From Raymond…
Here’s a basketball drill my guys tend to like because of the competitive nature.

Split the team into groups of three… one basketball.
One positioned at the left “block” near the hope, another at top of the key, the third (with the ball) at the wing on the right… 10 feet-12 feet out.

Shooter takes his shot and goes for his own rebound.  Immediately the player at the top of the key fills in the vacated spot by the shooter;the player at the block fills in the spot at the top of the key.  Hit or miss the shooter rebounds the ball and passes to the top of the key.  That player quickly passes it to the person at the shooting position, who then  takes the next shot.  Round and round it goes from there until teams hit 5 straight shots or 5 minutes is up.  Team that wins decides what the others will do (suicides, push-ups) while they do the opposite.  If 5 minutes goes by without a winner… the whole team does both.

Focuses on quick passes and following shots under “pressure”. Can be done in “reverse”.  Players pass the ball in the same direction, but move to the position where they received the ball from.  Start with the shot. While the ball is rebounded by the player on the “block”, the shooter moves to the top of the key, while the player at the top of the  key kicks to the left wing to receive the outlet pass from the rebounder. Hit or miss, the player at the block passes it to the left wing, and quickly moves to the shooting position on the right.  The pass moves from  the left, to the top of the key, then out to the shooter. (The player receiving the pass from the rebounder then fills in to rebound after kicking pass to the top of the key.  Round and round it goes. A little long winded, but I hope that this is helpful none the less.

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From Stephen…
I’m a basketball coach in an small intramural league for 10 -12 year old girls with my younger daughter.  Then I couch another girls team of 12 - 14 year olds for my older daughter. I love it, have a blast!

We normally have basketball practice once a week for 1 hour. I’m sure you can tell, it’s tough to get much practice time outside of the basic skills.  What I normally try to do is combine 2 or 3 all like basketball drills. I briefly go over the 2 or 3 drills…then make one basketball drill that takes all three of the smaller drills and make one drill out of the 2 or 3 smaller drills (gives the girls more ball handling time). I only do this for the smaller less complicated drills. This solidifies everything before the end of the hour. Then of course try and finish with a quick 15 min scrimmage.

It’s a challenge to fit everything in. In our basketball league I have to rotate though to make sure all 9 or 10 girls get the same playing time–so everyone plays each position.

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From Bob…
I coach basketball at the grammar school level, and I’m a firm believer that out-of-bounds basketball plays are absolutely essential to winning at this age; so I employ a ton of them…It’s the idea of controlling the outcomes you are able to control.

There are virtually a ton of things to run out of a box set under the basket.  My favorite zone basketball play is one I saw years ago, used by the coach at Berkeley High (Berkeley, CA)…(Remember this adage, coach?  “You steal ONE play, it’s stealing, you steal TEN plays, it’s research!”)

Box set under the basket, let’s say the ball is on the right side as you look from the top of the key down to the baseline…#1 player, Low post right goes hard to the right corner–gets the pass; high post on the right side, the #2 player (at the same time as player #1) goes to the right wing–gets the”up” pass from player #1; player #2 from his now-wing position, returns the pass to the inbounder who has now received a down screen from player #1 on the right-low defensive zone player….The inbounder shoots a “3″…

Just for the sake of movement, I will sometimes “exchange” the low and high post players on the side OPPOSITE the ball during all the action on the other side (with the left high post player being the better rebounder) since, as Dennis Rodman has said 9 times out of 10, that “3 Ball” shot will go to the opposite side.  By showing some movement from high to low, that player may get himself in better position to rebound the miss.

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From Beth…
Obviously most of us have basketball drills that we have “borrowed” from other coaches and it is hard to think of different drills that most people don’t already know.  Therefore I am giving one that I learned this year.

It is a basketball shooting drill called “Beat the Pro.”  For every three shots taken the “Pro” gets four points.  The shooter is allowed one three-point shot and two fifteen foot jump shots before the pro is allowed four points.  Points awarded to the shooter are regular scoring (three points and two points).  The first to 20 wins.  Obviously after five sets of three shots the “Pro” will win if the shooter did not make any shots.

The shooter is encouraged to call out his/her score after each basket made.  To make it more exciting you can have another shooter at the end of the court competing against the “Pro” and the other shooter.

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From Jarrod…
A basketball drill I that I have used to develop my players ball handling is to get an old rubber basketball, put it in soapy water then get them to do 3 dribble zig-zag ball handling moves in a row e.g crossovers, thru legs, behind back, spin move, etc.

The reason I use this is to help simulate a player having to handle a slippery basketball (like they do late in games when the balls covered in sweat). At first the basketballs went everywhere as the players couldn’t handle the ball, but after a few sessions the players adapted and their ball handling improved rapidly.

From Lin…
Instead of the normal suicidal runs, I’ll make my players do it with dribbling a ball.  It’s effective and improves their control of the ball with the added pressure to run faster than the rest of the teammates.

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From Ray…
Here’s a basketball drill we like to do to get our players used to sprinting down court and then gathering themselves for a quick shot.

