Dick Bennett Soundness Drills

You have to be able to take care of the ball, against pressure, to be able to run any kind of offense with success.  Dick Bennett has a couple of drills that he call 'Soundness Drills' to improve his teams ability to take care of the ball and to improve their poise and decision making.

In the drill above, called 1 on 2, he has one ball handler trying to advance the ball against two defenders.  Your ball handler has to have poise, know how to protect the ball with both hands, has to be able to retreat dribble away from pressure, and has to know how to attack when time.

We have expanded this drill to teach scoring at the end of it.  We want our 1 offensive player to try to score.  Then, make or miss, we have the 2 defenders come back on offense in a 2 on 1 situation to teach how to play 2 on 1 basketball on offense and defense.  We also use this drill as an opportunity to teach how trap and take proper trapping angles.

In the video above here, the emphasis is on getting open one pass away and moving the ball.  This team does a great job of making 10 passes, and you can see that they are well coached.  As teams improve, I give them restrictions, such as 1 or 2 or no dribbles, or giving the defense extra defenders to make it tougher on them.

These 2 drills are really good for teaching and emphasizing taking care of the ball.