Newsletter #338

Today's Theme... Late Season Tune-Up - March Madness

We treat the post-season tournament as a fun-time for the players.  The season-long hard work is over.  Late in the season, we shorten practices to 60-90 minutes.  We do shooting drills and free-throws every practice.  We scrimmage and go 5-on-5 up full-court for some aerobic work.

At this point in the season, they should know your offenses and defenses, press offense and press defenses.  We will however, drill a certain aspect or detail that needs attention and quickly review some of our plays, and options.  We might work on some late-game situations.

We gear our practice toward our next opponent. If they play zone, we work on zone offense.  If they press, we practice our press-breakers.  And we always work on our defense.

Making a big change, such as changing your defense from man-to-man to zone, or vice-versa, will usually cause more problems for you than your opponent.  At this point, go with what you know you can do.

At the end of practice, we remind players to go home and get plenty of rest.  They need their sleep to maintain health and energy, get over sicknesses, heal injuries, and to be good students.

We remind them to eat right, and avoid a lot of junk food. We also remind them to stay out of trouble that might get them benched, or kicked off the team.

Adding new plays - we play each of our conference opponents twice during the regular season, so every coach knows what everyone else is doing late in the season.  We will add a few new plays for the post-season tournament - baseline OB vs man and zone, and a couple new half-court plays designed to get good shots for our best players, and maybe a new sideline out-of-bounds play.  If we have a great outside shooter, we'll put in a play for him.  A great post player... we look at something that will help us get the ball to him inside.  A great point-guard... we'll try to stretch the defense and let him attack the seams with the dribble.

Go through the web-site's various plays (see Selecting Plays) and you'll be sure to find something for your team.

Winning Tournament Games - to make a tournament run, your team must come together, play together, and play hard for 32 minutes each game.  They have to "play to win", and not worry about winning and losing, and making mistakes and missing shots.  They just play as hard as they can, with every player doing his job, and have fun.  Key players must avoid getting into foul-trouble.

Big tournament wins and upsets are usually the result of the underdog team playing tenacious defense, and out-hustling and out-rebounding the favored team.

In tournament time, don't rely night after night on winning with 3-point shooting, because when you have an off-night shooting, you're done. Attack the rim, get the ball inside and get to the free-throw line.

Advise players that pre-game jitters is normal and a good thing.  They can use that nervous energy early in the game to play tough, hard pressure defense, hustle and dive after loose balls, and be aggressive on the boards for rebounds.  If you do the hustle things well, your offense will usually fall into place too.  On offense, make the easy pass and avoid turnovers.

See Basketball Late-Season Tune-Up - Preparing for March Madness