Basketball Coach Unplugged (A Basketball Coaching Podcast)

Being an Assistant Coach

https://teachhoops.com/ · https://coachingyouthhoops.com/ · https://heysammi.com/

TITLE
What Does a Great Assistant Coach Actually Do?

SUBTITLE
Nobody hands you a job description, most head coaches never write one, and the assistants who figure it out become impossible to replace.

SHOW NOTES

Being an assistant is its own craft, not a waiting room for a head job. Coach Collins talks through what the role really asks of you: how to disagree with your head coach the right way and at the right time, how to be the voice a struggling player can actually go to, and how to add value in the areas nobody else has claimed. Useful whether this is your career or your first season holding a clipboard.

What we cover:

Finding the job nobody assigned you and owning it completely

Disagreeing with your head coach in private and backing him in public

Being the assistant players come to, without becoming a shortcut around the head coach

Earning responsibility instead of waiting to be handed it

Preparing for a head job while doing this one well

This week's challenge: Ask your head coach what he wishes somebody on staff would take off his plate, then take it.

Resources: Practice plans, drills, courses, and on court clinics at https://teachhoops.com/

https://teachhoops.com/ · https://coachingyouthhoops.com/ · https://heysammi.com/
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Do you have standards, or do you just have a lot of rules?

https://teachhoops.com/

Why three things you will stop practice
for beat twenty things nobody enforces after Thanksgiving.

SHOW NOTES

Most programs walk into the
first week of practice with a handbook full of rules and not one real standard.
Coach Steve Collins breaks down the difference between a line you cannot cross
and a level you hold, and why the long list actually teaches your team that you
do not mean what you say. This one is meant to be used before your first
whistle, not after your first problem.

What we cover:

•
Rules stop behavior, standards set a level, and most
gyms are drowning in the first

•
Why twenty rules is a bluff and three standards is a
program

•
A standard only exists if you stop practice for it,
including when you are winning

•
How to tell a standard from a slogan on the wall

•
Letting your players help write them, and what happens
the first time you let one slide

This week's challenge: Write down three things you will
stop the gym for every single time, and find out this Tuesday whether you meant
them.

Resources: Practice plans, drills, courses, and on
court clinics at https://teachhoops.com/

Recorded at the Fifth Quarter Studios
in Madison, Wisconsin.

EPISODE DETAILS

Runtime: 5 minutes 25
seconds

Audio file: 07_standards_vs_rules.mp3

LINKS

https://teachhoops.com/

https://coachingyouthhoops.com/

https://heysammi.com/

Do You Have
Standards, or Do You Just Have a Lot of Rules?

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Teach Hoops Member Call

https://teachhoops.com/ · https://coachingyouthhoops.com/ · https://heysammi.com/

TITLE
What Are Coaches Actually Asking When Nobody Else Is Listening?

SUBTITLE
A look inside a Teach Hoops member call, where real coaches bring the problems they are living with this week.

SHOW NOTES

This one is a recording of a Teach Hoops member call. No prepared topic, no script, just coaches bringing what is actually going on in their gyms and working through it together. If you have ever wondered whether the thing you are dealing with is normal, this is the episode that answers it.

What we cover:

Questions straight from coaches in the middle of their season

Problems that come up in almost every program, whatever the level

Where coaches disagree with each other, and why both answers can work

The value of hearing somebody else describe your exact situation

How the member calls work and who is in the room

This week's challenge: Write down the one question you would ask if you were on the call, then go find somebody to ask it.

Resources: Member calls, practice plans, drills, courses, and on court clinics at https://teachhoops.com/

https://teachhoops.com/ · https://coachingyouthhoops.com/ · https://heysammi.com/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

https://teachhoops.com/

How do you cut a kid without cutting him badly?

The roster number is a philosophy, the
conversation is a skill, and neither one gets easier after thirty seven years.

SHOW NOTES

Twenty two kids in the gym,
fourteen spots, and four of the five kids on the bubble are basically the same
player. Steve has been in that room more times than he can count, and he never
once slept well the night before cuts. This episode is not about evaluating. It
is about the human cost of the decision, what you actually say when you deliver
it, and how you carry it afterward.

What we cover:

•
Why the number you keep is a philosophy decision, not a
gym capacity decision

•
The difference between a kid going home disappointed
and a kid going home humiliated

•
Why you never hand the cut to an assistant or a list on
a door

•
The sentence Steve used for twenty five years: here is
the one thing that would change my answer next year

•
What you owe the parents, what you do not, and how to
leave a door open without making a promise

This week's challenge: Pick the kid you are dreading
most and write out his one sentence now, while you are still calm.

Resources: Practice plans, drills, courses, and on
court clinics at https://teachhoops.com/

Recorded at the Fifth Quarter
Studios in Madison, Wisconsin.

EPISODE DETAILS

Runtime: 10 minutes 32
seconds

Audio file: 02_cutting_players.mp3

LINKS

https://teachhoops.com/

https://coachingyouthhoops.com/

https://heysammi.com/

How Do You Cut a
Kid Without Cutting Him Badly?

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

3. Blowing a Team Out (on the right end)

https://teachhoops.com/ · https://coachingyouthhoops.com/ · https://heysammi.com/

TITLE
Are You Running Up the Score Without Meaning To?

SUBTITLE
A thirty point lead is a coaching problem, not a victory lap, and garbage time can be the most useful stretch of your week.

SHOW NOTES

Winning big is more complicated than it looks. Press too long and you are that coach. Call everything off and your bench players learn that their minutes do not count. Coach Collins talks through handling a lopsided lead with class while still getting something out of the last quarter, and the conversations you owe your starters, your reserves, and occasionally the other coach.

What we cover:

The point in the game where you change what you are coaching

What to call off first, and what is fair to keep running

Making the end of the bench feel like real basketball instead of a formality

Why your reserves need a standard too, not just playing time

Respecting the other bench without embarrassing your own kids

This week's challenge: Write down the lead and the clock where you will change your approach, so you are not deciding it in the moment.

Resources: Practice plans, drills, courses, and on court clinics at https://teachhoops.com/

https://teachhoops.com/ · https://coachingyouthhoops.com/ · https://heysammi.com/
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices