DEVELOPING A PRACTICE RHYTHM TO PEAK AT THE RIGHT TIME

BY TED ANDERSON

HEAD WOMEN’S BASKETBALL COACH

ANDALE HIGH SCHOOL (KANSAS)

The key to running a good basketball program is conducting good practices.  We work hard to be consistent and develop what we call a practice rhythm.  We don’t practice the same amount of time each day but vary how and what we do throughout the week.  This high school basketball practice plan article will deal with what we do in a typical week when we have practices on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday with games on Tuesday and Friday.  We do not practice on Saturday, but we do open the gym on Sunday for our kids to come up and get some shooting work in.  Here are some of our ideas in our high school basketball practice plan.

NOTE:  On either Monday or Thursday of each week we only have a full court for an hour and 15 minutes before going to a very small gym to finish up.  We make sure we get all of our full court work done early and work on our sets at the end.  In this article, Thursday was our split gym day for our high school basketball practice plan.

MONDAY – HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL PRACTICE PLAN:  3:50-6:20

Monday is our long as we only have one day to prepare for the game the next day.  The first 30 minutes of our practice is close to the same as it will be on Wednesday and Thursday.

We strongly believe in this period.  We work hard on our form in this period.  In our 3 players 2 ball time the posts will work together and take their game shots

Our guards and posts will go to separate ends.  Guards will work shooting with an emphasis on footwork.  We will also play 3 on 3 no dribble to work on passing as well as pressuring on defense.

In this segment, we will play 4 on 4 with two posts and two guards and simulate parts of our Motion Offense such as HI/LO, Pinch Post, Pick and Roll, or cross screen down screen action.

We will go over the quote for the day, the emphasis of the day and what we will do the rest of practice.  The players are in a circle around the coach and are drinking water and listening.

We will start with dynamic dribbling which is dynamic warm-up with a basketball.

The 3 main areas we will cover in this are as follows:

1. Ball handling both stationary, on the move and against a defender
2. Passing: Weak hand emphasis.
3. TEAM PASSING DRILL: We have about 5 team passing drills and we do one every day.

NOTE:  This is how we get some conditioning and movement in our high school basketball practice plan.

We do secondary break game and play up and down until there is a dead ball.  We then shoot a free throw and continue with the fast break.  This is great for conditioning and our running game.

This is a competitive free throw challenge.  Non-winners and anyone under 7-10 free throws have extra running at end of this period.

1. Individual footwork and guarding the ball as well as of a close out
2. Defend a concept such as 3 on 3 flex cut etc.
3. 4 on 4 on 4 competitive for sprints

• We will get into 3 teams and play either defensive or offensive cut throat. We like to play “pure basketball” in which you pass and cut or screen away.  There are no ball screens or post ups an we play with great spacing.

We work to press and press break and really try to get after it.

We have about 10 challenging shooting drills that take 1-2 minutes each with a passer.  We do one of these during this period.

We run 3 out of bounds plays and break to the other end where the other team does the same.

We run our sets and the defense breaks

A 3 trip scrimmage where you play half court break and break coming back.  This is a well-controlled scrimmage.

We cover our last shot of the quarter, last shot of the game and especially the end of game press break where we must get the ball in bounds.

We like full court shooting and lay-up drills.

This concludes our Monday practice for our high school basketball practice plan.

WEDNESDAY HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL PRACTICE PLAN:

This is the day after the game.

We use KROSSOVER and make a film of clips from the previous night’s game that our team needs to see.  We also look at our shooting % assists and turnovers and our opponents shot % and offensive rebounds.

We work shots in our offenses and make sure our timing between our Guards and Posts is right.

We play the concepts in our offense live

Shoot with a partner for two minutes:  2 consecutive 3’s is a Hubie or 3 consecutive 2’s.

We box out and run our fast break until there is a dead ball and then we do it again.  This is really a great conditioner for us during our high school basketball practice plan.

We like to work zone on the day after the game.  We usually give the offense 3 possessions and then break to the other end on the 3^rd possession.  We run our zone secondary break and then the other team gets 3 possessions.

This is a 2 line shooting drill where all players but one has a ball.  We get a shuffle cut shot and a 3 pointer at the top.

We run a 3 man weave two jumper drill that we call 5 ball pitch ahead shooting.

We will stay as long as any kid wants to stay and shoot and get better.

THURSDAY – HIGH SCHOOL BASKETBALL PRACTICE PLAN :

We have a game the next day.

We run our base Motion offense and work on all options.  We rotate everyone through and make sure we see all parts of our offense as well as our sets in our high school basketball practice plan.

We take a break to simulate half time and then come out and run a quick lay-up drill

We work against our opponents press and press offense and make sure we are organized vs their pressure.  We also make sure that we know how to rotate in our presses and who we can’t leave open.

This takes between 10-20 minutes depending on our execution etc.  We script our first 3 Set plays and baseline out of bounds plays.

We finish with a half court weave shooting drill and we have to get 35 points.

We are ready for tomorrow night’s game.

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DEVELOPING A PRACTICE RHYTHM TO PEAK AT THE RIGHT TIME  BY TED ANDERSON