Very good practice last night. Good fundamentals session. Lots of dribbling, getting the guard arm up, crossovers, reverse spins and keeping the ball low. Z drill adding the defensive pressure to the ball handler. 3 and 4 man shooting drills, focusing solely on stepping to the ball and being ready to shoot before you catch.
Put in the concept of starting the 5 out offense with the down screens once the guy bringing it up crosses half court. Hopefully this enables us to have that first pass caught around the three point line instead of near half court as started to happen to us last week (the wings are so anxious to get the ball they push farther and farther out and then the first pass is waaaaaay to far out), The kids seemed to get that down screen concept pretty well, and the timing of it. Getting the screenee to wait for the screen to arrive is always a challenge at this level however, kept emphasizing patience and that letting the screen get to you is the best way to get yourself open. And we scrimmaged with a rule that after the pass initiating the offense in the half court, there had to be three passes before any dribbling. Got a couple nice layups without the dribble.
At the end of practice I told the boys I was putting on the 3 passes rule before any dribbling for our game on Saturday. I think some of them think our offense is just some crazy scheme coach has in his head and when game time comes, they can do whatever they want. Their jaws hit the floor. Even if you there is space to dribbling? Yes. Even if your guy falls down? Yes. Even if blah blah blah? Yes. I told them I was challenging them and that I fully expect they'll able score more with this rule in place that without it.
Might be a little draconian but we will see how it goes. We should beat this team handily based on their record and our record, so I think it is a good opportunity to try to ingrain the pass first instead of dribble first mentality I'd like to see us develop.
Two hours of practice before the first game?!
2/7/2014 16:00
2/7/2014 17:38
One thing that you can add to the waiting for the screen is to have your kids make a V cut to set their man up for the screen, that should help the timing.
When I was teaching 3 out or 5 out motion... our rule (in practic) was 3 ball reversals before any shot Then I went to cutting time off the clock .... from 15 to 30 to 45 seconds. My kids were boys varsity,so they had better skills "most" of the time." When they mastered that, I added another defender. Just some thoughts.
I like where you are taking them... teaching patience and NOT losing their dribble right away.
When I was teaching 3 out or 5 out motion... our rule (in practic) was 3 ball reversals before any shot Then I went to cutting time off the clock .... from 15 to 30 to 45 seconds. My kids were boys varsity,so they had better skills "most" of the time." When they mastered that, I added another defender. Just some thoughts.
I like where you are taking them... teaching patience and NOT losing their dribble right away.
2/7/2014 21:07
Yes, I think I have never done a good job of instructing the screenee as to how to set up the screen. I remember being taught that you set them up with a V cut, and I try to emphasize rubbing shoulders with you teammate when you use the screen (I personally always liked grabbing the screener and kind of pulling myself around him to make sure my defender would never be able to slide through).
But any other tips for screener and screenee?
But any other tips for screener and screenee?
2/7/2014 21:13
Persoon using the screen..... as he i using the screen, lower your chin to your shoulder and see what the defender is doing chasing or going ball side.... this way you can tell if you are going to curl or fade.
Hope this helps.
Hope this helps.
2/11/2014 16:35
Well, we did win by a lot. Our passing was generally pretty good, but not really in the context of the offense. Oh well. I tried not to focus on it too much. We will now play these same 3 teams again and then have a tournament with these same 3 teams, and I'm a little concerned that our boys think they are much better than they are. Trying to arrange a scrimmage with a team from another league that will hopefully beat us.
Question: how to you deal with a black hole? I've got one kid that shoots every time he touches the ball. He was making almost all of them last week and had a lot of extended family there, so I didn't say anything about it, but it does irk me a bit as the rest of the team was passing the ball pretty well and his eyes never left the hoop once he touched the ball.
Question: how to you deal with a black hole? I've got one kid that shoots every time he touches the ball. He was making almost all of them last week and had a lot of extended family there, so I didn't say anything about it, but it does irk me a bit as the rest of the team was passing the ball pretty well and his eyes never left the hoop once he touched the ball.
2/11/2014 16:49
You could try this..... depending on the # of players.... 5 on 5, game to 6 and EVERYONE has to score before anyone cn make the game winner.... OK, here is the twist for you.... YOU decide who shoots it.
