How to Prepare for a Basketball Tryout (From Coaches Who Run Them)

Published July 28, 2026 · Updated August 13, 2026 · Mohawk Valley Elite

We run these sessions. So here is the part that gets left out of most tryout-prep advice: by the time a player walks through the door, the things that decide his placement are largely already set — and almost none of them are whether the ball goes in.

Coaches at a tryout are trying to answer one question in about ninety minutes: what will this kid be like for a whole season? Everything below flows from that.

What a tryout actually looks like

A typical AAU tryout runs one to two hours. It usually opens with a warm-up, moves into a block of stations and drills so coaches can see individual skills in isolation, and then spends most of the remaining time on live five-on-five — because that is where habits show up and drills hide them.

Multiple coaches watch every player, and notes get compared afterward. Teams are almost never announced at the door; expect a few days. At MVE tryouts, teams form at each grade level and, when numbers allow, split into an “A” and “B” roster so players compete at their own level rather than sitting.

What coaches are really watching

Effort you can see

Sprinting back on defense. Diving for the loose ball. Being first in line at every station. This is the single most controllable thing at a tryout and the most consistently noticed. A coach evaluating forty kids in a gym cannot track every possession, but he can see who is still running in the last ten minutes.

Coachability

Making eye contact when corrected, absorbing it, and doing it differently on the very next rep. Coaches will take the teachable kid over the more talented one nearly every time, because one of them will be better in June and the other will be exactly the same.

How he treats teammates

Helping someone up. Talking on defense. Not sulking after a bad possession, and not rolling his eyes when a teammate misses him on a cut. Coaches are choosing the people they will spend a season with, in a van, in a gym, on the third game of a Sunday.

Basketball habits

Hands ready, head up, moving without the ball, boxing out, sprinting the floor. Fundamentals stand out precisely because so many players skip them. A kid who consistently boxes out at a tryout is doing something perhaps three others in the gym are doing.

Four weeks out

If there is a month before the tryout, this is the highest-value way to spend it:

• Shooting, at game speed. Off the catch and off one dribble, with a real shot preparation, not stationary form shooting from the elbow. Volume matters, but rushed, sloppy volume builds a rushed, sloppy shot.
• Two hands. Every ball-handling and finishing rep should include the weak hand. Coaches identify a one-handed player within about four possessions.
• Conditioning. Tryouts are fast, and gassed players stop competing — they stop cutting, stop rebounding, stop talking. Twenty minutes of running three times a week is enough to change how the last half hour goes.
• Live play. Open gym, driveway, rec night, anywhere the reps are contested. Drills do not prepare a player for someone physically taking the ball from him.

If you want structured work in the Mohawk Valley, our Saturday skills training at Herkimer College covers exactly this ground for grades 6–12, and is open to any player in the area whether or not they play on an MVE team. The summer 2026 block is finished; next-block dates post on the training page.

The week before

• Get shots up — game-speed, off the catch, not stationary.
• Do some conditioning, but taper. The last two days should not be the hardest two days.
• Sleep. Genuinely more useful than one more night in the gym.
• Register online ahead of time if the program offers it. Less standing in line at a table, more time warming up properly.
• Check the gear. Shoes that fit, laces that are not about to break, a shirt that is not new and unfamiliar.

The day of

• Arrive early, dressed and ready. Ready means shoes tied and body warm, not walking through the door at start time.
• Bring a water bottle and a second shirt. A soaked shirt in hour two is a small, avoidable distraction.
• Introduce himself to a coach. It takes five seconds, and coaches remember it — particularly when they are matching forty names to forty faces on a numbered pinnie.
• Play his game. Trying to do things he cannot do reads as exactly that. A player who does three things well and does them relentlessly is easier to project onto a roster than one who attempts nine things badly.
• Talk. Calling out a screen, calling for the ball, calling out a switch. In a loud gym full of quiet kids, a voice is a differentiator.

For parents, specifically

Watch quietly. Do not coach from the sideline — it is noticed, and never in your son's favor. Coaches read sideline coaching as information about the season ahead, not about the player.

If you have questions, ask a coach afterward; most are happy to talk once the gym clears. And if he does not make the team he wanted, the most useful thing you can say in the car is that you liked how hard he played. The evaluation of his jump shot is not your job that night.

After the tryout

Placement is not a verdict, and returning players are not guaranteed anything — at MVE, every player attends tryouts every year, because interest grows each season. A player placed on a second team who plays 30 real games will develop faster than one who sits on a first team. That is not a consolation line; it is the single most reliable pattern in youth basketball.

If your family is new to all of this, the Parent's Guide to AAU Basketball walks through what the season costs, what the weekends look like, and the twelve questions worth asking any club before you commit.

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