I coach a team of 8 girls who are in 3rd-5th grades. We play 5-minute quarters. I am wondering if anyone has had a similar situation and how you worked the subbing. I have been giving everyone equal playing time, planning it out the day before so I know my line-ups. I have been using a "number system" I found on here. (Players are numbered 1-8. Players 1-5 start. Then players 6-8 sub in to play with players 1-2; then 3-5 sub in and play with 6-7; etc.) With 8 players, that system results in equal playing time.

So far I had been subbing half-way through the quarter. That worked fine in our first two games, as we only had 6 players for each one and the person getting the rest usually needed it. However, tonight we had all eight and it seemed more "disruptive" (for lack of a better word)--it seemed like the players didn't really seem to get into the flow of the game if they were in for just half of the quarter (which was 2 1/2 minutes). So now I'm wondering if I should stick with that idea or switch to something else. Does anyone have any recommendations on how to give longer stretches of playing time while still giving the players equal playing time?

Hi from Melbourne Australia, I've just finished my first season coaching a team of 10 year old boys and used a system similar to yours.

We play two 17 minute halves so if I had 8 players I divided the half into four periods and made substitutions somewhere around the 12, 8 and 4 minute mark. I used a system similar to you where I started with players 1-5 then 4-8, 1-3 & 7-8, etc., finishing with 1-2 & 6-8. Our clock doesn't stop for whistles or timeouts so the timing of the subs was a bit flexible but this way I gave each player about the same amount of court time.

Using this rotation, each player will be on the bench three times during the game and 'in the game' for five periods. Later in the season you can easily 'tweak' the rotations a bit to allow three of your starters to finish the game, so that you have a strong team on court at the finish to give a good chance of winning a tight game. To do this, make your last two teams numbers 3-8 and then 1-3 & 7-8 rather than 2-7 and 1-2 & 6-8. I don't think anybody even realised when I was doing this little tweak and every player stayed fresh and still had around 20 minutes court time. I had the substitutions printed on both sides of an index card in an 8x4 table with the benched players shaded. I found that this worked well for me and made it easy to see who was coming off next.

I generally had the players who attended training as my starting lineup, to encourage them to train and originally used a very 'equitable' subbing roster from there on, however I got caught out when we were down 4-6 at the last subbing and coming home strongly but my roster called for my best player to be on the bench. I stuck to my guns and benched him and we lost. We might still have lost but I realised that I had robbed the team of a chance to experience a tight draw or exciting win which would have added to their enjoyment, so now I look to 'balance' my side a bit better. Playing time and learning are still the most important aspects but I also try to give the team their best shot at a win by judicious use of my manpower.

By playing everyone equally through the season I think that the boys all learned to play good basketball, improved and played as a team because they were all playing with everyone else. This really helped at the end of the season when we managed to win our semi final in double overtime and I needed to bring my bench back into the game during the two overtime periods. We then went on to become runners up, which really gave the boys a buzz and everyone felt that they had contibuted.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I think that number system works well when a team is playing longer periods. The challenge is when I have to work with 5-minute quarters. It seems like 5 minutes is a little long--either to be sitting or to be playing--but 2 1/2 minutes is on the short side. This is a team comprised mainly of players who are new to basketball (6 of the 8 have not played before). They are also playing teams that are older than they are (our team has 6 players in 3rd-4th grade; 2 players are in 5th grade; we play teams of primarily 5th-6th graders; it's the nature of the beast when you are a very small school playing in a league of other schools just a little bigger than you). I am really emphasizing fundamentals this year, as well as getting all the players as much real-game experience as possible.

Jojera, it sounds like you're heading in the right direction (coming from a coach with two season's experience you can decide how relevant my advice is!). My guys were mostly new and playing against teams with much bigger and older players so I can sympathise with you.

I don't know what to suggest regarding 2.5 versus 5 minutes because having the two 17 minute halves gives me lots more latitude to swap players around without them sitting out a whole quarter. Perhaps swap one or two players half way so that most of the players stay on for a whole quarter. You could run a mini-swap of two players each quarter and rearrange again at the start of the next quarter.

For instance, 1&2 change with 7&8; then 3&4 swap with 5&6 in the second quarter; 1&3 swap with 2&5 and finally 4&7 swap with 6&8. You probably need to map it out on a piece of paper to make sure that players all have the same time on court and don't spend too long on or off the court at any time but I'm sure that you could work it so all players are on court for five eighths (half of a quarter) during the match. This will mean that they will all be on for at least one whole quarter without being subbed so they should be happy. Also, having a template to work off helps you and can assist if parents or kids think that they didn't have as long as others. Obviously, injuries and having players fouled out throws the plan out but it isn't meant to be set in concrete.

For what it's worth, during the finals when we play 20 minute halves with the clock stopping for time outs and all whistles in the last two minutes of the game, I used two minute periods to allow the players to run hard since they would be on for no more than four to six minutes at a time. I also did this because we are into summer so the temperature was in the 25-30 degrees Celcius range. I would agree though that it can disrupt the flow of the game and at one stage when my team was on fire I just left them going for around 6-8 minutes withouth a substitution. If the opposition is on a roll, mixing up the players might help to turn the tide.

I hope this helps and good luck with the coaching.