We make three lines under one basket, the middle line has the basketball.  The two wings take off running toward the opposite basket.  The ball handler dribbles down court and hits the first player to reach the appointed spot.  The other player has to sprint and touch the end line and head back down court.  The ball handler gets the rebound and heads back down court looking to hit the other player for the shot.  If the ball handler beats the non-shooting player back down court he takes the shot.

We take three different shots (3-pointer/mid-range bank shot/layup) as part of the drill and the players take the same kind of shot for a timed period.  To add focus we sometimes keep track of how many shots were made and if they don’t make a certain percentage the whole group runs sprints.

Emphasis is on moving the ball down court quickly, getting under control for a game speed shot and conditioning.

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From Melissa…
I am an elementary school and YMCA basketball coach who deals with beginning female players that change year to year. I have to include everyone, keep it fun and a positive environment while hoping to win some games and light some fires.  As such, my basketball drills remain basic and I rely on the old standards. Yet these two basketball coaching tips have helped me enormously, maybe they will help someone else:

1.)    I hate to try and talk over bouncing balls.  So if someone bounces a ball after I blow the whistle to give instructions, the whole team runs a lap. This means everyone helps me with crowd control!

2.)    I have a lot of kids participating at school and many would be tempted to straggle in after school. I have divided them into three squads/teams.  Before practice I list required drills (10 layups, 5 free throws, 10 dribbling figure eights, etc.). These take approximately 10 minutes to complete. Each squad is required to police their own members to complete these BEFORE the beginning of practice or that squad runs extra laps.

Now everybody is early to practice and warmed up!

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From Gregory…
I call this basketball passing drill “SPIDERWEB“.  It consists of four players around the perimeter with the rest of the team in line behind them evenly.

Player 1 is extended out a little from the left block(facing the basket), Player 2 is extended out a little from the right block(facing the basket), Player 3 is free throw extended on the left(facing the basket) and Player 4 is free throw extended to the right(facing the basket).

Drill:  Player 2 starts with the basketball.  He passes it to Player 1(crisp chest pass), Player 1 receives the ball and passes it back to Player 2 .  Player 2 is moving around the perimeter, outside of the paint (low and shuffling without crossing feet).  Player 2 then delivers a crisp chest pass to Player 3 who makes a crisp chest pass back to Player 2.  Player 2 , still staying low and shuffling without crossing feet, makes a crisp chest pass to Player 4.  Player 4 then makes a crisp chest pass to the next Player 2 in line who delivers a bounce pass to the original Player 2 cutting to the basket.

Focus:  You will be focusing on the crisp chest passes.  Also you will be focusing on the original Player 2’s footwork around the perimeter, his crisp passes while staying low and shuffling without crossing the feet, and the finish layup.
Note:  After Player 2 passes the ball to Player 4 he hesitates a little and gets his timing right to receive the pass from the next Player 2 in line for the layup.

*You can run this drill from both sides with Player 1 starting with the ball and finishing with a left handed layup.  You also can use bounce passes around the perimeter.  Count the misses to add to the end of basketball practice sprints.

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From Chuck
I usually lead into this basketball drill with a standard two-line layup drill.

In the same two lines as the basketball layup drill, the player from line A dribbles up to the elbow and takes a shot (stop-and-pop). At the same time, the player from line B moves toward the basket to get position for the rebound. Player A must follow his shot to attempt to get the rebound, and Player B must get position and Box out to attempt to get the rebound. The players switch lines after each turn.

This is a simple basketball drill that kids like, and it teaches shooting while following your shot, as well as defensive positioning and boxing out for a rebound. It’s also good as a pre-game warmup.

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From Papa…
Rebounding Drill
One player lies on the floor his/her back, with feet toward the basket on the free throw line. Three people (basketball coaches, assistants or other players) space themselves in an arc around the basket about 10-15 feet out.  These three people begin passing the basketball to each other in a random fashion.  Without warning, one of them shoots the ball toward the basket with the intent of bouncing it off the rim to create a rebound opportunity. As soon as the reclining player sees that the ball is heading toward the basket, (s)he springs to his/her feet and grabs the rebound as quickly as possible.

The best possible scenario is for the player to get the rebound before the ball hits the floor.  Grabbing the ball after the first bounce is still OK.  Grabbing it after the second bounce is less OK, but acceptable if the ball took a “wild” rebound off the rim.  The ball should never bounce a third time before being snatched.

This basketball drill develops 2 of the 3 rebounding skills I teach;
1. Anticipation – estimating which direction the ball will bounce off the rim.
2. Quickness – getting to the ball fast.
3. Positioning (vis a vis an opposing player).  You can incorporate this skill into an “advanced” version of the drill by having two players lie on their backs at the free throw line and compete for the rebound.  (With my middle-schoolers, I don’t put heavy emphasis on leaping ability as a 4th rebounding skill, as I believe kids who master the other 3 skills will get more rebounds than pure jumpers.)

Key Features of the Drill:
* Reclining players cannot move until the ball is shot, but to be successful they must move the instant they know it has been shot – while it is still on its way to the rim.
* Use at least 2 (I use 3) people to pass and shoot the ball so that the reclining players won’t know ahead of time where the ball is coming from – they will have to think and move faster.

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