Here’s what we did for week 1 of practice with our 7th graders. I’ll paste our practice plan and links to the drills we used.
We have 14 players and 4 baskets. We had two practices. Each practice lasted 2 hours.
We followed the same format both days… just tweaked the drills and emphasis a little bit.
Dynamic Warm Up (link to warm up)
Dribbling & Finishing
3 cone groove finishes:
– basic lay ups – left and right
– shoulder finish – left and right
– reverse lay up
– 2 foot push / long lay up
Ballhandling
In place dribbling – retreat and fan
Split dribble moves (touch cone) into jump shot
Shooting
Form shooting
Groove shooting (slowly move back as you “groove” your shot)
2 balls, 3 shooters (off catch and dribble)
1 v 1 Overlap – Defense & Ballhandling (link to drill)
Situations
Reaction rebounding (focus on box outs)
Review BLOB plays (5v5)
Transition offense – 2 trips
Motion & Game Based Learning
3v3 back screens
3v3 single away screen
3v3 stagger away (single, single) – extra passer
* We have two 3v3 games going at once so all players are working.
Half Court Scrimmage
Work on all aspects of man to man defense, motion offense, and rebounding. First to 8 points wins. 2 games.
Full Court Scrimmage
Focus on transition and half court execution. First to 6 wins, then shake hands, sub, and play again. (High intensity games)
If you have any questions about the drills or practice plan, let me know. Hope this helps give you some ideas for your practices.
Hey Jeff, I wanted to quickly let you know about the free app Heja, which is great
for keeping your basketball teams organized & easily communicating with all
your players. I’ve listed some useful features of the app below, but I
encourage any coach to download it for yourself and test it. It’s totally free
for everybody!
– See EXACTLY who has read & received your information!
– Set your team’s weekly practice & game schedule in an activity calendar
so everyone knows where to be & when
– You get RSVPs ‘Going’ or ‘Not going’ from every
player, so you know exact attendances, saving a load of texts
– Click one button to send a Reminder that goes to
every player/parent’s phone who hasn’t responded to your message
– Post pics and messages like any other group chat
(whatsapp)
– For high school, college, pro or rec teams
To download and see how easily Heja keeps your teams organized, please
follow this link http://go.heja.io/HejaJM2
Thanks!
great stuff, Jeff. thanks!!
Here, here!
Ok one more question..more of looking for advice. I’m coaching at a middle school, we had a team meeting today, and close to 30 kids showed up. We aren’t allowed to cut which is fine with me…everywhere I read says you should try to transition drills every 4-5 minutes. Using 1 full court do you think that’s enough time to get everyone a rep per drill? Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated
30 players on 1 court is a lot. If you have 6 baskets and enough space for shooting at each basket, then you can get 5 players per basket and that’s pretty decent. Hopefully you have some assistants to help.
If you have fewer than 6 baskets, then you’ll need to get really creative and plan ahead to get everyone lots of reps.
When I designed the practice above, it was based on the fact we had 14 players and 4 baskets. Whenever we design practices we consider the # of players, space available, and # of baskets. Those factors can greatly alter our drills and practice plans.
Ok I see. I may be able to get 4 baskets, but I know for sure I won’t have assistants. I’m reworking my drills to try and get as many as I can at one time going. Also I’m really thinking about making it really simple so the initial explanation doesn’t take a long time. The first practice will be interesting haha I don’t know the skill level of the kids so I’m starting at basic and will gauge from there. I appreciate your help. I read your post about having a big team and will try those drills too. Thanks again