Basketball Practice Ideas for U10's with Sam Funnell

This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast, and I'm your host, Alex Sarama. This is the podcast where we help coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to create the ultimate resource to help make sense of how contemporary skill acquisition ideas can be applied within the basketball world.

Throughout the podcast, we'll unpack how an ecological dynamics framework alters our perspective If you're ready to join us in our quest to transform the basketball world, then this is the podcast for you. Welcome back to the Transforming Basketball Podcast, joined today by Samara Fennell, the Clubs and Schools Development Director of the Franklin Basketball Association in New Zealand.

Sam, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today. Thanks for having me.

Cool. Thanks for having me, Alex. Really excited to be on and excited to talk basketball with you.

So the main idea we did this podcast is I've seen how you are applying the CLA in the youth basketball space, especially with beginners and under-12s. And I love how you're doing it. And I think it's really creative. And a question kind of we get a lot is you can't use the CLA with young kids.

What would you say to that?

Right. We get that a lot here too, in terms of people not thinking that it's doable with the younger age groups. And to that, I would just say it totally is. And you just kind of have to have the patience and the creativity to want to explore it a little bit and have the comfortability to, to try it out, make mistakes, and then make adjustments that suit the age that you're working with.

I use CLA basically in everything I do with all the programs that I run. And one of the programs that I do is solely based on 7 and unders. So it's definitely doable.

So what would it look like, Sam, in terms of a practice at that age group? Because obviously I think it's so different to like coaches wanting to have everything controlled, organized. And I think it's just impossible with that age group, right? What would a practice look like with the under 7 age group when, you know, it's, they're not going to be following every single word that a coach says.

And what I really liked about your videos is it's like, You've got, it's a very playful environment where there's some structure, but it's not, you know, very much like you must be doing this, you must be in a line. You really let kids explore, have fun, et cetera.

Yeah. Right. So a practice for me in terms of, I guess, 7 and under or even 9 and under, which is our juniors, would basically just be a lot of play. Like you previously mentioned, you'll very rarely see me using lines. And if so, there'd be probably maximum of 2 or 3 players in those lines.

It's a lot of free time-based activities before and after the, I guess, game we're going to do as well. So they can kind of have a lot of exploration phases throughout practice and times to be creative on their own without me having to always be coaching them and putting them into activities.

So yeah, it's a lot of play, a lot of free time, a lot of games, a lot of mess, and very minimal time in lines or waiting for me to talk.

That's great. So something, you know, we hear a lot is kids finding it too difficult to, especially when they're new to basketball or they're a beginner, being able to have success when they're playing against the live defender. So just wondering, like, if you could describe just how you kind of pass that, either through changing, manipulating constraints, or, you know, how you allow the players to still have success and feel good about themselves, but, you know, practicing through a constraint-led approach at the same time.

It's actually really fun. And yeah, contrary to what people think, like especially a new kid that I would get, typically a 4 or a 5-year-old who in some cases has never even done sports in general, they really struggle to dribble in the beginning.

But instead of putting them into like isolated stationary dribbling, we'll go straight into a game of some sort. We'll also add defense like you mentioned, and using constraints can actually make the learning process really fun for those new ones. So for example, I would constrain the defender in a game.

Let's just say it's like a steal the ball game and the defense has to steal the ball off the offense, which can be quite daunting even for the older age groups that are new. So what I would do is the defender has to also dribble a basketball and therefore they're heavily constrained.

And then the offensive player who is new or could be new feels like, oh, they also have to dribble. So they're struggling with me in this process. Gives them a bit of space and time, as you know, with their constraints. So things like that I would do so they feel like they're all included and they all have to do, I guess, a similar task and they're not isolated on their own.

Yeah.

I love that. That's a really good practical example too. Yeah. Like you say, just having, you can still have a live defender, but dribbling a ball and then the information that the players see, it's still representative because of obviously the way that defender will move even while dribbling.

is going to shape the movement solutions, right? So great example there. Also, something I've noticed just from having a look at some of your practices, it seems like you have a lot of hoops in the gym. I think it can be very difficult to use the CLA at this age group if you just have 2 hoops, which are like 10 foot in size, like regulation.

Am I correct in that you guys are very intentional trying to create a practice environment where you have hoops of the right size and a lot of hoops? As well as making sure every kid has a ball, et cetera.

Yeah, you're right with that. Depending on obviously our own environmental constraints and what we have access to, but we do have additional hoops and we have 6 of them. So depending on how many kids or how many sessions we're running, like for example, we have our Hoopsters program, which is our beginners, 7 and unders.

