Is there a difference between levels of basketball?

A LOGICAL, OBVIOUS AND RESOUNDING YES!!!  But not for the reasons you might think.  Of course, according to me.

First of all, I know that I am supposed to continue with my "Defense" talk but things are happening and I am seeing myself get taken over by these events.  I will get to my reflection on "Defense" as some point but for now, I must do a bit of writing as it pertains to my very elementary experience with a new level of play in the game of basketball.

So this is year 19 of my coaching career (if I include my middle school experience).  In my 19 years, I have had the opportunity to coach Middle School, Junior Varsity, Varsity, University, Provincial, National Program (Centre for Performance) and now Professional.  I have coached the boys and the girls.  I have done most of my coaching in Canada but do have a little bit of experience in the U.S.A as well.  For the most part, my experience is limited to a Head Coach's viewpoint but with the new pro team I am with now, I am in an assistant's role.  Although being an assistant has its rewards, I do miss being the person responsible for planning a season, developing players, making decisions and the stress related to all of that....I'll be honest here :)

Now that I've got all that out of the way, this blog will be about the differences to the levels at which I have coached.  These are my opinions and as usual, if you agree with them or not, I would love to hear my reader's thoughts (good or bad) on my reflections.

Coaching Middle School

In Middle School, it's all about the Love of the Game.  A coach’s main goal should be to involve as many players as he or she can to the game of basketball.  Keep things fun at all times.  Time and score are two things that should not be a focus at all while in practices.  Having said that, what the focus should be is playing games that address spacing, dribbling, passing and shooting is the way to practice.  At this level, it's all about building the base of the pyramid.  Get kids to fall in love with basketball.

Junior Varsity

At this level things start getting pretty serious as far as skill development goes.  Now that the player loves the game, he must now focus on getting better.  The big three is still dribbling, passing and shooting.  A coach at this level must be very technical and should have his practices be dominated with skill development.  The more skill you have, the less tactics you need.  If all your players can understand spacing, can shoot, pass and dribble the ball, you will win your games.  Concepts should be very minimal.  However, the fundamentals of defensive play should be reinforced (help side vs strong side and on ball defense vs off ball)

Varsity Level

At the Varsity level, skill development is still priority.  A coach must now start thinking wins but not to the point of going crazy.  A coach must be very good with different systems as in the High Schools, your team will change regularly.  Therefore, a coach must be very good at figuring out how best to use what he has to work with.  A coach at this level must also be good to train his players in order to give them a shot at playing university basketball (or college).  Networking with the next level coaches is essential and necessary.  A high school coach must pick the brain of a university coach as much as possible.

Provincial Basketball

This level is very interesting.  A coach at this level usually has limited time and money to build a confident and efficient team.  A coach here must be a motivator and strong tactically.  He must be highly organized and able to facilitate an understanding among all his players that "just because you are the best player at your high school does not necessarily translate as being the go-to-guy for the provincial team".  A coach must be very good at identifying individual skill set and creating a system that will best use that skill set.  In addition to that, the coach must be very good at convincing each player that they all have a role to play.  Not everyone will be looked at to score the ball.  Not everyone will be looked upon to bring the ball up.  So on and so forth.  Not much time here to develop skill.  However, it can still be 20% of any practice (use the warm-up for instance).

University \ College Level

At this level, I have been both an assistant and a head coach.  In both experiences, I have noticed some similarities and some dramatic differences.  A coach at this level needs to be a skilled salesperson.  Forget Xs and Os!  It's all about selling your program to not only potential players but alumni and the community as well.  Once the player decides to embrace your program, then it's all about making sure that player is happy with his role and sustaining the culture you are trying to create with said program.  Influence from Administration, alumni and many other people that have absolutely no business in what you are trying to do with your team is another aspect a coach needs to be able to manage.  It is also an essential part of your program because these people control the money which in turn makes a coach's life much easier when recruiting time rolls around.  University \ College coaching is a constant juggling act.  Peace is when the game is actually happening or better yet, practice!  I loved coaching at this level and did enjoy the relationships I have established in doing so.  However, I have come to realize that my expectations for my program (or type of program I want to have) are non-negotiable.  Because of that, I have been pinched.  I plan to coach for another 25 years at the very least and very much do not plan to change that mindset.  I know what wins and I know what loses.  Period!  I guess if I am ever to coach at this level again, it will come down to the type of institution it is.  I could go on and on but I won’t.  It’s not that kind of blog J

