A great scouting report is not a folder of clippings. It is a specific, opinionated document that answers four questions about your next opponent: who they are, what they run, what they can’t run, and what you are going to do about it. The specificity is what makes the difference between a folder and a tool.
This guide covers the four pieces a coach-side scouting report needs: a template that fits on one page, a film breakdown process that does not eat your week, the defensive tendencies you should be logging every time, and the translation step that turns all of it into the gameplan your players actually execute.
Contents
The Scouting Report Template (Six Sections That Matter)
The cleanest scouting report templates fit on a single page. Anything longer gets skimmed. Anything shorter misses the decisions you need to make on game day. The six sections below are the ones that show up in every winning gameplan — each one specific enough to drive a coaching decision.
Team Overview
Record, conference standing, scoring margin, pace (possessions per game), and the lineups they actually close with. Note season splits — some teams are dramatically different home vs. away or vs. ranked vs. unranked opponents. The overview sets expectations for what the game will look like.
Personnel
The 7–9 players their coach trusts to close games. For each: primary position, on-ball role (handler / shooter / screener / connector / post), foul trouble risk, scoring volume per game, and their one move they go to when the game is on the line. This is the section that drives your substitution plan.
Offensive Sets
The 3–5 actions they run out of half-court. Note the entry patterns, the counters they go to when the first read is shut down, the set-to-set transitions, and the possession-by-possession value. Most teams have one or two sets that account for the majority of their high-value looks.
Defensive Coverages
Man, zone, matchup zone, switching tendencies by position. Distinguish coverage by opponent type — some teams switch 1–4 against guards and drop against bigs. This is the section your offense is designed to attack; without it, you are guessing.
Special Situations
Late-clock actions (under 8 seconds on the shot clock), after-timeout plays, fouling patterns (who fouls, when, and how), press triggers (made baskets, missed free throws, after made field goals). Under five minutes left in a close game, the special situations drive more decisions than the half-court offense.
Dead-Ball Action
Sideline out-of-bounds, baseline out-of-bounds, after-make transition actions. These are scoutable, repeatable possessions — if they run the same sideline play every game, you can prepare for it. Dead-ball action is often where a careful scout finds free points.
A useful test: after writing each section, read it back and ask whether it tells your assistant coach what to do on game day. If the section reads like a stat line, it is not specific enough. A good scouting report reads like a brief written by a coach who has watched the film three times.
The blank space in a scouting report is where the opponent’s adjustments live. Note what they could change, not just what they have done — on the second game of a season series, the team with the better adjustment brief usually wins.
— FloorGeneral coaching staffHow to Run a Film Breakdown (How Much Film, What to Log, Who Logs)
Film breakdown eats weeks if you let it. The right process is short enough that an assistant coach can finish it in a single evening and specific enough that the head coach can read it in twenty minutes.
The structure that works across youth, high school, and college scouting is the same:
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Pick Three Full Games (Two Recent, One from Earlier in the Season)
Three games is the baseline. Two recent games identify current tendencies and current lineups; one game from earlier in the season confirms whether what you are seeing is stable or just recency. For a team you face twice in a season, add a fourth game from your first matchup once it has been played — the post-game scout shows you what they adjusted, and that is the single highest-value scout you will run all year.
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Log Two to Four Numbers Per Possession
You do not need to log everything. Pick two to four numbers that drive your gameplan decisions and log them across 200+ possessions. Common ones: pick-and-roll coverage (drop / hedge / switch), offensive set (continuity / quick-hitter / horns / set play), late-clock action (called play / read-and-react), and dead-ball result (LOB type, screen action, finish). Fewer numbers logged across more possessions is more useful than many numbers logged across fifty possessions.
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Assign One Filter Per Pass
The fastest way to bog down a film session is to log everything in a single pass. The standard is one filter per pass — on the first pass, log only offensive sets. On the second pass, log only defensive coverage. On the third pass, log special situations. Each pass is 60–90 minutes of focused watching, and the report writes itself by the end of pass three.
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Whoever Watches the Film Writes the Report
A common mistake is having a manager or assistant log the numbers and the head coach write the report. The person who watches the film has the context to write a brief that is actually useful — they know which possessions were noisy, which were stable, which were adjustments. If the report needs to be written by hand after the film session, write it the same day while the possessions are still fresh.
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Pair the Film Numbers With the Box Score
The film tells you how a defense plays. The box score tells you what they let opponents do. Pair the two: a team that drops 60% of pick-and-roll and gives up 0.95 points per possession on those looks is much more dangerous than a team that drops 60% but allows 1.15 — the coverage number alone misses the outcome.
Skip the Film Grind →
FloorGeneral reads the same three games you would watch and synthesizes them into a scouting report — opponent coverage splits, offensive set frequencies, late-clock actions, and dead-ball patterns — in under 60 seconds. The same content your assistant would log, generated before the next practice.
Generate an Opponent Report →Identifying Defensive Tendencies (Drop %, Hedge %, Switch %)
Defensive tendencies are the single most actionable set of numbers in any scouting report. Three coverages — drop, hedge, switch — account for the majority of pick-and-roll decisions a defense makes, and each one has a different offense attacking it. Without the percentages, your offense is designed for every team in the same way.
