At the youth and middle school levels, 1v1 skills should be a huge emphasis.

In fact, we typically spend 15-20 minutes working on 1v1 drills in our 60-minute practice each week with our 4th/5th grade boys team.

However, if you've coached anywhere at the youth and middle school levels, you likely noticed that the disparity in skill sets can be quite large.

And my experience coaching my current youth team has been no different. I have a former NBA player's kid on my team who is quite advanced, and I have some beginners who lack basic ball handling skills.

So how do you do practice in 1v1 drills then!?

The beginners will barely get one or two steps down the court before they lose the ball!

And the advanced players will dominate both offensively and defensively.

Well, here was my solution... and it benefited both the beginners and the advanced players.

For the first half of the 1v1 drill, we would incorporate a "no steals" rule.

That means, the defensive player had to focus purely on defensive positioning. They could not steal the ball.

This enabled the less skilled players to get repetitions with a defender present.

It also challenged the advanced players as they had to focus purely on proper positioning throughout the entire possession.

Then in the latter half of the drill, we'd open it up to 1v1 live where we allowed steals.

This enabled players to get immediate feedback on whether their moves were effective or not.

If they put the ball in front of them with the defense too close, they'd lose the ball.

If they dribbled with their inside hand, the defense would knock it away.

From the feedback in the drill, they also learned WHAT moves worked and WHEN to use them.

Something else that was helpful... We would group the more advanced players with each other and the beginners with each other.

However, I would also have them switch partners frequently to challenge each other in different ways.

Every single person has different offensive and defensive strengths. And I believe this helps all of the players become well-rounded players.

Well, I hope these tips help you run more effective skill development drills. Let me know what you think!

Related Resources

• The Beginner Basketball Coaching System with Jim Huber - Ages 5 to 9
• The Youth Basketball Coaching System with Jim Huber - Ages 9 to 14
• 50+ Game-Based Drills - 1v1 and 2v2 Drills For Skill Development - Beginner To Advanced Variations

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