Joe: in the words of the great Mr. Spock of Vulcan, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Coach Mac

"Beam me up Scotty"

Thanks for the advice coaches. It is encouraging and helps to understand why I should stick with our m2m d strategy! The positive about playing these teams/coaches who take on a totally different view, is that it is making our team better players on and off the court! Thankfully my parents are on board with this too! I am one of those inexperienced volunteer coaches for a very small Christian school trying to get a sports program started. This is our second basketball season. I am so very proud of the attitudes of my players....they get how blessed we are to even have a team....and this attitude carries on the floor. We had a great victory last night! We beat the press and found the holes in the zone. It wasn't easy, but my girls "got it" last night. As all of you advised, we just kept on stressing "passing" to beat the press, and being patient " on offense. We even put on the full court press in the last 2 mintues to try to keep our three point lead. The girls liked giving their opponents a taste of their own....but fully understood why and when we put the full press on. To see the smiles on my girls' faces after winning against a team, that beat us 3 weeks ago by 20+ points, was heartwarming, not to metnion just flat out exciting! Thanks for the 3 on 4 drill, we will do that in practice tonight. To answer a couple of your questions, most presses have been zone presses (lots of trapping), opponent's zone D has been 2 -1 2 or 2-3 zone. Our offense has mostly been a 1-3-1. Maybe, I should try 1-4???
Thanks again!!!

Congratulations.... great job!!! Everyone must have been very excitied..... makes everything you do and believe in worth while. THIS will only help the kids to believe in your philosophy more now.

Funny you pressed them... someone once said " a team that presses doesn't like to be pressed. "

Run your press offense every day for at least 10-15 minutes and your kids will smile the next time they see someone pressing you. I found that out the hard way early in my varsity coaching career.

I like the 1-3-1 vs those zones... and just tell your girls.. go where they aint! Be in a passing lane... be able to see the ball without a defender being between you and the ball...

Good luck and keep up the good work.

Thank you....I will implement your advice and we will keep working hard!

Coach P: don't you just love it when everything comes together, I have seen those smiles on the faces of kids all over the world. Its that "Oh I get it now smile". One last thing, teams that love to press, hate to be pressed. Congrats Coach well done Coach Mac

Well it certainly aint the kids. :) It is always the "adults" that mess things up.

Unfortunately, these days "youth sports" is all about profit. Just look at the proliferation of "training centers" and "travel" or "elite" teams. To tryout for a team may cost $25. 100 kids show up, that's a quick $2500. Parents spending thousands of dollars for "little Johnny" the psudo professional on lessons, camps, equipment, uniforms, etc. Can't have parents coach -- no way -- my boy gets "professional" coaching. Start them at 5 and keep them until they are 18 -- that's 13 years to pick their pockets for "the dream." Heck, Little Leauge televises not only their "world series" but the "regionals." As a parent, it is easy to get caught up in it. We are off our rockers. Sorry about the rant. Good luck.

Ahhh... another ranter :-)

I'm always going off on a tangent... here we are venting about all of this junk and were really supposed to be helping the other coaches and the kids that are on this forum.

Jeff - Joe,

Maybe you should open another subject so the kids don't have to see us ragging about this... although, at least they will see that we are fighting for them!

Maybe for the elite players that works golfman - but for the average kid that is just trying to have some fun, learn the game and get better- THEY ARE ALL WET! That's who we are fighting for, the kids that are trying to work at their game, get better and make it to the next level, and maybe play in college some day.

Hi guys
I am a new comer to the sport of basketball. I am currently teaching in the middle east, where volleyball and basketball as well as soccer are played. As a South African rugby ,soccer and cricket are sports I am familiar with.
Why are you so hell bent on kids not playing/ using the pressing game? I have started playing m2m in our middle school section as thr kids enjoy it, they feel envolved. We press from grade 9 upwards, and the kids enjoy this.....especially when it resulys in a turn over. As for development, our kids are having to improve their ball handling in order to beat our own press in practise sessions.....so what am I doing wrong that is not good for our kids development as basketball players????

Seriously, as I have only been coaching the game for 3 full years.....and learning rapidly...as most of the coaches out here are American with basketball backgrounds.

Look forward to your input.