Coaching Youth Basketball - Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28 - UUUUGGGGGHHHH !!!!!!!!!

This is the chapter I have avoided writing for the longggggggggest time. I know that not all of you are in agreement with my Coach =Teacher and winning comes in second place. Sports are competitive and competition means there is a winner and a loser. When you lose a game and look at those sad little faces, you'll want to win the next one, just for the kids. I do understand all of this. I may be ignorant, but I'm not totally stupid. The one thing you need to know is that 1 hour after a loss, these kids aren't worrying about who won or lost. The only people who worry about a game an hour later are the coaches and parents. An hour after a game the kids are wondering what can they do next to keep from being bored.

So why do I dread this chapter, because I am going to give you a few tips on how to win a game at this age level. With one sweep of the pen, I am negating all of the good things I have tried to teach you. I am going to talk about winning. I am going to start off with good thing to learn, and end up with the not-so-good things.

TURNOVERS

A turnover is where your team has the ball, and you lose it to the other team. A turnover can come in the form of a stolen pass, a pass that you throw out of bounds, it can be where they steal the ball away from your dribbler, it can be where you have a player stand in the paint for over three seconds, etc., etc, etc.

If you can reduce the number of turnovers, you greatly increase your chance of winning. Here's several great ways to accomplish this:

Bounce pass whenever possible. It's harder to steal a bounce pass.
When receiving a pass, step toward the passer when you go to catch it.
Teach your kids never to dribble the ball higher than their waist.
Only yell "ball" when you are really open.
free throws

It doesn't matter if it's 4th grade , or high school, or college, or even NBA teams who are playing, most games are won or lost on the free throw line. You will find that you will get 8-20 free throws a game. If you make 50% of them at the younger ages, you will rarely lose a game.

My team just played in a tournament in Illinois. I have an 8th grade team, and the team we were playing was a 7th grade team. This 7th grade team had never lost a game, not ever. At the end of the game, the score was 40 - 38 and we won. Here's the interesting point. The other team only scored 2 baskets against my girls tough m-2-m defense. But they made 34 free throws, we only made 6. They almost won, even though they only scored 2 real baskets the whole game. And yes, at the end of the game, 5 of my players had fouled out.

The lesson to be learned is that you now need to incorporate shooting free throws into your LS's.

STEALER - CHASER DEFENSE

I hate to give you this one. If you are coaching a 3-5th grade team, think twice before you use this defense. Two of your players are going to work real hard, and the other 3 can become lazy. Lazy is not a good thing!

Place a forward on the block on each side of the basket. Next, place a forward halfway between the basket and the free throw line. These three forwards play a, ugh, zone. Their job is to make sure that no one gets a good shot off when inside their designated area. The other part of their job is to make sure they are in position to get every rebound. This will clog up your middle and in order to score, the team is going to have to shoot from outside. At this age, very few teams have good outside shooters.

This still leaves you two other players. Let's make one of them the Chaser. Take your fastest and best defensive player and place them about 6' from the half court line. This is your Chaser. Their job is to play m-2-m defense against the person with the ball.

Let's call your remaining guard the Stealer. This needs to be your second best defensive player. They are stationed around the top of the key. As the Chaser chases the person with the ball, the Stealer is watching to see who the dribbler is going to pass to. As soon as the dribbler stops dribbling and starts to pass, the Stealer moves to intercept the pass. If they don't steal the pass, then they usually end up closer to the person who now has the ball. When this occurs, they yell out, "Chaser!" And the person who was the Chaser, now yells out, "Stealer!" What they are doing is communicating to each other their new positions. The Stealer becomes the Chaser, and the Chaser becomes the Stealer. They have to communicate or this defense will not work.

Some people call this a 1-1-3 defense, I just call it chaser - stealer. It's a great learning experience for the chaser and stealer, but your 3 forwards learn very little. This is why I don't like this defense for younger players. Once players know how to play great m-2-m defense, then this is a viable defense. Until then, it does nothing to help your forwards get better. It will win games for you, but at what price?

