How to get out of basketball practice

5 ‘good’ reasons to miss practice

By Jon Buzby | Posted 9/15/2017

My sons are just two weeks into their flag football season and already have each missed one of the two scheduled practices. Three of their friends have also missed one and a fourth has missed both of his once-a-week practices. 

So what are the most common acceptable excuses for missing practice? Here’s a hint: “I don’t feel like going” isn’t on the list.

1. Sick or injured

This is the easiest one. If a player is sick or injured they should not participate in practice. One might argue that if it’s an injury, the player should still attend and participate in any non-physical segments of practice. But that often depends on the level of the team and the age of the child. A general rule of thumb to use is if the child is sick enough to miss school, they’re unhealthy enough to skip practice.  

2. Weather issues

While the coach has the final decision whether or not to cancel practice because of poor weather conditions, if a parent isn’t comfortable driving in certain elements, then it’s an acceptable excuse to not bring the player. As the saying goes – better safe than sorry.

3. Going to a friend’s birthday party

I allow each son one opportunity to pick a friend’s birthday party over practice or even a game. If I didn’t, my middle son would have missed his first overnight camping trip and my youngest would miss his best friend’s party at a trampoline park. Kids get invited to a lot of birthday parties and so I do think a limit has to be placed on how many they can choose over the team. But let’s not forget, they are kids first, and then, kids who play football, second.

4. Family outing

Whether it’s grandma’s 80th birthday party or a planned college football game – our excuse last week – it’s OK to miss a practice or game for family functions. But like the friends’ birthday parties, it shouldn’t happen more than once, maybe twice, a season. Youth sports is a commitment, usually by the entire family.

5. Schoolwork 

A good youth sports coach makes it clear to players early on that schoolwork – completing homework or studying for tests – is always a priority over attending practices or games. That being said, as parents, we can’t complain if the same coach then doesn’t start our child because they skip practice for school-related reasons because, let’s face it when they do miss it’s usually because of procrastination, not an overload of work.

Even professional athletes miss practices or games once in a while, and so it’s to be expected that our kids will too. However, those times should be few and far between, and when it does happen, should be for a good reason.

Jon Buzby has been involved in and writing about youth sports for the past 30 years, originally as a coach and board member with his now-adult son and most recently "just as a dad" with his 8- and 10-year-old sons. Jon is an award-winning writer and his latest book, “Coaching Kids Made Easier,” is available on Amazon. Send comments or future blog topics you'd like to see to [email protected] and follow him @YouthSportsBuzz on Twitter.

TagsCoach Athlete Parent Flag Football Team

11 Creative Ways to Get MORE Out of Your Limited Practice Time

By Adam Baker

Practice time can be a very limited resource for basketball teams, especially with young players.

Between school, different sports and other activities, it can be tough for kids to be available for multiple practices a week. Combine that with expensive gym fees and conflicting court time and many teams are limited to one or two practices a week.

Only having just one hour-long practice each week can make it very difficult to work on offensive and defensive concepts. With such little time to practice, coaches know they must squeeze out as much practice time as they can schedule.

While you can't magically make your players' schedules more flexible or your local gym more available, there are certain ways to get more practice time with your team. Here are 11 tips that can help you make the most out of your practice time.

11 Creative Ways to Get More Practice Time

1. Multi-task

Many drills allow you to work on several things at a time. You can work on conditioning, defense, and motion at the same time with "multi-purpose drills". Almost every drill can double as a rebounding drill. Practice skills and offense at the same time. When you practice defense as a team, make sure you practice offense too. View everything by having one coach watch the defense and another watch offense.

2. Prioritize

Focus on the critical few versus the trivial many. Decide what is important for your team to learn this year, while at the same time realizing there are things you won't be good at right now. What things happen most often in a game? Try to make those things that happen often a priority.

3. Assign Homework To Players

Just because you can't work with your players 24/7 doesn't mean that they can't take your instruction home with them. Give players homework and drills they can practice on their own. Even if they do not have access to a full court, they can still work on their game. Show them how to practice footwork in their garage or dribble as they walk to school.

4. Assign Homework To Parents

If your players aren't disciplined enough to work on their game away from practice, employ their parents to help. Assign drills to moms and dads to work with their sons and daughters. This will get the parents involved with the team while at the same time providing them great chances at spending quality time with their children.

5. Plan Ahead

Teams waste precious practice time due to lack of efficiency. The time it takes you to figure out which drill you want to do next is time is not time well spent. Plan your entire practice ahead of time and structure drills as efficiently as you can. This will allow you to spend less time in between drills and more time on improving your players.

6. Pre-practice Practice

Many times you are restricted to the amount of court time you have in a gym. You may have to wait in the hallway for the team ahead of you to finish. Utilize this time. Warm up in the hallway before practice starts so you can start practicing immediately. If you can't warm up in the hall, use ballhandling drills (multi-task) to warm up once you get on the court. Even better, if they let you, do ballhandling/warm up drills in the hallway before practice starts.

