Basketball Stat Sheet (Free Printable PDF + Excel)

A basketball stat sheet is a one-page grid, one row per player, where a bench helper tallies the seven things that explain a youth game: points (split into twos, threes and free throws), rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers and fouls, plus the minutes each kid played. It is the coach's copy, not the official record; the official scorebook at the table is the only book that counts under NFHS rules, and the stat sheet exists so the coach can see on Sunday why Saturday went the way it did. The sheet on this page comes as a printable PDF (a simple one-scorer sheet, a full two-helper sheet, and a filled example from a 10U game) and an Excel template that totals points and rebounds automatically and rolls each game into a season tab.

For Google Sheets, upload the Excel file to Drive and open it; the formulas carry over. Both files are free, no email or account.

The full sheet has fifteen columns and every one of them earns its space. Shooting is written as made-attempted (M-A) for twos, threes and free throws because the attempts are the stat that changes coaching; a player who is 1 for 9 and a player who is 1 for 2 both scored two points, and only one of them needs a conversation about shot selection. Points calculate from the makes. Rebounds are split into offensive and defensive because at the youth level offensive rebounds are effort and defensive rebounds are positioning, and you coach those two things differently.

The simple sheet drops the shooting split and the counting stats and keeps only what a single parent can track without missing the game: points by quarter, a total, fouls and minutes. That is the sheet most rec benches should print. Nobody has ever regretted tracking fewer stats accurately.

Print the simple sheet when one person is keeping it, which is most rec and 8U to 10U benches. Print the full sheet when you have two helpers and a reason to care about the line: a travel team, a middle school or high school program, or a rec team whose coach wants to know who is actually rebounding. One person cannot keep the full sheet. They will keep points for two quarters, give up on turnovers in the third, and hand you a sheet with holes in it, which is worse than the simple sheet kept all the way through.

With two helpers, split the sheet by family of stat, not by team. One helper owns shooting and points: every attempt gets a tick the moment the ball leaves the hand, makes get circled, and the running PTS column gets checked against the official book at every stoppage. The other helper owns rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers and fouls. The fouls column is the one that matters most live, because a player with four fouls needs to come out before the fifth, and a parent with the sheet will see it before the coach does.

Before tip-off, write every player's name and number on the sheet in the order the coach calls them, starters first, and put the planned minutes in pencil next to each name if the coach built a rotation. During the game, tally only at dead balls; nothing on this sheet needs to be recorded while the ball is live, and a helper who watches the possession and then records it gets it right far more often than one writing while watching. At every timeout and quarter break, add the PTS column and compare it with the official scorebook. If they disagree, the official book wins (NFHS 2-11), and the fix is to find the basket you credited to the wrong player, not to argue with the scorer.

After the game, total every column, check the identity that catches most errors (team points should equal 2 x twos made + 3 x threes made + free throws made), and check that minutes add up to the game length times five. In a 4 x 8 minute game that is 160 player-minutes. If you are short, a substitution was missed; if you are over, someone was credited twice.

The tally convention that works for youth games: a short vertical tick for an attempt, circle it when it goes in, a diagonal slash for every counting stat, and a cross in the next empty foul box. Avoid shorthand that only the person holding the clipboard understands, because the sheet gets handed to a different parent next week.