Adding cones or chairs into drills is a great way to simulate defenders, taking skill development to another level. Although there are many areas in which coaches need to focus on at any given time, it is essential to include skill development as one of the primary focuses throughout the season and off season. Sure – building team…
Buying in to Defense: 8 Drills to Guard the Basketball Better
Sure, a huge part of playing defense is mindset and attitude, but these eight drills will teach skill and technique. Oftentimes, when coaches talk about focusing on skill development in practice, they are referring to working on offensive skills like shooting, passing, ball handling, and finishing. Being a successful defender is almost always considered an…
Putting Positive Coaching Into Practice
I’ve wanted to be a basketball coach since I was eight years old. While my peers were dreaming of playing in the NBA, I had my sights set on being the guy in a suit pacing up and down the sidelines. I traded in my playing shoes for a whistle and a clipboard early on…
15 Tips for a Better Practice
1. Plan it to the minute. Go into practice with a plan. Carefully decide your goals for the day and plan the drills you need to implement to accomplish those goals. Script out how much time you want to spend on each segment and keep in mind that most people have short attention spans. Try…
Roles of an Assistant Coach
Be Loyal to the Program: One of the most important roles of an assistant coach is to be loyal to the head coach and to the program. There are many influences and issues that may emerge during the course of a season. Make sure you always keep the best interests of the players, your program, and…
Developing Effective Parent-Coach Relationships
Every coach has gone through it. There is a disgruntled father in the stands or you receive an e-mail laced with complaints from a concerned mother. It only takes one or two parents thinking about your program in a negative light and that sentiment can spread like wildfire. Fractured parent-coach relationships can undermine what you’re…
Adapting Your Program
A major key in developing your program and sustaining success is your ability to be adaptable as a coach. Too many coaches want their players to adapt to their system. Not enough coaches understand that they need to be flexible enough to mold many parts of their system to suit the type of players that they have. Reasons to be…
Building Positive Relationships with Your Players
An essential part of coaching is building relationships. We, as coaches, spend a lot of time diagramming plays and developing new drills, but we don’t spend enough time trying to figure out how to better foster relationships with our players. The greatest compliment a coach can receive is “his/her players will run through a brick…