Its pretty tough to accomplish much when you don't have your entire team there... as soon as you get them all together, things should work out much better for you. They still should NOT allow any pressing at this age.... you can press and trap and WIN games, but what are you teaching those kids?
They are not ready to deal with this type of pressure.

One last question, I've looked for it, but have not found the specific rule in the NCAA handbook, is the in-bounder still allowed to run the baseline in certain circumstances?
* This is the easiest one to answer .... he can run the baseline after a made shot and usually the referee will let him know.

I would love to introduce a motion type offense but I'm struggling with how to introduce the concept and build upon it.
* If I were you I would run a simple open post motion... pass - cut - and replace the open area. Show them the 5 spots on the floor... maybe put an X down so they can understand / see what you are telling them.

One is where the player tossing the ball in, passes to a teammate down the baseline who has stepped out of bounds prior to receiving the pass, then that player moves through a series of screens to receive the pass moving down the floor.
* We also ran this, but can your player make the long throw or is this a short pass? We used to run a pick the picker play when we were trying to score.... but we did use that to get the ball inbounds at times when they were putting a lot of pressure on us. You can run a straight line play where the players split and 1 steps to the ball... this set up almost insures that they will play you m2m. Just a thought.

Great! thanks for all of your help and insight!

Mark

I don't know why it never crossed my mind before, but I am definitely going to use cones this season to identify the 5 spots on the floor when we start getting into our motion offense installation.

Thanks!

Yep, got that idea from my time coaching soccer this past year.

I tape numbers that I printed out to the cones to help them go to and remember the starting spots.

Also, I give them pinnies with the numbers on them to help them remember.

We had a practice scrimmage last week and the opposing coach was using a 1-3-1 zone...never have seen that in youth bball, usually 2-1-2 or 1-2-2.

The single defender out front threw my kids off some as we had been practicing based on two out front defenders.

So, I bought 5, 3 foot lengths of 2 inch PVC pipe and made some "defenders" and set them up in a 1-3-1 and had my kids run some high-pick and roll moves and also in a 2-1-2 configuration and had them practice their motion.

This Saturday (19th) is the first game...we'll see how they do in a game situation!

Two more practices left to polish them up. :-)

Mark

Good luck Marc and its pretty sad that they are teaching zones at with this age group.

Thanks!
In some ways I can see it, due to the limited number of players on a team and the structured substiution rules and kids getting tired as the game goes on.

I going to stick to m2m as much as possible, may go to some zone in special situations.

Mark