How to Practice Peer Pressure Free Throws

After about one hour of hard Peer Pressure Drills, when the team is in a lather of sweat and breathing hard we put 5 minutes on the scoreboard clock. Managers bring out a table with several different refreshing cold drinks such as Gatorade and cold soft drinks plus room temperature water. We set this up at half court. We ask our players to MAKE 5 free throws in a row shooting 2 at a time and rotating. We have 15 players and use only three baskets. We turn on the scoreboard clock and if you make 5 in a row you get your choice of refreshment. If you don’t make the five in a row, you only get water. When the buzzer goes off after 5 minutes have run off we go into our next Peer Pressure Drill which has to do with Rebounding and it is very demanding and tests their aggressiveness. About 30 minutes later we will repeat the 5 minute Peer Pressure Free Throw drill. A few minutes later we put 3 minutes on the board and they have to make 2 in a row to get a Gatorade or soft drink. I have found some coaches say go shoot 20 free throws or make 10 free throws. There is no accountability. There is no reward or punishment, which leads to no concentration. Our way teaches players to FOCUS on the task. Make 5 in a row. There is a correlation between making free throws and personal accountability every day, three times per practice. There is also subtle peer pressure to keep up with teammates who are taking part in the reward with a cold beverage. Our team has always shot well from the free throw line and I believe that those two 5-minute peer pressure drills teach them to shoot free throws under game-like situations. They have to focus on each shot in order to get a reward.