Basketball Practice

Coaching Basketball: Helping Players to Value Practice

By Coach Brian Williams on October 14, 2015

This post contains quotes from two Texas A&M Women’s Assistant Bob Starkey on practice. His Hoop Thoughts Blog should be on your regular for basketball coaches.

Some maxims to use throughout the coming season to help players see the value in well planned and purposefully
conducted basketball practices. I have also added a few of my favorites at the end of the post.

I hope you find some useful ideas to inspire your players and coaching staff to make the most of your practice time.

from Coach Bob Starkey

Because it’s that time of the year, here are some great quotes on the value of practice:

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.” -Mahatma Gandhi

“When you are not practicing, remember, someone somewhere is practicing, and when you meet him he will win” – Ed Macauley

“It’s not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts: it’s what you put into the practice.” -Eric Lindros

“Practice is the best of all instructors.” -Publilius Syrus

“We learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same.” -Martha Graham

“Winning means you’re willing to go longer, work harder, and give more than anyone else.”-Vince Lombardi

“Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong.” -Unknown

“Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.” -Mary Tyler Moore

“We have all the light we need, we just need to put it in practice.” -Albert Pike

“I play to win, whether during practice or a real game. And I will not let anything get in the way of me and my competitive enthusiasm to win.” -Michael Jordan

“Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.” -Beethoven

“I’ve always considered myself to be just average talent and what I have is a ridiculous insane obsessiveness for practice and preparation.” -Will Smith

“My father taught me that the only way you can make good at anything is to practice, and then practice some more.” -Pete Rose

“Practice is everything. This is often misquoted as practice makes perfect.” -Periander

“Everything is practice.” -Pele

“I’m a strong believer that you practice like you play, little things make big things happen.” -Tony Dorsett

“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.” -Anton Chekhov

“I am playing the violin, that’s all I know, nothing else, no education, no nothing. You just practice every day.” -Itzhak Perlman

“Before we can talk about a championship, we have to practice like a championship team.” -Mike Singletary

“Practice puts brains in your muscles.” -Sam Snead

And a few of my favorites…

EVERY TIME WE TAKE THE FLOOR, WE PRACTICE AND PLAY WITH THE TECHNIQUE, INTENSITY, TOUGHNESS, AND TOGETHERNESS OF A STATE (OR NATIONAL) CHAMPION.

“The quality of practice greatly influences the outcome of games, and of great significance is that practice is something that your team can control.”

“I just love the game of basketball so much. The game! I don’t need the 18,000 people screaming and all the peripheral things. To me, the most enjoyable part is the practice and preparation.” Bob Knight

“Practice without improvement is meaningless.” Chuck Knox

“In practice, don’t just run basketball drills, teach the players how to play basketball.” Don Meyer

“Practice does not make the athlete. It is the quality and intensity of practice that makes the athlete, not just repeated practicing.” Ray Meyer

“To give yourself the best possible chance of playing to your potential, you must prepare for every eventuality. That means practice.” Unknown

“Habits are cobwebs at first; cables at last.”

“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.” Yogi Berra

Daily improvement is directly proportional to your attention to detail in practice.

No coach ever won a game by what s/he knows; it’s what their players can execute.

The greatest mistake is to continue practicing a mistake.

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself has changed but our ability to do it has increased.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

You are making progress if each mistake is a new one.

“I will get ready and then perhaps my chance will come.” Abraham Lincoln

The only thing that really counts is “are we getting better each day?”

“Good players can take coaching. Great players can take coaching and learn.” John Wooden

Before you can be great, first you must be good. Before you can be good, you must be bad. Before you can be bad, first you must try.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

When you see a successful individual, a champion, you can be very sure that you are looking at an individual who pays great attention to the perfection of minor details.

Click here for information on the basketball practice e-book “130 Great Ideas to Get a Lot More Accomplished in Practice”

“The Talent Code” is another outstanding resource on improving through practice. You can click the cover of the book to read a portion of the contents.

Coaching Basketball: Win the Game with CPR

By Coach Brian Williams on August 21, 2015

Submitted by by Coach John Kimble
CoachJohnKimble.com

Formerly of Crestview (FL) High School

See him on Twitter @CoachJohnKimble

This article was originally written for Winning Hoops

CPR: Complete Practice with Repetitions

How many basketball games have you observed where the outcome of a close game is determined by just a matter of a couple plays? In your observation, it may have appeared that both basketball teams have similar talent-levels and that the critical reason for one team having a better chance to win might be just a matter of one or two key possessions of the basketball.