Pro ball (or Semi-pro ball if you prefer)

This is a business and business first!  In business, if things are not profitable (and that word has many different definitions), then things change.  When they change, there is little warning and it is swift.  A coach at this level needs to be sure that whatever his job is, he needs to get it done.  No excuses!  At this level, players are drafted or signed and each of them have a very specific skill set.  There is very little room for any improvement with that skill set.  Not because skill development does not happen in practice but rather because these players think they are done getting better.  Asking a player at this level to do something that is outside his comfort zone can be like trying to open a door by pushing it when that door is a "pull to open".  It's not that the door "doesn't want to open".  It's just that it wants to open its way.  A coach at this level needs to be a tremendous communicator and very good in the Xs and Os department.  A coach at this level needs to be very good at identifying what his players can and cannot do.  From there, he needs to set a system that best utilizes the strengths of his players (and hides their weaknesses).

So there it is.  My two cents on the different levels a basketball coach might find himself in.  I guess the moral of the story is this: Understand the level of basketball you are coaching at and the things that must happen for your situation (and your players') to be as beneficial as possible.  If you are coaching Middle School and have a Pro approach, it will not work.  Understand your context and pay attention to the culture you are creating.  Few cultures lead to success.  MANY cultures lead to failure.

Hurtful Behaviors in Schools

This past week, I have had my annual school wide assemblies on the topic of Hurtfull Behaviors in School (Anti-Bullying Program).  This is my second go around at these assemblies and I must admit, my approach this time has been much more smooth in its execution.

Last year, I basically had my assemblies be delivered aggressively with not much room for students to have a profound understanding of why our School District is doing this.  Although things went well with the 10 and 11 graders, it did not go too well with our grade 12 and 9 students.  Last year I had two seperate assemblies.  One for grade 10 and 11 while the other was for our grade 12 and 9.  My rationale was to have our freshmen be among our seniors in order for our seniors to model recieving the message.  What I did not consider before deciding these pairings were the dynamics.  Last year, we had a graduating group of students (generally speaking) that flat out did not understand the difference between bullying behavior and a position of authority.  So what happened was the graduating class decided to make a point about how some teachers bully students all the time (by telling them to go to detention, stop being late for class, etc).  So here are my grade 9 kids hearing this message: "Nobody can tell anybody what to do.  If they do, then they are bullying."  Of course, this is absolutely rediculous however, there is a point to be made about the delivery of the message from the authority figure.  Now I can respect that argument.  But then again, the graduating class did not verbalize that argument.  They just complained that teachers are always telling students what to do.  Um....ya!  That's their job!  Anyway....

This year, I made sure that the grade 10 class (which were the 9s of last year) were alone as well as my grade 9.  My grade 12 and 11 were together.  All three assemblies had a totally different approach in its delivery and things went much much better.  Only one hiccup happened during the grade 10 group when I was talking about the difference between being a "snitch" or "rat" and being a responsible citizen.  Criminals that tell on each other are "rats" or "snitches".  Citizens that tell about illegal behavior are responsible.  It is a civic duty to report.  Anyway, one little punk yelled out "snitches get stiches".....I'll be dealing with that student at a later date :)

All in all, I think the message has been well recieved by all.  I made sure the students understood why everyone comes to school, what it means to feel safe at school and the difference between bullying bahavior and authority.  Now it's a question of following up in the next few days.

Defense

DEFENSE!!!

When the topic of defense is the focus, my eyes widen, my pores get larger and my breathing becomes more intense.  There's just something odd that happens when I think (or play) about defense.  The thought of trying to stop someone from scoring is a tremendous challenge.  Add on top of that, to be able to help a teammate stop someone from scoring, just shows how complex defense is.  The picture above is a perfect picture for me because this is how defense should look like when you have failed to stop someone from scoring :) 

It's also going to be my approach for this blog.  I will take pictures and talk about how defense is supposed to look like.  I will have examples of what it should never look like as well as pictures that show a pretty close image of what it should look like.  As usual, if you agree fine.  If you do not agree, share your point of view or move on.

