Monday, September 26, 2011

How to Prepare Your Youth Basketball Team Well for Games


What would you think of having your youth basketball practice approximate what you would like to see happen in your upcoming game? In advance of practice, you would visualize what you would like your team to do in the game. Your players would move through the practice doing what you feel it will take for them to win the next game.

You would set up your team in two groups of five players each. One group would be on offense, and one group on defense. You would instruct what each group would do against each other. They would then carry out your instructions. The players would have the opportunity to experience game-like situations and to implement the game plan before the actual game. Each group would spend time on both offense and defense.

As you are implementing the team offense and team defense, there will be certain skills and movements that would need to be emphasized. These skills and movements could be practiced in drills as you explain their importance to that particular game. For example, if you think that a turn-around jump shot in the paint is important for that game, the players could practice this many times in a drill.

The key is to have every minute of practice time count for the upcoming game. Is what you are doing in this practice relevant to this upcoming game? Am I preparing my players well for this next game? No wasted time. All practice time applies to the next game. What would you think of focusing only on what you want your team to do, and not what the other team does? In this way, your players too can focus on what they are doing to win the game. There is a lot to be said for our players feeling prepared to execute a game plan about which they feel confident.










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