. I decide to run our game. Basically it is just a relay contest of the one foot shot. Fun was had. The winners (who I don’t remember) earned a permission.

We then did our suicides, with Brian, Jack P, Noah, Scott, and Tom not having to run any. Jack M ended up with 2 and Dante got a second when, for the millionth time it seems like, he did touch the ground as he was running.

We then had our end of practice meeting. I complemented them on a good practice. And I gave them their “doggie bag”, which is basically just a homework assignment. For this assignment they were to practice one of three things each day between our Monday and Friday practice: pivoting, wrist flicks, and defensive stance taps. I had planned on getting to defensive taps, but it simply did not happen. Having them practice, however, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world and so I didn’t worry too much about that being in there.

It was then time for the parents meeting which went well. I had 7 of the 10 show up. I knew 1 couldn’t make it. I have since talked to the other two so that’s good. The parents seemed to buy my philosophy well enough. So all-in-all a nice first practice.

Izulde · 10-21-2006, 10:49 AM

Excellent start! I hope it bodes well for the coming season.

Barkeep49 · 10-22-2006, 09:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Izulde

Excellent start! I hope it bodes well for the coming season.

Me too

. I comment more on this in our latest update:

10-20 Practice Report

On Wednesday I received an email from the H’s nanny (interesting tangent: on my e-mail list the H’s have five people on the list: father, step-mother, mother, and two nannies, who are sisters). Anyhow, I get an email from the H’s nanny telling me that Bryan is going to be out with a broken ankle. That was clearly not the news I wanted to hear. I send a response asking for how long he is going to be out. If you recall, Bryan H had broken his ankle before and step mom was concerned about him not being at full speed at tryouts. I originally had guessed that he had re-broken the ankle. Turns out, it was the other ankle in a soccer accident. So this puts us down to 9 players. I also learn in the same email that they will be a little late coming to practice because of a birthday party.

So I arrive at the school, which is a different one than we practiced at on Monday, and I find the door locked. After being told on Monday that I was unexpected at the school, I had sent Emily an email. She assured me that all was taken care of and this was a mistake on their part. Anyhow, I finally get the attention of the janitor. I explain who we are. He starts telling me that he is the only there, we weren’t expected, and he is leaving at 7 (our practice was from 6-7:30). I walk with him to the school reservation schedule and not only does the Park District have the gym from 6-7:30 it has it until 9 o’clock. Janitor is still saying how he can’t say. I thank him for letting us in and ask him to call somebody to see what can be done. He mutters and demurs, and I say there must be somebody he can call and thank him for his help, while expressing understanding how he doesn’t want to stay late. We part ways without formal resolution.

I get my first look at our Friday gym. Where as we practice at a middle school on Mondays, and so we have a gym that is plenty large, we practice at a 3rd and 4th grade school on Friday. This means that the court is perhaps ¾ of a high school size. Maybe even 2/3. It’s not ideal and so it means that drills and concepts that require a full length court will have to be run on Monday, while Fridays will likely be activities that only require a half court, at most.

When 6 rolls around we have the expected seven players. Dante, Jack P, and Lucas brought back their “doggie bag” while Tom wrote it out on a separate piece of paper saying he had done it. Each of them earned a permission (Jack M’s mom brought it when she picked him up). I reminded the rest of the team, when the H’s arrived that they must bring the card. Failure, in the future, to do so would mean a suicide.

I get ready to start practice and I discover that I have left my practice plan in the car. Whoops. I actually had enough time I could have gone out to my car to get it, but decide that I know what I wanted to do well enough to go without the written form. We start off reviewing pivoting and do the ball holding drill. Something I noticed during the ball holding drill is that my ability to notice quickly what they were doing right and wrong had definitely picked up since Monday. Good to know practice is making me a better coach as well (as when I had run practice with my semi-competitive high school team we simply didn’t have enough practices to worry about much more than doing some basic team drills). The H’s arrived at 6:10 rather than 6:15 so that was good. The H’s arrived at 6:10 rather than 6:15 so that was good. After the H’s joined us in we went into our continuous motion drill. As we have 9 players it meant that I got to run the drill with somebody. Obviously this makes it harder to simultaneously coach. I am thinking of doing a non-partner continuous motion drill tomorrow, but these kind of drills tend to be more complex and I worry that they’re not ready for such drills, so I think it’s likely that for the time being I will be getting some extra exercise. During the drill it was clear that Jack M was struggling. Dante and David continued at a fast steady pace the entire time. The stars, however, were Gordie and Tom who did the best job of doing no look passes. That is one of the major goals of what I have been trying to do, besides conditioning, with the continuous motion drills.

After a water break we had further practice with looking up when moving. Actually, first we did dribbling in place. Worked hard on the correct dribbling position with both hands. David and Jack P did the best job. Jack M and Dante struggled more, with Noah not far behind. Let me say at this point that I was wrong about Noah. Like completely wrong. I had a real hard time at the first practice with telling apart Jack and Noah and so it’s entirely possible that I had imputed on Noah problems that were not really his alone, but instead an amalgamation.

After practicing dribbling in place, something I did as a low activity cool down after the continuous motion as well, we went into half court diagonals. I would stand at the opposite side free throw line and they were expected to shout out how many fingers I was holding up. Tom and the Jacks had the hardest time remembering to keep their heads up.

After doing this several times we played a game of “Dribble Knock away”. Basically, while dribbling they had to try and knock away the balls of fellow players. If a player lost control of his ball then he was out. The court got increasingly smaller as more players were out. Obviously the idea was to promote dribbling with your head up since you had to be aware of your surrounding. At that it was mostly successful. We played two rounds. Dante was the first player out (or perhaps the second player out the second game) which combined with his form means he wasn’t quite as good of a ball handler as I had expected. He is also SLOW. So he has endurance, but it is slow. It will be vitally important for Dante to hustle always to take advantage of his strength of endurance. Lucas won the first game with Jack M winning the second game. David H got second in both rounds, and was also the best at knocking players out. Good to see I had him accurately pegged as our best ball handler.

Honestly? Not quite sure what we did next. I feel like we did some sort of moving activity as I seem to recall another water break here before we went into our defensive stance activity. Dunno. After practicing our defensive stance we then did an activity where a defender had to stay a fixed distance away from a dribbler. I realized after we did this one time that I hadn’t really taught them how to move in the defensive stance.

So we went back and did some jumping. Taught two kinds of jumps. The first was quick jumps, which we soon changed, based on their suggestions, to “bunny jumps”. Basically it’s like a football drill. This teaches them the right motion on how to move in the defensive stance. Then we did all out jumps, two groups of ten, which when done right are quite tiring and the team mostly did them right.

We then went back to the shadowing drill. The defensive stances were, I must say, not quite as good as I had hoped. It’s the first real time that their skills weren’t as good, or better, than I expected.

We did some 1 inch shooting. I really emphasized the importance of shooting straight up, as the point of the drill is to really emphasize shooting form. After this, we ended practice with another game. It was virtually the same game as last time (with a relay) only this time they had to dribble down the full court first. We did best two out of three, but the same team won both times (though I do not recall who was on the team).

It had been a good practice and only a couple of players owed suicides and so I declared that no one had to run (didn’t say that some really had owed it) as it had been a great practice. The players had really displayed hustle, for instance always running to the places I had assigned, and so I felt the reward was deserved. I had been good about giving out permissions, but not quite as good about letting players know when they had earned one, so that’s something I want to improve on for the next practice.

We gathered around and I did the end practice with saying something positive about another team member routine that Steve and I sometimes did at the end of baseball practice. For their doggie bag, they were asked to practice to practice both of the jumps, including doing the bunny hop on one each foot. I also gave them a contact note card as I realized I had handed something to their parents but not them. I wanted to make sure to keep the door open to them, though I have no clue if they’ll take advantage of it.

This week remains a focus on individual skills. The following week we will start to focus on team skills more. I got a voice mail today from Noah’s mother asking for me to send along, or call with, a copy of the doggie bag. I promptly emailed it along. I’m thinking that I will have Noah run a half suicide to emphasize that the doggie bag is his responsibility not his mothers, especially since I had given him the contact card, before practice starts. Also of note is that I sent along our first email update of what we had done this past week and what our focus would be this upcoming week. It was a nice two paragraphs, which I think is the right amount.

Overall, the first week of practice went well. I think the team has improved and just as importantly I think I am growing nicely into the position of coach. However, I worry greatly about our first game. I worry about it. I’ve made it a point, though, not to talk about it with the players. I want them focused, for the time being, on themselves. I’m sure they’re doing a fine enough job of putting pressure on themselves without my saying anything.

wade moore · 10-27-2006, 08:30 PM

I just wanted to say that every time I look for this thread to see if it's updated I hear the little jump shot basketball game in the arcade where you win tickets going "Two Points!" in my head.

Barkeep49 · 10-28-2006, 06:55 PM

10-23 Practice Report
Well after two days of practices that I felt good about, Monday’s practice was not nearly of the same level of achievement. The truth of the matter was, that I felt how Monday it was. My teaching during the day wasn’t quite so hot. So it was likely I was not coming into practice at my best. However, I’m not quite ready to take full responsibility for my disappointment.

Anyhow, came into the building and found that only half the gym was opened. So rather than having a whole gym we had a huge dividing wall down the center. Eventually this wall is taken down, though only a minute before practice was schedule to begin so it was a close call. So, just for the record, this would be our third practice and our third time having some sort of facility issue. All of which have been resolved, and really it isn’t something that bothers me too much, since they have been resolved, but I still take note.

Practice starts and all are there except Dante. We do some of the basic warm up drills, including wrist flexes, various jumps, etc. Dante shows up about 3 minutes late.

It is now Saturday morning as I type this and my recollection of the practice has faded somewhat. So in the interest of time I am going to give a shorter summary of what I do recollect as opposed to a detailed description of everything we did.

The main thing we focused on was defensive skills. We did this in a variety of ways. We practiced one on one defense, and protective ball handling, with a drill that required a dribbler to remain in place (though he could turn in circles) while fending off an aggressive defender trying to knock the ball away. We worked on how to guard a man around the perimeter who is one, two, and three passes away. We also did a couple of rebounding drills.

Overall, as I mentioned, the practice didn’t go so well. In the end I think most of the blame lies with me. I simply wasn’t on top of my game in terms of explaining concepts and ideas. The new drills that I introduced were fine drills, if we had done them correctly, but we didn’t do them correctly and so they didn’t really do what they were supposed to do. I also was not on top of my game in explaining how to rotate coverage. At the same time, I was disappointed in the way the players hustled, or didn’t, during this practice. Emphasizing 100% hustle on defense is going to be something I am going to have to do time and time again it is clear as when players were more than 1 pass away on our rotation drill, they were often sloughing off.

On the individual player front, I realized that I had not been doing a particularly good job of connecting with Jack M. Jack M isn’t a particularly likable kid, in that he’s a bit immature and doesn’t have any endearing personality traits, which doesn’t excuse the fact that I hadn’t been doing a good job of connecting. He had been hearing far more negatives than positives from me, and I resolved to do better going forward with him.

On the opposite front, Tom has turned into that kid who does exactly what the coach wants, but in a way that is endearing to both me, as coach, and to his teammates. Having a kid like him, who is always going to give you 100% and be an example, whether conscious or not, to his teammates, is great.

Friday’s practice was both better and worse, but I will leave that for my next writeup which I am hoping to finish tomorrow.

Barkeep49 · 10-28-2006, 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wade moore

I just wanted to say that every time I look for this thread to see if it's updated I hear the little jump shot basketball game in the arcade where you win tickets going "Two Points!" in my head.

I'm glad the title amuses someone. I don't quite like it, honestly, but without knowing anything about my team when I started it, it was hard to come up with a title.

As for the rate of updates, my schedule is proving to sap my energy and time to write. I continue to want to provide updates about both practices, but I think most of the Monday writeups are going to resemble the update today, so that I get them up sooner, while I will try and do more intricate write ups with the Friday practice when I have more time and enthusiasm to write. And writing about games, when those start to happen, is fun too so that will likely lead to some additional updates.

Barkeep49 · 10-29-2006, 04:15 PM

10-27 Practice Report

Time snuck up on me. I had been working on various projects and all of a sudden it was 5:35. Egad! I hurriedly put together some doggie bag cards, printed them out, threw my shoes on and ran out the door. Then to compound the problem I went to the wrong gym, so instead of arriving at practice 8 minutes early (still not the 10 I want) I got there 4 minutes early. And what do I find? I find we’re locked out completely with no one in sight.

I go on a search of the building perimeter for a janitor. I come up empty. I head back to the front of the school to see if we have any progress there. The answer is not really. SO I go in search again. Meantime, the PD guy who had showed up last Friday and got the gym situation straightened out is there and he’s trying to call inside. I go in search again and spot a Janitor however he is too far away to hear my banging and I don’t think he sees me.

I go back to the front and basically am about ready to send people home when the janitor moves close to the part of the building we’re in. Finally, after a couple of minutes of banging, we get inside.

It is now 6:20 and we’re just getting into the school. A couple of minutes later and the gym lights are turned on. So it’s not until close to 6:30 that we’re getting underway. How frustrating. I mentally lop large chunks of our practice out of existence. We start with talking about crossovers. I use Jack P, as part of my giving him positives campaign, to demonstrate. We all practice for a minute. Then we go into our continuous motion drill.

I start them off with dribbling and when they reach a corner of the gym they do a crossover before continuing. We practice this with both hands. Most of them are pretty good at the crossovers with their dominant hand, but struggle quite a bit more when forced to do it with their off hand. Already I am seeing a lot more dribbling with heads up than I had before. It has also become apparent who is in shape and who is not. In the not category we have Lucas, who struggles through it, Jack M, who has the lowest endurance of any of our players, and Noah, who basically wimped out by needing to “tie his shoe” not once but twice.