How do the kids feel about him shooting so much? High school kids typically look for the hot hand ... at least I would hoep so (Varsity players) IS he forcing up shots or is he takking GOOD SHOTS? Hard to tell a kid that is making all of his shots not to shoot. You could give him a "breather" now and then. :-)
Nothing wrong with scimmaging a team that could be a little better.... make your kids work harder? Talk about doing all the little things right, then the big things will take care of themselves.
What offense are you running now? 4 out / 5 out or?? IF you have a post player, you could say, I want a post touch before we should an outside shot.
We ran an open post offense and there was basically two cuts....all I asked was that they kept the floor balancded... didn't always happen. IF you tired to scout us it could be difficult since after the two cuts, they might see something else that is open... playing basketball.
How do the kids feel about him shooting so much? High school kids typically look for the hot hand ... at least I would hoep so (Varsity players) IS he forcing up shots or is he takking GOOD SHOTS? Hard to tell a kid that is making all of his shots not to shoot. You could give him a "breather" now and then. :-)
Nothing wrong with scimmaging a team that could be a little better.... make your kids work harder? Talk about doing all the little things right, then the big things will take care of themselves.
What offense are you running now? 4 out / 5 out or?? IF you have a post player, you could say, I want a post touch before we should an outside shot.
We ran an open post offense and there was basically two cuts....all I asked was that they kept the floor balancded... didn't always happen. IF you tired to scout us it could be difficult since after the two cuts, they might see something else that is open... playing basketball.
2/11/2014 20:27
On the kid shooting all the time, have someone keep some stats, just on him. You don't have to tell anyone you're doing it. Agree with Coach Sar, instituting some type of rule before shots are taken could help (e.g. must touch post twice, X amt of passes before shot taken).
When I dealt with kids that shot every time they touched the ball, I asked them to work on their passing. "I want to see some good assists from you today" and then celebrate those. Listen to the crowd at your next game and you'll see why this shooting thing can get out of hand. It's the almost the only time the crowd goes nuts, when a kid makes a shot. Throw in some out of town family at a game and you've got Kobe Jr. for the night.
When I dealt with kids that shot every time they touched the ball, I asked them to work on their passing. "I want to see some good assists from you today" and then celebrate those. Listen to the crowd at your next game and you'll see why this shooting thing can get out of hand. It's the almost the only time the crowd goes nuts, when a kid makes a shot. Throw in some out of town family at a game and you've got Kobe Jr. for the night.
2/11/2014 21:50
I didn't hear any complaints from the other boys, so they didn't seem to see it as an issue. But it was pretty glaring to me and even my non-basketball wife noticed it from the stands. I hear you on the crowd thing too, that fuels the fire.
Before our games I do generally tell the boys I'm keeping track of some kind of particular stat I want them to focus on (ex: today, I'm keeping track of rebounds). So assists would be a good one to track and may get his attention.
Before our games I do generally tell the boys I'm keeping track of some kind of particular stat I want them to focus on (ex: today, I'm keeping track of rebounds). So assists would be a good one to track and may get his attention.
2/11/2014 22:11
Ok, two can play that game...
To the winner, a hot dog and a pop ? or whatever.
Stats to consider....
1- Most Assists
2- Most Rebounds
3- Most Loose balls
4- Most Charges attempted
5- Leading scorer ( notice this one is down the list )
To the winner, a hot dog and a pop ? or whatever.
Stats to consider....
1- Most Assists
2- Most Rebounds
3- Most Loose balls
4- Most Charges attempted
5- Leading scorer ( notice this one is down the list )
2/17/2014 17:37
Pretty strong game this past weekend with just 6 players.
At this age, so many defenders have the tendency to randomly double and triple team the ball that there are plenty of wide open options if the player with the ball can simply lift their head and pass over or around the double or triple team. As long as our kids our generally recognizing and finding those wide open teammates, I'm not going to harp on them for not running the cutter offense.
The one thing that drives me a bit nuts is a kid randomly deciding they'll set a ball screen on our ball handler to initiate the offense as it comes across half court. I just don't like the high ball screen at this age even though I see almost every team try to run it against us. Must have been burned into my brain by my high school coach.
