Many of you know I’m a high school basketball coach. For the most part my teams have struggled. Small 1A private school going up against a bunch of large 5A private schools due to our geographic location. Parents and players and a school administration that really didn’t care about winning. My AD and I do though.

Last spring and Summer, after a 0-20 season, and only having one victory that didn’t count because it was a scrimmage, I made my players commit to an off season drills program if they wanted to be a part of the team in 20/21. Due to summer travel I allowed some tardiness. But every returning player committed to this. I didn’t coach them any. I taught them how to play. A 6 month long basketball camp. I let them play pickup ball for half the time, to use the skills they were improving in. And to build competitiveness.

I also hit the local pickup ball and little league scene around our community. Promoting our school and program. Within one year, with some big assistance from our basketball program, our small private school went from 120 enrollment to 185. 4 kids came to our program that are now starting. I have enough players to run a true JH and JV team and next season may even have a freshman team.

To start the season, our first game was against a team that beat us by 25 and 17 in 2 games last year. We beat them 83-44 with in your face man to man defense. Our next game i ignorantly tried the same thing against a bigger 4A catholic school. It worked great for 3 quarters. We were up 9 after 3. Playing amazing man pressure defense and pushing the ball and out fast breaking the other team. In the 4th Q, with me only having a 7 man rotation for games like this one, they had more stamina from playing a 2/3 zone the entire game and they came back and were up by 4 with 30 seconds left and we had to start fouling.

I made a plan to play man to man in all First Q’s to wear teams down and then sit back in a mixture of zone packages for the rest of the game. Anytime they call timeouts, I switch my zone package to make it a wasted timeout for them. This frustrates players and coaches.

Our 3rd game this plan worked great against a team that beat us twice last season. But the team went on a run and took a 4 point halftime lead. Also, my top scorer broke his arm right before halftime. I lit a fire under my team and we came out in the 3rd and held them to 4 points and we’d go on to win by 14 points without our top scorer who is now out for the season.

With this new defensive approach, my team has more of their legs to actually shoot the ball and run the 3 different motion offenses we throw at teams. We are currently 5-2. Should be 6-1 if I was a better coach. With one team that we played being a top 10 Texas 5A school, who beat us by 23 and their length/defense held us to 12/40 shooting.

I say all of this to make a point. In season coaching changes, at any level work. Every coach has to have his moment where he learns and just like players, coaches have to grow and learn as well. I play games that I know we will lose because defeat and struggle is where we improve if we allow it to work it’s work.

Penny will get this done. I really believe it. He just has to figure
Out what his team is and who he is as a coach.

FYI, I keep a coaches diary and most of this is a copy and paste. Diaries work wonders if you are a coach.