One of the more heated debates in youth and HS sports has centered on the benefits of the multi-sport athlete vs specializing in a single sport.  The proponents of playing multi-sports view that playing different sports can help players become better athletes. They can take skills from one sport and apply them to other sports. [...]

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Did you know that 90% of playing “Territorial” sports is about playing without the ball? Sports such as basketball, hockey (both ice and field), soccer and lacrosse are known as “Territorial Sports” where a team is defending a goal (their “territory”) and the winner is determined by how many goals are scored. Since scoring goals [...]

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Day 5-8 Create those Practice Plans This is the “parts”. Take the 3 segments of the season and start to develop daily plans that teach those skills needed for each segment. Keep looking at previous plans as you develop current plans to ensure logical progressions, reinforcing and adding new skills. A few suggestions when creating [...]

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Day 4 Take those skills/activities/drills and start to place them into a calendar. When do you need to teach fundamentals of a press break? Proper shooting mechanics? Low Post fundamentals? To help coaches schedule the progression and priorities of the season, coaches should break their season down into segments. Pre-season to first game What are [...]

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Day 3 After creating a skills inventory coaches should then consider which activities and drills best teach those skills? Which drills will best teach ball-handling? Which activities will best teach ball reversal, footwork and improve quickness? Match these activities with the skill. Organize into progressions, how best to teach? For example, two of the skills [...]

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Day 1 and 2      Before coaches can start to create practice plans for the season, they must first follow a series of steps to help keep them organized and to ensure that they teach all of the appropriate skills and tactics to their players. Taking a few hours and meeting with your assistants can [...]

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From our video conference the other night with Coach Randy Brown, there were several ideas and concepts I took out of that mtg that coaches need to do in order to get themselves off to a great start to the basketball season. The first involves basic organization and planning. Randy advises that coaches put together [...]

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In our video conference the other night w/ Coach Randy Brown, the emphasis and importance of playing 3 on 3 during practices was discussed. Before players and coaches play 5 on 5 or even 4 on 4, they should learn how to play 3 on 3. As Randy pointed out, “So much of the game [...]

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