ROUND TABLE 40 – WHAT IS THE MOST UNDERTAUGHT SKILL IN THE GAME OF BASKETBALL?  SHARE ONE THOUGHT ABOUT HOW COACHES CAN TEACH THAT SKILL BETTER. – EPISODE 622

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Undertaught Skill

Welcome to the 40th edition of the Coach’s Corner Round Table on the Hoop Heads Podcast. Each episode of the Coach’s Corner Round Table will feature our All-Star lineup of guests answering a single basketball question.  A new Coach’s Corner Round Table will drop around the 15th of each month.

April’s Round Table question is:  What is the most undertaught skill in the game of basketball?  Share one thought about how coaches can teach that skill better.

Our Coaching Lineup this month:

Please enjoy this Round Table episode of the Hoop Heads Podcast and once you’re finished listening please give the show a five star rating and review after you subscribe on your favorite podcast app..

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Let’s hear from our coaches about most under taught skills in the game of basketball.

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THANKS COACHES!

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Click here to thank Dominic Amorosa on Twitter!

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Click here to thank Gabe Miller on Twitter!

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TRANSCRIPT FOR ROUND TABLE 40 – WHAT IS THE MOST UNDERTAUGHT SKILL IN THE GAME OF BASKETBALL?  SHARE ONE THOUGHT ABOUT HOW COACHES CAN TEACH THAT SKILL BETTER. – EPISODE 622

[00:00:00] Narrator: The Hoop Heads Podcast is brought to you by Head Start Basketball.

[00:00:21] Mike Klinzing: Hello, and welcome to the 40th edition of the Coach’s Corner Round Table on the Hoop Heads Podcast. Each episode of the Coach’s Corner Round Table, will feature our all-star lineup of guests answering a single basketball question, a new Coach’s Corner Round Table will drop around the 15th of each month

April’s round table question is, What is the most under-taught skill in the game of basketball? Share one thought about how coaches can teach that skill better.

Our coaching lineup this month:

Please enjoy this Round Table episode of the Hoop Heads Podcast and once you’re finished listening please give the show a five star rating and review after you subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

If you’re a basketball coach at any level, please check out our Hoop Heads coaching mentorship program.  You’ll get matched with one of our experienced head coaches and develop a relationship that will take your coaching, your team, your program, and your mindset to another level.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram @hoopheadspod for the latest updates on episodes, guests and events from the Hoop Heads Pod.

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Brad Stamps:  [00:02:38] Hello, this is Brad Stamps, head boys’ basketball coach at Fayetteville High School. And you’re listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast.

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Just use the code HHP15 at checkout to grab your discount and you’ll be [00:03:00] on your way to more efficient game prep and improved communication with your team. Fast Model also has new coaching content every week on their blog, plus play and drill diagrams in its play bank. Check out the links in the show notes for more. Fast Model Sports is the best in basketball.

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Let’s hear from our coaches about the most undertaught skills in the game of basketball.

Dominic Amorosa, Strake Jesuit College Prep in Houston, Texas.

[00:04:38] Dominic Amorosa: This is Dominic Amorosa from Strake Jesuit. One of the most under-taught things in our game is space. With young players. I think you got to use dots on the floor to help them understand as kids get older.

I think you got to use a lot of freeze-stop action. Give them the ball back and then replay to try to help them understand spacing and movement without the ball.

[00:05:04] Mike Klinzing: Erik Buehler, Chatfield Senior High School, Littleton, Colorado.

[00:05:09] Erik Buehler: Hey, what’s going on Hoop Heads? This is Erik Buehler at Chatfield Senior High in Colorado.

And this week we were asked what we thought the most under-taught skill in the game of basketball is and how we think coaches should teach it. I think there, you can go a lot of ways with this one. But I, I would say the one I see the most from youth all the way through high school. And even into college is passing.

I think passing is the most under-taught skill. And I think it has its own challenges because there’s a lot you can do with the basketball to, to improve your skill. But it’s hard to pass yourself and your driveway or in the rec by yourself. We can get lots of shots up. We can do a lot of ball-handling drills, but it’s hard to work on past.