FAST BREAKS OR THE BLITZ

A fast break is where your team gets the ball and has to travel the length of the court to shoot. I love fast breaks. Many a team makes a living off of fast breaks, including my team. The idea is to get the ball down the court quickly before the other team can set up it's defense. Done properly, you will get a lot of lay-ups from this.

The problem is that at the younger ages, a team that can fast break on a regular basis will cream most of the other teams. But this is a good thing, you say. Yes, and no. Yes, you score a lot of points. No? The no is that you learn no other offensive skills. Once you come up against a team that can handle your fast break, then they own you. You learn all about fast breaks, but the rest of your half court offensive game goes down the toilet.

Here's a simple drill for fast breaks. Have 5 players circle the basket. You shoot from the free throw line. Tell the kids you plan on missing because it's part of the drill. Why tell them this? So you don't look like an idiot when you miss a free throw. Here's the progression from there:

Whoever rebounds yells "Blitz"
1 forward runs towards the out of bounds line on the side. Once there, they run down the sideline toward the opposite basket yelling, "Lane, lane, lane!!"
When this player reaches halfway between the half court line and the far free throw line, they run directly toward the basket. The whole time they are looking for a pass.
Another player does the exact same thing as this last player, but they do it on the opposite side of the court. So now you have the player who rebounded holding the ball, and you have a player running down each sideline toward the far basket.
This leaves you 2 free players. Both of these players run toward the half court line, one about 6' to the right of center court, one about 6' to the left. Both yell "outlet, outlet, outlet!"

The rebounder passes to one of the open outlet players.The outlet player passes to a lane player who is breaking to the basket, and makes a lay-up. Notice that in this drill, I never used the word dribble. The ball should never hit the floor unless there's a bounce pass. The key to this is communication. That's why you teach them to yell outlet and lane, so they know who has what position. The other important thing is that the lane players have to get down the court as fast as they can, or this doesn't work. Here's a neat little twist that I wouldn't teach them till 5th grade. If the rebounder can throw a baseball pass with an arch, meaning no line drives, then the rebounder skips throwing to the outlet player, and baseballs it to the lane player. This will catch the defense off guard for a while at least.
SPEED WINS

This little tip works at all ages, but works especially well at the younger ages. Here's a typical 3rd-5th games scenario. The other team shoots, misses, and you get the rebound. The other team will normally turn and jog back down the court to play defense. If your team brings the ball down the court as fast as they can, every time they get the ball, they will have the opportunity to shoot many a lay-up. lay-ups are good things.Another aspect of this, is that you will wear the other team down. When you see a player bent over, leaning on their knees, they are tired. When you see a player tugging at their shorts, they are tired. Anytime you see an opposing player show the "tired symptoms," get your team to go even faster. Speed will win you a lot of games.

THE BEST KEPT SECRET ON HOW TO WIN

COACH = TEACHER Teach them enough, and they will win.

COACH = TEACHER AND ROLE MODEL

Coaching always boils down to priorities. You should be far enough along that when you re-read the opening chapter about priorities, you ought to have a clue about what you want to accomplish. I want my kids to be winners in life. I want to be a positive influence in their lives. I can teach my kids how to win games, that's too easy. All I have to do is teach them a couple of the basics, a lot of tricks, and enter them into very weak leagues and let them play against teams that suck. They will win every game. The Parents From Hell will be happy, and the players will have a false sense of "Oh yeah, I'm good." But what will you have accomplished? Absolutely nothing! The kids don't learn a thing and by 6th grade they will start losing more than they'll win.

I want my kids to look back 30 years from now, as this experience being one of the best memories they have. I want them to remember how much fun they had. I want them to become better individuals because they learned that they can work hard, learn the meaning of teamwork, and good sportsmanship, and still have fun doing it. This is a chapter about how to win, right? I would rather see them win in the game of life and lose a basketball game, than win the basketball game but teach them the wrong things about life. What are your kids going to remember 30 years from now? They won't remember a single game at this age. What they will remember is how you treated them, and was it fun. What is it that your players are going to remember about you?