Here’s what we did with our 3rd grade boys’ team this year. You might be surprised that it’s very similar to how we coached our 10th grade team.
Overview and Results
For the sake of transparency, I’ll start by admitting our 3rd grade team is stacked. Due to some luck and unique circumstances, we have a roster of 10 very good players! Anyone could have coached this team and they would win a lot of games. We had an aggressive and athletic group of good players.
We started the season winning most of our games fairly easily. So we started playing up against 4th grade teams and also signed up for a few tough tournaments with other stacked teams.
From a winning standpoint, we won all our games except four of them. Two of those losses came from 4th grade teams. We won 3 of the 6 tournaments we participated in.
This might sound crazy but I was worried that we might win all our games. I wanted to make sure we lost several games. Winning all your games in 3rd grade just doesn’t make sense to me… from a mental standpoint, where do you go from there? I’d rather keep them hungry and peak in high school instead of 3rd grade.
Our Progress and Improvements
I think the biggest improvements came from players just learning the game. Our skills certainly improved but these kids came in skilled (relatively speaking). I had worked with them all (except one) the previous year or two. And all of them (except my son) had experience playing 5on5 basketball.
The beginning of the season was almost all fast break and 1v1. Very little “team basketball”. By the end of the season, players realized that didn’t work against the good teams. Instead they had to share (pass) the ball and learn how to get open.
We made a lot of progress in regards to ball movement, decision making, and overall skills.
Last but not least… they learned a lot of lessons about listening skills, being resilient, and sportsmanship. Because of that, I think the season was a success.
Motion Offense
We ran a 5 out motion offense giving players quite a bit of freedom. Our primary rule and emphasis was:
We want spacing and ball movement until we get a good shot. Get all the rebounds.
I can’t tell you how many times we referenced that statement. This group was very 1v1 oriented… so learning shot selection, decision making, and passing to open teammates was our biggest challenge with this group.
Here are some additional guidelines for our motion:
- Space to the 3pt line (perimeter spots – 15-17ft apart)
- If the ball is dribbled at you on perimeter, back cut.
- 3 options when you pass – go left, forward, or right. (In other words: go toward the ball for a ball screen, or to the basket for a basket cut, or away from the ball to set an away screen).
- Always fill to the ball on the perimeter (replace open spots).
- Get open when one pass away (pop out, back cut, screen away, or ball screen). Read the defense (ex: if defense sags… pop out).
- Use weakside flash cuts when defenders cheat up or turn head (lose vision of you).
- Look to reverse the ball when you catch at the top.
We practiced away screens but rarely used them in games. We also taught ball screens mostly because we had to defend them in almost every possession of the season. So we figured we might also well work on both the defensive and offensive aspects of ball screens at the same time.
For the most part, players basket cut and use the dribble drive. Which was totally fine. We just wanted player movement, ball movement, and spacing.
To learn more about motion offense, I recommend the Don Kelbick Motion Offense DVDs.
Zone Offense
We just ran our 5 out motion and encouraged ball movement. I wanted our players to stop in the middle (in a gap) when cutting. However it was tough to get them to do that during a game. For the most part we just let them play. With some time, they started figuring out the ball reversal gave them better shots.
Inbounds Plays
To start the season, we just told players to get in a box…. then sets screens and get open. I didn’t want to spend practice time trying to get them to memorize plays. There are way too many other skills and fundamentals to work on — and I didn’t want to take time away from that.
We did eventually show players this screen the screener play — mostly because so many other teams hurt us on their scripted inbounds plays that I wanted us to practice against it defensively. But I don’t think we ever ran that play correctly in a game.
At this age, it’s probably easiest to put them in a box and tell them to either upscreen or cross screen. The time required to teach a more complicated screen the screener play just is not worth it. If you have to spend more than a couple minutes on it, I don’t think it’s worth it.
Set Plays
We just had one play called low. Barely spent any time practicing. The play was used in end of quarter / end of game situations.
Press Breaker
We ran this 1 up press breaker. We never practiced this but did implement it during time outs in a tournament. I just shouted out instructions and told players where to line up during the game. Presses never hurt us.
Defense
We played all man to man defense. This group had picked up a lot of bad habits playing rec basketball. They reached, lunged, gambled, and so on. We had to spend a lot of time teaching them how to guard the ball and CONTAIN it.
