The Basketball Podcast: EP25 Marwan Elrakabawy on Basketball Camps

In this week’s basketball coaching conversation, Marwan Elrakabawy discusses Basketball Immersion basketball camps and the player development concepts used the camps, with the creative mind behind Basketball Immersion, Chris Oliver. Coach Elrakabawy attended a three day basketball camp run by Coach Oliver to learn first hand about BDT zero seconds, and the games approach to coaching basketball ideas, that are used to develop players of all ages.

Coach Elrakabawy is a former assistant coach, and now head coach of NCAA Division III Schreiner University Men’s Basketball program in Kerrville, TX. Coach Elrakabawy’s previous coaching experience came stints at Division III Southwestern University (TX), Division II St. Edwards University, and Division III Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

Coach Elrakabawy began his coaching career at the high school level where he  served in various roles, including Varsity assistant and JV Head Coach for eight seasons. During this past season, Coach Elrakabawy assisted a Schreiner team that captured the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (“SCAC”) Regular Season Conference Title, the SCAC Tournament Championship, and the program’s first berth to the NCAA national tournament.  

Listen Here:

Marwan Elrakabawy Quotes:

Coach Marwan Elrakabawy:

“Within skill development . . we as coaches need to embrace that messiness [of learning] as part of the process of getting players and teams where they want to be.”

“When you do slow things down . . that’s a great opportunity to re-direct players’ attention to their technique and to their focus.”

“I have players all the time ask me, ‘What can I do to get better?’ . . what it comes down to is you’ve got to be somewhat creative with the skills that you’re working on and what you’re building up to.”

“In terms of a culture, what is better than that partner having to care about his teammate getting better?”

“None of this stuff works if players aren’t willing to give effort on both sides of the ball.”

Coach Chris Oliver:

On limited practice/camp time: “I have a really small window to help people improve and I want to maximize that time as much as I can.”

“For BDT (Basketball Decision Training), we consider that mind training. For skills training, we consider that ‘zero seconds.’ And what BDT tries to do is bridge those two things together so that we’re still working on skills with the decision.”

“Every decision we do in BDT relates to a game decision.”

“These camps are selfish times . . what we’re trying to do is grow your skills and grow your confidence in your skills.”

“If I was to develop young players . . I would play an immense amount of one-on-one. Different versions of one-on-one that are game-like. I believe players would self-discover and learn much better within that setting because they have to figure it out.”

“The progressions [of drills] is definitely to expose them to possibilities and then let them decide what they’re best at.”

“A layup is hard because of the decision before the layup.”

“Teach a new play 5-on-5 . . Every time we introduce a play . . I’ll stop it for our defense if they’re not in the proper position.”

“Go out, on your own, ten minutes, and get better. If we can get players to do that they will improve. Because most of what players do is coach-led or trainer-led.”

“We can give them ideas and we can give them direction but, ultimately, . . for players’ skill development there’s got to be self-discovery.”

Marwan Elrakabawy Breakdown:

1:00 – Introduction
2:00 – 3-Day Training Camp
4:00 – Impressions of the Training Camp
7:00 – Fight For Your learning and it’s all the Struggle
8:00 – Coaching Clinics
9:30 – Warm Ups in the Training Camp
11:00 – Slow Learning is part of the Learning Process
13:00 – Moving to Some Shooting
14:00 – BDT on Training Camp
15:00 – Mixing the 2-in-1 Shooting to the BDT
17:00 – Focus of Training Camp is on Selfish Time
18:00 – Doing 1-on-1 on Training to build Confidence
19:00 – Advantage and Disadvantage of Basketball: Teammates
20:00 – Constraints
21:00 – Freedom and “Spin Dribble and Perimeter 3-on-2 shooting”
22:30 – Limiting Bounce Pass
23:30 – Layering of Skill
24:30 – Different Solutions
25:30 – “We want Skills to Evolve”
27:00 – Air Square
28:00 – Perceptual Layups
29:00 – 2 Perceptions: The Defender and The Rim
30:30 – Teaching Play 5-on-5 and Defensive Reps
31:30 – Desonate Opponents
32:30 – Sharing Concepts to Other Coaches
34:00 – Make a Drill Better by Adding a Defender
35:00 – The Initial Part of Learning is Distracting Enough
37:30 – “I want Adopters”
38:30 – Individual Player Development
40:30 – Mixed Drills
41:30 – Adding Challenges
42:30 – “What can I do to get better?”
44:00 – Self Discovering
45:30 – Valuing Players Own Development
47:00 – Interaction with the Teammates
48:00 – Motivation
49:30 – Building Self-Esteem through Motivation
50:30 – Conclusion

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