GAtwood
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Re:I coach girls - 2008/01/17 08:14
So I guess your answer for having observed female post players 13 and under with a good post up game is the same as mine- 1. I've seen one also, and I said as much in this thread. Have I seen and coached young female post players who work hard, and get touches, and later in HS developed into strong post players? Absolutely, but that's a far different thing from seeing a 10, or 11, or 12 year old with a polished low post game.
And in my opinion, it's much more complicated than guards getting more time with the ball. How about motor coordination factors between very tall kids and kids of average height. How about the fact that in youth ball, the kid who dribbles best -regardless of height- is told to handle the ball. The tall akward kid with hands that don't catch as well and slower feet is placed in the post because that's the only position they have any chance to succeed, at least until they develop better coordination and skills. Generally speaking, they start off less athletic. For christ sake, with girls you usually have to teach the post players to jump!
I think it's more difficult to learn to play in the post because it's more difficult to play the post well. What is more difficult- a youth league guard bringing up the ball with her right hand in a no press league and making an entry pass to a wing who is most likely not being denied, or a youth league post player trying to seal a defender & catch a lob or bounce pass while being pushed in the back, then figuring out what she's going to do with the ball in less than 2 seconds while 2 or maybe 3 defenders swarm to the ball? Add in a press, and the guard still has it easyer if she can dribble with both hands. Also youth league post players get no respect from refs. I see them get hammered again and again, and it's as if becasue they are bigger and taller the ref just ignores the beating they take.
ANd I'm confused too, because I thought you were coaching a girls team in SD County right now.
I don't know where you're getting the, "If you don't think girls can play in the post, why do you want to get the ball there,..." and "If players are never taught how to play in the post, never trained properly and never get the ball, how can they expect to excel and how do you know if they can play or not?" I hope not from being confused by what I wrote. You have to keep pounding the ball into the post again and again, even though by far the majority ot their points will come from rebounding their own misses and put-backs. Because if you don't keep giving them the chance they will never learn. They have to get touches. That's why you have the guards & wings keep feeding them the ball. If you do that, by HS the guards and wings will have learned to consistently make that post entry pass, and all the work teaching post moves to post players in youth ball will pay off. You know that, I know that, where we seem to be amiss here is in the realization that we are actually on the samre page here Brian.
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coachmccormick
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Re:I coach girls - 2008/01/17 16:18
Most people blame the slow development of taller players or post players on their height and higher center of gravity and I think that is a cop-out and an excuse. I have seen plenty of coordinated tall girls: I saw Vikki Baugh (Tennessee) as a 9th grader and she was phenomenally athletic and coordinated; I saw Jessica Bradley (Baylor) as a 6'1 8th grader who could touch the rim; there was another girl named Lauren Jackson who was about 6'0 in 9th grade.
These girls are there. The problem, as I see it, is that none of these girls developed a post game. It's not because they were too uncoordinated or because they had a high center of gravity. It was because they never played inside; the other reasons I'll leave to the imagination.
As for other players, within the Hoop Masters AAU program when I was there, the 12's had three solid post players (Kim, Erin and Marina), the 11's had a really, really good post player (Keneisha I think) and the 10's had two. The 10's played against a girl named Kalana who was a great post player. I watched her again when she was an 8th grader and she had great moves, knew how to seal and dominated many high school girls at the Snow Valley Camp. If I thought hard, I could probably think of more, but I do not watch that much hs girl's basketball and people think of me as a guard coach, so I train mostly guards, and when I get a kid who says he or she is a post, if his or her goal is to play in Division I, and that is realistic, if he or she does not have the size, I train them to play a guard spot. I worked with a girl named Danielle who is a great post player, but we worked on her perimeter game as she has DI aspirations, but probably won't get past 6'0.
I watched her HS team play when she was a freshman. The problem was that she was the only kid who could make a pass into the post. She did a great job sealing, but her teammates never looked inside. Heck, I watch a good college team play and their guards don't look inside and their coach doesn't trust the post players even though knowledgeable fans in the stands keep asking me why they never pass the ball inside. Now, the posts are not great - good, not great - but that is partially due to playing the last three years without ever touching the ball.
So, I have seen more than one good junior high post player. I think it is too simplistic to say it is hard or that kids center of gravity is too high. Are some kids who are growing fast awkward? Yes. But, just because it happens does mean we need to write off every tall kid? Sure, most post players get most of their baskets off offensive rebounds. But, many guards get most of their points off lay-ups.
The problems, as I see it, is that most coaches were guards, so they don't know how to coach post players. Most kids want to be guards because they get the ball all the time. Most parents want their kids to be guards because they get the ball the time. Kids worried about playing college ball want to be guards because they worry they will not be tall enough to play post past high school. When players do train to be post players, they often work on 37 different moves individually. Nobody needs 37 moves. When they get in a game, they think too much and cannot react to a defensive player because they never get the reps (one of the best posts I have watched at any level was a JC girl that my girlfriend coached and she had one move, but she made it aggressively every time nd nobody could stop her). They don't play 1v1 or 2v2 in the post and they don't see the ball on the block when they scrimmage, so they are inadequately prepared when the game starts. Couple that with guards who cannot make a post entry pass and players who fear making a mistake while making a post entry pass because their coach will yank them out of the game, and developing post players is a difficult endeavor. But, there's no real reason why it should be difficult, just a bunch of excuses.
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coachvargas
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Re:I coach girls - 2008/01/20 16:23
Random thoughts..
I've seen plenty of good post play from girls under 13. Honestly, I think it depends on who's coaching them, and what they're (the players) doing with their off-season time.
The coach has to know how to coach post moves, has to be able to teach move/counter to these kids, and has to take the time out of their limited practice schedule to make it happen. Beyond the ABC's of the drop step, baby hook, up and under, etc., coaches must also know how to teach players to seal properly (including proper use of pivots and reverse pivots, where to call for the ball (provide target), and impress on the players taht the best time to score is when you catch the ball, not after you've held it in the post for a few seconds and allowed the defense to collapse.
Additionally, a coach must know how properly incude a defensive player in training.
I also think there tends to be less room for error with post players. While the guards may turn the ball over, take bad shots, etc. many times throughout the game, forwards have to make the most of their few touches or risk not getting the ball in the post anymore.
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coachmccormick
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Re:I coach girls - 2008/01/20 19:15
It's funny, I watch a college team and the Head Coach blames every mistake on the post players. The guard leads a post player right into a double team and he coach blames the post player for not catching the pass. The post starts her move and a guard cuts right into her move, bringing another defender, and the coach takes out the post player because of the turnover. The guard gets beat down the middle of the lane, the post stops the ball, but her player gets an offensive rebound, and the coach blames the post player for giving up an offensive rebound. The post creates a great seal in the key and the guard does not pass her the ball because she has her head down dribbling, and the coach says nothing.
I really think most coaches are unable to teach post play and its elements and lack patience with post players because of their unfamiliarity with the position.
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coachvargas
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Re:I coach girls - 2008/01/21 20:45
Definitely agree here...especially since i was one of these coaches. I was always effective working with guards, particularly undersized shooting guards (since I was one), but it wasn't until I was coaching for about 5 years that I really was ready to admit that I was ineffective in teaching the post.
I spent a few years working to fix that, and now I'd say I may actually be better developing posts.
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GAtwood
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Re:I coach girls - 2008/01/22 19:17
Good information, now were getting some where, thanks Coaches
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