Western Canada

After seeing and playing several teams play from Western Canada you notice some trends as a result of players and styles:

1 -Help side or a lack their of. Most western teams do not make it to the key let alone the midline on the weak side. This a result of cutting based offenses, size of cutters and apparent belief amongst some officials that blocking cuts is a foul. As a result of not being able to impede the progress of huge cutters teams need to deny and chase them on the weak side so that when they cut they can continue to deny. This often changes on the ball defense to containment based because any break down in on the ball defense results in a finish chance inside.

2 - Motion. Most western teams tend to run a motion style offense with multiple cutters resulting in lock downs or post ups at the rim. While size and skill make this an effective tactic, the balance, team play and movement are all surprisingly effective in comparison to Central Canadian Teams. Ontario and Quebec tend to use more iso and pick and roll reads to create 1 on 1's while western teams rely on off the ball cuts and reads to win the same battles.

3 - Skilled Size. The real difference between western teams and eastern team is the size of their skill. BC men start 4 players 6'6 pr larger 1 of whom plays like a traditional post. Alberta women have 9 players 5'11 or larger playing a variety of positions. We are lucky if our large guys and girls have post game. These are all skilled athletes with a future at the CIS level. How many 6'0 posts do we have in the men's game at our NB high school level. How many girls coaches in NB would let their 6'0 girl develop wing skills in games? The playing field is not level and finding a balance between training our teams to compete and our athletes to develop to compete at the next level is crucial.

Train to Play

How do you convince kids to train?

The issue that i struggle with is that the only way you get better is practice. Kids need to play and experience competition but at some point they have to put in the time to improve their game.

You don't become a world class chef just having dinner parties, you cook for yourself and on your own experimenting. How many penalty kicks do soccer players practice vs how many they get in a game? The latest research suggests that success is directly correlated to deliberate practice. Top performers spend many more hours of practice then their average counterparts.

The issue becomes for kids especially in smaller ponds (athletic communities) that the same 1%-10% of the population can have relative success in any sport by showing up. Most coaches, players, and supporters aren't interested in the long term development of athlete as much as they are the short term experience of the athlete or team in the context of their sport. As a result kids spend time moving from sport to sport playing and don't see the incentive to train.

Why would an athlete spend hours on their own in the summer moving form average shooter to good shooter to try to earn more playing time on the basketball court, when they can play in a soccer league and be an average player. In larger centres this is less of an issue because the depth of athletes is such that those who do not spend as much time training cannot fill out roster spots. They very best athletes continue to be the best, while the the second tier and bench players are sport trained athletes as opposed to average athletes.

Simply put the only way you get better is to practice, but how do we convince kids to practice when they can just play something else instead.