Hi Everyone,

Newbie coach that is coaching 8-9 year old boys. I have a kid that shoots the ball every time he touches it. Its very frustrating that he'll take several shots in one quarter with the other kids not even touching the ball one time. Have you guys ever experienced this and what did you do to fix it?

Note I can't bench him because 1) I don't like benching kids that age and 2) League prohibits it.

I've experienced this several times, what helped me was emphasizing passing. I actually counted the number of passes in a game that the team made and gave them a reward for beating our goal of X amount of passes per game. I explained the importance of ball movement and good passes. You might have to institute X amount of passes before a shot is taken. When the player that shoots too much makes good passes praise him.

The difficulty might be the parents who don't understand why their player is not taking an open shot so it wouldn't hurt to explain what you're trying to emphasize with the boys. After a few games once they start getting the passing down you can loosen up on passing X amount of passes before shooting.

First, play lots of no dribble games in practice. You can play full court no dribble advancement. Start so the offense has an advantage and adjust as needed. 4 vs 2 no dribble. If you advance the ball to other end of court, you get a touch down. Great drill to develop all around skill / offense and it gets players in the habit of passing and working together.

Second, emphasize passing and talk to the player about it. Generally, when I have kids that take too many shots, I just tell them to always pass if a teammate is wide open and in front of you. Seems like a after a few games and some persistence on my part, it gets better.

Good luck!

I've done what Coach Rob has done. It works great. Kids coming sprinting off the court asking how many "good passes" they had.