Nationals Wrap Up - Part 1

What we learned about girls basketball in Canada? 

I can only speak to the u15 level as I only saw a handful of u17 halves, but as I look back there are some definite trends you can see looking back over the week and competition:

Final Rankings:
1 - Quebec - Most athletic bigs and players. Greatest depth of length meeting athleticism.
2 - Manitoba - Most athletic skill other then QC.
3/4 - BC/Ontario - Best bigs other than QC. High skill level, big size, but less athletic then MB & QC.
5/6 - NS/NB - Top defensive teams remaining. No size but both with game plans to compete without it.
7/8 - Sask./Alb - Top 4 size, but limited/young ball handling. Run a lot of sets, packline defense. Trying to grind out low scoring games.
9/10 - NFLD/PEI - 9th-10th best teams talent wise, athletically and depth. Play hard but with rule mods not enough adjustments to be made without tactics.


As I look back, Canada still continues to be a defense first country. Every team at nats played hard with their own game plan for how to defend. Top end teams were able to pressure and disrupt, while still protecting rim and paint. The lower teams in their final standing the less able they were to do both consistently.

Skill/athleticism in size was the biggest determinant of final success. QC won with the most skilled and athletic bigs, having two 6 foot plus girls starting at the 4-5 who could play any position on the floor. Defensively even teams with size couldn't guard them on the perimeter or out of movement, offensively  their overall length and skill level eliminated a number of turnovers other team had. Similarly MB was able to use high level athletes with skill to generate turnovers, while limiting their own and exploiting mismatches on the offensive end.

Offensively whether you were guard focused, bigs focused,  sets/motion type offenses everyone was dependent on getting the ball to the rim. Even the top 2 teams scored primarily on drives and movement
to catch at the rim. There were no teams there that shot the ball with a high rate outside of the key consistently. Therefore top defensive teams either had the length to protect the interior, or could generate enough ball pressure to prevent easy entry to the paint. I didn't see a lot of scoring generated on footwork, or reading defense. I also didn't recognize anyone I would consider a pure shooter.

What we learned about basketball in NB?

We can put a team on the floor who can compete with anyone in the country, at this point though we need to play great defense for 40 minutes every game in order to give ourselves a chance to win. On top of that we must limit turnovers just to not give up extra scoring chances to teams with more offensive weapons then us. Basically to beat the very best teams we need to play great d for 40 minutes,   outwork the other teams best 8 with our 12 and still take care of the ball and make shots.

Our offensive struggles come down to being able/willing to execute skills under pressure. We need to make shots, particularly free throws at at much higher rate. We also struggle with simple things like footwork, passing and catching and dribbling through national level pressure and contact. We need to be stronger, better balanced and have much better ball skills. Simple things like shooting, dribbling, and passing with compact proper form are still an issue. Even the best 12 girls we have in the province can't all bounce with both hands, get open through contact, and use simple footwork and body control to get past defense.

I think EDP (which all these girls came through) is a great step but it has to prioritize the skills, strength and footwork training over the offensive team reads. We also need to educate more coaches to make some of these things up to date. Kids are still being trade in bio-mechanically flawed or dated methods. Just because it worked 10-20-30 years ago and/ creates a competitive high school player in NB doesn't make it right or able to create high level athletes. Until our coaching education and training methods improve we will still have our best kids who are right at the edge of their potential but struggling to maximum.

There seems to be an ongoing debate about whether we need to play fast or grind out wins. I'm a proponent of playing fast as it encourages our kids to play hard and use our depth of balanced talent and makes other provinces trust kids they might not normally have in key situations. It also allows us to dictate how the game is played, that being said in order to play at pace you must punish teams on the score board or you are just playing a lot of defense. We need ball handling skills, better shot pockets and percentages, and the ability to play on balance through contact. Fast or slow we need ways that we can score. In transition we will get more open jump shots that we have to be able to make. In a 5 on 5 game we have to be able to get open, catch a pass under duress and finish through contact and make three throws.

Finally, we need to play at a high level all the time. How we train, who we play and the style of play as a province are all factors that need to improve. We don't see national level defense until we are at nationals, we don't play through national levels contact until we are at nationals, and we don't need to make national level reads and tough plays until at the event. Going to Montreal/ Ottawa one weekend a summer doesn't cut it. We need our entire basketball community to work towards making our provincial basketball experience match the pressure, structure, physicality and intensity of nationals. In how we train, what we demand, and how we view ourselves we have to do a better job. We still have too many stakeholders focused on making things less demanding and challenging while concerned over factors we can't control, rather then making tougher more relentless kids that focus on what we can control.

In part 2 I'll review my personal reflections on myself as a coach as well as feedback from my evaluation at Nationals.