Coaching Girls Basketball - Keys to Success

Girls Basketball Coaching Tips
Building Your Girls Basketball Program
By Coach Kim Mulkey, Baylor University Head Women's Coach

Establish what you need from the athletic department in order to be successful. Make sure you will get it before saying yes to the job.

Hire a talented and diverse staff of assistant basketball coaches. Don't waste time or money by bringing in assistants with the same skill sets. For example, if one assistant is best at working with low post basketball players, make sure you have another who excels at teaching your guards how to play basketball.

Establish your girls basketball team rules and a code of discipline right away. If a basketball player violates a rule, impose a consequence. That ensures conformity by your girl basketball players in the future.

Look people in the eye when you talk to them. It sounds simple, but it is one of the big keys to communication. Laugh with them. Hug them. Get involved with their lives.

Understand the basketball recruiting process. Know that you can't get every basketball player that you want and learn to read the signals quickly. If you don't think you have a reasonable chance of bringing in a player, move on to the next one. Don't waste your time on a player you can't get.

Drill specific basketball plays and circumstances at your girls basketball practice. Make sure your girl basketball players understand what they have to do when they trail by four points and 40 seconds are left in the game. Make sure they know how to play with an 8-point lead and 1:10 left in the game. Work on these special situations at practice and use specific girl's basketball drills to teach them how to play basketball.

Celebrate the small victories and advances of a program that is starting at the bottom. The first road win. The first win over a ranked opponent. The first winning streak. These are all things to be recognized.

[Related: Basketball Play Book]

About Coach Kim Mulkey

Ever since Baylor University named Women's Basketball Hall of Famer Kim Mulkey as Baylor's fourth Lady Bear head coach on April 4, 2000, the former All-American and Olympic gold medalist has brought repeated national prominence to Baylor University and the women's basketball program.

This season in just her fifth year at program's helm, the Lady Bears achieved the ultimate prize each NCAA Division I team covets, a NCAA National Championship. In doing so, Mulkey became the first women's basketball coach to win a NCAA national championship as both a player and a head coach. She joins former North Carolina coach Dean Smith and Texas Tech's Bobby Knight as the only members of that elite group.

After just five seasons as a head coach, Mulkey has taken the Lady Bears to five postseason competitions, including four NCAA Tournaments, which includes the school's 2005 NCAA national championship, a national ranking of No. 1 and the championship (2005) in the toughest women's basketball conference in the nation, the Big 12. She has accumulated an impressive 131-38 (.775) career record at Baylor.

Mulkey continued to add to her impressive list of achievements. Numerous honors were bestowed upon her after her inaugural season. She was named one of the Top 50 Female High School Athletes of the 20th Century, National Coach of the Year by Real Sport magazine and Big 12 Coach of the Year by the Dallas Morning-News and Waco Tribune-Herald. In 2003, Mulkey was inducted into COSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame and was a unanimous choice for Big 12 Coach of the Year honors in 2005. She will, along with North Carolina head coach Roy Williams, receive the New York Athletic Club's famed Winged Foot Award on May 19 in New York City.

As a player, Mulkey led the Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters to a 130-6 record, two national titles and four Final Fours from 1980-84. During that time the 5-foot-4 playmaker, known for her spectacular passes and French braids, also led Louisiana Tech to its first two national championships (1981 and 1982) and was a part of the USA's gold medal-winning team at the 1984 Olympics and the 1983 Pan American Games.

Mulkey averaged 6.38 assists and 1.56 steals per game and ranks second on Tech's all-time list in assists and 12th in steals. In addition, the summa cum laude scholar was a two-time Academic All-American.

*Congrats to Coach Kim Mulkey and her 2012 Baylor Bears. Coach completes perfect season 40-0 and wins 2012 NCAA Women's Basketball National Championship.