We’re finishing up the season and I want to bring in some fairly simple drills to just improve ball handling and get some shooting reps without boring them too much. We’ve got 40-ish minutes to fill after our weekly work. Any suggestions for something fresh we can pick up quickly?
Edit/Update: we’re going to keep running man and drill offense more. Thanks for the feedback.
9U girls. I carried over a mostly intramural team to county ball and have learned a hard lesson. We’ve taken our lumps to the tune of a 1-8 record. We’ve had some 10-5 and 11-6 games but have also had 10-0, 14-1, 45-7, 31-8.. it’s been a long year but we’ve stuck to a man defense after we got our butts kicked in a 2-3 the first two weeks and I realized how taboo zone defenses are at this age.
We have a bye week before our last game and a buddy who runs the best team in the league has offered to have a blended practice to help us pick up their version of a pressure 3-2. I have a lot of guilt about this as all I see on this and other coaching forums is what a hack coach and “pussy” I’ll be for running a zone at this age. My girls need a win (my ego has recovered but they’re starting to cry in lopsided losses and it’s getting hard to motivate them). This guy is 9-0 running this defense.
Coaching 9U girls (most of them are 10). I’m realizing how much more at home practice matters than anything we can do as coaches. It is so obvious which parents are taking an active interest in at home practice (and which girls are motivated to practice on their own).
We provide the tools and drills, work on fundamentals, and get them ready for game situations and general basketball IQ, but the girls simply dribbling at home 20 minutes a day and getting a little hoop time somewhere with vested parent interest are growing SO much faster than the ones just showing up to practice and games, even the ones who work hard in practice.
I can clearly see which girls will be playing 11U next year and which will be relegated to rec ball players, and it’s almost exclusively tied to at home practice.