A Variation of Kentucky Layups, The First Big Drill

Any team that wants to run and play uptempo must utilize their forwards in their fast break and early offense. Roy Williams of UNC calls it going "key to key." Probably most of you coaches have heard of or run some variation of "Kentucky layups" -- not sure where the name comes from but I'm thinking its Rick Pitino. Anyways, here is a variation of Kentucky layups which should be good at working on those forwards going key to key and of course, conditioning. I got the drill -- called First Big Drill -- from the Coaches Clipboard website run by Basketball BC:

First Big Drill

First Big Drill uses four players, two post players and two perimeter players, and requires these players to make two trips of the floor.

O4 starts the drill by making a shot and immediately out-letting the ball to O1. As this is occurring, O5 sprints from the foul line to the front of the rim at the other end. O1 will pass the ball into space and let O5 run onto the ball for a lay-up. O2 and O1 must sprint the floor and touch the baseline at the other end. After out-letting the ball O4 must sprint to the opposite foul line.


After making the lay-up, O5 immediately takes the ball out of the basket and outlets it to O2. O4 touches the foul line, turns and sprints to the opposite basket, and looks for a pass over top from O2. O1 sprints to the opposite end and O5 tries to recover the ball out of the basket before it touches the floor.


After this group of four players has completed two trips the next group should be ready to go.

This drill cannot be done well without the players giving maximum effort. It is a great conditioner, teaches all players to run the full length of the floor, works on passing skills and the post players finishing at a high rate of speed.

For more ideas on transition offense, check out Lorenzo Romar's DVD on Finishing in Transition. Coach Romar is the head coach of the University of Washington.