Tryout Time Again

Tryout time is rolling up on us again. While I often tell kids life is the tryout, bceause I want them putting their best effort and foot forward at every possible moment, I also get that tryout time has a special meaning to players and coaches. There is energy, nerves, and generally as much interest and involvment from parents, community, school, staff and people outside your program that there may well be all year. It can be an energizing time for you and your program, filled with hope eternal. It can also be stressful with decision, pressures, even some politics I'm sure.

I've previously written on the topic:

Tryouts and Evaluations

Lessons learned from tryouts.

So as you can see it tends to be a recurring theme is basketball circles. New and old coaches a like must re-look and revisit practices.

At our tryouts this year we've got a number of outside coaches coming into my program at the JV and middle school level with some very strong kids in those age groups. In the past I've run a longer "tryout" period to divide up kids where they belong developmentally and to let some kids weed themsleves out on their own. This year I'll have to truncate my process a little bit for two reasons:

A) We've built our program to the point where there are more bodies at tryouts then we have spots for and not all of them are the sort of kids that would drop off on their own. We've got potentially 2-4 seniors (2 returning 2 transfers who I haven't seen before), 4 juniors, 5 sophmores returning from the varsity team, 10 sophmores who played JV for us last year or are transfers, and 10 freshman. The top 3 freshman are skill wise varsity ready but may take a year to get used to high school as we won't need them right away. So with only 24-26 spots available we've got 33 kids ready and expecting to play somewhere. We need to be able to make decisions that give kids a fair shot, but also don't drag out the experience for them.

B) The incoming frehsman class has had high success through elementary and middle school under the same coach who is following them to JV. With success comes expectations and attention. The group of parents and our basketball community is obviously very invested in this group of athletes and is concerned over any possible break up or break downs within this group. WIth so much attention on this particular tryout and who gets cut and why we also need to be extra vigilant.

So to truncate the process we've taken our normal player evaluation that we would use over time and added some very clear rubrics for scoring it. This way we should be able to get all the coaches at the tryouts looking at the same things, and scoring the same way. When we sit down to rank and talk we will all be speaking the same language. We will also be able to build ranked ladders for players by grade and position if required.

Here is our evaluation tool.

Player Evaluation

Name:

 

Category	Notes	SCORE
Physical Qualities
Athleticism (Agility, Verticality, Flexibility)
Speed/Quickness
Size (Height, Length, Strength)
Trainable/Learned Skills
Defensive Skills
Rebounding
Leadership
Offensive Skills – with the ball
Intelligence (Decision Making, Application of Concepts, Ability to Adjust)
Focus
Offensive Skills without the ball
Hustle
Experience and Off Court Issues
Experience (Level of Competition, Programs, BNB Experience)
Complication Free (Drama, Laziness, Attitude)

 

Physical Qualities Rubric

 

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4
Average Qualities for a person in their developmental range.	Average qualities of an athlete in their developmental range	Exceptional qualities for an athlete in their developmental range	Exceptional qualities for an athlete of a higher developmental range.

 

Trainable/Learned Qualities Rubric

 

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4
Basic or lower level of acceptable skill for their developmental range	Average level of competence for their developmental range.	Highly skilled for an athlete in their developmental range.	National level skills for an athlete in their developmental range.

 

Experience Rubric

 

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4
Little to no exposure or experience to high school or other elite level competition.	1 or two years of exposure to high school level competition. Or exposure to elite level competition	Multiple years of high school level competition. Or Commensurate competition experience vs elite level competition.	Multiple years of high school level and commensurate experiences vs. elite level competition.

 

Complications Rubric

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4
Significant chance of discipline required or team issue during season.	Multiple areas of commitment have been a problem in the past.	.1 commitment area a problem: home/ community/ team / school.	School, team, home, community commitments will be high. No issues.

So this will be our process this year. I hope your tryouts run as smoothly as I'm planning ours to be.

For your amusement here is a video that a grade 10 student made with me a couple of years ago as a project about tryouts.

JV vs Varsity

Revisiting Mismatches

This weekend at a coaching clinic I took away a bunch of little things vs. any one big thing. The little takeaways are really where I'm out now as my coaching philosophy and preferred style of play are more developed then when I was young.

A passing comment that caught my attention was that some teams major concept or focus is to attack weakness on offense. There are teams out there who's entire offensive strategy is to find people who can't/won't do things defensively and make them do them. Rather then go out and run their stuff or challenge defense to stop them, they gear their attack to exploit your weakest link no matter what that is game in and game out.

