Your College Basketball Season is Over – Now What?
Get Better
Somebody out there is working harder than you to take your spot. It is your coaches’ job to replace you and your job not to be replaced
Meet with your Head Coach
The first step to getting better is finding out what your coach believes are your weaknesses and how you can address these weaknesses. If you coach is meeting with your 1-on-1 following the season, seek him or her out and ask what you can do to get better.
Individual basketball workout plan
Develop a daily plan that includes on-court skill work as well as strength and conditioning. One of the most common things that a player says they need to address in the off-season is to become bigger, faster and stronger. The best way to do this is to make a plan and hold yourself accountable. Chart your makes and misses in your individual workouts. Time your sprints. Chart you bench press totals. Once you start doing this, you now have numbers to beat each day, week and month. This is a great time to find a basketball trainer.
Competitive Leagues
Be careful here … pick-up basketball can often be a waste of time and a place to practice bad habits. Sometimes, a game of 2-on-2 or 3-on-3 can be more beneficial than 5-vs-5 with no defense, around the back passes off the backboard and fast break lay-up after fast break lay-up. Nobody gets better. If you are going to play 5-vs-5 the best thing to do is to get into a well-organized structured league with officials and players that are BETTER THAN YOU.
Stay in contact with your teammates
Just because the season is over doesn’t mean you should stop communicating with your teammates. With social media it doesn’t matter if your worlds apart. Make it a point to drop a teammate an e-mail, text, tweet, etc… to stay in touch and keep communication lines open year round. Everybody loves a great teammate.
Reach out to new recruits
Shunning new recruits is a sign of weakness and jealousy. Welcome the new guys with open arms no matter how you feel about them. Trust your coach and use the new guys as motivation while helping them at the same time.
Give back
The summer is a great opportunity for you to not only work on your game but also to give back to younger players. Working at a summer camp can afford you to do both. During the camp session you can teach skills to young hungry players, referee their games and maybe even get the opportunity to coach a team for a week. During your “down-time” you can work out with a teammate or by yourself, play competitive pick-up at night, go for a run, hit the weight room, talk to a College of High School Head Coach and just spend a week around the great game of basketball in a different environment. Anohter great way to give back is to visit with your old high school program. Most if not all programs no-a-days runs a summer program. Contact your old high school coach and ask him or her if you can come help out, work out with the team or simply visit with them get better.
Don’t Wait
The video games, movies, malls, theme parks, oceans, lakes, and all those fun things will be there once your college career is done. You only get once chance to play and that window closes very fast. Your playing days will be over before you know it and you don’t want to regret the fact that you didn’t constantly try to better yourself.
BasketballTrainer.com would like to thank Coach Eric Werntgen of UMFK for this insightful contribution.
