www.solancoyouthbasketball.org Coaches, welcome to the Solanco Youth Basketball season! Thank you for your willingness to volunteer and help the youth of our community! The purpose of Solanco Youth Basketball is to encourage participation and the pursuit of excellence in all aspects of the game of basketball. To accomplish this purpose, Solanco Youth Basketball has three primary goals. One is to teach and develop basketball skills in our youth and in the process help our youth have a rewarding experience (in other words having fun). Our second goal is to align the youth program with the goals and philosophy of the Solanco boys and girls high school basketball programs. This will help our youth be prepared to succeed at the next level. Our third goal is to develop our youth beyond just basketball skills. We believe there are tremendous benefits to youth playing a team sport. They will have the opportunity to learn how to work together, build confidence and character, be responsible, encourage others, grow from mistakes, win graciously and learn the benefits of hard work. So with these goals in mind we developed this Coaches Manual to provide you guidance in coaching your team. This manual spells out coaching priorities and principles, how to allocate practice time, and what skills to focus on. This manual also incorporates the direct recommendations from our Solanco boys and girls basketball coaching staff. We developed a separate Drills Book that includes recommended drills to use for each skill. We hope this helps you. It is our expectation that this Coaches Manual is used and followed by our coaches. This will help us reach our goals. Thank you for coaching and we look forward to a great basketball season! Scott Bailey President, Solanco Youth Basketball
COACHING PRIORITIES www.solancoyouthbasketball.org In order to meet our goals, SYB coaches must have two top coaching priorities: (1) The development of youth basketball skills and (2) Setting a positive example of behavior and character. In a normal basketball season the youth in our program will spend over 40 hours in the gym for practices and games. This results in parents dropping off and picking up their kids 2 or 3 days a week. We recognize that this is a significant commitment that players and parents are making and we must use their time in a way that proves it is worth the sacrifice. At the same time 40 hours is not a lot of time to teach and develop basketball skills in a season (considering a chunk of those hours are games). We must be very thoughtful and organized in our approach to running practices and on what skills should be covered. The more prepared we are as coaches and ready for practice the more likely the kids will both have fun and learn (and the parents will feel it was worth their time). We strive to provide a competitive playing environment but our focus is not on wins and losses. When games get tight and tensions rise, we need to be overly aware of our actions. Solanco Youth Basketball has adopted the behavior principles of the Solanco School District: Respect, Responsibility, Courage and Kindness. We expect all coaches, players and parents to follow these behavior principles at all SYB events. We have a ZERO tolerance policy regarding coaches, parents or players not following these principles. See also the Solanco Youth Basketball Code of Conduct posted on our website at solancoyouthbasketball.org. As a coach you have an opportunity to have a positive impact on our youth! What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player. John Wooden (former UCLA head coach)
COACHING PRINCIPLES SYB has the following guiding principles for coaching your team: www.solancoyouthbasketball.org Hold a parent meeting at the beginning of the season. This will help you communicate key information to your parents and establish your expectations for the season. Have a plan for practice. The next sections of this manual will outline how to allocate practice time and what skills to focus on. The SYB Drills Book details recommended drills to choose in practice. Stay away from drills where 1 player completes the drill as the rest of the players are standing and watching. Stations, stations and more stations! We want more repetition, shots and ball touches in practice. Use all the baskets available to you. Scrimmaging is a great way to enforce bad habits and waste time. Scrimmaging can be an effective use of practice time however it should be focused and designed to apply the skills taught earlier in practice. Start practice on time and end on time. We are sharing gym space so respect the other teams. Also, parents might be picking up their other kids from numerous activities and locations. Practice takes lots of patience. Youth will not pick up a skill after the first time you show it to them (or even after the 10 th time you show it to them). Youth probably stop listening after about 10 words (especially when in a gym with another team practicing at the other end). Showing skills and drills can be more effective than words. If youth are struggling with a particular skill or drill move onto something else and come back to it later. You are not (insert name of favorite basketball coach here) so stop teaching kids complex offense plays. Our high school basketball coaches are telling us that many of our youth are entering junior high struggling to complete the most basic
www.solancoyouthbasketball.org basketball skills. Teaching offense plays and sets can waste a lot of practice time. Instead of teaching an offense set or play, consider the following: Do the players understand court spacing on offense? Do the players understand fast break transition? Do the players have 3 to 4 off ball moves to get open (cutting/off ball screening)? Do the players have 3 to 4 moves to attack the basket with ball? (use of jab steps, shot fakes, ripping ball, dribble drive skills) Do the players with the ball understand how to see the court and can they hit the open player? Incorporate competition in skills and drills. This is a great way to teach skills and help the youth have fun. It also creates game like scenarios. Lots of dribbling and shooting. We want lots of dribble touches and lots of shots throughout the season. Youth never seem to get tired of shooting or dribbling however they all want to shoot threes or half court shots. Make sure the shooting is at the appropriate distance to allow for proper form. Parents in the stands will feed off your reactions. We read in the paper about crazy stories of fights between parents at youth sporting events or referees being assaulted in parking lots after games. Believe it or not we have had a few incidents that have gotten very close to becoming stories like this! We are thankful for the many positive stories and reactions we have. HOWEVER, please realize that one negative event will likely cause the Solanco school district to revoke our gym usage. Our program could not operate without gym space. Personal issues cannot impact your coaching. We are blessed to live in a small community. A small community can also bring strained personal and family relationships into the same small gym! When you sign up to be an SYB coach, you agree to lay all such personal and family relationship issues aside.
