"A good leader is always looking for opinions and feedback from the organization." - Indra Nooyi, former CEO, PepsiCo
Great achievements in society occur through collaboration. Have you met a young coach who refused to take any inputs from others? How did that go? If it's all about us then we own success but also 100% of the failure.
Whether it's attending a practice, a clinic, reading a book, an article, or a blog, look for approaches to bring into our tent. Brad Stevens attended a Patriots practice and marveled at the tempo of Belichick's practice. The first two principles of Peter Drucker's The Effective Executive are time management and efficiency.
Attending a UCONN Women's practice run by Geno Auriemma, I noticed several major themes:
1) Extremely high tempo
2) Competitiveness throughout drills, whether basic shooting drills, free throws, competing against men or each other
3) Volume/time ratio was high
In four minutes, the UCONN top six (including Breanna Stewart) made 175 shots. 175! Making shots makes rebounding them and passing to the passing line far more efficient.
What "best practices" have you adopted from experience?
1. Press breaking (from my high school -HS- experience) - FIVE versus SEVEN full court, no dribbling allowed. CUT and PASS or fail.
2. Pressure free throws (also from HS) four sets of ten with a partner at six baskets. Partner can harass but not obstruct the shooter. Daily winner faced Coach for the right to cancel sprints.
3. O-D-O (offense-defense-offense) is a 'three-possession-game' beginning with either BOB, SLOB, ATO (after timeout), or FREE THROW. It uses offense, defense, trains special situations, conversion, and high intensity competition. We invested fifteen minutes each practice and mostly dominated special situations.
4. Condition within drills. This was a big principle of Pete Carril. We had numerous high intensity, short duration (4-6 minutes) drills.
Pass to arriving sprinter then run to opposite end to catch-and-shoot.
5. Warmup sequences. Steal Jay Wright's "Get 50" for high volume repetitions early in practice. Don't "rediscover the wheel" but steal it.
Got big that can shoot?
— Matt Hackenberg (@CoachHackGO) December 14, 2022
Try this stupid BLOB to flare him to the corner. It’s natural for the defender to sag to the basket instead of chasing away
A *full* BLOB package is in the link describing how the plays fit together: https://t.co/yQCAGoxvfF pic.twitter.com/w8tBLW9Ubw
Lagniappe 2. Truths.
5 Hard Truths for Athletes:
— The Coaches' Journal (@TheCoachJournal) December 15, 2022
1. No one owes you anything.
2. Nothing worth having comes easy.
3. Hard work is the price of admission.
4. Hard times create strong people.
5. Improvement has no offseason.
