Coaching Effort

For our style (or really any style of play) to be effective against good teams, we have to play very hard. We want to make fatigue a factor through constant substitution and by speeding up the tempo and putting great pressure on the ball. To be successful, our hard needs to be harder than the opposition, and it's certainly not easy for our players to play with that kind of intensity for 32 minutes.

I've heard coaches in every sport say that "you shouldn't have to coach effort" in your players. Maybe in a perfect world (or in the pros) that is true. But I feel that "coaching effort" is perhaps my most important job as a high school coach.

Coaching effort begins by eliminating excuses from your players and that is best accomplished in practice. As Coach Walberg says, you want your players to have a "no excuses" mentality where they are mentally tough enough to not be effected by the referees, the crowd, a missed shot, etc. During our practices we are always striving to create the attacking mindset and tempo that we wish to see from our players on the court. This is done by creating habits through our drills and repetition. I believe strongly that playing hard is a habit, and all behaviors and playing habits (whether good or bad) should be built through repetition in practice.