At that point, getting the ball up court is about half the battle. They probably need a lot of passing drills. I would start with simple chest and bounce passing, pairing them off into groups of two if you have enough basketballs. If they can handle that, maybe try a three man weave. http://www.coachesclipboard.net/WeavePassingDrills.html

That website tells you to make them run very hard and threaten them with sprints, and I would probably ignore that. At this point, you probably want to start slow so they aren’t just practicing mistakes at a fast pace.

I agree with Eric about the conditioning and ball handling. 2nd graders don’t have fully developed cardiovascular systems that should be pushed, and they generally cannot dribble very well. If you want to get fancy, you could even have them do some non-dribbling ball handling drills. This generally involves passing a ball around your torso or limbs. http://www.y-coach.com/CD/Basketball_-_Ball_Circles_Drill.htm

I’m not sure if they’re limbs will be long enough, but it could help them develop better hands.

The Mikan drill is pretty good for developing inside shooting and layups. In case you’ve never heard of the mikan drill, it basically involves a player alternately shooting from the left and right low block. The kid should rebound his own shots and alternate the hand he uses to shoot. The goal is to make as many as possible in a certain time. This sort of depends on having enough baskets to shoot at, since it’s really a one player drill.

There are some good mini games to use too. In one game, every player gets his own ball and the goal is to be the last player left dribbling it at the end. Players swipe at the other players’ basketballs while dribbling their own ball. If a player loses his dribble he is done. Monkey in the middle and keep away are probably good games too, so they can kind of get a feel for how much distance a defender can cover to steal a pass. You could even work picking into this if your players are a bit precocious with a real basic pick and roll play.

You could also do a boxing out drill with one player on offense and another on defense, throw the ball up at the basket and tell them to go get it. When the defensive player gets, make him throw a 40 foot chest pass to a cutting player at the other end of the court. This will teach the always sound strategy of throwing easily interceptable bomb bases the length of the court as soon as you rebound the ball.

Hmm, probably not much help, but oh well.

…the one kid who can dribble well and run him off of a screen from the biggest kid on the team every time down the court ;)

I coached this age group before and I focused on three things: communication, spacing, and ball movement. My main goal was to have them call out shots and picks, not run into each other on offense, and to have at least 3 passes every time down the court. Every now and then we talked about the need to keep their butts in between their man and the bucket on defense or the need to catch the ball in a 3 point stance but for the most part, it was little things to guard against the game becoming an amoeba-like mess. My view of this age group is that you are building self-confidence and an ability for them to digest bigger things down the line should they choose to stick with the sport. I worried less about drills and more about them having fun, being involved, and feeling like they were accomplishing something with their time.

If I had to pick a single thing to really focus on, it would be spacing; making sure they come down on either end of the court and set up in a way that works for something approaching actual basketball. On offense, I had 1 guy in the high post and 4 little dudes spread out across the perimeter. I would then call out which player should cut to the hoop and which way the rest of them had to rotate. On defense, I was strictly man-to-man. Arms up and shuffle your feet with your butt between the man and the bucket.

Break the kids up into age-appropriate teams, tell them which basket to shoot at, start the clock, and let ‘em go at it. Ok, so maybe that doesn’t work considering my lack of hoop IQ, but it sure was fun and built a lot of competitiveness.

It might be a question to ask David Thorpe on his ESPN chats. Someone asked him a similar question yesterday and he said focus a lot on passing and as little on shooting as possible.

With cold weather coming up tell them to bring a stocking cap to practice. Have them put the cap down over their eyes and have them dribble, great learning tool.

Layups, layups, layups.
Teach them to box out.

Find out if any have a strategic savvy. If so, teach those couple how to give the player they are defending a little space, and get ready to jump in and steal the pass. Very effective at this age if a couple can do it.

Even better than I expected, and my hopes were high.

Thank you!

In the standard two-line layup drill where one line is for shooters and the other for rebounders, it’s easy for the rebounding line to turn into the “this is where i stand and goof off with my friends until I get to shoot again” line. This season I’m planning on setting goals for the rebounders that most of my 4th-5th graders should be able to get by the end of the year – and I think it would be good for 2nd graders as well.

Start by stressing that the ball shouldn’t touch the ground after makes (most kids would let it bounce right in front of them and then grab it). Then push kids to try to keep it off the ground whether its a made basket or missed. This will require being in good position, in a good athletic stance, and focused on the shot from the moment it goes up. The third step is to try to jump to rebound the ball. I’m hoping to have all of my 4th-5th graders be able to do those by the end of the year, but for 2nd graders I would guess only a few would be up to step #3. Still it seems to me that stressing rebounding like this helps kids with a lot of the basic athletic challenges they face – being afraid of the ball, judging where the ball is going and moving your body laterally, being aggressive – that will help them improve in other areas. Boxing out is important for rebounding to be sure, but it seems to me that these three steps should be accomplished before that is stressed too heavily.

Having a good rebounding team is extremely important in the fun department. Since it’s so hard to get the ball up the court and even get one shot off at that age level, and you’ll be lucky to shoot 20% from the field, getting as many second chances as possible is key to putting any points on the board.

I agree with the sentiment that “conditioning” isn’t appropriate for the age level. However, it’s good to stress to the kids that you exert yourself when you play sports. It seemed that a lot of the kids I coached didn’t run as fast as they were able at any point during the year, during practice or games. I think doing one or two end-to-end sprints, or a “killer” drill per practice can’t hurt. Frame it as a “race,” and never use it as punishment.