An International Assist: American coaches hold coaching clinics and camps in India

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India's untapped potential for a basketball revolution has long been realized around the world - a country of nearly 1.2 billion people must surely have at least a respectable starting 5 to step out on any court and face any opponent, right? Surely?
But potential is one thing, its realisation another. India is still a country where most sports, excluding cricket, aren't taken too seriously. While other Asian countries like China, Iran, South Korea, and Kazakhstan have improved their level of basketball dramatically over the last decade, India still lay 52nd on the last Men/Women combined FIBA rankings.

But there is the potential, and although it may be difficult to make a change overnight, there are several who are chipping away every day, hoping one day to carve out a space for basketball in this cricket crazy country. After spending several years holding training camps and coaching in India, American basketball coach JD Walsh recently teamed up with Dr. Bob Baker (Head of Sports Management at George Mason University) and Craig Esherick (former head coach of Georgetown University) to hold combined coaching clinics and youth basketball camps in South India. The initiative was sponsored by the International Sports Initiative grant, awarded through the SportsUnited Division of the US state department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
Walsh, Baker, and Esherick spent around 10 days in India, holding basketball clinics and camps in Chennai and more intriguingly, getting a chance to work with a few members of the Indian Men's National team in the city of Bangalore. Only seven of the 21 total members of the Indian squad, nicknamed 'The Young Cagers', showed up for the training camps, but they were accompanied by dozens of interested basketball coaches from around India who came to pick up coaching skills from the American coaches. I was lucky to speak to all three of them before they boarded their flight (and beat volcanic ash) to get back to the US last week.
"Some of the boys we worked with were pretty good," said Esherick, who helped in organisation practice drills for the players that attended, "But it will take a lot of hard work and organisation on the part of the basketball federation here to make a decent team."

Esherick should know - currently the assistant professor of sports management at George Mason, one of the highlight's of Esherick's coaching career was playing the role of assistant coach and scout of the US Men's Basketball Team that won bronze in the 1988 Olympics in South Korea.
The trio of American coaches also worked with Alexsander Bucan, the Serbian head coach of the Indian team. "We have tried to help Alexsander demonstrate basketball fundamentals to the players," Esherick added, "This is a young team with a good nucleas, and their hard work will pay dividends later on. They need to play together, train together, and stay together to form a good squad. They must travel together and get some more exposure. But all these things won't be possible without a stable structure and the right amount of financial assistance from the federation."
The current national team is indeed a young squad, with most of their players under the age of 24. At the recently concluded South Asian Games in Bangladesh, India was captained by 18 year old Vishesh Bhriguvanshi. Vishesh is one of the brighest young Indian talents, first making his name when he won the MVP award at the Basketball Without Borders (BWB) Asia camp two years ago. He also won praise for his hard work at the camp in Bangalore.
"He's a good shooter and has a strong inside game, too," says Esherick. Walsh adds, "Vishesh has good size and he works hard - but more importantly, he really wants to be a better player." Apart from Vishesh, Walsh had warm words for a few other Indian guards too, particularly praising their shooting ability.
I take special, biased pride in Vishesh's successes - he is one of the many hoop talents rooted from my hometown in Varanasi. A city known more for its spirituality than its sports, Varanasi has surprinsingly been able to produce talent after talent for both the Indian men and women's teams. I interviewed Vishesh for the first time when he was just 17, fresh after his BWB MVP award - in two years he seems to have build on that potenial.
Potential. And it seems like that word never seems to leave my mind when I think about Indian basketball. No, potential isn't good enough. Far from it.
Bob Baker, who also spoke about his experience and welcome so far in India, agrees that the country can do a lot more in the world of hoops. "It is important for India as a big player in the global community to make a strong commitment to the sport of basketball," feels Baker, "There needs to be a strategic approach to the whole organisation of basketball here. The federation and other organisers need to work on how to keep the players together, what other things to teach them, how to get them to play more games..."
"But I'm confident that these players will develop," he adds, "That is the best way for the sport to be visible to the audiences and popular in Indian culture."
Baker was also encouraged during this camp by the enthusiasm of the attending coaches from around India. "The coaches really cared about developing their knowledge of the game," he said, "They absorbed our teaching, asked great questions, and we spent a lot of time discussing basketball teaching and strategy with the coaches. It was neccessary to talk to both the coaches and the players about the importance of fundamentals."
Walsh added: "The coaches were really interested and asked a lot of questions. We worked with them on various offensive and defensive sets - motion offense, press, etc. It is disappointing that only seven players of the team showed up, because we would have obviously liked to see the entire team. I would love to come and work with the national team on a more regular level."

