It’s February and the end of the season is in sight. At this point you have probably practiced 50-55 times and played 15-18 regular season games. Practices are getting a little monotonous and players and coaches have been around each other so much you may be wearing on each other. Focus is on the playoffs and end of season tournaments and how best to set your team up to be at their peak for the run to the end of the season. It comes so quickly that we sometimes don’t take time to enjoy the journey.
I think at this point in the season it is beneficial to spend some time during your regular practice time with some fun activities that don’t involve a basketball. I know this may make some old school coaches cringe about not working on shooting or foul shots or defense or the transition game but I believe the time spent pays off big in team building, refreshment of energy, spontaneity of players and just making some great memories. Spend a little time doing something that will have them laughing and having fun and they will respond with more energy when you get back to basketball. Couple of quick ideas are split the teams up and the coaching staff as well and paly a spirited game of dodge ball. We have split the team and coaches up and played a few innings of indoor whiffle ball. There are many fun indoor games that you can play, another good one is blind dodge ball where you have partners with one that can see and one that can’t and the eyes have to direct the non-seeing partner with the ball on where to throw the ball to get someone out. Last pair standing wins.
I know you can come up with lots of your own ideas and maybe you already do something like this. If so please share as we are always looking for a way to bring a segment of laughter to a practice. I believe you and your players will enjoy each other more after these events.