• Equal emphasis on defense as on offense.  Not time necessarily, but emphasis.
  • Explain drills beforehand- have a point of emphasis.
  • Always sweep the floor before and even during practice.
  • Athletes have not learned a skill until they can perform it correctly, quickly, and automatically while involved in game situations.
  • Make practice tougher, mentally and physically, than games.
  • Emphasize triple threat ball.
  • There is no time to rest on the basketball court.
  • Don’t try to use last year’s plans this year.  Every season and every ball game is a new one.
  • If you take care of the little things in life, the big things will take care of themselves.
  • Fundamentals are the foundation of a good basketball team.  If you don’t have a large foundation, don’t try to build a tall building.  If you expect to build tall, first increase the size of the foundation.
  • Work a lot on defensive and offensive transition drills.
  • Make others spend a lot of time practicing for you.
  • Every coach knows more than he can teach:
  • Teach new concepts early in practice sessions when players are most alert.
  • Teach the players what “playing hard” really is.
  • Work with players more one-on-one (especially when losing).
  • Whatever you want to emphasize, keep stats on it.
  • Combine drills or areas you really want to hit and then put them into series
  • I don’t want to hear “my bad”
  • Do 1 special situation per practice
  • Practice “Broken Court” basketball.
  • “What do I want to accomplish this practice session?”
  • Once new ideas have been taught, repetition is the key.
  • Everything is “quit” oriented.
  • Explain the purpose of drills.  Let them in on the “why” of what you’re doing.
  • Preach one thing a thousand times and keep it simple.
  • You won’t achieve your “sense of purpose” if you’re not fundamentally sound.
  • Have manager chart one player.
  • Keep the players moving.  When they are doing lots of small group work you can get so much more done.  With players looking around and see others doing different things they tend to work harder knowing they are only going to be at the present task about 8-10 minutes.
  • Both units and all three positions-guards, forwards, and centers would go through the same procedure.  This means that not just the starting five but all of the top seven or eight became very familiar with each other.
  • In every facet of basketball, we work on pressure.  The opponent provides that during a game.  I tried to provide it in practice with drills that recreated game conditions.
  • I think I thrived on pressure.  It never got to me either as a player or a coach.  I believe that, when a player constantly works under pressure, he will respond automatically to it.  For this reason I am confident that what the team does on the weekend in a game relates 100 percent to what it does during the week.
  • I believe in learning by repetition to the point that everything becomes automatic.
  • Rotate starters for the first 4-5 games, so that subs will be ready to fill in for starters
  • “I enjoy asking questions, getting them to think, Once they arrive at the answer themselves, they have a better chance of remembering it, of believing in it.” – Dr. Tom Davis
  • To show your players that you are serious about talking charges, you could take charge form each player during the pre-season
  • Nolan Richardson does fast break drills with medicine balls
  • John Wooden had 7-1st teamers. When the starters were playing , the two subs would be shooting free throws. When they made a certain number in a row they were allowed to sub in for a player at their position.
  • Mental quickness is easier to develop. Get the kids reacting quickly in practice.  Don’t be sloppy. If a kid is mentally quick they will appear physically quick because they can anticipate and react.
  • It’s no more difficult to do the right thing it is to do the wrong thing.
  • Coaches talk too much and work too little. Correct the mistakes quickly. Maybe take the player out and continue the drill.
  • Only have one extra man in any drill you do in practice
  • Rotate offense to defense to out. This way they are not as fresh when they are on defense. Give the advantage to the offense whenever possible
  • If a drill is not helping both the offense and the defense then it is a poor drill
  • Use the whole-part method. Show them the whole thing, then break it down and work on each component
  • Have a pre-practice time of drills which is somewhat competitive. Do not coach or instruct during this time unless they are obviously in the wrong or doing something that will damage their game
  • Spend no more than 7 minutes on any one drill. If a drill is screwed up and the kids aren’t doing it correctly, don’t add more time. Go on to the next thing on your practice schedule. You may come back to the drill later if you think it is that important. (Dean Cooper, Houston Rockets)
  • Don’t be afraid to have guts. It’s psychology—get the kids to respond. If that means kicking them out of practice or canceling practice the day before a game or even an entire week before a game then so be it (Dean Cooper, Houston Rockets)
  • If you really want the kids to listen t you then get them I push-up position (Coach Don Meyer)
  • Everything at a Williams practice is competitive, and everything is charted. That comes from Dean Smith, Williams’ mentor. If you are on the losing team in a drill, you run at the end of practice while the winners watch you. In other words, you are accountable for every action you take on the court at Carolina, and everything you do is important and has consequences.
