Hoops Minded: Basketball & Mental Skills Training

05/20/2025

Be where your feet are.
Being present is undefeated!

04/08/2025

Hi, it’s Coach Dan, aka Danny Hoops. Happy to (re)introduce myself! I’m a Certified Mental Performance Consultant and founder of Hoops Minded, a mental performance coaching service for basketball players, coaches, teams and other sport athletes. I also work as the Assistant Director of the Applied Sport and Performance Psychology graduate program at Dominican University of California. If you or someone you know has a question about the mental game, please reach out! I’d love to help if I can and if I can’t, I have a network of colleagues who can!

Mental performance coaching can help you perform your best when your best is needed. All too often, our minds impede our ability to perform our best. Mental performance coaching helps you recognize the many ways you can use your mind to your advantage..

08/30/2024

This is a non-stick frying pan. Why in the world am I posting a photo of a non-stick frying pan, you might ask. It would be a fair question! And I’m so glad you asked.

It’s about self-talk. That constant chatter in our minds that we all experience. For some it is more negative, for others more positive and for most of us, it is incessant. The mind goes. The mind doesn’t stop! We should be grateful for that. And what we might try to aim for in our self-talk is not overly negative OR positive self-talk but rather PRODUCTIVE self-talk. Talk that facilitates whatever we are trying to accomplish. Informational self-talk regarding a correction to make or how to adjust. Motivational self-talk that helps bring our right energy to what we’re doing. Those are what we are after.

So much of the talk around self-talk is about trying to change, control or otherwise reframe negative self-talk to positive. But false positive self-talk can be harmful too! And if we think we are the greatest gift to God’s green earth, that can get in our way too. If we celebrate too much after a success, that can harm us too. Conversely, we know for certain that negative self-talk can harm our ability to perform our best. Productive and NEUTRAL self-talk (neither good nor bad) may be best.

Remove the stickiness of your self-talk by working on slowing the pace of the chatter over time. How? Keep it task focused. When you notice your mind has gone astray (too negative or too positive), bring it back to focusing on WIN (What’s Important Now). Usually that will be the task at hand. Of course, like so many of the mental skills, this is easier said than done. The key is practicing over and over again, returning to an anchor (like the breath, like the task at hand).

Later, rinse, repeat. Go again!

09/14/2022

https://www.hoopsminded.com/post/what-s-is-a-rep-in-mental-performance-training?fbclid=IwAR1qPHmi8iowgmdjmXqfWTpCr08i_hX8R1MvJYqePy_MLtk-ePl_REXFOO8

What does "working out" look like in mental performance training? We know what it looks like in the weight room but there is a lack of general understanding as to what you might do when we hear the concept "train your mind." First off, a way to look at it: Physical training = WORKING OUT Mental trai...

09/10/2022

What is a single ‘rep’ in mental training?

📍noticing your mind is elsewhere and returning it to the task at hand

📍experiencing self-doubt, knowing it’s a normal part of being human, letting it go, reminding yourself you’re capable

📍 Feeling the pressure of a competitive situation, smiling, remembering you’re doing something you love

📍 daydreaming about winning, coming back to a process focus: what’s the next action step?

📍hearing your negative self-talk, releasing it, remembering you are not your thoughts

09/10/2022

“Respond from the center of the hurricane, rather than reacting from the chaos of the storm.” - George Mumford

07/13/2022

The zone is elusive. You can't force your way into the zone. Most of the time, you'll need to adapt and adjust to the challenging circumstances of not playing your absolute best. When your shot isn't falling, how can you still impact winning? If your opponent is scoring on you consistently, what tools do you have at your disposal to change your approach and stop them? How will you be impactful without the big minutes you want? These are all examples of ways you might need to adapt your game when conditions are not going your way. This is worth of exploration; having a plan in place before these challenges arise. Will you spend time thinking about it? Will you have a plan?

All that being said, while we can't force the zone, we can set conditions in place to help us get there. By creating conditions for flow we are establishing consistency in our approach, which will set us up for success more of the time. How do we set those conditions? First, create, tinker with, experiment and arrive at a consistent pre-performance routine. What do you eat the night before? How much sleep do you get? When do you arrive at the venue? What are you saying to yourself at different points in that process? What music do you listen to on your way to the gym? What about during pre-game? What shots do you need to get up prior to the game? What is your ball-handling routine? What is your stretching routine? What intention are you setting going into the game? Have you determined your game plan?

