As a coach, you always want to put your team in position to win, help your players develop and grow, and just be successful. We spoke to arguably one of the best and most influential high school coaches, in Team USA U17 head man Don Showalter, and he gladly shared his coaching secrets with us. Continue reading “Interview: Secrets to high school coaching with team USA U17 Don Showalter” »
Drills and practice plans
The Green Light Shooting Test
You want the player taking a 3 to be a sharp shooter, someone who you know consistently makes 3’s regularly in practice. How can you work out who’s number to call in crunch time?
Enter the Green Light Shooting Test.
The Green Light Shooting Test is a product of the best practices of our Coachbase partners and many successful high school coaches. These coaches don’t just let anyone take 3’s in games; they have their players tryout for the title of “shooter”.
Without any further ado, I’ve attached the Green Light Shooting Test as an image below. Keep reading the rest of the blog post to learn how to read the results and use the test in practice!
Get the Green Light Shooting Test: I’ve made the test into an easily printable, 1 page PDF which you can use to take to practice Download it here .
Five Go To Plays When You Need a 3
You’re down late in the fourth and desperately need a 3 to get your team back in the game. What do you do?
It’s a time to turn to a play that’s been proven to work. All of these 5 plays have been drawn up by a coaching legend and shown to work in the most pressurizing situations in the NCAA or NBA. So whether you’re:
- Needing to score a 3 off an inbounds from your own half- use Nova by Villanova’s Jay Wright
- Looking for a late shot clock BLOB play- use Flat Curl 2 by Colorado’s Tad Boyle
- Want a simple youth play out of a timeout- use Double Flare by Baylor’s Scott Drew
- Looking for the game winning catch and shoot 3- use Spurs STS by the Spur’s Gregg Popovich
- Want a 3 during regulation out of a BLOB- use Side Elevator by UAB’s Jerod Haase
These are five go to plays when you need a 3- check them out, practice the ones you like and add them to your playbook!
NOTE: these are my names for the plays. As you can see they’re more descriptive than secretive- feel free to change them up according to your system.
Exclusive Download: Download these Five go-to plays for a 3 as a PDF and work on them in practice. Get these 5 plays now! .
16 Championship Level Rebounding Drills
Offense sells tickets, defense wins games, rebounding wins championships. - Pat SummittClick To Tweet
Rebounding doesn’t just win games, it wins championships. (P.S those aren’t my words, they’re paraphrasing the words of HOF coach Pat Summitt). It’s also no coincidence that a list of the most prolific rebounders in NBA history (think Bill Russell, Wilt, Kareem, Rodman, Duncan) also happens to be a list of players who have won most of the championships from the 50’s up to the 2010’s.
Unfortunately, rebounding is also one of the most neglected fundamentals. Coaches spend tons of time teaching shooting, dribbling, defense and offense, but when it comes to rebounding it’s suddenly just about “wanting the ball more”. Whilst I agree that a hunger for the ball is at the heart of rebounding, a few drills can go a long way towards teaching rebounding technique and showing to your players that rebounding is a game winning skill.
This week I’ve put together a list of 16 championship level rebounding drills. They’ll cover all your needs including:
- Teaching rebounding technique
- Scoring off the offensive rebound
- Rebounding into transition offense
- Games based rebounding drills
Exclusive Download: If these rebounding drills aren’t enough, I’ve found a 5 page PDF with many more. Click here to download .
Scroll through this article and plug in the best drills for you into your next practice!
Continue reading “16 Championship Level Rebounding Drills” »
Drills and Plays for the 5 Out, 4 Out 1 in, and Dribble Drive Motion Offense
2 weeks ago, I wrote to you, the readers asking for your help. Remember that? Many of you responded with the offense and defense your team ran, and me and my team set about trying to find resources that could help you.
How did I spend my time? 3 requests kept coming up again and again- find me stuff for 5 out, 4 out 1 in, and dribble drive motion offenses. These 3 areas are what I’ve focused on.
After hours of work I decided that I had to focus on handing you stuff that you could instantly use in practice. After all, if you already run that offense, you’re probably already around 90% there- it’s the last 10% that’s going to make your team great. Here’s what I came up with:
- For the 5 out offense- game shot specific team shooting drills
- For the 4 out, 1 in offense- down screen and off ball movement drills
- For the dribble drive motion offense- drills and plays to add John Calipari’s pick and roll tactics
Click on what’s relevant for your team to jump straight to it!
Exclusive Bonus: These drills and plays are available as a printable 7 page PDF. Download and take them to practice here!
Continue reading “Drills and Plays for the 5 Out, 4 Out 1 in, and Dribble Drive Motion Offense” »
How Vision Hoops gets the Most out of Young Players with Streetball Mixtape Inspired Drills
It’s every coach’s dream to see their players working on their game outside of practice. All the great players arrive early and stay late. Coach Vara of Vision Hoops shares how his drills are so fun, he sees his players gather and do them outside of practice! Coach Vara is a skills development expert and in this interview he will share:
- How he designs FUN drills inspired by streetball mixtapes and NBA players
- What he wants to teach and how he designs drills to teach those skills
- How to organize during the pre-season for a school team
- When and how to step in to give players feedback
- What his past coaches taught him about mental toughness