At this age, so many defenders have the tendency to randomly double and triple team the ball that there are plenty of wide open options if the player with the ball can simply lift their head and pass over or around the double or triple team. As long as our kids our generally recognizing and finding those wide open teammates, I'm not going to harp on them for not running the cutter offense.
The one thing that drives me a bit nuts is a kid randomly deciding they'll set a ball screen on our ball handler to initiate the offense as it comes across half court. I just don't like the high ball screen at this age even though I see almost every team try to run it against us. Must have been burned into my brain by my high school coach.
2/17/2014 20:03
Try practicibng some 3 on 3 NO dribble games.... that should take away the screen ON the ball since he cant dribble.
2/21/2014 17:06
Scrimmaged a team from another league last night and lost.
They were generally bigger than us, but not quicker. But they were the first team we've seen that was aggressive with ball denial and we had was too many passes intercepted throwing to stationary targets. They were also the first team we've seen playing a zone (3-2). That threw us off for a while until we called time out and explained that we needed players flashing in to the middle of the lane as they were leaving that space totally unguarded. That got us some decent looks. Generally our offense was poor and it was night where we had of shots that were in and out.
The opponents offense was very much a high screen on the guy bringing the ball up offense. They clearly were well coached and were good at cross overs and setting up the defender to run in to that high ball screen. We lunged for too many steals and go beat consistently in the first half until I really emphasized simply staying in front of the ball handler and not reaching. We go over this all the time, but then again, they're 10.
Pet peeve: we played by the other team's league's no back court pressure rule. Their coach called a time out with 5 second to go in a quarter with them needing to advance the ball from under the basket they were defending. Because we couldn't guard half court, they rolled the ball from the inbounder to a waiting receiver just inside the half court line while our defender could not cross half court and get the ball. Stupid rule that should be modified for situations like this. They didn't end up scoring but almost did.
All and all I think it was good to knock us back a bit and hopefully deflates a little bit of the "we can do whatever we want and still win" I could see creeping in at the last couple practices and games.
We play a pretty good team tomorrow morning, the one with the 3 hulks, so hopefully we respond with a bit of fire.
They were generally bigger than us, but not quicker. But they were the first team we've seen that was aggressive with ball denial and we had was too many passes intercepted throwing to stationary targets. They were also the first team we've seen playing a zone (3-2). That threw us off for a while until we called time out and explained that we needed players flashing in to the middle of the lane as they were leaving that space totally unguarded. That got us some decent looks. Generally our offense was poor and it was night where we had of shots that were in and out.
The opponents offense was very much a high screen on the guy bringing the ball up offense. They clearly were well coached and were good at cross overs and setting up the defender to run in to that high ball screen. We lunged for too many steals and go beat consistently in the first half until I really emphasized simply staying in front of the ball handler and not reaching. We go over this all the time, but then again, they're 10.
Pet peeve: we played by the other team's league's no back court pressure rule. Their coach called a time out with 5 second to go in a quarter with them needing to advance the ball from under the basket they were defending. Because we couldn't guard half court, they rolled the ball from the inbounder to a waiting receiver just inside the half court line while our defender could not cross half court and get the ball. Stupid rule that should be modified for situations like this. They didn't end up scoring but almost did.
All and all I think it was good to knock us back a bit and hopefully deflates a little bit of the "we can do whatever we want and still win" I could see creeping in at the last couple practices and games.
We play a pretty good team tomorrow morning, the one with the 3 hulks, so hopefully we respond with a bit of fire.
2/22/2014 01:04
Use this a learning experience - playing vs a bigger team is tough, but it should tell your kids that we will have to work harder against teams like this!
One question.... why the heck are they playing a 3-2 zone at 10 years old? The almight W.... what a shame. teach your kids how to play m2m and some sort of motion offense... simple 5 out pass and cut. They can learn how to play the game that way and hopefully be able to play at the next level. Have FUN
One question.... why the heck are they playing a 3-2 zone at 10 years old? The almight W.... what a shame. teach your kids how to play m2m and some sort of motion offense... simple 5 out pass and cut. They can learn how to play the game that way and hopefully be able to play at the next level. Have FUN
3/2/2014 16:32
So we won our last couple of games and now head to the playoffs. Our scoring has tailed off a bit, mostly due to the unbelievable number of "unforced" travelling turnovers: shuffling the feet on a rebound; taking 2 steps after picking up the dribble; changing the pivot foot.
