HOF Insights: Practice the Day Before a Game

DAY BEFORE A GAME- What changes did you make to your normal practice routines for the practice the day before a game? How much did you reduce intensity? How did you change the length of practice? Were there drills you spent more time or less time on? What was your temperament like? Were there specific things you did in terms of scout prep?

Diane Lichtenberg- Bettendorf

What changes did you make to your normal practice routines for the practice the day before a game? 

There were a few things that we would do differently the day before a match.  A scouting report was shared with the players.  We would talk about the opponents’ key players, type of offense and defense they ran, strengths, weaknesses, etc.  We would also talk about things our team would do to take advantage of the opponents weaknesses.  When we got into team play, the scout team would take on the look of our opponent to prepare the starters for our match.

How did you change the length of practice?  

Practice might have been a little shorter but again, this depended on what the week looked like and what part of the season we were in.

Were there drills you spent more time or less time on?  

We probably spent a little less time on individual fundamental drills unless there was an area we really needed to focus on.  Small group work and position work was centered on specific things we would need to do or be prepared for against our opponent.

What was your temperament like?  

I felt like I was a pretty even keel coach.  I wanted to be intense but still have some fun each day.  The expectations were high and so if something was lacking, the players knew I wasn’t happy.  

Were there specific things you did in terms of scout prep?  

Some times we would watch game tape together to point out specific 

things our opponent was doing.  Towards the end of my coaching career 

we started using hudl.  We could share game tape with our players for 

them to watch on their own.  I imagine this is used a lot more in the 

present day.  We would go over statistics from the opponent, discuss who 

to watch for and go over our game plan to defeat them.  Scouting is 

helpful but if you don’t take care of business with the things that you are 

doing as a team, it will be hard to beat anyone.  We still spent a great deal 

of time working on our weaknesses each day.

Mark Massey- Clinton

1- Go over any logistical stuff, time to be at the gym or the bus, etc.

2- I never wanted to do anything too physical the day before a match. No one wants to get one of their top players injured in practice. 

3- We would do a chalkboard or scouting session of techniques and players to look for with the opponents; tactics or situations that we would try to employ. 

4- In Volleyball, I think you’re always trying to remind your team of who their best hitters are, who has difficulty passing, any particular servers to look out for? 

5- Any drills we would want to be designed as confidence builders, not something designed to frustrate or fail. 

6- Continually remind the team during practice of what we’ve been able to do successfully against them in the past. 

7- If there are any out of the ordinary rotations or tactics, strategies that you’re going to use, rehearse them. You do not want anything you use during the match to be a surprise for your own team. 

8- Everything during the practice should be focused on the team members leaving practice with the feeling we’re going to win tomorrow.

Thom Sigel- Rock Island

   Our day before the game prep looked a little different based on what games we had upcoming.  For instance, during our regular season, we did not usually play during the week, so we had time to get scout and prep done Monday-Wednesday with Thursday as a review. 

   If it was during the postseason, we could potentially only have one day if we played on Wednesday and Friday.  One thing that seemed to help with our short prep in the postseason was quick turnarounds at holiday tournaments and Saturday non-conference games.  For example, when we were at the State Farm Classic, we would get a one hour session to go over quick scouting reports and walk through things before a game later that night (and also throw in a short film session in the hotel conference room).  So we had that to fall back on when we had only one practice.  I think these served two purposes - one was for our coaches to condense and try to clarify prep and a scouting report to present in one hour, and the second was to prepare the players to focus in on the important details being given to them in a short period of time.

   For our regular season Thursday practices, we generally didn't go a full two hours and would shorten them as the season went on.  Early in the year, I found we still had a lot to work on with our execution in addition to scouting review, but later in the year we would focus more on the scout and any tweaks we might add in for that game.  It might not be as much live action, but we tried to make them intense from that standpoint of being focused for the shorter practices and going over all the details from the week.  When we did do some of our live action, we would play music loudly to simulate crowd noise to work on our calls and communication. We would usually work in a fun shooting or free throw game at the end of practice to end with something fun and positive.

Evan Massey- Galesburg

To start, I think it is important to recognize there is a difference between what I think a varsity team should do the night before a game, and what a FS team or what a JH team should do. On the lower levels, the night before a game there practice should be very similar to what a practice would be if there were no game coming up. It is important on those levels to not lose a day of doing skill work and team development. If a lower level coach is worried about the players not having their legs the next night then they should solve the problem by playing more kids in the game. 

With the varsity level, there is a difference how I would approach it early in the year and how would approach it if the opponent was a non-conference opponent. One year, we had schedule two weeks in a row in December playing on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I thought by cutting back before the games that week negatively impacted our development, and I am not sure we ever “caught up.” After that, I was not anxious early to cut back for non-conference opponents. 

We felt a must on the day before games to do our normal lifting routine. We did not lift lighter. 

In coaching, sometimes another coach says something that sticks with you. My brother, Mark once said to me, “The day before a game, get in there and get out of there. Focus on praise and limit criticism.”

I took that advice to heart. I made a practice plan that was short- perhaps 90 minutes long. Whatever my practice plan for the day before a game looked like, my number one goal was to “beat the time.” So if we were scheduled to go an hour 45 minutes, if we went 1hour 35 minutes, I was happy. If we went 90 minutes, I thought we had a great practice. Doing this created a quick, efficient practice and the players left happy. 

Any drills we did were very short, each player would have only 1-2 reps at the particular drill. We shot more than normal. Most of what we did was shooting and either 5-0 or 5-5. When we scrimmaged, we might work on a press after a free throw and only go to the first trap and stop. If we went down and back, we probably would only do 4-5 reps of it. 

We tended to cover a lot of scout things two days before the game. This allowed us the day before a game for us to just review and to spend less time on the opponents- and be more focused on us. 

I liked to have “success drills.” By that, do things that allowed our players to have high likelihood of being successful. For example, there were years that if we worked on zone offense, we might go vs. a 2-2 zone so it built confidence. 

Let me finish with a negative example. Once before a Super-Sectional, we spent 20 minutes putting in two new zone ob’s. While we needed two new zone ob’s (our zone package was bad), this was not the time to do it. We lost by 15. I think those twenty minutes sent a message- “We are not good enough as we are.”