Boys Basketball Practice – Monday, Dec 17
Monday practices are limited to half court which means the central theme is conditioning and implementation of new plays. We noticed during our game last week that our players would lose their man on a pick or a screen. The primary goal of a man to man defense is to stay with your man. Coach Scott showed the players how to switch from the man they are guarding to the one their teammate is guarding. He also showed them how to slide through the screen while continuing to guard your man. The players caught on immediately to the “switch” but we still have work to do on the “slide through”.
We have a drill that has 2 players shooting at the same basket from 2 or 3 feet away and moving in a semi circle around the basket. We run 2 sets with each set lasting two minutes. Joel VanDusen lead all players by hitting 100 shots in 4 minutes. Matthew Pedemonte was a very close 2nd by knocking down 97. Nate Johnson shot from 10 – 12 feet away and still made 72 baskets.
While this drill was going on, the players not shooting were given jump ropes. That was quite an experience. It is obvious that the boys basketball team has not spent much time with a jump rope. I am willing to bet that the girls team at the other end of the floor probably would have done a little better. Parents will be glad to know that by the end of the season all of our players will look like they were born with a jump rope in their hand.
Coach Scott asked the players one question during the team huddle, “Does God care who wins”? The players were given some time to think and then everyone offered the same point of view. God does not care who wins. Coach Scott surprised them by saying he disagreed with all of them but would not say why. Instead each player was asked to think about this and discuss it with their parents. So parents, does God care who wins? We will get Coach Scott’s reasoning at Wednesday’s practice.
We have one offensive play which was reviewed and our second play was implemented. We are making progress in this area but we are not there yet. We ran the 10 ball circle drill which I really like. The drill takes approximately 10 – 12 minutes to complete and the final players have completed close to 50 push ups while staying in constant motion either running or moving around the circle. Hank Booth snaged the last ball a split second before Joel VanDusen. Mitch Moore, the previous winner, came in 3rd. These 3 players were excused from end of practice running. As each player dropped out of the competition he was handed a jump rope with the idea that they would complete their conditioning by continuously jumping rope. Both Coach Scott and I noticed there was not much effort put forth by the players when it comes to jumping rope. In effect, the players chose to run rather than end practice the way we had envisioned.
This was not one of our better practices. On a scale of 1-10 we may sneak out with a 5. The focus was not there. There were a lot of outside distractions and we are only a week from Christmas. There is so much going on in everyone’s life right now that keeping your eye on the ball can be difficult. Wednesday’s practice will be better.
