For me personally, whilst I know many people expect young players to have a "position", for U12's and U14's, I usually try and expect all 10 players to be able to do a little of everything. They should all have ability to handle the ball and all try and rebound.

Now, old saying, you can't teach height, so you probably want some taller kids on the team and not choose an all-small team. If you have the option to choose 10 tall kids and they have ball skills and passing ability, lucky for you.

So realistically, you probably end up with some small, some medium and some tall players. But I don't like the labels of guard/forward/centre etc. I've found it creates attitudes like "you're the centre, so you rebound" and "you're the guard, so you bring the ball up".

Your centre in U12 may end up being a guard in U18's and likewise your guard in U12 might end up being big, so best to expect all your players to dribble, pass, rebound and shoot.

When it comes to selection/composition, I'd make you have a combination of players with existing skills of dribbling, passing, shooting and rebounding with knowledge you will teach them all and improve them. Or even more basic, choose two teams of 5 player combination with those mixture of skills to be balanced on the court.

In a U12.1 rep team the team composition is predominantly going to be the tallest couple of kids at your try outs along with a few of the fastest kids that can handle a ball and make layups. Fillers between them. Speed and height are major success factors, especially when they are young.

There are plenty of kids who make 12.1 because they are tall then go nowhere because other catch them in height and the previously tall kid has nothing to back them up.

If I can offer a competing view, I would assert at u12's 85%+ of scoring comes from transition opportunities.

The stand out criteria from any player is ability with both hands, and some semblance of decision making in an advantage situation. There should be virtually no set piece coaching at this level. 2v1, 3v2 sort of drills should be a majority of drills in practice.

In addition, staying in front of your player as a defender and understanding some degree of boxing out.

These are pretty much the 4 things which will make them stand out for rep basketball, overall all a player who is better than his peers at these 4 areas will overcome height. Only when all of these 4 are equal, with the taller kid get priority in terms of selection.

Coach your kids dribbling, passing and footwork (jab steps, pivots and wide to wider lateral movement). Height and shooting come later.

Thanks all, great insight. My takeaway is at this age, emphasis on speed, athleticism and continue to build positionless skills - ball handling / passing / finishing / footwork / rebounding / defending.

No set piece coaching...
Has anyone actually had a look at what European kids at the same age are doing?

The obsession with this read and react motion trend is a interesting one, look at what is taught over in Europe, and you'll see how it's very polarising to what we largely do here.

depends on what the objectives are - is it development, skills or winning. Winning U12 teams usually have kids that are just too big, doesn't matter on speed - they usually miss their first shot and the big kid under the ring can hit the higher % put back from under the ring - also the big kids just get in the way defensively. Also the teams that stay / pack it in the keyway win U12s as most teams can't shoot from outside that well. But usually as they get older - the big kids might get slow or stop growing and just bulldozing block lay ups doesn't work anymore so the dynamic changes. However by now the club has a winning / championship program and they can recruit players from other clubs. Always interested what a 1st team in U12s looks like to U18s

european juniors way ahead of Aus - can anyone recall that Latvian U14 boys team that played at the Dandenong Tourney pre COVID - they had that fluro tie dyed uniform. They beat all before them - It would be interesting to see if any rose to any great Euro basket etc heights.

There are avenues to understand what Europe are teaching, it's why BA's coaching pathways got rid of choppy feet for example.

Yes, I am in agreeance at -> domestic u12's <-, have a greater emphasis on read and react at speed, rather than set pieces.

If you want set pieces at u12's, let the rep sides do it.

At this age, I would assert young players are going to make a rep side by their decision making and confidence of executing at speed, rather than flash cuts to set-foot shots and memorising diagrams.. at 9 and 10 years old....

"Winning U12 teams usually have kids that are just too big, doesn't matter on speed"

I used to think that too. When I focused on my drills, say 2v1 or 3v2 full court transition, my team made leaps and ran everyone off the court, due to the confidence of executing at speed, and more importantly they fund it fun. Now< I'm not concerned about size until u18's.

From above, the skill focus become reversals (passing and spacing) and holding the ball up for a decision around your (or teammates) driving lanes.

I was going to add to the prior post, being big at u12's can be a curse, many don't develop much more than scoring via put-backs from the charge circle.

I also added 'shots come later', it's usually a big need when u16's move to allowing zones, so usually start to coach at u14's. u12's are too weak to have any meaningful shot at domestic.

As I said, this is domestic, I don't know how much coaching you expect to do in a 1 hour training session, often on a half court. let them excel at transition.

Domestic sides require different coaching to rep sides. You're doing a disservice coaching extensive sets for a domestic team.

Thanks for all the info, appreciated.

My post was possibly not that clear. Two of our domestic team (my child included) did bottom age U12 reps this year. Both will be heading into the 1s (or 2s) next season.

Was keen to understand what to expect going into 1s. As bottom age they were undersized but not outmatched. We certainly saw plenty of taller opposition, often with size (kgs) that didn't seem to venture far from under the basket.

Domestic is basic given the wide range of skill / interest. Work on the fundamentals, half court 3v3 or 4v4, 5-out pass-cut-replace and some inbound plays.

It's interesting seeing all the comments above and I agree with most of them. However it is interesting to see when we talk about teaching skills there is never any emphasis on defence and different principles.

Did anyone see the gold medal match at the classics for under 12 boys between Dandenong and North Adelaide. North Adelaide’s defence was a step above and stopped a very good and high scoring Dandenong side. Yes they had height but their teamwork on defence was great to watch

GWC, it looks like that game is available on the BV YT channel. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll take a look.

Perhaps we got lucky with our first rep coach, but there was a a lot of time for our team spent on defensive skills and concepts. On and off ball positioning, help/deny, stance, active hands, footwork, angles and reads, containment, box out and rebound. They never got to screening but I'm sure it's coming (players were only 8 and 9, first year rep). Defending different inbound plays was mostly taught in-game as they experienced different teams executing it.

Watch the u12 VJBL VC GF game last year (Knox vs Casey) found in Youtube. Both teams have equally skilled/ fast guards but the difference was the single big kid on the winning team.

Bit controversial I suppose but my view is that Team Coaches should not be focusing on player skill development.

Players should accept personal responsibility for developing their skills.

For sure Team Coaches can give advice as to what a player should be working on. The player can then seek out the appropriate private coach or coaching academy to develop those skills outside of the team environment.

The Team Coach can certainly give the player the opportunity to test their skills in Team training sessions or with Game Time. But the main role of a Team Coach is to organise the structure of the team, develop playing strategies and tactics and impart them to the team, and coaching the team to be successful on Game day,

I cringe when I see Team Coaches showing players fundamentals during Team Training sessions.

Of course, if the main goal of the team is to "have fun", then everything I just said goes out the door. In that situation, the Team Coach can try to be all things to all players. But "having fun" usually does not equate to a serious development pathway or winning lots of games for that matter.

I've obeserved dozens of parents who say their kid is playing basketball primarily to "have fun". But then Game day comes along, having fun goes out the window and it becomes all about winning because the general mindset is that you cant be having fun if you are losing all the time.

Not controversial at all, that is how many team coaches operate. It's disappointing, but that’s certainly the case. I have great respect for those team coaches who can instil team structure, strategy and also provide skills coaching. Only got 10 kids, so not hard across a season.