Keep Away Drill
Setup
Five offensive players spread out to all four corners of the half court. Four defensive players get in position to guard against the offense.
Purpose
The keep away drill trains your team to find the open man no matter where he is on the court.
Additionally, when your team is winning the game and there are only a few minutes or seconds remaining on the scoreboard, the best strategy can often be to ice the game by keeping the ball away from the other team. The Keep Away drill trains your team how to ice the game by keeping the ball out of the other team’s hands and letting the seconds tick off of the clock.
Drill Description
The offense passes the ball around the court to the player that is open and away from defenders. Due to the fact that the defense has one less person on the court, there will always be somebody open for the offense to pass to.
In order to keep themselves from getting trapped, it is important that the offensive players do not get too close to the sideline or the corners so that they can keep a safe distance in the court.
The offense continues to pass the ball around the court as much as they can while the defense continually recovers and guards the ball, leaving another player open.
Not only does the offense get work passing the ball and identifying the open player, but this drill also doubles as a conditioning drill fro the defense.