This had me revisit a popular blog from the past so here we go again about mismatches:

As a concept based offensive coach I am constantly amazed at the assumptions I make about kids understanding of the game. Mismatches are a huge one. We are trying to break down the other teams defense to get someone a 1 on 1 they can win, to create a 1 on 0 for us to score using movement. As simple as that sounds, I would like to believe that players would then immediately find the easiest way to beat someone (our best matchup to take advantage), but I am wrong. Kids limited understanding of mismatches does not seem to extend beyond physical size into skill vs skill or situational concepts. They aren't trying to exploit their matchup's weaknesses, they are more concerned with playing to their strengths. Forget about a number of teammates working to attack the weakest link on the floor.

We'll feed undersized basket cutters heading into a wall of posts. We'll have an average ball handler trying to break down an athletic defender. We will pass up pull up jump shots at 8 feet by our best players, only to see them fire tough passes to post players (who can't handle) at 12 feet who will end up in a close out situation. The decision making is mind boggling.

I think this is a result of 3 problems:

Problem 1

A lack of exposure by today's youth players to pick up ball that honed most of the previous generation's game. Playground players just found the weak link, or the chucker , or someone's little brother and attacked that whenever anything got meaningful. Today's kids have grown up in such a structured sport environment where everyone gets to play, and we should all get a chance, that some of the innate primitive instinct to find the weakest in the herd and take them down has been lost. They have accepted we (the coaches) know what we're doing so they blindly do what they think we see as the right thing regardless of situation to succeed. Coaches in those situations have given them too much offense and structure so though aren't thinking the game, they are just doing what they are told.

Problem 2

 Over developed sense of self and others. Today's athlete has grown up empowered, aware of their rights, empathizing with the feelings of others, and learning to respect their environment and those in it. Bullying, judging, taking advantage of others, disrespect and selfishness are all looked down upon and to be avoided. (Yet those traits are exactly what attacking a mismatch is all about.) Confidence in themselves as people may give them a false sense of confidence in their game, but more importantly their sensitivity and respect of others doesn't allow them to mercilessly and eagerly attack and exploit  other individuals naturally. In fact in the rare cases where youth coaches get players who will, in most cases they are told to share the ball and given some speech about being a better teammate and giving everyone a chance. How you treat people off the court is not the same as how you compete vs an opponent. I'm not promoting poor sportsmanship, but I love and respect my dad and brothers. When we play pick up its not a love in. 

Problem 3

Coach as sage. Adults run their houses, their schools, their recreation, their sports, their free time, their structured time - we run just about everything their is to run in the lives of young people. (hmmm and kids seem to have bad instincts in a lot of on and off the court situations). We then also take players and too early structure their play. Particularly on the court coaches will recognize an advantage and set up plays or their whole system around this advantage. Players then execute the system because coach said so without understanding why, they don't see what they are dong as exploiting their advantages it is just how they play. Then when they go to another team or level with different strengths they either struggle because they can't adjust or the coach makes the adjustments for them again.

SOLUTIONS

- We as coaches must model and teach more and more. The only way to ensure a kid knows anything is to make sure they learn it from you. Teach them how to find and exploit mismatches at an individual and team level.

- Coaches need to improve their players understanding of the game and the reasons behind "What-Why- When". Ask them questions that guide their thinking. Make them play a way where they make decisions based on principles vs following structure.

- Youth basketball needs less plays and more concepts and opportunities to play. Structured freedom to play, rather then smaller less skilled versions of elite level games. We need to better train and educate coaches on how to better train and educate players. 

- Players must be praised for using and reading a mismatch properly regardless of the outcome. Conversely players who attack in bad situations, times and places must understand this and be held accountable regardless of how it worked out.

- Kids must be encouraged to shoot more often and improve their shooting. This will stretch the floor making one on one matchups and skills more important then running structured offenses to get your kids who can finish closer to the rim to score and succeed more often. Teach kids skills to be better players, not do things that win games at their level.

- Every kid must have the skills to exploit their advantage. If they are being guarded by the worst on ball defender, they must be able to handle. If they are being guarded by a sagger they must be able to shoot. Until a kid is fully physically developed and mature don't give them a position or job. Make them  a player.

- Do not exclusively use a punishment/reward system to motivate understanding. Punish/Reward returns are only high for basic physical tasks. When dealing with basketball IQ and exploiting advantages players must be given autonomy and freedom of creativity while being given feedback to improve.

Nationals Warp Up -Part 2

Coaching realizations and issues coming out of nationals:

Personal Reflections:

Its not how you play, its how hard you play and how well you execute! -  Going into nationals I had taken a fair amount of direct and indirect criticism, skepticism, and doubt over the decisions our staff had made in terms of how we play.

