What To Focus On In Practice

First of all, I would like to thank you for your very useful tips. It truly improved my knowledge of the game both as a coach and a player. I am currently coaching a junior varsity which are 14 years old and under. We held practices 3 times a week in 2 hours per session. We only have a month left before the competition and I started coaching them for 5 sessions now. Most of my players are still lacking the fundamentals but they can already dribble, pass and shoot but not as good yet as they should be. What do you think should I do? What should be the focus of our practice? I am running out of time because up to now I am still focusing on developing their skills and fundamentals. We have not discussed team strategy as of yet and we haven’t played a tune up game even. Please help me. Thank you very much and more power to you and to the whole organization of Breakthrough Basketball.

Best regards,
Lawrence

Coach,

Its time to sit down and make out a good practice plan... long term (1 month day by day) and a daily plan. Write down what you need in and by what date... then make out daily practice plans to make sure these things are covered.

Continue to teach the fundamentals but IF they don't where and and when to use them.. they will be lost.... then they will lose confidence in their ability to play.

Start putting in your game plan while you teach the fundamentals. You have approximately 12 days and 24 hours to get this done in... use your time wisely.

IF you are still not sure, find a high school coach in your area that can help you out with this... most coaches are more than willing to help younger / newer coaches.

Ken

Ken gave you some good advice. I'll add a couple things...
I would implement a simple motion offense, man to man defense, and continue teaching the skills that you are currently working on. With motion offense, you should be able to practice skills at the same time that you implement the offense.
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/blog/index.php/coaching-youth-basketball-with-limited-time-1-practice-a-week/

http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/offense/motion-offenses.html

Let us know how else we can help.

Ichang: The previous advice given is excellent ! I would add a couple of things to bring your team concepts together a little quicker. You can run a simple motion offense as Jeff suggested. I would make it so simple that the only thing wrong they can do is be MOTIONLESS ! Rules like you must cut to the basket after every pass no matter where you are on the court. You cannot stand in the same spot for longer than a 2 count. Never cut to the corner when someone is posting on that side. When someone dribbles at you go backdoor.

You can add others but it's been my experience and still is on my game nights that most high school teams can't guard the give and go or the backdoor cut 25 % of the time. this type of offense would be hard to scout since even you don't know where hey are going to be so your opponent can't know. It teaches basic basketball fundamentals and is an excellent offense to practice your man to man defense against everyday.

At your level, it is your job to develop players, not be undefeated. You are the building blocks for the varsity.

As far as johnnies and Joes and x's and o's goes, I have always believed that a team can have better players but if they don't play well together and have decent fundamentals the advantage switches to the other team.

I hope this helps you.

Coach West -

Great advice, especially on this point...

You can add others but it's been my experience and still is on my game nights that most high school teams can't guard the give and go or the backdoor cut 25 % of the time. this type of offense would be hard to scout since even you don't know where hey are going to be so your opponent can't know. It teaches basic basketball fundamentals and is an excellent offense to practice your man to man defense against everyday.

We ran an Open Post Offense and made a living on BACK DOOR CUTS.... tough to cover and tough to scout because you never know when a player is going to do it.... If they overplay... back door time!

Coach Sar: I would have enjoyed playing against your teams because it would have made me a better coach for my kids. I would have had to prepare them fundamentally to the hilt. I've read a lot of your posts and you give excellent fundamental advice to young coaches but some of us vetereans are taking note as well. Keep up the good work for the greatest game of all !!

Thanks Coach West -

Most coaches hated playing us because they knew that they were going to be in for a long night on D! I had several of them tell me that they told this to their players..... " IF you let EAST get ahead of you early YOU are going to be in for a long night on Defense! " :-)

We ran an Open Post Offense / Princeton Style with a lot of movement... along with several sets to keep the other teams off balance. We also ran a 3 out 2 in but when our Post players went South we went to the Open Post with a lot of success.... Not always Ws but we were in the game. We played m2m D - On/Up the Line and a 1-3-1 match up zone that we tweaked to fit our needs.. for one thing.. we had our 5 play their 5 m2m, that solved the problem of him NOT knowing who is was to cover at times.

We always loved a good challenge. I'm sure that you would have your players ready!

I love this forum.. there are a lot of good coaches on it... and I enjoy giving back to the game that I love.... by helping kids and coaches..... letting them draw off my experiences.

Coach Sar you've left the door open now for an eager student. I would like to see some of your open post offense and 1-3-1 zone. Do you have any of this on line or where can I get it ?

Coach West.... Now you are getting into highly classified materials - do you have clearance? :-)

I always hate doing this to Jeff & Joe because they are great guys... but both of those are on Coaches Clipboard.... I wish I could figure out how to send the link....

Click here: Basketball Offense - Open Post Offense "Double-Up", Coach's Clipboard Playbook

Basketball Defense - 1-3-1 Match-up Zone Defense, Coach's Clipboard Playbook

Let me know what you think coach.