And my suggestion for it is pretty simple. I think kids get good at passing fairly quickly. As long as you spend 2, 3, 5 minutes a day working on a different type of passing, maybe against pressure maybe full court passing, maybe passing on the move, things like that. I think that makes kids a lot better at passing.

Something we do that I know helps us with our passing is we just do a lot of full court, fast breaks. And you can coach while a drill’s going on. Plus kids like getting up and down the court. But when you, when you focus on the passing in those drills, you see some pretty quick improvement and kids start to understand angles and how to read defenses and things like that.

So all that factors into passing that’s all I got this time. I hope everyone out there is doing well. And I’ll talk to you guys next time. Thank you.

[00:06:45] Mike Klinzing: Joe Harris, Lake Chelan High School, Lake Chelan, Washington.

[00:06:52] Joe Harris: Hello Hoop Heads. This is Joe Harris from Lake Chelan High School with today’s round table question.

What’s the most under-taught skill in the game of basketball today. I believe fundamental skills are, are under taught at all youth levels in particular, the skill of past. You can start by teaching your, your teams to value the ball, always in every girl that you do, whether you have a all offensive drill five on all three on oh two on, or whether you add defense to it, you need to begin to teach your players when to pass, where to pass and how to make the easy pass.

You know, in particular beyond time and on target with your passing. Everybody wants to shine, but nobody really wants to pass. And this is an area I guess, where those players can really Polish their game by being a good passer. You know, you can do this and, and in your daily routine, you can you can do it part of your pre-practice, but again, you need to do this daily with your, with your players and, and again, teaching them to value that ball.

You can start with two on I’ll, add some defense to it, and your pre-practice. But when you get into your drills and skills during, during your regular part of your practice, or when you start to scrimmage again, you need to have your players value, making passes that are on time and on target, always hope.

This is something that has helped all of you out and again. Thanks for having me.

[00:08:18] Mike Klinzing: Kyle Koncz, Lake Forest Academy in Chicago, Illinois.

[00:08:24] Kyle Koncz: Kyle Koncz here from Lake Forest Academy, been a little while since I’ve been able to contribute to these posts. But this, this question really struck a chord for me because it’s something that I’ve really focused on over the last two and a half years coming out of COVID and coming out of the, the big pause that we have.

For me, if I were to identify a specific skill that we need to make sure that we are focusing on in terms of our development in ways that we can teach it, that would be decision-making. You know, I think a lot of our skill development here in the states, and I think back in the past 20 years or so has been a lot of one on, oh, a lot of 200, a lot of three on O type of trip.

And I felt that them to that as well, particularly when I was first getting into coaching and trying to get, you know, patterns of motion or simple drills in that our guys can repeat over and over again to increase their skills. And, and I definitely think there is a place for that in skill development.

Particularly when it comes to rapping basic fundamentals over and over. But coming out of COVID you know, in some of the research that I did during, during our pause, when I’m unable to coach just, just teaching decision-making and putting players in positions to make decision making in our workouts, in our practices, not necessarily in five on five settings is something that I put a very big focus on for our plan.

And I’ve definitely seen it paid off at all at all of our levels. So you think about the small side of gains that, that have you know, become more and more viewable out there. Think about just kind of decision-making within our skill work. You know, one-on-ones two on ones, three on ones, a three on threes.

I think that stuff is really important for our players because when it comes down to. Basketball requires an ability to be very sound fundamentally, and you get that through great teaching and repping the basic fundamentals over and over again. But it’s a game that more and more and the way it’s played today is faster, is quicker.

And not only requires a high level of skill, but it requires a high level of. Process and decision-making and the best way to become a really good decision maker is to consistently be put in those situations over and over and over again, right. Just like if you’re going to become a really good shooter, right.

