5 Things To Avoid As A Coach During Tournaments
Updated 7 November 2024
When we are intentional about our approach to tournaments as coaches, they make a fantastic opportunity for team connection and development. To help maximise your chances of a positive and productive weekend, I’m sharing five mistakes that I’ve made and learned from in tournaments over the years that I’d encourage you to avoid:
mistake #1: NOT KNOWING THE TOURNAMENT RULES
Each tournament has its own rules surrounding things like:
Timing (when clocks stop, shot clock)
Time-outs (how many available, and when they can be used)
Ladder calculations
This last one is really important. Most tournaments (including Eltham-Dandenong, Adelaide Easter Classic, National Junior Classic) determine ladder position based on head-to-head (H2H) whereby teams on equal points are subject to a tie-breaker based solely on the results between those teams involved (not their overall percentage across all games). This can be confusing for some teams (and parents), because the ladder might rank teams by percentage.
An exception is the Southern Peninsula tournament, which uses percentage as the primary tie-breaker. So it’s best to always read the tournament rules on the organiser’s website before your first game, and try to keep parents abreast of things as the tournament progresses.
This might influence how you coach in games, for example:
With H2H-based ladder: If you can see you’re headed for a two-way or three-way tie in your pool, your calculations might tell you that you not only need to win your next game, but you need to win by 7 points. Your coaching style therefore might adjust, leading you to call a time-out when your team leads by 6 points, in order to secure the ‘winning’ basket.
With percentage-based ladder: This will be harder to calculate precisely what result you may need in a particular game, but more broadly you might talk to your athletes about the importance of the ‘tournament as a whole’, and that a lapse in concentration to let a 15-point lead reduce to a 5-point win could prove costly later on.
This is not to say you should be trying to win every moment in every game… doing so will make you fall victim to the four mistakes that follow.👇
Mistake #2: MISSING THE OPPORTUNITY TO BUILD YOUR TEAM’S “toolkit”
A team’s “toolkit” includes the team offence and defence concepts they can effectively execute, such as:
Early & Delay spacing
2 & 3 player offensive actions
Defensive change-ups
Defensive coverages for screens
The toolkit also includes the depth of your team, including who can play each role within the team. Tournaments in the first half of the season are an ideal time to build your team’s toolkit to benefit you in the months ahead, but it requires the coach to expand their focus beyond the short-term focus on winning.
Mistake #3: Not coaching throuGh “Process Goals”
The best way to build your team’s toolkit is to focus on process goals (the ingredients and behaviours that contribute to winning) rather than outcome goals (winning the tournament). We want coaches to pursue wins in tournaments, but only when their foundation of teaching player development is rock solid.
Coaches should approach each game with at least one but no more than three process goals. These are new areas you want the team to urgently improve on, such as:
Running our press-breaker each time it is required;
Staying ‘touch distance’ to the ball-handler; or
Executing a new offensive action.
These process goals then become what you use as the benchmark of your performance post-game, regardless of what the scoreboard says.
Mistake #4: Not being strategic in managing player workload
It’s rarely about who starts a tournament strongly, but rather about who finishes it strongly. The experienced tournament coach needs to see two steps ahead into the future, managing their team’s effort to avoid burnout.
For example if you are playing the weakest team in your pool, with the knowledge that you have the strongest team afterwards, give players who are unlikely to feature in the second game a starring role in the first game so the court time spread is similar after both. There’s no bonus points for winning all your pool games by 40 points, only to fade as the weekend progresses.
Also, be strategic with your tactics across the tournament. Playing full-court match-up defence the entire tournament is going to fatigue your players by the time you reach your 7th game. But whilst playing half-court defence the entire tournament might conserve energy, it will be harder to ‘switch on’ come finals time. The art and skill of the coach is to change defences regularly to keep players energised without over-expending yourselves before the grand final.
Mistake #5: Not managing YOURSELF across the weekend
We are quick as coaches to teach players about the importance of good nutrition, sleep and recovery during tournaments - but we really need to practice what we preach. Staying up all night reviewing video ahead of your team’s final in the morning might sound like you’re helping the team, but not if it means you coach the game fatigued on the sideline. In fact, research shows that being awake for about 17 hours has a similar effect on decision-making as a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05.
Some quick tips to help you manage yourself across the weekend:
Rehydrate: Drink plenty of water, particularly if you’re a coffee drinker as dehydration will impact your decision-making, the way you see the game, and your communication with athletes.
Refuel: Plan your meals and pack healthy snacks to keep in your coaching bag, so that you can avoid stadium canteens (the pantry of the poor planner) and fast food outlets. You plan your team’s offence - why not your meals?
Repair: Eating foods high in protein will keep you fuller across the day, so you don’t accidentally give a “hangry” half-time talk.
Relax: Find moments to switch off between games: get out into nature by going outside the stadium and taking a walk in the park, or connect with someone outside your tournament sphere.