When conducting tryouts, you want drills that allow you to efficiently evaluate players.
The key word here is “efficiently”. You only have so much time in tryouts to evaluate players. So you want to make good use of your time!
Tryout drills should be fairly simple yet similar to what you normally do in practice. If drills are too complicated, you’ll waste hours of time teaching new players “how to run” the drills. So simplicity is critical when choosing.
Drills should also accommodate varying degrees of ability and experience – since you’ll most likely get a wide variety of players at tryouts. Some players might be inexperienced yet have a lot of potential. You don’t want to exclude those players.
Here are the tryout 15 drills that I like to use. They are simple and effective in regards to evaluating players for your team.
Drill #1 – Learn Players’ Names with Circle Passing
Depending on your situation, you may or may not want to use this drill. The main purpose is for me as a coach to learn the names of the players. However there are other benefits. You’ll find out which players put effort into learning names of teammates and who actually uses their names in practice. Players also get to meet new potential teammates and begin the bonding process.
To conduct the drill, players get in a circle (close enough to reach out and touch the person next to them). Instruct players to learn the name of the person standing on their left and their right. Then as the ball is passed, the player receiving the ball will say their own name, and the names of the players next to them. Then they pass to a different player. This repeats until someone knows the name of everyone there… it can be a player or a coach that recites the names of each player.
Drill #2 – Full Court Dribbling and Finishing
This simple drill gives you a good idea of a player’s all around dribbling skill and idea if they can make uncontested lay ups.
Drill #3 – Full Court Dribble with Weave and Finish
This is very similar to the drill above except it adds a cone dribbling aspect that can be telling. Make sure they spread out so you can watch close. Here’s a progression you can use:
- 2 ball dribble (no shot)
- Cross overs and then retreat at wing area
- Cross overs and then fan (lateral) dribble at wing area
- Behind back
- In/out
Drill #4 – Form Shooting
Even though this is an evaluation, I still want players to practice the “right away” and start with form shooting. This drill also allows you to evaluate who listens to instructions closely.
Drill #5 – 3 or 4 Player Shooting
Very simple drill that gets players a high number of reps. I usually start with mid-range shots for a few minutes. Then for older players I instruct them to move out to 3pt range.
Drill instructions: 2 balls and 3-4 players per basket. Each player shoots and gets the rebound. As soon as Player A shoots, Player B shoots and repeats the process. Player A passes to B, B passes to C, C passes to A. Players get an average of 14 shots per minute.
Drill #6 – 2 Person Full Court Passing
Passing drill that is very quick and easy to set up for players new to your system.
Drill #7 – Pass and Cut Lay Ups
Really simple drill. Line on top of key and line at wing. Wing player has ball. Pass to top, cut, and receive a pass back for lay up. You’ll see who can pass to a player on the move and who can make lay ups. Also preps players for basic pass and cut offense when we scrimmage at end.
Drill #8 – Footwork Drill – Partner Pass and Pivot
This drill gives you an idea of a player’s footwork skill. I also like to use this drill before the next drill (3 on 2 no dribble). Because I can refer to the jump stops and pivots they are practicing now.
Drill #9 – 3 on 2 full Court – No Dribble
Gives you a good idea on who can pass the ball, pivot, and make good decisions.
Drill #10 – 1 v 1 full court
Real simple. Check the ball and play 1v1 full court trying to score. Make sure players switch around going against different opponents. This really tells you who can defend, who can handle the ball, and how well players move. This is a very telling drill.
To get more reps we use both side courts. After a possession, players go to other court (offense goes to defense) — so they are essentially rotating in a big circle.
Drill #11 – 1v1 Speed Dribble
Shows you who can handle the ball at full speed, who can finish under pressure, who can run fast, and who is a competitor.
Drill #12 – Shell Drill
We like to run the shell drill. This tells us right away if a player knows anything about defensive fundamentals. It also gives us an idea of who learns quickly and listens to instructions.
Drill #13 – Basic Offense
Explain our motion offense: “we just want spacing and ball movement until you get a good shot.” Then practice a little 5 on 0 motion — 5 v 0 pass and cut, and 5 v 0 pass and screen (if time).
Drill #14 – Speed and agility drills
In some cases we have players race so we can compare their speed and agility. You can simply have them line up in rows and then race to end of gym, run shuttles, or use agility drills like the lane agility test.
Drill #15 – Scrimmage
At the end of tryouts we let them play. Self explanatory. If we have a lot of players, we try to split them up on multiple courts. We also keep the games short… 5 min games or first to 5 points.
Final Thoughts
You probably won’t have time to use all 15 of these drills in one practice — but hopefully this gives you some ideas on drills you can use at your next tryouts. These are all drills that have worked well for us in the past.
Do you use a form that corresponds with these drills to “score” kids so you can give the players and parents feedback after the try out?
Sorry I don’t have a form we use for tryouts.
If you aren’t using any kind of form or scoring system for tryouts, how are you determining which players make the team (if players get cut)? Trying to figure out best way to do this. Thanks.
I’ve been coaching a long time and I just evaluate in my head and make rough notes after each tryout. Sometimes if I’m unsure I’ll make sure and put a player in a situation at next tryout to verify.
When you play full court 1v1… you almost immediately see who can handle, who has agility, and who has speed. Doesn’t take long to figure that out.
Passing drills and games quickly tell you who can catch and pass.
I guess when you’ve been doing this a while you can just tell if a player just needs a little “coaching” or if they have a major weakness that will take a very long time to remedy.