Apart from their camps in Chennai and Bangalore, Walsh, Esherick, and Baker also got a chance to see another side of basketball in India when they visited Subhash Mahajan and his Sumpoorna camp at the village of Tumkur. Mahajan has been working for several years to support India's grassroots basketball movement. After deciding to synchronise their efforts, Walsh and the others visited Mahajan during their trip where they interacted with young hoop lovers.
Many of the kids who play in the village camps are from underpriviliged backgrounds, sent from an NGO called Shishu Mandir in Bangalore. "The kids here are now gaining more awareness about basketball now that JD has been visiting and helping out," said Mahajan, "They were just awestruck just to see the tall Americans! Some of them asked the JD and the others if they could pass on LeBron James' e-mail ID!"
Mahajan admits that cultural challenges in India make it difficult for people to take sports seriously, but he was glad that the children got to know that there is more to the game than just casual shootarounds on the court. "They have to learn about a serious world of basketball, that they have to persist regularly and practice hard to make a life out of it."

The USA's assist to aiding basketball in India has continued in another form - NBA-India has recently launched the Mumbai edition of the Mahindra-NBA Challenge, which features a recreational basketball league and training camps for hoops enthusiasts in the city. Laker legend AC Green was in town along with former WNBA player Teresa Edwards to tip-off the tournament. Green has since been to Bangalore to help out in an Indian national training camp for under-18 girls. This iniative was taken in the form of a pact that the NBA has entered with the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) to provide world-class training to the Indian players and coaches.
Green said at the event: "Indian women players have lot of potential and they are no less than anyone in the field. What they need is an opportunity to prove themselves."
Potential. There seems to be hell of a lot of that going around our 1.2 billion isn't it?
There is still a long way to go to fix the untailored and casual culture towards sports in India. Federations have to be organised, players have to be provided incentives, accountability has to be asked for, media hype to be created, and most of all, the game has to be loved. But basketball, if anything, is a hell of a lovable game. There are various efforts offering the game an assist here - let's just hope that we can finish the play.

*First published on SLAMONline.com on April 22, 2010.

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Alexsander Bucan: Bringing in a foreign coach doesn't guarantee that the quality will improve

Krishnakumar KH from Express Buzz interviewed Alexsander Bucan, the head coach of the Indian Men's basketball team, during Coaches Coaching Clinic in Kochi a few weeks ago. Bucan, an experienced Serbian coach, has been in-charge of the Young Cagers for around two years. Here are some excerpts from that interview:

India, says Bucan, has the potential to bloom in the ‘simple’ business of getting through a maze of giant bodies to ram a huge ball through a basket raised high on a pole. Easier said than done, he accepts. But if China, Russia and Iran can do it, so can India, feels the affable Bu­can...

“The Russians and the Chinese are not the biggest of people,” he points out. “But they have tall players in their basketball and volleyball teams. That means they identified talent at an early age and put them through scientific training to produce world-class athletes. The same is possible in India.” But Bucan contends that producing world-class athletes requires an overhaul of the “amateurish system” in India. “It is professionalism that gets you results,” he says. “You need to begin early and find young talent with the right build. Then they need systematic training that includes fitness training, nutritional care and psychology sessions.” The Serb has no doubt India has the talent. “I ha­ve seen many talented players at the school and college levels in India. Some are more gifted th­an the national players. Sadly, most of them drop off the game to further their studies or go looki­ng for jobs. No one is rea­lly interested in leaving everything else behind and concentrating solely on the game.”

“There is no way the team can impro­ve without playing stro­ng opposition regularly,” he says. Further, Bucan is not one to boast without a blueprint — infrastructure, academies, age-gr­oup tournaments, camps, a professional national league at the senior level and cheering crowds.

“Just because you bring in a fo­reign coach, for any ga­me, there is no guarantee the quality will improve,” he says.

However, the national coach is quick to point out the improvement made by the cagers in the past few years. “There has been a big difference in standards in the past two years,” he says. “But the real difference can be made only with long-term strategies. Stress should be laid on the under-16 level to unearth players with potential.”
The most significant achievement during the past two years is the triumph of the Indian under-17 team at the 2008 Asian FIBA 33 championship — which allows just three players per team. It was the first time an Indian basketball team at any level had achieved such a feat. “We beat the Philippines, where basketball is as big as cricket in India,” says Bucan.
Regarding coaching, he feels it is tactical play that requires greater attention once the basics are in place. “We are far behind world-class standards in terms of contact play,” he says. “Also, there has to be more set play than what the players are used to here.”

Read the full article here.

