What Defense Should You Teach Youth Players (Zone, Man, Press)??

I had never thought about the press that way. You are right. My kids are not skilled enough to read a press. It also frustrates them very quickly. This leads to them being demoralized.

Nice article.

This is so true.The problem is I'm on the only one on the board that see's it that away.

I agree 100%. I have a 5th grade team and we played an all 6th grade team last Saturday. The team started out the game full court pressing us. I haven't introduced my team to this and won't as they are not ready for this. I told the boys to not get discouraged, but it is difficult not to when they start out with a press!

This article makes me rethink my strategy - i have an 8th grade boys team, and I was considering doing a press - but I believe I will focus that time on a press-breaker for those teams that use it, and continue to focus on fundamentals.

Agreed! I have a 3rd grade team that is just learning the basics. We are in a PAL league that other coaches want to play zone. They will be cheated in the long run. I teach "Ball - You - Man" which the kids can remember. The legendary Al LoBalbo taught me that man to man is the way to go.
This is a great site... thanks1

I guess someone has the disagree, if even a little.

We've got a 5th grade team this year. This is the first year the boys have played together. We are going into the Thanksgiving tournament with the idea of zone pressing the whole time. We are going to sub every 2 minutes with 5 new players.

So what is my rationale?
- fun, this should be fun for the boys
- every boy gets to play substantial minutes

For kids around here, just about the only time they play basketball games is with this team. They never play pick-up, they never have free play on the basketball court. I want them to have fun and solve some problems themselves on the court. I want them to love basketball so that they will continue to play when they are my age (50+). We are calling our defense - CHAOS.

In some european countries zones and zonepresses are not allowed under the age of 13. I totally aggree. Zone and press defense in these age groups are taking advantage of poor long range shooting, poor ball handling, passing and dribbling. On the other hand, "team" man to man teaches personal responsibility and commitement.

i coach 5th grade girls basketball. I run into half court zones all the time. My girls are not phiscally strong to shoot long shots over other girls or pass out of traps. It builds up frustration after turning the ball over time and again. I believe coaches who play zones at an early age are out to win only. And that does not help when trying to teach the game of basketball.

i coach young players (under 14 & mainybasket) but i have one problem that in my last game i know the rouls for the young plaers not play press, sudnly tha ather team paly press, can i teach my team how 2 stopped the press & play press>

thanks

I encounter this problem repeatedly with my boys team. Because I focus on man-to-man defence, the boys are not skilled at playing against a press and this causes turnovers because of trying to force passes through a double team. This has cost us a couple of games when the opposing coach has put a press on in the late part of the game - games that we were winning! Am currently just working on how to break a press.

Dear Lynne

I have some problem but what can i do

f the players cant understand how to break the press deffinc?

can tell me what the spicail tech. to break the press or stay with staratgy

no 5 get the ball out said

no 2 scren no 1 to get the ball and n 3 open the court no 4 stay in bost afther passec all palyer rain to poistion to open our said to no 1 to move >

do u have ather whay, plz tell me

Great article and so true. Coaching under 11 girls they are learning man to man defense and getting better at it. It frustrates me no one when a team plays a zone defence against us because I have a very skilled group. They figure it is the only way to try and beat us but unfortunately it teaches all the wrong principles that are mentioned above. It should not be allowed in basketball this young.

I'm from Norway and basketball is not a big sport, but we have a few rules that I like. Up to the age of 15, teams are not allowed to play Zone defense and after an offense they are required to withdraw to their defensive half court (unfortunately there is nothing against half court press) a violation to this can lead to a technical foul for the coach. It does a lot of good, but I find a lot of "lazy" coaches turning to zone defense as soon as they can. I'm currently trying to develop a training regime for our region (one elite club with six feeder clubs) where I will focus predominately on defense and basic individual skills. My biggest challenge is to get enough coaches, being a small sport in small country we don't have many parents that know the sport and are not daring enough to take on the challenge. Most parents are used to soccer and skiing. I like the ideas put forward above and I would also appreciate any help or recommendations put forward to a training regime.

Good article. If you could get more youth coaches and the PARENTS to understand it is not about winning at any cost. Learning sound foundamentals should be fun and will be more beneficial in the long run.

I have always agreed with this. I even agree with this a step further.
I believe that youngsters (Under 12, some Under 14) should be taught to defend with feet first, not reaching. Get the player to pick up the ball off the dribble. Other players learn good denial defence. Then as skills improve they can learn to start attacking the dribble with balanced and controlled movements, not by just reaching or slapping.
I have always believed a good man to man defence is essential for individual development and team growth.
The KISS principle needs to come back into basketball. Coaches are trying to complicate what is essentially a very simple game. Coaches of youth need to teach sound fundamentals and good defence. Not over complicate the game with too much complex defence or offensive plays.
I liked the article.

Google "youth basketball" and you'll pull up leagues across the country which state in their rules that no zone defenses are allowed.
Unfortunately in my Parks and Rec league, zone is allowed so we're behind the times. I've always taught man-to-man. If it's good enough for our nationally-ranked junior college basketball team down the street, it's good enough for me. Two years ago my team of sixth graders faced a team that started out in a zone, but after several 3s, it was so cool to see that coach hastily call time out and tell his guys to play man.

I can not agree more with teaching man to man defense. After coaching at the JV high school level ( girls) It was obvious that our girls were not getting enough fundamentals. I have decided to be apart of the change and now I am attempting to ensure that the girls have more fundamental skills when they reach high school. Time will only tell!!

Great comments we dont allow zone in children u/14 competetion here in australia in most areas of basketball.We teach man first then zone after u/14 age group in probably 80% of the time depending on your state or city.

This was a great article. I am coaching 3rd-4th grade boys and even at this age there are kids who can shoot 3 pointers and one way to stop that is to be man-man. Our year just started and I am glad I read your article before we got to far into the season.
Thank you,
Julie

For five years I coached a 4th through 6th youth league team. Every year we have to re-draft each team and every year during the coaches meeting I lobby for a no zone rule. The best I could get the other coaches to agree to is limiting zones to only half the game (which was never enforced). They would argue that the kids would face zones in middle school, so they needed to learn how to play against them. I was the only coach that played man to man defense only and over five years my teams lost only two games. It was frustrating to work with kids one year on sound m2m fundamentals and then watch it be undone the following year when the kids were redistributed to different teams to play zone.
In regard to pressing, on years that we were allowed to press I would have my kids pick up their man full court, but no zone press or trapping.

my 12 year old girls are having trouble braking a full court press what do i do to help them

Hi Randy,

You can see more about press breakers on this page at our website: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/qa/q1515.html

I couldn't agree more, I coach under 9 basketball and at rules meeting I was voted down 10-1 to allow halfcourt and fullcourt traps and presses. So far we are 3-1 and lost because the one team knew how to trap fantastically but there coach told me after the game that they work on trap 30 minutes every practice. I choose to work on basics, dribbling, passing, proper technique and footwork. I salute all the coaches who resist coaching to win NOW and teach basketball the right way.

Hi

I Coach grade 5 girls in Newfoundland, Canada.

Our provincial rules allow pressing in the last two minutes if the score is close. However, after reading this, I agree that pressing should be out.

We are not doing the kids any favours by allowing it.

Coach Baker

Don't agree about not playing a zone or trapping. I have 2nd and 3rd graders. 3 really good players, 2 OK, and 3 (or 4 when he shows up) marginal players. I wouldn't be able to have any defense at all if I played man to man all the time. I do a 2-1-2 zone and press at mid court trapping the point. I move up my defensive forward on the weak side and cut off the passing lanes. We get alot of fast break opportunities which is great for spreading around the touches and getting everyone involved which is most important. My good players share he ball willingly when the other players are scoring. I probably have more sharing and assits than any other team in my league. I switch to a man to man about 25% of the game depending on who is on the floor.

When I'm not breaking we play a 3-2 offense with 2 low posts with a lot of movement. My kids love to run; set picks; and screen. I practice rebounding extensively. We usually control the boards and put the ball right back up for easy scores around the basket.

So far we are doing OK. I'm 5-0 with 5 games left. My margin of victory averages 32 points. We are the first Bantam team in our gym to score 60 points. And my kids love it. They love playing defense. They slide with the ball. Protect their zone with zeal. All shoot lay ups easily and a few have good outside shots although we rarely if ever take a shot more than 10 feet away. One of my better shooters can shoot 3 pointers with a fair amount of success. I let him fly 2 or 3 times a game.

I think the zone defense is the way to go at this level. It is easy to teach. Gets results. And all the kids can contribute either at the guard or forward position. I always have support from the center for the weaker kids.

Let's not kid ourselves. Kids prefer to win. It is more fun. They are exposed to winning and losing every day especially in sports. I don't think I'm special but I get results and my kids have a good time. Most of my kids won't be playing competetive basketball in a couple of years. Why not let them win now. I'm teaching how preparation and playing to strengths can make you a winner in whatever you do even if your skills are not as good as the next guy. And it is so much about being a team. I'll take giving those lessons to a kid over teaching proper form for a jump shot he'll never use anytime.

I agree on not pressing and in fact that is against the rules for our 4th graders.

Disagree on the zone. I've got 7 boys (the entire class) who are of very differing skills. We are playing against other schools who have multiple teams and therefore significantly better skill levels. If I play man-to-man the lower skill guys will continually get beat.

I think man-to-man works if the skill is there. Zone is easier to understand, model and ensure people are in the right spots which is what we need. ON the flip side my 1st graders team plays man-to-man which quickly degenerates into everyone playing the ball.

Kids understand playing a "spot" which then carries from offense to defense.

In response to Norm & Jim:

You are absolutely correct! You will win more games at that level…

FACT: Almost every very young youth team will win more games by playing zone and trapping.

FACT: Almost every very young youth team that plays mostly zone and traps will lose MORE games when they get older. Those bad habits will HURT them when they get older.

I don’t think anyone can argue these facts. We’ve coached all the way from 1st grade, to very competitive high school teams. As with many other coaches, we have seen this first hand.

The good and great teams have players with SOLID foundations.

So if winning NOW is the #1 priority, then you should trap and press.

On the other hand, if building a SOLID foundation for your basketball players is #1 priority, do NOT play zone and trap. You’re players will be much better in the long run and in the future.


ANOTHER POINT TO CONSIDER:

What is an important trait of very successful people?

Most successful people have learned that you must first build a foundation and work very hard to become successful. Many times you can’t be successful right away. There are FEW shortcuts in life. And if you learn to build a solid foundation (instead of taking quick diet pills, selling a product before its ready, taking steroids, cheating, skipping the fundamentals, etc, etc.) you will be far more successful.

Too many coaches and players want INSTANT gratification. Well, we all know that true success and greatness does not happen overnight.

Successful people understand success takes hard work. Successful people understand that when you fall, you must get up and keep trying. How many times did Lincoln fail at business before he eventual became successful and one of the most well known presidents?

There are more important things than winning. And yes, you can have FUN without winning. We have lots of tips to keep things fun while you’re building a foundation. We can’t argue that it’s more fun to win, but not everyone can win all the time.

We give you credit for trying to be positive with the players. And doing what you feel is best. But we respectfully disagree with the comment about using zones and pressing.

We believe this sends the wrong message to players and hurts those kids chances to be good in the future. Maybe some of your players will want to play competitive ball when they get older. You just don’t know and many times you’ll be surprised which kids want to play competitive ball.

Not to mention, the BEST ZONE COACHES in the world will tell you that players MUST first thoroughly learn and excel at MAN before learning zone.

Jeff Haefner
http://www.BreakthroughBasketball.com

In response to Jim & Norm:

Interesting and valid points you have brought up. Teaching those life lessons like you said are VERY important and we give you props for doing that.

You said that it teaches these players how to win and makes basketball fun. You said that you win by an average of 32 points. Do you ever think about all of the opposing players you are demoralizing by taking advantage of a flaw in the youth basketball system? It’s not your fault that the league allows this play, but you can still abstain from it.

I know we talk about the little league baseball analogy in the article, but I’m going to break it down a little bit more.


Here’s how we progress children in baseball:

T-BALL:

Hitting – ball set on tee
Mound – Tee
Bases – Very Close Together
Stealing – Not Allowed

PEE WEE LEAGUE:
Hitting – Coach pitches underhand
Mound – Very Close
Bases – Very Close Together (approximately the same as t-ball)
Stealing – Not Allowed

LITTLE LEAGUE:
Hitting – Player pitches
Mound – Close – a little further than in Pee Wee League
Bases – Close Together, but further than Pee Wee League
Stealing –Allowed, but can not steal until the ball hits the catcher’s glove.

JUNIOR LEAGUE:
Hitting – Player Pitches
Mound – A little further than Little League
Bases – Further than Little League
Stealing – Allowed, can leave the base once the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand

HIGH SCHOOL:
Hitting – Player pitches
Mound – Same as MLB
Bases – Same as MLB
Stealing – Same as MLB, can now lead off the base and steal whenever they want


Notice, how there is a progression over 10 years of baseball before they even think about using the Major Leagues rules. They have the bases closer together, mounds closer, and stealing rule changes to progress the children. They progress the children, because allowing MLB rules and regulations would not help the children in the long-run. It would hurt them, because they would not learn the fundamentals and they are also underdeveloped. Don’t you think we should do the same for basketball?

Start with lower rims and smaller balls for good shooting form. Do not allow pressing, zones, and traps because it just takes advantage of the players being undeveloped physically. Most of all, it doesn’t teach the correct fundamentals and creates bad habits.

We can GUARANTEE that some of these players if they progress to higher levels of basketball will trouble breaking some of these bad habits. A few examples are lunging out of position, going for steals all the time instead of protecting the basket, and not knowing how to play defense one-on-one. This will hurt them tremendously if they try to play basketball later on.

There is a reason that many of the successful coaches at the College and NBA level believe that fundamentals should be taught at this level instead of playing zone and traps. BOBBY KNIGHT, COACH K, and STAN VAN GUNDY are just a few we can recall.

In our 5-6 grade youth league (loose group of 8 Vermont towns) we have "house rules". Some towns press, some towns don't.

In our game last night the visiting coach asked if we should press in the second half to get ready for the upcoming Feb tournament. I said, "it's o.k with me". Our typical house rules are no press, once posession is gained, the defense retreats to their end of the court.

I was really saying "Go ahead, make my day". We scored 15 2nd half points off the press break play we have. They scored....CORRECT YOU ARE>>>NONE! Then, to top it off, they put themselves in the 1 and 1 at the end of the 3rd quarter from sloppy play while "pressing" us.

