JUNIOR VARSITY GIRLS BASKETBALL
August – November, 2011
JV Basketball Season was AWESOME! First of all everyone was expected to be at each practice three times per week, and every game during the season unless we notified Coach Desroche in advance of our absence. As our coach, Mr. Desroche stressed that we had to learn the basic skills of the game that would help us become better players both offensively and defensively. The following skills were those that we worked on regularly and I showed a marked improvement in these areas.
Ball-handling skills: This included many different drills that involved dribbling the ball as well as others that involved handling the ball without bouncing it. I learned to dribble the ball while keeping my head up instead of watching the ball all the time.
Shooting: this was an area that needed the most work from the beginning and so every practice we shot free throws and/or shots around the key. By the end of the season, we had improved in our shooting, given that we focused on the proper technique of positioning our feet and placing our hands on the ball properly. Offensive Strategy: we learned 4 or 5 sets of offensive plays, which we would run against the opposing team’s defense. Each one of us had to learn our position in these offenses and our responsibility for the whole team offense to work well. I learned about what it meant to “pick and roll,” i.e., setting a pick on a teammate’s defender to get that teammate open and then rolling towards the ball so that after setting the pick she would be in a position to score as well. We also learned 4 set plays for getting the ball in bounds under pressure.
Defensive Positioning: This year our team focused on learning the proper positions in a man-to-man defence. We were all-responsible to defend our own player and to learn the proper defensive position when our player had the ball, was one pass away from the ball or was more than one pass away from the ball. I learned the proper way to block my player from the basket in order to get a rebound. I also played a full-court, man-to-man pressure defense, which was the key to our success this season.
Rules of the Game: my knowledge of the game improved this year as well as my knowledge about what were violations of the rules. For example, I learned about not going over the foul line after a foul shot until the ball had touched the rim; I learned more about the 3 seconds in the key rule; and I learned about what kind of body contact was and was not allowed as well as other rules.
Teamwork/Team Spirit: The biggest interpersonal skill that we as a team developed was learning to work together as a team and to accept each other as teammates. Although there were a couple of friend sets already established, it was encouraging to see how each of us got along well with every other player and we learned to bond together. We seemed to thoroughly enjoy being together for practices and games.
