One from out of the notebook; notes I made during the event that were never meant for a blog more for my own reference point. Peeling through the pages this is why I fired my blogging back up to create a place I could keep/share these items with everyone I know.
Held at the State Basketball Center, the invitational tournament allows selected under-14 and under-15 teams from across Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, ACT and Western Australia to prepare as elite athletes and participate in high-caliber competition.
Victoria Metropolitan had three sides per age group featuring at the Challenge, these elite players from the Showcase represented Vic Metro Orange as bottom age players and received an additional boost to their development efforts throughout the weekend-long tournament.
I had the opportunity to work with Head Coach Scott Christiansen, a Vic Metro coaching leader with multiple National Championships. An experience that not only opened my eyes to how the State Program has changed but also the full scale of State Wide player evaluation along with coach evaluation is happening on a weekly basis.
The 3 Day event in January (2020) not only opened up a chance to chat with a range of high profile coaches in the junior ranks, the conversations were great and the observation of not just the Victorian Teams but also what the other States had in the way play calling and style was interesting.
Team Victoria - Navy U15 Boys
Offensively: With the best young talent in the state we could of ran anything, but Coach had us in a 4 out set, space and play with a real focus on ''pin downs'' and ''middle on ball screen''
Defense: The required intensity was up a notch and the demand on players from the HC was great to see, an error (missed switch, missed help rotation) resulted in a sub. The focus was full court coverage at all times, and while the group had only 1 training session before the event, the focus was coaching the effort. My biggest take away was the 3 word mantra.
- Contain - your man
- Contest - every shot, every loose ball
- Compete - for the rebound
I felt this mantra spoke to the players, was easy to understand and breakdown. Post game we would ask the question of each word and what the score out of 10 was for that game, I felt over the weekend this stuck with the players most and its translation at any level of play could be used.
Sideline Observations:
The State Programs had agreed to make this event Man to Man; but there are many ways to play Man to Man.
- Man to Man was a big feature including, switching everything (SA & Vic Country Programs)
- 1-2-1-1 was seen in the girls side
- Packline was used heavily by WA Metro sides and ACT, when done well this had the look of a zone defense.
Offensively:
On my Instagram account I broke down some diagrams of ACT & WA Metro.
Across the tournament the majority of teams played a 4 out style set, with exception of SA Metro most played a high post or elbow set and looked to create driving and kick opportunities.
ACT - used a variety of DHO & Hawk Cut options off the high post.
WA Metro - with size and aggressive drivers int he line-up used Triangle entry options to create overloads.
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