We do practice press breaking like we practice any other inbounds strategy - get it in, advance it to a point and set up the offense for a good scoring opportunity.

One and only one is all we needed because they were so bad at pressing my team saw it as an opportunity to work on fast break transition offense. Once we got ahead by a safe (10 points, not 32 points!!) margin we went back to the half court 1-3-1 offense we have been using all year.

One of my players asked me if we were going to press them since they were pressing us. I reminded him that we had no such training, and why would we do it if we were playing well defensively.

We play both MTM and zone - one quarter each - just to expose them to both. I agree that a kid who can't move his feet or understand the man/ball-me-basket relationship won't be able to do either MTM OR zone. The better we do the MTM the better we do the zone.

Joe - not sure where I disagree with you? Don't think my guys have nearly the capability to do a press nor am I recommending it.

My point is on a very junior team - except for one player all of my guys are new to basketball and this is their first team. They are absolutely learning the basics as in what's meant by out of bounds, the positions, dribbling, etc. and I love the advise on the site on how to ramp them up quicker.

Where I disagreed was on the M2M. The other teams have some good ball handlers and basic plays. If I play M2M all that happens is they drive the hoop and we are giving up quick points. At least with the zone I've got a basic protect the key defense with the middle/easy shots covered. They are taking some open outside shots but at this skill level I'm ok with that and the few hot hands we came up against I'm ok letting get a few points.

Again might just be my team and the fact that they are such beginners but I think the zone to start off helps put the basics in place - teaches positions, eye on the ball, staying in between man and the basket etc.

Interested in if there are ways to get there with a M2M but my take is my guys are not ready for it yet. Appreciate the advise.

Norm

Get to a M2M by linking both offensive and defensive players to any of the drills that focus on dribbling. This is how i think my guys developed the footwork and relationship to the man, ball and basket. I use it to teach the position play of point, wing and post play. You'll see the defenders must follow a dribbler or passer all around the court.

Also could use the 3 man weave down the court against air, and turn around to weave back to a 3 man M2M defense and play to a score. It's not a leap for them to take it to a 5 man M2M

Norm,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I’m glad you did. Because I know that thousands of other youth coaches feel the same (or similar) as you. And many many youth coaches run zone defense because it’s easier. You’re one of the few that’s brave enough to voice your contradictory opinion on this site.

You mentioned that other teams get easy lay ups against the man defense because no one is protecting the basket with your young team. That can certainly be fixed. More on that in a minute.

The truth is that running a zone for a few years and spending the majority of time on fundamentals won’t hurt anything. Focusing on fundamentals and basics is a great idea. And you’ll in fact win more games the first couple years by running mostly zone defense.

But here is the rub…

Let’s say in two years you or another coach decides that after running mostly zone (and winning games), it’s time for these kids to learn and play mostly man to man defense.

Guess what happens after switching to man defense?

- the team starts losing many of their games
- the players think man to man defense sucks
- the players ask the coach to switch back to zone
- the players fight to new M2M concepts and subconsciously are convinced that M2M defense does not work

Why do they lose more games? Because M2M is more difficult to teach and takes a little longer for you to get results. Plus the players have learned lots of zone defense habits that simply don’t work in man.

It’s very difficult to switch from zone defense to man. So in many situations, teams never make the switch successfully. On the other hand, it’s MUCH easier to add zone defense after players learn a tough M2M.

That is the biggest reason to start with man and not to worry about losing games for a while. You will soon start winning games and take away those easy lay ups.

When using man defense, can you get the same benefits of a zone (having somebody under the basket, helping, stopping lay ups, etc)?? Absolutely! When you’re not guarding the ball, sag into (or near) the lane and be ready to help you teammates. A good man to man defense is true TEAMWORK at its best. All players are in good position and ready to help each other.

In fact, many coaches say, “a great man to man defense looks like a zone. And a great zone defense looks like man to man”.

Does M2M take a little longer to teach than zone? Yes. It takes repetitions and practice to learn. But it can be done. Thousands of young teams have learned how to do this.

We don’t explain all the details of man help side defense and how to teach all the tactics in articles on this site, but if you’re interested, we do have the step by step process in our paid ebook and audio system:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/mandefense.html

Now I’m hesitant to mention the paid product because I’m not writing this post because I’m trying to sell our product about man to man defense. I’m writing because I’m passionate about this topic and believe in it.

Back to the rub of switching from zone to man defense...

This exact same psychological issue with players (mentioned above) happens with shooting too...

Let’s say you have a 13 year old kid that has a horrible shot. His elbow sticks way out and he doesn’t hold the ball properly. But he manages to make some shots. He doesn’t shot a high percentage but he makes enough to get by.

But you as a coach know that if this player moved their elbow in and used better shooting mechanics, they would make MANY MORE shots in the long run. And their shooting percentage would be higher.

So you decide to teach the kid better mechanics and have him start using a new shooting technique with the correct form.

So you fix the elbow and grip, then send the kid to the basket.

What happens next?

He misses and probably doesn’t hit the rim. The new mechanics don’t feel comfortable and he just can’t make many shots at all.

What is the player now thinking?

The player thinks both at a conscious and subconscious level that this new form doesn’t work!

So what happens next?

The player fights the new form and 9 times out of 10 he switches back to his old, bad shooting form.

Its psychology 101 and we’ve all seen this over and over again. Players want instant gratification and it’s difficult for them to take two steps backward before they can take three steps forward.

BTW (Since we’re on the subject, here’s a shooting tip): When you change shooting mechanics, ALWAYS have the player shoot away from the basket. In other words, have them shoot to a spot on the floor, a spot on the wall, or to themselves. Do NOT send them to the basket. Because if they don’t see the ball going through the hoop, they will think they new form does not work and get discouraged.

We’ve been through this development process in young players enough to know how they will react. Whether it’s playing zone, shooting form, or other skills. Basketball coaching is just as much “selling” and “psychology” (if not more so) than Xs and Os. Half of your job is to sell concepts, sell work ethic, sell confidence, etc.

Not sure if this zone/man defense issue occurred to you, but I wanted to share our experience. I’m glad we had this discussion and hope someone can get something out of it. It’s good to work these things out and share opinions, experiences, and ideas.

As always, the topic is open for discussion!

Jeff Haefner
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com

I coach a 4th grade girls team and could not agree more, especially regarding no press. Our league allows the press in the 2nd half up to a 15 point lead. I've lost count how many teams have pressed us in the 2nd half when already up by ten or more. These coaches have girls who can't make a layup, dribble with their left hand or shoot a free throw but they can sure set them up perfectly for a press. It disgusts me to no end.

I have noted that anyone who agrees with allowing coaches to use the zone defense has made the comment, "it's easy to teach". How sad is that. You should never take the "easy" way out in anything; life or sports. Hard work will pay off for both players and coaches. If you expect great effort from your players, they should be able to expect great effort from you. Put the time in and teach your kids how to play man to man. If you insist on pressing, try using a full court man to man press. No traps just straight up man to man.

I agree about pressing being too complicated for kids.They not only get confused with the coverage but do not hustle back on defense.However,I teach the kids how to break the press.Once they get used to handling pressure and beating the press the other teams will back off on pressing.

good talk!ponit well noted.

I have to disagree, or I had a special set of 7 and 8 year olds boys. These young Boys could shoot, press, play Man-to-Man, rebound, AND box out. I taught these kids nothing but defense, we didnt even practice offense. We worked on our shooting and rebounding, but our offense was our defense! So maybe age does play a factor, however, I think that a lot also depends on the talent that you have on the team.

Hi Patrick,

Thanks for your comments and insight. We love that people share their opinions and discuss these issues on here.

Yes. Pressing is extremely effective at that age level, especially if your kids are talented. With this being said, it does hurt them in the long run.

Players at that age need to focus on fundamentals and how to play the game. They need to work on shooting, footwork, dribbling, passing, cutting, moving without the ball, and so on. They also need to learn about screening (how to read a screen, how to set a screen, and when to set a screen), offensive spacing (how close should they be to another player, where should they go, what cut should they use to get there) before a coach should even entertain the idea of pressing.

Kudos to you for teaching defense. At that age level, you should be teaching the basics of defense. Such as how to slide defensively, staying between your man and the basic, where is your man and where is the ball. Also, players have not physically developed at that age and will have a harder time playing defense. That is why the majority of your time should be spent on offensive fundamentals. Don’t get me wrong, you should spend time on defense, just not nearly as much as if you were a high school coach.

And there is a reason that all of the successful college and NBA coaches preach fundamentals for youth. It’s because that’s what they need to work on. Why do you think all of the other countries have caught up to the U.S. in the olympics? Why do you think foreign players are all over the NBA. They work on FUNDAMENTALS. They don’t worry about pressing.

Now, let's go back to the same group of kids that have been pressing since youth basketball and fast forward about 8 or 9 years. The pressing doesn't work as much, because players are bigger, faster, stronger, and more coordinated. They can throw passes across the court which they couldn’t do as a youth player. They are strong enough to dribble through traps. They are smart enough to use ball fakes.

The players who focused on pressing as youth players have formed bad habits (lunging out position, going for steals, and so on) and have not learned the offensive and defensive fundamentals. They are getting beat by the teams with superior fundamentals and may even be far-inferior athletes. Now if all of the practice time would have been spent on fundamentals and learning to play the game, this same group of players will be winning those games they should.

The reason I am so passionate about this is because I’ve seen this happen more than once in my coaching career. I’ve seen a team win hundreds of tournaments as youth. I’ve seen that same team get beat in the first round of playoffs as a varsity team.

And everyone would much rather win games at the high school level.

Thanks,
Joe Haefner

I agree with you on most of your points. However, at this age group, We didnt have much time to practice (Due to league Rules limiting practice) so I had to teach them a specialty. They knew how to press but it was a man to man press. We worked on the exact defensive fundamentals that you mentioned.
i am hoping to keep these boys together for the pcoming season as they move up to the next division.
I liked your site because I wanted to become a better coach and make them better ALL-AROUND Players. Is it time to teach them a certain offense (if so what do you recommend for this age group 8-10) or continue to focus on the fundamentals? Thanks for your time.

Hey Patrick,

After reading a rough copy of a "Motion Offense" book that Don Kelbick is helping us develop, I believe that the motion offense is the way to go with youth players. A motion offense does NOT put youth players into 'roles.' With a motion offense, they learn all of the skills needed to be a good all around players as you mentioned above. It doesn't if they are going to be a guard or a post when they get older, they will have developed the skills needed within a motion offense.

A motion offense teaches them how to react to situations, instead of just learning patterns like other offenses I've seen used at the youth level.

You could easily run something as simple when you make a pass, you either cut to the basket or set a screen away from the ball. Then, you would teach them a pass and cut drill and a pass and screen away drill. Within each drill, you teach them how to react to what the defense gives you.

And you can slowly expand upon this as they get older.

I would also run the spacing drill at this link: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/drills/basicspacingdrill.html

Hope that helps! We hope to have the Motion Offense ebook out some time this summer.

Joe Haefner
www.breakthroughbasketball.com

Hi everybody!
I´m writing from the Basque Country in the northern Spain. Here we have some strict rules when we play with young players, until the age of 14-15. One of the rule is that we can´t defende zone until the age of 12-13 but we can press all the court so as bigger and stronger are the other teamates the hardest is to pass this press. So what do you think about that? I mean, if we want to improve players don´t you think bouth (zone and press) are bad for them?
There is another rule until the age of 14-15 which says that the coach can´t change any player during the first 3 quarters of the match and than any player can´t play all those first 3 quarter consecutive. So any player can´t play more than 30 minutes (each quarter last 10 minutes).
I would like to know what do you (everybody here) think about that rule.
Thank you so much.
The best basketball internet page I have ever seen. Congratulations.
Sorry because my english.
Have a good day.
Agur

Hi Manex,

I definitely think you have a good start. A lot better than most of the leagues here in the United States.

I believe that pressing and zone should NOT be allowed until the kids reach the age of 14 or 15. Some may argue that, but that's just my personal opinion. That way, coaches focus on developing their fundamentals.

You need to learn how to walk before you can run.

In other words, I believe that kids should be able to dribble, shoot, pass, read screens, read the defense, execute a half-court offense, execute a half-court defense, and so on before they are faced with or even think about pressing or playing zone defenses.

What youth coach has time to prepare for 4 or 5 different defenses and presses?

I think part of the reason other parts of the world has caught up with the U.S. is because they have better youth programs. And Spain is a prime example.

I also think the "playing time" thing is a great idea. That way, everybody gets equal opportunity. Who knows what less talented player at a young age could turn into the star of their team when they get older. I've seen it happen plenty of times.

Joe Haefner
www.breakthroughbasketball.com

Hi Joe!

About playing time I agree with you about opportunities and in my team with 12-13 years old girls(12 in total), I try to make that everybody can play the same time which is quiet complicate if you can´t make changes until the last quarter. I mean, you can´t change anybody how starts in the first quarter until the second quarter, same happends in the second and third quarter. The only quarter you can make changes is the last one.
So in the first quarter: 1,2,3,4,5
Second quarter: 6,7,8,9,10
Third quarter: 11,12,1,2,3
Fourth with changes. Then 1,2 and 3 played 2 entire quarters and the other 1 and a half or less.

Don´t you think that it´s not very good for a girl to play 10 consecutive minutes without changes?

Thank you very much!

Agur.

Yikes, I don''t think 10 consecutives minutes is very good for any youth player to be on the court that many minutes, running clock or no running clock. Even the high schools have 8-minute periods.
Also how about the youngster sitting on the bench for those 10 minutes? Won''t they start to lose focus?
Manex, in our league in Pasadena, Texas we have the same "lineup" format, but we break our periods in half. And our periods are six minutes in length. So 1-2-3-4-5 play the first three minutes of Period 1; followed by 6-7-8-9-10 for the final three minutes of Period 1. Pity the coach with more than 10 players. With 10, it''s no sweat. Same 5 in, same 5 out through three periods. And like you, we can sub at will in the fourth period or keep the same five in throughout the fourth, which I try not to do.
With more than 10, it means my 11th won''t play the first period, my 10th won''t play the second period and my 9th won''t play the third. I make sure the kid who doesn''t play the third starts the fourth. But all-in-all, I like the splitting of periods in order to give everyone as close to the same amount of playing time as possible.

Robert

Great concept .One question.The other night my team got beat a lot on fast breaks.Is there any defense that you recommend to stop another team from running on you?