On the other end of the spectrum, as I believe I’ve mentioned before, I think Dante could run all day long, though he is S L O W. Tom knows how to pace himself well so he rarely runs out of energy. Jack P is able to maintain a high level of performance as well. For the partner parts of this drill I put the H’s together and Scott clearly had trouble keeping up with David’s pace, which was not surprising. Gordie is somewhere between our top group and our lower group though he’d be on the lower group side if forced to put in a place.

Following our water break, we came back and worked on bounce passes as it was a nice standing drill. Simultaneous to introducing bounce passes, I also introduced the idea of the “taxi cab” wave to signal that a player was ready to catch a pass. As we will be running a motion offense, and players will (get a load of this) be in motion I want to have as few passes go to players who aren’t expecting one as possible.

We did some bounce pass work, which was a little sloppier than I’d have liked. Several of the players also have the tendency to pass from their shoulder rather than the chest. While I don’t mind, at this age, if they’re shooting from their shoulder rather than chest (assuming they’re doing the other things correctly) there’s no reason, on a bounce pass, they can’t do it correctly. We are going to be spending a fair amount of time on the overhead pass because that will be one that gives them a lot of power, something they might not be able to get as much from a traditional pass.

Following our dribbling practice we worked on doing cuts. The focus here wasn’t so great. And unlike on Monday’s practice I was all over the coaching on this one. I was particularly proud of the coaching I did, but the focus was not what I wanted it to be.

And things only got worse when we went into shooting form. I divided them up into two groups and saw all sorts of things I would not liked to have seen. Things like Jack P knocking the ball out of people’s hands. Things like Jack M shooting when it wasn’t his turn. So here I didn’t reassert control like I should have. They’re starting to get sloppy. I want them to have a good time, don’t get me wrong, but the sort of things that were going on were just not acceptable.

So on Monday (being tomorrow) I hope to reassert control. We’re going to shift suicides/permissions to purely effort and find other things to do for the not paying attention bit. David, for instance, has been getting by way more than he should in not paying attention.

Sure he was one of the 5 people who ran two suicides (in fairness Noah only had to run one but he didn’t make the time cutoff) but that isn’t reflective of how many times he was shooting the ball in the air when I was talking or doing other things along those lines. So there was definitely running (of note: Tom got his first forced suicide as he ended with 2 permissions and 2 suicides, one of which was earned by virtue of his forgetting to bring his doggie bag) at the end there.

Even as I gathered us around at the end of practice there was a lot of silliness. I wish I could attribute that to the poor start we had, as that definitely had an impact, but I like to nip things in the bud and I think now is the nipping time. Part of the problem is that we haven’t had a game yet. I wish I could have had some sort of game, a scrimmage if you will, against another team. It would provide some focus. I am generally opposed to scrimmaging, but think I might use it as a motivation stating that if we practice well we can scrimmage at the end of practice on Friday. The old carrot and stick approach.

Time is our enemy at this point, as I need to, at minimum, introduce press break. And considering we haven’t introduced an offense introducing a press break before our first game is going to be interesting.

Barkeep49 · 11-01-2006, 06:16 PM

I get to practice on Monday, 10 minutes early like I want to be, and already 2/3 of the team is there. The gym is all setup correctly and so, for the first time, we don’t have a space issue of any type. It was wonderful.

As I get the doggie bags back, I see that everyone, except for Dante, is claiming to have learned all 5 of the first rules of the offense. I am skeptical. I had made this doggie bag a little different in that I had given them a way to rate themselves and list any of the rules that they didn’t understand or were having trouble remembering.

Without much introduction we go right into our continuous motion drill. Several of the players commented, and I agreed, that the 10 minutes seemed shorter than on Friday. I’m pretty sure I did 10 minutes both days, but perhaps I messed up on one of them. If I did I likely went too short on Monday. Tonight, for the partner parts of the run, my partner was David. When I had done this with my other partners I let them set the pace. With David, I set the pace. I don’t think I’ve talked about this before, but I do treat David differently than the other players. It’s not that I am harder or easier on him, but I have found ways to express different expectations for him, higher expectations, than for others. There’s really no one there that can tire him out running except for me (Dante might be able to out endure him but since Dante is S L O W that is only so useful) so it was good to really push him there. About half way through, I asked if he was tired, he said no, so I really picked up the pace for the last half. David might have thought the time was shorter but he was more tired than he’d been before. Yes, it’s good that a healthy guy in his 20s can outrun a 9 year old. Anyhow, I will continue to look for ways to push David as I want him to grow as much as others, but since he’s starting at a higher mark, that can be hard at times. Just as a further example, he was shooting 3s before practice, something I don’t normally allow (they should be practicing shots they can make) but David made 6 out of 10. In the long run his shooting percentage would be lower, but still…

Defense was the focus of our practice. I randomly had paired them up during continuous motion. We then went into a “help defense” drill. I stood at the top of the three point arc, with a player on each wing. We had two defenders who guarded the two players on offense. As the ball was swung to a side the players needed to shift accordingly. This was a fairly simple drill, though it was made harder when we added a skip pass (meaning the two players could pass it directly to each other without passing it to me first, giving less time to recover and get into position). Lucas and Jack M struggled the most. Let’s do a quick tangent here about Jack M. I had noted previously that I wanted to really focus on the positives with Jack. And for the most part I have been doing this. At the same time I don’t fake achievement, so when he was out of place in the help drill, I’m going to, in a respectful way, remind him of where he should be and then give him a chance to demonstrate success. But overall I’ve been trying to find reasons to say good things. But Jack is the sort of kid who dwells on the negative. So despite having heard 10 complements it’s the one criticism that’ll stick with him. And then there’s the sulking. I am glad, however, that we have a long season as it does give more opportunity to really show him that I’m on his side. Hopefully, I will see better things as he realizes that basketball is a supportive place.

Then we did a couple of one on one drills. A reason for this was to give me time to divide them into groups of three for our last major drill, though we did end up spending a fair amount of time on them.

In this last drill teams of three are playing basketball. Except the offense can’t score. The goal is for the defense to force three turnovers. I turned it into a competition, as the offense needed to hold onto the ball the longest, while the defense was trying to force the mistakes as quickly as possible. I called fouls (which added or subtracted 10 seconds depending on which side you were on). However, I let a lot of ticky-tacky fouls go as I really want to encourage an in your face defense. I explained to the team that it’s easier in a game to back off then to suddenly get aggressive. I did the best I could in balancing the teams, and ended up with these groupings:

A – Dante, Jack M, Tom
B – David, Gordie, Jack P
C – Scott, Noah, and Lucas

The drill worked out even better than I had been hoping. First it forced the players to play some help defense. Forced them to take some risks with double teams, but then also learn how to react. And while I was doing it as a defensive drill it might have been even more helpful on offense. In order to do well on offense you had to really use many of the offensive rules I laid out. For instance the teams that did well kept the floor spaced, making it harder for the defense to cover. Players were forced to move with-out the ball. Teams that had players moving without the ball for a purpose did the best. Dribbling for no reason was a sure fire way to get in trouble, but dribbling for a reason was successful. And on and on. In the end if Scott hadn’t completely blown the first run through for his team (he stepped out of bounds twice) it’d have been fairly even. Team A actually won on offense. And since, as I was about to learn, Tom had really nailed the offensive rules, and Dante had given it real thought, it shouldn’t be too surprising. Team B came close on offensive, and absolutely dominated on defense, though part of that was helped by Scott’s mental mistakes. The players seemed to enjoy this drill as well, so we’ll likely be making a repeat of it. One thing I was SO happy about: All of our pivoting practice paid off. Almost all the players were pivoting out of problems in order to get free to make the pass. While we had practiced that some before, I had not given the offense any instructions, limiting myself to defensive reminders. So to see so many of the players do this was just wonderful. It really did help me feel justified for spending the time we have on “the basics” as I doubt pivoting like this had really been widely taught before now.

After all the teams had gone three times on offensive and defense I sat everyone down. And I talked about how the teams that did well on offense used many of the offensive rules. Tom was all over this. Dante also saw the connection (despite having admittedly not learned all the rules). Others? Well not quite as much. The Jacks were completely clueless, as were the H’s and Gordie. Lucas had a foggy notion, as did Noah. At this point I complemented them on a great practice. I said if we can have an equally good practice for the first hour on Friday we’ll scrimmage for about 20 minutes. Many seemed excited about this.
We ran our suicides next. Only a few players owed a suicide. I gave them 35 seconds (which was really 40, but shhh) to complete it. Last Friday I had given Dante a break on the time requirement. He was concerned about the fact, thinking that I thought poorly of him. After thinking over the interaction, I realized I hadn’t really addressed his concerns so I made sure to do so at the start of practice. I told him I knew he was slower, but that he didn’t tire, which was a good thing and so not to worry as much about the slow. Honestly, the slow will be a problem somewhat, as if a team is good at getting down the court I won’t be able to play Dante as he’d never make it down the court in time, but I think it will be workable. Anyway, so Dante decided to run the suicide, despite not having to. And he was SO proud when he did it under the allotted time. It was a great moment as it was entirely a self motivated thing, even a little bit of “I’ll show Coach that I can do it” and it was a genuine accomplishment. I loved it.

We ended practice with everyone giving a positive about someone from their 3 on 3 team. In this way far more kids got a positive stated about them. I’ve said it before, but I will say it again: this is a nice group. The supportive atmosphere Steve and I had to work so hard at creating on our baseball team is almost completely there already with this group. I claim very little for this good vibe, considering it was there to begin with. Hopefully as we start to play games, and a pecking order is established, as who I think the better players are becomes apparent, the good vibrations and supportive atmosphere will continue. If that happens I will take some credit for making sure a good foundation was there. I handed out the doggie bag, which had the rest of our 9 offensive rules. They are:

Quote:

• You move every time you make a pass
• You move to get open for a shot, to receive a pass, set a screen to get a teammate open
• Be patient and make simple passes
• Dribble should be used to: advance the ball out of the backcourt, make a drive to the basket, or open a passing lane
• All players are responsible for rebounding and defense.
• The ball should be swung quickly to make the defense shift
• One in every three passes should go to the post
• All players are responsible for keeping spacing and floor balance
• At least four passes before a shot (unless a player is open in the post)

I don’t actually expect them to know the rules yet, but by our first game they better, especially as they will have seen how we’re putting the rules together. It’s nice to know, though, that a couple of kids, such as Tom, will likely come with all 9 rules down pat like the back of their hands.

All in all, it was perhaps our best practice which after a couple of downers, was good all around.

nfg22 · 11-01-2006, 06:48 PM

keep it up...get these kids in shape...I expect an undefeated season...

Barkeep49 · 11-02-2006, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nfg22

keep it up...get these kids in shape...I expect an undefeated season...

I always get excited when I see a new comment, especially from somebody who hasn't posted before.

But man what pressure I now have! If this is the expectations of those who are just reading the dynasty here, what are the parents expecting?

wade moore · 11-02-2006, 07:54 AM

I'm pretty amazed with how much you can do with these kids. I watched a league for uhh.. 4th graders last year, which is the same age, right? Now gratned, it was league and not travel.. but the idea that they would be doing any of the things you're talking about baffles me.. most of the kids it was really just like they were on the playground.

Barkeep49 · 11-02-2006, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wade moore

I'm pretty amazed with how much you can do with these kids. I watched a league for uhh.. 4th graders last year, which is the same age, right? Now gratned, it was league and not travel.. but the idea that they would be doing any of the things you're talking about baffles me.. most of the kids it was really just like they were on the playground.

Yup same age. I teach 4th grade and so honestly I was expecting kids with the skill level I see at school, which sounds pretty comprable to what you saw. These kids are much better than that. I, honestly, don't know if they're just a really good group of kids, if it's just the difference between travel and house league, or if the PD just has a very good program that really teaches kids who to play well.

I know we have talent and I've mentioned a few times how they have almost always exceeded my expectations in terms of what they can do. I do worry, however, about their lack of size. Not as much on offense, but on defense. Many of them are going to have to "play big" as they're going to almost always, I think, be outweighed and smaller than the oponnents.

Barkeep49 · 11-02-2006, 06:02 PM

Frustrating news. The Hs won't be at Friday's pracitce. So much for a scrimmage.

wade moore · 11-08-2006, 03:03 PM

Bumpity Bump?

collegesportsfanms · 11-08-2006, 08:42 PM

Sounds like you've got a good thing going with your travel team. I wish I could say the same. I think I jumped in too fast for a first year coach. I just feel completely out of place with my school team that I'm assisting, and now I found out I'm in charge of the middle school girls, running their practice and coaching their games. The first practice I had strictly with them on Monday was a disaster, nobody listened, and it was all a bunch of goofing off. And as for my Biddy team, let's just say that team has way too many coaches and parents who think they can coach the kids. We can't get together on a practice site or time of the week. Maybe I'm not cut out to be a coach.

Barkeep49 · 11-09-2006, 07:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wade moore

Bumpity Bump?

I know I'm two practices behind. I will have an update for both of them tomorrow. We have no practice so I plan on taking some of that time to do the writeup.

Barkeep49 · 11-09-2006, 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by collegesportsfanms

Sounds like you've got a good thing going with your travel team. I wish I could say the same. I think I jumped in too fast for a first year coach. I just feel completely out of place with my school team that I'm assisting, and now I found out I'm in charge of the middle school girls, running their practice and coaching their games. The first practice I had strictly with them on Monday was a disaster, nobody listened, and it was all a bunch of goofing off. And as for my Biddy team, let's just say that team has way too many coaches and parents who think they can coach the kids. We can't get together on a practice site or time of the week. Maybe I'm not cut out to be a coach.

