Growing up, I was a gym rat and felt like I had to shoot a minimum of 300 shots every single day. I cannot remember the exact time that I started shooting my “300 a day,” but it was probably when I was a sophomore in high school. I could never relax until I successfully got in my 300 shots, which consisted of 100 FTs, 100 2’s, & 100 3’s. I would shoot in sets of 10 & then would write down my score after five sets of 10 shots. I had to make 60% of my 3’s (30-50 each set), 70% of my 2’s (35-50), & 80% of my FTs (40-50). If I didn’t meet my standard, the set didn’t count, and I would repeat it. For example if I made 38-50 FTs, I would have to shoot another set because I did not make 80%. Although 300 shots was my minimum, there were many days where I would shoot well over 1,000 shots, and I would have all of them documented. My charts were somewhat similar to the attached excel spreadsheet (“300 May Shooting Chart), but it was a little bit simpler. The one that I used only had 4 columns: Date / FTs / 2’s / 3’s. I would enter in the date & then would record my two sets of 50 under each of the three categories. We will give each of our players a blank chart, similar to the “300 May Shooting Chart” for them to keep track of their shots throughout the month.
I was probably a little “OCD” as a basketball player. I can remember going to visit my grandparents in San Antonio when I was in high school, and begging my parents to drive me around until they found an outdoor court for me to shoot on for an hour. I was fortunate enough to play for three years here at UT Arlington, & I did the same workout in college. Coach Buzz Williams, who is now the head coach for Virginia Tech was an assistant coach on staff here at UT Arlington. He would open the gym for me on a daily basis, but then when he knew that he could trust me and that I would never stop wearing him out about opening the gym each night, he just gave me the key to a gym that we called the “sweat box.” It was call the “sweatbox” because it did not have air conditioning, and it was on the 2nd floor, above an indoor pool. Needless to say, players would sweat a ton during the summer months and would not want to workout in the “sweat box”, but that didn’t stop me from breaking my routine.
Back when I played, none of the players at UT Arlington took summer classes unless they had to so I would go back home to Garland to live with my family. However, when I would drive in from Garland to Arlington to see my girlfriend, who is now my wife, she would go rebound for me because she knew that I was not going to spend any “quality time” with her until after I had finished shooting my “300 a day.” I always tell my players that you know that you have a really good woman if she is willing to rebound for you. Forget about cooking or cleaning, I was looking for someone that rebounded with the tenacity of Dennis Rodman, and I found that in my wife, even though she had tons of other redeeming qualities, including being very attractive.
Since I have been the head coach at UT Arlington, I have challenged our players to shoot at least 10,000 shots a month, which is a little more than 300 a day. I can promise you that all of our best shooters have shot at least 10,000 a month almost every single month. Players today are not quite as OCD as me, so they don’t like to take the time to track their results. Because of this, I decided to come up with the “300 Shot Workout” so we can have our players shoot a standard set of shots, and we can track their progress for them. We do use practice time to do this, but we encourage them to shoot on their own, in a similar manner, in an effort to shoot 10,000 game-like shots each month. By charting 300 shots on a weekly basis, we can tell if a player is or is not improving. We can also rank them by shooting percentages to make it even more competitive. Nobody likes seeing their name at the bottom of a list.
I did design these workouts to fit our offensive system, so you might want to tweak it if you run a different system. The shots in these workout are the shots that our players will most likely see in our offensive system. However, I do think that your players would benefit from this workout, even if you run a different system. I think the important aspects of becoming a better shooter are: repetition, consistency, and tracking. I believe that when every shot is being tracked, and when players are being ranked by shooting percentages, it puts a little bit of game pressure on them while they are shooting their 300 shots. I also believe that players that are at the bottom of the list will not want to stay there if they have an ounce of competitiveness in their body. Therefore, they are going to get in the gym and work even harder so they can not get left behind. I have a philosophy that “Championships Are Won Today!!!” If you want to win a championship in March, then you better be working right now to win one. You can do that by using this “300 Shot Workout” on a daily basis. When you shoot game shots and track them, and you shoot them on a consistent basis, you cannot help but become a better shooter.
Happy Hoops,
Scott Cross
Head Basketball Coach
UT Arlington
300 May Shooting Chart (.xls file)
Chart Used for Ranking Team after 300 Shot Workout (.xls file)
300 Shot Workout (combined workout PDF)
300 Shot Workout (Guards) (PDF)
300 Shot Workout (4’s) (PDF)
300 Shot Workout (5’s) (PDF)
Scott Cross
Latest posts by Scott Cross (see all)
- 300 Shot Workout - June 2, 2015
Thanks for sharing coach.