During Tuesday evening’s HoopClinics webinar with Coach Bob Hurley, he gave us a lot of great information.  One of the things he said that resonated with me was the idea of validating drills.  He said that he picked it up from Coach Vance Walberg of Dribble Drive Motion fame.

Consider telling your team at the beginning of some of the competitive drills that you run that at the end they will need to “validate” it.  For example, if you split your team into two groups and do a competitive shooting drill, the team that wins the drill must then make a free throw (coach chooses the player to shoot so that all players have a chance to shoot the free throw eventually) to validate their win.

If the player makes the free throw, the team that lost the drill must run.  If the player misses the free throw, then the team that won the drill must run.

It is a good way to shoot some pressure free throws and to teach that for most of the games you win, you have to close them by making free throws.

We have posted the audio recording of the webinar for those of you who couldn’t make it or would like to hear it again.

Bob Hurley Webinar

Here are links to the updates to the Coaching Toolbox from March 16-March 20, 2009

March 20 Tom Izzo Quick Strike A video of a Full Court Transition Play

March 19 Billy Gillispie: Practice Like a National Champion Article from the Team Scout website

March 18 8 Leadership Lessons from Mom Article from the Janssen Center for Sports Leadership

March 17 Underneath the Basket Out of Bounds Play Diagram from Coach Creighton Burns’ Newsletter

March 16 The Basketball Coach’s 3 Most Costly Mistakes Article written by Coach Randy Brown

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of resources for basketball coaching including basketball practice, basketball plays, basketball drills, basketball quotes, basketball workouts, basketball poems, and more!

Growing up and playing high school basketball in the state of Indiana, then becoming a high school basketball coach, I know how all of the young players grow up dreaming of being Miss or Mr. Basketball.  Only one player of each gender is awarded that title each year that goes along with recognition by the state coaches and media that he or she is the best player in our state.  No one ever achieves that honor without years and years of hard work leading up to that senior season.  It takes several hours of working to perfect your basketball skills through repetitions of basketball drills.

April McDivitt Foster lived that dream during the 1998-99 season as she was selected “Miss Basketball”  .She then headed to Knoxville to play for the Lady Vols before finishing her playing career in the WNBA.  All of the lessons she learned and hours and hours of practice, both practicing basketball skills individually, and practicing basketball drills with her teams, have made her a great resource for ideas to improve the individual aspects of any player’s game, of any gender, and any level of competition.

HoopClinics has scheduled an interactive webinar with her for Monday January 26 at 9:00 EST.  For more information on the event, check out this link:

Basketball Skills and Basketball Drills

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of resources for basketball coaching including basketball practice, basketball plays, basketball drills, basketball quotes, basketball workouts, basketball poems, and more!

Coach Ed Schilling is one of the best teachers of individual skills in the game of basketball. That is why he has NBA and Division I players come to him to have him help them to improve their individual skills and individual scoring moves. But, Coach Schilling also has extensive experience working with players all the way down to grade school through 25 years of working at basketball camps and as the Executive Director of Champions Academy in Indianapolis, Indiana.

That is what makes his new DVD, “Mandatory Moves” one of the top training DVDs on the market for coaches and players of all age and ability levels.

If you are watching the DVD as a player, it is just like you are in the gym with Coach Schilling. If you are a coach, you will pick up several teaching points and some terminology that can help you to teach your players to make plays in a much more effective way:

To see a small segment of the DVD, click here: Ed Schilling Short Corner Moves

For more information about the DVD, click here: Ed Schilling Mandatory Moves

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching including basketball plays, basketball drills, basketball quotes, basketball workouts, basketball poems, and more!

I recently watched on of the best individual basketball skills training DVDs that I have ever seen. The DVD is entitled “Mandatory Moves” and it features Coach Ed Schilling working with three younger high school players on individual scoring moves from four separate areas on the floor. The DVD has a lot of great information that players (regardless of their age or level of competition) can use to improve their games immediately.

For coaches, Coach Schilling breaks down the “Mandatory Moves,” how to teach them, when to apply them, and it shows Coach Schilling re-teaching and emphasizing the specific teaching points that allow these players to show some improvement during the drills.

I believe that better players and not just better plays is what leads to offensive success in basketball. If you are in agreement with that, then you should take a look at Coach Schilling’s DVD “Mandatory Moves.”

Here is a link to a segment from the Video:  Ed Schilling Mandatory Moves

Here is a link to more information about the DVD:  Ed Schilling Mandatory Moves

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of resources for basketball coaching including basketball practice, basketball plays, basketball drills, basketball quotes, basketball workouts, basketball poems, and more!

I first saw Ed Schilling play when I competed against him in a high school varsity basketball game.  Even though he did not score much, he controlled the game as the point guard for the Lebanon (Indiana) Tigers.  He got all of his teammates the ball where they were most effective with it, hit the big shots, and made his free throws down the stretch as we were fouling in an attempt to catch up.

That was 25 years ago and since then he had a great career as a player at Miami (Ohio), became a head high school coach at age 23, became an assistant at: UMass, the New Jersey Nets, Memphis, and the head coach at Wright State.  Now, he focuses on developing individual skills for players of all levels at his Champions Academy Training Facility in Indianapolis.  He works with all ages and ability levels, including recent NBA first round draft choices Greg Oden, Mike Conley, George Hill, Courtney Lee, and Eric Gordon.

