Quote:
Originally Posted by jay santos
How to dominate youth basketball.
1. In your draft, try to get the best point guard as the highest priority. Big man that can defend and possibly score in the paint, second priority. Third priority is athleticism, favoring speed over height everytime.
2. Scoring in the half court set is difficult no matter how good you are. Especially when jerk coaches run a zone and pack it in. You have to score on fast breaks. So spend nearly all your time in practice on how to generate fast breaks and scoring on your fast breaks, see #3.
3. Defense: attacking defense. Best athlete point guard is on their point guard. Stop the dribble, and everyone is aggressively cutting off passing lanes. Wait until they get to half court to jump on them. Practice this over and over.
4. Half court D. If they get past you and into their offense, front their post players, harass the perimeter players, and force them to make perfect pass over the top to get it to their post man.
5. Rebounding. Spend almost half your practice time on rebounding drills and boxing out (and firing it out to the outlet point guard to run the fast break).
6. Half court offense. Depending on the age, you can get more complicated, but simpler the better and fewer passes the better. High screen pick and roll is about all you need through 6th grade. If you have to pass more than twice, good chance you'll turn it over and never get a shot. You need quick hitting plays and shoot the ball quickly--at least you get a shot in and a chance for offensive rebound, plus you're quicker into your real scoring opportunities which are on D.
Teach fundamentals and all that and try to develop basketball players, but the way to win games is this strategy.
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Excellent advice, though I ignored your comment about the PG in today's draft. The best available PG in this draft is also the kid with the worst attitude, is a black hole for the ball and has the biggest pain in the ass parents.
I appreciate you posting these tips because it did help me put together what I think can be a competitive team.
My goal as a coach - no matter the sport - has always been to help each kid to be better by the end of the season than when the season started. This is only the 2nd season I've coached basketball - compared to 18 seasons coaching youth baseball - and I've found that winning is a byproduct of helping each kid get better, which is why I emphasize fundamentals, fundamentals and fundamentals more than anything.