Rehearsal Time

What element(s) do you want in your practice schedule?

Things I believe need to be part of any practice schedule:

A) Start and end practice on time. Just like a class in school .... start on time

and end on time.

B) Start with a meeting and end with a meeting. Keep meeting(s) short! We

started with a semi-circle meeting. I wanted all eyes on me and I wanted

to see the faces of who I was talking to. The meeting at the end of

practice was brief and the coaches would "fist bump" each player. I

usually then allowed a senior to say a few words and stack it up.

C) We often started with a mass defensive drill. Then moved to a full court

ball handling drill of some sort. We wanted to emphasis that defense was

a top priority in our practices. From the first drill on, we tried to

encourage what we called "echo" yells. If we said for example, our

next drill was going to be "three line push" after the coach yelled the drill

name and we asked our players to echo it back "three line push!"

D) We often started our defensive breakdown portion of practice with a

defensive drill of some sort that emphasized footwork, closeouts and

block outs.

E) We then would add parts to the defense going to some form(s) of

breakdown drills such as 2 on 2, 3 on 3, and 4 on 4 drills.

F) Shooting drills were incorporated into the practice. We wanted at least 20

minutes of shooting per practice if possible. Most shooting drills were 4-5

minutes so we might use as many as 4-5 different shooting drill in a

practice.

G) Shell defensive drill ..... A great multipurpose drill. We like to run these as

full court drills to work on transition and as a conditioner. This drill would

be usually 8-10 minutes in length.

H) Offensive breakdown drills .... Breakdown aspects of your offensive

system both man and zone. Again 8-10 minutes in length.

I) 5 on 5 Scrimmage with restrictions. For example restrict the offense make

so many passes before a shot. Restrict who may shoot and what type of

shot you must create, etc. If at all possible, ALWAYS include transition into

any offensive or defensive 5 on 5 work.

J) Time and Score Situations: One example .... 35 seconds on the clock you.

You are down by 2 with the ball. Great time to work on end of game

situations.

A lot of rehearsals take place without any fans.

Practice schedules change during the course of a season. You as the coach decide, if and when, practices need to be shortened. Based on previous performances (games), you may decide to add certain drills to correct

flaws in your team's performances.

*Two things I think essential to practice are having a hard copy written

practice schedule with you on the floor. Second, we liked to use the clock

and scoreboard to keep the practice moving.

**Two other points to remember ...... If a drill is going poorly, resist the

temptation to lengthen it. Move on. Live to fight another day. If you move

quickly from drill to drill and execute a good number of full court drills, you

will also get an added benefit of conditioning and not have to "run" at the

end of practice.

** I OFTEN MISCALCULATED LENGTH OF DRILLS AND SOMETIMES HAD TO SKIP

A DRILL, AND IF I FELT IT WAS IMPORTANT, I SIMPLY ADDED IT (THE MISSED

DRILL) TO THE NEXT PRACTICE SESSION.

Don't be reluctant to ask your players how practice went and certainly

ask the other coaches working with you what their thoughts are.

Things I believe you try to avoid ..... like the plague:

A) Coaches talking too much at practice.

B) Running a drill for too long. Players/coaches get bored quickly.

If you run the same drills day after day, players will lose focus and

decrease their level of intensity.

C) Long lines which will directly lead to players standing far to much

and not getting enough repetitions.

D) Drills for drill sake. Make sure each drill has a GAME LIKE purpose.

E) Shooting drills need to be at game speed, and if passing is involved

in the drill, those passes should be executed with game speed.

F) You will reach a point where talk is meaningless. Actions can indeed

speak louder than words. For example, you can talk about blocking

out or you can run a sprint(s) when they don't. After a very short period

of time, your team will not ask why they are running they will be looking

for accountability of their teammates. (In other words WHO is not

blocking out!)

g) Nothing is more difficult to implement in practice is meaningful time

spent shooting free throws. You need to be creative or free throw

shooting in practice can eat up significant portions of your practice.

h) Constantly mix up drills and the sequence of the drills from one practice

to another. Boredom is the enemy.

i). Shorten practice time as you progress through the season. By the last

month of the season we often practiced an hour or an hour and fifteen

minutes at most.