Hey everyone,
This is my first time posting on this great forum, I am a huge user and reader of this site and think its amazing,
Anyway I am a coach of an 11-12 year old team at a representative level in New Zealand, and I have established a great rapport and work ethic with all my players and have a group that are committed and work VERY hard.
I have an issue.
they are amazing practice players and in training they work extremely hard and do all fundamentals with quality but once we get to the game it is like a completely different team, we turn the ball over, forget assignments on defense and just make mistakes that we would never make in training.
So Im reaching out to the breakthrough basketball community if they could help me with this issue
Thanks

TD -

I'm laughing a little bit here, welcome to the world of Youth Basketball.... they are young kids and sometimes they will forget which is their right hand. Heck, I see some high school players do what you describe... I asked Don Kelbick about some Pros being poor free throw shooters... he said... nerves, just like younger kids. They get nervous and forget what they are supposed to do.

One thing.. the more players have to think about what to do, the slower their feet get ...

As for trying to do something that might help them get past messing up in games.... this is something we did at the end of every practice... " Situations " Make up as many as you can think of.... Down 2, with the ball, no timeouts left, in the bounus, 30 seconds on the clock, 84 feet away. Mix and match as many as you can come up with. The kids will love this, its competitive and its a great teaching tool. We did 2 or 3 at the end of every practice.

After every game I would write down situations that we didn't handle very well - I put them in the next days practice plan. I didn't have to rag them about playing poorly, they knew why we were doing them and it helped them to know what to do the next time.. it gave them a lot more confidence on the floor which translates into better play.

I hope this will help you. Good luck.

The "situations" drill is an excellent suggestion. I, too, have to chuckle about the kids getting in the game and fogetting what they executed flawlessly in practice. Everything looks good on paper.

Couple of suggestions:

1) Make your practices tougher than game situations. In other words, play 2 v 3, 3 v 5, no dribbling allowed, left-handed dribbling only, 6 passes before they take a shot,etc..

2) Scrimmage against other teams if possible. In fact, scrimmage against teams that are better than you. We have the opportunity to scrimmage against 8th grade teams once in a while. We rarely come out on top, but it sure makes my 7th grade boys a lot more prepared for games.

3) If you can enter a few tournaments, that is a great way to help your players get used to pressure situations.

There's really no substitute for playing in pressure situations. Telling your players what to do in practice and even having them practice against their teammates doesn't do justice to the reality of another team breathing down your neck. With each game, your team will become more seasoned.

My current team has played close to 60 games from Oct - Feb. We've played in several tournaments and currently play in two leagues. We're a decent team. Every week, I'm having to remind someone about a basic concept that we've covered a zillion times before. I think it's the nature of the beast all the way up through college.