Anson Dorance Core Values

Anson Dorrance is one of the greatest American coaches.  He not only is a great teacher of the soccer, but he is a mastermind of the character elements of teaching.  Don Meyer has always been a huge advocate of him, and that carries a lot of weight for me because I think Don Meyer is also one of the greatest coaches of our time. I think you will really like this resource and hope you can take a few items from it.

Anson Dorrance Core Values

Baseline Out of Bounds Playbook

If you are looking for some new ideas for baseline out of bounds plays, I think you will be able to find some answers in this playbook.  There are a number of different plays out of different alignments that will give you great scoring opportunities.

Baseline Out of Bounds Playbook

Hoffstra Up Tempo Offense

If you are looking for some new ideas or are wanting to implement an up-tempo offensive system, you will like this resource on Hoffstras Up Tempo Offensive System.  It contains the philosophy to their approach as well as drills to teach the system.  A great resource in my opinion.

Hoffstra Up Tempo Offense

Larry Dean Jackson: Motivate 1st BLOG

Wanted to give a shout out to Larry Dean Jackson's blog called Motivate 1st.  Coach Jackson has tons of great basketball information that he shares on his basketball blog.  If you are looking for motivational material to use this season, I would definitely check out Coach Jackson's Motivate 1st blog.

Mark Swasey: Player Development Approaches

Taking a step away from College coaching has opened some incredible doors that were once closed due to the demands and nature of the job.  One such example is the opportunity to take these pictures with players ranging from 12-19 years old in Southern Australia.  

For a few weeks in July this year I was offered a chance to conduct 4 basketball clinics at the Starplex in Gawler, Australia in the suburbs of Adelaide.  Nestled in the heart of one of the finest wine regions in the world, Ricky Simpson, the director of Starplex offered me an opportunity to join him in what has become Southern Australia's top basketball development program.  

Ricky came to Australia from his hometown of Atlanta, GA to play for the Adelaide 36ers after a great playing career at Concordia University in Minnesota.  Ricky married an Aussie and three talented and beautiful children later found himself making Australia home.  

Ricky is joined at Starplex by an ex-NBA player with the Denver Nuggets, Kevin Brooks.  "KB" as everyone calls him is one of the humblest and endearing professionals I have ever met.  The opportunity to work with Ricky, KB and one of my mentors, Mike Olson (pictured to my left), was tremendous.

The opportunity to get back in the gym and work with athletes was invigorating to my spirit.  The boys and girls we worked with were every coaches dream.  Wide eyed, big ears and no egos attached.  The attentiveness and willingness to branch out of their comfort zone was inspiring to all the coaches at the camp.  The level of play that we saw, particularly from the U14 group was outstanding.  Being a part of building the development program for these talented youth is exciting and I am looking forward to returning in another year.

There were 4 clinics, 19 and under, 14 and under, 12 and under and a post clinic.  All totaled we served over 120 athletes and the response to our instruction was overwhelming.  The graciousness of the parents and local staff like Judy and the Business Manager Dale was incredible.  It was refreshing to be in a place where people shared their appreciation for our efforts with hand shakes and thank you's.  Player after player waiting in line to say "thanks" when the camps were completed.  What I experienced over a two week span in "Oz" reinvigorated my passion for the game.  

Back Stateside, I believe the culture of entitlement that we see building momentum here in the United States could take some notes from the folks Down Under.  There has been a recent debate circulating throughout social media lately about the impact AAU basketball has had on the sport.  While there are many positive aspects of the function AAU has in the exposure it allows for our young student/athletes in the US, there are also many drawbacks.  One of these drawbacks is what is being perceived as a "growing sense of entitlement" among our youth and parents.

The concept is simple.  AAU teams are formed  and enter into competitions throughout the country.  At these competitions is where virtually every college coach in the country spends hours and hours of their time recruiting.

What AAU and these tournaments bring is the "hope" that a college coach will like a player enough to recruit them and with that recruitment more "hope" that a scholarship of some type will be included.

It this very "hope" of a scholarship through exposure that parents are investing thousands of dollars in for their children.  In order to get exposure, teams have to play games and what we are seeing as a result is a serious dip in development.  There is much more emphasis on playing time in games than on the actual development of the athlete.

Look at the NBA draft this year alone. 8 out of the top 20 draft picks were of International origin. The state of international basketball is catching up to the US and one of the reasons for this is that the international structure is mainly based on development, NOT exposure through games.

The issue of entitlement is complex and very much real in our youth sports world today.

Many parents who are paying thousands of dollars to an AAU program expect that their son or daughter will be given the opportunity to play.  The money involved is at the root of the problem.  The "be given an opportunity" mentality is even more of a problem. Have we completely lost the concept as a culture that we must "earn and work for our own opportunities?"

