Winning Way Series - coachingtoolbox.net · Winning Way Series 130 Little Ideas to Make a Huge...

Winning Way Series

130 Little Ideas to Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

Our best ideas to improve teams immediately .

Brian Williams

130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction…Roles—The six roles of a basketball coach Role #1 …… Program Philosophy and Organization—Implement your philosophy and organization in every area of the program Role #2 …… Individual Development—Develop the individual players’ life skills, basketball skills, and mental toughness Role #3 …… Personnel and Roles—Select your program’s assistants, players, managers, assign roles to them, and keep them productive in those roles

Role #4 …… Team Development—

Role #5 …… Professional Development—For the entire coaching staff

Develop a team by implementing systems of play that take advantage of your players strengths and doing intentional team building

Role #6 …… Program Promotion—In your school and/or community

Some of the concepts we will present can be organized into more than one category, but I have chosen one grouping for each of the 130 concepts for the sake of clarity and organization.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted or distributed , in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the authors. Ordering Information To order additional copies please visit www.coachingtoolbox.net Other Books in the Series 130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice.


www.coachingtoolbox.net --Your Resource for Basketball Success!

1

Introduction

One of the players I coached (who went into coaching himself) said that he thought that one of the things he liked best about our program was the emphasis that we placed on the little things, that when all pieced together made a difference in what our players got out of the program and how we played during games. This book contains ideas that I have

gathered over the years from various other coaches and implemented into our program to make those small changes that when strung together, make a huge impact. I hope that you will find some ideas that will become habits for your players that lead to more success.

The theme behind this book is that these are ideas can be implemented immediately and that will have an immediate impact on your program and will continue to pay dividends as long as you continue to implement, teach, and follow up on them. You don’t have to use all of them, but the more you can incorporate and the more quickly that you can incorporate them, the better results you will see.

I have broken the roles of a coach into 6 categories and have used that outline to make sure that I am allocating my time and efforts appropriately. Those roles are:

1) 2)

Implement your philosophy and organization in every area of the program

3) Develop the individual players’ life skills, basketball skills, and mental toughness

4)

Select your program’s personnel—assistants, players, managers, assign roles to them and keep them productive in those roles

5)

Develop a team by implementing systems of play that take advantage of your players strengths and doing intentional team building

6) Initiate professional development for the coaching staff

Promote the program in your school and/or community

I have used these roles to divide my 130 ideas into 6 sections to provide more clarity and organization. The cliché we all hear at clinics is that “if you get one thing from the presentation it is worth it.” My hope is that you get many ideas that you find useful from this list! Consistently following through on the ideas is what will make the difference. It’s not what you know and teach, it’s what you emphasize and accept over and over, day in and day out that will make the difference for your team.

“Education is what remains after everything that was learned has been forgotten.”

--Unknown



2

This book is not meant to be all encompassing, but rather is a list of some small things that I feel have helped our program and can be useful to yours as well!

Role #1 Program Philosophy and Organization

Implement your philosophy in every area of the program

To me, this is the first step in developing your program because it gives direction and purpose for everyone involved. My belief is that individual player development (both mental toughness and basketball skills) and what you are able to accomplish in practice are the keys to the success of your team. I have listed philosophy and organization as the #1 role for a coach because you need to have goals, a direction, high expectations, and a system for their evaluation for those areas before you can make any progress. Here are some ideas regarding establishing and instilling your philosophy that you can implement immediately.

1.

Establish a lifelong relationship with each participant that cannot be broken. This is a Thad Matta idea. We put that in writing as the number one goal for our coaching staff and it guides and directs everything that we do in our program. I am not saying that it should be everyone’s number one goal, but I believe that each program should have a most important goal in writing and that all of your coaches know by heart what the purpose of your program is. Even if this is not your number one goal, I feel that it should be very high on your priority list.

2. Have a goal for your participants (players and managers): Ours is: “Each of you has your most rewarding season of your basketball career.” That goal is prominently displayed in the locker room and it means to me that everyone on this year’s team, regardless of past success, has a new role and must contribute more this year than ever before. Even a player who started every game on a state champion team last year has new challenges to face this year in order to make this year’s season their most rewarding.

3. Have a purpose every time you take the floor... We have a sign over the door leading from our locker room to the floor that is the last thing the players see as they go out for practice or for a game that says:

EVERY TIME WE TAKE THE FLOOR, WE PRACTICE AND PLAY WITH THE TECHNIQUE, INTENSITY, TOUGHNESS, AND

TOGETHERNESS OF A STATE CHAMPION.



3

There is no way to measure those goals, but we all know what doesn’t meet those criteria. I believe that it helps us to be able to ask during practice—is this a state champion’s effort? It leaves little doubt as to the type of standards we have for our practices.

4.

Be reliable, but not predictable. As coaches, we all need to find ways to stay away from predictability with our teams, day to day during the season, and year to year over the course of a player's career. Hold meetings in different places, do different drills at different spots on the floor, have the first team wear a different color scrimmage jersey than normal, make variations in your drills, change the order of the segments in practice--work on offense first, if you normally do defense first, change the locker room's postings or setup, etc...

Those small variations help keep things fresh for your players. Doing something differently will increase their attention with the new stimulus. We can still be reliable in what we emphasize, expect, and stand for, but we need to find new ways to engage our players' concentration and awareness.

5.

Emphasize execution, not baskets. It is important to have a standard for offensive and defensive execution and effort, not just baskets on offense or stops on defense. If you are scrimmaging against your second unit or JV, you can score or stop them without the execution that you will need on game night against another team's first unit.

6.

The standard in practice must be, and your players need to be sold on why that is important, what it takes to win on game night, not what it takes to defeat your second team.

parents in mass in a non-confrontational way. After our meeting, we open the practice to parents to watch.

Conduct a parent meeting and open practice. The coach/parent relationship is extremely important, and as we all know, is one of the most difficult parts of coaching. I believe that holding a pre-season parent meeting will help to communicate with the

The agenda that I have used for our parent meetings is outlined on the next two pages:

“It takes a village to raise a child.”

--Unknown



4

Our coaching staff agrees with Coach Holtz, but…

We start off with this quote from Lou Holtz

WE ALREADY ARE AT A GREAT SCHOOL!

1. Thank you for your attendance and for dealing with our practice times throughout the year—there are seven different practice times and game schedules being played right now.

2. Coaching Staff and attendance for information purpose. 3. Goal #1 for coaches: Establish a life—long relationship with each participant that

cannot be broken. Goal #2 for coaches: Assist in the development of all aspects of the life of the participants. Goal #1 for participants: Have the most rewarding basketball season of his/her career.

4. Cost to parents--Shooting Shirt, Beige Slacks, White Dress Shirt, Shoes, Practice gear

5. Relationship of coach and parents A. I look forward to a friendly, professional, and productive relationship with

every parent. B. Roles—Play, coach, officiate, support C. Please be supportive—“Listen to your coaches about basketball” is the best

advice to give. I have an entire program to consider. Over 100 students in grades 5-12.