Does one of these teams have a decided edge in preparation of unique scenarios that can easily happen during the game? It is even possible that one of the teams could possibly even have been out-prepared, out-hustled, and simply out-played by the other team, but because of just one or two plays, that is the team that can come out the victor of the game. But unless this team is prepared and can achieve an edge in these situations that can easily take place in a game, all of the hard work and effort put forth by both players and coaches (both during the actual game and in practices) will have gone for naught.

If various offensive and defensive scenarios have not been carefully thought out, analyzed and then practiced many different times, a basketball team must to win this type of close game by relying solely by executing a play they have just had diagrammed to them for the first time in a frenzied timeout. If winning a game is so important, are you as a coach going to go with an offensive play that you draw up during the excitement of a last second timeout—a play that you and your players are not necessarily familiar or are you going to run a play that has been carefully thought out, discussed, taught, and practiced repeatedly during the season?

I have often thought that if a coaching staff and a basketball team that has spent hours and hours on the fundamentals and skills of the game and also countless hours on plays, offenses, and defenses; shouldn’t “one-play scenarios” that may be the actual deciding factor in determining the winner/loser of the game be practiced for a few minutes frequently? Instead of a coach drawing up a play that his team has never seen or practiced, why not have the plays already drawn up, seen and understood by his team and also specifically practiced.

This would give that team an opportunity to be as prepared for these last second situations as they are for everything else that takes place in the games’ first 31 minutes.

From all of my coaching experiences throughout the years; I have tried to devise a philosophy and specific plan to meet these various types of ultimate game-deciding situations.

There are many different ways to “skin the cat.” And there doesn’t have to be a “right or a wrong” method, as long as the method has been thought out, agreed upon (by the coaching staff), and then taught and sold to the players. Instead of giving a coaching staff specific answers to all the many scenarios that exist, I would like to challenge each reader to be prepared for those situations by simply asking them if they have a sound idea and philosophy to the many different offensive and defensive situations that could easily come up in games.

Before late-game decisions that could determine the outcome of the game are made, there are other ideas and philosophies that must to be developed. Does a defensive team use a particular type of defense when defending “baseline out-of-bounds plays?” Does an offensive team have “baseline out-of-bounds plays” that will be successful against man-to-man defenses and/or against zone defenses? Does a defensive team change its defense late in the first half or at the end of the first, second, or third quarters when the opposition is holding the ball for the last shot in the period?

When your team is going for the last shot of the time period, do you have a predetermined defense that your team should use (even if it is a defensive change) when the opposition gains possession of the ball (after your score or turnover in the last few seconds of the time period)? For example, do you have your team change to a token full court pressure defense (to burn time off of the clock) and a man-to-man defense (to prevent an uncontested three-point shot at the buzzer)?

Does the coaching staff have a philosophy on whether they want players early in the game to call a timeout to protect the possession of the ball as they are about to fall out of bounds or about to get tied up after a loose ball on the floor? Or does the coaching staff want to save those timeouts for late game situations? If the coaching staff does not have a set philosophy and has not taught their players, those decisions will then be left up to the players.

One of the most important decisions a coaching staff should decide on and then convey to all players is what they should do in the last seconds of a game after the opposition scores to tie the game or put the opposition into the lead. The amount of the lead should also affect the coaching staff’s philosophy. Do players have a grasp on how many seconds it actually takes to dribble full court for a driving lay-up for either themselves or the opposition. Does each player know who realistically are the three-point shooters that should take that last second shot? Has the team practiced those “buzzer beater” shots?

Does the coaching staff have a philosophy and have they taught a type of man-to-man defense that could be used in late game situations where your primary objective is to defend the opposition from shooting “3’s” and you would sacrifice giving up an inside shot for “2?” If the coaching staff has taught that to his/her players, do the players know when to use that defense and when not to use it?

Does the coaching staff have a philosophy for late game situations where the thought of deliberately fouling an opponent to prevent them for shooting (and making a “3” to ultimately tie the score)? If so, has the staff thoroughly taught the players the proper techniques and methods to be successful? Do the players know when and when not to use that technique?

