The most important thing with practice planning is to make sure you are oganized. Come to practice prepared with a plan (and not one in your head). Write your plan down, whether you type it, write it, whatever...just make sure that it is visible to your players. They want to know that you take them seriously, that you believe in them, and that you know they can win. If you have a plan with you at practice you are already half way home. This automatically shows the kids that you care about them and you are not wasting their time. Would you give a presentation at work without a plan...would you just make it up as you went along? Probably not, so why would you do this to your basketball team? If you want to win as much as they do, put the same effort and energy into them that you would for those other things that you want to succeed in. I spend about one hour for each practice plan that I devise. I have a template saved on my computer; I look through my master drill list and previous practice plans, and I carefully select which drills I think we need to work on that specific day.
We begin each practice with a warm-up. This portion of practice might be a post/perimeter breakdown or it might be a group warm-up that has a medium intensity. Ball handling drills, footwork & agility drills, and offensive breakdown shooting drills are excellent choices for a skill based warm-up that will increase your players core temperature for the practice to follow. This portion should last around 7-10 minutes. Upon completion they should notice a light sweat beginning to develop. While the core temperature is elevated and the muscles and tendons are warm, pliable and loose, this is the time to lightly stretch using movements through a variety of ranges of motion. This is why we choose dynamic stretches, because it doesn't allow the core temperature to decrease. Some coaches don't take the time to stretch. However, I feel that a dynamic stretch (stretching w/ movement) will give my players an edge later in the season when bodies start to breakdown, tire, and become fatigued. Ultimately, this is what can lead to an injury late in the season. We want to do everything we can for our kids that will give them the best chance to have success, so why skip stretches?
Following stretches we meet very briefly (so our bodies don't cool down) as a team in the center of the court. We go over our maroon and gold teams for our competitive drills (so we don't waste time later), what we will be doing, and our "thought of the day", which is a motivational quote to help inspire our kids to work with the extra effort that we require. Following this 1 min. overview of practice we jump into our transition drills (10-15 min.) and follow with fundamental drills (25 min.) We always include a 1 vs. 1 segement in our fundamental breakdown and we finish this segment with a competitive free throw shooting drill. We want winners and losers. Losers always run, so our kids learn how to compete and get the idea that winning is fun...and losing...not so much fun! This leads us into our first drink break, which is always 2 min. long.
Defense is the next segment for us in our practice. We like to do defense right after a drink break and in the middle of practice when our kids are completely warmed-up. Also, we think it is important to do defense before they are tired physically and mentally, so we are sure to get their best effort. It is for this reason that we hold off on offensive work until late in the practice, because all kids like to shoot and score (It is always easier to get kids ready to work on offense.) We always do a shell segment, which might be 2 Man Shell into 2 vs. 2, 3 Man Shell, or 4 Man Shell. We change the emphasis each day which may include: jumping to the ball; interchange; fronting the cutter; baseline drive; down screens; back screens or 2 dribbles into the gap. We always end our shell drill with a stick and deny call before they rotate. Shell is usually followed with 3 vs. 3 Actions. Here we defend a common action that you might find in most team's playbook, such as a flex action, a cross screen with a down screen action, diagonal screen with a down screen, staggered screens, or double screens. The emphasis here is teaching our kids how to defend screens with help and recover. The next phase in our practice is devoted to defending ball screens (7 min.) Our last phase in this segment is a competitive rebounding drill with winners and losers. We like to play without an out of bounds, and we really let them get after each other. Our kids love the compeitition and once again the losers will run.
Next, we will get our second drink and then come back and practice pressing situations and/or half court scramble situations. We might work on our zone press, man press, zone press offense, or man press offense...depending on the day and the upcoming opponents. Our final phase is a breakdown of our half court offenses, which might include our man offenses, quick hitters, zone offenses, or BLOBS and SLOBS (baseline/sideline out of bounds plays). Lastly, we will finish with a 10-15 min. controlled scrimmage where we stop the action to point out important aspects that are vital for us to have success.
At the conclusion of practice we meet and select "outstanding teammates" for the practice, and have a player present their show and tell for the day. I hope this gives you some ideas for putting together a practice for the upcoming season. Remember, it is always about your kids and never about you. Always make them feel important and a part of something bigger...the Lady Maroons Basketball Program!
Yours in Hoops,
Josh Williams
Head Girls Basketball Coach
Clinton High School
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