Today, I’m going to talk about some rebounding drills for kids that will help your players become more skilled and confident when it comes to rebounding.
Some of the rebounding drills for kids we use that put the players in very stressful situations and, over the long haul, creates a mental toughness that allows you to take your talent and beat that team.
Synchronized Court Lengths Drill
For this drill, have your players pair up. Have your players start on the same line.
As best they can, your players should end up at the opposite end of the court, but we’re going to go five times.
This is exactly how we warm up every day.
You’re going to be a racehorse here and you’re all going to be in a straight line.
And you should choose one player that the rest of the team will focus on. If they’re behind that player or ahead of him, you (the coach) will stop your stopwatch.
Your focal player will try to do this as close to 30 seconds as possible, going five lengths of the court.
That means it’s a pretty good pace. And if anybody lags behind or gets ahead, stop and start over again.
Man Drill
This drill is great for warming your players up before you jump into more difficult rebounding drills for kids.
When you, the coach, say, “Go,” your team’s going to go for 60 seconds.
The goal of this drill is to limit the offensive players to as fewest catches as possible.
Then your players will switch sides, with the defensive players playing offense and vice versa.
I think this drill develops a little character and a little toughness.
The catch has to be at least 6′ away from the ball. You can’t come take a hand-off. And if a player catches it and travel, say “no catch,” and it doesn’t count. If they catch it with one hand, since everything we’re going to do is with two hands, say “no catch.”
So the criteria is you’ve got to catch it with two and you’ve got to establish the pivot foot. What will happen is the defense will deflect it.
And when you catch the ball, count out how many you caught. And remember what you have because in 60 seconds we’re going to flip it over, and that’s what the guy playing against you is going to have to beat. Otherwise he’s going to have to run.
In all seriousness, this might be the best thing we do. It identifies the dogs who don’t want to play and it identifies the tough guys.
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