Thursday, January 22, 2009

TUSCULUM BASKETBALL NEWSLETTER

One of my dearest friends in coach is Jim Boone at Tusculum College. Jim is one of the foremost best teachers in the game where they play Motion Offense and Pack Man Defense. This past season Jim hired another friend of mine in Mike McBride and the result has been an 11-6 start this season. One of the things that I have in common with Jim and Mike (and that we learned from Don Meyer) is to take that which we learned and share it with other coaches. Tusculum has recently started a basketball newsletter with some great content. In one of their more recent ones they talk about offensive play and those things important to execution at Tusculum. I am sharing some of that with you below but I would strongly encourage everyone to drop Mike an email and ask to be put on his mailing list so that you can get the entire series as it is produced. You can email Mike at: mmcbride@tusculum.edu

OFFENSIVE PLAY
Regardless of offensive system, there are several aspects of play that are of vital importance to the productivity of a team’s offense. Spacing, inside play, driving action, screening, cutting, and offensive rebounding are just a few of the areas that are part of any offensive system. At Tusculum, we utilize a Motion Offense that is predicated in large part on our ability to screen and cut. The following are some of our thoughts regarding these key areas of offensive play:

SCREENING
Screening is the meat of motion offense. It is imperative that players are sound in their ability to recognize screening opportunities, set solid screens, read screens correctly, and then 2nd cut appropriately. In all screens there are two cutters.
The screener becomes the 2nd cutter after laying the defense out with body-to-body contact (look legal). In all screens one player should cut to the lane and the other should cut to the perimeter.

SCREENING RULES:
·Be decisive in the communication of and movement to screen.
·Sight the defense, communicate the screen – “wait, wait, wait” call to the cutter, and get the proper angle.
·Have a quick pace to screen & HIT THE TARGET. Do not “roll through” or “pull out” of the screen.
·Hold the screen with a low, wide base and hold for a two count.
·MAKE THE CORRECT SECOND CUT