Jeff Young: Improving Your Team's 3-Point Shooting

with Jeff Young,
Walsh University Head Coach;
all-time winningest coach in Walsh history (no losing seasons in past 14 years);
third highest winning percentage of active Division II coaches,
12th all-time in college basketball history;
NAIA National Championship (2005), NAIA National Championship Runner-up (2010)

Analytics are becoming a popular way of evaluating team strengths and deficiencies, as well as a way to identify the best shots in basketball. This has resulted in teams across the country at every level depending more on the 3-point shot. The fact is, the best teams in basketball are efficient 3-point shooters, so to compete and become the best in your league it's imperative that your team shoots it well from beyond the arc.

Jeff Young's teams have historically been great at 3-point shooting partly due to the fact that shooting is emphasized every day in practice. In this presentation, Young opens his drill book to show you multiple individual and team shooting drills. He also shares his philosophy on changing a player's shot and how to perfect their shooting mechanics while getting high reps in practice.

Teaching Points

Coach Young begins by breaking down his philosophy and the rationale behind it for shooting the basketball. His insights will challenge any preconceived notions on shooting mechanics you might have and get you to start analyzing your beliefs about shooting. His discussion ranges from the feet to the follow-through and everything in between, including confidence and the mental aspect of shooting.

Improving 3-Point Shooting

Coach Young discusses the three points of emphasis that his program reinforces to develop great 3-point shooters: recruit great shooters, shot selection, and repetition. He breaks down each part and discusses other things such as shooting off of receiving a bad pass vs. shooting off of a good pass and how to control shot selection. In a typical Coach Young practice, the team spends a minimum of 30 minutes each day on shooting, working mostly on catch-and-shoot situations.

Shooting Drills

Young breaks down shooting into individual and team drills. Each drill has an element of time and score for a player to reach or to compete against and ends with a consequence to add a level of competitiveness. You'll get five individual shooting drills and four team shooting drills.