A Pen And A Napkin

As competitions begin for teams around the country, it is important that you use every minute of game day to your advantage. It is also important that rehearse what you're going to do before games, during game and after games, and to simulate those concepts to the best of your abilities. Here are some thoughts and ideas on how to use and organize these segments of your game days!

Andy Gerlecz, the girls basketball coach at Papillion-LaVista South (NE), comes on the pod to chat about his coaching journey, the influence of Scott Hawk on his career, developing roles, communication, "Bright Spot" coaching, "Daily Vitamins" and how his coaching philosophy has evolved over the years. Great last 45 minutes of just us discussing alot of different things about coaching and how to coach your teams!

We are all in the part of the season where we are trying to put together a roster, finding roles for our players, having to consider whether or not to keep some players and eventually determining playing time for our players. This are all difficult decisions, but they are ones we must make. Here are some tips on some things to consider and some advice on how to handle those situations when they arise.

7-time state champion Eric Behrens of Omaha Central comes on our podcast this week to discuss his journey as a coach, from playing for his father to replacing him, making the jump to the collegiate level, working with the South Sudanese community in Omaha and much more. We also talk about the challenges of coaching in the age of Covid-19, along with transition defense, transition offense and out of bounds plays.

As we start our seasons, it is really important for you to have energy as a coach and to create practice plans that are going to bring the necessary energy to your practices. Gone are the days of 20-25 minute drills; you need to break things down and create an energetic, chaotic practice that will get your players active and ready to work; here's some tips that I have based off of our first practice next week!

Just wanted to drop a quick pod to explain how some things could/will go as we all head into our seasons and the immediate future of "A Pen And A Napkin"

Sometimes it's just nice to read a book about basketball without feeling like you need to highlight all the passages in the book that you think are important; "The Book of Basketball" is all of that and more! My favorite book of all time, writer and podcaster Bill Simmons discusses the history of the NBA, his "Pyramid" of the league's greatest players, a chapter on the greatest teams in the game and, most importantly for us as basketball coaches, discusses "The Secret" about basketball.

Preseason conditioning and preparation can be a grind. You need to build toughness, camaraderie and skill, but you're going to need different methods to do it. Here are some of the ideas that I've used and heard of to help change up your preseason workouts to get your team ready for the upcoming season.

2019 NAIA National Champion Drew Olson, the Head WBB Coach at Concordia University (NE), comes on the pod for a great discussion. We chat about his family coaching tree, his professional influences, pressure defense, analytics and recruiting players to a national championship program. Great information!

One of the most underestimated and undertaught skills of the game is screening; we all talk about it, but how miuch do we break down screening and making cuts off of screens? Here is a discussion starter on screening, philosophy on screening and cutters, and some drills that you can integrate into your practice to help your players screen, read screens and defending screens.