Does your staff have a philosophy (and a plan and a play) to react to the opposition’s last second score that puts you behind by four points with more than 10 seconds left and less than 10 seconds? Or what do you want to do if you now trail by three points with more than or less than 10 seconds? What does your team do if you trail by two points with more than 10 seconds or less than 10 seconds, or trailing by one point, or when the score is tied (with more than 10 seconds or less than 10 seconds remaining? A coaching staff might not have practiced all of the various scenarios that could actually play out in a game, but he/she at least should have a mental plan on what he/she wants to do in that situation.

After the opposition scores late in the game, does the coaching staff want his/her team to automatically call a timeout and set up a play? Many coaches adhere to that practice because they feel they then can organize their team for a planned (and hopefully practiced) play? This is sound reasoning, but the timeout also gives the opposition an opportunity to organize and possibly substitute better defensive players into the game, set up a full court press, or change half-court defenses. Without a timeout, the opposition would be able to make none of these adjustments. Who will benefit more from the timeout, your offense or the opposition’s defense? Does the coaching staff have a sound philosophy for their decision?

A philosophy opposite of automatically calling a timeout after the opposition scores is for the offensive team to push the ball quickly down the court and already have a plan and a play (that has been practiced repeatedly) to execute. The defensive team obviously could not substitute better defenders in the game, could not probably set up full court pressure and probably not effectively set up a different half court defense. In fact, not calling a timeout sometimes could catch the opposition off balance and allow for better offensive match-ups and give the offensive team a high percentage shot. The question that must be asked is “Is your offensive team prepared enough to execute a last second play in a pressure packed situation? Does your team fully understand what type of shot and who the coaching staff wants to take the last shot?”

Does your team know your philosophy if you are the team that just scored to either tie the score or put your team up (by one or two or three points)? Does every player know what defense you expect them to be in? Do they know whether they are supposed to be in a full court press and what specific half court defense they are to be in to protect the lead and ultimately the game? Do you have a set philosophy to teach your players so that they will be successful?

The next situation a team must recognize is the actual score and what type of shot do they need to take and what types of shots should not be taken. Coaches should not expect his/her players to read the coaching staff’s mind and know exactly what kind of shot the staff wants. One line of thought is that if the score is tied or your team is down by as much as two, a high percentage shot or a shot that could draw a foul should be taken and not a “3” (in the lane). Other coaches believe in taking the “3” immediately.

Obviously, if your team is down by three points, your team needs the best possible three-point shooter to take as good of a three-point shot as he can get and the play should be designed to allow that. If your team is down by four points, the coaching staff must determine whether they want a three point shot or a two point shot to be taken followed by a press (and ultimately a foul). A definite philosophy should be agreed upon by the coaching staff in the preseason and then thoroughly taught to all players in the program, so that there is no doubt or hesitation in anyone’s mind as to what to do during that intense situation.

When your team calls a timeout and your offensive team must travel the length of the court, there are two important factors that can change the philosophy. One is that the offensive team may be or possibly not allowed to run the baseline. Not being able to run the baseline takes away very important options that an offensive team can incorporate into their “Last Second Shot” philosophy. The second scenario is determining whether the offensive team has any remaining timeouts left to use. If timeouts still exist, any offensive pass receiver that catches the ball in the frontcourt could possibly call an immediate timeout. This would allow the offensive team to reorganize and run a “Sideline Out-of-Bounds” play that starts much closer to the basket.

A coaching staff must know which scenario exists and not only know beforehand how he is going to handle these critical decisions, but convincingly sell his philosophy to every player and then have his players repetitively practice that play in game-realistic situations. The coaching staff must devise a play that could also handle the surprise defensive change by the opposition. Each play should have a primary and a secondary shooter in case the primary shooter is taken out of the play defensively.

Defensively, all of the same questions must be asked with the same scenarios. What do you want your team to do when your team has just scored to put your team up by the designated number of points with more than or less than 10 seconds?

Does the coaching staff have a philosophy and a plan and a play for offensive “Sideline Out-of-Bounds” situations and also “Underneath Baseline Out-of-Bounds” situations when your team needs a “quick” shot, a “3-pointer,” and a “quick 3-pointer?” Conversely do you have a philosophy and a defensive plan to guard against the opposition’s shots when they are in the same type of situation?

Does the coaching staff have a definite plan and philosophy on defending the opposition in (most likely) their last possession of the game and your defensive team is ahead by one point? By two points? By three points or more? Do you play “normal defense” or do you deliberately foul the opposition?

