130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

Introduction
One of the players I coached (who went into coaching himself) said that he thought that
one of the things he liked best about our program was the emphasis that we placed on the
little things, that when all pieced together made a difference in what our players got out
of the program and how we played during games. This book contains ideas that I have
gathered over the years from various other
“Education is what remains after coaches and implemented into our program
everything that was learned has to make those small changes that when
been forgotten.” strung together, make a huge impact. I hope
that you will find some ideas that will
--Unknown
become habits for your players that lead to
more success.

The theme behind this book is that these are ideas can be implemented immediately and
that will have an immediate impact on your program and will continue to pay dividends
as long as you continue to implement, teach, and follow up on them. You don’t have to
use all of them, but the more you can incorporate and the more quickly that you can
incorporate them, the better results you will see.

I have broken the roles of a coach into 6 categories and have used that outline to make
sure that I am allocating my time and efforts appropriately. Those roles are:

1) Implement your philosophy and organization in every area of the program

2) Develop the individual players’ life skills, basketball skills, and mental toughness
3) Select your program’s personnel—assistants, players, managers, assign roles to
them and keep them productive in those roles
4) Develop a team by implementing systems of play that take advantage of your
players strengths and doing intentional team building
5) Initiate professional development for the coaching staff
6) Promote the program in your school and/or community

I have used these roles to divide my 130 ideas into 6 sections to provide more clarity and
organization. The cliché we all hear at clinics is that “if you get one thing from the
presentation it is worth it.” My hope is that you get many ideas that you find useful from
this list! Consistently following through on the ideas is what will make the difference.
It’s not what you know and teach, it’s what you emphasize and accept over and over, day
in and day out that will make the difference for your team.

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

This book is not meant to be all encompassing, but rather is a list of some small things
that I feel have helped our program and can be useful to yours as well!

Role #1 Program Philosophy and Organization

Implement your philosophy in every area of the program

To me, this is the first step in developing your program because it gives direction and
purpose for everyone involved. My belief is that individual player development (both
mental toughness and basketball skills) and what you are able to accomplish in practice
are the keys to the success of your team. I have listed philosophy and organization as the
#1 role for a coach because you need to have goals, a direction, high expectations, and a
system for their evaluation for those areas before you can make any progress.

Here are some ideas regarding establishing and instilling your philosophy that you can
implement immediately.

1. Establish a lifelong relationship with each participant that cannot be broken. This is
a Thad Matta idea. We put that in writing as the number one goal for our coaching staff
and it guides and directs everything that we do in our program. I am not saying that it
should be everyone’s number one goal, but I believe that each program should have a
most important goal in writing and that all of your coaches know by heart what the
purpose of your program is. Even if this is not your number one goal, I feel that it should
be very high on your priority list.

2. Have a goal for your participants (players and managers): Ours is: “Each of you has
your most rewarding season of your basketball career.” That goal is prominently
displayed in the locker room and it means to me that everyone on this year’s team,
regardless of past success, has a new role and must contribute more this year than ever
before. Even a player who started every game on a state champion team last year has
new challenges to face this year in order to make this year’s season their most rewarding.

3. Have a purpose every time you take the floor... We have a sign over the door leading
from our locker room to the floor that is the last thing the players see as they go out for
practice or for a game that says:

EVERY TIME WE TAKE THE FLOOR, WE PRACTICE AND PLAY

WITH THE TECHNIQUE, INTENSITY, TOUGHNESS, AND
TOGETHERNESS OF A STATE CHAMPION.

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

There is no way to measure those goals, but we all know what doesn’t meet those criteria.
I believe that it helps us to be able to ask during practice—is this a state champion’s
effort? It leaves little doubt as to the type of standards we have for our practices.

4. Be reliable, but not predictable. As coaches, we all need to find ways to stay away from
predictability with our teams, day to day during the season, and year to year over the
course of a player's career. Hold meetings in different places, do different drills at
different spots on the floor, have the first team wear a different color scrimmage jersey
than normal, make variations in your drills, change the order of the segments in practice--
work on offense first, if you normally do defense first, change the locker room's postings
or setup, etc...

Those small variations help keep things fresh for your players. Doing something
differently will increase their attention with the new stimulus. We can still be reliable in
what we emphasize, expect, and stand for, but we need to find new ways to engage our
players' concentration and awareness.

5. Emphasize execution, not baskets. It is important to have a standard for offensive and
defensive execution and effort, not just baskets on offense or stops on defense. If you are
scrimmaging against your second unit or JV, you can score or stop them without the
execution that you will need on game night against another team's first unit.

The standard in practice must be, and your players need to be sold on why that is
important, what it takes to win on game night, not what it takes to defeat your second
team.

6. Conduct a parent meeting and open

practice. The coach/parent relationship is “It takes a village to raise a child.”
extremely important, and as we all know, is
one of the most difficult parts of coaching. I --Unknown
believe that holding a pre-season parent
meeting will help to communicate with the
parents in mass in a non-confrontational way. After our meeting, we open the practice to
parents to watch.

