NEW Coaching Article: The 9 Most Important Questions for Every Basketball Coach. Ignore Them at your Peril.

By Joe Haefner

Check out our new article: The 9 Most Important Questions for Every Basketball Coach. Ignore Them at your Peril.

7 NEW Popular Basketball Topics on The Forum

By Joe Haefner

Check out some of these popular topics on our forum & leave your thoughts too!

Why Youth Players Should NOT Shoot at 10 Foot Rims

Post Defense (Behind, 3/4 Front , or Full Front)?

Playing Against Zone Defenses & Full Court Pressure (6th to 8th Grade)

Team Building Exercises or Games

Youth Basketball Defense – Defending Ball Screens

Man to Man Defense vs Zone At the Youth Level

Aggressiveness

NEW Article: 3 Simple Strategies to Attack a Zone Defense

By Joe Haefner

Take a look at our new article: 3 Simple Strategies to Attack a Zone Defense

TIME OUT PLEASE!

By Joe Haefner

Here is another guest blog post by our coaching friend, Bud Leonard.

The game is on.

You are working hard. The crowd is on their feet cheering. The basketball pops loose and is headed out of bounds. You sprint to the ball and leap to catch it. As you fly through the air with the ball in your hands you realize that you are headed out of bounds.

To save the possession you quickly call for a time-out.

The Referee blows his whistle and awards you the time out. All of your friends in the stands are standing and cheering for you.

You notice that your coaches are not cheering.

They are looking at you as if they would like to kill you!

Why?

Then you notice the score clock.

The clock shows you that the score is tied at 8 points each with 1:23 left in the first quarter. Your coaches would much rather give up one possession of the ball at this early part of the game and save the time out for later when it may be needed to rest the team, settle the team down during a period of confusion, or to set up a play near the end of the game.

You have watched numerous NCAA basketball games on TV and the coach has never been upset when a player calls a time out to save the possession arrow. Why is it not important to those coaches?

You must realize that televised NCAA games have TV timeouts run by the networks. These time outs are often two minutes long. They are called at regular intervals by the scorers table where a TV representative calls the time out according to a schedule agreed upon by the networks and the NCAA. That doesn’t happen in our league!

Time outs are precious.

Your coaches will tell you when you may call a time out.

This is one of the reasons your coaches instruct you to both listen for their voices and to look at the bench during each break in the game.

Now that you have read this, you too should value your time outs!

New Article & Video: Bobby Knight Tips On Screens

By Joe Haefner

Check out this new article & video to learn more about implementing screens into your offense and why Bobby Knight dislikes down screens: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/coaching/bobbyknight-downscreens.html

Will Smith’s Wisdom

By Joe Haefner

This a great motivational video from actor Will Smith.

Skill is only developed by hours and hours of HARD WORK.

Decide and do it!

The Philosophy That Will Guide Us..

By Joe Haefner

Here is a guest blog post by our coaching friend Bud Leonard.

Being a varsity athlete is a privilege … not a right! People compete for the opportunity to wear your school’s uniform .The level of commitment to training that is expected is high. While you are an athlete, you will be expected to place your participation in third place on your overall list of priorities…

Your Priority List as an athlete!

1. Faith and Family
2. Education - the successful completion of your Secondary School education.
3. An athlete on our school’s teams.
4. Everything else - part time job, social events, friends, acquaintances, etc.

You will only have one window of opportunity in your life to be an athlete on your school’s teams. Make the most of it! You will be expected to train twelve months of the year to maintain and improve. Your goal at the end of each season should be to come back in September a fitter, stronger, more skillful, and more intelligent player than you were the previous year! You must aim for consistently high effort on a daily basis and for constant improvement. If you are not working to get ahead… you are going backwards!

You will get as much playing time as you earn and deserve. Playing time will not be promised in this program! Playing time is based strictly on merit! How much playing time you merit will be determined by multiple factors.

1. How hard do you work?
2. Do you practice hard on a daily basis?
3. How athletic, skilled and intelligent are you as a player?
4. Are you a leader, and do you make your teammates better players?
5. Are you a team player? Is the most important statistic in your game the final score?
6. How have you performed in recent games? Do you play hard and smart within the team?
7. Are you coachable? Can you accept that coaching involves criticism?
8. Are you better able to contribute to the team objective … winning games … than teammates who currently get more playing time than you?
9. Are you able to honestly answer question 8?

The bottom line is that you control your attitude and your effort… and little else! Sometimes you must accept that others are currently more ready and able to contribute toward the team’s effort to win the game than you are. If you can accept this and remain positive… while continuing to work hard to improve yourself… then you can always be a valuable team member. If you cannot accept this … and become negative toward teammates, coaches, and staff… then you will become a “cancer”. While there are cures for “cancer”… and sometimes these take time… in the end, if the “cancer” cannot be cured, the only solution will be surgery! The “cancer” will have to be separated from the team.

Building Team Mental Toughness - Are You Doing This?

By Joe Haefner

Use this great rule for your team that I picked up from Alan Stein:

Do not allow players to bend over and put their hands on their knees when they’re tired. If so, discipline with some conditioning.

Have you ever tried this when you’re tired? It’s tough, and it’s supposed to be. This little intangible will help tremendously in building your team’s mental toughness.

Not to mention, it messes with the opposing team’s psyche if you never look like you’re tired.

Inside Peak Into NEW Online Coaching Clinics (Video)

By Joe Haefner

Check out this video that gives you an inside peak into our NEW online coaching clinics.

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/insider-peak-clinics.html

NEW Online Coaching Clinics - Video, Audio, Drills, Plays, & More

By Joe Haefner

You can now view our Online Coaching Clinics. 

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/online-clinics.html

Each clinic will feature one successful coach and contain:

- Video of an actual clinic

- Audio interview covering the coach’s keys to success

- Diagrams of his favorite plays and drills

- And more

If you are interested, click here to learn more:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/online-clinics.html