Assessment Camp

Here is a long overdue post (about a month late), that I wrote without wifi access after our first day of our assessment and selection camp held in March.

Opening day of camps are typically filled with off court activities, and is a travel day more than anything. With this many athletes and coaches coming together for "just" a weekend,  it is not surprising when we run into a travel hitch or two.  The biggest things for coaches and athletes (and managers) when these things happen is to remember to control the controllables.  Delays, cancellations, etc. can be very frustrating but are out of our control.  If nothing else they provide a great test to our mental toughness and intestinal fortitude.  

We did run into a few hitches today.  For the athletes who experienced them we just reiterated that we control the controllables and that they will not be penalized for missing things because of this.  Going into an assessment camp these athletes are nervous enough, to run into these extra stressors can be mentally tiring.  We will work as a staff to make sure the athletes are ready to demonstrate their best on court following their delayed arrivals. 

After a group dinner, we held a meeting to review expectations and guidelines for the weekend.  I, personally, prefer not to use the word "rule", as these athletes are young, mature women who should know how to conduct themselves responsibly. We reiterated that they aren't just being evaluated on court but how they represent themselves in every scenario throughout the weekend. 

Lastly, we reminded the girls that they are vying for a position to represent their country at an international competition.  When I was flying to Toronto today, I started to think about that exact thing and it gave me goosebumps and filled me with excitement. It is so special for me to have a profession that allows me these opportunities.  I am sure the girls are feeling similar emotions and will give their all on and off the court this weekend.  

We are going to have a great weekend!

I had hoped to update this blog regularly over the course of that weekend, but we had so many different things to cram into just three days and updating the blog fell pretty far down my priority list.  We were essentially on the go from 7:00am to 11pm, so when it was time to shut 'er down it did not take long to crash and get some much desired sleep.

We had a great camp and our excited with our group of 16 we have moving forward and preparing together for the World Championships.  We now have a plan in place to communicate and monitor each individual as they train and prepare for when we reconvene at the end of July.  I will continue to give you some more regular updates on exactly what this entails and how things are going!

Exciting times are ahead!

8 Days Until Camp

We are now just over a week until we reconvene for this year's assessment camp held March 22-26.  I was fortunate to spend two days in Truro, NS with Michael MacKay and Denise Dignard to plan the majority of the camp.  Since we met at the beginning of the month I have been putting the complete plan together and communicating with Canada Basketball to ensure all the pieces are in place.

Aside from a couple of injuries to the athlete's attending, everything seems set to go. With six training sessions in just three days it is important that we take the time ahead of the camp to plan the majority of what will take place.  It is a very short amount of time to cover a lot of material and appropriately evaluate the athletes.  I think we have a great plan in place to maximize our time both on and off the court.

Now our plan will likely be altered several times as we progress through the weekend but it is important to have things in place.  Our goal is to implement key offensive and defensive concepts, and spend some time breaking down the skills for both of these in the mornings.  In the evening we will put the pieces together and compete while coaching more on the fly.  It will be interesting to see how the concepts and ideas we have developed so far will fit with the skill sets we think we have, or what we might end up altering after the weekend.

Through today's technology, Dropbox in particular, we have been able to share some video content with the athlete's that demonstrates some individual drills and skills for them to help appropriately prepare themselves.  I hope that we an utilize the same technology for tracking the selected athletes between now and our pre-World Championship training camp in August!

If time permits, I will update you as our camp progresses next weekend.

Planning for the World Championships

I apologize as I had intended on keeping up with posts regularly throughout our cadet team "off season" however, there was not a lot to update on. We are often well intentioned, but the grinds of the season we become immersed in often take over and it is difficult to get out of the present moment.  Our coaching staff is very much getting back in cadet team mode now!

My season with our team at UPEI has concluded and now it is time to prepare for our upcoming selection and ID camp to be held March 22-26. We are very excited to have lots of talented players coming into camp in March, and expect a very competitive camp. It is exciting to have so many young players aspiring to compete for their country.

A couple of weeks ago we received our draw for the World Championships to be held in Holland, which began to make things very real. The Championships will be a 12 team tournament, and we have been placed in a group with: Italy, USA, Belgium, Mali, and South Korea.  We will play these 5 teams in this order, then from there it will depend on our results through the first round robin.  On the other side of the draw is: Brazil, Australia, Japan, Turkey, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Our plan for preparing for the championships is still in progress beyond our upcoming March camp, but we are hopeful that we will have some exhibition play in Europe prior to competing in the Netherlands. Due to the vastness of our country, as always it will be near impossible for our group to train together regularly before August so we will have our coaches monitoring athletes to some extent throughout the spring and summer to attempt to maximize their preparation for the championships.

I am meeting with Canada Basketball this week to further articulate our plan for the next 6 months with hopes of reaching new heights with our Canadian team at the U17 World Championships.