Hi everyone. I haven't posted much on here (rather, I do a lot of lurking). With the season getting ready to start I figured I would post and see what the breakthrough basketball community has to say...

A little about myself, This is my 4th year coaching, 3 as a head coach and 1 as assistant. I coach 5-8th grade boys basketball in a small school of about 150 students. We have 3 teams, A,B, and C.

My first year we were 0-12. Last year we went 7-8 and teams are starting to not enjoy playing us.

This website and its products have helped me tremendously with teaching fundamentals and how to succeed. So much so, that my group this year has a real shot at winning conference. The community is getting back into basketball in a huge way!

I traditionally have taught M2M defense, a 2-3 zone defense, and a simple motion offense as well as some quick hitters. I try to keep things easy to teach and let the kids play.

I am looking to take our program to the next level and I really like Danny Miles' VPS. Is this something that is worth checking out? Should I only use this with my A team (7-8 grade)? Thanks

Dave

Dave,

In my opinion the Value Point System would definitely help you out. If anything, the drills are excellent. With that said, I am a stats and logical type of guy. Part of this comes from my business background. I, along with many others, have had great success with using Key Performance Indicators to measure employee performance, motivate, and run successful businesses. I've seen it work in business and also work with players. I know many other coaches have as well. So I guess I'm just saying that I believe in it and that is partly what makes it work.

I think the VPS would work really well with your 7th & 8th grade A teams. Below that, it's hard to tell. It just depends on the players ability and so on. If they can barely dribble, it doesn't do any good to show them a player rating. Once you view the DVD, you'll have a pretty good idea on what levels you should apply it to.

If you have any other questions, let us know.

I like what you a re doing for them.... m2m and motion... a great way to get them ready for the high school level. It looks like you have the program going in the right direction.

Each group of kids will be different as will each kid.....look back at what you were doing and ask yourself, what can I do to make my kids better basketball players.... FUNDAMENTALLY. This will make you a better coach too.

My assistant and I would sit down in the summer and write down the first weeks practice plans... the second week was getting ready for oponents since the week after that was the Thanksgiving Tourney. I kept our practice plans for every year in binders.. one for each team and one for pre season.

This is a good time to figure out what your players need. Write down your goals for the year, what you want to teach and when.
You can make adjustments as you go along. You can have 3 lists.. 1- The Year 2- Monthly 3- Weekly

My assistant and I would go out after every game and write down the areas we needed work on, we did not want to get beat making the same mistakes.... then I put them in the following practice plans until we corrected them. You can do this after every practice also.. I hope some of these ideas help.