Head Coach v. Assistant Coach (Youth Basketball)

Bleedred

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I am assisting the Head Coach of our Division 1, 6th Grade travel team. Very competitive, high level of basketball for this age, all teams well coached. I was hoping to be the HC, as historically, the league had rotated HCs and ACs (I was HC for 4th grade, he was HC last year), but because the HC is very tight with the League Coordinator, he was named the HC. No biggie, he's knowledgeable and a good guy.

Half way through the season, it's clear that we have different coaching philosophies. In a nutshell, I like to give the kids a lot of structure in practice. Time devoted to individual skills (ballhandling, rebounding, shooting, defense technique, etc.); and the rest of the time devoted to plays and schemes necessary to play at this level. That includes plays against man to man, zone, inbound plays, press breaks, zone defenses, man defenses, presses, trapping zones, etc. In contrast, the HC believes in what I would call a "free lance" concept. We drill most of the things I've noted at practice, but rarely does he choose to drill them repeatedly. The result of this approach has been that our guys are not quite as prepared as they need to be for game situations.

My dilemna: We're doing well (5-2), but we're about to hit the iron of the league. There are a couple of teams that are likely to smoke us, not because we can't play with them, but because I don't think we are going to be prepared. This sounds a little silly, but I don't care to own the coming slaughter and anticipated chaos when we are not ready. I'm typically quite vocal and almost a quasi HC during games. What I'm thinking is that I step completely back, be a cheerleader of sorts, and support the HC exclusively, but not chime in during timeouts, halftime, etc, unless requested by the HC. My submission and even temperment will likely be notable, but perhaps welcome by the HC.

Thoughts?

P.S. I'm not interested in who is right in their approaches (I happen to think his approach works better with older kids who know the game well, not younger kids, but I could be wrong).
 

EddieYost

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I think you are over thinking it and should just keep doing the same thing that you've been doing.  If an opportunity opens up, mention to the other guy that you feel more structure in practice would be good.
 

Bleedred

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That does make sense. I have, however, mentioned the structure thing about practice on a couple of occasions. He clearly doesn't agree, so I need to let it lie so I don't come off as a prick. lol
 

DJnVa

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Well, if you guys start to suffer some losses, there's a chance he comes to you and asks about ideas....
 

Heinie Wagner

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I know you said you're not interested in whose approach works better, but I think his is a better long term approach.  Lose games now to build skills for the future.  Rather than plays, teach how to play by principle and that will last players forever. 
 
I was in a similar situation to you (with the philosophies reversed) when my oldest was in 5th grade.  I wanted to be the HC, I have a ton of basketball experience and thought I'd be picked for sure, the President of the club interviewed me and told me he'd call after tryouts.  I didn't get picked. The HC was a board member (he had an older son).  We spent most of practice working on plays and 5 on 5 stuff, like breaking presses, with very little individual skill work.  I was as assistant coach.  It killed me, I felt we were wasting time doing things that helped the team short term, but didn't help the players long term.  I spoke with the HC a few times about changing the approach, he was very confident his approach was the right one, I tried as hard as I could without hurting our relationship to get him to change (which wasn't much, the guy was really sure he was right). That team had good results, 12-8, which in our town, is pretty good for youth basketball.  I was the best assistant I could be (aside from constant bitching to my wife about how much I hated the way things were going) and made friends and got on the board with a goal being to develop a curriculum for all coaches.  As an aside, that team is currently 3-12 as 8th graders, different coach, same mentality, lots of plays, not much work on individual skills.
 
Getting on the board turned into becoming President of the club, 13 teams, boy & girls 5-8, likely to add 4th grade boys next season.  Every step along the way, I learned a ton from seeing things done the wrong way and I'm a much better coach because of it (the 8th grade B team I coach is 10-3 and leads the league averaging over 60 points per game).  
 
You should keep talking to the coach but keep working to make yourself a better coach.  It sounds like with the way your club works, you may be the HC next season so you definitely don't want to make waves that would cost you that.
 
