Drills play
Drill: Full-Court Zig-Zag
- Court
- Full court
- Length
- 6 steps
About this play
Change of direction at pace: a player dribbles two hard dribbles at a forty-five degree angle, plants the outside foot, crosses over low, and goes two dribbles the other way, sideline to lane line all the way down the floor and back. Why it works: every change-of-direction move in a game happens on the run with the head up, and the zig-zag trains the plant, the low crossover, and the push-off together, both hands, with the head up and the eyes on the court ahead rather than on the lane he is cutting toward. Setup: one player per lane, a ball each; the cones are optional and I use five or six staggered down the lane for younger players so the angle is honest. Score it Ryan Goodson's way: one minute, a point per change of direction, seventeen to twenty-three for a varsity player. Common mistakes: rounding the cut instead of planting, a high crossover, looking at the ball, drifting straight instead of forty-five degrees. Progression: rotate moves each trip (crossover, between the legs, behind the back, spin), then add a trailing defender who may only shadow. Every level. I picked this up from Goodson's zig-zag article on Coaches Insider and Coach's Clipboard's zig-zag crossover drill; read them for the scoring ladder.