Most of them come from the same 2-3 players. So our last practice may be a bit of a back to the basics boot camp.
Most of them come from the same 2-3 players. So our last practice may be a bit of a back to the basics boot camp.
3/3/2014 16:57
You can never practice fundamentals too much, especially at that age. We worked on fundamentals every day and we were boys varsity. A lof our practices were geared towards the team we were playing next.
3/10/2014 18:53
To complete the takeover of this thread into my own personal season long diary, we finished our season yesterday in the finals against the other strong team in our league. This is the team with 3 kids bigger than our biggest, and a couple of other kids with good skills. Plus a loud and vocal parent group and yesterday they even showed up with an 8 person cheerleading squad! But we had beaten them twice previously, both times holding a lead for the whole game.
I had been preaching since our last practice that if we focused on 3 things--taking care of the ball, defense and rebounds--we'll win this league. Didn't talk about our offense at all. We won the semis on Saturday handily playing pretty good D and minimizing the travelling that had plagued us in the previous game.
Well, perhaps I should have said something about offense. We were down 7-0, I believe, before getting our first point. The other team came out with lots of energy and aggression. In 3rd/4th grade hoops, that is a big hole. It was physical, but it was physical both ways. There must have been 25 jump balls in the game. We couldn't get anything to go in and they were making shots. I had a couple of kids in tears half way through the first half as their shots that normally go in just wouldn't fall. But I just project calmness,show that I was not worried and told them over and over that we were fine, that our shots would would come around, just keep focusing on our three things. We kept grinding and started to get a foothold in the game. I think we were down 5 at half.
Finally tied it up at 16-16 with about 5 minutes to play. Pulled ahead two on two free throws (by a kid who, for some reasons, has a habit of making his first free throw and air balling the second--this happened twice in the semis--but in the clutch here he came through). Got up 4 on a baseline runner from a kid who normally doesn't score, and then I think we scored 1 more free throw and one more basket in the last 2 minutes while they scored 2 points. Our D smothered them in the second half.
Oh, and a great moment in the first half. Their giant (our boys called him Shaq) and our smallest player get in a tie up. Shaq tries to rip the ball away, our little dude will not let go. Jump ball eventually called as our little guy is pulled off the ground with his feet furiously kicking in the air for a few seconds. I loved it.
This was our first game where we were behind for any length of time, and our best player never found his shot, but I was thrilled that the boys were able to dig in and not give up. It was a battle against a bigger squad but after we calmed down a bit, we played better than they did.
Had a new one happen yesterday too: mom of our best player came over and ripped into him during the first half. Told him to stop pouting and improve his attitude or she was going to yank him of the court. He was sulking around a bit, but he is an aggressive and emotional kid. I probably should have told her to get out of there, but I was a bit in shock. When she left, I just put my arm around him and told him he was fine, just go out and play his game, I had total confidence in him. He played well the rest of the game---he actually played well throughout, his shot just wasn't falling like usual. But he was our best defender and rebounder.
Overall pleased with they year. I had no problem kids. I've had problem kids in soccer before and it makes things hard for both the coach and the other players, but this team was pleasantly free of that. I had no problem parents, though our parents were certainly worked up in the finals and screaming a lot, but they got their kids to practices and games on time and I had no parent complaints. All kids got to play at least half of every game, so no PT ccmplaints. In the finals a did tighten things a bit and a couple of kids probably played 15 of the 40 minutes, but I felt that was reasonable.
Did pretty well with coaching my own kid, I think. He told me once on the way home that I am harder on him than other kids, and I told him that was because I know he can handle it whereas I wasn't sure how touchy some of the other kids might be to criticism. But I definitely made a conscious effort going forward to try to treat him just like the other boys and we had no issues going forward. His shot needs lots of work (two handed shot, working on making it one handed) and he had several games where he didn't score, but he passed well, played hard on D and was better than average at rebounding. He was one of the kids I had in down the stretch yesterday and he did great on D and rebounding and didn't turn it over. He is just a bit uncoordinated with his long limbs, just like his dad was.
