Questions From Subscribers...

Armando,

As stated above, it takes experience.

The one thing you can do is working on ballhandling drills and keep your head up. If you can master ballhandling without looking at the ball, you'll be able to see the court better.

You can do any dribbling / ballhandling drills while keeping your head up or check out the drills on our website:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/fundamentals/ballhandling.html

Hope this helps.

Jeff

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Do you have some exercises to improve court vision?

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Kareem

The answer to your question is simple, you can't get your players to see the floor better.

You see the game the way you do for 3 reasons - 1. You have learned the game over time, 2. Experience, this has taught you what to do with the knowledge you have gained, 3. you are on the outside of the play so you do not have to deal with the stress of having people running around and putting pressure on you.

Inside of those 3 concepts lie your answer.

First, you must understand that there is no substitute for experience and that takes time. Be patient and take your kids through as many situations as possible, as often as possible.

Second, teach. Teach the game, not just plays or skills. Teach them concepts such as spacing and situations. Ask them to study their teammate’s abilities and tendencies. They should know that if Billy is a great shooter and he is coming off a screen, they should look to him first, Joey can't catch in a crowd so don't throw him the ball in the lane but Sam has great hands if you throw it to him high. Teach them that on ball reversal, the best scoring opportunities come away from the pass (a pass from the right wing to the top, your best scoring opportunity will come to the left), this way, not only do they beat the defense but they get to scan the entire floor. Teach them that they see the entire floor by looking at the rim. There are so many other things that can't be covered here but are simple and become instinctual is a very short period of time.

I think the third aspect is most the most important of all. If you have done any study in the psychology of learning, you will learn the "stress narrows the perceptual field." The more stress the player is under, the more narrow his field of vision becomes. You must remove stress from the learning process. Instead of pointing out error, give better alternatives. Include them in the process, "What would have been a better pass and why?" Let them correct their own mistakes, give them a few tries before you jump in. Interrupt them on the positive plays and point it out to everyone instead of stopping them on an error and jumping them.

More functionally, be sure that when you teach 1 player, teach them all. If you are teaching your point guard, your posts should be learning as well. They do play together.

Also, work on skills. A player does a better job of seeing the floor when he is not worried about his dribble. He is a better passer if he is not worried about catching.

These are only a few simple things that you might want to consider. Just remember that it will take time. Players are constantly changing and the game is a fluid entity. Give your players the tools to adapt and they will surprise you.

Good Luck. Feel free to contact me if I can help

Don Kelbick
Contributing Editor - Breakthrough Basketball
www.DonKelbickBasketball.com

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