More Shooting Drills

First I want to say thanks for all of the people that keep visiting the site. Traffic has been great even though I haven't been updating as much due to our season. The drillzone has had over 6100 page views since the middle of June.

I decided to look at adding a couple of new shooting drills to our practice and thought I would share some that we have done and will be doing in the future.

If you have any ideas for the blog please let me know.

http://www.box.net/shared/3f32y58bq9

20 Minute Guard Break Down

One thing we are really focusing on is breaking our players up as far as guards and posts for our skill work. As I was building our practice plan for tomorrow I decided to draw up our guard workout and share it with everyone.

For this segment in practice we will go for 20 minutes to get through 4 drills.
- We want all of the drills to be uptempo so we don't have to spend very much time working on conditioning.
- Our post players are going through a different workout at the other end of the court.
- We will use 3-4 baskets to get everyone in and save time.

http://www.box.net/shared/khghusjeea

Coaching thoughts 11-14-10

Awarness: Awarness can allow a marginal athlete to become a very good defender- more
so than a great athlete with marginal awareness. 60% of awareness comes from what you
have built through practice/drills/habits. 40% comes from who you are guarding and what
the other team is running. Arizona Basketball Newsletter

What impacts winning? --- Whatever you believe it is, the players need to believe it

Today’s players have no fear --- they don’t fear their parents, coaches, or other players

Larry Shyatt Florida Gators Assistant Coach

Jeff Van Gundy Thoughts
-The essence of teaching is getting players to do what they don’t want to do in
order to achieve what they want to achieve.
-It’s a constant fight. Don’t lower your standards. Push them to be perfect
practice players.
-The Three S’s: Soft, Stupid and Selfish. A player can only be 1 of them.
--4 stats to pay attention to:
1. True FG % (3FG% being weighted into FG%
Calculation: PTS / (2 * (FGA + 0.44 * FTA))
2. Turnover Differential
3. Rebounding % (What percentage of missed shots are you getting?)
4. Made Free Throws (make more free throws than our opponent attempts)

Jr. Basketball Drill Book

I put together a small drill book for some of my youth basketball coaches and thought I would share it with everyone.

http://www.box.net/shared/e8b4zvifu4

Advice for youth coaches
1. Spend a majority of your time on fundamental skills
2. Keep your offense very simple so you don't have to spend very much time working on patterns
3. Modify your drills so that as many players as possible are moving and have a ball in their hands.
4. Develop ball handling skills for every player your post player might not always be a post player.
5. If you spend too much time on something have it be passing and pivoting future coaches will thank you if their guys think bounce pass first and can pivot.

2 Ball Dribbling Routine

Here is a list of 2 ball dribbling drills that we do in practice.

http://www.box.net/shared/e7qn3fd2ig

Jr. Basketball

I'm currently looking for drills and plays to give out to Jr. Basketball coaches. If you have anything you would like to share please let me know. I will post everything on here in the next couple of days.

bmoore@plano88.org

5 on 3 Fast Break Drill

I picked this drill up at a recent basketball conference at St. Francis College in Joliet IL.

The idea of the clinic was to work on seamless transition from your fast break to your offense. I really like this drill because it forces your players to read and react based upon the defense. I feel that no matter what type of break you run, you could adjust this drill to meet your teams needs.  He also added that by mid season his offense usually wins by a score of 10-3 in this drill.

If anyone has a similar drill I would love to hear from you.

http://www.box.net/shared/63s2ei9jep

bmoore@plano88.org

Getting Ready For The Season

First let me say sorry for the lack of posts lately. I have been taking advantage of some off time between Football and Basketball seasons. I also wanted to keep my drill book at the top of the blog for a long time because I think it can be a very useful tool to coaches out there.

I was looking at some items that I had handed out to my coaches last year and found a weak hand development list that I had created for all of my coaches. I have a lot of drills available on here that go very well with this list. As we are starting the season a lot of us will remember just how weak some of our players weak hands really are. Last year we spent 5-10 minutes minimum at every level on weak hand development.

One additional idea I wanted to throw out there came from Evan Turner and Thad Matta. From an article that I read last year Coach Matta talked about how he pointed out to Evan Turner that his only real weakness was his weak hand. He encouraged him to do everything left handed and Turner actually even talked about how he would throw rocks left handed while walking to class.

Let me know if you have any questions to go with this handout or any of my weak hand ideas
http://www.box.net/shared/qix1b0637m

bmoore@plano88.org

Going Through Some Notes

I was going through some notes I found today and came across a quote that I instantly disagreed with. I don't usually put stuff up here unless I agree with it but I couldn't help it with this one.

Great coaches do the same thing the 1st day of practice and the last day of practice
every year. Dick Bennet

As an adult I struggle daily with my attention span, how can my 16-18 year old kids be expected to stay on task and work hard if I am doing the same exact drill sequence for the 65th time that year. I have seen coaches get so mad that their kids aren't focused in the last two weeks of the season. Could this be that they are tired of the same old drills everyday? Is their a drill that is so important that it must be done every practice? I think these are all things that we should ask ourselves as the season is getting ready to start.

I'm not suggesting that repetition isn't a good thing, but just throwing out some thoughts that might help us. What are you going to do to capture a teenagers attention today that matches texting, youtube, their significant other, or whatever else they have in their lives.

Shooting Thoughts

Herb Livsey

Teaching shooting:
x The quality of the shot depends on the quality of the feet.
x Always have a touch spot and shot spot. This forces players to be moving into
their shot.
x Inside pivot to shoot.
x Catch the ball with your feet.
x Play the game with your legs ready. Slow shooters have to get set. Reggie Miller
always plays with legs ready. Always steps into shot, not jump into shot.
Historically the best shooters have step up shots not jump in. 
x Too much stationary shooting in practices.
x Catch and shoot vs. catch and attack:
o Inside pivot if you know you have a shot.
o Permanent pivot foot if you are attacking 1on 1

Using legs in your shot - Dirk Nowitzki takes 50 shots a day before practice by picking
the ball up off the floor. This drill forces you to use your legs.

