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Tagged – Tip of the Week, Practice Management
Many times the coach will get to the end of the planned practice and find that the practice has ended a little bit earlier than planned or expected. Other times at the end of the practice the coach will judge that there wasn’t quite as much ‘x’ as expected. In those situations that coach can think that it would be a good idea to do just one extra drill, to fill in that time or get those last couple of absolutely vital reps.
If you ever find yourself at that moment and feel the temptation to add that one last drill, don’t. It never works out the way you expect it to, or want it to. Players can feel the natural end of a practice (or read it if you use a whiteboard) and when they reach that point their concentration drops accordingly. Adding something else at that moment will not bring concentration back to previous levels, and performance is always poor.
Players always know when you have added something unplanned, so save everyone the stress of a badly executed drill and finish right there.
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At Home On The Court 
Broadly agree, but I would submit one situation where it’s perhaps best to keep things going in some fashion. That’s when you’re dealing with youth teams where parents expect to pick their child up at a certain time. In that case you want to neither go too long nor too short. The advantage there, though, is you can probably just have them play some game they enjoy to fill the time and they’ll go away happy – which is also a meaningful consideration.
Alternatively, you could just over-plan. 🙂
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