Sometimes the best time to take a look at your season isn’t right when it concludes - emotions can be high, vision may not be clear, and you might not be thinking straight.
After a month or two, taking a step back and looking at your season, team, program, staff, and future is a great exercise to:
focus on what really matters in your program
decide what you need to add and/or get rid of within your program
develop a plan and vision for where you’ll take your program in the next year
Here are a few things to think about when auditing your program (you can get all of this and more in the Hoops Companion Program Audit as well).
This is a long list, but well worth the time:
go over your program roster
if you’re a high school coach, take this back as far as you possibly can (I’m talking elementary school)
take a look at each class in your program, their strengths, how they’ve improved, who has quit playing basketball to focus on baseball, who has transferred, etc.
zoom out so you can plan how to develop each player
project your future roster
along with your program roster, take a look at the next few seasons and project your starting lineups and rotation
this will never be a concise science, but it can’t hurt to take a glance
have a kid who is currently on JV but you’ll need to start at point guard next season? Better start developing them.
player growth areas
list out each of your players and list one offensive growth area, one defensive growth area, and mental/culture growth area
this gives you, your coaching staff, and each of your players a chance to see where they need to improve and focus on in the offseason
keep it simple for your players or they won’t know what to work on!
program values
what do you want your program to be about?
did you program emulate them last year?
where can your program improve in these areas?
offensive scheme
what worked well?
what didn’t work well?
what do you want to change about your scheme next year?
what did teams do defensively that disrupted your offense?
what about your offense will or will not work against the best teams on your schedule?
what are you going to run next season/does it fit your personnel?
defensive scheme
same questions as offensive scheme…but flipped for defense
drill work
which of your drills were a waste of time?
what drills do you want to do more of?
what drills do you want to get rid of?
what types of drills would you like to add?
strength and conditioning/nutrition
what worked well?
what didn’t?
what do you want to do with this area next season?
program promotion
how can you promote your program better this season?
off-season plan/philosophy
what are you doing in the spring/fall/summer?
what can you experiment with?
where are you going for team camp/summer league?
what are your biggest focus areas?
fundraising
how will you raise money?
what worked/didn’t work last year/how can you make it better?
what will those funds be used for?
staff performance and planning
does your staff need adjusting?
how can each member better serve the program?
what can you delegate to each member?
what gaps do you need to fill?
12 month program calendar
what’s the gameplan for every single month within your program?
As you can see, there are a lot of questions to answer.
Get out a pen and notebook, take an inventory, and build a plan for your program based on your audit.
Even better, just get the Hoops Companion Program Audit and fill out each question along the way!
Until next time!