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 HoopTactics Newsletter

The key to building a solid offense
Hustle and Desire is what puts points on the scoreboard
Reinforcing player learning through HoopTactics
Prerequisites for successfully attacking zone defenses

Coaching Tip: Defense – The Key to Building a Successful Offense

When practicing and refining offense in a half court scrimmage (5‐on‐5) situation, have the defense switch to offense only after making five or six defensive stops (defensive rebounds and turnovers). In requiring 4 or 5 defensive stops to go to offense, it will encourage and motivate the defense to play harder. As a result, by practicing against tough defense, it will definitely help the offense better prepare for actual games.

Player Tips: Hustle and Desire is What Puts Points on the Board

Many players are under the misconception that they have to be a great shooter or shoot a lot in order to score. Still others are constantly being pressured and influenced into shooting more during a game by parents and/or so called “advisors” and personal trainers. However, in most cases, this selfish advice is given out without regard to a total team effort or to the outcome of the game. In addition, players spend countless hours working on their shooting form and individual moves. However, players should realize that to become a proficient and consistent scorer it only requires hustle, aggressiveness and determination. To learn much more:  Click Here

Player Development: Reinforcing Player Learning

Are you aware that HoopTactics.com is an excellent way to supplement and reinforce your on the court instruction? Motor skill learning is vastly improved when mental learning takes place between practice sessions. This is where HoopTactics.com can become a real tutor and help. Knowing why and when is just as important as how. Student Premium Membership is only $19.95 – Click Here

Coaching Strategies: Prerequisites for successfully attacking zone defenses

Do not ever leave attacking zones up to chance.The need for a solid zone attack is paramount on every level of the game. Attacking man to man defenses and zone defenses are two distinct endeavors. Attacking man to man defenses requires player movement and individual skills; whereas, in attacking zone defenses ball movement and a total team effort is involved. Before under taking any specific zone offense, coaches and players must first have a working knowledge of the basic principles and techniques required to successfully combat zone defenses.

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HoopTactics Newsletter

Establishing Player Roles

Sixth Person, Defensive Stopper, Designated Inbounder, Free Throw Shooter, Free Throw Squad, End of Game Substitutes, Practice Squad

Coaching Strategies: The Importance of Establishing Player Roles

The most important aspect of basketball coaching is to create and foster a total team atmosphere and commitment. Insure your players that they’re going to play in a team atmosphere. You need to guarantee players equal opportunity, but not equal playing time. You must establish significant roles and assignments for every player on the squad. If you can’t, then you should release them. The following, often times overlooked, roles are vital to a team’s success. The attitude and efforts of the players filling these roles must be recognized, fostered and supported whole heartedly by the entire coaching staff throughout the season.

6th Person(s) – The importance of the sixth person(s) role in basketball cannot be over emphasized. It is one thing all excellent teams have in common. Establishing and utilizing the sixth person role, in many ways,is a much more important coach’s decision than determining the starters. Determining and getting a player to accept the sixth person role can be a challenge since player’s and parents’ ego’s can be involved. However, by communicating the vital importance of this unselfish team role, they should be more than likely to understand and accept the role as a real honor rather than a demotion.

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Defensive Stopper – A vital but often overlooked position is that of a defensive “Stopper.” Having an outstanding defensive player, one who not only can deny or disrupt a great offensive player from receiving the ball but in addition, are masters of one on one defense is essential to any championship hopes. Like shooters, stoppers aren’t born and just don’t happen. They must be development and nourished.

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Designated Inbounder – Good inbounders are vital and a team will not win a championship without one. Many championships have been lost because teams were not able to inbound the ball at end of the game. Players on all levels, including the NBA and WNBA, need to know and practice the fundamental skills and concepts required in making a successful inbound pass. In addition to the physical skills involved, good inbound passers must possess a strong commitment to team play since they are taken for granted and very rarely rewarded for the efforts. 

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Designated Free Throw Shooter – Shooting a technical foul free throw is not an easy task. Standing in the spot light alone on the free throw line can be a intimidating and trying endeavor even for a great free throw shooter. In fact, the fear of failure is so real that it can emotionally affect a player for the rest of their life. Therefore, exceeding in this situation requires a command of the 3 C’s of free throw shooting:  Consistency, Concentration, and Confidence.

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End of Game Free Throw Shooters – Fouling when behind late in a game is a desperation tactic by the opponent founded on missed free throws. Therefore, to counter this strategy, you need to have your best free throw shooters on the court. In addition, these free throw shooters must possess the ability to move the ball and avoid being fouled. When ahead late in the game the clock becomes their ally; however, they must use it wisely keeping it running. At the defensive end of court they must have the ability to protect against three point shots and dribble penetration without fouling. Defensive rebounding is also paramount in eliminating any second efforts.

End of Game Substitutions –  Fouling plays a critical part in the out come of the game, especially when it comes playoff time. When trailing late in the game and fouling to the stop the clock, coaches should make defensive substitutions whenever possible and put players into the game that can afford to foul instead of losing their best players because of disqualification. Once a foul has been committed, stopping the clock, players in foul trouble can be reinserted back into the game. When it comes to fouling to gain a competitive edge do not assume that players know how and who to foul at the end of the game. If you just tell a player to go foul, they are most likely to grab or hammer an opponent, and pick up an intentional foul. Players need to be know how, when and who to foul.

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Practice Squad – Often times called “Twenty Point ” players since they usually only get to play in a game when a team is either 20 points ahead or behind. However, their importance to a successful season cannot be minimized. They are unique in that they come to play despite their lack of ability, skills and playing time. Their hard work and contributions during practices definitely make their teammates better and should be recognized and reinforced.  Note: In a number of women’s basketball programs, the practice squad actually consists of men.

