Ben Jacobson: Fundamental Drills for Basketball Practice

with Ben Jacobson,
Utah State University Head Coach;
University of Northern Iowa University Head Coach from 2006 to 2026;
2026 MVC Tournament Champions;
5x Missouri Valley Coach of the Year (2009, 2010, 2015, 2020, 2022);
4x Missouri Valley Conference regular season champions (2009, 2010, 2020, 2022),
5x Missouri Valley Conference Tournament Champions;
University of Northern Iowa University Assistant Coach from 2001 to 2006;
North Dakota State Assistant Coach from 2000 to 2001;
University of North Dakota Assistant Coach from 1993 to 2001;
as a player, was North Dakota Mr. Basketball in 1989;
played collegiately at University of North Dakota;
ended his career as the school's all-time assist leader

Improve key basketball skills and concepts in your program using 14 of Ben Jacobson's best offensive and defensive drills.

SHOOTING & SCREENING:
Coach Jacobson shares a few of his team's effective shooting drills by incorporating his motion offense screening actions to get his players to develop communication, reading screens and working on screening while getting shots. In these 3-man shooting drills, the players are getting two shots out of each screening action including the diagonal down screen and elbow screen. Coach Jacobson demonstrates his screening philosophy as well as the options his players have after reading the defense.

Jacobson then goes into his 2-minute layup drill, which is a full court drill used to work on passing and catching as well as conditioning.

DEFENSE:
In the defensive drills segment, Jacobson shares his defensive philosophy which is 80 percent Pack-Line defense and 20 percent ball denial-push, sideline-rotate baseline.

He takes you through the alley drill, which is used to work on defending the ball without fouling and containing the dribble.

He moves into his 3-on-3 defensive shell drill that his teams work on every day and focuses on the early help position and guarding up in the gap to stop dribble penetration. He uses this drill to build his defensive fundamentals including angle of approach, closeouts, guarding the dribble and help rotation. Train your players to set the defense in all situations and force the offense to play into a set defense as often as possible.

REBOUNDING:
In his numbers rebounding drill, Jacobson shows you how your players can ride with the opponent away from the basket to create space to gather a "clean" rebound.

The session ends with his defensive disadvantage drill which puts all the fundamentals worked on earlier together in a scramble situation.

Improve your practices this season with this excellent selection of drills and concepts!

68 minutes. 2010.