What to log, and what each number tells you:
Drop Coverage %
What it is: The percentage of pick-and-roll possessions in which the on-ball defender goes under or around the screen while the big sits at the level of the rim or the free-throw line. What to do with it: High drop % means pull-up jumpers are open and pick-and-pop is live. Your attacking set should create that exact shot — middle pick-and-pop, ghost screens, or any action that creates space at the level the big is sitting.
Hedge Coverage % (Above vs. Below)
What it is: The percentage of possessions the big hedges — jumping out at the level of the screen to delay the ball-handler’s path. Above the screen means hard show, recover to the ball; below the screen means soft show, recovery to the roller. What to do with it: Hard hedge means slip cuts and re-screens are live. Soft hedge means short-roll reads become your highest-value action. Logging direction matters because the right counter is different.
Switch % (1–4 vs. 1–5)
What it is: The percentage of possessions they switch the defensive assignment, separated by position matchup. A 1–4 switch means guards swap onto guards; a 1–5 switch means a guard ends up on a big. What to do with it: Switch 1–4 widens the post-up window and reward mismatches you can hunt. Switch 1–5 creates the most punishing mismatch a defense can produce — if they switch it, your offense has to be designed around who ends up on the ball.
Late-Clock Actions
What it is: What the team runs with under 8 seconds on the shot clock. Most teams have one or two set plays they trust late; some teams just give the ball to their best player and let them read the defense. What to do with it: If they trust a specific play, your entire late-clock defense must be designed around taking that play away. If they trust their best player, your entire late-clock defense must be designed around making that player give the ball up.
Fouling Patterns
What it is: Which two players their coach trusts to foul at the end of close games. When do they foul (under 7 seconds? under 5?), on which possessions (every possession or selectively?), and at what point in the shot clock. What to do with it: Fouling patterns drive your inbounds strategy. A team that fouls up 3 with 11 seconds left should never be facing an inbounds into the corner — design your ATO play to attack the foul location instead.
Press Triggers
What it is: The conditions under which their defense jumps into a full-court press: made baskets, missed free throws, certain dead-ball situations, late-game situations only. What to do with it: Press tendencies drive your transition offense priorities. A team that presses after every made basket requires your inbounder to have a flexible read; a team that presses only after dead balls is much easier to prepare for.
Once these tendencies are logged, you can identify the gaps in their coverage. Most teams over-commit to one coverage type and under-cover one specific action. The scouting report should call out the gap explicitly so your offensive set design targets it.
Match Your Offense to the Gaps →
The numbers are only useful if your offensive set choice matches the coverage split. FloorGeneral reads the drop / hedge / switch percentages and recommends the offensive sets that attack the gap — so your half-court offense and your scouting report agree on the same plan.
Generate an Opponent-Specific Gameplan →Translating the Report into a Gameplan (Matchups, Sets, Sub Windows)
The translation step is what separates a folder of clippings from a tool your team can use on game day. A translation-ready report answers three questions that the scouting template and the defensive tendencies section together are designed to enable:
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Selection of Personnel Matchups
Who is matched up on their best offensive player, who is hidden on a non-scorer, and who switches onto their primary screener at specific spots. The matching decision is not just defensive — it drives offensive spacing, because the player who is hidden defensively is the player whose offense can absorb extra off-ball attention. Write the matchups out so the assistant coach can communicate them in the pre-game meeting without ambiguity.
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Offensive Sets Chosen to Attack the Coverages You Logged
If the report says they drop 62% of pick-and-roll, your primary offensive action is the set that attacks drop coverage — middle pick-and-pop, ghost screens, or staggered actions that create the pull-up window. If they switch 1–5 on 24% of possessions, your secondary action is the set that creates a switch onto a specific position. The choice is not "best set you run" — it is "best set you run against the specific coverage split you logged."
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Substitution Windows for the Bench Unit, Foul Trouble, Late-Clock, and Dead-Ball
The substitution plan is often the most under-prepared part of a gameplan. The scouting report should specify when to go to the bench unit (does their offense or defense expose your specific bench players?), when to sit a starter because of foul trouble (which defensive matchup changes if your post has two fouls?), when to push for the late-clock stretch (does their bench defend the late-clock action differently?), and the dead-ball action rotation (who inbounds which set, where).
A simple test for translation-readiness: can a coach who has not watched any film walk into your locker room and run your gameplan from your report alone? If the report cannot deliver that, it is not a tool — it is a folder of clippings that the head coach has to re-translate every game day.
For the tactical structure that holds the gameplan together — primary action, counter, situational, and the bench unit role — see our complete gameplan guide. For the offensive set designs that get matched to the coverage split, see our basketball offensive sets playbook. For the mid-game move you make once the box score shifts, see our in-game basketball adjustments guide. For the mental side of executing a gameplan when defenders have scouted your tendencies, see how coaches build mental-training systems and our mental training routines for high school athletes.
Translate the Report into a Gameplan →
FloorGeneral takes the scouting report and produces the gameplan from it — matchups, offensive sets matched to the coverage split, substitution windows, and the dead-ball plan your team will run. One document, ready for the pre-game meeting.
Build a Gameplan for My Next Opponent →