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The Tribe

This is our second Tribe Spotlight where we feature the successes, struggles, insights, and hopefully game footage from Read & React coaches. This spotlight comes from Ed Hammersmith in Overland Park, Kansas. Here’s what Coach Hammersmith (coachEd in the forum) has to say. If you want your team spotlighted or you just want to show off some of your game footage, send me an email at scott@betterbasketball.com and we'll try to set it up. I started teaching the R&R to my 6th grade AAU (11U) girls team November of 2009. I had concerns that there wouldn’t be enough practice time to drill the “Layers” to the degree they needed to be drilled in order for the girls to learn them, but I ultimately decided to give it a shot and keep it simple.

Read & React v. Zone

Read & React v. Press

Read & React 5 OUT Scrimmage This is what I learned from that first year: First, I needed to down size everything! I figured if I was going to commit a good majority of practice time to the R&R, then some things had to go. I kept one press offense, one offense (R&R) vs. man to man, two zone sets (more on that later), and I cut our inbounds sets to 4. I have to be honest, this was going to be a big change for me. I was venturing out of my 20-year coaching comfort zone. Why change now?

Why waste valuable practice time jogging around the court or doing two-line lay-ups? Integrate the Read & React reaction drills into as much as your practice as possible. And, be creative. TJ Rosene shows you two warm up drills that he uses every day before his team stretches, but these examples could easily be tweaked for your players, your gym, the layers you want to emphasize, or even the layers you are about to teach.