Well, this past weekend we got taken out behind the woodshed, so to speak! LOL Suffered a 31-9 beatdown by the top team in the league.

Despite being outclassed for msot of the game, there were some good signs. One of my middle of the road boys has been coming along real well and played his best game to date. Had a few steals, nosed around for a couple rebounds and even spent a stretch defending their best player, who he was about a foot shorter than. But he held his own, played solid D and even boxed him out for a rebound.

Another little guy who is shy as can be had a steal at one point and dribbled the length of the floor only to have his layup bounce around and off the rim. But 3 weeks ago I don't think I could have envisioned him doing any of that.

Another of the shy ones registered a couple of blocked shots, as well!

Score got out of hand quick, so we stressed to the boys to play hard, make sure they are still chasing every rebound, etc. Try to run the offense a little. Wasn't much else we could do! LOL

Got spanked eh!

Thats tough, but, IF your kids understand your philosophy about teaching them how to play and having fun.... then its all good. FUN is so important at that age and IF you can get them ready to play at the next level..... then it will be worth it. There is nothing more gratifying than seeing someone you coached as a youngster get to the high school level and be a player.

It sounds like they are beginning to catch on... and doing some good things. So, keep working with them and complimenting them too while using their name... every kid wants to hear his name while at practice - it makes them feel good and encourages them to work hard and get better. Keep up the good work.

Well, ever since suffering the 22 point whooping, we have been a new team. The kids have really picked up their defense in the last 3 weeks and we've rattled off 3 wins in a row to put us at 4-3.

It's incredible the difference when you shuffle your feet, beat your man to the spot and get your hands up as opposed to just gambling for steals all the time! LOL. Kids have really seen the difference. Last night we opened the game with an 11-1 lead, only to see it slip to 13-9 because we had a stretch where we reverted back to our old ways of going for steals and it created a hectic pace that had us scrambling on defense. We recovered, settled down and finished them off in the end with our defense.

Two weeks ago at practice we were working heavy on 1 on 1 offense and defense and a couple of the better kids insisted on just trying to steal the dribble. So I decided they were going to go the rest of practice playing defense with their hands behind their back. When they realized that they could play effective defense without gambling I think a light turned on! And another rule of the drill was that if the offense scored they stayed on offense and a new defender came in. You want to play offense? Then you better play defense first!

I like the part about - You want to play offense? Then you better play defense first!

As for the hands behind the back... we tried that and its hard to maintain a good balance that way... we went to small towels/rags that they had to hold in front of them with the palms up. That worked for us.

That's a good idea about the towels. Fortunately, the kids that I had doing this were our more athletic kids and they didn't seem to have a problem with the balance. They are at that age where the legs are still a little rubbery!

Good luck, keep up the good work.