One of the most notable athletic alumni of WACO Community Schools has launched an online basketball training tool focusing on the fundamentals of the game. Austin McBeth was a three sport athlete at WACO, and was arguably best known for his play on the basketball court. He earned first team all-state honors while scoring over 1000 points during his playing career for recently retired head basketball coach Bob Hilmer, and played for three seasons under former Iowa State head coach Fred Hoiberg in Ames.

McBeth, in a collaboration with Championship Productions in Ames, and has helped create “Smart Basketball Training” an online coaching for aspiring basketball players. “It basically developed out of a desire from me and my boss and adviser that we would like to take advantage of kids everywhere in the country looking for the next best trainer or a trainer to go work with so they can get better and they can improve.” McBeth said, “Skill development has become such a big part of basketball at such a young age.”

McBeth adds his online training regiment includes four areas of emphasis: passing, ball handling, shooting, and finishing a layup. As an assistant coach at Des Moines Area Community College, McBeth says the area not being taught enough in today’s game is passing, “The reason why I say this is because of how many turnovers are in basketball games,” McBeth said, “It’s ridiculous, I coach at the junior college level and I see both teams have between 15 to 25 turnovers a game and I bet 80 percent of those are committed on a pass.”

You can find McBeth’s online basketball training tool and find out about upcoming free Smart Basketball Training clinics at www.smartbasketballtraining.com. Listen to our interview with McBeth about Smart Basketball training on last week’s PM Sports Page, heard On Demand at KCIIRadio.com.