Basketball Season Planning: The Four Phases of the Year

Basketball season planning is the calendar layer above the single practice. Before the first practice is written, the coach maps the year: what each phase is for, the order the system goes in, how hard to load the fall and how the team peaks for March.

This page walks the year in four phases: post-season, off-season, preseason and in-season. How long practices run month by month is on basketball practice length by month, and how one practice is built is on basketball practice structure.

Basketball Season Planning Starts Backward

Start with how the team must play in crunch-time conference and playoff games, then work back to monthly, weekly and daily plans. The master plan is a schedule of every practice of the season with an outline of what each one covers, and it gets updated as the year goes.

Ask about your team before you plan. Mike Krzyzewski starts with questions: who and how old are the players, how experienced are they, what is the system, will you teach to the system or adapt it to the players, and how much time and which facilities do you have. He plans the week two weeks ahead and finishes each daily plan the night before.

The same work runs as six steps of instructional design:

• Identify the skills. List what the team needs.
• Know your athletes. Who you have and what they can do.
• Analyze your situation. Time, facilities and schedule.
• Set priorities. Must, should and could.
• Select teaching methods. How each skill will be taught.
• Plan practices. In the sample plan for these steps every new skill goes in during the first six practices, and the top-priority skills are covered early and often.

Then cascade it down. The master plan is written in October staff meetings and cut into monthly, weekly and daily plans timed to the minute. Keep every daily plan: one high school staff kept 46 years of them, and old plans let you compare practice quality year to year.

If March is not on the page, October has nowhere to go.

The Four Phases and Their Jobs

The year has phases with different jobs. Coaches cut it differently:

• Four phases. Tom Crean's improvement plan runs preseason, in-season, post-season and off-season, each built from strength, flexibility, agility and skill. A four-phase plan can also open the post-season with two weeks of rest, then strength and skill work the player does on his own.
• Three phases. Zeljko Obradovic runs a preseason of 6 to 8 weeks, an in-season with one or two strength sessions a week, and an off-season that opens with up to two weeks of passive recovery, then active recovery.
• Six training phases. Base, Hypertrophy, Strength and Power at 4 to 8 weeks each, then In-Season and Active Rest of 1 to 2 weeks. A sample high school year on this plan runs in-season from mid-November to mid-March.

Teams are built in season and players out of season. Coaches agree on the idea and differ on the months: teams October to March and players March to October, or the line moved to April.

Give each phase one job and write it at the top of the calendar.

Post-Season: Rest, Review, Meet

Coaches split on what comes first when the season ends:

• Time off first. Step away for a couple of weeks, and give players up to two weeks of rest.
• Review while it is fresh. Review and set goals before taking time off, and meet players the week the season ends.
• Recuperate, then review. Rest first, then do the full review.

Review the whole program, not just the record.

• Seven areas. Communication with staff, players and parents, the master plan and playbook, personnel, preseason preparation, game preparation, game adjustments and self-improvement.
• Replace every player. A returning player can replace himself by improving.
• Next year's roster. Check results against last year's goals, review stats and film, and ask whether next year's players can run the same system. Assistants write their own lists before the staff meets.
• Start with a strength. Open the review with a real team strength before the weak points, and dig into the why behind each stat.
• Written evaluations. Collect them from graduating seniors and every assistant.

Meet every player and get goals in writing.

• Seniors first. Meet seniors first about graduation and the next three months, then each returning player on academics, the past season, goals and a spring plan.
• Three areas. Each player emails written goals in academics, basketball and strength, and each coach takes 3 to 4 players through a film edit of their good and bad plays.
• Three things for the summer. Roy Williams has players name three things for the summer in writing.
• Three questions. What did you like, what did you learn, and what is next?
• Letters. Exit interviews with seniors and an exchange of two letters each way.

End the season with every player holding a written plan.

Off-Season: Players Are Made

Build each player's off-season plan from a diagnosis: measurable goals from last season's film and stats, then a week that spreads strength, skill, conditioning and rest. Train every skill for every player in the off-season, not only what the system uses in season. Forty-five minutes at game speed beats three hours at half speed.

How much work, by plan.

• Thirty minutes, no water break. No more than 30 minutes, at game speed.
• Four short workouts. At least four workouts a week of at least 20 minutes, from one of two position workouts, because many players have summer jobs.
• One template, 12 weeks. One weekly skill template repeated for 12 weeks with Sunday off.

Team play in the summer is a real split.

• Half-court 3-on-3. The main format, because it gives more shots, passes, rebounds, screens and defensive reps per minute than full court, with less wear on the legs.
• Small groups, then live. Skill work in groups of 2 to 3, then 2v2 to 4v4, including 4-on-4 baseline out-of-bounds situations.
• Open gym games. Games to 7 with man-to-man defense. Roy Williams runs two open gyms in the last four weeks before practice.
• Camps and leagues. Team camps against opponents neither too easy nor too hard, used to try players in new roles and test a new offense or defense without showing favorite plays.

Summer 3-on-3 at half court. 2 has the ball on the right wing with 1 at the top of the key and 3 on the left wing. Each player gets more shots, passes, rebounds, screens and defensive reps per minute than in full-court play.

