Two of UConn Coach Dan Hurley’s Key Defensive Drills

• By Grant Young

All coaches surely understand that instituting good defensive basketball drills in the middle of a season can significantly impact a team’s overall success. 

Implementing robust defensive drills can help refine individual skills, foster teamwork, and build a resilient defensive mindset. One of the key benefits of addressing defensive tactics mid-season is the ability to identify and rectify weaknesses. Teams can assess their defensive performance in games, pinpoint areas for improvement, and then work on those specific aspects during practice. 

Practicing defensive drills enhances players’ individual skills such as footwork, positioning, and anticipation. These skills are vital for creating turnovers and disrupting the opposing team’s offensive flow. As players become more adept defensively, they gain confidence, which can translate into better overall performance as they continue to build cohesion as a unit. 

A team that communicates well defensively can adapt and adjust strategies in real time, making them much harder to beat. Not to mention how incorporating drills in the middle of the season also reinforces a defensive mentality. Teams can build a culture where defense is valued as much as offense. Encouraging players to take pride in their defensive efforts can transform how they approach games, increasing their determination to work hard on that side of the ball. 

The impact of instituting defensive drills in the middle of a season can be profound. As teams prepare for crucial stretch moments in the season, focusing on defense can be the difference between success and failure.

But all of these benefits are only realized if the right drills are chosen by coach. Therefore, there’s a lot of pressure to find the correct defensive drills for your team. However, whose blueprint is better to follow with UConn Huskies men’s basketball head coach Dan Hurley?

Coach Hurley is the first back-to-back champion in UConn history and third in the last 40 years of the NCAA Tournament after his Huskies won the 2023 and 2024 NCAA National Championship. 

Hurley was named the 2024 BIG EAST Coach of the Year after guiding the Huskies to a league-record 18 wins in conference play. The Huskies won their 11th regular season BIG EAST title before going to Madison Square Garden and winning their eighth BIG EAST Tournament crown. Connecticut went into the NCAA Tournament as the number one overall seed, a program-first, and won its six games by a combined 140 points, an NCAA Tournament record. He earned the 2024 BIG EAST Coach of the Year and Naismith College Coach of the Year. 

In his ‘Dan Hurley - UConn Defensive Principles’ clinic, Coach Hurley dives into the x’s and o’s and covers the core principles of team defense including topics such as pressure, transition drills for practice, scrambling and rotating, 4 & 4 Shells, cutters, and much more. 

We’ve pulled two of his defensive drills that you can bring to your basketball team’s next practice. 

Defensive Principles Drill

One drill that coach Hurley swears by is what he calls the Defensive Principles Drill, which he believes encapsulates all of the core defensive pillars he wants his UConn teams to employ. 

The drill is a five-on-five, with the offense passing the ball along the perimeter until a coach provides a command. Once the coach says a word like “Touch,” the defender guarding whoever has the ball is going to run and touch the nearest line (either sideline or half-court) while the offense goes live. 

This will immediately force the defense to adjust and provide help, as it simulates a defense getting beat off of the dribble. The play then continues live from there, while the offense looks to capitalize on the one-player advantage. 

Another command that a coach could potentially say would be “Drop”. When this command is issued, whoever has the ball will drop it where they stand, and the team on defense will go to transition offense. 

The third potential command a coach will yell is “Change”. This is where whoever has the ball when this command is issued will hand the ball to their defender and the offense and defenses will switch while remaining in the half court. 

However, the key here is that the players who are on offense but then transition to defense can’t be guarding the same player who was guarding them, which will require communication. 

Hurley goes on to explain to run this still for 12-15 minutes, utilizing all of the different commands. He specifically likes using it in March (during the postseason) to keep his players in shape and ready for whatever action may occur in a game. 

Transition Defense Drill - Part 1

Another one of Coach Hurley’s most important drills is his Transition Defense Drill, which he uses as a six-minute drill that will test and enhance a team’s conditioning while also implementing valuable reps in transition defense and communication. 

The drill begins with three players on offense with a ghost defense in the half court, running some simple offensive scheme that’s true to your offense strategy. 

From there, another three-man team will come running up the court. The previous team will become defenders while the offense executes a dribble-handoff offense. At this point, the drill will become live. 

Then the two teams will each get a possession (in full court) before getting subbed out by two other three-man teams.

This drill is effective because it forces the team who quickly becomes defenders to communicate with each other and get used to making a quick transition from offense to defense, even when the offense is bearing down on them.