Elevate Your Team: High-Intensity Drills for Competitive Practices with Bob Hurley

with Bob Hurley,
former St. Anthony's High School (NJ) Basketball Coach;
45 year career as head coach of St. Anthony's - from 1972 until the school's closing in 2017;
Distinguished member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (2010);
3x USA Today National Coach of the Year ('89, '96, '08);
4x High School National Champions; 28x State Champions;
back-to-back MaxPreps National Champions in 2010 & 2011;
2017 ESPY Award for 'Best Coach';
83-game win streak (2010-13);
Compiled an astounding career record of 1,184 - 125 (90.5)

“Getting better every day!” was the mantra for longtime high school coaching legend Bob Hurley, Sr. when he led his teams over a storied, Hall of Fame 45+ year career. Coach Hurley’s rigorous development of his players through a series of competitive drills were a successful staple of his practices. In this excellent video, Hurley shares how to improve your practices with effective drills designed to improve player performance that will also raise the competitiveness of your team.

Important Tips for Defense
Throughout his career as a head coach at St. Anthony’s High School in New Jersey, Hurley had great success with pressure man-to-man defense; it was a staple of his program! Coach Hurley’s teams were always well-schooled in the basics of effective pressure man-to-man defense.

Providing tips, Hurley emphasizes the importance of keeping the ball in front, forming a triangle with three players back in transition, and going to the glass with all five players on defense. Additionally, thanks to having an understanding of other offensive attacks, Hurley’s teams at St. Anthony’s were more than well-prepared to play against other teams and systems.

Drills for Skill Development
Improving player skills is not as complicated a process as a coach would imagine. Many drills are simple in nature, but they work on the finer points of individual player fundamentals; they may appear trivial, but these points of emphasis shown by Coach Hurley can make an enormous difference in the course of your players’ careers.

Coach Hurley believed in getting in at least 35 good chest passes early in practice. To do this, he introduces a variation of the “Figure 8 Drill.” To get 35 good chest passes, every pass must be snapped, and caught below the shoulders. Every pass should also have spin on the ball and be caught with two hands and eyes on the ball.

In addition to passing, jump stops are an important part of skill development as shown in “Catch and Drive.” Using a player in each corner, a player in the slot, and a line at another slot. The first player in the line will look to drive middle and kick the ball out to the opposite corner. That player then passes to the slot who then looks to attack middle to the opposite corner.

Finally, there is “William’s Jump Stop Drill” where players work on shot fakes. With four players and a ball in each line, the first player in each line will execute a shot fake, take one dribble, jump stop, and make a pass to the right. A wrinkle to the drill can also include a pass fake to the left before making the pass to the right.

Competitive Drills
One drill that Hurley presents is “2 On 1 Out of the Net.” This drill involves three lines with a player in the middle line dribbling down to score a lay-up. The players in the outside lines attempt to chase down the dribbler to prevent the lay-up from being scored. After the dribbler shoots or loses possession, he must get back on defense against the other two players who attack 2-on-1. Emphasis is placed on “building a wall” as the lone defender back in transition is up against two attackers.

Competitive drills to teach 2-on-1 situations can also be applied with a half-court setting. For times where only one end of the court can be used, “Cardinal Drill,” which Hurley learned from Vance Wahlberg, increases competitiveness among players while also teaching the principles of fast break basketball in a half-court setting.

This video has a wide variety of drills that any coach can benefit from implementing regardless of their preferred style of play. Coach Hurley’s wisdom and experience combined with these effective drills will give you a terrific opportunity to implement proven drills into your own practices and take your team to the next level.

Customer Review: 5 Out of 5:
“Coach Hurley squeezed every bit of energy out of every player demonstrating in this video; as he is retired, watching him coach an entirely new group of players gave me great confidence that these drills work, are easily understood (and easy to teach) and the result is exactly what I am seeking - competitive team drills to improve my players!”

66 minutes. 2025.