Make practice harder to make games easier.
Someone told me, "the coach runs some excellent drills." What does that mean? Excellence makes a difference by adding value, improvement, and confidence. Dr. Fergus Connolly reminds coaches that every practice should impact winning.
Coach Knight (I don't have the reference) said that great drills have offense, defense, decision-making, and competition.
For example, with young players, they might make 5/10 wide open elbow jumpers. Put a defender in front of them, passive, hands up and it might drop to 2 or 3 of 10. In games, they're not getting so many uncontested shots, so "shooters'" performance plummets. That's not choking, it's shooting against a defender.
As a youngster, I'd set up the six-foot step ladder and duct tape a tennis racquet to it to simulate a defender (a slow-footed one for sure). Shoot over your defender.
With individual workouts (e.g. post, box drills, wing series actions), defenders add realism, requiring concentration and effort.
During development, playing 1-on-1, 2-on-2, and 3-on-3 small sided games adds 'game conditions'. Add 'constraints' of time (e.g. number of dribbles allowed, time, or conditions - e.g. paint or perimeter scoring). As coaches, it's our world, our laboratory.
Lagniappe. Maintaining and getting extra possessions.
Things we don’t practice enough but should:
— Hoops Companion 🏀 Resources for Coaches (@Hoops_Companion) December 19, 2024
- picking up loose balls instead of dribbling
- saving to a teammate
- ball faking and passing
- pivoting
- going after 50/50 balls
Lagniappe 2. Leadership resources.
9 ways anyone can be a leader. pic.twitter.com/ukfLRfQ3zx
— Dave Kline (@dklineii) December 18, 2024
Lagniappe 3. Don Meyer votes for random practice...
“In practice, don’t just run basketball drills, teach the players how to play basketball." - Don Meyer pic.twitter.com/dt4JK9X57Y
— Hoop Herald (@TheHoopHerald) December 17, 2024
