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The Basketball Academy; Teaching Skills through Drills

Youth Basketball

April 1, 2010

Players do their dribbling warm-ups to begin each session at the Basketball Academy.

With basketball season behind us, some athletes are gearing up for the spring sports season. There are also countless athletes who have jumped right into more basketball. This article is the first of several that will discuss the many different opportunities that basketball players participate in after the traditional basketball season is over.

If you walk into the Sullivan Gymnasium on the University of Southern Maine's Portland campus on a Monday, Tuesday or Thursday you might do a double take. Instead of seeing college students playing basketball you will see some of Southern Maine's most dedicated youth basketball players trying to master the skills that will give them a competitive edge on the basketball court.

Dudley Davis founded the Basketball Academy six years ago. For the six years prior to that he trained individual players on a one on one basis. Players like former Deering High School standout Nick Caner-Medley who went on to star at the University of Maryland and is now playing professional basketball in Europe.

In addition to the Basketball Academy, Davis founded the YES! program, (a 501 c 3) non profit youth basketball league in 1985. Davis estimates 3,000 to 4,000 youth basketball players have participated in the league over the last 15 years.

Davis said he started the Basketball Academy in 2003 because, "I saw that many student athletes that were playing the game in elementary school, middle school and high school had limited skill sets. Many of them had poor foot work, poor shooting mechanics and could not handle the basketball well. I thought Maine players' skills were way behind other players outside of Maine."

Davis knows how things are done outside of the state of Maine. Basketball has been a part of his life for over 36 years. Davis was born in Kingston Jamaica and moved to the United States in 1973. He attended High School in New York City.  He played collegiate basketball at Mount Wachussettes Junior College in Gardiner Massachusetts and then at the University of Southern Maine.

Catherine McAuley freshman Hannah Cooke shoots while former Deering High School and University of New Hampshire player Jamal Caterina looks on. Caterina coaches at the Basketball Academy when he is in the area. Cooke is having a great season on McAuley's varsity squad.

It only takes a few minutes observing the young basketball players training at the Basketball Academy to see that Davis has developed a program that focuses on teaching those fundamentals he felt was missing.

Repetition of different dribbling skills.

Players are divided into groups based on their skill level rather than their age like a lot of youth programs are done. Every player who trains at the Basketball Academy starts out at level one regardless of their age. It is a unique environment where you will see fourth and fifth grade boys and girls working on the same skills side by side with middle school and high school students.

Before a player moves up a level they have to be able to perform the skill sets to Davis's expectations. There is no subjectivity or favoritism from a parent coach whose child is competing for playing time with the other players. In fact there is no playing time to compete for. The Basketball Academy is a skills academy with the sole focus on making each player they best and most skilled player they can be.

Davis demonstrates a technique for Windham residents Nick McGouldrick, Ezra Boynton and Ethan Spaulding.

To ensure that the players are given the greatest opportunity to master the skills Davis only hires coaches who have mastered the skills. Davis Said, "All my coaches have come up through the programs. They have to be able to do the skills they are teaching."

The list of coaches is impressive and includes; Former Deering High School star and Maine Mr Basketball award winner Jamal Catarina, Former Portland High School Star and Maine Mr Basketball award winner Robert Pillsbury, Former Deering High School standout Walter Phillips Jr.

Players that advance to level two face a much more advanced and intense program. Players are put on an individual development plan and progress at his or her own speed. The players and their families decide when and how often they attend. Davis and his coaches are there to give them instruction and direction.

Sessions are run with players divided by skill level. Jamal Caterina works with McAuley High School standout Alexa Coulombe in the foreground while Dudley Davis sets up a drill for the level one players, and Walter Phillips is running another drill for players at another skill level. A Cheverus player is working on her shooting form in the middle of the three drills.