The agenda that I have used for our parent meetings is outlined on the next two pages:

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

We start off with this quote from Lou Holtz

Our coaching staff agrees with

Coach Holtz, but… I don't think coaching is about making a
million dollars a year. I don't think coaching
is about winning championships. I don't
WE ALREADY ARE AT A
think coaching is about going to a great school.
GREAT SCHOOL! I think coaching is about helping young people
have a chance to succeed. There is no more
1. Thank you for your
awesome responsibility than that. I think one
attendance and for dealing
of the greatest honors a person can have is to
with our practice times
be called ‘Coach.’ ”
throughout the year—there
are seven different practice —Lou Holtz
times and game schedules
being played right now.
2. Coaching Staff and attendance for information purpose.
3. Goal #1 for coaches: Establish a life—long relationship with each participant that
cannot be broken.
Goal #2 for coaches: Assist in the development of all aspects of the life of the
participants.
Goal #1 for participants: Have the most rewarding basketball season of his/her
career.
4. Cost to parents--Shooting Shirt, Beige Slacks, White Dress Shirt, Shoes, Practice
gear
5. Relationship of coach and parents
A. I look forward to a friendly, professional, and productive relationship with
every parent.
B. Roles—Play, coach, officiate, support
C. Please be supportive—“Listen to your coaches about basketball” is the best
advice to give. I have an entire program to consider. Over 100 students in
grades 5-12.
D. Notebook—please look at your son/daughter’s notebook
--Phone tree will be provided
--Helps you with our philosophy
E. Playing time—Coach’s decision and is not negotiable
F. Role in program or program Level—Coach’s decision and not negotiable
G. Strategy—Coach’s decision and not negotiable
H. I will not discuss other players with parents
I. I will talk to you about any other area that can help your son
J. Please support our priorities—again, please see your player’s notebooks

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

K. Follow chain of command. If your son has a concern that he shares with you,
please ask him if he has spoken to the coach about it. We would appreciate
your son extending us the courtesy of seeing the coach he has a concern with
first. I am not perfect, but I am the coach and it is my job to deal with any
problem that affects the program. I would appreciate hearing concerns
directly from your son.
L. Parents may attend practice. However, it is the opinion of our coaching staff
that it is not in the best interest of your son to do so.
6. Web Site Waiver, Prospect Sheet, Code of Conduct
7. Web Site, E-mails
8. T-shirts and sweats
9. Question and answer
10. Food for away games
Varsity and Junior Varsity (Need volunteers)
Freshman Games (Need volunteers)
Other ideas--signs, buttons, pictures, having the team over to your home Please
follow our priorities if the players are at your home
11. Locker room tour for parents and watch practice

7. Try it, you’ll like it. I have always believed in experimenting with something new in
basketball practice a couple of times a week for no more than 10 minutes of practice
time. Early in the season we usually try
“All life is an experiment. The something new every day. I am not suggesting
more experiments you make, the that you experiment with revamping your
better.” philosophies and core values of your program,
--Ralph Waldo Emerson but am suggesting to think about experimenting
with your personnel early in the season to be able
to get the right players in the right situations, and
as a way to add some variety to keep the players interest and attention late in the season.

Even during the years where we have had "everyone back" I still felt that they were not
the same players that they were last year. At least I hoped that they weren't because I
wanted to improve on last year's record not repeat it. So, I spent some time learning
where they had grown and where they still needed to get better.

When I pick up new drills during the off-season or improvements to our offensive and
defense systems, I like to put them in early season practices to see if they do fit with our
personnel. I certainly believe in constantly working to improve as a coach, but regardless
of how well something works for another program, it might not work for you, so I think it
is good to put something in and work on it a few times before deciding if it is for us. It is

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possible that I did not get the whole story of how something works if I saw it at a clinic or
on a DVD.

For example, a few years ago, I saw a very “A fool is a man who has never tried
successful coach who always produced great
shooters say at a clinic that they did their an experiment in his life.”
shooting drills at the end of practice so that
--Erasmus Darwin
they could shoot when they were tired. That
made a lot of sense to me. We tried it in our
early practices and our players did not like it.
They liked our shooting progression early in the practice and felt that it helped them to
"groove" their shots for the rest of the practice. So, we tweaked it and did our shooting
fundamentals early and did some game pace drills late to try and get the best of both
worlds. That team ended up being the highest field goal percentage team that I have
coached, so I am glad that I experimented with it, told them what and why I was giving it
a test run, and then listened to their input.

Early in the season, I think it is important to do some experimenting with what spots you
put players in against presses and traps, who inbounds the ball, who inbounds the ball for
a game winning shot, who takes the shots at the end of quarters, what shots each player
can make in a scrimmage, and any other crucial personnel decisions that we need to
make. Usually, I don't change my mind as to who needs to fill each role and what they
can do, but there are times when I have made some decisions that I feel have made us
better by putting players in different positions. Many times it is not the new role that you
put someone in, but it becomes how that trickles down to filling their previous spot and
what role changes would take place for the rest of our players that is the deciding factor
in to change or not to change.

We have always been a motion program with a handful of set plays that we feel fit our
players for that year. Early in the year we experiment with our plays to see what works
for this group and what doesn't so that we can pare down the number that we will use. As
the season wears on, we also tweak what we run as we see how we are being defended
and if our personnel changes due to injuries or adjustments in our lineup.

