We played the #1 team in our league last night. These guys have two twin towers (5’8” & 5’6”) and several good ball handlers. Tallest kid on our team is my son at 5’ 2”. Had to figure out a way to remain competitive as this team blows everyone out, usually resulting in the score being shut off.

I settled on the Cold Stone offense/defense last night. Told the kids we'd give them X pts for assists, X pts for baskets on assists and X pts for hustles (rebounds & loose balls). If they reached our pre-determined total pts, they all received a coupon good for ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery. I pumped them up the night before in practice by describing all the different combinations of ice cream and toppings that could be theirs for the taking.

Game time: In the first 5 minutes we were down 15-0. Ouch! Time out, ice cream reminder and off we go. Kids that usually dribble too much were finding the open man and passing, kids that don't get open or shoot as much were getting open and shooting, and everyone got in on the hustle/rebound act. We ended up with 71 hustles/rebounds and 33 assists as a team. In the end, we lost by 10 pts, but boy did it really look like basketball.

For the past 12 games, we’ve been working on getting the kids to see the importance of spacing, ball movement, quick passes and helping out. We’re trying hard to get them to experience the essence of basketball. Last night, I think they did. Hope they’re spoiled for the rest of the season.

Nothing like a little bribery to motivate kids! :-) I used to do that when I coached middle school kids... it got expensive at times. My last year with them we had a cuss pot, and I put in $5 for every win and they had to put in $1 for every loss..... we were 36-14.
We had a great steak dinner at the end of the season.

At our shooting camp we had a few contests... talk about being competitive for an ice pop.... you would have thought they were playing for an NBA championship ring. :-)

Nice job with them coach.