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First Appearances

By Aim High Hoops

Aim High Hoops is going to visit the “Original March Madness” in Peoria and Bloomington for the boys’ and girls’ 2010 State Tournament games. You read that right: Even though CBS uses the phrase, the “Madness” originated from the Illinois state basketball tournament!

It is always such an incredible environment “downstate” (or “upstate” for those south of I74).  Now in my late 20s, I still feel like a kid when I am down there watching these teams battle for their chance at basketball glory. The boys’ tournament used to be at Assembly Hall in Champaign; now it is held at Carver Arena in Peoria.  Kevin Garnett, Michael Finley, Derrick Rose, Jon Scheyer, Shaun Livingston, Eddy Curry are only a few of the many incredible players throughout the years that have wowed Illinois high school basketball fans at the State Tournament before moving on to big time collegiate and professional stages.

I still tell people about Ronnie Fields’s offensive rebound from his own missed free throw that turned into the one of the best dunks I’ve ever seen.  This is back in 1995, when all five defenders were still allowed to take a spot in the lane during free throws. He missed it long and wasn’t boxed out. He got his own rebound, one power dribble with his left hand and went off two feet for a tomahawk jam over EVERYBODY. One of many unforgettable March Madness moments I have.

We are going to visit the State Tournament games to start spreading the word on Aim High Hoops. Unfortunately, we won’t have our instructional video on shooting mechanics available, but we’ll be there to invite people to read the blogs and visit the main website to learn about what we can offer people looking for ways to improve their basketball skills. In a previous post I mentioned that we have additional skill development products such as a “personal shot tutoring” feature that we will be advertising for immediate sale.  Package deals will be available to include serious discounts on a “shot tutorial” plus our shooting video once it is produced later in the spring.  I’m thinking “Grand Opening Sale” is more for furniture or appliance stores…..so maybe we’ll go with the “March Madness Sale”.

See you there!

Billy Lewis & Jonathan Schneiderman

Aim High Hoops, Inc.

The Toughest Thing in Sports?

By Aim High Hoops

This past weekend I saw some great high school basketball. Hononegah hosted their annual Martin Luther King tournament all day Saturday and Monday. Division I talent was all over the place, including seniors Jordan Treloff (Illinois State) from DeKalb HS, Dwayne Evans (St. Louis) from Neuqua Valley HS and Lenzelle Smith (Ohio State) from Zion-Benton HS. There were countless other players from the 8 teams that will no doubt be playing competitive college basketball once they leave high school. 

Almost every match-up was competitive. Every game was filled with highlights: great defense, passing, dunking, and shooting. The shooting was tremendous! Some of the players I saw were making 3-point shots like they were lay-ups. Just like with any skill in any sport, the great players make it look easy.  At times for players, it is VERY easy. Just ask a great player in any sport about a time he or she was in “the zone”, when the hoop is bigger, the fastball slower, the fairway wider, etc.

That brings me to the article title. OF COURSE I can’t win this argument with everyone, but I might as well give it a try by propping up my bias and playing devil’s advocate with everything else in addressing this question: what is the toughest sport to score in?

Some say hitting a baseball, because it is a moving object.  Hitting a golf ball square is always a challenge because of the need for angles to be so exact.  What about scoring a goal in soccer….or hockey? Both of those seem kind of tough, proven by the fact that scores are always so low in both of those sports. In football there are so many things that need to go right on every play to even gain a few yards.

A few things to consider about the other sports: 1) In golf and baseball a player gets time to set themselves before hitting.  2) Part of the reason hockey & soccer goals are so tough is the role of the goalie, who just stands in front of the goal trying to stop scores! 3) How about the size proportion of the game piece in relation to the goal…in baseball? An average baseball field is close to 100,000 sq. ft of fair territory, covered by 9 players.  Do the math! In hockey or soccer?  How many pucks or soccer balls fit into those nets?  Some big targets there proportionally!  In golf, the proportion is smaller but there is no defense to contend with. With football, a ball just has to cross a line, etc.

By no means am I saying that scoring in other sports is easy; they are all tough. But which sport presents the most difficult environment in which to score? Let’s consider the job a good jump shooter in basketball has.

Imagine having a goalie in basketball, just like in hockey and soccer,  who was positioned directly in front of the goal the entire game. It would be a different kind of sport, wouldn’t it?

