I am coaching 4,5,6 grade girls this season. And one 3rd grader (my daughter).

I have always preferred to run an open post motion offense (pass and cut).

I've had 4th grade and below up to this point. Eventually the kids picked things up and the spacing was there, with the occasional pass and cut. I'm thinking of introducing a 3 out, 2 in set at first, with the foundations of motion. Then eventually getting them into a true pass and cut offense.

My thoughts (bear with me)
- the offense will initiate with two players and in each low post. the "guards" will cross each other to get a screen from the opposite post and come out on the opposite wing. (start on right block, start a path the the left wing, get a screen from the left block and receive pass on left wing)
- when the pass is received, the post player on that side will then come up and set a ballscreen at the wing, allowing the wing player to drive to the basket for a layup.

We'll work on passing and cutting all season and I want that to be our true foundation at some point, but I think if the girls can grasp the screen game early it will give them some early success and confidence. Also, the positions could all be interchangeable, so we won't be hiding a lesser player at post and using them as an automatic screen setter. I don't coach like that. Now I'll be able to get a lesser player open for a pass and let her build some confidence by getting to the basket for a score.

Also, the reason for the screen from the block instead of using v-cuts/L-cuts is that I just haven't seen much success at the youth level with the cuts.

Lastly, one other compliment to this base offense would be a simple play I call CROSS. In this case, once the wing catches the pass, the two post players switch or CROSS, with the opposite block flashing to ballside for an open pass, dropstep and layup.

Thoughts?

IF I were you I would keep this as simple as you can with this age group..... continue with the Open Post Pass and Cut series.... you can always add a screen away to this to "spice it up."

The more they have to THINK the slower rheir feet get.

JMO of course.

If your goal is to ultimately run a 5 out motion, my only concern would be the two posts. Since their primary job in the 3-2 will be setting screens and working lower, would they be able to transition into the 5 out open post? If it starts working for you, the temptation to leave your taller girls down low will be stronger.

Even at the 8th grade competitive level I run a 5 out motion. Simply because it gives all my players a chance to pass, dribble, cut, and screen. I have a few big guys too and they're getting better up top because of that offense. My tendency was always to stick my bigs on the blocks and work from there. I like the 3-2 motion, but only after my players have a good handle on the 5 out.

My only questions would be is that too much? Is that too much to remember? I'm sure they could remember those plays and options.. but how much time would you have to spend getting them to remember, versus spending time on other things like fundamentals.

Lots of ways to go about things. For me, start with cutting. Once get good at cutting, I introduce pass and screen away option. Keep it simple and give them freedom to play while maintaining spacing (no prescribed cuts or plays). That's just me.

I have always found the simpler the better. The few plays and things to remember, the better.

We get 2 hours of practice time each week. First game is Dec 8. In my opinion, working on setting screens for each other and helping them discover that this is a viable way to help a teammate get open and get a good pass will help us early on in the season.

I definitely work on fundamentals for the majority of practice. Whatever our base offense is, I find a way to work drills into practice that stress fundamentals, but also have a touch of the actual offense in them. If we are a pass and cut offense then our layup drills are more give and go drills instead of the traditional two line layups.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I've had very minimal success with young players trying to use a v-cut to get open on the wing. I think it has a lot to do with the practice time allotted and the fact that this is an open rec league, so I'm not dealing strictly with select, talented players. We've got to "grow our own talent" in a lot of cases.

We'll probably always stress motion principles, but I want something else in the toolbox for when our wings aren't getting open, etc.

You could have your wings go lower towards the block... then come up the lane and break out any time they want to... that would be anywhere from the block to the elbow. As they come up the lane, they freeze the defender and then make their break.

We called those L cuts.

I ended up tweaking this a little bit. Our offense begins with the point guard brining the ball up the court and everybody else in a Box set at the elbows and low blocks. Once the PG gets a few dribbles across halfcourt, the elbows pop out to the wing to receive the pass. The low block players also pop out to the short corner. From this we look to run a give and go to the PG. If it's not open, the low block player comes to set a ballscreen for the player on the wing. PG just replaces herself back at the top for now. As we get later into the season, I might begin to work on the truer Motion movements with the opposite side wing replacing the PG etc.

This has worked well and the girls seem to understand it well. Our Inbounds plays also begin from the Box set, so I like the consistency of everything we do offensively beginning from the same setup.

We won our season opener on Saturday by a count of 32-8. It was 14-0 at one point and 20-2 at halftime. Our best player led the way with about 14 points and 3 others chipped in with 6 each. We played dynamite defense and our passing was pretty good. I was very pleased. We'll need to work on getting all 5 on the court to crash the boards, but I like what we have. 4 out of our 8 scored in the first game, so we only need 4 more to score for everybody to get in the books this season. We even had some really nice fast break offense, passing the ball ahead of the pack and getting good shots. We have done a fullcourt 3 on 2, 2 on 1 drill in practice and I think this helped tremendously.

At our next team practice, I may have a team scrimmage where the only time a team will actually get points is when they secure a rebound. This should help reinforce the importance of getting to the glass!

Hi guys!
I'm back again after a year hiatus to ask more questions!
Last year my team was in the 10UB league, this year we have moved up to the 12UB division and when the boys age up, the teams are shuffled and usually the coaches get new players. So this year with the exception of my son and one player (both pretty experienced) my team is all new. I have two very small boys that have limited arm strength and two that have either no or extremely limited organized basketball experience. I have tried to teach them a few plays and various options for passing to other teammates if option 1,2,3,4, etc is not available. Up to now, we've had little success with the set plays so I've started, last week to introduce them to the simple motion offense concepts.
After the long-winded intro..my question, from a rec league coach's standpoint, how do I tell them when to shoot the ball? Most are still very hesitant to shoot and either get trapped and lose the ball or have their pass stolen.

Thanks!

Mark

Hi Mark -

If this were my team ( and I had a few that weren't really good ball handlers/passers ) I would make this as simple as possible for them. A 5 out . pass and cut motion offense and fill the spots. There is an old saying.... IF you have to think too much your feet get slow! So make it easy for them.

As for encouraging them to shoot, tell them to shoot the ball when they are open in their range / areas where they can score from. better to shoot the ball and miss than turn it over with a bad pass or being trapped.

I like this from Joe in another thread:



Explain what a "good shot" looks like. Like Coach Sar mentioned, a shot they can comfortably make within their range. The other thing I've found is you'll get some kids who love to shoot and others who don't. Usually the kids that love to shoot could care less how many they miss, while the kids that don't shoot as much worry too much about missing. Encourage your kids in practice and games when they miss a "good shot". If it hits the back of the rim or is pretty close to going in, tell them it was a good shot.

Look up Michael Jordan stats on how many shots he took and how many made. I've used that with my kids before, they really need a reference point on how many shots these NBA guys fire up to make 50%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc Kind of cheesy, but for kids, they'll get the point.