We just focused on the basics of on ball defense, one pass away, and help side. And just like all young teams, getting all 5 players to know who they are guarding is half the battle. So we wanted them communicating every time they touch the ball.
We just taught fundamental aspects of man to man defense.
Emphasizing Core Values
To me this is the most important thing for coaches. We spent a ton of time teaching and emphasizing core values and developing character skills.
Here’s what we emphasized all season:
- Listen With Your Eyes and Ears
- Help Others
- Be Resilient and Stay Positive
- Sportsmanship
We also emphasized “effort”. But they played so hard anyway… we didn’t have to talk about it too often.
Here’s a print out I gave to all the players on the team after our last game. I briefly talked about the values, encouraged them to apply these lessons to other sports/teachers/parents, and told them to hang this in their room.
We tried to be sticklers for the listening skills — and being respectful of coaches, refs, and players. Whether it was a stern talk, doing push ups, or sitting out… we tried to make sure they listened and respectfully kept their eyes on the coach.
Drills We Used
Here are the drills we used most frequently:
Basic lay ups (right and left side)
Form shooting away from basket
Post footwork. To get lots of reps, everyone had a ball and we usually did spin outs. I taught same footwork shown in the Attack & Counter DVDs.
1v1 full court
1v2 advancement
Beatem to the left. Set up cones where dribbler has to speed dribble (race) with weak hand and turn the corner to beat the defender.
Half court scrimmage – no dribble, 1 dribble, and 2 dribble limit
Keep away passing – 20 in a row
Screen away shooting. Just taking a piece of our offense and turning into skill building drill. Also ran a ball screen shooting drill.
2v2, 3v3, 4v4 with various rules and emphasis — ball screen attacks, screen away, post ups, full court rugby, no dribble, etc, etc. Many of these drills can be found here.
Defensive shell drill. Details of shell drill and teaching progressions can be found here.
Basic close out drills.
1 pass away denial drills.
Cut throat 1v1 close outs. Split into groups of 3-5 based on ability. Roll or pass to player near free throw or 3pt line. Close out and play 1v1. Make it take it. Next player in on D. Loser goes to end of line.
Hi Jeff,
What age is 3rd Grade?
3rd graders are usually 8 or 9 years old.
FANTASTIC article. I’ve coached youth basketball for quite sometime and this is exactly how they should be coached. Keep them moving, get them all involved, stress effort, and work on fundamentals. And most importantly, learn and LOVE the game of basketball.
Jeff,
I just posted a comment on the sophomore team article. Both of these are so appropriate for me. I actually coached a 9th grade, 1st grade and 4th grade team this season. I love the core value idea. I realize with 3rd graders you probably gave the list to them and went from there. But, with the 10th graders, WHEN did you sit down and discuss the possible values? I assume your team (and you) talked about what those things meant, since they have different meanings for different people. Did you do it a week before you started practice? The day before? Or, after practice had started?
Dan – This past season with our 10th graders we had our meeting to discuss and come up with our core values 3 weeks into the season. This was partly because the team was changing (moving kids up to varsity and from freshman) and due to a busy schedule. In other seasons we talked about core values before the first practice at our first meeting or during the first week of practice. For us, I’m not sure the timing matters much. Although I wouldn’t want to wait more than 3-4 weeks if possible.
Great stuff, I’ve already bookmarked this post for next year.
Just for reference, I’ll share a coaching technique I happened upon this year that seems worth sharing.
I coached a 3rd/4th team that got beaten 38-1 in our first scrimmage, then won every game after that, including beating the team who beat us in the scrimmage (25-24) later in the season.
What we learned from the scrimmage was that we had a bunch of kids who had good skills and good athleticism, but who just weren’t aggressive going after the ball.
So we did a lot of the usual drills to help promote aggressiveness, especially rebounding from a 2-on-2 shell and loose ball transition to 1-on-1. But the best thing we did was that during pre-practice warmups, pair shooting drills, layup drills, ANY drill where one of the players took a shot, our rule was the team couldn’t let the ball hit the floor after the shot. If it bounced once, you mostly got encouraged by the coach to try harder and get there quicker the next time. If it bounced more than once, the people in rebounding position did 3 to 5 pushups. If we had more than one double-bouncers in any practice segment, the whole team ran.
