My colleague Emily Worrell recently posted an article related to the upcoming play Godspell. In this post, I’m going to copy Worrell’s style and talk about the do’s and don’ts of something else: Basketball Practices, and with Basketball Sectionals starting yesterday, it is important teams get it down right.

DO warm up before practice, even if your team has general warm-ups. While some teams do general warm-ups before practice, every athlete is different. This is especially true for those who have had injuries before. For example, a basketball player who injured his hamstring would want to stretch that more than someone who hasn’t. By the same token, if a basketball player has had an arm injury, they would want to spend more time warming up their arm than someone who hasn’t.

DON’T overdo warmups. Warmups are meant to stretch your muscles before the intense workout of practice, not a “go all out” type of deal.

DO a small bit of jogging. Research has shown that jogging or a light to moderate run warm-ups the muscles. If at all possible, try to jog or light run after stretching.

DON’T overdo the running. Sprinting all out during warm-ups only increases your chance for injury.

DO ask other teammates for help on why you messed something up before you talk to the coach. The coach is very busy and can’t attend to every athlete. However, if you ask a teammate on why something was wrong, they can probably put it in much more understandable terms than a coach can, when a coach has to attend to 12+ athletes. Veteran NBA players usually can help a rookie NBA player learn something better than a coach can, and research has shown teammates can correct more errors in other teammates than the average coach, both in high school and beyond (Kevin Garnett and Karl-Anthony Towns, I’m looking at you).

DON’T forcefully correct teammates. It’s ok to encourage or explain why a play messed up, but be polite. Trying to be like the coach will usually end badly, and coaches hate impersonaters.

DO study film. Almost every football team films practices to help players improve, and basketball teams are starting to catch on.

DON’T totally ignore coaches advice. While in some situations your gut instincts can help you (as was proven by Jack Van Remortal during the 2015 Football Sectional game against Noblesville), most of the time the coach can offer better advice than your gut instinct.

DO learn from your mistakes. Just like most teachers look at quizzes and homework as opportunities to catch mistakes, it is the same exact procedure in sports. If you’re not sure, ask another teammate or a coach, or see if you can ask the coach after practice if nothing else. There is no team that enjoys being on the receiving end of a mistake that costs them the game.

DON’T “learn” from your mistakes and then repeat them the next practice. If a coach explains something and then you forget what they said and repeat the error, the coach will hit the roof.

DO show effort in practice, regardless of grade. I have heard stories of how freshmen make it to JV as a freshman and sometimes even JV players play Varsity games and JV games.

DON’T take practices way too seriously. While practice is serious, don’t overdo yourself in the practice before a big game. Teams are going to make errors regardless, so while it is good to catch small errors (like a misstep), you should be focusing on the big errors more (like not knowing where you are supposed to defend).