So, with all of that experience and ability to teach players how to play basketball, he has put together what I feel is one of the best DVDs that I have in my coaching library–Mandatory Moves.   In the DVD, Coach Schilling goes shows how he teaches individual moves from various spots on the floor.  The DVD is more than just demonstration.   He is working with three young high school players and you can see not only what he teaches, but also how he teaches it, and how the players benefit and improve immediately from the teaching points he emphasizes.

This DVD is something that players and coaches from every level will be able to apply immediately to their games to improve themselves, or to develop the individual skills their players need to make plays that will improve whatever offense you run.

Here is a link to more information about the Mandatory Moves DVD:

Ed Schilling Mandatory Moves

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching including basketball plays, basketball drills, basketball quotes, basketball workouts, basketball poems, and more!

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching and for basketball players.

Our HoopClinics sneak peek today is an interview with stretching coach Robert Selby. Coach Selby has lectured to basketball players and coaches at every level, including the NBA, about the benefits of pre-practice, post practice, and off-season stretching. The interview is approximately 15 minutes long and can be listened to as an audio file, or it can be downloaded as a short e-book.

One of the points that Coach Selby made during the interview was his belief that the end of one practice is actually the beginning of the next practice. When you do spend the time to warm down by doing a post-practice stretch, the players are ridding their bodies of lactic acid and that will allow them to recover quicker and be more ready to go tomorrow. Make sure to take a listen because he has several other thoughts for coaches in the interview.

You can get the downloads, along with a download of the 2-2-1 full court denial press here:

HoopClinics.com

HoopCinics is a new site that offers online basketball coaching clinics.

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching and for basketball players.

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching and for basketball players.

I have not written much on the blog during the month of July because Coach Josh Stinson from www.perfectpractice.net have been working on a partnership that we are calling Hoopclinics. The first product of our partnership will roll out this Friday, August 1. We will be announcing how and where you can see it on that date.

On a personal note, I would also like to take the chance to congratulate Jon Everingham, who I had the pleasure to coach as his assistant high school coach, on becoming the new head boys’ coach at Dekalb High School. Dekalb is a large classification school in northeastern Indiana whose most famous basketball alumnus is Luke Recker who was the 1997 Indiana Mr. Basketball and then played at Indiana and Iowa collegiately. Good luck Coach!

As all of you who are coaches know, there are very few relationships and friendships that mean as much as the bond that forms between players and coaches. To me, that is the best thing about coaching and what makes the difficult times worth it. The memories of the good times together are priceless and then being able to stay connected today is so much easier with web 2.0 and the various social medias, instant messaging etc… i never thought that I would have a facebook page, but I have really enjoyed being able to stay in touch with a lot of players that I coached.

Don’t forget to keep an eye out for the HoopClinics info on Friday!

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching and for basketball players.

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching and for basketball players.

I just wanted to take a few paragraphs to recap some of the highlights of the month of June and look forward to where we are headed in the coming months.

June was a very good month at the Coaching Toolbox. It was our fourth month online and each one seems to be getting better than the month before. We know that typically, basketball coaching sites do not get as much traffic in the summer as they do during the rest of the year, so we want to thank all of you who have been visiting and supporting our site. Our e-mail list continues to grow and we are excited about the opportunity to interact with more coaches and players. Please e-mail us or leave any comments that you want to here on the blog as to how we can make the site better for you.

We began the month with the release of our first e-book 130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice. It has our best ideas on how to make basketball practice better.

With a lot of help from my wife, we added a Facebook Page and have already attracted some fans on the page. If you have an account, you can click on Facebook Page. To me, the most enjoyable part of doing the site is the interactions that I have had with coaches and players from all over the world. I even e-mailed back and forth with a coach that I found out was my cousin’s college roommate! I have also appreciated the contributions that you have made. Myles Robinson has contributed some ideas for basketball players, one of our basketball quotes, and a basketball workout. You all have been a fun group to get to know!

We felt that our only teleseminar for June was a great one and we were very appreciative that Coach Bruce Weber of the University of Illinois took time to talk to us about making basketball practice more competitive.

One of the last things that took place in June is going to have a very positive impact in the coming months. Our relationship with Coach Josh Stinson of Perfect Practice is going to be a very good one for everyone and we hope most of all it will be good for the basketball coaching community. We will be posting more information about our current project in the coming weeks.

Well, I guess that is enough reminiscing about June, I better get to work if we are going to make July even better than June!

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching and for basketball players.

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching and for basketball players.

Teleseminar interview #5 at the Coaching Toolbox is now live and you can access it here. Our guest is sports psychologist Dr. Brian Goonan and his topic is “Fierce vs. Furious.” In the interview Dr. Goonan explains that a “fierce” mindset is an asset to an athlete involved in competition, but that the athlete needs to have mental breaks to maintain that mindset during the active segments of the competition. The extreme mindset he describes as “furious” is counterproductive in that it keeps the athlete at a peak of competitive mental arousal which is impossible to maintain throughout an entire competition.

The interview is a 15 minute segment of Dr. Gs ideas on the subject. He will be back to discuss the subject further later in the summer. He has a lot of information that basketball coaches and basketball players will find useful.

The Coaching Toolbox has hundreds of free resources for basketball coaching and for basketball players.