Induction

In addition to a coach, each team has a 'team manager' who helps run the team off the court. This includes facilitating communication between the club and the team, following up on RSVPs, and arranging guardians to score on Saturday.

Each team will set up a WhatsApp group to share information.

There is a 'coach and team manager' chat in WhatsApp the club uses to send out information, which coaches and TMs disseminate in their team's chat as needed. Questions to the club can also be posted in that chat.

If you are short of players one week, we can call up players from younger divisions to help out. The team manager can put out a message in the coach and team manager chat as soon as possible seeking interest. Game forfeits need to be confirmed by noon Friday.

Basketball Australia sets coaching accreditation requirements, Basketball Victoria delivers training sessions, and Coburg Basketball Association facilitates them.

Under that framework, Magic expects all coaches to acquire the Community coach accreditation and recommends Club coach accreditation for all streamed team and U16 and above coaches.

Coaches should complete the Community online element before beginning coaching. CBA usually runs the Community course once per season. Coaches may also like to complete the Aussie Hoops online training course.

More information about coaching courses is available here.

Remember that we're here to have fun.

For your training sessions to be successful, the most important thing is to arrive with a training plan. It will usually include a warm up, skill drills, game-based drills and a scrimmage. 

The club recommends inexperienced coaches follow an NBAjr curriculum because it provides training plans with videos of how to run the drills. For example, if you're coaching a group of U10s who are new to basketball select the 'rookie' curriculum and you'll have 12 training session plans ready to go. Watch the videos before the session, take a print out of the plan to training with you and voila! 

If you want to work on specific skills at training, Training drill resources are available here.

If in doubt about what to work on at training, extra shooting and dribbling drills are the default.

If you would like to attend some training sessions run by our experienced coaches please get in touch and we will set it up.

A good session will:

• Get players playing basketball straight away because it's fun, build this into the warm up.

• Have kids moving for as much of the time as possible, avoid drills where only one or two are participating and the others are watching.

• Follow a plan but be flexible if elements of the plan aren't working. For example, arrive with 4-5 drills for a 20 minute block and change drills as the kids' attention levels wane.

• Use game-based drills that engage the kids, get them practicing multiple skills within the drill (e.g. one kid attacking, one kid defending, two kids rebounding, and rotate rolls), and have an element of competition.

• Acknowledge that playing is more fun than training, so involve a scrimmage at the end. If you share a court with another team of a similar age/skill level you can play with/against each other.

• Only have short blocks of time (30-60secs) when you are talking at them. When you are talking avoid distractions by having them sit down or put their balls between their feet, and definitely no dribbling.

• Have a whistle. If they're not listening, you can make them run laps (particularly older kids).

• Give them water breaks.

We want to develop players that play the 'Australian way'. You will develop your own style, but initially the club recommends you apply the following principles.

Defence

• Teams U8-U12 should be practicing and playing man-on-man as the primary defensive strategy. They may learn some pressing defensive strategies too.

• Teams U14-U18 can use a range of man-on-man, press and zone defences.

Offence

• We want to play in transition as often as possible, with players running hard after a steal or rebound.

• We want unselfish players who make the right passes to open teammates. Our players will work hard off the ball to get open to receive passes by cutting and moving into space.

Game time

Magic expects players to receive even game time, so if you have 8 players each should get 12.5 minutes per half (20 minute halves x 5 positions / 8 players).

You may also want to consider who starts and finishes games. For example, you could set a rule that the best trainers start games, and vary who finishes games depending on the game situation.

If you have a lot of players, please consider whether you actually need to use a timeout during the game as this uses up game time.

You can use the app SubTime to help track players court time for Apple and Android.

We have established our Values and Behaviours policy, which all members of the club are expected to adhere to. It is good to discuss this with families early in the season and is the bedrock for working through problems if they occur in the season.

The club is always available to help coaches and team managers work through challenging situations.

The conduct of all participants on game day, basically anybody in a CBA building, is governed by Basketball Victoria's Code of Conduct and Coburg Basketball Association's Zero Tolerance Policy. If you experience poor conduct at a game:

• The venue 'court supervisor' will manage poor behaviour that the umpires are unable to address. A coach or team manager can alert the 'court supervisor' to that behaviour.

• Players and spectators are not to engage with umpires or anyone associated with the other team.

• If an incident occurs, the team manager will email the details to the club president the same weekend who will refer the complaint to the league to manage.

Magic does not tolerate poor behaviour between its players, including abusive language or bullying. If a coach or team manager becomes aware of a problem, or suspects there is a problem, they should alert the club president in a timely manner.