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Ask the Coach Q & A pt. IV

July 20, 2008

Coaching Better Basketball

This question comes from Derek Fulwiler, a friend, former player, coaching peer, and Head Varsity Girls Coach at Ballard High School in Seattle, Washington.

Q: Any Tips on Offensive Rebounding?

A: This is a broad topic, with a broad variety of possible answers. I tried to touch on different perspectives for a well-rounded response. Am I missing anything? Leave a comment at the end of this page if you would like to contribute to the answer. I tried to approach an open-ended topic like this from as many angles - Individual skill work - Individual Drills - Competitive Drills - Team (5 on 5) approaches - mindset - as possible.

  • Individual Skill work every day if only for 5 minutes with your Bigs - Mikan, Tips off the glass, Superman Drill, Pogo.
  • With individual work consider requiring a ‘Second Effort’ play after every shot. All this means is: every time a player makes a basket, she jumps to rebound the ball, lands, and immediately jumps up again and taps the ball against the backboard or foam (depending on ability).
    1. The mentality you’re trying to develop is one of relentlessness and toughness in the basket area.
    2. Second Effort develops fast-twitch muscles, which are critical in rebounding. Dennis Rodman comes to mind. He wasn’t the greatest jumper in the world, but he could jump, land, and jump again faster than anybody I’ve ever seen.
  • In every drill emphasize anticipating rebounding angles and exploding to rebound the ball from a bent-knees position with the hands above the shoulders – even in warm up drills.
  • Emphasize catching the ball high (above the shoulders) on rebounds and keeping it high – On offensive rebounds and paybacks in the basket area, the player should resemble a pogo stick

    • Team Drills

    1. 3 players in the Paint – A lot of team’s call this drill N.B.A. (No Babies Allowed). Jamell Dillon, one of my former players, called it the Animal ThugDrill – so that’s what I’ll always call it because, well, it’s the most appropriate name for a drill that I’ve ever heard. – and definitely the most memorable.

    • players for three teams, spread as evenly as possible by height.
    • Each team forms a line facing the basket on the free throw line – one team forms a line at either elbow, and the other forms a line in between.
    • The first player in each tea’s line steps into the paint. The coach and all 3 players go for the rebound. When a player rebounds she goes straight back up while the other 2 players defend. Again, we are working on exploding to the ball, catching high, and keeping it high and jumping quickly on second efforts.
    • If the ball hits the floor or is caught outside of the key, it must be passed back out to the coach for a shot before anybody can score. Forcing players to play only inside the key forces players to rebound and finish against pressure (and while being fouled). Learning to accept contact and make the play regardless (and learning that you WILL get fouled inside) is a critical skill for post players to develop.
    • Forcing players to pass out to the coach when the ball hits the ground helps eliminate a common habit – and one of my biggest pet peeves– that young players have of dribbling – or sometimes POUNDING – the ball on the floor after getting an offensive rebound – which does nothing but buy the defense time to take away the open shot that would have been there if the dribble had not been used.

    When a player scores, her team gets one point, she leaves the key and goes to the end of her team’s line, and the next player in line steps in.

    Players MUST score a basket to get out of the paint – and YES, the small guards will tell you that you’re being unfair or that you’re asking them to do the impossible – maybe you are, but when that player gets sick of being pushed around and imposes her will on the next play to get the rebound – she will have learned an enormous lesson about toughness.

    2. 5 on 5. When we’re struggling with offensive rebounding, I like to start our controlled scrimmages from a rebounding situation.

    • I simply have the offense set up in the halfcourt offense and assign a defender to each player.
    • I stand with the ball somewhere around the free throw line.
    • Action starts when I shoot the ball and both teams go for the rebound. If the offense gets an offensive rebound, they go for the put back or, if necessary, pass out and run the offense.
    • If the defense gets the rebound, they enter their fast break going the other way while the team that started on offense focuses on transition defense.
    • These are controlled, stop-and-go scrimmages, so I’m stopping the action often (usually after a team scores, but sometimes sooner and sometimes later). If I’m paying specific attention to offensive rebounding, I’m probably going to stop the action more often so that we can reset.
    • Offensive rebounding can be difficult to teach at times because players are expected to get them (offensive boards) at times when there is usually a lot happening at once, and they might be focused on other things like setting or coming off of a screen.
    • As simple as it sounds, starting a scrimmage possession at the place in the action where players need to shift focus to crashing the glass (instead of running the offense) helps players better understand how to make the shift in games.

    The trait that most great offensive rebounding teams share in common is that they tend to be aggressive and mentally tough. As such, Coaches that value offensive rebounding tend to look for ways to structure their practices in a way that develops those qualities (examples: placing an emphasis on conditioning, creating competitive situations as often as possible, running drills like Animal Thug, etc.).

    I also try to keep in mind how easy it can be to forget the role awareness plays in aggressiveness. As coaches, it is important to remember that it is our job to develop that awareness.

    It’s very easy to get into negative thinking patterns along the lines of, “…offensive rebounding is all about desire…they just don’t want it bad enough”.

    There may be a lot of truth to that statement, but coaches should be very careful about letting this type of thinking interfere with good teaching, i.e., “You just don’t want it bad enough, and I can’t make you care”.

    Sometimes I will make statements like this to my teams; but I always stop to make sure that I’m teaching and not griping.

    If I’m teaching my focus is helping the team grow and improve.

    Griping tends to be selfish and derisive.

    Players can tell the difference. And I don’t want them to start thinking that I don’t care enough to continue to teach them the game

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    Written by Coach Stinson · Filed Under Ask The Coach, Coaching Philosophy, Offense Articles, Offense drills, Post Play, Tactics 

    Comments

    2 Responses to “Ask the Coach Q & A pt. IV”

    1. Wim Cluytens on July 21st, 2008 12:31 am

      Offensive players who are constantly moving are difficult to box out.
      Don’t go to the offensive basket always in the same (straight) way.
      Even when boxed out you can ,with fast moves or fakes, come next to or in front of the defender.

    2. Coach Stinson on July 21st, 2008 4:54 pm

      Good Point Coach,

      Another small point that just popped into my head is that, on weakside rebounds, the offensive player can look to pin the defender under the basket - in a way accepting the box out - since long shots usually mean long rebounds, for jumpshots, if the defender boxes out inside the paint, the weakside rebound will usually go over the defenders head

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