Travel team - roster size

I am on the verge of becoming the coach for a 4th grade girls travel team this season. The only thing that would stop this from happening is if the travel director feels it would be better the combine the 4th and 5th grades into one team.

In your opinion, what is an acceptable roster size to maintain a team for just 4th grade? I have spent the last 7-8 months getting the word out to girls to tryout for the team so that we have enough players. Right now, the number of quality girls for the 4th grade team is at 7 or 8. To me, that is an acceptable number.

Last season, I was approached by a coach who told me they wanted to combine these two grades this seson because they didn't think they had enough talented players in the older grade to have their own team. My daughter's grade, however, definitely has the 7-8 girls to make up a decent squad on their own. I am fearing that the older grade might try to pull some shenanigans and poach some of our girls. A couple of them played up a grade last year for one tournament and we were less than please with how things were run.

Forgetting about the politics and other factors in this situation, having 7-8 available for a youth game is just about perfect. Everyone will get to play and get meaningful minutes. If you have 10 players on the team, there will be a couple players on the team that won't get a lot of minutes and frankly won't benefit.

Often coaches will kid themselves and think that giving a player 2-3 minutes before half time and then 5 minutes if they are up at the end is doing them some good. That's just not enough playing time for the player to develop or get anything out of it. That's why I say 7-9 is just about right.

The problem with an 8 player roster is what if two players are sick and one gets in foul trouble? Not the end of the world but does make it hard to compete. Also, you can't do 4on4 shell unless you use an assistant if a player misses practice.

There are so many solutions to these problems -- combining practices, moving players around, etc. I have too many girls out for one of my teams but I just come up with creative ways to solve the problem and get everyone good opportunities. Every situation is unique.

Almost forgot, 3on3 and 4on4 is great for their development because they get more touches on the ball. You can arrange for other teams to play you 3on3 or 4on4. Just another option to consider. That's what we do at the 3rd and 4th grade level.
Hope this helps.

I agree, 7 or 8 players is good for the games as long as no one gets hurt or sick. I think that my # would be 8 for scrimmage purposes but there is always a way to work around that.

I hate the thought of politics at this age... these are young kids learning to play and should be having fun. If I were you and with you thinking that another coach is going to grab a player or two.... I would have a meeting with the parents and lock them into YOUR team somehow.

Let them know what your goals are ( hopefully to teach them the fundamentals of the game, how to get along and work towards a common goal, and more importantly, have some fun. Getting them ready to play at the next level is also a goal )

Winning is NOT important at this age.... learning fundamentals is. Success is a by product of being fundamentaly sound.. JMO

I think 8 is a good number for a competitive team. Upside is more playing time for everyone and easier to deal with subs. Downside has already been mentioned, if someone gets injured or is sick, you're stuck with less players.

I've been there on the 10 player deal and it makes things extremely rough when it comes to subs. Having 10 players is great for practice purposes. Some of the teams in our area limit the playing members to 8, but add two more non playing members for practices. The two non playing members pay a lot less and get the benefit of improving their game.

Last year, I kept my 8th grade competitive team to 8 players. In our league, once you declare your roster, you're done. Three weeks into our preseason one of my guys broke his leg, so he's out for the season. We ended up playing close to 50 games between two leagues and tourneys, a third of those games were played with 5-6 players, due to sickness, injuries or fouls. Tons of playing time though and they learned how to manage their fouls.

Well, we got our own team for just our grade. I have not seen the roster yet, but I am anticipating it being at 8 girls. I was at the tryouts, but I helped run drills for the 6th grade girls. We had one girl decide to play winter travel volleyball instead of tryout for basketball so we were very concerned about numbers. If she would have come out for the team, we probably would have had the 8 strong players that we talked about last winter. Instead, we've got 7 of them and probably one more that I've never seen play.

For a group of 4th grade girls, I think we have a lot of height, athleticism and aggressiveness. There is one girl who has 4 or 5 older brothers and is the most aggressive little girl I've ever seen. I think we'll have decent speed and at least a couple girls who can handle the ball pretty well right now. So with practice and development we should be ok.