Slow shooters have two problems:
x Trail foot is too far behind the pivot foot when catching too shoot
x Knees are not bent so the player has to generate power by dipping after the catch or
twisting and turning upper body.

Drill Book

After last season I knew one of the most important things our program needed was to be on the same page. I wanted all of our levels working on drills that would really make us better. After doing a lot of research I decided to buy fast draw in order to build a drill book for all of my coaches. I wanted every coach in our program from our Jr. Basketball Leagues to my assistants to have access to all of the drills I do in practice.

I handed out this drill book in the spring and asked all of my coaches to look through it and give feedback. Most of the drills were already being used but we got on the same page as far as rules and names of drills. The first thing I noticed when we started camp in the summer was that my coaches were saying the exact same thing I would during a drill.

I have already posted a lot of these drills on the site. However I'm sure you can find some new ones that I haven't posted. It is 40 pages and has almost every drill we did in practice last year.

http://www.box.net/shared/ur4zu79czy

Iona Newsletter

Zak Boisvert is putting out a great newsletter.

I have been following him on twitter for the past year and all of his stuff is pretty good. His newsletter is probably the best one out there. Email him at zboisvert@iona.edu to get on the mailing list.

3 Ball Screen Quick Hitters

All three of these plays are easy to run quick hitters that I have seen be successful at both the NCAA level and high school. Ball screens have taken over every level of basketball. If you can run a couple of good ball screen plays a game you force other teams to prepare for it.

http://www.box.net/shared/h8gdpj178g

Coaching Thoughts 10-5-10

Larry Shyatt, Florida

You can read 100 books on leadership, but there are very few books on how to be a great follower, listener, supporter

I thought this was a great insight into all of the books and articles coaches read throughout the year. I am always looking for a great new leadership book to read or a quote online. How often do we look at ways to help our athletes become better at being an active participant. Not everyone can be a leader all of the time.

Brad Stevens

Are you prioritizing whats important

Right now a lot of blogs and basketball clinics are providing great info to help us get ready for the approaching season. What are the most important things that must be done for your team to win. If someone came in and evaluated your practices would they say you are prioritizing whats important to your team?

Brad Stevens 4 Levels of Competency
1. Unconsciously incompetent
 - You don't know what you don't know
2. Consciously incompentent
  - You know that you have no clue
3. Consciously compentent
- You know whats going on
4. Unconsciously competent
- You begin to see things before they happen



Great list to look at for your players as well as yourself and your coaching staff. Where can you improve to help your team?

Offensive Entries

As the season starts to get closer I decided to show some offensive entries that I have came across or used. We like to use some of these to get into our offenses and loosen up the defense. Most of the half court pressure defenses we play against try to make our initial entry pass very difficult to make. As we all know it's very hard to run an offense if you are catching the first pass going away from the basket and being forced off the three point line. We do not run all of these but I thought they might give you some ideas or wrinkles to throw into your offense.

http://www.box.net/shared/7ncrpl0lpr

Inbounds Plays

I've spent quite a bit of time during the off season looking for new drills, plays, and ideas from successful coaches. Trying to sit down now and organize all of the stuff I have found that I think we can use this year. Started looking at inbounds plays today and thought I would share 4 good ones that I have found.


http://www.box.net/shared/u2dm557lpf

Kevin Eastman Teaching Post Players

Give them in game goals
a. 3 free throws per half
b. So many rebounds in a quarter
c. Get one pass ahead layup per half
d. Update them when they come out of games, during time outs
e. The role may not be what you want, but it’s what we need to win a championship

Sell them on finding a niche on your team
Posts that run the floor open up the fast break
Bad first shots might happen but how often do you see bad second shots off rebound
Fist fight to get open and a foot fight to score
See 90% of the floor when you catch the ball
Give up position for possession

Coaching Thoughts 9-29

Sergio Scariolo Guard!Development Nike Europe Clinic

If the ball stops moving off the dribble, pass, or any part of the offense all advantages are lost.

Don't use complicated drills

When working on ball handling high school players should spend 65% of time on weak hand.

Nike Skills Academy
Your eyes make layups
Good offensive players get their shoulders lower than the defenders when attacking

Teach the pound dribble. Have defender push the ball handler while he maintains a solid base and pounds the ball. Teaches offensive player to use his body and protect the ball.

Perfect Feet: Have player practice shooting without a ball

Full Court Team Drills

If you have been following the blog you know how important I think fundamentals are to the success of a team. I think it's very important to work on basic skills everyday in practice if your team is going to improve throughout the season. However I don't want to spend the entire practice doing basic drills that are slow moving and don't get our kids moving at game pace. We want to work on passing, shooting, and pretty much every aspect of the game with these fast moving drills.

All three of these drills get everyone on the team a lot of reps with little time spent in lines. You can also turn these into competitions where you are trying to score as many as possible in a certain time or number of makes before you have a set number of turnovers.

3 on 3 Drill

In a post from this weekend I talked about some great ideas I got from Mike Saylor. One that really got a lot of the coaches attention was a simple drill that I had never seen before. During the preseason he has his players play 3 on 3 shooting only 3 pointers. They play with no out of bounds and look to make as many as they can in a set period of time. There philosophy is to stroke the 3 so they want guys to be thinking move the ball and shoot. They only have one defensive rule which is that you cannot switch on defense. They look to outlet and shoot as quick as possible off makes or misses.