What I found particularly interesting about this interview was Bucan's admittance that bringing in a foreign coach doesn't neccessarily guarantee an improvement. We Indians have historically had a niggling inferiority complex to foreigners, and this is true in sports, too: Gary Kirsten has managed to steadily improve the cricket team, but the credit for that should go to the captain MS Dhoni as much as the coach. Sure, it is neccessary for our coaches to learn new skills and techniques from around the world, but it is also important for the coach to know about local knowledge, playing styles, and conditions, to offer a holistic improvement of the team.

I also hate to say this, but in more cases than not, a positive fact about bringing in a foreign coach is that he or she is free from the political pressures and the corruption at every rung of the ladder that Indian coaches have to suffer through. This freedom tends to insinuate misunderstanding or jealousy amongst their local counterparts who are already used to a certain system, but in the end, the priority is to worry about a degree of professionalism in team selection and play.

Indian head coach to coach coaches in Kochi

I'm childishly giddy about writing the following sentence: Alexsander Bucan, the head coach of the Indian Men's Basketball Team 'The Young Cagers', will be coaching hundreds of Indian basketball coaches in Kochi.

Coach Coach Hota Hai.

From the Press Trust of India:

In order to bring about a standardisation in the coaching system, the Association of Basketball Coaches in Kerala will be conducting a five-day Clinic here from March 7 to 11.
Joseph Chaco, Secretary, Association of Basketball Coaches, Kerala, said one of the drawbacks in Indian basketball coaching system is the lack of a uniform approach and this aspect is reflected in the quality of coaching that is being imparted in various schools and colleges in the country.
Over 100 coaches, both professional and amateur, will attend the camp, he said.

The course content covers a wide range of subjects including techniques, tactics, sports science, nutrition and officiating, he said.

Keep your eye on this news - if succesful, such camps to coach coaches will only help to spread knowledge of basketball fundamentals to more parts of the country. I'm hoping that other state basketball associations in India follow this programme's lead to host their own.

Bucan, a Serbian, has been the head coach of the Young Cagers for the past two years. He has had 14 years of experience with coaching positions in national and professional squads in Serbia and Yugoslavia.

Temple Of Bounce: A look at the state of basketball in India

In India, routine is religion. Every stone is a temple, and everything is God.

The clings of the temple bells, marigold garlands around stone idols, squeaky marble floors dirtied by muddy bare feet. A devout of the Ganga River takes dips in the river everyday, bowing respectfully to his deity. Followers of Lord Ganesha will visit his temple, touching the floor as a mark of respect before they step in and fold their hands together in front of Ganesha's idol. Even a textbook commands a lion’s share of spirituality. When an Indian student drops a book, he then touches it to his forehead as a means of asking for forgiveness from the Goddess of Knowledge.

And then there are the other temples. The temples where the idols are wooden backboards and round rings. Where the cling of temple bells are replaced by the constantly comforting thuds of bouncing balls. Where the bare feet of the devotees are packed inside way worn pairs of Reeboks. Where, like the temples of the Gods, the disciples touch the floor on the sidelines and then touch their forehead as a mark of respect before they step on to the auspicious court of their one religion, basketball.

India, the second-most populous nation in the world, boasts a claustrophobic census of around 1.15 billion people, and all that the millions from around this large, varied country have been able to sum up to in the basketball world is a 46th place in the FIBA rankings for men, and 44th place for women.

The NBA has recently announced that, following their success in China, they wish to invest in popularizing the sport in India. But it isn’t the game’s popularity that’s holding basketball back. A plethora of young talent passes through school and college every year, shining on the court early in their careers, before quitting the game early in exchange for a less risky, more comfortable career.

Aleksander Bucan, the current head coach of the Senior Men’s team, confirms the game’s popularity. “Basketball is a hugely popular game in India, and this is not accidental,” he says. “It is an interesting game that seems to have captured the imaginations of the youth of the country.”



Bucan, a Serbian, has been leading the Indian team for the past two years, following 14 years of experience with coaching positions in national and professional squads in Serbia and Yugoslavia. He believes that although the youth of the nation show ample interest in the NBA and basketball, there are a host of other problems hampering the game’s growth.

“I don’t want to say much about the deficiencies in the conditions, because there is nothing really that I can do about it,” Bucan says. “It could be up to another 15-20 more years before we can say that the facilities are up to the desired standard. But there are others countries which have been able to produce great global teams and stars without world-class infrastructure, and we should be able to do the same.”

The troubles, as anyone affiliated with any sport in India will tell you, are with the system itself. Unlike other countries, India does not have a league system for most sports. Most of the top-level basketball players in India have other full-time jobs or work with services for the government, such as Railways or the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. Due to this, even the brightest stars of the national team are but semi-professionals. These players only play in sporadically scheduled cups and tournaments, and their lack of day-in, day-out basketball experience then exposes their talent level when the team faces better-prepared international rivals.

