Practice

This post was written by Texas A & M Assistant Coach Bob Starkey and shared on his Basketball Coaching Blog, HoopThoughts

I’ve known Sam Nichols for around 20 years now — whether he was working our basketball camps at LSU or running into him at Don Meyer’s Coaching Academy.  And while he was an outstanding coach, he’s saved his best act for post retirement where is Founder and President of Basketball Smiles, a program of free basketball camps in the inner city playgrounds of the Bahamas. Below is a post by Sam with a great list on how to have successful practices:

Recently I had a young coach ask me for some suggestions on how to plan more efficient and productive practices. Here’s a few ideas for I came up with for coaches to consider to help you plan your practices. Believe me, during my 33 years of coaching I learned there is an art to designing and executing your daily practices to where they contribute successful team development.

Hopefully, these thoughts will be helpful – here they are, in no particular order:

1. You can’t be good at everything.

I heard Jim Calhoun say this at a clinic years ago. He said, “As a coach, pick out three things that you want to excel in, and focus on them. And your practices should reflect these three priorities. Another coach should be able to walk into your practices and be able to pick out those three things based upon what you’re doing in practice.”  Set priorities for your program and organize your practices to reflect your priorities. One of my favorite quotes: “We always find time for the things we put first.” Decide what’s important to and frame your practices around those priorities.

2. Coach both the “What” and the “Why”

Don’t just tell your players “What” to do, tell them the “Why.” Fundamentally, people “buy in” to the “Why” of anything, and if you take time to explain to your players the logic and reasoning behind your press or offensive philosophy, I believe your practices will be more fruitful.

3. Remember the 90-10 Rule

This comes from one of my mentors – Coach Dale Brown who always told me, “Be careful and not talk too much in practice – let them practice their skills 90% of the time and you talk only 10% of the time.”  There’s a difference between teaching and overcoaching.

4. Have some part of practices stressful with consequences

Frankly, basketball is a game of performing under pressure and some segments of practice must be framed with pressure with resulting rewards for performing at a high level and consequences for poor performance.

5. Situational Segments

I learned the value of this from my Dad who, as a baseball coach, had us practice “situations” every day. Coaches cannot do all of the thinking for their players, nor make all of the pressure-packed decisions for their players – players have to think for themselves, and situational segments develop the confidence in players to where they believe they can make good decisions in games, because they have practiced similar situations in practice. Set up game-like situations on a regular basis and make them a routine – it will pay off!

6. Don’t just work your starters together during situations

Shuffle your lineup during situations – late in the game, chances are, not all five of your starters will be in the game for one reason or another, so work situations with different lineups.

7. Make your players think for themselves and get themselves out of trouble

In a loud gym in a meaningful game, your players won’t be able to hear you “coach every dribble,” so, especially in situational drills, keep your mouth shut and don’t blow your whistle to correct every mistake. Instead, be quiet, and make your players work together to come up with a solution. Pat Riley says, “You must be a participant in your own rescue.” Make them think – get themselves out of trouble – it will build their self-confidence and sense of teamwork.

8. Praise Extra Effort

If you want your players to play hard in games and give extra effort, you must praise and reward it on a daily basis in practice. As Don Meyer was fond of saying, “Your players will reproduce what you emphasize.”  I encourage coaches, “Catch your players being good!”  Unfortunately, we all do a much better job catching them making mistakes. Let’s balance that by intentionally praising extra effort. As you do this, that extra effort will be contagious.

9. Focus on You and Your Stuff

During the season, especially during Conference play, it’s a great temptation to spend a disproportional amount of time on your opponent’s offense and defense, out-of-bounds plays, etc.  The result – you neglect your stuff – your press break, your offensive sets, your defensive, then of course, on game day your execution suffers.

10. Drills should relate to your offense and defense, and not just be “trendy” drills

As my Dad was fond of saying, “Know why you’re doing, what you’re doing.” Practice time is too precious to waste, so don’t just run drills that you saw at a clinic – run drills with a purpose. Utilize drills that have a direct correlation to your offensive and defensive schemes.

11. Understand there will be good practices and bad practices

Don’t get overconfident and complacent when you have a good practice and everything clicks, and don’t overreact and burn the gym down when you have a bad practice. The season is a grind and there is an ebb and flow to practices – you’ll have some great ones, and from time to time your practices will, frankly, stink. A great coach knows that every day is a new day – build on the great practices, and flush the bad ones.

12. Practice doesn’t happen in a vacuum

As much as we would like to have our players total focus and attention, we have to remember that they (and you) bring the sum of their entire day with them to practice. Develop relationships with your players so, hopefully, you can identify when one of them is having a bad day with issues maybe unrelated to basketball, but is affecting their performance.  It’s also important to know yourself – if you’re tired, on edge, etc., it can make you a miserable coach during practice.  I heard Coach K say one time, “When you are tired as a coach, you fall back into bad coaching habits.”  So true!

