Fun Games for Youth Basketball: Lay-Up Relay

This game will work best if you have access to a scoreboard to keep the time and score. If not, have an assistant or parent keep score for one team while you do the other. And just use a watch to keep up with the time.

If you are doing half-court, give each team one ball, and set them up at the right corner of half-court if they are facing basket. On whistle first player drives in shooting lay-up. Hit or miss, player will get rebound and pass it back to next player in line who will go. This continues until time is up and there is a winner.

If you are doing full-court(recommended), teams will take turns with one going first until time expires, then the next going.First team lines up in the right corner at either end of the court. In this drill you should use however many balls you have access to. It would be best if every player on the team that is going has a ball, but if not, four or five balls will work all the same.

On whistle, first player will take off dribbling hard the length of the court and shoot lay-up at the other end. Next player in line should wait until person ahead of them has reached half-court before going. Regardless of whether the player hits or misses, they get their rebound and dribble out hard back to other end to shoot lay-up there. At this point they should be back to the starting point, and be ready to go again if there is time. Have your assistant/parent keep up with score while you keep up with making sure no player goes early or out of order. If a player does go early then a point is deducted from their overall score for each violation at the end. After time has expired for first group, and the score has been tallied, the next team should be ready to try and beat the first teams score.

This is an awesome game, and really gets the kids worked up competitively. I can honestly say that I have not seen any part of this game that is not beneficial to a team.