7. Be Ready

To get the most out of every minute, your players must be ready from the first minute of practice. Make sure kids arrive early with shoes on so they are ready to go. Provide incentive, such as less conditioning, for being ready on time for practice.

8. Use Pre-Game

Your team can be practicing right up until game time. Utilize the time you have during pre-game warms up to practice skills, defense, shell, etc. This not only gets your players' blood flowing, but it reemphasizes the important topics you are trying to drill into their memories.

9. Take The Game Outside

Your funds may prevent you from renting another hour of gym time each week, but all is not lost. Enjoy the fresh air and get to work out in the sun. If the weather's nice, find a park with courts and hold a practice on a Saturday morning or on an evening during the week.

10. Let's Make A Deal

One way to reduce the cost of a gym is to make a deal. Exchange your time for court time. Find a local church with an indoor court that might be willing to let you use the gym in exchange for offering your time. Your coaches and players could all volunteer to help the church with a project once a month in return for access to the court. The time you spend volunteering also doubles as team building.

11. Scrimmage

Talk with other coaches and see if they'd be willing to split the cost of a court. Use the combined court time to work on things in a scrimmage setting. This is a great way to work on certain aspects of your game while simulating game action. If you want to beat a press, have the other team press you and vice versa. Stop the scrimmage and teach as you go along.

Now Share YOUR Creative Ideas for Efficient Practices..

If you have other creative ideas to get more done during practice, please share your ideas in the comments below.

What do you think? Let us know by leaving your comments, suggestions, and questions...

10 exercises for developing attacking skills of basketball players

Hello, dear visitors of basketball-training.org.ua! Today I want to tell you about a few basic exercises, by regularly performing which you can reach the next level, becoming a really good attacking player.

Yes, many articles have already been written about this and many videos have been shot. Yes, we all know a few dozen exercises that promise to make you at least the next Michael Jordan. I will not reinvent the wheel, but will tell you about a series of exercises that just a year ago helped me a lot to improve in the attacking aspects of the game. Let's start the story.

Basketball drills

Mikan Drill

This drill gets its name from the first really big guy in the NBA, George Mikan. Begin to perform the exercise, located on the right side of the basketball basket (a meter and a half from the ring). Take two steps to the left, parallel to the endline, and throw a half hook on the other side of the hoop using your left hand. Without letting the ball fall to the ground, pick it up and take 2 steps to the right (again parallel to the base line) and again throw the ball into the ring with a half hook using your right hand. Try to get into the rhythm and hit 10-20 in a row.

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This exercise will teach you how to attack with a weak hand and turn it into a formidable weapon. Personally, while doing this exercise, already on the second day I began to complete the passages with my left hand. And after a couple of weeks, the effectiveness of the attacks doubled: now the defender had to hold both sides, and I could always attack with the hand farthest from him.

Superman Drill

This exercise is very similar to the previous one. Position yourself almost on the border of the three-second zone (you always want to call it a “trapeze”, but with the change in the rules of basketball, it has lost its usual shape). We perform a throw on the ring with one single difference: do not try to hit the ring! On the contrary, raise the trajectory higher so that the ball, bouncing off the backboard, falls on the other side of the ring. This is where you need to catch him, not allowing him to fall to the floor. Important: try to take no more than three steps to overcome the distance from one side of the ring to the other. Follow the rhythm: let the entire exercise be performed in the same rhythm. Do 10 to 20 repetitions of this exercise.

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Beat the Pro

Imagine that you are playing 1 on 1 against your favorite player. You just need to beat him by being the first to score 21 points. Perform game throws (with deviation, after strides, after crossovers and sudden stops). Be clear about your opponent, how he defends against you, how he tries to cover your every throw, how he waits for the slightest mistake in order to intercept. For each roll you make, you get 1 point. For each miss, the opponent receives 2 points. When you reach 20 points (if you haven't lost before) - you need to make a "buzzer beater" and it needs to be scored. How will you do it: with an incredible deflection after a fabulous dribbling or just hitting the ball with 9meters. Try to beat the best players in your imagination. Important: be realistic when playing against Shaquille, it is foolish to push him with your back or try to shoot the ball while in close contact. Also, it would be wrong to try to overtake Rose or Jordan. In general: adequately evaluate the opponent and try to complicate your life as much as possible.

Shoot the Shot

Do you remember the good old game "Around the World"? Sometimes it is called "Points", but that's not the point. Now we will try to add a hit percentage to this game. Also, we will add a couple of new points to it, the so-called "elbow spot".

