First of all, this is a great site. I have ordered a few of the e books and the suggested Bob Bigelow DVD set and they all have been awesome.

I am coaching 8 year old girls with a mix of experienced and non experienced players. We are playing on 10 foot rims which I think is a mistake but I don't make the rules. I feel as if I am fairly prepared for the season except for an offense.

What kind do you suggest? The 5 out motion sounds fairly simply to explain or run.

Should I just stick with a few set plays and run them well?

Thanks

If this were me I would run the 5 out motionm pass and cut. Forget about the plays for now... if you run plays, thats what they are going to learn, HOW TO RUN A PLAY... not play basketball. Hopefully you are going to play m2m D too... or should I say, GIRL to GIRL :-)

Be patient and make sure they are having fun.

What is the saying.... "in order for girls to play well ( in this case practice too ) they have to be happy" -- " In order for boys to be happy, they have to play well."

I too am coaching 8 year old girls (my daughters team). We run a pass and cut type of offense with everyone on the perimeter. However we play mostly 3on3 and 4on4 so I modified the offense a tad. Let me know if you want me to email it.

Here's the standard 5 out pass and cut.
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/offense/cutters.html

I can't imagine trying to teach "plays" to these 8 year olds. It would take a very long time to get them to learn the sequences and I'm sure they would still screw it up even if we spent a lot of time on it. We don't even have enough time to work on skills.

Our major focus is:
- man to man defense / developing agility
- ballhandling skills (passing and dribbling)
- footwork
- and now we're just starting to work on lay ups and form shooting a little bit

Thanks so much for your help.

My e-mail is steveleard@verizon.net.

I am coaching my daughter too. We play 5 on 5, full court.

I have a Fourth Grade girls team. It's only my second year of coaching. I have one very good player, one emerging player and the rest are fairly new to the sport. We've been working on the Five Out since the beginning of the season. The girls work through the drills well. I even break pieces down into two-player give and go, V-cuts, ball tough, etc. However, whenever we play or scrimmage 5-on-5, they don't execute. Often, the PG makes the pass to the wing, then the wing dribbles down to the corner or freezes and the players on the opposite side move past the paint. They never pass to an open player. When they get pressure, they "cocoon" the ball. No one screens and no one cuts. Everyone dribbles with their right hand looking down no matter how many drills we do. It's a big mess.

Is there a way to fix it or do I just focus on teaching the girls to attack the basket once they get the ball?

Try some 3 on 3 or 4 on 4 scrimmaging with your own team. Pass and cut, fill up to the open spot. However, they are not allowed to dribble. This will get them really moving and running the offense. I've been doing this with my 4th grade girls travel team for the past month and they are really starting to share the ball better and understand the spacing theory of offense. Yesterday was our best offensive output of the season since the season opener. We lost by two, but we looked a lot smoother on offense, got to the foul line a lot and had open looks. They just didn't fall.

As for the tendency to dribble with the right hand and head for the corner, they are young still so it's going to take some time to break them of this. I coached a 2nd grade boy a few years ago that always did this. Catch the ball on the left wing, head down, right hand dribble around the perimeter to the right corner. I now have him again this season as a 6th grader and he's still got a little bit of that habit! LOL

The "cocooning" of the ball (I like that term) is another one that just takes time to break. I've been running a 4 out motion with the emphasis on attack and react or pass and cut. When we get stopped on a drive, we are taught to reverse pivot and kick out the the wing player who is sliding up to fill the open area. We open practice with ballhandling drills. Two lines of girls. The lines facing each other. They dribble at each other to meet in the middle, jumpstop, reverse pivot and pass to the next girl in the line they just dribbled from. We go through that for a good 3-4 minutes, fast paced. (I hope the explanation is clear).

(sidenote, i'm tinkering with going back to the 5 out motion to further open the paint.)

In my opinion given these kids have developing skills (that is an understatement), it's better to NOT play in any league or organized setting but rather teach the kids how to play and then compete internally. These youngster's playing HABITS will be formed pretty quickly. They will do what comes naturally to them on the court, especially when pressured. There is no better training than sheer repetition of the game's basic skills, properly demonstrated by the coach. Many coaches themselves can NOT do this, so it is important to understand what these skills are and then try to teach them to the best of your ability. Forget the plays. Teach them how to play.

Newsletter worth the 20 minutes: League Fatigue. http://www.mybasketballbasics.com/bb/newsletter/leaguefatigue

Thanks for the advice.