I'm looking forward to trying this out sometime either as a preseason drill or a drill for my guards when we need something fun to break up a practice. Looking to go 3-4 minutes and keeping records of how many makes 1 team can get.

He made several comments throughout his presentation about coaches not liking his style because Bob Knight would never do that. I thought this was a pretty funny way at looking at coaching styles. Coach Saylor has found a style that works for him. His teams beat better teams all the time because they have bought in to this style. What do we do as coaches to create our system?

Live Play Ideas

I am not a big scrimmage person in practice. We just don't seem to get a lot out of it most of the time. As a coach I think this is something that everyone is different with. I have coached with great coaches that went live for 45 minutes every day at practice. I have also coached with people that very rarely go live. I personally want to get as many reps of game situations as possible. We will break up and do a lot of 3 on 3 or 4 on 4 work and work on things we will be seeing in our next game or items we need to clean up a little bit. I have put quite a few entries on here regarding our shell drill work which I think can be turned into a controlled scrimmage.

I found this list that I had started in the spring that has several different ideas for my lower level coaches. I know there are a lot of other great ideas out there as well.

http://www.box.net/shared/se0luscthk

Coaching Thoughts

I loved this quote that I just read on the bison basketball blog.

Look at your team and figure out the two things they can do really well—as well as anybody n the league, conference, district. Then make sure there’s not a team in your district that does those two things better.

Utah Jazz Assistant, Gordon Chiesa

Every year our goal is to win more games than we should or we are expected to. Small focuses on areas like this can be very helpful to maximize your wins. Last year we knew we weren't going to win a lot of games from shooting a high %. We did think we could win from rebounding all of these misses. Tried to focus on getting every offensive rebound instead of beating our heads in about every miss.

Ideas to do these things better
1. Look at your drills and make sure they have a strong focus in this area
2. Find any way you can to put yourself in position to do these things
3. Sit down with your coaching staff and work together to identify these areas
4. Don't try to focus on every thing
5. Ask your players what they are confident in and get them to buy in

Reach One Coach One Basketball Cinic

Today I was lucky enough to go to the Reach one coach one clinic sponsored by NJCAA Basketball Coaches Association.

The clinic was really a great learning experience. Quite a bit different from most of the clinics I have been to because all of today's presenters were JUCO coaches or High School Coaches. You could really tell these guys have had to be creative to be competitive year in and year out. I will share a lot of the information that I picked up at the clinic in the coming weeks.

Mike Saylor from Terre Haute South HS in Indiana did a really good job. I hadn't heard of his system before but it really made me think. They shoot a lot of 3's because he feels it gives his kids the best chance to win against more athletic teams in the state. Pretty sure everyone was in shock when he said they shoot an average of 250 3's a practice before they stretch!

While I am not going to this system it did make me think about the way we practice shooting. How can we get up more shots in short amounts of time? What shooting drills are working or our offense? Are we utilizing our space? How do we get kids to become strokers as he calls them?

Decided to put together several drills that I have that get up a lot of shots quick.

http://www.box.net/shared/1pkbx5zvli

Practice Offenses

I have had several conversations with coaches this past week about getting good looks out of your practice teams. It is very hard to get your second team to give your first team a good look in practice. I have read even from college coaches that complain about this.

One thing that we tried out last year was to have my assistant take our 9-15 guys on the team and work with them on new offenses to run against our defense. I would give him 10-15 minutes to work on this. A lot of time we would do this with them instead of having them sitting on the sidelines doing nothing. We even found a couple of offenses that they could run really well together.

Here are a couple of examples of offenses that we have looked at or used in the past.

http://www.box.net/shared/zs1611kvz5

Dumbell Clean and Press

Another great basketball exercise.

Much easier to with limited time or space than using barbells and racks.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid57002186001?bctid=35262089001

Post Defense Ideas

Guarding the post:
o Duke-everyone digs
o 1 on 1-don’t let the man that entered the ball get the ball back.
o LA-big/big trap (wherever he is on the floor)
o Villanova-guy nearest the ball traps and next closest guy sprints to the open offensive
man for a steal.


I like reading different styles of defense on the post. I'm not a big fan of fronting the post unless we have too. I watched a lot of teams play last year that fronted the post on a guy that was not a scoring threat at all. Then people wondered why the offensive guy kept getting rebounds on a perimeter shot. If you have some size why not push the man off the block and make a bad offensive threat beat you from 8 feet away from the basket.

Kevin Eastman Thoughts

More ideas from one of the greatest coaches in the game. In my mind he is the best at skill development.

Theory of two:
• It takes two minutes to show any skill.
• It takes two weeks doing it every single day to get comfortable with the skill.
• It takes two months working on a skill everyday to get good enough to execute in
a game.

Shooting form:
• Be ready on the catch.
• Ten toes to the rim (if you have ten toes to the rim you will be square to the
basket).
• Only change his form if the shot doesn’t go in. Make him the best worst form
shooter.
• Two second rule: As soon as it’s 1 cm into our players fingers I’m counting one
two. Players don’t have a great understanding of game speed when working out.
• The better the shooter you are, the better your shot fake needs to be. Definition of
a shot fake is a real shot that you don’t shoot.

Shoot free-throws until you miss, and count how many in a row.

My goal right now is to get everything you can teach in the game down to three bullet
points. It makes it easier for players to take in:
• For shooting:
• Perfect feet.
• Ready for catch.
• Perfect follow through.

Three things skill development can do for you:
• It can create a career.
• It can improve a career.
• It can revitalize a career.

Hang Cleans

Great Thought

Great thought from Bison Hoops Blog today.

http://schsbisonbasketball.blogspot.com/


Look at your team and figure out the two things they can do really well—as well as anybody n the league, conference, district. Then make sure there’s not a team in your district that does those two things better.