D. Notebook—please look at your son/daughter’s notebook --Phone tree will be provided --Helps you with our philosophy

E. Playing time—Coach’s decision and is not negotiable F. Role in program or program Level—Coach’s decision and not negotiable G. Strategy—Coach’s decision and not negotiable H. I will not discuss other players with parents I. I will talk to you about any other area that can help your son J. Please support our priorities—again, please see your player’s notebooks

I don't think coaching is about making a million dollars a year. I don't think coaching is about winning championships. I don't think coaching is about going to a great school. I think coaching is about helping young people have a chance to succeed. There is no more awesome responsibility than that. I think one of the greatest honors a person can have is to be called ‘Coach.’ ”

—Lou Holtz



5

K. Follow chain of command. If your son has a concern that he shares with you, please ask him if he has spoken to the coach about it. We would appreciate your son extending us the courtesy of seeing the coach he has a concern with first. I am not perfect, but I am the coach and it is my job to deal with any problem that affects the program. I would appreciate hearing concerns directly from your son.

L. Parents may attend practice. However, it is the opinion of our coaching staff that it is not in the best interest of your son to do so.

6. Web Site Waiver, Prospect Sheet, Code of Conduct 7. Web Site, E-mails 8. T-shirts and sweats 9. Question and answer

10. Food for away games Varsity and Junior Varsity (Need volunteers) Freshman Games (Need volunteers)

Other ideas--signs, buttons, pictures, having the team over to your home Please follow our priorities if the players are at your home 11. Locker room tour for parents and watch practice

7. Try it, you’ll like it.

time. Early in the season we usually try something new every day. I am not suggesting that you experiment with revamping your philosophies and core values of your program, but am suggesting to think about experimenting with your personnel early in the season to be able to get the right players in the right situations, and

I have always believed in experimenting with something new in basketball practice a couple of times a week for no more than 10 minutes of practice

as a way to add some variety to keep the players interest and attention late in the season. Even during the years where we have had "everyone back" I still felt that they were not the same players that they were last year. At least I hoped that they weren't because I wanted to improve on last year's record not repeat it. So, I spent some time learning where they had grown and where they still needed to get better. When I pick up new drills during the off-season or improvements to our offensive and defense systems, I like to put them in early season practices to see if they do fit with our personnel. I certainly believe in constantly working to improve as a coach, but regardless of how well something works for another program, it might not work for you, so I think it is good to put something in and work on it a few times before deciding if it is for us. It is

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.”

--Ralph Waldo Emerson



6

possible that I did not get the whole story of how something works if I saw it at a clinic or on a DVD.

For example, a few years ago, I saw a very successful coach who always produced great shooters say at a clinic that they did their shooting drills at the end of practice so that they could shoot when they were tired. That made a lot of sense to me. We tried it in our early practices and our players did not like it. They liked our shooting progression early in the practice and felt that it helped them to "groove" their shots for the rest of the practice. So, we tweaked it and did our shooting fundamentals early and did some game pace drills late to try and get the best of both worlds. That team ended up being the highest field goal percentage team that I have coached, so I am glad that I experimented with it, told them what and why I was giving it a test run, and then listened to their input. Early in the season, I think it is important to do some experimenting with what spots you put players in against presses and traps, who inbounds the ball, who inbounds the ball for a game winning shot, who takes the shots at the end of quarters, what shots each player can make in a scrimmage, and any other crucial personnel decisions that we need to make. Usually, I don't change my mind as to who needs to fill each role and what they can do, but there are times when I have made some decisions that I feel have made us better by putting players in different positions. Many times it is not the new role that you put someone in, but it becomes how that trickles down to filling their previous spot and what role changes would take place for the rest of our players that is the deciding factor in to change or not to change. We have always been a motion program with a handful of set plays that we feel fit our players for that year. Early in the year we experiment with our plays to see what works for this group and what doesn't so that we can pare down the number that we will use. As the season wears on, we also tweak what we run as we see how we are being defended and if our personnel changes due to injuries or adjustments in our lineup. Since basketball is a long season, I like to look for new drills that drill the same concepts as the season moves into January and February. Not major, complex changes, but something that can be explained quickly and doesn't eat up a lot of practice time. I think it helps maintain the attention of the players as they have something new to think about rather than going through the same things in the same way time after time.

“A fool is a man who has never tried an experiment in his life.”

--Erasmus Darwin



7

I do not believe in taking major portions of the practice to experiment. Ten minutes max every day the first couple weeks of practice and then ten minutes once or twice a week after that. I don't want change for change sake, but I also want to always be looking for new ideas and new ways to do things better that will improve our program.

8.

one contains gasoline, the other contains water. If we choose to make the situation a personal confrontation, blow it out of proportion, immediately seek to make it a win-lose, place blame, or mishandle it in any other number of ways, we are pouring gasoline on the fire. If we choose to use

Water or Gasoline? John Maxwell writes and speaks to leaders in all walks of life. One of his ideas is that as a leader, we carry two buckets every time we go to put out a fire--

our bucket of water to de-escalate the problem, we are improving our ability to effectively handle the current situation and also building our skills to handle the next one. John's message is for us simply to be consciously aware of which bucket we are using and the affect is has on our ability to lead.

9. Stay in touch with former players. I

coached at Winamac High School in Indiana from 1999 until 2003 and we had a reunion of our teams including players, coaches, managers, parents, administrators, and support staff such as our bus driver, scorekeeper, athletic secretary, etc… and anyone who wanted to bring girlfriends, wives, or children was welcome to.

We didn’t organize any activities (at least I thought we didn’t) other than a cookout lunch. On the invitation, we invited everyone to bring Frisbees, corn hole games, and the like. I didn’t know they were going to do it, but the players and some of the assistant coaches put out the word to bring shorts and shoes to play some pickup games on the outdoor court that was right by the pavilion we had reserved. It was fun to see them playing together again. I know they enjoyed it too. It really wasn’t that difficult or expensive to put together. I started working on it about six months before we had it. Working with my wife, the assistant coaches, and our AD, we reserved the best pavilion in the park which was right next to the playground for the young children, close to the restrooms, and close to the basketball court. Using e-mail invitations, facebook, and free cell phone long distance, it was very inexpensive to contact everyone that I needed to get hold of. We made it a pitch in and that made the food prep easy. It fit right in with our number one goal of establishing a lifelong relationship with the participants that cannot be broken. I had as much fun

“Don’t wrestle with the pigs. You both get mud on you and the pigs like it.”

--Unknown



8

getting in touch with them as I did seeing them in person. I am glad I did it and am looking forward to the next one.

10. Have a theme for the season. One way to develop a team identity is to have a theme for the season that is unique to this year’s group and appropriate for the current season. For example, after graduating all five starters from a sectional championship team, our theme was “building a new wall.” The idea was that we needed to build a solid wall for ourselves by improving every day in order to have a chance to win the post-season sectional tournament again. We made a poster of a wall of bricks—one brick for every practice and game—up to the state finals. Every day we decided as a group if we had improved and could color in a brick or not. A couple of times we felt that we went backwards and whited out the already colored in bricks. After our first game, we added two bricks, even though we lost, because we had several players give varsity efforts who had never played in a varsity game before. It was not the most creative idea ever, but it was a visual representation that we were building our individuals and teams a day at a time and that every brick counted to make the wall—and it was unique and appropriate for that team.