And unlike other countries, any sport not named “cricket” isn’t exactly a lucrative career choice for young Indians. The Indian system lacks the honest interest that its neighbor and competitor China has shown in developing a world-class sports faculty. Most of those who take sport seriously past their school days are either rich enough to take such a risk or poor enough to not have any other option. The middle class is more likely to become doctors or businessmen or software engineers or take up other “safer” careers.

India’s individual sport success stories are mostly self-made, independent of the system’s unhelpful hand. They are always the ones who rebel against the otherwise medieval-esque, bureaucratic way that the government handles things, where nothing ever gets done on-time and the full funds never reach the right pockets.

The rules are, of course, different for cricket. Cricket is the darling of the Indian people—an Indian who hasn’t played cricket is a traitor—and anyone who doesn’t believe that Sachin Tendulkar is a God is committing blasphemy. Even the NBA, in their desire to invest in India, admitted that they will strive to make basketball the second-favorite sport in the country.

But cricket, too, isn’t a rich or successful sport because the government specifically chose it to be so—it is the game’s sponsors and media hype that not only keeps it alive—it has made it into an unbelievable lucrative cash-cow.

Perhaps it is then only right that basketball too, should follow the roadmap that cricket has blazed. For two years now, the privately owned Indian Premier League (IPL) of cricket has brought international attention, interest, and most importantly, recession-defying money into the game. Sports such as hockey and football (soccer), too, got their own professional leagues, and in the case of football in particular, there has been a dramatic improvement in the standard of play now that the money is better.

“Basketball isn’t really a job for our players,” Bucan says. “It holds second-place in their minds, behind whatever else they are doing. We need professional basketball clubs in India, but even if we have them, who will play for them?”

“It is like building a house,” he adds, “We need to first build a good basement, a ground floor, a first floor, and then the roof. Similarly, basketball needs to be strengthened at the lower, grass-root levels, and then encouraged in lower division leagues, before a good roof, which would ideally be a pro basketball league in India.”

Bucan and his players believe the creation of such a league are not too far off—the discussion and conceptualizations are already in progress amongst the sports authorities and the basketball federation of India. It is just a matter of time before the league is prepared.

Where they succeeded, though, was in the creation of an energetic, young squad of basketball players on the national levels who are enthusiastic in their religious love for the game and in representing their country. The men’s team, called the Young Cagers, has made relative improvement over the past few years. “Unfortunately, we haven’t had any star players for the past decade,” Bucan says, “But I’m very happy with the team I have, because they are a young generation of players who are very promising and have a good future.”

One such young player is Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, the 19-year-old who won the MVP of the Basketball Without Borders camp last year. “We’re starting to bring some medals home now,” Bhriguvanshi, who plays shooting guard, says of the Young Cagers, “But unless there is better media coverage of our progress, we will continue to get left behind.”

Media momentum will only follow success stories and talent, something which the Young Cagers or the promised league would have to first deliver. Some of the great players of the current generation have included the brilliant but controversial Sozhasingarayer Robinson (Wally Szczerbiak has nothing on names!), who has been an unstoppable offensive force for the country in the past, but was banned for one-and-a-half years from representing state and country, during which he even announced retirement from the sport. (Ever since his ban period ended, Robinson has returned to the game.) Talents such as 23-year-old point guard Talwinderjit Singh “TJ” Sahi, who used to play in a San Jose, CA league, earned the moniker of “Air India,” and showcased his talents in leagues in other countries such as the Philippines, Iran, and Maldives, too. Former captain Trideep Rai is another regular of the team.



The Young Cagers, as well as other basketball enthusiasts in the country may be thousands of miles away from America, but they are able to get their regular fix of the NBA through televised matches and the internet boom. A few years ago, Kevin Garnett visited the country on an adidas promotional tour, and was greeted with frenzied appreciation wherever he stepped his large feet. Similarly, NBA legend Robert Parish came to India late last year as part of an NBA/WNBA hoop school program, and he left behind a lasting impression in the minds of young fans. Since June 2007, the JDBASKETBALL movement, heralded by Coach JD Walsh made its way into India. They have since conducted 75 clinics in nine Indian cities for around 5,000 youngsters.

But all this would be waste without the right exposure at the top level. To keep talented young stars enthusiastic about a career in basketball, the sport needs the finances and the glamor that accompanies cricket, and to achieve this, there is no better solution than the proposed Indian basketball league.

“I want my players to think basketball 365 days a year,” Bucan reiterates. His dream is not far off. There are several players and coaches who are spiritually and romantically attached to the game; people for whom walking on to a court is a religious experience and the thuds of a dribbling ball and the swishes of the net will resonate louder than temple bells. All that is left is to catch them and mold them up to their potential before it’s too late.

*First published on SLAMONLINE.COM on July 21, 2009.