You need to get in the gym and he had to shoot and make hundreds of shots a day. Well, it’s the same thing for decision-making right? If you want to be a good decision maker, you need to be put in those situations over and over and over again. And then gradually the correct decision to make in a specific situation becomes almost uncommon.

And that’s something that I think we could do a better job as coaches to do over the course of our practices over the course of our workouts, over the course of our individual training. And there is more and more information out there on, on ways that you can continue to do that. So I’ve taken that as part of my coaching in the last two and a half years.

And I look to continue to grow that within vice. So that I can provide our players the opportunity to continue to become better at this better. Decision-makers on the court,

[00:11:32] Mike Klinzing: Peter Lonergan, Director of High Performance Coach Development for Basketball Australia.

[00:11:39] Peter Lonergan: Hi, this is Peter Lonergan for Basketball Australia. The skills that I think are really under-taught and undervalued, even in our gamer, that of passing. The ability of plants to create a POS, to throw to the advantage of a team mind to construct the next PLI by your pass, passing angles, feeding the Post’s pick and roll passing, hitting, hitting colors, hitting shooters.

I think they’re all skills. We talk about and we espouse, but we don’t actually teach and define as well. LinkedIn that is catching. Can you catch it claim? We know that fumbles kill spice in offense. Can we catch it loaded? Are we ready to go? Are we ready to make the next play? I’ll be shot. Ready? I would drive ready with our clean hands.

For me improving that area is gonna improve offensively.

[00:12:33] Mike Klinzing: Harri Mannonen, Coach and Author from Finland

[00:12:39] Harri Mannonen: The most time that those skill in basketball players, ability to function optimal. Is it deep? I mean, we identify dude in Duetto, technical skills, that physical capabilities and see if they ever reported the sites, but they have. Those individual capabilities are only important as means to improve the probability that their themes should win.

The game is played primarily by teams and all the second developed by individuals, the functioning of all the major center of that’s, what we should be teaching, how to function as a collective in order to beat another collective.

[00:13:18] Mike Klinzing: Gabe Miller from Loras College.

[00:13:22] Gabe Miller: I think one of the most under-taught skills in college basketball or any level is just teaching different one and two footed finishes around the rim for guards and post one thing that we’ve utilized for practices. To practice five or 10 minutes early. And instead of just throwing up shots or messing around a little bit, we have them do a pre-practice routine where they’re doing different inside, outside pivots off one, two foot different Euro step finishes.

This is for bigs and guards. We’ll also do. Post breakdown drills within this segment that are different finishes around the rim for the post you know, up and unders or reverse layups, reverse Mike and whatever it is just to get the reps and to build that habit so that when we’re telling them, Hey, finish at the rim off two feet, they have different things in their bag of tricks that they can go

[00:14:19] Mike Klinzing: Matthew Raidbard, Author of Lead like a Pro.

[00:14:26] Matthew Raidbard: Hey, Hoop Heads fans! This is coach Matt Raidbard back for another edition of the hoops heads round table. Glad to be here with you this month, talking about what is the most under-taught skill in basketball today? I thought long and hard about this one. Several skills came to my. But ultimately I settled on passing as the most under-taught scale.

You know, passing is so important to him and basketball is such a beautiful game. You know, when you pause whipping around the courts, everybody’s touch it. It’s moving, getting the defense in a scramble. It’s just such a joy to watch, but more than that, passing teaches you. Sharing collaboration, teamwork.

You know, it also is really important to teach passing because you know, where you put the ball for your teammates, you put it right in the shooting pocket, you know, do you, you know, use a bounce pass to get your post guided ball on a roll? Do you throw it up high at the rim for him or her? You know, that highlights your teammates.

Strengths puts them in a position to succeed. It’s also a form of leadership, you know, passing the ball, getting, getting your teammates, the ball. If one of your teammates is really confident or, you know, has a hot hand or hitting them, you know, that shot in the corner that they really love. You know, that’s really, those are really important and valuable leadership skills as well that your teammates can take on through passing.

