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Sunday, October 16, 2022

Running Tryouts - Lessons Learned and Shared, with Triple Bonus Features

Getting out on the court always educates, both players and coaches. Here are a few thoughts. 

Fresh faces. It's terrific to see young children with enthusiasm and energy. Yet, for a group that struggled, the lack of differentiation between the 'better' and the less-skilled players was shocking. This is at odds with the reduced variance (e.g. standard deviation) that improvement in systems builds. For example, manufacturing variance of turbine blades or semiconductors constantly improves. Historically, the standard deviation of batting average declines. So, if the mean average were .260 and the standard deviation is .020, it takes SEVEN standard deviations to reach .400, one of the reasons you can't hit .400 anymore. 

COVID rebound. Some of the groups of young girls were severely affected by the school/sport time missed by COVID. Frankly, some will never reach their potential due to factors beyond their control.

The power of habit. Many players lack a 'credible' warmup routine. For the groups that had smaller turnouts, I ran tryouts more like practice with 'sound bytes' of instruction. Don't presume they know what we're thinking. 

Explain the why. Before the players took two laps to warm up their muscles, I reminded them that the UCONN women never cut corners at practice. Play with joy, to play better and have a memorable experience. 

Attention to detail. During some drills and scrimmaging, many issues emerge:

  • Players don't know what they don't know. 
  • Coaches value explosive athletes and high-skill players. Teach that. 
  • Having a shooting warmup is critical. The players weren't aware of 'form shooting' for example.  
  • Too many immediately catch and put the ball on the deck, limiting their options.
  • Mostly, the spacing was abominable. That takes time to fix. Prioritize "win in space."
  • Teach players the value of reading defenders to help create separation. 
  • Screen greedily, opportunistically. This creates separation and "the screener is the second cutter." 
  • Emphasize the best players make others better. 
  • Prioritize the value of being with friends and teammates, being a great teammate, encouraging others, and learning the game. 
  • On ball screens, many players don't know to come off 'shoulder to shoulder' or 'hip to hip'. 
  • Most young players have limited or no knowledge of the players who have gone before them. None knew that Sheylani Peddy had gone on from Melrose to play in the WNBA. None had heard of Coach Gregg Popovich or his 'pound the rock' and 'don't skip steps' philosophy. 
  • Don't expect players to learn program history unless we share it. 
  • Remind ourselves that being on our feet for over five hours might be easy at one point, but isn't as a senior citizen. 
Whether the players learned anything I won't know. I learned a lot. 

Lagniappe (something extra). Prioritize great habits. 

Lagniappe 2. "Comfortable gets you beat." 

Lagniappe 3. Better than layup lines. Pass/ballscreen lines


This is the middle school "introductory level" (no defense, no decision-making) add defense and decisions later 

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