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Pure Shooting Video

By Aim High Hoops

We at Aim High Hoops completed a big step for our company the first weekend of May. We filmed professional video footage for our first training video, entitled “Pure Shooting”.  By our count, we logged 30 hours on set, all to capture 7 hours of video, which will be condensed down to roughly 1 hour when all is said and done! This process of outlining a script all started in August 2009, and in between then and May, we filmed “Pure Shooting” 5 times on our own in order to watch our ideas on screen, reflect on the good and bad that we saw, and then finally modify the script to communicate our vision as clearly as possible.

A lot of great people were involved in the film process, without which we wouldn’t have been able to make this training video. Rogue Lens (roguelens@gmail.com) is the company responsible for filming the footage and putting together a final, professional product.  We had a variety of demonstrators ranging from  3rd graders to the collegiate and post-collegiate levels. Courtney Weibel and Devan Bawinkel were our featured demonstrators; Courtney will complete her senior season for Marquette University in 2010-11 and as a senior in high school broke the national record for career 3-point shots made, while Devan finished up his college career with the University of Iowa this year after scoring 2,000 points in high school. 

We look to have the video ready for sale by the end of the summer, and we strongly believe we’ve created something that can help shooters of all ages and experience levels reach their full potentials by learning how to shoot the ball “pure” every single time, thus strongly increasing the chance of the ball going into the hoop. There is ALWAYS room for a pure shooter on the court, and like we say in the video: “it is never too early or too late to become a pure shooter!”

Billy Lewis & Jonathan Schneiderman

Aim High Hoops, Inc.

www.AimHighHoopsOnline.com

Work on that form, Mr. President.

By Aim High Hoops

Without a doubt, the 2010 Division I National Championship game between Butler University and Duke University was one of the best title games in the recent past, and arguably, in the history of the tournament.  Coming down to the wire, an intentional Duke miss from the free throw line gave Butler’s Gordon Hayward a chance at a game-WINNING three-point shot from half-court that nearly found the bottom of the net. Duke won the game, 61-59, in a match-up between two very talented teams playing their best basketball of the season.

The reason Duke was playing at such a high level was because of the incredible outside shooting of their “big 3”; Kyle Singler, Jon Scheyer, and Nolan Smith.  All three players were at the top of their games, and the shooting rhythm they displayed was an illustration of what jump shots are supposed to look like: smooth, efficient, and consistent.

Many around the country, while tuning in for the basketball game, saw President Obama put his own jump shot on display at halftime, with a game of H-O-R-S-E against CBS’s Clark Kellogg. The President was down early, but managed to come back and steal victory from the hands of Kellogg by converting on some long-range jumpers in the White House backyard.

Mr. President, we at Aim High Hoops are well aware that you are in the hottest seat in the world already, by the nature of your job, and the criticism comes early and often for you on a daily basis. However, we would not be doing our jobs as citizens if we did not offer some constructive criticism on your shooting mechanics!

We’ll keep it simple: you are shooting across your body! When you get tired, or are not in rhythm, you will have a tough time keeping your shot on line with the basket.  In the basketball training videos that we offer, teaching players how to keep the ball on line with the basket is one of our core principals….and essential to successful shooting. 

This advice comes at no charge, Mr. President.  However, we would gladly accept a tax break on our first return next year!

Billy Lewis & Jonathan Schneiderman

Aim High Hoops, Inc.

www.AimHighHoopsOnline.com

Building character though basketball

By Aim High Hoops

I am in the midst of creating a summer class for incoming high school students. The purpose is to teach personal and interpersonal habits that can help them be successful in high school.  The text on which we’ll base the curriculum, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens”, by Sean Covey, describes the “private victory” habits first, which young people use to feel comfortable and confident with who they are as individuals. Covey then moves on to the “public victory” habits, which help to create positive and productive relationships.  He goes to great lengths describing how human nature requires us to win that “private victory” first before moving on to the “public victory.”

What does this have to do with basketball?

How often have you heard a coach, player, announcer, or journalist talking about a basketball team playing (or not playing) well together? Playing together means that individuals on a team make a mental commitment to do what is necessary to help their team succeed.  A lot of times it means doing the tough things; i.e. taking charges, and the unselfish things, like making an extra pass to the “very open” teammate. 

It takes self-confidence to put the team’s success first, and it shows strong character.  Watching northern Illinois native and Butler Bulldog senior, Willie Veasley, is an illustration of character on display in basketball.  Here is a 22 year-old, who as averaged single-digit points for his career, yet is the winningest player in Butler history, and has now led his team to the Final 4 with a chance to be a national champion. There are games he has had where the stats are all but absent, yet he was one of the main reasons his team played well and was victorious. 

How can that be? Well, Veasley has enough confidence in himself that he is not threatened by the success of his teammates. He has worked hard enough, believed in himself all along the way, and has learned the value of working to bring out the best in his teammates for the good of the team. 

That is part of the package we offer at Aim High Hoops. Our training videos emphasize the values of conditioning (hard work) and confidence, two traits that will allow players to be successful within and beyond basketball.

Check back soon!

Billy Lewis & Jonathan Schneiderman

Aim High Hoops, Inc.

www.AimHighHoopsOnline.com

Next Generation Skill Development

By Aim High Hoops

In what may end up being our official slogan, “Next Generation Skill Development” embodies what Aim High Hoops is all about.  Giving players resources to “develop” their skills over time is our goal.  We are working to create an organizational framework where players can return to us on a constant basis and always find something to help them improve their games.

One of our main features will be the basketball training videos, where we focus on all aspects of individual improvement for players of all skill levels.  In the first year of Aim High Hoops, we are looking to produce training videos for the mechanics of shooting and then for ball-handling. 

The website will constantly be updated with blog postings, featuring insight from established basketball players and coaches, who will be talking about their ideas on basketball skill development among other topics.

Players will have the opportunity to connect on a personal level with Aim High Hoops, in ways not currently available within the industry.  Personalized skill assessment tools will be followed up by a personalized training plan. 

For the past five years, each of us has been involved in influencing the “next generation”, as classroom teachers and coaches. We understand how students learn and want to use what we know to make players’ experience with Aim High Hoops as beneficial as possible. 

We are also constantly studying the trends within the game.  Players are always doing new and more impressive things on the basketball court, and in doing so, creating new challenges to which the next generation can aspire.  I am not talking about trying to duplicate a great play, like Michael Jordan switching the ball from right to left hand in mid-air.  That is not something players should be practicing in hopes of using it in a game situation.  Rather, I am talking about things like Jordan’s fade away jump shot from the post.  That is a weapon he used constantly and made it look easy doing so.  How many guards shot that shot before MJ? How many more shoot it now?  One of my college teammates, a 6’2” “center”, mastered the fade away so he could score against bigger defenders, and did it so well he won conference player of the year as a senior. 

Our purpose at Aim High Hoops is to help the next generation of players develop well-rounded skill sets, including a strong foundation in the fundamentals as well as an array of offensive weapons to help themselves and their teams reach maximum potential.

It’s going to be an exciting ride!

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

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