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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2013, 10:24 

Posts: 15
First I must say that I love the site and breakthrough basketball has really given me a vast amount of knowledge as I try to coach basketball the best way possible. I recently ordered the competitive drills DVD and will be ordering the match-up zone DVD by Don Kelbick. I will be coaching an AAU 8th grade boys team this winter and am preparing now. I will keep things as simple as possible and concentrate on being good at 3 things. 1. Dribble drive motion offense(4 out 1 in) 2. M2M defense. 3. Rebounding. The team will consist of 8-9 players and I will go after guard oriented players and a couple of bigs who can run the floor and finish decently. I have been going over so much information the last few months and preparing a practice plan. I do have a few questions and would appreciate any advice on the following:

1. How many set plays for each offense is sufficient? Should I have 3-4 for our motion & the same for our zone?
2. Should I have 2 plays for baseline out of bounds man and 2 for zone or should I use 1 set for each with an option to confuse the defense later during the game?
3. I would like to spend most of my practices working on skills such as ballhandling, finishing, rebounding, m2m defense and our primary offense. How much time should I devote to my zone offense or match-up zone defense or press breaker?
4.When is it best to change my defense? Should I do it after a free throw or timeout and if I press should I fall back into my match-up zone or M2M?

I know these are a lot of questions but I know there is great advice from the coaches on this site. Again I appreciate anything you can give me to help these kids get better on and off the court.


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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2013, 11:03 
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Coach K -

A FEW questions? LOL

A lot of this all depends on how much practice time you have. I ran m2m and a match up zone also.... but I had boys varsity. There are 8th graders.

Coach K wrote:
3. I would like to spend most of my practices working on skills such as ballhandling, finishing, rebounding, m2m defense and our primary offense. How much time should I devote to my zone offense or match-up zone defense or press breaker?


I think that spending most of your time on fundamentals is the best way to go. Lets talk defense.... You can play pressure m2m and to change things up, play a sagging style. THIS is what I would do....Teaching a match up zone takes time, time that you can use for other things. I practiced my Press Offense 10 minutes a day, the last thing I wanted was to get beat because we couldn't handle a little pressure. JMO

Coach K wrote:
1. Dribble drive motion offense(4 out 1 in

Why don't you run this against zones too? I never did that but I had 2 hours a day, 5 days a week to work with my players.... IF your kids are fundamentaly sound, they should be able to handle this. I think it was Jeff Haefner that said he never practiced a zone offense and he was very successful this year. THIS will give you more time to work on other things.

Coach K wrote:
1. How many set plays for each offense is sufficient? Should I have 3-4 for our motion & the same for our zone?

That is a lot of sets for an 8th grade team..... work on a few sets that you can run vs man or zone... check out Pin Ball on the net.... I ran this alot.......another thing I did was to turn the play over and run it from the top. Think about this.... you will need a sideline inbounds play too, so you don't want to put them on overload. I would start with 2 and 1 sideline... you can add 1 & 1 as the season progresses.... depending on the BB IQ of your players. Just make sure that you have several options.

Coach K wrote:
4.When is it best to change my defense? Should I do it after a free throw or timeout and if I press should I fall back into my match-up zone or M2M?

Time outs and free throws are the best times... or a long dead ball situation.... the last thing you want to do is to have 4 kids play m2m and 1 playing something else.... another reason I would stick to m2m with this group..... pressure/deny and pack for the other....the pack m2m gives you the same look as a match up. JMO

These are just my opintions.... but using KISS is a sure fire way to limiting errors.


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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2013, 11:23 

Posts: 15
LOL. I know my "few" is a tad bit heavy. Thank goodness I'm not a bartender. Great Advice Coach Sar. Thank you for the quick response. Wow. I never thought about running my dribble drive motion offense against a zone. I think I can find some overload principles with the 4 out and 1 in offense and bring my 1 low post guy to the high post. Regarding the match-up zone that would require time but right now I would be looking at practicing at least twice a week for 2 hours a night. I will definitely look at your pin ball recommendation and your pack line m2m. I am taking notes about spending time on my press breaker and limiting my base line out of bounds. Excellent advice Coach Sar.


