Practice Planning

Below is a link to an article on practice planning I found on Brian McCormick's site. I like a lot of the ideas in this piece, particularly the ideas on making all your practice drills competitive.

After reading this article from Coach John Harmatuk, I realized that I miss practice. We did not really practice at all this summer -- just played a lot of summer league games -- and it was very frustrating at times to see the kids making the same mistakes over and over in the games and be unable to correct those errors the next day in practice.

http://www.thecrossovermovement.com/component/option,com_jd-wp/Itemid,61/p,266/

U.S. Olympic Team

I just finished watching the second half of the final Olympic tuneup for the U.S. team versus Australia this morning. Although the "Redeem Team" (as they have been inanely dubbed by the media) ultimately defeated the Australians by double digits, there was the usual troubling lack of discipline and smart play from the Americans, as the Australians out-executed the vastly superior American athletes on both sides of the floor throughout the half. Defensively, the U.S. continue to demonstrate a bullying mentality marked by habitual gambling and reaching. The international officials seem to allow more physicality and bumping which does help these "feast or famine" tactics. Unfortunately, all the reaching and overplaying also inevitably leads to numerous numbers advantages and easy shots for the opposition.

Apparently the basic strategy for Coach K and his staff is this: since the American players are either unwilling or unable to execute much resembling a half-court offense involving ball movement and intelligent play, the idea is to throw shock and awe tactics at the opponents on the defensive end and hope that phenomenal athleticism, slow international whistles, and intimidation will lead to enough easy transition dunks to overpower the opponents. This formula has been successful thus far in the five exhibition games, but will almost certainly not succeed against teams such as Spain, Greece, and Argentina, just as it didn't in 2004. Unless something radically changes in the opening rounds next week, I would be very surprised if the U.S. wins the gold medal despite having by far the best athletic talent in the world.

Student Accountibilty

The following is a 19th century quotation that I ran across in an autobiography of Abraham Lincoln that I have been enjoying recently. This excerpt pertains to education (specifically literacy), but the parallels to coaching basketball immediately jumped out to me. I'm convinced that to be most effective as a coach or teacher, you don't necessarily teach someone a skill or a concept, you teach a student how to teach themselves the skill or concept. Effective education is not injecting information into the brain of a passive student. The student must be intrinsically motivated to learn as well.


"If your own endeavors are deficient, it is in vain that you have tutors, books, and the external apparatus of literary pursuits. You must love learning, you must possess it. In order to love it, you must feel its delights; in order to feel it delights, you must apply it, however irksome at first, closely, constantly, and for a considerable time. If you have a resolution enough to do this, you cannot but love learning; for the mind always loves that to which it has been so long, steadily, and voluntarily attached. Habits are formed, which render what was at first disagreeable, not only pleasant, but necessary."

- William Scott