Show notes
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Title: Are You Coaching Bad Habits Into Your Youth Players Without Realizing It?
Subtitle: Three things to stop teaching at the youth level, plus the one practice habit that quietly eats half your gym time.
Episode Summary
Coach and Bill flip last episode's list on its head. Instead of the best things you can do with young players, they dig into the worst: the shortcuts that look like coaching, feel productive in the moment, and quietly stall development for years.
They start with zone defense, and they do not sugarcoat it. Yes, there are strategic reasons to sit in a zone against a team that cannot shoot. And yes, there is a time and a place to pull it out of the quiver. But when zone becomes the whole defensive identity of a fourth grade team, it is usually about the coach, not the kids. Man to man teaches footwork, communication, closeouts, help responsibility, and accountability. Zone as a crutch teaches kids to stand and watch.
From there they hit play overload. Blue 64, 38. Six offensive sets. A youth team burning practice minutes memorizing calls they will forget by Saturday. Coach makes the case for teaching reads instead of plays: if the defense does X, here is your counter. Kids pick reads up faster, they transfer to any offense, and they build actual basketball IQ instead of recall.
Then the two coaches split, and both answers are worth writing down. Bill's is early specialization by position. The tallest fourth grader becomes the center, the best handler becomes the point guard, and nobody checks back in three years to see if that still fits. He tells the story of a teammate who was the center in fifth grade, stopped growing, and never played basketball again. Play kids everywhere while the growth curve is still a mystery.
Coach's is standing in lines. This one comes with receipts. He wore tracking tech in his own practices after being challenged on it, fully confident his gym was constantly moving. The data said otherwise: roughly thirty minutes of standing still in a ninety minute practice. Some of that is water breaks and scrimmage rotations, but not all of it. His fix was simple. Fewer players per basket. Two shooters instead of four means more reps, more chasing, more conditioning built in, and no downtime for kids to start poking each other.
The through line for the whole episode is planning. Every one of these mistakes is what happens when a coach walks into the gym without a plan and reaches for whatever is easiest.
Three Things To Avoid
Living in a zone. Use it strategically, in and out, against the right opponent. Do not build your youth defense on it. Teach man to man first because it carries kids through the rest of their careers.
Too many plays. One set offense you actually run well, plus a baseline inbound, maybe a sideline, maybe a press break. That is enough. Teach reads and counters instead of a play call sheet.
Early specialization by position. Height at ten years old predicts almost nothing. Move kids around. Let the tall kid handle it. Let the guard post up. You are developing players, not filling a lineup card.
Bonus: lines are the death of practice. Track it honestly. Break into small groups. Fewer bodies per basket. If kids are standing, they are not developing, and they are usually finding trouble.
Timestamps
00:00 Welcome and TeachHoops shout out
00:47 The secret sauce and the fourteen day free trial
01:02 Coach checks in, end of July, back to work
01:53 What Coaching Youth Hoops practice plans actually include
02:49 Today's topic: three things to avoid teaching
03:19 Number one, only relying on zone defense
03:41 Why coaches lean on zone, and the honest answer
04:23 When zone is a legitimate tool
04:58 Zone requires talking, but do not make it a crutch
05:20 Number two, too many plays
05:53 Blue 64, 38 and wasted practice time
06:33 Teaching reads instead of plays
07:18 What a read actually looks like in the flow of the game
07:52 Where the two coaches disagree
07:54 Bill's pick: don't specialize kids by position
08:19 The fifth grade center who never grew
09:03 The difference between specialization and using a strength
09:29 Coach's pick: don't let kids stand in line
10:09 More baskets, fewer players, more reps
10:39 What happens when kids get bored in line
11:24 The tracking tech experiment and the surprising result
12:02 Thirty minutes of standing still in a ninety minute practice
12:18 Full recap
12:52 Subscribe, review, and wrap
Coach's Challenge This Week
Pick one practice and be honest about it. Count the minutes your kids spend standing still. Not the minutes you think they spend. The real ones. Then cut that number in half at your next practice.
Resources
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Progressive youth practice plans from day one through the end of your season at https://coachingyouthhoops.com/
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