I'm wondering what everyone's preference is and why?

Depends on age level, situations, personnel, etc. If I'm playing against maybe freshman that maybe aren't as skilled, we'll force them to dribble with their weak hand. Causes the opponent all kinds of trouble. If a kid is good with dribbling both hands but only good at finishing to his right, then he gets forced to the left. If the opponent is really skilled with both hands, then this doesn't work as well and maybe we force them always to the left side of the floor where they aren't used to initiating or running their offense. If the opponent has a dribble drive motion based on driving to the middle, let's take the middle away and take them out of what they want to do.

If we play behind the post defensively, I probably won't force baseline because it's harder for the bigs to get around and help. I think it all depends on a lot of factors and there isn't necessarily a best way.

What about when you're building your m2m in junior high? I agree with forcing to weaknesses, but you needa foundation base for younger kids & the summer when you have no scouting reports.

I teach straight up with younger kids and just try to focus on good footwork, developing footspeed and so on. We don't usually worry about forcing one way or another. Although if you wanted you can watch the opponent warm up before the game and figure out if they are right handed or not. Most players you'll force to the left. If kids can play straight up D and get good at it, you can add the option to force one direction at a later time. That's my opinion. Stay between your man and the basket. Advanced stuff can come later, maybe not even until high school.

My philoaophy is to get the ball off the center line of the floor so your help side defense can be dictated early. JMO

We forced the ball to the free throw line extended (sideline ) I didn't care which way just as long as we were taking the ball to the side of the floor. I went with this because we were opening up to much allowing the dribbler a slight path to the basket.

This was varsity boys and we played on/up the line m2m.... we also played a 1-3-1 match up zone (which is more of a pack style D) and our philosophy there was to keep the ball in front of us, keep the ball out of the post and force them to beat us from the arc.

That was our first drill every year..... GUARD STEER.

That's how we do it at our school.
At girls varsity level (I assist coach) it depends on who we're playing but generally the hc likes to force middle for the help.
This is usually in our 2-3 zone.
At girls jr. high, where I'm the hc, I tell them to force baseline because I'd rather have the other team take shots behind the rim rather then in front. I also have a pretty good post player who knows how to help.


Just another opinion!

Here is one other thought -

We liked to force them to pass the ball to their best player, reason being, that every coach wants his team to run the offense, IF the ball is in his hands, he has to pass it and then do something to get himself open.

We didn't do this all the time but there were times that it worked well for us.... and IF you run into a team that doesn't handle the ball particularly well, this might be a good philosophy, JMO