4 Quick Shooting Drills

Here are 2 quick shooting drills that we use for our drive and kick offense. We really stress having the players spacing out to the NBA 3pt line and stepping into their shots. We also feel that this space opens up the court for driving to the basket.

Also added two simple free throw drills that we do to avoid shooting 2 and rotating.

http://www.box.net/shared/hfaelb2mhc

Dumbell Squat To Press

Explosive basketball related lift.

This version is much easier to teach than the barbell version.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid50992462001?bctid=1522775746



I'm sorry for not having the actual video on the blog. I'm having problems not having all of the videos starting every time you visit the site.

Workout Videos

One area that we are really trying to improve on this year is our in season weight training program. Almost all of our athletes workout out in our athlete performance class at school. We still want to get them into the weight room at least 2 times per week on top of this to work on basketball specific workouts. I'm going to start posting some of the lifts we do as well as some great workout ideas from stack.com This web site is a must for all coaches.


http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid50992462001?bctid=1529520005

Del Harris Ideas

Good practices replicate game conditions. He likes to use four possession games and six possession games. This is very similar to the typical length of action in a game. Try not to teach until the end of the segment, don't disrupt flow.

ODO game – offense/defense/offense. Start the first possession with a situation (ie. Side out with 6 seconds left on shot clock). Scoring is 3 points per sequence. Someone must with either 2-1 or 3-0. Total game score is 1 point for each sequence win. Sequence winner starts the next one with the ball first.

Competitive Shooting Drill

Always looking for shooting drills to do in practice. I like to break up practice so that It doesn't become boring for the coaches or the players. After sitting through a long practice yesterday on the football field I started to think about things to do for kids that aren't my main guys that are getting most of the court and instruction time. A quick shooting drill usually helps everyone stay on track a little better. And I have also found that if you switch shooting drills up frequently kids will avoid going through the motions.



http://www.box.net/shared/r4cz4i5z3b


I'm also looking for ideas regarding how to become a better teacher on the basketball court. I have found some great ideas and lists already but would love to hear some ideas from visitors.

bmoore@plano88.org

New Ideas

I'm looking for web sites or clinic notes to get some new ideas for the blog. If you have any to share please contact me. Might be a small change to a drill that I already know about that I can use this season or put up on here.

Question to ask yourself
What are three things you are focusing on now to make your practices better for the upcoming season?

bmoore@plano88.org

Full Court 4 Corner Shooting

Great drill for shooting on the move. While we don't like to shoot a lot of jump shots off the fast break we do want our players practicing shooting at a fast pace. Too many shooting drills are too slow. We want our guys to practice at a pace as fast if not faster than they will in a game. This is one of several full court shooting drills we do. Most practices consist of at least one of these with time on the clock and a goal for how many points we will score in that time.

http://www.box.net/shared/o5ui242km3

Sorry if the print is hard to read. Fast Draw just updated their software and I'm having a couple of issues.

Florida Post Development Drills

I have been focusing on player development drills for the past couple of weeks. Here are some drills that I have found from Billy Donovan that are great for your post break down time in practice. Drills can be done with a partner or coach being the passer. All of the drills are pretty simple. If you have two post players that can work together I would suggest looking at all of the Info you can find from Coach Donovan. His post drills and plays were pretty good from their national title run.

http://www.box.net/shared/zi6fejstm7

Fast Break Post Finishing Drill

We use this drill to start our post break down work. We want our post players to get a good feel of how to finish at a fast pace when they are running rim to rim. Only takes a couple of minutes, and our players like this one quite a bit.

http://www.box.net/shared/9o2qhzdi0b

3 Shooting Development Drills

Here are three shooting drills that can be done at any level.

http://www.box.net/shared/9fkfkzhhfc

Fall workouts are almost here. Do your players know drills that they can do on their own to get better. Or do your players come in and go 5 on 5.

Thad Matta Player Development

Ohio State does 45mins of skill work everyday all year

Likes to study other teams and takes the best drills from each

Put’s pressure on players by using clock in practice, they have to make so many shots before time expires.

Good shot is a shot his guys can make 70% of the time with no one guarding

Cycles drink breaks half team gets a drink while half the team does a skill development drill

Full court 3’s working on footwork and squaring up

Pat Sullivan Coaching Notes

I have gone to several of Coach Sullivan's clinics in the past couple of years. He was the coach at St. Francis in Joliet IL before retiring this year. Great teacher and put on really great clinics every year at the beginning of the season. At each of his clinics he handed out a 50 page or so notebook full of notes from an area that he had studied that summer. 1 year before retiring he had spent an entire summer working with coaches from across the country on mastering the ball screen offense. I would have to figure that a lot of coaches in his position probably had given up on learning but not Coach Sullivan.

Here are some ideas from his notes at a Nike Clinic that I thought were pretty interesting.

Pat Sullivan
It’s not what you coach it’s what you emphasize
- I have read a lot of great coaching notes and almost every one of them talks about emphasizing three things. They feel that anyone should be able to watch you practice or play a couple of times and be able to notice these without having to be told. Some simple questions that I think are very important for all coaches. 1 What are the 3 main things that you focus on? 2. Do your players know what these things are? 3. Do these things fit your team this year? 4. What are you doing to make yourself better at coaching the things you focus on?

Remember that the best coaches of all time have all done different things
- I went to the Nike Clinic in WI this spring and watched each presenter. And all of these great coaches had different areas of focus, and each of them taught things differently. There were great coaches from HS and College talking about their ways of doing things. 1 coach talked about denying all wing passes and the success he had with that. The next coach who had a ton of success with his program had a completely different style. I personally think you can have success with any style if it fits your team. We have all coached against teams that do something different from everyone else that makes us spend 20-30 mins of practice working on this. I always like to ask my assistants what do you think teams are doing to prepare for us.

