🏀 Coaching Insights from the 2025 NSW PSSA Championships
Earlier this week, the 2025 NSW PSSA Basketball Championships showcased some of the most promising primary school aged athletes in the state. The event offered a rich opportunity for players to showcase and highlight skills, teamwork, celebrating basketball.
🔍 What We Observed
📌 Warm-Ups That Set the Tone
A number of teams used warm-ups as teachable moments to reinforce fundamentals that players would later executive in games. Warm ups focussing on pivoting, passing and transition were most common. All teams had dribble + layup lanes incorporated into warm ups and it was promising to see the emphasis on symmetry (eg both left and right lanes).
🎯 Skills in Action
A number of teams had guards who could score from the perimeter through a variety of middle and baseline drive actions including euro step type gathers and two-foot finishes including managing the drive line under pressure.
While some players relied heavily on their dominant hand for finishing and rebounding, moments of early downhill transition and advance passing reflected a developing grasp of broken play offense and understanding of off-ball spacing during transition early offense.
🧠 Game Observations
All teams had some element of ball pressure on defense while better teams had more ball pressure on the catch including active hands playing the ball, and early rebounding positioning
Conceptually a number of teams used an away screen in sideline and baseline out of bounds actions effectively and timeouts were used effectively by coaches to slow scoring momentum and to communicate team defensive tactics such as split-line concepts and defensive structure
Pressuring with containment emphasised trapping around the half court corners (both frontcourt and backcourt) while recovery footwork varied between teams and between players
Diamond press was most commonly used however a number of teams were able to break the first line of these via ball movement and speed dribbling through off-ball spacing
Teams often fouled the player with shorter closeouts in the half court offense, negating advantage and sparingly moved as off-ball receivers on the rise of the shot, reinforcing the need to continue developing spatial awareness and closeout footwork at these ages
When attacking the close out, perimeter players preferred to jab step than shot or pass fake indicating a potential development area when working on 1:1 development and training
Only a few players at this age were able to make cross court passes (>10m) effectively within field of vision and even less were able to see multiple lane runners ahead, reinforcing the need for upper limb strength and conditioning and holistic player development.
On an aside, I am in awe of the ability of parents, coaches, teachers to support this group of talented athletes across NSW - the huddles after the games where both teams join in at the jump circle and receive positive reinforcement from the opponent’s coach, the attention and support that the parents provide to and from the stadium to their player/athletes and the ability for those same parents to allow coaches to coach and teachers to teach so that each and every player develops in their own way is truly inspirational!
🚧 Opportunities for Growth
From both a technical and developmental perspective, these are areas we see as critical next steps:
Teaching Rebounding Beyond Height: Box outs and timing, not just jumping.
Scoring from Off-Ball Concepts: Cutting with purpose, spacing, and creating passing angles without the ball.
Developing Both Hands: Finishing, passing, and gathering with confidence on either side.
Encouraging Defensive Discipline: Closeouts, rotations, and staying in help without fouling.
💬 Final Thoughts
The NSW PSSA Championships revealed a group of young athletes who are already starting to embody performance standards in many areas. With continued guidance from coaches the future of NSW basketball looks promising.
Let's keep building—from One Thru Five Basketball