One thing we always do is “teach” during tryouts. That way I can quickly see which players listen and apply what we teach and which players do not. If a player is raw when it comes to knowing the game, but coach-able and quickly learns what you teach… that is a big factor to consider.
After tryouts and rosters are compete, I usually question myself on a few players. But by end of season, as I watch and continue evaluating all year, I’ve found that our initial evaluation back at tryouts are spot on.
Do you do full court 1v1 with younger kids? Have any videos of 1v1 full court? I have tryouts coming up in a couple weeks for next year’s team and i think i might use that drill.
Yes. We use with 1st grade to college. With young inexperienced kids that don’t have skill yet, you might need to adjust the constraints of the drill until they are ready for the defensive pressure. A few options include:
– give the ballhander a running start (have defense start 15 feet back and they can’t move until the offense starts attacking)
– have defense shadow only (no stealing)
I do have some film of a practice… it’s half court 1v1 to optimize our space but same concept. I don’t think we’ll be able to dig out the footage and post it within two weeks tho… I was planning to turn the footage into drills along with the diagrams and video example. So at some point it will get posted.
Thanks. I appreciate your help. I think I found a good example of that drill at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUHsVlsyKvE
Yea that is pretty much it. You don’t have to use cones like they did but you can. And it looked like the were trying to funnel players up sideline in the backcourt (maybe purpose for them was to teach a small piece of their full court press). You might also need to split things up different so there is not a long line with kids standing around… how you set it up all depends on your facility and number of kids.
Really good food for thought here Coach. I’ll be mulling over some of the ideas. For a tryout I don’t care for full court 1v1 as I don’t want to send a message in any way, shape or form that our offense is going to include one player driving the length of the floor. Any1v1 for me would have to be in a half court set AND limit players to three dribbles.
Hi Coach –
Totally understand what you’re saying and agree with the mindset. More food for thought…
– If I could only pick one tryout drill, it would be full court 1v1. You can pretty much figure out your teams by running this for 5-10 minutes and then send everyone home. We of course run plenty of other drills to verify those initial observations. But in most cases, nothing changes and we have evaluated correctly after running that drill for 5-10 minutes. You can tell if players can move feet, run the floor, dribble, have coordination that could possibly be developed, etc.
– In my opinion, this is one of the best drills to use all season. We use it every day in practice and our teams take pride in sharing the ball, passing, and playing as a team. Very unselfish and lots of ball movement. When the time comes, they can all handle the ball, dribble to spots, and beat double teams if needed. This greatly improves defensive speed, athleticism, foot coordination, on ball defense technique, dribbling skills, 1v1 moves, ball security, etc.
– If you don’t want them shooting, just have them advance the ball past a line during practice. Although allowing them to shoot does improve finishing skills and I’d want them to shoot if I was evaluating in a tryout.
– I believe the only way to develop true dribbling / PG skills is to play lots of 1v1 and/or be assigned PG spot in games. Dribbling drills without defense are old school and limited in effectiveness. To really learn how to change speeds, retreat when in trouble, know how much space you need to cross over, etc… is to have defenders challenging you over and over.
Anyway, just more food for thought. Full or half court 1v1 is right at the top of my all time favorite and most effective drills for player development that we use almost every practice.
Philosophical differences. Likely what you do fits what you do – that is to say the assessment you use gives you the information you need for the style you prefer.
A 1 v 1 drill doesn’t tell me one thing about passing, catching, cutting, or screening. It gives me no feedback whatsoever if a player can find a teammate, looks for a teammate, knows there is a teammate or cares. It encourages something the game already has a chronic problem with – too much dribbling. Everything in the game is married to a purpose. We don’t do anything “just because”. Dribbling has four purposes; advancing the ball, improving passing angles, releasing pressure, and driving to the rim for conversion.
The last thing I want to do, as a leader of young people, is aggrandize their ego by drilling them in a way that excludes teammates. Kyrie Irving is perhaps the best ball handler on the planet at the moment but it is clearly at the expense of team play. I’ve not found it easy to have both. Those who can or do, they are much better coaches than I.
Do I want to know who can handle the ball in a tryout? Absolutely. Would I do that using a 1 v 1 approach? Sure. Is it my end all and go to? No it is not.
It is my deepest hope that young coaches see past what is often fool’s gold and observe players in a more robust way during a tryout for a sport where one only has the ball 20% of the time.
Hey Coach. I agree and also hope other youth coaches spend time teaching players how to do things the right way and encourage a “team mentality”. I hope they don’t interpret the fact that we use 1v1 drill the wrong way.
I think TeamYoga understands this but for other coaches reading… 1v1 or any drill is just a tool with a purpose.
The purpose of 1v1 for us is to develop on-ball defense, agility, conditioning, and dribbling skills. Yes we use that drill almost every day but we have MANY other drills we use with other purposes to develop passing, decision making, screening, team offense, and so on.
Every drill has a purpose. For example Form Shooting, the purpose is to develop good shooting technique and muscle memory. In a game you never shoot with one hand from 4 foot away with no defenders on you.
In games, we pass, pivot, cut, screen, etc. Teamwork is our #1 emphasis. We make sure our players use their dribble with a purpose in a game. We want players very skilled in all aspects of the game… but we also want them playing “as a team” and making good decisions. We do not want them dribbling in games for the sake of dribbling!!
We use many other drills like “no dribble 5v5” and dozens of others to teach players decision making, how to get open, passing skills, offensive concepts, and so on. For any youth coach reading, just like TeamYoga, we really emphasize the team game and sharing of the ball. I want all players in a game touching the ball and developing. I have my way of making that happen and other coaches should figure out their way of making that happen.
Amen.
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