I have to totally agree! I coach a 3rd grade girls team and finally by the end of the year I had a team of 10 who could make a shot under the basket! Playing zone at this age makes lazy players and also discourages the kids from the game. We ran into a few tournaments this year where zone defense was allowed but the majority of our tournaments dont allow zone until 8th grade.I have a daughter in 3rd and one in 8th. I have to say my daughter in 8th grade and her team seemed ready for zone as they have been playing since 3rd grade. They did not use zone for a whole game however, just as a defensive change up. I believe youth basketball should concentrate on the basics and zone and press should be forbiden!

Hi Frank,

It doesn't matter what defense you play. You need to emphasize and drill transitioning to defense. Otherwise, you may continue to have same problem.

We have more on defense and transition drills in our Man to Man Defense eBook at this link: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/mandefense.html

Check it out if you're interested.

I agree with kids learning basics it becomes more fun for that child cause and effect will be drive I have been coaching in community basketball and football for almost 15 years and its funny when I have these aau money bags come up and be like why my kids running with your team. I say first are they having fun and is there drive entact the kids understand fun before winning especially when I see another kid off these streets whether it be projects or suburbs last time I checked USA still needs bring gold

wow.. this is great...i think i need to change my coaching style... I''m coaching kids 10-12 yrs old... last year we became champions for our inter-school competition in our town because of pure zone and press defense... this year i''ll try to use the man to man defense like you said.. hopefully, we could defend our title again.. thanks a lot for sharing...

Wonderful piece, but I must argue your caution against using zone in youth basketball.
I have 15 years of coaching experence with better than a 75% win reacord.
I teach man principles very strongly, and use both man and zone defenses. In my teaching i emphasize that zone is (pick-up) man defense, in other words the man that enters you zone area is your man. Until he leaves that area there is no differences between the two.
I preach high ball pressure and zone often allows for this better than man.
At the 13 year age level there are always weaker and stronger defensive players and zone allows those who are advanced to play in areas the team you are playing likes to use for their scoring. These players(the more advanced) rotate to the positions perfered by the team we are playing. We are in a league where we play each team three times and after the first meeting we break down their offense and move people to stop it most efficiently.
For the last 4 years since I started this our second half results have been 41 -3.
And by the way there is no apparent harm done to the future ability of the players in that the highschool we feed has won their championship 7 of the last 11 years.

First of all, thank you for your contribution into this highly debatable topic.

I still respectfully disagree. Let me point out a few things about your situation that are different from most youth coaches:

- You coach 13 year olds. That is getting to the older levels of youth basketball. A lot of youth coaches deal with players much younger than that.

Some coaches who have the same opinion as me on pressing and playing zone defenses will argue that 13 is young enough to play zone defense. I still disagree, because I doubt there are very many youth teams that have perfected all of the fundamentals. Also, if you look at books written by and talk to youth basketball experts, you will notice almost all of them agree that you should not play zone defenses.

- You have 15 years of coaching experience. Most youth coaches have minimal experience, if any. They often resort to a zone defense, because they do not know how to teach the basic man to man defense principles. They stick with this defense, because it works against players at the youth level who are smaller and weaker.

You note your record of 41-3 which is great, but that is one of the last things youth coaches need to worry about. That’s part of the reason that the rest of the world has caught up with the USA. A lot of the youth coaches get obsessed with winning rather than teaching the game. Of course, presses and zones are going to work against younger kids who are smaller and weaker. Not to mention, skills such as passing and dribbling are not as developed as they will be at the high school level. If we look at the baseball system in the U.S., they have much better progression for the youth program.

Do I think it is possible to play zones in middle school and still teach your teams the proper fundamentals? Yes, but it is extremely rare. You could be an example of one of those unique situations. Maybe, your players would be that much better if you had focused on fundamentals more. Who knows? It’s tough to say, because you bring up a valid point about your high school program being so successful.

The winning could also have something to do with having great athletes in your program. You may do well in all sports, because your school is great at producing athletes. Sometimes, athleticism prevails against inferior, fundamentally-sound players. Maybe, you have a great program for developing athletes. Athletes can get you long ways, especially, in high school sports.

Let me also note, it sounds like you’re still doing a good job of teaching fundamentals. A lot of youth coaches will spend most of their practice on zones and traps. I just don’t want youth coaches to misinterpret what you’re trying to get across.

Great points, Dan! Let’s keep the discussion going.

To Jim from 1/24/08 entry-
Please tell me you are joking! Running up scores on an average of 32 points. You have zero class. If my child was on your team, he would be immediately be taken off. You are a typical rec coach who never played at any level of sports worth talking about. Here you are flexing your muscles about being 5-0 and beating up on kids.

Are there any tips about man-to-man defense that you recommend?I tell my kids to stay between the man and the basket.Also I tell them when you are guarding someone without the ball to be able to see the man with the ball with their periferal vision.Is there anything that you could add?

Hi Frank,

Here are a few things I like to ask my players when they're playing defense away from the ball (this is for any level, but especially youth):

1. Can you see the man and the ball?
2. Can you stop the player if he dribble penetrates?
3. Can you recover in time to stop the player you are guarding if the ball is passed to him?

For more on help positioning and weakside defense, you can visit this page: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/defense/help-positioning.html

YOU KEEP POINTING OUT BASEBALLS PROGRESSION AND TRY TO COMPARE IT TO BASKETBALL.I THINK ITS MORE LIKE FOOTBALL.OUR LEAGUE LETS YOU PRESS IN THE 4TH ONLY.IF YOUR TEAM IS UP BY 20 OR MORE POINTS YOU HAVE TO PLAY D INSIDE THE BOX.SO I THINK HAVING TO DEAL WITH THE PRESS IN JUST THE 4TH HELPS THEM LEARN IT. ITS A PART OF THE GAME. THATS LIKE SAYING DONT THROW THE BALL IN LITTLE LEAUGE FOOTBALL. AND IM DEALING WITH 7 AND 8 YR OLDS. WHEN OUR ALLSTAR TEAM PLAYED FOR THE BIDDY STATE, BREAKING THE PRESS WAS SOMETHING WE WORKED ON EVERY PRACTICE.

At the highest levels of basketball, you rarely see teams zone pressing which is what the vast majority of youth coaches teach. When college and professional teams want to force turnovers, they pick up the man to man pressure and will trap out of that. Occasionally you will see some traps but zone pressing is a thing of the past because the players are too big and too strong. Basketball is all about guarding another player. Put the hard work in and teach your players man to man. If I have good players, I love it when other teams press. I will run you out of the gym with layup after layup.

I agree that a pressing defense is not to be used. I volunteer coach (1st year) a group of 7th graders and would rather concentrate on fundamentals.
If they get the basics down before their 1st game, win or lose, we will have succeeded. Afterward, we can start working on advanced drills.

ahm may be that defense is very important but i think only players that has more power to do that defense!

I''''m coaching a 9-10yo team and I have 7 players. You can only substitute between mini-quarters. We play 8 5 minute mini-quarters, with a running clock.

My concern with going strictly M2M would be wearing the kids out by the end of the game. Once they get tired, the fundamentals are going to breakdown and they will get frustrated.

I understand what you are saying but I''''m not sure that it would be in the best interest of the players to do strictly M2M. I will be playing some M2M but I think that it''''s good to expose the kids to the zone as well. We''''ll see how it works.

Jackie - in the exact same position w/7 boys. My kids are new to basketball and to be honest not in the best of shape. I am worried that a man-to-man lets a more advanced team easily take layup after layup as their guards beat my guys. Last year I went to a zone defense where we just sucked up the middle. Expect I will have to do the same again this year.

During ski week where we were playing 3 on 5 this still worked and kept us in the game up until the second half where they just ran out of gas. Need to progress them so was thinking a combination tight zone with deny defense on a key player. Any other ideas very appreciated.

I like playing full court man 2 man press just to get my 6th & 7th grade girls more aggresive! Only when we make foul shots I use this (sometime). It really helps my girls to be more alert and get them going. Otherwise we never press. But when I was a 9th grade we had very much sucess with half court zone defense (like 1-2-1-1), trapping when our opponent got over the half court line. Do You have any drill with that?

well, depends wat u call youth.

i am in the UK.

admittedly basketball isn't big over here, but my school team are county (state) champs.
we play in an under 18s league, and this is the first year we have been able to play zone defense according to the league rules.

we have had to play man for the past few years, so we have learned fundementals. but now we can play zone, we employ the 2-3 zone, and often run fullcourt press as we have a fast and athletic team. because we have played man to man for the past few years, we can all defend in the halfcourt, but the fact we can play an effective zone helps us a untold amount, because most teams in our league cant play against a zone, because they havent seen it before!

Hi Tom,

This article is referenced towards coaches who work with players at ages 13 or 14 and under.

I've coached a 5th&6th CYO girls B team for 10 yrs. Unfortunately this year we did not have enough girls for a B team.This year I am helping out with the 5th&6th grade A team and they are strictly zone D.I did suggest that they play man but coach thought it would lose too many games while they are learning it.I've always coached M2M defense but when the girls move up to A level or the 7th and 8th grade teams they are taught zone D. Wondering if and when I get back to my own team am I wasting time teaching man D. if that is the only time they will see this D?

There is a saying among coaches that goes "You need to know how to play man before you can play zone."

For long-term development, you are doing the right thing. Even if they play zone the rest of their career, they will play a better zone, because they learned man principles first.

Hi!
I am coaching little dribblers, 1st and 2nd grade. This is my 2nd year and I love coaching the little guys, to teach them just THE BASICS. My question is: When guarding your man, do you face them, so you know where they are at all times....or do you have your back to them and try to "feel" them. Last year, I had them face their man and was told by several "spectators" that it is correct to have your back to them. SO, my players did that and then I had massive holding issues.
PLEASE HELP. Sometimes it is hard to be a volunteer!!!

Hi Rebecca,

This page should you: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/defense/help-positioning.html

thank you so much for your articles,learning more about basketball every article you guys put out,my own son has develop bad habit out of to much zone defense that i myself taught, but had no idea zone defense would be the reason for so many of his reach in fouls.a guy would drive to basket and instead of going with him defending to basket he would stop rite outside of his zone bubble we teach him to defend and he would reach in.hes 11 and his response would be 1. the kid driving is no longer his responsibilty.2.he was not to leave his (area)zone bubble.so his last defense he could do is reachin at that point.so my question would be how do i respond to that.he is doing what he was taught.and i dont think he is wrong in his response.im thinking zone defense is the problem at this level.

Scott - There's not much you can do other than teach man to man defense concepts. Coaches that are really good at teaching zone defnese teach their players man defense principles first.

If it were me, I would switch to man to man defense. It will be rough going for a little while, but in the long run that's whats best for your players.

Teaching man defense (not reaching, moving feet, positioning, etc) takes LOTS of repetitions! Eventually the repetitions and drills you run over and over develop new (good) habits.

We have man defense articles here:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/defense/man.html

But to make things a little quicker and easier, we have complete step by step guide here:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/mandefense.html

Hope this helps.

rebecca,
As a coach you need to recognize that the spectators are just that spectators. If they wanted to coach they should have done so. i commend anybody that wants to be a better coach. Rule 1. that my dad taught me you coach to the best of your ability and let the parents and spectators stay in the stands! I have found that seeking out people that are knowledgable by my own standards works best and just go watch a few games and see what works for the other teams. But parents are not aalways the answwer to the problem!!

i coach junior high girls basketball. we played 20 some games this season and only 2 teams played m2m defense against us. i run primarily zone as well. i know you may disagree with me but this is the debate that seems to be going on on this site. we were a .500 team, and i have a couple of legit players but overall we are slow and not very athletic compared to some of the teams we play. in my opinion i can't make my girls play strictly m2m when we can't matchup with anyone. the way i see it i am giving my girls the best opportunity to be successful otherwise teams would be running circles around them. it is easy to preach m2m when everyone on your team is tall and quick

Coach B,

I can understand why you run zone. Keep in mind that a good M2M defense actually looks like a zone. If you teach positioning and anticipation properly, it does NOT matter if your players are slow and short.

Trust me, I have done this myself. When I coached freshman, I had the slowest and smallest team you could imagine. My point guard was a midget and terribly slow. To compete, I really had a challenge on my hands. But we played 100% M2M with really good positioning and fundamentals. We finished over .500 against far more athletic and bigger competition. It can be done.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. If there's anything we can do to help, let us know.

I should also add that the team I had was a great group of kids. They listened well and had heart. That definitely helped. We also spent a lot of time on early help and quick recovery. It was truly a team effort on defense. Sometimes the less talented teams are the most fun teams to coach. It was a fun year!

Coach B,
You may want to consider whether or not winning at the girls junior high level is the most important thing. Coaches should teach their kids how to play - winning will take care of itself.
Try the shell drill or one of the many variations of it, for man to man - spend a few hours and you will be amazed at how quick your slow kids become.

Jeff, I completely agree about the less talented teams are the most fun to coach.

John,

Where can I find the shell drill or how does it work. I honestly have no idea what it is but I would definitely be willing to try it.

Just to add something else. I completely understand the argument here, but in defense of most zone coaches, I will say that it is not their intention to have a win at all costs attitude. A lot of coaches that run zone don't even think about it in the way that this article suggests. Coaches that run zone do so because they think it can make the team better and put the team in a better position to be successful but if these coaches ever considered this I think they would be more inclined to use more m2m.

Coach B,

I know that we have a detailed explanation of the shell drills in our M2M defense ebook:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/mandefense.html

The ebooks explain everything you need to know about building a M2M defense. I can't find the shell drill anywhere on our website but I'm pretty sure some other websites have some descriptions of the shell drill. A quick search on Google should turn up a few...
http://www.coachesclipboard.net/DefenseShellDrill.html

Again, if you need anything or have more questions, let me know.

