Kellie Harper's Guide to Productive Practices: Drills to Improve Offense, Defense & Weak-Side Rebounding

with Kellie Harper,
University of Missouri Head Coach;
University of Tennessee Head Women's Coach from 2019 to 2024;
back-to-back Sweet Sixteen appearances in 2022 and 2023;
Missouri State University Head Coach from 2013 to 2019;
2x MVC Tournament champions (2016, 2019);
2019 Kay Yow Coach of the Year;
2019 MVC Coach of the Year;
2019 Sweet Sixteen;
North Carolina State University Head Coach from 2009 to 2013;
Western Carolina University Head Coach from 2004 to 2009;
2x Southern Conference Tournament Champions;
2007 Southern Conference Regular Season Champions;
3x NCAA champion as a player at Tennessee (Pat Summitt was her coach)

The key to sustained success at every level, comes with the work that is done every, single day in practice. The teaching tenets of your coaching staff, the meticulously planned practice plans you have built to maximize the time you have with your players, the way you teach and incorporate new ideas into practices, the drills you utilize and manner with which you consistently build a culture of winning into your program.

All of this is detailed in this highly valuable, on-the-court instructional basketball coaching video with Tennessee’s Kellie Harper. You’ll have a courtside seat as Coach Harper focuses on the practice drills that can make your daily practices and team-improvement plan an effective, productive process.

Coach Harper begins her presentation by detailing how she develops and builds a practice plan each season, including how she selects the practice drills that will be inserted into that plan.  

Passing, Defense & Rebounding

Coach Harper provides and demonstrates two highly effective passing drills that improve and emphasize passing into the post. Within this one drill, you’ll see multiple variations and adjustments you can make throughout that give you a wide variety of passing looks and different shots that can be incorporated into it.

A full-court passing drill is then shown by Coach Harper that develops and improves your player’s ability to pass in transition, while getting ample repetitions at finishing full-court layups.  

Switching to the defensive side of practice, Coach Harper spends time talking about defensive coverage on a variety of critical areas, including: crawl screens, down screens, ball screens, and the proper technique for closeouts, as demonstrated in the ‘Clipper Closeout Drill.’

Coach Harper then provides a look at her 4-on-4 Defensive Shell Drill, along with variations and coaching points of emphasis, as well as her favorite daily drill for teaching the importance of weak-side rebounding. 

To finish this segment of the on-the-court lesson, Coach Harper shows off her ‘5-on-4 Transition Drill’ – a highly effective and productive drill that emphasizes both offensive and defensive techniques.  

Shooting Drills

Coach Harper then discusses the importance of a detailed plan for improving your team’s ability to shoot the basketball, including providing one of her favorite shooting drills, a drill she calls ‘Rapid-Fire Shooting’ which reinforces the importance of passing and shooting, as well as shooting opportunities performed at a high volume of repetitions.  

With all of the drills and skills work that Coach Harper jams into this on-court instructional video, plus all the incredibly useful inside tips on how to develop an effective practice plan, you’ll be adding a wealth of knowledge and proven tools that you can incorporate into your very next practice. 

Coach Harper not only provides strong coaching details in this video, but she also gives you unique insight into the process of building a consistent winning program year-in and year-out!

49 minutes. 2023.