We are also seeing a drastic change in the sense of inherent loyalty and more importantly any accountability of the athlete.  If a coach isn't playing the player what they (or the parent) feel is an appropriate time, or is "not being used right", or whatever the disgruntlement of the parent/player may be, all they have to do is leave the team and join another.  So we have a major issue here.  AAU programs need the dollars to exist, AAU coaches need happy players and parents to keep their rosters filled and the biggest losers in the whole game actually wind up being the youth themselves.  With no accountability and no sense of loyalty being instilled in our youth, the current structure of AAU has unwittingly created a sense of entitlement without a significant effort across a huge population of our youth.  

I am hopeful that some change can come to AAU and across all of our youth sports programs.  The relatively unregulated growth of this and other organizations has led to some serious problems that we are only now beginning to realize. 

Here in Sioux Falls, SD I am encouraged to see that the number of individual development instructors for basketball is growing.  This is something that will help our young players in the long run, from a development standpoint.  That development is all individual though and the fact remains that basketball is a team sport.  We need a culture in AAU that will teach the concept that the team is always more important than the individual and that sacrificing ones ego for the benefit of the team is OK and in fact a very important life lesson! Right now the structure of AAU is accepting the concept that the individual is more important than the team.  

Mark Swasey

Match Up Press

The match up press is another press that can give teams a number of difficulties.  There are a number of prominent coaches who use a variation of a match up press.  These would include Billy Donovan, Rick Pitino, and Shaka Smart.  This is something that I have been studying a lot this off-season.  Much like the run and jump, it will take some time to teach to the players, but once in place, I think it will be very beneficial.

Billy Donovan Press Build Up

Rick Pitino Press Notes From Assistant Coach

Rick Pitino Pressing System

Rick Pitino Press Defense

Shaka Smart Pressing Presentation

Shaka Smart VCU Havoc Press

Run and Jump Press

The run and jump press can be one of the most effective presses out there, especially against teams that like to use a dribble break with a really good point guard.  The run and jump is a great way to get a star ball handler to give the ball up.  There are different versions and approaches out there, so we are going to take a look at some popular versions of this style of pressure defense.

Dean Smith Run and Jump Defense

Forrest Larson Run and Jump Press

Snake Bite Run and Jump

Run and Jump Q and A

Eddie Andrist Sample Run and Jump Practice

2-1-2 Press

I feel that a great compliment to the 2-2-1 press is the 2-1-2 press.  We often will run this after a free throw situation.  We always put our guards in the lane when we are shooting a free throw.  This allows us to get into our full court pressure immediately.  Some coaches like to keep their bigs in, but we tracked figured that the number of offensive rebounds we actually got off of free throw situations did not outweigh the benefit of being able to get into our pressure defense immediately.

The 2-1-2 is not really that much different that the 2-1-2 in my opinion and we are able to run the same trapping schemes out of it.  We simply put our best combo defender in the middle of the defense.  This play needs to be athletic, but more importantly, a really good decision maker as to when to trap and when to stay home or even fake trap.

I hope that these 2-1-2 resources provide some good ideas as to what you can do with the talents and skill sets of your players.

Vance Downs 50 Press

Crowly County 2-1-2 Press

Scramble Defense

This is one of the most interesting defenses out there for me.  It encompasses a variety of difference pressing and stunting options.  It really became popular by coaches from coaches like Dean Smith, Cheryl Burnett, Dan Ninham and  Jim Larranaga.  The scramble defense can be ran different ways, but it is predicated on running different trapping and pressure sequences based on certain situations in order to keep the opponent off balance.   Therefore, it can be quite complex to teach.  However, with a little bit of thought, you can come up with your own scramble package quite easily and not make it too hard to teach. Therefore, we will look at some resources from different coaches who have ran a scramble package.  Hope they give you some ideas.

Jim Larranaga Scramble Defense 1

Jim Larranaga Scramble Defense 2

Jim Larranaga Scramble Defense 3

Cheryl Burnett Scramble 1

Cheryl Burnett Scramble 2

Cheryl Burnett Scramble 3

1-2-1-1 Diamond Press

The diamond and 1 press is a very common press system used by coaches.  Coaches such as Bruce Pearl, Bobby Gonzalez, and Tubby Smith. This style of press can be very aggressive.  What I find interesting is that most zone presses shift into a diamond formation after the ball is declared.  With that being said, we are going to look at a number of resources on different 1-2-1-1 presses.

Bruce Pearl Diamond Press

Bobby Gonzalez Black and White Press

Tubby Smith Black and White Press

Craig Escherich 1-2-1-1 Press

1-2-2 Press

Another popular press is the 1-2-2.  This press allows teams to apply strong pressure on the ball and can create a number of trapping instances.  This is another press where you can vary your pick up points to keep the other team off balance with your pressure.