Does the coaching staff have a philosophy and a special play to fit the needs of your free-throw shooting team late in a game where the score is tied, or you are up (or down) by 1 point, 2 points, 3 points or more. Does the coaching staff have any special “rebounding stunts” and intentionally miss specific free throws to get the offensive rebound? Does the staff know how to slow the opposition down from in-bounding the ball after your team has made the last free throw, so a full court press can be set up?

Does the staff have an organized plan of action when the opposition is the team that is shooting the free throws? Does the coaching staff have a plan in “icing” the opposition’s free throw shooter late in a close game? If so, how do you do so?

Does the staff have a philosophy and a value for how important “last shots” at the end of a time period really are? If your team succeeds before the buzzer, do you have a “Buzzer Prevent Defense”

Does the coaching staff have a defensive philosophy dependent upon the time and score of when to start fouling the opposition to make the last possessions a “free throw shooting contest?”

Does the coaching staff have a plan of action when they want their offensive team to simply “milk” the clock and not be fully committed to “letting the air out?” Does the staff have an offensive philosophy dependent upon the time and score of when to make the full commitment to “stall?” Does the staff have an offense (or two) designed to achieve that purpose? Does the staff have a complementary defense that corresponds to the offense that they are implementing in that particular situation?

All of these situations and scenarios can and often do take place in games. Several of these could actually take place in the same game. Winning and losing that game sometimes is just the difference of one decision or of one (correctly or incorrectly executed technique). Winning just two games that could have been losses can drastically turn the outcome of an entire season around, especially if those close games were tournament games. A team that ends up with a 16-10 record seemingly has a totally different season when they could have had a 18-8 record. A team that ended up 19-7 that could have changed three close game losses into wins would have then had a 22-4 record.

Preparation for all of these scenarios takes a great deal of time and effort, but it can be much more productive and effective when it is done in the off-season and not in the “heat of battle,” during an actual game. During the season, the appropriate techniques can then be explained, taught, sold, and practiced with the players. This makes everyone more confident and prepared. Remember the saying that Coach John Wooden used, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”

About the Author

Coach Kimble was the Head Basketball Coaching position at Deland-Weldon (IL) High School for five years (91-43) that included 2 Regional Championships, 2 Regional Runner-Ups and 1 Sectional Tournament Runner-up. He then moved to Dunlap (IL) High School (90-45) with 2 Regional Runners-up, 1 Regional, 1 Sectional and 1 Super-Sectional Championship and a final 2nd Place Finish in the Illinois Class A State Tournament. He was an Assistant Basketball Coach at Central Florida Community College in Ocala, FL for 1 year before becoming Offensive Coordinator and then Associate Head Coach for 3 additional years He then was the Head Basketball Coach at Crestview (FL) High School for 10 years, averaging over 16 wins per season.

He has had articles published in the following publications such as: The Basketball Bulletin of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, the Scholastic Coach and Athletic Journal, Winning Hoops, Basketball Sense, and American Basketball Quarterly. He has also written and has had five books published along with over 25 different DVDs by Coaches Choice and Fever River Sports Production.

See him on Twitter @CoachJohnKimble and his Web Page “www.CoachJohnKimble.com”

Practice Player Evaluation System

By Coach Brian Williams on August 18, 2015

I am a firm believer that what gets measured gets emphasized, and that what gets emphasized will improve.

It is also my belief that a simple box score and traditional practices statistics do not provide information that truly allows you to evaluate your team’s or individuals performance, nor do they server as a useful tool to measure progress and improvement.

The purpose of this post is to stimulate some discussion for your coaching staff and find a way to identify and implement one improved piece of numerical data to track and emphasize in practice and one piece of data to track and emphasize in games.

I believe that there are no perfect statistics and that they should be used in conjunction with the judgement of the coaching staff. The value of what you measure will be determined in large part by what you feel your team needs to be good at and be better at.

Your statistics and analytics must fit the follow criteria:

1. Meaningful to your system of play. If you play a packing style of defense, then tracking steals is not that helpful. It is good to post the stats you keep, but the ones that will truly make an impact are the ones you address and illustrated how they impact your play.

2. Can be tracked using your available resources. As Coach Meyer taught, “You can do anything you want, but you can’t do everything you want.” Prioritize what will have the biggest impact on your squad and find a way to make it happen with your available staff.