Has 1 minute drills for repetition sake
- I just found this idea last night and started thinking what type of drills I could do in 1 minute and when would I do them. Coach Sullivan talks about repetition being the key to learning. Just think how much you could improve 1 simple skill that you anticipate your team struggling with if you spent 1 minute on it each day. One time where I think we are going to add this idea is with our drink breaks. In the past we put 5 minutes on the clock kids had this time to get a drink and come back into the gym and shoot free throws. I bet the average kid got in 8 free throws in this time. I mainly used it to re group and talk to my assistants. Maybe we could use this time better by breaking them into 2 groups. While the first group gets a drink the other group works on a skill. The first skill that comes to mind for us is catch rip and square. My idea is to have each player grab a ball spin the ball out and work on whatever skill we give them. Rip and create space, rip and jab step, rip and reverse pass. If they get in 15 square ups in this minute and we do this at every practice we have the thousands of attempts it takes to master a skill. Also might look at doing this when we have to set up for a drill or we have a break for some reason.

Believes that 65% of turnovers come from poor balance
- What do you do to work on balance during practice? What drills can you do to work on this and cut down on turnovers?

Simple Guard Development Drills

Going to try to focus on player development drills as we are getting closer to basketball season. These are drills that could easily be performed in practice or during off season workouts.

During any shooting drills I think it's very important to challenge your players. Have them try to beat a personal best score or find another way for them to compete.

Shooting drills and player development doesn't have to be the worlds greatest drill for it to have the desired affect. Maybe just maybe you will even find players doing some of these drills on their own because they are all very easy perform.

http://www.box.net/shared/2hi204m3jv

Knight Notes

Bob Knight
Start practice with quick drills that focus on hand eye coordination
Drills that work on individual skill go no longer than 5 minutes
Team drills shouldn’t go longer than 10 minutes
Hates having guys shoot on their own
Most of the game is elementary
Spend more time on conversion from offense to defense and defense to offense
Call timeouts in practice and work on situational stuff coming out of a timeout

My favorite Coach Knight Quote of all time when he was watching Memphis run their dribble drive offense for the first time.
“This is the dumbest shit I have ever seen in my life, but I like it.”

Theory of 2

Kevin Eastman
Theory of “2”
o Coach can show any skill in 2 minutes
o 2 weeks before player is comfortable with the skill (working every day)
o 2 months before player is ready to use skill in competition (working every day)

Post Entry Pass Drill

I was just talking to one of my mentors in coaching the other day and started thinking about some of the things that I have learned. His basic advice to me before our first practice was don't worry about doing new things at first do what you are comfortable with. This was some great advice especially since I had learned a lot of great things from great coaches. As my comfort level grew I started trying new drills and adapting old drills. One year I only had 9 players which might explain why I have quite a few drills that go 3 on 3 or 4 on 4. Here is one of my favorite drills that I experimented with and have had quite a bit of success with. It might not work for everyone but I have had quite a bit of success with it.

http://www.box.net/shared/9qea75hhxu

Bill Self Quote

Much easier to guard than to score that’s why we work on offense so much

Single Post Shell Drill

I have put quite a few variations of the shell drill up on here so far. This is one that we use because we feel it does a great job of simulating game action. Instead of using 4 perimeter players we use 3 and have 1 post player. Usually bring this one out when we know we are going to have to help our post defenders. Most important parts of the drill are ball pressure, positioning, and rotations.

http://www.box.net/shared/tfch6u50jc

Keep the comments and suggestions coming in. I have had some really good emails from coaches that have gave me some new ideas through their questions.

bmoore@plano88.org

Shooting Development Drill

Another great Kevin Eastman shooting drill

As I have said earlier we want our guys to have structure anytime they are shooting in the gym. It doesn't have to be the worlds greatest drill to have a little bit of structure. This drill can also give players some scores to compete against and we feel that this will be a big help to our team. If my guys have a score of their own or a team high to try to beat they will spend time putting up shots.

If we use this drill in practice we will move the number of makes down to 5 from each spot to get through the drill a little bit faster.

http://www.box.net/shared/dzs1jg5ahu

Consecutive Shooting

Great Kevin Eastman Drill that can be done in practice or in your off season workouts. I also think this would be a great drill for a Pre game shoot around. I am never a big fan of just letting kids shoot on their own because it's usually a waste of time. I also will use it after practice sometimes to get the kids to stay and shoot for a while. Kids usually like the challenge and next thing you know you have guys staying for 30 minutes trying to beat a record.

http://www.box.net/shared/ondrdxx4bb

Transition Drill

Here is a simple adaptation to an old 3 lane transition drill. We want to play the game at a very fast pace and often find ourselves trying to finish a layup with a man coming hard from behind for a block. We do spend time working on 2 on 1 and 3 on 2 situations but this is a drill that we do from time to time. One thing that I will have to say about this drill is that to me it doesn't make very much sense if you have 3 guys going up and down the court while 12 are watching. If we are doing this drill we break up into two groups. I would suggest that even if you don't have an assistant coach to assign a group too find something such as ball handling or free throws that you can have the rest of your team doing.

http://www.box.net/shared/ttxvsr2hln

11 Man Continuation

Great drill that has been around for a long time. I've seen this used as a warmup drill quite a bit by various coaches. I like that keeps quite a few people involved while working on odd man situations. There are quite a few adaptations you can make to this drill to make it competitive. I've seen some coaches add a trailer defender once the ball crosses half court. Some have kept track of turnovers for running at the end. The thing I like most about this drill is that kids seem to love it and it can be a good break for them during a long season.

http://www.box.net/shared/j5zb0h7hn5

Arizona Basketball Newsletter

For those of you who are not signed up already I would highly recommend signing up for Sean Miller's basketball newsletter. He has been doing this newsletter for a number of years now and always puts out some good plays and practice ideas.

