Building Better Basketball

Today we’re joined by Michael Czepil, the new Head Coach of the Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence Men’s Program.

Mike’s journey through basketball has given him a really interesting perspective on player and coach development. He grew up in Victoria and experienced the Australian pathway as a player before heading to the United States, where he went on to spend a significant part of his coaching career in NCAA Division I basketball.

Now he’s back in Australia and taking on one of the most important development roles in our game - working with some of the country’s best young male players and helping prepare them for what comes next, whether that’s college basketball, the professional game or ultimately representing Australia.

Today we’re going to talk about that journey, what Mike has learned from coaching in Australia and the US, what genuine high-performance player development looks like, and what coaches at every level can take from an elite development environment.

Today we welcome back a guest who will already be familiar to many of our listeners — JP Nerbun.

JP joined us previously for a brilliant conversation around leadership, culture and the role coaches play in creating environments where people can genuinely thrive. He’s an author, coach, consultant and the founder of TOC Culture Consulting, and his work has challenged coaches around the world to think more deeply about how culture is actually built — not through slogans on a wall, but through the behaviours, conversations and standards we live every day.

This time, JP is back with a new book, The Culture Captain, which takes that conversation in a really interesting direction.

Because while coaches have an enormous influence on culture, ultimately the strongest teams aren’t completely dependent on the coach to drive it. They develop players who understand the culture, take ownership of it, protect it and positively influence the people around them.

And that raises some fascinating questions for coaches.

How do we identify those people? Can leadership actually be developed? How much responsibility should we give players for the culture of our teams? And perhaps most importantly, how do we move from a coach-led culture to a player-owned one?

There are few people better placed to explore those questions.

It’s fantastic to have him back.

Our final on court presentation is @basketballauscoe Women’s AC @coach.mydonkin working with two of our super athletes @sitaya_fagan and @_zararussell_ to demonstrate to coaches how they can best and most effectively conduct Individual and Small group sessions.

Back on court at the National Coaching Conference with @mickdowner looking at all the concepts of Pick and Roll with the @basketballauscoe male atheletes.

An international flavour to tip off Day 2 of the National Coaches Conference with @ericmcalister of the @dallasmavs taking the coaches through his job as an International Scout and talking about the art of evaluating talent.

Closing out Day 1 of the National Coaching Conference was @distrang who took the coaches through a structure to help them not only understand but also provided some tools to let them build their Coaching brand.

Our last on court presentation of Day 1 is @mickdowner sharing all his international coaching experience to talk to the coaches in attendance about building your team defence with the assistance of the @basketballauscoe male athletes.

Our first on court session of the National Coaching Conference 26 is a Coach returning to her roots at the @basketballauscoe , very apt off the back of Retro Round! Coach @renae_garlepp of the @sydneyflames has the @basketballauscoe girls running through a series of skill development exercises on Offensive development building from passing right through to finishing.

Enjoy this recording of our first presenter of the National Coaching Conference 26 @shanemac4 from @insidewaiswho shared his experiences and suggestions on how to manage a Bespoke Player Development environment.

Enjoy this recording of a presentation done at the recent Australian Junior Championships.

This was a classroom style presentation by Australian U19 Men’s physio Toby Conroy and General Manager of the COE and Performance Pathways Peter Lonergan and focused on “An Integrated Approach to Practice Design”.

It focused on the intensity modification process devised by Toby, Aneeka Smith and Bridie Duggan, which is being rolled out across the Performance Pathway. A great opportunity for coaches to understand the proccesses and planning that go into the National Performance Camps and the Centre of Excellence.