I am a firm believer that what gets measured improves.

3. Be able to be understood, digested and acted upon by your players and staff. To avoid information overload, I recommend not giving players all of the stats that you keep–just the ones they want to know and the ones that you want them to know.

4. Consider measuring process statistics as well as product statistics. AS an example, If you emphasize rebounding, chart block out percentage and times your rebounders go to the offensive glass along with total rebounds. Or, in addition to assists, chart “set-ups” where a player gave a teammate a pass that would have been an assist had the shot been made or had the player not been fouled.

For practice:

I am not suggesting you you can do all of this, but I am going to give you a system that the Xavier Men’s team uses to measure practice performance and provide motivation.

You might not have the resources to do all of this, but hopefully it sparks an idea for something you can do to improve your practices. Develop your own scoring system will add to the value for your group.

One idea would be go award points for hustle plays–being the first to the floor on a loose ball, talking on defense, or any other play that you deem to be what you are looking for when it comes to playing hard.

If you want to implement something like this, you can always start small on a trial basis and expand as you go.

During the week of practice, their players accumulate points based on the following scoring system:

Points are awarded in all live action whether it is a drill involving offense and defense or a scrimmage situation.

Two Point Field Goals (+2 for a make, -1 for a miss)

Three Point Field Goals (+3 for a make, -1 for a miss)

(+1 Point) for each Defensive Rebound, Block, Foul Drawn, Team Win, Team Free Throw Win, Deflection, Coaches Choice–for an outstanding play not mentioned or just something that needs to be emphasized.

(+2 Points) for each Offensive Rebound, Assist, Charge Drawn

(Negative 2 Points) Turnovers, Fouls

IMO, Poor body language should also count as negative points, but I realize you can’t do it all.

At the end of the week, the player with the most points is awarded a gold colored practice jersey at that week’s “Practice Player of the Week” for the next week’s practice.

Coaching Basketball Preparing Your Team Thoroughly

By Coach Brian Williams on November 12, 2014

Whether you have already started playing games or you still don’t have all of your players out from fall sports, I hope this post offers at least a few ideas to build on what you are already doing, or reminds you of something that you left off of your pre-season and early season to do lists.

If you have already completed your practices leading up to your first game, here are links to to 3 articles on Special Situations to cover once you have your base offensive and defensive systems installed:

Gordon Chiesa, retired NBA Coach, end of game checklist.

Special Situations Checklist (108 Suggestions for situations to be prepared for)

Special Situations Daily Practice Template (A way to save time and be thorough in practicing special situations)

Being thoroughly prepared for your first game

Budgeting your practice time.

To be sure that you cover everything prior to your first game, you have to begin with the end in mind as Stephen Covey taught. You need to develop a list of everything you MUST have done prior to the first game because you won’t have EVERYTHING done prior to the first game.

This list is not meant to cover everything, but is a place to start to stimulate your thinking for your team and coaching situation to budget your scarce and valuable practice time. Your needs will not be exactly the same as I have listed, but hopefully you can use this as a working structure.

If you don’t practice it, you can’t expect your players to execute it in a game.

Calculate as close to exactly as possible the number of minutes you will have on the floor prior to your first game.

I will use 12 practice days and 120 minutes per day as an example.

That would give you 1440 minutes on the floor prior to the first game.

Prior to first game (12 practice days) MUST DOs

I believe in individual shooting/driving/scoring and skill development for 30 minutes a day that takes (30 minutes x 12 practices = 360 minutes of shooting/etc… prior to the first game)
Primary Offense man to man offense, catch-up offense, 5 quick hitters (15 minutes per day =180 minutes )
Zone offense 2-3 and 1-3-1 (5 minutes per day = 60 minutes. If you know you will be facing a team that plays zone as the primary defense in the fist game, you will need to budget more time.
Conversion Defense (5 minutes per day = 60 minutes)
Transition Offense (5 minutes per day = 60 minutes)
Primary Half Court Defense, catch-up half court defense (15 minutes per day = 180 minutes)
(Individual and Team Breakdown Defensive Skills and Drills such as Defending on ball screens, Closeouts, Help and Recover, Denials, Help the Helper, Blockouts, and everything else that is important in your defensive scheme)
5 on 5 scrimmaging. You have to have some time each day for players to fit your whole package into an up and down flow to be ready to play a game. (20 minutes per day = 240 minutes)
Press Attack. The time you spend on this could vary depending on if you are opening against pressing teams, but I like to spend at least 5 minutes per day on press attack (5 minutes per day = 60 minutes)

That leaves 240 minutes for this example. That won’t be exactly the same for you, but use it as a place to start as you budget your time.