People seemed believe the following:
* You can't play 12 deep at nationals. At some point you have to shorten the bench to compete and let your best kids execute.
*NB can't play at pace with other provinces. We have less athletic kids so running, and pushing pace favors our opponents and not us.
*Defensively you have to win 1 on 1 match ups if you have to help and rotate then you'll give up easy shots and worse mismatch problems.

I was confident at the time I heard all of these, that we could in fact succeed playing the way we wanted and prove doubters wrong. Of course the proof was in the pudding so we had to wait and see if I was cracked. After nationals I think we can definitively say that you can play everyone, you can play in 90 possession games, and play rotational m2m and compete with a team from NB at a national level. 3-3 record, 6th place finish, 2 better quarters from finishing between 5th and 3rd, and the 2nd closest result of any team in the country vs the gold Medalists in a game in their home city. Statistically should speak for itself, but from our perspective -  if you talk to our kids, parents and the basketball community we represented, we competed as well as we could have given our situation, talent and matchups.

The darkside of loyalty. - I've always been a big believer in that which comes before determining that which comes after.  I tend to trust kids, and reward, those who show the most buy in to what we do. Kids that train more, practice harder, play our way and have done the little things we need to win over a period of time, are the ones I trust to play in the most important situations and moments. After reviewing some statistical breakdowns, re-watching game films when I'm not emotionally involved in the action and watching the movie "Moneyball", I noticed that I wasn't always playing the players having the best day or who's minutes were getting us the most production.

I tended to sub or determine playing time as a result of specific things that I liked, or players who did things I didn't like without weighing it against the other impacts on the game we were playing. In key moments I played players who I had known longer, had experienced previous success in those sorts of moments, or players who I had more faith in based on their practice performance. When you looked at the stats or game film though I see that my loyalty to players or style of play, in some situations and key moments, was probably not as productive as playing the hot hand or giving freer reign to a player finding a way on given day might have been.

Not poor coaching by the staff, but as the final determinant of who plays and doesn't, I want to work on being more aware of playing the moment and the player in the moment rather then the gameplan and incoming expectations. Probably one of the hardest things for a coach to do is to take a kid who has battled for them, practiced for them, won for them and in big moments sit them down and say "It's not your day today", and turn the reigns over to someone else. I need to do a better job of that.

The weighing of coaching control. - Even at national level tournament, this age group still needs to be about player development, so I constantly had to weigh choices against was what easy for short term success but was very coach driven, and letting players develop, communicate and problem solve at to short term detriment of the on floor product. Whether it was reads, inbounds situations, handling pressure or even how we defended or attacked situations, I spent a lot of time biting my tongue in terms of telling them about a quick fix or drawing up the solution or tactical adjustment. It is particularly frustrating when the majority of players do not come from programs where they make reads or choices, as 15 yearolds they feel like the have roles/positions and want coaches to position all the pieces is a way so they can only do things they feel confident and comfortable in executing.

We ask kids to get comfortable with being uncomfortable and when we give them adjustments we have them refocus on our concepts and key outcomes, asking them to problem solve with those in mind. On court communication and execution of fundamental basketball should be enough to handle most situations they encounter at this level, so as a staff we purposefully gave them the freedom and opportunity to make those choices.

While not unhappy with our results or the way we went about it, the coach in me looks back at situations and says that if for that game or that play I'ld taken over and given them the coach controls they were looking for we could have made it work too. Its always a balance particularly since the average player, fan or stakeholder is more concerned about the end result then the process. I think the important issue is to make sure you are upfront with everyone involved about why and how you plan about going about things. At that point you should all be on the same page and doing what feels right based on your principles will be enough.

Canada Basketball Evaluation:

Its not what you coach its important that you coach. Lots of feedback to sort through in the live feedback by CB. Having been mic'd up for a half and hearing the feedback on what someone else is seeing and hearing is powerful. I won't focus too long on the positives but obviously this could be a nerve racking experience as you wonder what the people working at the highest level in the country are thinking/saying. It was very rewarding though to hear that someone in the know is impressed by some of the things I take pride in.

 I coach all game long, active moving and giving feedback regardless of score and situation. I'm also very  . . . lets call it passionate and direct about what I'm seeing and feeling.  It was great to hear positive feedback about the improvements they saw in our team and play all game long and have them credited to ongoing coaching by our staff and the constant expectation and feedback we give our players. The evaluator noted that our kids improved all game long because they were constantly demanded of and communicated with while feeding off the expectation and energy of the coaches. Its refreshing and revitalizing to have your efforts recognized particularly when your particular style is different form what you often see.

