Youth Basketball

Hi, I'm Carlo Dorigoni an AAU coach. There have been many arguments about AAU basketball not properly training the player. Some are right with the argument because many teams don't cover fundamentals in their program. Some teams only focus on offense with no real concern for defense. Truly, I've only witnessed just a few teams in AAU that do this. Today, more and more school generated teams have gone towards a solid teamwork ethic. They develop the players that may contribute to the program. My AAU teams won't begin for a few more weeks so I've been catching a ton of games at many levels. I see some pretty good coaching overall with the exception of a few school coaches only concerned about their offense. At practice the concern is only for the starters. Run the offense with the bench players only playing defense. No fundamentals are covered with these teams and are easily displayed when the team hits the court for a game. Conditioning is only done as a punishment instead of explained as the true benefit of preparation. Do you notice this at times? Hopefully your child isn't on such a team. His or her only hope is the following season they get a different coach. In AAU, my teams focus most of the practice with fundamentals, then going into skills. We follow with a little offensive sets, blobs and slobs. The rest of practice is focused on defense. We play 2 0n 2, 3 on 3 and 4 on 4. Kids love to scrimmage. If it's a good practice I like to reward them with a short scrimmage. At end of practice I'd like to take the final 5to 10 minutes for strength and conditioning. Stretching is included as part of the program. This is proven to reduce injuries.