Here is the email link to get signed up for the newsletter

feld@arizona.edu

Zone Passing Drill

Very simple zone passing drill that can be used at any level. You have to search quite a bit to find a lot of good zone offense drills out there. This drill is simple and I think does a great job of teaching the importance of using pass fakes.

Sometimes I wonder how many thousands of times I have said fake hi to pass low, fake low to pass hi, fake left to pass right, or don't throw a shoulder high pass against a zone. Great drill to work on all of these.

http://www.box.net/shared/fk19dce5zn

Jay Wright Notes

Bradley Jumpers
Player is in lane at 6-8 feet away from the basket. Player jumps three times with the ball above his head where his shot is normally released. On the third jump the player shoots the ball at the top of his release without bringing the ball down at all.

Finishes
Bully- Player drives in and 2 foot jump stop and finishes up by the rim for a strong hi finish.

Hop Jumper
Player drives into lane and performs 2 foot jump stop and extends for a hi jumper

Post Play: Go baseline to score- Go middle to explore

Post Position: Don't post up in a spot but instead your posting up in front of your defender making contact with that defender to get position.

During Practice: Picks apart every little thing his players do in practice then gives them freedom in games.

Taken from Zak Boisvert's Notes at the New Heights Coaching Academy

Baylor 3 on 4 Defensive Drill

During the off season I think it's a great time to look at how you can make your practices better. One thing that I have been looking at for the upcoming year is how to work on closeouts and rotations. Making 3 defenders guard 4 offensive players forces player to communicate and make decisions based on what they are reading on the court. When doing odd number drills it forces the weak side defender to make these reads. Also very important that whoever is on the ball keeps that man from getting to the basket or allows him to make an easy direct line pass.

This is not a drill that I would want to do every day in practice, but it can make your defense better for sure. This also goes along very well with my favorite Hubie Brown quote "Mismatches don't beat us, but open shots will"

http://www.box.net/shared/eyt9aylsuh

More 3 on 3 Shell Drills

Sorry about not having any posts the past couple of days.

I decided to just create a pdf file for the rest of my 3 on 3 shell drill ideas now there are 15 different drills instead of 4.

Even if 3 on 3 shell drill isn't something you are interested in maybe you can find some ideas that you could use in your defensive drills. I have had some great feedback and questions already on this topic, but want to hear more from our readers. Already added a couple of more ideas today from emails.

http://www.box.net/shared/txqisbfuq2

bmoore@plano88.org

Diagram Software

Play Diagram Software

Jes Basketball Software- Version I always used up until this spring. Free program http://www.jes-basketball.com/playbook/download.html

Fast Draw- The best program available http://fastmodelsoftware.com/products/College.php

Most of the diagrams I put up through this blog are done with an awesome program called fast draw. I started using this program this past spring and it has been a great tool for our staff. I can quickly draw up a play or drill and email them or print them off for my staff. I used the Jes software program for about 5 years but couldn't get it to work with our schools mac computers. Thats why I changed to Fast Draw and not sure if I could ever go back. The link I provided to the fast draw program allows you to download their program to your computer in a couple of mins for $35 per year. You can also call the number provided on their site and talk to a sales rep. I was able to get them to do a lifetime liscence for a little over $100. I absolutely do not work for or get sponsered by either of these companies but just thought I would share this info with you.

3 on 3 Shell Drill

I love this drill as a change up for our daily defensive work. Instead of doing your basic 4 on 4 shell drill work we are going 3 on 3. My favorite thing about this drill is that we can break our team in half with one coach doing the same type of drills at the other end or working on something else. Going to add some additional drills that we do with our 3 on 3 work over the next several days.

http://www.box.net/shared/oftbim9b3j

Send thoughts or comments to bmoore@plano88.org

Closeout Drill

Simple drill to work on closeouts and or keeping the ball handler out of the lane. This one can get pretty physical and hard if your players are going hard.

http://www.box.net/shared/mcicyjh5ec

Shell Drill Ideas

Looking at posting some of my ideas for shell drill variations. Would love to hear some ideas from people checking out the blog. Have been getting around 25 downloads a day and want to hear more from people checking out the drills.

If you have any thoughts or ideas on shell drill or anything else dealing with practice give me an email.

bmoore@plano88.org

Thanks to all the people that have emailed me ideas so far.

Basketball Newsletter

I have been receiving Brian McCormick's newsletter for the past couple of months. He has some really interesting thoughts on the game and shooting in particular. I don't always agree with his thoughts on shooting, but sometimes opposing views can make you understand your thoughts a little better.

To subscribe email him
hard2guardinc@yahoo.com
write subscribe in message

Hubie Brown Thoughts

If something works for another school use it, don't think your too good to use someones ideas

There will always be 3 ways to do everything. Do the one that you teach the best.

Always use a post defender for offensive post drills it teaches them to bang.

15 Minutes of Hell

I don’t run into a lot of coaches that claim to use sprints very much in practice. I agree with them that it’s a waste of practice time to spend 10-20 minutes out of your practice and none of your kids have a basketball in their hand. When I played the two things that I hated the most were sprints without a ball and timed running. My coach loved to put 15 minutes on the clock and have us run around the gym. I could go on and on for hours about training styles for basketball and I’m not sure if any of them are completely right or wrong. Over the past several years I have tried to focus on putting 3 short drills together that force kids to get reps and conditioning at the same time. I don’t always use the same 3 drills but here is the most common routine that we do.

http://www.box.net/shared/estmgi0dep

Coaching Quotes

Bob Hurley

Bad Coaching = Spending too much time on one thing.

