Basketball Practice Plan Template (Free PDF + Excel)

A basketball practice plan template is a one-page session sheet with a time column, a block for each drill, the teaching point for that block, and the equipment it needs, so a coach can fill it in on Sunday night and run it from the bench on Tuesday. The template on this page comes two ways: a printable PDF for pencil planners and an Excel sheet whose time column adds itself up so the plan cannot run long by accident. Below the downloads is the same template filled in as a 75-minute station practice, and every block in it can be opened in the free basketball practice planner if you would rather build than write.

For Google Sheets, upload the Excel file to Drive and open it; the time formulas carry over.

The template has six columns because six is what a coach can read at a glance from the bench: start time, minutes, phase, block name, teaching point, and equipment. The start time column is the one most homemade plans skip and the one that matters most, because a plan that says "shooting, 15 minutes" tells you nothing when it is 6:42 and you cannot remember whether shooting started at 6:30 or 6:35. The phase column (arrival, warm-up, core, conditioning, cooldown) keeps the plan honest about its shape; if you have five core rows and no cooldown, you will see it before the players do.

Above the grid is a header block for the date, the gym, the roster count, the number of coaches, and the one focus for the night. The focus line is deliberate: writing "help and recover" at the top of the sheet is what keeps a coach from spending 20 minutes on out-of-bounds plays when the point of the night was defense. Below the grid is a short notes area for what to carry into the next practice, which is the part of the sheet worth keeping after the season.

The filled example is a 75-minute practice for a 10 to 12 player roster in grades 3 through 6 with one coach and one parent helper, built around a 24-minute station rotation because stations are how one coach keeps twelve kids moving in a gym with three baskets.

Dribble Tag brings players in moving; the dynamic warm-up follows. The station block runs three eight-minute stations at once: form shooting at one basket, the ball handling circuit at half court, and the partner passing series on the sideline. The parent helper runs the passing station because it needs no coaching beyond counting, which leaves the coach at the shooting basket where the teaching happens. Box-Out Battle is the one team concept of the night, and the 4v4 scrimmage that follows carries a rule that enforces it: a team that gives up an offensive rebound gives up the ball, no matter what happens next. Free throws and stretch close it. Every block is a module from the planner's library, so the whole plan opens there with the "Customize this plan" button.