I received these two driving/finishing drills in an email from Dennis Hutter, Head Women’s Basketball Coach at Mayville State University. His website, www.coachhutter.com . The website has more shooting, individual development workout, and leadership videos.
Both of these videos are You Tube videos, so please be sure to be on a server that allows you to access You Tube.
Editor’s notes from Brian: When working to improve players’s dribbling & driving skills, I like the idea of using a time and when possible, two basketballs. You can add pieces to the drills to challenge your players more such as requiring a live ball move such as crossover, between the legs, etc… Whatever moves you want players to be able to make in a game. You can add in a defender poking at the basketballs as they are being dribbled. You can add in a defender offering some contact at the rim on the finishes. You can change the amount of time you require to complete the circuit. There are many ways that the drills can be modified to make them your own. It may take some live experimenting with your players before you can tell exactly how you want to run the drill, but IMO, that is ok. There is nothing wrong with players being exposed to your thinking process as you tinker with ideas to help your program. It is also a good time to get some input from them.
The remainder of the post is what Coach Hutter included in his email:
Octopus Dribbling 2 Basketballs
This drill is done with two basketballs. The object of the drill is to complete the course in 25 seconds or less. If the player completes the drill in 25 seconds or less, we have them do the drill again. This time they to try and beat their previous time. We try to keep the drill as competitive as we can. We believe competition adds pressure and effort to drills. Player will two ball dribble around each individual cone and then come back to the rim and dribble around the cone under the rim. They will weave back and forth advancing to the next spot after they are under the rim. We have five spots on the floor that the player must dribble around. This is another really good warm up drill to start an individual workout.
Click the Play Arrow to view the video of the drill
Octopus Dribbling 1 Basketball
The object of this drill is to complete the course in 30 seconds or less while making all 5 lay ups. Try to have your players change the way they score around the rim. You can also add shot fakes to the drill if desired. Drill starts under the rim, and player dribbles around first cone and comes back to rim for a lay up. They then complete the course advancing to the next spot after each lay up. We usually do two right handed lay ups and two left handed lay ups. The middle spot we leave optional for the player to decide what hand they would like to use. This is a great warm up drill to start an individual workout.
Click the Play Arrow to view the video of the drill
