James Jones: Rebounding Drills and Out-of-Bounds Sets

with James Jones,
Yale University Head Men's Coach;
2026 Ivy League Co-Coaching Staff of the Year;
2026 Joe Lapchick Character Award;
8x Ivy League Regular Season Champions (2002, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2020, 2023, 2025, 2026);
4x Ivy League Tournament Champions (2019, 2022, 2024, 2025);
4x Ivy League Coach of the Year (2015, 2016, 2020, 2023);
2x Ben Jobe Coach of the Year Award (2019, 2025);
2025 Coaches vs. Cancer Inspiration Award;
NABC Board of Directors;
2016 Hugh Durham Award;
2016 USBWA District 1 Coach of the Year;
2016 Advocates for Athletic Equity D-I Coach of the Year;
2016 NSMA's Big House Gaines Men's College Basketball Coach of the Year;
2014 CollegeSportsMadness.com Ivy League Coach of the Year;
Winningest Yale basketball coach ever;
Over 400 career coaching wins;
Member of the 2007 USA Basketball Men's Pan American Games Coaching Staff;
played college basketball for Albany

Rebounding is sometimes overlooked as a major factor that can contribute to a team's success. Often, rebounding is assumed to be a "natural" talent possessed by a few select individuals. Many coaches struggle to find ways to be able to improve their team's offensive and defensive rebounding.

James Jones demonstrates how rebounding can be taught and emphasizes how it is an important part of his team's success. Rebounding, Jones notes, is one of the three principles that he builds his teams around. He walks you through the drills that helped develop his team into the top rebounding team in the country. You'll also get eight must-have inbound plays - including a last second inbound play you can use with 1 second left on the clock.

Offensive Rebounding Technique

Coach Jones gives you four individual rebounding drills that will make your players become elite rebounders. He teaches his players three techniques:

• The spin move - a basic maneuver to get away and go get the basketball.
• The swim move - for when the player blocking out is stepping out toward the offensive rebounder.
• The walk underneath move - for post players who are blocked out by a player who is facing the basket.

Another aspect of offensive rebounding covered is 'the tap out' when a would-be offensive rebounder is not able to control the ball with two hands. Instead of trying for a one-handed rebound, Coach Jones teaches his players to tap the ball back out to a teammate who can then secure the offensive rebound and continue the possession on offense.

Team Rebounding Drills

With Jones' seven, team-based rebounding drills, you will get your team to rebound at an elite level. You'll discover the '3 in a row' concept that makes rebounding competitive and teaches your players to stay focused in on rebounding. You will also see:

• Coach Jones' unique spin on Tom Izzo's "War Rebounding" drill, with a modification to incorporate offensive and defensive transition
• How to teach rebounding in transition to help limit the other team's offensive rebounding capabilities
• How to get your team to communicate and rebound while also working on closing out to a shooter

Out of Bounds Plays

Coach Jones presents a series of 1-4 flat baseline inbound plays, a play to run against zone defenses that can be run from two different alignments, two corner inbound plays, and a sideline inbound play that can be run at the end of the game. These plays are effective ways to execute inbound situations and score easy baskets with basic offensive maneuvers.

Against zone baseline inbounds defense, Jones shows a play that has four options and can be run from either a box formation or a line formation with all four players standing on the free throw line. The package of out-of-bounds plays is completed with two inbounds plays. The first is presented by Jones, while Mike Jarvis presents the second.

With defenses continuing to get better all the time, Jones shows how to build team toughness and how to capitalize on scoring easy baskets with both rebounding and taking advantage of out of bounds situations. This video addresses these two key areas that are vital to improving your team's efficiency and ability to get easy baskets.

"I have all the drills in the world for defensive rebounding, so it was great to see how to effectively teach my players to be great offensive rebounders." - Customer Review

Produced at the Spring 2016 Pittsburgh (PA) clinic.

68 minutes. 2016.