Season's End

Well, our season ended this week. The "A" team finished with an 18-1 record. We lost our only game in the semi-final of the county tourney to a team that we had previously beaten by around 20 points. It was our 6th game in 7 days. I think it finally just caught up to them and seemed a little sluggish throughout the game. We had an undefeated season and captured the conference tourney. Definitely, a successful season.
My "B" team, the team I coach, finished 4-4. Being a "B" team coach, you never really know who you're going to have to play night in and night out. Thankfully, I normally did. I tried to get the guys as much playing time as they could and still let us be successful. I think we only lost to one team that I think we should have beaten.
This was probably the most fun year I have had coaching. It's not because we won a lot of games. It's because of the kids. Everyday, they came to practice with smiles on their faces and a hard working attitude. We had fun, but we also got down to business. I had a lot of fun getting to know them.
Some things I learned this year -

• There is no substitute for not having 2-3 ball handlers. If you don't have a ball handler that can handle the ball and get your team into a flow offensively, you will not win many games. People always talk about whether to pick a point guard or a center. I will always vote point guard. 
• One of the most underrated things is the ability to handle pressure.
• Another of the most underrated things is the ability to get open.  If you don't understand how to get open, things will be bad for your team. 
• A coach must continue to stress process over product.  This is what you can control. If you can get your kids to buy into the process of winning vs. just winning, you will be more successful.  Better Every Day is a good philosophy. Or Improve Daily.
• KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. One thing I learned is that less is more.  Teach kids to play basketball vs. teaching kids to run plays. I think we did this this year. 

I hope to continue this blog a little more often now that the season is over and I can watch some college games. 

Thanks for reading. Leave a comment if you'd like. 

End of 2011 wrap up

So, I'm getting ready to wrap up this year. As of right now our 8th grade "A" team is sitting at 9-0. Our "B" team is 1-2. We've got a lot of work to do. Both of our teams have 5 more games until our conference and county tournaments. One thing that I always try to do is to be playing the best basketball at the end of the year. Yes, it's always good to pick up wins along the way. Being undefeated is never something that you shouldn't be proud of accomplishing. I'm concentrated on daily improvement and making the team better. If you played your best basketball in November, then what have you been doing since then? I have enjoyed this break from school. We gave the players a week off over break. I think they know that they should be doing some conditioning over break because Coach Allen will be sure to remind them that they should have working out over break. I'm going to work with the bigs when we get back on finishing around the bucket and being strong with the ball. We tend to let the ball be slapped away by the pesky little players. Always something to work on.

I picked up some books to read over break.
You Haven't Taught Until They Have Learned by John Wooden
http://www.amazon.com/Havent-Taught-Until-They-Learned/dp/1935412086/ref=pd_sim_b_6
Inch and Miles by John Wooden
http://www.amazon.com/Inch-Miles-John-R-Wooden/dp/0756914108/ref=pd_sim_b_1
Soup by Jon Gordon
http://www.amazon.com/Soup-Recipe-Nourish-Your-Culture/dp/0470487844

First W

My current coaching job is an 8th grade assistant/ "B" Team coach. I'm really enjoying it. We picked up our first win tonight. Which coincidentally, is also my first ever real win. Being an assistant for 8 years, I have been around a lot of basketball, but have never actually coached a winter game and made all the decisions myself. It feels good. I probably took one of the A team players out a little early before the deal was actually sealed, but we hung on until the end and pulled out a 5 point win. I uncovered a lot of stuff we need to work on, so back to work it goes.

Communication

Basketball trainer Alan Stein has a great article on communication that is definitely worth a read. It's about the major difference between high school and college players. He decides on communication.
After I read this, the next day at work my boss asked me if this document that he sent me would work. I replied that it would. He came by about 2 hours later and asked if I had done something that is the third step in the process of what I do. I told him I hadn't because I wasn't told to do that. I would have skipped step 2 without any approval. He had thought that by asking me about step 1 that everything to step 3 would have been done. Right there lies the communication breakdown. I had no idea that I was supposed to have step 3 done. It didn't make sense to me when he asked me about step 3. I probably gave him the worst look ever because I was confused about why he was asking this.
Communication is so important so that everyone is on the same page. When everyone is on the same page, everything flows and the guesswork is taken out of a lot of things.
Communicate effectively and progress will happen.

Fundamental Importance

As our season is around 3/4 of the way finished, I feel that this topic should have been posted a long time ago. I want to talk about foundations and how foundations must be solidly built at the beginning of the year.
We're 3/4 of the way done with our season, yet I feel that some of our guys are not well-grounded in the fundamentals to be able to execute simple things this late in the season. I think some of these things were overlooked early on in the season. We took them for granted. I thought they knew them, understood them, and applied them correctly. As we have went on with the season it has become apparent that we really didn't understand some of the core understanding of our system. It becomes evident in our execution of our offense. It's the small things that make the big differences. It's the understanding of the big picture; the learn it today so it will help us tomorrow and later this season things that we're struggling with.
I think it's a discipline thing. Having the ability to do things the right way at the right time.
So, what I have learned from this is that early on in the season a coach must base the understanding of his offense, the complexities of his defense, the underlying structure of the whole operation on the fundamentals. Everything must be based on them and you must recurrently go over them again to make sure your program is still grounded on its foundation.