The remaining items on the list won’t take up as much time, but still need to be covered prior to your first game, so include the time for each in your practice time budget. I will leave it up to you as to how much time of your remaining floor minutes you want to devote to each one.

Defending under the basket inbounds plays
Catch up full court defense
End of quarter/half plays
Special plays to run at the end of a game where you need to score
Half court trap offense
2 Under Out inbounds plays vs. man
2 Under Out inbounds plays vs. zone
1 side out game winner inbounds plays
Pre-Game and Halftime warmups
Time Out and Halftime Procedures

You still have stretching/warming, conditioning, toughness, attitude, communication, and all of the other areas that are important to you to work on during that remaining time. That is why it is crucial to determine what HAS to be in by the first game and then budget your time and remember, as Coach Don Meyer always reminded us, “You can do anything that you want, but you can’t do everything that you want.”

The most important thing is to develop your own practice budget chart making sure that you have your list of what you need to do to have your team thoroughly prepared.

Early season administrative responsibilities to complete or delegate.

Scouting Schedule Video exchange and in person
Paperwork: Physicals, consent forms, Player resumes, Stats Spreadsheets, videos

I have always made basketball resumes for our returning players with stats and other honors. That way, I always have their accomplishments at hand to nominate them for awards, to give to the media, to use to nominate them for academic or service scholarships, to give to college recruiters, etc.. If you have a team website, you can include those resumes on your site. In addition, another way to promote your program is to email college recruiters the links to your site. It is very easy to post some videos of your players on the site using YouTube. School coaches and ADs can get free access to a resource with the email addresses and phone numbers of college coaches at this link: Coaches Directory

1. Game Night presentation: Establish dates for Youth teams to play at halftime, autograph night, Verify Bus Departure Times
2. Individual Meetings with prospects and sheets

Link to the Prospect Sheet I have used.

Media/Picture Day
Video person
Parent Meeting and open practice Plan holiday and weekend practices to help families plan holiday activities
Players notebook, basketball code of conduct

There are team management apps that allow you to have immediate access to player and parent contact information on your desktop workstation, tablet, or phone. Most parents and athletes are now comfortable with email and text as the primary method of communication for team info, which can dramatically speed up your job. However, there are other ways to make the job of managing the team easier as well. Team management tools, like TeamSnap, automate a lot of these processes for you. In addition to letting you create, update and store a team roster, tools like TeamSnap let you see players’ availability for games and practices, assign responsibilities such as post game food or snacks, and keep track of who has paid their equipment fees, and completed their paperwork.

Coaching Basketball Rebounding Toughness and Accountability

By Coach Brian Williams on October 10, 2014

This article on rebounding was written by Fred Castro. At the time he was an assistant at Washington. He is now the Head Women’s Coach at Eastern Michigan. This article was sent out in their weekly newsletter. If you are interested in joining their list, let me know and I will make sure that you get added.

Even if this is not the technique that you teach, I think you can use the ideas of individual toughness and grading your players on rebounding accountability.

Rebounding by Coach Fred Castro

In my opinion, the two most important statistics in basketball are rebounding margin and turnovers. I became infatuated with rebounding during my time at Oklahoma. To start the 2003 season we began implementing the “Gonzaga
Rebounding Model”. We had struggled the year before keeping teams off the glass and were exposed in the NCAA tournament. Being undersized we had to find a way to consistently win the rebounding war. To me the two things Gonzaga rebounding addressed immediately were technique and accountability.

TECHNIQUE:

I really believe in one on one rebounding against scout team guys because it exposes our players. Are they weak mentally, physically, or does their technique need improvement? Ultimately it forces players to develop a sense of toughness both mentally and physically. The mentality that needs to be developed in practice to be a good rebounder is the first thing that must happen as part of teaching technique.

If a sense of toughness does not exist individually and cohesively as a team you will never be a great rebounding team. Technique and muscle memory must support the mindset of rebounding. To start practice on Day One, our warm up drill was working on our technique and the verbiage we would use. “Shot, chest, swim”, three consecutive words I am certain I will never forget, and words I probably say in my sleep after games if we lose the rebounding battle. We started with four lines on the baseline and with a teammate free throw line extended facing the baseline.