The Close out

Defense starts here.  Whether you are in the transition phase of defense or in the quarter court, you will need to close out on your man.  The close out is the foundation to how successful you will be in stopping your man from scoring.  The way a player closes out in a contain situation is very different than how they are to close out in a pressure situation.  Let me quickly explain the difference between the two situations.

Here we have an example of contain defense.  If the ball is in this zone, the defensive player should be only getting ready to deal with penetration attack.  Therefore, the defender should be a good arm length and a half away from the ball, low with hands out.  The rationale is pretty logical; there is simply too much court for one defender to take care of.  The offensive player has many more options than the defender has.  However, if the offensive player is scanning the court while in the contain zone, the defender should be "checking" the offensive player.  Checking is to simply quickly move up and tap the hip (or give a slight push) of the offensive player.  After this check, the defender must quickly back off and resume his contain defend.

This is a picture of Pressure Zone.  The darken areas are where the defender should be real tight to the offensive player while still maintaining a strong balance and low stance.  Here the defender has very active hands either trying to deflect the ball or mirroring the ball.  The offensive player must have a hard time scanning the court.  Defender in this area should be a half arm length away from the offensive player.  The sideline and baselines become an ally to the defender as well as the help defense is closer (or better able to anticipate the next move for the ball) than when the ball is in the contain zone.

Both these zones, as it pertains to the close out situation, would translate simply as such:

Contain Zone- Half way close out

Pressure Zone- Check and back off close out

Now, what should a close out look like?  Here's my lashing about that:

It should not look like this.  Not only is the ball in the contain zone, but this player is higher than his opponent in terms of stance.  What is making him be high in his stance?  Both of his hands are up!  This will naturally make the knees straighten up.  I teach my players to attack such a close out.  Make one move and get by that defender.  This defender should have his hands much lower and in the passing lanes.

Now here's a picture of what a proper close out should look like.  Although this particular defender is a bit too much on his heels, his hands and stance are exactly where they should be.  The only other thing I would fix here is how close to the offensive player he is.  He should be a bit closer as the ball is in the pressure zone.

So once the close out happens, it's on ball defending time.  In this picture, the offensive player is scanning the court.  The defender is doing a great job here limiting that scan (notice where the ball is) by being very tight (half arms lenght), lower than the offensive player and with arm out guiding the offensive player to his left (probably his weak hand).  Another detail I like very much is the "check" arm.  Notice, his hand is not on the offensive player's hip here.  It is his forearm.  This is key for when the offensive player decides to put the ball on the floor.

So now that the ball is on the floor, on ball defense must happen.  Defender must always be thinking about the "next spot".  Where is that ball going to be in one second from now?  In the picture above, the offensive will have the advantage on the next dribble but not because the defender is doing the wrong thing with her "check" arm.  I am guessing she is in that position because she dropped stepped instead doing a hip drop when the ball was put on the floor (a topic for another day).  I like this picture because she is trying to keep the ball in her cylinder and she can use the "check" arm to help her do that.  She should be lower and much squarer to the offensive player though.....

Here is a much more appropriate picture of what a defender should look like with the "check" arm in full effect as well as how square the defender is to the ball.  The only issue in this picture is the defender is higher than the offensive player and he is trying to stop the best player on the planet............

I want to end my defense talk with this picture and put a little question out there.  Do you think this defender needs help from the help defense?  Put your answer in my comment box along with your rational.  I will share with you my answer in my next blog; Team Defense.

I would like to thank Google Images for all the pretty pictures :)



 

A few thoughts on today’s needs for students in high school

With only two weeks before the start of my 10^th year as a teacher, I thought it would be a good idea to put down some thoughts on what today’s student needs in order to fully maximize success in the classroom.  Now these thoughts are specific to high school aged learners.  However, many of the things I am going to mention apply to the younger learners as well.