13. Know When to Quit

Some days, your practices get bogged down and it’s better to just shut down and call it a day! It’s not your fault, it’s not your players fault – as I said, the season is a grind, and there are times it’s not going to be a productive day, so shut it down and re-group the next day. For sure, some days, when it gets bogged down, you have to push through and keep going, but that’s where you must know your players and use good judgement. But, don’t be afraid to know its time to send them home for today!

14. The Three Laws of Learning – Repetition, Repetition, Repetition 

Not every player “gets it” the first time or the tenth time, and if something is important, you must organize your practices where repetition of that skill ii systematic. You can’t teach skill development on a “every now and then” basis – if you want your players to learn something, you have to teach it over and over and over again! Repetition is the key to knowledge.

14. “See everything – overlook a great deal – correct a little” – Pope John XXIII 

This is one of my favorite quotes of all time and I had it written on every daily practice plan because I tended to “See everything – overlook nothing – correct everything.”  I finally discovered that seeing every mistake and correcting it was counterproductive to what I was really wanting to develop in my players – individually and as a team. When I learned to relax and show some mercy, patience, and understanding, the entire atmosphere in practice improved and so much more was accomplished. I found a balance – I could still hold my players to a high standard of accountability, but I could do that with a lot less pressure on me and them!  We all enjoyed that so much more!

This post was submitted by Coach Tom Kelsey.  Coach Kelsey has been a Head Coach at Belhaven University, Faulkner University, and Greater Atlanta Christian High School.  He has also been an assistant at LSU, Alabama, Murray State, and Lipscomb.  He played at Lipscomb under Coach Don Meyer.

As a coach, have you ever had a time in the season or an aspect of the game, you knew a shift was necessary to have better practices?

Me too! One season I felt our team was stagnant and not aggressive at the beginning of practice. Also, we were not getting what we needed defensively. I knew them more engaged at the beginning of practice we would have a much better chance of sustaining the energy.

During this time, I read on article on Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints. He was trying to find ways to make his team more aggressive. He wanted specifically to convert turnovers into scores for his team.

As I read, I thought, “How could do the same thing in basketball?” We tried to replicate ways to get steals and convert them into turnovers.

We began to implement a 10-minute section at the beginning of practice designed to turn steals or aggressive plays into baskets. We thought of ways within our defensive system and how to take advantage of our players skills. As much as we could think of we wanted to replicate game-like situations.

Almost instantly our guys became more engaged. We saw a dramatic impact how our team competed, and they did a super job of carrying it over to games.

As coaches, often use drills we have always used. Drills we think work well, and ones players know how to run. To change the old way of thinking find drills to resonate with your team.

Here are some specially designed ways to help your team be more aggressive and turn a big steal into a game-changing basket.

The most common mistakes we have as coaches is coaching like we always have. What worked in the past could be refined to maximize your practice time even more.

Take action now by putting these into your practice routine.

Editor’s note from Brian:  This drill simulates making a steal on a full court press and converting to a score quickly.  You will need to develop drills that fit your needs.

Diagrams created with FastDraw

Coach throws the ball to the corner. Player 1 sprints to get the ball before it goes out of bounds. As soon as Player 1 gets the ball Player 2 sprints around the coach at the top of the key and dives to the basket.

Focus on players communicating before the ball is picked up. Before player has the ball teammate must let him know where he is on the floor. Player diving to the basket goes with his hands up high and provides a big target.

Hustle drill. Roll the ball to the corner. Player sprints and makes sure to get to the ball before it goes out of bounds. Quickly turns and attacks the basket.

Wing interceptions. Coach stands at half court and throws the ball toward the out of bounds line. Defender takes off to intercept the ball and sprints toward the other end to make a layup.

Player deflects or catches the ball and immediately takes off toward the offensive end. Coach can determine if is going to be one foot or two foot layups made on the offensive end.

Interceptions out of a trap. Two defenders put a trap on a coach or player with the ball. Offensive player throws the ball high out of the trap. Other defender comes after the ball to get the steal and make the basket.

Coach or player can also make the pass up the sideline. Defender takes off on the sprint to get the steal and take the ball to the basket.

Teach your players to watch the eyes, hands and feet of the player getting ready to make the pass. As soon as the defender anticipates the pass is going to be thrown cross court he makes a move to intercept the pass.

Coach passes to the wing. Offense has a head start. Make it tough for the defense to make the stop. Defense has to sprint to get to the ball. Objective is to get the ball. Do not give up the three point play and do not allow the offensive player to get the ball above the shoulders.

Players can steal or stop easier from the left side of the floor. Most players are going with their weak hand. They are going to have a tougher time scoring from this side of the floor. It is probably going to be a two foot layup or a chance to get an easy steal for players taking a left hand layup.

