Reasons Why College Basketball Team Is Performing Poorly & Deal With it

College sports can be challenging, and basketball is no exception to this. There can be one or multiple reasons as to why your college basketball team is performing poorly. For now, let us look into some of the more important ones and how you can deal with them.

#1 It is a New Team

When it comes to sports, making progress with newly formed teams is a tedious task. A new team can mean new people, new management, new strategies, and so on. There is an entire change of mindset for which a lot can go wrong, especially during the team’s early days.

Firstly, the players need to get along with each other. From understanding each other’s playing styles to knowing their strengths and weaknesses, players have to know almost everything about one another. That helps them play better as a team.

Next, players have to adjust to the new tactics that their coach has planned for them. When a new coach takes over, there is often a major change in the playing style and tactics of the entire team. The coach will not always deploy a strategy that the players are used to. He or she needs to think about ways the team can perform better. And that means they have to plan new strategies for the team to succeed. 

Of course, it is also crucial that the coach takes his players’ strong and weak points into consideration. Otherwise, no matter how well orchestrated their strategy is, it will eventually end up failing.

Finally, there is the factor of player management. That includes managing the players professionally, as well as teaching them how to deal with pressure, balance their personal and professional lives, and so on. 

Unless you work all these things out, your basketball team cannot win games and succeed in the long run.

#2 The Team Needs More Practice

Practice is what makes a team perfect. One of the most possible reasons why your basketball team is failing to perform is because they are not getting enough practice. Or, it could also be that the training sessions are not very effective. 

To make the most out of your practice sessions, you need to arrange them properly. That means you will have to train while keeping your opposition in mind. You will also have to set up the sessions to help your players work on their skills, strengths, and weaknesses.

Besides physical training, players need to take part in team-building sessions too. They also have to learn where they went wrong in the matches they lost and work on ways to overcome their mistakes and shortcomings.

During training, you should focus on building the specific skill sets of your players as well. You can demonstrate different basketball drills to perfect your team’s dribbling skills. Players should also practice drills that are role-specific. For instance, the forwards should focus more on shooting and jumping. Shooting and point guards need to be alert of the opposition positions. And all your players need to work on their ball control and ball-handling skills. They need to perfect them such that they make fewer mistakes during the matches.

#3 There is a Lack of Motivation

Continuously losing games and putting out poor performances means that your team will start losing confidence. That, in turn, will make them feel demotivated. This is a common scenario in almost all major sports. Be it basketball or soccer, when you are not doing well in your games, you are likely to feel less motivated going into future games. 

You can work around these situations in two ways.

Firstly, you will have to start winning games or at least bring some improvement to your performance. It is easier said than done, but winning games will help you gain some of the confidence back. Afterward, however, you will have to keep the momentum going. The need to continue winning matches will keep the team motivated.

The other thing you can do is give them a quick break or some time off. They can use this time off to get back their composure, as well as free their minds of all sorts of worries that are bothering them.

That is all for now. Although there can be more reasons apart from these, you should look into the three discussed above first before looking into the others. Hopefully, your team will start doing better once you work on these problems and start winning a few matches.