Kids at that age do best in practice with 5-8 minute segments, maybe that doesn't fit what you think is enough repetition?  It's 5th grade basketball, it sucks to sit there and watch your kids get blown out, but would you rather be winning in 5th grade, or building skills that will help in the future?  Maybe you can convince the HC to come to a bit of a compromise, but remember there are some things that make kids successful in games as 5th graders that can actually hurt them down the line (becoming dependent on picks for example).
 
Good luck.  
 

TiredParent

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Dec 8, 2005
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It sounds like the HC is more concerned with player development, while you are more concerned with success at this level.  I may be misreading this though, and of course, these are not mutually exclusive.  I have been a HC and AC for the past few years at the U12 level, and I am currently the HC of both a 8/9 yr old boys team and a 10/12 yr old girls team.  I have found the division between coaches who want more emphasis on set plays/ structured play and those that want to instill concepts (pass/fill/replace, etc...) grows greater as the season progresses, and will only grow greater if either the HC or AC starts determining success in W-L.  You have been a HC in the past, and will likely be a HC in the future, so just try to focus on keeping the current HC efficient during practice.  You state that he does touch on everything you want to emphasize, but does not focus on it as much as you think the kids need.  Is there any way you can increase the efficiency of the current drills? On my 10/12 team, the AC is convinced that set plays need to be focused on. I follow the Canada Basketball recommendations regarding skill development, so I am more concerned with concepts and what to do WHEN set plays are broken. We have found a middle ground, where in practice he will take a subset of the team and focus on set plays, while I will focus on drills that complement these plays(screen up/away, drive dish, etc...), and then we switch.  This way both methodologies are fit into one practice. The most important thing though is that the kids all see you both as one coaching unit.  They need to think you are on the same page, even if you are really in different books.
 

Heinie Wagner

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TiredParent, do you have a link to the Canada Basketball recommendations for skill development?  US Soccer has a fantastic best practices for youth player development document, but I haven't been able to find anything equivalent for basketball.
 

TiredParent

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HW,  Here is a link to the Canada basketball LTAD. 
 
http://www.basketball.nb.ca/app/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=GJk24%2fB1vk4%3d&tabid=36&mid=985&language=en-US
 
It is a pretty comprehensive overview document.  They also have some solid coaches toolbox documents with more details about recommended loading of drills that you get during the learn to train and train to train clinics, but I am not sure if those are online. 
I find one of the hardest thing to get some parents to understand is that a great post player at the under 12 level may well end up an undersized wing in high school, and the uncoordinated wing in U12 may end up as a multiskilled big, and that we are doing the players a disservice if we focus on their current strengths at the expense of what they will need at the next level. I don't want to be the coach who, by not developing the player correctly when they most needed it, ends up causing them to stop playing in Junior High.
 

Heinie Wagner

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TiredParent said:
I find one of the hardest thing to get some parents to understand is that a great post player at the under 12 level may well end up an undersized wing in high school, and the uncoordinated wing in U12 may end up as a multiskilled big, and that we are doing the players a disservice if we focus on their current strengths at the expense of what they will need at the next level. I don't want to be the coach who, by not developing the player correctly when they most needed it, ends up causing them to stop playing in Junior High.
 
Very well said.  My middle son will be in 5th grade next season (first year of travel b-ball with our club).  I'm going to express exactly what you wrote to the parents of the team he'll be on.
 
It all comes down to people placing way too much importance on winning.  Basketball is a late developing game, but sports parents (and coaches) don't really have the patience for that.
 
I really like this video from Stan Van Gundy on this topic:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ9jTOAMTtk
 

Bleedred

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Great posts from both of you Heine and Tired, thanks.   Heine, we're a 6th grade team (not 5th) but your points still stand.  I agree with you that individual skill concepts are equally if not more important in developing players for later than getting them to understand set plays.  However, in my view, they do not have to be mutually exclusive approaches.  Just one of many examples:  giving the kids the tools to decipher a zone (filling gaps, triple threat receiving of the ball etc., attacking before the zone can shift) can go hand in hand with running a zone offense that puts them in a position to succeed and maximize their ability to use those skills with a structured overlay.   I'm not sure anyone (kids, parents, coaches, league administrators, etc.) is on board with getting blown out in games comforted by the knowledge that we're developing skills in practice.  And while you understandably ask if I "would rather be winning in 6th grade, or building skills that will help in the future?," I guess I simply reject the premise of the question, or rather, would suggest that it is not a zero sum proposition.  I believe we can build skills in every practice, give the kids structured sets, and achieve success both in the win column and in developing players.  That said, I should really give more thought to the development side, as I do tend to coach for the moment.
 

