How to be hard to guard in basketball by Cody Sarensen. Learn how to maxize your players on your team!
Individualized personal training is becoming one of the most popular attractions in the world of sports. You want your players to be hard to guard. Most of the individualized instruction a player receives from a personal trainer involves creating and developing skills on what to do when we have a basketball in our hands. Rarely do we see training that involves developing skills without the basketball. Stats state that a player only has a basketball in their hands roughly 10% of the time in a game. This means that roughly 90% of the time they don’t have a ball in their hands. There have been many discussions over the last decade the focus on how the game is played and how it is to be taught has drastically changed over the last 20-30 years. Most youth, high school, and college programs follow the trends of the NBA. In my opinion, there is also a lot more playing the game rather than developing the game.
Most youth and high school programs allow 1.5 to 2 hours of practice time. With the younger grades, you want the players to have a ball in their hands as much as possible. They begin learning about proper footwork, balance, straight line running, stopping, changing direction, and proper spacing. As players grow and master these skills, then they begin to learn advanced moves and spacing. The biggest challenge we see as coaches is that no one knows how to effectively move without the basketball. As aforementioned, roughly 90% of the time you’re in a game, you won’t have the basketball. As a high school coach, this statement holds true because players have a difficult wanting to play defense on the move and they stare at their teammate who has the ball when they are on offense. Moving without the basketball is a “lost art”, an underappreciated skill.
Head Men’s Basketball Coach Jon Coffman from Indiana University- Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) always talks about the “pace” of his practices. He has his teams engaged at a high pace in their drills, offensive, and defensive philosophies. He wants his players to understand that the game of basketball involves constant movement. His players are always moving, not standing around during practices. He utilizes all the resources available to maximize his player’s abilities during his practices. Coach Coffman’s idea of practice pace is one, out of many, concepts to help train players how to move without a basketball.
As a coach, your goal is to get the most of your players. You want your team to be hard to guard. Therefore, there needs to be constant movement and high a pace/temp during your practices. Create drills that involve conditioning both the player’s body and mind. Maximize all the resources available. Lastly, ensure that we are designing competitive drills that teach the players how to actually move without the basketball. Design drills where a basketball isn’t involved. For example, screening, cutting, defensive rotations, full-court conversion are concepts that don’t involve the use of a basketball. Player’s need to be taught the why and they how to moving without a basketball.
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