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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2013, 11:51 
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Stick with your m2m with that amount of practice time.... it takes hours to perfect the match up.... you have to many other things to deal with..... I think you have a good plan.... just limit your sets and use your time wisely.

Cut out the water breaks.... IF they need/want water, have them raise their hand.... IF you aren't teaching or they aren't in the drill, let them go... that can save you time that you can use for fundamentals and your other stuff.

Good luck, let me know what you think about pin ball or if you have any questions.... I would be glad to help you.
I put that in at one practice because I had a practice hero, we screened him three times... thus PIN BALL. The kids loved it and they named it. There are a lot of options and you can probably add a few yourself.


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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2013, 12:00 
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Location: Winter Garden, FL (Orlando suburb)
Here is information on the dribble drive zone offense:

http://www.coachesclipboard.net/DribbleDriveZoneOffense.html

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http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/kc/


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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2013, 13:50 
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Here is the information on the inbound play... PIN BALL

http://www.coachesclipboard.net/OBPlaysMore.html


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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2013, 14:09 

Posts: 900
Just finished two winter seasons coaching AAU 8th grade basketball. Have you coached AAU youth ball before? Asking simply to gain an understanding of what you've experienced so I don't throw out something you already know.

My suggestions:

M2M aggressive defense with active hands and body. I used a sagging M2M if we were getting beat on drives to the basket and it worked well. A strong defense at these levels can be the game changer.

I would develop some type of press, at least a 1/2 court. We used a 3-2 which worked well against weaker teams.

The pressure will be fierce, expect it. If nothing else this past winter, we learned how to break a press and do it well. Teams seem to know, especially at the lower levels (7th/8th), that applying some type of early pressure can get a nice lead going on the board. I would work on your press offense at least 10 min (as Sar said) per practice. We gave our kids different looks and made them beat the press (3-2, 2-1-2, M2M pressure etc.). If they know where to go and where to look, you'll be way ahead of the game.

I used 3 offensive sets, 5 out, 4 out 1 in, and a 1-3-1 against 2-3 zones. We had simple rules for each offense, so the players knew what their options were with and without the ball. Our 1-3-1 (1 down low ran short corner to short corner ballside) zone offense worked well against 2-3 zones, which seemed to be the most common zone.

We've been together a while, so the inbounds plays carried over from year to year with some tweaks. We had 3 under basket from a box formation and two from a stack formation. We had two against 2-3 zones. They were simple, the inbounder know first, second, and safety options on each play. Sideline plays we had two out of one formation.

Regarding when to switch defense or press, I have #'s that represent a M2M sagging M2M or one of our presses. I would call out a # as they were coming up the court on offense and everyone knew we switched on a made shot. So, I could call out our 1/2 court press as they were bringing the ball down. I liked the spontaneity of doing it that way. I also have a code word to cancel the press or defense and morph into the next one. If the 30's series was our 3-2 press, I'd call out 32 or 37, didn't matter it all meant the same thing. Not sure it made a huge difference, it just sounded cool, like I really knew what I was doing or something. The parents were impressed.

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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2013, 16:06 
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Coach K -

You're getting some good advice from these guys. Regarding your questions, I think you'll get different answers from almost every coach and there is not right or wrong way. Everybody has a different way of doing things. I'll give you the answer to how I did things... but it doesn't make my way right or wrong. I know they work because our freshman team went 19-0 against good competitions this year. But it's nothing magical I did. I think any coach could have won all those games with the players I was lucky enough to coach. They were just really good players that had size, speed, could shoot, drive and finish, pass, etc.

Quote:
1. How many set plays for each offense is sufficient? Should I have 3-4 for our motion & the same for our zone?


I toyed with a couple set plays in practice but ended up only using one play against man and zone:
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/playcreator/view.asp?id=59&type=play

Quote:
2. Should I have 2 plays for baseline out of bounds man and 2 for zone or should I use 1 set for each with an option to confuse the defense later during the game?