Heinie Wagner

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Bleedred, really good points about it not being entirely one of the other, and being open to that discussion puts you on top of most youth coaches I've seen.  
 
I'm one of the few people who is ok with getting killed every game when I'm confident that I'm developing skills for the long run and doing things the right way.  Parents cut me more slack as far as that goes than they would most coaches as I had a very successful playing career and many people mistake that for guaranteeing coaching competence.  Admittedly, I tend to go too far in the development only direction and not care about the game results as much as everyone else around me.  There is certainly a middle ground.
 
The thing I see is that it's a slippery slope.  For example a coach starts his first year of travel b-ball, convinced that man to man defense is best for player development, and he's determined to play only man to man.  He loses a couple games to zone only teams and it's clearly a huge advantage to play zone for game results.  At halftime of the next game, it's close and he wants to win, he switches to zone.  He wins the game. Afterwards, several parents tell him what a fantastic adjustment he made at halftime and congratulate him on the fine win.  He plays a little man to man the next couple games, but mostly zone, before going all zone the rest of the season.  I've seen it happen.
 
A similar thing could happen with a balance of working on plays vs player development.  I was an assistant to a guy who would spend most of practice working two different press break plays 5 on 5 when the root of the problem with full court presses was a lack of individual ball handling and passing skills and a lack of understanding of spacing, things that could have been improved upon much more efficiently and effectively by means other than 5 on 5.
 

Bleedred

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I'm not ok getting killed every game, and you're right that a successful playing career does not equal coaching competence. Our town is littered with coaches who played in college, more than half of them are shitty coaches.      Our league does not permit zone defenses at the 4th and 5th grade levels, and there is no pressing at those ages other than for the last 2 minutes of the first half and last 4 minute of the game.  And the presses can only be man to man.  Thus, a lot of the problems you are identifying are addressed by league rules.  Nevertheless, I agree with you about a balance being necessary and appropriate, but the slippery slope can go both ways.  One might suggest you've slid down it by letting your kids get destroyed in every game and teaching virtually no sets.  I really don't know what the right balance is, but 50/50 seems right to me.  Maybe 40/60 on the development side.
 

Heinie Wagner

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I think the balance should change every year or every couple years.  I'm definitely on the extreme side toward skill development and it's completely selfish.  I take a ton more satisfaction in seeing players get better at playing basketball than I do at seeing a final score where the other team has more points than we do.  From the selfish parent side, once my kid gets into high school, all the W's and L's in travel won't matter, but the skills will.
 
Now granted, you've got to keep the kids loving the game, and winning is more fun than losing.  I guess I've been a little lucky in that regard for several reasons.
 
But I can tell you that even in college and in especially when I was playing in Europe we worked on fundamentals a greater percentage of practice and plays a lesser percentage than I see most youth coaches doing.  I'm working to change that in our club, but it's certainly a tough battle.
 

Bleedred

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Do you know of publically available materials that focus on skill set development. i.e.  good practice drills, that can be used throughough the season, in fun way?
 

Heinie Wagner

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I wouldn't say I've found anything great that is free, you have to pick through a lot of stuff to find the good stuff, here a couple sites that I've found pretty useful
 
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/
has tons of drills for all levels - lots of stuff to look through, lots of good stuff, lots of noise too
 
I've looked a lot at the NBA site that was developed for youth coaches, it used to be Ihoops - now it is http://youth.usab.com/
lots of good stuff, lots of useless or not age appropriate stuff there too
 
