--- title: "17s Conditioning Drill: Baseline Sideline Sprints" description: "The 17s conditioning drill has players sprint sideline to sideline across the court 17 times in about a minute — a classic test of game-speed endurance." url: "https://coachboard.app/library/basketball/17s-conditioning-drill" sport: "Basketball" category: "Drill" level: "intermediate" dateModified: "2026-07-09" --- # 17s Conditioning Drill — Basketball Drill The 17s is a preseason rite of passage: seventeen sideline-to-sideline sprints across the width of the court, touching the line each time, with a target of finishing inside roughly a minute. Made famous by college programs that used it to separate the players who arrived in shape from the ones who did not, it has become shorthand for basketball conditioning itself. Running the width of the floor rather than the length is deliberate. Sideline-to-sideline sprints pack more accelerations, hard decelerations and direction changes into the same time than baseline runs do, which mirrors the stop-start demand of a live game far better than steady jogging. It is conditioning and a mental test at once — the last few crossings are as much about will as legs. ## Objective Build and test game-specific anaerobic conditioning through repeated maximal sideline-to-sideline sprints with hard decelerations and line touches, holding effort as fatigue sets in. ## Setup - **Area:** Full width of the court, sideline to sideline - **Players:** Whole team, running together or in waves - **Equipment:** a stopwatch, the court's sidelines as the touch lines - **Duration:** About 60–75 seconds per rep, with rest between - **Level:** intermediate (U14+) ## How it works 1. **Set the count** — One 'crossing' is a single sprint from one sideline to the other. Seventeen crossings make one rep: start on a sideline, and each time you reach the far sideline, touch it with a hand or foot and immediately push off back the other way. 2. **Start on the whistle** — On the coach's start, sprint the full width, plant, touch the line, and drive straight back. There is no jogging phase — every crossing is a maximal sprint with a hard decelerate-and-change-direction at each sideline. 3. **Hit the time standard** — The classic target is 17 crossings in about 60 seconds, though many coaches set the standard by position or age — bigs may get a few extra seconds, guards fewer. Missing the time means the rep is repeated after the rest interval. 4. **Recover and repeat** — Rest a set interval — often a walk-back or 60–90 seconds — then run the next rep. Sets of two to four 17s build the base; a single timed 17 is often used on its own purely as a fitness test. 5. **Finish through the line** — Coaches watch the final two crossings closely: decelerating early or slapping the line lazily is where players cheat the drill. The rep only counts if the effort and the line touches hold all the way through the seventeenth. ## Coaching points - Touch the line every crossing with a hand or foot; cutting the turn short shortens the whole drill and trains the habit of cheating conditioning. - Stay low into each turn and plant hard to change direction — standing tall to decelerate wastes time and hammers the knees. - Pump the arms and drive the first three steps out of every turn; the accelerations, not the top speed, are what the drill is really training. - Pace is not the goal, effort is — hold near-maximal on every crossing and let the clock, not a comfortable rhythm, set the standard. ## Variations - **22s down the length** — Swap width for length and run baseline to baseline for a set number of lengths — fewer turns but longer sprints, shifting the emphasis from change-of-direction to straight-line endurance. - **Position-based standards** — Set different time targets for guards, wings and bigs so each player is pushed to a realistic game-speed standard rather than one blanket number for the whole roster. - **Ladder 17s** — Run a descending ladder — a 17, then a 15, then a 13 — with matching rest, so athletes learn to hold pace even as fatigue accumulates across the set. ## Build it in Coach Board Diagram the 17s on a Coach Board full court by marking the two sidelines as the touch lines and animating a player token shuttling across and back with a small counter for each crossing, so the team can see exactly what seventeen crossings and the line-touch rule look like before they line up. Share the board with the time standards written as tags so each player knows the target for their position. ## FAQ ### What is the 17s drill in basketball? It is a conditioning drill and fitness test where players sprint the width of the court, sideline to sideline, seventeen times, touching each line and aiming to finish within about a minute. The sideline-to-sideline format packs in more sprints, stops and direction changes than baseline runs, so it closely mirrors game-speed endurance demands. ### How long should 17s take? The traditional benchmark is around 60 seconds for seventeen crossings, but many programs adjust by position — guards held to a tighter time, post players given a few extra seconds. Because the point is a maximal effort with real line touches, a realistic, position-appropriate standard matters more than one universal number. ### Are 17s run baseline to baseline or sideline to sideline? Sideline to sideline, across the narrow width of the court. That is deliberate: the shorter distance means more accelerations, hard stops and turns in the same time, which trains the stop-start conditioning basketball actually demands. Baseline-to-baseline variants exist but shift the emphasis toward straight-line running. ## Related - https://coachboard.app/library/basketball/11-man-drill.md - https://coachboard.app/library/basketball/transition-3v2-2v1-drill.md - https://coachboard.app/library/basketball/3-man-weave.md --- Animate and share this drill with your team: https://my.coachboard.app