The link Coach Haefner provided for the shell drill is great - you can create your own form of shell drill as well. 3 on the perimeter or 4 out - it really doesn't matter how you set up the offensive players. The first step is putting the ball in any offensive players hands and setting up the proper man to man positioning for all of the defenders. Have the offensive player who has the ball make a pass to any player. Upon catching the pass, have everyone freeze. Then set them all up in proper man to man positioning (ball, 1 pass away, 2 passes away, help side, deny positioning or whatever else you want to teach them). Continue to pass the ball around stopping after each catch to re-position all of the defensive players. In about 5 minutes the players will have figured out the basic idea of man to man defense. You can then allow for the ball handler to take a dribble or 2 to attempt to attack the gaps/seams thereby forcing the help defender to learn how to provide help. Once the ball handler is stopped by the defender(s), they should pass the ball to another player and quickly return to their original spot without stopping the drill. The next ball handler then can attack in a similar manner or simply pass the ball to another player. You can move up to 3 dribbles or even have the post players move around in a simple triangle formation(high post to both blocks) attempting to get open for a pass. You can add any rules or modifications you want - I love doing rebounding out of the shell as well. Allow the offense to shoot after 4 or 5 passes and get the kids used to putting their butt on someone to box out. You can do transition drills and anything else out of the shell.
The idea isn't for the offense to score or even shoot- the whole drill is designed to teach positioning.
In my opinion, you should spend time on the shell drill at every practice. Positioning is the key.
Good luck!

The debate over M2M is fascinating.
I am coaching a 6th grade travel team with 12 girls. Half of the girls are competitive and eager to learn and want their hard work at practices and games to pay off. The other half are simply playing to be on a team and to have yet another avenue to socialize with friends. They are not competitive and therefore they do not put forth very much effort to improving and helping the team be successful. The program's philosophy is that each girl get equal playing time. Our team is getting demolished, losing by at least 25 each game. Winning isn't everything, clearly, but for the competitive girls, they are that much more demoralized at each buzzer. We play M2M and the other teams have focused on our weak links and score at will. I am curious about what you think about the bad habits that are developed by the stronger players playing M2M who then find themselves following the ball to make up for the less skilled players. Sometimes it is like a 5 on 2 game. I teach the keep yourself between your man and the basket and I have girls chasing their assignments around the court and getting beat all the time. I am seriously considering changing to a zone to give the team a chance to be successful.

Sounds like the shell drill is definitely worth trying. I will do it next basketball season. I read the link but just to make sure I get the main idea, it's basically just having 4 offensive players positioned around the 3 point arc and have them make passes to each other at the defense move around to their proper position based on where the ball is right?

That's the starting point with the shell drill, but you can reposition players where you want them. I like using an offensive player somewhere in the lane area. Then go to allowing a dribble or 2. Build on it as they improve. Have your whistle handy to stop the players in their tracks - you know they get it when they self correct.

To Pam:

Look up Mertens' book Successful Coaching, part of the American Sport Educator program (ASEP), I found a copy at Barnes and Noble. http://www.asep.com/. The training is fantastic. Read about "Flow Zone" where kids of differing abilities need different challenges in order to have a good experience, i.e. high skill - low challenge = boredom, low skill - high challenge = too much anxiety, and that matching the challenge to the ability level makes for the best experience. The book also gives good ideas on how to overcome some of it, and growing your players with small step challenges. Even the best ones you have need to have a challenge a bit over their heads to grow. Too big a challenge could turn some kids away from sport altogether, so tread lightly!

Shell drill is a great tool to teach m2m defense. I started out with 2 on 2 to teach switching off a screen (sound like zone??) then 3 on 3, etc until 5 on 4.This year I committed to teaching m2m only. If done right, it looks like half m2m (ball side) and half zone (weak side). Lots of "Aha moments" for me. Also understand the deny vs. contest theory Jeff describes. My better athletes can play deny better, weaker players stink at deny but do well at contest. I just work with the player on what he does best.

Good luck, thanks for your efforts.

been coaching little girls for about 8 years. i zone with my little girls. grades 1 through 7 rec ball, the older they get the more we man. we run shell drills, close outs, help and recover drills, and everything even with the first graders. but every year you have 4 girls that never come to practice, 2 girls trying to cover their girls and the ones those are supposed to have. 2 girls that just can't do it out there crying cause they're getting beat by bigger faster girls. and you're required to play them all equal time. it is very sad to have them on the bench not wanting to go in cause swoopes big 4th grade niece (true story) about to score 30 on em in 9 minutes. you got to try to teach everyone what you can, but try to put them in a position to have some success too. Nothing wrong with match up zones, trapping the corners, doubling the posts, cutting off the baseline, and being 'on the line' to play help. see the ball and your man, protect the paint, pressure the ball everywhere. its basketball too, gets em out in transition, and lets em all do something well. now if i could just convince em that dribbling is overrated and they should pass the ball once in awhile.

My belief is that if you want to develop your players, you play man to man defense and work on the fundamentals of the game and don't press or play zones.

You talk about trapping the corners and doubling the posts. I don't believe there is anything wrong with it. I just believe there are more important things to teach at the youth level.

It comes down to Development leagues versus Win-Loss leagues. I prefer leagues that develop a player rather than throwing them to the wolves when they're 8 years old.

14 months and running with over 90 posts from more than 30 respondents on m2m vs zone vs press. Nice job, Haefners! Thanks for the gift of spurring thought in all of us.

I find it interesting to read how a good many of the posts are devoted to what a coach "plays" in a game, and how the Haef's respond with what they "teach" the kids. I love it!

I switched from teaching zone to m2m bc. I wanted to know what to teach 5th and 6th graders to develop better long term skills, and I'm not sorry for doing it. Play the games as a test to see whether what you're teaching is being transferred to the competition. If not, learn another way to teach the same fundamental - don't fall back on what's easiest.

Joe,

I'm interested to hear your opinion about my situation. I know you clearly favor playing m2m and at no time should you play zone with youth players.

You said, "It comes down to Development leagues versus Win-Loss leagues. I prefer leagues that develop a player rather than throwing them to the wolves when they're 8 years old."

As I stated above I coach a junior high team that is the school team so there is emphasis on winning, however it's not over the top. Obviously its about the kids first but winning is factored into the equation. Do you believe there is an age where it is appropriate to play a zone. Is there an age where you should start playing Win-Loss basketball?

Coach B,

Great questions! To quickly answer them, here are my conclusions:

Conclusion #1 - Zones should not be allowed until the second half of the Freshmen year in high school (typically 14 to 15 year olds).

Conclusion #2 – I believe Win/Loss basketball should start around 7th grade (Age 13). However, I think it’s a much lower emphasis on wins and losses than a high school varsity team. Your focus would still be on the developmental portion.

I'm going to expand on my conclusions and explain why in a future article I'm currently writing. I hope to have the links posted by next week.

I feel like I need to teach 2-3 and 1-3-1 a little because we see it in our 6th grade tournaments so much that my boys need to practice a little against it. We have had games where teams sit in zone all game.

Hi Daryl,

I've been there and understand your frustration.

Once again, it comes down to practicing the critical few versus the trivial many.

If you can, I advise to try to find a league that only allows man to man defense. This will allow you to spend much more time on developing your players which is the most important thing at this age.

If you can not, don't spend too much time practicing these defenses. It is okay to teach them how to play the zone defenses to practice against. however, when teaching defense, I would spend most of my time on man to man defense, so they get a solid understanding of one on one defense and help defense. It's very important ingrain this principles in your players at a young age. Otherwise, it will hurt them in the long-run, because high school coaches have to spend that much more time breaking bad habits when they could be spending their time on developing players.

At this age, it's best to teach motion offense concepts. That way, you don't have to teach 3 or 4 different offenses to your players. Here's a basic zone concept you may use:

- Try to have your players create a triangle with the defensive players. If the offense player gets the ball, that creates confusion between the defenders on who should guard the ball.

We stared to press at the 9 and 10 year old age group(girls).We pressed and got beat down the court every time.Came across your idea of man to man no press picked them up at half court and became a better team that same day.Thanks

I have perused quite a few basketball sites, but I was not aware of the idea that you should not use zone defenses in youth leagues.

I teach man on man defense in drills in practice, however, for games I usually run a zone. The idea is that the kids should put man pressure on the ball in their area and sag when it's not. I have never thought of this as a strategy to win (in fact last weekend I broke a 21 game losing streak among the two boys teams I coach, now 4th and 6th grade, by winning all three of my games; so after 21 losses, I don't think of my zone as giving my teams any great advantage). I thought of this as a strategy to instill some discipline and teamwork, to instill the principles of encouraging long/bad shots, not letting folks get open in the paint and being closer to the paint for rebounding (when you're not on the ball).

I do think it's important to teach man on ball defensive drills, which I do a lot in practice. I also think it's important to have the capability to switch to man. I've switched to man in pressing situations, which I use infrequently but are allowed in the last two minutes of either half in my league, and basically when I just want to stir things up. I think of man as being the defense teams employ to win at all cost (when teams have an atheletic advantage they just jump the point and wings at half court; most kids this age can't react quickly enough). We've typically had the worst time with athletic teams that play man.

I do agree about pressing. In my sixth grade league, press is allowed at any time. I do not coach my kids to press and make them get back unless we're near the end of the game trying to come back. We are pressed against and I've done okay during a short period using a press breaker. Most teams shouldn't press and it's easy to go over top of them and get fast breaks due to their lack of press discipline and ability.

I really don't think it's hard to teach man after zone. I've always started with zone, but as practices progress throughout the season prepare them for switching to man when I call for it. They do not seem to have a problem with this.

I don't understand why a coach should restrict himself to one defense or another -- even at this age. Zones aren't any kind of unfair advantage; usually the teams with the more focused and capable kids will win regardless of what defense they're up against.

I am coaching 12 year old boys. We only get the gym for 1 hour a week for practice, and we have 1 game a week. Most of the boys have medium to poor basic skills. If they face any pressure at all they will turn the ball over after just a few passes. They need to work on all aspects of the game. What is the best place to start? I really want to keep things simple and only work on 2 or 3 things until those things are mastered and then add new skills one at a time.

I decided to work on passing, bribbleing, and the basics of motion offense. That means that I need to set up an effective and simple defense. I used the dreaded 2-3 zone. It was taught to them in 1 practice and works well with stopping any inside game of the other team and has made my team a good defensive rebounding team. This then allows me to spend my time on the basics that are a must for the other end of the floor. Do I really have my priorities wrong? Should m2m defense be taught before dibbeling, passing and basic motions on offense? Where does basic shooting skills come in? What skill is the most important in basketball (hence should be taught first and emphasized the most)?

I just want some of your thoughts.

Hi Mike,

That's unfortunate that you do not get more time than that. I would focus on shooting, ball handling, and man to man defense if I had your amount of time.

Here's a link to our man to man defense page: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/defense/man.html

Mike,

That’s tough with only one practice a week. Based on your comments, it sounds to me like your mostly on the right track.

I think you can work on all those things (man defense, motion offense, and important fundamental skills) without sacrificing much. In fact, I think you can teach everything you mentioned pretty much at the same time.

First question: Do you have or can you find an assistant coach to help you out?

If so, here’s what I would probably do...

- First 15-30 minutes of practice run a bunch of drills that teach fundamentals and also incorporate parts of your motion offense. Read this article to find out what I mean:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/blog/index.php/coaching-youth-basketball-with-limited-time-1-practice-a-week/

- Next, run M2M defense shell drill and maybe some 1on1 defense drills for about 10 minutes. Shell will help teach defensive positioning. With only little time to practice, I would focus on guarding the ball and sliding feet too. Then focus on everyone else sagging off so they can be ready to help stop the ball. Get everyone in the mentality of staying close to the lane to help. Keep it simple at first.

- Run controlled half court scrimmages to practice defense, offense, and new skills. One coach should be in charge of defense and the other coach should be in charge of offense. This way you work on defense and offense at the same time. Don Kelbick, a very good coach that we work with, actually teaches his motion offense during his defensive drills at the beginning of his practice. That’s partly why he likes motion, because you can work on it in almost any drill.

- Last, I would scrimmage full court at the end. Let them play a little.

I don’t know your exact situation, so this might not be appropriate. But for a typical young team with limited time, this is what I might do.

If you don’t have a good assistant, it would be best if you could go find one. That will help you tremendously. If you put that coach in charge of defense, have them study our M2M defense ebook. That gives them everything (step by step) that they need to know.

Also, you asked about shooting and what are the most important skills. I think shooting is critically important for any kids with potential to be successful in the future. Some short and slow kids get college scholarships simply because they can shoot lights out. Shooting is the most difficult but arguably the most important skill to learn. It’s hard to say which skill is most important because it depends on the situation and particular kids you have. But to give you an idea, here’s what we suggest to teach young players:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/coaching/teach-youth.html

Hope this helps give you some ideas. Good luck!

SORRY I DISAGREE. I have been coaching and running leagues for kids (age 5-18) for more than 20 years. At the youngest years (5-9) kids greatly benefit from a contained zone defense. It allows them to know where they should be on the court. We play 4 on 4 and require the zone defense to keep their positions (which is marked on the floor). This allows the offense to pass, dribble and shoot without kids constantly in their face.
Kids having to dribble, pass and shoot with kids closely guarding them develops bad habits and poor fundamentals.
We encourage the offense to make passes to a child cutting to the center. This allows kids to develop together and not just those kids have a higher level of hand-eye coordination at that age in their life. Kids who are more developed at a certain age are the only kids AND PARENTS who enjoy and benefit from a man to man. Other kids who may develop later will suffer and drop out as I have seen over the years.
Actually, the easiest defense to teach is man-man. When kids play pick up ball, they naturally play man to man. No one coaches that. As kids develop (physically and mentally) they are capable of understanding how to set picks and run an offense. The sad thing is we over coach in the early years of a kids life before kids can understand how the game is played. We should be encouraging all kids to enjoy and participate. To many athletes have been eliminated early in their childhood because they were overplayed or OVER COACHED.

Coach G Small,

I completely agree that most young kids are OVER coached and pushed too hard. You are completely right that kids should be encouraged to play and it should be fun! Couldn't agree more.

However, you can't argue that these kids should learn man to man defense before they get to middle school and high school. Have you ever tried to coach a freshman high school team that has ONLY played zone? It's a nightmare to teach them man to man defense! They have horrible habits that have been engrained for so many years. The kids really struggle to learn the new defense, get frustrated, and have trouble competing.

There are lots of ways to teach this game. Nothing wrong with running a little zone, the problem is when you want to switch to man then nobody wants to do it because they will lose more games. The transition process causes you to take a few steps back. Few coaches are willing to do that so you end up with kids that play all zone until they get to high school.

I think you're right. The trick is to keep kids enthused so they don't quite playing sports. I believe you can do this teaching zone or man. It's just a matter of doing your best to also prepare them for basketball when they get older. Thoughts?

