Coaching Basketball - looking for advice

[Zherog]

Howdy. Looking for a little advice from those who might know more than me. I offered to coach girls basketball this winter, because the league didn't have enough coaches. Here's the problem: I don't really know much about basketball. I've been an assistant coach the past two years, but that role mostly involved giving the coach an extra body to help out. But I did manage to pick up some stuff. I'm looking for advice: how to teach the game, good drills to run (especially if the drill can be disguised as a game), and so forth.

Here's a bit of info: I have (at the moment) seven girls on my roster ranging between 4th and 6th graders. I have a couple girls who have played a few years, but at least 2 of my 7 have never played (at least, not at an organized level). I'll get an 8th kid added to my roster if there are three more signups (6 teams, three already have 8 kids; I drew the last lot to get an extra kid, so the other two coaches get kids first). I'm comfortable with 7, though; it gives them more playing time. I haven't met my kids yet (though I know four of the seven already), so I can't tell you too much about the kids themselves just yet.

I've coached soccer the last three years, and generally my goals there (in order) are: have fun, teach the basics of the game, win games, sneak in "life" lessons that the kids can carry with them (things like, "mistakes happen," "try your best," and so forth.) Towards the end of the season, I'll generally flip-flop teaching and winning. (Every team makes the playoffs, so late-season winning can increase the fun-factor.)

Special league rules to consider: every kid has to play at least half the game. They actually stop the clock halfway through each quarter and force the coaches to make subsitutions.
zone defense only, and no defense beyond the 3-point arc. (basically, they want the "point guard" to be able to bring the ball up without pressure.) This rule is changed in the final 2 minutes of the game, when the defense can play out to midcourt.
Four 8-minute quarters.


So... links to websites with information is fine, as long as you'll confirm the site has good and useful information for a beginning coach. Experiences you've had coaching (or being coached) that I can learn from are great. A general idea for what's "normal" in basketball practices is good, too. For example, it's normal in soccer to make the kids run a little bit because stamina is so important. Anything like that is good to know.

If you need more info from me, let me know and I'll share what I can.

[Admiral Harkov]

Do you understand Spanish? If so, I can try to refind a couple pages that may be interesting to you.

http://pabaloncesto.wordpress.com/ has a section named clinics where there's fragments of clinics by professional, top level coaches that may be helpful if you understand spoken Spanish.

Others I'd need to search, as I don't think i have them in my bookmarks.

[Zherog]

I wish I spoke Spanish, actually. It would greatly help my soccer coaching as we have a lot of Latino kids. Sadly, my Spanish is nearly non-existent. I'll take a look at the link later, though, and run it through Google translator - not perfect at translating, but usually it gets the idea across.

[Admiral Harkov]

It's videos, so google won't help; there's no transcript.

Okay, I've searched for those other Spanish pages and this is the one that looks like it can be much more helpful as it's images and written text. Note, though, I have no idea about what's the supposed level of this.

http://ejerciciosbaloncesto.org/

[snoopy13a]

Since you are dealing with new players, you'll probably have to teach them how to dribble and pass.

Additionally, you'll need to make sure players know the rules. Traveling is very common among new players as is double-dribbling. Teach the players that they can't move their pivot foot after picking up their dribble and that they dribble after picking up their dribble.

Practices usually warm up with lay-up drills. You have two lines, one line shoots the lay-up and the other line rebounds the lay-up

A really basic dribble drill is to have them start at one baseline and dribble to the other baseline and back. You can have them dribble up with their right hand and back with their left hand if you want. This also helps a little with conditioning.

The simplest passing drill is to line up the players and have two players pass the ball to each other (you'll have four groups passing balls back and forth). Teach them the chest pass and the bounce pass and the proper techniques to do them. The passing drill is also good to have people catch their breath and rest a little.

A fun little drill is called 3 on 2; 2 on 1. This is to practice fast breaks. Two players wait on defense on one side of the court while the other three run a fast break and try to score. After a made shot or a defensive rebound, the 2 playing defense run a fast break with the shooter playing defense. This will be difficult to run with your team as it is small. Also, this will tire out your players fairly quickly.

You will also have to teach your players defense.

At this level, find out who your best player is and have them play point guard (1). Have your second best player play the off-guard (2). In a 2-3 zone (which is probably the zone the league officials want you to run) the two guards set up around the elbows or junction (where the foul line meets the line marking the outer boundary of the paint). The two forwards (3 and 4) set up on the low post (around where the box is). The center (5) sets up in between the forwards and a little in front of the basket in the middle of the paint.

Your guards' job on defense is to challenge players on the wing and on the top of the key (actually, in your case just inside the key). If a guard is playing D on a wing, the other guard should cheat in the middle to help out.

If the ball moves towards the baseline, the forward on that side should play the ball. The center should cheat to the box on the ball side and the other forward cheat towards the middle of the paint. The guard on the ball side should cheat a little towards the baseline and the wing. The guard on the far side should cheat towards the middle of the foul line.

If a player tries to drive, your players should collaspe and try to help out. On a shot, your players should box out and try to get a rebound.

A player who gets a defensive rebound should pass the ball to the point guard as soon as possible

On offense, your point guard (1) brings the ball up. The off-guard and small forward (2 and 3) should start on the wings and the big forward and center (4 and 5) on the low post.

The simplest play on this level--if you have a good point guard--is to have the point guard drive to the basket. Tell the 2 guard that if the point guard drives, they have to rotate back on defense (that is, she doesn't try and rebound).

If your 4 and 5 are good players (that is, if they can actually make a basket), you can try passing the ball down to the low post.

Two basic shooting plays against a 2-3 are:

Point guard shot: Have the point guard pass to the 2 or 3 on the wing. The point guard runs down the middle of the paint and cuts past your player on the low post. The low post player sets a pick for the point guard (a pick is where an offensive player stands in a front of a defense player to get in their way). The point guard goes to the corner of the court and gets the ball from the player on the wing. Since the guard on that side is playing the wing player and the forward on that side is getting picked, the point guard should have an open shot.

Overload: Pass the ball to the 2 player (or the 3). Have the 3 player run across the court (run by the baseline) to the opposite corner. Now you have the 2 and 3 players on the same side of the court (one on the wing and the other in the corner) with the 2 player having the ball. The 3 player should be open and can get the ball for an open shot. If the forward goes out to challenge the shot or play the 3, you can try passing to the low post.

[Zherog]

Fantastic post, Snoopy. Thank you very much!

Admiral - I'll be checking your links tomorrow. Thanks for them.

[snoopy13a]

One more thing, with only 7 or 8 players, you won't be able to have a full 5-on-5 scrimmage in practice. What you could do is ask a fellow coach if your teams could practice together on occasion. This would add more players for drills and scrimmages. Working with another coach would also help you learn drills.

[Jonzac]

www.breakthroughbasketball.com

It has some free PDFs of drills you can run and for a minimal amount you can get additional information. I use it to coach my 13-14 boys team.

[Zherog]

I was lookng at that site yesterday, Jonzac. I liked a lot of what I saw and signed up to receive the newsletter and free ebooks. But I haven't had a chance to look at the book yet. Still, the free drills on the site looked interested.

It's good to get confirmation that the site is quality. Thanks!

*

My first practice was supposed to be tonight, but it's been postponed a week. The school where we have our practices has their winter concert tonight, so they closed the gym. Three of my seven kids would've missed because of the concert, so postponing a week doesn't really hurt too much.