Back for another year of the Talking Split pod, and we are starting on the topic of Coach Wellbeing. We can’t have our coaches not in their best shape to help our players, so the team highlight some areas where we as coaches can be better and focus on to start the year. Are going to do a whole month on Coach Wellbeing this year, so if there are any specific topics you want discussed around that, be sure to send us a message on socials!
It’s our last pod for the year, and to make up for it, we doubled the length to a 2 hour Mailbag extravaganza! All the segments are in play this week, Coach Shoutout, Book Club, Social Sightings, multiple story times, oddly enough no Stoicism, but the answers to a heap of questions that the listeners sent in, including is Die Hard a Christmas movie, favourite BBQ side dishes, and even real basketball questions like Team Balance, Switching off after games, and favourite coaches to watch. Huge thanks to all the listeners over the year, and what better time than now to go through the whole back catalogue of podcast episodes?
When you talk Strength & Conditioning in the Basketball Victoria space, Durham McInnis from Core Advantage springs to mind straight away. We put it out to the listeners last week to come through with any questions and they delivered! We talk about the need for a good hinge, plyometrics, the best warmup in a short amount of time, some myths around strength training and the ice bath and sauna landscape.
We are getting into that time of year again as the competition winds down, and there is some downtime coming up – but only for some! This is also the time of year where players and coaches get to work on various areas of their game, and try to make their good, great and work on some of their weaknesses. We cover off what a workout should look like, content, time, and some things that can make a big impact in the off season.
One of the age old debates in coaching, is do you teach the system first, or the skill set? And even then, do you start with the offence or the defence? How do you become time efficient, over the course of a season with limited practice time? We bounce around a few of these topics throughout the pod this week, in the hope that we make it easier for the coaches, but still remaining fun and enticing for the players.
There was a warning before we started the pod this week that this may not have been a good idea, and what was supposed to be a podcast coaching behaviours, wasn’t. What we are left with though, is an hour of varying thoughts on coaching, winning, development, how the game is played and coached, and nearly any other topic or tangent we ventured down. In theory we will get to the behaviour topic in a few weeks time, just maybe not with this group of coaches involved on the pod…
It’s the time of year where we focus on the other orange circular object and talk about the things that can scare us as players, coaches and spectators. We enlist the help of some of our loyal Talking Split listeners who sent in their ideas for the pod combined with some of our own thoughts on the subject. Reminder that we have our Mailbag podcast coming up soon, so any questions for the team, just send them in!
On the back of sometimes feeling we are an imposter last week, a little bit more self-reflection this week as we look at how coaches can progress with their own coaching. We discuss how it can change over time, some of the more underrated ways to improve, and some things we wish we knew when we first started out coaching. Far less Oasis references, but plenty of “Story time” and “Aurelius” drops in there to keep you occupied all the same!
A topic this week that raises the question for a lot of coaches, am I good enough to do this? Imposter syndrome is something that a lot of coaches go through, trying to work out if they fit, if they’re the right person, or even if they’re doing a good job with the team they’re coaching. We look back through some of the examples we’ve had in our own coaching, but also some tools and strategies that we have used to work through this. Bonus points for every Oasis song reference you can find – this will make more sense as you listen, D’You Know What I Mean?
Busy time of year for everyone in the coaching world (is there ever a time where it isn’t?), with selection trials happening around the state, and new teams being formed. As coaches, we have the difficult task, of knowing what the first things are that we can do with our teams and parents to tip off on the right note. We discuss parent meetings, training content, and getting everyone on the same page. It’s also the podcast debut for Nick Mihai, who’s recently joined Basketball Victoria in a Basketball Development Officer role – doubling the coaching department, to 2 people!
Bit of a different take on things this week, as we go over what players can do at their trials to give themselves the best possible chance of success. We look at some key things they can do before getting there, things players can do on court to contribute to their experience, and how to deal with the outcomes afterwards.
It’s a crazy stressful time of year about to come up, with multiple clubs about to go through selection trials for the coming season and lots of kids wandering around the state with permanent marker on their bodies! With Coops AWOL, Rob & Zoe cover off what coaches need to be aware of, such as what content needs to be in a selection trials, how you would evaluate players in a short period of time, and why it’s important to look after your admin people on the day!
Bit of an extended Book Club this week, as we delve into the 2009 article from Jay Bilas, on Toughness. What it is, who exhibits it the most, how do we coach it, what are some of the things that are considered to be “tough”, and how it may have changed since the article and book first came out. If you’re keen to read the full article, you can find it here: https://www.ncacoach.org/uploads/Glines2.pdf
It’s finals time for a lot of our junior hoopers out there, and as coaches we want to have a couple of tricks up our sleeves to help give them the best chance of getting over the line. We discuss how to prepare for late game, adjustments you might be able to make, and hear from Besty on his trip to China with the Victorian athletes.
Things that are inevitable extend to anytime that Zoe, Coops and Rob are on the pod together, it ends with a 2-part episode. Back again this week to discuss things that seem to happen all the time, like team selection problems, re-penetration after a drive, non purposeful dribble, and putting too much weight in statistics. A reminder again, for any coach shoutouts or any book club recommendations, to send them through and follow along on @talkingsplit Instagram and X!
It doesn’t matter how often you try, sometimes things can’t be avoided. Same in the world of coaching. Timeout management, closeouts, guards dribbling to the sidelines, awful Elvis accents. They are all a part of this weeks pod but stay tuned for Part 2 next week. If you’ve got any we may not have covered (yet), be sure to leave them in the comments!
How incredible to have had so much international level basketball available to us over the past few months! We unpack what our observations have been on the Olympics so far, Coops gives us his thoughts from being Head Coach in Turkey at the World Cup, and of course how it all translates back into what we as coaches do at the grassroots level. This was recorded before the 2 Serbia games so may be a little out dated now - and now that I have access to the stats, Boomers are 65.6% and the Opals are 71.2% from the FT line!
Joined this week by Wayne Holdsworth to talk about SmackTalk, an initiative that started to talk suicide prevention, and make sure that people can have conversations to help save lives. Wayne takes us through how to have the conversation with people, the role that coaches can play with our young players, the need to discuss mental fitness and where to go to find out more information. You can follow along on the SmackTalk website and on Instagram to help Wayne spread the message.
All coaches have opinions (listen back a couple of episodes to hear some), but today we revisit some of the stronger opinions we have and see if we can unpack the other side of the coin with what we believe. In some we come around, and look at a few different ways we could all do things, and in others it’s fair to say we don’t deviate too much!
One of the most frequent areas of frustration for coaches (and usually parents on the sidelines) is the skill of passing. For what is one of the more basic skills in the sport, it causes a mountain of turnovers in every game, and the last thing we need to be doing, is handing fastbreak points to the opposition! This week we discuss what is a good pass, how to increase player vision, and how to inbound the ball whilst under pressure amongst other things, and various tangents.