I'm sorry to hear you're having such a rough time. The Biddy Ball thing just seems like a potentially lost cause. However, I'm so sad to hear you have such frustration with your other coaching. I'm guessing you could be a fine coach, even if it's not happening for you yet.

As part of my preperation for this I read just about every book on coaching basketball. I would recommend, if I had to pick one, The Idiot's Guide to Coaching Youth Basketball if you're new to working with kids (or to basketball).

I know I've had some bad practices and it's VERY disheartening, I can only imagine how it would feel to have your first practice go so poorly. I know I've picked up somethings about how to do some better coaching already. Don't give up the faith.

Barkeep49 · 11-10-2006, 04:42 PM

Well it’s been a while since I last updated. My job situation is simply far more demanding now than it was for baseball and so finding the time and energy to write, as I’ve said a couple of times, is simply harder than it was before. I assure you I am very committed to this dynasty, however.

Last week I learned that the H’s would not be able to attend our Friday practice. No explanation given, just that they would not be there. Annoying, but what are you going to do? If it happens again I will say something but everyone is entitled to miss here and there, I feel.

I get to the gym and fortunately everything is ready to go. It seems like, finally, our kinks have been worked out in terms of the building. I arrive to the gym 10 minutes early and we have only 3 people there: Gordie, Jack P, and Noah. Dante arrives a couple minutes after I do. I don’t think much of it. But then others don’t show up. Basically I get them going into an extended game of lightening, using continuous rules to make it go longer. At 7:15 Tom shows up. When I call him on being late he cries and shuts down. It’s very strange. I eventually stop trying to figure out what is happening (after a couple minutes).

So I decide to start practice, such as it is, at 7:20. Basically everything I wanted to do? Out the window. Simply doesn’t make sense with only half the team there. I am careful not to be frustrated with the people who do show up. But frustrated I am.

Given the small group I scrap my initial plans. We do some practicing of screens. Since, with the exception of Dante, most of the players are small we work on some overhead passes. Several times we do drills designed to tire them out and then I have them shoot two free throws. The idea being that this is more game like than having them This is something I haven’t done enough of and also not something I did enough of on Monday. I really need to be incorporating free throws into every practice at this point. Shame on me for not doing so.

The big winner of the practice? A game I was going to call “Seven”, but was quickly rechristened “Golf” as you don’t want points. Basically it is a pressure shooting/follow your shot drill. Players shoot from the elbow. If the shot misses and hits the floor the team gets a point. If the player makes a shot and it hits the floor nothing happens. If a team makes three in a row they lose a point from their total. Players must pass the ball as soon as they rebound and only have two seconds to shoot (though in reality most take less time than this). Players are effectively at their outer limits of where they can shoot in this drill as well, which contrasts to what I’d been doing in most drills.

Anyhow this was wildly popular with the team. I’m not sure why as I found it one of the more boring games we’d done. But there you have it. We played a couple of games. Did some free throws took a water break and played a couple more games. I was pleased with how they were shooting, liked the pressure, thought why shouldn’t they have fun with so few of them, and so we ended up playing four games. We then did a 2 on 2 drill where after someone allowed a point they were replaced. This way they were forced to deal with mismatches on defense and to learn how to take advantage of them on offense. I have to say I wasn’t too happy with what I saw. The shot selection was good, for the most part. And there were passes. But, well, it was depressing. It just didn’t look like good basketball. Perhaps my expectations were simply out of whack. But it was kind of a depressing end to a depressing practice.

It turns out I knew way back that Lucas would not be there. But Jack M was an unexcused no show. With most others I’d have been far harsher about it at practice on Monday but with Jack I’m treading such a fine line I decided not to push the point too much.

Monday’s practice will be detailed either later tonight or tomorrow.

wade moore · 11-10-2006, 09:07 PM

Totally understand you not updating sometimes, the updates are enjoyable when the come though!

Izulde · 11-11-2006, 01:21 PM

Overall I'd have to say that you're way ahead of the curve relative to where you were with baseball and I think that has to really boost your confidence about flying solo.

Izulde · 11-11-2006, 01:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by collegesportsfanms

now I found out I'm in charge of the middle school girls, running their practice and coaching their games. The first practice I had strictly with them on Monday was a disaster, nobody listened, and it was all a bunch of goofing off.

Middle school girls are the single most difficult age group to coach.

My barber back home coached a middle school girls' softball team and he had the same types of problems that you're talking about.

So did the guy who coached the U-14 girls soccer team the year before I took them over.

The way I handled it was to get involved with them in warming up stuff (i.e. I'd run and stretch myself) and I'd allow them their chatter for a few minutes here and there before directing their attention to the next activity, etc.

They're going to be chatty and occasionally distracted no matter what. The idea I used was to focus on the fun elements of playing, building up a team spirit (much like Barkeep does with his teams), and give them a little freedom here and there.

Barkeep49 · 11-11-2006, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Izulde

Overall I'd have to say that you're way ahead of the curve relative to where you were with baseball and I think that has to really boost your confidence about flying solo.

Well we are ahead of where we were in baseball, I think. More on this topic in my next update.

Thanks for bring this up since I hadn't really talked about it. To be honest I miss doing this with someone. There have also certainly been things we can't do because there's only one of me. For instance I found a great transition drill but it requires two coaches and I would love to do some station work. In fact we might still do some station work later on in the season and just bring in some parents for the end of practice. There is a reason, however, that parents are not the coach of the travel team and it's a good reason which is also why I haven't allowed parents at practice.

Overall, however, while I am quite pleased with my decision to do this solo venture. It was the right choice, not to have a co-coach. I will, if I do this again, try and find an assitaint coach.

But I will love the time, I know, when baseball comes around and I get Steve back to do the whole experience with.

Barkeep49 · 11-12-2006, 08:45 AM

After Friday’s practice I realized that we simply were not going to be ready for our first agame. Or at least not as ready I would like. While if I had to do it over again there would some things I would change, I would not change the overall idea of what we’ve done at practice. I think what I’ve done will benefit us for the long term. However, we’re going to be a bit of a mess for our first game.

Going into Monday’s practice I realized we had three practices left before our first game. Our practice on Friday was going to be canceled since there was a school fun fair and it seemed like the team should be able to enjoy that. That left just that Monday practice and two practices we have this week. And here are the things that are very important that hadn’t been fully, or in most cases even partially, taught:
• Transition offense
• Starting routines for the motion offense – we’d done some work, but not really enough
• Press break
• Full court press
• Inbounds play
• Tip-off play

And that’s just the important stuff. While thinking this over I decide that there simply is no way to teach a full-court press in the time we have left. This will leave us in the uncomfortable position of trying to learn a press break against a theoretical full court press. Teaching a press break and press is going to be further complicated by our only having nine players. These are some of the few activities where 10 players is a must. I do feel better about our lack of a god press break because of how good we are at dribbling. I would feel even better about it if the H’s were going to be at our first game. I mentioned this a while back, but we’re going to be at 7 players for the first game. After Friday’s practice I had effectively decided on a starting lineup of those who showed up Friday, who also happen to be our best remaining five:
Tom
Gordie
Dante
Jack P
Noah

What do they have in common? SHORT. And its not like Jack M off the bench is going to help matters much, being the shortest member of the team. I knew it was going to be an issue, but the issue is HUGELY aggravated when 2 of your 3 biggest players, Brian and David, aren’t there and only 2 of your 5 tallest, Dante and Lucas, are there. But we will make do.

I decide to roughly break-up the skills we need to have at least talked about into the following:
• Transition offense (Monday 11/6)
• Starting routines for the motion offense – we’d done some work, but not really enough (Wednesday 11/15)
• Press break (Wednesday 11/15)
• Inbounds play (Friday 11/17)
• Tip-off play (Friday 11/17)

So Monday was transition offense day. I admit I get more than a little nervous when at 6:55 we only have 4 players. But everyone shows up just on time, except for Jack P who shows up about 15 minutes late. I start off practice by telling them that we only have three practices left and so it’s crunch time.

We start off by teaching them a new continuous motion drill, which I dubbed Princeton, that also reinforces the ideas of a transition offense. Players are strategically placed throughout the court, going up and down, and they make a quick pass and follow the pass to a new spot. It becomes continuous motion, in effect, when you add a second ball despite the fact that only 6/7 players are ever really on the court at one time. Anyhow I teach this and we play “how many shots can you make in two minutes” with one ball. I then completely mess up, THREE TIMES, how to do this drill with two balls before figuring it out. Grrr to coach. Anyhow we finally do get it going with two balls and I just let it run continuously for a bit.

It is then time to teach the transition offense off a made basket. The idea being we’re going to simply beat the other team down the court. We run it a couple of times with no defense. The performance was OK. An interesting note is that Jack M basically would only pass the ball to David as an outlet, even after I told him to pass to the other option and even if David wasn’t ready. These two are best friends, so it’s understandable, but it’s definitely a problem. It means that Jack M will likely play only a little when David is in, which considering David will be playing a lot, will limit his playing time until I see that he’s broken himself of this habit. The team started to get a little goofy here and I didn’t clamp down on it as I should have. Part of the goofiness carried over from Friday’s practice where with the small group it wasn’t nearly as much of a problem.

We then moved to playing a 5 on 5 half court game, where I was the 5th player on offense. The offense would make a shot and the defense would then do transition. Things got more and more ridiculous. Finally I had enough. I had them get on the baseline and I announced a suicide. I heard someone blame someone else, not sure who the identities of either of these players really were, so I said that this wasn’t any individuals fault, but instead was a team problem. And so we’d run a second suicide. They did the first suicide no problem with-in the time frame I’d given. The second one, I let the first person to do half of it and three quarters of it drop out. However, people took to jogging and so the team didn’t finish in the prescribed time. So it was off for a third one. We did the third one fine. I then gave them a water break.

When they got back they were much more focused with the drill, as one would hope. Following this I introduced another transition drill. In this one we have a set number of players on the court. I started with 6, three on defense and 3 on offense. I simultaneously pass the ball to a player on offense and call the name of a player on defense. The player whose name I called has to run form the free throw line extended (which is where they are lined up) to underneath the hoop. The other players go right into offense and defense. Basically it’s teaching them how to run the fast break. I decided to go for this drill rather than the more conventional teaching approach since we’re short on time and I want them to have some semblance of how it works. We will likely back up and teach it from a more theoretical standpoint sometime in the not too distant future. I start the drill with effectively 3 on 3, before increasing it to 4 on 3, 4 on 4 and finally 5 on 4. Overall I’m pleased with how it runs.

I then decide we’ll play a game of Golf. We end up playing two, with the first one being a demonstration game and the second one “for real”. Each time won one of the games, so it’s unfortunate that only one of them had to run. But such are the breaks. Several things became apparent here. First Jack M is terrible at following up his shot. His team lost the first game almost purely because of him and nearly lost the second game as well. Shooting a free throw basically seems to be FAR outside his range as well, but I already kind of knew that. David and Dante are our best shooters from that distance, with Jack P and Tom a step below that. But I pretty much already knew that. Scott has trouble judging the angle of shots.

Earlier as we were running Princeton, Emily came in with the uniforms. To end practice I decide we’ll do a little 4 on 4 full court as I layout and get ready the uniforms. I divide them into two teams with Jack P being the odd man out. I rotate him in but we really don’t have much time for the game. However, what we do have time for, isn’t pretty. It’s clear we have a lot of work to do. When Lucas’s mother comes in, as we’re right up against the time and comments “They’re looking good” I’m not sure what to say. In my heart of hearts I know we’re just not ready yet and I fear greatly we’re not going to be there before next Sunday. I responded with a “We’ll see how we are at our first game” which is downbeat for the picture I normally try to instill.

We then hand out uniforms, always fun, and go home. The clock is ticking. Hopefully HP, which I hear from some kids on the team isn’t as good as us, will be even more unready. But who knows? Only time will tell.

Barkeep49 · 11-18-2006, 10:13 AM

11-17 Practice Report
Welcome back to the further travails of my efforts to coach a successful youth basketball team.

As you recall, we had no practice last Friday because of a school event. And practice on Monday was rescheduled for Wednesday. The problem arises with the rescheduling when I get an email Tuesday. Lucas’s mother is asking about our practice on Wednesday since her six year old is scheduled to practice at the same time. I email Emily at the Park District. Turns out I asked to reschedule on Wednesday and she had no gym on Wednesday so gave me Tuesday’s date. I didn’t pay close attention to this and so I blew it. By the time I’ve figured out what has happened it’s 5:00 Tuesday. So there goes that practice.

So that brings us to Friday’s practice. We have too much to do and not enough time to do it. But that’s going to have to be OK. We do a short stretching session and then go into our offense. I show them a few things that they can do with the offense. And well, it goes OK. I think with a another practice worth of trying it, it would go more than OK. However, I think that in many ways they’re going to play an ugly game of basketball come Sunday.

After our offensive practice, which we do for about a half hour, we practice our inbounds play. There is a lot of teaching involved, but people seem to pick it up well enough. It’s a simple stack. We line up and then on the signal from the in bounder the players all do something different. All in all the play seems to work well enough, especially considering that the defenders knew what the offensive players were going to do. So that is good. Now the problem is that this play won’t likely work as well against a zone.

In fact that’s my big fear is that they will be playing a zone. If so it’s going to be an early time out. I know they’ll be able to adjust to playing against a zone, but we haven’t really practiced it. Hopefully the HP coach feels the way I do about man-to-man, and I think he will, and so we will see that kind of defense.