The attention to each player's individual needs is obvious at every session. While the players are working on drills in groups, Davis is walking around assessing each player's technique. He is looking for areas that individual players need to improve on to master the bigger skill set the drill is focusing on. When he sees a player doing something that needs to be tweaked he pulls the player aside and works with them. Once they perform the skill to his satisfaction he has the work on it repetitively before having them return to the drill they were doing. It is this attention to the finest details that makes the

When asked about how early a player should start training at the Basketball Academy Davis answered, "They don't necessarily have to come here. Its nice if they come here and obviously we would love to have them. More importantly they have to take the game seriously and put in the time working on their game. The big key is are they doing it correctly? You could do 100 of the same drill, but if its wrong, you have gotten nowhere. If your footwork is wrong and your shooting technique is wrong you are just reinforcing the wrong habits. The first thing you need to make sure is the person who is teaching you knows what they are doing. Then you just do it over and over again until you get it right. You have to spend the time in the gym."

McAuley High School standout Alexa Coulombe is a regular at the Basketball Academy

Davis went on to say, "Its not the amount of games. Let me repeat that, people don't understand that. You don't get good playing 30, 40 or 50 games. You get better spending repetitive hours in the gym working on your skills over and over again. That's where you make the biggest jumps in your game."

When asked what the right mix of training to game time was Davis replied, "The right mix is spending three quarters of your time training, and one quarter of your time playing games."

When I asked Davis if that meant that kids should be playing that mix year round. He responded, "You need to take time off to just get better. You can't go right from one league to the next league. When do you work on your skills? There should be a three month black out period where they play no games. They should be in a gym just training not just going from one league to the next. Take some time off and train, then go back and play and experiment with what you have been working on."

There are coaches who think differently than Davis. Youth coaches who think Davis teaches kids to showboat and learn unnecessary moves. Coaches who think he teaches them to be "me first", and dribble around the court without direction. Davis's response to those critics is, "Those people need to get out of the state of Maine and take a look. What we do is nothing new. Everyone outside of the state of Maine is doing what we do. Every drill that we do here, every pro knows it and can do it. The top division 1 players do these drills." In addition Davis says, "We don't teach kids to go out and dribble around in a game with no focus. We teach them to learn skills they can utilize in a game if they need to. We may teach dribbling skills and proficiency with the ball. But what people don't know is on the offensive end is we are teaching them to get to the hoop in as few dribbles as possible. The players need to know how to do all the skills so they can do them when they need to, but their goal should be to get to the hoop in one or two dribbles if possible."

Davis points to the results his players are showing on the court as proof that his philosophy is developing better all around players. Some of the current high school players he is training who are ranked among the top prospects in the country. Catherine McAuley Sophomore Alexa Coulombe and Deering Junior Kayla Burchill are ranked as top players in their classes in the East.

These two players are just the tip of the iceberg. Davis went on to discuss with excitement the underclassmen he trains who are or who have been leading scorers on their teams already this year. "We train four of the five starters at McAuley. We train players at Falmouth, Cheverus, McAuley, Portland and the list goes on, who are among the leading scorers for their schools. We had a bunch of players who were all SMAA last year."

A quick glance at the rising stars list on www.basketballacademy.biz shows just how many notable high school players go through Davis's Basketball Academy and Yes League. Koang Thok of Portland and Tyler McFarland of Camden Hills are on that list as well as the Portland Press Herald's Boys Basketball 10 Players to Watch list for the 2009-2010 season. On the girls side, Kayla Burchill of Deering and Nicole Taylor of York are on the Basketball Academy's rising stars list and among the top 10 girls to watch in the Press Herald.

The most obvious thing you notice when observing Davis working with the kids is that he is following his passion. He not only loves the game of basketball, he loves to teach youth players the finer points of the game. He gets as excited as the young players when they perform the skill he has just shown them. The kids thrive off his excitement and his knowledge of the game.

Head over to www.basketballacademy.biz and check out the schedule, print the registration form and bring your young hoopsters down to USM.