5 Things I Picked Up at Practice Last Week

I had the opportunity to watch a couple college practices at the end of August. It is amazing when you go to a college practice how much you can learn. I go away each time thinking, “I have so much to learn.” 

#1- Shooting Drills Incorporating Basic Actions- This is not something new but I was amazed how many things they could incorporate in three man shooting- dribble handoffs, stagger actions, drag screens. They involved three players with each player getting a shot off a common action they would use out of their 4 Out. 

#2- Wall Up Drill- They had a coach with the ball at the free throw line, a defender under the basket and an offensive player in each dunker spot. All the players had the backs to the baseline, looking at the coach. The coach would pass to a player in the dunker spot. The receive would catch and go hard to the basket to try to score over the defender. The defender was working on “walling up”, never going for the block. The offense had to score thru contact and the defense working on taking contact and not fouling. 

#3- Two Team Stations- One group of 6-7 players were at one basket, and the other group of 6-7 players were at the other basket. At one end for 15 minutes they were working defensively in 3 on 3 situations working on executing and defending different actions- dribble handoffs, staggers, etc. At the other end, they working on basic concepts of gap defense and close outs. 

#4- Scrimmage From An Action- On this day, every single possession to start a scrimmage started exactly the same way- Dribble HO with a stagger on the other side. They had 14 seconds on the shot clock. After the initial action, they played. 

#5- Inbound Defender in the Gap- They got into this two ways:

A- They ran 5 on 0 with a defense that had the ball ready to go. When the offense shot, the other team would inbound the ball, so they had to sprint back defensively. 

B- As they played 5 on 5, it just created after makes. 

The concept of the drill is that the offense is most effective in the first 10 seconds of a possession. Often it is most effective because it is operating 4 on 4. In a 4 on 4 set up, there are wide gaps that make it harder to stop penetration. 

The idea would be that the offense is only 4 on 4 if the inbounder or rebounder’s defender jogs up the floor with that person. In that case for 2-4 seconds, the offense is 4 on 4. 

So in this practice the emphasis was to get the defender of the rebounder/inbounder to sprint back so that the defense was actually 5 defenders vs. 4 offense to start the possession. So in all transition, the fifth defender would sprint back and would get wide in the gap to prevent the point guard from driving.