Pretending the teammate at the free throw line was on offense coach blows the whistle and the first person in line goes at half speed to close out, chest, and swim. I am fairly certain we did that for the first 6-8 weeks of practice coming back to it periodically through out the year depending on how well we executed in games. Needless to say you have to practice it full speed in drills and live action during practice, but the fact that we started practice that season with rebounding as our focus set a foundation for who we would be that year.

Shot: Closing out on a shooter with high hands with intentions of discouraging the shot.

Chest: With your hands holding your jersey chest level and elbows out, you meet (hit) the offensive rebounder and make contact with intentions of stopping their forward progress.

Swim: After “chesting”, forward pivot and swing your elbow over and through in the same direction as the offensive player chooses to go, keeping the player from changing directions and getting the ball. Finishes looking like typical box out with high hands.

ACCOUNTABILITY:

Accountability involves lots of film and post game analytics. Most players do not believe it until they see it. Watching film of practice and letting them see that they are not “checking” their shooter, are not “chesting” rebounders, are not crashing the glass on offense, etc. is all part of the process. One of my favorite parts is once teams became more aware of rebounding and start executing; the one person who does not do their job, their man always gets the ball. So accountability changes from the coaching staff saying rebound, to rebounding because they are letting the other 4 teammates down on that possession. This sense of accountability is the biggest motivator and leads to solid rebounding teams.

Grading rebounding after games became a huge quantifier for the staff and the players. Chad Thrailkill and I would grade each player on every shot attempted including FT’s after every game. The magic number was 70% for our team. If we achieved that number as a team we never lost, the only exception was if we turned the ball over a ridiculous amount of times, which did happen once or twice.

The correlation between our rebounding numbers with wins and losses was amazing! You could pretty much go off the number alone and tell how the game wet and who had a good game. The correlation was also evident in a player’s offensive performance whether it is PPG or FG%. If they were locked in to rebounding, their offensive game followed the majority of the time. If we reached our 70% or higher there were no repercussions the following day in practice. If we were below 70%, the players had to one on one rebound vs. our scout team guys the number of rebounds for which they were graded negatively. So if a player went 9 for 22 they would have to get 13 rebounds the next day.

Sometimes they only had to get S and sometimes they had to get 30 so it became a reminder to rebound while improving their skill. At Albany the team did up downs for the number of negative grades and that too seemed to work.

Ten years later I find myself working at the University of Washington working for Mike Neighbors, a defensive minded coach, who is a number crunching machine and knows all too well the correlation between rebounding and winning. Last year we were undefeated when our starting posts each finished with double digit rebounds. This year that streak was broken, guess why… 20+ turnovers!

I appreciate playing devil’s advocate and in all my stops of coaching there have been some anomalies whether they be players or teams. While coaching on the men’s side at Rogers State we never used the shot, chest, swim technique, instead we used the punch them in the mouth and go get the damn ball technique. To be quite honest we had some athletic hard nosed players that competed and we never really had any problem rebounding. Two other players that were anomalies to the theory were Julie Forester and Courtney Paris.

Courtney Paris I am sure you have heard of but Julie Forester was a 6’l lanky kid who I coached at Albany and was a rebounding machine!! She had an uncanny ability to read the flight of the ball and get to it faster than anyone I have ever seen. I was always happy I did not have to coach against her because she would have drove me mad had she been getting all those rebounds against a team I coached. Courtney was the best rebounder I have ever coached. Her ability to see the ball in flight, get position, and have the best hands I have ever seen allowed her to shatter NCAA rebounding records. That being said, her teammates doing their jobs also left her one on one, which was a battle she would always win.

Most players are not natural rebounders and most players regardless of how talented they may be, do not comprehend the importance of rebounding. This is something that must be taught and emphasized in some form or fashion on a daily basis as far as I am concerned. The beauty of it is, once they see the results they will always believe in it and attempt to recreate it. Much like playing good motion offense, once you know how to play in it you never want to “just go hoop”. From time to time you will be blessed with a player who “just gets the damn ball a lot” and you will have to just let her do what she does knowing that her gift will only be magnified by her teammates doing their jobs.

INTERESTING STATS:

Of the top 75 rebounding teams last year, all but 6 had winning seasons and the majority you saw in post-season play.

