Coaching tips from Pat Colliton in Fairfax VA

This is Pat Colliton from 6528 Heather Brook Ct., McLean, VA and I am back to offer a little more coaching advice. The drill I want to talk about today is the lay-up drill. Teams from the first grade all the way up to the professional teams use this drill for the first ten minutes of practice. Most teams use this as a “warm-up” drill and as such, don’t get much out of it.

I look at this drill a little differently and instead use it to stress four fundamentals of the game. This is especially beneficial for the young kids you coach.

If you push the drill all the way back to half court, you force the kids to work on their dribbling and ball handling (Fundamental # 1). You will need to remind or teach them to use their fingertips to feel the ball. They should not have the ball in the palm of their hand as this just leads to the eventual carry. They also need to keep the ball below their waist when they are dribbling. The lower the better.

The second part of the drill may seem basic but at a young age, it is crucial. They need to make the lay-up (Fundamental # 2). My favorite expression in basketball is “The backboard is your friend.” Shooting off the glass is a lost art. You need to teach them that they must be under control and use the backboard on ALL lay-ups. Honestly, at least in elementary school, the team that makes its lay-ups usually wins.

The third part of the drill is critical. You need to teach the kids right from the beginning about low block rebounding (Fundamental # 3). The player needs to get to weak side low block, get a wide base and get ready to get the ball BEFORE IT HITS THE GROUND. This shows that they are ready to rebound.

The final stage of the drill is the chest pass (Fundamental # 4) that goes back to front of the line. You need to teach them to step into the pass so that it gets where it needs to go. Another thing to remember is that it should always be chest to chest.

A couple of final thoughts; always be positive and compliment them when they do anything correctly. Repeat the principles globally when someone gets it wrong. In other words, compliment the individuals and correct and instruct the team.

So now, in the first 10-15 minutes of practice, you have covered and worked on four basic fundamentals of basketball. The rest is gravy.

My next blog will talk about a few games that all kids love. This is Pat Colliton signing off from Fairfax, Virginia.

Pat Colliton's Coach's Corner Fairfax, Virginia

This is Pat Colliton from Fairfax Virginia, where I have coached for the past seventeen years and I thought that I would post a few of my thoughts on the subject of coaching. I have coached at the AAU level, Travel Team level, House League level, and Developmental level, and with very few exceptions, my advice is the same at all levels. Make it fun and stress the fundamentals.

With three kids between the ages of 12 and 22, I can tell you this much about their generation. They come from the school of “Everything I learned about basketball, I learned on Sportscenter.”

As I mentioned earlier, stick with the two “F”s, Fun and Fundamentals and I promise you that you will have great success. This is true at any age from 6 all the way up to 18. If you can make it fun, the kids will keep coming back and then the game itself becomes the teacher. The simplest way to make it both fun and full of fundamentals is to make up games that stress the simple basics of the game. Almost every kid that is playing sports is competitive by nature (or their parents are) and they all love to “win” no matter what the game. By making up the games and the rules, coaches can keep everything even. I can’t tell you how many games that I have invented that have miraculously ended in a tie.

My next Blog I will talk about a little bit about some fun games and how a simple drill like lay-up lines can work on four fundamentals of the game.
This is Patrick Colliton signing off from 6528 Heather Brook Ct., McLean, VA 22101.