This is my first official week of basketball practices — this week I have practices with 4th grade boys, 6th grade girls, and high school varsity boys… That’s a wide range of ages! Yet I teach them all our transition offense the exact same way. I start teaching our 4th graders the same way I […]
Run a Summer Skills Camp for Your Team – It’s Incredibly Productive
Last year I tried something new. We ran a 4-day summer skills camp for my daughter’s 4th grade basketball team. It was VERY productive! So I tried it again this summer as 5th graders… We just finished the camp and it was incredibly productive again. It’s one of the best things I have done and […]
Fill and Backdoor Cut Drill – Improve Team Offense & Skills at the Same Time
With most of our drills, we take a “piece” of our motion offense and turn it into a skill development combo drill. This allows you to work more efficiently because you’re practicing your team offense and improving skills at the same time. Here’s a drill that incorporates the “filling to the ball” aspect of our offense […]
Posted a New Drill – Partner Pass and Pivot
I just posted a new drill and video called Partner Pass and Pivot. This is one of my favorite drills to teach youth players footwork and passing. We use this drill in almost every practice with beginners between the ages of 6 and 10 years old. You can also use this drill as a “warm […]
Another Favorite Drill – Triangle Pass and Cut
Here’s another one of my favorite drills…. Triangle Pass and Cut. We use this drill with our 4th grade girls team and our 10th grade boys team. I like this drill because it takes a piece of our offense (pass and cut) and allows us to work on our skills (passing, timing, lay ups) at […]
Favorite Drill – 1v1 Dribbling with Traps
This is one of my favorite drills. I use this drill with both my 4th grade girls team and 10th grade boys team. 1v1 Dribbling with Traps Less experienced players should play basic 1v1 drills first. Once they master those basic drills and can consistently advance the ball in 1v1 situation, you can add the more […]
Should You Use the Popular “High Ball Screen Play” For Your Youth Team?
I’d like to share my opinion on a popular ball screen play that I see all the time. While coaching my daughter’s 4th grade team, the high ball screen for the point guard is the most common play I see. Seems like almost half of the teams run a variation of this play. I hope I […]
What We Did With Our 4th Grade Youth Basketball Team – Offense, Defense, Skills and More…
My daughter’s 4th grade team had a great year. Tremendous improvement, lots of fun, and lots of life lessons learned… And even though winning is not a measurement of a successful season, or good youth coaching for that matter, we did win lots of games and tournaments without taking any shortcuts and by doing things […]
Helping Others On and Off the Court – Do You Have Any Ideas?
One of our team’s core values is to “help others”. As a coach, you find lots of opportunities to reinforce this core value in practice and games… You can help your teammates by passing the ball in games, you can hustle to get rebounds in drills so you partner gets more shots, you can rotate […]
Trying New Drills – No Dribble is Still One of the Best
I’ve tried dozens of new drills this year with both our 4th graders and our 10th grade high school team. I plan to keep using several of them. I’ll start writing up the drills and sharing them with you soon. But I keep going back to a really simple drill that is still one of my […]