Another very enthusiastic crowd of rising sixth graders today at the Common. About twenty youngsters came on a very warm day to participate in drills, specialty work, and scrimmaging.
Workouts run from about 5 PM to 7 PM and include a variety of fundamental and specialty work. After the initial ball-handling drills, the coaches broke into positional (post and perimeter player) groups.
Visiting assistant coach Karen Sen showed the interior players proper technique for establishing and defending the post position, drop step, and up and under moves. We added some demonstration of the mid-range step back jump shot. We look forward to having additional visits from alumni and current players to establish the traditional bond so important to Lady Raider basketball.
We had enough players for two full teams of red and white, with round robin scrimmage play, with special emphasis on:
Transition offense
Moving without the ball and 4s and 5s playing off each other
Spacing
Here's an interesting video demonstrating one coach's approach for running motion against the zone.
The responsibility and accountability of change belongs to the individual. Coaches can introduce the letters or the notes, but the product, the epic, the symphony, or the poetry comes from the players.
The late Dennis Hopper played a lot of characters, but perhaps none was more memorable than 'Shooter' in Hoosiers. Shooter was a wanna-be, a basketball idiot savant whose son played for the Hickory Huskers (actually Milan, Indiana), and presumably was that...a shooter.
Melrose has had a lot of terrific scorers, but not so many great shooters. The great Shey Peddy shot 62 percent on three pointers her senior year, and a little-known fact is that daughter Paula Sen shot 50 percent (on far fewer attempts) in addition to having (by report) a 12-12 game against Burlington one season, mostly on inside shots. So I'm interested in helping to develop shooters, which above all means finding players willing to practice shooting. They say Ray Allen takes 300-500 shots in practice, and it's easy to understand how his shooting stroke became so refined, but even he can struggle at times.
Young players can focus on repetitive shooting drills and games:
1) '21'
2) H-O-R-S-E
3) Bill Bradley, game to 11, one point for a make, three points for Bill on a miss
4) Elbow to elbow (jumpers off the catch with a partner, 5-10 from each alternating side
5) 'Around the world'
6) Modified around the world, perimeter shooting...in two minutes you have to make two consecutive shots from 12-15 feet (five spots, baseline, 45 degree angle, foul line, etc) and back again, in other words, 20 shots in two minutes, with a partner
7) 'Crazy Horse'...take 15 off-balance, 'flyaway', crazy shots from in the paint, practicing shooting body control, as sometimes in games you don't get the perfect setup
8) When practicing, get used to shooting by 'catch and shoot', shooting off a 'pump fake', and shooting off the dribble
9) Free throws, keep a chart, so you see the improvement. I used to be able to make 90-95 of a hundred and ONCE, I made over a hundred in a row practicing. I've see both of the twins make over 90 of 100 in practice, so it's far from impossible.
The point is that great shooters learn to shoot in a variety of situations, inside, intermediate, and outside, off the catch, off the dribble, coming off picks. Few players are willing to pay the price to become a great shooter, so few reap the rewards. Some of it is simply players born to become shooters, but most of it is just hard work. See you on the courts.
I believe in warming up first by taking a series of short bank shots (using the square) from each side, starting at the low block and moving out. This repeats mechanics, forces the shooter to work on 'spotting' the target, and creates confidence as you make 8-10 consecutive shots.
Poor shooting fundamentals receives widespread recognition as the root cause of shooting woes. We have to shoot better at every level of the program, from the fifth grade through varsity. There's only one way to improve: practice.
This demonstrates how one coach likes to initiate his offense and why he believes ball reversal critically leads to more scoring opportunities. Scroll down in the link to see the video (about a minute long).