So I definitely think that’s the most under-taught skill. And it’s really about teaching the basics, going back to, you know, flicking those risks, getting those thumbs pointing down. You know, getting real low on that bounce pocket, pass the overhead, throw ahead to, to put pressure on the defense and potentially fast break, you know, all those different types of passes.

I think it’s important for coaches to teach and for their athletes and their players to learn for all those reasons. I hope everybody listening will consider throwing in a few extra passing drills and really emphasizing passing with their team so that it’s no longer an under-taught skill. And we can get back to a passing being, what are the strengths of a lot of our players. All right, everyone

[00:16:25] Mike Klinzing: Nate Sanderson, Thrive on Challenge.

[00:16:31] Nate Sanderson: What’s up everybody. This is Nate Sanderson from Thrive on Challenge and head girls basketball coach at Mount Vernon High School in Iowa. And Mike, when he asked that question of what are some of the most under-taught skills in the game of basketball? No, it’s difficult to answer without being in a lot of practices other than my own, but I can tell you the area that we were really trying to grow in this year, and that is trying to teach decision-making, but not simply putting kids in a place where they have to repeat decisions in drills or games or in practices, but really trying to tease apart the difference between perception.

In other words, not having enough information from the environment to make a good decision. And let me kind of illustrate what I mean by. The analogy that I use with our players and coaches is that if I were to pull up to a stop sign and try to cross a busy highway where the cross traffic is, is not stopping now, I could very easily get myself into trouble.

If number one, I don’t know where to look, to see where the cars are coming from. So I might not have the information that there’s a car coming from the north at 55 miles an hour. And I don’t see it cause I didn’t look without that information. Assuming that car wasn’t there, I might make a good decision to cross the interstate and get myself in.

Now you also might think, well, I saw the car, but I didn’t really judge the speed correctly. So that then becomes a decision problem. There’s a difference there between perceiving. And then deciding do I have time to get across before it’s going to reach me? And I think that’s a pretty good analogy from when we think about for us, the turnovers that we commit a lot in games as we went back through our turnovers this year, and we did this during the season, as well as kind of in our season review, we started categorizing our turnovers in three ways.

One, is it a physical skill deficiency that we. In other words, do we not know how to physically make the correct pass in a certain situation? I’ll give you an example. We had a game this past December where we turn the ball over seven times trying to feed the high or the low. Well, when we went back and watched the film, we looked at the way that we were trying to feed the posts and we’re trying to throw it over the top and we’re not using bounce passes and we’re not using fakes.

And that was a real technique issue for us. And so we went back and we worked on the physical fundamentals of how to throw those entry passes, but there are other times where we make decisions. Or we make turnovers where the decision is poor. The physical execution of the skill is all right. And to give you an example of that, oftentimes in our press break, one of the things that we struggled with was when do we throw it to the middle of the floor and when are we better off reversing it in the back court?

And that’s an issue again, that’s an important decision. But what we started to tease out is there are times when we would throw it to the middle. And it was very clear that our passer didn’t see where the defense was rotating from. That’s something that we didn’t teach. It. It’s not something that we talked about in practice when we go through our walkthroughs and we realized that that’s, that’s something that lacked that we needed to give more time and attention to in our film or in our preparation.

And so teaching kids where to look. To find the information in the environment that they can then process to make the best decision with key for us. Now, there are also times where a player would see, or we would ask them in a practice, you know, what do you see there? What decision did you make? And again, we’re evaluating their ability to scan the invoice.

And then the ability to make the right decision. And I know those things may sound like they’re, they’re wrapped up into one, but for us, I think it’s been a new perception, a new way to think about perception in terms of separating it just from the decision. And are there areas where the skill of scanning the inviting.

Is something that’s lacking in our players and how can we help to teach them in different situations through film, through walkthrough, through stopping live, play, and asking good questions in our practice to help us with our perception. And decision-making

[00:20:33] Narrator: Don Showalter, USA basketball.

