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Message: [QUOTE="Hey Adrien!, post: 5193341, member: 5787"] I coach 7th/8th grade boys basketball at my school where we practice, at best, twice a week sharing a gym with the girls team. All of our games also fall on the days that we might have practice, same with the girls, so if the girls have a home game, then we don't have practice, and we obviously don't practice on game days. We have no try-outs and sports are mandatory at my small school (unless kids leave early to do a sport outside of the school)_, so my group of 16 students varies from one 7th grader who plays outside of school, to the other 15 who only play basketball at school with varying degrees of athleticism/knowledge of the game. Since our return from winter break, I've we've played five games (lost all five) and have had just three practices. Many of the teams we play have try-outs, practice 4-5x a week and are vastly more skilled, organized and nuanced then my team, naturally. My AD, who is an excellent soccer coach, thinks that a big reason my team is having trouble is because I don't have any set plays on offense, but instead I told him it makes more sense to focus on various offensive strategies like spacing, some motion aspects, ball-fake, cutting, screens, etc, because...we've had three practices since December 19th!! Honestly, my kids prefer to plays, and share that they'd rather learn more about the game and they think plays are just automated movements that bores them. That being said, I have a great group of kids, but I don't have the standalone talent to do much on offense (we average ~25 ppg as a team in 32 minute games). Eleven kids have scored, but no one averages more than 5 ppg. Long story short, do you side with the AD (run plays) or me (with such little practice, focus on offensive elements outside of plays)? [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach