Purpose of Youth Basketball Coaching

This is where the fun begins!



You have chosen your team and it's practice time.



At the youth level, you have to be careful not to get too involved with wins and losses. Ten (10)years from now the kids won't care or remember how many games they won or lost.



They will remember whether or not it was an enjoyable experience.

They play because it's fun. If it wasn't fun, they would just quit.

You can have a team that will win consistently, but are you developing players individually?



My belief is at this stage (U-13), the coach is a teacher who needs to stick to the basics and develop the individual player. This doesn't mean they don't play to win, you teach them winning basketball by teaching them the basic fundamentals.



For example: You have the tallest player in the league, and he/she is great at grabbing rebounds and scoring off those rebounds.

The player is a center on your team, and you play the 2-1-2 zone.

During your practices, all the player does is hang out under the boards and grab rebounds. Your team wins lots of games.

But what have you fundamentally taught the player?

What happens when 2 years later the player is no longer the tallest player in the league or your team? Can he/she dribble to create their own shot? Is the player able to play man-2-man defense out on the wing?

My true basics are dribbling, defense (foot movement), passing, proper layup form, and shooting form. Then everything else falls as a sub drill of the above basics.

This especially holds true if you are coaching in a rec league. The time you have with your players is very limited, and the basics are necessary if you want you players to move up to more competitive leagues, such as select/travel, AAU, and high school.

We all like to win, but there is limit to what effect you have on a player to just play to win. Teach a player for a lifetime with the basics, and you will help create a winning player.

What to Look For When Selecting Your Team

There are generally 2 ways of selecting your youth basketball team.

1) You have tryouts and choose a set number of players from those either invited to the tryouts or from an open tryout. This is mainly the select/travel teams choose their players.

2) You have an open evaluation where you normally have coaches ranking players based upon such skills as dribbling and shooting, and in some cases how they perform in a scrimmage. This method is primarily used for selecting players in a draft for house or rec leagues.

Regardless, what type of tryout you are holding, there skills you are looking for are basically the same.

When I drafted my team recently for a house league, the keys I looked for were:

1) Dribbling capabilities

This probably the most important attribute to have at the youth (13 and under) level. It allows you select who will be your guards. For me, the guards aren't necessarily the shortest players.

To me, this is more significant than shooting. If I have a player who can dribble well, especially if they a good defender, then layups or 10 foot shots will comprise most of their scoring.

Watch any youth game, most of the points are scored from a short distance.

2) Height

You can't teach height. Tall players are at a premium, and tall players who can dribble is even better.

Just remember, you can always teach an athletic tall player how to dribble.

3) How well they played during the scrimmage

Here you can review lots of skills at once. You can see whether the player can dribble against pressure defense, if they can pass, shoot, and most importantly, play defense.

Thankfully, the scrimmages are usually 3 x 3 where you can get a better feel for the basic skills, and they should play man-to-man defense.


4) Energy/Attitude

Does the player seem to enjoy playing? Are they coachable? Do they keep playing when things don't go their way or do they sulk?

These tips hopefully give you some idea of what you to look for when selecting your team. The next article which ties into this one will discuss the purpose of coaching.

4 Reasons Why I Continue To Harp on Playing Man-to-Man Defense

Those of you who aren't familiar with my previous articles, must understand I am a youth basketball coach and gear my writings to teaching principles for ages 8-13. With this in mind, we have to appreciate the level of play and grasping of ideas from these kids.

My theory is very basic. The old KISS method. Keep It Simple Stupid. As you gain more coaching knowledge and experience, your ego tends to experiment you to experiment outside this principle.

You may ask what does this have to do with playing defense? Everything!!!

To me, teaching man-to-man defensive principles are easier to teach than zone or various gimmicky defenses you see youth teams trying to implement.

I recently read an article where the coach claims teaching man-to-man is difficult which may be true based upon his experience and methods. My experience has been it's difficult if you are impatient, but if you are patient, it's very easy to teach.

Younger kids tend to want to chase ball, and this is their naturally tendency. Watch any beginning youth team (not just in basketball), and you will see all the defenders chasing the ball. Good luck playing zone! With m2m, you want the player to defend their man and have sight of the ball at all times. This does take patience, but not as long as you may think.

There are various drills to keep players focused on this aspect of playing defense. First, I would teach them to play just their man and then teach them drills of playing man and ball. This a step by step process.

With this out the way, here are the reasons why I continue to harp on playing man-to-man defense:

1) Man to Man teams are more aggressive.

They tend to steal the ball more, rebound better, and score shooting layups ratha than jump shots.

What if you didn't have to spend so much time teaching offensive plays because your great defense led to easy scores?

When you have beginning players and limited court time, is it better teach a layup than a jump shot?

2) Better team communication.

There is more chatter amongst the players as to who you are suppose to guard. I even have players yell for help or even switch.

3) They become better defenders at other types of defenses.

If your players understand m2m principles regarding footwork, spacing, vision, etc.,. they become more adept at playing other types of defenses. To me, teaching m2m is the basic fundamental way of defending.

4) Higher level coaches prefer players who can play m2m defense.

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with coach from another league and he mentioned the high school coaches are questioning why very few kids are taught to play man to man. When you have players who have learned to play m2m, they are ahead of the game when it comes to playing defense. It may give the edge when competing against players for select or travel teams.

