Due to time constraints I won’t be coaching at the high school level.\u00a0 This year I’ll be coaching a couple youth teams — my son’s 5th grade teams and my daughter’s 7th grade teams.<\/p>\n
Before getting into that, let’s talk about the off season.\u00a0 I think that’s an important part of what we do.<\/p>\n
Wrapping Up Fall Season and Playing Other Sports<\/h2>\n
Over the summer we offered some camps, clinics, and a couple tournaments.\u00a0 We put in a fair amount of work this summer but always encourage players to make their “in season” sport a priority.\u00a0 So attendance was optional.<\/p>\n
Same goes for the fall. We offered a few skill clinics each month.\u00a0 Again optional.\u00a0 But we encouraged players to maintain their improvements from this summer by spending at least 30-60 minutes with the ball each week.<\/p>\n
Most of our players (boys and girls) play other sports.\u00a0 We encourage that!<\/p>\n
My son and daughter will be finishing up their club soccer season this weekend.<\/p>\n
My son plays baseball, soccer, and basketball.\u00a0 And spends a lot of time playing (doing kid stuff) in the basement and outside.\u00a0 I think that is important too (tag, tossing the football, drawing, building, etc, etc).<\/p>\n
My daughter has dance once a week during the school year, soccer in the fall\/spring, and basketball in the winter\/summer.\u00a0 She also tried middle school volleyball for the first time this year.<\/p>\n
For development, I think it’s important for players to play multiple sports seasonally.\u00a0 It doesn’t have to be highly competitive for every sport but the variety is good. I won’t go into the science or philosophy behind it (that’s an article or book on its own). But that is something we believe in.<\/p>\n
7th Grade Girls Basketball Program<\/h2>\n
We have 21 players in our 7th grade girls program.\u00a0 We split them into two practice groups and three possible teams.<\/p>\n
Our goal is to develop players, teach life lessons, and have a positive impact on them.\u00a0 Our focus is on teamwork, player development,\u00a0 and character development<\/span><\/strong>… winning will hopefully be a by-product of that focus.<\/p>\n If we were focused primarily on winning, that would be counter-productive to the development of our players.<\/p>\n From a tactical standpoint, I coach a high school game different than a youth game. It would be very easy to put our best left handed players on the left side of our fast break, switch our defenses between man\/zone\/press, get our best players taking all the shots, limiting the touches of our weak ballhanders, spending lots of time teaching tactics, and so on.<\/p>\n We’d win a lot of games. But we resist that temptation.<\/p>\n Just because you win a lot of games, that doesn’t make you a good youth coach.<\/p>\n With that said, we still win a lot of games because of our focus on teamwork, player development, and character development.\u00a0 We spend VERY little time teaching “plays”.\u00a0 To me that is a poor use of time.<\/p>\n A wise man\u00a0(Don Kelbick) once told me :<\/p>\n “Put learning how to play basketball ahead of learning your system. You should spend most of your time teaching young kids how to play instead of teaching them your system.”\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n Some of the best advice I have ever received for basketball and has stuck with me ever since.<\/p>\n The Sweet Spot of Development<\/strong><\/p>\n Part of our philosophy is to keep players in the sweet spot of development.\u00a0 In other words, we want to challenge them… but not challenge them too much.<\/p>\n If it’s too easy, players get complacent and do not improve as much as they could.\u00a0 If it’s too hard, they can lose confidence and enthusiasm.<\/p>\n The concept of the sweet spot is discussed in The Talent Code<\/a> by Daniel Coyle and the\u00a021st Century Basketball Practice<\/a> by Brian McCormick:<\/p>\n We consciously try to keep players in that sweet spot in both practices and games.<\/p>\n Team Structure<\/strong><\/p>\n For 7th grade girls, we have 21 players and three different rosters… red, gray, and white.\u00a0 Red is our best team, then gray, and then white.<\/p>\n Players can play on more than one roster.\u00a0 Team rosters consist of 8-10 players.\u00a0 I prefer 8 players for games.\u00a0 That allows for enough substitutions, yet everyone gets lots of playing time.\u00a0 But due to logistics and kids sometimes get sick (we generally stick to 9 or 10 player rosters).<\/p>\n I find that by having 3 different roster levels, that gives us a lot of flexibility to challenge players in different ways.<\/p>\n We might take the bottom 4 players on our top team and have them play on the gray (middle) team.<\/p>\n Here’s what it does for those players…<\/p>\n When they play for red, those players might only get 2-3 shots per game and might be a little overwhelmed.\u00a0 But when in gray games, they are primary scorers and the players we want in at the end of a close game.<\/p>\n This gives those players a balance so they’re not just stuck in one role or always playing against opponents they aren’t quite ready for.\u00a0 It can also be a confidence booster and\/or allow them to try moves they may not be comfortable trying in against a more competitive team.<\/p>\n We can also move players around… if we find a player really improves and they need more of a challenge, we can move them up.<\/p>\n For our particular situation, I feel this is the best way to structure things for optimal player development.<\/p>\n This structure may or may not work for you.\u00a0 Like anything, there are pros and cons.<\/p>\n Practices and Games<\/strong><\/p>\n Starting in November, we’ll practice twice a week.\u00a0 Each practice will last 1.5 to 2 hours.<\/p>\n Each player will get two tournaments each month.\u00a0 Most will also be playing on their middle school teams (which only lasts 6-8 weeks).\u00a0 But we work around that by practicing in the evening and playing twice a month on weekends.<\/p>\n Our season starts Nov 1 and ends the first week of March.<\/p>\n Defense – now we play 75% to 80% man to man<\/strong><\/p>\n Since 2nd grade we have played ALL man to man because that is the\u00a0best defense for development<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0For the first time, we will introduce zone defense to our 7th grade team.<\/p>\n For the red (top) team and gray (middle) teams, we will play at least 75% half court man to man defense in games.\u00a0 And for development and learning purposes, we’ll sprinkle in this\u00a02-3 zone defense<\/a> and some full court press defense.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/sweet_spot_development.jpg\")
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