Addressing the proportion of ball to goal aspect, two basketballs can fit through a hoop, meaning basketball players try to score in a goal that is ONLY twice the size of the game object, a far smaller proportion than the other sports I mentioned, and they do so with only split-second opportunities, on the move, while getting harassed by pesky defenders throughout the whole process! 

Well, regardless of if you agree with me or not, successful offense in any sport is tough for so many reasons.  Even “the best” in their sports fail in more than 50% of their scoring attempts….but still make it look easy when they do get it right!

Keep coming back to visit. We want to help you make it look easy too. 

Billy Lewis & Jonathan Schneiderman

Aim High Hoops, Inc.

Aim High Hoops vs. the competition

By Aim High Hoops

A lot of companies have instructional basketball videos to sell and that is where customer relations begin and end.  Many of these online companies serve only as the distribution channel between production and sale, and they have no other horse in the race other than making sales. Whether or not you are satisfied with your product, or understand the content…or apply the teaching correctly is….well….irrelevant.  In any of those situations, there isn’t much you can do to feel better about your product.

I point this out in order to put what we want to do in context.  

Imagine this: Buying a video on shooting a basketball, maybe for you, your son or daughter, etc, and having an online resource center available to help measure  your (or your son’s, or daughter’s) individual shooting progress.  Taking it a step further, how about some personalized feedback on your shooting? 

Think of our basketball instruction as a curriculum in a school.  Our videos are the classroom lessons.  When a student enters middle school or high school, he or she is placed in various classes depending on the level of preparedness.  This same concept applies with the videos we offer, as I have previously mentioned.  Beginning players start with a focus on the basic foundations of shooting and ball-handling, while more advanced players may benefit from a quick review of certain basic fundamentals before moving on to the more advanced concepts.

Good educators don’t just teach during the 45 or 50 minutes of class, just like our job doesn’t end when you buy one of our videos. A former teaching colleague of mine, a math professor, used to make his students keep track of all their grades in order to measure their progress and figure out their grades.  Our online resources will allow you to do the same thing, by measuring your own individual shooting and ball-handling progress with easy-to-understand benchmarks.

Good teaching also means spending time with individual students outside of class, to identify academic strengths and weaknesses and then work towards improvement in all areas in order to improve overall performance. We want ALL of our customers to reach maximum performance levels and to help achieve that, working individually with customers on skill development is EXACTLY what we are offering. We plan on creating a scenario in which we at Aim High Hoops are available to provide “personal tutoring” to customers that think they need it and/or just want it. 

We’ll be writing more on this soon!

Videos Overview

By Aim High Hoops

By June 2010, we expect to have the first of three instructional videos ready for sale.  There isn’t a much better feeling in sports than shooting a basketball, and that is where we are going to start.  The first video is dedicated to the proper mechanics of shooting a basketball.  We also plan on discussing effective ways to make those mechanics become second nature through proper conditioning. 

Listen closely next time you are watching a great shooter on television.  The announcers usually have some very good insight as to the differences between good and great shooters.  Take Jon Scheyer from Duke, for example.  In a game against Iowa State, a game in which Scheyer had a tremendous game shooting the ball, the announcers talked about how he shot the ball “the same way every time.” 

Why is that so important? In basketball, there are only so many things a player can control.  On a jump shot, a shooter can do everything right (that is the key!) but the ball still may not go in.  We as shooters cannot control the results of all our shots, but we can control how we develop, improve, and maintain proper shooting mechanics, and we can ensure that the proper mechanics are used as often as possible in game situations by repeating those mechanics in practice situations.  The bottom line is that with consistent shooting mechanics, a player improves his or her chances of making more shots in games.

Our second video will be about ball-handling and dribbling.  Just like with our first shooting video, both beginners and experienced players will benefit from the information, and here is why:

Most ball-handling videos have great drills and workout routines to share.  The creativity that goes into these drills is spectacular, and some of the things people are doing out there will blow you away.  However, what is missing in a lot of cases is the connection to the real game.  Players are not told how to use their newfound ball-handling and dribbling skills to influence the game in the most effective ways possible. 

Our goal of this second video is to present the whole picture to our viewers.  We not only will show you how to become a good dribbler and ball-handler, but we will then take it to the next level and show you how to impact games on the offensive end.

Our third video in this introductory series will focus again on shooting, but our focus is not as much on the proper shooting mechanics discussed in the first video.  Rather, we will be discussing how players can create shots for themselves. 