I'm planning to use a 5-out motion offense with just a few principles: Pass and cut, pass and screen away, dribble drive, ball screen. We'll gradually get to all of the layers. Going by what I've seen in the past, zone defense and full court defense are only allowed in the second half of games as long as the score is still within a certain amount of points. So we'll have to work on some press breaking and zone offense at some point. I think the 5-out can be adpated to work against a zone. And I've also considered using a 3 out 2 in motion at times. I like that look against a zone defense.

Defensively we're going to be a m2m team, but we'll touch on some 23 or 32 zone. Maybe put our aggressive girls up top and then line the back row with a couple of our trees.

We will get 2 weeks of practice before our first game. It should amount to somewhere between 6-9 hours of practice. Time to get to work.

Sounds like you'll have some good players to work with on this team. I like the 5 out motion offense, it allows for multiple ball touches and players aren't "stuck" at one position. Keep us posted on the season.

We ran the 5 out open post offesne.. called Double Up..... forces every player to be able to handle the ball, read defenses, pass well and be able to get open by making good cuts.

Good luck, I hope this works out for you and the kids.

We had our first two practices this week. Young girls and a lot of fundamental work to do, but after about 4 hours of practice you can see the rust starting to come off. 7 of the 8 girls are extremely hard workers and then there's 1 with a lazy attitude. I'm going to have to work on finding the right approach with her. She's a very talented girl with good size, but her will be what keeps her off the court. She's also new in town, so she may have a bit of that outsider feeling going on. When we do partner work, I make sure the girls take a different partner each practice, so hopefully over time she'll be more comfortable.

We spent about 20 minutes in a 5 out shell on day one, walking, jogging, then near ful speed working on the first layer of pass and cut, with players replacing to the open spot. They seemed to have a decent understanding of it. Last night we worked on some breakout drills of passing and cutting, worked on a 4 on 4 defensive shell, pointing pistols, jumping to the ball, etc. Then played 4 on 4 for the last 10 minutes or so. From an outsiders perspective it probably looked like a mess LOL. But for the most part they maintained decent spacing, they worked hard at moving to get open and we even had a few nice pass and cuts. We just need to work on watching the cutter so we get that high percentage shot. Afterwards I asked the girls if they could talk about what they learned from the scrimmage, what worked, what didn't work and they had very good responses.

I'm also thinking of teaching them how to use a dribble handoff to the wings if they are struggling with the entry pass. We'll also work on backcuts next week. Our first game is Nov 17 and then the following week we've been invited to play in a pre-season tournament nearby. We're guranteed at least 3 games there and there are only 4 teams in our division in the tournament, so I think we all automatically advance to tournament play after pool play. It will be great experience for the girls, win or lose.

I'm also thinking of teaching them how to use a dribble handoff to the wings if they are struggling with the entry pass.

I used the rule that if you dribble at the wing, they have the option to back-cut or take a dribble hand-off. We taught the wing to use the back-cut if they were more out on the perimeter. We also taught that a pass fake was an automatic back-cut, which worked well if the wing popped out a bit first to get their defender to bite.

Sounds like you've started with some good fundamentals in your practice. Good luck and keep us updated!

Practice tonight and hopefully Saturday. Then our first game is Sunday afternoon.

Last practice we worked on the wing players using v-cuts to get open to initiate offense and then we also showed them the dribble hand off. At the end of practice we played some 4 on 4 for about 10 minutes and after a few possessions they started using the hand offs when they couldn't get open and we had some really nice drives to the hoop from that.

Fundamentals are getting better and I think a good number of the girls have a decent understanding of the basic concepts of basketball. When I was walking them through the dribble handoff, the girl playing dummy D on the dribbler said "but then won't I just switch and guard her when she gets the handoff?" To me, that's pretty good IQ for a 4th grader.

Our games consist of 4 qtrs, 9 min each. Only m2m D allowed in the first half and any type of defense in the second half. So we're sure to see some zones and ful court pressure. I saw a few games in a 4th grade tournament last year and the full court stuff was just m2m full court. I'm thinking I'll get the ball in the hands of my best dribbler, have the second best be our inbounder and trailer. Then clear everybody else out and get the ball up the court.

As for a zone offense. I anticipate seeing a lot of 2-3 zones. I think I might spend a little bit of time showing the girls a 3 out 2 in look with the 2 in moving post and elbow on ballside. And we'll just talk about finding the openings and being patient.

Thoughts?

