Youth Basketball: Teaching Offense To 9/10 Year-Olds

I have consistently stated that I think 9 and 10 year-olds don't need offensive systems. They need to be taught fundamentals--how to move without the basketball.

When one player has the ball, the other four teammates should be moving with a purpose without the ball. This means cutting to the basket for a pass, screening away for another player or moving to balance the floor. This is continuous motion, and when the player with the ball passes, that player also joins the purposeful movement. The player with the ball is looking to pass, shoot or attack the basket. On offense, it's an unending cycle of cuts, screens and floor balancing movement.

If you teach these things to a 9 or 10 year-old, with everyone moving purposefully, in unison, you have offense. Some coaches either don't understand this or still want to have a set offense.

So, quickly, here’s my idea about how to win at 9-10 y.o. basketball—and it doesn’t require much teaching of offense. Go to my December, 2008 article on my website and get all the info.

www.top-basketball-coaching.com/9-10offense

Happy Holidays,
Coach Ronn

Youth Sports: Are They Really For The Youth?

There are still plenty of opportunities where parents decide what's best for youth sports and unfortunately, take the wrong direction.

There are places where parents think they are doing the right thing to prepare their children for varsity sports at some later date by creating elite youth programs where they hope their kids will become superstars now. Misguided as they are, they have missed all the documentation about how to create youth programs for the YOUTH-- not the adults. It's sort of like smoking. There is plenty of documentation about the ills of smoking but people still smoke--and even deny there is a problem.

This month I had to speak out again about how much is too much for small kids playing sports.

To read the article, go to: http://www.top-basketball-coaching.com/youth+sports

Preparing Your Season—Leading Up To The First Game

Every season presents new challenges, however the biggest challenge, especially for new or newer coaches, may be in preparing to teach everything that will be needed in order to successfully play the first game.

Years ago, while at a UCLA coaching clinic, Coach Wooden stressed to us young coaches that our priorities should be conditioning, fundamentals, and then team play. The pre- and early-season plan must take that into account.

Do this by designing your drills for the dual purpose of perfecting a skill while building conditioning. Wooden told us that, “before working together as a team, we need to break every element of the game down into its basic parts, then begin to put the pieces together. Practice and perfect each part or the whole will not be successful. It requires hard work and repetition, always modifying, always correcting, until it all comes together. 'Practices are where championships are won'.”

The identification and perfection of details in the teaching of fundamentals sets the teaching-coach above the average coach. Any coach neglecting details regularly attended to by the teaching-coach is practicing to be unsuccessful. “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” Doing the little things well makes the big things work. This is probably the teaching-coach’s greatest attribute for success.

To read the rest of this article, go to: http://www.top-basketball-coaching.com/Preparing-For-The-First-Game

Yours in Sport & Spirit,

Coach Ronn

FREE HoopClinics For Coaches

Top-Basketball-Coaching caters to the beginner—the novice coach looking for how to get started and what to do in a sequential manner so the needs of the novice and less experienced player can be met.

I recognize that many of my readers and people who visit my site may be ready for more sophisticated information than I present. I am always on the look-out for a site that I think can deliver this kind of growth. I am proud to bring to you such a site—one I have recently partnered with.

Brian Williams and Josh Stinson contacted me and together we, along with a select group of other basketball webmasters, have partnered to bring HoopClinics to the world-wide web.

Go here to read all about it: http://www.top-basketball-coaching.com/HoopClinics

I think you’ll be glad you did! 

Coach Ronn

Teaching Youth Basketball: Using The Other Hand

For many coaches of youth basketball , one of the key teaching points for beginners will be how and when to teach the use of the other hand--the non-dominant hand.

For beginners, the most important teaching of use of the weak hand will be for teaching dribbling. Teaching how to shoot with the other hand, especially shooting the lay-up or other finishing shots at the basket, will follow with age and experience.

To read the rest of this article, go to: http://www.Top-Basketball-Coaching.com/using-the-other-hand

Revisiting F.U.N.C.T.

It seems time to re-evaluate how we think and how we act, so we can live more spiritual lives.

For years, I have written and spoken about how sports are a great metaphor for life. The dynamic of how we deal with our participation in sports mirrors how we live our lives.

We are struggling as a society to make sense of all the changes we see all around in our outward lives. Our lives seem out of balance and with what is happening with the universe, time has been shortened. The resultant feeling is that we feel rushed, filled with angst and stress. This seems to manifest itself with the craziness we’ve seen in the news about aberrant behavior of coaches and parents.

