Good stuff Mike! @Shannon Blake and @Mike Erickson, would you guys say that individual player skill work requires more internal focus from players to improve and develop as a shooter, ball handler, etc. and in team practice, players are more externally focused on reading and solving live game like situations? Basically responding to the game environment with the skills they developed during individual skill work. Or do you have a different opinion?

@Randy Reddig nice, we do all of these drills with our team as well!

To breakdown some things we do… 1. Teach Shot Quality and what kind of shots we want in our offense. Our staff is going to verbalize and demonstrate what we consider a great shot. Early season, we film some of our practice and meet as a team and with individuals to put a visual on what we consider a high quality shot or not. 2. Emphasize sharing the ball. We teach our kids that sharing the ball makes US harder to guard, which makes YOU harder to guard. If a player wants to be a scorer, then they have to be willing to share the ball. It could only take one or two passes to a cutter or shooter to keep the defense honest and create easier scoring opportunities for a player to not only score more points but score them efficiently. Which brings me to my next point…. 3. Teaching players what college coaches and recruiters are looking for. Efficiency > Volume. I’ve seen time and time again, players from Montana that play on winning teams and average less points on higher efficiency get more looks from better college programs than those who score more on poor shooting percentages. The reality of the matter is that most players are not going to go to the next level and be able to get 20 shots a game. College coaches will give them a role to play and if they are a selfish player unwilling to share the ball and play their role effectively, they more than likely will not last or earn minutes. 4. Drill work and offensive principles. Transition we want to throw the ball ahead as early as possible and score at the rim. If we are in half court offense, we generally want the ball to reach the third side of the floor (2 ball reversals) to get the defense to make rotational decisions so we can increase our odds of finding an advantage and taking a high quality shot. We typically don’t run a high volume of on-balls screens or even drives early in our half court offense and the early actions we run utilize off-ball screening, cutting, and ball movement. I’m not against teams that do want their players to play off the bounce early, we do at times ourselves, I’m saying that some of our principles and actions have led and encouraged our players to play together and utilize ball movement. We have used no/limited dribble drills, creating offensive advantage drills, competitive practice drills where assisted baskets are worth more, etc. to get our players in the habit of sharing the ball. 5. Conclusion….First, educate players and help them understand the effectiveness, benefits, and importance of ball movement and playing together. Second, put them in situations to practice and create good habits!

Tommy Brown - Head Coach - Havre High School