I have 4-6 grade girls and one 3rd grader (my daughter).

I started out this season building towards a 5 out pass and cut motion offense. The girls would look good in practice, but come game time the offense was not running very well. In coaching my son the previous two seasons and trying to install the same offense, I found the same to be true. It's entirely possible that I just don't teach the offense that well. It always seemed that the pass to either wing was a difficult one to make at the youth level because of the inconsistent play of youth defenses.

3 of my players also play travel ball and they invited me to come to this past weekend's games. The older team runs a 4 out dribble drive offense. Our high school varsity coach did a clinic with our youth players where they ran through some of these drills. It's all based off what Coach Calipari does at Kentucky and did at Memphis.

At Monday's practice I decided to give it a shot. We spread the floor with our 1 and 2 up top, the 3 and 4 in each low corner and the 5 moves block to block. The first look is for the 1 or 2 to take their defender one on one and get to the basket. If they can't do this, then they dribble towards their corner and we execute a dribble handoff. The 3 or 4 then wraps around and attack the basket. We went through the scenarios where the 5's defender steps out to help on the drive and we make the easy pass to the block. We spent about 20-25 minutes on this, and did some dribble handoff and one on one attack drills beforehand.

In last night's game, our girls seemed to like running this offense better. For the most part they stayed spread out, the passing was really nice, and the dribble handoffs really created some open driving lanes. We even had one instance where the 2 was having trouble attacking and the 5 flashed up to the free throw line, got a pass, turned and attacked the basket. It looked really nice.

Does anybody else run this type of dribble drive offense?

I've never run this, but play against teams that do. I was asking how to defend against it on another thread and posted this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goxuRYNxw6c

I like the offense, seems simple to learn and effective. They have a few other short videos with the dribble drive you might want to check out.

I like this because it allows for a lot of freedom.

All season, the majority of our practice time has been spent focusing on offensive skills such as dribbling, attacking for layups, etc. We work on a few specific dribble moves like spins, crossovers, retreat and attack, so this seems to fit better into that mindset. And it seems pretty effective too. Heck, my 3rd grade daughter was able to take a dribble handoff and basically waltzed right into the lane for a layup.

The dribble drive motion is a popular offense. Lots of teams run it. I don't think it's all that important what you run, its HOW you run it. With that said, I don't think youth coaches should be running lots of set plays and getting kids to memorize sets. Give them some freedom to play, learn skills, learn how to get open, etc.

I think the 5 out cutters has some similarities to the DDM. In 5 out cutters you spread things out and end up getting lots of dribble drive and lanes to get to the basket. You're basically giving players simple rules to give them some structure, get player movement, get ball movement, and let them play. It's nice because things get spread out and players can make plays.

What ever you run, offensive just comes down to this...

1. Great spacing (players 15ft apart)
2. Player movement
3. Ball movement (ball reversals)
4. Getting the ball inside via post touches and/or dribble penetration
5. Skilled players that can drive, shoot, pass, move, post, cut, read screens, etc.

That's all an offense needs.

That sounds like it matches what my goal is with my players. I want everybody on the court to be a threat to score at all times. Whether it's through attacking with the basketball or moving without it. Spreading the floor this way has seemed to create more opportunities for us to be aggressive and get to the hoop. I think this type of "set" is what I will proceed with in the future.

I tell our two guards that bring the ball up the court that their first option in this is to actually be selfish for a few seconds and try to get their own basket. If they can't, then they get to rely on their teammates.

I've been blessed with some very talented, unselfish players this season. And they trust each other. Our best player is not afraid to give the ball up in transition because she knows her teammates can get the job done also.

When I use the 5-out with the middle school team that I coach, it can look like two completely different offenses. Based on the mentality I teach using Don Kelbick's Attack & Counter system, it can look like a dribble drive because we strongly encourage attacking the defense via the dribble like Jeff mentioned above. It can also like a passing game offense. That's what I love about the motion. It's so adaptable.

For example, if I see that our kids jacking up shots too quickly and they're not high quality shots, I might say "8 passes". This means 8 passes before somebody shoots a jump shot. If a lay up presents itself before the 8 passes, take it. This can be any number of passes.

Another scenario I might go over with the kids is "no dribble". If the kids are over-dribbling and the offense is getting stagnant, I'll take it the dribble away. The only time I want them to dribble is to avoid a travel to finish a lay up.

Another one is "2 dribbles". This means they can only take 2 dribbles. If they dribble, they better be attacking the basket or creating a better passing angle.