Thanks for the comments. I understand where you guys are coming from on being hesitant to use a press at this age.

My main goal of using a press would be to create some easier scoring from us in short bursts. We're only allowed to press in the second half, so it would already be used sparingly.

I used to be the guy that told himself he didn't care about winning and losing as a youth coach. I still believe strongly that the main priority is teaching fundamentals and getting the players to grow over the course of a season to be ready to advance to the next level. However, my experiences have shown that you keep more kids mentally involved in this process when you are not only winning, but winning the right way. (not just letting the studs run the show, but involving everybody) The trick is finding that balance of keeping things fun and easy going, but also putting some stress to it. I believe kids need the competition and deep down they want to know if they win or lose. If you go about things the right way, they respond to the losses positively, wanting to find out why they lost, how to get better and how to win next time. Isn't that what we want our kids to learn? Anyways, off my soap-box now! LOL

Back to hoops, we've only been pressed by two teams this year. Both were just heavy m2m ful court presses. When it happens, we just put our 3 strongest ballhandlers in the backcourt and usually one of them is able to break the press on her own. We do full court zig-zags everyday emphaszing both offense and defense, so the girls have become used to advancing the ball the length of the floor against that type of pressure.

Latest updates: Our record stands at 4-6 overall. 2 losses to teams a grade older than us and 2 losses by a combined 5 points.

Our offense is getting better. We had a string of games where we couldn't crack double digits, but the past two games we've gotten higher scoring outputs. We've worked hard on knowing which shots are best for each player. One shorter girl kept driving to the hoop looking for a layup everytime, but she's starting to understand that she can also create a jumpshot well within her range. Our two best drivers are now starting to really attack and we've focused on going in strong off one leg. I believe this helps draw fouls as opposed to making a jumpstop and going off both feet. Yesterday we were at the free throw line a bunch but didn't convert many of them.

Defensively, we've still got a couple girls that struggle with help defense and seeing their girl and the ball. That hurt us yesterday and we gave up a few wide open layups. More shell drill to come! We've been working on switching ball screens and I think that's going to be our best way to approach that going forward.

We spent a lot of time working on a fullcourt m2m press and press break this past week. We got pressed yesterday and we didn't commit a single turnover in breaking the press. We have a very smart inbounder and two girls that do a great job getting open and turning it up the court. We also used our fullcourt press yesterday for the first time. The other team really struggled to advance the ball on us. We got a lot of deflections and steals. When they did get the ball in, we did a good job of defending the dribbler, playing 1-2 passes away and coming up with a couple more steals that way.

Offensively, I'm still not sure if we're better off in a 4 out motion or a 5 out motion. The girls seem to have the 4 out down pretty good, with spacing and movement. I'm going to revisit the 5 out this week and see how they respond to it.

We are entering tournament season. We've got 6 tournaments between now and March 16. Looking forward to more excitement and growth.

Maybe you're already doing this defensive drill... but I really like Cut Throat. Here is an explanation of how I had success with some middle school teams that I coach.

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/defense/ultimate-defense-drill.html

Have you ever talked to them about "PISTOLS?" Point at man and ball.... that might solve your help defense.

We've definitely done the Pistol thing. We're just going to have to keep at it.

A couple of the girls, have short attention spans...........to put it nicely. So focus is constantly an issue with them.

Trust me, you are not alone on the focus thing.... varsity boys have the same problem unless you keep them very busy.

Coach talks... ball is on the floor between your feet MAKE EYE CONTACT.

Just got another 2nd place finish. Lost the title game in a weekend tournament by 3 points. That's two tournaments and two 3 point championship losses.

Our biggest issue right now is playing effective offense against tough, physical defenders. We're going to have to toughen up if we're going to continue to compete.

We lost our first pool game 2-9. Then went on to win 10-0 and 22-5 to finish pool play.

Trailed at halftime in the semifinals but came back to win an exciting one 10-8.

Championship game we trailed 5-6 with about 3 minutes to play, but couldn't get another shot to fall and we lost 5-8.

I know a lot of teams play together for a long time and never even make one championship appearance, so I'm very proud of these girls in their first year of travel ball making two championship appearances in their first two tournaments.

Congratulations ... you have to be doing something right... one of these days they will win the big one.... but the important thing is... ARE THEY HAVING FUN?

They are definitely having fun.

After Saturday's pool play the entire team stopped at a pub right around the corner from the gym for lunch. We got an entire room to ourselves. Players and siblings at one table, mothers at another table, dads at their own table. The place had a couple tv's with different college basketball games on and at one point all of the girls were watching and they start calling out things we'll say at practice......."sag off of him!".........."help defense!"..........."pass and cut!"

It was quite funny.

They've also had one big sleepover at the beginning of the season at a player's house and 1-2 player birthday parties with the whole team there.

When we do partner work at practice I tell them they can't have the same partner as last time. So they've all worked together throughout the year. Every now and then I'll also give them assignments for water break with their partner. I'll think of a couple topics like favorite song or tv show. They have to find out what their partner's is and we'll take some time later in practice for them to reveal their partner's favorite things to the rest of the team.

I'm also trying to find a weekend when we're not in a tournament to take them someplace local to do some volunteer work together.

It sounds like you are doing a great job with them.... keep up the good work, I cant imagine anyone NOT wanting to play for you and be in your program.