At the high school level, players that can create high-percentage shots when guarded are often times the best players on their teams and among the best in their leagues.  Jonathan has a great quote on this topic that his colleague and fellow coach, Jeff Jahn, told him: “If you are open it is because either you are no good or the person guarding you is no good.”  Think about that. If you plan on being a good shooter and/or scorer, plan on being guarded by good defenders.  You’ll need to learn how to create shots even when you are not open. 

I went to a clinic back in 2005 and Bruce Weber, the current head coach for the University of Illinois men’s basketball team, was the main presenter.  This was in September of the year they lost to the University of North Carolina in the national championship game.  He was talking about his philosophy on offense and why he ran a freelance motion offense that emphasized offensive creativity versus a lot of set plays.  He said: “When you are in the state championship game, your plays and players are scouted extremely well.  Defenses know how to guard your plays. So, when it comes down the final minute of the championship game, would you rather have two really good plays or two really good players?”

Coach Weber obviously is in a situation that he can recruit those good players, where at the high school level coaches most time have to play the cards they are dealt! However, Coach makes a good point.  When plays do break down or are guarded well, coaches want (need!) players that can create offense on their own.  The ability to create shots for oneself often leads to scoring opportunities for other players on the floor as well, since defenses have to focus so much on stopping the main offensive threats.

Creating shots may sound like a very advanced concept, but it is something developing players can start thinking about early on.  It worked for me personally.  I started working on “creating” different kinds of shots back when I was 12 years old, but it wasn’t until I was 16, because I was big and strong enough, that it really started paying off, and the ability to create shots helped me be able to compete at the high school varsity level and in college.  Same thing with Jonathan: you will soon see that he has a tremendous ability to shoot the basketball, but that alone wasn’t why he was able to compete at the Division I level. He needed to be able to create offensive opportunities for himself, and his work on that started early.

More coming soon. Stay in touch!

Billy Lewis & Jonathan Schneiderman

Aim High Hoops, Inc.

Aim High Hoops Welcome

By Aim High Hoops

Our wives tell us we’re getting too (28 years!) old to be running around playing basketball with these youngsters.  Just because it takes an hour to warm-up and three days to recover from playing?! Come on!!!!!

Well, the truth is that while our official playing days are over, neither of us is ever far from a game.  1999 high school graduates from northern Illinois, Jonathan (Forreston HS) and I (Hononegah HS) went on to play four years of college basketball: Jonathan at the University of Illinois-Chicago, where he helped lead them to a 2002 NCAA Division I Tournament berth, and myself at Rockford College, where we were fortunate enough to make the Division III NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history in 2003. 

It wasn’t until 2005 that we actually first crossed paths, and it wasn’t as players, but as coaches.  Jonathan was hired that spring to teach and be the head coach of the boys’ basketball program at his native Forreston High School.  His first year at the helm, the Cardinals advanced to the Super-Sectional game for the Class A State Tournament, finishing just one step shy of the Elite 8 and State Tournament appearance in Peoria.

I took a similar position in the summer of 2005 as teacher and head boys’ coach at Stillman Valley High School, where I stayed for three years before moving up to my alma mater.  It is currently my second year as a teacher at Hononegah and assistant coach with the boys’ basketball program, and being back has been great. The success has reached new levels since I graduated ten years ago and therefore the expectations keep growing.  My senior year team won 24 games, one win shy of the school record.  Since then, five Hononegah teams have won 25 games or more. Hopefully that first Sectional Title is right around the corner!

We were both 23 years old when we were hired to coach.  What we had in common was minimal coaching experience, full basketball programs to lead, and a strong desire to figure out the best ways to win, so we chatted occasionally about what each of us was doing to get our programs in shape.  

It wasn’t until summer 2009 that the concept of Aim High Hoops came about. As early as 2006 I had been thinking about creating instructional basketball videos but struggled to find the right way to do it.  Jonathan had also thought off and on about producing an instructional video, basing his ideas on the skill development work he has done for years with individual players and small groups during the off-season.  We started sharing ideas, and after a number of rounds of golf and a few dozen cheesy bratwursts, we had our business concept. 

Under the name of Aim High Hoops, we will create instructional basketball products for players, parents, and coaches.  The instructional tools available will be organized and presented in a logical, easy-to-understand manner.  We have something to offer beginning players, as well as more advanced players looking to take their skills and knowledge of the game to the next level.  One of our main goals is to make your experience with us a personal one through our online basketball community. More details on that to come.

We look forward to sharing more as we move forward, so thanks for stopping by and check back often!

Billy Lewis & Jonathan Schneiderman