Coaches lay down measures to improve Indian basketball

Satnam Singh

Former Indian women's basketball coach Francisco Garcia and renowned basketball coach JD Walsh headlined a coaches conclave organised The Integrated Basketball Players Association, (IBPA) in association with the Indian BasketBall Fans. Garcia, who coached the women's team from 2013 to 2015, spoke about the coaching techniques needed to improve the standard of the sport in the country. "The focus should not be on more number of drills, rather, the coaches should focus on concentrated drills. The coaches should be focused on what results they want from a player and they should work on only those specified drills," said the Spaniard. He added, 'When correcting players, too much information should not be put in their head. Players should be told about their fault in a more precise way so that they have less and concrete information to process and drills should be made more dynamic." Walsh, who has run numerous camps across 25 Indian cities and worked with the various state associations through his JDBASKETBALL school, urged coaches to work on sharpening the skills of athletes like dribbling and passing as it is a very skill-based sport. The American said, 'Basketball is a game of skill and more than drills, the focus should be on skill and endurance training. Consistency and a good skill development programme can prove beneficial in creating world-class talent in India.' Walsh also added that India needed a pro-league that players can aspire to play in and needed more grassroots marketing to incentivise players to take up the sport. The session - moderated by former international player Balakrishnan Jayaram and Jayshankar Menon (191), Asian All-Star player and Secretary-General of IBPA - was held in the memory of the late Dr. Subramaniam who helped produce more than 50 international basketball players such as Satnam Singh (218-C-95), Amjyot Singh (203-F-92) , Yadwinder Singh (197-PF-86) and Jagdeep Singh (198-C-86) to name a few.
Courtesy of: thehindu.com

Tags : SATNAM SINGH, ST. JOHN'S EDGE, INDIAN BASKETBALL