11.

Have a player’s notebook. To me, the importance of a player’s notebook is that you can have your program rules and expectations in writing. It helps document to your players, which in turn helps with parents and administration. Encourage the players to share their notebooks with their parents. After you have your team rules, expectations, etc… it is up to you as to how you use it after that. You can use it for your plays, schemes, individual workout charts, scouting reports, post game evaluation handouts, motivational information, bus time, and anything else that you feel is important. I like to use 3 ring binders in order to be able to add to it as the season unfolds rather than giving it out at the beginning of the year and not adding to it after that.

12.

measurable goals definitely changes efforts and purpose. The goals need to be meaningful, be areas that will have an impact on the outcomes of games, and be something that influence what and how you practice and the way you play in games. They must fit your team that year. For example, if you want to be a team that gets to the

Have statistical goals in writing, visible, and on everyone’s mind. The purpose of having goals is to offer direction. Studies have shown time and time again that people with written goals that they refer to daily are more successful than those who don’t. Just by knowing the goals, it will change the way your players play. Having specific and

“If what you are doing is not moving you towards your goals, then it is moving you away from them.”

--Brian Tracy



9

free throw line a lot, you could set a goal of getting the ball into the lane on the drive or on the pass on 2/3 of your possessions each quarter and during each practice scrimmage segment. If that is a goal, then it needs to be emphasized constantly. That is why it is important to stay with 3 to 5 goals and that it is imperative to have goals that will make a difference in your games.

13.

Three things we won’t discuss. Our view is that there are some areas that should not be discussed with parents: 1) Other Players on the Team 2) Strategy 3) Playing Time. I think most people would agree that it is not appropriate to allow any parent to come in for a meeting with the coaches and bad mouth another player. My feeling is that in essence, if you talk about strategy or playing time, you are talking about other players in a roundabout way. Strategy involves hiding weaknesses and playing to strengths which is based on personnel. Playing time is a limited quantity in that if a parent lobbies successfully for an increase, must take it away from another player. If you talk to one set of parents about any of the above, the right thing would be to talk to all parents. There simply isn't enough time for that. If all parents are informed of the policies and more importantly, why those policies are best for the team and for the program, in a pre-season meeting, it will help to minimize parent complaints. Nothing will ever eliminate them completely. When parent complaints do arise, John Maxwell's advice is golden: Work to poor water on the fire rather than gasoline, so that you can get on to the business of coaching without making a difficult situation any worse.

14.

good, then they did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you. ” If you want to tell your AD behind closed doors about a problem, that is one thing, but don’t say anything negative about the players publicly. Don’t tell everyone that the players did not do what you told them. Even if it is true that they did not do as they were taught, save that for the locker room

A coach should never criticize players publicly or in the media. Bear Bryant said: “If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi good, we did it. If anything goes really

and practice if it is not the last game of the season. As the coach give the players credit for the victories and accept the blame for the defeats.

15.

“If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then they did it.”

Establish your own priorities for your program. If you and your players know what your priorities are, it is much easier to make decisions for you, your parents, and your players. Our priorities for putting our basketball program in the proper place in our program member’s overall lives is:

--Paul “Bear” Bryant



10

1) 2)

Spirituality Family relationships

3) and personal health

4) Citizenship

5) Academics

Basketball (in-season)

My purpose for having this list is that items 1-4 are excused reasons to miss practice or games if there are events or activities that cannot be scheduled at times that did not conflict with basketball. So, if a player has an academic field trip that will return late and either after practice has started or has been completed, that is excused, no questions asked—even if it was the night before the biggest game of the year—which happened once. As for spirituality, a Wednesday night church service is an excused reason to miss practice, etc… As for citizenship, that means on court or off court behavior problems (priority #3) will lead to reduced basketball (#5) playing time. Questions about playing an injured player are easy calls because health is more important in our program than basketball.

16. What message are you sending? In their book Everyone's A Coach, Don Shula and Ken Blanchard point out that there are four ways that how a coach reacts to a performance sends a message. They believe that a coach can respond to an action by a player in 4 ways and that we must consider our intentions when we respond:

1) Praise: Usually will lead to more of the same behavior or performance. We must be careful that we continue to increase the performance level that receives praise or the players can stagnate and settle for doing enough to get praised and no more.

2) Redirection: "Coaching" or correction. Working to improve the actions

and performance.

3) Reprimand: Used for lack of effort, lack of following directions, or a behavior problem. The authors feel that it is important that coaches distinguish between the use of redirecting and the use of reprimanding as more patience is required with #2 than #3.

“Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it, establish your priorities, and go to work.”

--H. L. Hunt



11

4) Silence-open to interpretation, but usually interpreted as an acceptable performance by a player. It could also be taken as apathy if there is consistent silence. This is good food for thought as we evaluate our own coaching performances.

17. It’s never enough… Most players are willing to give a second effort and that is what your opponents will give too. What separates the great players and great teams is the ability to consistently give the third and fourth efforts, or as many efforts as it takes to make the play. Strive to make it a mindset in your program that second efforts are expected and save the reward and praise for the third and fourth efforts, and beyond, as those are what lead to never giving up and to the most rewarding plays and victories.

Role #2 Individual Development

Most coaches would agree with John Wooden’s statement that “The team with the best players usually wins.” Granted, there is a certain amount of talent that is natural. In most coaching situations, the majority of teams on your schedule over a two to four year period will probably have talent that is similar to yours. Our number one job as coaches then is to develop our player’s ability to play basketball as much as we can and to give them opportunities to learn and grow as people.

Developing individual players life skills, basketball skills, athleticism, and mental toughness, and “basketball IQ”

In addition to developing basketball skills that are necessary to thrive in a system and style of play that puts the good of the team ahead of the individual, we can work to develop their mental capacities to handle the competition and pressures of a basketball season. This must take place both during the season and out of your games season.

We have a specific plan to develop mental toughness in our players that includes defining what it is and what it is not, not allowing anyone in the program to use or accept excuses, not accepting moping, pouting, poor body language, and rehearsing in practice any and all pressure situations we might encounter in a game. That is not to say that we can simulate the pressure of a game in practice, but I feel that if we have rehearsed it in practice, it gives the player confidence that they have a plan of attack for the games.

“When tournament time comes, would you rather have two better players or two better plays?”

--Don Meyer



12

18. Make out of season competitive workouts. Each year, we develop specific and measurable performance goals that the players know for our individual skill and sports performance development drills. These are measurable goals for our drills and use them in and out of season. The five performance levels we have are 1) Sectional Champion 2) Varsity Regular (top 7 players) 3) Varsity 4) JV 5) Freshman.

Individual Development Part 1--Developing Player’s Basketball Skills

As an example, we have a drill in our workout program where a player starts on the wing at the free throw line extended and drives toward the basket, then stops at about 12 feet from the basket, executes a hop back (or step back) shot. For the top level, sectional champion, we expect the player to make 8 out of 10 shots. The next highest level (varsity regular) must hit 7 out of 10. Varsity player 6 out of 10, Junior Varsity 5 out of 10, and Freshman 4 out of 10.

