I have never had a team like this. We have a size and speed advantage over most teams that we play. We also handle the ball pretty well with the dribble. Our weak spot, and it is very weak, is passing. We turn the ball over with bad passes more than any team I have ever seen. It's a bounce pass when we should have lobbed it, a lob when we should bounce, we telegraph every pass and we don't catch it very well either.

I have tried the drill similar to monkey in the middle but it doesnt seem to work. We have also run some offensive sets without shooting just passing but we are still not improving.

I am at my wits end. Does anybody have some good drills or suggestions to work on passing? knowing which pass is best for the situation?

First of all they say the bounce pass is the slowest pass to make.. so maybe thats the one you use to feed the post when appropriate?

I used the "Monkey in the middle drill myself" to make sure they understood pass fakes etc. What it sounds like is they are having a hard time reading the defense...

One drill we ran was "Man Maker" - this is a 3 on 3 drill half court... NO dribbling allowed! There are THREE lanes (approximate) outside the volleyball lines and the middle of the floor. The players had to advance the ball past half court without turning it over or dribbling. This is a pretty tough drill but it will teach them to protect the ball and get open.

Then I would suggest running 3 on 3 / 4 on 4 / and 5 on 5 but adding an extra defender to each group.... so it would be 3 on 4 etc. Again, this will force them to protect the ball, read the defenses and above.... MAKE YOURSELF AVAILABLE and get open

You might play 5 on 5 full court with NO passing allowed. I hope this helps coach.

Coach LJ,

As a coach I prefer my players to use the bounce pass as much as possible. I realize the arguement to that is the bounce may slow you down if your advantage is speed. However, very few defenders get low enough to steal a bounce pass. I would only use a lob if your bigs are much bigger than most defenders and are not flexible enough to bend in order to receive a bounce pass.

You can practice this many ways. You can scrimmage and tell your players you can only use a particular type of pass and you may even take away their ability to dribble and force them to make good passing at the right angles.

You can drill it through 3 man weaves, 2 man passing with or without a defender. I like to use a full court passing drill with 4 lines. One on each wing of the floor above the 3 pt line. The ball starts in one line and the player make a bounce pass to the opposite wing. The player must v-cut to get open and then pass diagonal to the next wing past the half court line. The player receiving the pass then passes to the last player who v-cuts towards the basket and shoots a lay-up. The drill continues for about 4 minutes. It practices any type of pass you wish and it makes players v-cut and square up to the basket as well as pass at proper angles.

I would suggest it you decide to teach the bounce pass, you must stress angles and wrap around passes. Players must realize they will not be allowed to pass in a straight line.

I hope this helps.

Types of Passes

Chest Pass
The chest pass is probably the most basic of all passes but it is also the most commonly used. Therefore it is a skill that must be learned and executed properly. When holding the ball prior to making the chest pass, the wrists should be straight. They should not be flexed or cocked or in any other awkward position. The hands are placed on the side of the ball with the fingers spread and the thumbs on the top half of the basketball. The ball may be resting on the entirety of the fingers and possibly on part of the palm, but it is the fingers that will be controlling the pass.

The chest pass is executed by stepping toward your intended target and completely extending the arms out in front of the body. The palms and fingers will be facing outward and the thumbs should be pointing down. As the player increases in skill and ability the length of the extension should be shortened. Once the form is correct, the focus should be on quickness. Shortening the movement allows the player to release the ball more quickly. The chest pass should also be made at a distance of no more than 10-15 feet. Anything further than that can result in 'soft' passes which are easily stolen by the defense.


Bounce Pass
The bounce pass is predominantly thrown in and around the basket area. It is a great pass to use for post entry from the wing and as a dump off from a penetration move. It is not good to use as a perimeter pass because it is a slower pass and takes longer to get from point 'A' to point 'B'. Put it this way; a good chest pass goes from point 'A' to point 'B' in a straight line...a bounce pass goes from point 'A' to point 'B' with a slight detour.

The technique for throwing the bounce pass uses the same basic fundamentals as in the chest pass. The point at which to bounce the ball, the force applied to the pass, and the amount of backspin must all be practiced so the ball will preferably be caught by the receiver at or above the waist level.

By the way, don't get me wrong... there is a place in the game for bounce passes. As a matter of fact we patented what we called the Maine East DOUBLE bounce pass. :-)

KEN

Coach,

Here are a couple passing drills that have worked with me for youth and teen levels...both boys and girls:

These drills focus not so much on passing under pressure but more of accurate passes while in motion, multi-tasking, timing and court vision.

2 ball partner passing

2 players, each with ball face each other about 8-10 feet apart. They start on baseline. One player chooses bounce pass the other chest pass. They then start passing to each other as they are slide-stepping to 1/2 court. At 1/2 court, they pause, switch pass types (chest passer is now bounce passer and vice versa)..began passing to each other while slide-stepping back to baseline. On a fullcourt you should be able to get 3 pairs going at same time. This can be confusing at first. Do it right and the balls will not contact each other.
Basic 2 ball passing while in motion.