States that he loves teaching but how long can you keep your players attention.

Holds players accountable for two things in every practice- Mood and Enthusiasm

Doesn't agree with coaches that don't use a whistle at practice. When he blows the whistle he wants all of his players to sprint to the center circle and meet. Feels that this simulates them sprinting off the court for a timeout.

If players are late to practice without a phone call the player watches whole team run hardest set of sprints. One of the few times he uses sprints in practice.

Billy Donovan Drill

Here is a post positioning drill focusing on the secondary break. I found this going through some of Billy Donovan's notes and love this drill. With the style of play that we use we want our bigs to sprint rim to rim. Only problem is positioning once they get there. Too many post players will just stand once they have made the effort to get up the court. This drill works with them thinking positioning once they cross half court.

http://www.box.net/shared/refo1bqzja

6 Man Passing

Old school drill that my dad used. I loved this drill at the lower levels because of the number of touches players get at a fast pace. Some days when making a practice plan I have the focus of getting as many touches as possible for all of our players. If we are having problems with turnovers simple passing drills often help.

http://www.box.net/shared/b2tqbnjbu9

Vacation

No blog entries until late next week while on Vacation

Augustine Drill

Just figured out I messed up the link last time I posted this one.

http://www.box.net/shared/2i9pi20qzy

1 on 1 Chairs Drill

Great off season drill to work on beating your man 1 on 1. More and more coaches are telling their guys to make a play. I have followed Jay Wright quite a bit through videos and coaching notes. At a clinic this Spring he had to have said just go make a play if the play breaks down at least 25 times in 1 hour.

http://www.box.net/shared/4ih0hm1ofm

55 in 5

We use this drill instead of layup lines in practice. It puts a premium on passing, catching, and full court finishing with layups. To get 55 a team has to be nearly perfect in all three areas to get 55 layups in 5 minutes. Most of my teams have really liked this drill because it allows them to compete. This is a drill that has been converted from a previous drill I had been around. I converted it to get more guys into action and out of sitting in line.

http://www.box.net/shared/ked3ae54yo

One thing that I love that Coach Eastman talks about on his twitter account and his web site is making yourself better in the off season. I have talked to my coaches about adapting their drills to make them better. We want players to get as many touches as possible. If that means making changes to a drill that I do or one of my coaches does to make it more effective now is the time to be doing it. I think drills are a lot like basketball plays. There are small adaptations to 5-10 different drills that most coaches are doing. The game and practice isn't being re invented but just being adapted and improved.

Pivot Drill

Quick post today between Football camp and Basketball League Tournament.

Last year we were really struggling with pivoting which was really making me frustrated as a Varsity coach. I talked with our coaching staff and came up with a really simple thing to do. We put 3 minutes on the clock and had players partner up. I would call out a foot and offensive player would have to pivot and sweep the ball for 30 seconds while the defender mirrored the ball. At the horn players would switch and do the same. I know there are some better pivot drills out there but I wanted something that we could do without taking time to set up and have lines which are my biggest pet peeve of any practice.

If you have any ideas on pivoting or any other drills I would love to hear them.
bmoore@plano88.org

Bruce Weber Ladder Shooting Drill

I thought this was a good twist on the common nothing but net shooting drill that so many coaches use. Bruce Weber demonstrated this drill at the Nike Clinic in the Wisconsin Dells and calls it Ladder Shooting.

Once a player makes 2 shots in a row they move back to the next spot. Once they reach a point where they can’t make 2 in a row they start to work their way back in.

Their guide hand is behind their back while doing the drill.

Coach Weber added a couple of things that made the drill even better. He had them working on stepping into the shot (left right shoot). And he had them shooting medicine balls for a while. We did this drill in summer camp and thought it did a pretty good idea of showing players where there shooting range ends while working on form.

http://www.box.net/shared/p9u3i7vq68

Pressure Drill

1 on 2 to 1 on 2

This is one of my favorite drills and we do it several times per week. Some of you might have seen it but I have only worked with 1 coach that did this in practice. Drill works great at creating a high speed trapping situations and fast ball handling pressure situations. You can change the drill around to fit your style of play very easily.

Like most drills this one has probably been around for a long time. I thought it was a new drill until my dad who coached 20 years ago told me he used to do this one.

http://www.box.net/shared/lbr0fzl3k4

Tape on the floor

I think just about every coach has used tape to create a mid line on the basketball court. One thing that I found myself saying all the time last year was to start at the NBA 3 point line for guards. It drives me nuts when we kick out to a shooter and he isn't ready to shoot, is in an uncomfortable shooting position, or is too close to the line. My solution at camp this summer was to tape a NBA 3pt line on the court.

Benefits
1. Helps spacing on the court
2. Works well with our step in shooting form
3. Easy cue for kids to pick up on
4. Even if someone can't shoot very well the idea of looking like you might shoot opens up a lot of driving and passing lanes.

I have seen coaches tape off other areas of the court. We are looking at putting floor tape down for our trapping areas and zone coverage areas when starting next season.

Kevin Eastman Coaching Cues

Kevin Eastman
· take game shots from game spots at game speed
· be ready on the catch – knees bent; feet ready; hands ready
· have 10 toes to the rim – if you have 10 toes to the rim you will be squared up
· keep feet under shoulders – gives us balance
· remember that the quality of your feet determines the quality of your shot



Very few days have gone by in the past year where I haven't quoted Kevin Eastman in our practice. He has the best coaching cues that I have found anywhere.

http://twitter.com/kevineastman

Illini Shooting

This is a drill that I picked up in 2003 when working on the staff at IVC high school near Peoria IL. I was told that this was a drill they picked up from a Bill Self Clinic when he was at Illinois. Works really well to work on squaring up during shooting. We keep a very close eye on players having them land 6 inches closer to the basket. If you run a hi low offense this is a great drill for that 15 foot jumper.