  • The mantra is defense and rebounding all the way down to the guards. But make no mistake, Howland very good offensively. If anyone, Howland is like Tom Izzo in that regard. He values defense, rebounding and toughness above all, but his offensive schemes are well thought out and he expects his team to hunt shots and look to score at every opportunity.
  • The Combat Team- Practice- and the art of the battle drill
  • Players are ultimately responsible for their own individual skills and conditioning. Assistants will constantly be on the lookout for opportunity training – providing fundamental instruction so that the player does it right. There’s a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and we owe it to our players to teach them the right way.
  • It ‘s my job to make practice fun. I will keep everyone on edge. We will count and record everything, and I will create an environment where players can compete for starting positions. We will make a “game” of things, because I want a team that loves to compete. Expect to be rewarded for outstanding performances and punished for the substandard.
  • Expect to learn fast.
  • I believe in overlearning—knowing a task so well that it can be done under extreme conditions, which is what competition will bring. The complex builds on the simple, and we will do the simple things to perfection.
  • We will use drills to reinforce fundamentals and team concepts. Players will focus on mastering drills to reinforce excellence. We will allow no sloppiness.
  • Occasionally, I will ask everyone to things at less than 100 percent. I will tell you those times and how hard I want you to go. Sometimes I will lighten things up and we’ll have a few laughs.
  • The player’s practice strategy- To many players see it as something to be endured, and they practice accordingly, which is not very well. See practice as a quest for excellence, regardless of how to coach the runs practice.
  • Practice Hard- You have to have a work ethic, a set of habits on which to establish your practice strategy. If you pace yourself in practice, you aren’t hustling. Unconsciously, you’ll do the same thing in a game. You get what you practice. So practice hustling.
  • Practice concentrating. Don’t allow yourself to get board.

Miscellaneous Practice Thoughts:

  • Do your homework.  Practices should be well organized and planned.  Every drill must have value or purpose otherwise throw it out.  Alternate physically tough and easy drills.  Include individual work in each practice.
  • Emphasis should be focused on execution and hustle.  Insist on proper execution at all times.  No nice tries!
  • Coach every player every day! -  Make sure every player gets involved. Don’t just work with the talented and/or older players. Give everyone an opportunity to develop and get better. When you show everyone that you care and that they are all important, they will all work harder and the team will be better. (American Football Monthly- “Motivation: Woodland Hills Foundation for Success”)
  • However, during the course of a long season it’s also important to have your players let off some steam and goof around for a practice.  It’s good to sometimes do this after a rough loss or if your team has a week with only one game.
  • To keep practices competitive and interesting, a player is selected at the end of each practice as our “Practice Player of the Day”.  At the end of the season, the player who has received the most stickers is awarded a trophy at our team banquet for being “Practice Player of the Year.”  C
  • Compliment 1 or 2 guys per day after practice.  Have each coach do this.  Then the next day you can bring them in privately and be critical. 
  • Every drill they do has a time and goal element.
  • Work on late game situations every practice at the end of practice.
  • The good teams don’t have too much depth.   The ideal team is eight guys who can play, and then the next five who would like to play and work hard in practice.  
  • Demand quality execution from your players.  Repetition alone is not enough, it’s quality repetitions that count.  Doing things right requires discipline and mental toughness on the part of both the players and the coach.  Coaches must recognize excellence in the performance of our players.  Habits, good or bad, are hard to break. 
  • Do not let your team focus on how good their opponent is.  Get them to focus on how good you can be.
  • If you do not pay attention to the details of the game, you can believe your players never will.
  • One of the biggest errors in coaching is allowing poor execution of what you stress.
  • Emphasize fundamentals.
  • Be obsessive about fundamentals.
  • Nothing takes the place of your team playing hard.  Don’t coach caution.
  • I’m fanatical about details.  If we’re running sprints on the court, for example, I want players to touch the baselines every single time, not just to get close.  This is how you create a team “culture.”  Everybody knows how she’s supposed to do things, what is expected.