I think there's about 65 kids in that program. So we split into 3 separate groups. And for each group, they have access to about 3 or even 4 hoops if they really wanted to. And like you mentioned, we'd put the hoops lower at a height that's going to give them enough challenge and success at the same time.

So roughly like 8 foot, or sometimes even for my group with the 4-year-olds and 5-year-olds, we'd even put it down to like, I don't know, like 7 foot or something like that. So it gives them a chance to have a little bit of success.

And the ones that having success at that height, we could put it a little bit higher to prep them for their next age groups.

Right. That's exactly it. And I spoke about it in regard to equipment scaling on the episode before this. We did the episode on task simplification, and I think that's really a huge part of using the CLA at these age groups, where it's about finding, like you alluded to there, the optimal challenge where it's not too easy, it's not too difficult.

And then obviously I think that we have making sure the equipment is age appropriate. So watching your practices, what stood out to me is how you get the engagement. Of the kids immediately. And that's something I rarely see in youth basketball, especially at the younger ages where coaches really try and instruct or keep control of a group.

And maybe they've got a group of like 7, 8, 10-year-olds, whatever. And they're keeping them all on one basket so they're easier to manage, right? As opposed to maybe going all throughout the whole gym and everyone doing their own thing. And then they're kind of insisting that kids always listening to them, not talking.

And I just think that's unrealistic at that age group. So. Do you have any tips on just how you're able to engage the kids so well and actually get them in? I think just getting them into these games at that age is a feat in itself.

Yeah, it is challenging. Like, like you said, especially with younger age groups. And most of the time we get them after they've just finished school. So they've literally been in a class for, I don't know, 6 hours or whatever it is. And they have all this energy that they want to let out anyway.

So for them to have to be in like, not that school is boring for every kid, but like an environment where they're told what to do and where they are. And then to come to us and want to just hoop and run around and have some fun, I think you got to let them do that to a certain extent.

Like, not to say that having fun is just like frivolous and they can do whatever they want, but being okay with them having free time and going and shooting on a different hoop and pairing up with their mates and talking with their friends and playing tag or whatever it may be, just kind of letting them do that for us to make them feel like.

Yeah.

This is a fun environment to be in. I'm not going to be instructed the whole time. Like, because basketball's fun. Like, I like playing basketball, but I don't want to be in drills the whole time. So surely they want to do the same thing.

So exactly. What I noticed on your videos, you know, you were describing stuff and sometimes a kid might be talking to their friends. They might go shoot sometimes, but it's like, they're super young and 90% of the time you had their full engagement anyway.

Right. And it's just, I think it's accepting the It's not going to be like an under-18s, even an under-14s practice where the kids are always going to be listening to your instructions. That's just not what it's like being a child at that age group.

And I think coaches find that difficult to accept.

Yeah, definitely. Like there is a certain element of like, hey, we're trying to get better here. So let's see if we can pay attention. Previously shown some things that I do in terms of like classroom management with this age and that every time the coach is talking, the basketballs must go down between their feet.

We call that penguins. So they're not touching the ball with their hands.

I love that. And you make it fun. Penguin the ball is what you said, right?

Yeah, penguin. So you're like a penguin waddling its baby or its egg in between your feet, but you keep it still. And then another one is with kids that are kind of struggling to focus, we play a game called Coach Says. I've already shown a video example of this on my masterclass, but if they're talking to their friends at the back of the group, well, I try to keep them real close, but if I notice they're not really paying attention, I'll just do a quick Coach Says, clap once, and they're all like, oh my gosh,

she's talking. And then they kind of just focus for a bit. But yeah, just remembering they're kids and their attention spans are different. Some of them are thinking about other things. I have kids come up to me constantly saying, is it nearly finished?

Or do we get to have a water break soon? Or I'm hungry. And like, they're really just kids. So like being okay with that is a big part of it. So yeah.

100%. So I think the biggest part of this approach is the activities. And this is what we're going to spend the main focus on now and leaving coaches with an idea as to what they could do at this age group. Whether it's, you know, under 7s to maybe under 12s using the CLA.

So would it be cool, Sam, if you kind of just share some of your favorite activities and then I can just interject with some questions if they come up?

I've got a bunch and I'll try new ones that I think of on the spot and then I might not use it again, but I've got a few, like, I guess, foundation drills that, form drills or games that I would go to. And one of them is dribble to the whistle, and that works really well with The younger kids, it's just basically a dribbling game where I don't tell them how to dribble.

They're allowed to dribble freely in space, but I'll add a constraint based on how many whistles I blow. And I like this one more just with the younger age groups because they pay attention. It's a little bit more simplified. So if I blow the whistle once, the constraint is they would have to perform a jump stop, for example.