Thanks, scumming! The idea you mentioned (keeping most players in the whole quarter and subbing one or two) is the kind of idea I had started to work on. I've done a little bit of work on plotting that out--you're very right in saying it's worth writing down ahead of time! The challenging part is making sure I always have someone on the court who can bring the ball down--most of them are not yet able to dribble the ball while consistently keeping their heads up. I know that will come as we continue to work on the fundamentals and get more experience, but in the meantime it makes for interesting game planning! :)

Good luck to you and your team!

You seem to be having the same experiences that I had this year.

We had one strong player who dominated, even when he was passing off to the other players because the rest of the team relied too much on him. He moved to another competition half way through the season which meant we were a bit short of firepower for a while but three of the next most experienced players 'stepped up' and are now all good ball carriers. We had our fair share of 40-0 drubbings but as they progressed the scores became a bit more even.

Keep working on the fundamentals and letting the kids have fun and they will improve. There are lots of good ideas and drills on this site for you to try. Towards the end of the season a lot of the basics seemed to fall into place for my guys and we became a pretty competitive side.

I liked a quote that I recently saw on this site (possibly from Don K) - Winning isn't the goal, it's the result. I think that summed up the attitude to take - concentrate on the basics (have fun) and as you start playing well you will start to win, rather than making winning a goal in itself.

Like all things, you need to establish the basic groundwork to build upon so that the team can improve. At their age their biggest concern is just playing rather than what the score was.

Scumming, it does sound like our experiences are paralleling each other!

I keep encouraging the girls that they will get better (and stronger) as the season continues and we continue to practice and learn. They are handling things well--even the fact that we've only scored a total of 8 points in a total of 3 games! I have been looking at this season realistically, even before agreeing to coach. My mindset from the beginning has been, and continues to be, to teach the basics, give each player as much playing time as possible, build a team mentality, and have fun. So far the girls have been handling the losses well, and I've been trying to point out the areas where I'm seeing improvement. Actually (and not surprisingly!), it's only one parent who seems to have unrealistic expectations for the year. She did so much yelling (actually, trying to coach from the stands) during the first game, that her own daughter told her later that she yelled too much. When the mom mentioned this to me, I reinforced her daughter's statement by sharing that a couple of girls had said the yelling from the stands was confusing them. (I wasn't making that up--several girls told me that when they came in off the court.) Hopefully she'll be less vocal at the next game!

Stick with it, if the girls are enjoying themselves then that's the number one objective. Like the advice on coaching young kids that I have gleaned from this site says, Don't worry about the wins and losses, just teach the kids the basics, let them have lots of fun and they will improve in time as things start to click.

One side in our competition only won one game in the winter season and then the same side finished third in the spring competition that followed straight afterwards so kids teams can have major improvements in a short time. I think that at this age the teams relative abilities are very 'volatile' and fluctuate wildly as different teams have leaps in their competencies at different times and a team that were 'easy beats' become tough opponents in the space of a few weeks.

Parents yelling out instructions from the sidelines, even well intentioned advice, can be a nuisance because sometimes it is contrary to what you have told the kids to do but you probably have to live with it to some extent. I think that you did the right thing highlighting that the Mum's advice was confusing the team and hopefully she will keep her barracking to more general comments encouraging players and applauding good efforts and play. I even applaud good shots from the opposition because I think it helps to foster a sense of good sportsmanship.

My side also suffered from not scoring much and sometimes didn't score for the whole match but I tried to have the players pass into players who were within range for a higher percentage shot. Becasue we use 10 foot rings and the adrenaline is running high approaching the basket, we didn't hit a layup all season but I still practiced them each week and maybe next season we will hit a couple of them. Encourage the players to not rush their shots and practice shooting from close range at training. A shooting race to 5 baskets against the other half of the team is a good drill and helps with their shooting. After the first race, mix the teams up a bit and have another race. It works well with layups as well and the winning side can be 'handicapped' in the next race by doing left landed layups or similar.

Another drill, which I got from a clinic with Tom Maher who has coached the Australian, English and Chinese women's teams and also coached in the US is to have the squad in three lines and each line shoots baskets for two minutes with all the team keepiing score of how many baskets they have made. He sets a team target of 60 baskets in two minutes but you could use a more achievable target of perhaps 10. If the team doesn't make their target they do a quick run or some other 'punishment' but one player has the chance to make a free throw to 'save' the team. This really simulates the pressure of a game. If they miss the shot applaud their effort and if they save the team really heap on the praise. This also gives a team benchmark which they can use to see how they are going and the target can be raised as the team is able to achieve it.

We also found practicing 2 on 1 and 3 on 2 drills worked really well in game situations when the players realised that they can draw the defender, pass to the loose player and then sometimes receive the ball back again and this helped our passing and ball movement immensely.

I didn't read all the responses, but I also used a number system. My system was different. I numbered my players from 1 to 8 starting with my best player and moving down. 8 was my least experienced player. I didn't want to start a strong team and then sub in my three weakest players. I wanted to keep my team as even as possible throught the game. So I paired them up. Player 1 with Player 6. Player 2 with Player 5. Player 3 with Player 4. Player 7 and Player 8 were separate because I never wanted both of them on the floor at the same time. I always had two of my pairs in with Player 7 or Player 8. That leaves one pair on the bench with Player 7 or Player 8.

Our games were 30 minutes total. I subbed every 5 minutes. I started the game with Players 1, 6, and 7 on the bench. After five minutes they went in and I called out 2, 5, 8. After five minutes they go in and I call out 3, 4, 7. In the second half it was the same thing. In the end Players 1-6 got 20 minutes. Players 7 and 8 got 15 minutes. Nobody ever complained about playing time.