Talking Split

It was great to hear from our special guest this week, Blackburn Vikings alum, and Davidson College Wildcats Assistant Coach, James Janssen. James takes us through his pathway from VJBL player and coach, through to his current role within the college system. We get to hear some great insight as to what life is like for the college athletes, what the expectations are, but also some outstanding advice on how to choose the correct school – a great listen for all players and coaches. Just a reminder, get your submissions in for the podcast over the next couple of weeks, we need: Your name and your club; What you’re reading; What you’re watching; What you’re listening to; And what you’re doing for your own professional development We want coaches at all levels to be submitting their information to try and help out as many other coaches as possible. You can send this through to rob.coulter@basketballvictoria.com.au or via @RobCoulter on Twitter.

Lockdown life is well and truly set in for the Victorians at the moment, but we’ve got your resources covered. We check in with all the High Performance Coaches to find out a few things, what they’re reading, what they’re watching, what they’re listening to, and what professional development they’re working on whilst we wait to get back on court.   We do need our listeners to help out the coaches in podcast land, and this is your chance to appear on the Talking Split podcast. All we need from you is an audio recording of: What are you reading What are you watching What are you listening to What professional development are you doing right now   We will collate all these and play as many as we can on the podcast in a couple of weeks time to give as many coaches as many resources as we can. All submissions need to be in by Monday 27th July and can be sent to Rob.Coulter@BasketballVictoria.com.au or via the DM’s on Twitter. If it’s easier for anyone, I’m happy to jump on a Zoom and take the recording that way. Anyone that appears on the podcast will receive a small gift courtesy of the Talking Split fairies – don’t get your hopes up though, this isn’t Oprah…

Great to have the Sydney Uni Flames Head Coach, Katrina Hibbert, on the podcast this week to discuss her coaching journey. A graduate of LSU and having played in the WNBA and WNBL, we look at how she made the transition into coaching from playing, how teaching has helped her coaching, what she’s learned, and what she is continuing to try and learn in her coaching career. Obviously a bit of bad news this week with the cancelling of the news of another 6 week lockdown in Victoria and VJBL and Big V seasons cancelled. Please make sure everyone continues to check in with the players and fellow coaches and we all get through this in as best shape as we can.

The “Missing” milk cartons have paid off, and Coops is in for the podcast this week!  Following on from the shooting podcast a couple of weeks back, we follow up with adaptive finishing and finishing around the basket. Who uses it the best, why do the players need to have it in their toolkit (not toolbag as Zoe refers to it), and how do we teach it to get the maximum amount of transfer from our athletes into the game.

It’s not every day you have a World Championship Gold Medallist and NBL Championship winning Head Coach on the podcast, but when you do, it makes for one heck of an informative listen. We are joined by Basketball NSW Hall of Fame member Rob Beveridge, who is now thankfully out of his 39 days of isolation, and takes us through his coaching pathway which includes 4 gold and 4 silver medals at the Australian Junior Championships with NSW, a Gold Medal win at the 2003 U20 World Championships, his time in the NBL, establishing a building a winning culture with his teams and also his upcoming book “When Winning Matters” which he has co-authored with Dr.Stephen Bird.   “When Winning Matters” is Talking Splits first official “book club” recommendation (Oprah eat your heart out), and is a must read for coaches of any field. On top of the book itself, purchasing will give coaches access to additional content which is sure to make any coach better. You can pre-order your copy via the Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/whenwinningmatters.book/

Fantastic news during the week that the return of basketball is on the horizon, and whilst we are all keen to get back into things, we do need to exercise some caution to make sure our players don’t get injured as we return. Durham McInnis from Core Advantage takes us through some of the things we need to be aware of, what to avoid what we can be doing in the early days of returning, and how we can look after our athletes to give them the best chance possible to stay injury free as we return.   The Core Advantage education site's free resources and holiday training program can be found here and the “Art of the Reload” webinar is one not to be missed for coaches of all levels: https://www.coreadvantage.training/free-resources-store   You can get in touch with Core Advantage here: https://coreadvantage.com.au/

Touching on one of the most controversial topics this week - does pineapple belong on pizza? After we get that hot button topic out of the way, we are looking at shooting. What do we teach, why do we teach it, how do we get our athletes to self evaluate and why is it necessary? Technique matters, but the ball going in matters more, so when is it too late to change a technique, and why getting it right early matters so much.

Like everyone in the world at the moment, we lived our lives through Zoom once again. We discuss the pros and cons of online training, how the HP program has managed to survive and thrive in this time of social distancing, and the work that has been done staying connected to the athletes (and their dogs) that has been the most important. Hopefully we are back soon – especially if it saves the athletes from the HP coaches cooking…

In times when you’re a man down, you need someone to step up.  Thankfully, Zoe was around when Coops went missing at podcast o’clock. Today we look at one of the most underrated topics, Coach Welfare. What are some of the areas that can keep coaches from being at their best, and how can we help address them? If you have any suggestions for other coaches out there, please send them through using the #TalkingSplit on Twitter, or the comments section on Facebook. Finding Mastery Sleep Doctor: https://findingmastery.net/michael-breus/ Beyond Blue: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/ Urban Meyer Article: https://thelab.bleacherreport.com/i-m-not-the-lone-wolf/

Talking Split is on the road this week, out at Broadmeadows Basketball Stadium for the episode recording before our HP coaches go their separate ways in a busy day of coaching. Ash gets his long-awaited intro music (how long until everyone wants their own?), and McKinnon Basketball have invested in modifying their U10 girls competition. Coaching is all about reflection and there’s a lot of story time this week, as we look back on the things we have picked up over our time coaching, that we wish we had known when we first got involved. If you’ve got something you wish you knew, reach out in the comments on Facebook, or with the #TalkingSplit on Twitter!