Compared to when I was in high school, today’s adolescent learners are very different.  The difference is primarily due to the world they live in compared to when I was their age.  We are in an immediate gratification era as far as information accessibility goes.  Today, if we want to know something about something, we simply make a search on the internet and within seconds, the answer is there.  Back in my day, we needed teachers to be the main source for that same information and so therefore, our teachers had that as a priority.  That is, they were content driven.   Today, all a student needs is access to a computer with internet capabilities in order to seek the information they need.  So why is it important for kids to go to school nowadays?  Well, because we are no longer in a content needed world, we have a different priority now.  We (the teachers) need to teach our students skills!

1-      Be a good person (yes this is a skill)

Students need opportunities to develop their character.  This simply does not happen by texting 1000 messages per day while sitting on his or her bed.  Kids need to be put in social circumstances that will allow them to develop communication skills, conflict resolution skills (something that is a tremendously lacking in our youths today) and an appreciation for other people’s unique attributes.  As much as technology makes you work behind a screen, it is still extremely important to know how to deal with live social settings.  If a student goes to school every day (something that I will get to in a minute) with a focus of getting better as a person to others, I think that person is arming him or herself very well for his or her future.  In my classroom, I call it Character Development.  All of my students are asked to keep in mind the 6 attributes I have found over time to be extremely important to have:

I-                    Respect  (believe in yourself and be good to yourself- believe in others and be good to others)

II-                  Autonomy (be your own person…don’t try to be someone you are not)

III-                Ambition (want more all the time but be ready to work for it)

IV-               Resiliency (if you do not get what you want, figure out why and try again...and again…and again)

V-                 Responsibility (be responsible not only to yourself but for others as well- your choices do not

just impact you…they impact everyone around you)

VI-               Passion (whatever it is that you decide to do, put your entire heart into it…give it everything you

got)

2-      Focus on being more Emotionally Intelligent rather than Intellectually Intelligent

In my experience, students in the high school setting that have had more success than others were simply more stable emotionally.  Now, I understand that some circumstances at home make emotional stability a very challenging thing to obtain but I am of the very strong belief that with awareness toward this end, students will have much more success in the classroom.  They will not panic as easily, they will not be distracted as easily, they will have a plan to what they are trying to accomplish on this day and they will be more resilient.   I could go on and on about Emotional Intelligence but for the sake if this blog, I will not at this time.

3-      Focus on good habits!

If a student can focus on these next items, there is absolutely no reason why this individual should not have a ton of success in the classroom. 

I-                    Wake up in the morning and have breakfast

II-                  Get to class on time (no skipping, no excuses)

III-                Be organized (have an agenda or use your phone to keep track of things you need to get done)

IV-               Have a plan (do not resort to studying the night before a test….for best results, breakdown the content that you must learn into three parts and start 4 days before the test.  On day one, study part one, day two-part two, day three-part three and day 4 review all parts)

V-                 You do not need an hour of lunch every single day.  Take two days out of five and use the full hour (I recommend Mondays and Fridays).  For the other three days, take 30 minutes to eat and socialize then take 20 minutes to go to the library or a quiet area and work on things or study)

VI-               Your brain needs sleep.  It will not be able to perform or organize itself if you neglect sleep.

VII-             Eat the right foods.  Again, your brain needs the right type of foods in order to perform.  Pop and chips does not get it done (neither does RED BULL or ROCKSTAR)

VIII-           Review your day’s work just before going to bed.  Better yet, do it as you lay in bed.  Last thing in your brain is the first thing it will organize.  Daily review will also cut down drastically on your study time before tests or exams.

IX-                If you have homework, do not do it as soon as you get home.  Take a break, eat a snack and watch some T.V. or whatever else you like to do to relax.  After supper, give yourself and hour (nothing more than that) to do your homework.  Be sure to have a 10 minutes work to 3 minutes distraction ratio when doing this.  Your brain will appreciate that J )

X-                  Finally, care about your work.  Be proud of it.

Notice that I did not at all talk about intelligence.  In today’s world intelligence is nice but it is not what will make an individual successful.  See point #2 for a refresher.  In today’s world, a person must have a strong work ethic and strong character.  Technology is changing our world every day.  The workforce is impacted greatly by technology.  If we (the teachers) instruct content rather than skills, we are killing any chances our students may have in today’s world.  We must make sure that our students can change with the times (character development) and whatever their job is they will get it done (good working habits).  In addition, if they can roll with life’s punches (emotional intelligence) our students will have  lifelong success no matter what they do.