I used 3 BLOB plays all from the box set. Each play has a very small wrinkle when facing zone, but they started the same. Players rotated through the three plays to keep the opponent guessing. You can read about that here and see the three box I used (cross, up, and screen the screener).
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/plays/baseline-box-plays.html

I did spend a little more time on these plays because I think they pay off big dividends. It's like special teams in football. If you can defend inbounds plays and execute them on offense, it can be a 15 point swing in a game.

I made a couple adjustments on those box plays. On the upscreen, I had the ball side screener pop to perimeter and weakside guy roll to basket after screening. Got a few lay ups off that.

When facing zone... on cross screen, lower screener sealed center of zone and then high screener dropped in the big hole there. You either get an outside shot or a post shot. They can't guard both. One the up screen, I had the screener X into gaps after screening. On screen the screener I just told them to find open spots after screening.

Quote:
3. I would like to spend most of my practices working on skills such as ballhandling, finishing, rebounding, m2m defense and our primary offense. How much time should I devote to my zone offense or match-up zone defense or press breaker?


We had some experienced players this year but we didn't spend any time on zone offense and only taught man to man defense. Next year might call for a different approach. I also taught motion and ran a simple zone offense that was a simple adjustment to our motion.

Quote:
4.When is it best to change my defense? Should I do it after a free throw or timeout and if I press should I fall back into my match-up zone or M2M?


I have no idea. Never changed defenses before. :)

Again, your situation might call for something different and my way isn't better than anything else. Just works for me.

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http://www.BreakthroughBasketball.com


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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2013, 16:26 

Posts: 15
Great ideas Coach Rob. Thank you. I plan on using a 1-3-1 press but with the athletes I plan on having I want to play an aggressive m2m with on ball pressure full court. I have coached youth teams before. 5/6th & 7th grade girls and 5th grade boys. I coached for an AAU program that was not about skills or development just money so I left and coached my son who was playing on a 5th grade team. Had lots of success and for a first year team and won more games then we should by playing m2m with a heavy emphasis in practice on skill development. People could not believe we were a first year team in tournaments. However that program didn't last so I took the last 2 years off to watch my son play for an AAU program with his friends......."BIG MISTAKE" not only did he regress but for all the money the program cost....Over two thousand for the season. The costs didn't add up in development, wins or a good environment for kids to want to play basketball. During the season an owner of a new AAU program who was familiar with by coaching style asked me to coach a team this winter of 8th grade boys. I would have complete control on team size, practice times and the overall development of the team as a whole which is a blessing. I just want to do this right and give this group of kids skills to play in high school. Thanks Joe for that website information. I will be utilizing it. Coach Sar love that pin ball play. What do you think if I was able to practice 3 days a week do you think that would be adequate to install the match-up? With the team being only 8-9 players, i don't know if it makes sense to not have some type of zone or zone like alternative to the m2m. I do like the pack line idea a lot. Thanks everyone for the ideas.


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PostPosted: 04 Mar 2013, 18:43 
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Coach K -

I love the Match Up I used... a 1-3-1 - it was a hybrid of sorts. I did some playing around with it.... we played our 5 man on their post player m2m using m2m rules.. The other 4 were in a 4 man shell drill. Don Kelbick has a match up which looks good too.
Playing an aggressive m2m .... on/up the line.... and then sagging can make it look like a zone... ??

Coach K wrote:
Coach Sar love that pin ball play. What do you think if I was able to practice 3 days a week do you think that would be adequate to install the match-up? With the team being only 8-9 players, i don't know if it makes sense to not have some type of zone or zone like alternative to the m2m. I do like the pack line idea a lot.


My kids loved the pin ball play... a lot of options.... we ran that for years. 3 days a week could work for the match up... but you have to ask yourself... can they handle this? Will it confuse them? Would I be better running a m2m exclusively? Trust me, I am a firm believer that you need more than one defense... but I was coaching Varsity kids. IF you think your kids can handle this ( BB IQ wise) then go ahead and give it a try.... only you know your kids. Good luck with whatever you decide...... let us know how things are going, especially IF you decide on the match up.


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