The player determines which level he is going to work out at, and we keep a season won/loss record. So if we have time for 10 individual development drills, we keep track of how many times he meets or exceeds the goal for the level that he has selected for each drill. If he meets or exceeds the goal level for six drills and didn’t make the goal 4 times, then that is his “season record.” In between each drill, we shoot a one and one. If he makes both, he wins, otherwise it is a loss. So, 10 drills and 10 sets of one and one is a 20 game “season” for that workout day.

At the end of this 20 game workout “season,” we start the state tournament and each game is one and done. In Indiana, there are three games in the first round of the state tournament (sectional), two games in the second round (regional), one game if you advance to the third week (semi-state), and then a one game state final. Our

players are familiar with how the state tournament is set up and they always enjoy seeing how far they can advance. Regardless of what level they worked out at during their 10 drill and 10 one and one season, they must enter the state tournament at the sectional champion level because we expect to have to play at the highest level in March when every other school is playing their best ball of the season.

We use similar quantifiable goals in our running, weight lifting, and agilities that we do in our sports performance and conditioning workouts in the offseason.

“A competitive environment offers two possibilities. You can lose, or if you want to win, you can change.”

--Unknown



13

19.

20.

Spend 30 minutes every day in practice in an organized, goal driven, and measureable system to improve the individual skills of your players. The best way to make the team better is to improve the abilities of the individual team members. We adapt the system that I just discussed in Idea #18 to fit into our games season practices.

opponent to grab with two hands and chin.

Two hands are better than one Here's one for the "It's not what you teach, it's what you emphasize" file. Work very, very hard with your teams to always grab a loose ball with two hands, and then chin it like a rebound, rather than trying to dribble it to obtain possession. When the ball is loose and several players are going for it, trying to dribble the ball in that crowd that has been attracted will result in just another loose ball for your

21.

ball or tie it up because of the increased leverage of two hands. The main advantage of always going for the ball with two hands is that it avoids the one handed reach ins for the ball when guarding a dribbler. That type of reaching more often than not results in a foul. Since it is very difficult to reach with two hands while on the move, you lesson risk of players picking up reaching in fouls. If the ball is being held by an offensive player, officials are much less likely to call a foul when a defender goes for the ball with two hands.

One armed bandits are no good. One teaching point to help players stay out of foul trouble is for players to only grab for the ball on defense when they can get it with two hands. Our experience has been that it is a more successful way to take the

22.

Reading is fundamental. When teaching players how to read screens, have them slow down as they approach the screen. Teach the offensive player to look at the defensive man not the ball, make his or her read, and then cut quickly off of the screen. Go slow enough in order to make the correct read. Too slow is better than too fast.

23.

What the defense doesn't know The player guarding the ball doesn't know what's going on behind him. You don't have to pass fake to a teammate to get the defense to react. You can fake a pass to air and the on-ball defender will still react. If you are faking to get the defender to react, fake with the purpose of moving their hands, feet, or eyes (or all three) to where you want them to be to open up a shot, pass, or drive that is better for you and your team. If the player with the ball only thinks of faking a pass to where one of his teammates is, that limits they ways he can influence the defender who is guarding the basketball.

“The smart take from the strong.” --Pete Carril



14

24.

As you watch the video of your games and practices chart (for each individual player) block out percentage, deflections, going to offensive rebound position, or anything else that is vital to winning with your system of play, but that often goes unnoticed and unrewarded. Come up with a system to give players who meet your standards a visible symbol on their locker or on a bulletin board in the locker room. For example, anyone with a 90% or higher blockout percentage for a game, will receive a sticker on the board on their locker. It can be anything or several things that you feel are important and since you are emphasizing it and more importantly, measuring it, that area will improve.

25.

Body on body. To make the distance when players are driving to the basket as short as possible, teach your driver to step at the defense so that the driver’s leg brushes the defensive player's leg. You can work on that in your workouts by putting something there to practice with like a chair, or a teammate that you are working with. Any gap between the driver and the defense makes that line less straight and lowers their chance of being able to get all the way to the basket to score.

26.

Another key to getting open. To get open with or without the ball, teach players to change speeds and change directions and drill it in practice. Even if the defensive player is quicker or faster, it does no good for the defender to move faster than the player being guarded. The defense must adjust to the speed and direction of the offense. If the offensive player changes speeds and directions at the right times, the defense does not know when that change is coming and is constantly being put in catch up mode.

27.

28. Keep ‘em focused. When you are doing your warm up and technique drills in practice, it

Pick up ready. Spend some time at the beginning of each practice and workout having your players work on picking up that last hard dribble with their hands in shooting position on the basketball. There should not be a need to adjust the hand position on the ball once they have picked it up. Practice technique first, then move on to game pace and game spots.

is important to find ways to focus the players’ concentration rather than letting human nature take over for something that is routine with their minds drifting. If you can find a way to score the drills, or a standard to achieve, then they are more likely to

have better concentration.

“Discipline and concentration are a matter of being interested.”

--Tom Kite



15

For examples, if you are shooting layups as a part of a warm up, require that everyone on the team make two. So, if you have a 12 player roster, then you have to make 24 in a row. Or, if you are doing a defensive sliding drill, everyone on the team must complete two reps with perfect technique, or there will be a consequence. You will have to decide whether you are going to stay on that drill until you get what you demand for the execution, or if you will add an additional sprint later in practice because you need to move on to other drills.

Either way, we need to be creative as coaches to give players help in maintaining focus on what they are doing and to avoid just going through the motions. Coach every drill as hard as you can. Calling the drills and setting the standards for those drills is not enough. We need to coach the individual development and fundamental drills with the same attention that we want our players to give to them. It sets the right frame of mind for your team and it keeps players from developing bad habits.

29.

A feel for the feet. A player who is positioning for a three point shot needs to keep her eyes focused on catching the ball and then locating the rim (or just on the rim if picking up off the dribble). We do not want our players looking at the arc at the expense of not looking the pass into their hands or taking their eyes off the target and then moving their heads to look for the arc once they have the ball. They need to look at the arc before the ball is coming and develop a feel for where their feet are on the floor after that. We would rather have the feet behind the arc, but would also rather have a foot on the arc than a turnover or a three point shot with the head not in proper alignment and balance.

30.

“

Precision passing. The best pass is not the fanciest or the no look pass, but the best pass is simply the one that is caught by a teammate in a spot where they can do something with it. Demand that players who are passing to someone who is open for a shot, must hit them in the shooting pocket so they can get the shot off before the defense gets there to pressure the shot. When passing to a post player who is open for a scoring move, hit them so that they don't have to reach to catch the ball and lose their posting position and/or balance. Don't pass the ball to a teammate in a bad spot on the floor for them such as giving a post player the ball in the middle of the floor if they are not a strong ball handler. It is true that great players make those around them better. Being a good passer

You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way. Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise

--Michael Jordan

.”



16

who makes it easy for teammates to make a play once they catch the ball is one way that players can make their teammates better.

31.

Catch ready. One thing a player can do to be able to get their shot off quicker and with more accuracy is to catch the ball with their hands ready to shoot. Teach catching the ball with the shooting hand behind it and the guide hand on the side.

32.

