Two-a-Days are FUN!

With the beginning of official basketball practices comes the opportunity for the Golden Eagles to get better. We want to make certain we know our motion offense, zone offenses, set plays, sideline out-of-bounds plays, out-of-bounds plays, end of game situations, offensive fundamentals, defensive fundamentals, and all our defenses. In order to do this we must practice and practice some more. So in the first few weeks of practice we have two-a-days which are a little wearing on the mind and body but they are a necessity in order to be prepared.

We are fortunate to have fall break right at the beginning of our first few days of practice which means that we get to have three full days of double practices. Once fall break is over and school is back in regular sessions, we will have a couple of 6:45 a.m. practices a week in addition to our regular two hour practice in the afternoon.

While the players legs might get a little bit fatigued, the real problem is how tired their brains become. Since we require our athletes to think the entire practice, their minds are whirling at a hundred miles an hour. For the returners, this is not such a big issue. They are on auto-pilot with their bodies taking over using muscle memory to glide through practices. They are allowed to simply play because they have done each skill set hundreds and hundreds of times. The newcomers are not so lucky. With each new thing introduced, their brains are working hard to remember and to encode. Newcomers to the program often complain of brain fatigue telling us that they never had to bring their brains to practice in high school.

The coaching staff adds to the brain stress by being incredibly demanding. We have learned over the years that players will not change a behavior unless there is a consequence. Simply telling players how to change is not enough. The stress of having to remember or do a frozen push-up or run sprints sometimes puts the players in paralysis. They want to react but are so afraid they just freeze. The great news is that after a few short weeks of practice, muscle memory begins to take place and the players replace the paralysis with confidence. So while two-a-day practices are demanding, they do serve a powerful purpose--giving the players an opportunity to become the best they can.