A Coach's Diary

Most practices are similar. You start out with some kind of warm-up, then you get into individual skill work. Next comes team skill work and you eventually get into some kind of scrimmaging/competing. Most athletes just get through the skill work so that they can get to the playing part of practice. The best know how important the warm-up and skill work are. The best stayed focused and locked-in on the skill work, they learn, and they apply the skill work in live action. If you want to be the best you can be, be focused, listen, learn, and apply from the start of practice through the end of practice. Every word your coach says and every drill you do is your opportunity to get better. Every mistake and success is a chance to get better. Don’t waste those opportunities by slopping through drill and skill work. Don’t just go through practice. Grow through practice. Every day, get a little better.

One thing that I tell my athletes is that practice, especially practice at home by yourself working on your game has to be the best part of your day if you really want to squeeze the juice and become your best. At my house, we say the same thing.  We try to set aside time every day to work on our different sports, we try to make it family time, and we always say that this is the BEST part of our day. I hope that my kids look back with good memories of us being in the back in the late afternoon when the sun starts to set, shooting hoops, working on our soccer touches, having batting practice, or practicing our tennis swings. Jay Shetty is a former monk who is now an award-winning host, storyteller, and viral content creator who since launching his video channel in 2016, has garnered over 4 billion views and gained over 20 million followers globally. He repeated the quote, "The most successful people in the world, healthy, wealthy and wise, choose education over ent...

I heard a great speaker talk about the importance of being purposeful in practice.   He said that every practice should have two goals: 1 - Every individual gets better and FEELS better and more skilled.   Players have more fun when they are more skilled because they have more possibilities and solutions available, and they are more confident. An everyday goal should be to GET BETTER. 2 - The team should be more prepared to win games. I would add that another goal should be that athletes are more prepared to win at life as well. 'THAT IS WHAT WE WORKED ON' He uses the phrase, 'Thats what we worked on to constantly reinforce and reward teaching points.  He says that we want our players to always come back to understanding what we are working on and if it is helping us become better players and teams, he does that by using the 3 Rs: Reinforcing what we teach. Reminding what we teach. Rewarding and noticing progress. A bi...

If you want to get ahead, don't wait until practice to work on your game.  Work on your game BEFORE practice and OUTSIDE of practice so that when practice starts, you are better and more ready to perform the drills and more ready to compete. Change how you look at practice.  It is a chance to work on your game, it is a chance to improve how you play as a team, but it is also a chance to COMPETE, and anytime that there is a chance to compete, you want to make sure that you are ready and prepared to perform. To be ready to perform, work on your game BEFORE you come in. NBA star Steph Curry talks daily routine, sensory-deprivation tanks, and hacking his brain Most practices have the same three elements: 1 - Skill work 2 - Team learning 3 - Some kind of competition Work on your game on your own so that the skill work in practice is easier for you, smoother, and is just extra reps. Learn through the team play so that you can be the best teammate that you can be ...

Hailey Van Lith is one of the best basketball players in the country.  She burst on the scenes with a highlight video last summer where she was killing a group of guys in one-on-ones and she has since become one of the more popular high school players. She is a strong point guard who can shoot from deep and has a really good handle.  In her words, her game is saucy and the girls game is getting more style as a whole. I really enjoy her videos because of her style and ability.  She also has a very competitive mindset.  The video above is a really good video for all young players, but especially for girls who play basketball.  It shows that girls are tough, competitive, saucy and how much the girls game continues to grow and evolve. In the video above, she is mic'd up for practice.  The start of practices starts light and she helps to keep it light.  It seems like an inviting environment.  As the intensity starts to pick up, so does her...

To me, this just means that we have to have a purpose and a why behind all of the drills that we do in practice.  We have to practice discernment in our planning process - don't just do something to do it or because that is what you have always done.  Kids today are smarter than that.  They want to know how this is going to help them and why they should be doing something. We can complain about our kids not buying in and the 'culture' today, or we can adapt and be better coaches, comminucatiors and leaders by having a purpose and a why for what we do and by effectively communicating how this particular drill can and will translate to individual and team success. Plan with a purpose.  Plan with the end in mind.  And it's okay to smile while doing so (lol).

