OT: Coaching Help 2.0 | Page 2 | The Boneyard

OT: Coaching Help 2.0

Hey Adrien! said:
I will never teach zone!
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The 1-3-1 run as a 3/4 court or half court trap is a great defense for middle schoolers, and a lot of fun for the kids. It is particularly effective if your team is not great because you don't end up in ISO hell like most youth man-to-man defenses do. It has the added bonus of other coaches don't prepare for it.
 
dogpause said:
Exactly! When you make the players better, you make the team better. John Wooden worked on fundamentals every day, as do most other successful coaches at all levels. Bad coaches always get caught up in "calling plays". They think the game is about them, and that it makes them look smart.

To the OP, you're in a impossible situation. The lack of practice time severly limits what you can accomplish. I understand that court time is a supply and demand issue, but it's not good for the players, the program, or the coaches.
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Jay Wright and Hurley Sr. are guy I admired for the fundamentals they taught. I went to a coaching clinic they both presented at and I remember Wright explaining that he literally goes back to BASICS on rebounding every single off season.

That guy going to the league? He's doing the same drill you teach a 6th-grade girls team with until he gets it right.
 
Press and run. You need easy buckets in the open floor. I like a 1-2-1-1 with your best ballhawk on the third line to intercept the passes over the top and your best on-ball defender up front to harass the ballhandlers into the traps. Press break would be my other top focus since they'll be pressed until they prove they can break it (and score). Both are also fast-paced with everyone involved, so the kids stay tuned-in during practice.

Scoring against set D's, especially zones, is not easy at this level. Teach the basics on offense. Give-and-go and pick-and-roll/pop. You're probably lucky to have one kid that can set a decent screen. Off-ball screens can work, but the kid getting the screen almost never waits for the screen to arrive. Against zones, focus on getting your best scorer to find seams from the weak side while the rest of the kids just move the ball quickly and cut to space.
 
At your level it’s about fundamentals, realistically you’re making sure that your players have those dialed so the HS coaches don’t have to start at square one.

It’s like HS coaches better make sure their players have fundamentals, effort and an understanding of base concepts. I coached in college (different sport), but it drove me nuts when guys didn’t have basics nailed because it hurt everyone.

I know a lot of HS coaches across sports for my business and they are all involved in 6-8 grade teams in some way. Football they want their pop warner folks running their HS offense, basketball it’s get the fundamentals sorted and stress defense. You get it.
 
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husky429 said:
You obviously haven't watched a middle school basketball recently. Kids don't need to be told to shoot 3s. They jack them with abandon... and FAR too often.
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When I coached middle school ball 10+ years ago, I had a no 3s in games policy (unless absolutely necessary) that the kids and parents hated.. a few parents confronted me.. when one of those kids became a 1,000 point scorer and we won 18 games their junior year all of those were forgotten

Sadly the high school game is 3s and layups now; and you need to adjust to it or be ruined by it.
 
M.S.G. said:
When I coached middle school ball 10+ years ago, I had a no 3s in games policy (unless absolutely necessary) that the kids and parents hated.. a few parents confronted me.. when one of those kids became a 1,000 point scorer and we won 18 games their junior year all of those were forgotten

Sadly the high school game is 3s and layups now; and you need to adjust to it or be ruined by it.
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My dad didn't let me shoot 3s until 8th-grade no matter what my coaches said, and I made a D2 roster at 5'10 on a good day. Worked out for me!

I still find the high school game enjoyable because of the defense. It better not go the way of the league
 
ConnEd said:
Press and run. You need easy buckets in the open floor. I like a 1-2-1-1 with your best ballhawk on the third line to intercept the passes over the top and your best on-ball defender up front to harass the ballhandlers into the traps. Press break would be my other top focus since they'll be pressed until they prove they can break it (and score). Both are also fast-paced with everyone involved, so the kids stay tuned-in during practice.

Scoring against set D's, especially zones, is not easy at this level. Teach the basics on offense. Give-and-go and pick-and-roll/pop. You're probably lucky to have one kid that can set a decent screen. Off-ball screens can work, but the kid getting the screen almost never waits for the screen to arrive. Against zones, focus on getting your best scorer to find seams from the weak side while the rest of the kids just move the ball quickly and cut to space.
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You're teaching middle school girls to run and press?

What kind of monster are you?!
 
I coached briefly at that level before my daughters gave up basketball. The best course to wins at that level is to focus, in your limited practice time, on defense and rebounding. Get the kids to stay in front of their man, switch on picks, and box out. Those are things that can be learned relatively quickly in practice. Then have them do a lot of shooting games and ball handling - which can be worked on with a defender working the footwork and rebounding. Running plays would be futile without those skills.