Power of Questions. One of the most powerful coaching tools we have is questions. Making our players recognize and think about their actions or the game by questioning allows them a deeper understanding and appreciation then simply giving instructions or directions. It is sometimes less effective or timely then providing them with the information you want imparted but overall allows them to reach similar conclusions and feel more confident and powerful then they would if simply given feedback. That is why I was glad to receive feedback on the questioning I do with my players during the game.

The evaluators reached an interesting point about the questions we used during feedback about them not getting to the answers we were looking for or it taking too long for them to get the heart of the issue. Why ask questions to get to the answer you want, instead of asking the question that gets you the answer they want. As a teacher the process of working through the learning in important, in games its simply important that they discover the key information that they need to adjust. I must keep in mind that being clever, critical or creative is not essential in this questioning. Unlike a classroom they are already engaged and want to discover the answer regardless of the type of questioning. I need to ask simple questions that lead them to give me answers. These answers and that they come to them is what's important, not how difficult the question was that they answered I need to work on being more directive in my questioning to save time and get us to the heart of the issue faster.

Expecting accountability and attention vs. working to ensure it. Biggest take away from the feedback for me was the feelings that I could do a better job of keeping my players accountable to their actions and ensuring we stay on plan. This was something I had always thought me and my staff did and exceptional job of but the evaluator pointed out 2-3 ways in which we could streamline what we were doing to ensure it was going on rather than expecting it.

A) COMMUNICATING THE PLAN - We always make sure our kids know how we want to play. Our goal is to force our style of play on others not adjust to what teams do. By keeping things focused and simple we are free to  often substitute and provide reminders using simple key concepts that are about execution. It allows our kids the freedom to simply play without a lot of need to think or adjust. It also allows us to debrief players regularly as they come off the floor, and give them exposure to what is being said on the bench through frequent subs.

In doing this though we would often overlook opportunities to remind and re-enforce. Simply because we've only got one defensive scheme, and a concept based offense doesn't mean we can't prep subs. Just because we are talking to the bench or the bench is listening while we talk to players on the floor doesn't mean they can't be re-enforced individually. We can be giving players key concepts to look for, pointing out things that work on defense or even making sure they are identifying who individuals should match up with or be communicating with when they go on to relay a message for the staff. Not terrible just missed opportunities in a game where we were allowing our frequency of subbing in volume to improve focus and communication we could have been doubling it by using a coach to prep subs extensively while at the table.

B) ON FLOOR COMMUNICATION - I am constantly working the players on the floor. We also make on floor communication from player to player on offensive and defense a key part of our scheme (read Noisiest Kids on the Block: Building a Basketball Soundscape) but the feedback gave us several ideas for how to tailor it to be more effective.

When I want to communicate an idea or concept to players on the floor, I simply relay the concept. I'm a big, loud guy and when I'm coaching during the game and even during timeouts the whole gym can hear me unless its the most raucous of environments. As a result that has always been my default communication method. In reality if I had a system in place whereby a certain player was responsible for relaying the message, or we had any sort of system in place I could hold player accountable to the new information. At this point they could not hear me or understand. If we built in a system for communication if something didn't get done it would be evident who didn't do their job communication wise and we can hold them accountable. In this case if I don't do my job communication wise, I'm already on the bench and there is no sub to make it better.

I always try to talk about things in generalities with our players, to get them working together to try to come up with a solution to get the game back to the way we want it to be played. If we are not moving the ball, I will ask them to reverse it or increase the ball movement. If we aren't handling pressure, I'll remind them of our reads and tell them to help each other to take care of the ball etc. I'm expecting that their teamwork and dedication to our task will solve it. In reality if I would be a little more directive individually I might be able to help us solve it easier. If the ball isn't getting reversed because the ball is being held to long at the top I can tell our top player (lets call her Joe) "Joe, catch the ball with our footwork so that ball gets reversed faster." In the pressure situation I could tell a backcourt player (calle her Alex) "Alex you need to seal or set a screen, either way you need to make sure the ball gets in under control." While we pride ourselves on team concept and 12 people working as 1, if I were more willing to simply risk 1 players feelings in the moment to be more directive we could problem solve faster.

