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PostPosted: 26 Nov 2013, 12:40 

Posts: 14
Thanks for the extra input guys. Good news is I am naturally pretty laid back, so am approaching the season as a learning tool for the kids, with less emphasis on winning (emphasis on being competitive and hustling).

Another long post follows.. my apologies but it is slow at work this week so I have time to put my thoughts down.

Had our first game Sunday afternoon. Since I assisted with a team last year when my son was in second grade, I knew what to expect, especially for the first game, but was very pleasantly surprised by how the team performed.

The games start with each player shooting a free throw... one point per make that count to our score. In warmups, we were nailing 6-7 out of 9, only make 2 to start the game. Other team made 4, so we are starting in a 4-2 hole, which I actually liked to teach the kids the importance of why we are practicing free throws every practice.

I think I mentioned it previously, but we play five 8 minute periods, with running clock. Each kid must play one period in the first half and one of the third/fourth periods. The 5th period is open substitution. No subs allowed during the first 4 periods except for injury or a foul out. My approach is to set as balanced a lineup as possible for the first 4 periods (If all 9 of my kids show up, 2 will play 3 of the first 4 periods) and get everyone some time in the 5th period. The way the league is structured is we play 8 regular season games, which are used to seed an end of season tournament which determines the final standings, thus there is no need to "play to win at all costs" in these regular season games.

Pros from the game -
5 different players scored for us - one was the pregame free throw. One kid made his first ever basket for this league, after never scoring all of last season (very exciting). Our scoring was pretty blanaced across the other 3 kids that scored. From what I heard, most other teams, not counting pregame free throws, only had 2 or even 3 kids score points... one team had a kid score 21 of the teams 27 points.. I don't know how many of those points came from free throws in pregame, so needless to say it was a one man show.

Even though we have not had time to work on boxing out, we still rebounded fairly well. Some work on boxing out will really help. We are generally a small team, so boxing out and speed are important.

We passed well for a 3rd grade team, and just about everyone got an offensive touch. I tried to work on pass and cut in practice, but as we were up against a 2-3 zone, a dribble drive and dish was working really well. But, I had very few trips down the court where my player just took it all the way in and put up a shot without making a pass. Very happy with that.

Since I preach defense in practice, I loved that I had a couple kids begging to let them guard the other teams best 2 players. I loved that desire to challenge themselves. Overall, we did a good job. We rarely made it easy for them to get close to the basket to get really easy shots. While I can't say it is a real indicator of our defense with a 1 game sample size, but we did give up the least points of any team in our division this weekend. This is something I will be praising the kids for. I may reward them with ice cream at practice and let them know that every week we are the top defense, I will bring ice cream (or hot chocolate as it is getting a bit colder). That should be a good motivator to get them to work on defense even harder.


Things to work on
Just like in the scrimmage, had kids forgetting who to guard. I expect that at this age, so it did not bother me. They also said they were bored if the man they were guarding was not too involved in the offense, so they would leave their man and chase the ball, leaving their man wide open. We gave up a few open passes to the post because of this.

Helpside positioning - I think repetition in practice is key. Shell drill for the defense. I have two kids that have only made one practice due to soccer commitments, so I expected this a bit from them, but had a few other kids getting lost as well.

Defensive stance - We weren't getting down in a good stance often (my son was the biggest offender and got beat off the dribble several times). Granted, the court was slick which contributed, but proper stance would help. We'll be doing some extra drills about getting low.

Offensive spacing - I still have some kids that just run to whomever has the ball and calls the kids name. Working on it, and new to work on the idea of rotating after a player makes a pass and cuts. Since we are going to face a lot of 2-3 zones, I like the idea of running a 4 out with 1 in(running short corner to short corner and flashing the middle on a drive) pass/cut style offense. Lack of practice time contributes to this.



Final result is we pulled off a 23-13 win. The other scores were 27-21 and 19-18 (buzzer beating layup to win the game), with one game being rescheduled and one team on bye. Based on last years season, by midseason most teams will be averaging in the mid to upper 20's for points scored.


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PostPosted: 26 Nov 2013, 13:48 
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Here is the best part..... you wrote down all of your problem areas so now you know what to work on in your next practices.... I did that all the time. Be patient.... they are still rug rats just having fun which is a good thing.

With the length of your posts I was going to ask you IF you ever worked LOL Keep up the good work.


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PostPosted: 26 Nov 2013, 17:20 

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1, no comment on if I ever get any work done. LOL.


And I look at each practice as a chance to add a small layer on top of the foundation we've built so far. Taking my game notes and consulting with what my assistant coaches saw to build the plan to add those layers.


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PostPosted: 26 Nov 2013, 18:30 
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Sounds like you have a good plan.... good luck.


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