We'll see if I coach this bunch next year. 3 of them were 3rd graders, the rest 4th graders, and we'd have to go up to the 5/6 grade division. That might be too much for 2 of the 3rd graders. We may also investigate other league options. I liked this league, but I want to play more than the same 3 teams over and over. I'd also like to get more than 1 hour of practice a week.
Thanks for the thoughts and advice here....it was very very helpful.
I had been preaching since our last practice that if we focused on 3 things--taking care of the ball, defense and rebounds--we'll win this league. Didn't talk about our offense at all. We won the semis on Saturday handily playing pretty good D and minimizing the travelling that had plagued us in the previous game.
Well, perhaps I should have said something about offense. We were down 7-0, I believe, before getting our first point. The other team came out with lots of energy and aggression. In 3rd/4th grade hoops, that is a big hole. It was physical, but it was physical both ways. There must have been 25 jump balls in the game. We couldn't get anything to go in and they were making shots. I had a couple of kids in tears half way through the first half as their shots that normally go in just wouldn't fall. But I just project calmness,show that I was not worried and told them over and over that we were fine, that our shots would would come around, just keep focusing on our three things. We kept grinding and started to get a foothold in the game. I think we were down 5 at half.
Finally tied it up at 16-16 with about 5 minutes to play. Pulled ahead two on two free throws (by a kid who, for some reasons, has a habit of making his first free throw and air balling the second--this happened twice in the semis--but in the clutch here he came through). Got up 4 on a baseline runner from a kid who normally doesn't score, and then I think we scored 1 more free throw and one more basket in the last 2 minutes while they scored 2 points. Our D smothered them in the second half.
Oh, and a great moment in the first half. Their giant (our boys called him Shaq) and our smallest player get in a tie up. Shaq tries to rip the ball away, our little dude will not let go. Jump ball eventually called as our little guy is pulled off the ground with his feet furiously kicking in the air for a few seconds. I loved it.
This was our first game where we were behind for any length of time, and our best player never found his shot, but I was thrilled that the boys were able to dig in and not give up. It was a battle against a bigger squad but after we calmed down a bit, we played better than they did.
Had a new one happen yesterday too: mom of our best player came over and ripped into him during the first half. Told him to stop pouting and improve his attitude or she was going to yank him of the court. He was sulking around a bit, but he is an aggressive and emotional kid. I probably should have told her to get out of there, but I was a bit in shock. When she left, I just put my arm around him and told him he was fine, just go out and play his game, I had total confidence in him. He played well the rest of the game---he actually played well throughout, his shot just wasn't falling like usual. But he was our best defender and rebounder.
Overall pleased with they year. I had no problem kids. I've had problem kids in soccer before and it makes things hard for both the coach and the other players, but this team was pleasantly free of that. I had no problem parents, though our parents were certainly worked up in the finals and screaming a lot, but they got their kids to practices and games on time and I had no parent complaints. All kids got to play at least half of every game, so no PT ccmplaints. In the finals a did tighten things a bit and a couple of kids probably played 15 of the 40 minutes, but I felt that was reasonable.
Did pretty well with coaching my own kid, I think. He told me once on the way home that I am harder on him than other kids, and I told him that was because I know he can handle it whereas I wasn't sure how touchy some of the other kids might be to criticism. But I definitely made a conscious effort going forward to try to treat him just like the other boys and we had no issues going forward. His shot needs lots of work (two handed shot, working on making it one handed) and he had several games where he didn't score, but he passed well, played hard on D and was better than average at rebounding. He was one of the kids I had in down the stretch yesterday and he did great on D and rebounding and didn't turn it over. He is just a bit uncoordinated with his long limbs, just like his dad was.
We'll see if I coach this bunch next year. 3 of them were 3rd graders, the rest 4th graders, and we'd have to go up to the 5/6 grade division. That might be too much for 2 of the 3rd graders. We may also investigate other league options. I liked this league, but I want to play more than the same 3 teams over and over. I'd also like to get more than 1 hour of practice a week.
Thanks for the thoughts and advice here....it was very very helpful.
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