Cross court interceptions. Coach stands at half court and throws the ball toward the out of bounds line. Defenders take off to intercept the ball and sprint toward the other end to make a layup.

Players deflect or catch the ball and take off toward the offensive end. Coach calls out one or two foot layups on the opposite end to finish the drill.

It was amazing after putting in these drills how often these situations would occur during a game. Our players knew how to react and to convert steals into baskets.

This video is with PGC Basketball Chad Songy.

You can see more drills and posts from PGC Basketball by visiting their Basketball Blog

You might want to have a manager or assistant coach try this exercise in your practices.

I am not suggesting that we should stop all instruction.

I am suggesting that it is critical to put a lot of thought into how we conduct our practices for maximum improvement and then evaluate what is happening to determine if the way that we run our practices is the absolute best way possible.

At this time of the season as you are cutting back on practice time, I think it is helpful to think about ways to use your time efficiently.

You can talk to players, not in the drill. You can substitute for players to talk to them. You can teach by creating rules in the drill so that mistakes and violating points of emphasis are points for the other team,

Please make sure that your sound is on and click on the video to play.

Click the play arrow to view the video.

The video is a YouTube video, so you need to be on a network that does not block YouTube access.

This post is a 5 minute video segment of Rick Torbett going through some ideas on improving the segment of your practice where you work on offense.

Regardless of what offensive system you use, I think you can get some ideas from this video. Not just the movements and spacing, but also how to work on your system and how to practice what you want to see happening.

It is also a very good way to make sure that you are covering all of the reactions that your players need to make when the defense disrupts your actions.

What do you want your players to do if the defense takes away your entry pass or other cuts and movements that are integral parts of your offensive attack?

Your second team defense might not be able to take those things away in a live practice scrimmage, but by the coach saying that those options are not available, first in 5 on 5, and then in 5 on 5, you can prepare your players for what they will face in a game.

Or, if your players are used to you calling for specific actions, you might be able to isolate a certain mismatch in the post or on the perimeter.

I believe that if you put some sustained thinking behind it, you can find away to apply some of these concepts in a way that improves your practices in preparing you for the games.

To find out more about the DVD that these sample clips came from, you can click on this link:

Read and React Practice Planning

Take your practices to the next level by incorporating video. Check out Hudl’s top three tips on enhancing your practices with video.

“Show, don’t tell.”

The pet phrase of English teachers everywhere might be annoying in its overuse, but the educators have a point. While it’s important to verbally explain something, being able to physically drive home the insight is much more effective. It’s scientifically proven.

But marathon video sessions aren’t necessarily the answer. Spend too much time in the film room and you risk losing your athletes’ attention, wasting everyone’s time. There is still value in video sessions, but, as Maryland coach Mark Turgeon preaches, they should be brief.

And by incorporating video into your practices, you stand a much greater chance of getting your message to stick.

Straight from the Film Room to the Court

If you want to drill home key points, reinforce your message by immediately implementing it after the players watch video. Let’s say your opponent runs a 1-3-1 zone. Show your team video of the zone, explain how you want to attack it, then get to the court and work on what you just talked about. The teaching points will be fresh in the players’ minds for better execution and a better chance at retaining the information.

If you have the resources, bring a TV or monitor down to the practice court. The shorter the delay between your teaching and the players actually practicing, the more they’ll remember and the better their performance will be.

Be Mobile

It’s not necessary to cram all of your teaching into one video session. If you’re hitting on several points at once, the players might retain a few, but their minds are unlikely to comprehend everything you’re telling them.

So get up and move. Kevin Cullen, Director of Information Technology at Duke, said the Blue Devils will physically change locations between viewing video of themselves and that of an opponent.

“We’ll try to get them to get up and walk around,” Cullen said. “They’re mentally dividing two things, so we try to make that physical also, so they have a chance to clear their mind.”

Record the Practice Itself

Game video is the ultimate teacher – it depicts performance in the heat of battle when the results really matter. But there is great value in watching practice as well.

Let’s return to the 1-3-1 example from earlier. Go back and watch how your players practiced what you were trying to teach them. Did they find the right holes in the zone? Were they making passes to the correct locations? Did they space the floor correctly?

Go back and watch practice again and you’ll probably notice some things you missed in real time. If there is anything you need to clean up, you can show it to the players the next day and iron out the errors.

Recording practice also allows you to get a better sense of how hard your players are working. Texas coach Shaka Smart makes sure to note his team’s effort and body language even before getting into execution.

“You get a sense of, how hard are we running? What type of stance are we playing in? If you have the volume, you can tell how loud you are out there. Are we talking? Are we communicating? What’s our body language look like after plays and how closely are we connected after huddles? Those things are huge. Those are the building blocks of your program before you even get into Xs and Os.”

By incorporating video into your practices, your players will be more engaged, willing to learn and likely to remember the information. Get them familiar with Hudl and dominate this season.