I hope this gives you some general idea of why m2m is necessary. In the next few weeks, there will be a FREE Ebook of articles from youth coaches around the country providing drills, concepts, and ideas of how to best implement m2m with your team.

Youth Basketball Practice, 3 Keys to Having a Great Practice

For all coaches, especially new or inexperienced coaches, how you manage your practices will determine how much your players will pay attention, learn and implement your ideas. Youth coaches have one added issue confronting them. You will often have a player who has never played organized basketball, thus creating the need to keep things basic.

Here are 3 keys to having a great practice.

1 ) Time Management.

All coaches feel as if they don't have enough practice time. If you have a 90 minute practice, all must have an accounting of all 90 minutes. Each drill should have a set time limit as well how much time for breaks. Make sure you leave enough time at the end for scrimmages.

2) Make It Fun

Most kids at the youth level play because it's fun. It's another game to them. Others who are more serious still need coaching that holds their attention. What better way to do this than making it fun?

This begins with you. If you speak in monotones without any excitement, your team will respond accordingly. I don't mean yelling at the top of your lungs as if you are hosting one of those infomercials, but you have to be a bit animated.

What also has helped me in the past is to make each drill competitive. Divided them into 2 teams, and have each team cheer for their teammate as a criteria for extra points. The losing team runs an extra drill like suicides while the winning team watches and also cheer them the other team running the drills.

The above is a great team building exercise.

3) Keep It Simple

We all have visions of diagraming plays various defenses. Sometimes, we are our worst enemy. For time management purposes as well as keeping practice fun, we must keep it simple.
Teaching the fundamentals of dribbling, passing, defense, and shooting will take up most of your time and must be kept to as simple as possible. If your team can perform the aforementioned basics, you will have prepared them for higher level play, such as high school.

Follow these 3 keys and your practices will be a blast.

Coaching Surprises, What I Learned From My U-11 Team

Last year I was coached a U-11 girls basketball team for rec league. Our games were once a week and we had one practice a week for 90 minutes.

There were 8 players on my team with 4 of them playing organized basketball for the first time. Thus, you understand how much fundamentals were a large part of practice sessions. I actually held back on what I taught them beyond the basics of dribbling, passing, defense, and shooting layups.

What I held back on was defense. Figuring it was easier to teach zone for our limited practice time, we actually became a very passive team. The reasoning being it was easier for them play an area rather than playing a man or girl even though were doing slide and other man-to-man drills.

After 4 weeks of getting blown out in a few games, and watching the girls stand around as if they were spectators, it became evident something had to change. Luckily, the girls were like a sponge when we started implementing man-to-man defense.

Wow! What a revelation! The girls, especially the new players, understood sticking your man and guarded them with fervor. We actually started winning games, which wasn't the main focus, but they added another aspect to their game that will carry them a long way in the future.

Guess what?

No matter the level of play or the limited practice time, my teams will never ( I know never say never) play zone again.

So what I really learned is that our youth can learn whatever thrown at them as long as they understand and see themselves getting better. All of our m2m drills were competitive and rewards were given to the winners of the drills.

What we actually did was make it fun! Remember, when you coach teams under 13 years of age, learning must be fun for them.

Yes, this article is primarily advertisement for m2m defense. They can learn zone in high school, but their m2m skills will allow them to play any type of defense.

Why Coach Youth Basketball

If some of you are like me, you probably got started or will start to coach because you wanted to coach your child's team. A good enough reason.

Fair enough and very logical.

Then the practices begin and you realize you have to command the attention of not just one individual player, but many others as well. Upwards to 12 kids on a team. I know rec teams usually have smaller roster, probably around 6-8 on a team, but you get the idea.

To answer the question, why coach youth basketball? It boils down to a few reasons.

1) There is a need for youth coaches across the country. Every year, some leagues have to beg, plead, bribe, etc. to find adults to coach teams. Every time you assist in coaching, you are helping the community. In reality, it's an awesome way to give back to your community.

By the way, we had teenagers in one of the leagues coaching 2 teams. In some school districts, community service is a requirement for graduation. What a fun way to enjoy fulfilling a graduation requirement.

2) Because it's a fun sport to teach. Here's where you may think it's too complicated and over encompassing; however, nothing can be further from the truth. If you keep it simple and to the basics of defense, passing, shooting layups, and dribbling (not necessarily in that order), you can easily field a team.

My experience is coach equals teacher. Every level of basketball from the youth leagues, high school, college, NBA, Olympics, the coach is imparting his knowledge to his players to achieve a desired result. The results or ends differ upon the level and expectations of the coach.

Thus, the number one reason kids play this sport at is to have fun. If you make it fun, they will learn and get better, and they will want to continue playing! Wins and losses won't matter because who will remember this 10 years later?

3) An opportunity to be closer to your child. Most youth coaches are coaching teams because they have a child who is player. We all work long hours and would love to spend more time with our children. This a great opportunity to do so while also helping other kids learn in the process.

For intent and purposes, we will mainly discuss youth basketball coaching from ages 7 to 13.

You will receive a mixture of articles written by myself, guest coaches from varying levels, and also special invites to FREE teleseminars.

Hope all you get something out of the information provided and have an enjoyable experience.