1st Time Coach; 1st Practice

[JAZZCOACH 0]

HEY COACHES,

THIS IS MY FIRST TEAM TO COACH. I AM COACHING A TEAM OF 6-7 YR OLD BOYS AND GIRLS. I HAVE A LIMITED AMOUNT OF KNOWLEDGE OF BASKETBALL.... I KNOW THE BASICS... I AM HOLDING OUR 1ST PRACTICE TOMORROW AND OUR FIRST GAME IS ON SAT MORNING... I WAS HOPING SOMEONE OUT THERE COULD GIVE ME SOME GOOD ADVICE ON WHERE TO START FOR OUR 1ST PRACTICE. MOST OF THE KIDS HAVE NEVER PLAYED BEFORE.... PLEASE HELP!

LOST, KIM

[Charlie 2]

Focus on fundamentals: Dribbling, Passing, Catching and Most of all Defense.

Utilize your parents to help you coach and break down your team into small units. Spend time running passing and ball handling drills.

Run team offensive drills - moving without the ball, cutting to the basket, setting screens, etc.

While running the drills you will have a chance to evaluate who can best handle the ball for your team. You will need to have an idea who your best ball handlers are and who your best defenders are before your first game so that you can develop a good player rotation for the game and always have some strong defenders and ball handlers on the court.

Spend the good majority of your time working a individual and team defensive drills. A young team that plays good defense will always be competitive.

I would teach them man to man defensive principles including off ball and weak-side help defensive strategies first and then go into so zone defensive strategies as the season progresses.

Try not to get to caught up in the wins and loses - don't get into a position the first year where you are only utilizing a few players during a game to make sure that you get a W, try to get everyone involved in the game some how.

Good luck and keep it fun!

[JAZZCOACH 0]

I appreciate the help... Alot of this stuff sounds a little hard. I don't know what some of it means. Does anyone know of a good book or instruction maunel I could read that would help or any good websites that explains what screens are and such... Its been a long time since I played ball... I need a refresher course. Thanks.

[Brewer 0]

JazzCoach,

There is a lot of good information on this site. Go to the home page at Y-coach.com and scroll down to the youth basketball coaching section. After reading the articles click on the Coaching DB button and go to the drills database to review the basketball drills.

A couple of other sites to check out are:

Power Basketball

Guide To Coaching Youth Basketball

[TN Youth Coach 0]

For kids that age I would keep it really simple. Since you have only one practice before the first game you must take simple to the extreme.

At first defense is stay between your man and the basket. Tell them if they forget who they are guarding (they will) to go stand in the lane (you will have to tell them what the lane is), find someone not being guarded and guard him. If your league allows zone it will be easier to teach/learn, but doesn't develop skills as well.

As for offense, work on proper spacing (they will want to play herd ball), dribbling with their head up and passing to an open teammate closer to the basket. The natural tendency of most kids this age is to: 1. dribble around the perimeter until the ball is stolen 2. fire one up from long range, or 3. Pass it to someone who is not open (usually because no one is open, they are just standing around watching). You must teach them that all those things are bad. If you can get them to move without the ball, pass to the open man and go get those rebounds your offense will be fine.

After the crash course they will receive before the first game, go back to basics with the rest of your practices and spend more time dribbling, passing, shooting and defending than you do scrimmaging. Scrimmaging will help you win more games, but you won't get much bang for your buck in terms of developing skills or in terms of fun for your weaker players who will seldom touch the ball when you scrimmage.