DWNT 2012 Day 5

Where does the time go. Seems like yesterday I was recruiting in Waterloo getting ready for this camp. Here I am a week later and day 5 is complete.

We started with our early breakfast and then a 9AM practice. It was our only practice today as we gave them the 2nd one off. They, and we, needed the mental break.
Practice was pretty good today with good intensity. We still need to increase our defensive awareness and our pressure on the basketball but it hasn't been the main focus so that will come....hopefully. The biggest focus has been the new offense we are installing. Not only is it new to the players but it is brand new to me. Teaching new offense was a bit scary at first but it is all about playing smart basketball and this offense really helps simplify things for the players. I like the concepts we are teaching just wish we had a lot more time to teach it.
The girls competed quite hard though and I was pleased with the efforts. Our offense looked 1000 times better than yesterday morning so that was pleasing. We turned the ball over WAY TOO MUCH though. Gotta rectify that quickly.

After practice we headed over to lunch and had a great discussion regarding warming up to play basketball. The physiologists have some very interesting ideas that could help the warmup.

Once we returned from practice I wanted to have a meeting with the coaches to get some things worked out for the next "mini phase" of camp. We had a good meeting and Mike joined us with some feedback. These meetings sometimes go longer than we want but I get more out of them than going to a coaching clinic. They are very good and I enjoy them. We broke after about an hour and with the night off I knew what I needed to do....LAUNDRY. Definitely needed laundry done. I took my stuff with me and did some planning while the laundry did its' thing. I came back upstairs and nobody was here. It was a little after 5 and I thought we were heading off campus for supper. Turns out they all went to supper so I waited until they came back and Mike and I jumped in the van and headed to Jack Astor's. Great to get off campus and it was a fantastic burger that I had. Good food and great scenery...I mean waitresses :)

We came back and I tool some "me" time. About an hour of just picking away at a few things. It is amazing how much brain time and space a camp occupies. It is a lot of mental stress so the "step back" for an hour was good. After this, we had to get together for one final meeting for about an hour. We had to put some things together for our player meetings and of course we got off topic a bit and chatted about coaching but it was all good.

Back to my room around 11 to finish up practice # 1 for tomorrow and upload the video footage from practice. I assigned each player a "lunch mate" today. They had to sit with each other and discuss their families, interests and any other unique facts. They report this tomorrow before practice. It should be fun.

So the Europe trip is creeping closer. We need to get a lot done before then but for now I must rest.

If you hear about a tussle at the Judique Fire Hall, don't worry it's probably just Archie Neil, Terrence and their trouble making friend Molly McLaughlin. Stay away from them , they are TROUBLE.

Until tomorrow....