Don Meyer: Evaluating Possessions

Don Meyer has influenced my coaching career more than any other coach.  I had the fortunate pleasure to here Coach Meyer talk numerous times, had personal conversations with him and was able to get feedback on some philosophical items as well.  He always made time to help other coaches and to give back to the coaching community.  Today, we are going to look at same game analysis resources that you can use to evaluate the effectiveness of your games.  I will be the first to admit that analyzing each possession can take some time, but the information you gather from it is so useful.  Hopefully, these resources provided by Coach Meyer will help you improve your team's efficiency.

Don Meyer Possession Chart

Don Meyer Analysis Key

Tom McKinney Practice Planning

Practice planning is one of the most important aspects of coaching that determines team readiness for a game and for player development.  Very few things are more frustrating that watch a poorly planned and structured practice.  Tom McKinney provides a great example of practice items that can be incorporated into a practice plan.  I hope there are some valuable components that you can use to help design effective practices.

Tom McKinney Practice Planning

Backdoor Plays

I think all offenses should have backdoor concepts built into them.  It creates scoring actions towards the basket and serves as a good pressure release against teams that like to get out and defend hard.  Therefore, I am sharing some backdoor plays that can be ran as sets or simply added as actions within your own offensive base.

Backdoor Plays

Jeff Capel Shooting Workouts

As the off-season continues for many of us, I am always looking for a new shooting drill for my players.  Jeff Capel shows us some different drills in these workouts that we can implement into our own basketball program.  As I have always said, I think it is really important to not only find new drills and ways of doing things, but more importantly, it is vital that you modify the drill to fit your philosophy and style of play.

Jeff Capel Workout 1

Jeff Capel Workout 2

1-on-1 Practice Drills

When structured appropriately, 1-on-1 drills can be great for individual development.  We like to put constraints on the 1-on-1 drill such as:

• 2 or 3 dribble max
• Players only score on defensive stops.  If a player gets a stop, he stays on defense
• Play to 3 or 4 - this places more emphasis on the defensive component of the drill
• Post players can start on the block - makes perimeter players have to learn to defend in the post

I am sure there are lots of other variations or rules that could be used, but these are some that we are going to focus on this off-season.  I am including some other 1-on-1 type drills for you to look at.  As always, modify them to fit your system or philosophy.

Spartan 1-on-1 Progression

1-on-1 Outlet and Score

KU Women 1-on-1 Drills

2013 Golden State Playoff Playbook

I have recently put together a playbook on the 2013 Golden State Warriors playoff run last season.   It took me a while to breakdown all of the film, but I finally got it done.  Even though I am not much of a set play kind of coach, I really enjoyed making this playbook.  If you are interested in seeing more on it, follow the link below.

2013 Golden State Playoff Playbook

1-4 High Continuous Action

1-4 high offenses can be very interesting to coaches. It allows for a variety of scoring opportunities as well as some easy pressure releases against aggressive defenses.  Today, we are going to take a look at 1-4 high continuous action.  Even if you are not looking for a complete offense, there are still scoring actions out of this that could be used as sets or entries for other base offenses.

1-4 High Continuous Action

Preparing for the First Game

We start practice on Monday.  We typically have approximately 2 weeks prior to our first game.  One of the things that is important for many teams is to get in all of the required elements for that first game.  This is important to think about as you plan out practices.  Therefore, I am going to share some resources that will help you in this process.

Rick Struggs First Game Checklist

Xavier Situation Cards

Clarkston Bantams Carolina Set

This is a nice set that I came across in my basketball files.  It would be a good set action for teams that utilize a shot clock.  I also like the back cut reads that are built within the set.  It is one of the more interesting sets that I have seen in a while.

Clarkston Bantams Carolina Set

5 State Hoops Basketball BLOG

I want to throw out a plug for a great basketball website that has a ton of information for coaches.  The site is called 5 State Hoops and it is ran by Coach Chuck Thompson.  I have been looking through the site the past couple of weeks and have really enjoyed the wealth of resources that Coach Thompson provides.

5 State Hoops Basketball BLOG

Seattle Pacific BLOB 3 Low Series

A friend of mine sent me this baseline out of bounds video that has some nice options out of it.  Seattle Pacific is the team running the play and there are multiple clips of the different looks you can get out of it.  I think you will like this blob.

Seattle Pacific BLOB 3 Low Series

Fundamental Practice Drills

Here is a variety of drills that you can use in your practices or in your skill development.  Fundamental drills offer a lot of variations to traditional drills and can also be a great mix for combination skill development drills.  Hope they help your team fundamental skills.

