5 on 3 Fast Break Drill

I picked this drill up at a recent basketball conference at St. Francis College in Joliet IL.

The idea of the clinic was to work on seamless transition from your fast break to your offense. I really like this drill because it forces your players to read and react based upon the defense. I feel that no matter what type of break you run, you could adjust this drill to meet your teams needs.  He also added that by mid season his offense usually wins by a score of 10-3 in this drill.

If anyone has a similar drill I would love to hear from you.

http://www.box.net/shared/63s2ei9jep

bmoore@plano88.org

Getting Ready For The Season

First let me say sorry for the lack of posts lately. I have been taking advantage of some off time between Football and Basketball seasons. I also wanted to keep my drill book at the top of the blog for a long time because I think it can be a very useful tool to coaches out there.

I was looking at some items that I had handed out to my coaches last year and found a weak hand development list that I had created for all of my coaches. I have a lot of drills available on here that go very well with this list. As we are starting the season a lot of us will remember just how weak some of our players weak hands really are. Last year we spent 5-10 minutes minimum at every level on weak hand development.

One additional idea I wanted to throw out there came from Evan Turner and Thad Matta. From an article that I read last year Coach Matta talked about how he pointed out to Evan Turner that his only real weakness was his weak hand. He encouraged him to do everything left handed and Turner actually even talked about how he would throw rocks left handed while walking to class.

Let me know if you have any questions to go with this handout or any of my weak hand ideas
http://www.box.net/shared/qix1b0637m

bmoore@plano88.org

Going Through Some Notes

I was going through some notes I found today and came across a quote that I instantly disagreed with. I don't usually put stuff up here unless I agree with it but I couldn't help it with this one.

Great coaches do the same thing the 1st day of practice and the last day of practice
every year. Dick Bennet

As an adult I struggle daily with my attention span, how can my 16-18 year old kids be expected to stay on task and work hard if I am doing the same exact drill sequence for the 65th time that year. I have seen coaches get so mad that their kids aren't focused in the last two weeks of the season. Could this be that they are tired of the same old drills everyday? Is their a drill that is so important that it must be done every practice? I think these are all things that we should ask ourselves as the season is getting ready to start.

I'm not suggesting that repetition isn't a good thing, but just throwing out some thoughts that might help us. What are you going to do to capture a teenagers attention today that matches texting, youtube, their significant other, or whatever else they have in their lives.

Shooting Thoughts

Herb Livsey

Teaching shooting:
x The quality of the shot depends on the quality of the feet.
x Always have a touch spot and shot spot. This forces players to be moving into
their shot.
x Inside pivot to shoot.
x Catch the ball with your feet.
x Play the game with your legs ready. Slow shooters have to get set. Reggie Miller
always plays with legs ready. Always steps into shot, not jump into shot.
Historically the best shooters have step up shots not jump in. 
x Too much stationary shooting in practices.
x Catch and shoot vs. catch and attack:
o Inside pivot if you know you have a shot.
o Permanent pivot foot if you are attacking 1on 1

Using legs in your shot - Dirk Nowitzki takes 50 shots a day before practice by picking
the ball up off the floor. This drill forces you to use your legs.

Slow shooters have two problems:
x Trail foot is too far behind the pivot foot when catching too shoot
x Knees are not bent so the player has to generate power by dipping after the catch or
twisting and turning upper body.

Drill Book

After last season I knew one of the most important things our program needed was to be on the same page. I wanted all of our levels working on drills that would really make us better. After doing a lot of research I decided to buy fast draw in order to build a drill book for all of my coaches. I wanted every coach in our program from our Jr. Basketball Leagues to my assistants to have access to all of the drills I do in practice.

I handed out this drill book in the spring and asked all of my coaches to look through it and give feedback. Most of the drills were already being used but we got on the same page as far as rules and names of drills. The first thing I noticed when we started camp in the summer was that my coaches were saying the exact same thing I would during a drill.

I have already posted a lot of these drills on the site. However I'm sure you can find some new ones that I haven't posted. It is 40 pages and has almost every drill we did in practice last year.

http://www.box.net/shared/ur4zu79czy

Iona Newsletter

Zak Boisvert is putting out a great newsletter.

I have been following him on twitter for the past year and all of his stuff is pretty good. His newsletter is probably the best one out there. Email him at zboisvert@iona.edu to get on the mailing list.

3 Ball Screen Quick Hitters

All three of these plays are easy to run quick hitters that I have seen be successful at both the NCAA level and high school. Ball screens have taken over every level of basketball. If you can run a couple of good ball screen plays a game you force other teams to prepare for it.

http://www.box.net/shared/h8gdpj178g

Coaching Thoughts 10-5-10

Larry Shyatt, Florida

You can read 100 books on leadership, but there are very few books on how to be a great follower, listener, supporter

I thought this was a great insight into all of the books and articles coaches read throughout the year. I am always looking for a great new leadership book to read or a quote online. How often do we look at ways to help our athletes become better at being an active participant. Not everyone can be a leader all of the time.

Brad Stevens

Are you prioritizing whats important

Right now a lot of blogs and basketball clinics are providing great info to help us get ready for the approaching season. What are the most important things that must be done for your team to win. If someone came in and evaluated your practices would they say you are prioritizing whats important to your team?

Brad Stevens 4 Levels of Competency
1. Unconsciously incompetent
 - You don't know what you don't know
2. Consciously incompentent
  - You know that you have no clue
3. Consciously compentent
- You know whats going on
4. Unconsciously competent
- You begin to see things before they happen



Great list to look at for your players as well as yourself and your coaching staff. Where can you improve to help your team?

Offensive Entries

As the season starts to get closer I decided to show some offensive entries that I have came across or used. We like to use some of these to get into our offenses and loosen up the defense. Most of the half court pressure defenses we play against try to make our initial entry pass very difficult to make. As we all know it's very hard to run an offense if you are catching the first pass going away from the basket and being forced off the three point line. We do not run all of these but I thought they might give you some ideas or wrinkles to throw into your offense.

http://www.box.net/shared/7ncrpl0lpr