News

First of all I would like to thank all the staff and students of Tenison for welcoming Richard and I into the program and the school. We had a great night opening the lines of communication with the parents and students at our basketball information session, and we thank all that attended. I would like to stress to families that if you have anything you would like to speak about regarding your child, please email or phone Richard and/or I. Our first priority is to ensure your child is feeling comfortable and happy with their development.

The first part of my job was to improve the attitudes in regards to punctuality, work ethic, communication, and teamwork to name a few. I’m happy to report it didn’t take long for most to adjust their attitudes and behaviours. Although we still have some work to do, we are now able to focus predominantly on basketball improvement as individuals and teams. As coaches and staff we also needed to improve the resources and opportunities for the students and we’ve worked hard to provide that with great help from HPSP coordinator Kate Exelby and HPSP Head Coach Ciaran Buckley.

Technically our Term 3 focus has been centred around skills and shooting development. We are ensuring the athletes are paying close attention to detail, making sure they do the fundamental skills correctly all the time, and not taking shortcuts or skipping steps. We’ve spent roughly two thirds of our sessions working on shooting footwork and technique under the acronym BEEF – standing for ‘Balance, Elbow, Eyes and Follow through’. We’ve seen significant improvement in the footwork and shooting of all athletes that have been consistently at training.

On 31 August 2018 we were lucky enough to have Former Adelaide 36ers Captain and 3 time Olympian Brett Maher speak to the groups and help coach their sessions. Brett won 3 National Basketball League Championships as captain of the Adelaide 36ers and competed in 3 Olympic games for the Australian National team against the likes of Lebron James and Shaquille O’Neal, He’s widely regarded as one of Australia’s greatest ever shooters. The students were fantastic welcoming Brett in, and listening and learning to his valuable advice, especially regarding shooting. We sincerely thank Brett for his time.

As the term has progressed we’ve started to add in team defensive and offensive principles with an eye to the year 8/9/10 Knockout competitions at the end of Term 3 and the Melbourne National Schools tournament in December. We will carefully balance getting enough work on our individual skill development with teaching team concepts offensively and defensively.

Thank you again to staff, students and families that have welcomed us into the school and we will continue to ensure we provide the best possible basketball education for your children.

Tom Daly I HPSP Basketball Head Coach 

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