Jeff Haefner's Coaching Blog

Unique ideas, solutions, and perspectives for basketball coaches...

  • Home
  • About Me
  • About this Blog
  • Contact
  • Free Shooting Workouts
  • 72 Practice Drills

Posted 3 New Articles / Drills

April 29, 2017 by Jeff Haefner Leave a Comment

I wrote and posted some new articles, drills, and videos on Breakthrough… How to Minimize Game Slippage — 8 Ways to Minimize Game Slippage 1v1 Overlap Drill – How to Make 1v1 Drills More Efficient With One Court Also, posted this one several weeks ago and forgot to mention on my blog… 2-1-0 Dribbling Drills […]

Filed Under: Practice Strategy

How Often Should You Change Drills?

January 4, 2017 by Jeff Haefner 7 Comments

Do you use different drills to give players variety?  Do you use the same set of drills all season?  How often should you change your drills to keep things fresh? These are questions all coaches ask at some point. Here’s how we make our practices efficient and how often we change drills… For our 6th […]

Filed Under: Practice Strategy

11 Practice Requirements for Youth Basketball Coaches

April 24, 2016 by Jeff Haefner 9 Comments

For our 6th grade (to be) girls basketball team, we had a lot of players wanting to join so we decided to create two teams.   Both teams will run the same offense, defense, etc… but we’ll practice separate. Since I don’t have enough time to coach both teams I have recruited a couple coaches […]

Filed Under: 5th grade basketball, Practice Strategy

What We Did With Our Sophomore Boys Basketball Team – Offense, Defense, Drills, Plays

February 22, 2016 by Jeff Haefner 7 Comments

In hopes of giving you some ideas and possibly helping your team in some way, I’m sharing what we did with our sophomore (10th grade) boys basketball team this year.  This includes our offense, defense, drills, plays, and so on. Brief Overview and Results For the 2015/16 season I coached the Marion sophomore boys basketball team. […]

Filed Under: 10th Grade (Sophomore) Basketball, Practice Strategy

It’s Not Christmas – No gifts for our opponent!

November 3, 2015 by Jeff Haefner 4 Comments

I found this saying in the UC coaching clinic notes that I really like… “It’s not Christmas”. Meaning – No gifts for our opponent. Examples: Layups Free throws Bad fouls Open 3’s for good shooter Turnovers for touchdown This fits my coaching philosophy and seems like a good way to get young athletes playing the right way. […]

Filed Under: Practice Strategy

High Fives – Improve Team Chemistry, Energy, and Excitement

September 9, 2015 by Jeff Haefner Leave a Comment

A very simple way for you to improve your team’s chemistry, team energy, and just have more fun is to encourage more high fives, chest bumps, fist bumps, and so on. I read somewhere that NBA teams whose players had the most physical contact during games early in the season were the most successful down the […]

Filed Under: 5th grade basketball, Positive Impact, Practice Strategy

Here’s an Excellent Video – Game Based Skill Drills

May 7, 2015 by Jeff Haefner Leave a Comment

This is a follow up to the previous post and video… A Games Approach to Teaching Basketball Skills. As I have mentioned, I’m a huge fan of game based learning drills.  They’re fun and better simulate what actually happens in a game… The traditional drills (ex: dribbling around cones) have their place in your practices.  However […]

Filed Under: Drills, Player Development, Practice Strategy

A Games Approach to Teaching Basketball Skills – Video & Drills

April 30, 2015 by Jeff Haefner 2 Comments

Below you’ll find an excellent video by Mike MacKay called A Games Approach to Teaching Basketball Skills. I’m a huge fan of game based drills and learning. This videos give you some really good drills and ideas on how to develop your players using “games approach”. You’ll also learn how to create your own drills […]

Filed Under: Drills, Player Development, Practice Strategy

Should You Use the Popular “High Ball Screen Play” For Your Youth Team?

March 20, 2015 by Jeff Haefner 22 Comments

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 […]

Filed Under: 4th Grade Basketball, Offense, Player Development, Practice Strategy

What We Did With Our 4th Grade Youth Basketball Team – Offense, Defense, Skills and More…

February 27, 2015 by Jeff Haefner 15 Comments

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 […]

Filed Under: 4th Grade Basketball, Practice Strategy, Strategy

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

About Me

I’m a basketball coach, skill development trainer, and Co-Owner of Breakthrough Basketball. I currently live in Marion, Iowa with my wife, two kids, and our golden retriever (Izzy).

Right now I am coaching two teams. I will be coaching... Read More...

Menu

  • 10th Grade (Sophomore) Basketball (13)
    • Practice Plans (3)
  • 3rd Grade Basketball (7)
  • 4th Grade Basketball (11)
  • 5th grade basketball (10)
  • 7th grade basketball (3)
  • 8th grade basketball (1)
  • Athletic Development (1)
  • Coaching (44)
    • Motivation (1)
    • Positive Impact (11)
    • Practice Strategy (16)
    • Stats (3)
    • Strategy (12)
    • Team Building (1)
    • team management (3)
    • Tools (3)
  • Defense (2)
  • Drills (22)
  • News (3)
  • Offense (11)
    • Transition (2)
  • Player Development (16)
  • Uncategorized (2)

Most Popular Articles

  • 15 Basketball Tryout Drills for Efficiently Evaluating Players
  • Dynamic Warm Up For Basketball – Strength, Athleticism, and Injury Prevention
  • What We Did With Our 4th Grade Youth Basketball Team – Offense, Defense, Skills and More…
  • Simple Way to Define Shot Selection and Improve Offensive Efficiency
  • Coaching Youth Basketball – What We Did With Our 3rd Grade Team and Ideas that Might Help You
  • Trying New Drills – No Dribble is Still One of the Best

Copyright © 2025 · Genesis Child on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in