The last tip we heard repeatedly was to have better systems in place for ensuring engagement of players on the bench. ie. Don't just talk to the bench or have players huddle in a timeout.  Have players sitting in particularly places on the bench with a purpose. Have players know which coach is supposed to be talking to them about which things and have when the conversation is supposed to take place put in place. We need our coaches to constantly have 1 working the players on the floor, 1 the players on the bench and maximize communication. Have a seating plan in timeouts so all players eyes are on the same place, so all can make eye contact and so all players in the timeout are being held accountable. Even something as simple as building in a time or situation where we know coaches will be meeting to get on the same page, rather then conversing when something comes up. Just systems in place to increase the quality and volume of interactions between coaches and players

C) SITUATION PREP. - Situations arise in every game. As a coach I know we spend almost all our time in practice on the skills and reads we need to control the situations we want to correct. The rest if probably spent prepping how to get the game back to those situations when its not. In reality this means that most of our time is spent on the things that happen most often and very little is spent on that which happens infrequently. As a result you end up in situations in the game that you have little or no prep for and need more communication with your players.

 Situations that come to mind that I know before now we never would go over in practice:
*What if you are late in the quarter and have fouls to give, you don't want to go to your foul call but you are ok with player gambling and being more physical to get a steal or turnover because the foul won't hurt you?
* You want a particular player to foul during the regular flow of the game to get a whistle or break the pace, but who it is matters?
*Missing freethrows on purpose to get rebounds?
*Defending when a player is down and you are shorthanded?

How (on the fly)would you communicate these quickly and effectively to get the result you wanted from your players? I have no other way then yelling at players I want. If we spent more prep time with a call or signal for bizarre situations kids would recognize, and spent more times in practice on situations then it would be easier for us to have success in these situations.

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.

Nats Comp Day 6

Final day of nationals for our girls who are planning on heading back to their homes after the closing ceremonies.

Day started off with some real concern over our remaining level of focus. With a 5th place game against a tough NS squad who we had already had a close game with early in the summer, the first conversation I heard in the morning was teenage girls getting weepy about it being their last day together. I'm glad our kids bonded over the summer and look at each other with such regard that the idea of of the season ending makes them sad. However, it had been a long week already and no such thing as an easy game all week we needed to find a way to crank it up again.

Same routine was followed as with Alberta game the previous day: up early, breakfast, down time, gym, pregame. In our pregame prep for NS defensively we focused on containing their dribble drive with early rotation and communication to leave 1 player open vs gang help and sagging of multiple shooters, we wanted to limit extra points (no threes, no free trips to foul line, control boards, and limit turnovers). On offense we wanted to get into our stuff because we felt like they played a number of undersized guards who denied hard all over the floor and gamble on turnovers. We decided if we took care of the ball and sealed them off cuts and screens we could get good looks. We also wanted to keep what was also an emotional game vs a rival on the last day of nats in check. We asked the girls to play this 40 minutes for these 40 minutes. No focus on what happened before or implications for after, just 40 minutes for themselves and each other vs a common opponent.

Game's first half was only partially as we had scripted it out. Offensively it was our best opening quarter and 1st half of the tournament. We shot the ball well, we took care of the ball and got all our looks out of our movement. We scored 34 points in the half which was the most we'd scored in a half all week, and that was with our focus on playing slower then we normally had on the offensive end to make sure we ran our stuff. Defensively though we were a mess. No communication, being reactive instead of proactive and no one stopping the ball on their own with or without rotation. We gave up too many points, committed too many fouls and were only up 6 at half. I had spent both timeouts and now spent out half time talk begging for better defensive effort. One of the downsides of the rules limiting defensive tactics is that there are really very few adjustments defensively that coaches can make other then attention to details and making sure kids putting in a kid effort are on the floor.

The 2nd half 3rd quarter resembled the first with us jumping out to a 12 point lead but then as the quarter went on fouls and poor communication began to hurt us and chip away at our confidence. Going into the 4th we felt like we were in survival mode rather then still up. At that point though between players battling injuries, foul trouble, and players who had clearly mentally checked out we just didn't have the depth we were used to having at our disposal.

The 4th quarter turned into a mess. We got outscored badly, gave up more points in the quarter then we had averaged giving up in a half all week, most importantly we suddenly couldn't score because we couldn't get the ball inbounds or get shots against NS pressure. In short the wheels came off. A couple of players Courtney Bulman and Molly Gulliver kept battling but without some help and unable to play the entire 4th the game slipped away. That said we had a free throw to tie with 30 seconds left but missed it and ended had a three to tie with 14 seconds left coming out of a time out but bobbled the pass and ended up with another turnover. Lost 70-66.

