Leading your first practice as a basketball instructor can be a bit intimidating. However, it doesn’t have to be! As long as you do a fair amount of preparation before practice, you’ll be able to execute things fairly easily. All you need to do is build a good schedule of what to do and how long to do it. So how to make a schedule?
Making a schedule is something that will get easier the more you do. I recommend having it written or even typed a few nights before. The most difficult schedule for me to be first because you don’t know your team yet and you don’t know what they need to work on and practice. The way to combat this is to cover all areas of the game and work on the fundamentals that all teams will need to work on. Now we can go into some details.
The beginning of the practice should begin with stretching and warming up the muscles. Some coaches have this as part of practice from the start, others make it clear to the players that this is part of their job and that they should warm up before practice and be ready to go when the first whistle blows. I think the staircase is more appropriate for older age groups. When it comes to youth practices, I think it should be a part of practice to ensure players are warming up properly. This warm-up could last about 15 minutes and include stretching and running. This will increase the heart rate and hopefully the players can break a sweat. From here, a good transition to ball handling usually goes well.
Ball handling drills can include a ball or two. Examples of two-ball drills would be dribbling two balls at once while standing still, and then dribbling two balls while walking or running across the court. For any ball handling drill, it is important that you, as the coach, emphasize looking up as players dribble. It is important that they feel comfortable dribbling without looking at the ball. Other ball handling exercises include dribbling a basketball with one hand while catching a tennis ball with the other. I personally liked this one because I thought it was the most helpful on reaction time. The coaches will throw the tennis ball to the player and they will have to catch and return it while dribbling. Once this becomes easy, the player should be asked to do movements such as crossovers or behind the back between tennis ball tosses. After about 30 minutes of handling the ball, you can move on to team building exercises.
An example of a team building exercise would be the “3 Man Weave”. This is a drill where three players run together across the court zigzagging past each other. A video explaining this in more detail can be viewed here. The benefits of running this drill is to improve communication while practicing the game like speed. This drill tends to be manual at first for the younger teams. If your team is really struggling with it, don’t waste all the practice working on it. Give it a certain amount of time (for example, 15 minutes) and after that time move on to your next exercise. However, do not forget about the drill. Come back to him the next day and the next day. You’d be surprised how quickly players will pick up on it the next few times you do it.
From here you can move on to more game-like situations. A good example of this would be scrimmage. This is a great way for kids to get a good idea of what it will be like during the games and the type of training you will provide during the games. It’s important to try to stay consistent with the messages you send to players so they know what you want from them. While playing, feel free to blow your whistle and stop the game. If there is a situation or play that could be used as a learning experience, it absolutely needs to be explained so everyone understands what went wrong. It’s better to do this right after it happens rather than at the end of practice.
To end practice, I always enjoyed when our coaches implemented practice situations at the end of the game. This would mean that we are given a certain situation, like being 2 points down with the ball and staying 15 seconds, and then we have to practice what we would do if it was a real game. This drill would be done 5v5 and would typically switch from offense to defense after each attempt. Not only is it great fun, but it makes players comfortable with “high pressure” shots.
In general, doing a practice schedule shouldn’t be stressful, it should be exciting. You should be excited to improve the skills of your players. The more practices you schedule, the easier they will become. Once you see your team play a few games, you’ll have a better idea of what needs to be worked on and where time can be spent during practice.
Some comments from the sides regarding training. All trainers have different styles and the way they teach is different. With that being said, it’s important that you find what works for you. If you get better results by being a positive and optimistic coach and leading by example, then you should. If you’re the type of coach who pushes your players to the limit and isn’t afraid to yell, that might work as well if your players respond well. It depends on the players and yourself. I know some coaches who completely tailor their coaching styles based on the group of players they have.
In general, player improvement is the most important thing, besides having fun when you play.