I was really happy with how quickly the kids learned to focus on the shooter and get themselves into position for rebounds and then go hard after the ball. But I was amazed at how well it translated to the games. Then I thought back on it and realized that each of our 9 kids was probably getting >50 reps on it every practice.
Verbal cues helped also. We had them yell “Shot!” when the player they were guarding shot the ball. I don’t know if that made a huge difference during the possession, but it made sideline reminders effective when the kids started to lose focus. (“Guys! What are we supposed to do when we hear ‘Shot?!'”)
Thanks for sharing!
What types of things did you do when your team wasn’t listening while you were talking or goofing off during practice? That was a big issue for me last year and nothing seemed to work except making them run, but even that didn’t help much.
I usually just reprimanded them and/or had them do push ups. I really didn’t have to do this too often because they knew I meant business and I was pretty consistent and making sure they were listening. It was also a pretty good group of kids. If things weren’t working I would just make the kids sit out of practice for maybe 5-15 minutes. Then after practice have the kid explain to their parents why they were sitting out during practice. However I did not have to do that with this group.
Jeff, with your 3rd grade team, how did you introduce your motion offense to them? Any specific things you did to help them pick it up quickly? Also, do you break up your practices into blocks at all? Just wondering how much time you devoted to teaching the offense.
We’re actually shooting video on how to build the motion offense this weekend and then we’ll create some DVDs. But a very simple explanation is…
– first show them the whole… demonstrate good and bad spacing, show ball movement, and then teach the to pass and cut. that gets them started with some very basic framework.
– Next we takes pieces of the offense and turn them into skill building drills. we use decision point training to develop the offense. but to keep things simple, just take a piece of the offense (like pass and cut) and practice lay ups out of that drill.
– then practice 5v0 or 4v0
– then practice 4v4 or 5v5 with either no rules or restrictive rules like you must make 5 passes before you shoot, or lay ups only first 5 passes, or no dribbling.
Great to hear about the DVDs. I’ll have to invest in those when they come out?
Decision point training? What is that? Any examples? Thanks so much for your help.
An example of decision point training is taking key decision points in your offense and use that to simplify the teaching and training. An example would be when you pass. When you pass you might have decisions you can make… ball screen, basket cut, or away screen. You isolate this decision point and teach players to make quick decisions and then choose an action. You then turn this into a skill building drill. In this case players don’t really need to read the defense until they being their action. At other decision points (like one pass away), players are ideally reading the defense.
Last question (Maybe)…How do you incorporate teaching about your core values? Do you just take time at each practice to talk about it, incorporate it into teaching during drills, other ways? I like the concept of this and think I’d like to do something similar. I think we may even do a team outing to incorporate the helping others thing this next season.
It’s not always easy to incorporate them. I have tried lots of different things and I have yet to come up with a great way formula to make it effective. I think the biggest thing is for coaches to always be thinking about it and come up with their own ways to get things done. Here are a few things I have done…
– talk before and/or after practices
– try to incorporate into practices as much as possible… leadership opportunities, “helping others” on defense, hustling after the ball to get rebounds and help teammates get more shots
– work to help local charities
– give them hand outs and posters
– talk about them before, during, and after games
– always be on the look out for teaching moments
– give them tests
– give them homework to come up with examples and/or definitions of the core values
2 more quick questions. When these guys flash cut, are they going to high post? When using the fill and read defense drill, your 3rd graders aren’t shooting 3s when the defense sags, are they? Trying to adapt this to my 3rd grade guys to use. using the 3 point line like in the video as a read line of sorts, but that’s too far for them to pull up and shoot from.
Flash cut could be high post, low post, or anywhere there is space. As long as they keep spacing I don’t care where they go.
For 3rd graders or even our 6th graders, we catch near 3pt line and take 1-3 dribbles for a shot or lay up with that drill. You’re right, that is way to far for young kids.
Ok, that makes sense.
On the part about teaching them ball screens because you see them on defense, what is the best way to teach kids to defend on ball screens? Do you have them hedge?
I used to think hedge was best but now I just have them switch because it takes so long to get young kids to hedge in games. I found it just took too much practice time and took away from other things. So we switch.
Hi Jeff,
You have always been a huge help. I have a few questions below. Thank you for taking the time to answer.
Team dynamic: I have a couple very skilled players and then due to numbers at our school have some students who have little basketball skills. I also have a couple tall players.