And that’s my lashing about that.

My thoughts on what Team NB needs to do in order to be more successful on the National scene

In the picture above are my players from this summer's Team New Brunswick Under 17 that competed at Nationals in August.  This year, we were at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario.  This group finished 9th (the worst finish in my 8 summers with Basketball New Brunswick- one summer as assistant coach U16, five summers as head coach U15 and two summers with U17) with a 2-2 record. 

Now, was this group a terrible team?  Not at all!  I have coached teams that had less talent and finished in better standing at Nationals.  The way the National tournament is set up is by rankings based on the prior summer.  We were ranked 8th and therefore put in a pool with Ontario (gold medal winner), Alberta (finished 4th) and Newfoundland (finished 8th- we very much should have beaten those guys.....).  We lost to Alberta in our first game so that dropped us to a top finish in our pool of 3ed but only if we beat NFLD.  We lost to them and that dropped us to 4th in our pool and out of the main bracket.  Two games.....that's it.

Did this group work as hard as they could have?  Not at all!  I don't know how many times we told the guys to get in the gym and shoot the ball during their open gyms back in their hometown.  Not play 5 on 5 but actually get some shots up.  Then play 5 on 5.  Based on feedback from their high school coaches, most of our guys did not get this done.

Did we have the best training possible?  Not at all!  And this last point is what I want to talk about.

For me, a team's success is based on 5 things:

1- Does the team have skill (can they shoot the ball, pass the ball and dribble the ball at the appropriate pace)?
*Our team could shoot the ball at a reasonable clip.  However, we really had a hard time knocking down the open three.  We had issues taking care of the ball at the start of our summer but the boys did a good job of being more aware when dealing with pressure situations.  Of course, we had the best available players (with the exception of maybe two that chose not to play this summer) with the needed skills for this team.*

2- Can your team practice regularly?
*This is a major problem with summer provincial teams.  The way NB is set up, teams are chosen then they practice every weekend and go two a-days.  Our team would practice on Saturday mornings for two hours and go again later in the afternoon.  The same would be done on Sundays.  Once in a while, there might be a video session or a nutritional session inbetween the Saturday practices but for the most part, that is what a typical summer would look like.  From Monday to Friday, players would get no repetitions of what was covered over the weekend.  Therefore, Saturday's first practice session would be a review of things covered from the prior weekend.  There is absolutely no way a team can be as sharp as it needs to be under this condition.  I would rather have the guys come in two weeks before going off to Nationals and practice everyday.  Exhibition games can be scheduled for the weekends or a tournament.  Yes the downside is the team will not have many games but I will cover that issue later.  Games can only help a team get better if the practices have achieved what they were supposed to.*

3- Does your team have a plan on offense
*I always like looking at teams and trying to figure out what they are trying to do.  A very good team makes it obvious.  Not only that, they are consistent about it.  Now you might be thinking that is crazy.  I am telling you, all the championship teams that I have seen (and been a part of) do something very well on offense.  And it is predictable.  Thing is, these teams have counters to when other teams try to stop them from doing what they like to do.  What happens here is your team develops multiple ways to beat an opponent.  Our summer team this year did not have a very solid offensive plan.  That is surely not because we haven't tried to implement it.  Rather, it is because we could not be consistent enough.  At Nationals this year, our NB team outshot everyone we played.  Problem was, we did not hit the threes that were open for us and we had a hard time executing on the defensive side of things.  Which is my next point.*

