The Basketball Queensland (BQ) Player and Coach Development team hosted a variety of development programs at Cairns Basketball over the past weekend.

Friday 20^th of October

On Friday evening, Luke McGuire (Player and Coach Development Manager) facilitated an ASPIRE regional workshop with 25attendees, including local representative coaches from Cairns Basketball. The session began with a feature on scouting, encouraging coaches to observe and counter opposing teams. This was followed by an in-depth presentation on pick-and-roll (PnR) defense by Will Lopez, Cairns’ Basketball Development Manager. He reviewed a variety of coverage options, including drops, showing, and switching, encouraging coaches to focus on the details when teaching young athletes how to defend the PnR. Patrick McInerney (Basketball Development Officer) wrapped up the evening with a run-through of the BQ motion offense, including its implementation at FDP and how it plays into our athletes’ individual skills development.

Saturday 21^st of October

On Saturday, the team delivered a successful Coaches Conference in Cairns, with over 30 coaches involved throughout the day. The topics presented including ‘Coaching Intangibles’ (culture-building, coach development and self-reflection) and ‘Dealing With Young Athletes’ (how to communicate effectively and boundary-setting for staff/player/parent behaviour), which brought on some productive open-floor discussions. In the afternoon, attendees were lucky to hear from Sam Gruggen, Assistant Coach for the Cairns Taipans, who shared his insights on half-court defense and the “Super 6” skills for player development; dribbling, passing, finishing, shooting, 1v1 defense and decision-making. He expressed the importance of coaches being consistent with their defensive philosophies and provided a range of innovative drills for attendees to bring back to their own sessions.

Sunday 22^nd of October

To close out the weekend, BQ hosted 50+juniors at the Cairns Next Gen Camp. The Next Gen Program is designed to give young athletes their first taste of BQ concepts and training style, as well as developing each player’s skill and ability. The first session was aimed at contested finishing, individual defense and quick transitions, while the second session focused on offensive spacing, passing and decision-making. All athletes competed a high level and successfully pieced together their learnings by the end of the camp. Additionally, Luke McGuire ran an intensive session under the recently-launched Next Gen Shooting program, running Cairns Basketball juniors through a variety of methods to improve their shot-making abilities.

The past weekend was another success from a Player and Coach Development stand-point, resulting in lots of positive output and interaction with our regional athletes and coaches as the game continues to grow in North Queensland!

Visit the BQ Calendar for future BQ Player and Coach Development events or check out the upcoming Next Gen Camps here.

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