1) I was wondering how you emphasized rebounding when you have 4 usually on the perimeter and one person with the 5 out?
2) We have been working on pass and cut in 5 out, but I was wondering what the other players should be doing when they are not close to the ball besides moving up the 3 point line? Should the 5 out be totally random or should we have set basket cut then go to opposite side that you passed to sort of thing? I want it to be random but I don’t know how to teach this to avoid chaos and have no rebounders.
3) Since I have a couple taller players, I was wondering if I just had the top 3 players pass and cut while I had the two bigs try to get open etc?
4) Usually what happens is we spend a lot of time on 5 out or 4 out 1 in and then we play against predominantly zone and change our offense to a more stationary pass, movement, screens designed plays. Let’s just say if has been tough. I am looking for one offense that I can use where I don’t have to call something out each time down the floor. Thoughts?
5) I also have found that with the limited basketball knowledge of my grade 7/8 girls, INITIATING THE 4 OUT 1 IN OR 5 OUT WAS ALWAYS A PROBLEM. Should I give a prompt to start this offense off each time down the floor.
Sorry for all the questions.
Thanks again,
Paul
Paul – I’ll number each answer accordingly:
1) For offensive rebounding we just emphasize it. Tell our players to go get the ball! That’s it. I find that most seasons we out rebound our opponents whether we run 4 out or 5 out. Nothing to explain. It’s just a matter of emphasizing. Although having the right types of players helps a lot and we have some down years. We usually track rebounds, report to players, and talk about the importance of rebounding in drills and games.
2) All that matters to me is that players keep good spacing, move (pass) the ball, and we get some player movement until we get a good shot. There are hundreds of different things players can do. Doesn’t matter much if players do those things. Basketball is very simple and does not need to be complicated. Screen, cut, interchange, vcut, double screen. Doesn’t matter in my opinion.
3) Sure that could work. Or you could just run 5 out and have those bigs pass, cut, and then post temporarily. Or flash cut from weakside for a temporary post. Again all that matters is spacing, ball movement, and player movement until you get a good shot. Yes we want skilled players and get them better at universal concepts like screening fundamentals, cutting, posting, etc. But beyond that its not complicated.
4) When we see zone our players just keep running motion. 4 out or 5 out. Both work. The only adjustments we make are players don’t screen (although they can ball screen), cutters stop in the middle of the zone finding a gap for 3-5 seconds or until next pass is made, players must fill to the ball, and create passing angles.
5) Our players just know how to get open and enter the ball so we never call anything. Just run our transition and flow into motion. But there have been a few situations over the years where I put entires in — but usually not needed. Here are some ideas to get ball entered:
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/offense/7-entries.html
Jeff,
Thanks again for taking the time to reply. I am feeling better about what I am going to try this year. Couple more questions if that’s okay.
1) Our season is only 2 months long. I ran a fundamentals “club” before Christmas to help with development as I only have about 2-3 players that even play basketball outside of school. Every year I think I try to implement too many offensive sets. Usually how it goes is I try to help them learn 4out1in but then we predominantly play against zone! Would you recommend sticking with the 4out1in instead of trying to run different set plays like overload, double screens, 1-3-1 etc to open up shots?
2) When trying to teach 4out1in, as your point guard initiates the offense, should other players just be reacting to the point guard or if 4 is being overplayed etc, should she back cut even as the point guard is starting the offense passing to the other wing? Basically should there only be one cutter at a time?
3) Given the limited time, if you were starting to teach this with a month before your first game, and usually all we will face is zone (2-3 or 2-1-2) how would you go about this?
3) I was thinking of really emphasizing fast break whenever possible (rebounder looks for outlet, while 2 closest players to other side of court run down). Then if we don’t have it, transition into 4out1in. Thoughts?
4) I have always gone back and forth between 5out and 4out1in. LIke I said we play predominantly against zone and thought having that extra big would be a benefit. Thoughts?
5) If I did run 4out1in against zone, what would be your basic progression into the 4out1in and post rules?
6) We have a team every year that runs the 5 out but basically has there best player carry ball up floor, passes to the wing and looks for the ball back. There is no cutting and most players stay stagnate. But this is there best players and she is usually skilled enough to get the ball back and just take it to the rim. It seems like a very simple offense that would be good with only a few skilled players like I have. Thoughts?
