Clear Lake Falconhoops

By Jay Bilas (excerpted from ESPN.com) Feb 2010.

I have been watching more high school and junior high basketball than ever, and I am worried about what I see. The canary in the United States' basketball coal mine has not yet died, but it is starting to teeter on its perch.

No reasonable basketball person can refute the fact that the fundamental skills of American players are slipping, and so is the American game.  I believe a primary reason is an increased emphasis on coaching the game, and a decreased emphasis on teaching our kids how to play the game.

Pete Newell, the legendary coach and teacher, has often said that basketball is “over-coached and under-taught”. He is absolutely right, and that is finally catching up with us, as is the rest of the basketball world.

Generally, “coaching” consists of team preparation, the devising of game plans and schemes to defeat opponents.  When you are coaching, you are dealing with strategies, different offenses and defenses, and putting in plays to take advantage of the skills, strengths and weaknesses of your players.  The measure of a coach is the quality of the development of his system and has been distilled into winning.

“Teaching” consists of instruction and training of individuals in the fundamental skills of the game, and in teaching players how to play, instead of how to run plays.  The measure of a teacher is not in winning, but in the fundamental soundness and skill level of the players taught. A player with excellent fundamentals and skills can play successfully in any system.

Generally, American players are less skilled than their European counterparts. The United States produces the best “athletes” in the game, but not necessarily the best “basketball players”.

Here are the reasons why American coaches, at all levels, have gotten away from teaching, and have gravitated more to coaching. 

Immediate Gratification of Coaches 

Coaches, especially at the grassroots and high school levels, seem more interested than ever in winning rather than developing well-skilled and fundamentally sound players. They are impatient, and too focused on winning games instead of developing players.

It takes time to teach and instill discipline. While it may seem more important to spend the majority of time in practice working on the execution of half court offense, or putting in new set plays, it is far more important to develop the skills of your players. Coaches do not have enough time with their players anymore, which means that floor time cannot be wasted. High school coaches get less floor time than ever to teach, and less and less access to their players.  Players now play an excessive amount of games over the summer in AAU competition, which means that they play many games and have far fewer practices.

While young kids are busy traversing the country to play in AAU competitions, they are spending hour upon hour running up and down the court in a helter-skelter atmosphere where, 95 percent of the time, they do not have the ball in their hands. What this does is cement bad habits -- and habits, good or bad, are what players revert to under stress. If these same players were in focused practice environments instead of in so many games, they would spend the majority of time with the ball in their hands, working on their skills and footwork. 

Increased Specialization 

Basketball in this country has become over-specialized, and players have become “systematized”

Kids are identified by size and body type into positions way too early on in their development and are “coached” differently.  As young kids, players are told, “you are a point guard,” “you are a power forward,” “you are a center”.  Then the guards and big guys are separated, sent to opposite ends of the floor, and coached to work upon different skills that are specific to position. In Europe, players are encouraged to work on the same skills, whether small guard or big forward.

We cannot expect the players to combat this trend.  Players want to play and will do whatever the coaches tell them to do because, ultimately, the players want to play out on the floor, and coaches control playing time.  Doing what the coach tells you to do is a necessary element of gaining playing time at any level.  And we cannot expect players to simply work on individual skills on their own.  We would not expect kids to educate themselves outside of a classroom environment, we certainly cannot expect it in sport.

European programs approach teaching differently.  Players are not limited in how much they can practice, and therefore spend from 60 to 90 minutes in the morning working on footwork, shooting and ball skills.  The same players then practice another 60 to 90 minutes in the afternoon on more team-oriented concepts.  There is no separation of big guys and guards, every player works on the same skills.  As a result, European players are generally more well-rounded and more fundamentally sound.  And they are more coveted by coaches at all levels.

Shoe Companies and AAU Basketball 

Contrary to popular belief, the shoe companies and AAU programs are not full of bad people looking to exploit kids. As in any endeavor, there are good people and bad people in those organizations. However, it is clear that the goals of the shoe companies and AAU programs are at odds with the proper teaching and development of fundamentally sound players.

Whether well intentioned or not, shoe companies are in the business of selling shoes, not growing the game. While the major shoe companies have ”grassroots” programs, they are more interested in growing their influence than in growing the game. The best evidence of that is in the national camps run by Nike and Adidas every summer. These camps are designed to showcase players against the best competition, not improve their skills.  Instead of running stations in the morning or early afternoon, where the players would spend time at each different basket in the gym working on individual skills, they play games all day.

The coaches and scouts evaluating these players would much rather watch the kids in one game per day and get the chance to evaluate skill levels through station work.  And the kids would be better off as well.  But teaching is not the goal.

The same goes for AAU programs.  Far too many AAU coaches are more interested in playing and winning games, rather than teaching young players the skills necessary to be successful players.  While young kids are travelling the country playing games, they are not able to practice or work on their games.  It is really that simple.

For more on who Jay is, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bilas

Thank goodness Galveston will not be in our district next year! Their junior laden team schooled us on both ends of the court.

Action photos of this game will be posted by Thursday evening. To view photos of any game this season, click  Current Season Photos  or click on any imbedded photo other than the team banner photo . 

Season record is now 15-11, 5-6

Jacob Horton  25

Paris Clayton 16

Blake Gregorcyk 15

Rob Lewis 6, 5 steals, 4 assists, 1 CD

Randall 2, 5 rebounds

Brick Pomeroy 5 assists, 5 rebounds