Coaching 9-10 yr olds this season, we've spent 2 seasons building our 7-8 yr olds and have a solid core of players. Concepts and our basic offensive structure are not a problem with the 1st string, the 2s learn a position(role) and can hold their own while in their comfort zone. We've had success 2 seasons with winning records, 2nd and 3rd place in league (no postseason) But our kryptonite is our press break. I understand at this age the press is difficult but in our area its no way to avoid it.

Here is my problem and dilemma, i would love to think that the 10 mins of ball handling drills we do at the beginning of each practice is enough to allow my PG to break a press alone but i know that is not gonna happen. I need a Press Break that works both against M2M and any zone/trap press.

Like I said in the past we preached ball handling and great passing with no structure. Basically screen for the PG to receive the inbound and clear out. Works at HS and college level but at the Youth level it becomes an open court dribble fest where we turn the ball over in the back court or play offense like the ball is on fire. My job as their coach is to put them in the best position to succeed and I haven't done that in the past. New day, new coach, any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated

Coach - Here are a few thoughts...

- With our 9-10 year olds, at least 50% of our practice is on ballhandling or some form of it. Not sure if 10 minutes is enough... just a thought... I'm not being critical as I'm sure your practices do many other things. Keep in mind, we do a lot of multi purpose drills that incorporate pieces of our offense, dribbling, passing, finishing, etc. So it's not like we're standing there dribbling for 45 minutes. :)

- If you're not already, I definitely recommend competitive dribbling drills. We do some form of 1v1 or 1v2 every practice with your young kids... and it pays huge dividends. 1v1, 1v1 with left only, 1v1 advancement, high five 1v1, half court attack around cones 1v1, 1v2, 1v2 with random traps, etc. Here are a couple links (the last one will definitely help solve the press break issues):
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/drills/1on1-grid-drill.html
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/drills/high-five-one-on-one.html
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/play.asp?id=66

- We don't have a press break for youth teams, we just spend a ton of time on ballhandling (all our players can now beat double teams with their dribble and then pass out of it) and maintaining good spacing. However the zone and man presses we see are not very good. We'll see if they are better this year and if we need a press break. I'm not sure we'll ever need one, but we'll see.

- My hope is that by simply emphasizing the same spacing concepts as our half court offense, that I won't have to implement a formal press breaker. But if we do a press breaker, it will be a simple 2-1-2 that is based on spacing and angles. Here's an old video that explains it.
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/offense/press-breaker.html

I should also mention, that our youth player stay calm when they get pressed. They act the same whether it's half or full court defense. I'm guessing this is because they do 1v1 full court pressure or 1v2 type of full court pressure in every practice. Getting pressured is normal for them. We also play a lot of full court no dribble advancement as passing, spacing, and decision making drills.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have more questions and how things go this season.

Great advice and thank you for the response.

We've used 1v1 and 3v3 the past 2 seasons alot during practices just because of our roster size. Never had a team with more than 8 players. Great for game time for your players but a full 5v5 look usually doesnt happen unless some older player are in the gym early.

I love the concept of just using our half court offense and using our same rules for spacing and movement.