Or if I blow the whistle twice, they'd have to perform 2 crossovers. And I wouldn't show them which ones I want them to do. They kind of just have free time and free space to do that. And if I blow the whistle 3 times, for example, they can go shoot on any hoop and like race their friend to get it in or something like that.

That's more of a simplified, I guess, constrained whistle-blow game.

Yeah, I think it's good. It's good to clarify too, like at this age group, I feel like you're going to do games like that, which maybe they're not like the CLA and how you would use that with an older age group or an under-14s.

But I think it's fun. It's allowing for exploration. So I would still consider games like that part of this approach at this age. I just don't think you can do absolutely everything with a defender when we're talking under-7s, under-10s. So even something like a shooting game, as long as it's variable and it's not instruction, that's great for me.

Would you, would you agree with that at this age group, Sam?

Yeah, 100%. Like I wouldn't spend too much time on that, but that's mostly just their warmup free space to explore their own dribbling without me telling them how to dribble. With the same thought process of they have to listen to how many whistles are being blown and what task I'm trying to perform based on how many whistles.

But that would be the most simple one that I do.

Great stuff. So that would be something for dribbling. I guess you can add different things. Like if you clap, maybe they race to somewhere on the court. Maybe they even go race to a basket. I guess there's lots you can do within that.

Yeah.

Great stuff.

Did you want another one?

Yeah, let's keep going. As many as you got time for.

Yeah. So I guess another one that I like to do is we do do a lot of live stuff. That would probably be the only one that we do that doesn't really require a defender or some sort of a game element to it.

So we play a lot of like steal the ball games. So you can name them whatever you want, like sheeps and wolves, and the wolves are trying to get the sheep. Or we also play a game called Alligator where there's alligators in the river.

Okay.

And they're trying to get from one sideline to the other, and there's defenders essentially in the middle of the court. And we'd constrain the defenders depending on what we want in terms of their, like, solutions. So we play a lot of games like that.

We also play a game called Bus Stop, where they're in buddies, and there's a defender who has to try to get chest in front to essentially make them have to stop their bus, which is who they are. And if the defender gets a bus stop, the offensive player with the ball has the option to pick it up and pass, or they could— find some sort of a solution to get past.

We don't prescribe what they have to do. We just say the defender's going to try to get in front and you work out what you want to do with your teammate or your buddy. And they really like that bus stop game. I literally tried it like 3 weeks ago and it's been pretty fun.

I love the metaphors. I think just it makes it so much more vivid, like things like alligators in the river. It's so much better than just explaining a game and not having that. I love that. Would you have any examples, Sam, of finishing and maybe Something you do to promote, you know, like explore, explore, get the kids exploring different finishes, et cetera, when it comes to that?

Yeah. In terms of like finishing, we wouldn't explicitly teach like extended layup and this is a push shot or things like that. We would definitely explain the footwork in terms of you can't travel, so you can either jump stop, stride stop, pivoting. We definitely teach pivoting.

So how we would do that is we wouldn't do it in isolation. We do a lot of our games with a constrained defender or a live defender.

Sure.

And we play a lot of like paper, scissors, rock one-on-one games. And I think the first one we'd do is constrain the defense. So both players would have to dribble and they'd perform paper, scissors, rock. If you win, you become the cat, I mean the mouse.

And if you lose, you become the cat and the cat chases the mouse. And obviously depending on Where that defender ends up would, would make them have to perform a different type of layup. So they could lay up in front, or if the defender gets in front of them, they now know that they can't travel.

So they'd have to stop and perform either some sort of a pivot or a 2-foot shot. So we'd do stuff like that. If they're really struggling with it, we might pull them to the side on one of the additional hoops and kind of show them that what is and what isn't a travel.

Or we'll do that in a timeout with all the players together. But yeah, a lot of one-on-ones. Cool.

Within these one-on-ones, would you say it's a big advantage most of the time, or maybe even a 2 against 1 where the offense has a greater chance of success?

Yeah, so we'll definitely constrain the defense to give offense a bigger advantage at this age. And another way we'd do that is we have these little flat dots that go on the floor, so they're not like cones where cones are in the way.

Yeah, it's just like a flat rubber dot, and we'd put One ball. So instead of having 2 balls, one ball in front of the dot, paper, scissors, rock. If you win, you become the mouse. If you lose, you become the cat. Except now the defender has to step back and touch the dot.

So offense gets like a big head start, stuff like that. We'd also play, I think you've seen it before, like the high five game where they could be in groups of 3 and the defender has to give the additional player that's not playing a high five.

And they could be standing real far back.

Yeah.

