Winter League - Week 7

My high school coach used to always say he wouldn't comment right after a game regardless of a win or loss. He wanted to wait 24 hours so he wouldn't get caught up in the emotion of the game. Sometimes he was better at that than others, but we wanted to make sure we followed that rule as a staff this weekend as we were a little disappointed in the job we did getting the guys ready to play this week. We felt like the gameslacked some of the continuity of previous weeks. A couple days later, we realize that some of it had to do with the boys taking what we did the last couple of weeks and really applying it in the games.

Specifically the last two weeks we worked a lot on the correct ways to defend screens. We worked on staying between man and the basket instead of chasing around picks and giving up layins. The boys really did a good job of taking the correct path to their offensive player keeping them in the proper position to stop the opportunities to drive. Individually guys did a better job of not overplaying on fakes make it more difficult to drive (especially off the wing), another thing we worked on last week. So part of us we'll score one for the defense this week (as a former player who couldn't shoot to save his life and had to get by on his defense I should have enjoyed it more).

Having said that, we'll work on some things to help the offense step it up. The big thing will be getting back to basics. We've had a little case of the "I Got This" syndrome creep in as we reach the middle of the program. Some guys are a little too satisfied with having learned the basics of the offense and need to recognize that the next level of understanding takes into account reading and reacting to the defense to create scoring opportunities. Also, as the defense improves; screening, cutting and playing at a little faster tempo, become much more important. You may see us coaching with a little more volume this week to make sure everyone recognizes the need to continue to improve and the pace of some of the drills will probably pick up as well.

Now that the defense has improved hopefully we can see another gain on the offensive side of the ball as well. Again, your input is always welcome.

Week 5 - Winter League Thoughts

It was a fun weekend of games again. Glad to see most everyone back and ready to go. I'm really excited as we go for 6 straight weeks without a break. We should see some big improvement in the coming weeks. We'll have one more weekend of playing with the teams as they are and the reform the teams for the second half of the program.

Here's what we're thinking as a staff for each division. Please feel free to share with me any questions, comments or concerns at coach.pat@homecourtnw.com. We're almost to the mid-point of the program so now is the perfect time to gather feedback.

White Division - Sunday Games
I'm having an internal battle between my glass is half full viewpoint of life and the critical eye of a coach with the White Division. I couldn't be more pleased with the commitment that the boys are showing in trying to run the offense. Guys are really trying to make sure they do everything right. On the otherhand we're missing some opportunities to be aggressive because we're worried about making the wrong play. There were some nice spurts in the game today though where the boys got into the offense quickly and then took advantage of scoring opportunities. We'll really focus this week on getting mentally prepared to start the offense on each play and let the rest take care of itself.

Yellow Division - Saturday Games (Early Session)
We're really starting to see some individual improvement in this division. Some guys who were struggling early with the offense are starting to look more comfortable and we had some nice plays on Saturday. We need to do a better job as coaches of letting guys no the positive impact they are having without shooting the basketball. We see, on occasion, guys make up their mind that they are going to shoot no matter what and get themselves in situations where it's too easy for the defense to make the play. I do like the fact that the guys who have the best understanding of what we're trying to do are getting the most opportunities to score. They are recognizing the importance of reading the defense, moving with the ball and being aggressive when they can. It's also good to see the defense being able to stop the one on one plays forcing the offense to work together.

Orange Division - Saturday Games (Later Session)
What a great weekend of games. I think we had three games that came were decided in the last seconds and another that was decided by 5 points. We're definitely ready to start adding stuff to the plate. Practice will be really important the next couple of weeks as we start to incorporate more full court and end of game situations into our lesson plan. We're probably going to spend a little more time on team defense as well. At first it may make the games a little sloppy as we start to give guys some secrets for defending the motion offense, but I can't see any reason why the guys won't make the necessary adjustments on offense.

Again, please share with many any feedback or questions you have. We've got a quite of bit of time left in the program and we definitely want to make sure that everyone is having a positive experience.