YBCA

Had another game today and I found myself caught up (during the game) in what the players cannot do. It's 3rd and 4th graders, so they cannot do a lot. Even things that you think would be completely obvious, like on a fast break, it's ok to guard the ball (seriously).

Any way, the past few hours, I've been thinking about how to address our weaknesses I saw in the game. In the past, with the high school teams I coached, we'd drill, of course.

However, after reading Crossover a few years ago, my post-game/pre-practice approach will be to do the following:

• Play some sort of rebounding game (we were really bad at it today). Something like this: put a ball on the ground and keep the other play from touching it. Like boxing out for 20 seconds or so. The players are just not accustomed to purposely making contact when rebounding.
• We are having a tough time pivoting properly. Need more work on Utah line drills
• Lastly, we are stopping our dribble too much, way too far from the hoop. I need to think of some game that has players keep their dribble, dribbling into and then out of trouble.      

AT, since you are working with 2nd/3rd graders, shooting really means layups. Brian wrote about shooting layups in “Crossover,” (if you don't have it yet, I highly recommend it). He writes, “Imagine a string running from the elbow to the knee; if the right elbow extends up, the right knee drives up.”

They need to practice a variety of layups from a variety of angles. Half court, full court, top of the key, both sides. Have the kids aim for the square on the backboard.