Very good practice last night. Good fundamentals session. Lots of dribbling, getting the guard arm up, crossovers, reverse spins and keeping the ball low. Z drill adding the defensive pressure to the ball handler. 3 and 4 man shooting drills, focusing solely on stepping to the ball and being ready to shoot before you catch.

Put in the concept of starting the 5 out offense with the down screens once the guy bringing it up crosses half court. Hopefully this enables us to have that first pass caught around the three point line instead of near half court as started to happen to us last week (the wings are so anxious to get the ball they push farther and farther out and then the first pass is waaaaaay to far out), The kids seemed to get that down screen concept pretty well, and the timing of it. Getting the screenee to wait for the screen to arrive is always a challenge at this level however, kept emphasizing patience and that letting the screen get to you is the best way to get yourself open. And we scrimmaged with a rule that after the pass initiating the offense in the half court, there had to be three passes before any dribbling. Got a couple nice layups without the dribble.

At the end of practice I told the boys I was putting on the 3 passes rule before any dribbling for our game on Saturday. I think some of them think our offense is just some crazy scheme coach has in his head and when game time comes, they can do whatever they want. Their jaws hit the floor. Even if you there is space to dribbling? Yes. Even if your guy falls down? Yes. Even if blah blah blah? Yes. I told them I was challenging them and that I fully expect they'll able score more with this rule in place that without it.

Might be a little draconian but we will see how it goes. We should beat this team handily based on their record and our record, so I think it is a good opportunity to try to ingrain the pass first instead of dribble first mentality I'd like to see us develop.

One thing that you can add to the waiting for the screen is to have your kids make a V cut to set their man up for the screen, that should help the timing.

When I was teaching 3 out or 5 out motion... our rule (in practic) was 3 ball reversals before any shot Then I went to cutting time off the clock .... from 15 to 30 to 45 seconds. My kids were boys varsity,so they had better skills "most" of the time." When they mastered that, I added another defender. Just some thoughts.

I like where you are taking them... teaching patience and NOT losing their dribble right away.

Yes, I think I have never done a good job of instructing the screenee as to how to set up the screen. I remember being taught that you set them up with a V cut, and I try to emphasize rubbing shoulders with you teammate when you use the screen (I personally always liked grabbing the screener and kind of pulling myself around him to make sure my defender would never be able to slide through).

But any other tips for screener and screenee?

Persoon using the screen..... as he i using the screen, lower your chin to your shoulder and see what the defender is doing chasing or going ball side.... this way you can tell if you are going to curl or fade.

Hope this helps.

Well, we did win by a lot. Our passing was generally pretty good, but not really in the context of the offense. Oh well. I tried not to focus on it too much. We will now play these same 3 teams again and then have a tournament with these same 3 teams, and I'm a little concerned that our boys think they are much better than they are. Trying to arrange a scrimmage with a team from another league that will hopefully beat us.

Question: how to you deal with a black hole? I've got one kid that shoots every time he touches the ball. He was making almost all of them last week and had a lot of extended family there, so I didn't say anything about it, but it does irk me a bit as the rest of the team was passing the ball pretty well and his eyes never left the hoop once he touched the ball.

You could try this..... depending on the # of players.... 5 on 5, game to 6 and EVERYONE has to score before anyone cn make the game winner.... OK, here is the twist for you.... YOU decide who shoots it.

How do the kids feel about him shooting so much? High school kids typically look for the hot hand ... at least I would hoep so (Varsity players) IS he forcing up shots or is he takking GOOD SHOTS? Hard to tell a kid that is making all of his shots not to shoot. You could give him a "breather" now and then. :-)

Nothing wrong with scimmaging a team that could be a little better.... make your kids work harder? Talk about doing all the little things right, then the big things will take care of themselves.

What offense are you running now? 4 out / 5 out or?? IF you have a post player, you could say, I want a post touch before we should an outside shot.

We ran an open post offense and there was basically two cuts....all I asked was that they kept the floor balancded... didn't always happen. IF you tired to scout us it could be difficult since after the two cuts, they might see something else that is open... playing basketball.

On the kid shooting all the time, have someone keep some stats, just on him. You don't have to tell anyone you're doing it. Agree with Coach Sar, instituting some type of rule before shots are taken could help (e.g. must touch post twice, X amt of passes before shot taken).

When I dealt with kids that shot every time they touched the ball, I asked them to work on their passing. "I want to see some good assists from you today" and then celebrate those. Listen to the crowd at your next game and you'll see why this shooting thing can get out of hand. It's the almost the only time the crowd goes nuts, when a kid makes a shot. Throw in some out of town family at a game and you've got Kobe Jr. for the night.

I didn't hear any complaints from the other boys, so they didn't seem to see it as an issue. But it was pretty glaring to me and even my non-basketball wife noticed it from the stands. I hear you on the crowd thing too, that fuels the fire.

Before our games I do generally tell the boys I'm keeping track of some kind of particular stat I want them to focus on (ex: today, I'm keeping track of rebounds). So assists would be a good one to track and may get his attention.

Ok, two can play that game...

To the winner, a hot dog and a pop ? or whatever.

Stats to consider....

1- Most Assists
2- Most Rebounds
3- Most Loose balls
4- Most Charges attempted
5- Leading scorer ( notice this one is down the list )

Pretty strong game this past weekend with just 6 players.

At this age, so many defenders have the tendency to randomly double and triple team the ball that there are plenty of wide open options if the player with the ball can simply lift their head and pass over or around the double or triple team. As long as our kids our generally recognizing and finding those wide open teammates, I'm not going to harp on them for not running the cutter offense.

The one thing that drives me a bit nuts is a kid randomly deciding they'll set a ball screen on our ball handler to initiate the offense as it comes across half court. I just don't like the high ball screen at this age even though I see almost every team try to run it against us. Must have been burned into my brain by my high school coach.