On the paid side:
I use a lot of stuff from http://betterbasketball.com/
We do at least one segment (7 minutes) of one on one every practice from the Killer 1 on 1 games DVD
I teach ball handling, one on one moves, post play etc with a large dose of stuff from their DVDs
This is the site for the Read and React offense that I use too (and that I'm working on getting our whole club to use)
 
I'm a huge fan of Brian McCormick - http://developyourbballiq.com/
In addition to the site, he has a couple really good books on coaching
 

TiredParent

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Bleedred,  while I understand not wanting to get killed every game, is there any particular reason why getting beat badly at this level disturbs you?  Don't get me wrong, I despise having a game where we have poor effort and intensity.  But if everyone on the team is playing to the best of their abilities and improving their basketball skills, I could care less if we win by 30 or lose by 30. Most studies have shown that kids at this age care more about playing time, development and teamwork( and fun) than winning. Anecdotally, every couple of weeks I will have players come up at practice and ask if we won the last game, whether it was a close game or a dominant win for either team. I do teach some level of set plays, but really I am probably more concerned with concepts and making sure my team understands what the other team is trying to do when they run their plays, so we can disrupt and cause defensive confusion. 
 
 

TiredParent

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I should probably also point out that I live in an extreme hockey area, so from a parental intensity level the stakes for basketball are comparatively low.
 

Bleedred

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Tired.  I'm in a very competitive basketball area, but that's not it.  The league we play in is in the highest level league, and all of the teams are well coached and have significant talent.   I do, however, agree with you.  If our boys play their hardest and try their best, I really don't care about the score at all.  But not having them prepared, ready to deal with other teams sets, to me would be a mistake.   I don't think you, me and Heine are far off.  Just gradations
 

Heinie Wagner

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I get what you're saying Bleedred. If you go up against teams that set ball picks and you don't practice defending against ball picks, which means you have to teach your players ball picks, it's going to look like your team is not well coached.  
 
It seems like your league with no zone defense and limited pressing is probably a pretty cool league to coach in, but if you play a team that looks more organized, some people will get the impression that they are more well coached.
 
For example, my 4th grade son plays in a travel league, under my advice the coach has really only implemented a give and go/pass and cut offense, teaching by principle - if you pass the ball, you must cut to the basket, if there is an open spot closer to the ball, you must fill to the open spot.  It works well, the boys are learning spacing and movement without the ball and it is reasonably effective, but it makes it so every player handles the ball (a huge disadvantage in 4th grade).  The teams that come down and run a high ball pick for their best player every time look much more well coached to many of the parents, especially when it's the other team so they don't notice that most of the kids on the other team don't touch the ball much.
 

riboflav

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Heinie Wagner said:
I get what you're saying Bleedred. If you go up against teams that set ball picks and you don't practice defending against ball picks, which means you have to teach your players ball picks, it's going to look like your team is not well coached.  
 
It seems like your league with no zone defense and limited pressing is probably a pretty cool league to coach in, but if you play a team that looks more organized, some people will get the impression that they are more well coached.
 
For example, my 4th grade son plays in a travel league, under my advice the coach has really only implemented a give and go/pass and cut offense, teaching by principle - if you pass the ball, you must cut to the basket, if there is an open spot closer to the ball, you must fill to the open spot.  It works well, the boys are learning spacing and movement without the ball and it is reasonably effective, but it makes it so every player handles the ball (a huge disadvantage in 4th grade).  The teams that come down and run a high ball pick for their best player every time look much more well coached to many of the parents, especially when it's the other team so they don't notice that most of the kids on the other team don't touch the ball much.
 
Btw, as a varsity bball coach, this is the BEST advice on team strategy/concepts I've read on SoSH for a youth team. Pass & cut, basic read & react offense is all 6th graders should learn. Everyone should have the pleasure of having Brian McCormick or Rick Torbett come around and bitch slap all the coaches running set plays at this level. Fuck them, man. Do right by these kids and run a damn offense based on principles where everyone improves regardless of what ignorant people think. Sounds like the HC knows what he's doing.
 

bobbo

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I think being the assistant, you should definitely try to lend a helping hand as much as possible and only chime in during half time when HC asks you to. Having too many people speaking and throwing different ideas in the short amount of half time never seems to work anyway...just winds up confusing the kids and they walk away without anything to focus on fixing the second half. On the other hand, I think 2 different types of coaching is important during practices. Everyone has a strong suit in a certain area, and if the HC ever splits up the kids during practice (you take half, he takes half) then you can use your coaching philosophies and drills on them then.
 