An update to our team:

Our overall season record stands at 3-2. We are 1-0 in league play and also went 2-2 in a preseason tournament we just played this weekend. We took second in the tournament. We lost to a very good team in pool play 30-10. They played fast, passed well and just outgunned us big time. We ended up playing them in the finals and lost 10-7. We were down 8-7 with under a minute to play and we had a couple shots to take the lead that just didn't fall. I am a firm believer in m2m defense, but I changed us to a box and 1 defense in the championship. Our 1 was a chaser, just hounding the ball. This definitely slowed them down and gave us a chance.

We'll still play m2m, but my thoughts are that if we're in a tournament and make the finals then we'll make some adjustments to give us a chance to win the whole thing if we need to. If we see this team again later this season, I don't think we'll need the zone as much, as I anticipate our defense getting better as the season goes on.

Offensively, we've got some girls that are pretty good penetrators and we've focused a lot on ballhandling and dribble drive stuff. We've gone to a 4 out set and our main rules are pass and cut, dribble handoff or dribble at/backdoor action. We also work in some high ball screens against an agressive defense just to free our guards up. These girls are really showing that they have a decent basketball IQ for 4th grade. Playing this early tournament and basically getting 4 games in 3 days that we otherwise wouldn't have had has given us a wealth of experience that is going to really pay off for us.

Congrats! Sounds like things are going well so far.

We stand at 4-3 on the season. Last week we had to play a team a grade older than us and we hung with them for a while, only trailing by 3 at halftime. But they ended up just being too big for us and we wore down in the second half trying to keep them boxed out and off the boards. They were much bigger than us. Yesterday we pulled out a tight one. Trailed by 1 when my daughter got fouled with 12 seconds remaining. She calmly sunk both free throws and we won by a point.

Things we need to get better at: Passing. We wait too long to throw the pass and we end up turning it over too much. Luckily, the opposition is in the same boat. It's 4th grade girls, so we're playing a lot of chaotic, low scoring games. At times we run our offense pretty well, but there are still too many times when we are playing out of control and wasting posessions. Defensively, we just need to maintain more focus and stop leaving our girl and chasing the ball every now and then. That's usually how other teams have scored against us. When we are on defensively, we are a pretty darn good unit.

We are running a 4 out motion. Would you recommend putting our best players at the two top guard spots so that they are handling the ball more and initiating offense?

coachmt wrote:Trailed by 1 when my daughter got fouled with 12 seconds remaining. She calmly sunk both free throws and we won by a point.

Congrats! Fun when it comes together like that.

Things we need to get better at: Passing. We wait too long to throw the pass and we end up turning it over too much.

Teaching them where to throw the pass (away from the defender) and having the person receiving the pass come towards the ball instead of waiting like a catcher in baseball might help. Playing some 4 v 4 games in practice with just passing can help improve your passing. Team A on offense, Team B on defense, half-court. Team A has to get 5 good passes, no dribbling allowed. If Team B gets a steal or deflects the pass, they are now on offense. Tell the girls they have to pass within 5 seconds. If a player holds the ball too long, start counting down from 5. If she doesn't pass before time is up, the other team is on offense. No dribbling shell drills help teammates figure out they have to get open and come towards the ball when passed. Putting a time limit on the pass adds that additional tweak.

Defensively, we just need to maintain more focus and stop leaving our girl and chasing the ball every now and then. That's usually how other teams have scored against us. When we are on defensively, we are a pretty darn good unit.

Tough habit to break. Teaching help side defense at that age is especially difficult. Maybe breaking it down in a quick shell drill 3 v 3 and showing them where they should be when one pass away, two passes away. Have you done the Sheriff drill with them?

We are running a 4 out motion. Would you recommend putting our best players at the two top guard spots so that they are handling the ball more and initiating offense?

Depends upon what your coaching philosophy is here. Putting the two best players up top will probably give you a better chance at running an offense. The problem at the younger ages is kids that aren't that good with the ball can blend in and never get the touches they need to improve. If you decide to let your more experienced handlers deal in games, look for ways to get your other players more experience whether in practice or if you have a lead in the games.

It's a tough balancing act when you're dealing with more developing players in a competitive environment. Standings and scores can definitely influence decisions, which is why establishing a coaching philosophy up front helps.

We've started doing the no dribble shell in the past week or so, so we'll just have to keep on that. What's the sheriff drill? Does it have anything to do with the old addage of "pointing pistols"?

