I had a general question that relates to pre-practice and a suggested routine/drills/management to help my team improve.

I am the 8th grade boy's basketball coach in my middle school. In the last two years we have had 40 players play each year for our 8th grade team. We practice from 4:15-6:15 everyday in a regular (not huge) gym with 4 side hoops and 2 main hoops.

My question is how best can we structure our time to get the students on the floor and working right away. I have used a shooting progression in the past with a partner, but because we have so many players and not enough gym space, it becomes chaotic and players aren't doing what they're supposed to do.

How have other coaches approached this issue (strategies/drills/expectations) to get the players to work and in the right mind-set when they hit the floor?

Thank you,

Wow. That's a lot of players to work with at once. I'd probably treat it like one of our camps where we focus heavily on skills and driils where everyone can stay busy. We also usually have a few assistants helping. Maybe you can attend a good skills camp to get some ideas?

And maybe you can find some motivation / player focus idea here
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/coaching/player_motivation_and_mentality.html

40 players? I hope you have some assistants to help you and several baskets too.

I agree with Jeff, I would treat this like a camp - the most I ever dealt with alone was 18 and they were sophomores.... and that did not work out.... I had told the kids that there would be one more cut in a week..... I was thiiking that IF this didn't work out I would cut 3-4 more players.

As a Varstiy coach we kept 17 -18 players but I had an excellent assistnat. He had been a head coach for several years himself. Get some help if you are going to make this work.