Lots of issues to address but mostly we didn't meet our defensive goals. We felt that NS had enjoyed a much easier road to get there having played sees 8,10,7 (2 times), and Quebec. None of those games had ended with close scores and as a result they hadn't played hard wire to wire, where as in all but one of our games we were the underdog and had to play hard all game long in a number of emotional physical battles. We believed we were the more battle tested and had learned how to defend at a nationals level that they hadn't seen or learned to deal with yet during the week. The defense that was giving up less then 50 points per game, and less than 35 if you eliminated points we gave up off turnovers just didn't show up. We gave up 70 pts. We had asked them to limit extra points and sent them to the free throw line 39 times and go 6/18 from the three point line. In a nut shell our worst defensive effort of the week and we lose despite some improvement on the offensive side of the ball.

After the game they were upset. We gave them time to debrief and focused on the positives from the week and reminded them that the 40 minutes was over. We gathered ourselves and went to a BBQ hosted by the Fredericton parents. It was a nice way to end the week, before heading back to pack up and watch the finals.

In the rest of the days actions there were very few surprises. Ontario u15 did lose to BC u15 who they'd handled easily early in the week, but after their tough lose to MB the night before didn't look like they wanted to be there. Allstars didn't play, the kids who did were those who hadn't logged huge minutes against MB and they shot the ball as poorly as they had all week. In the other games things shook out as expected. The u15 girls final went to Quebec by a wider margin then I think most expected but MB only played 8 kids the night before and had very little left in the tank vs. a great QC team. They also couldn't guard QC's best players because of matchups and got very few points off turnovers and QC's bigs were able to help with pressure.

After the games, we had the ceremonies and all star nominations. I was a little surprised that Courtney Bulman didn't get the nod for 2nd team all star as she was our best player all week and averaged close to 14 pts per game in less the 20 min per game. I think our depth though and the fact that her stats reflected 1/3+ less time on the floor may have hurt other coaches impressions, but she was far and away our all star and IMO better then at least 2 kids who got awards.

Overall 3-3 isn't as nice as 4-2 would have been but we battled tough all week and I couldn't be prouder of our kids.

Nats Comp Day 5

Welcome to going to war.

We got up in the am to have breakfast early so they could get a good meal before our game at 11:15. The girls weren't as awake or ready as I've seen them in the mornings, but Nationals is a grind. We haven't had a game yet without big time intensity, so getting up over and over again for games is becoming a concern. We had a very poor start against Ontario but found energy later. If we want to avoid the 7-8 game against a very tough Alberta team that can't happen.

After breakfast the girls went back to their rooms to go back to sleep and relax. I spent that time drawing out simple counters to what Alberta wanted to do defensively and wrestled with how detailed to get into before the game. Cursing the schedule, I decided to focus our pregame on things we wanted to work on controlling and just overview their offense and our adjustments in the context of what we want to do anyway.

In our pregame we set goals of protecting the paint by fronting posts/cutters and requiring lobs, cutters or drivers to knock us to the ground to get into the interior. We also decided that if we could beat Ontario on the boards then we could do the same today. Offensively we just wanted to get the ball inbounds and run our stuff against their pack line making them defend cuts and movement before shooting over the top.

During our taping one of our toughest kids Emma Wissink was in tears because of pain she was in from where she had sprained her thumb against Ontario and couldn't move it. We got it taped but I told our assistant I probably couldn't play her. After their individual prep time we drew up each of the sets/ continuities they ran and spent some time with simple counters to the key action. We didn't want to complicate things but asked them to talk when they heard things called to make sure we at least got that action defended. Basically we told them against all the sets wether it was horns, a post clear out, their continuity or 1-4 low that they wanted a layup for the PG #6 who lead the team in scoring, or a post touch. They did have one shooter they kicked out to but there was very little ball reversal it was just pound at the rim. 

We went out to warm up we seemed focused if not energized. Any nerves were dealt with during O' Canada as their was some loud feedback at the opening of song and my 3 year old daughter yelled "What's that noise?" and ran past all the standing girls and fans out of the gym hollering while nobody else moved. Trying not to laugh we got the to the bench a quickly made sure the girls new what our early sub patterns were going to be.

We had a great start on offense. We executed and made some shots we hadn't made all week. A shooter who had struggled all summer, finally stuck her first shot and looked like she was going to have a day. Pretty early it was clear the game was going to be scrappy. On a blocked cut our leading scorer to a forearm and shoulder to the chest knocking the wind out of her. We subbed her out and on divining play for a loose ball not a minute later an Alberta player had to leave the game with a bloodied nose and change jersey's. It was going to be a war.

