7 Common Offensive Mistakes Youth Basketball Coaches Make

Coaching youth offense is hard. That said, many coaches make it harder than it needs to be..

Of course, this isn’t intentional. Almost all youth coaches are well intentioned. And yet, many act against the best interests of their team.

Below are 7 common mistakes youth coaches make when coaching offense. If you can avoid these, you’ll help your team finish the season strong!

• Too many plays

Yes, you can run plays. But you should only have a couple. They shouldn’t be the centerpiece of your offense. And they need to be simple. When it comes to plays, less is more!

• Offense is too complicated

It’s easy to think that running more complex actions will confuse the defense and make scoring easy for your team. Unfortunately, more complex actions usually end up confusing your team.

Keep it simple and get really good at the things that happen a lot - cutting, passing, driving and kicking, starting and stopping drives, layups, pivoting, etc.

• Players are too focused on “running the offense”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen players catch the ball wide open and not even look at the hoop. Instead, they are worried about “running the offense” and moving from spot to spot. 

Make sure that your players know the goal is to score! A good opportunity to do so always trumps being robotic and running to a predetermined offensive spot.

• Playing too slow

The truth is that no youth teams run half court offense at a really high level. If you’re relying on half court offense to be the engine of your team, you’re setting yourself up for struggle.

Practice and play more in transition. Those opportunities present themselves a lot at the youth level and often lead to higher quality shots. Get out and run whenever you can! And bonus, kids love playing at a fast pace!

• Ignoring skill development

If your players aren’t skilled, no offense will look good. And the truth is, most youth players are not especially skilled.

So, instead of spending a lot of time working on your offense, spend more time working on skills. If your players can dribble, pass, and shoot better, any offense will look better!

• Bad Spacing Issue 1 - Not enough space 

Coaching spacing is hard at every level. It’s especially hard at the youth level when many players are like magnets to the ball.

Make sure you emphasize spacing within your offense. When players clump together, there is no room to drive. Teach players how to properly space out to open up the court. 

And at all levels, spacing will get off as they run offense. So you must teach them how to respace as they are running offense..

• Bad Spacing Issue 2 - Too much space

But don’t spread out too much! Why? Because youth players can’t make long passes. If players are too far from each other, they don’t have good passing options. This often leads to turnovers.

You want to open double gaps for players to attack. However, once it’s clear that the player with the ball isn’t going to drive, you need to fill that gap to provide a ball movement option.

When In Doubt, Players > Plays

The best way to have a good offense is to have good players. That way they’ll be prepared to thrive in whatever their future coaches run.

If you focus on improving your players’ skills and IQ, you’ll get a couple benefits. You’ll develop players who:

• Get better throughout the year
• Have fun because they see themselves improving

And if you can accomplish those 2 things, you’ve done a great job!

For more tips and tools to create an effective offense for your youth team, check out The Youth Offensive System with Jim Huber.