A game of inches Make a shot fake a two inch fake. Start the shot and stop it after two inches. That is enough to get the defender to react and is compact enough for the player to then make either a dribble to get away from the defense, or a pass to a teammate and a cut. Make the fake believable by making it the same speed as the normal shot.

33.

34.

Feeding the post When the ball is at the free throw line extended and the offensive post player is being fronted, the lob pass is only open if it can be thrown on the ball side of the basket and caught at the block. That way it is thrown away from the help side defense and once the post player catches, he or she has room to score rather than catching the ball too far under the basket. Just one more reason that post players need to establish position above the block.

allowed to have open gyms during the late parts of the summer or during the fall give some consideration to only running one court, even if you have enough players for two games if you have players who are the same age. If you have varied ages, you

The law of the jungle for open gyms We realize that your job will have different rules for different times of the year depending on your athletic governing body. If you are

might consider a younger end and a veteran end. The reason we suggest one court is to make it as competitive as possible. If you can't coach them, one way to get them to play hard is that if you lose, you have to sit out and wait your turn. Just throwing this out as an idea, but it might make it more bearable to watch and more worth your time if they are playing hard.

35.

“

A better way to play 1-on-1. 1 on 1 can be a valuable part of an individual workout or an in-season practice. To use 1-on-1 as a tool to improve, play "Continuous 1-on-1." In continuous 1-on-1 there is no "checking up top." Once a player scores, the other player who is now on offense, takes the ball out of the net and spins it out anywhere behind the three point arc, goes out and meets the pass , squares to the basket and plays from there. Even if the shot is missed, if the defender gets the rebound, he or she spins the ball out behind the arc and plays from there. It is a good toughness and conditioning drill to

Competition helps people figure it out.

--Brian McBride ”



17

finish a workout with, and it forces players to go from offense to defense and defense to offense in a more game-like way.

36.

37. Speed up, until you mess up! When players are working out on their own with no one to time them, teach them to start out in their ball handling drills at a comfortable pace and then continually pick up the pace until they lose the ball. That way they are assured to be pushing themselves past their current limits, which is the only way they will improve. It is also a good way to work with very young

Teach players to keep hands up in the air when taking a charge. Teach and practice the correct technique of landing on your rear end with hands in the when taking a charge. That will avoid broken fingers, hands, and wrists.

players in large groups as they are learning to do ball handling drills.

38. Work on shooting technique each day before shooting. Getting the ball straight is the most important factor in being a consistent shooter. Shooting with one hand helps to work on shooting the ball straight and on concentrating on the backspin rotation of the ball. We call this drill “Rim Flips” and the purpose is to work on technique, foot position, and body alignment--not to simulate anything close to game speed. Rim flips are solely for refining and maintaining technique and form. Players stand an arm’s length directly in front of the rim. Set the ball for the normal shot and then take the balance hand away. The entire focus of the drill is on

correct shooting fundamentals. The initial stage of the drill does not involve jumping. Think of it as a short free throw. After making 10 in a row without hitting the rim, the shooter moves back two steps

39. Validate your drills. Coach Bob Hurley uses this idea and picked it up from Coach Vance Walberg. Tell your team at the beginning of some of the competitive drills that you run that at the end of each drill, they will need to “validate” it. For example, if you split your team into two groups and do a competitive shooting drill, the team that wins the drill must then make a free throw (coach chooses the player to shoot for validation so that all players have a chance to shoot the free throw eventually) to validate their win. If the player makes the free throw, the drill is “validated” and the team that lost the drill must run. If the player misses the free throw, then the team that won the drill must run because they were not able to validate the drill by making the pressure free throw. It is a good way to

“If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not taking risks, and that means you’re not going anywhere

--John W. Holt Jr.

. The key is to make mistakes faster than the competition, so you have more chances to learn and win. ”



18

shoot some pressure free throws and to teach that for most of the games you win, you have to close them by making free throws.

40.

Individual Development Part 2--Improving life skills/mental toughness in individual players

to the mindset that we develop in our program. For instance, I strive to not let anyone in our program (including myself) use the word “try.” Our thought is that anyone can be a “tryer,” we want doers.

Watch what you say. The vocabulary we use and allow our players to use is significant

41.

What do you expect? Michael Jordan always expected to get hit when he drove the ball hard to the rim. He did not want to be angry about receiving a hard foul and then have that anger carry over to when he was shooting his free throws. After all, the best revenge is making the free throws and maintaining poise will help your players to do that.

42.

1)

Dealing with mistakes A big part of mental toughness is playing through mistakes. In order to keep one mistake from leading to another, coach your players to:

2) Recognize mistakes

3) Admit their mistakes

4)

Learn from it (with help from the coaches) to prevent it from happening again

Put it out of their mind and play on so that it does not affect any more plays

43.

Easier said than done, but like anything else you emphasize, it will improve with time. Make it one of those points that you constantly teach and re-teach to all of your players.

“

No excuses, no explanations The Indianapolis Colts have signs in their locker room that say: "No Excuses, No Explanations." They do have some very good players, but that attitude has a lot to do with why they are the winningest team in the NFL over the past decade. If we all strive to make that our personal motto, we are going to become more successful in everything that we do. Don't allow excuses from yourself or those around you. Making an excuse is another way to say, “This is too hard and I don't want to make the effort needed to succeed because I am not sure that I can succeed, no matter what type of effort I give.” If you are committed to basketball (or anything), it is worth the extra effort to be the best you can be and no one gives that necessary extra after making an excuse.

--Yoda in Star Wars

There is do and do not. There is no try.”



19

44. Have players inform you ahead of time if they are to miss practice. Our rule is that one unexcused absence from practice is grounds for dismissal from the team. An unexcused absence is defined as an absence where the player did not let us know ahead of time that they would miss. I believe that not only does this help in practice planning and efficiency, but it also allows you to inform that rest of the team as to why a player is not there. It also teaches the players about responsibility. Obviously, for emergencies such as deaths in the family and the like, I do not expect for our players to put contacting me above all else, so we resort back to our priorities when those types of circumstances occur.

45.

46.

A picture is worth a reduced number of turnovers. Start practice with an empty ball rack and each time your team makes a turnover, place a basketball on the rack as a visual of the turnover. You can run when you get to a certain number, or whatever you feel is best, but just having players see the visual will help to decrease your turnovers.

Hear, see, do We all need to look for ways to get everyone we work with in our programs more involved

both for their interest and dedication level and to be more effective.

47.

48. Players/Officials Relationships I have always found a way to get a local official or two to come in and work a Saturday pre-season scrimmage during one of our practices. It really doesn’t have to be a Saturday practice, I just found that it was easier for many officials to come in on a Saturday than a week night. I also like to use Saturday’s for pre-season scrimmages.

Care of their feet. Regardless of what a player has done in the pre-season to prepare him or herself physically for the start of basketball practice, it is tough to prepare their feet for the two plus hours of cutting, closing out, and all of the other quick cutting and starting and stopping they will experience in practice. In order to do some prevention, rather than have missed or ineffective practice time due to blisters and raw feet, we stress to our players care of the feet with two pairs of socks, skin lubricant, and rubbing ice on their hot spots on their feet at the end of each practice for the first few weeks. I also think it is important for the players to break in new basketball shoes gradually by wearing them at home, around school, and in PE. We allow our players to bring old (clean) shoes and go change into them the first few days as they feel their feet getting hot from the friction of new shoes. We post these suggestions in the locker room, give them verbally, and put them in their notebooks. We want to do all we can to avoid the downtime caused by unattended blisters and raw feet.

