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Thursday, November 28, 2024

Boost Basketball Productivity

"Give me something that I can use to win today." Practice is precious as our classroom and laboratory. Become more efficient. Consider these takeaways.

1) Better pregame warmups. 

Rollouts. Rollouts. Offense. Closeouts. Team play. Simulates game play. I think I got this on vacation in Turks from an Indiana high school coaching couple. 


3 x 3 shooting. Get the juices flowing, pass, run, catch and shoot.

 

2) Timeouts. Dean Smith worked to save three timeouts for the final four minutes. If it's good enough for him...

3) Sign of a team with problems. Never allow a layup off the opening tap. To me that signifies lack of preparation and mental focus.  

4) Reduce fouls as part of the Four Factors. Remind players "show your hands" (that also reminds officials) and "don't swat down" on blocks. While at Loyola Chicago, Porter Moser reduced his team's fouling dramatically. 

5) There's an exception to not fouling, meaning strategic fouling. With newer rules (five fouls per quarter to reach the bonus), teams may need to take aggressive fouls to get opponents to the foul line to stop time and get poor shooters to the line. 

6) Make every shooting drill with passing a passing drill. 


Game shots, on the move catch and shoot... elbow to sideline, elbow to elbow. Insist on crisp passes to the shooting pocket. 

7) Volume shooting. Track and make shooting drills competitive. Geno Auriemma did this. 


UCONN...Coach Auriemma had managers track shots made...in four minutes. The team made over 170 shots...

8) Win the final three minutes with elite BOBs, SLOBs, and ATOs. 

Have your favorite two or three of each on your play sheet so there's no possibility for "brain lock." 

9) Gotta have it. Have your best BOB, SLOB, action versus man defense and zone defense and three point shot on your play sheet. 

Here are some of my favorite BOBs. 

10)Practice 'situational' basketball every practice. We finished each practice with a segment of "three possession games" that started with a BOB, SLOB, ATO, or free throw. We called it "specials" and players loved it. 

Lagniappe. Constantly pick the brains of other coaches. 

Lagniappe 2. Talent is finite. Move beyond that. 

Lagniappe 3. Don't let our ego impede our growth. Coach Wooden said, "Happiness begins where selfishness ends." Coach Sonny Lane constantly preached sacrifice. That led to our high school team having all five starters average double figures in scoring. 

 

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