For a team to play well in grade school basketball, it is very helpful that they have outstanding practices. These practices should include building the skills that it takes to be a winning team. This article describes an outstanding practice which you can use to build your team. The following practice is based on a one-hour time period which includes important elements to having an effective team. Let us break down the practice into five 12-minute segments.

You could start with a defensive rebounding drill and then an offensive rebounding drill for the 1st 12 minutes. The defensive rebounding drill would practice boxing out position, keeping the opponent from the ball, and then securing the ball possession, and the first move after that. The offensive rebounding drill would practice moves to get to the ball before the opponent does, followed by going right up for a shot after getting the offensive rebound. These drills should be spirited while emphasizing the importance of this aspect of the game being played well by all the players on your team.

Then you could move to playing fast as a 2nd segment for 12 minutes. The idea here is to do drills that simulate when you want to fast break during the game. For example, you might simulate long rebounds, turnovers, or your rebounder dribbling out of the pack as situations in which all 5 of your players will speed up the pace of the game. This segment is a good time to build stamina by keeping all players active for the 12 minutes. It is also motivating to time how fast they are dribbling, passing, and making shot attempts.

The next segment could be team defense. Select 3 or 4 elements of your defense on whch you would really like to improve. Practice 5 vs. 5 half-court in which you emphasize those elements and keep tally of how often they are done by the defense. It can be a contest between the 2 groups of five to see who plays better defense in terms of stops, turnovers, and defensive rebounds.

Then you could move to special situations for 12 minutes. For example, you could practice out-of-bounds situations which come up often during a game. What will your offense do? What will will your defense do? How will you play with a certain amount of time left in the game, or when you have a lead, or when your team is behind in the score? By going over these situations each practice, your team is more ready when these situations come up in a game.

Finally, you could finish with a 12-minute segment on team offense. You could emphasize how you want your players to move within the offense, what passes to look for, when to take shots, and how offensive rebounding is a key part of your offense. You can keep track of when your players are doing these actions on offense and gave them feedback about that.

In grade school basketball, by consistently emphasizing certain aspects of the game at each practice, you are increasing the chances that your team will improve over the course of the season. It is then great to be able to let your players know that they are much better players by the end of the season.