Bleedred

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I have a sincere question for each of Riboflav, Heinie and TiredParent. Have you coached 6th grade select travel teams, in the most competitive division of your regions? I ask, because while your suggestions to limit what is coached to basic motion offenses, move and cut without the basketball, "fill the gap" concepts are legitimate and laudable, I think it VASTLY underestimates what these kids are capable of. Every team in our league (12 team league) has multiple presses, press breaks, inbound plays, offensive sets against man to man, against zone, etc. The talent is impressive (e.g. we have 5 kids that can consistently knock down 3 point shots - 30-35% FG%). It so happens that our core offenses against both man and zone defenses are read and react, fill the gap type offenses, and while we do have specific plays, our default offenses are motion against the man and the zone. There are teams in our league that also play together on AAU teams (I think it's absurd that kids are specializing at age 12 btw), so those teams practice 3-4x a week and play 11 months out of the year. We practice 2x a week and play 4 months out of the year. All of our kids play spring soccer, baseball and lacrosse. Ditto in the Fall. Only one kid plays AAU year-round (and he's our second worst player).

So, given how I've described our league, to take just one example, would you really not prepare our kids to break a full court 3-1-1 press; a 3/4 court 2-2-1 press and a half court 1-3-1 trap? Every team has those presses and runs them. If we didn't coach how to break them, we'd turn the ball over 50-75% of the time, and I'm not sure what positive that reinforces. This is not about "how we look as coaches," or "whether the team looks unprepared," but rather, I see it as giving the kids the tools to to succeed, both as basketball players and as a team. It's nice that the kids in TiredParent's league don't know if they won or lost a game(see Tired's comment above), but that simply is not the universe I live in when it comes to basketball at this level in this league.

I'm genuinely curious about your responses, because on balance, I agree with your philosophies in general, but think it needs to be closer to a 50/50 mix.

Thanks
 

twothousandone

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Bleedred said:
 That includes plays against man to man, zone, inbound plays, press breaks, zone defenses, man defenses, presses, trapping zones. . . 
 
I've not been in this thread, but I think you answered your own question a month later
 
 
Bleedred said:
So, given how I've described our league, to take just one example, would you really not prepare our kids to break a full court 3-1-1 press; a 3/4 court 2-2-1 press and a half court 1-3-1 trap? Every team has those presses and runs them. If we didn't coach how to break them, we'd turn the ball over 50-75% of the time, and I'm not sure what positive that reinforces. 
Maybe too late, and maybe it won't work with the HC, but it seems breaking the press, whatever press it is, is the "structure" you might push for -- perhaps even by mentioning that the upcoming teams will press a lot, and your kids will need to be ready for it. Since I'm reading it all just now, you'll have to take my word that I was already thinking that you should pick the one or two most relevant plays, schemes, structure -- especially for the most immediate games. If you couldn't convince HC, it maybe was more likely that after getting smoked by full-court pressure, he'd begin to see it your way.
 
Of course, full-court pressure, if done well against opponents who haven't drilled on breaking it, can be exactly what you suggest. It's maybe the one thing that, as a coach, if you know it is coming, you have to prepare the kids to beat it. I don't know that I'd worry about playing against half-court man-to-man, zone, zone traps nearly as much. I've never been crazy about learning more than one in-bounds play. Call out a different color each time, but it's always the same play.
 
And how have those games been going? The team was 5-2.
 

Bleedred

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We ended up 8-4 and lost at the buzzer in the semifinals yesterday 80-78.  For whatever reason, our kids are by far the smallest kids in the league.  We were literally giving up 6-8" in the post on all 3 front court positions, but our athleticism and speed neutralized them to keep us in the game.  The rebounding margin had to be +25 for our opponent, but our speed and skill always kept us competitive.
 
