Anyone think it's a good, or great, or a bad idea to have some man-to-man defense drills "without arms"? At least for youth players doing a 1-on-1 drilll, have the defender keep his hands behind his back or hold a towel in both hands behind his back while guarding a dribbler . . . all for the purpose of stressing he must play defense with quick feet and good body position and not try to defend the dribbler with his arms.

Yes. I used to do that quite a bit.

The last two seasons that I coached I have not done that as much.

Instead, I just set a rule that if you reached you did 5 push ups or some other minor disciplinary action. I may not do this with a team below 12 years old.

The reason I did that is that I wanted them to get trained not to reach even when their hands were available.

We would play 1 on 1 full court and I would always emphasize.

Stay balanced.
All feet - No reaching.
Stay between the man and the basket - Force wide.

I did this too.... but I feel like that the hands behind the back is not like how the game is played... even then towel.. JMO

I wanted my players to have one hand up and the other down looking for a crossover... THAT was the only steal or deflection that they were allowed to look for when we ran the 1 on 1 drills.

Used it when kids were younger for sure. I think it's a great way to show them the biggest asset on defense is their feet. Trust me, when they get to the older levels, the temptation to put their hands out to stop their guy will constantly be there. Anything you can do now to get them moving to beat their man to the spot is a good thing.