“Tell me, I forget. Show me, I remember

--Chinese Proverb

. Involve me, I understand.”



20

I am not talking about a public scrimmage, just the section of the practice that you use to go 5 on 5, but I make this one game like with a manager doing the clock, playing four quarters, etc… I pay them the going rate for a JV game. If you can’t afford two or three (which we usually can’t), then we have assistant coaches be the second and third officials. I have found that the officials like it because it does help them to prepare for the new season. It helps our players because I ask the officials talk to them about new rules and just some quick thoughts on what it is like to be an official. I think it helps to humanize the officials to the players and gives our players a different perspective on them as people. We also expect our players to hand the ball to officials rather than tossing it or throwing it. I think that helps show respect to the officials. We also address them as “yes sir” (ma’m for lady officials), “no sir”, and respond with “thank you sir” when receiving a handoff or a bounce pass from the official. We remove players from the game, who show displeasure with an official’s call, no matter how much the crowd reacts. My feeling is that regardless of how much we dislike a call, we cannot lose our poise and focus on playing the game. Becoming upset with the officiating does not help the performance of our team. I am not saying that we are perfect in this regard, but that is what we strive for in practice and in games. Individual Development Part 3—Improving individual players

49.

basketball IQ

50. Fouling negates hustle. As you work to get your players to play defense with great

Avoid senseless fouls It is very risky to attempt to take a charge anywhere on the floor other than in the lane and on the baseline. Not always, but usually the offense will get the blocking call if the defender attempts to take a charge out on the floor. The only time it is worth the risk to try to take a charge out on the floor is if you are fouling late in the game to stop the clock. Make it a rule to only take charges in the lane and on the baseline. Staying away from plays like these help keep a team and players out of foul trouble so that those other calls that go against a player won't keep him or her out of the game.

intensity and energy, it is crucial to teach them to apply pressure to the basketball by using their feet to get into position and by using their arms and hands vertically and horizontally, without reaching in or swinging at the ball. The truth is

that teams that play hard foul LESS because they play extremely hard to get their feet into defensive position.

“Fouling negates hustle.” --Rick Pitino



21

When stealing passes, the emphasis must be on looking to steal passes that are thrown too far (20 plus feet) or poorly and not by making out of control lunges that will also result in fouls.

51.

52. Never leave the ball unguarded. One of our defensive rules is that anyone who switches onto the ball or just picks up the ball that is unguarded does not leave the ball unguarded to return to his man--until he is called off by a teammate.

A new rule With one team of our teams, our coaching staff struggled to keep our players from dribbling across the timeline (or even worse, dribbling to the sideline and then crossing the ten second line into the coffin corner) and picking up their dribble with no way to get out of trouble. They had no live dribble and no way to pass to our designated outlet behind the ball (that we have in every offensive situation) without an over and back. Adding a simple rule in practice that it was an automatic turnover to cross the line and pick up the dribble or cross on the sideline eliminated that bad habit in games. With the addition of the new rule, we made great strides in that area.

Matchups are huge in our defensive scheme, so we want to get the player that we have assigned to each opponent to guard that opponent, but never at the expense of leaving the ball unattended to return to their defensive assignment. That seems like a simple point, but it is one that players need to be drilled on continually so that it becomes instinct to pick up the ball and keep it until called off by our defender who is right there and ready to take the ball handler. This is yet another example of why it is critical to require your players to communicate on defense.

53.

“

Better safe than Sorry. Make it a rule in your offensive system, regardless of whether you are motion oriented, or pattern based, that you do not toss or flip the basketball to a teammate. If two players are close enough to hand the ball from one to the other, do not pass it. The handoff is much safer when a teammate is coming towards the player with the ball. There is too much risk in flipping the ball when the spacing is poor. The player with the ball should shield it with his or her body and the player receiving the handoff should take it from the hands of the ball handler--the ball handler should not push it into the hands of the receiver. We feel that taking time to teach your team how to play basketball with these types of concepts is more important than the basketball plays that you run.

Discipline is based on pride and meticulous attention to details

--Gary Ryan Blair

, and on mutual respect and confidence. Discipline must be a habit so engrained that it is stronger than the excitement of the goal or the fear of failure. ”



22

54.

55.

Fake it to make it. Fake a pass, to make a pass. Fake a cut to make a cut.

56.

Drive safely. Work with your baseline drivers to attack the posting block, not the backboard. Just like a post move, if a driver powers up to the basket from the block, s/he can protect the ball from being blocked from behind with his or her body. If a driver goes up to the basket from between the backboard and the posting block there is too much of a chance to get the shot blocked without a foul. Protect the ball using the rim, the body, and extending the arms to the basket from the posting block when finishing.

Meet every pass. Having your players meet every pass and not waiting on the ball to come to them will cut down on turnovers. Another advantage of meeting the pass is that if the defense is going for a steal and the offense is moving towards the ball, the foul will be on the defense which, in addition to saving a turnover, is going to make the defense a lot less likely to be as aggressive for the ball.

57. Don’t be a clock watcher When you are working for the last shot of a quarter, teach your players and practice repeatedly, to not look at the clock once they start making the play or taking the shot. The time to look at the clock is with 12 to 15 seconds to go (or if there is a whistle stopping play) and then to have a feel for the clock as it counts down. What good is looking at the clock other than to slow them down and distract their focus away from what you want them to execute? If they have been through daily situation repetitions in practice

Role #3 Personnel and Roles

they will have developed that clock in their head. This is especially critical when rebounding a last second shot, there is no time, nor is there a reason, to look at the clock. They need to rebound and score. I would rather have them put the ball in the basket, even if it is after the horn, rather than rush the shot and miss it before the horn sounds. I have never seen a basket that does not go in count (except goal tending), but I have seen officials count a basket that was probably late if your level does not use replay. Most players think they have less time than they actually have, so slow them down and make them focus on putting the ball in the basket.

Select your program’s personnel, assign roles to them, and keep them productive in those roles

Selecting the right players and assistant coaches for your program is crucial to your success. Once your selections are made, deciding on how each one best fits into your overall plan for your program and then working to keep the players in those roles becomes your task.

“

--John C. Maxwell

The success of a leader is determined by those people in the organization who work most closely with the leader.”



23

This section deals with some ideas to help you meet those challenges.