[00:20:39] Don Showalter: Hi, Don Showalter here from USA basketball. And the question is what is the most under-taught skill? In the game of basketball. I think the most under-taught skill is a footwork and balance. As I travel around the country and watch various practices from the youth level high school and college level I think that there’s not much done as far as teaching great footwork jump stops, pivots.

That’s kind of just assume that players can do that. So I think. The first really under-taught skill. I think another under-taught skill is screening. I see very little coaches very few coaches teaching the art of screening and how to read screens. And then using those screens the best way POS.

So footwork balance. And then I would say screening would be the two that I think are the most under-taught skills. And really when you think about it, they are one of the two, the skills that are certainly really important in the game of basketball.

[00:21:44] Mike Klinzing: John Shulman, University of Alabama, Huntsville, and the 720 sports group.

[00:21:50] John Shulman: This is John Shulman, Head Basketball Coach at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. And the question is what do I think the most under-taught skill in basketball and how can you develop that skill? Gosh, Amani, what level are we talking about? In order to shoot the ball, I think it’s an under-taught skill with good form.

Passing is definitely a forgotten skill and delivering it to you on the money. I don’t like handling the ball is not because that’s all kids want to do is put the ball on the floor and with ADA combo moves. So I don’t think that’s it. What we believe here when we get our kids here at UAH. And I don’t even know if these are skills, but this is what I’m going to talk about.

What we do. And we, you know, I, I was never, never the coach to do with it, with deal with this when I was at any other place, but here, but we really, really, really play off. And I’ve got an assistant coach, Anthony Camaro who believes in it, and we do it every single day. And we don’t allow guys to go off one foot or, you know, the only way we do it, if you have an uncontested lay up and you can go score without any confrontation.

Then we’ll play off one foot. Other than that, we play off two feet and Villanova’s made it very popular to do that after watching the NCAA tournament again. And I don’t think they have the most talent in NCAA, but for whatever reason, they’re always poking around at that national championship. The final four and.

At tournament time because they play off two feet. I think it’s a very, under-taught underdeveloped skill that kids have to understand. You play off two feet. You play for others. You’d play for yourself, but you know, reserves what we say. It reserves the right. It reserves your right to change your mind.

Have you drive that daggum ball, new pal, two feet. You can always change your mind. And if you play off one, you are stuck. So that would be probably mine is playing off of two feet. We drill it. We work on it. Every one of our shooting drills is playing off at two feet. And if you don’t, we have a heavy ball in a corner and you can run with that heavy ball.

Above your hand for a down and back, you know, it’s just a reminder, you know, I think he had probably going to have to do 21 straight days of anything to make it a habit, but that’s a hard habit because kids do not want to play off of two feet. I will say this and at our place boxing out is very important.

We think that that’s a skill and we work on a tool and two weeks Sidebox out jail every single day. And that is a shot goes up. We’re looking, we have to find our man to forge that process. We have to find them, we have to stop their momentum or Chuck them. We have to box and we go get the ball. But that is a four-step process that we do every single day in boxing.

We also jumped to the ball defensively every single day. We think that’s a skill jumping to the ball to shrink the court in the already hurry up and get in your gap. But probably the least taught skill and the least skill of anybody has anymore is just competing. And we think that’s a skill. Just competing, wanting to win, making every drill, competitive, making every foul and five competitive making every one or one or two on to competitive making, shooting, competitive, having something on the line, because back in the day, everybody used to be competitive, but now it is a scale hope.

This helps hope everybody’s all well, and hope you have a great spring in summer and good luck to.

[00:25:45] Mike Klinzing: Joe Stasyszyn, Unleashed Potential Carlisle, Pennsylvania

[00:25:52] Joe Stasyszyn: Joe Stasyszyn, Unleashed Potential.  This month’s question is what is the most under-taught skill and a game of basketball today, and list one thing that you can share to help improve that skill.

The one skill that I feel is the most under-taught one in a game basketball today is learning to play off of too. We train kids at unleash potential and professionals college, high school, any level. And one thing that we have found is most players today do not know how to play off of two sheets. That is a skill that is very, very important in a game of basketball today.

