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The other day I started working with a group of young women who had never played the game of basketball before. It was an extremely humbling experience for me because I assumed that everyone knew the basics of basketball but this team of 12-year-old kids had never played a competitive basketball game before. They knew that to score you had to make a basket but that was about it. It got me thinking as I worked with them about the basics that we all take for granted with the game. With this group of kids I couldn’t worry about setting your defender up before coming off a screen or how to execute a pick and roll. Instead I had to worry about the simple things like dribbling, pivoting and passing. The rules I would get to, eventually, but here is how I outlined what needed to be worked on right away: Passing Drill I had them pair up and just play catch. I wanted them to get familiar with the ball and not be afraid of it. Most of them when they started were afraid of the ball hitting their face so they would duck when a pass was made or just close their eyes when they caught it. We had them start 5 feet away and just toss the ball. I didn’t worry about teaching how to pass the ball just yet because they were too fragile. We played catch for over 5 minutes and in that 5 minutes the confidence level went through the roof. I had to work with some more than others but each one improved to the point that they were on to the next step. We took the next 5 minutes working on making and receiving a pass. I taught them to step toward their target when they passed the ball and to do the same when they were supposed to receive a pass. The same thing happened as previous except it accelerated much faster. Since they were able to confidently catch and make a pass it became easier to take it a step further. We took the next 5 minutes and worried about the different types of passes. This included the chest pass, overhead pass and bounce pass. Initially the bounce passes took a few bounces but after a few minutes they had it down pretty well. They struggled catching bounce passes more than the others but that was to be expected. The confidence level of each player had gone up a bunch in just 15 minutes of practice time.
Dribbling Drill The players all took turns with a ball for 30 second periods of time. They just stood there and dribbled in one spot without touching it with the other hand. I taught them double dribble early on because I wanted them to understand they couldn’t dribble with 2 hands at the same time. This was tough and required a lot more repetition and will need continued work. The most important thing was not to expect too much too soon from them. They did alright at understanding passing but not dribbling. They struggled dribbling with their dominant hand so I didn’t worry about using the other one. We dribbled for 15 minutes and it was productive yet frustrating. I realized that each girl was going to have to work on it at home or something to get better because we only had 45 minutes to practice. Layup Drill I knew not to teach them to do a running layup since that is one of the toughest things for young girls to learn to do. I had them instead pass the ball to one another who would then dribble in and shoot a shot. Each player struggled early on putting it all together but as each repetition grew they gained more and more confidence. It wasn’t important to worry about form this practice when I just wanted them to gain some idea of shooting at the basket while also working on the skills that we had practiced. This was my basic practice that I will repeat once or twice a week for the next few months with each practice adding something else. At this age I really want to create a love for the game and an appreciation of how to play the game and for one practice we really accomplished a lot.
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