Defensively we weren't as active I would like. We were anticipating the next action well but instead of reacting early were simply standing in spots ignoring cutter to prevent action. We had to talk to several kids about defending our way and even the other coach was complaining about us playing zone. We weren't violating zoning principles against the rules but we certainly were very late in being concerned with moving and reacting to what the players without the ball were doing.  I also thought we drew a couple of good charges early that were no calls when kids got drilled trying to hold space. To our kids credit they stuck with it and kept putting their nose in there.

We got a lead early but Alberta battled back. With a minute left in quarter I told Emma Wissink I would try her but she had to tell me if catching hurt. She went into the game and in the last 57 seconds drew two charges. She is easily the toughest kid on this team and maybe the toughest girl I've ever coached. I asked her how her hand was and through wincing tears said fine.

Pam and I made the decision not to play her again and went back to rolling the other kids in and out during the 2nd quarter. It was a back and forth battle. We would get up by 7-8, Alberta would then come back and cut it to a one possession game. As the quarter wore on I was still unhappy with our defensive activity level. We were grinding to get stops, but as our offense sputtered we were getting nothing out of turnovers as we were just battling to get stops instead of pressuring the ball.

Coming out of halftime we wanted to maintain what we were doing on offense but bring better defensive energy. Our first shift was awful no movement on offense, no communication on defense. Less the 50 seconds into the we'd gone from up 4 to down 1 and I was sending subs. I made the decision to play Emma W again because we needed defensive energy and inserted her into the 2nd group. They immediately went out and had two good offensive possessions with lots of ball movement leading to an uncontested jump shot that went down and an "and 1" for Emma W. The defensive energy was better and I personally believe it was EW's efforts that inspired her teammates to a better 2nd half.

The rest of the half was a a grind. Tough hoops, tough defense. A low scoring physical game where nothing easy was being given to either team. THe shooter who made a shot early that we'd been waiting on continued to make big shots, she also took a couple of bad shots early in the clock but I'm a believer that when it comes to scorers or shooters they must be allowed to take shots they need to take based on their confidence. Now she was shooting 50% from the floor for the game so I was willing to accept some early shots, had she been 0-8 at the time she probably wouldn't be seeing the minutes to take those bad shots anyway. Every time we needed a big hoop or play someone stepped up and made one.

Down the stretch we just kept making big plays and stops to hold on for a 47-43 win. Our kids celebrated like they had won a medal right there, and everyone was eager to meet and congratulate me and players. I sent the girls to the change room and quickly tried to find out our schedule and book practice time for later in the days. I was very proud of our girls effort, they had held their leading scorer to 6 points, and while lost the rebounding battle we did win the points in the paint vs a team who was larger and focuses on getting to the rim.

I sent the girls to eat with their families while I booked gym time for practice and watched NS play Sask. to see who we would play in the 5th place game. Sask looked to be in control early but caved to NS ball pressure in the 3rd to get outscored 18-5 and eventually lost by 8. 

We had practice at 4 pm talked about NS and being ready for their dribble drive offense. We also adressed their pressure m2m and said if we limited turnovers by slowing down and making them defend cuts/screens we would have a lot of success. Other then that we just shot the ball a lot to stay confident.

After practice we hit the dining hall and then down to watch the semifinals. Most girls left in the 2nd half of QC vs BC as it was a 20 point spread and showered before coming back to watch Ont vs MB which was pegged as being the game of the week. It didn't disappoint, a thriller going to double overtime. There were half court shots, clutch free throws and huge plays made by both teams stars before MB escapes with a wild 2 point win.

Coaches had a technical meeting while the girls went back to go to bed.

Nats. Comp Day 4

So we started Nationals day 4 off with as little fan fare as possible. After an emotional day 3 and with big games the rest of the way we let the girls rest and recharge. We gave them free time to sleep in or go to breakfast as they like. To rest or spend time with family as they liked. I personally used that time to get up early and drive to my parents house an hour away to spend the morning with my wife and kids. Not only did it help me personally to take some edge off of the stress, but it also gave me distraction from thinking about and potentially over thinking the key situation.

We got back together as a team for lunch and then went to practice at the STU gym. We prepped for Ontario with a focus on defending posts and the interior. With 7 players over 6 foot we were very concerned about the boards. We made a decision to front and stunt the posts to stay with our basic defensive concept knowing it may hurt us on the boards, but would allow us to pressure the perimeter to bounce and attack. We felt that if their guards attacked they would invariably get some hoops but we could still defend our way with jumps and rotation. We also would live with losing on runners rather then pounding at us and running their stuff.