3-2 fullcourt passing drill

on one baseline 3 players line up spread apart, player in middle other 2 are on extreme ends of court. Middle player has ball.

On opposite baseline 2 players, one with ball are spread apart enough so they fill in space between opposite 3 players.
On whistle the 3 players start passing(facing each other as they pass) to each other while slide-stepping toward opposite baseline.
The middle player on this line will touch ball more and also has to turn and pass as he passes from one end partner to the other.
On same whistle the 2 players on other end (facing each other) will pass to each other while slide-stepping toward opposite end. These two lines will meet and overlap somewhere around 1/ 2 court. The key is to not collide balls at this transition. When the passing lines meet, the player(s) with the ball during this moment can take one dribble then continue slide-stepping and passing to partner.
When they reach opposite baselines...repeat.

This will teach them proper passing while in motion and peripheral vision (court vision) and decision-making.

Hope I made it clear and not too long-winded. Basically a line of 3 players passing meeting a line of two players passing. As these lines cross each other, bodies and balls can not collide. One dribble allowed per player to transition out of this confusion and start passing again.


Out,

Coach A

Here is something that we called the "Man Maker Drill"
Divide the court into 3 lanes... and this is a half court drill.

3 offensive players on the end line... in their lanes - they can not leave their lane.

3 defensive player on the free throw line extended

Man in the middle on D passes the ball to middle offensive player and let the game begin....... the THREE offensive players must get the ball over half court WITHOUT dribbling. Since there is NO dribbling the defensive players can lock up on their player making it more difficult to make a good pass.

This teaches the offensive players to make good V cuts - cut and replace etc... what ever it takes to get open.. the person with the ball learns to protect the ball at all costs, make pass fakes and be strong with the ball.

We always told our players that we don't care if you get called for 10 seconds (or 5) just don't throw the ball away - we cant play D on a steal and a breakaway layup. 10 seconds is forever.... ( we did care but we didn't tell our players that because we wanted them to be strong with the ball and not throw it away. )

If you cant pass and you cant catch you cant play this game. Period. More mistakes are made passing and catching the basketball than ]any other fundamental in the game. My suggestion, is to take your kids right back to the basics of passing and catching. Break down the four basic passes, teach them as they pass the ball that in order to get the best power after you release the ball your hands should be back to back and you should end the pass by pointing to your target. when catching the ball, look the ball into your hands and establish triple threat positioning. How many kids do you see go into a gym and practice passing, very few. I coach professional women and forty minutes to one hour of every practice is dedicated to fundamentals and we still make turnovers while passing the ball. Coach Mac

Coach Mac,

I learned that the hard way the one year I coached girls... I had all these grandiosce ideas that I was going to do and out coach these guys.. yea right. These were Sophomore girls and the first thing I found out was that they couldn't pass or catch the ball - let alone do it on the move.. as for shooting ... well, you know the answer to that.

We spent the first 20 minutes running passing drills for the first part of the season... then we cut that down once they got better at it. Then we spent that extra time shooting more.

Passing & Catching the ball
Dribbling
Shooting
M2m defensive drills...

Thats where I spent the majority of my time coaching the girls.

Sorry for the repeat of the Man Maker Drill... I should have looked back... but it is a good drill.

Coach Sar

Coach LJ,

Not only do you need passing drills but you need stats for both yourself and the players.

Having a tangible number can do so many things for you. First, it gives you as a coach a true indication of what's happening. Many times coaches think they know what's happening but when they look at the numbers they almost always discover something they overlooked.

Numbers are also powerful motivators for players. You can tell them to stop turning the ball over 100 times but until they see exactly how often they do it, they may not listen. Numbers also allow you to set tangible goals for improvement.

One of the most powerful motivation and player improvement tools I have seen is the Value Point System. You can learn more about it here:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/value-point-system.html

This might sound like a sales pitch for the Value Point System (VPS) and I guess it is. But I would not suggest anything unless I wholeheartedly believe in it. I feel like I would be doing you and other coaches a great dis-service by not highly recommending it.

The VPS will certainly help you lower your turnovers. Taking care of the ball is Danny Miles (developer of the VPS) biggest key to success. The drills on the VPS DVD are drills that he runs every single day in practice and those drills have the greatest impact on lowering their turnovers. I guess that is partly why when I saw your post, the first thing I thought of was that DVD.

For me I can watch the game and see the value lost due to turnovers either off the dribble or pass. When the other team capitalizes (either 2-3 point score) off of our turnovers to me that is -2 for our turnover and -2 or -3 for their score. I see some of our players drop their heads and try even harder to score. We constantly work with them to slow the pace and run the offence as best they can.

But our players couldn't understand offence efficiency. I now, thanks to this website, have stats for Offensive Efficiency Ratings that I do share, to expose the ebb and flow of a game, break downs either offensively and defensively. I show them how our turnovers reflect into opposing points.

I think that with players more in tune and understanding that they need to take advantage of each possession and try for the highest percentage shot. Effective cuts PROPER passes first rather than race down the court and throw the ball away going for a contested layup.