Open Practice with Jamie Dixon: Skill Development, Transition Offense/Defense, Competitive Team Drills + Situational Scenarios

with Jamie Dixon,
Texas Christian University Head Men's Coach;
2017 NIT Champions;
University of Pittsburgh Head Coach from 2003 to 2016;
2011 Sporting News Coach of the Year;
2010 Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year;
2009 Naismith College Coach of the Year;
2x Big East Regular Season Championships (2004, 2011);
2009 USA Basketball U19 Team Head Coach (FIBA World Championship - Gold Medal);played college basketball for TCU;
played professionally in the NBL

Jamie Dixon is opening the doors at TCU to give you an inside look at two of his practices – showing you all the coaching tactics and winning strategies that keeps his program a perennial successful, nationally ranked contender. 

Coach Dixon, who earned accolades as one of the best collegiate coaches in all of basketball, almost two decades ago by transforming the University of Pittsburgh into a Big East powerhouse, is now doing the same with the Horned Frogs.

In this two-practice session presentation, coach Dixon takes you through a variety of player development drills, transition drills, press offense, last-second scenarios and offers highly valuable information for building his half-court and full-court offense.

These information-packed ‘Open Practices’ are filled with high-quality coaching content that you’ll be able to immediately and easily implement into your own program. 

PRACTICE NO. 1: 

Daily Development Drills, Team Offense

Coach Dixon begins the first Open Practice by showing off his favorite daily development drills that are designed to help players to develop strong footwork and pivoting skills that give them the muscle-memory reaction time to overcome aggressive traps in the half court. 

Following up the daily footwork and pivoting drills, Coach Dixon showcases several drills that are designed to improve both your inside and perimeter players. 

Team Offense, End-Of-Game Tactics 

In the next phase of this Open Practice, Coach Dixon offers several highly effective and informative team offense segments that focus on 5-on-0 situational work that’s designed to build seamlessly into half-court offensive sets and motion offense.

Coach Dixon then moves into a terrific practice segment that focuses on strategies that help you with last-second play design – including a variety of situations that works for those times when you need to go the full length of the court in 5 seconds or less. 

The last-second play details that Coach Dixon offers in this segment easily provides that game-winning, end-of-game play set up and ready to go in your playbook of offensive weapons.  

Transition Play, Defensive Breakdown

In the next practice segment, Coach Dixon pulls back the curtain and shines the spotlight on one of his go-to transition drills, which he calls, the ‘Ladder Drill.’ The ‘Ladder Drill’ is designed and built to create a progressive advantage or disadvantage situation in 2-on-1, 3-on-2, 4-on-3 and 5-on-4 scenarios.

During the ‘Ladder Drill,’ Coach Dixon does a great job of placing a teaching emphasis on both the offensive and defensive ends of the floor. He also shows you how to build in a competitive aspect into this drill that adds a real boost of energy to your practices.

The next segment covers a high-energy, defensive portion of practice, where players are focused on working hard during a 5-o-5 defensive shell drill. On this day’s practice, Coach Dixon places a heavy emphasis on defending ‘chin action.’ Once into the drill, the TCU coach stresses the importance of getting 30-second defensive stops as the goal for the defenders to achieve.  

The team then moves into their press offense and a defensive portion of practice where you see the coach establish his man-to-man press out of a diamond full-court setup. This is a fascinating segment from a teaching point as the diamond full-court press is one of Coach Dixon’s staple presses and is a press created for much of his team’s defensive success over the years.  

PRACTICE NO. 2: 

Team Drills, Scrimmaging With a Purpose

In the second of the two Open Practices, Coach Dixon begins with his ‘4-Minute Drill’ and also shows off multiple basketball workouts to enhance player development, as well as a skills breakdown designed for guards and post players. 

During this segment of practice Coach Dixon uses his favorite developmental drills that are specifically focused on helping to build his motion offense. 

Later in this practice, Coach Dixon once again stresses the importance of transition play and shows you how to run his ‘Continuous 3-on-2 Transition Drill. During this drill, the offense is in an advantage situation with a defensive player trailing the play, in an effort to force a 3-on-3 situation. Dixon then shows you how to place a competitive spin into this drill that builds the intensity of practice.  

Dixon continues the same flow as the previous practice by completing a 5-on-0 segment that is intended to build up his motion offense, while seamlessly flowing into a 5-on-5 shell drill that maintains a focus on 4-out, 1-in situations and rotations.  

To end the second day’s Open Practice, Coach Dixon offers up examples of a 12-minute scrimmage he runs to showcase examples of player improvement from the two practices – emphasizing situational awareness and a reinforcement of transition situations. 

If you are looking into ways to help turn your practices into championship-level practices, look no further than this Open Practice instructional practice with Coach Dixon.

This must-watch video shows off a wide variety of offensive and defensive schemes, with techniques that you can immediately implement into your own team’s practices. Above all, this Open Practice provides a jaw-dropping validation of the importance of emphasizing transition offense and defense in your practices, as well as how to organize your practices in a way that takes them to the next level.  

158 minutes. 2023.