Hi,
Have you and suggestions on how I can get team members to talk to each other on court? Most of the squad have known each other for years, communicate well off court but in a game they seem inhibited to effectively communicate to each other, especially in defense where they need to look after each others back. I see this as a problem across all ages in our club. ( Ages 8 - 38 yrs)
Thanks for any suggestions you may have.
Tom

I believe that having each other calling names in every thing they do is a great way of doing so. This is something you should emphazise in every drill; especially when passing to each other.

As for defense, I still do the old fashioned shell drill and they have to call the spot they are rotating to. When first doing it they will forget. During this time you will have to provide a consequence for them not remembering. I like to use pushups. It's not to be a drill sergeant but a teaching point. That point being that if they dont talk they wont rotate well and they will get scored on...which is a consequence. The feeling of that is pretty equatable to having to do pushups.

This is one of the hardest things there is to teach kids to do.... TALK to each other on the court....... Some years we were good at it, other years you would have thought they had all lost their voices. We played m2m and a match up zone... amazing, they really communicated well in the match up.... not well in m2m.

Coach Springer is right.... have them communicate with each other in every drill you do - hopefully, it will transfer to games. I'm not so sure that I would use a consequence but thats just me. Do whatever works for you and your teams.

Tom,

They are right. You can say that to to your players every practice until they learn its importance. Unfortunately, you cannot just simply say that to them unless you know the real problem. There might be barriers why your players do not communicate on the court or during the actual. As a coach/trainer, it is important to first identify barriers that prevents your players from communicating. Such barriers could be the following:
1. language
2. ignorance

After identifying barriers, it will be easier now to make some necessary solutions.

Player communication on the court during defense should be short, quick and loud.
Using single words or short phrases like: stay, switch, I got ball, help, pick right, pick left, ball, shot, cutter, dead, etc....

We ran two defenses... m2m on/up the line and they rarely communicated.... and then we ran a 1-3-1 match up and they talked all the time... so go figure.