Underdog Hoops

10/11/2026

Q&A: A player shows up to every open gym all fall but then skips your actual tryout days. What do you do with him? This is a stranger situation than a normal no-show, because the kid clearly wants to be around the program, he just will not show up for the specific days that decide the roster.

Before assuming he does not care, I have a direct conversation first, because the real reason is almost never indifference, it is usually something like a conflicting job, a transportation problem, or a fear of being cut in front of people he actually knows from open gym. If there is a legitimate reason, I will find him an alternate evaluation window rather than let a scheduling conflict decide a roster spot that his actual play should decide instead.

If it genuinely is indifference, that is useful information too, because a player who will not show up for the days that matter most is telling you something true about how he will handle the regular season. Either way, the open gym attendance already told you something real worth asking about before you write him off.

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10/11/2026

Defense: The matchup rule I use when my point guard is the smallest player on the floor by five inches. A small, quick point guard is usually a real asset on offense, and then the other team's biggest wing switches onto him in transition and suddenly he is the one piece of our defense opposing coaches go hunting for all night.

Instead of hiding him on their weakest offensive player like a lot of coaches default to, we actually put him on their most ball-dominant guard regardless of size, because his quickness disrupts a primary scorer's rhythm more than extra height ever would against a player who mostly operates off the dribble. We live with the size mismatch only in isolated post-ups, where we have a specific help rule rehearsed and ready, rather than letting it dictate his matchup for the entire game.

Height matters in specific moments, but it is rarely the only thing that matters, and hiding a smaller defender's biggest strength just to protect against his one obvious weakness usually costs you more than it saves.

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10/11/2026

Tips: Why I stopped grading effort on a one-to-ten scale. For a couple seasons I handed out effort grades after every practice, a quick number from one to ten, thinking a simple scorecard would make hustle feel measurable and keep everyone accountable.

What actually happened is players started negotiating their own number instead of just playing hard, arguing that a six should have been a seven, which turned a tool meant to reward effort into a source of constant minor conflict. Now I only describe effort in specific, observable moments, naming the exact rep where a player sprinted back or dove for a loose ball, instead of compressing an entire practice into one number that invites debate.

A specific sentence about a real moment sticks with a player a lot longer than a number ever did, and it does not leave room for anyone to argue about whether a six was really a five.

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10/11/2026

FLORIDA 🏀 Two guards, two screens, one long pass.

Stack 2 and 5 on one side and 1 and 4 on the other. 4 and 5 screen, and both guards sprint the length of the floor. 3 throws it deep to whoever beats their man, and 1 lays it in.

Why it works: two deep threats at once means the defense can't put its best athlete on both. One of them is getting behind somebody.

Save this for late game and tag a coach who needs a full court play 👇



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10/10/2026

Three games in four days, one practice, and finals week on top of it. Every coach hits that stretch, and the instinct is to cram everything into the little gym time you get.

This post covers how to handle it. Pick your non-negotiables (core defense, primary offense, press break, inbounds, free throws, late game), run multi-purpose drills, use walkthroughs and short film, and cut scouting down to four lines: their best two players, their defense, one thing to take away, one thing to attack.

This week, write your non-negotiables list on one index card. If a drill does not serve something on that card, it waits until January.

Read it here: https://underdoghoops.com/how-to-manage-games-with-limited-practice-time/

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December is a strange month for high school basketball coaches. The schedule fills up with tournaments and back-to-back games. Finals week takes over. Winter break shuts the gym for days at a time. Suddenly you are playing three games in four days and practicing once. The careful plans you made in O...

10/10/2026

Tools: What my practice plan looks like the week we only have three full-roster days (affiliate: Practice Planner Live). Some weeks our actual roster attendance looks nothing like a normal week, between a tournaments, school events, and one illness going around, and building a single plan that assumes everyone is present just sets the week up to fail before it starts.

In Practice Planner Live I build that week differently from the start, tagging which sessions absolutely need full numbers and which ones can run just as well with ten players as with sixteen, instead of writing one plan and hoping attendance cooperates. Seeing the whole week laid out that way ahead of time means I am not improvising a watered-down version of Monday's plan live in the gym on Wednesday when half the roster is missing.

A practice plan that only works when everyone shows up is not actually a plan, it is a hope, and building in that flexibility ahead of time saves a lot of wasted gym time on the weeks life does not cooperate. This is an affiliate link, so Underdog Hoops may earn a small commission if you purchase through it, at no extra cost to you.

https://practiceplannerlive.com/?referralCode=underdoghoops

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10/10/2026

Q&A: Two best friends on the roster are also each other's biggest competition for the same starting spot. How do you coach that? I was genuinely nervous the first time I had this situation, worried that naming a starter between two kids who are inseparable off the court would wreck a friendship I had no business getting in the middle of.

What actually helped most was talking to both of them together, openly, about exactly that tension before I ever made the decision, instead of pretending it was not happening and just announcing a lineup one day. Most genuine friendships survive a hard coaching decision just fine, what breaks them is finding out about it through a lineup sheet instead of from the coach directly.

The friendship itself usually ends up being an asset, not a liability, because two players who actually want the best for each other tend to push one another in practice in a way two strangers competing for the same spot never would.

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10/10/2026

SHOCKER 2 🎯 Same look as Shocker 5, different finish.

1 swings to 2 and gets it back. 2 sells the baseline cut, then pops right back out to the wing. 1 hits him for an open three.

Why it works: once teams have seen Shocker 5, 2's defender is sprinting to beat the baseline cut. Pop back and he's left chasing.

Run it with Shocker 5 and tag a coach who loves a counter 👇



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10/09/2026

BOX ZONE CROSS 🏀 Get the ball to the middle of the zone and let it fold.

4 sets a cross screen for 3, and 3 curls to the right short corner. 1 cuts to the high post, 5 throws the overhead pass to 1, and 2 fills the top of the key. 1 skips it to 3 for the shot.

Why it works: the zone has to collapse on 1 at the high post, and nobody is left to close out on 3 in the short corner.

Save this for when you see a 2-3 under your basket and tag a coach who needs a zone BLOB 👇

Want to draw plays like this? Sign up for the Underdog Hoops Play Lab and start building your own at underdoghoops.com/playlabpro



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10/09/2026

Culture: The post-practice minute that tells me more about my team than the scrimmage did. Right after we blow the final whistle, before anyone grabs a water bottle or heads for the door, I just watch for about sixty seconds, who talks to who, who helps pick up the loose balls without being asked, who is still frustrated from a mistake three drills ago.

That one minute, completely unscripted and unplanned, tells me more honest information about where my team actually is than an entire scrimmage full of plays we already rehearsed. A scrimmage shows me what players can execute, the minute right after shows me who they actually are with each other when nobody is grading anything.

I have changed practice plans, even changed who I start the next game, off something I noticed in that one unscripted minute more than once. The parts of practice nobody is being evaluated on are often the parts that reveal the most.

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