This presentation draws on a study conducted on a high-performance girls’ basketball team in Australia to explore the influence of games based coaching on their highly successful coach’s approach. Our interest arose from observations of his coaching and interviews with him in study more focused on the players in his team. Using a grounded theory methodology, the study focused on six girls aged 14-15 years and their coach over a six-month period using observation and semi-structured interviews conducted on a weekly basis. It suggested that much of the enjoyment of intensity in practice and in competition games came from the coaching approach in which the coach emphasized replicating game conditions and providing room for the girls to take responsibility for practice and their performance as a team in competition. This encouraged us to explore the extent to which he used a games based approach and the extent to which it might align with the Game Sense approach.