Basketball Tryout Evaluations
Using Stations to Help you Pick the Best Team

One of the difficulties with running basketball tryout sessions is trying to quantify player performance - other than tracking the normal game stats (baskets made, assists, turnovers, rebounds) in scrimmages, how do we attach a number to player performance that is meaningful and helps us decide who gets cut and who gets to wear the basketball uniforms?

Basketball skills, as I have written elsewhere in what to look for in basketball tryouts, really shouldn't be the biggest concern when choosing the team during basketball tryouts. Qualities like attitude and hustle and teamwork are really more important, since it is easier to teach skills than it is to teach attitude and work ethic. But we also shouldn't discount skills, especially when we have many players that show up with these other qualities like hustle and so forth. Skills level can be the deciding factor and if nothing else, evaluating skills during tryouts will let you know what to expect when pre-season practice sessions begin.

Here's one relatively simple way to evaluate skills during basketball tryouts: stations. Be sure to scrimmage and to run drills and conditioning and so on, but using the following stations during tryouts will help you evaluate the skills level of your players so you can make more effective choices when deciding on the team.

I wouldn't use stations in the first tryout session - use the first session to take a look at the players you have to choose from, introduce the skills they will be assessed on when they run the stations in the next session by teaching the skill and then running some quick drills, and then check out their conditioning levels before letting them scrimmage. If you want to give them a really good conditioning workout, you could try to put them through part of the Truth About Quickness program, or simply choose a few drills from the basketball conditioning drills page (I like the Circuit in particular as it involves skills as well as conditioning and really makes players work. But leave the stations for the second tryouts, once you have been able to get organized.

Just a quick word of warning: this is an excellent way to quantify basketball skills, which is particularly useful when evaluating during tryouts, but you need to be organized. Preferably you want to have a manager or someone helping you at each station to record results and to keep things running smoothly; otherwise, it will quickly become a mess.

Organizing Basketball Tryouts: Preparing for Stations Work

Break the players into eight groups, set each group at one of the following stations, and then have them complete the station one at a time. You control the timing - I have the drills run for 30 seconds, though you could go longer if you wanted - blowing the whistle to start and finish, and everyone switches at the same time. When every member of each group finishes the station, all groups rotate to the next station. Eventually everyone will complete every station.

Evaluating Basketball Tryouts: The Stations

I use these stations during basketball tryouts because they get in all the major skills - shooting, ballhandling, passing, rebounding, defense. You can use stations at any point in the pre-season and change up the drills and focus according to what you want to work on.

Well organized, these stations will take probably about 40 minutes to complete, depending on your numbers - more players, longer times. But it does help you be more specific when you sit down at the end of the day and try to evaluate your basketball tryout session - and it gives you something concrete to consider when you are trying to decide who gets to wear the coveted basketball shirts.