These notes, reflections and observations by Alan Keane (England u18 National Team Head Coach) from the FIBA U18 European Championship 2019 is too good not to share – much less to allow to get lost in the Twitterverse. Raw. Candid. Actionable. This is the kind of share that helps to deepen our collective perspective of …
Some of the most exciting plays in a basketball come from the inbound passer. Begs the question: If the inbound pass is so important, how are we as coaches developing this competency in players?
How you coach the game with no shot clock is different than how you coach it with a shot clock. Here’s why this impacts player development.
Not all non-traditional stats are equal. Which ones are most important to winning? Take a look into a team’s “hustle board” to see what they track.
This. Is. A. Coaching. Masterclass…! Seriously. It’s rare to observe basketball practices that have been mindfully designed to integrate the mental, technical, physical, social and competive constraints in a way that reads like a book. This is why we (affectionately) call Mike MacKay: Yoda Master MacKay. In his day “job”, he’s the Women’s High Performance …
There are very few absolutes in basketball. (To be honest, the only one that I can think of is: High score wins!) One of the dangers or blind spots we all have is that our perspective is influenced by our experiences—and the story we tell ourselves about those experiences. It’s like being a frog at …
Every coach has been in the frustrating situation where their athletes don’t do, in a game, the things that they worked on during practice. There’s the common refrain bellowing from sidelines throughout the basketball world: “C’mon! We worked on that!” If you’re looking for a solution, start with you… Is This A Game-Like Drill? This is …
How often do you pause and reflect on what’s behind a skill? What I mean is: what are the unseen (cognitive) processes that precede the execution of the skill? If you haven’t given it a ton of thought, meet someone who has… Garth Smith, a soccer coach, who attempted to capture the myriad of variables – consciously and subconsciously …
Separating fact from opinion is one of the hardest challenges coaches face. It’s human nature for perspective to be clouded. And, notions of effective coaching are not immune to the myths of success (e.g. falling prey to it’s always been done that way and struggling to distinguish between because of and in spite of.) “Stay down in your stance… Don’t cross your feet when …
Really well articulated delineation by Lee Taft on the “anatomy of a skill versus a drill”… A SKILL is the area of athleticism or sport performance we want to enhance to improve the greater good of our performance. We want greater SKILL so we can perform at high levels. Our intentions as coaches should always be focused …