1. One of the main reasons I am against zones is that most youth teams EXTEND the defense, trap, and full court press which is the last thing youth and middle school teams need to worry about from an offensive and defensive perspective. They should be working on skills and placed in game-like situations to practice the newly-learned skills that will benefit them more in the long-run. You have adjusted your zone defense in order to allow players to work on the fundamentals of the game which I’m not entirely against. As you mention, it is a contained zone to allow the players to handle the ball.

At the same time, you can set rules for the younger age groups which do not allow the defense to extend outside the 3-point line and still teach defensive principles rather than telling kids they have to stand in one area. It’s actually something I advise to do in a future article when I go over Youth League progressions. It should be out by the next newsletter.

2. I’m not a big fan of placing children in basketball leagues before the age of 9 or 10. I think it’s fine to teach skills, but they need to learn how to move without a ball before they can move with a ball. Since basketball leagues aren’t going anywhere, us coaches need to teach kids how to move. How can a kid run and dribble if he doesn’t know how to run?

Not to mention, they are often placed on a court with a ball far too big and hoop way too high.

3. You use 4 on 4 which is fine. I like to even go down a level lower and use 3 on 3 for kids under the age of 10. Here is a blog post on why: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/blog/index.php/could-3-on-3-basketball-be-the-best-for-youth-players/

4. I completely disagree with these statements “Actually, the easiest defense to teach is man-man” and “Kids who are more developed at a certain age are the only kids AND PARENTS who enjoy and benefit from a man to man.”

If the easiest defense to teach was man to man, all of the youth coaches would be using it. I can’t count the number of emails I have received by youth coaches saying that they use the zone defense because it’s easier to teach at an early age. The reason it’s more effective is that they don’t have to play sound defense to force turnovers, because kids are weaker and haven’t developed ball handling and passing skills that are appropriate to beat the zone. These bad habits (lunging out of position, swarming the ball) they form by playing zone defenses eventually hurt them in the long-run.

Some coaches think they are running an effective zone because it works against 8 year olds, but it would never work at the high school level.

Kids who are bigger, stronger, faster, and more coordinated are going to be dominate at whatever they do athletically. It doesn’t matter if you play man or zone. It doesn’t matter if they play baseball or football. These kids are going to be better. Not saying it’s fair. It’s just the way it is.

5. I’m in complete agreement of the overplayed and over-coaching statement. It is appropriate to teach, but we shouldn’t correct every little mistake. Otherwise, you get a kid who doesn’t know how to think for himself.

Thanks for your response.

1. Please do not miss the point. The reason we run zone defense for kids (5-9) is to include ALL kids and teach the fundamentals of the game at the appropriate developmental stage of their life.
What is wrong with youth sports is this whole emphasis on winning. Call it what you want, but the unspoken truth is not a desire to teach all kid to learn, participate and enjoy the game, but to win.

Are we really interested in teaching ALL kids the fundamentals and encouraging them to continue to participate in all sports or is it all about setting up a team that can win. In today’s world, coaches select teams, form traveling teams, all star teams, play 6 month schedules, tournaments etc. all before a kid is 10 years old. And we wonder why kids decide not to play at the high school level.

2. I don’t agree with your statement....”The reason it’s more effective is that they don’t have to play sound defense to force turnovers, because kids are weaker and haven’t developed ball handling and passing skills that are appropriate to beat the zone.”

...force turnovers....We are talking about 5-9 year olds, NOT kids competing in Middle or High School. Allowing the defense to play a very CONTAINED zone allows children on offense the opportunity to learn to dribble with their head up, look at the court, make passes to kids cutting into the paint and take shots using the correct form. We actually want kids to score.

When it comes to defense, we can tell a 6 year old to play right forward and he knows where it is, what he/she is to do and how to box out for a rebound. We do not keep score, allow passes to be stolen or shots to be blocked. We work on footwork which will benefit all sports especially basketball.

3. Children, 5-8 years old, are not ready to understand offensive movement no more than a child at that age child understands how to play offense on a soccer field. Soccer coaches who try to teach that to early will only frustrate and be frustrated. Those skills come later.

4. The “Break Through In Basketball” should be our desire to encourage all kids to enjoy and participate in all sports regardless of their current athletic ability. Kids do not mature at the same time. In fact, girls mature earlier than boys.

A student I work with who holds several high school swimming records but will not participate in in a game with friends on our pitching machine because he was benched as a child in baseball. At that age, he did not have that hand eye coordination to hit the ball and was pushed aside by the coaches desire to win. What a tragedy.

I have worked at my current location in Sports for 25 years. Our leagues are exploding. We run leagues (basketball, soccer, flag football, baseball, T-ball) for age 5 through high school. We don’t coach or allow coaches at the Middle and High School level. They just want to play and have fun. They are tired of all the coaching. Two years ago, one of our teams was made up of high school varsity athletes who decided not to play their senior year and play in our league because they were tired. Over coached. I have even seen some our our students go D-1 only to drop out of sports (not school) because it was not fun anymore.

5. Lastly, who are you referring to with this statement.....“Kids who are bigger, stronger, faster, and more coordinated are going to be dominate at whatever they do athletically. It doesn’t matter if you play man or zone. It doesn’t matter if they play baseball or football. These kids are going to be better. Not saying it’s fair. It’s just the way it is.”

If you are talking about college athletes I have no problem with that statement but if your referring to children....that is what’s wrong with kids sports.

G SMALL,

I agree with everything you just said, and we've been preaching the same things on this site.

On point #2, I'm referring to the zone that most youth teams use, not what you use. I still prefer to use a contained man to man, but that's a very insignificant difference in opinion.

On point #5, I'm referring to this comment you made "Kids who are more developed at a certain age are the only kids AND PARENTS who enjoy and benefit from a man to man."

My argument was man to man defense was NOT the problem. Like I mentioned before, you can also teach a contained man to man defense. That's actually something we did when I helped out with a 3rd & 4th grade league.

My point was that if you put a "very athletic" 8 year old against a "non-athletic" 8 year old, he's going to do better no matter what he does. That's the problem.

It's some of our youth leagues that are the problem who do not set the proper rules and do not encourage the right things.

I don't have a problem with having kids play equal level of competition to keep them enthused about the sport. I think it's great.

I coach a 8yr old team in our league.I have the best point guard in the league on my team , and when teams play us man to man we eat them up.I find when teams play zone against us they are more effective.They still lose, but they are more effective.We play a man to man defense and some zone.To me it all depends on what talent you have.And what talent the other team has.Im no great coach or anything, but i know what i see.

I coach 9/10 year olds and 11/12 year olds. I find that even modestly talented point guards at this age can beat nearly all defenders. My younger team was beat 54-1 last year in their first game because the other team had a modestly talented point guard who could just easily dribble through our defense all the way to the hoop -- every time.

I do practice man to man defense, we're a lot better at it this year, and I employ it on occasion. When in zone, I insist that kids need to guard man to man in their areas, but I define the areas as being close to the paint. There's nothing more frustrating than being beat 37-20 with the opposing team not making a single shot further than five feet away from the basket. With one hour of practice a week, I find zone concepts best for getting kids to think defending the paint.

Most of my older kids are pretty good at going after anything they see, defending guys at half court, in the corners and at the three point line while letting them throw over them into the paint (or worse, putting up a bad shot, but the opposing team has taller more agressive inside players and they get the rebound and put back).

Ron

I wouldn't want to be a part of a league where a coach would humiliate a bunch of 9/10 year old by beating them 54-1.

Actually, surprisingly, my team was not humiliated by the experience. These kids really did not have a sense of themselves as great basketball players, didn't get down on themselves and actually have just focused on getting better. We lost all games last year but got better with each one. All ten kids returned and this year we've started 3 and 1.

I had a different team that went 2-5 and they were upset after each close loss because they thought they were such good basketball players.

I consider the 54-1 as just something that happened. The coach and the league apologized profusely, but I don't think there's too much they could have done. My kids couldn't defend or score and the coaches didn't know how to stop the kids from going to the hoop short of taking them out of the game, which they couldn't do due to guaranteed play rules. The opposing coach told the ref to call it closer on his team and they turned off the scoreboard after the lead got to 20 or so and stuff like that. My kids were actually upset/confused that they turned the scoreboard off :-).

I would agree with a lot of the anti-zone theory if we put an age-limit on it. What age should zones be allowed to be taught?

I coach an 8th grade team. The variety of schools that we play (city, rural, large, and small) forces me as a coach to have the kids ready to play offense against a man defense, a 2-3 and a 3-2 zone. I think it's good for them to learn the basic principles of the different types of play. I have had teams where I could press, and teams that I could not. I usually let the quality of my athlete determine my coaching style. (I always teach man-to-man and a 2-3 zone.. two of what I feel are solid bases for basketball defense)

Furthermore, a coach of a school team at junior high and above needs to teach the kids the importance of being successful- and yes, a winning attitude is a part of that. America has gotten away from its competitiveness, beacuse for some reason we feel that everyone should "have a chance" and now all we care about are feelings and self-esteem (in the classroom-sure, on a competitive surface-not everyone was meant to play basketball). At some point, it's time to go.

A good coach with superior athletes (face it, in junior high the better team typically has the better athletes) should be smart enough to know when to call off the dogs. A winning attitude is important, but demoralizing is a different story.

If I could I would play man to man all the time, and our varisty athletes would be so superior that they would never need a zone (those kids would never play for Syracuse however).

Just my theory here on how it should be:

Elementary ages: man only

Middle/Junior High: man and zone (for offensive purposes as well as teaching team defense).. full court man press

Senior High (including 9th grade): all necessary schemes for a 'team' (not individual feelings or moms and dads that live vicariously through their children) to be successful. man, zone, man press, zone press, traps, double teams, box+1, etc.

I just wanted to thank everybody who has commented on this page. I really enjoy your point of views and want them to keep coming.

If you some of you feel that I get defensive, I apologize. When I read some of my past comments, I think I may have come off that way. And I never want anybody to feel like they are being attacked for a difference in opinion. That is not the purpose of this site!

These are just my beliefs. It doesn't mean I'm right. I just happen to be extremely passionate about this particular subject.

You guys obviously care and we all want what is the best for the kids!!

Hi Jeff,

I actually talk about this in a new blog post: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/blog/index.php/what-is-the-right-age-to-focus-on-wins-and-losses-and-start-playing-zone/

I think around 9th grade is when kids should start playing zone and pressing, but that's just a slight difference in opinion.

I always give my former varsity coach crap, because he coaches his son's youth team and he played zone with them as 7th and 8th graders.

Overall, is he doing a great job? Absolutely. He's teaching them the fundamentals. He's teaching them life lessons. And he's teaching them how to be winners in life like you mention, Jeff.

I just prefer to play man to man, because I think it helps them in the future.

My argument for man to man defense is not so they can use it as varsity players. It's to prepare them for the varsity level. I strongly believe that if you take a group of players that learned great man-ball principles, you can build a great zone defense.

There was a varsity coach in our area that won over 500 games that always played zone at the varsity level. However, I never saw the freshmen team play zone defense and I never saw any of the youth teams play zone defense. They always played man to man. Their sophomore team pretty much went half man and half zone. He did this, because he knew that he needed the players to have a great foundation of guarding the ball and understanding man-ball principles in order to have a GREAT zone.

I believe you can have an effective zone without teaching alot of man principles, but I don't believe you can have an elite or great one which is what we are all thriving to do.

There were years that he would take a group of kids that never won more than 7 games in a year and he would get them to win 75% of their games. I was always amazed by this.

In all, the situations we are all faced with in our respective leagues dictate what we can teach, or have time to teach. Some leagues have rules, others have none. Some teams in rural communities have to operate free lance to get enough games, belonging to no league, and experiencing a wide variety of approaches.

I can see why coaches of younger (8-11yr olds) teams go to zone, especially if they have limited practice time. Clog the lane, force the low % jumper, gather the rebound and play transition lay-up basketball. If you don't win all the time, you'll have a pretty good record. If that's how you measure success.

Or go full court press, where the kids, coaches and fans yell real loud, discombobulate the offense, cause messy, foul ridden, poorly officiated turnover play and score that way. In either case, i think the lust to win has supplanted the responsibility of teaching good fundamentals to kids who should be left wanting more. It's a lust driven by all of us; parents, coaches and kids. And from these posts, I see it trickle down to the youth teams.

Folks, we've got to look at our teams, programs and leagues as part of a plan that should be designed to make the oldest in our groups prepared to be functional players at the next age bracket, teach sensible fundamentals to everyone who signs up, and present it so the kids and parents are sorry to see the season end.

This year I expanded the 1-3-1 offense, added the motion concepts, went mostly m2m with some 1/2 court trap and had a blast with my 5-6 team, all 18 of them. I simply want them and their parents to love what they signed up for so much that they all come back next year, win or lose.

I've been reading this post for 2 years, finding it while searching for ways to improve the experience. Mission accomplished. I hope others see it similarly.

I just wanted to thank all of you for the great suggestions.

I did get an assisstant coach and it does help to get a lot more things covered in practice.

I just wanted to say that I have taught the kids m2m and we used it in the last game. For the most part the kids did OK, but there was some kids chasing their man instead of playing good position defense. And the other teams picks and screens were more effective on our m2m defense as compared to when we went back into a zone. We will keep working on this.

I noticed that the m2m defense was more likely to get the kids out of position for a rebound so the other team got more second chance points. The zone defense made the other team shoot outside shots which they missed and we were in position to get the rebounds.

After reading all the posts I will continue to teach the m2m defense and continue to work with the basics on offense at the same time.

Thanks again for the input.

Joe and Jeff,

I love the site. I''m a second-year youth basketball coach (5th through 8th grade) in a very competitive local recreation league. I''m the youngest coach in the league (only 19 at the moment) and yet I find my team excelling largely thanks to the basics I''ve learned from this site.

Now, we have some great athletes but I''m also not a believer of zone defense. We emphasize gritty, tough basketball and focus on defense first. However, I do run a full-court man-to-man press from time to time. How do you feel about something like that? I strongly emphasize the importance of good man-to-man basketball and I think it''s an incredible way to teach the kids to play defense without reaching. It works really well for our team. They are learning how to force a player to the sidelines, the corners, etc. all while playing strong, tough man-to-man defense.

Far too many youth players have no clue how to play tough defense. They watch the ball, fail to learn proper positioning, etc. There''s a reason my kids do a strong series of agility''s at the beginning of every practice.

Anyway, just wanted to see how you feel about a full court man-to-man press? I appreciate any input and advice you have for a young coach!

Thanks!

When I coached kids who were 6th to 8th graders, I used a full court man to man defense in two situations.

