Notes taken from the 2012 Brayden Carr Foundation Coaching Clinic. University of Florida Men’s Basketball Coach Billy Donovan spoke on the importance of individual skill development in his program.
Theory
- Individual Instruction is a year-round project at Florida. If you’re only running skill sessions outside the season, your players’ games will suffer.
- You CANNOT rely on your practices to keep your players’ skill sets polished. Do yourself a favor and chart how many shots your guards get up during your next 2-hour practice.
- How do we make our guys better outside of practice? Bring them in for 30-40 minute skill sessions 3 times a week. During these sessions, it’s their time to be selfish.
- As guys see themselves getting better, they’ll want to be in the gym more.
Statistics
- Chart everything during individual instruction
- Post all shooting % numbers (post daily-weekly-yearly)
- Great to be able to point to tangible evidence when trying to explain to a kid why he’s always open!
- We don’t want to put our players in a box, but we want them to have a realistic understanding of where they are.
Elements of Florida Workouts
- Hates shooting for the sake of shots (“Getting shots up” makes me sick)
- All drills consist of competitive pressure or goal pressure
- Game speed + charting of all shots taken
Passing
- If there are 2 or more players in a drill, the players pass (coaches don’t)
- Bad passes take guys out of their shots
- Throw to inside shoulder of the shooter
Shooter’s Fatigue
- We want to fatigue our shooters
- “Beat the Pass”…be shot ready when the ball arrives
- 1:00 minute on the clock, get up as many shots as you can (whether it’s from one spot or going back-and-forth between two spots)
Teaching Points
- Everyone struggles over inside-foot/hop. Whatever the player is comfortable with, we allow them to do it.
- “Drive your legs on your shot”
- Our aim on our drives: straight line and very precise
- Does not like shots taken right inside of or on the 3-point line