We don't mind at all. Coaches Clipboard is a good site! I think these are the links you were trying to paste:
http://www.coachesclipboard.net/OpenPostDoubleUp.html

http://www.coachesclipboard.net/MatchupZone131.html


Ken, here's a video that shows you how to copy and paste links. Maybe this will help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZsSYM4bHIA

Jeff,

Thanks for posting those links.. as for that video... tough for me to see.... Could you please send that info to me via my e mail... maybe step by step... I feel bad always asking you to do this.

Thanks

http://www.coachesclipboard.net/OpenPostDoubleUp.html

OK, I think I got it... thanks Jeff! See, you can teach an old dog new tricks. :-)

Now I gotta work on the quote thing here.

Dear Joe, Jeff & the whole Breakthrough Basketball organization,

Back in November, I posted the question on what to focus on in practice and have received numbers of helpful tips. Thanks guys!

I could have not done it without you! My junior varsity team has just won the “5th Elite Inter-School Basketball League” here in Riyadh, KSA. We were unbeaten the whole season straight to the best of 3 championship. There were 8 schools that competed, we won every game with an average of 30+ points per game. It was the first time I handled this team that has never got in to the finals since they joined back in 1998.

It was truly sweet for the school (Riyadh International School) junior varsity to win the for the first time without ever tasting a loss. I owe it to you guys. I just used a lot of your Breakthrough Basketball Plays and Drills I got from your ebook and it was truthfully effective! Moreover, your emails are truly helpful. The Danny Miles clinic was also great. The John Wooden tips and so on... I could go on forever. Whew! Unbelievable! I used a lot of motion offense. I also found out that "Hand-off" play from the elbow or high post was truly effective and hard to guard for high school team. We used a lot of that. A lot of schools are talking about how the team improved since last year and how we were able to win in that kind of fashion!

I just bought the 60 fun basketball drills and games for youth coaches and the Bob Bigelow DVD in my preparation for the next season.

Hoorah to all of you especially to Joe, Jeff, Tonya and the rest! God bless and more power!

Coach Lawrence Chang

Congratulations!! Hard work and persistence paid off..... you did a great job of selling your program. Keep up the good work.

Coach Chang: I coach professional basketball in China but on Saturday and Sunday Mornings, i work with many young chinese kids on this great game. Unfortunatly, the game here is only 3 on 3 and the kids play it daily for hours. What I have obseved, is these kids are endowed with incredible quickness, some dribble at a high level and a few shoot fairly well but NONE of them pass the ball worth a cup of coffee. I am a firm believer in fundamentals, it is my contention that if you cant pass and you can't catch, you cannot play this game. More mistakes are made with this fundamental than any other in the game. I have cited this on several occasions and made references to the NBA playoffs of last year where million dollar players couldnt even get an inbounds pass in. Coach, concentrate on the fundamentals, as some of the previous coaches have suggested, use a simple motion and man 2 man defense. I used to use a three rule motion with kids, 1. Always pass and screen away, 2. closest to the ball screens away, 3. in the post area, post up for a 1000 and 1 and screen across. This simple play I found to be fairly successful at this level. You have six hours of practice time per week, as Coach Sars suggests, its time for you to begin putting your daily practice plans into effect, you dont require all six hours to teach offense, the simpler the better and that will give you plenty of time to coach the fundamentals.good luck Coach Mac

Wow: Am I behind, this was posted last September??? I must be getting old, like coach Sars. Well, Lawrence, congratulations on a fine job and great coaching. by the way where is your international School located?, I used to coach at hong Kong International School..and took two of those teams to an undefeated season in the A.PAC conference. Let me know Coach Mac

Hey Coach Mac, thank you for the tips! I could certainly use a lot of that especially next season. Right now we are still enjoying the championship. I must have confused you with my last name. I do not coach in HongKong. Although I am Chinese. : )

I coach a junior varsity 2nd year high school and below team here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. But the school is planning to have me coach the Senior Varsity team next year who by the way also won the championship this year which is their 3rd straight.

More power Coachmac!

Coach: I realized you were not in HK but figured out...by your name..Im a genius, that you were Chinese..OK Saudi Arabia...you may want to some year take the plunge and come to HK and play in the HKIS Holiday tournament..there you will have a chance to show your stuff against some really good teams..Every year we get Korea, Philippines, Japan, Main Land China. Beijing..think about it..Coach Mac

Coach,

At all ages I like to use drills that reinforce fundamentals of passing, dribbling, proper shooting form, defense and rebounding.

I use the 50-25-25 practice method
50% of practice dedicated to drills reinforcing fundamentals
25% for structure, plays
25% scrimmaging and conditioning

Definitely contact other coaches from surrounding towns to schedule informal scrimmages.

Coach A

Coach Chang: If you are interested in testing new frontiers, I can put you in contact with the athletic director at Hong Kong International School. Your team would be the first from Saudi Arabia to gain entrance into that tourney. It runs over the thanks giving weekend in November and features some great teams, Kadina out of Japan, Brent International from the Philippines etc Coach Mac