Tool of the Day Archive May 2008

MAY 30 FIERCE OR FURIOUS? TELESEMINAR #5 Sports Psychologist Brian Goonan is our guest and discusses how players cross the line from an optimal mindset for a fierce competitor to a furious mindset that becomes counterproductive.  At the end of this 15 minute interview, he gives some advice on how we can work to avoid this situation. Click this link to go directly to the interview.

MAY 29 KEEP COMMITMENTS CURRENT Detroit Pistons Coach Flip Saunders keeps a list of the pre-season commitments that his players made to the team in his pocket.  The players were responsible to develop their own. Whether or not the players  listen when he reviews those commitments with them is debatable, but it is a great idea to maintain accountability.  We could all benefit by finding the best way to keep our personal and program commitments that we have made, and the commitments our players have made to our teams, in front of us and in front of them at all times.

MAY 29 KNOW YOUR GOALS Sometimes basketball coaches teach, and sometimes they encourage.  Today's e-mail to basketball players is to encourage you to write a plan with goals to improve yourself over the summer.  And the best way to improve is through Basketball Workouts.  You get many more ballhandling and shooting reps than you would in a game. In one of our player e-mails last week, our coaching point was to write out a plan for improving specific areas of your games and then a goal to reach in that area.  To make the maximum improvement you can, you must review your plans and goals each time you go to workout.  Remember, one of your goals should be to do at least 25 individual skill workouts for the summer.  You should then adjust your goals to higher levels as you improve.  It is a lot of fun to see yourself getting better and having the numbers to prove it!. Remember, your coach is the best resource for ideas, but if you don't have a coach or don't know who your coach will be for next year, feel free to reply to this e-mail with any questions or help that you need.

MAY 28 SAVE A SECOND ON THE FIND SECOND COUNT Consider having your players break to start the inbounds play as soon as your inbounds passer catches the bounce pass from the official (or is handed the ball).  It saves a second of having the inbounder smack the ball to start the movement.  If you aren't sure about the idea, take some time to experiment with it (or other ideas you are considering) in the summer or early in the practice season.

May 28 IT'S ALL ABOUT GETTING BETTER Last week we wrote about basketball workouts.  Make those a priority in the offseason.  You do need to play some five on five to be able to see how the skills you have been working on are progressing in game situations.  Here are two ideas to help you improve when playing pickup or open gym games that are not part of organized scrimmages or games. One:  Resolve to yourself that you are not going to call any fouls when someone steals the ball from you--even if you do feel that you were fouled.  That will toughen you up.  We all have an ego, but put it aside to improve your ability to maintain control of the ball.  Contact is never an excuse to lose the ball. Second:  Talk the people you are playing with into not playing the old win by two rule.  Play to a straight score, even if that means winning by one.  That will put more pressure on everyone and help simulate the pressure of a regular season game where all you need to win by is one.

May 27 THE ULTIMATE IN SPORTSMANSHIP This is a great sportsmanship video for all of us in athletics at every level.  Make sure your sound is turned up.  If you can't see the video, it might be that your server is blocking the content.  It is definitely worth a look, so make sure that you can find a computer that you can access video content.

May 26 FINAL THOUGHTS ON NEEDLESS FOULS It is very risky to attempt to take a charge anywhere on the floor other than in the lane and on the baseline.  Not always, but usually the offense will get the blocking call if the defender attempts to take a charge out on the floor.  The only time it is worth the risk to try to take a charge out on the floor is if you are fouling late in the game to stop the clock.  Make it a rule to only take charges in the lane and on the baseline. Staying away from plays like these help keep a team and players out of foul trouble so those other calls that go against a player won't keep him or her out of the game. Spending some time thinking about how to play basketball and the types of little things that make a difference will help all basketball players to improve.

May 23 TELESEMINAR #4 MENTAL TOUGHNESS World Class Mental Toughness Coach Steve Siebold is our guest in Teleseminar Interview #4.  His focus is on coaching mental toughness, but there is some great information for players looking to improve their mental toughness as well. Steve's websites have five mental toughness secrets and five ideas for coaching those  mental toughness secrets posted from his books for free.  His first book The 177 Mental Toughness secrets of the World Class has had a huge impact on our view, understanding, and personal application of mental toughness.  That is why we invited him to be one of our first guests and share some of his ideas with our subscribers. You can listen to the interview here: Teleseminar Interview #4--Steve Siebold on Mental Toughness.

May 22 GREAT QUOTES FROM GREAT LEADERS This video has some quotes that are inspiring for everyone.  That is why we are sending it out to both the coaches' and the players' lists.  There is some background music, so make sure your speakers are up.  The "movie" is about three minutes long.  We hope you find the quotes useful. Great Quotes from Great Leaders. We have added a basketball quotes feature to our site.  The quote of the day is displayed at the top of our home page and at the end of the day is archived in the basketball quotes section.