💪🏿 Find the best player in the gym and play them. 🏃 Find the fastest person at the workout and work  next to them. 🏀 Find the best shooter in the gym and shoot with them. ⚾️ Find the best hitter and pitch to them. ⚾️ Find the best pitcher, and hit off them. ⚽️ Find the best scorer and try to stop them. 🏀 Find the best goalkeeper and try to score on them. 🥅 Find the hardest worker and try to outwork them. 🎽 Find the person who can run the furthest, the longest and try to keep up! When you play against people who are better than you, you get better.  They push you harder and they expose your weaknesses.  They force you to maximize your strengths and grow your weaknesses.  They teach you how to have a growth mindset and learn from your failures.   We all win and lose in life - and sports can prepare you for that.  Your first loss shouldn't be as a college freshmen when you are away ...

Our philosophy is to front the post.  I like fronting the post to keep it out and to limit your ability to get us in foul trouble, and it puts our post defenders in better position to help on dribble penetration because they aren't stuck behind the person that they are defending.  But, this drill can be great for your team no matter how you guard the post. I first saw this drill below watching SMU men's practice when Larry Brown was still coaching them.  In this video, I really like how they finish each rep with a charge, a loose ball, or a steal.  This is something that we will implement about once a week.  

After you have determine an offensive style or system for your team, player development is the most important aspect to your teams success in my opinion.  How you play at the end of the season is a direct reflection to the emphasis that you put on each individual's skill development and growth. I am always looking for ways to steal a couple of minutes a day of practice time in which we can teach and drill certain parts of the game, and one way of doing that is the drill below that teaches and emphasized post feeds. I feel that ball penetration, whether through the dribble or the pass, is the most important part of  your offensive attack.  Aside from the fact that your shooting percentage goes up as you get closer to the basket, getting penetration breaks down the defense, creating open 3's or long closeouts. In the drill below, you can create many opportunities for your team to practice post feeds, to practice footwork in the post, and to practice reads and passess ...

Lawrence Frank gave a really good Pick ‘n’ Roll Offensive breakdown in the video below.   Frank says the objective of pick and roll is to create 4 on 3 advantages, so you want to be aggressive, attack, and make the defense pay for however they guard you. One of the key points that he makes is the importance of being able to counter-punch.   Each team you play will have a plan for how they want to guard, or attack your ball-screens.   This video identifies several different defensive options and how to exploit them. At the end of the day, no matter what offense you have, it is important to teach, grow, and develop your players so that they can make the right reads at the right speed and so that they have the skill set to beat their man when they make the read.   This breakdown outlines ‘what’ you need to do.   Every day in practice you must teach ‘how’ to do it. Frank also says that, as a coach, you want your players to know who you are and wha...

It is important to learn how to play at different speeds as a basketball player.  Even if you are one of the fastest players on the court, players and teams can adjust to you if you just play ‘fast’ the entire game.  They can figure out how much space that they need to give you and adjust on how they anticipate and beat you to a spot. When you can play at different speeds, you are much less predictable and you can get by your defenders more effectively.  Below is a really good change of speed and change of direction drill by current Indiana coach and former Marquette coach Tom Crean.  Here he is working on changing speeds and different finishes, including pull-ups and layups. This is a great ball-handling drill, as it works on different dribble moves, a great shooting drill, and a great drill to teach finishing moves.  Instead of just doing full-court crossovers, this is a good alternative through which you can get ga...

I'm always looking for ways to better and better maximize my practice times.  In this short clip, OU women's coach Sherri Coale talks about the 5 things they do at OU every practice.  I believe in these 5 things completely, and aside from having live time to 'play,' these 5 are definitely everyday 'must-haves' in my practice as well. 1 – Shoot - Make shots, win games - Game shots, game spots, game speed The greatest plays in all the world make no difference whatsoever if you can’t make a 3, make a jump shot, finish a layup. Practices shooting the shots that you expect to get in the games. Be good at the things that happen a lot, and how can you be good if you don’t practice shooting? 2 – Defensive Transition – Contest EVERY shot - No layups | no uncontested shots | make teams shoot over you Protect the basket and stop the ball so that you don’t give up easy baskets.   3 - Rebounding – No second shots -   No second chance shots...

All of this was done in the subtlest of ways.  While our practices were the most demanding endeavors that I’ve ever been a part of – so physically, emotionally, mentally, and psychologically taxing – there was always the sense of joy, of celebration, and of people having fun playing a simple game.   Always positive, always constructive, John Wooden drove us in ways and directions that we are not aware of, always with the goal of making us better.   It is never about him, never about the struggle for material accumulation, but always about individual skill and personal development within the framework of the team, the game, and UCLA.    Our practices, our lives are constantly structured around the four laws of learning: demonstration, imitation, correction, and repetition. And repeat we do – everything, every day, until we have become John Wooden ourselves.