By making the aforementioned a consistent set of relied upon actions, your mind is at ease and your body gets into the regular repetition needed to be well-grooved come game time. It won't guarantee success, but it will help you arrive at success more often.

07/03/2022

This is a fundaMENTAL: you are not your sport. You are not defined by your results. You can give your blood, sweat and tears to the game but know that win or lose your personhood is not defined by what happens in a game. This can be hard for the “ball is life” types and it takes time to fully grasp but once you do you actually perform better.
—
By identifying what makes up who you are and recognizing that you are not defined by what you do, you begin to shift in a manner in which you can play free to fail. Important: this doesn’t mean you don’t care. Of course you care! You’re simply able to put the game in perspective with the overall totality of who you are.
—
When you spend time marinating on this you inevitably get to a place of balance, a safer and healthier way to approach what you do, and a freedom to make mistakes and embrace successes evenly.

06/25/2022

One more.”

In hoops jargon we use the phrase make the extra pass or make the “one more” pass to describe a team fully rotating the ball around the perimeter for the best possible shot. Often time a weakside wing will be open off of a pe*******on and kick out, but if the wing makes an extra pass or one more pass to the corner, it’s typically going from a good shot to a great shot.

How can you make the extra pass in your mental game?

1️⃣ Realize that mindset is another area you can train, as you do your skills or your body.
2️⃣ Make a decision to commit to trainjng your mental game
3️⃣ Systematically reflect on your practices and games, journaling what went well, what could have been better, and what you have learned
4️⃣ Start a formal mindfulness practice by beginning to meditate
5️⃣ Increase your self-awareness of thoughts, feelings and actions in game so that you can impact them
6️⃣ Identify core values that represent your ideal self and on-court actions that match up with them
7️⃣ Begin to self-regulate your thoughts, feelings and actions so that you are in alignment with those values
—
The above list is a lot! Each one is a “workout” in an of itself and will help your mental game. Most importantly, make the decision to train your mental game. Go deeper; if you truly want to be great at this game you’ll find opportunities to get better. Your mindset is waiting for you to make that decision. Make the one more pass. Make the extra pass!

06/14/2022

Without a willingness to be vulnerable, we may never fully grow and realize our true potential. There are elements of ourselves we struggle to face up to. By "going there" with a trained professional you can process these elements of who you are and your past experiences. By speaking it through, you can vent, process, expunge or modify aspects of yourself that don't align with your values. As the great says, "victory goes to the vulnerable." It is not the hardening of our souls that wins the day. It isn't the suppression of our truest feelings. It is allowing those truths to be expressed, being with them, and being able to release them that will help you come out the other side a better you. A better you = a better hooper.

06/08/2022

When a mistake happens on the court, where does your focus go? Miss a shot, give up a bucket, turn the ball over- in that moment, where is your mind? Perhaps it’s on the play that just occurred. You are human; that’s normal. What we are trying to train is your ability to quickly shift to the next play or better yet, the
—
Look up court! What can you impact? What is the NBA in that moment? Next Best Action. Put your focus on the task at hand. Look up court!

06/06/2022

The game is just a part of life. Many times, we show up at the gym with the weight of some other stress, whether it be an argument we had, an assignment to finish, putting plans in place, or other aspects of our busy lives. How do we transition when we show up at the gym so that we can set those stressors aside and be our best? One way to do so is by showing up with a stated intention and using the gym doors as a symbolic marker of how you want to be in this new environment.
—
Try this:
As you approach the gym doors, remind yourself how you want to show up. For example: focused and confident. Another example: relaxed intensity. One more example: calm and under control. The specific intention is your own. Then, as you are walking through the gym doors, take a deep breath in through your nose and exhale slowly. When you walk through the gym doors you have decided to behave in a particular way and you've ritualized this transition so that your experience is a positive one.
—
Get out in transition! Transition with intention.
—

sportpsychology