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PostPosted: 14 Nov 2011, 09:07 

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I will be coaching my daughter's 1/2 grade team this season. It is my first time coaching girls. Obviously we will be working a ton on the core fundamentals.

Does anybody have experience coaching girls at this level? How does it compare to the boys? Any major differences? Pros? Cons?

Thanks!


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PostPosted: 14 Nov 2011, 11:45 
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In my experience there is very little difference between boys and girls at this age... except boys tend to be more aggressive and girls usually listen better (but not always). But when it comes to teaching skills, those "gender" differences don't seem to really matter at this age.

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PostPosted: 15 Nov 2011, 16:30 
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Location: Fairfax, VA
I have had the same experience with boys and girls at this age similar to Jeff.

The girls are probably a bit more sensitive to bumps and bruises and complaining about rough play and officiating.

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PostPosted: 18 Nov 2011, 08:32 

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First practice was last night. 6 total girls on the team. Not a single one of them has ever played basketball before! So I'm actually kind of excited. They are blank slates and I love coaching this game, so I'm really looking forward to teaching them the game!

I'm also coaching my son's 3/4 grade team. I'd say through one practice for each team, the girls certainly seem to listen better. You call them over to explain the next drill and they all come running and are all ears. This should be fun.


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PostPosted: 21 Nov 2011, 14:40 
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Wow...1st and 2nd grade girls!! I started coaching my son 3/4th grade and then came my daughter at the same age. So I'm only expereinced coaching from that level on.
Having coached both I noticed girls are true "team" players where boys want to be top scorer and launch 20 footers all day. Boys are naturally more aggressive in all sports where that was a challenge to teach girls to be aggressive when boxing out, rebounding and playing defense.
Still so much fun!!

Tips:
Keep it simple, work only on fundamentals, keep it fun, keep speeches short, spend only 5-7 minutes per drill then move to the next drill. Show constant enthusiasm. Praise constantly.

Best of Luck!!

Coach A


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PostPosted: 13 Dec 2011, 11:09 

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I have to say, coaching these girls is a lot of fun. They are blank slates when it comes to basketball and you can see them improving with every practice session. We had a really fun first game on Saturday. We play 3 on 3, 8 foot hoops. No score is kept. We play 8 five minute periods, with substitutions after every period. The girls were so nervous on Saturday, it was funny. There was a boys game playing before us and I gathered the girls to talk to them and tell them to watch the boys play so they got an idea as to how the game goes. Eyes wide, one girl says, "they are playing too rough." I assured her that our game probably wouldn't be as rough and physical. Once the game started the nerves were gone. We have 6 girls, so we had two groups of 3 rotating in each period. You could see the improvement and understanding of how the game is actually played as each period wore on. It was a lot of fun. Every girl handled the ball, there was some good passing at times. A lot of times the idea was right in making a pass to an open teammate, but the pass just didn't get there LOL.

But it was great to see them working together, passing the ball around and trying to get the open shot.

Our biggest areas we need to work on, besides continuing to improve our dribbling and passing, would be moving better to get open and not being shy to go after rebounds and loose balls.


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PostPosted: 13 Dec 2011, 19:24 
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First time I have read or heard some say their league plays 3 v 3 instead of the standard 5v5.

I think all youth basketball leagues under 9 should play this way. This is the way youth soccer is
played in my area.

Good to see there is no score keeping.

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PostPosted: 14 Dec 2011, 00:03 

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Big fan of 3 v 3. Great to see that going on, better way to teach basketball.

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PostPosted: 19 Dec 2011, 12:58 

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I've coached both 1/2 girls as well as boys and I agree with the other posters that gender doesn't really matter at this age. What I tell all of my parents in the beginning of the season is that we are going to work on three things during practices: how to catch a basketball, how to throw a chest pass and bounce pass, and how to dribble with one hand. Anything beyond that is considered a "bonus." We also work on learning how to guard one player (and not run after the ball). What I've found is that by the end of the season, my kids are doing far better that the other teams because we focused on the basics.


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PostPosted: 21 Dec 2011, 09:32 

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Brett, that sounds exactly like my approach. We played our second game this past weekend and I barely had to blow the whistle for any double dribbles or travels. They even stayed inbounds all game! I think I could count on one hand the number of violations that I whistled Saturday. I was really happy to see that. We have a couple girls that are further along in their skills, but they are more than willing to share the ball. I tell them that we want to take the first open shot that we get, so if that means dribbling on your own, fine. But it can also mean we make a nice pass to get that open shot. Once or twice Saturday we had two girls both with open shots that passed the ball back and forth between each other a couple times because they couldn't decide who should be the one to take the shot. Kind of cute LOL.

We get 45 minutes to practice, twice a week. Everything we do involves dribbling, stopping under control and making a pass, we also incorporate layup drills into this as well.


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