A nice day for some Basketball skills

As Saturday morning started off nice and sunny we made the most of the weather to get outside on the playground for a session dominated by Basketball.
The photos below depict a number of skills practices that the coaches went through with the kids. Starting with basic ball control and dribbling, to working in pairs doing bounce passes.  After that the coaches laid out some cones so the kids could start dribbling around them going up and down the playground. Last of all they added some hoops to the course so that the kids stopped at a cone and then had to throw the ball with the aim that it bounced inside the hoop.

Other skills you can see in the photos show one where they threw the ball in the air and clapped as many times as they could before catching the ball. Another shows passing the ball around your waist. That is often accompanied with passing the ball between the legs but there was not a photo of that.

After a break for drinks the weather was starting to cloud over so we moved back inside and made the most of the basketball nets at either end of the hall by playing some one-on-one games. The coaches select two members to play each other trying to match them appropriately based on age, size and ability. Once selected they start at the end where they will end up trying to score. On the word go they both run to the far end and around a cone. At that end the ball is thrown in to play and it then becomes a matter of who scores first back at the end where they started. This means dribbling the ball and shooting when in possession but defending the net when not.​

After a series of one-on-one games the group split in to two teams for a match to finish. This brought together all the skills they had been practicing throughout the morning in to a fun but competitive match. It also has the added component of team work where working together often brings about a better outcome than trying to work alone.

Join us again next Saturday to see what Alan, Ray and Ollie have in store.