They could be on the sideline. They could be anywhere. And it just allows offense to have a bigger advantage for their finish.

That's excellent. I think it's great because it's, then you have that time pressure where I think when you don't do that stuff, Sam, what you see is at the young age, kids will take like 10 seconds to do a layup because the drill allows them to do that.

Whereas immediately, even if they've never done it, you just have a defender recovering and there's that sense of urgency. So then the finishing solution that emerges, it's going to be way more representative. And they're going to explore something that transfers. So I think that those are really, really good examples.

And I think that's just exactly how coaches can do this at that age group. Now, shooting, it's always something that's met with much kind of ambivalence, I would say, where coaches are skeptical as to how we don't have to do form shooting and teach them shooting at this age group.

How do you guys do it?

We don't actually teach shooting. We just shoot. We just let the kids shoot. Like, there's no, like I said before, the footwork, we will definitely tell them if it's a travel, because in the next game—

It's the rules of the game. It's a task control.

The rules of the game. They understand what a travel is and what isn't. So in terms of the footwork, we'll just teach them that they must like stop or jump stop, which we've taught already. And then they can shoot however they want, depending on what size hoop and what size ball.

But at this age, it's usually a size 5. And like I said before, the hoop would be about 7 foot for this age group, or 8-foot for some of the older under-9s. So yeah, I don't teach form. We don't teach form. They just, they just shoot.

However, if a kid is like underhand scooping the ball or like baseball or like throwing the ball, would kind of help them a little bit in terms of you need to get power from in front or like power from underneath. Would just teach them a little bit about like where the power comes from, bend your knees and then jump and stuff like that.

But yeah, we wouldn't teach form and follow through in our— Yeah.

And it's funny for me, I've just found the simplest thing is I just say, shoot with one hand. Or I literally just stand, I try and come down to their height a little bit and say, shoot with one hand over me. And we're not prescribing elbow here, wrist here.

How they shoot with one hand is going to be very different. That's exactly it. So I guess something like, in the UK we call it rock, paper, scissors. I can't get my head around paper, scissors, rock. So say—

Oh, sorry. No, no, no.

So say it's paper, scissors, rock, you could just constrain that and say, all right, now it's a jump shot. You can't score inside this area. So basically you've taken the same small-sided game, which they've been playing already. And you say, all right, now guys, you can't shoot on the rim.

You can only shoot a jump shot. Would that be one approach of how you might go about that?

Yeah, we would do stuff like that depending on how we've set up the court. It wouldn't be like on a full-size court, so we'd have to make up our own like keyholes, and we don't really reinforce that a lot, but it does help with spacing at a young age.

So we'd do stuff like you can't finish inside the keyhole or the smile, which is what Chris calls the charge circle. So yeah, we'd do stuff like that as well.

Great stuff. So just any practical takeaways you would have, Sam, for coaches who are maybe working with these age groups and they want to give the CLA a try, but they're a little bit unsure? Would you have any other advice or Any other favorite activities that you'd like to leave them with for them to potentially try considering in the next practice?

I'd just say, give it a go. It's actually really fun. And I would argue that it's easier, especially for new coaches or even just coaches working with this age group who typically struggle. Like I get a lot of DMs from coaches saying, I can't believe you coach that age group.

And, and how do you do it? But just have a go. Essentially, you're just making up rules for them to follow. To allow them to come up with different solutions based on that rule. And you can make it really fun. Like, you can say, hey, we're going to play tag.

If you get tagged, you become the defender, but before you can chase the offender, you have to do a chicken dance. Or you can literally come up with funny ideas for the kids, and you can also allow them to come up with their own rules within reason.

And just, just try it out. It's really fun. And the other thing I'd say is don't care what people think. Like, it can look like chaos, and it can look like You don't know what you're doing because they're not in lines and they're not performing pivots and chest passes, but you know what you're doing.

The game's messy and training should be messy too. So.

Excellent stuff. Great words of wisdom, Sam. Where can coaches follow you, find out more about the work you're doing?

You can follow me on Instagram. It is CoachSam_NZ for New Zealand. And it's also the same handle on X platform, CoachSam_NZ.

Great stuff. Thank you so much for joining us today, Sam. Really enjoyable episode.

Awesome. Thanks for having me, Alex.

Thanks for tuning into this episode of the Transforming Basketball Podcast. If you would like to learn more about the work we do, head to www.transformingbball.com to access our free resources and help spread these ideas throughout the basketball world. If you enjoyed this episode, then please subscribe and leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast platform.

We will gladly answer any questions from today's episode via our social media platforms. See you next time on the Transforming Basketball Podcast.

Thank you.