Small groups, then live. After skill work in groups of 2 to 3, the summer session goes live up to 4-on-4, including baseline out of bounds. 1 inbounds the ball. 2 is on the right block and 3 on the left block. 4 is at the top of the key.

Summer travel teams fill much of the off-season, so build the summer plan early and track tournament dates, so players never face a choice between two team events. Small game formats are on small sided games for skill development, and player plans on creating a player development program.

The body. Coaches split on off-season running. One side adds no extra on-court conditioning and lets pickup supply fitness while legs recover. The other pairs the strength program with organized running, because players are expected to report in shape.

Strength fades within three to four weeks without training, so build it in the off-season and maintain it in season. Lifting detail is on strength training for basketball. Test at the start, middle and end so you can show the summer plan worked.

Decide the summer format in the spring meeting, not in June.

Preseason: Checklist, Load and Install

The staff checklist. Work through it at a staff retreat: terminology, drills, quick hitters, player evaluations, the master plan, unknowns, in-season lifting and conditioning, tryouts, the scrimmage and scouting schedule, and a player and parent meeting. Obradovic also defines each assistant's duties and the code of ethics before the first practice.

Length and load. Obradovic runs 7 weeks, from 70/30 conditioning to basketball in weeks 1 and 2 to 20/80 in week 7, with a break after every six straight practices. How hard to load the fall is the main disagreement:

• Heavy early. Mostly conditioning in the first weeks, or 4 to 5 conditioning sessions a week.
• Back off. Krzyzewski dropped organized fall conditioning at Duke for seven years because a long season and heavy preseason loads left teams tired by March.
• Peak late. Over-conditioning early causes soreness that hurts learning, so save the conditioning peak for league play and the playoffs.
• Tighten rest. Move work to rest from 1:3 early to 1:2 as the season nears.

Install order. Coaches split on the install order:

• Week by week. Drills, rules and man offense first, then zone offense, zone defense and the press, then breakdowns, the break and inbounds plays, then special plays and game routines. The master rule is one offense and two defenses, man and zone, first.
• Defense first. The preseason is the only window to install a sound defense, while offense can be added any time. The defensive plan opens by watching a live 4-on-4 scrimmage to see what is missing.
• Systems before plays. Put in the half-court and full-court systems, then scoring plays and out-of-bounds plays, and save a couple of plays for the postseason.
• Layer it in. Krzyzewski does not put in the whole system on day one. Obradovic adds only 2 to 3 new concepts per side at the start.
• Teach the game, not the sets. More whole than part early, fewer sets and more "how to play."

Watch first. Before the defensive install, the coach (C) watches a live 4-on-4 scrimmage from the sideline to see what is missing.

Keep the system simple and matched to the team's athletes. More on the first weeks is on basketball preseason preparation and basketball tryouts.

Install less than you want and teach it better than you planned.

In-Season: The Week and the Legs

Shape the week.

• Skill work in season. Two hours a week of skill work with two required days off, split into one 1-hour workout and four 15-minute touches.
• Short individual sessions. A mid-season individual workout that rarely passes 30 minutes and ends on a shot the player will see that week.
• Special situations. A special-situation practice every two weeks, about an hour and a half on about 20 situations.
• A practice budget. Krzyzewski splits practice 30 percent offense, 30 defense, 30 transition and 10 conditioning and special situations.

Save legs for March. Play the bench heavily early, pull starters once a game is decided, and hold short check-ins about every two weeks with high-minute players. Some teams reach the conference tournament with about 30 games played after practicing six times a week since October, so add a change-of-pace day.

Check in at the thirds. Hubie Brown reviews shot stats at one third, two thirds and the end of the season, by play and by shooter.

Change the system or keep it.

• Change it. Do not run the same offenses and defenses all season, because players get smarter.
• Keep a small menu alive. Jim Boeheim keeps a few sets, motion, zone, man and a press, and works the press 5 to 7 minutes every practice even after 10 games without using it.
• Do not switch. Switching offenses mid-season is a reason motion fails, and plays can take a full season to run well.
• A fixed order first. Do it harder, do it better, sub, and only then change the scheme.

The in-season practice itself is on basketball in-season practice structure.

Protect the legs in January and you will have them in March.

Late Season and the Postseason

Late-season practice gets shorter, down to 60 to 90 minutes, with daily shooting and free throws, 5-on-5 for conditioning and light review. Add no new installs except a few plays held back for the tournament, and do not switch from man to zone late.

A tournament-time practice opens with film, trims break and defense work and adds a Hail Mary and a delay game. Protect time for special situations, free throws and individual work, and remind players about rest and nutrition.

Plays get harder to score off as the year goes on, so lean on concepts. The pace of a team built to run is laid out on transition first program model, and the season calendar inside the whole program build is on how to build a basketball program.

Shorter, sharper and nothing new: that is the late-season week.

More Program and Practice Planning Guides

• Small Sided Games for Skill Development: Formats and Rules
• Program Culture Case Studies: Four Programs, Four Models
• Transition First Program Model: Push, Defend, Compete

Back to How to Build a Basketball Program and every Coaching page.

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