juulie
Not only would I have had to be coaching girls ball then, I would have had to change Washingtons
wizard
I coach a team that, by virtue of being in an AAU club, plays an insane amount of games. We played about 80 per year before they reached HS this year, with about 2 practices per week over an 8 month period. Whenever practice time dips, playing level dips as well. I think we learn a lot from playing a lot of games in the spring season, but only if we are practicing in between to address weaknesses.
And I tried to run a fall of "practice - no play," parents strongly vetoed it. They wanted their kids in a league. So I still did player development, ran no offense and man defense only, no press, and we predictably lost all but 2 games (how'd we win 2 - it's a miracle!). But we are a lot better now, because we spent the fall learning how to play basketball. What a concept.