Their substitutions can hurt us

My teams have had a recurring problem with the other team's subs for the past few years. We don't always notice it when there's a sub and the result can be a player left open. It's a priority for me and I always look over at the bench when there is a whistle to see if they're making a sub. I mention it to the players and occasionally I rant and rave but it still takes too much time to get it right.

A couple of days I ago I was walking home from my morning coffee and I realized that we don't spend any realistic practice time on it. It's true that I talk about it but we never set up game situations when we scrimmage. The players not on the court are on the sideline and when we make changes, it's both teams at the same time.

Here is the new procedure that we're going to follow for this season. The players not playing during a scrimmage will be on the sideline on either side of the scorer's table, just like in a game. Every time there's a whistle for a foul or a violation I'll check to make sure that all the players look at the scorer's table. We won't automatically sub both teams at the same time. In addition, we'll do the same things that we've been doing for a long time. The player coming on has a t-shirt or a towel that they hand to the player that they're replacing. They don't give it to them until they find out who they are guarding. The player coming off reminds the incoming player of pertinent details such as; are they right or left-handed, what's their best move, what defenses we are in etc.

I'll keep you posted as to how this works out. By the way, it isn't important unless you invest some practice time in it. By that measure, I wasn't giving this small part of the game the importance that it deserves.