Lastly we practiced our tip-offs. Overall that worked fine too. We concluded practice with my reminding them about some of the nuts and bolts of the games. Things like checking in at the scorer’s table and telling who you were guarding when subbing in.

The thing is that overall we’re still not playing well as a team. I feel good about where their individual skills are at. However, we’re not really playing as a basketball team and that concerns me. I am hoping that our opponents will be just as lost as we are.

One other note from practice. Gordie and Jack M were seriously not getting along. There was pushing, grabbing, etc. I took them aside after practice. It seems that there has been ill feelings before, then things had gotten better, and now things are not going as well again. We talked about how we’re on the same team and that this sort of behavior wouldn’t be accepted. They both got the message, in theory, but we’ll see how this translates to reality.

My original plan for Sunday had been to start Noah, Gordie, Dante, Jack P, and Tom. However, in my talk with Gordie and Jack I talked about how on Sunday there would be times when they’d have to play together and if we were going to do well as a team they’d have to play well together. I am thinking, to reinforce this point, have Jack start in the place of Noah. It would certainly get the message across, I think. Dante, Jack P, and Tom are regular starters for the time being, though I will be mixing things up from time to time to get everybody their promised start, with Scott and David, who are off on a jaunt to LA being our other two starters.

I don’t see that I’ve done a complete run down of the team in a while so it seems like before our first game would be a good time to do that.

Brian –
Good: Remember him? Well word through the grapevine is that he could be rejoining our team as early as December 4th from his ankle injury. I had originally heard more like January, or even February so this is good.

Bad: Who knows how quickly he’ll be able to catch up. The one good point of our being behind where I want to be team wise is that it should be easier for him to catch up. However, he’ll have missed out on some of the conditioning. So he likely won’t return at the same caliber as when he left us. I think we’ve had better chemistry without him. Hopefully we’ll be solid here when he comes back.

Dante –
Good: Good endurance. He gets how to rebound. He has a nice shot so some of the kids have taken to calling him Yao since he is our tallest player and can shoot from the outside.

Bad: He is S L O W. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I honestly don’t know how well his slow will play out. There’s not too much I can do it about it, all things considered, but hope for the best.

David –
Good: Good basketball intelligence and ability. For instance when we were running our in bounds play and his defender was guarding the play more than him, he did something slightly different and broke free for an easy inbounds pass and basket. I’ve talked about his ability before. He’s the only player I really feel good about taking long distance shots.

Bad: As one of the taller members of the team he’s going to have play against bigger guys and in the post more than he’s used to.

Gordie:
Good – A fun kid and helps keep things light. A fairly good defender.

Bad – Takes shots he shouldn’t take. Can get trapped fairly easily on defense.

Jack M –
Good: Has good court vision, he rarely makes a bad pass. Also has a quick first step on his dribble. He will likely bring the ball up for us often.

Bad: He doesn’t seem to like the fact that I don’t want him shooting long distance shots. He’s not the most likable kid which has already had an effect with one player and meant that during our inbounds drill complained about what the 1 and 2 players do, despite the fact that the 1 player is one of the most important as he does two different things to get open.

Jack P –
Good: This kid is a tenacious defender and one of the better shots on the team. He is so quiet it is easy to forget how good he is, but he could easily be the second best player on the team. He was our best in bounder of the five I tried (Lucas, Tom, David, Jack P, and Scott).

Bad: Not a whole lot to say except that since he’s a new kid some of the players on the team haven’t figured out how good he is yet and so he doesn’t get the passes he deserves on offense, despite my prodding, that he deserves.

Lucas –
Good: He’s a nice kid who never complains about anything and will always attempt to do what is asked of him.

Bad: He’s not the sharpest kid on the team. I had to walk through the inbounds play with him several times at each of the positions he did before he got it. He clearly doesn’t like the fact that he has to play post/center positions, but, well, tough. He could likely see a pickup in his minutes once he masters some of the things, like always screening away from the ball, but until then his action will likely be more limited as he kind of plays confused.

Noah –
Good: He picks up things quickly. He is solid all around on offense.

Bad: His defense could stand some improvement. He gets beat off the dribble too much.

Scott –
Good: Solid player who works hard. In particular I like how he seems to have a good sense of where to be on the court.

Bad: His skills are better suited to a forward position, but he’s not really big enough to be a forward. Not as big of a deal on offense, where we play a motion, but does matter on defense.

Tom –
Good: He is the heart of our team. He does most things well and is one of our better shots.

Bad: He hasn’t seemed happy at the last couple of practices, so I don’t know what’s going on there. He has a slow first step on defense.

So there you have it. I am just petrified that we are going to get blown out. I haven’t done as good of a job as I should have in getting them ready for this date. The first game is important and so despite the fact that I stress it’s a long season having a blowout first game is NOT what I want.

Hopefully when I write you tomorrow, my fears will have been misplaced and I will be writing to you about the 1 and 0 Spartans.

Izulde · 11-18-2006, 01:10 PM

I assume you're thinking of putting Dante at C? His slow foot speed would be minimized there and his endurance an asset, as he'd be able to take the banging on the boards he's likely to get down there, especially against larger teams. His rebounding and inside shot would be most helpful there, too.

Also, I'm just curious. He's slow, but how's his quickness?

Barkeep49 · 11-18-2006, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Izulde

I assume you're thinking of putting Dante at C? His slow foot speed would be minimized there and his endurance an asset, as he'd be able to take the banging on the boards he's likely to get down there, especially against larger teams. His rebounding and inside shot would be most helpful there, too.

Also, I'm just curious. He's slow, but how's his quickness?

Yes Dante will be at Center. But as we're running a motion offense, his being at Center matters more on defense and on set plays, such as inbounds or press breaks (which we didn't get to and is one of my main sources of anxiety) than on our normal offense.

His quickness is fine. We're a pretty quick team overall and I'd say he's in the middle of the pack. He does most things well, which is why I'm pretty high on him overall as a basketball player.

09-06-2006, 11:39 PM	#2
Groundhog Coordinator Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Sydney, Australia	Interesting stuff, I'll definately be following. I've thought about getting in to coaching myself actually, and I'll be interested to see how this progresses. __________________ Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. --Ambrose Bierce

09-12-2006, 08:35 PM	#6
RPI-Fan Pro Starter Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Troy, NY	...following... __________________ Quis custodiets ipsos custodes?

09-13-2006, 10:05 PM	#8
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	I was hoping to get this typed up before I went to tryouts today, but it was not to be. The last two days have been very informative. I really feel like good grasp of most of these kid’s skills. This is certainly a change from the first day. So that part is good. The part that is bad? Right now I have a basketball team of 9 players. I have two players on the cusp and I could end up taking one or both of them and don’t know which it’ll be. Yesterday we did a few drills. We started with a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 weave drill. Then we went to zig-zag dribbling. They were always to use the hand they were dribbling towards, so left if going left, and right if going right. I was actually very impressed overall with how well many of these kids were able to dribble with both of their hands. However, I decided, upon further reflection, that the width we were doing was too small. We ended up repeating this today first thing so that we could use the full court before the 5th graders arrived. I was able to see a lot more distinctions when we did it tonight. We also did several passing drills with two man teams doing a slide with chest and overhead passes, along with a jogging bounce pass back and forth. We also did a 45 second, how many 6-9 foot jump shots can you make. We ended with some 3 on 3 games. The 3 on 3 games? Disaster. I learned very little worthwhile. I feel like we did something else, but it is forgotten at this point. Coming out of day 2 a huge burden was taken off my shoulders. All three of the H triplets were going to make the team. Bryan, our friend with the broken ankle, is a fairly good guard. I really don’t like his attitude, but it is not so bad as to be a major problem. Scott seems like he’s going to be a good forward. I still have no clue where I’m going to play David, who was once again the best player on the court. I mean he’s likely the best ball handler we have, but he’s also one of the taller players, on a team that is fairly short. Anyhow, this is the sort of problem that I like to have, and I have a bit to figure things out. Also showing real promise was Dante. He’s one of the two tallest kids out there, besides Asher (who was the kid who reminded me of me in 4th grade). Dante showed good to very good abilities to dribble, shoot, and rebound. He’s exactly the sort of center I had hoped to have: A thread (as much as any of them are) from the outside and able to handle the ball. Fits into the motion offense I expected to run. Let me diverge from the tryouts here for a second. I went into tryouts with an open mind. I haven’t really choreographed what I expected the offense or defense to be because I wanted to see their skills first. But, as I knew the community, they were what I expected. Mostly a group of short kids. Their dribbling skills were better than I expected and their shooting about what I thought it would be. Anyhow, my plan is to spread the floor, as even tall 4th graders don’t tend to be huge, and teach them how to move without the ball in order to create inside shots. Most of these kids cannot shoot, really, beyond 12, and for many 10 foot is the outer range of where they should be shooting. Anyhow, so Dante makes the team. Leaving the gym that night I knew that we had a team of 5: The Hs, Dante, and Jack P. Jack P is another taller kid with good dribbling and shooting skills. He’s a step below Dante in height, and could see some limited time at Center, but will more likely be seeing time in the 3 and 4 spots. I went home and entered the numbers for both the objective and subjective drills. Came up with a weighted and un-weighted formula to rank them with. Based on that analysis I got two more players; both surprised me at the time as they had not really made an impression, but based on observations tonight both definitely deserved it. Noah was one of them. A shooting/point guard, even possibly a small forward, he’s got a great first step for a penetrating dribble and is a very accurate lay-up shooter. The other player to make it was Jack P. Interestingly, I had a fairly hard time telling Noah and Jack apart for a bit as they both have about the same skin tone and have the same hair cut. I do think I have it down now, though. Anyhow, Jack did very well defensively and showed good ability to dribble with both hands. He’ll be a point/shooting guard for us. That gave me 7 players who I knew would make the team. I also had ruled out two. Asher was one of them. He actually turned out to be a great rebounder, but really all the other parts of his game are just terrible. My decision was reaffirmed when I learned before tryouts tonight that he’s actually had extensive basketball training. Hence the reason why he surprised me by knowing of the “hot shots” drill. For a kid who has had all the background he’s had, his fundamentals are just appalling. I thought he was a kid who might just need a thousand lay-ups so he could not look like an octopus when he shoots. But that likely is wrong. He just doesn’t have it. Oh well. Asher also drove me nuts since he took every opportunity he could to sit down. I asked him if he was tired, and he said no. I let him know that he shouldn’t sit down then. Anyhow Asher was out. Also out was Matt. Matt was one of only two kids, along with Miles not to attend day 2. Matt was slow and unskilled. No real getting around it. I actually wondered if he’d even show up today. He did and my limited observations only more than confirmed what I thought. That left 7 kids who I was undecided about: Miles Tom Nick Cameron David R Lucas Gordie Tom was a virtual lock to make the team. The real problem was that he was a noticeable step below some other kids at some important skills for both the 1 and 2 positions, which were the spots he seemed most comfortable at. He did have good hustle and a good sense of how to move on the court. Considering the offense I want to run this latter trait was what made him a virtual lock to make the team. In fact were it not for his thoroughly mediocre shooting scores I’d like have already put him on the team. Nick was nearly put on the cut list, but I decided to leave him off. However, he did not come tonight and as such his performance did not improve, making him an easy cut. He did have fairly good defensive skills, though not hugely better than several other players. This means this plus was more than negated by his terrible offensive skills. He wasn’t a particularly great hustler either. He also sucked his shirts. I know this last thing might seem inconsequential but it was actually a fairly big minus in my book. I want my players to play fearlessly out there. That was one way I made basketball teams was because I was (and am) fearless on the court. I’m not afraid to take a charge or set a hard pick or dive for the loose ball. Anyhow, I want fearless players and a kid who sucks his shirt at age 9 is not a fearless kid.. Then there is Cameron. Cameron is a blob. He doesn’t do anything great, but he doesn’t do anything poorly either. More about Cameron later. David R was the kid who yesterday I just loved his attitude. I continued to love his attitude. I went into tonight looking for something, anything, to justify putting him on the team. Lucas, was a kid who I didn’t have much of a sense for. His weighted scores, which gave more weight to the objective things we’d done, were so-so. Finally there was Gordie. Gordie showed moments of skill. However, I knew heading into the day that he’d be a borderline player, with me not wanting to take him. The reason for this was that he was CONSTANTLY not paying attention or needing me to call him over or asking him not to shoot a basket while some other kid was doing his shooting drill. Before tryouts started today the 5th/6th grade coach asked me about him. I told him that he was borderline leaning towards no. The coach explained that he knew the family well and had coached his brother on a couple of teams, and that the brother had the same personality. Good to know it runs in the family. Miles had not impressed me during the first night’s tryout. However, he was the kid who I first met who had a good spirit. I thought that perhaps there was more that he was capable of, that I simply hadn’t seen. Before tryouts tonight I met his father. His father has an unbelievable background, having founded the 4th grade travel team, done all sorts of JCC sports, founded, and is currently president of, a small fry team. I really liked the guy. It gave me renewed hope that Miles would have more to show me. Several players had told me they’d be a minute or two late. So when the opportunity arose with 4 of us there to play a game of knockout, I took it. I won. We then played two more games, with more kids joining in each time, which I also won. I’m sure it’ll be a big relief to you to know that I could beat a bunch of 9 year olds. The players all really enjoyed it though, which was good. I let the kids play a fourth game, which only got about ¾ finished before we started practice. As I mentioned we started with full court zig-zag dribbling. After doing full court once we did to half court and back as the 5th graders were starting to trickle in. Next we played a game of “Man in the Middle”. The kids were about 10 feet apart. Person in the middle. The two people on the outside could throw chest or bounce passes to their partner while the man in the middle tried to intercept. This did not turn out nearly as well I had hoped and I ended up speeding it up, though I did get to see a couple of kids do the sort of passes I wanted to see. My goal tonight was to focus on 6 kids who I didn’t know about. By the end of man in the middle, and based on seeing him play lightening, I knew that Miles, bless his heart, just didn’t have what it took and neither did David R. I really liked both kids, but a travel basketball team just is no the right place for them right now. In happier news, Lucas had impressed me during knockout and continued to impress me during the first few drills and moved into the likely make it category. Next we divided into 3 teams of 4, as there were only 12 players there. Besides Nick, the H triplets were not there (which was not unexpected). I tried to put 1 center person (which ended up being Asher, Dante, and Lucas), 1 forward (Jack M, Tom, as if he could play forward his playing time would be greatly increased, and Cameron), and 2 guards. I also tried to roughly balance the teams talent wise. I also told the kids who to match up against, though I did not state what position I’d put them at. The scrimmage proved to be quite informative, in the confirm what I already know sense. Asher, for instance, not only can’t shoot but LOVES to shoot. To the great annoyance of his team mates. Noah impressed me with his ability to penetrate. Lucas tried to play guard until I told him “if you make the team you will be at forward or center, so play there”. He didn’t like it but gave the position his best, which was nice to see. He did a nice enough job. It became clear that Tom could not play forward. That’s a shame as it greatly reduces his utility since I have enough guards, even if I use the 3 as a semi-guard, as is likely. He did, however, again show his ability to move around without the ball to great effect. More frustrating was Gordie who proved an ability to shoot quite well and also played better defense than I’d seen previously. The kid is also short, even for this team, something I haven’t mentioned before. His annoying traits were still present, though more restrained tonight. In our later drills he would once again prove quite the adept shooter. Cameron once again did nothing poorly, but neither nothing outstandingly well. This would be the theme with his running as well, which was our next part. Using two groups I had them do a variety of drills which required them to run/dribble to half court, and back. Miles actually showed a surprising amount of speed, but his control was poor and his left hand weak, so no loss there. After doing the running, I immediately put them back in their three groups and had them each shoot three free throws. Cameron actually did fairly well here. Then it was time for “half court suicides”. A suicide, for those who don’t know, is where a player runs from under the basket, to the free throw line, back to under the basket, to half court, back, to the opposite side free throw line, back, and to other the other basket and back. The drill is grueling, but is a staple of basketball training because it is good conditioning and also gives players a chance to work on change of directions, again an important skill. Anyhow, a half court versions are considerably less difficult. Of course they ended up running 4 variations which again was somewhat tiring. They did have a short break in between runs as we had two groups, but the players did tire. Then it was another three free throws. The shooting percentage, not surprisingly, dropped off for the second three. I then gave them a water break. One important note: Dante clearly was not hustling during this. I got on him and still he did not hustle. Later I would learn there was a reasonable explanation for this. We next did a drill where there is a player who passes in to someone who posts up. That player is being guarded. I only allowed the poster, as I called him, to take one shot. I also stated that there could be no fade aways. It was interesting seeing who turned inside, and who turned outside. The first 5 kids, meaning nearly half, turned outside, until Miles turned inside and became only the second player to actually make the basket. We ran through this twice. Finally, we ended by doing left handed lay-ups, dribble from the right side to take a shot from about 12 feet on the left side, right handed lay-ups, and doing the jump shot with dribble from left to right. I gathered everyone around, thanked them for another great day of try outs and explained how the team would be posted. I was asked what days practices were and I said they were currently scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays. Dante groaned. Turns out he plays travel soccer year round and those are the days they practice and there was even some overlap in the time. This was bad news, as Dante was making the team no doubt. It means I need to talk to Katie, my Park District contact, about changing that Wednesday practice, as Mondays are the best day of the week for me scheduling wise. Anyhow, I went home. Immediately, of the six I crossed off Miles, Matt, Nick, and David R. Tom and Lucas made the cut. That leaves me with 9 players and only Cameron and Gordie left to make a decision about. Of the two, Gordie is more talented, no doubt. But the question is: is he coachable? Then there is Cameron. His skills aren’t as present, but I know he’ll work hard. Of course he doesn’t bring anything to the team dynamic and while not being a minus is good, being a nothing, is well, nothing. And Gordie at least will have moments where he’d likely add something good. I think in the end I’m going to take Gordie and not Cameron, though I could take both if I wanted since 11 is still manageable and gives a little more breathing room for sickness/injury. Of course if everyone is there it makes for an incredibly awkward number to practice with. So that remains the last decision to make. I will likely make it by the time I wake up tomorrow. And truth be told it’ll likely be Cameron and not Gordie. But time will tell. Last edited by Barkeep49 : 09-16-2006 at 11:29 AM.

