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Message: [QUOTE="nelsonmuntz, post: 5193463, member: 833"] Too little structure, and the kids just stand around watching, so I always had a few set plays just to get the kids moving. The formation and responses are more important than the actual step by step execution. I have coached boys and girls, and I typically started with my biggest player in the high post, three guards spread along the outside, and my worst player on the baseline looking for dump offs and putbacks. You won't have 3 shooters, so don't play some stupid trendy offense like a 4 out or 5 because most coaches you play aren't going to be stupid enough to guard your worst player in the corner, so he will be standing by himself while the rest of your team plays 4 on 5. Give and gos to the high post player or give and reverse will get the kids thinking about how to move the ball. Give and kick out is another good play, where the point guard passes to the high post, runs like he is going to get it back, and takes a defender or two out of the paint while the ball gets kicked out to the perimeter. If the defenders don't chase, then he should stop at the weakside block. You can call these plays, and make up fun names for them, but they are really just teaching kids basic action. If a couple of give and goes work, then the defensive center may drop down and your center will be open for a 12 footer. Just basic action. If you have one shooter, leave him on the 3 point line. Youth coaches and players always overreact to a good shooter and will do something stupid like faceguard him, opening the defense up for everyone else. If you want to mess with the other team, run some off-ball screens for your shooter, and before you know it, there will be 3 defenders above the 3 point line and you will have a 3 on 2 break with the rest of the kids on many possessions. Most of these coaches in a travel league won't know the other teams, so if you make them think you are running plays to get your shooter open, they will run their defense to stop the shooter. I had a shooter on my girls team and if she hit a 3 in the first 4 minutes of the game, it was going to be a good day for my other scorers. Also, always have a press break. ALWAYS. Get the ball in then to the middle of the court over the first line of the press as fast as possible. Happy to take this offline. And don't do the old school press break that kept reversing back and forth, because there is a shot clock in high school and the dirty secret of those old school press breaks is that they often take more than 10 seconds to get the ball over half court but before the shot clock the refs didn't usually start counting until 2 or 3 seconds in so teams really had 12 to 13 seconds to get the ball over half court. Now there is a shot clock in high school, and the refs don't need to start counting, they just look at the shot clock. I have talked to a lot of parents this year that talk about how many more 10 second calls there are. The presses haven't gotten better, but the old school press breaks have been exposed. [/QUOTE]

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