THE PROGRAM | hoops2life

Hoops2Life Basketball 101

The base philopsopy of our program is to develop players who have three main attributes. Our players will PLAY HARD all of the time, they will PLAY SMART which will require them to become students of the game and they will PLAY WITH CHARACTER. In order to achieve this, our players will need to commit to the following:

Be Conditioned

"If you are worried about breathing, you won't be worried about playing...”. That is a line that I have consistently told my players over the years. Athletes that are not well-conditioned do not perform well on the court, especially with the game on the line. The greatest players have the ability to give maximum effort for long periods of time without pacing themselves.

We will run A LOT. Ninety-Five percent (95%) of the time playing basketball is spent running from spot to spot, sideline to sideline, basket to basket and defending players as they run all over the court. We run a lot in practice so that games seem like a walk in the park.

Be Fundemental

Maintaining proper fundementals requires players to spend a lot of time performing repeatable actions...that is, developing the ability to do the same thing over and over again without error. A player who lacks fundementals but has talent will eventually be bested by a player who has similar talent and better fundementals. Lesser talented players with fundementals can usually perform well enough to be able to contribute to thier teams. Here are our main areas of focus:

Footwork. Proper foot placement is paramount both on offense and defense. Good balance is the foundation of success with passing, shooting and defense.

Ball handling. Players who are unable to dribble limit their options individually and the teams options overall. Guards must be able to control the ball under pressure to ensure the offense flows efficiently. Big men who can dribble present problems for opposing teams because of their added versatility.

Shooting form. Players must work to be a threat at all times and catch the ball in position to score. Their shot should be quick but smooth, with proper alignment of arm to body and hand to basket.

Defensive positioning. We emphasize energetic, tough-nosed, man-to-man defense with the added elements of zone traps to round out our defensive style. To do this you must be willing to trust that your teammates will be there to help you should you get beat.

Effective passing. Players will learn to execute the full array of passing types effectively including chest passes, bounce passes and overhead passes.

Improved Basketball I.Q. We expect our players not only to play the game but to understand the game of basketball. Players should know "why" they are being asked to do specific things and not perform as robots. They will understand what both our team and our opponents are attempting to do in any given situation, both defensively and offensively.

Be Mentally Tough

For years, when I looked to define what mental toughness was in a player I found that it was a thing that I knew when I saw it but could never truly put into words. Then, a close friend of mine defined it as, "The ability to focus on the little things consistently and doing them when there appears to be no tangible reward for your effort". Examples of being mentally tough are setting a good screen when you don't feel like it, or taking a charge when you'd rather avoid contact. It's shooting the ball 500 times alone even when you don't have practice or a game, or it's doing ball handling drills when there is no crowd to ooh and aah at you. It also means not complaining to a ref when you feel they made a bad call or it's accepting instruction from your coaches even if you do not agree with a decistion that they made. Mental Toughness is extremely important to success in basketball and in life.

Be Driven

I have yet to find a player who is unable to improve if they are willing to do the work. Every player who wants to improve and is willing to give good effort will get better with us as long as they accept coaching. With that said, understand that every person has different gifts and there are many who may never become great basketball players. Our focus is improvement. We will work with you to take whatever skills you have and will help to make them better. Equal responsibility is placed on both the players and the coaches in this program, as the players must be willing do the work, drills and adhere to the advice they are given. Coaching is focused on player improvement and not solely on wins and losses, because we believe that creating fundamentally sound players will produce winning teams.