09-16-2006, 08:27 PM	#12
Poli FOFC Survivor Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Wentzville, MO	I'm sure you'll do well in this, knowing how much you know about basketball. __________________ Cheer for a walk on quarterback! Ardent leads the Vols in the dynasty forum.

09-16-2006, 09:03 PM	#14
Izulde Head Coach Join Date: Sep 2004	I haven't checked in before now, though I wish I would've, because I love your dynasties. My one comment is that I would've taken Cameron instead of Gordie. You say that a nothing is a nothing, but with Gordie's negative personality traits, a nothing is better than a negative. But then, I focus a lot on team chemistry. I'll be eagerly following this, as I've never coached a tryout team in any form, but really would like to some day. __________________ 2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty)

09-07-2006, 12:57 AM	#3
collegesportsfanms Pro Rookie Join Date: Jan 2004	Great read. I'm actually beginning my basketball coaching career this year, with a Biddy Ball team and a high school team. Should be lots of fun.

09-12-2006, 03:22 PM	#4
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	9/12/06 Well I did not get my promised weekend post in. But I’m back again. Yesterday was the first day of try-outs. The structure, once again, is three days long. An hour and a quarter each day. Players must attend two days. Yesterday was the first day of tryouts. In the end I had 16 players show up. The sixth grade tryouts, which were basically running concurrently to ours, had 30. I would have, honestly, thought these numbers reversed as kids would be more likely to try out when they’re younger and have never been rejected from a travel team before. Rather than going 75 minutes, we only went 50 since I had to go to my school’s open house. So I did lose some considerable time looking at these players. Things also suffered since I was new at this. And running tryouts by yourself? It’s hard. Having a second pair of eyes would have been incredible as there wouldn’t have been nearly the same amount of downtime and I think things would have run smoother. Let’s review what happened. I pull up to the school at the same time as another car. As I am getting out my car (and taking off my suit jacket) I hear a dad talking to his son in the next car. It was really cute hearing the dad give his son advice. We end up walking the first couple of steps together and I smile at him and say that his dad was offering good advice. Kid seems nice enough. I later learn that his name is, I believe, Miles. (A note on names: In my little league dynasty I used initials as I do want to protect these kid’s right to privacy. I am simply going to use first names, sometimes with last initials, for this dynasty as I think using initials made the kids seem less kidlike and had a negative effect on the overall feel of the dynasty). As I go to the gym, I meet a guy who works for the Park District. I also meet a step mother of triplets who’s very concerned. She tells me that one of her step-sons, whose name is Bryan, just had an ankle cast taken off. She doesn’t think there will be any effects, but wants me to know. I smile and write down his name so it seems like I’m being responsive. I do feel for the kid, but also am not a psychic and so if this kid is still recovering from the brake, as he no doubt is, I will not be able to see his full skills, which will make things harder. But what can ya do? I started off by giving a short welcoming speech. I basically cribbed it from a website I found. It talked about working hard, listening, and not being nervous. I even did like I do for my students before a test and told a corny joke before we got started to try and loosen them up. Worked for some, and not so for others. So for our first drill, I divide them up into two groups. As I stated earlier we are sharing a full size gym with the sixth grade team, so we used the side to side baskets for most of what we did. For the first drill, they are to rebound, outlet to me, run down to the other side, receive a pass, and make a lay-up. We do this one time and then the second time I give them a score from 1-5. Everyone ended up receiving a grade of between 3 and 5, including .5 increments. For sports I am used to being handed a team. In that situation I’ve never bothered to rate my players, since they’re my players, and simply did the best I could working with them. So I expect, and hope, that my ability to instantly judge minute differences in skill. I mean it also doesn’t help that these are all 9 year olds and so many of them ARE close together in skill. So we run it through. Some kids are clearly worse at this than others. Of course since I am doing the through, some throws are better than others and so I get to see some kids adjust well and others have trouble. But it’s good information all around. Following this we did 30 second lay-up contests from both sides. Players were encouraged to shoot with both hands, though some players needed more encouragement during the actual process. This took about a minute a player as it was 30 seconds to do the actual shooting, and then another 30 for me to record the scores and make sure the next two players were ready to go. It was at this point I thought of putting names with numbers so that also took some time. Players were instructed to count the number of baskets made by people at their basket. This started off strong, but by the end only a couple of kids were doing it. Notes were made. We then did a dribbing/defense drill. Players had to zig-zag dribble while another player defended. I was really just looking for footwork and body posture so I had the defenders hold their hands behind their back. Unfortunately I did not make as careful notes during this drill as I’d have liked. Finally, we ended with a semi-abridged version of lightening. Abridged because the time was up and I needed to go. This was actually helpful in that I could see them in a semi pressure situation not to mention getting a further sense of their rebounding and lay-up skills not to mention a beginning sense of their free throw abilities. So what about the players? Well let’s start with the triplet’s, who I will refer to as the H triplets. One of the triplets, David (I think), was by far the best player out there. No one else was close. During the dribbling drill I switched his partner twice just because I wasn’t getting anything useful from his partner because he was so dominating. The kid could not make another shot the rest of tryouts and he’d make the team. The problem comes with his brothers. Bryan, of broken ankle fame, has an attitude that rubs me the wrong way. As for his skills, they are pretty middle of the road. He claimed not to be bothered by the ankle, but I dunno. As for the third brother, he was pretty middle of the road as well. The whole triplet thing complicates matters. Clearly David is making the team. But then what to do about the other two? This is not a charity, but I do not want to start the season by making a politically intemperate move with the parents. I see no real way I could take two of the three and not the third, unless the third was noticeably worse than other players. One of the three? Seems more doable. But I dunno. I hate triplets. Most of the other kids didn’t make a huge impression on me one way or another. Miles, who I think is a good kid, doesn’t seem to have the talent. Then there is the case of David 2. David 2 did every little thing asked of him, but displayed no real talent I could find. I’m looking for a reason to take the kid, as kids like that can help glue a team together, but right now his athleticism doesn’t seem to warrant his making the team. I have marked down 6 kids who I need to see a little more of, but I think would be likely candidates. There is also the case of Asher. Asher, unless he blows my socks off, is one of two kids who I just can’t see making the team. And I feel bad for the kid, because he reminds me of me at the age. Tall and with no real control of his limbs who tries hard. He could benefit from some instruction, which I’m guessing he’s never really gotten, and lots of practice. I will be finding a way to make sure he hears about the lots of practice part at some point. But again Asher is not likely to make the team. So heading into Day 2 I’ve got perhaps ¾ of a basketball team. Tonight my plan is to start with zig-zag dribbling, without a defender, and asking the dribbler to switch hands each time. We’re then likely to do a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 drill, emphasizing passing. We’ll do a “hot shots” drill where there are three different stations at each basket (we’re going to use all three tonight to speed this up) and they need to make as many jump shots as possible in a minute. We’ll conclude with some 3 on 3 or 4 on 4 depending on how many kids show up. I should have another update for you tomorrow on how day 2 went.