Of course having more than 3 practices in 2 months would be beneficial.
 
I had a unique situation last winter, the varsity coach at the high school in district knew his numbers were down and didn’t trust the MS coaches, I was planted in there for a year to work specifically with the 7th and 8th graders, and it paid off - he was able to take FIVE of the now 8th graders for his HS JV team and they are basically the best 5 he has.

Still boggles my mind that HS teams can poach from the MS in district if their numbers were low.
 
You have to have practice to run plays. You should have plays, not just run Around unorganized, but practice is why you join a team.

When does team Learn about teamwork and work on fundamentals?
 
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I was on a HS CYO team. We only got the gym for an hour a week. Since it was during the “energy crisis”, the pastor decided we could only use the lights for half the court. And when the guy heard grousing, he decided to audit the collection envelopes for the entire roster. And when it was found out that nobody was handling in collection envelopes, he disbanded the team.
 
My two cents-Your lack of practice time changes everything. If you have good multi-sport athletes on your roster who have decent instincts-I would utilize a press as a weapon to generate offensive opportunities. Wreak some havoc like Shaka did at VCU. Your defense becomes the catalyst for your offense. Rebounding fundamentals would be another focus. Can't score without the ball. Spacing and cutting to the hoop-Simple concepts that are effective at this level.
 
Umami Zen said:
My two cents-Your lack of practice time changes everything. If you have good multi-sport athletes on your roster who have decent instincts-I would utilize a press as a weapon to generate offensive opportunities. Wreak some havoc like Shaka did at VCU. Your defense becomes the catalyst for your offense. Rebounding fundamentals would be another focus. Can't score without the ball. Spacing and cutting to the hoop-Simple concepts that are effective at this level.
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I forgot to add, our conference only allows press for the last two minutes of the fourth quarter, but we've tried a little bit of halfcourt trap too (with mixed results, and we'd need more practice to really get that right.

One thing we've really gotten better at is transitioning to offense after causing turnovers or grabbing defensive rebounds...unfortunately the transition offense is still a work in progress! The team can't make shots, but actually move very well without the ball during half-court possessions.
Chin Diesel said:
Long story short is you have an open roster and have little practice time. Oh yeah, it's also middle school. Are the kids safe? Are they learning about basketball? Do they support each other? Are they respectful to you, the officials, the opponent and the game? The more of those questions which get answered "yes", the better you are as a coach.
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The answers to all questions are "yes", which explains why I guess I'm a really good coach for this age/level of basketball and thank you for saying that.

Being at a small school with no tryouts, it's really about the luck of the draw of the kids you've got. Over the last nearly three seasons, my guess my overall record is something like 3-21, but I actually have an undefeated season under my belt -- we had a kid who ended up playing D3 basketball, another kid who ended up a starting G for an LL CT public school and then a bunch of other kids that profile the kids I typically get: athletic kids, most of which are not from the USA, but work hard and are good teammates. If I wanted to, I could have won every game by 25, lol. About 97% of the parents are super cool too...there's one dad this season who isn't thrilled with our "lack of development", but I'm at an age where I can respectfully shoo off that bad juju.

A lot of my practices have focuses of "non-negotiables" that I might notice in a game that has nothing to do with skill. For example, on Thursday, we were completely out-rebounded, so basically I'm going to split the roster into three groups (three hoops available for practice) and have one kid practice shooting jumpers for 2 minutes each while the remaining students fight for rebounds. Two points for every made basket, but then one point for every secured rebound, no matter which team gets it.
 
Waquoit said:
I was on a HS CYO team. We only got the gym for an hour a week. Since it was during the “energy crisis”, the pastor decided we could only use the lights for half the court. And when the guy heard grousing, he decided to audit the collection envelopes for the entire roster. And when it was found out that nobody was handling in collection envelopes, he disbanded the team.
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I am sure that you were shocked at the time, looking back, are you still shocked? I wager NOT!
 
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uconnfan68 said:
How’s that working?
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I never coached a team that practiced once every two weeks, nor did I coach 11-year-olds who don't actually play basketball. So I'm not quite sure.

"Stack and wing it" is better than 5/6 of the BOBs that Hurley drew up yesterday, though.
 
Wrapped up my first season coaching middle school last week. We finished 5-9 but I was really proud of their progress on both ends, but especially with man to man principles. I refused to go zone. Despite all the fun that I had and lessons learned in my first year at the helm…I may be one and done…

Our varsity coach told me he’d like me filming our opponents next year and doing film breakdown with the players. I find that to be laugh out loud ridiculous at this age.
 
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