AAU Basketball Tryout Prep: The 3-Week Plan

You are already playing. These three weeks are about walking into a gym full of strangers and producing in the first five minutes.

Start above the three-point line. Attack a chair or a partner playing token defense with one hard dribble to the elbow, then choose: finish, pull up, or a one-hand pass to a spot on the wing. Ten reps each side. Feel the first dribble go past your defender’s hip, not toward it, and feel your chest stay up so you can see the second defender. Guards are evaluated on this exact play at every AAU tryout in the country.

Fifty shots from the spots your position actually gets in a fast game: guards off the dribble at the elbow and from the wing, wings catch-and-shoot from the corner and wing, bigs on the short roll and pick-and-pop from the elbow. Track makes. Then twenty-five shots where the rebounder throws the pass a little off so you learn to reset your feet before the shot. Feel the feet get set before the ball arrives, every rep.

Front plank, side planks, and dead bugs, three rounds of thirty seconds each with real rest. Then ten slow, controlled jump-and-land reps: jump, land soft with the knees over the toes and the hips back, hold for two seconds. Feel the landing absorb through the hips instead of the knees. This is what lets you take a bump in week two without folding. No neck work, no loaded work, no contact.

Partner stands on the block holding a pad at chest height and stays still. Drive from the wing, take a light bump on the pad, and finish high off the square. Ten each side, then ten where you finish with the opposite hand. The partner is a bumper, not a defender, and the contact is light and predictable. Feel your core brace a half step before the pad and your finish rise above it instead of into it.

Partner stands as a stationary screener. You are the defender. Start two steps away, feel the screen coming, and get over the top by sliding your lead foot and shoulder through the gap without stopping your feet. Ten reps each direction. Then ten more where you go under. A defender who gets stuck on a screen at an AAU tryout gets scored on, and the coach writes down the defender, not the shooter.

Partner misses on purpose from different spots. You start outside the paint each time, read the miss, hit an imaginary body, and go get it with two hands, then chin it and pivot. Fifteen reps. Feel the first step come from the read, not from watching the ball drop. Bigs and wings get onto rosters by taking rebounds nobody expected them to get.

Two open gym sessions this week with players outside your own team. Play your one thing hard, box out, talk, and cut without the ball. Notice how long it takes for strangers to start passing to you. That is the thing to shrink. If the runs are rough or unsafe, leave and find another. Nothing at home replaces this; a gym with adults present is the only place for live contact.

One round of the line drill (baseline to free throw and back, to half and back, to far free throw and back, to far baseline and back), then ten position shots, tracked. Rest 60 seconds. Four rounds. Compare makes to week one. The gap between fresh and tired is what an AAU coach sees in the last scrimmage of the session.

Twenty-five made shots from your best spot, ten pad finishes at half speed, and a walk-through of the downhill series. Then stop. The day before, shoot for ten minutes, eat well, and sleep. Write down the three questions for the program: which team, who coaches it, what is the all-in number.

Run the three weeks, then after the first session tell us how fast the strangers started passing to you and which court you ended up on. That is where the next plan starts.