09-16-2006, 04:00 PM	#10
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	Thursday morning I woke up and made the final cut, Cameron. When I was telling the story to a friend, explaining how I took Gordie he quipped “So your receiving corp in football would be TO and Randy Moss?” Have to admit that stung a little. I did retort that taking Cameron was the equivalent of putting in Kerry Collins in as your QB “nice enough but do you really want Kerry Collins?” So basically right now we’re in a month long hiatus. My first practice is scheduled for October 23. With the Monday/Wednesday combination being bad news for Dante, and my own having commitments on Wednesdays I looked for a different day of the week for practices and came up with… Friday. Can’t wait to spend 6-7:30 on Fridays in a gym. Fortunately, after 5 weeks we can switch to Tuesdays for the rest of the season, which runs through the middle of March, making the season about 5 months long all together (and making the 10 weeks of Baseball seem like a sprint). With the dynasty going on hold, essentially, for a month, though I will post any updates as they might happen, I thought it would be good to try and introduce the players. I’ve talked about many of these players already but let’s look at BK’s 2005-2006 9 YO Travel Team. I’d debated a few different ways of organizing this list. I’ve decided that I’m going to go by offensive position and with-in position skill, as I see it now. All players will be expected to learn 2 positions eventually as with only 10 players I need a good deal of flexibility in the players I can put on the court, especially for that game that’ll inevitably happen in February where one kid is sick, another has a twisted ankle, and a third is in Vail for the weekend. Before I break it down by skill let me explain, roughly, what each of the responsibilities will be for each player in the offensive I am working on finalizing. This obviously could change as I work to break down what I want to run into a level that I know can be well taught to and learned by 4th graders. 1 Spot – Your traditional ball handler. He is going to be the player who’ll normally take the ball up the court. Will have primary responsibility for getting back to prevent fast breaks, but depending on where in the offense we are, this could fall to the 2 or 3 player as well. 2 Spot – Stays primarily on the perimeter, though he will sometimes penetrate. Will often be the first look for the 1 player or else setup the first look (via screen). Has secondary responsibility for getting back to prevent fast breaks. 3 Spot – In many ways the trickiest spot in the offense to play. Has both perimeter and post responsibilities, though because of the talent will be on the perimeter more than the post. Along with the 2 will be the first look for a pass from the 1. 4 Spot – Is primarily involved in post play, though not exclusively. He will come out of the post often either to help screen or in order to clear space for the 3 or 5. Is the least likely to shoot the ball. 5 Spot – Your traditional center. Primarily in the post. Is almost always responsible for rebounding. You will notice that I talk about perimeter play. This is a tad misleading as while they often do their work there, I do not really want my team shooting, for the most part, beyond 10 feet. This means that we’re using the outside to create space/opportunities to work it inside. I expect to see a lot of zone so we’ll be working on zone busting skills such as quick (and skip) passes. Also important will be the concept of screening to get someone the ball not for someone with the ball. And without further ado, this time for real, let me present my 2006-2007 9 YO Travel Basketball Team. An asterisk means that if I fielded a basketball team tomorrow they would be starting. ½ *Noah (primary 2) Obviously positions are still fluid at this point. I have slotted Noah here tentatively because of his skills, but his size might find him in more of a 2/3 role before things are all said and done especially as we have, as expected, a surplus of guards. As mentioned before, I like his penetration skills, which shows his ability to dribble so he could even end up finding himself playing more of a 1. While his shooting form might not be the prettiest, he is accurate. During the scrimmage I said that the next time he drove in he should find a team mate to pass it to and he did exactly that suggesting he is willing to implement instruction. He did a few other things, such as mostly pay attention, that suggest he will be teachable (or in this case coachable). Jack P (primary 1) First let me say there is a definite chance that I have the Jacks backwards. I think I have it straight, but am not sure. Anyhow, short Jack, has a nice dribble and can do it with both hands. Is inconsistent, which is actually a complement at this age, at dribbling with his head up. He’s a pretty scrawny kid. Has an average attention span for a 4th grade boy, which is to say not a whole lot. Gordie (primary 1) Gordie is a small kid. However, he’s got a good shot and better range than some of the kids taller than him. I’ve discussed him pretty indepth in my last post so not a whole lot to add here. I will just stress that the negatives that I talked about before could really impact his role on this team. Tom (primary 2) It might seem weird that he is ranked below Gordie, who was the last player to make the team, but of course it wasn’t Gordie’s skills holding him back. I was really hoping Tom would have been be able to play a 3 for us, but he’s not there yet and I’m not sure that trying to make him into a forward, even a soft forward, is the best use of his practice time. 2/3 *Bryan (primary 2) Bryan is a very solid player all around. Not quite as solid is his personality. On more than one occasion he made a negative comment during tryouts. Something like that I am quite confident of my ability to stomp out. I simply don’t tolerate it. In fact I will likely be opening our first practice with my saying something to the effect of “I’m the coach and I’m here to help you grow and to help you win. Your job as players are to listen to me and to support your teammates>” Or something like that. Anyhow, Bryan is tentatively slotted as a 2/3 as I think we have some better dribblers than him, though he does have a good crossover. 3/4 *Jack M (primary 3) The more I see of him the more he impresses. He did well in our lightening game, I believe, and seems pretty solid all around. I also really liked his attitude which goes well with his, seemingly, easy going nature. I hesitate to comment too much about kid’s personalities as for the most part they’ll be different creatures in a tryout situation, what with the nerves, than during the course of a basketball season. Scott (primary 3) The least talented of the triplets, though still pretty darn good, he seems like he’ll be well suited to these positions. Not a whole lot to comment here. 4/5 *Dante (primary 5): Again I feel like I’ve talked about him a lot. I will say that I was tempted to inquire about the soccer playing backgrounds of my players and feel particularly pleased to learn that someone I thought highly of is also a competitive soccer player as I feel good soccer players often can easily be turned into good basketball players. Lucas (primary 5): Poor Lucas seemed somewhat surprised that I saw him as a forward/center. He seems like a real good kid. Here’s another kid who I see a fair amount of potential in and hope to see him really grow as the season progresses. ??? *David I’m not sure where to place him. I wished he had been at the 3rd day of tryouts since I think I’d have gotten a better grasp. And perhaps I am overstating his skills, but then again maybe I’m not. He’s likely going to be our point guard, because of his ball handling skills, but he could end up really at any of the positions 1-4, though realistically 4 is not likely going to be where he’d end up on offense. I will try and post as I come up with firmer plans for things, but in all likelihood, as mentioned before, the dynasty is on a brief hiatus until practices start in October.

09-16-2006, 08:21 PM	#11
collegesportsfanms Pro Rookie Join Date: Jan 2004	Barkeep, the Biddy team is mine, I'm running it, and it's a 7-8 year old team, so the big thing is to teach the basics. We had our first practice Tuesday night, and it's going to take a lot of work. No really strong ball handlers yet, but it will come in time. The main goal for that team is just to make sure the kids learn the basics and have fun anyways. As for the high school team, it's a girls team, and I'm the assistant. It's a fairly small private christian based high school, so the goals for that are a little different, in that the AD wants me and the head man to make sure the girls learn discipline, sportsmanship, things like that. The head coach has a wealth of knowledge, having coached small college and semi-pro ball before, so I really think I can learn a lot from him. He's put me in charge of coaching the junior varsity team, and junior high team if we have one.

09-16-2006, 08:33 PM	#13
collegesportsfanms Pro Rookie Join Date: Jan 2004	Barkeep, I love the dynasty, keep up the good work. Sounds like you got a pretty nice squad. I hope practices work out for you. I understand how you feel about Dante though. Most of my kids also play either football or soccer, so I won't have my full team until after those sports are over. Some questions for you, is this your first experience coaching basketball, or have you done it before? I don't remember reading about it, but I could have overlooked it.

09-17-2006, 10:42 AM	#16
collegesportsfanms Pro Rookie Join Date: Jan 2004	I will sure do my best to keep everyone informed, but I can't make a full dynasty report out of it. lol

10-06-2006, 02:21 PM	#17
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	Coaches’ Meeting Finally have an update. Last night was the coaches’ meeting for the league. Turns out there is an A and a B division for the league. My team plays in the B division, which is the less competitive/smaller city league. I get to the meeting and find Emily, who if you remember is my Park District contact. She hands me this ridiculously thick manila envelope and says “Here are some employment forms for you to fill out.” Let’s just say that if the whole packet was indeed forms I would be filling them out from last night until forever. In reality, more than half of the packet is a part time employee manual. I also get, for the first time, a list of my contact information. Finally! This gives me the ability to start calling and talking to my players and their parents, something I’ve wanted to do before the first practice. Now I scan over the list and there isn’t really any surprise until I get to the name of Noah. Noah, if you recall, was the one who was the last person who made the team. I look at Noah’s last name and I see it is a familiar name. It happens to be the last name of a kid who I taught and who was, to put it nicely, strange, not to mention severely depressed, and who had trouble focusing. Now the good news is that the parents really liked me. This is good not just because I have one set of parents who like me, but hopefully it’ll also mean that they will put in a good word with the other parents, whatever that is worth. But, of course, the bad news is that my quick read on the kid was likely correct. The main purpose of the meeting is to firm up the schedule. We play our first game on November 19th, giving us about a month, or eight practices, to get ready before the first game. Our first game is against my home town, and will be a home game. I am excited to be playing them right off the bat as I talked a fair amount with their coach last night and he seemed like a good guy. I also have the advantage of knowing some of the players on the team. Not sure what kind of advantage this actually is, since I don’t actually know how well any of them play basketball, but it must be some sort of advantage, right? I am lucky to have off several days coming up and one of my goals is to get a tentative agenda for the practices laid out. 12 hours hardly seems like a sufficient amount of time to get a basketball team together with all I want to do. Besides the rosters, the other important thing that happened last night is I got a copy of the league’s rules. So basically we play a real game of basketball. 4 quarters, with seven minutes in each quarter, foul-outs, bonus, the whole shebang. I get 3 full time outs plus 2 30 second time outs each half. 3 point lines, where there are some, etc, etc. The one league particularity is that teams can only press in the 2nd and 4th quarters with no press allowed if a team is up by 10 or more points in the 4th. Updates will be forth coming as I make phone calls and put together a tentative 4 week practice schedule.

10-08-2006, 04:17 PM	#18
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	So I've made exactly zero phone calls. This is partly because I absolutely positively depise the phone and so I have to work hard to overcome my natural aversion to it. It is also because I don't have a "script". I haven't figured out exactly what I want to say to the parents in these phone calls. The kids? I know exactly what I want to talk to them about. I would do better in person. I am going to have to get over it soon though as the clock is ticking.

10-08-2006, 04:35 PM	#19
Eaglesfan27 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: New Jersey	I missed your previous youth dynasties. I'm going to go back and read them. This is a great read. Keep up the good work. __________________ Retired GM of the eNFL 2007 Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles (19-0 record.) GM of the WOOF 2006 Doggie Bowl Champion Atlantic City Gamblers. GM of the IHOF 2019 and 2022 IHOF Bowl Champion Asheville Axemen.

10-10-2006, 09:16 PM	#21
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	Well I made my phone calls tonight. Only I came up with a good solution. So I don’t want to talk to the parents on the phone? Well then I won’t. Instead I simply reminded them of the time of our first practice and announced a parent’s meeting after the practice. I like to do things in person, so I’ll do it in person. I was pleased with that solution to my mental Gordian Knot. I had seven phone calls to make and I completed 5 of them. Of course I only reached 7 of my players. That’s the disadvantage to having three kids from one family. I really do have a fear that they’ll go on a trip or something and someone will be sick and someone else injured and we’ll have 5 players. But hopefully that fear will not come to fruition. Hopefully they’re all about the sports and won’t miss a game or practice all year. That’s the hope. Nothing of real note from any of the parents except Dante’s father. Dante, as you recall, is the one who plays travel soccer all year long, in addition to basketball. Dante’s Dad was the only one who inquired into my philosophy about winning and such. He liked what I had to say. He also got in how Dante doesn’t really like suicides. I hope it’s just that particular drill as opposed to running, since, as Dad and I joked about, Dante is going to be running A LOT. He’s going to run in soccer and gawd knows he’s going to be running at basketball. I spoke to most of the kids on the phone as well. I’d forgotten how awkward the phone skills of 4th grade boys can be, since well, I don’t normally talk to 4th grade boys on the phone. Anyhow, I was very pleased with the conversation I had with Noah. He seemed excited and was able to carry on more of a conversation than his peers. Phew. So that’s tonight’s update. I’m getting very excited. I see no reason we can’t be good and win some games and that’s exciting. I think I have a nice group of kids, and that’s good.

10-17-2006, 11:12 PM	#23
Swaggs Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000	Hadn't checked the dynasty forum in awhile. I am enjoying this one. Keep up the good work. __________________ DOWN WITH HATTRICK!!! The RWBL Are you reading In The Bleachers?

10-21-2006, 09:38 AM	#25
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	10/16 Practice Report So last night was our first practice (editor’s note: I got through most of this post on Tuesday. Then the bell rang for class and I so this languished until now) with the parents meeting having followed. I remain encouraged and upbeat. When 6:00 rolled around only half the team was there. Gordie, Jack P, Jack M, Noah, and Lucas were the ones there on time. I waited two minutes extra, something I don’t believe in doing, and then started practice. Normally, I start practice with a sit down and overview of the practice, but I postponed this until later. I had been expecting Dante at 6:15, but didn’t know where the H’s or Tom were. Just as I had gotten the team on the line, Tom showed up, which was good. We started off with doing our animal claws. I said I knew it was simple, but some people always had problems with it. The idea behind the animal claws is to show the correct position on how to hold the ball, something I wasn’t really taught until 8th grade. Several of them got into it (as I told them that they could of course make appropriate animal sounds). Right off the bat, I found that Jack M is one sharp kid. I would give an instruction and he would manage to honor the exact wording of the instruction while still doing something goofy. For now I find it endearing and fun as it keeps me on my toes. When we did some more serious and challenging activities later, he didn’t do it either which tells me he likely knows how to judge the right situation for such antics. After we practiced our animal claws we moved onto doing it with a ball. This whole thing took me a little longer than I would have liked because as I went around to each kid to see that they were doing it correctly. It is here that having another person would have helped tremendously, but oh well, what are you going to do? We were wasting a lot of time at this point as well as they were not paying as much attention as I would have liked. Right as we finished doing the animal claws with the ball the H’s arrived. We then broke up into partners, with one group of three. They then practiced taking the ball from a We were wasting a lot of time at this point as well as they were not paying as much attention as I would have liked. Right as we finished doing the animal claws with the ball the H’s arrived. We then broke up into partners, with one group of three. They then practiced taking the ball from each other while keeping the grip. I then asked them to form a horseshoe and no one was really paying attention. Gave them until a count of 10 to do it, which I counted out loud. Exactly 1 kid was sitting down. Couple others were mildly going towards it, a few others were trying to figure out what they were doing, and about half the time was nearly oblivious, until we got to about 2, that they were supposed to be doing anything. And so it was time for the good ole wind spring. Made them run to half court and back . The fastest two got to avoid doing it a second time. Didn’t have much of a problem the rest of practice with their paying attention. After that we gathered around and I did my introduction. Talked about hustle. I asked the question “What is my job on the team?” Only a few players were willing to venture a guess. Clearly they were nervous as it was a gimme question. We established that it was my role to coach them. I talked about what that meant. Talked about how as players their job was to be supportive of each other and to work on improving themselves. Introduced my system of permissions and suicides. If you hustle (or win certain team games) you earn a permission. If you aren’t paying attention, or aren’t hustling, you get a suicide. Every player starts off with a suicide so you have to end up in the positive for permissions to avoid running at least one. A couple of players had earned a permission already. We then went into our “continuous motion” drill. Rather than just have the players run laps, I have them do something. For this continuous motion I basically had them do bounce and underhand passes, as well as doing the “steal the ball” while in motion. They started off sprinting, and despite my encouraging them to go at a jogging pace, flamed out after 7 minutes. I expect them to be able to do a lot more than that and soon. I’m hoping that they pace themselves better next time. We then had a water break. We then did wrist flexes. There is the shooting wrist and the dribbling wrist. According to the Basketball Coach’s Bible, one of several books I’ve read, a few simple wrist drills can dramatically improve performance. As the drills are simple, I went for them. We then talked about the importance of pivoting, before practicing that. Several of the players had problems, but improved as we practiced. I’m a strong believer in pivots (and cuts) and so they will get better if only through repetition. Following this we did one inch shots. It forces players to square up correctly and puts the emphasis on the wrists and the legs. It is a hard drill at first and as expected the team struggled with it. However, it really does force players to develop better shooting form and so I will be staying with it. We divided up into three groups and went for into this. We then went to one foot shots. This allows players to really focus on technique and so we went over proper shooting technique here. As the shot is incredibly shot, there should be a high percentage of shots made. The close shots let them focus on the technique. They take multiple shots from the left, center, and right. After we do this, we are at 7:15. I decide to run our game. Basically it is just a relay contest of the one foot shot. Fun was had. The winners (who I don’t remember) earned a permission. We then did our suicides, with Brian, Jack P, Noah, Scott, and Tom not having to run any. Jack M ended up with 2 and Dante got a second when, for the millionth time it seems like, he did touch the ground as he was running. We then had our end of practice meeting. I complemented them on a good practice. And I gave them their “doggie bag”, which is basically just a homework assignment. For this assignment they were to practice one of three things each day between our Monday and Friday practice: pivoting, wrist flicks, and defensive stance taps. I had planned on getting to defensive taps, but it simply did not happen. Having them practice, however, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world and so I didn’t worry too much about that being in there. It was then time for the parents meeting which went well. I had 7 of the 10 show up. I knew 1 couldn’t make it. I have since talked to the other two so that’s good. The parents seemed to buy my philosophy well enough. So all-in-all a nice first practice.