1. When we were really lathargic and seemed out of it. It helped get them going.

2. If it was needed in the final 3 minutes of the game.

I just felt like our skills, half court offense, and defense needed the most attention in order for them to succeed when they were older, so that's what we worked on and what I liked to see them execute during the games. I believe I took a wrong approach with the offense, because I did not teach them the motion.

Like they say, "Live and Learn" :)

i coach year 5-6 and years 7-11 students boys/ girls basketball. I run into half court zones all the time. My girls are not phiscally strong to shoot long shots over other girls or pass out of traps but the boys can do it. It builds up frustration after turning the ball over time and again. I believe coaches who play zones at an early age are out to win only. And that does not help when trying to teach the game of basketball.

I encounter this problem repeatedly with my girls team. Because I focus on man-to-man defence, the boys are skilled at playing man-man press. This has cost the girls a couple of games when the opposing coach has put a press on in the late part of the game - games that we were winning! Am currently just working on how to break a press.

I coach a high school boys team at a very small school (160 students k-12). I myself prefer a 2x3 or 3x2 zone, both with strong man principles, and players having the freedom to rotate positions in the zone depending on what the offense is doing. We spend a decent amount of time working on our man to man defense, even though I rarely use it in a game, as it teaches the boys how to play defense in my system.

The jr high coach has been here for a long time, and teaches a 3x2 zone, with 1-2-1-1 pressing(and is fairly successful). I find that I have to spend the first 3 weeks before the season starts trying to install fundamentals into the freshmen. Usually by the end of the season... they are up to a level of where I would have liked them to be at the start of the season. Basically they lose a season learning basics that they should already know.

The region I coach in is dominated by zones and pressing, at all levels. Kids grow up watching adults in the men''s leagues play this way (mostly run and gun, with tons of 3''s, and very little inside play or anything that resembles tough defense).

How can I suggest to this coach to change his approach? He has never played a man to man, has no experience with it at all, and he can point to his successes to say that he knows what he is doing.

Hi Eric,

That's a tough one. I would avoid being confrotational. I would compliment him on what a great job he's done and for spending all of the time doing what he has done for the program. Everybody wants to be appreciated.

Maybe, say you have an idea that may help with the long-term development of the program. Then, explain you vision and why. Don't attack his philosophy. Reference this article and the related articles above if you need to. Tell him if he could help you with this it would help the program tremendously.

I wouldn't say this to him like this, but who cares how many games you win in 7th, 8th, 9th, or 10th grade. You want to do what is the best for the players from a long-term standpoint.

I coach a Middle School girls basketball team. I teach only man-to man. If I want more of a zone-look, I use a sagging man-to-man, only I call it "strong help". They are one step from learning a zone defense, but they already have all of the fundamentals in place.

I work very closely with the High School basketball coach to develop the skills that she wants to see from my program (fundamentals, i.e. - footwork, passing, man-to-man, etc.). As a result, she knows all of my girls by first name, and they know her very well.

Coaches, I beg you to get with your High School coaches to talk about the skills they want your players to have when they get to high school. Ask for their help. These coaches are more than willing to help you, because they know your team is the next group of players coming to them. You will become a better coach as well.

Offer your help to coaches, leagues, teams of players at the level below yours. Let them know what you are looking for from them. You will get to see the players that will be coming to you in the future and have a hand in developing them. You eliminate/minimize the "break-in" period at the beginning of the season, because you know the players and the players know you.

My High School coach has run my tryouts the last two years (another chance for her to see my girls and vice versa). She has an open invitation to come to any and all practices and games and she does when her schedule permits. I also give her the opportunity to address the girls after practices and games.

Nearly all of my girls attend her summer camp. When Coach is teaching footwork, or help, or any other skill or fundamental, guess who she has demonstrating it. That's right, one of my girls.

There are three middle schools that feed the high school. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why 80% of the high school team comes from my middle school.

I have given my girls the best opportunities for success and continuing to play basketball at the next level. As a coach, that gives me more pride than winning.

I ask for regular feedback from my High School coach. The best feedback she ever gave me was, "Coach, I don't care what your record is. You are consistently developing fundamentally sound players that are ready to play at the next level".

Teams are measured by wins and losses. Players are measured by improvement in fundamentals. Never stray from teaching fundamentals.

Believe me winning is fun, but getting that phone call saying "I made the team, thanks for everything you did for me", seeing my girls run onto the high school basketball court wearing their high school uniform, and hearing "hey, coach" come through a beaming smile of pride is far more rewarding.

Great man-to-man defense is easier to teach than average zone defense. It all starts with fundamentals.

Joe,

I completely understand your points but all situations are different, many of the girls I coach don't all go to the same high school. About 2/3 of them go to the catholic high school and the other 1/3 spread around the public schools around our city and of all of them maybe only 3 or 4 will actually try and play in high school. We are a catholic school and it is accepted that most will go to the catholic high school, but many choose not to. It is my opinion that if the catholic high school coach wants to approach me about doing things their way then fine, I will consider it, but I will not go out of my way to do things their way.

I think their is a slight disconnect between me and many of the people on this site because I think for most of you, you coach at public schools where everyone on the team will eventually move up and play high school ball.

Coach B,

It doesn't matter if your players go to 500 different high schools. In order to succeed at the higher levels, you have to teach them the appropriate skills.

You need to teach them how to peform certain skills such as dribbling, shooting, rebounding, etc. and teach them how to apply them in live drills that apply to game-like situations.

Most importantly, you need to make sure these kids have fun and learn life lessons that help them succeed later in life.

Coach B,

I understand your situation. In teaching that fundamentals lead to future success is a critical lesson. In this case it's fundamentals lead to playing for their high school, but there is a much deeper lesson. Without first mastering basic math and Algebra, how could they possibly succeed in calculus? Or if they don't learn the fundamentals of English and writing skills, how could they possibly write a resume, or a proposal, or put together a presentation to upper management.

Another very important lesson is the power of networking.

It's nice to see there are still communities that understand, how to take advantage of all the kids going to the same high school. Unfortunately in my situation, trying to produce the numbers made parents upset.Where I live they seem to care more about what the kids last name, than his work and learn ethic. The kids who work hard usually don't get a chance. I have made a vow to continue to show all kids who want to learn the game, the correct way of fundamentals,team work, and most important a leader when it comes to studies.

I have noticed a lot of good debate on this thread. In getting kids to have the attitude that improving their skills at the lower levels prior to highschool benefits them once they achieve that goal of making the team. Where I live, those early bloomers that start out in 4/5th grade with some athleticism and get the spots on the travel teams never step beyond their comfort zone. They play poor M2M but use innate athleticism in presses to pressure and win.

That works fine until the highschool JV and Varsity level where the same formula doesn't work. Unfortunately, most coaches (whether they really admit it or not) get the juice from winning games and orchestrate to do just that, never mind fundamentals. At the younger levels it should be about making mistakes and learning from them. Many times that doesn't equate to winning and the parents of these travel teams expect to win. It is very plain to me as the success these teams achieve with zone presses and alike do not transfer to the highschool teams that get exposed for their lack of basketball fundamentals, it is a shame and when I shout it out at the youth level, I get the "whats wrong with him look".

I have just discovered this site and I absolutely love it! I have a 11 year old son that plays for an elite 11U AAU team. Our coach runs the program like a high school team. We press and play zone defense to take advantage of of lessor athletic kids. The coach yells and threaten the kids by telling them if they dont get their act together he is going to recruit over them. Every week there is a new kid on the bench taking playing time from kids that have been part of the program from the start. The smaller more aggressive kids get most of the playing time. We start 5 guards. My son is 5'7 skinny and trips over his size 12 feet. We will not play AAU ball next year. I am going to keep him in the gym and work on fundamentals and play on a rec team with a focus on player development. Keep up the good work!

ZT,

Great choice to not play for that coach again. Any good coach, or adult for that matter, would never threaten an 11 or 12 year old.

If your son wants to play basketball and AAU, I recommend finding a team and a coach that is interested in developing his players versus bolstering his ego. Your son's coordination will come.

I also recommend finding an agility trainer that will work with him in addition to his pure basketball workouts. This will help him improve his footwork speed and coordination.

Whatever you decide to do, do not get frustrated as he continues to develop. Feed him with all of the positives you can about his committment to improve and his improvements.

II was directed here from the latest newsletter so I am a bit late to the party.
I coach a Girls U14 team, this team is made up largely of my middle school team and players from 2 other middle schools along with some house league players. In the summer our league helps set up teams to play in a couple of the AAU leagues around the Northern Virginia, DC area. Before getting in to the season I had opportunity to see a few AAU games and then scout the teams I have and will play. I have not seen any thing like what is characterized in the beginning thread of this Blog. These teams play primarily a M2M defense, have a motion or pattern offense that utilizes screens on and off the ball and use a variety of presses when needed, ( when they are 10 points behind or the offense is on a rhythm). I think characterizing most Rec and AAU organizations in a certain manner is wrong. I have read things like that for a long time and now that I have gotten a chance to coach against these teams I find it is not always the case. I also sit on the board of my local rec league and we have a no zone rule for grades 3, 4, and 5, with no pressing in these age groups. In the 6th grade we allow zone defense but stress moderation and allow pressing only after the half way point in the season. In 7th and 8th we allow pressing at any point in the season but for all three grades there is a point limit were teams can no longer press, a 10 or 12 point lead. This along with a minimum and maximum playing time rule, based on full quarter’s not total time, which we found hard to police. We have also teamed up with PCA to give or coaches and parents tools to make the games more enjoyable for all involved but still competitive. We are not the only league in our area like this either, many have the same rules in place or variations with the same intent. Our league is no utopia we have issues with parents, players and coaches of all kinds but we are not what I see characterized as the state of youth basketball today

I agree with the latest post. What I disagree to in this post is the perception that zone defenses gives an unfair advantage at a young age (regardless of whether it is advisable/desireable). The best teams in my leagues (I've coached multiple boys teams through 6th grade) use man-to-man to overwhelm my slower, less agressive, less focused team. I think my teams would do better if these teams played zone. I do agree that teaching man-to-man defense at the earliest ages is essential to development.

I employ zone in games because of the need to have at least some kids close to the basket when a shot goes up; because many kids, even with repeated practice, simply will not find/guard their man or will continually dart out beyond the 3 point line and let their man waltz past them toward the hole; and many kids at a young age cannot handle the constant movement of man-to-man. I do teach man-to-man defense, scrimmage with it often and employ it in games selectively, but I've had a difficult time transitioning to full game man to man, even with my 6th grade team.

I have used zone a lot, but I don't think it's unfair to the other team at all. I don't really see the rationale for banning it in younger leagues. I think sometimes in this blog I see zone used in a more sophisticated sense than I mean. I'm not referring to zone traps, full court zone presses or anything like that. In my leagues, I'd say "good luck with that". What I am referring to a simple zone near the basket that emphasizes forcing the other team to take outside shots, pushing out only to pressure the ball, playing man to man as the opponent tries to penetrate, helping if a nearby player gets beat and getting the rebound.

The developmental league that I coach in requires zone defense in the 1st, 3rd, and 4th quarters. The 2nd is strictly man to man and it brings out a problem I've noticed with adults involved with coaching these teams. Our league is comprised of boys in 3rd through 6th grade. Getting these boys exposed to the game and beginning fundamental understanding and development should be the key focus. Attention spans are very limited with these age groups and learning goes slowly. Issues in man defense standout when witnessing a coach spread out there players and let the one or two early bloomer who can dribble take it to the basket time and time again.

It is too much to expect some of these kids to keep in contact with their man and also give help, so it goes on. Even those so "gifted" at an early age do not play man defense very well so offense usually has most of the advantage. The development of interest in the game for the boys has to be created and nurtured as they are testing this sport in many cases. A zone can cap to a degree the one-dimensional effect of these "early bloomers" and keep other players involved in the game. Most all baskets at this level are scored as layup or foul line shots.
Proper man techniques are taught on my team but unless utilized in a game setting, that skill-building effort gets lost. I think 7-8th grade should be strictly man as proper man coverage resembles a zone anyways. That age should be the deciding years as to whether basketball is for them or not. So I agree with the way we currently do things and keep the games interesting for the boys involved (3 thru 6th).

I've also seen too may of the "late-blooming" kids get turned off to the game and a few end up as 6'8" Tuba players in high school bands because he was too clumsy for some 4th and 5th grade rec team coach (true story) and the varsity bball team during those years had 6'2 for their tallest players. The varsity coach wondered why there was no height coming up. It gets back to the facts that some kids get that hand-eye-feet thing going earlier than others. So the varsity team ends up with scads of point and shooting guards and those that think that they should be playing on the perimeter. This gets reinforced when those so gifted get on these AAU and have limited man-d capabilities since most of those teams employ zone presses around here.

Bottom line is man should be the only way to defense allowable beginning in 7th and up. It is what I preach and to also give those lanky ones the benefit of the doubt to catchup as one cannot coach "get bigger" on the floor.

Thanks you for all of the great comments!

Some of you mention that man to man defense can be very dominant at the youth level as well. I agree completely. If teams are unbalanced, it doesn’t matter what you play, the dominant teams are going to win.

I believe a better solution to those problems would be to have 3 on 3 basketball league for kids through the 5th or 6th grade. More touches, kids get to develop offensive skills, and they have more room to operate. For more on why 3 on 3 basketball is great for youth players, read this article: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/blog/index.php/could-3-on-3-basketball-be-the-best-for-youth-players/.

You should also make sure the league:

- Doesn’t have unfair teams.

- Doesn’t measure wins and losses.

- Doesn’t have the adults track the score. Let the kids keep score and argue among each other. This also places less pressure on the parents who feel the need to use methods to get a quick win. I’ve been there and I’ve done a few things I wish I wouldn’t have done to try to win a few games at the youth level.

And instead this league promotes:

- Half Skill / Half Games - 1x or 2x a week, you could spend half of the session working on skills and spend the other half playing 3 on 3 games. If you have 1 hour allotted to you, 30 minutes skills and 30 minutes games.

- Make teams equal - When putting together the teams, try to make them as fair as possible. Rotate the teams and have them play each other. If a team is really good, switch a couple of players around to make the teams fair.

- Everybody plays a lot. Minimal substitutes. Try to have teams of 3 play each other, so kids get tons of playing time and touches.

