Coaching 101- Getting Ready For First Game

I was very fortunate to start out teaching in a very good and very organized Social Studies Dept at Galesburg HS in the 1970’s. One of the main subjects I was teaching was U.S. History. We had 7 teachers teaching U.S. History. Every unit, we would combine all the classes for presentations with readings, lectures, and presentations. As a result, we were all expected to test the same day, then move onto the next unit. The test date was set, so you had to organize your individual class to get your lessons in before that date. You had to be organized because the test date was not going to be moved. 

Basketball is the same way. Each coach is assigned the first test date- your first game. It cannot be moved because you are not ready. You have to be organized to figure out what you must get in. You cannot complain that i don’t have time- you have to figure out. And you don’t want two days before the first game or the night before the first game realize that you have not gotten 3-4 things in that you should have gotten in. 

The first step is to make a list of all the “things” you want to get put in before the first game. Secondary offense, MM offense (all your sets or actions), Zone offense (all your sets or actions), OB’s. Side OB’s, Full OB’s, Press Breaks, Half-court defenses, and Full Court defenses. 

The second step is to make a list of all the things you anticipate your opponents in the first several weeks will throw at you. Maybe a team in two weeks plays a lot of box and 1, another runs lots of backdoor actions, and still another does 1-2-2 ball press back into 1-2-2 half-court. 

The third step is to make a list of game situations that you want to be prepared for. What are all the end of quarter or end of games that you want to be ready for. 

The fourth step is then make a chart of all the practices you have available before you first game. Fill in everything from the first three steps into your chart. 

As you can see looking at my chart, I was a coach who ran a fair amount of sets and actions. While it might seem like it would be impossible to get everything in before the first game, if you did a little each day, it was possible. 

All of us as coaches would like to be considered a teacher of fundamentals. I would like to think that was true of myself, but when you get ready for the first game, you must be much more focused on building team offensive and defensive concepts vs. skill drills. You can and should be doing the skill work but probably just not as much time as you would like. 

Two closing thoughts- 

1- The best way to be ready to play early in the year is to play. I always liked to scrimmage where we did 3 possessions- Team A on offense, then Team A transitions to defense, then Team A transitions back on offense- then stop. This is good for teaching. But early in the year, you need to “let them go” for some segments so they get that feeling of actually playing. 

2- In the Summer, often teams will play 5-6 times in a week. I am not aware of any coach who does conditioning to get ready to play Every coach realizes that after the team has played 4-5 games, they are actually in decent shape. So in preseason, use scrimmaging as a conditioner. I am not advocating playing 30 minutes, but scrimmaging non-stop for 5 minute segments or a couple times a week do some version of a second practice where you have a 45 minute scrimmage.