10-21-2006, 10:49 AM	#26
Izulde Head Coach Join Date: Sep 2004	Excellent start! I hope it bodes well for the coming season. __________________ 2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty)

10-28-2006, 06:55 PM	#29
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	10-23 Practice Report Well after two days of practices that I felt good about, Monday’s practice was not nearly of the same level of achievement. The truth of the matter was, that I felt how Monday it was. My teaching during the day wasn’t quite so hot. So it was likely I was not coming into practice at my best. However, I’m not quite ready to take full responsibility for my disappointment. Anyhow, came into the building and found that only half the gym was opened. So rather than having a whole gym we had a huge dividing wall down the center. Eventually this wall is taken down, though only a minute before practice was schedule to begin so it was a close call. So, just for the record, this would be our third practice and our third time having some sort of facility issue. All of which have been resolved, and really it isn’t something that bothers me too much, since they have been resolved, but I still take note. Practice starts and all are there except Dante. We do some of the basic warm up drills, including wrist flexes, various jumps, etc. Dante shows up about 3 minutes late. It is now Saturday morning as I type this and my recollection of the practice has faded somewhat. So in the interest of time I am going to give a shorter summary of what I do recollect as opposed to a detailed description of everything we did. The main thing we focused on was defensive skills. We did this in a variety of ways. We practiced one on one defense, and protective ball handling, with a drill that required a dribbler to remain in place (though he could turn in circles) while fending off an aggressive defender trying to knock the ball away. We worked on how to guard a man around the perimeter who is one, two, and three passes away. We also did a couple of rebounding drills. Overall, as I mentioned, the practice didn’t go so well. In the end I think most of the blame lies with me. I simply wasn’t on top of my game in terms of explaining concepts and ideas. The new drills that I introduced were fine drills, if we had done them correctly, but we didn’t do them correctly and so they didn’t really do what they were supposed to do. I also was not on top of my game in explaining how to rotate coverage. At the same time, I was disappointed in the way the players hustled, or didn’t, during this practice. Emphasizing 100% hustle on defense is going to be something I am going to have to do time and time again it is clear as when players were more than 1 pass away on our rotation drill, they were often sloughing off. On the individual player front, I realized that I had not been doing a particularly good job of connecting with Jack M. Jack M isn’t a particularly likable kid, in that he’s a bit immature and doesn’t have any endearing personality traits, which doesn’t excuse the fact that I hadn’t been doing a good job of connecting. He had been hearing far more negatives than positives from me, and I resolved to do better going forward with him. On the opposite front, Tom has turned into that kid who does exactly what the coach wants, but in a way that is endearing to both me, as coach, and to his teammates. Having a kid like him, who is always going to give you 100% and be an example, whether conscious or not, to his teammates, is great. Friday’s practice was both better and worse, but I will leave that for my next writeup which I am hoping to finish tomorrow.

10-29-2006, 04:15 PM	#31
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	10-27 Practice Report Time snuck up on me. I had been working on various projects and all of a sudden it was 5:35. Egad! I hurriedly put together some doggie bag cards, printed them out, threw my shoes on and ran out the door. Then to compound the problem I went to the wrong gym, so instead of arriving at practice 8 minutes early (still not the 10 I want) I got there 4 minutes early. And what do I find? I find we’re locked out completely with no one in sight. I go on a search of the building perimeter for a janitor. I come up empty. I head back to the front of the school to see if we have any progress there. The answer is not really. SO I go in search again. Meantime, the PD guy who had showed up last Friday and got the gym situation straightened out is there and he’s trying to call inside. I go in search again and spot a Janitor however he is too far away to hear my banging and I don’t think he sees me. I go back to the front and basically am about ready to send people home when the janitor moves close to the part of the building we’re in. Finally, after a couple of minutes of banging, we get inside. It is now 6:20 and we’re just getting into the school. A couple of minutes later and the gym lights are turned on. So it’s not until close to 6:30 that we’re getting underway. How frustrating. I mentally lop large chunks of our practice out of existence. We start with talking about crossovers. I use Jack P, as part of my giving him positives campaign, to demonstrate. We all practice for a minute. Then we go into our continuous motion drill. I start them off with dribbling and when they reach a corner of the gym they do a crossover before continuing. We practice this with both hands. Most of them are pretty good at the crossovers with their dominant hand, but struggle quite a bit more when forced to do it with their off hand. Already I am seeing a lot more dribbling with heads up than I had before. It has also become apparent who is in shape and who is not. In the not category we have Lucas, who struggles through it, Jack M, who has the lowest endurance of any of our players, and Noah, who basically wimped out by needing to “tie his shoe” not once but twice. On the other end of the spectrum, as I believe I’ve mentioned before, I think Dante could run all day long, though he is S L O W. Tom knows how to pace himself well so he rarely runs out of energy. Jack P is able to maintain a high level of performance as well. For the partner parts of this drill I put the H’s together and Scott clearly had trouble keeping up with David’s pace, which was not surprising. Gordie is somewhere between our top group and our lower group though he’d be on the lower group side if forced to put in a place. Following our water break, we came back and worked on bounce passes as it was a nice standing drill. Simultaneous to introducing bounce passes, I also introduced the idea of the “taxi cab” wave to signal that a player was ready to catch a pass. As we will be running a motion offense, and players will (get a load of this) be in motion I want to have as few passes go to players who aren’t expecting one as possible. We did some bounce pass work, which was a little sloppier than I’d have liked. Several of the players also have the tendency to pass from their shoulder rather than the chest. While I don’t mind, at this age, if they’re shooting from their shoulder rather than chest (assuming they’re doing the other things correctly) there’s no reason, on a bounce pass, they can’t do it correctly. We are going to be spending a fair amount of time on the overhead pass because that will be one that gives them a lot of power, something they might not be able to get as much from a traditional pass. Following our dribbling practice we worked on doing cuts. The focus here wasn’t so great. And unlike on Monday’s practice I was all over the coaching on this one. I was particularly proud of the coaching I did, but the focus was not what I wanted it to be. And things only got worse when we went into shooting form. I divided them up into two groups and saw all sorts of things I would not liked to have seen. Things like Jack P knocking the ball out of people’s hands. Things like Jack M shooting when it wasn’t his turn. So here I didn’t reassert control like I should have. They’re starting to get sloppy. I want them to have a good time, don’t get me wrong, but the sort of things that were going on were just not acceptable. So on Monday (being tomorrow) I hope to reassert control. We’re going to shift suicides/permissions to purely effort and find other things to do for the not paying attention bit. David, for instance, has been getting by way more than he should in not paying attention. Sure he was one of the 5 people who ran two suicides (in fairness Noah only had to run one but he didn’t make the time cutoff) but that isn’t reflective of how many times he was shooting the ball in the air when I was talking or doing other things along those lines. So there was definitely running (of note: Tom got his first forced suicide as he ended with 2 permissions and 2 suicides, one of which was earned by virtue of his forgetting to bring his doggie bag) at the end there. Even as I gathered us around at the end of practice there was a lot of silliness. I wish I could attribute that to the poor start we had, as that definitely had an impact, but I like to nip things in the bud and I think now is the nipping time. Part of the problem is that we haven’t had a game yet. I wish I could have had some sort of game, a scrimmage if you will, against another team. It would provide some focus. I am generally opposed to scrimmaging, but think I might use it as a motivation stating that if we practice well we can scrimmage at the end of practice on Friday. The old carrot and stick approach. Time is our enemy at this point, as I need to, at minimum, introduce press break. And considering we haven’t introduced an offense introducing a press break before our first game is going to be interesting.

11-01-2006, 06:48 PM	#33
nfg22 College Benchwarmer Join Date: Mar 2004	keep it up...get these kids in shape...I expect an undefeated season...

11-02-2006, 06:02 PM	#37
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	Frustrating news. The Hs won't be at Friday's pracitce. So much for a scrimmage.

11-08-2006, 08:42 PM	#39
collegesportsfanms Pro Rookie Join Date: Jan 2004	Sounds like you've got a good thing going with your travel team. I wish I could say the same. I think I jumped in too fast for a first year coach. I just feel completely out of place with my school team that I'm assisting, and now I found out I'm in charge of the middle school girls, running their practice and coaching their games. The first practice I had strictly with them on Monday was a disaster, nobody listened, and it was all a bunch of goofing off. And as for my Biddy team, let's just say that team has way too many coaches and parents who think they can coach the kids. We can't get together on a practice site or time of the week. Maybe I'm not cut out to be a coach.

11-10-2006, 04:42 PM	#42
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	Well it’s been a while since I last updated. My job situation is simply far more demanding now than it was for baseball and so finding the time and energy to write, as I’ve said a couple of times, is simply harder than it was before. I assure you I am very committed to this dynasty, however. Last week I learned that the H’s would not be able to attend our Friday practice. No explanation given, just that they would not be there. Annoying, but what are you going to do? If it happens again I will say something but everyone is entitled to miss here and there, I feel. I get to the gym and fortunately everything is ready to go. It seems like, finally, our kinks have been worked out in terms of the building. I arrive to the gym 10 minutes early and we have only 3 people there: Gordie, Jack P, and Noah. Dante arrives a couple minutes after I do. I don’t think much of it. But then others don’t show up. Basically I get them going into an extended game of lightening, using continuous rules to make it go longer. At 7:15 Tom shows up. When I call him on being late he cries and shuts down. It’s very strange. I eventually stop trying to figure out what is happening (after a couple minutes). So I decide to start practice, such as it is, at 7:20. Basically everything I wanted to do? Out the window. Simply doesn’t make sense with only half the team there. I am careful not to be frustrated with the people who do show up. But frustrated I am. Given the small group I scrap my initial plans. We do some practicing of screens. Since, with the exception of Dante, most of the players are small we work on some overhead passes. Several times we do drills designed to tire them out and then I have them shoot two free throws. The idea being that this is more game like than having them This is something I haven’t done enough of and also not something I did enough of on Monday. I really need to be incorporating free throws into every practice at this point. Shame on me for not doing so. The big winner of the practice? A game I was going to call “Seven”, but was quickly rechristened “Golf” as you don’t want points. Basically it is a pressure shooting/follow your shot drill. Players shoot from the elbow. If the shot misses and hits the floor the team gets a point. If the player makes a shot and it hits the floor nothing happens. If a team makes three in a row they lose a point from their total. Players must pass the ball as soon as they rebound and only have two seconds to shoot (though in reality most take less time than this). Players are effectively at their outer limits of where they can shoot in this drill as well, which contrasts to what I’d been doing in most drills. Anyhow this was wildly popular with the team. I’m not sure why as I found it one of the more boring games we’d done. But there you have it. We played a couple of games. Did some free throws took a water break and played a couple more games. I was pleased with how they were shooting, liked the pressure, thought why shouldn’t they have fun with so few of them, and so we ended up playing four games. We then did a 2 on 2 drill where after someone allowed a point they were replaced. This way they were forced to deal with mismatches on defense and to learn how to take advantage of them on offense. I have to say I wasn’t too happy with what I saw. The shot selection was good, for the most part. And there were passes. But, well, it was depressing. It just didn’t look like good basketball. Perhaps my expectations were simply out of whack. But it was kind of a depressing end to a depressing practice. It turns out I knew way back that Lucas would not be there. But Jack M was an unexcused no show. With most others I’d have been far harsher about it at practice on Monday but with Jack I’m treading such a fine line I decided not to push the point too much. Monday’s practice will be detailed either later tonight or tomorrow.

