Coaching takeaway
Write the intention into the plan: the type of day, the week's outcomes, each game and the cue behind it. After practice, note what players actually did and let the next plan respond to it.
Read the guide: Basketball Practice PlanningA 60-minute youth basketball practice plan
Here is the U12 Practice 1 sample from our plans, set up for twelve players, two baskets and room for four groups of three. The sample itself has no timings. We added the minutes below as a starting point, and each block includes explanations, water and changeovers. It is not sixty minutes of nonstop play.
| Time | Activity and organization | Intention and adjustment |
|---|---|---|
| 0-8 minutes | Check in, then differential learning shooting in pairs at both baskets. Change spots, stances and ball flight. | Start at an easy pace. In the sample, the shooter rotates after six shots. |
| 8-16 minutes | Shield Tag: four groups of three, each in its own marked space. One escaper, one tagger, one shield. Change roles after a tag or a violation. | The escaper gets away, the tagger tracks. Once the game runs well, give the escaper a ball to dribble. |
| 16-28 minutes | Changing advantage 1-on-1: six players per basket, one pair live at a time. Alternate ball on the back and ball on the hip starts, and move the starting spot. | Score at the rim before the defender recovers. Rotate pairs after every possession and switch opponents during the block. Change the starting advantage before you add rules. |
| 28-42 minutes | 3-on-2 Dominoes Bursts: six players per basket, five playing and one resting. Rotate the resting player and the defenders between bursts. | The sample uses one-minute bursts and an eight-second clock. Start there and adjust. Leave a short pause between bursts and keep the scoring within the players' range. |
| 42-55 minutes | 3-on-3 at each basket. We swapped the sample's 5-on-5 for this so all twelve players are on the floor. | Look for the same advantages and spacing with even numbers. Use fewer constraints and watch whether players know when to attack and when to pass. |
| 55-60 minutes | Cool down and debrief together. | Ask what created an advantage, what kept it going and what the team needs next. Write down one note for the next plan. |
In Shield Tag, the shield uses body position to help the escaper get away, so keep the contact under control. In the 1-on-1 and 3-on-2 blocks, players rest while they wait for their turn. If the group needs a different load, change the burst length, the rest or the game.
What changes in the U14 sample?
U14 Plan 1 starts with differential learning finishing and shooting. In Around the Arc 1-on-1, both players start in the deep corner and the defender chases until the offensive player steps inside the arc to attack the rim. Then come 2-on-1 shooting, a 2-on-2 that splits into two 1-on-1s, and 3-on-3 games with gets.
The shooting game rewards a ROB shot (in range, open and balanced). It starts with passing and shooting only, then adds cutting and driving. The 3-on-3 games bring in actions between two players and defensive talk. Pick what your group is ready for, because not every U14 team needs all of it on day one.
U12 sample: activity setups and coaching adjustments
U14 sample: ROB shooting, gets and 3-on-3
Free resource
21 SSGs for your next practice.
A free PDF of small-sided games you can run right away. A practical first taste of the approach.
Use the full age-group practice plans
The U12 and U14 bundles each have twenty practice plans. The examples on this page come from the sample plans in those bundles.
U12: twenty basketball practice plans
U14: twenty basketball practice plans
If the numbers or facilities change
With fewer players, keep the main game and shrink the teams. With one basket, run short rotations, and only add passing or tag games away from the basket if you have a separate safe space. In a half gym, plan rest instead of running games side by side.
One-basket practice: rotations for 6, 9, 10 or 12 players
A good basketball practice plan sets out the logistics, the outcomes for the week, the small-sided games with their rules and constraints, the coaching cues, and who leads each activity. It is important to write and save each practice plan. This allows you to make notes on the activities, cues, or any other relevant things that might have happened at a practice. Maybe a constraint didn’t work as desired, so this could be one of your steps in your plan-do-review sequence. At Transforming, we recommend using Google Drive for all your practice planning. It’s free and allows you to quickly look back at what your team did at a practice by quickly searching for keywords and any other relevant activities.
Below is a copy of one of my practice plans from last season at MVP Academy in Portugal. These follow the same style as the Transforming Basketball Youth Practice Plan Bundle.
Practice Plan Checklist
- Logistics: Where, when, and what time is practice.
- Practice type: Low/Moderate/high stress day. This can help with load management and ensuring players do not get burnt out.
- Weekly outcomes: This helps me remind myself what we want to prioritize for the week ahead.
- Pre-practice Checklist: This can help me and the assistant coaches know exactly what to do upon arriving in the gym: check in with players, encourage differential learning shooting exercises to warm up, as well as any other reminders of how we want to coach.
- Reminders/AOB for pre-practice: Sometimes I might quiz the players on our terminology to check for understanding.
- Small-sided Games: SSGs, their rules, and potential constraints. I like to anticipate how I think players will respond to the games with the constraints. Sometimes it works; sometimes I am way off.
- Scoring system: You can see from the examples above that I removed this section in the plan to suit my needs. The team was used to the scoring systems we used.
- Lead: Who is going to be coaching the activity.
- Cues: I like to look at this as the intention of the game. What are we trying to teach? This can help with providing feedback and influencing the players’ intentions and attentions. Note that these are all in our terminology.
- TLC: Teach, learn, compete. This is taken from Mike MacKay. I find it helps me with two things: Knowing when to step in and provide feedback or to let them play and figure it out. Load management. If it is a low-stress day, I might include more ‘teaching’ in the activity.
- Post-practice reminders: This may also include a time for the players to reflect on the practice and what we learned.
Practice Planning Best Practices
Basketball can be a mix of emotions, highs and lows, for youth players. A player can arrive at practice after a bad day at school, and the right practice can quickly transform their poor mood into one of growth and joy. It works the other way too!
That being said, it is important to remember that learning is complex in an environment as unpredictable as the basketball court. Here are some best practices for you to remember to help deal with some of this unpredictability:
- Be adaptable: The same way we try to teach our players to be adaptable and creative, we as coaches should strive for the same thing. If you can see the players are learning and growing in a game, perhaps you should stick with it longer, sacrificing another game at practice if needed.
- Move on if it is not working: Know when to say “no.” On the flip side of the above, it is equally important to move on if something is not working. You tried to be creative and create a game that, in your head, would solve all your problems about how to punish a zone defense, and it isn’t going as expected. Move on and…
- Plan, do, review: Take the example above and review why your activity didn’t work, make the necessary changes, and come back to it.
- KISS: Keep it Simple, Stupid! Sometimes less is more when trying to teach something. Too many constraints and rules can confuse not only the players but even us as coaches!
For more on building each basketball session plan, see our basketball practice planning guide. If you coach a specific age group, you can also start from our U12 basketball practice plan or U14 basketball practice plan.
Remember…
Coaching youth players is extremely different from coaching professional players. Youth players are still learning both the game of basketball and life. As a youth coach, our job should be to be as transformational as possible!
This is why I always consider it important to check in with each player throughout the week. Last season, my assistants and I intentionally divided the players up each week for who we would each speak to. We would catch up before practice and ask how school and life outside basketball were going. This helped us build a solid rapport with the players and create a safe learning environment where they knew we cared about their development as people, not just as basketball players!
Read the guide: Basketball Practice Planning
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