All times are UTC - 6 hours



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 14 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2
  Print view Previous topic | Next topic 
Author Message
PostPosted: 03 Nov 2017, 17:55 

Posts: 5
First. real quick about myself. I've been coaching youth basketball for the last 4 1/2 years. I've been using the resources on this website for about that whole time. I've purchased the attack and counter system, the Jim Huber man to man fundamentals DVD, and ive used some of the rick penny one motion shooting techniques for my daughter. Everything on this website has made me a better coach no doubt, but I still also feel overwhelmed as to the best way to introduce much of the material. Part of the issue is that I try my hardest to take a Bob Bigelow approach and so I don't recruit, I don't stack my teams and I try to focus on player development...my players have heard so many lines from Mr. Kelbrick.... However, each year, I get a few new players or have to work with multiple sport athletes (who I encourage to do multi sports) and what happens every season is that I have to start from square one with some players and can't advance as far in progressions with other players. To make matters worse, I also have read and been enlightened/ruined by Brian McCormack and his 20th century ideas...so I am a muddled mess trying to put it all together.

This most recent season was no different. While I am trying hard to get to the content of the latter part of CD 1 on the attack and counter system which the core of my players have been on for almost a whole year, I am having to teach players how to do a layup and jump stop and work on basic ball handling.

Since I am a sucker and glutton for punishment, I have volunteered to be the middle school girls combined 6th/7th grade coach. What I expect is even greater disparities between skill levels as the non-school affiliated league which runs the 6th and 7th grade leagues here for the schools has a no cuts policy which on one hand I agree with but on the other puts me in this same groundhog day situation. SO, being familiar with this problem and having seen the various practice plans and strategies I have a few main questions:

1) What strategies are there for designing practices with girls who have a really wide range of skills, athletic ability, and experience? I know I will have girls from an AAU traveling team experience and girls who still don't know how to do layups. How can I be taken seriously by the competitive families so they buy in and how do I also help and encourage beginners??

2) This would be the MOST helpful...would any of the very awesome and great network of breakthrough basketball coaches be able to share a straight, unedited, real time video of their practices??? This would be so helpful and I can't find much on youtube when I look, I guess just the secretive competitive nature of coaches is why? It would be so helpful to have 2-3 videos of an experienced good coach in a similar position without any commentary, just a straight raw video of a complete practice. I have paid for many of the other systems and content but this would be so incredibly valuable to me and I would pay for something like that, in a heartbeat.


 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 03 Nov 2017, 18:15 

Posts: 5
I just saw the Bob Bigelow middle school DVD...I am going to check that out.


 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 03 Nov 2017, 19:59 
Site Admin
User avatar

Posts: 1280
Coach -

I know the feeling of being a little overwhelmed. But it gets better. I remember feeling really overwhelmed with different systems and ideas. Now it's extremely simple to me. In time you'll feel the same way.

Question #1) When you have wide range of abilities, you just take a little more time in planning. At first might take trial and error. You might think everyone can handle something simple... then you realize not so much. So next practice you come up with a plan to keep the experienced players going and help the rest with the details. Generally speaking I think you coach the practices to the level of the best players. The rest do the best they can to catch up. But for the beginners, you might put them at the other basket doing the lay up drill a little different... with an assistant coach helping them. They might not even dribble... while the rest dribble around cones with defenders challenging them.

Bottom line is everyone has to dribble, pivot, pass, finish, shoot, cut, screen, and defend... whether you are a beginner or in the NBA. NBA players and beginners both work on cross over dribbles... but the NBA players do it faster, wider, with their eyes up, and with defenders in their face.

So you all practice the same stuff. The advanced players get additional challenges depending on their ability level. The challenge might be to get the ball lower, move it faster, dribble two balls, apply defense, etc, etc. Lots of ways you can increase a challenge.

If playing 1v1 is too easy... have the good players go 1v2 with their left hand only. And so on.

2) If you are near Marion, Iowa you are welcome to watch any of my practices. Maybe someday we'll record one. Thank you for the feedback on that. We'll keep that in mind. I do plan to post my practices plans for our 5th and 7tjh graders in the next day or two on my blog
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/haefner/
Honestly, its simple stuff. 1v1, 3v3, shell, scrimmage.

_________________
Jeff Haefner
http://www.BreakthroughBasketball.com


 Profile  
 
PostPosted: 08 Nov 2017, 17:16 

Posts: 5
Thanks Mr. Haefner. I appreciate your timely response. It seems crazy to me how much time and effort you have put into this website, your blog, and coaching in general. I know you all have a business side to this but this website and the resources here have been very meaningful to me without the personal touch of such a timely, thought-out response. This might not be the right place to say it but I don't know where would be. I grew up with a well meaning but pushy dad. He is the greatest father and in terms of parenting he is better than his dad who was good in his own right but just like any dad way back then but to make a long story short, my dad grew up more supportive and involved, for better or for worse and given the historic moment it was at times the worse for me...he gave me the love of basketball and sport and striving to be great and then inevitably I had bad coaches and no perspective and no internet and as a predictable result I have bad memories of basketball mixed in with the good and even though I think I was alright i can barely put into words how relieved i was to quite basketball in 9th grade and i only kind of regret it now...but i had all that history and what i thought was great knowledge and i knew about the positive aspects of sports and was self aware enough early on to distinguish the good from the bad. Being a naturally chubby kid, i would have been an obese introvert with no friends or confidence and someone who would have easily given up on things without sports ( i kept with football and track) but i realized i did get good tihngs out of it, enough for me to try it all over again with my kids. I have been told i am a good coach and that my players have gotten better and that they have years of positive experience and many still seek me out for advice and help, even with non-basketball life stuff. Anyways, 4 years ago i started out with a willingness to try sports out all over again with my kids but knowing my own history i wanted to do it right and smart. This site over those years has helped me out so much. It has demystified things and given me a bigger broader perspective. It has helped to continue to get better and made me realize how little i still know, a good sign i think. Anyways, if it encourages you at all in what you do, just know that this site and resources and your response has meant a lot to me and to a group of good kids in NM! Thank you so much! The issue i still struggle with as much as from the beginning if not more is still the desire not to mess up kids our ruin their childhoods or desire to play but also not to be too soft and to challenge them and make them tougher like it did for me, so i go back and forth between those two aims and i never seem to get right but I'm going to keep trying for now and probably for a good while since my youngest is just 7 :/ ...


 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 14 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2

All times are UTC - 6 hours


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: