The Best Basketball Drill to Use to Select Teams

Mt. Blue, Bangor, Schenck and any other high school that hired their coaches after the end of the summer basketball season are faced with a very difficlut job of selecting their teams without the benefit of seeing their players in action before they have team tryouts.

Also, they cannot watch their players playing fall basketball for Maine Hoops, MAC or MB Nation Fall Leagues because of the new MPA rule that does not allow them to attend these games.

I faced this situation 3 times in my coaching career and these coaches have only 3 weeks to select their teams and get ready for their first heal point games

If you could only use one drill to select a basketball team, what would it be?

I used a 3 on 1 and 3 on 2 full court continous fast break drill. This drill had specific rules to follow such as 1. when you got a rebound you had to turn to the correct side of the correct to make the outlet pass 2. Did you turn to the correct side as you came down with the ball on the rebound 3. The outlet man then had to dribble the ball to the opposite foul line and stop as the reboundr and opposite side outlet man both filled the outside lanes of the 3 on 1 or 3 0n 2 attack. 4. the man dribbling the ball had to stop at the foul line if the defender(s) stayed below the foul line and if a defender came above the foul line the dribbler had to go to one of the elbows at the foul line.

This drill showed me all I needed to know about their basketball skills, how well they could rebound, how well they could pass, how well could they dribble, how well they could handle the ball on the move, how well they listened to the rules and obeyed them as they went through the drill.

This was a continuous drill as there was 3 lines at each end of the court. One line was under the basket at each end of the court on the endline. The 2 other lines were on the sidelines on ther endline about 10 feet from the sideline.

To start the drill on one end of the court the player in the middle line would step out on one side of the backboard and throw the ball of the backboard and rebounded the ball to the side of the court he was on and made an outlet pass to the wing player who had moved out to an outlet position about 15 feet in front of the endline. The other side outside line player positined himself even with the other wing about 15 feet from the endline.

The rebounder would turn out to outlet the ball to the wing on his side of the court. The wing would dribble as hard and fast as they could to the foul line at the opposite end of the court, The wing on the otherside would run straight down the court as the rebounder would move out to where the original outlet player was and moved straight down the court as a wing. The two wings would run straight down the court and then when they got even with the foul line they both would cut towards the basket on their side of the court.

The 3 lines in the same positions on the other end of the court. The 3 players were moving down the court the middle player dribbling while the other wing players were running to fill the lanes. The first player in the middle line under the basket would step out when the ball got to the mid court line to defend against the 3 players attaching the basket. To make it a 3 on 2 drill the first two players in that line would come out to defend the 3 offensive players on the break.

Then the 3 offensive players had to make decisions against the one or 2 defenders to get the best shot possible. As soon as the ball was shot the two outside lines had the first player in their line come out on the sideline about 15 feet from the endline to get ready to run the drill back the other way. If a basket was scored then the first player who came out to defend would get the ball and throw it up off the backboard on one side of the basket anbd run the drill right back towards the other basket.

If the shot was missd then the defensive player who got the rebound would outlet the ball and fill the lane on the side he made the outlet pass and the drill continued on. This meant that if the defender who got the rebounder was not the first defender in that line would have to wait there until the break came back at him again.

If I had just one drill to use to evaluate basketball talent this would be the one as it gives you all you need to evaluate players who were the most coachable, followed directions the best, made the best basketball decisons, who were the best shooters, who were the best dribblers, who was the best passers and who were the best rebounders and who were the best defenders.

Try this drill, you will see that it is an excellent drill to evaluate your candidates abilities both physically and mentally.

This drill served me very well when I faced this difficult situation of not seeing my candidates until tryouts, during my first year of the 3 of the 4 high schools that I coached at.