3 practices, 3 games. It takes time. Faith and Patience flank the top of the Pyramid of Success. Basketball evolves on a four-legged stool of athleticism, size, skill, and game understanding. The latter only comes from experience. It's important to see both the here and now and the possibilities.
After practice and games, I ask four questions:
1) What went well?
2) What went poorly?
3) What can we do differently?
4) What are the enduring lessons?
The experience will help. The players can see where they need to be better. They also got to experience both some success and adversity. The effort was good.
"What is unacceptable in defeat is unacceptable in victory."
1) Our spacing needs to be much better. Poor spacing guarantees poor offense. "Spacing is offense and offense is spacing."
2) We need a combination of more explosiveness and more commitment to attack the basket.
3) Young players choose dribbling over passing. "Pass and cut." You get two dribbles off the catch to attack the basket.
4) Nobody can run their offense from the corner. It allows defensive help to have "numbers" to play 3 against 5 (see above). If we 'choose' not to run (transition) then we would need outstanding half court offense to score. 6th graders don't have that skill.
We need to work on "small-sided games" in practice within limited areas (analogous to soccer 'futsal'), which yields more touches and capacity to function in small spaces.
The girls have enough size and athleticism to develop the other 'legs' to become successful to the extent they work and study the game.
