Running basketball tryouts: a plan and an evaluation sheet

Nearly every tryout form you'll find online looks the same. Skills down the side, a 1 to 5 across the top, add it up at the end. It's a tidy way to rank players. It's a bad way to pick a team.

A roster isn't the top scores on a sheet. It's a set of jobs. You need somebody who can bring the ball up against pressure. You need somebody who can guard the other team's best big. You need shooters if you're going to play the way you want to play. The kid with the fourth best average might be the only one in the gym who can do one of those jobs, and an average will never tell you that.

So this plan starts before tryouts do. You aren't ranking players. You're filling roles. Decide what those roles are, run sessions that show you who can fill them, and write down what you see instead of a number.

It's written for high school varsity and small college programs. College walk-on tryouts are their own thing and aren't covered here.

Decide what you're picking for

Do this with your staff the week before tryouts. Start with how you want to play. Then work out what that asks of the players you pick.

Start with your principles of play

Before you think about a single player, get clear on what your team is going to stand for. What you're choosing to be great at. How fast you want to play. What you'll hang your hat on defensively, and what your offense asks of each spot on the floor. If you've worked through the questions worth answering before day one, you already have this. If you haven't, this is where it catches up with you.

Those answers decide what kind of player you're looking for. A team that wants to pressure the ball for a whole game needs guards who'll guard and keep guarding. A team built on spacing and ball movement needs players who'll catch and make the next pass instead of holding it. A team that wants to own the defensive glass needs players who'll put a body on somebody every single possession.

That's why fit matters as much as talent. A player who doesn't fit the way you want to play probably isn't the right pick, however good they look in a layup line. The exception is a kid you really believe you can change. Be honest with yourself about that one, because you're betting practice time on it.

Then write down the roles

Now turn it into a list. Not positions, jobs. Start from what you already know. Who's coming back, what they do well, what you lost at graduation. Then line that up against how you want to play and see what's missing.

A role list for a varsity team might look something like this:

• Two players who can handle pressure and run the offense
• Someone who protects the rim, or a couple of players who'll take a charge and rebound in a crowd
• Shooters who make it off the catch
• A wing who can guard the other team's best scorer
• Fours who can do what your offense asks of a four
• Bench players who bring energy and know exactly what their job is

Yours will look different. What matters is that it exists before anyone walks into the gym, and that everyone on your staff has seen it.

What it sounds like: "We want to pressure the ball and play fast, and we lost both our ball handlers. Whoever else we keep, we're walking out of tryouts with two guards who don't turn it over against pressure and don't mind picking up full court."

The plan

Two sessions of about two hours each, plus a short third session for the maybes. Session one is broad. Session two puts players in the situations you'd need them in. Session three is live play only.

Session one: see everybody

Time	Segment	What you're watching for
0:00-0:10	Check in, numbers on, short talk	How tryouts run and when they'll hear. Keep it short.
0:10-0:20	Dynamic warm up	Who listens. Who's done this before.
0:20-0:40	Ball handling, passing and finishing, in groups	Baseline skill. Each evaluator stays on their group.
0:40-0:55	Shooting: form, catch and shoot, off the move	Who can make shots with some pace on them.
0:55-1:10	Stance, close-outs, one on one containment	Feet, effort, and who actually wants to guard.
1:10-1:15	Water	Evaluators catch up on their notes.
1:15-1:35	Two on two and three on three, live	Decisions, talk, and who competes.
1:35-1:55	Five on five, short games, teams reshuffled	Everything above, together.
1:55-2:00	Close	What session two looks like.

Session two: test the roles

Time	Segment	What you're watching for
0:00-0:10	Warm up	Same warm up as night one. Who remembers it.
0:10-0:35	Role games, small sided. Guards two on two against a trap, bigs two on two in the post with a help defender, wings three on three off close-outs	Whether they can do the job you'd be keeping them for.
0:35-0:50	Shell and transition defense	Who talks. Who helps. Who gets back.
0:50-0:55	Water	Notes.
0:55-1:15	Three on three and four on four, advantage and disadvantage	Decisions when the numbers are against them.
1:15-1:50	Five on five from set situations. Full court pressure, a late clock, down two with a minute left	Who can play with who, and who wants the ball when it matters.
1:50-2:00	Close	When and how they'll hear.

Build the situations around the roles

Session two is where your role list turns into basketball. For every job on the list, set up a small sided game that puts a candidate in exactly that spot, and do it more than once.

If you're looking for a backup point guard, have them bring it up against full court pressure in a two on two, over and over. If you need a wing stopper, put them on your best returning scorer and let them guard. If your offense needs a four who can set a ball screen, pop, and make the next read, build a three on three that starts from that action every time. You learn more from five reps of the exact situation than from twenty minutes of general play.

Session three: the maybes

About an hour, and only the players you're still unsure about. Mix them in with players you already know you're keeping, and put each of them in the situation of the role you'd keep them for. You aren't looking at skills anymore. You're looking at fit. Does this kid make your likely five better, or does the game get harder for everyone when they're on the floor?

Drills first, then play

Every session moves the same way. Skill work first, then small sided games, then five on five. That order is on purpose.