At practice we also worked on reacting to lobs, and backdoors with rotation to take charges in the middle. We spent the last 4 minutes of practice just laying on the floor getting the girls to feel comfortable there. We know that we need loose balls, jumpballs, charges and to get shoved off box outs for our defense to be effective. We equate a good defensive possession with bodies on the floor. So we had them spend time getting comfortable there because to protect the key we would need them to be there all night anyway.

We felt good after practice. Went back to rest and eat lightly as we would not be having supper until after the game.

We went to the gym and went through our regular prep procedure 15 minutes to change, tape etc. 20 minutes of individual and team prep time for them by themselves to get mentally focused separated from the outside world. We put some talking or thinking points for them to focus on the board and leave them be with their music. 15 Minutes before warmup the coaches come back in and we go over any tactical adjustments visually on the board that we've walked through, remind about the points they studied earlier, and we have a quote to inspire/focus their energy. Address our four key areas of focus, head to floor. Warmup until announcements of lineups, anthem, etc. Spend final 3 minutes sharing the starting group and substitution patterns for first 4 minutes of quarter. Cheer and go.

We walked out onto the floor vs Ontario and blinked. While we were blinking they flew out to their best shooting quarter of the tournament. We didn't close out, didn't want the ball, didn't protect the paint or basically do anything except fantastic basketball players get whatever they want. By the end of the first quarter they were 5-6 from the three point line, their posts had gotten every touch we had planned to stop, and we had scored 2 points. Down 33-2 after the first it could have gotten real bad.

It didn't suddenly with the pressure off the girls were ready to grind and focus. We went to work in the 2nd quarter: drew a charge, started to scrap to get to the free throw line and as their outside shooting cooled we were able to confidently lock into our defensive schemes. We won the 2nd quarter 14-11. On the way to the locker room I was worried about our state of mind but as I came in we were laughing and positive. We happily discussed the laughable first quarter and thats how they treated it, and talked about statistical categories we could win. Be had remarkably held our own on the boards (partially because they made so many shots early) so I challenged the girls to win the rebounding battle, since we were only down 6 at half. I thought that goal alone would keep them working even if it wasn't reasonable. We also had drawn 3 charges so I challenged them to make sure we won the charge count it was 3-1 at that point.  We also wanted to make sure we turned the ball over less then 10 times in the half to make sure they had to play through our defense and we got better scoring chances.

We went out a didn't focus on Ont. my assistant review their goals as I got mic'd up for my feedback and evaluation session from Canada Basketball. I'll blog about this later but was a great experience to be mic'd and have CB officials giving you live feedback to what you are saying and doing all half. They give you the dvd with all their comments back for your review and is a great learning tool. So between the instructions and their reaction to me in a microphone they certainly weren't concerned about the scoreboard or Ont.'s return to the floor.

Then we went to work. We outworked the biggest team and province we played all summer for two quarters. We held them to 10 points in the 3rd and then 2 in the fourth. At one point in the 4th quarter Ont came back with a bunch of starters who they'd hope to leave out the rest of the way just to try to get back on track. At that point though we had spent the half defending the post so well, and fighting so hard at both ends it couldn't overcome our momentum. We ended up losing 56-37, but won the last 25 minutes 32-16. When we looked at the stats for the game we had 8 turnovers in the 2nd half had drawn 5-1 charges and won the rebounding battle 44-42. Our girls were so proud of their effort but actually more upset about the first quarter at the end of the game once they'd seen what their hard work could do.

Overall a great evening for our kids but we didn't get to celebrate as by the time we got back from letting them eat from the parents and into res we had less then 12 hours to prep for Alberta in the consolation round who had been eliminated by the same young and aggressive Manitoba team who had thumped us day one much earlier in the day. Having no practice time to prep for perrenial powerhouse who would be unhappy to have been eliminated from medal contention was not an easy challenge, but we went to work right away.

I had taken notes on all the teams all week and the one advantage I felt that we had over them was they wanted to run sets and continuity offenses to get the ball to particular people in very specific places and ways. I knew that our defense was making people play off the bounce and create so if we could negate their best player (#6 a very athletic guard in a large frame) , and make sure that they couldn't get interior  touches out of their sets we could hang around defensively. They also were going to run a packline defense that would give us an easier time seeing/reading our offensive principles then we had in previous games.

Before we went the girls to bed I took them out on the lawn in front of rez and in the light of street lamps in some drizzle I walked them through the 3 sets and continuity that Alberta had run all week and  what they were focused on getting out of it. Our girls were surprised that a team would play this structured and focused on key players in comparison to our 5 out motion reads and 12 person deep attitude. They went to bed and we got ready for next day.