Had the first player meeting for our sophomore boys team last night. \u00a0I’m excited because we agreed on a really good strategy for the season and the players are on board! In fact, they are the ones that came up with the entire strategy (with just a little guidance from me).<\/p>\n
To me, this first player meeting is critical!<\/strong><\/p>\n This meeting sets a foundation and a precedence for our entire season. \u00a0It’s a very laid back and informal meeting. \u00a0But the information we discuss is really important for our success.<\/p>\n And this is probably the only time all year I will talk to the players about WINNING.<\/p>\n Meeting Agenda<\/strong><\/p>\n Here’s a rough agenda of what we discussed and why it’s so important for our success…<\/p>\n 1) Intro<\/strong><\/p>\n Just gave them a little info about me. Very brief.<\/p>\n 2) Practice & Other Logistics<\/strong><\/p>\n Quickly explained practice situation, opportunities for freshman to move up, gave them my contact info, etc. \u00a0Also gathered contact info from each player, had them sign code of conduct, and take care of misc paperwork.<\/p>\n 3) Discussed Core Values<\/strong><\/p>\n Explained the importance of our core values<\/a>. \u00a0This is the basis of everything we do. \u00a0You can see our core values and the document we reviewed together here<\/a>. \u00a0 This is absolute priority for us! \u00a0We need to emphasize these core values and refine our character skills every single day.<\/p>\n 4) Open Door Policy<\/strong><\/p>\n Let the players know I’m also available for them. \u00a0And they can talk to me about anything… basketball, school, home, life, etc.<\/p>\n 5) Team Rules<\/strong><\/p>\n Shared our team rules and gave them a few examples of violations and what I might do for punishment. \u00a0Our team rules are:<\/p>\n – Don\u2019t do anything<\/span> detrimental to the team.<\/p>\n – \u00a0Follow the “team core values” on and off the court.<\/p>\n That’s it. \u00a0We don’t need any other rules because that covers everything I can imagine.<\/p>\n 6) How to Win \/ Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, we’re getting into our strategy for the season. \u00a0Normally I don’t talk about winning. \u00a0Instead we focus on the process, character skills, and the fundamentals. \u00a0Winning is a by-product of focusing on those things.<\/p>\n However, to develop a good strategy players need to understand what it takes to win. \u00a0Surprisingly I’ve never heard anyone talk about winning in the way we discussed it last night. \u00a0I’m not sure why.<\/p>\n My first question for the players…. \u00a0“How do you win?”<\/p>\n Answer: \u00a0“Score more points than the opponent.”<\/p>\n Ok, “How do you score more points than the opponent?”<\/p>\n This question took a while and required a little guidance. \u00a0It’s interesting that 10th graders are unable to answer such a simple question and get to the bottom of how precisely you can score more points.<\/p>\n Eventually they figured it out and came up with:<\/p>\n A) Take more shots than the opponent.<\/p>\n B) Shoot a higher percentage than the opponent.<\/p>\n Once we established that, we went through an exercise figuring out how to do those two things.<\/p>\n Lots of great ideas came out of the discussion. \u00a0I wrote down the ideas on the white board as the players came up with the ideas.<\/p>\n Eventually, the players agreed on the following 4 things as being the most important<\/strong>…<\/p>\n 1) Defense<\/p>\n 2) Rebounding<\/p>\n 3) Ball security (minimize turnovers)<\/p>\n 4) Offensive scoring skills and fundamentals (shooting, finishing, post moves, screening, etc)<\/p>\n I could not have come up with a better list. \u00a0This is perfect!<\/p>\n Our plan is to focus on those 4 things and become the absolute best we can be in those 4 areas. \u00a0 The players agree. \u00a0And we now have a strategy for our season.<\/p>\n Know Who Two Starters Will Be<\/strong><\/p>\n I told the players that after going through this exercise, it’s obvious who two of our starters will be for this year. \u00a0This of course gets their attention.<\/p>\n I told them one starter will be the best defensive player on the team (thing #1 on our list). \u00a0The second starter will be the best rebounder on our team.<\/p>\n Final Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n The precedence has been set and I think the message has been received. \u00a0Defense and rebounding is really important to me and our team.<\/p>\n Lastly, I told the players I will be following up with them to give them the stats we will look at to determine if we are doing a good job in those 4 areas. \u00a0Because if you want to be really good, you have to measure your performance. \u00a0Otherwise, how do you know if you’re doing a good job?<\/p>\n Good meeting. \u00a0I’m excited for practice to start!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Had the first player meeting for our sophomore boys team last night. \u00a0I’m excited because we agreed on a really good strategy for the season and the players are on board! In fact, they are the ones that came up with the entire strategy (with just a little guidance from me). To me, this first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[11],"class_list":{"0":"post-46","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-201314-sophomore-season","7":"category-strategy","8":"tag-201314-soph-boys-season","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/88"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.breakthroughbasketball.com\/haefner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}