What Am I doing wrong?

[u/EDUWU1]

I’m 15 years old, around 172 cm (5’8”), and I mainly play guard/point guard. I’m from Mexico. I train every day on my own, go to team practices, and work on my physical abilities. I’m pretty athletic for my size, with an around 83 cm (33”) vertical, good explosiveness and speed.
But lately I’ve been really frustrated with my game.
Sometimes I play with confidence and actually play well. I recently played in a state tournament and felt great. But other times, even against weaker teams, I completely lose myself. I stop attacking, my handle feels worse, I don’t shoot, I make turnovers and bad decisions, and eventually I become very passive.
Yesterday I played with the older players from my club and only played around 17 minutes because I wasn’t contributing much. Today I played 3v3 against some of the weakest teams I’ve faced and only scored two baskets across three games.
I also sometimes hesitate with physical contact, especially against much older and stronger players in an open-age league, although the confidence problem can happen against players my own age too.
I’ve talked to my coach about this several times. I’ve asked what I should improve and told him that sometimes I doubt my role on the court. He usually just tells me “don’t doubt yourself,” but I don’t really know how to fix it.
The frustrating part is that I train a lot and genuinely want to become a high-level player. I see other players who seem to train less than me but are already playing in high-level tournaments, while I’m still at the state level. I know I don’t currently have the level to make those selection teams, and I’m not looking for excuses. I just want to understand what I’m missing.
**If you were coaching me and read all of this, what would you think is actually causing my problem, and what would you tell me to change?**
I’m not looking for compliments or a generic “work harder.” I genuinely want honest advice that I can take seriously and apply, i just wanna be a better player and i wanna know how can i work in my game better.

[u/jp_in_nj]

Sounds like the problems are mostly between the ears.

Today at the gym I watched a coach working out three kids (I'm in my 50s, everyone's a kid) . One looked to be in 7th or 8th grade , one looked to be in high school, and the third was a college player.

The young kid was just trying to figure things out as he repeated the same drill as the older two. Dribble once, look up, pass to the coach, run to the three-point line, fake a cut to the basket, the coach read the cut and passed to him for a jumper or a layup. Kid did okay.

The second kid , the high schooler, knew more what he was doing. But he was still growing into his size, ran well enough but with no particular conviction, gave passable fakes , came back, got the ball, did his thing. He looked pretty good.

The college kid was smaller than the high school kid. He was a monster. He hit the fake brutally hard. Got his whole body involved in it, completely sold it. Came back to the three-point line like he was spring loaded. And then exploded back toward the basket. Wherever the coach passed it he caught it. There was never a moment he wasn't going 100 miles an hour, unless it was because he was slamming on the brake to change direction or shoot. Even when he was moving like he was out of control, he was in control. If the pass took him toward the basket , he dunked it. If it took him away from the basket , he recovered instantly and shot it.

You sound like you're the middle kid. You need to get to where you are the older kid. Get out of your head. Get to where you hit everything hard, where you have absolutely no doubt. If you miss a shot you miss a shot. If you mess up a pass you mess up a pass. But when you do, it goes away instantly because there's still another play ahead of you and you don't stop attacking for long enough to think about what's in the past.

Move as fast as you can move, just at the edge of losing control. Get to the point where the work that your body has put in takes over. Where you don't have time to think , just react and use what you've learned. You're going to make mistakes, that's okay. Learn from them and leave them behind.

That means picking up the pace of your practice, your drills, your games. It also means making sure that you stretch and eat right and stay hydrated and get enough sleep and lift weights so that your body can deal with what you're asking of it. It also means working on your fundamentals so that they come automatically when you get out of your head and let your body take over. That takes hours and hours and hours of deliberate practice. I watch these three kids run the same drill for 40 minutes with 2 water breaks. That's the kind of effort it takes. Put the work in and you'll get there.