I'm old school hoops coach:
- Teach basketball skills & drills, not game prep(plays/sets for full practice)
- No pressing until 12U. No need to turn games into pure chaos
- Man defense & motion offense so kids learn how to actually play the game
- 10 foot rims starting in 10u
- Kids talk to ref and automatic T. Leave NBA stuff at door
- Four 10 min quarters
- 28.5 size ball until 13u
I'm coaching my son's 13/14 team at a local church league. So not super competitive. I have never coached his teams in any sport (except flag football at 5 years old) because I don't have real coach skills, and because I already teach him whatever I know, so me coaching deprives him of what he might learn from another coach. But they literally had nobody to coach if I didn't step in.
The first thing and third thing on your list is the #1 thing I had in mind. It always drove me crazy how much time through the years they were wasting practicing set plays, which never actually worked in a game, and aren't used at any level.
Because of these kids age, I sent out an email to parents before the season to let them know what to expect (in slightly subtler terms).
- The goal of the season if the the kids to have fun, and in my mind fun = playing well, individually and as a team. Winning maybe, but it's really about playing well.
- At this age, the kids are only on this team if they didn't make their middle school teams. At this point, if your kid doesn't have certain skills, we're kind of past the development point. I'm not going to try to teach them to dribble with their left hand, or shoot with proper form, or cross over, to prepare them for "the next level" (there is no next level for these boys, unless they grow to 6'10"). I don't have the coaching chops for it, and we're not going to make that happen in 90 minutes a week with 10 boys.
- We're going to concentrate on defense, pushing the ball on the fast break on every opportunity, and getting up lots of good shots. I want the kids to take good shots at every opportunity, as soon as it's available
We mostly work on drills for passing, shooting, getting open. Mostly it's been getting the kids to absorb the philosophy...get open, get the ball, shoot. Find the open guy so they can shoot. It's amazing with this casual church youth ball, for every kid that's a total ball hog with no conscience, there's five kids that are totally hesitant to shoot the ball, are afraid to miss, and are used to being told to go through a series of screens and ball rotations that are supposed to lead to a shot. F-- that noise. If we can find an open shot off one or two good passes, that's what we want. We fast break like crazy.
It's been a blast so far. They had a pretty elaborate evaluation process to try to create as evenly constructed teams as possible. Either that failed miserably, or I'm a great coach. Out of 10 players, I've got one kid with autism, and nine kids that can seriously play (for kids that can't actually seriously play). I feel like Leonard Hamilton being able to roll out two full lines that can put it on you.
I would feel irresponsible with this approach with younger kids, where they're expected to learn something or "get better", but any kid who has any shot at high school ball is long gone from these leagues by now. Individually all I really try to teach them is how they should be using the skills they do have, i.e. the bigger kids should not be getting the ball under the basket and dribbling AWAY from the rim for a fall away jumper. The kids that have a crossover, when they should be using it and how. That sort of thing.
