Hi,
I have one guy on my 3rd grade travel team that has a tendency to place his off hand on the ball when he is dribbling down the court. It's not even when he's being pressured by anyone. It's almost like it's a nervous habit at times.

Besides drills like dribble knockout and having him keep his off hand behind his back, what are some other drills/techniques to help him drop this bad habit? Thanks in advance for your help.

I don't really know any drills to address this specifically. It's just something you stay on top of as a coach. He just needs time, persistence, and lots reps dribbling correctly so he breaks the habit.

Each time he does it in a scrimmage or competitive drill, call the double dribble and turnover. Eventually with emphasis and persistence he'll break the habit.

Good luck!

Jeff is correct, it's just like any other situation whether it's traveling or fouls. Have to stop the drill, scrimmage, etc. and explain over and over.

One drill we use is having the kids line up on the baseline each with a ball. They must start dribbling with their off hand out to protect the ball. Eyes up watching the coach. The coaches come by and hold up fingers, kids must yell out how many fingers they're holding up. They also kinda push the off hand and make sure the kids have a good solid base. Not perfect, but it helps get the eyes up and off hand out.

3rd grade might be a tad early for this, but two ball dribbling is something to try also. Just walking from baseline to half court and back. Get's them used to using both hands and eliminates the off hand being on the ball. It probably would look messy at first, but two ball dribbling is a good one.

I find that with Coaching youth it is imporant to find the root cause as to why they keep doing something and then once the fundamentals are understood do what Jeff said, call it everytime and turnover he will learn quickly to implement what you are teaching him.

My observations from the players I coach with the same problem, I identified the following poor fundamentals.

In a fast break situation they usually do the illegal dribble, because their off hand is pumping across their body instead of in a forward direction. This action actually slows down your player and pushes them off balance as their dribble hand cannot be used to counter the rotation. This in effect causes the player to dribble closer to their body and not push the ball out in front. Look at their running action and a correction to this may help them correct this bad habit. Also teaching them to push the ball out infront of them in the fast break will also help.

When defence is on them and they do it, I've noticed it is because they cramp up theit bar arm against their body and/or they dribble in front of themselve instead of dribbling on the outside of their foot. Reinforce good use of the bar arm and dribbling on the outside of their foot to create distance from the defence and cause the defence to work harder.

I've noticed that when you correct/implement these fundamentals the habit goes away.