I HAVE A BASKETBALL TEAM GIRLS FROM 10 TO 12 YEARS OLD. ONE OF THE GIRLS WITH 1OTH YEARS DON'T HAVE THE STRENGHT TO SHOOT THEIR SIZED BASKETBALL. CAN I USED A MEDICINE BALL? WHAT DRILLS YOU CAN TEACH ME? OR ANY OTHER ADVICE? PLEASE HELPED ME AND THANKS FOR ALL.

If this girl doesn't have the strenght to shoot a standard size ball, there isn't a lot you can do to hlep her get the ball up to the basket. Nature will take care of that. IF you want to help her learn the proper way to shoot, get her a smaller ball and teach her the proper form by doing some form shooting against the wall.... start from there and then go to a basket and shoot 4-5 foot shots.
Maybe doing some girls push ups might help?

Read this thread for what I think:
viewtopic.php?f=63&t=343

Hi, I'm a youth basketball coach and I work at the primary school. I teach boys and girls of the age from 7 to 9 years. There are few balls at the school, but I have a lot of children to teach. Now we have started to practice shooting. So, there is a need to practice without a ball. I am twenty-five now and I have completely forgotten all the shooting driils for youngers, which my first coach used when I was at the same age. Moreover, our headteacher told me that the balls would be bought in winter. I can't teach the children lay-ups without basic shooting skiils. I am afraid that we are loosing time and the children' skills don't imprive. Could you give any advise, please? Thank you in advance. Yekaterina Balashova, Russia.

Kate -

You could start off by teaching FORM SHOOTING without a ball. Show them the proper form - have them do like 50 FORM shots.... we taught the B E E F method. B = Balance E- Elbow under the ball ( or very close to that ) E- Eye on the target F= Follow through. This is very simple and esy to teach and with enough repetitions they will create what we call MUSCLE MEMORY. Now, with this age group, unless they are playing with a lower basket, this will be dificult for them.

You can teach the footwork for shooting layups withour a ball also... going off the proper foot and using the correct hand.

These are very young kids and if this were me ( not sure I could do what you are doing so God Bless you for working with these young kids ) I would try to make this as much fun for them as possible.

Teach them how to pass, dribble and shoot a little bit.... keep your drills short and let them play some games - like 3 on 3. Good luck.

Take a look at this page and maybe you could get the DVD ,,, Bob Bigelow does a great job talking about Coaching Youth Basketball.

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/bigelow-youth-right-way.html

We just finished practice with my daughters 2nd grade team. We did NOT shoot one basket. The girls had a blast. We did all dribbling, passing, and footwork. We are choosing to focus our time on things the girls have a chance to succeed with. So we focus on dribbling, passing, and footwork because anyone can learn it, For example dribbling works "with" gravity while shooting works "against" gravity.

If it were up to me we would not shoot at all this year. The girls just aren't old enough to do it right. But I'm sure they'll shoot a little when we play 3on3 games, etc. We just use 14 ounce basketaballs and 7ft rims when they do that. But 98% of our practice is dribbling, footwork, passing, and defense. In a a year or two when they are stronger, we might start working on shooting a little.

So I wouldn't worry too much. There are other things you can do. Tons of fun dribbling activities out there.