58. Prospect sheet. During tryouts, I have every player fill out a sheet as to what role they will be willing to accept for the upcoming season. There is one for varsity, on for JV, and on for the freshmen. The choices are: If there is a 75% chance that I will start varsity and play regularly, I would like to stay on the team. If my chances are not that good, I would rather be dropped from the squad now. If there is a 75% chance that I will be in the top 7 players who play regularly, but not start, I would like to stay on the team. If my chances are not that good, I would rather be dropped from the squad now. Even if my chances are less than 50% of ever playing a great deal, I would still like to be a member of the team. I understand there is a strong possibility that I would not play in some (possibly many) games. This role would see playing time in games sparingly in emergency, specials situations, or at the end of a game that has already been decided. We emphasize that their selection is not their goal, but rather the worst case that they could accept for the entire season. Basketball is a long season and it is best to be up front about your thoughts on where the prospects stand during tryouts. After they complete it, I sign it and check the box that I see as the most appropriate for them, they sign it, and they have their parents sign it. I have used it to drop a couple of seniors from the team during tryouts when their expectations did not meet mine. It is never pleasant, but I believe that the sheets did make it easier on all involved.

Another benefit of having the prospect sheets is that later in the season, if there are complaints regarding playing time, you do have the conversation and the document to fall back on.

“

--Don Meyer

If there is a choice to make between the program and the individual, that choice was already made long ago.”



24

59. Making Cuts is Tough. Regardless of what level you coach, if you have to make cuts, it is tough on both the coach and the athlete. But, to paraphrase businessman Harvey Mackay: "It's not the players that you cut who make your season miserable, it is the players that you don't cut and should have who make your season miserable." In my opinion, no matter how tough it is to cut someone, it is even worse for the team to keep someone who does not fit in and who is going to be unhappy with his or her role. It is better to get it over with at the beginning of the season, rather than battling with the player, and possibly parents, all season long.

I believe that cuts should be made face to face rather than with a posted list or an announcement of who made the team. Those conversations are always difficult as well. It is hard to know what to say and how to say it because each situation is different and each kid is going to react differently. When I have interviewed for jobs and did not get them, I have always appreciated a phone call telling me that they hired someone else, rather than reading on the Internet that someone else was hired. I feel that I owe the same courtesy, but in person, to players that we have to cut. I do think that it is important to choose your words wisely and not say something that the player can use against you or that is going to cause you to have to defend yourself in administrative and parent meetings.

60.

Keep commitments current. Flip Saunders keeps a list of the pre-season commitments that his players made to the team in his pocket. The players were responsible to develop their own. Whether or not the players listen when he reviews those commitments with them is debatable, but it is a great idea to maintain accountability. We could all benefit by finding the best way to keep our personal and program commitments that we have made, and the commitments our players have made to our teams, in front of us and in front of them at all times.

61.

Find a way to chart and reward players for the things you emphasize in your system of play. This is especially true for your role players and for the dirty jobs that you want everyone on the team doing. We can all come up with things that are critical to our team's success to measure in practice such as shot selection, putting the ball in the lane, ball reversals, block outs, contesting shots, or communicating on defense. Measuring what you want to happen, and then giving that statistical feedback to players will result in the improvement of that area.

62.

“

When Pat Summitt talks... Pat Summitt has used a system for players to acknowledge that they heard her in basketball practice. If she corrects something, the player responds

--Pat Summitt

Communication eliminates mistakes.”



25

with "Rebound" and if she praises something, the response is "Two Points." Using this system, she knows that they heard what she had to say without having to ask.

63.

MULTIPLY value in your organization, add leaders. I do not feel that players should ever be placed in a position where they have to correct or reprimand other players, but having players rotate “coaching” a team in a quarter of a scrimmage in practice, by calling the players, timeouts, etc… can be a good way for them to develop leadership skills and

Find ways for your players to take appropriate leadership roles. As Leadership expert John Maxwell says, to ADD value to your organization, add followers, to

at the same time, get a very small taste of what you do. I think that continually looking for ideas to allow your players to work on leadership skills benefits everyone in the program.

64.

Your inbounds passer Consider naming a specific inbounds passer for each of your various inbounds plays and situations. It may or may not be the same player against a full court press as for a last second sideline play or an underneath inbounds play. In my opinion, having a specific player who has practiced, has experience and confidence, and is prepared for various defensive looks will save you a few turnovers over the course of the season. Not only that, it will get you some extra baskets due to making the best pass rather than just any pass. Like anything else, you will need backup are inbounders if your primary is out of the game. It is worth taking some time in practice to experiment and try out different players until you find the best one for each situation. A final idea is that all coaches have players we don't want taking it out, so a better way to address that for everyone is to say who you do want taking it out.

65. Define roles for assistant coaches and managers. You owe it to those individuals to give them tasks that will help them grow. My philosophy is to tailor their responsibilities to fit their skills and aspirations. So, if a manager has a particular idea for a course of study in college, or has an interest in technology, I take those into account when assigning daily tasks and overall areas of responsibility. If an assistant coach has a goal to become a head coach, you might want to involve him or her in areas that would help in that preparation. Some assistants just want to help out in any way they can, but I feel it is essential to define the niche that each one can fill in helping your program.

66.

“

Put it in writing for the players. Each of our players has a page in their player’s notebook to record their scores for the individual drills that we do to start practice. Also

--Stephen Covey

Most people think of leadership as a position and therefore don’t see themselves as leaders.”



26

on that page is a list of their roles. We do verbalize these roles frequently, but having it in writing helps everyone to know your expectations. Here is an example of some of the roles that we list on that sheet. This is not for one player, but examples that would be on different players’ pages: 1) Primary on ball defender (guards the other team’s primary ball handler) 2) Primary inbounds passer vs. press 3) Primary off-ball defender (guards other team’s player that they screen for) 4) Primary finisher against press 5) Secondary underneath inbounder (will inbound if primary inbounder is not in the game)

6) Primary middleman in rotation (our half court trap offense)

67. Veterans mentor new players. Having your seniors teach and lead some drills early in the season is a positive in many ways--as long as it is presented to the seniors in the right context. They are not doing it to take the place of the coaches, to be judgmental, or to reprimand the younger players. The

These are just examples. You can add whatever roles you have for your program.

benefits are that 1) Just like anyone else-your players will learn best by teaching others 2) The veterans get a chance to practice some positive leadership, and 3) You get a chance to evaluate and then improve the leadership skills of your players. I believe that it also helps to have an experienced varsity point guard (or any other position) keep an eye on the JV point guard during the games and give him some feedback prior to the next practice. It helps keep the varsity guard focused on basketball during the JV game. I don’t like to have the veterans concentrating on mentoring younger players during an entire practice—just during the drills that we have them run. I prefer that their main focus during practice be on what they need to do to get better.

68. Seniors plan a practice. Occasionally let seniors (you will know when to do this and when not to) plan a practice. If you have modeled for them how important practice is and consistently organized great practices, you will be amazed at what they will come up with. Players love this, and it allows them to take ownership.

Role #4 Team Development

“The only real training for leadership is leadership

.”

--Antony Jay



27

Develop and implement systems of play that take advantage of your players’ strengths and bring them together as a team

I have divided the ideas into 6 key roles of a basketball coach and have prioritized them, but I do want to make sure that I clarify that they all are constantly occurring and take place at the same time. It is not a sequential process, where you implement your philosophy, then turn your attention to developing your players individually, then choose your personnel, then develop your teams and system of play.

This section deals with ideas for putting all of the parts together so that you create some synergy and truly develop a team in all ways, not just a group of individuals. It is going to take time to develop the habits you are looking to instill. Research shows it takes 21 days to develop a habit and even longer if you need to unlearn previous bad habits first. Playing with special rules needs to be something you do every day for it to have a positive effect on game night.