I have a bit more on development leagues at this link: http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/coaching/developmental-league.html

One other comment, trying to teach kids before sixth grade much more than 1 on 1 defense and ball-man principles is not going to work and honestly is a waste of time. Spend minimal time (5 to 10 minutes) on defense during practice and teach the basics of footwork, ball handling, shooting, passing, and other fundamentals. Also, incorporate some movement exercises to improve coordination, balance, spatial awareness, kinesthetic differentiation, and a few others I’m sure I can’t think of right now.

What do you think?

Good points all. I like to use 3 on 3 as a teaching tool allomg winth 3 on 2 and 1 on 1 cut throut.

3 on 3 I use to work on sreening, for both the offence and defence, opn and off the ball.

3 on 2 we use it to get the players to move the ball and find the open player. As well as getting the players to move to the open spot

1 on 1 We use it in various spots on the court, close out on the wing, in the low post and the high with a catch and 1 dribble rule. Also Cut throte which works on coditioning as well as footwork.

I like a no score kept rule in the 3rd and 4th grade but after this winning and losing provide a teaching tool's for life that I dont think should be over looked.

I think leagues should work to attain parity. Our league used to have a semi blind draft were all the coaches for that grade would get together set up even teams , after evaluating the players. They would have to all agree that the teams were even as possible before the teams were final.

I think there should be a 2 to 1 ratio of practice to games, at least. Our league offers coaches 1 1 & a half hour practice or 2 1 hour practices. We try and give our coaching volunteers some flexability with there schedules.

I like teams of 8 with a minimum playing rule of 1 quarter a half and maximum rule of 3 quarters, giving every one at least a half a game.

I am not a big fan of 3 on 3 as a substitute to basketball and calling it basketball. There are just to many things that go on, on a baskertball court in a game with a team that you miss out on.

II agree with the last comment but if you find you're self in a league were they allow pressing and zone before youthink they should , just dont buy into it. you are the coach, teach what you think they should be working on and you will be supprised at how well you're team does.
Teams that run zone at the youth level spend a lot of time on it and working against it, along with the other teams in that league. You're team will have the advantage being the only one, as most won't know what to do against a good man to man.
The same holds true for leagues that allow pressing to early. If you spend you're time on screening cutting and passing. You will rip most presses to shreds and score easily. The press takes a lot of time to properly teach and execute and most do not have the time to teach it along with a offence and defence. Remember the press is a attacking, trapping, gambling option. It's like throwing the ball in youth football, 3 things can happen 2 of which aint good.

Thanks you for your thoughts, Scott.

I agree with you that 3 on 3 basketball is not the same 5 on 5 basketball. You could also argue that middle school basketball is different than high school basketball and so on, because the speed of the game and the rules will change. I still think 3 on 3 basketball is a necessary progression to develop players.

One of the first things children must develop in order to be successful is ball skills (ball handling, passing, shooting). This is something that 3 on 3 basketball helps improve. Just by using simple math, you’ll see that players don’t touch the ball nearly as often in 5 on 5 basketball.

Let’s say we play 32 minutes and each team has the ball for 16 minutes on offense. If you divide that evenly among 5 players, that means each player may handle the ball for 3 min and 12 seconds. If you look at 3 on 3 and each players has the ball for 5 minutes and 20 seconds.

And most of the time in 5 on 5 basketball, the point guard or another dominant player will handle the ball most of the time during the game, so those numbers will decrease dramatically for the majority of players. With 3 on 3, this won’t matter as much because everybody will get a chance to handle the ball much more.

Also, due to poor ball skills and mental-processing capability, children struggle making decisions in 5 on 5 basketball. These players have not been faced with many basketball situations, so they can’t instantaneously react like a college player or a NBA player could. It takes a second or two longer for situations to process and if you add more players, they often become overwhelmed. More players = more choices = more confusion at a younger age.

Using small-sided games to progress young children through sports is nothing new. I just don’t understand why it hasn’t caught in with basketball in North America.

Soccer starts at 3 on 3 with no goalies for and flag football is often 7 on 7.

Whether they start playing 5 on 5 in 5th grade, 6th grade, or 7th grade, it doesn’t matter to me as much.

The practice to game ratio can be a dicey situation for the younger levels, because you want to make sure kids have fun. You want to have a healthy balance of games and practice. You don’t want to burn them out with too many practices, but you don’t want to have so many games to the point that the children’s skills don’t improve. If approached the right way, I think you can do 2 practices to 1 game. However, at the younger levels, your focus should be to create a love for the game. What do kids love to do? Play games. That’s why with 3rd & 4th graders, I might use a 1 to 1 ratio. Once they reach 5th grade, I would increase it to 2:1 and once they reach 7th grade, I would make it 3:1 with a minimum of 2:1.

In my statement, I didn’t necessarily state that there should be a ‘no-score kept’ rule. The kids can keep track if they want. Kids love to play to win. I just don’t think the scoreboard should be up there, because it can affect coaches and parents in a negative way which can affect the children in a bad way. In the famous Michigan State study on youth sports, too much pressure to win by parents and coaches is one of the top reasons quit sports.

Once again, whether you start keeping score in 5th, 6th, or 7th grade, I think it’s a minute thing to worry about.

3 on 3 or 5 on 5, keeping score or not keeping score. Either way, it probably doesn’t matter too much if the kids are placed in the proper environment.

I disagree with not teaching zone defense at an early age, in fact I think that it is the best way to introduce kids to the proper ways to play man.

The best aspect of a solid zone is teaching the kids to understand helping. Using shell drills and help side drills in my mind help younger players understand stopping layups and not allowing easy shots. It also helps teams combat the more talented players, as was pointed out many times above playing man makes it easy for an athletically advanced youngster to dominate and help is sparse in the beginning stages of man. Playing a zone helps teams stay in the game by preventing countless easy layups.

I think that a zone can have man principles as well to make the transition smoother. Teaching kids to deny or front in the post are big in my mind, also continuing to spend time on defensive slides to improve lateral quickness and to get them used to the transition to man. I understand and appreciate the article, I do believe that the fundamentals brought about by understanding zone are integral for defensive development and teaching.

How do you play man to man when every other team in the league plays zone? It is VERY disheartening to see your child lose by more than 20 points in every game because the coach wants to stick to playing man to man. At what point should a coach switch up his strategy for the sake of the confidence of his players? As a parent, I am looking for my child to develop a love of the game at this point...skills can always be introduced in steps, right?

I applaud the coach for sticking to man-to-man as long as he has set the vision and goals and continues to reinforce improvements to reaching those goals. Once your players learn the fundamentals of playing man-to-man, zone is easy for them. Try going the other way and you''ll spend alot more practice time teaching defense.

The confidence building comes from setting and reaching achievable short term goals that lead to higher longer term goals. Its important to celebrate reaching the short term goals and setting a course for reaching the next set of goals. The long and short of it is if you want to win now, play zone and press; if you want to win for a long time, give up the now, and learn to play disciplined fundamental M2M. M2M is not chasing your assignment all over the court. Although when I first started out, that what it looked like.

I started coaching a middle school team 3 years ago (all 6th graders). Like many coaches at this level, I was a parent volunteer and had little experience in coaching basketball. I got involved with the high school coach and got her involved with our program. She told me the players coming to her program cannot play M2M and their zone defense is even worse because they do not have the fundamentals.

I set clear goals (SMART goals) for the team and each girl. I scheduled and planned practices. We finished the year 0-12 only scoring 14 points a game and giving up almost 40. I reinforced with our team and parents that we are giving up the short term gratification of using "zone defense" for a long term foundation that will benefit the girls long after they are finished their middle school careers.

The following year, we went 5-11 and only lost by an average of 8 points (26 ppg on defense). The last year they were in middle school, we won the championship. We went 15-3 with the best defense in the league (16 ppg) and the second best offense in the league (29 ppg). These were the same girls that went 0-12 just two years before.

We did it against mostly "zone" defenses. We didn''t do it with more talent or different players. We did it through hard work and determination and learning how to play defense (footwork, positioning, deny, help and recover, rebounding, transitioning) while everyone else was fixated on winning now. Because our defense became so good, our offense improved dramatically. Our offense had to play and learn how to score against the best defense in the league every practice.

Coaches would ask me after games, "your team is tenacious; how did you get them to play M2M defense like that?" I would tell them," it started two years ago while you guys were beating us up with zone defenses."

I tell you this as a testimonial to working on building a solid foundation. That formula works for everything you will do in sports and, more importantly, in life. There are no short cuts to long term success.

Thanks for the comments! I understand the rationale behind teaching the M2M, but my daughter is a 3rd grader! Is our league too competitive? There is a no press rule for this age group. While her individual ball handling skills are improving, her team of 8 years olds have no idea what hits them when they go out to play a game. They look totally lost, and I am not sure that they are old enough to understand that they will benefit from this years from now. Several girls have already indicated that they do not want to play again next year. How do we tackle that? Again, 8 year old girls signed up to learn, but also play for FUN.

BTW, my 6th grade son also plays for this league, and has for 3 years. No other team he has played on, or had competed against has played M2M, so we are thoroughly confused by this coach's choice to make our daughter's team the guinea pigs!

It sounds to me like your heart is in the right place, and you are dead on about the game needing to be fun. 75% of young athletes quit by the age of 13, because it is no longer fun. The majority of them quit because of unrealistic expectations placed on them by their parents. We have all seen this mother/father/coach at the league games.

I don't think your daughter's coach is using his team as guinea pigs at all. I think he has the right idea.

I am by no means an authority on youth basketball and development nor how young is too young to teach man or zone. If they are too young to teach M2M, they are too young to teach zone. The advantage of "zone" at that age is there are five girls standing around the paint. They are not really playing a zone.

They are certainly not too young to teach the basic fundamentals. I do believe that at 8 years old coaches should be teaching ball handling, passing, footwork, proper shooting technique, etc.

As a result, youth organizations should set their policies and rules that encourage and nurture those basic skills to develop and grow. This thread has discussed quite a few ideas on how to do such a thing and keep the game fun (3 on 3, no presses, no traps, no 3-point line, lower basket, no score, half game/half skills, etc).

To Kelly: Be patient - no matter what you are seeing or feeling now, it will improve. As long as your coach as instructing the proper techniques for M2M, your child will become a better player much more quickly. Remember, it is FUN when you're good at something and M2M will get her there. I believe your daughter's sense of accomplishment when her team catches on to the M2M principles will over ride any lack of confidence she feels now.

I've coached basketball from the High School level down to 4-5 yrs old for the past 23 yrs. I've had some great athletes go on and play professionally over seas and Division 1 NCAA - don't be fooled by success at 8yrs old because of a coach taking advantage of kids lack of inherent strength to shoot accurately at more then 10 feet. Basketball is about guarding another player not an area - everything comes from it.

To Justin - the shell drill is man to man not zone - don't mistake the 2.

I partially disagree. I have always been a man to man person. But Honestly how many of your players are actually really good at it. It takes a special person to be really good at it. You can teach all the technique in the world, but when it comes down to it, it's in your heart. I coach a 12 year old team and a 15-18 year old team. I've also helped out with a high school varsity team in summer leagues and camps. I go to a lot of high school games. Look at high school teams shooting percentages. In my eyes let them shoot from the outside. At the end of the day it comes down to numbers and percetages. Now as far as my defensive practice time, I work 75% of the time on man to man, and the rest the zone schemes. Then apply the man to man to the zone. So I'm sure a lot disagree, but that is what I believe.

Richy:

I pretty much agree with your assessment. I think man to man is important as it is the basis for defensive strategies in basketball. However, I think in certain situations you have to put your players in the best position to be successful. That does not necessarily mean winning or losing, it means having some kind of personal success to build a kid's confidence so they get some kind of enjoyment out of playing ball. If you send kids out there that just are flat out not quick enough to keep up and are constantly getting burnt going to the basket then they are getting nothing out of playing man to man anyways. You should continue to use it and practice it so they can get better but switching to a little bit of zone is fine with me. I recently coached a team that was not very deep, we only went 6 or 7 deep in tight games and had only 2 girls that could play man to man with any kind of success so I used a lot of zone.

I think we are on the same page. When I played and play, I would rather play man to man. Last year I pushed and pushed my 15-18 year old team to play man to man because of what I like. This is where, and a friend of mine that coaches at the high school level told me, I learned that you can't always coach what you want. When I asked the kids what they would rather play, they said zone. They created about 8 more steals a game because of it. But we get after it. I push that when your man has the ball, to not want any help. It's the help defense in a man to man that it is hard for kids to get. I also try to mix it up in a game between a couple of zones and man. This is, I believe, good coaching strategies, plus it teaches the kids to use there heads instead of just staying in the same defense the whole game. I do the same with my 12 year old team. So at the end of the day, I believe that Kids should spead most of the time working on man to man fundamentals, but in games they should be able to play both at all levels. But this also forces the coaches that live by the zone to have to play man to man. If a team that only plays zone against me, there probably going to lose. It's the changes that make it difficult for kids and coaches to adjust.

Some good points! Keep in mind this article is for youth teams - 13 and under. At that level it's all about player development and having fun.

Unfortunately most youth coaches in this country play zone and press defense because they want to win immediately and don't want to spend the time teaching man to man skills. That's not good.

Joe and I are trying to educate youth coaches and get more coaches to do things the "right way" and do what's best for the kids. Here's another thread about a similar issues with youth sports:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=225
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=207&hilit=press

It's amazing what you see out there in youth sports. We need to spread the word to avoid these problems.

BTW, winning is not the only way to have fun. Sure it helps. But there are other ways. Setting small goals. Celebrate small success. Show players how they are improving. Teach them. Players enjoy getting better and it's up to coaches to make sure they see their progress. Winning and becoming a good basketball player doesn't happen overnight. It takes months and years of consistent practice. That's life.

Richy,

My players were absolutely horrible at M2M defense at first. It took them many hours of practice over a couple of years to start running M2M pretty well. Sure we have break downs, especially when offenses are disciplined enough to not shoot within the first 15-20 seconds. Most teams can't do this, because they have not been taught the basic offensive fundamentals. They usually make a bad pass or take a bad shot.

If my team is getting beat consistently by speed and a good driver, I get out of the denial M2M. Alot of times, they do it on their own, because they know they are not getting to their help assignment in time. I also have some girls that are just not quick enough to play denial M2M, so I don't ask them to. They do know how to help, stop a cutter, and what to do if their person or somebody else's person picks up her dribble.

One of the staples of my practices is the Help and Recover progressions. Along with the basic offensive and defensive fundamental drills, we do them every practice and before every game.

