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Sunday, October 8, 2023

Basketball: Advantage - Disadvantage Drills

Make practice hard so games are easier. Advantage-disadvantage drills are not new. Bobby Knight applied them. Our high school coach, Sonny Lane, introduced them to us over fifty years ago. Here are a few favorites:

1. Five versus seven full-court. Rotate players onto both sides. Add a constraint of no dribbling to increase the difficulty for offense. It's the epitome of the VDE - vision, decision, execution - application. 

2. Three versus four half court (Carolina). A Sylvia Hatch drill. Breaking traps is an important skill to develop. 


3. Three versus four press break. Solid teams and players must apply and defeat pressure. 

The defense has the advantage of being set up and having a numerical advantage. You can allow or disallow the inbounder to run the baseline. I do not disallow dribbling after the pass in this drill. 

Other forms of advantage-disadvantage drills worth playing:

  • UCONN (e.g. women practice against men)
  • High school (girls practice against boys)
  • Youth (practice against a higher grade level)
Years ago, our best 8th grade girls scrimmaged (with officials) against the high school freshman girls (19-1 team). Our girls won by twenty-five.  

Lagniappe.  

Lagniappe 2. Kobe Bryant did his own thing with disadvantage. 

Lagniappe 3. Everyone wants to win. But as a developmental coach, that wasn't my top priority.