2 Ball Cone Dribbling

Tony Bennett Ball Handling Workout

V Cut Passing

Scott Drew Baylor Development Drills

Practice Plan Samples and Practice Drills

Finally getting some time to post some basketball stuff, so I thought I would share some resources on practice planning and practice samples.  Personally, planning practices is one of my favorite parts of coaching.  I think that having a detailed and organized practice plan is vital to running an effective practice.  Hope these examples give you some things to consider when practice planning.

Bobby Lutz Practice Planning

Coach K Practice Planning

How to Organize a Practice

New Jersey Practice Notes

Nolan Richardson Practice Philosophy

Rob Slopek Season Planning

Eric Mussleman Practice Notes

2-3 High Offense Updated Links

It was brought to my attention that one of the links in this post was linked to the wrong file.  I have made the correction, so if you want the file, you can download it from the page link below.

2-3 High Offense Updated Links

Todd Schlimgen: New BLOG Contributor - Mount Marty College Practice Drills

Professional Bio: Todd is a native of Scotland, SD and a graduate of Scotland HS and SDSU. He started his career in Sisseton, SD where he taught American History and was the 8th grade football and 9th grade boys' basketball coach for 2 years. He then went to Colman-Egan HS for 3 years where he taught Spanish 1 & 2, 6th-8th Social Studies, and World History. He coached Jr. High and Asst. Varsity Football, Head Girls' Basketball, and Head Boys' and Girls' Golf. The girls' basketball team went to 2 state tournaments with 4th and 2nd place finishes. They won 3 DVC regular season championships and 3 DVC tourney championships. They had a record of 66-7 during his 3 seasons there. The girls' golf team also won 3 DVC championships and qualified for 3 State B Tournaments where they finished 4th, 2nd, and 5th to go along with an individual boy taking a 2nd place finish at state. He then went to Harrisburg HS for 1 year teaching Spanish 1 and was the Head Girls' Basketball Coach. They went 13-9 and lost in the district championship. Since 2009, Todd has been an Assistant Women's Basketball Coach and Assistant Men's and Women's Golf Coach at Mount Marty College.

Coach Schlimgen is showing us some great shooting drills that they use at Mount Marty College.  These drills are high in intensity, give players a lot of repetitions and are competitive.  All characteristics of a a good drill.

Todd Schlimgen Mount Marty College Practice Drills

Practice Shooting Drills

As practice closes in for most of us, we are starting to narrow down specific drills that fit within out philosophy of the game.  I think that can be one of most challenging yet most fulfilling elements of practice planning. I like the challenge of evaluating an existing drill and tweaking it to fit our style at Tea Area.  Our head coach is very good about analyzing what we do and modifying existing drills to fit our system.

Therefore, my challenge today is for you to evaluate the shooting drills that I am going to share with you and modify them to fit your philosophy on footwork, offensive actions, and so on.

2 Minute Shooting  Drill

2 Ball Pass and Shoot

3 Ball Baseline Drive

Chair Lay-ups

Post Figure 8's

2 Man Competitive Shooting

USA Basketball Shooting Drills - Don Showalter

Contentment In Wonderland

I am going to continue a theme here on motivation material so I thought that I would share a piece that I think is really powerful.

Contentment in Wonderland

Errol Gauff: Team Building

I found this resource to be rather useful in regards to team building.  This is an area that I am always looking for new ideas to keep our team close.  A lot of the time, it is team chemistry that decides the success of the season, not the X and O side of the game.

Errol Gauff: Team Building

Competitive Practice Drills

Coaches are always looking for new competitive practice drills to improve the play of their team.  The tough part, however, is finding a drill that fits with your system or being able to look at an existing drill and then modify to fit what you do.  Today, I offer a number of different drills for you to look over. Hopefully they fit what you do. If not, study them and modify them to fit your philosophy.

Steve Alford Competitive Shooting Drills

Stop and Score Drill

Perfect Lay-ups

Iowa State Combination 1-on-1 Drills

1-on-1 Rebound Outlet and Score

College Sets Playbook

Even though I personally don't like using a lot of sets in our offense, I really do like studying them.  I like to look at sets, and then modifying them or using parts of them to fit the strengths or our players.  With that being said, I came across this playbook that has some really nice set actions used at the college level.  This resource provides a variety of scoring actions in both man and zone sets.  Study the actions, and think how they might play into your system.  Think about the strengths of your players skill sets and modify them to put your players in situations where they can be successful.

College Sets Playbook