OT: Coaching Help 2.0

[Gutter King]

Here are my suggestions based on your limited practice schedule. You don’t need set plays but you do need to teach your players how to set a legal screen. You don’t need plays but you should drill two out of bounds under your own basket plays. Set one or two solid screens and you can get some easy baskets from those plays. There’s always a couple of kids who won’t shoot. Make sure everyone shoots in practice. Nothing kills a possession like when the ball is in a kids hands and he’s only looking to pass. Also, I would promote shooting threes. Kids are usually not closely guarded at the three and missed threes result in some random bounces that may allow for additional possessions. If you’re practicing once a week I think it’s easiest teaching zone defenses. I taught my daughter’s 5th grade team a 1-3-1 with a trap in the corners that they learned fairly quickly. Good luck. You’re behind the eight ball with your lack of practice time.

I agree with promoting shooting threes, and I hear A LOT of random people against this...but in reality, they need to build strength so that when they attempt other shots there's less moving parts. This is very important for developing a clean shot early IMO.

You'll have to teach them form simultaneously with building strength, you can't have one without the other. Boys it's less difficult because they have more strength, but I open the shooting stage of practice with three three pointers each, the first of which the highest they can get it. You want to break them from doing the two handed shove, and build their muscle memory with how the trajectory should be. This also allows them to calibrate a little easier.

Otherwise, QDOGs post is probably the best advice in the thread. Just simple effective stuff. Something else to do is if you do have a player willing to drive and shoot, don't forget to instruct another agressive player to crash the weakside glass. 7th/8th grade is mostly about garbage scoring, this is a very simple way to score two or three more baskets a game.

 

[cp176]

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.

In our youth program certainly grades 2-6, we used the 3 point line to floor space and to work on entry passes to the post.

 

[Waquoit]

When I was a kid, the good teams all ran some plays.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

This right here. I coached this age level for years with limited practice time. Literally worked on picks, spacing, zone defenses that are not the norm 1-3-1 and 3-2 and junk box and one.

I will never teach zone!

 

[dogpause]

Your athletic director is an idiot. Set plays don't win at the middle school level. Fundamentals do. Honestly, they aren't going to win much at ANY level if you've had 3 practices and 5 games in two months without a freakish athlete or 2 on your team. That means they're only touching a basketball, what, once a week on average? That's absurd. You will simply never win with that kind of schedule unless

Tell him you need practice or games 5 days a week if he wants the program to improve. My one year of middle school we had practice or games 6 days a week. Practices were 2 hours in a full gym. That's how competitive basketball teams work. If he wants to have a rec team, continue to have the kids play or practice 1x per week. He's being moronic. Research shows you need 3-4 practices per game if you want to maximize improvement.

Please feel free to copy and paste this response in an email to him DM me for my extension at work if he wants an AD to AD chat.

It's nice to have a couplefew plays at that level so kids can start to learn how to run plays for high school. But the CONCEPTS are so much more important.

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.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I will never teach zone!

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.

 

[Chin Diesel]

When I was a kid, the good teams all ran some plays.

The dilemma is 3 practices in 7 weeks.

 

[alphasigko]

Ditto… but you should have out-of-bounds plays. ;^)

So should our Huskies!

 

[husky429]

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.

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.