Drills show you technique. Live play shows you who can play. Some kids look great in a line drill and disappear the moment there's a defender who means it. Others are ordinary in the lines and then they're the one talking on every screen, sprinting back after a miss, and making the extra pass. You only find the second group if you give them time live.

Live play also shows you the things no drill can. Who plays the same in the twentieth minute as the first. Who gets quiet after a turnover. Who makes their teammates better. That's why this plan spends more time live than the ones you'll usually find.

Live, but not a free for all

Live doesn't mean rolling the ball out. A pickup style scrimmage mostly shows you who's loudest and who's played the most pickup. The kids who need a bit of structure, often the younger and quieter ones, never get a clean look.

So control it. Set constraints that keep putting each player in the situation you're picturing them in. Two dribbles max for the bigs. Guards bring it up against a trap every trip. A catch and shoot three counts extra for the wings. Start each possession from a specific spot with a specific advantage. It's still live, it's still competitive, and it's still the best look you'll get at who can play. It's just aimed at the question you need answered.

What it sounds like: "Every possession starts with her bringing it up against two. I don't care how she shoots it tonight. I want to know if she can get us into our offense against pressure."

The tryout evaluation sheet

Here's the part most tryout evaluation forms get wrong. They give you a grid of skills and a 1 to 5 score for each, and at the end you add them up. The problem is that a score gets averaged, and an average hides the thing you needed to see. A 3 in ball handling tells you nothing about whether that kid can bring it up against a press in the fourth quarter.

Our sheet asks for words instead. For each player:

• Name, number, and the position you saw them play.
• Offense: one strength, one concern.
• Defense: one strength, one concern.
• Competes and talks: what you actually saw, in a few words.
• Projected role: starter, rotation, depth, or not this year.
• Yes, maybe or no.
• What would change my mind, for the maybes only.

The second page is the role board. It's the list you wrote before tryouts, laid out as slots, so the staff meeting starts from what the team needs and not from who everyone liked best.

Download the tryout evaluation sheet (printable PDF, two pages)

You'll worry about missing the next rep while you're writing. Don't try to write during live play. Watch, then write at water breaks and between segments. Shorthand is fine. One line per box is plenty. If you can't think of a strength or a concern for a player after two sessions, that tells you something too.

What it sounds like on the sheet: "#14. Guard. O: gets downhill, sees the weak side. Concern: left hand. D: stays in front. Concern: lost off the ball. Talks: loud, all night. Role: rotation, backup point. Maybe. Change my mind: can they handle pressure in session two?"

Running it with a staff

Give each evaluator a group and keep them on it for the session. Then rotate groups between sessions, so every player gets seen by more than one set of eyes.

Nobody shares a sheet until the staff meeting. Not in the hallway, not in a group text. The first opinion out loud tends to become everyone's opinion, and you want what each coach saw on their own.

And if you're the head coach, don't run every drill yourself. Have an assistant or a couple of trusted returning players run the segments so you can watch. You can't evaluate a kid while you're busy blowing the whistle and explaining the next drill.

What it sounds like: "You've got groups one and two tonight, I've got three and four. Nobody talks about kids until we sit down Thursday."

Making the call

Start the staff meeting with the role board, not with a ranking. Fill in the obvious ones first. Those usually take a few minutes. Then spend the real time on the last few spots, and argue about them against the board. Which empty job does this player fill?

That's where the hard case shows up. A kid who's clearly a good player but doesn't fit anything you need. Maybe you already have more wings than you can play. It's tempting to keep them anyway because they're good. Sometimes that's right, if they're good enough to change how you'd play. More often you end up with a talented kid who never gets off the bench, and that's worse for them than an honest answer now.

Look at the maybes last, and look at their "what would change my mind" line. If you wrote "can they handle pressure" and they got torched against it in session two, you've got your answer.

What it sounds like: "We've got four wings already. She's a better player than our fifth guard, but we need a fifth guard more. That's the call."

How to tell a player they got cut

Keep it short and keep it honest. Give the decision first, one real reason, and one thing to work on. Don't promise them a spot next year.

What it sounds like: "You're not on the varsity roster this year. We need guards who can handle pressure, and you're not there yet. If you want to get there, work on your left hand and your strength with the ball."

What not to do at tryouts

Don't expect a conditioning test to pick your team. A conditioning test is a baseline. It tells you who came in prepared and who didn't, and that's all it tells you. If a player can't show up in shape on the first day, that probably makes your decision pretty easy. If you want a number for it, a three minute Nash run or a beep test gets you there fast. It just won't tell you anything beyond who you were cutting after day one anyway.

You'll learn more by working the conditioning into the live work. Who holds their effort and keeps talking in the twentieth minute of live play tells you far more about who'll help you in February. Same idea as the first day of practice.

Don't decide on everyone after one session. The kids who showed up out of shape are an easy call. Everyone else gets at least two looks. Nerves, a bad night, a kid who's never seen your drills.

Don't evaluate while you run every drill. Covered above, and it's the easiest one to break without noticing.

Don't let the loudest voice in the room pick the team. That's what the separate sheets are for.

Don't pick on reputation. Last year's JV star and the transfer everyone's heard about get the same sheet as everybody else.

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Building a roster around roles and not rankings is the idea behind BenchOS basketball. The sheet above works fine on a clipboard, though. The team you pick should come from what you saw in the gym, not from us.