Coaching a Team of Mixed Ability Levels

I am coaching junior high basketball in Canada and each year I have a mix of first year and second year players.  This particular year I have 5-second year players and 7 first year players.  I spend a lot of time teaching fundamentals to the entire team.  However, the second year players are ready for more advanced skill drills.  These skills would be very helpful when playing more experienced teams.  I want to continue advancing the skills of the 2nd year players, but with no assistant I find it difficult to run two drills at once.  I think the advanced drills would be too difficult for some of the first year players.  Any ideas?

Coach Fred Pearce
Canada

Coach Pearce,

This is a problem I think many coaches' face at all levels not just the junior high level. How to utilize practice time with no assistance and players of very diverse skills levels.  I think this requires a lot of creativity on the part of the coach and one which less experienced coaches struggle to resolve.  

First off, I would always challenge my best players with drills and skills in practice and encourage the less talented kids to catch up.  This is true at the high school level and college level as well.  You can't teach down if it restricts your team's growth overall upward.  However that said, you must certainly give time to those kids just starting out without the basic fundamentals.  

One suggestion I might offer is that you block a given period of time in practice, say 15 minutes where you work solely on the very basic introductory skills with your first year players.  During that 15 minutes you can have your second year player's work on advanced dribbling, ball handling, shooting skills, and post moves.  I know this isn't much time, but it may be your best alternative.  

Then block another 15 minutes of practice time to teach the more advanced skills to your second year players.  If they are working on penetration moves off the pass, then have your first year player's work on their passing and footwork skills to get them the ball.  If it is post moves the second year players need, have the first year players feed them the ball.  If you want the second year players to develop better ball handling skills against pressure, then use the first year players to double team the ball up the court against a second year player attempting to learn to change speed and direction to avoid a double team.

As you can see there are ways that you can utilize the practice time to teach various fundamental skill levels however it will take extra planning time and thought on your part to make it work in practice.  

I hope this stimulates your thinking to get out of the conventional coaching box and varying the goal of given drills without giving up valuable practice time.

Thanks for asking the Coach