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HoopTactics Newsletter

Pre-season Organization
Try-outs, Player Evaluation and Squad Selection
Creating Breakdown Drills
Building Your Defense First

Coaching Strategies: Pre-Season Organization

Off season, pre-season, regular season, and post season, one thing for certain is that the basketball seasons keep changing. With each new season the plan or process for success should focus on the player knowledge, skills, or abilities that need to be honed. The pre-season is the time of the year that coaches love most. It is the time of the season for teaching and preparation. The things coaches enjoy doing the most.

Pre-season preparation and organization entails planting the seeds for a highly successful season. This involves careful thought and planning. Pre-season practices should be designed with the objective of preparing a team physically, technically, and mentally for game competition. It is imperative to start building correct habits and techniques from the start. Physical habits do not change in a game. Motivate players to become better “students” of the game. It will give them a greater understanding that games are won or lost for the most part during preparation. Learn more about Coaching Prerequisites & Practice Guidelines:

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Try-Outs, Player Evaluation and Squad Selection

Do you give Try-Outs “Lip Service” or do you take them seriously? In most cases, squads are pretty much pre-determined and try-outs amount to just scrimmaging. However, there is much more involved. In conducting a highly organized try-out, it does not only allows for fair and objective player evaluations; but, more importantly, it will provide coaches with a valuable understanding of the team’s overall skill level which is a great benefit and head start in planning pre-season practices.

Since player skill development on the lower levels is of the utmost importance, player evaluation is irrelevant. With players capable of improving daily, if at all possible, coaches should not cut players. However, on the professional level, player evaluation is a high stake endeavor with millions of dollars involved. Learn more:

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 Coaching Strategies: Creating Breakdown Drills

Be creative and design your own break down drills to fit your needs and player abilities. Creating drills and plays are one of the enjoyments of coaching basketball. Break down drills not only teach proper execution and footwork, but they are also great for conditioning players. Every drill must be an intregral part of your own offensive or defensive system, not for good looks or because you saw it during a basketball clinic or a major program uses it. During the season, review the breakdown drills as needed.

Quick Tip: Teaching & Learning

Whenever possible introduce and demonstrate a skill or drill one day, and then refine it in the ensuing practices. Do not attempt to introduce and refine at the same time. Use positive reinforcement and point out successful performances rather than negative ones.

Coaching Strategies – Defense: The Key to Building a Solid Offense

Pre-Season build your defense first. You can add offense at any time. However, pre-season training is the only time during the season that provides ample time to build a fundamentally sound defense. Once the season starts, it is very difficult or impossible to install a solid defense.

In installing your defense first, it also provides offensive benefits since you want to practice against good defense. Practicing against poor or “dummy” defense will not adequately prepare players for games. To be successful, players need to practice against good, hard nose defense. Your offense will most likely struggle at first. However, players will soon learn to adjust to creating good leads, making crisp, accurate passes, etc.

Coaching Tip: When working offensively, have the defense switch to offense only after making 5 or 6 defensive stops (combination of defensive rebounds and turnovers). Requiring 5 or 6 defensive stops, will encourage and motivate the defense to play harder. As a result it will definitely help the offense better prepare for actual games.

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HoopTactics Newsletter

The Art of Teaching Basketball
Importance of Fostering a Team Atmosphere
Expectations & Demands of Player Training & Conditioning
Printable Court Diagrams: USA, NBA & FIBA (New) Formats

The Art of Teaching Basketball

If you treat a man as he would be and could be, he’ll become what he could be and would be; if you treat him as if he is, he’ll remain as he is. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Player performance is directly related to coach’s ability to teach. Therefore, before stepping out on the court, coaches should possess a solid working knowledge of the laws of learning and teaching methods. Coaches must not only possess the knowledge of the game and how to teach it, but they must also possess the enthusiasm and enjoyment for doing it and impart this energy to their teams.

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Coaching Tips: Team Atmosphere

On every level of basketball, one of the most important aspect of coaching and winning is creating and fostering a total team atmosphere and commitment. Insure your players that they’re going to play in a team atmosphere. Guarantee them that they will receive equal opportunities, but not equal playing time. Develop and establish significant roles and assignments for every player on the squad such as 6th Person, Defensive Stopper, Designated Inbounder, End of Game Free Throw Shooter, etc. If you can’t, then you should release them.

Also, inform them that you’re not going to tolerate anyone on the team that keeps other players from learning, you from coaching or any other misbehavior. Insist on a team effort at all times. No one steps on the floor without a full‐hustle attitude. Great teams are a result of the best players being the hardest workers.

Player Tips: Training Demands and Expectations

“Basketball records are a matter of great personal pride,
however, your record as a person is the most important record of all”

To be successful, each player as well as the team collectively, must be possessed with the desire and determination to develop superior physical condition. Throughout the course of the season the team will be pushed and trained hard. However, it is going to be up each player, individually, to see that their maximum physical condition is achieved and maintained.

Because of the importance of physical condition and team morals to a successful season, willful violations of training cannot be tolerated or ignored. Coaches are not policemen or mothers. It is going to be up to “team pressure” to see that training is adhered to and followed “On” and “Off” the court. Any player who breaks training not only betrays themselves, their teammates, their coaches, their followers, and everything basketball stands for, they are also cheating their Maker that gave them the ability to be a success. If any player shows disloyalty to all these and does not feel guilty, they do not belong in the basketball world, let alone on your team.

FREE Printable Court Diagrams

College/HS, NBA, International court formats. Choose from 36 different styles: Full court (12), half courts (18) and combinations (6 ). Click Here