Kinsman Junior Basketball Clinics.

Groups of Mount Gambier’s talented junior basketballers participated in a series of two hour basketball skills sessions conducted by Dean Kinsman last week.

Kinsman, the first SA Country Basketball Development Officer and former Head Coach of the Women’s program at the AIS is now Basketball Manager of the Sandringham Basketball Club in Melbourne.

He ranks amongst the best in the field of coaching juniors and especially in the area of mastering basic skills and their implementation in game situations. Kinsman believes in the simple edict that the better skilled junior players are at executing the fundamentals of the game the more they enjoy themselves and hence the better they become as players.

In the past three years he has introduced new initiatives into the Sandringham junior programs which have seen a dramatic improvement in standards and rankings of the Club’s junior teams. Several major Melbourne based Clubs have now adopted these initiatives.

His knowledge and philosophies in basketball have also been recognized by the coaching panel of the NBA Huston Rockets and resulted in him making a 16 day visit to the USA Club earlier this year.       

Kinsman travelled to Mount Gambier two days before the Pioneers’ home game against Sandringham, to conduct these sessions, a generous gesture on his behalf and fantastic opportunity for our local juniors. The juniors thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and gave their undivided attention throughout the period. They felt that his detailed teaching of techniques along with explanations of “why” for the various drills and plays gave them a better “feel” for the game.    

 Kinsman may return later in the year to run a two day camp and  work with Lakers junior representative squads.