Offense

I am a first year varsity boys coach and am having a VERY difficult time deciding on an offense. Normally I would run a transition type offense but We are big and SLOW. I also think any type of free lance style would be too much for them to learn,

Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Coach - first question, how long have you been coaching and at what level (s)?

I coached 13 years at the middle school level before I went to the high school..... 1 year as the head coaches asst., 8 years as the head sophomore coach before I became the head varsity coach... so I had great chances to learn some offenses... a lot of them I learned the hard way.

bpederson21 wrote:I am a first year varsity boys coach and am having a VERY difficult time deciding on an offense. Normally I would run a transition type offense but We are big and SLOW. I also think any type of free lance style would be too much for them to learn,

Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated.

My first thought would be for you to run the Flex offense. I loved the Open Post offense but you might not be quick enough? Do some research on the Flex and let me know what you think.

Good luck in your first year. Make it fun for you and the kids.

FLEX by Don Kelbick
http://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/offense/flex-offense.html

I have been coaching ms and jv boys for 10 years. I have used the shuffle, wheel and flex in the past with success. I have also used a transition offense with much success. But since we are so big and slow, I would like to pound the post and was hoping the would be an offense that would help to do that

You could run a 4 out 1 in - or a pick the picker with your bigs..... I wish I could remember how I did it... but we were successful with it. 2 post players and a high post - screen across and down screen for the screener who comes to the top.... FT line extended.

Jeff, Joe, Rob ????

Coach - As you know, the flex is very effective for pounding the ball down low. But if you don't have enough players that can handle the ball when catching on the perimeter, that can be a problem when teams apply a little man to man pressure.

You can solve that problem by bumping you bigs that can't handle on the perimeter. Or always have big screen down right away when they find themselves on the top. But if you have 3 big kids that can't catch outside, there's not much you can do with the flex.

I usually run a motion offense and adjust it to work whether I have slow kids, short, mentally slow, fast, tall, etc. You just adjust your motion rules, role definitions, and emphasis to work with your personnel.

So if I have a bunch of bigs and want to pound down low, I might run a 4 out 1 in, 3 out 2 in, or maybe even 2 out 3 in. And I would emphasize looking inside, screens inside, high low action, flash cuts, etc.

If you teach kids how to get open in the post and how to feed the post, you just keep spacing, keep them moving, setting screens, and everything will work out.

Regarding a continuity offense that would be good for this, I'm having trouble thinking of anything. I have seen some teams run variations of the UCLA offenses to keep the bigs in the high and low posts. That might be something to look into.

Good ideas Jeff... one other thing we did was to utilize backscreens to help get our bigs open... and alleviate pressure.
Just a thought.

http://www.jes-basketball.com/animated/poffensemanpurplepickthepicker.html


http://www.campofchamps.com/Chicken_Soop/oklahoma_box_continuity_off.html

I am thinking I might just stick to the what I know best and use the flex. Also add some set post plays as well.

Great info, thank you!!

I'm a big believer in coaching what you know. But still learning new things.

If you know Flex, I would stick with Flex initially, while studying other offenses and always keeping an open mind. Who knows, once you see your guys play you might realize they can handle something else. And if you've become familiar enough with that something else to effectively and efficiently teach it to them, then have at it.

And you might be surprised. Let them scrimmage a little, free flow and see what happens. An open, as you described "free lance" game might turn out to be good for them.