  • Balance- Teach staying low.  You have to teach them to stay low.  Everyday for 1 hour do stance drills in pre-season.  Posting is staying in a stance.  Add defensive slides to conditioning.  At UNLV 5 days a week for 2 hours they did defensive slides.  UNLV’s players were great pros because of stance.  
  • Basketball is played low.
  • As a head coach you don’t have to be totally organized.  Offense, defense, special plays, UOB’s, ELOB’s, SLOB’s, late game situations.  The NY Knicks put these things in binding and on clip tapes.
  • When it came to playing smart, we used practice and repetition to teach our players what we wanted, drilling them so that we would have good execution in the fundamentals offensively and defensively at game time.  In fact, our entire program was built around the practice session.
  • In teaching I tried to be thorough.  I would ask questions and expect correct answers on the practice court.  In order to achieve execution, or “play smart,” we did a great deal of part-method teaching.  We would break down into “situations,” with a lot of two-on-two work offensively and defensively.
  • Virtually everything we did in practice was graded, and grades were based on execution.
  • At the end of the practice your point total determined whether or not you ran sprints.  Enough points meant a player didn’t have to run.  Two points got you excused from one sprint. 
  • If I say I’ll meet you at 4:30 and I show up late, I’m saying that my time is more important than yours.  That is selfish and arrogant.
  • Sometimes I wrote a not on my practice plan to remind myself to find something to praise in a player who was struggling.  I would wait until he did something worth of praise, and then I would stop practice and draw attention to him.  But first he had to do something to give me reason to praise him. I didn’t do it falsely.
  • If we had a drill and the players knew what to do and it had become habit, then we would make it competitive.  We never made the drill competitive until the players completely understood what to do.  The first focus was to be sure the players completely understood what we wanted and repeated it.
  • For that matter we praised not only the unselfish play, but effort and execution.
  • Once practice starts, we work hard and that’s the best conditioning there is.  Everything counts.  Every little thing counts.  Run hard, play hard, go after the ball hard, guard hard.  If you play soft-what I call a “nonaggression pact” with your teammates- you won’t ever get in shape.  Everything we do in game-condition because how you play in practice is how you’ll play in a game.
  • I emphasize to my guys that anything we do in practice is not a drill.  If they get to thinking it’s a drill, they won’t notice it’s the same thing that goes on in a game.  I have to tell them that what they’re doing in practice is exactly what happens in a game.  One of my most fundamental points is that we will not do one single thing in practice that doesn’t show up in a game.  Everything we do in practice must show itself somewhere in the game, or else we don’t do it.
  • If you place ten players behind a screen in such a way that I can see their legs, I’ll pick out the best players seven out of ten times by the way they move their legs, the constant motion, the quickness of their feet.  Good players are always moving their legs.
  • The faster a team is, the more pressure it can apply defensively.  Speed narrows the court, makes it less long.  The court is larger to a slower team.
  • You let a guy near the basket get the ball, two things often happen: He either scores, or he gets fouled. 
  • Ginger Rogers once complained to Fred Astaire that he forced them to practice so much that she just hurt all over.  “Why do we have to work so hard?” she asked, and he replied, “To make things easy.”
  • Make precise corrections.  Do not get caught up with lengthy explanations.
  • Do not waste other players’ time to correct one individual.  On first time mistakes, stop action and make everyone aware of correction.  On repeated mistakes, substitute or wait for a break in the action to correct.
  • Do not waste time.  If a drill is going poorly, stop it and go onto something else.  Come back to it later or next practice.
  • End all practices on high note or successful achievement (made pressure free throw, shooting contest, half court shot, etc.).
  • Basketball is not a game of offenses and defenses but a game of effort and execution.  Insist on a team effort at all times.
  • Physical habits do not change in a game.  It is imperative to start building correct habits and techniques from the start.
  • “Look at your practice and see where you are wasting time.” (Coach Phill Martelli)
  • “How are you using your assistant coaches in practice?” (Coach Phill Martelli)
  • “Keep score on every possession and every drill and every turnover.” (Coach Phill Martelli)
  • “Name all your drills – your player will know what you expect and parents think you know what you are doing.” (Coach Phill Martelli)
  • Drills: 3 possessions- 5 on 0 run your plays – then go down against defense, then the defense goes back on offense running a play, and then defense goes back running a play. The team must hold the other team to the fewest number of scores during those possessions.
  • “You’re always trying out” Let’s face it: you’re practicing either getting better or worse.