OT: basketball drills help

[Sbucketball]

I volunteered to coach my 10 year old daughter's YMCA team this season. Anyone have any pointers to good coaching videos/books/drill sites? Also any tip, pointers, lessons learned from coaching kids would be much appreciated. It's a developmental, coed league with players of all skill levels. I only get one hour a week of practice time and one game a week with the team. I'm a little overwhelmed trying to figure out how to get these kids playing even remotely functional basketball with such little prep time.

First practice is Tuesday and first game Saturday... I feel like my first goal is to figure out what positions each kid will play and then get them used to running up and down the court with each other and playing those positions.

If there’s any 7 footers have them practice closing out the corner three

 

[tbonezone]

we didn't have a basket growing up but i can remember my old man throwing a basketball up on the garage roof and telling me "don't let it hit the ground" . i ran around and caught one eventually and he told me "you're out . your feet are on the ground. so you are the ground. you gotta jump or it doesn't count." so i spent hours just jumping and tipping the ball back up on the roof . it's all about timing and anticipation .
and a great way to wear kids out so they don't pester you.

 

[capeorange]

Lol! I still have that tape.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

we didn't have a basket growing up but i can remember my old man throwing a basketball up on the garage roof and telling me "don't let it hit the ground" . i ran around and caught one eventually and he told me "you're out . your feet are on the ground. so you are the ground. you gotta jump or it doesn't count." so i spent hours just jumping and tipping the ball back up on the roof . it's all about timing and anticipation .
and a great way to wear kids out so they don't pester you.

That's crazy, because my dad did a similar thing with me, and got a short basketball player I had a weird ability to get tip in baskets off the rebound.

When your dad this with you, was he also wearing an onion on his belt?

I understand that was the fashion at the time.

 

[SmilinBob]

Simple fundamentals such a how to dribble form wise. How to receive a passed ball with your hands forming a diamond and catching it like an egg. And please teach them how to bounce pass, it's such a lost art. If memory serves it's 60 to 70% in the air to the receiver.

Have fun but always with a purpose because of the short time you have. Found girls to be more receptive to teaching but not nearly as aggressive as boys in most cases. Use some life analogies to get some points across, sometimes that helps kids that learn better that way that struggle a bit with the physical/visual aspect and gets them to remember.

Shooting forms will be all over the place due to strength and coordination. Most if not all will be shooting with 2 hands like the set shot.

Have a lesson plan of what you want to accomplish. You'll probably not get to everything because of X or Y but be as prepared as you can to not have wasted time.

Take them to a HS girls games as a team function if you're able to and don't be shy about asking the coach for ideas.

It's a great experience, enjoy it because she'll be out of the house in the blink of the eye.

 

[AZOrange]

Lots of good suggestions here but I’ve seen and been part of the good and bad in detailed practice from more unstructured to 3-4 min intervals. You have to see what works for your team and do it. Focus on basics…layups…rebounds…defense and passing. It’s so much simpler at that age than it looks. You need a pick and roll pretty much only. 2 inbounds…1 like a stack and one a lane box
cross. Again simple. Play king of the court and run more full court stuff if you have access. It’s always surprising when teams only do half court and driveway that they don’t know what to do when there is 60-70 feet to cover. And make sure you get them running. Basketball can get so drill oriented that the kids stand around alot. The best thing you can do for them is get their hearts going and get them confident athletically.

Also get extra clipboards for smashing and a good firm chair to throw. Refs will give your team the benefit of the doubt if they think you’re going to throw a chair at them

 

[swish7]

Looks like you got some good advice already.

I just want to chime in that I miss this age so much.

Keep it fun.
Encourage players to try different positions.
Focus on effort and fun and assists.
Put no stock whatsoever in winning and losing.

I had a team where one of the dads was some kind of AAU coach, but his head was in the right place, and was just there to enjoy his kid. The kid could do anything and score at will.

Same team, had the littlest girl with the biggest heart.

I'd alternate the 2 at PG, and give her the better off ball players. She got better and better and ended up having some big moments.

But basically was always rotating and balancing and mixing players.

At the end of the season, the mom was in tears at how I looked out for her daughter. Wonder what both are up to now?

 

[HastingsCuse]

The above comments/suggestions are great.

Make it fun. Keep it simple.
I also followed the =/- 30 minuntes of drills focused on the basics (dribbling, passing - including bounce passses - and shooting) and 30 minutes of scrimmage (preferably full court) followed by a game of knockout at the end and then sprints (but make it fun and run with them.) You will be surprised how out of shape many of them will be.
Practice a couple under the basket out-of-bounds plays. It is much easier to make a good pass when you are standing still and can't be touched. (and give the plays fun names, I used candy names "Twizzlers" "Twix" "Mike & Ikes") Keep any other plays simple - Give and go, etc Anything else will rarely work - if you get even 1 or 2 players to actually set or use a pick you're lucky.
You should also practice "high fives" at at least 1 practice.

With 10 year old girls most will be afraid of committing a foul or even touching the girl she is guarding (I had 1 girl that was athletic but was terrifed of committing a foul. I told her that after every game that I didn't care about points but she had to report to me at the end of each game as to how many fouls she had committed. She would very prouldly report "I had 3 fouls!!" She ended up being my best rebounder. I also coached her in soccer as a 2nd grader. She was too afaid to be on the field at the start of the game so I had to quietly put her after the game started. FYI She is now an attorney at Sidley Austin doing SEC litigation.)

At the end of every game when you're leaving the Court try to give every girl a positive comment about their play, preferrably when their parents are in ear shot.

If you have an assistant coach have them deal with substitutes but have a plan. Anything more that 2-3 subs is a headache. Have them focus on who they will be guarding as soon as they go in, otherwise at the first change-of possession someone will not be guarded. I always tried to make sure my 2 best players were in the game for the 4th quarter. I tried to make sure every girl was a starter at least once or twice and would reward the players who were at practice. You also may want to make sure your best player is in the game at the same time as the other team's best player.

After 25 years of coaching soccer, basketball, baseball and softball (a total of almost 60 teams) I miss it.
Great memories!!

 

[Ragman2000]

All joking aside I've used some of these drills with my 9 year old boy's team that I coach. It holds up well and can be found on YouTube.

 

[OrangeFoo]

Thanks everyone for the great advice!

 

[Ragman2000]

Another alternative to knockout that I really prefer is to finish practice with "Around the World." I made up the rules to this one, but my teams seem to love it. The team lines up behind one of the blocks and it's one guy at a time, rapid pace, shoot 2 shots from the right block, two from the red line (halfway from FT) in front of the basket, and two from the left block. So 6 shots in total per kid. The team cheers on the shooter and counts aloud as the team shoots.

The goal as a team every time is to exceed 50% shooting. So if you have 7 kids, that's 42 shots, so they need to hit 21. Every practice the team tries to top their "team record" to that point in the season.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Saw this and knew it belonged in this thread.

TikTok - Make Your Day

 

[721Comstock]

Saw this and knew it belonged in this thread.

TikTok - Make Your Day

Is that James Harden’s kid?