For the rest of this article, go to http://www.top-basketball-coaching.com/parenting

Teaching Basketball Basics

When a new basketball coach is attempting to put together a coaching plan of action, including how to teach, what to teach and when to teach it, who do they ask for advice? This mentoring should be of strategic importance to them. Do they really know how to teach what you need?

This is the message I bring for novice and inexperienced coaches in my June article, "Teaching Basketball Basics", which can be read at http://www.top-basketball-coaching.com/teaching-basketball-basics.

While using your summer for planning, coaches could find the material needed for teaching the basics from the 28 products I have created and are showcased on my site, or the more than 40 basketball articles found listed on my home page, Top-Basketball-Coaching.com.

Yours in Sport & Spirit,

Coach Ronn

New Basketball Online Coaching Course

As we move into the "off-season", there are still lots of amateur second and third season leagues underway. School seasons are done. The pros are just starting their playoffs, but this is the time of year when coaches all over the world begin to work on their plans, strategies and personal growth for next year.

For those novice basketball coaches, here's a new coaching course I have just become involved with. Out of Toronto, Canada, it's designed for the individual just beginning to work in youth basketball, with little or no coaching background.

Beginning May 19, 2008,

the Sports Learning Online website

will feature me,Coach Ronn Wyckoff,

teaching a course for novice coaches.

For more information, and to learn about a discount for my Spiritual Hoops readers, go to:

http://www.top-basketball-coaching.com/onlinecoachingschool

DEFENDING ON THE BALL: 1 on 1 Defense

Last month I had a guest article by
by Jeff Haefner, owner of BreakthroughBasketball.com.
Here is another written by the same author.

So much energy is expended in developing game plans, working on skills, scouting opponents and trying to find an edge to be a better team and win more games. All of that hard work will go down the drain if you cannot defend on the ball.

The nature of American basketball these days is to create match-ups, isolate the match-up and then attack the defensive player. If you cannot play 1 on 1 defense, or defense on the ball, all your work and preparation will amount to nothing.

The author goes on to explain with text and diagrams some fun methods to teach 1-on-1 defensive techniques.

For the rest of the article, go to: http://www.top-basketball-coaching.com/defending1on1

Basketball Coaches: How To Order The Book and/or DVD

When someone purchases my DVD, Basketball On A Triangle: A Higher Level of Coaching and Playing, it comes with two free e-books. One of those e-books is, “Balance And Control”, which is Book chapter 6, corresponding with Chapter 2 in the DVD.

One of my list members wrote to me, having purchased the DVD, noting that the book went into more detail than the DVD for that chapter and wondered if that was going to be the case with all the book chapters. Actually, that chapter is probably the only one with which that happened.

To read more, go to: http://www.top-basketball-coaching.com/book-dvd-combo-order

Basketball Defense: Ways To Defend Someone Who Is Much Quicker Than Yourself

This is a guest article written by Jeff Haefner, owner of BreakthroughBasketball.com

Trying to equalize a physical mismatch is certainly one of the more difficult aspects of the game.

The easy answer is, don’t let the quicker player get the ball. But, like most things in life, that is easier said than done. With all the responsibilities you have when playing defense off the ball, such as weak side help and rebounding, it is difficult to deny your man the ball without hurting your team’s overall defense.

To read the rest of this article, go to: http://www.top-basketball-coaching.com/BasketballD

"Basketball On A Triangle...", Now In Paperback

The book that started the whole series of "Basketball On A Triangle..." products is now available in paperback.

Read more about what's in the book below...

To Order The Book at $29.99

CLICK HERE

...and Here's How To Order The Book With The DVD

To receive a $20 discount for ordering both the book and the DVD ($10 off the $29.99 book and $10 off the $49.95 DVD, when both are ordered at the same time), order each one separately and put in the discount code where called for, then click Apply Discount.

You get the book and the DVD for ONLY $59.94, PLUS the 3 FREE E-BOOKS shown below

Book Order
http://www.createspace.com/3338953 discount code LHFHT595

DVD Order

http://www.createspace.com/208070 discount code LHFHT595

(The DVD order comes automatically with 2 FREE E-BOOKS)

When the book and DVD are ordered at the same time, you will also receive another FREE E-Book,

Teaching Station Drills

which sells for $9.99

I will send this to you personally as an email attachment.

About the Book and DVD

The book came first. (See: The Book That Made The DVD ) The DVD (See: DVD/Video ) was created to complement the book, giving readers the best of both worlds -- the text (with hundreds of diagrams and photos) and the visual companion showing me, Coach Ronn, teaching everything I write about during a live coaching workshop.

While I was searching for a publisher, I began marketing the DVD through my website. From the success of DVD sales, 27 other products have been created to help coaches and players around the world learn how to teach and perform the basic fundamentals necessary for successful play.

