15 Perfect Practice Drills: Transition Offense & Building a Lockdown Defense

with Jeff Boals,
Ohio University Head Men's Basketball Coach;
2021 MAC Tournament Champions;
Stony Brook University Head Coach from 2016 to 2019;
Ohio State University Assistant Coach from 2009 to 2016 (3x Big ten regular season titles, 4x Sweet Sixteen appearances, 1x Elite Eight & 1x Final Four);

In just a few seasons as the head men’s basketball coach at Ohio University, Jeff Boals has already put his stamp of success on Ohio University’s program in the world of college basketball. In this video, the leader of the Bobcats pulls out all the stops – to provide viewers with a fast-paced, highly valuable instructional session that’s loaded with terrific drills, coaching points of emphasis and detailed information on improving your team that you can immediately use in your very next practice.

Boals offers up a treasure trove of knowledge in this video, with 15 different practice drills to use and proven coaching techniques to help your team’s transition offense, as well as a coaches guide for building a lock-down defense.

Blueprint For Better Practices & Passing Drills

To start, Boals takes to the floor and discusses the importance of developing a strong practice plan that introduces new points-of-emphasis to the team each day. This is followed by detailed demonstrations of daily practice drills to help build players’ skills individually, while simultaneously improving the team as a collective unit. 

The on-court drill portion of the video begins with a demonstration of helpful passing drills designed to improve a team’s transition offense. Boals does an exceptional job of weaving in details and coaching points into the mix while explaining each passing drill, which include: a 6-player and 8-player pass-and-replace drill, a full-court passing-and-communication drill that emphasizes making the perfect pass, a 3-man baseline passing drill and the ‘One-More Drill,’ which stresses the concept of always making an extra pass. 

Defensive Drills

Boals then shines the spotlight on his favorite defensive drills, which include demonstrations and explanations on defense-boosting drills such as, the ‘5-Point Close-Out Drill,’ Long Close-Outs Drill, ‘Louisville Close-Outs’ Drill (which maintains a focus on deflections), a 2-on-2 drill game that showcases ‘small-area passing,’ the ‘Perfect-Possession Drill’ (which includes a terrific definition on what makes the perfect possession on defense), the ‘Kill Drill’ where the goal is to get three defensive stops in a row, the ‘3-On-The-Ball Drill’ and the ‘Stop-Score-Stop Drill.’ 

As if that wasn’t enough, Boals also gives viewers the ‘Tip-Rebound-Run Drill’ the ‘Nets Transition Drill’ (a 5-on-4 scramble), the ‘Ball-Screen Gauntlet' and a drill called ‘NBA Rebounding.’ 

Boals doesn’t waste any time in providing viewers with a video that’s packed with terrific instructional coaching information and must-see, on-court action with highly-effective drills that are great for coaches at all levels.

61 minutes. 2022.