4- Can your team eat-up other teams?
Defense without a question has been our main focus this past summer.  Like offense, a championship team will be able to do a multitude of things in order to beat you but only if it does what it wants to do to you first.  We would spent at least 60 to 70 minutes per practice on defense.  From our man to man, to zone, to closeouts, to rebounding, to full court pressure and half court pressure.  Of course, our number one priority was to get that quarter court man to man defense tight.  The way we were wording it was: "when things get tough for us on offense, we will lean on our defense and it will save us everytime".  I wanted to put a sense of desperation to our players with respect to getting them to be sharp with our No Chase man to man defense (I might talk about that in a future post).  Now here is the major reason why our teams at Nationals seem to struggle to stop other teams.  WE LACK THE GAME EXPERIENCE THAT WILL FORCE US TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IT TAKES TO PLAY DEFENSE AGAINST THE SIZE, LENGTH, SPEED AND ATHLETICISM WE SEE AT NATIONALS MORE OFTEN DURING OUR TRAINING PHASE.  Our NB teams need more games against structured, skilled and athletic teams.  Teams that get out and guard you full court for 40 minute, teams that will zone you one second and man to man you the next.  Teams that have skilled shooters (Alberta had 7 different players hit a three against us this year- we have never seen anything like that all summer).  I know, if we play Alberta again, we would close that gap very quickly.  But we do not have that chance at Nationals.  It's one and done.  Another example of this is Team Nova Scotia.  Now here you have a team that plays the style we are going to get from just about everyone at Nationals.  We played them early in the summer and they smashed us.  We had large issues playing at the pace they were making us play.  It's not that we couldn't, it was a simple matter of getting used to it.  We played them again later in the summer and lost by 4.  We did nothing different tactically (although we did not execute the game plan very well- pound it inside!!!) but closed the gap significantly.  At Nationals, if we could have avoided the terrible game against Newfoundland, we would have faced Nova Scotia in the quarter finals.  Our guys were not looking past Newfoundland but were very excited for the opportunity to play NS again.  I was very confident that our defense would have been on time much better than the first two games we played those guys and we would have gotten the ball inside much more as well.  Mind you, NS would have shortened their bench against us and were playing extremely well that week. Conditions were a bit different than the first two times we played them. Nonetheless, we didn't beat NFLD and Nova Scotia won the silver medal at Nationals...........
Our players need more experience in the "style of play" (as Paul Vaughan put it- U15 Head Coach) that we see at Nationals.  For that to happen, we need to get our players playing out of province.  We simply do not have the amount of players NS have (that play that style BTW) or Ontario, Quebec, etc.  It's not that our players do not know what they are doing on defense (although at times, we have that problem), it is that our players lack the experience necessary to succeed against teams that play and have a type of player that we see at Nationals.*

5- Does your team have size and length?
* We had a couple of guys that had good size to them this year.  Length not so much.  We had a 6'8 player (that will be back with us next year- if I am to coach this team again.......) and another 6'6 player.  The rest ranged from 5'9 to 6'4 which is pretty average at the U17 age.  Our 6'8 player had some length to him as did the 6'6 player and they both shoot it well.  Our 6'6 player shoots it probably better at this point in his development but is a little awkward which makes his length a bit all over the place.  When we played Alberta, the shortest player that was among their starting 5 was 6'2.  That was the point guard and he was the only one that did not have length.  Our guys played the entire game dealing with finger tips on passes they were trying to make to tip-backs on offensive rebounding.  Size and length matter immensely at Nationals.  Again, team Nova Scotia were two players of 6'6 or higher away from beating Ontario.  You can try and box-out all you want, but if the size and length is not there, it's a 40 minutes uphill battle.*

This blog is a rather lengthy one (see what I did there- see point number 5).  However, since blogging is now my new way to have journal entries, this is pretty much what will happen when I talk about stuff on this.  Instead of typing on a word document and hitting save......I am blogging and hoping for some comments on the things I think about.  All I want to do is get better :)

My First Blog Ever

I have been recently inspired to fully engage myself in the technology information age by a good friend of mine Kevin Duffie.  He explained to me that by doing this, I could potentially start something very interesting as it pertains to areas in life that I want to perfect.  Those areas, of course, are all of them :)  He also pointed out that it could become a very nice way to network with other people that care about the same things that I do.  Anyway, it just seems to make a bit of sense so I am going to give this thing a shot.

Mostly what I plan to blog about is anything about coaching basketball, teaching our youth and leadership in general.  These topics are very important to me.

This will be it for my first blog.  Stay tuned for my thoughts on the state of basketball in the province of New Brunswick.