My Coaching - Season 2

[CelticBalla32]

Last season, I tagged along with my friend to help him out with his last two games and practices. This year, I'm on for the full season.

We've had two games thus far and we've won each of them handily. Our first win was 52-39, while we won 57-40 today. We were up by as many as 23, but we took out our big guns at the end.

We have two absolute studs. It's a 7th-8th grade league, but one of our kids looks like a Junior in high school. He's big, strong, active, can handle it, has a beautiful stroke, he's a great rebounder, he's got a high basketball IQ... he's just the total package. He dropped 30 points in our first game and had at least five blocks with it.

Our point guard is awesome, as well, on both ends of the floor. He can shoot, he finishes, he's quick, he moves the ball, and he's an absolute ballhawk on D. He must have had at least six or seven steals today. To make a comparison for him in this league, he's like Rondo with a three-ball. Funny kid, too.

Those two guys play AAU and are best friends, so they have terrific chemistry.

Then we have this wide body who absolutely crushes opposing kids with his screens, and they're legal too. He knows how to set them, and could probably teach Perk a thing or two.

As a team, our best attribute is our fast break production. That's how we blow the game open each time. We force a lot of turnovers and those two standouts get the ball up court quickly... with passes, as opposed to dribbling. In 7th and 8th grade, that's very rare.

2-0 baby.

[cdif911]

congrats, is it a travel team? town team? other?

[CelticBalla32]

congrats, is it a travel team? town team? other?

Yeah it's just a Rec. league. It's very fun, though.

[Rizzo]

Congrats man! I used to coach younger kids too and it definitely is a lot of fun. The last four years, I've been assistant coach at my high school while I was home from college on winter break. This year they've actually hired me to be the freshman boys basketball coach, so now it's time to really work.

Good luck the rest of the way!

[CelticBalla32]

Congrats man! I used to coach younger kids too and it definitely is a lot of fun. The last four years, I've been assistant coach at my high school while I was home from college on winter break. This year they've actually hired me to be the freshman boys basketball coach, so now it's time to really work.

Good luck the rest of the way!

Congrats on getting that job. TP for sure.

[ACF]

Back when my belly wasn't as big,
the team I played for had a 14-0
season. That was like 11 years ago.
There was a guy on our team who
averaged 25 pts. You could pass
him the ball and you'd be sure of
either a bucket or two shots from
the foul line. Every time.
And that was the point our coach was
trying to make every time.
Pass the ball to Jacob.
Point is: As long as you're having
fun, keep on keeping on.
No matter what, the game of b-ball
is still a matter of getting the ball
through the hoop. No matter how old
you are or how tall you are.
Beautiful, isn't it?

I'm sure you'll guide your team
to a good sason. Good luck!

[celts55]

I have coached youth basketball for longer than I care to remember. Coached travel and town teams. Some times we won alot other teams not as much. The one thing I did learn however is that even though winning is great, the game needs to be fun for ALL the kids on the team. When I was much younger I coached a team that had a few dominate kids. My son was one of them. Either one could go for 30 and played great D. The only problem was I finally realized was the other kids weren't having fun watching these two scoring 80-90 precent of the points. They wanted to be involved also.
From what you wrote, I don't see you talking about the rest of the team. Maybe it was just an oversite, but I just suggesting you make it good for everyone. Not to mention I've seen a ton of kids who dominated in 7th and 8th grade and faded by high school. Your job should be to make sure that every player improves over the course of the year. Do that and the winning will come along with it.

[CelticBalla32]

Our best player was out of the lineup today for our third game, as he had an All-Star game (which sucks for us, but obviously All-Stars are more important than rec).

Didn't go over so well.

He and one other kid are the only two on the team that can successfully get the ball across halfcourt. I credit the other coaching for noticing that and trapping our lone ball handler. There was nothing we could do with their press because of that. Turnover after turnover (one of my kids turned it over 8-9 times).

It was just a tough game to watch, especially since my kids were down on themselves. I tried to lift their spirits with a joke here and there and it worked for a split second... until they realized what the score was again.

We lost by 19 and now stand at 2-1. It's not so fun being on the other end of a blowout. All-Stars better never interfere again.

[celticmaestro]

We lost by 19 and now stand at 2-1. It's not so fun being on the other end of a blowout. All-Stars better never interfere again.

Good learning experience, gotta look at it that way.

[xChopsx]

congrats, is it a travel team? town team? other?

Yeah it's just a Rec. league. It's very fun, though.

Sounds like fun. I was thinking about getting into coaching for a younger league for a little while.

[CelticBalla32]

We lost by 19 and now stand at 2-1. It's not so fun being on the other end of a blowout. All-Stars better never interfere again.

Good learning experience, gotta look at it that way.

Yeah, absolutely. If anything, I wanted a loss at some point to keep the kids level-headed and teach them how to overcome that mentally.

Our next practice is going to be our best and most intense yet.

[Scribbles]

Our best player was out of the lineup today for our third game, as he had an All-Star game (which sucks for us, but obviously All-Stars are more important than rec).

Didn't go over so well.

He and one other kid are the only two on the team that can successfully get the ball across halfcourt. I credit the other coaching for noticing that and trapping our lone ball handler. There was nothing we could do with their press because of that. Turnover after turnover (one of my kids turned it over 8-9 times).

It was just a tough game to watch, especially since my kids were down on themselves. I tried to lift their spirits with a joke here and there and it worked for a split second... until they realized what the score was again.

We lost by 19 and now stand at 2-1. It's not so fun being on the other end of a blowout. All-Stars better never interfere again.

If they're the only two players that can get the ball over half court under pressure you better work on ball handling drills man!   

[SShorefan 3.0]

We had our grade 2 draft on Saturday.

First of all, I find something terribly wrong with drafting 2nd graders, but that's a whole other story.  I am the grade 2 boys coordinator this year - every Saturday at 8:15 AM, I will have a team of 9 boys, 1 assistant coach and 5 other teams to manage.  If 9:30 comes and the kids aren't smiling and happy then there will be hell to pay!!!

[cdif911]

We had our grade 2 draft on Saturday.

First of all, I find something terribly wrong with drafting 2nd graders, but that's a whole other story. 

so we've had our eye on Tyler since preschool, and we were really glad he slipped to the second round, we were going to trade up to get him, but the dinosaurs wanted 3 juice boxes, and we were only willing to give up 2

[cdif911]

2 weeks til my year 5 starts... I'll keep y'all posted, btw if anyone was privy to my whole "situation" there's a post floating around somewhere... I held my ground and kept my original job