When we practice and play 4 on 4 or 2 on 2 breakdown drills, I make sure to get every girl reps at each spot on the floor. So everybody is playing point or wing or post at some point in our practices. The games can get pretty hectic, which results in almost any player on our team coming up with a loose ball, steal, rebound and pushing it up the floor a little. The problem becomes in a hectic game, with limited actual half-court possessions, like yesterday, our 2-3 top players aren't getting involved in much offense unless we put them out front at guard positions. Their ability to drive and create can then open up opportunities for our other players.

Yep, the pointing pistols drill, it's a good one to help them defensively, imo.

I hear your on the point guard situation. Ran into something similar when I coached flag football. I had two QBs that knew what they were dong. When I started coaching in 1st/2nd grade, I let everyone play QB. BIG mistake. Fumbles, mishandled snaps, etc. We were going 4 and out constantly. Finally decided to put the two better players at QB most of the time. The result? More successful plays and touches for everyone. We stayed on the field longer on offense.

On the flip side, I played a lot of 3 v 3 and let all the kids try their hand at QB in practice. If we had a nice lead in a game, we rotated QBs a lot and tried to get every kid in at QB at least once or twice during the season.

I think you can pull this off if you're doing 3 v 3 in practice and getting those developing players lots of touches and encouragement.

We've got a week off and 3 practices before our next game. I'm thinking of beginning to work on a full court pressure defense to help us get some easier looks at the basket. Games have been officiated pretty loosely, and while our girls are coming around to playing stronger with the ball on offense, it's still a work in progress. (I've even started bringing a hand held shield from football to practice to give them some resistance when we work individual offense.)

We're allowed to press in the second half of games and I think it might help us get some points on the board.

My first thought is to just go with a full court man to man press. High pressure on the ball, with 3 girls playing very loose help looking for steals and maybe even a trap and 1 girl always back to protect the hoop. It's man to man which is our defense anyway. We work full court zig zags every practice, so they know how to guard the ball in the full court. It will just be teaching them the adjustment of full court help defense.

I had a seconday thought of installing a diamond press, but with 4th grade girls I'm not sure of the risk-reward of the teaching time to do it, the focus of shifting from the diamond press, back into a halfcourt m2m defense, etc.

Any thoughts?

If you're opponent is weak enough with their ballhandling skill and experience, you'll get turnovers almost regardless of what you run full court.

The dangers of pressing are...
- your players start picking up bad habits that work right now against weak ballhandlers
- against a good team you're full court will look pretty bad and your half court defense will probably suffer. even at the high school level, our guys tend to lose discipline in the half court when we extend full court. it's something you have to practice.

They'll probably see some success with the press at this age. And that's the danger of it. They can play undisciplined defense and get rewarded for it because the opponent is not strong enough or skilled enough to break the press.

There are pros and cons. My biggest suggestion would be careful about developing bad habits that stick with them because it works so well at this age.

Maybe you can try picking them up just past half court... almost 3/4. That way you can pay closer attention to defending the right way and it's very similar to your half court defense.

Jeff presents some valid points regarding a press at this age. I'm going under the assumption that all these teams understand this is a competitive league with tryouts, standings, and some type of playoff at the end. I'm not a big fan of leagues allowing presses at the younger levels (4th, 5th and even 6th), but if all the teams understand what they signed up for, you have to go with the flow.

My take on presses is they can be devastating to the opponent, especially at the younger levels. it won't take much pressure and you will see turnovers. Like Jeff mentioned though, it's easy for younger players to develop bad habits and play sloppy defense, esp if the refs are "letting them play".

One benefit of pressing is you learn what presses are trying to do, so when your team is pressed, they will understand what is going on. I really don't think it will matter what you run, you will see results. If you find that it's working and you're up by 15+, be cool and call it off.

Coach...
I'm sorry I have to go along with Jeff says.... You can get a lot of turnovers and some easy points out of pressing At this age... And you might get you a few more wins... But in the long run I think it will hurt your team more than Help it. Your goals should be to make your team fundamentally strong and get them ready to play at the next level.

Think this over very carefully and weigh the pros and cons... Then make your decision based on making your players better. At this age it's not about winning and losing.

Good luck you been doing a great job with your team, keep up the good work.