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PostPosted: 10 Apr 2010, 15:50 
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What age group are you working with? I suppose it does depend on the situation. But quite a few youth teams I see play lots of games and are lucky to practice once a week. Then the bottom 4 players on the team are lucky to get 2-4 minutes a game. Not saying thats a good thing, just a thing. Highschools practice every day and generally plays once or twice a week, so that's different. Sometimes middle school is the same, but not always, Around here the middle schools don't get a much practice as high school. But it just depends where you are at.

So you do bring up a valid point. Bottom line, you need to find adequate playing time for all young kids. And a few minutes a game just isn't enough. And I don't care what anyone says, you need at least some "real" game time. I can speak from experience. Having the real game time gives you confidence and makes a world of difference. You don't need to play hundeds of games, but you need some to get that confidence and feel for the game.

Two of the greatest players or all time (Michael Jordan and Bill Russell) were no good when they were sophomores. You just don't know who is going to be good when they get older.

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PostPosted: 10 Apr 2010, 18:05 

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Location: Courtenay, BC, Canada
I totally agree with you. It does all depend on the season, numbers of tryouts, talent level of those trying out, your practice schedule. My kids are/were 14-15 Grade 9-10, we practiced 2-3 times per week and for here played lots of games 32 total (includes exhibition/tournament). So I think we get maximum participation from our bench although is may not be equal playing time on game day.

We are now into our Regional Teams, U14-U15 and so on, and one of my players who is U15 is trying out. He is the player I spoke of earlier, "threw away the ball.....); well saw him today playing against most likely the best guard (that age) in the valley and he kept his own defensively. Offence, made some really good cuts, a couple bad passes, nice shots. SO who knows maybe the confidence he has came from our season, his hard work in practices and those 4-8 minutes in some games and 10-14 in others.

Desire to play the game is an awesome motivator. Just recently a team in the NCAA sat his entire starting lineup as testiment to the coaches "desire" style of play. His starters didnt show it, so they sat. Guess what, the bench did a good job of keeping the team in it and I am pretty sure they led part of it, too.


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