Insights to help improve your youth basketball experience.

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More Than 30,000 Athletes Set to Compete in World’s Largest Volleyball Event in Central Florida Next Week

ORLANDO, Fla. (June 8, 2017) – More than 30,000 athletes from across the country, including thousands of Orlando-area athletes, are expected to bring more than $52 million in economic impact to Central Florida during the 44th annual AAU Girls’ Junior National Volleyball Championships beginning Thursday, June 15 at Orange County Convention Center and ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort.

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Coaching a new team this year

Coaching high school girls. Very little talent/enthusiasm with the girls in regards to basketball, as well as a couple of bad attitudes. In total I’ll venture we get between 15-18 girls (JV + Varsity). Since becoming the coach, we’ve gotten the girls in the weight room and on the track 5 days a week (not allowed to hold actual basketball practices, even ball handling out of season). So this is a good start for us, the girls that show up are working hard.

My biggest concern is running the correct offense/defense to maximize the potential of the team. I’ve always been a 4 out/1 in and 5/out motion with set action out of the 1-4 high. I’m not really sure if going motion is the right way with this group. They lack skills (ball handling and shooting are well below average as a whole) and most importantly they lack BB IQ as most have only been playing for a couple of years. However, motion is the direction I would like to eventually go in. I’m considering implementing the 5/out motion with sets. We can get a lot of off ball screens this way and even run some flex out of it. My hope is this will cut down on over dribbling, and taking the girls out of situations on the floor where they would have to rely on basketball IQ, but having the 5/out would allow us to slowly develop (very slowly, but hey, progress is progress) BB IQ and decision making.

For zone offense, I think a lot of what I already have will translate fine. I think beating the zone is pretty universal, you just need to execute what you’re doing and understand the type of zone the opposition is running. It’s no easy feat, but the principles of attacking the zone would be the same regardless of the offense for me.

Defensively I’ve always been a pressure man coach (on the line, up the line). At times I had scaled it back a little bit to just being on the line but not up it, but still, I’ve always been high pressure in the HC. For the same reason I don’t think a ton of motion would work, is the same reason I don’t think this will work defensively. We don’t have a lot much skill, we will be playing predominantly freshman and sophomores so we lack experience, and I am just envisioning us being beat on off-ball baseline flex screens and backdoor cuts pretty regularly.

For this reason, I have really dug up a ton of information on the pack-line defense. One thing I’ve noticed in our league is that teams really struggle shooting from the outside. Most teams probably have one girl, maybe two who can knock it down, but they can be inconsistent and we can tailor a scouting report as needed. I think with our A.) lack of depth on varsity and B.) lack of skill and experience, that pack-line may be the way to go. I’m not expecting us to be a great pack-line team because it will take time for them to learn it as well as take time for me to really teach it well, but, I would rather us be really clogging up the lane with help defense and forcing the ball outside for long 2’s and 3’s than allowing easy shots inside which anyone can convert into points.

I will also add a 1-3-1 zone, two variations of it. Your basic 1-3-1 zone as well as an extended one to make a HC trap for additional pressure, just to maybe change pace or if we’re trailing. I’ll also have a 1-2-2 3/4 court press to try and slow down teams that want to play fast against us.

If anyone has any advice, comments or suggestions on the pack-line or anything else I mentioned, please share it.

Thank you very much.

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Why use TourneyBuddy in 2018

If I tell you what TourneyBuddy can do. And I can tell you how you can use it…. I’ve not explained the WHY.  The WHY of TourneyBuddy parallels the reasons you are a coach or the reasons your children are involved in youth basketball.

Why are you a coach? 

  • You love basketball
  • You want to help kids
  • You want to challenge players to be their best
  • … or you <enter your why here>

So WHY use TourneyBuddy?

  • It will save you time so you can focus on coaching
  • It will improve communication with families and players

What > How > WHY by Simon Sinek

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Religion And Its Effects On Sport

“I play for fun” sounds pretty weak in comparison to the phrases, “I am a serious player” or “I play to win”! Whenever a “serious” sports family hears about a team that is JUST playing for fun, they overlook the players/team/league/tournament all together as though it is not up to their standards. Humanity has always been plagued with a comparative mindset, a mindset that allows for the determined, hardworking, superior to climb upon the shoulders of the best of the rest. Isn’t this what makes America great!? Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness! This mantra is powerful and has put us in charge of our own destiny. This place of freedom can be abused, especially when it trickles down to youth sports.

Play for Fun? Or Play to Win?

It isn’t just youth sports, it is part of everyone’s day in the whole world! Let’s talk about religion and irreligion. Think about it, there are three ways of looking at life: RELIGIOUS people who believe in a higher being who they try to appease through obedience, IRRELIGIOUS people who don’t believe in a higher power and believe themselves to be in control of their own destiny and finally people who believe that God stooped down and became flesh in order to serve those who He loved, ultimately to die for them in order to reconcile them back to himself. This is called the Gospel, the good news of Jesus. Youth sports simply reveals what is going on in the depths of our hearts. We want CONTROL and since sport has “time and score” we try to control it.

What do I mean by control? Well, it is that feeling when you win. Everyone knows that sense of accomplishment when you finish the dishes, make 10 jumpers in a row, save enough to take your family on vacation or lose another 5 pounds. These are tiny wins and stacking enough of them together makes us a WINNER! The opposite is also true: dishes piled up, utter failure as an athlete, loads of debt and no family vacation, obesity because of lack of self-control etc. all these tiny losses stacked together would in theory make you a LOSER. We tell ourselves every day that we can control whether we are winners or losers at life based on tons of tiny decisions and we spiritualize it. The religious person might think, if I am a winner, God will love me and if I am a loser, God will be sad at me while the irreligious person may operate here, If I am a “winner” then I will have better control over my life, health and finances then no one can tell me what I can and cannot do.

The Gospel states that Jesus’ perfection is the only perfection that satisfies God’s demand and that those who trust in Him alone will receive that gift of right standing before Him, unmerited favor. This gift is called Grace and it really does create a third camp entirely. When a person understands that they are pleasing (right now) to God because of someone else’s goodness, they can experience FREEDOM. Freedom comes when you don’t have to hide anything knowing that you are accepted by the one who matters most. This is a place where sport can be played, FOR FUN!

I know this is a MASSIVE stretch to go from serious vs fun to religion, irreligion and gospel, but I think it is worth our consideration. If you are someone who believes that you have to “do” in order to “get” and you live life in an “if then” paradigm, you probably live in religion, it may not be formal religion but all religion is the same and there is a good chance that you are a comparative thinker. If you are a comparative thinker, sport may be something you try to control, therefore taking it out of the “FOR FUN” category. If you have experienced God’s grace in your life and don’t have to live with a comparative mindset, sport may just be able to be played “FOR FUN”.

In conclusion, whether you are religious or irreligious, you live your life with a comparative mindset. This comparative thinking becomes a place of bondage because everything is categorized into a good, better, best system or a set of tiny wins and losses. This DOES affect your view of youth sports. Ultimately, God’s view of you matters, but He doesn’t want you living as comparative thinkers where winning or losing in sport or the status of your team (serious vs recreational) matters, instead He actually wants you to live in freedom and to be able to “play for fun”.

I think there is a way for it to be “seriously fun”, but that is for another post.