Here's the Press Release That Went Out In Advance of Releasing the Book Worldwide Via the Internet.

Coaching Youth Basketball -- Basketball On A Triangle: A Higher Level of Coaching and Playing

The author doesn't just fill pages with theory and drills. He has provided over 300 pages chock full of usable content that break down every aspect of the individual game and demonstrate with text, diagrams and photos how to teach or practice the basic fundamentals of the game.

24/7 Press Release/ - Dec. 8th, 2007 - Coach Ronn Wyckoff has just published the most innovative basketball book for youth coaches and players on the market. If the DVD sales from this book are any indicator, "Basketball On A Triangle: A Higher Level Of Coaching and Playing", is going to be a major player in the "how to coach basketball" and "how to play basketball" niches.

He begins by chronicling his own rise from beginning coach to how he became a teaching coach to players and other coaches around the world. Along the way, he discusses changing teaching paradigms to include Zen/Spiritual approaches to many of the problems facing youth sports today. He discusses how to be a supportive parent, making 'right' choices, and what it takes to become a teaching-coach, rather than one who just moves players around like chess pieces.

In the "how to..." section of his book, Coach Ronn walks a coach, player or parent through the beginning game, from explaining the floor markings, to how the game is played, to how to stand and move. The veteran author always keeps it simple, using the plateau method of teaching. He goes from the most basic introduction of skills, overlaying new usages of skills previously taught, until he has reached the more sophisticated position specific offensive and defensive skills necessary to playing the game well.

Teaching-coaches, and players at any level, will find here the appropriate words and directives, along with specific drills, to teach and enhance whatever skill is being covered.

Before the book was released, Coach Ronn produced and released a 4-hour teaching DVD and Streaming Video version of all the aspects he teaches in the "how to..." section of his book. The DVD/Video has had tremendous worldwide sales, making this combination of teaching tools unique among youth basketball coaching authors.

With his more than fifty years in basketball, first as a player, then as a coach, and later as an international consultant and national team coach in four countries, Coach Ronn brings a rich and varied expertise to his writing. He weaves anecdotes about his own life and coaching experiences in with suggestions on how to take one's game to a higher level—skill wise and spiritually. Everything the author brings forth in his book is straightforward and simple, all the time relating to how to find a higher purpose for our lives and bring it into working with youth.

Coaching Youth Basketball: Teaching Progression Skills For 1-on-1, Part 2

Last month's article about teaching progressions skills for 1-on-1 play concentrated on the offensive skills necessary to be able to move and to be able to dribble the ball well, under control.

This month, in Part 2 of this series, I take the teaching-coach to the defensive side of the equation.
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Teaching one-on-one skills to young basketball players requires time and patience. If the ball is introduced too soon, too much focus will be on the ball. The child must master balance and body control and be able to move well without the ball. When the ball is introduced, a lot of time must be spent on learning how to dribble and particularly, how to dribble under control. If defense is introduced to play on the dribbler too early, the dribbler will probably not be able to control the ball. Defense, without even understanding the rudiments of stance, sliding, position on the ball, etc., will almost always prevail.

My article in February, 2008, Teaching Progression Skills For 1-on-1, Part 1
http://www.top-basketball-coaching.com/1-on-1-part1, spoke to the teaching of offensive basics for balance, control, ball handling and dribbling. If the youngsters are ready, now the defensive side of the 1-on-1 equation can be introduced.

Just as with offensive skills, the defensive skills must be taught from the most basic—meaning stance, balance and movement—before introducing a dribbler into the mix. A player must understand the role of the defender as being one of containment first, learning to play between the ball and the basket, without thinking about stopping the dribbler or taking away the ball.

For the rest of this article, please go to: http://www.top-basketball-coaching.com/1-on-1part2

Until next month, Yours in Sport & Spirit

Coach Ronn

Coaching Youth Basketball: Teaching Progression of 1-On-1 Skills, Part I

A couple of months ago, I asked coaches from around the world what they’d most like to know in teaching the individual youth basketball game. The last couple of articles have been answers to some of those questions. This month’s article continues, as part of a 2-part series, about teaching 1-on-1 progression.

Wim C., from Belgium asked about how to teach youngsters progression in 1-on-1 skills.

When people think of 1-on-1 they usually think of an offensive player with the ball vs. a defender. Really, there are two situations to teach-- on the ball and off the ball. This article will only deal with on the ball progression.

Since there are more components in teaching offensive skills than in teaching defensive skills, I will begin with the offensive side of the 1-on-1 equation and cover the defensive part next month.

For the rest of this article, please go to http://www.Top-Basketball-Coaching.com/1-on-1-part1