Since basketball is a long season, I like to look for new drills that drill the same concepts
as the season moves into January and February. Not major, complex changes, but
something that can be explained quickly and doesn't eat up a lot of practice time. I think
it helps maintain the attention of the players as they have something new to think about
rather than going through the same things in the same way time after time.

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

I do not believe in taking major portions of the practice to experiment. Ten minutes max
every day the first couple weeks of practice and then ten minutes once or twice a week
after that. I don't want change for change sake, but I also want to always be looking for
new ideas and new ways to do things better that will improve our program.

8. Water or Gasoline? John Maxwell writes and speaks to leaders in all walks of life. One
of his ideas is that as a leader, we carry two buckets every time we go to put out a fire--
one contains gasoline, the other contains
“Don’t wrestle with the pigs. You water. If we choose to make the situation a
both get mud on you and the pigs personal confrontation, blow it out of
like it.” proportion, immediately seek to make it a
win-lose, place blame, or mishandle it in
--Unknown
any other number of ways, we are pouring
gasoline on the fire. If we choose to use
our bucket of water to de-escalate the problem, we are improving our ability to
effectively handle the current situation and also building our skills to handle the next one.
John's message is for us simply to be consciously aware of which bucket we are using
and the affect is has on our ability to lead.

9. Stay in touch with former players. I coached at Winamac High School in Indiana from
1999 until 2003 and we had a reunion of our teams including players, coaches, managers,
parents, administrators, and support staff such as our bus driver, scorekeeper, athletic
secretary, etc… and anyone who wanted to bring girlfriends, wives, or children was
welcome to.

We didn’t organize any activities (at least I thought we didn’t) other than a cookout
lunch. On the invitation, we invited everyone to bring Frisbees, corn hole games, and the
like. I didn’t know they were going to do it, but the players and some of the assistant
coaches put out the word to bring shorts and shoes to play some pickup games on the
outdoor court that was right by the pavilion we had reserved. It was fun to see them
playing together again. I know they enjoyed it too.

It really wasn’t that difficult or expensive to put together. I started working on it about six
months before we had it. Working with my wife, the assistant coaches, and our AD, we
reserved the best pavilion in the park which was right next to the playground for the
young children, close to the restrooms, and close to the basketball court.

Using e-mail invitations, facebook, and free cell phone long distance, it was very
inexpensive to contact everyone that I needed to get hold of. We made it a pitch in and
that made the food prep easy. It fit right in with our number one goal of establishing a
lifelong relationship with the participants that cannot be broken. I had as much fun

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

getting in touch with them as I did seeing them in person. I am glad I did it and am
looking forward to the next one.

10. Have a theme for the season. One way to develop a team identity is to have a theme for
the season that is unique to this year’s group and appropriate for the current season. For
example, after graduating all five starters from a sectional championship team, our theme
was “building a new wall.” The idea was that we needed to build a solid wall for
ourselves by improving every day in order to have a chance to win the post-season
sectional tournament again. We made a poster of a wall of bricks—one brick for every
practice and game—up to the state finals. Every day we decided as a group if we had
improved and could color in a brick or not. A couple of times we felt that we went
backwards and whited out the already colored in bricks. After our first game, we added
two bricks, even though we lost, because we had several players give varsity efforts who
had never played in a varsity game before. It was not the most creative idea ever, but it
was a visual representation that we were building our individuals and teams a day at a
time and that every brick counted to make the wall—and it was unique and appropriate
for that team.

11. Have a player’s notebook. To me, the importance of a player’s notebook is that you can
have your program rules and expectations in writing. It helps document to your players,
which in turn helps with parents and administration. Encourage the players to share their
notebooks with their parents. After you have your team rules, expectations, etc… it is up
to you as to how you use it after that. You can use it for your plays, schemes, individual
workout charts, scouting reports, post game evaluation handouts, motivational
information, bus time, and anything else that you feel is important. I like to use 3 ring
binders in order to be able to add to it as the season unfolds rather than giving it out at the
beginning of the year and not adding to it after that.

12. Have statistical goals in writing, visible,

and on everyone’s mind. The purpose of “If what you are doing is not moving
having goals is to offer direction. Studies you towards your goals, then it is
have shown time and time again that people moving you away from them.”
with written goals that they refer to daily are
more successful than those who don’t. Just --Brian Tracy
by knowing the goals, it will change the way
your players play. Having specific and
measurable goals definitely changes efforts and purpose. The goals need to be
meaningful, be areas that will have an impact on the outcomes of games, and be
something that influence what and how you practice and the way you play in games.
They must fit your team that year. For example, if you want to be a team that gets to the

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 130 Little Ideas that Make a Huge Difference in Your Basketball Team

free throw line a lot, you could set a goal of getting the ball into the lane on the drive or
on the pass on 2/3 of your possessions each quarter and during each practice scrimmage
segment. If that is a goal, then it needs to be emphasized constantly. That is why it is
important to stay with 3 to 5 goals and that it is imperative to have goals that will make a
difference in your games.

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