We usually put 5 minutes on the clock and have our manager hit the horn button every 30 seconds. We switch up between counting individual makes and makes between partners. We always try to turn this drill into a competition. You can also do this drill very easily with 4 people at each basket.

http://www.box.net/shared/ixub5r1nxl

Feedback

I would love to hear any comments or feed back from anyone visiting Drill Zone. Very interested in what drills my readers want to know more about.

You can contact me at
bmoore@plano88.org

Weak Hand Development

I love 2 ball dribbling at practice because it forces kids to use their weak hand. Last summer I really concentrated on finding weak hand drills to use in practice.. Coach Eastman from the Celtics has great weak hand drills. I have read so much of his stuff that he makes available online I can’t remember where I heard him talk about the importance of Weak Hand Development. He points out a great idea that if you spend 5-10 minutes a day on just your weak hand how much better you will get. I don’t like to do the same drills every day so we went out and found 20-30 great drills that can be used to develop the weak hand. Probably used 10 of them. If you have any ideas, questions or comments let me know.

http://www.box.net/shared/cxhmfpi3u0

John Wooden's Rebounding Drill

Great drill to work on timing for your posts and conditioning for all of your players. Simple old school drill from Coach Wooden.

http://www.box.net/shared/82e7tfvtpb

Clock At Practice

I think one of the best parts of our practice has to be the use of the clock. Our manager is in charge of setting up the clock before practice everyday and we time just about every drill.

Benefits

1. Keeps coach on time with each drill
2. For our competitive drills kids see exactly how we are doing
- My favorite drill is a transition drill where we have to score 55 layups in 5 minutes and kids see exactly how well or bad we are doing for the 5 min period
3. For shooting drills we rotate every 30 seconds and the manager hits the horn button and keeps me from having to yell out switch
4. Helps coaches transition from drill to drill at a faster pace
5. We will put 7 minutes on the clock and switch at 3:30 having 2 different groups for fundamental work
6. When I say put 45 seconds on the clock everyone in the gym knows to get to the sideline because we are going to run sideline to sideline 6 times in 45 seconds and keep doing it until everyone makes it.
7. I give our guys 5 minutes for a drink at least one time during practice. They know they have the rest of the time to get in part of their 100 required free throws for the week.
8. We get out of school at 2:40 everyday and we start practice at 3, I start the clock after my last class so they know how much time we have until practice will start.

Now as a head coach I have at least one assistant and a manager to help me run the clock at every practice. As a lower level coach I never was able to use this. I think it could still be done but isn't quite as easy. If you are lucky enough to watch college teams practice you will notice how good some coaches are with using the clock. They also have 3 assistants and 9 student managers to help out which makes their job a little easier.

Bruce Weber Shooting Drill

Great shooting drill that I took from Coach Weber at the Nike Clinic this spring.

We love this drill because it forces kids to create space and control their bodies when shooting at a fast pace.

http://www.box.net/shared/zsbjihfny2

Partner Layups 2

Here is a drill that we started doing this summer as part of our weak hand development series.

This drill allowed for some quick competition while focusing on weak hand development. For us this drill works because we have 8 baskets. You might have to adapt the drill to fit the space you have available.

http://www.box.net/shared/nquaa1esvi

Weak Hand Development

One thing that our coaching staff decided to focus on has been weak hand development. After reading a lot of information from Kevin Eastman we decided to spend 5-10 minutes every practice working on our weak hand. Last year we felt our players went from horrible at using their weak hand to adequate. Hopefully with continued focus it will keep getting better.

In the past year I have spent a lot of time finding different drills to do in practice that focus on the weak hand. I will be posting a lot of these drills on here. I would also love any feedback or drills that other people are using.

http://www.box.net/shared/0gfrq93efh

Last year we started doing this drill right after ball handling. In a couple of minutes we could get more practice than 5 minutes of layup lines.

Simple Free Throw Drill

Beat the pro free throw drill

You can use this in practice or have players do this on their own.

Each made free throw counts as +1 point
Each missed free throw counts as -2 points

We have players try to get to +7 or -7 to win or lose.

A simple addition that might help free throw shooting for your team.

Augustine Drill

Drill I have been doing for 6 years to work on passing and pivoting.

http://www.box.net/shared/4q83av48fb

This is a great drill to prepare for pressure defense. Easily adaptable for your team.

Full Court Florida Passing Drills

This is a drill that I took from a Billy Donovan Video. There are a lot of notes available online about his coaching style and videos.

I feel that these are 2 drills that can be used at almost any level of basketball. The 3 man drill is very common, but I hadn't ever seen the 4 man drill before. I have had a lot of success using these 2 drills in our skill development package.

Click here to download

http://www.box.net/shared/4q83av48fb

Full Court Layups

This is a drill that I use several times per week in practice. I started using this instead of layup lines. I feel that it simulates game speed much better than any layup drill that I have ever tried to use in practice. Drill can be preformed in many different ways. We usually break team into 2 groups with one group doing this drill for 5 minutes and switching with a ball handling group on the buzzer.

Like most of my drills I took this drill from another coach.

Click here to access drill
http://www.box.net/shared/6ogadn4p3s


Feel free to let me know what you think of this drill or any questions you may have.

Welcome Post

Thanks for checking out my basketball blog.

I was motivated to start this blog after reading several blogs on a daily basis. There are great blogs out there that break down plays and offer coaching tips. I have never been able to find a blog that focuses on drills and practice. Hopefully some of the information on here will be able to help you or one of the coaches on your staff.