Basketball - Girls Varsity

Kinkaid Girls Basketball

BASKETBALL PHILOSOPHY

The Kinkaid Girls Basketball philosophy centers on five core values: Hard Work, The Habit of Excellence, Failing Forward, Servant Leadership and Teamwork.  These values permeate everything we do, both on and off the floor.  We will begin and end every practice with a huddle where we discuss these values and how they will impact what we are doing that day in practice.  Success and winning is the by-product of consistently executing these core values.

Hard work derives from a consistent effort that daily challenges our comfort zones.  Through this repetition, players master the skills of dribbling, passing, shooting, defense and rebounding.  Every practice session will embody a fast pace, high standards and innovation, with the expectation that the players will be energetic and motivated.  We believe hard work should be inspiring, fun, and challenging as well.

Failing forward teaches young girls to resiliency.  We want them to see failure as a necessary progression towards victory.  We will challenge them to change “I can’t” to “I will try”.  We want players to try new things and take calculated risks because great failures are often catalysts for great success.  We will celebrate the effort more than the outcome, when they push themselves to their greatest capacity.

Famed Greek Philosopher Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”  We believe this points to excellence being a habit.  In the end, we want the players who have donned the purple & gold to understand that their legacy will not defined by games won or lost.  It will stem from the habit of excellence seen in their lives.

We will have lots of discussions related to leadership.  We select captains yearly and spend each off-season and pre-season with bi-monthly leadership meetings.  The best leaders look to serve and not to be served.  These servant leaders are instrumental to our program's success.

Our final core value, teamwork, is last but definitely not least.  Teamwork enables us to maintain synergy and chemistry, which minimizes attention bestowed upon individual team members.  By embracing this concept, we bond as a unit and position ourselves to reap the fruits of our labor. 

When we welcome these five core values, success will await us.

BASKETBALL CURRICULUM

Middle School

Fundamentals

Kinkaid Girls Basketball will focus primarily on the fundamentals of dribbling, passing and shooting.  We will stress proper technique and footwork in these areas.  In dribbling, players should be able to dribble with both hands, they should be able to dribble without looking at the ball, they will learn to dribble with their fingers instead of their palms, and they will learn how to dribble effectively against a defender.  In passing, players should understand the difference between a chest pass, a bounce pass, an overhead pass and a push pass.  They should be able to use pivots and fakes to avoid their defender and understand how to pass to a moving target.  In shooting, players should be able to use a shooting hand and guide hand (without using their palms), they should have correct footwork, they should have balance when shooting on the move, and they should know how to properly make a right or left handed lay-up.  All players should understand the correct terminology for fundamental skills.

Offense

Kinkaid Middle School Girls Basketball will focus primarily on fundamentals, but will begin the basic concepts of team offense.  They should understand the roles and responsibilities of ALL positions.  These positions include guards, forwards and posts.  We will teach spacing, floor balance and movement through cuts/screens.  We will teach press offense, in-bound plays and other special situations.  They should be able to distinguish between man and zone offenses, as well as a half and/or full-court offense.  The offensive sets will vary from year to year, according to the team personnel. 

Defense

Kinkaid Middle School Girls Basketball will focus primarily on the fundamentals of defense.  We will primarily play man-to-man defense, but will teach basic zone offense.  They should understand the following concepts of man defense: on-ball defense, help-side defense, jump to the ball, closeouts, block-outs, recovery and simple rotations.  We will also teach some basic full-court man and zone trapping defenses when appropriate.

High School 

Kinkaid girls’ high school basketball will focus on advanced fundamentals.  Players should already have an understanding and mastery of the basics of shooting, dribbling, and passing.  Shooting: we will focus on extending their range, increasing the speed of their shot, and refining their footwork.  We will teach jabs, shot fakes, and rip throughs to create scoring opportunities against a defender.  Dribbling: we will add advanced dribble moves and combo moves.  Passing: we will discuss passing lanes and handling pressure, passing on the move and off the dribble along with passing IQ.

Kinkaid girls’ high school basketball will focus on mastering offensive team concepts.  They will need to be able to distinguish between man and zone offense.  Understand and execute multiple offensive sets for half court offense, full court offense, and out of bounds plays.  Having an understanding of their position and being able to execute the skills required of that position relative to passing, dribbling, and shooting will be a seasonal goal.

Defense

Kinkaid girls’ high school basketball will focus on executing basic man principles into team defense schemes.  We will start to learn more advanced concepts like defending on and off the ball screens, multiple man and zone defenses, post defense, trapping defense in full and half court, and recovery rotations.