11-11-2006, 01:21 PM	#44
Izulde Head Coach Join Date: Sep 2004	Overall I'd have to say that you're way ahead of the curve relative to where you were with baseball and I think that has to really boost your confidence about flying solo. __________________ 2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty)

11-12-2006, 08:45 AM	#47
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	After Friday’s practice I realized that we simply were not going to be ready for our first agame. Or at least not as ready I would like. While if I had to do it over again there would some things I would change, I would not change the overall idea of what we’ve done at practice. I think what I’ve done will benefit us for the long term. However, we’re going to be a bit of a mess for our first game. Going into Monday’s practice I realized we had three practices left before our first game. Our practice on Friday was going to be canceled since there was a school fun fair and it seemed like the team should be able to enjoy that. That left just that Monday practice and two practices we have this week. And here are the things that are very important that hadn’t been fully, or in most cases even partially, taught: • Transition offense • Starting routines for the motion offense – we’d done some work, but not really enough • Press break • Full court press • Inbounds play • Tip-off play And that’s just the important stuff. While thinking this over I decide that there simply is no way to teach a full-court press in the time we have left. This will leave us in the uncomfortable position of trying to learn a press break against a theoretical full court press. Teaching a press break and press is going to be further complicated by our only having nine players. These are some of the few activities where 10 players is a must. I do feel better about our lack of a god press break because of how good we are at dribbling. I would feel even better about it if the H’s were going to be at our first game. I mentioned this a while back, but we’re going to be at 7 players for the first game. After Friday’s practice I had effectively decided on a starting lineup of those who showed up Friday, who also happen to be our best remaining five: Tom Gordie Dante Jack P Noah What do they have in common? SHORT. And its not like Jack M off the bench is going to help matters much, being the shortest member of the team. I knew it was going to be an issue, but the issue is HUGELY aggravated when 2 of your 3 biggest players, Brian and David, aren’t there and only 2 of your 5 tallest, Dante and Lucas, are there. But we will make do. I decide to roughly break-up the skills we need to have at least talked about into the following: • Transition offense (Monday 11/6) • Starting routines for the motion offense – we’d done some work, but not really enough (Wednesday 11/15) • Press break (Wednesday 11/15) • Inbounds play (Friday 11/17) • Tip-off play (Friday 11/17) So Monday was transition offense day. I admit I get more than a little nervous when at 6:55 we only have 4 players. But everyone shows up just on time, except for Jack P who shows up about 15 minutes late. I start off practice by telling them that we only have three practices left and so it’s crunch time. We start off by teaching them a new continuous motion drill, which I dubbed Princeton, that also reinforces the ideas of a transition offense. Players are strategically placed throughout the court, going up and down, and they make a quick pass and follow the pass to a new spot. It becomes continuous motion, in effect, when you add a second ball despite the fact that only 6/7 players are ever really on the court at one time. Anyhow I teach this and we play “how many shots can you make in two minutes” with one ball. I then completely mess up, THREE TIMES, how to do this drill with two balls before figuring it out. Grrr to coach. Anyhow we finally do get it going with two balls and I just let it run continuously for a bit. It is then time to teach the transition offense off a made basket. The idea being we’re going to simply beat the other team down the court. We run it a couple of times with no defense. The performance was OK. An interesting note is that Jack M basically would only pass the ball to David as an outlet, even after I told him to pass to the other option and even if David wasn’t ready. These two are best friends, so it’s understandable, but it’s definitely a problem. It means that Jack M will likely play only a little when David is in, which considering David will be playing a lot, will limit his playing time until I see that he’s broken himself of this habit. The team started to get a little goofy here and I didn’t clamp down on it as I should have. Part of the goofiness carried over from Friday’s practice where with the small group it wasn’t nearly as much of a problem. We then moved to playing a 5 on 5 half court game, where I was the 5th player on offense. The offense would make a shot and the defense would then do transition. Things got more and more ridiculous. Finally I had enough. I had them get on the baseline and I announced a suicide. I heard someone blame someone else, not sure who the identities of either of these players really were, so I said that this wasn’t any individuals fault, but instead was a team problem. And so we’d run a second suicide. They did the first suicide no problem with-in the time frame I’d given. The second one, I let the first person to do half of it and three quarters of it drop out. However, people took to jogging and so the team didn’t finish in the prescribed time. So it was off for a third one. We did the third one fine. I then gave them a water break. When they got back they were much more focused with the drill, as one would hope. Following this I introduced another transition drill. In this one we have a set number of players on the court. I started with 6, three on defense and 3 on offense. I simultaneously pass the ball to a player on offense and call the name of a player on defense. The player whose name I called has to run form the free throw line extended (which is where they are lined up) to underneath the hoop. The other players go right into offense and defense. Basically it’s teaching them how to run the fast break. I decided to go for this drill rather than the more conventional teaching approach since we’re short on time and I want them to have some semblance of how it works. We will likely back up and teach it from a more theoretical standpoint sometime in the not too distant future. I start the drill with effectively 3 on 3, before increasing it to 4 on 3, 4 on 4 and finally 5 on 4. Overall I’m pleased with how it runs. I then decide we’ll play a game of Golf. We end up playing two, with the first one being a demonstration game and the second one “for real”. Each time won one of the games, so it’s unfortunate that only one of them had to run. But such are the breaks. Several things became apparent here. First Jack M is terrible at following up his shot. His team lost the first game almost purely because of him and nearly lost the second game as well. Shooting a free throw basically seems to be FAR outside his range as well, but I already kind of knew that. David and Dante are our best shooters from that distance, with Jack P and Tom a step below that. But I pretty much already knew that. Scott has trouble judging the angle of shots. Earlier as we were running Princeton, Emily came in with the uniforms. To end practice I decide we’ll do a little 4 on 4 full court as I layout and get ready the uniforms. I divide them into two teams with Jack P being the odd man out. I rotate him in but we really don’t have much time for the game. However, what we do have time for, isn’t pretty. It’s clear we have a lot of work to do. When Lucas’s mother comes in, as we’re right up against the time and comments “They’re looking good” I’m not sure what to say. In my heart of hearts I know we’re just not ready yet and I fear greatly we’re not going to be there before next Sunday. I responded with a “We’ll see how we are at our first game” which is downbeat for the picture I normally try to instill. We then hand out uniforms, always fun, and go home. The clock is ticking. Hopefully HP, which I hear from some kids on the team isn’t as good as us, will be even more unready. But who knows? Only time will tell.

11-18-2006, 10:13 AM	#48
Barkeep49 Coordinator Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Not too far away	11-17 Practice Report Welcome back to the further travails of my efforts to coach a successful youth basketball team. As you recall, we had no practice last Friday because of a school event. And practice on Monday was rescheduled for Wednesday. The problem arises with the rescheduling when I get an email Tuesday. Lucas’s mother is asking about our practice on Wednesday since her six year old is scheduled to practice at the same time. I email Emily at the Park District. Turns out I asked to reschedule on Wednesday and she had no gym on Wednesday so gave me Tuesday’s date. I didn’t pay close attention to this and so I blew it. By the time I’ve figured out what has happened it’s 5:00 Tuesday. So there goes that practice. So that brings us to Friday’s practice. We have too much to do and not enough time to do it. But that’s going to have to be OK. We do a short stretching session and then go into our offense. I show them a few things that they can do with the offense. And well, it goes OK. I think with a another practice worth of trying it, it would go more than OK. However, I think that in many ways they’re going to play an ugly game of basketball come Sunday. After our offensive practice, which we do for about a half hour, we practice our inbounds play. There is a lot of teaching involved, but people seem to pick it up well enough. It’s a simple stack. We line up and then on the signal from the in bounder the players all do something different. All in all the play seems to work well enough, especially considering that the defenders knew what the offensive players were going to do. So that is good. Now the problem is that this play won’t likely work as well against a zone. In fact that’s my big fear is that they will be playing a zone. If so it’s going to be an early time out. I know they’ll be able to adjust to playing against a zone, but we haven’t really practiced it. Hopefully the HP coach feels the way I do about man-to-man, and I think he will, and so we will see that kind of defense. Lastly we practiced our tip-offs. Overall that worked fine too. We concluded practice with my reminding them about some of the nuts and bolts of the games. Things like checking in at the scorer’s table and telling who you were guarding when subbing in. The thing is that overall we’re still not playing well as a team. I feel good about where their individual skills are at. However, we’re not really playing as a basketball team and that concerns me. I am hoping that our opponents will be just as lost as we are. One other note from practice. Gordie and Jack M were seriously not getting along. There was pushing, grabbing, etc. I took them aside after practice. It seems that there has been ill feelings before, then things had gotten better, and now things are not going as well again. We talked about how we’re on the same team and that this sort of behavior wouldn’t be accepted. They both got the message, in theory, but we’ll see how this translates to reality. My original plan for Sunday had been to start Noah, Gordie, Dante, Jack P, and Tom. However, in my talk with Gordie and Jack I talked about how on Sunday there would be times when they’d have to play together and if we were going to do well as a team they’d have to play well together. I am thinking, to reinforce this point, have Jack start in the place of Noah. It would certainly get the message across, I think. Dante, Jack P, and Tom are regular starters for the time being, though I will be mixing things up from time to time to get everybody their promised start, with Scott and David, who are off on a jaunt to LA being our other two starters. I don’t see that I’ve done a complete run down of the team in a while so it seems like before our first game would be a good time to do that. Brian – Good: Remember him? Well word through the grapevine is that he could be rejoining our team as early as December 4th from his ankle injury. I had originally heard more like January, or even February so this is good. Bad: Who knows how quickly he’ll be able to catch up. The one good point of our being behind where I want to be team wise is that it should be easier for him to catch up. However, he’ll have missed out on some of the conditioning. So he likely won’t return at the same caliber as when he left us. I think we’ve had better chemistry without him. Hopefully we’ll be solid here when he comes back. Dante – Good: Good endurance. He gets how to rebound. He has a nice shot so some of the kids have taken to calling him Yao since he is our tallest player and can shoot from the outside. Bad: He is S L O W. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I honestly don’t know how well his slow will play out. There’s not too much I can do it about it, all things considered, but hope for the best. David – Good: Good basketball intelligence and ability. For instance when we were running our in bounds play and his defender was guarding the play more than him, he did something slightly different and broke free for an easy inbounds pass and basket. I’ve talked about his ability before. He’s the only player I really feel good about taking long distance shots. Bad: As one of the taller members of the team he’s going to have play against bigger guys and in the post more than he’s used to. Gordie: Good – A fun kid and helps keep things light. A fairly good defender. Bad – Takes shots he shouldn’t take. Can get trapped fairly easily on defense. Jack M – Good: Has good court vision, he rarely makes a bad pass. Also has a quick first step on his dribble. He will likely bring the ball up for us often. Bad: He doesn’t seem to like the fact that I don’t want him shooting long distance shots. He’s not the most likable kid which has already had an effect with one player and meant that during our inbounds drill complained about what the 1 and 2 players do, despite the fact that the 1 player is one of the most important as he does two different things to get open. Jack P – Good: This kid is a tenacious defender and one of the better shots on the team. He is so quiet it is easy to forget how good he is, but he could easily be the second best player on the team. He was our best in bounder of the five I tried (Lucas, Tom, David, Jack P, and Scott). Bad: Not a whole lot to say except that since he’s a new kid some of the players on the team haven’t figured out how good he is yet and so he doesn’t get the passes he deserves on offense, despite my prodding, that he deserves. Lucas – Good: He’s a nice kid who never complains about anything and will always attempt to do what is asked of him. Bad: He’s not the sharpest kid on the team. I had to walk through the inbounds play with him several times at each of the positions he did before he got it. He clearly doesn’t like the fact that he has to play post/center positions, but, well, tough. He could likely see a pickup in his minutes once he masters some of the things, like always screening away from the ball, but until then his action will likely be more limited as he kind of plays confused. Noah – Good: He picks up things quickly. He is solid all around on offense. Bad: His defense could stand some improvement. He gets beat off the dribble too much. Scott – Good: Solid player who works hard. In particular I like how he seems to have a good sense of where to be on the court. Bad: His skills are better suited to a forward position, but he’s not really big enough to be a forward. Not as big of a deal on offense, where we play a motion, but does matter on defense. Tom – Good: He is the heart of our team. He does most things well and is one of our better shots. Bad: He hasn’t seemed happy at the last couple of practices, so I don’t know what’s going on there. He has a slow first step on defense. So there you have it. I am just petrified that we are going to get blown out. I haven’t done as good of a job as I should have in getting them ready for this date. The first game is important and so despite the fact that I stress it’s a long season having a blowout first game is NOT what I want. Hopefully when I write you tomorrow, my fears will have been misplaced and I will be writing to you about the 1 and 0 Spartans.

11-18-2006, 01:10 PM	#49
Izulde Head Coach Join Date: Sep 2004	I assume you're thinking of putting Dante at C? His slow foot speed would be minimized there and his endurance an asset, as he'd be able to take the banging on the boards he's likely to get down there, especially against larger teams. His rebounding and inside shot would be most helpful there, too. Also, I'm just curious. He's slow, but how's his quickness? __________________ 2006 Golden Scribe Nominee 2006 Golden Scribe Winner Best Non-Sport Dynasty: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty) Rookie Writer of the Year Dynasty of the Year: May Our Reign Be Green and Golden (CK Dynasty)

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