How to Run an Up-Tempo Basketball Practice: Cut the Dead Time
Running practice shouldn’t feel like a chore. It should be lively, active and enjoyable, for your players and for you. If your practices drag, the fix usually isn’t a new drill. It’s removing what slows everything down.
Find the dead time
Two things kill pace more than anything else: water breaks and over-talking. Take out the extra stoppages and put more emphasis on drill work and pace. If you need to teach, teach in one sentence and get them moving again.
Imitate, then innovate
The best thing one of my coaching mentors ever shared with me was “imitate, then innovate.” It always stood out to me because any drill we do is usually stolen. Find the drills that fit your needs and structure, then innovate and create off of them.
Combine drills to get more reps
We have a drill we do every day that used to be two separate drills running about 15 minutes. We took the time to consolidate those two drills into one. The result was more reps, more tempo and more opportunity in less time.
Look at your own practice plan the same way. Which two drills teach related skills? Could one feed straight into the other with no reset in between?
Put times on everything
Pace starts on paper. Give every block a start time and an end time, and move on when the clock says so. Players pick up the urgency from the schedule.
Think outside the box. The drills you already run are probably fine. How you connect them is where the tempo comes from.
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Shop the hoodie → See all coach gearAbout the author: Coach Chris Murray coached basketball for more than 17 years at every level and won over 220 games, including the 2026 state championship at Parkersburg. R&G Basketball is where he shares the practice plans, playbooks and drills he used. More about Coach Murray.
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