In the 2013 Final Four 3 out of the 4 teams were ranked Top S in rebounding margin.

From 2002-20 13, 60% of Sweet 16 teams finished in the Top 50 of rebounding margin.

From 2002-20 13, 25% of Sweet 16 teams finished Top 10 in rebounding margin.

Since 2002, of the 192 teams in the Sweet 16, all but 2 have been in the top 200 in rebounding margin nationally.

Coaching Basketball Maximizing Your Preseason

By Coach Brian Williams on October 3, 2014

This article was written by Basketball Strength and Conditioning Coach Alan Stein and published on his Stronger Team Blog

Even if you are a college coach, or your high school association has different rules than Alan’s I know there are some points he makes that you can adapt to your program. He also has posted a video of an agility drill that can be done with or without a basketball.

In case you missed these articles, here are a couple of other articles to help you finish up your pre-season.

Preparing for Basketball Preseason
Reducing ACL Issues
Preseason Conditioning Drills

Here is one more article (this one is from Coach Mike Neighbors of the University of Washington Women) with ways to liven up open gym pickup games. You can also file it away and use it late in the season when you need some variety and excitement in your practice scrimmages: Wildcard Drills

Maximizing Your Pre-Season

Written by Alan Stein

Jim Boeheim once said, “You can’t win a championship in the pre-season, but you sure as hell can lose one.”

The 8-week period before official practices start (the pre-season), sets the tone and lays the foundation for your entire season. It should be a time to focus on improving 4 key areas:

Athleticism
Skill
I.Q.
Chemistry

At the high school level, it varies tremendously from state to state, as to what you are allowed to do with your players in the pre-season. Therefore, simply do what you can, with what you have, where you are. I don’t believe in making excuses and I don’t believe in cheating the rules.

At DeMatha Catholic High School, we are governed by the rules of the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (WCAC), which fortunately for us, allows us to work with our players in just about every capacity possible. The only exception is we are not allowed to hold a ‘team practice’ until November 6th. We are allowed to conduct strength & conditioning workouts, skill workouts and monitor play (‘open run’). Yes, we are very thankful to be in such a progressive conference. I sympathize for those that aren’t.

I get numerous inquires via email and social media asking about our pre-season program.

Here is our DeMatha Basketball pre-schedule in September and October:

Monday:

3-4pm: Academic Study Hall
4-5pm: Performance Training
5-6pm: Position-Specific Skill Work
6-7pm: Play 5-on-5

Tuesday:

3-4pm: Academic Study Hall
4-5pm: Position-Specific Skill Work
5-6pm: Play 5-on-5

Wednesday:

3-4pm: Academic Study Hall
4-5pm: Performance Training
5-6pm: Position-Specific Skill Work
6-7pm: Play 5-on-5

Thursday:

3-4pm: Academic Study Hall
4-5pm: Position-Specific Skill Work
5-6pm: Play 5-on-5

Friday:

3-4pm: Bikram Yoga Class

Saturday:

9-10am: Performance Training (Optional)
10-11am: Position-Specific Skill Work (Optional)

Sunday:

To ensure our players maximize their 5-on-5 play; we implement the following 5 rules:

Every offensive player must be in the front court when a point is scored. If not, the basket does not count and it is a turnover. What happens on a quick steal or a long outlet pass? You better sprint!!
Every defensive player must be in the front court when a point is scored. If not, the basket counts and the offensive team receives another possession. This helps eliminate standing and pouting after a turnover, missed shot or no foul call.
Defense calls fouls. No arguments. No exceptions. However, we strongly encourage our players to limit calling fouls, as we want them to get used to playing with severe contact.
Games are played to 21, with 2’s and 3’s. All 10 players are expected to call out the score on every possession. We choose to play to 21 because it simulates the length of a quarter (8 minutes-ish) and creates a superior platform for conditioning. It also allows for a comeback (if one team jumps out to a 12-2 lead, you still have plenty of time to come back and win).
The player that scores the game winning point must immediately step to the free throw line and make a free throw. If so, the game is over. If not, the game-winning basket is erased and play resumes.

I wish you the best the remainder of this pre-season.

Train hard. Fuel smart. Get better.

Alan Stein
Hardwood Hustle Blog
http://www.About.me/AlanStein

PS: Need a great pre-season drill that works on change of direction, deceleration and ball handling? Here is the World’s Greatest Agility Drill!