If you watch Villanova play, or if you’ve ever been any other practices, they spend a great amount of time and they do a fabulous job of teaching players to play off of two. They literally drill this day in and day out. And that’s one thing that we have done at on these potential is to really spend a lot of quality time on learning how to play off of two feet.

There’s a couple of reasons for this. I do some work with Canada basketball in terms of speaking where they’re super clinics up in Canada and have had an opportunity. To to work with coaches from Canada and that also speak at the same clinics I do. And one of the things I’d like to point out is there’s some analytics that they had done that show that they have a 10% greater chance of making a basket at the rim when playing off of two feet than playing off of one, one.

And it it’s really, it’s really a striking statistic that playing off a two will allow you to raise your shooting percentage by 10%. At the rim versus playing off of one. And what we tell players all the time is you know, very seldom in a game. Are you going to get a right handed off the right side, a lay-up line layup or left-hand off the left side lamp line layup during the game.

It’s just not realistic. So what we try to do is we try to teach players how to land onto. And, and, and be able to step through and play off of two feet. Be able to pivot after jump, stopping on two feet, being able to power the basketball up, I just think, and be able to use their body also when doing that and be able to absorb contact.

And with that with playing off, the two feet gives you better. In terms of finishing your shot, then going in off of one foot and getting knocked off, off the line at the basket. So there are a couple reasons why we do this. And like I said what we practice at with unleashed in our players is we take them through a series of drills where they must come into the basket area and play off of two feet, either power in the leg.

Powering the layup through four finish for landing onto or landing on two as the help site comes over and step through and going up and finish being able to pivot and reverse pivot off of two and come back. So there are many, many options that we work on at the basket with players, teaching them how to play off of too, because that’s.

When he get to the higher levels, especially if they want to go on to play college basketball. And also it’s going to increase, like I said, through the analytics, I have learned that there’s at least a 10% increase in shooting percentage at the rim by playing off of two versus playing off of one. So that’s just a skill that I feel like everywhere I’ve been and everything I’ve done, you don’t see a whole lot of teaching being done on that skill.

And I feel it’s a very, very important skill. For players at any level of basketball to increase your level of play. Thank you,

[00:29:29] Mike Klinzing: John Willkom, Author of Walk on Warrior

[00:29:34] John Willkom: Hey everybody. This is John Willkom, Author of Walk on Warrior, Hoop Heads contributor, super excited to be with you today to talk about the one skill that I believe is under-taught.

The thing that I want to say is just coming off amazing national championship game. And watching the teams that made it to the end today’s day and age. There’s so much time spent in individual skill development. And you know, whether players are working on it on their own or, you know, with a trainer and then obviously all the AAU basketball in the summer.

So focused on individual isolation, basketball, which is essentially what the MBA is. But to me, the most under-taught skill, when you watch a team like Kansas, The bomb moves. There is a as maybe a, you could count on a handful of isolated. Plays in that national championship game, but actually understanding how an offense and defense should flow.

What ideal spacing looks like getting the ball into the posts, you know, once a possession making sure you’re passing the ball to guys in positions where they can, you know, make a make-able shot. I think that to me is the most under-taught skill and having coached a lot of teams and run thousands of practices at both as a player and a coach.

I’d say there’s so much time spent some times. On, you know, the pace and a speed of practice and going from drill to drill. And it’s intense, it’s loud. Communication is good which are all really good things. But in terms of actual teaching, you know, how many times do you slow down and you look at where guys are on the floor and you look at their skillsets and does everybody actually understand that for our team to play its best baskets?

You know, this is how it has to go. I just, I think that’s a, that’s a super underutilized part of the game. It’s something that I would really lean on in terms of something that could be taught more.

[00:31:29] Mike Klinzing: Mike Klinzing: Thanks for checking out this month’s Hoop Heads Podcast Round Table. We’ll be back next month with another question for our all-star lineup of coaches.

Narrator: [00:31:40] Thanks for listening to the Hoop Heads Podcast presented by Head Start Basketball.

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