Once in a while, we will play a game (Paint). The offense gets a point every time they get the ball into the paint. They get 20 seconds to do it. The defense has to do everything it can to keep the ball out of the paint. The defense scores a point if they can keep the ball out for 20 seconds. If they can keep the ball out for 30 seconds, the offense has to run a suicide or something else the girls decide. They have alot of fun and determination when I let them decide what the 30 second penalty is.

Rock on, thanks for the drill. Thats funny because I just seen that drill at a coach's clinic this weekend, so thats 2 source, so it must work. Just to let you know, we have a league by me that my 7 year old is in that I help out with that only uses man to man. It ranges from 5-10 years old and they have to wair a wrist band with a color on it. They have to guard the man on the other team with the same color. I love it. My main point about the zone thing is that I still think we need to use together with the man to man. I also agree that the ones that only use zones are the dads, not coaches, that are afraid to teach it because they don't know proper techniques. By the way I think this web site is awesome.

I'm glad I could help. I love this site. I didn't find it until last year or the year before. I learned alot by trial and error. One thing for sure, if you can find a drill that reinforces what you are trying to teach and you can figure how to turn it into a fun game with pressure to execute, you will be amazed at how fast the kids will learn and do it naturally. Then the trick becomes to be able to instill a few "code" words that sets off the light bulb for them in games.

I like the color coding. The one rule I tell my defense is that it doesn't matter who scored from the other team, defense is still about five people keeping the basketball from going through the hoop.

I agree with the posts concerning the need for M2M development. It should be the focus of training for basketball and is a core fundamental. Our middle school teams are required to play it exclusively.

It appears in our highschool that once they get there the coaches opt for zone defense and particularly so with the more "athletic" teams that they face. The common thought process going on appears to be one that says- athletic teams (usually quick African-American kids) get frustrated playing against zones and rush shots or make poor decisions more frequently when faced with a zone defense. Thus, our teams play mostly zones and I think the M2M skill-building stops except for the occasional box and one at times when they want to isolate a particularly good player.

I witness this thinking at the Freshmen, JV and Varsity level as their strategy to stay competitive in games which I might understand at the varsity level but not at the other two developmental levels. But the ever-present pressure to win is the over-riding theme with coaches at every level it seems and this is a detriment to developing skills.

Teams such as Syracuse and their 2-3 zone re-inforce this strategy. Ultimately, I see a great deal of lazy play in a zone and poor rebounding as a result. Just don''t understand why teaching proper M2M along with help-defense is not the answer. I think that the fear of giving up transition baskets is what drives the so called need for zone as a strategy.

I totally disagree with the thoughts above. I coach girls basketball(just rec) 11-12 years old and various ages over the years. We teach man to man principles in practice, especially covering the person who is directly in front of you. We also teach zone which incorporates covering areas and responsibility and helping others!! This allows me to play more players thoughout the game and maximize their minutes which is the goal of rec ball. Now on a side note, Ive never seen it in rec ball as my responsibility to turn out great Middle School or High School players what with the limited practice times and gym space. We actually teach with what time we have the fundamentals,, man to man principals, zone principles,How to break presses( really simple if you think about it), and we do it from the same formation every time!! We also practice against zone defenses and man to man defenses, so when we get into a game , does it always succeed ? NO but do the girls play the same defensive principles ? YES Is it always succcesful? NO But do they get more playing time and understand what their supposed to do? YES Enough!! Think you got my point!! STEVE

Good points, Steve. However, I still disagree. :)

I see that you said "We also teach zone which incorporates covering areas and responsibility and helping others!! This allows me to play more players thoughout the game and maximize their minutes which is the goal of rec ball."

Why does this "allow" you to play more players?

A few of my main goals for rec ball are:
- Create a fun atmosphere, so even if they don't have the talent to play at a higher level, they still enjoy it enough to go out and play it for fun
- Teach life lessons to make them better people
- Improve skills so they have a chance to make it at the higher levels
- Play everybody fairly even (depends on age level)

I disagree.
We are 4 and 1 and I have strongly recomend zone defense. It promotes team play. I have told my young ones that the only way to be successfull in our league is to play as a team. Zone defense teaches them to take care of each other by making sure that they talk to each other and making each other aware of assignments.
They have learn how to plug the lanes and who should rebound the ball and who should be assigned to a fast break. This are a mix of 2 year players and pleayers with no experience 5th and 6th grade.

Yes. If your only goal is to win basketball games, zone is a great defense.

If your goal is to DEVELOP players that can play at the higher levels, teach them the fundamentals and man to man defense.

Ask any successful high school, college, or pro coach. Even Jim Boheim who plays the 2-3 zone at Syracuse will tell you that.

I coached a group of girls from 6th grade until their 8th grade year, and I am guilty of using the zone and press. Every team we played used the exact same defenses and we did fairly well. The 7th grade year, we sprinkled in man-to-man along with a 2-1-2 and we lost more games, but played better defensively. In 8th grade we played nothing but man-to-man, and ran a fullcourt man-to-man pressure defense(no trapping or anything, just pressure). Our defense shut down some of the highest scoring teams in the city. The offense was lacking and we only won 10 games, but the difference was amazing. Now, their future high school coach came out to watch 3 of our games, and was begging 3 of them to come start on varsity because of their man-to-man abilities, and rebounding ailities. So, count me in the group that believes man-to-man is the way to go until HS

I have coached kids from age 8 to 14 and am currently coaching 13 -14 y/o boys. I believe that the individual kids you are working with should be considered before hard fast rules are administered such as NO PRESS or NO ZONE Defense. I have always had the kids play man to man for the obvious reasons stated. However, I can understand why, in some situation,s a zone my be called for. We have a very defensive oriented team and can stop a good team from scoring. We also have a hard time putting the ball in the basket. We press because that is a the strength we have. I agreed not to press, one time because the coach asked me not to before the game. He had l tall kids and their strength was half court basketball. Throw the ball to the middle and the big kid is going to score because he is 8 to 12 inches bigger. Should there be a rule that the tall kids can't play in the lane? The boys lost and I apologized and told them it was my fault. I had them drop back when they wanted to pressure full court.

If your kids are slower and playing a very quick team, why not play a zone? If a team is much bigger, then press. Why should kids be relegated to play to the opposing teams strengths? Though I agree m2m is the way to go, making more rules is going to limit some teams and benefit others. Don't fool yourself, kids like to win too! Most important is that they have fun and give 100% for the team as well as learn a sound fundamental game of basketball.

Thank you for your thoughts, Geno. I have no problem with extending man to man pressure with 13 & 14 year olds. I still don't like traps & zones because it's just winning tactic that takes advantage of flaws in the youth basketball systems. Not to mention, it hurts players in the long-term. Most times, they develop pretty bad habits playing zone and trapping. Also, the players are not as developed physically or mentally to handle them in most cases. Just like all other sports, there needs to be some progression in basketball.

With regards to winning, your statements are very valid. I would never try to affect a player's will to win. However, the focus of the coach shouldn't be on winning, it should be on developing players and having fun.

Coaches coach to develop players. The players play to win. Which means if the coach's ego has to stomach a few losses for the betterment of the long-term development of the players, that's the way it should be.

Very few of these kids will ever play after 8th grade. To relegate all focus on winning to the high school level is very idealistic and to assume that a coaches sole focus is on winning is because of his ego, is insulting and arrogant. If he uses a press or zone to win and is therefore somehow categorized as bad or has wrong motives as a coach, is a real reach. The Jr. High level has tournaments and keeps track of conference wins and losses for a reason. The main focus should always be on the development of young people, first of all in character and also in developing good athletic fundamentals. Teaching a team concept and winning or losing with grace is a great tool in developing well rounded kids. I appreciate that anyone that works with kids should have the kids best interest at heart. Teams have strengths and weaknesses as well as individuals. If we can avoid having our kids lose by 20 or more points by pressing or playing zone I fail to see nothing negative. The opinions you hold on this point are obviously strong and it is your forum, so I will leave it at that. You seem to have some good coaching materials to help those who may need it.

"to assume that a coaches sole focus is on winning is because of his ego, is insulting and arrogant. If he uses a press or zone to win and is therefore somehow categorized as bad or has wrong motives as a coach, is a real reach. "

Reread my last comment, I don’t think I insinuated any of this. If so, I apologize. If I did, then I would consider myself a bad coach with wrong motives. I've coached every level from 3rd grade to junior varsity. I’ve pressed. I’ve used zones at the youth level. If I could do it all over again, I would not have done that. I’m trying to help other coaches help their players reach the higher levels through my mistakes and experiences.

Heck, my old varsity high school coach played a 2-3 zone at the 6th, 7th, & 8th grade levels and there isn’t another coach I would want my child to play for. He is a great person and a great coach. Not saying, I wouldn’t give him crap about it. I still think he should have taught man to man defense.

At the high school level, I’ve also coached some of the kids that played nothing but zone and pressed at the youth level. You spend the entire year trying to break the bad habits they learned as a youth player. In the long run, they end up losing more games because of this.

This has nothing to do with you or me. This has everything to do with giving a child a chance to succeed at the higher levels. Ask any high school coach. If there is a player that plays lock-down defense, they will find room for him.

"If we can avoid having our kids lose by 20 or more points by pressing or playing zone I fail to see nothing negative. "

I also still believe when stressed and taught properly, a solid man to man defense will take care of this problem. However, there will be days where the other team is just better.

I totally disagree. I''ve taught a 1-3-1 zone defenses to younger kids BECAUSE their skill level was not that developed and it taught them the principles of help defense. Trying to teach young kids man to man is more demoralizing because kids get frustrated quickly if they are getting beat by someone who is a lot better than them. If they have help, they won''t give up. Once these kids got older, it was easier to teach the man-to-man defense because they understood the concept of help defense. My goal when teaching these kids the 1-3-1 zone was to get all of them involved in the game; it had absolutely NOTHING to do with winning. A lot of kids want to play basketball but aren''t that athletically skilled. Does this mnean that those kids shouldn''t play because they can''t run a man to man defense? That''s ridiculous. These were 3rd through 6th graders. In junior high, that''s when I think you should start introducing man-to-man defense. It''s actually an easy transition from the 1-3-1. I coach varsity bball and we run a 1-3-1 because we don''t have a lot of size, just speed. We are adding the man defense, but our bread and butter is the 1-3-1. If zone defenses are so bad then why did the West Virginia use it to get to the Final Four this year and why did the Celtics use it to get them to the finals?

Thank you for the response, Roger.

You bring up some valid points about getting your players to compete. However, my concern would be, are you giving them a false sense of accomplishment? They think they are competing, but in reality, using a zone defense that takes advantage of players being weaker, having slower cognitive processing skills, and having under-developed basketball skills is what helped them compete. Sorry, for my bluntness, but a good butt-whooping, every once in awhile, lets them know where they stand and how they need to work hard to improve. As a coach, that’s an important time to teach a life lesson. If you want to get better, you’re going to have to work hard.

Now, at the same time, I’m not a big fan of unlevel playing fields at the youth level. I think leagues need to organize and spread the talent equally. If they are constant blow outs, this doesn’t really teach the players anything, but either does zone defenses at the youth level.

I guess I’m having a hard time understanding this argument, “A lot of kids want to play basketball but aren't that athletically skilled. Does this mnean that those kids shouldn't play because they can't run a man to man defense? That's ridiculous. “

I don’t think once in the article or anywhere on this website have we ever said kids shouldn’t play, because they are not athletic enough. We highly promote everybody get equal playing time because everybody develops at different times. I’m working with a 4th grade team currently where a kid can barely dribble the ball, but we have him bring the ball up the court at times during the game to gain some experience.

And to answer your question. No. It means you should work with them to become better athletes and teach them better man to man defense.

“If zone defenses are so bad then why did the West Virginia use it to get to the Final Four this year and why did the Celtics use it to get them to the finals?”

I don’t think article states that zone defenses are “bad” for higher level of basketball. They are just bad for the development of youth players.

I’ve used zone defenses at the high school level as well. I still believe that man defense should be a precursor for zone defenses, because if you can’t play man, you’ll never be able to play a great zone. Jim Boeheim of Syracuse will tell you the same thing.

Check out this video from Bob Bigelow. He has studied youth sports and youth basketball for the last 20 years and he's a world-leading authority on the subject. His focus is on coaching youth basketball the RIGHT WAY.

http://www.youtube.com/user/BreakthroughBBall#p/a/u/0/uy6LTXtz-60

Roger,

I can see where you're coming from. You bring up valid considerations. Keep in mind this articles is written for youth teams (in the 5 to 13 year old range), not varsity, college, or pro.

Let me ask you a couple questions...

When your youth team plays against zone where do most of your shots come from? I'm sure we can all agree that at least 50-75% of your shots will come from the outside (near the 3-pt line). We've all seen it. You just see a couple teams packing things in on defense and a bunch of offensive players horking the ball up from all over the place.

Have you ever seen a 10 year old that can shoot a 3 point shot with PROPER form and mechanics? I have never seen a kid that can shoot from the outside with proper mechanics. They are not strong enough. So to get the ball all the way there, they must "chuck" or "sling" the ball there.

Do you really think it's good for your young team’s development to stand around the perimeter and chuck up a bunch of outside shots using bad form? The kids just aren't strong enough to shoot from deep yet. And many times these "bad" mechanics stick with them for life. Not to mention, what are you really learning about offense? Not much. There is usually little movement, few plays to the basket, and kids aren't learning "how to play" on offense.

I completely agree with you about keeping players involved. That's important. But teaching them man to man help is not hard. I have done it and so have thousands of other youth coaches. You only need to teach these young gets two things...

- how to guard the ball
- how to help when you're not guarding the ball (you just teach them to sag off and when needed help out to stop the ball).

Just practice those two things and they will be able to do it. It's not that hard and doesn't take that much time. Just practice for a few minutes each day, remind them to help during practice, and they will get it (at least good enough to not get demoralized).

This is all about doing what is best for the young kids development. It's very rare (maybe 1 out of 100) for a high school or college coach say you should teach young kids zone first. And 99 out of 100 coaches that really know man to man defense, will tell you it's much more difficult to teach good man to man defense to a team that has just played zone in the past. Sorry, after working with thousands of coaches, I just don't hear it the other way around.

It's not like this is a life or death decision. We're just trying to teach coaches what is best for the development of their players. And I have yet to hear a really good argument that you should teach zone defense to kids. We talk to coaches and study this stuff for a living, and all indications, and everything we have learned tell us that (assuming you teach it properly) man to man defense is BETTER for a young basketball players development.