ALLOCATION OF PRACTICE TIME www.solancoyouthbasketball.org SYB coaches should allocate practice time as shown in the chart below. The below allocation is recommended by the Solanco basketball coaching staff and will help us reach our goal of alignment with the philosophy of the high school program. For the Peewee through D1 levels there should be zero time spent on game strategy so that time would shift to Skills & Drills and Athleticism. % Allocation 90 Minute Practice 2 hour Practice Skills & Drills 70% 63 minutes 85 minutes Game Strategy 15% 12 minutes 18 minutes Scrimmage 10% 10 minutes 12 minutes Athleticism 5% 5 minutes 5 minutes Total 100% 90 minutes 120 minutes TOP TEN BASKETBALL SKILLS We list below the skills that our youth players must learn and develop during their time playing in the SYB program. The stage of development will be different for each age group and the complexity of drills will increase as the player s skills mature. Your practice plan should be designed to teach each of these skills over the course of the season. See the SYB Drills Book for recommended drills for each skill. Set a goal to develop each of your player s skills in each of these areas. 1. Basketball footwork This is all about teaching balance and helping players master their footwork, such as pivot foot and jump stop. The goal is to eliminate traveling, stop players from curling into the fetal position when surrounded and enable players to be in the ready position in their sleep. The rest of the skills on the list are impacted by their footwork skills. 2. Passing & Catching This skill can seem so basic and after the first or second practice we have a tendency to stop doing passing drills. Our players need to focus on being more aggressive and assertive in receiving
www.solancoyouthbasketball.org the pass and stepping to the ball. Also, our youth need to build strength, speed and accuracy in their passes. 3. Ball handling Ask players to bring a basketball to practice if you do not have enough for every player so you can incorporate dribbling in as many drills as possible. A simple way to add stations to your practice and avoid players standing around is to have a few players dribble from sideline to sideline as you are running a different drill at the basket. Then rotate players. We need lots of repetition and dribble touches. 4. Shooting (includes finishing around the rim & post play) Like pitching and hitting in baseball, technique is so important in shooting. As players are strong enough and old enough, their goal should be shooting with one hand. Players will develop differently so we need to set the proper distance from basket when performing shooting drills. We have lots of two handed shooters in middle school who have not learned the proper shooting technique (but the first spot they shoot from in practice is behind the 3 point line). 5. Fast break & transition (includes rebounding) This skill includes the concepts from pulling a defensive rebound to players transitioning from defense to offense quickly and running the floor to finish the fast break. The full court drills used can also serve as a dual purpose to help your team get conditioned. 6. Offense without the ball (includes court spacing & cutting) This skill focuses on teaching proper basketball cuts and off-ball screens. Also, how to properly space the court, create passing angles and read the defense. 7. Offense with the ball (includes attacking moves) This skill is teaching how to attack the basket with a purpose (and no I don t mean the famous pick the ball at top of the key play that everyone loves). This includes
www.solancoyouthbasketball.org teaching how to be strong with the ball by ripping through defenders, leveraging the triple threat and building an arsenal of attack moves. 8. On the ball defense We want to strongly emphasis man to man defense concepts. Don t let the lack of speed or athleticism of your players change focus. This skill also emphasizes the importance of defense stance, balance and reaction. We do not want teams playing lots of zone defense. 9. Off the ball defense (help and deny) As stated above, we believe the most effective defense to teach our youth is man-to-man (regardless of the athletic ability of the players). Also, teaching them how to see the ball and their man, protect the basket, communicate and help/recover. 10. Athleticism This skill is about developing speed, agility and core strength. In many ways our high tech world has shifted youth from being outdoors and active to indoors and stationary. We have allocated a portion of our practice time to cover playing some competitive games and drills that are designed to build overall athleticism.