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24 Oct

Posted at 21:56h in Archive, News by
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In conjunction with a couple of surgeons, Better Basketball has just released a new book cryptically titled Understanding Sports Injury. The idea was this: we know coaches wear a lot of hats - one of those being injury consultant. Add to that the fact that injury is a hungry monster when it meets athletes. In fact, there are an estimated 1.4 million sports related injuries every year in high school athletics alone. And, most of those happened to your best players! (just kidding, but not really) You are called upon to make decisions all the time about an injury's severity and the immediate next steps - whether an athlete should walk it off, ice it, compress it, keep playing, or go to a doctor. This book can help make those decisions a little easier. Check out the excerpt below or click here to download Chapter 2 (twenty pages) on the Shoulder. That should give you an idea of what this book is all about. Or, you can learn more of the details and watch an interview with the author at Better Basketball.

06 Sep

Posted at 23:03h in Archive, Motivation by
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If you've been in coaching for very long you know that the recipe for a great team and a successful season (however you measure that) involves more ingredients than a great offensive system and good athletes. Team chemistry plays a huge role as well. We've all seen the Mighty Ducks, right? Great team chemistry + Emilio Estevez = Championship. Well, you may not have Emilio on your bench (not all dreams can come true), but you can build team chemistry. Here's one of the ways Randi Peterson from Coe College does it: We finish each pre-season with a scavenger hunt. This year, we created a giant puzzle. Every piece of the puzzle had a clue attached to it leading to the next piece. Once all the pieces were found, the girls assembled it and read it's message. It seems simple, but it is fun and hilarious and they have to do it together. And, for some reason, being silly bonds people to each other. It also makes good fodder for the highlight film too. But, that's not where we finish.

24 Aug

Posted at 21:52h in Archive, Tribe Spotlight by
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What can happen in a year? Well, if you're Uie Garcia and the South Windsor Girls, a lot. See, Coach Garcia has sold out on the Read & React Offense. He integrates it in just about everything he does in practice. He uses it against man-to-man, all types of zone defense, and as a press breaker. And, now, he's created an AAU organization dedicated to running the Read & React at every level. The Connecticut Attack are proof that it can be done on a large scale successfully. We were sent this article and thought you should know about it. For inspiration. For encouragement. And, well, because we like to brag on Read & React teams. Heading into his final year with the South Windsor Girls Travel Basketball Program, Ulysses Garcia decided to raise the bar through implementation of the Read & React Offense. The program dramatically evolved under his leadership; migrating from non-competitive teams at every grade level to teams that were consistently competing for league championships. Yet it was his final year that Garcia saw the greatest growth. Through implementing the Read & React Offense, his athletes began to really understand the game and develop a true 'Basketball IQ'. They moved well without the ball, and made smart decisions with it. Instead of running plays, they were reading defenders as well as ball movement.

10 Aug

Posted at 20:51h in Coaching the Read & React by
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I mentioned in the previous post, What the Read & React Looks Like, that the offense can easily take on the personality of your team: a lot of that personality revolves around the personnel you have each year. So, if you have a small, quick team, you can run 5 OUT. If you have a dominant post, you can run 4 OUT. If you have two post players, you can run 3 OUT. And, if you have all of those components, you can alternate seamlessly between those formations. In fact, once you get the Foundation of the offense in, your team can switch between formations every season, every game, every possession, or within a possession, all based on how you want to play and how your players best fit together. All of this can be done without the fundamental actions of the Read & React ever changing. Here's a video showing footage in every formation: 5 OUT, 4 OUT, and 3 OUT. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7JA0x2O_cU
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