Athlete Daughter

How old is she?

Is there a summer basketball camp she can attend?

What about CYO or AAU? Does she have those options available to play when school isn't in season? Practice is the best way to keep getting better.

My sister was on the varsity basketball team since she was in 8th grade, and was the captain of her college basketball team (Division 3). I don't think she ever did any except play a whole lot of basketball all the time.

What I am about to say does not mean what I think of her. I was a competitive soccer coach for several years and the attributes I and my fellow coaches valued most was hard work ethic, great attitude towards the teammates, athletic ability of any kind, and dedication to playing. If a player had those, I could train and coach her to being a started/majority of the time player from being an occasional player.
Some female athletes at that age when puberty starts, the athletic ability changes...not always for the better. The ability may return...sometimes it doesn't. I wish you and her the best of luck on the journey to get better!!

I don't know where you are and how competitive the basketball team is that your daughter is trying out for, but I would say that "practice, practice, practice" is good advice only if she knows what and how to practice. There was a kid in my son's class who spend the whole summer before their freshman year at the park working on his game, but he didn't really know what he was doing, so it didn't help him much. I'd invite him to jump in when my son was doing drills, but he was shy and usually didn't, and he didn't make their school team.

A couple of thoughts

1. Conditioning will help. Some tryouts make kids sprint and do suicides before any skill stuff because they want to see who will be able to play in the second half. Conditioning is simple and can be combined with skill exercises, but it's hard for kids to make themselves do. I don't know how fit your daughter is -- if she's really out of shape, then C25K might be a good place to start. Assuming she's in decent shape, she can do suicides, suicides dribbling (doing retreat dribbling instead of turning around when coming back to the baseline). Another: work up to 20 full court, full speed layups alternating hands for dribbling and shooting (i.e. when going one way, left hand dribble and left hand layup, when going the other way, right hand).
2. At that age, she should make layups consistently. Missed layups at tryouts are an easy cut as a coach. Make sure she can hit 20 in a row with correct footwork with both hands. If not, google correct layup footwork and have her practice it in slow motion over and over.
3. Get some dribble googles (like $6.99 on Amazon) and do full court ball handling sequences like in and out, crossover, through the legs. Alternate hands. Do 4 lengths of the court, then switch to a different sequence (e.g. crossover, through the legs, behind the back). Make sure she can do behind the back wraps running full speed with both hands - anybody can learn it and it's super useful.
4. Work on pounding the ball. Work up to a sequence like the following:
Two balls:
- pound 50x with balls hitting the ground at the same time
- pound 50x alternating
- pound 50x in and out
- pound 50x forward and back on the side of her body (walk the dog)
One ball:
- 50x hard back and forth behind the back
- 50X hard through the legs left leg forward
- 50X hard through the legs right leg forward
Really work on pounding the ball. Arms should be burning at the end.
5. Google the Swish method of shooting and follow it. Simple and effective way to learn to shoot.
6. When practicing shooting, she should make at least 75% of the shots she takes. Most kids don't and it's why they don't get better as shooters. There's a great shooting warmup taught by one of the best women's NCAA shooting coaches ever that goes like this: Make 18 of 20 shots from 2 feet out. Take 1 step back and make 10 in 12 attempts. Take a step back and make 8 in 10 attempts. Take a step back and make 6 in 10 attempts. Make 6 in 10 freethrow attempts. Step back and make 6 in 10. Make 4 in 10 from 3. If at any point, you fail to make the target number in the given number of attempts, then step back to previous position and repeat. If you fail at the same spot twice, the last spot that you made the target from is your range for the day -- you are not allowed to shoot any shots from further out. This transformed my kid's shooting.
7. Don't have her play a lot with random kids. That's a good way to learn terrible habits. If she can find kids who play seriously and are a lot better and/or older than her it will help her a lot.

saresimsr36 wrote: »

She is 13, she just got passed up because of a new student who was on her former team. Yes there are, but we cant afford the camps. I bought a few basketballs and intend to help her practice since I too am on a weightloss journey. She has been on the team every year for 3 years until the new student took her place on the team. Over summer she wants to get good enough to be impossible to pass up. I used to play in school too, but that was a long time ago. Lol

I think your heart is in the right place, but your daughter might be better served by a more organized program.

If there is a YMCA near you it might have a summer basketball program with scholarships. All the YMCAs to which I have belonged have had great kids' programs and scholarships. However, it might be kind of late for that.