In order to advance to the next point, you must make at least 3 out of 5 rolls. Naturally, if the level of your game (and especially your sniping skills) allows you to regularly shoot with a percentage higher than 60%, then increase the number of goals scored to 4 out of 5 from each point. Or up to 5 out of 5 from medium and 4 out of 5 from long range. Total: you have 18 points, 90 throws of which at least 54 must reach the goal. Challenge accepted?

Ball slaps and squeeze

Throw the ball up as if it had bounced off the ring after a bad throw. Jump up, grab the rebound and squeeze the ball as hard as you can with your hands. Imagine that you had difficulty getting this rebound and now they are trying to knock it out from you. Immediately after the rebound, rotate the ball around the body (at different heights): around the head, back, knees and calves. Repeat this exercise 10-20 times.

Figure 8's - with dribble and without dribble

Eight, the famous eight is back, now with dribbling. Do you remember how Petya Maravich taught us how to handle the ball? So, now we are doing the same thing, but using dribbling. For those who find it difficult to perform such dribbling - try to perform the exercise without it.

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Quick hands

This is a cool exercise that is sure to be performed at every training session for young basketball players. Starting position: one hand in front, the second - behind, the ball is between the legs. After releasing the ball, you need to change the location of the hands: if the right one was in front and the left one was behind, then now the ball needs to be grabbed with the right one from behind, and the left one in front. Diversify the exercise: both hands in front, the ball between the legs. We release the ball and catch it with our hands, but from behind. Important: regular performance of this exercise will allow you to develop hand speed, which is very important for performing high-quality and fast feints.

How to do it: 30 seconds first option, 30 seconds second option. Write down how many times you managed to do the first time, and then compare with the results after a week.

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Tom-Tom dribble

This movement is also familiar to many of us. Stand with your legs slightly apart so that you can easily transfer the ball between them. We start with the right hand. We transfer the ball in front of us from the right hand to the left; then from the left hand, transfer under the foot to the right hand. Now with the right hand we transfer the ball behind the back - it turns out to be in the left hand and we send it back (also behind the back) to the right. This is 1 repetition. Repeat 10 times and change hands (i.e. mirror).

Drum dribble

The point is to learn how to quickly and comfortably change the pace of dribbling and its pitch. For example, right after a screen or a run, you may find yourself kicking the ball out from behind (even though you already think your opponent is offside). The most elementary countermeasure is to sharply reduce the height of the dribbling. So, the exercise is that you need to knock the ball on the floor alternately with your right and left hand. Start from a normal static position (legs and back straight) and go down, increasing the intensity of the knocks on the floor. As soon as there is a space between your hands and the floor, a little more than a ball, begin to rise up. Make several series (for example, 5). For advanced players, try this exercise without looking at the ball, or by hitting it with 1 finger of your right hand and 1 finger of your left hand.

Summary

Here is a set of exercises I suggest you do every time you enter the court. Believe me, the results will shock you! Of course, if you are a professional player, then these exercises will be familiar to you and will be given easily. However, who, if not you, should know about their usefulness. Join our VKontakte group: https://vk.com/uroki_basketbola - there are a lot of useful and interesting things.

And this is the end of the article, I wish you successful training and look forward to visiting this site!

Basketball exercises

Basketball exercises

Improving basketball skills: dribbling, shooting and passing.

Students are placed in two columns at the intersections of the front line with the trapezoid. Only one player does not have a ball, he becomes the first in one of the columns and starts the exercise. A player without the ball runs around the post (on the foul line) and opens under the hoop to receive the ball and shoot. A player from the opposite column gives him a pass for a throw, and he runs around the bar and opens from the other side. Continue until someone scores 6 times.

DETAILS : - Throw over the backboard; - Without a run; - After the throw, the ball should not fall to the floor, you need to pick it up and go with it to the end of the opposite column

CHIPS : You can complicate this exercise if you add feints and steps before the throw.

Improving basketball skills: dribbling, shooting and passing.

Students line up in two columns on the center line on the right and left, on one side the first two/three players have balls. The player with the ball dribbles and shoots without rebounding, then runs to the end of the opposite column (where the players are without balls). The player from the column (where the players are without balls) must simultaneously move to the ring with the dribbler and pick up his ball, then pass to the player from the opposite column (where the dribbler moved from), the first one who stands without the ball, and stand at the end of this column. Until someone scores 6 times, then perform on the other side.

DETAILS : - While dribbling, look forward at the hoop - Rebound without letting the ball hit the floor - Starting the dribble without running

CHIPS : Most professional teams do this exercise during the warm-up before the game.

Improving basketball skills: dribbling, shooting and passing.

Students line up in two opposite corners of the playground, the first two/three people in the line have balls. On a signal, the players with the balls take turns dribbling and throwing. After the throw, you need to pick up your ball and pass to the player without the ball into the corner, and stand at the end of the column. 3 circles to the right and left

DETAILS : - While dribbling, look forward to the ring - After throwing the ball must not fall to the floor - Starting the dribble without running

CHIPS ball.