69. Create special rules in practice. One very effective way to produce the needed challenges for your first team is by making special rules in

Part 1—Develop and implement systems that take advantage of your players’ strengths

practice that cause the "first team" to be challenged by you as their coach and the scoreboard if the second group is not physically able to provide that challenge that is needed to improve. Make sure that the special rules challenge the first team. Some years your starters will need more challenges to push them than others. So each year, revisit what you are doing with your special rules and make adjustments and adaptations that fit your current team. The rules should make the scrimmages competitive so that with their aid, the second team

--Author Unknown

I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do you might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly. I am easily managed-you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great men; and alas, of all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures. I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a man. You may run me for profit or run me for ruin-it makes no difference to me. Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me and I will destroy you. Who am I? I am habit!



28

can score more points and win the scrimmage. This serves to make your practice much more competitive which is crucial to the improvement of your team. Make the rules fit your schemes and goals for each game. For example making a rule that every time the second team makes a pass in a scrimmage counts as a point for them is great if you are working on playing a smothering man to man defense that denies all passes, but makes no sense if you are a team that plays a zone or a packing man to man where you don't pressure the non penetrating passes. A better rule for a defense designed to keep the ball out of the middle is that each time the second team gets the ball in the paint; it is a point for them. Your players must understand the purpose of the rules. It must make sense to the players as to how your rules will develop practice habits that will carry over to games. Players don't have to agree with everything, but if they see a method to your madness, there is a much higher likelihood that your system will produce better results.

The rules should be simple and easy to track. They should not interfere with the flow of the scrimmage by causing the players and the coaches to have to slow down to figure out what just happened and how that affects the score. Run the clock and the scoreboard like a game when you scrimmage in practice. Make every special rules violation to either result in a turnover, adding points to the

score of the second team, or both. I have found that it is too difficult for the manager who is operating the scoreboard and clock to take points away from a team. If you just yell, "Two points for the red team because the white team did not chin the defensive rebound," the players know why the points were lost and the manager can just add them to the score of the second team. The point differential is the same regardless of whether you add to the second team's score or subtract from the first team, so it makes sense to make it easier on your scorekeeper. It is also good to have another manager keep a possession chart and record what violation resulted in the points so that you can analyze what rules you are violating the most frequently and then work to improve those areas. If you don’t have access to a scoreboard, you can still designate a coach or manager to keep a possession chart on a clipboard and call out the score.

70.

“

Here they come! Have your players yell "wolf" to alert a teammate who is dribbling that a defensive player is coming from behind to tip the ball away.

Our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways.

--Unknown

”



29

71.

Don't allow a layup on an underneath the basket inbounds pass. Make it your objective to never allow a layup on an inbounds pass. We have always been a man to man team, and we stay man to man even on under out plays. The players know that our objective is to not allow a layup on the inbounds pass and to force the ball to be thrown beyond the 3 point arc. We accomplish this by having the player guarding the inbounder to play under the basket to serve as a “goalie” in case one of our defenders does get beaten to the basket. All other players do not deny past the short corners horizontally and do not deny past the free throw line vertically. Our rule is that once the ball is in the air, each helping defender sprints to his help position and the defender picking up the opponent who is catching the ball arrives with a closeout when the ball does.

Even if this is not the system that you use, having the goal of allowing no layups gives a direction to your defense of under out plays and allows the players to play with purpose.

72.

If you can find ways to keep your opponent from getting layups, that is going to make you that much tougher to score against.

End of game clock management.

timeout. For this reason, we save our timeouts until the end of the game. We like to throw to half court and call timeout if our opponent scores to tie the game or take the lead at the end with five seconds or less.

One of our clock management rules at the end of the game is that if we gain possession with the clock running in the opponent’s half of the court at the end of a game where we are trailing with three seconds or less, we call

If we can stop the clock immediately after the score with a timeout, or if the opponent takes the lead a made free throw where the clock is already stopped. If you don’t have any timeouts left and the clock is stopped, at least throw the ball long inside your own three point arc rather than throw up a shot from half court that has very little chance of going in. The defense is not going to foul in this situation. If the ball is knocked loose, it is better to have it loose under your own basket. I have seen long passes to the basket tie and win games before, even if they were originally fumbled. Throwing the ball long puts you in a similar position to putting back a missed last second shot, which is what many coaches fear more than the last second shot itself. It is easier to be lucky when you are smart enough to realize that a loose ball in the lane is more dangerous than one at half court.

“All games (and workdays) come down to clock management.

--Brian Dodd

”



30

73.

that the best play at the end of a game is an open court opportunity as opposed to calling timeout to set up a play. If the player doesn’t feel he can make a play, then we will call timeout. Of course, to develop the ability to make the split second decision, it must be covered repeatedly and

Player with the ball calls timeout in the last 5 seconds of a game. I have seen coaches call timeouts and then have a player hit a shot that would have won the game. I believe

rehearsed in practice.

74. Fire! At times, especially if you are playing against a very aggressive half court trap or a team that physically over matches your players, the defense may get greedy for steals and leave the basket unprotected

When that happens, we have our offensive player who is at the basket yell "fire!" He only yells it if the player with the ball can throw it directly under the net without a chance of a stolen pass. We throw it right under the net because we have not had great size and that is someplace that everyone can catch the pass. It is an effective way to get some of the pressure off the perimeter and force the defense to guard the basket.

75.

Save a second on the five second count Consider having your players break to start the inbounds play as soon as your inbounds passer catches the bounce pass from the official (or is handed the ball). It saves a second of having the inbounder smack the ball to start the movement. If you aren't sure about the idea, take some time to experiment with it (or other ideas you are considering) in the summer or early in the practice season.

76. Save the ball toward your basket.

Always save the ball toward your team's basket. And if you can't just land out of bounds with it so you can set your defense. At best one of your players could beat the other team to the ball and score an easy basket, but at worst, you will have an opportunity to set your defense if the other team retrieves the ball or it goes out of bounds under your basket. Both scenarios are much better than giving your opponent a running start in a scrambled situation and trying to defend that. The save it to your basket also applies at the 10 second line. If one of your players is trying to save a ball from going over and back and cannot throw it in the paint at your baskets end, all you are doing is fueling the opponent’s fast break by saving it 10 feet from the half court line. The cardinal rule for this situation is NEVER EVER EVER save the ball under the opponent's basket unless you have a clear vision of an open teammate to throw it to.

“All great things are only a number of small things that have carefully been collected together.

--Unknown

”



31

77.

78.

Throw a long pass to the old free throw jump ball circle. The only time that we throw the ball long on a one player breakaway is if we can throw it into to the old jump circle at the free throw line at the other end of the court. That way the player running ahead knows where it will be and it makes an easy judgment for the passer. If he can complete it by throwing it to the spot, he can throw

Winning Way Series - coachingtoolbox.net · Winning Way Series 130 Little Ideas to Make a Huge...

Documents

Transcript of Winning Way Series - coachingtoolbox.net · Winning Way Series 130 Little Ideas to Make a Huge...