And yes, we did practice against full, 3/4 and 1/2 court traps, with great success.  It was a great season, and if our kids eventually hit their growth spurts, we'll literally have all 10 kids who can handle at a reasonable level, and 5 or so who will be plus ballhandlers.  A great start for these guys.
 

Heinie Wagner

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Maybe you misunderstood what I wrote, I teach kids how to break full court presses and half court presses, I don't have different plays for each of them.  My solution for all of them is similar, teach everyone on the team how to handle the ball, practice ball handling every day for all players, get them to all understand proper spacing and movement without the ball. Develop their skills so they can all catch, dribble, pass and finish and work on those skills every practice in a variety of ways.  I do this using the principles of the Read and React Offense and use the same principles for breaking presses, half court traps, man to man and zone defenses.  There are different configurations, like 5 out vs 4 out 1 in, but the principles remain the same.
 
I teach kids how to play, not a bunch of plays.  
 
I've been an assistant coach at our A level a couple years and the huge frustration for me there was that whenever we struggled with something, the solution was a new play.  Our 7th grade team had 5 baseline out of bounds plays.  I never had that many through high school, college and playing professionally in Europe and I scored a ton of points at each level on baseline out of bounds plays.
 
You have 5 sixth graders who can consistently knock down 30-35% of threes? Wow, you guys must be VERY good.  And they only play 4 months out of the year?  
 

Bleedred

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Got it. We're pretty close in what we teach. Our press breaks were almost identical, with a tweak here and there.

And yes, my kids can really shoot - witness the score of our last game 80-78. 78 points is a shit ton of points for a 6th grade team to score (and 80 is a ton to give up :( ). I think we knocked down 9 threes in that game, and while we didn't average that many points per game, we are consistently in the low 50s, which is still pretty high for a 32 minute game. Our uber challenge this year was height. You can front the posts, put pressure on the outside guards/passers, get the proper postion and box out all you want, but when you are consistently giving up 6" and 20-25 pounds in the post, at age 12, you simply are going to get beat badly on the glass in every game. That's what happened to us this year, and it is a real credit to the kids that we were competitive in ever game and had a cumulative record of 13-5 for the season (including tournaments).
 

Heinie Wagner

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That is a huge score and I agree, low 50's is a fantastic average for 6th graders.  Sounds like a fun team to watch.  I absolutely detest watching youth games where teams walk the ball up the court, don't pressure the ball at all on defense and are happy with a score in the 20's, 30's or even 40's.  That's a tremendous waste of opportunities to develop players.
 
Bigs get more important each year, get those kids some HGH  :)
 

Bleedred

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HGH indeed. Seriously, kids shoot up between 6th and 8th grade. If even two of our guys get tall..we'll be in business.

We were a really fun team to watch, because the only way we could compete (and leverage or athleticism and better skill) was to full court press, all game, man to man. It was a hybrid man to man, as we taught the kids to turn their man 2 or 3 times, and the closest teammate would "jump" the ballhandler when his back was turned. Each other kid moved up a man if possible. We forced tons of turnovers and scored in transition probably about 50% of the time. The flipside of this approach is giving up easy hoops to much bigger teams when they successfully navigated our pressure..hence the higher scores. The great thing was that our kids never backed down to anyone, regardless of the size disadvantage.
 

Heinie Wagner

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We played similar to that too, always pressure the ball defense, always push the ball on offense, tempo is everything.  More possessions = better player development is my philosophy. Plus if you press and run, you have no choice but to play more players, and I wanted to play all ten.  We were actually one of the bigger teams in our league and our two tallest players can really run.
 
Just before the season ended, I purchased this:  Keith Haske's Uptempo Basketball System: Pressure Defense, Pressure Offense, it's similar to what we did but with some differences I really like (teaching defense by principle, which is what it sounds like you did) and some breakdowns in how to teach kids to play the way you want.  I had some of the exact issues he says he always has early in the season.  For example, kids don't want to get beat, so they just won't pressure the ball enough to really force tempo.  I'm not using everything in it, but it's got some really good stuff and I love the philosophy or Pressure Defense, Pressure Offense.