No Magic Formula
Tips for Coaching Basketball
By Coach Jack Jaquet
In my years of coaching high school basketball, I have been lucky enough never to suffer through a losing season – and I like to think that my own efforts helped the players achieve this record.
 No Magic Formula
However, my emphasis is on the word “efforts.” I do not claim to have brilliant basketball coaching ideas that would be a revelation to other basketball coaches. In short, I will not describe or diagram a “magic formula.”
Instead, I would like to offer some basketball coaching advice to young coaches. The following outline is a set of principles that have served me well. In addition, these ideas have been passed on to a good many young coaches who received training from me; they tell me such thinking proved to be a good foundation on which to build.
System of Basketball Play
Do not blindly copy another coach’s basketball system just because he is having a great year or two. Choose a basketball style of play that you yourself know best. It may be a basketball system you were taught as a player or in a college coaching class. Study your basketball coaching system so that you know its limitations as well as its strengths.
NOTE: Watch others. There are no copyrights in basketball; you can take home anything you see – do not overdo it, though. If you really know your own system, you can adapt new ideas to it. Rather than using a mass of new techniques, take only the best.
Naturally, there are formations and patterns that you will be sold on. I’m convinced that the 2-1-2 single post offensive alignment, with only minor variations in positioning the post man, is the one single starting formation I seek from which my teams will attack today’s great variety of defenses.
My personal system for sound balance is to pattern team floor circulation so that some combination of three team members is always concerned with getting offensive board position; one man is in an intermediate position to either supplement an offensive move or to fall back quickly; the fifth man is strictly concerned with providing his front-court teammates assurance that they can always get the ball back out to start over or to become an immediate defensive safety is we lose the ball.
Keep It Simple
Two or three simple continuing patterns are an adequate set offense – if your players fully understand all their options and possibilities. Coaching is teaching. Players are not chessmen a coach can move about. They must know the possibilities of their patterns. They must both know situations and be able to create the situation they want.
NOTE: Use a chalkboard a lot. Have one at the edge of your practice floor. Keep it simple but thorough. Players must act with complete awareness of the thinking underlying their movement. You will use some type of signals and they too should be kept simple. I happen to prefer ball handling signals.
Man-to-man Defense
Teach the fundamentals of man to man defense as far as individual player’s mechanics are concerned. To be an effective performer in any type of defense, your players must have mastered these fundamentals.
 Study virtually every known defense to learn strengths and weaknesses of each. We believe in teaching our varsity practically every defense for use in just one early-season scrimmage session. We do not do this with offenses.
Pick your defenses and teach. We favor multiple defenses as much as we do a single offensive formation. For scrimmage sessions, stick to the half-court with the varsity playing all offense or all defense. Spend as much time on defense as on offense.
Plan Basketball Practices
Plan your basketball practices carefully in advance so as to include everything, especially preseason practices when you are doing your foundation teaching. Have a basketball practice time schedule and follow it religiously. Even if you are not satisfied with performance in a certain part of practice, schedule more work on it another day – stick to the schedule.
NOTE: You should post the detailed schedule, including time allowed for every drill. Include your chalkboard time (remember you do not just teach how, but also why and when).
Some practice pointers include:
Never put tactics ahead of fundamentals. This is partly why we recommend keeping tactics simple -- to teach thoroughly without interfering with constant work on fundamentals.
Do not let any player regard himself as such a specialist that he is excused from mastering every fundamental.
That tall, clumsy kid who rebounds so well can hurt you with a crucial turnover if you let him ignore his dribbling deficiencies.
Make every drill right from your offense and make the players know where and how the moves fit in -- same for defense.
Have every offensive drill include shooting -- regardless of what other fundamental you are emphasizing, such as the pivots, various dribbling moves, and passing. Never allow the shooting to become sloppy or in any way secondary to other parts of the drill.
Personal Ideas
Here is a list of personal ideas that have worked for me through the years.
Strive for mastery of fundamental excellence rather than usual moves and shots. Think in terms of being smarter and sounder rather than cuter. For instance, I preach that there is absolutely no margin for error in passing; a player risking a pass behind his back is done for the night – and at the bottom of the squad in standing.
NOTE: Value possession. Deplore anything contributing to turnovers. My ball handlers never try to beat a well positioned defensive man with the dribble. It is a team game and the most effective teams use the best judgment.
The above is true of shooting as well. Work to create openings and clearance for good shots. Discourage shots forced through a defensive player. Allow no player to pass up good shots. The playground belief that passing off is a mark of cleverness can be overdone.
Young coaches are often carried away with training rules. You are a teacher -- not a police officer. Keep rules few and simple. Make no threats you are not prepared to back – and then apply them with no exceptions or favoritism.
Remember, it is the boys’ team and their game. You and I are employed to help them do their best. Emphasize team membership as being of paramount importance. The word teammate is the most important word in the language. Protect that relationship.
Do not waste time on showmanship. I refer to intricate warm-up drills that are purely for warming up. There is too much basketball to be taught to spend valuable time teaching anything that will not be used in a ball game.
Basketball Conditioning Tip
Why bother with basketball practice drills that are solely for conditioning? If your boys are working hard in drills and scrimmage, conditioning comes automatically.
Never say, “don’t do that again,” without showing or explaining what to do. Many coaches get so involved with negatives that they do virtually nothing positive. Praise good performance just as much as you criticize mistakes.
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Transition Offense