Thoughts on starting your practices like this? I've had coaches ask about improving their team's ability to get out to better starts to games. What about this? pic.twitter.com/7vsj2jwtwy
— Coach Tony Miller (@tonywmiller) June 28, 2024
Economics is the study of the allocation of limited resources. Practice is the ultimate limited resource. Get more from practice.
1) Cross the red line. It starts with attitude. Urban Meyer demanded that players be fired up and ready to go when they crossed the line onto the field. Players should be stretched out and mentally ready to go when practice starts.
2) Run practice at a high tempo. Create 'efficiency expectations'. That gets back to Brian McCormick's no lines, laps, or lectures.
3) Reduce transition time. "Basketball is a sprinting game." Sprint from activity to activity.
4) Condition within drills. Here are some of my favorite drills (not all are conditioning). In the "Lagniappe" in this link I share a drill we call "Racehorse," although we use only two passers per side and run it harder (in my opinion)
5) Have your unique language. If I say Kentucky Layups or 3 by 3 by 3, the girls know what is expected.
I believe in conditioning with a ball in your hand. The 3 by 3 by 3 shooting drill, tracking makes over five minutes does that.
6) Make everything serve development and winning. If it isn't making players better or the team more competitive "bin it." Don't continue with drills or activities "because that's how we've always done it."
7) Allocate more practice time to what matters. Shooting and game play (scrimmage) deserve more time in my opinion. I include the O-D-O (offense-defense-offense) three possession games in that framework. We practiced special situations at the end of every practice and dominated them in games. An official approached me after a game saying, "three time outs with three ATO hoops for eighth graders is special."
8) Share relentlessly and be curious. Coaching is a giving profession. Share your best ideas with other coaches and ask them for their best ideas. I was on vacation years ago in Turks and had a great convo with high school coach from Indiana.
Lagniappe. Here's good stuff from Chris Oliver:
One of the shooting games our players play during player led development time scheduled into the end of our workouts is called "Moneyball." pic.twitter.com/gaZntofHAg
— Chris Oliver (@BBallImmersion) July 2, 2024
Lagniappe 2. Great advice from Steph Curry.
"You just want to be the hardest working guy no matter what you do in life.
— The Winning Difference (@thewinningdiff1) July 1, 2024
We are all talented in some way, and have a passion. Once you find out what that is exhaust all efforts to better yourself every day.” -Steph Curry pic.twitter.com/xw1TpnQqvL
Lagniappe 3. Say thank you. I appreciate all the feedback and advice from other coaches and other sources. I got a call recently from a patient with advanced cancer who thanked me for all the care and caring over decades. He explained he was calling to say, "goodbye" as he knew his time was short...