May 21 BIG MO, FRIEND OR FOE? Momentum in basketball is a great thing to have on your side.  We have a page on our site entitled Momentum Killers and Momentum Getters.  The article has some thoughts on what types of plays can shift the momentum in a game.  Raising your players' "basketball IQ" by teaching them to spot those momentum shifting plays and then working with their skill levels and your team's schemes in order to do something about them, will allow you to work at getting the momentum of the game on your side.

MAY 21 PLAN YOUR WORK AND WORK YOUR PLAN For basketball players wanting to improve in the offseason, the best way to do so is with a skill development workout that lasts between 40 and 60 minutes.  Part of the workout needs to be on technique and the rest going at a game pace.  If you will set goals for each drill and keep track of your progress, you will see improvement--there is no doubt about that. We will be writing more to players about individual workouts, but here are four things that you need to do before you hear back from us.

May 20 ONE ARMED BANDITS ARE NO GOOD Last week we wrote about staying out of foul trouble.  One teaching point that helps is for players to only grab for the ball on defense when they can get it with two hands.  Our experience has been that it is a more successful way to take the ball or tie it up because of the increased leverage of two hands.  The main advantage of always going for the ball with two hands is that it avoids the one handed reach ins for the ball when guarding a dribbler that more often than not result in fouls.  Since you can't reach with two hands while on the move, you don't take the risk of fouling.  If the ball is being held by an offensive player, officials are much less likely to call a foul when a defender goes for the ball with two hands.

May 19 #1 TOOL OF THE DAY FOR PLAYERS is and always will be to follow the instructions of your coaches to the absolute best of your abilities.

May 15 DON'T BLAME IT ON THE REFS Read this article by clicking here: HoopClinics Blog

May 14 UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL Today's tool is a list of 10 thoughts for getting along with others that we were given a few years ago.  It is an idea for a handout or for your players' notebooks under Team Building.  It is called The Ten Commandments of Getting Along with Others.  You can view it on our site by clicking on the linked name.

May 13 TRAIN THE BRAIN We have posted an article about the IntelliGym and some videos as well.  If you aren't familiar with it, it is a video game that was originally designed to improve the awareness of fighter pilots that was adapted to use as an exercise to improve recognition and reaction in basketball players.  Even if you aren't looking to add it to your toolbox, it is still an interesting concept that is worth seeing, even if just to know what is out there.

May 9 BASKETBALL'S HOCKEY ASSIST? Cleveland Cavalier's head coach Mike Brown has applied a hockey statistic to basketball to emphasize the extra pass that usually means a better shot.  In hockey, "the secondary assist goes to the player of the same team who touched the puck before the primary assister." (Source Wikipedia)  Coach Brown emphasizes the extra pass to his team by tracking the pass that leads to an assist pass as a "hockey assist."  Would you like to guess who is leading the team in that category?  The value of the statistic is the emphasis and attention it puts on making that extra pass that leads to a better shot.

May 8 HEAR, SEE, DO Tell me, I forget, Show me, I remember, Involve me, I understand. We all need to look for ways to get everyone we work with in our programs more involved.

May 7 SCOUTING IDEA Have a manager or a statistician keep a spreadsheet with all of your  opponents' made and missed free throws from every game that you can find for the year.  You can track them when scouting in person or on tape, you can find them in newspapers at the public library, some box scores are in online newspapers, or you can ask coaches who have played the opponent you are preparing for to fax or email you the page from their scorebook.  Have someone on the bench be responsible for letting players know late in the game (if you have to foul to stop the clock) which of the five players on the floor are the ones to foul and the ones to avoid fouling.

May 6 READING IS FUNDAMENTAL When teaching players how to read screens, have them slow down as they approach the screen. Teach the offensive player to look at the defensive man not the ball, make his or her read, and then cut quickly off of the screen. Go slow enough in order to make the correct read. Too slow is better than too fast.

May 5 TELESEMINARS BEGIN TODAY! Today is the first release from our teleseminar interview series.  Our guest coach is Eddie Enriquez who will be talking about explosiveness training as it applies to basketball players.  The interview is approximately 10 minutes long and can be paused and fast forwarded if you aren't able to listen to all of it at once.  There is more information about Eddie's two websites and his experience and qualifications on the link to the interview.

Eddie just launched a website, My Trainer, that is a searchable video library of free exercise workouts that were submitted by coaches and trainers from around the world.  Our goal for the audio interview is to give you some information and to expose you to the My Trainer website that we hope will be a great tool  for you for training ideas.

May 2 RELATIONSHIPS MAKE US OR BREAK US Lou Holtz feels that the answer to three questions will determine our success or failure:

1) Can people trust you to do your best?
2) Are you committed to the task at hand?
3) Do you care about other people and show it?

No one will be able to have long term success--and enjoy it-- if any of those are "No."

May 1 BASELINE SCREENING Billy Donovan emphasizes to his players to set the baseline screen above the block to give the cutter room to fade to the corner if the defense goes over the top of the screen.  Click here for a short video of a part of a clinic he gave.  You will need to scroll to the bottom of the page for the video excerpt of his presentation.