This past week and weekend, I was able to take in a few basketball games from our local high schools as well as some outside teams (Ontario and Nova Scotia). I noticed a few things that really stood out to me during these games and thought this blog would be a good way to put them out there and see what happens.
Before I get going, Moncton High School lead by Coach Andrew Macpherson won the tournament. So a congratulations should go out to his staff and team. Job well done.
Now, on to the observations (gathered from 6 games watched).
1- Ontario really really really need to start playing with a shot clock. I've seen two games from this team and they looked rushed and uncomfortable the entire time. I saw very poor game management in terms of time and score. Like it or not, player development (and coach development) is directly impacted by the rules the game is playing with. Nova Scotia teams and New Brunswick teams looked much better in their flow and game management. Maybe it was just this one team (from Ontario) but it really stood out to me nonetheless. Could you imagine if a demographic of 12.2 million would have a shot clock included in their games how much better their already talented talent would be?
2- Coaches need to do a better job of giving feedback to their players. "Good job, what are you doing, well done and the frown" are very overused and do very little for improving a player's performance. Coaches should try to give feedback such as: "Good job finding the body, or your keep missing your screens on insert play here, or well done anticipating" Be more specific.
3- Now, coaches that did do a good job of being more specific were good at doing it in a positive fashion. But when it came time to address bad play, I did not see one coach get it right (which doesn't mean it didn't happen...I'm just saying I didn't see it or hear it). The best example of what I am trying to say is Player X has the ball and is pushing it up the floor. Player Y is running his lane (not wide enough) in front of Player X. Player X tries to head-man the ball to him and it goes out of bounds. Coach of Player X and Y gets on Player X's case about the pass as he should. But he did it wrong. Coach simply said: "what are you doing passing it there" and said nothing to Player Y for not running his lane wide enough. So what happened after? That was the end of that team's transition game. Player X was the point guard and didn't throw another head-man pass again the rest of the game (and this team was quick). Instead, this is what should have happened: "Player X! If Player Y is not wide on his lane run, he doesn't get the ball. Player Y! run wide!" The transition game continues and the players become more aware of what needs to be done for them to keep taking advantage of their strength (although in January, telling players to run lanes wide should not be necessary...it should be an automatic...but I digress).
I could keep writing for three days on what I saw but I'll stick with these three things as they were what really stood out for me.