Loren Wallace 1-2-2 Ball Press

2-2-1 Press Variations

The first press style that we are going to look at today is the common 2-2-1 press.  This is one of my favorite presses because there are so many different things that you can do within it to cause problems for teams.  Some coaches will use it as a means to simply slow teams down by means of containment looking only to get long lazy passes.  Other coaches will use it as a very aggressive style to trapping and causing turnovers.  There are a number of coaches who are known for using a 2-2-1 variation press.  We will take a brief look at some of these coaches.

Jim Calhoun 2-2-1 Press

Vance Walberg 2-2-1 Press

Dave Leitao Attacking 2-2-1 Press

Tom Moore 2-2-1 Press

Andy Landers 2-2-1 Press

John Kresse 2-2-1 Press

As you review these resources, you will find some common elements between them as well as some noticeable differences.  Hopefully you will find something that you can use, even if it is just a teaching point, concept or drill.

Full Court Pressing Systems

Talk about a busy busy busy summer for me.  With going back to graduate school to get my masters in Education Administration, I have had a lot less time to do basketball stuff, which is strange for me.  I just got back from a family vacation where we went up to Minnesota to fish for a week.  We had a blast.  We didn't catch as many fish as we normally do, but the family time was great. 

With that being said, our school year starts tomorrow and will be around my computer much more often now to post basketball items and resources on a daily basis.  So thanks to those of you who still come around checking things out.  

To get things rolling this week, I am going to share different resources on pressing systems.  There are so many different variations of pressing systems out there that I could spend a month sharing resources and philosophies.  In our program, we use a couple of different presses to speed up the game and keep our opponents on their heels.  I spent a lot of time studying coaches who use pressing systems as a part of their program.  These included Dan Ninham, Rick Pitino, Billy Donovan, Don Meyer and Vance Walberg.

The reason we press is not that different from other coaches who press regularly.  These reasons include:

1. Increasing the number of possessions a game
2. Play deeper into our bench and deeper into our opponents bench
3. Wear down (mentally and physically) the opponent, especially their guards
4. Increase the number of transition opportunities
5. Create chaos 

With that being said, if you are going to be a team that presses, whether it is selectively, all game, an aggressive press or more of a passive press, I feel that you as a coach need to be willing to accept a few things.  

1. Control - You need give up some control of what takes place on the floor.  We try to limit the amount of thinking that players have to do.  Not because they are not capable, but because we want them to be reactive and to make plays within the system we have created while not having to do a lot of thinking.  For example, we tell our players that if they find themselves in a situation where the ball ends up in a trapping situation, even though it is not a designed trapping location, to TRAP the ball.  As a coaching staff, we understand that we are going to get burned at times and give up lay-ups.  However, as long as our players are playing hard and making good basketball reactions, we know that down the stretch our pressure defense will wear teams down.
2. Fouls - Granted, no coach teaches his/her players to foul (other than in special situations).   However, the more aggressive your philosophy, the more willing you need to be with your players fouling.  With that being said, I do not believe that allowing players to foul is a good thing.  In fact, we get on our players heavily for fouling while keeping in mind, when kids are playing hard and trying to make plays, they are going to foul.   I believe that having an aggressive mindset, this is bound to happen and I need to keep an open mind about this trade-off.  
3. Variations / Selectiveness - I believe that the best pressing teams are selective and vary their presses.  I could spend a whole week on this topic alone as there are so many different ways to vary your presses or be selective with your trapping.  For example, one method that we use is using the same pressure but varying our pick up points.  22 High for us means face guarding the inbounds pass, while 22 Mid allows the ball to be inbounded.  Both presses follow the same rules and principles other than handling the inbound, which makes carry over for players from press to press simple.  We can do the same thing out of the 2-1-2 with only a minor adjustment.  For example, 21 High, we still deny the inbound pass.  

With all this being said, in the upcoming days, I will be sharing different press systems that are used at various levels.  I hope that this will give you some ideas on how you can use full court defense to help you win games.

Boston Celtics Sets

Here is a great resource on some set actions ran by the Boston Celtics.  Doc Rivers is one of the best X and O coaches in the NBA.  I think you will like the screening actions as well as the spacing with these set actions.

Boston Celtics Sets

Aaron Johnston: SDSU Women's Drills

Being from South Dakota, I thought I would share some drills used by Aaron Johnston from South Dakota State University.  Coach Johnston does a great job with the women's program which has made some great runs in the NCAA tournament.  I think you will like this drills.

Aaron Johnston: SDSU Women's Drills