timboricki wrote:
That sucks. Not the elite teams fault. Not the lower teams fault. Probably the leagues fault for being overzealous on what they thought they could bring in.
I’ve coached beginner level hoops. And I’ve coached a team with 1 ringer and 6 other kids. In a league where everyone had 1 or 2 ringers and a bunch of traffic cones.
It’s shitty basketball at the youth level, but a zone defense might help. If the elite teams are playing a zone against your team, you should whip the ass of the opposing coach in the parking lot.
Every kid gets 5 fouls. Make sure they use them.
Keep the offense simple. At practice focus on dribbling, layups and 12 foot jumpers. Teach them to box out and recognize how a missed shot might bounce. Learning how to jump stop and pivot will help a lot too.
Pick and roll is your friend. Get good at it on the ball and off of the ball.
Tell your kids to shoot the ball whenever they are open inside of 15 feet. If you are in the paint, try to shoot or Fake a shot and go up strong. Hope for a foul.
How are teams scoring 50+ points? Fast break? Shooting 3s? Full court press? Getting offensive rebounds on every miss?
I'm not the coach so I have zero control over anything game related that you mentioned.
As for how the elite teams are scoring 50+ points... it's mostly easy buckets resulting from turnovers due to full or half court pressure defense. Take the game last night as an example. The center on the other team was probably close to 6' tall and he's 13. He would stand right at half court and start their pressure D. The next two tallest kids would be on the wing ready to trap the ball handler in a double team with the 6' tall kid to whichever side our ball handler went to. They would also pick any passes getting lobbed over the head of the 6' kid. Their other two players, basically their guards, would be next to the paint to play D in case we got the ball past their wall. My son's team point guard is a great ball handler and a good shooter but he's short. He's not even 5' tall yet. So he got mauled once he got pressed as he couldn't throw the ball over the giants on the other team. The other starting guard (coach's son) is also on the short side. Maybe 5'2". He's also pretty darn good but he's small. So those two turned the ball over a lot in this game and the last. The backup point guard is even shorter than the other two. Our coach adjusted and had our best/second tallest player bring the ball across half court but that put him out of position. So solving one problem created another. My son is basically the 6th man and can play SG or SF. He's almost 5'7" but he doesn't have the ball handling skills to run point or deal with the press either. So part of my son's team problem is a lack of size at the guard spots.
We (and the four other regular teams) just don't have the horses to run with those three elite teams. They could play each of those teams a thousand times and they will never win one game.
I spoke with my son's coach after the game and he said that the five coaches of the regular teams know they're all playing for fourth place and not one of them expects a competitive game with those three teams. He said the league is going to do a playoff bracket at the end that excludes the elite teams. The league obviously knows there's an issue. They were definitely overzealous this time around but as I said in my OP, this is normally a well run organization so I'm not sure what's different this year from years past.
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