7) The bottom line is I don’t have a ton of talent, but I am determined to help improve these girls and bring home a trophy for once? lol. Just have limited time. I have 2 players this year that are coming from teams playing 5 out and 4 out 1in. I have asked them what sort of things they have been doing and it looks like high ball screens, pass to wing with cutter and flash by post, two cutter sort of thing. I don’t want to complicate anyone. Just not sure how to attack this year.
8) The last few years I have been calling a play every trip down the floor. I do not want to do this anymore but I found that with the little experience my team has they sometimes need a prompt to initiated the offense or help getting started. But when I team learns this it is easy to take away as they are not super skilled.
Sorry for the long post, just thinking out loud. Any help would be much appreciated.
Paul
I’ll number each answer again accordingly:
1) I personally only have 1 play for end of game situation because as you said I think it’s a waste of time teaching them to memorize plays. We can use that time instead for skill development. So my preference is to run motion offense against everything and not have any “plays”. Whether you run 4 out or 5 out… doesn’t matter. Both can work basically the same.
2) All that matters is spacing. Players can flare (if there is space), back door cut, circle behind for hand off, pop out, or stay put. I don’t think there is right or wrong answer. Just keep spacing and get open somehow. I really don’t think it matters.
3) I would teach them motion offense that works against man and zone defense. That’s what we do. Explaining how to do that would not be possible in this text box. I could refer some DVDs tho.
4) I have run both on many different occasions. It does not matter at all. Both work. Anymore we don’t even specify 5 out or 4 out unless we face a zone defense. We just want spacing. Players can choose the alignment and it might change 3 times in one possession.
5) Visit this link and scroll down to the Zone Offense section. That is how to adjust to zone. We use same adjustments for 4 out and 5 out motion.
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/haefner/what-we-did-with-our-5th-grade-girls-team-offense-defense-drills-and-plays/
6) Seems like it would be easy to defend. And how are the other players getting better? I prefer everyone to touch the ball in a possession and get lots of player movement. If winning is all that mattered to me “this year” then I probably would not let me bad players touch the ball very often. But I have never coached like that. Even at sophomore level I still want players developing so I encourage sharing of the ball and balanced scoring.
8) I let our players make most of their decisions. I think that is better for development. We run motion and I give up control to them to make decisions. Have never been a coach that calls out plays. That’s just me.
Thanks Jeff. If you could recommend a resource to teach 4out if 5out to work against man or zone that would be great. Just need something simple and easy.
I have been reading some of your article just think it might be better to see video.
Paul – I’ll give you 2 motion resources that I highly recommend. Both are great and I would choose the one that resonates with you.
Option 1) Kelbick Motion. This can be as simple or as complex as you allow it to be. At it’s base, there is little structure, which is what I personally like but that is just me. Gives players and coaches more freedom.
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/kelbick-motion-dvds.html
Option 2) Schuring Motion. This can also be very simple but this offense gives you a little more structure. There is tangible and specific rules and it kind of spells it all out for you. This one also provides you with more stuff (transition, plays, etc) so it’s more expensive than Kelbick.
https://www.breakthroughbasketball.com/pr/schuring-offense-system.html
Those are my two favorite motion offense resources. If you have other questions let us know.
OK I will check them out for sure.
As far as having fast-break as the number one option. What are your thoughts on that?
We run a fast break. Basically the same as Schuring except we don’t number our players. We fill wings first, then post, then guard lanes. And we do NOT run the secondary break taught on Schuring DVDs. Instead we flow immediately into motion if we don’t have anything on the primary break.
OK. Do you think it would cause too many problems if we first had the ball go to the point guard and then go to the next two players down the floor or should there be some sort of organization?
That would work. We fill wings first. So whoever is closest to right wing gets wide and sprints to that spot. Whoever is closest fills left wing. Then next person down court fills post spot on ball side. The two remaining spots are the guard lanes. PG takes one side and other player takes the other side. This gives you really good spacing and keeps your positions interchangeable which I like.
This is exactly what I would like to do. So you don’t necessarily have one point guard taking a ball down the floor right? And by post you mean obviously the three point area in like a five out set?
Correct. We do not assign positions to players. By post I mean the low block. So we start in 4 out 1 in alignment for transition. Then stay in that alignment or flow into 5 out.
OK amazing thanks a lot!