Category: Offense »
Don Meyer’s shooting games and free-throw drills
Don Meyer, the NCAA's winningest all-time men's basketball coach, loved to keep his practices simple in nature. He shared his favorite six shooting competitions (with six free-throw-shooting games to follow) that he used at practices to help develop ...
Teaching your players to be true point guards
Editor's Note: Shaka Smart wrote this article for Winning Hoops in 2002. At the time, Smart was the coordinator of basketball operations for the University of Dayton. Good point guards are hard to find. Sure, every team has a player or two who's...
5-out motion offense helps players read the defense
Our high school is small and our team lacks size. As a coaching staff, we felt that we needed to develop an offense that would help overcome this size differential and allow our players to do what they do best on the offensive side of the court. The ...
Effectively using brush screens in your offense
The brush screen is more popular in the college game and has been modified from its original form: the downscreen. With a brush screen, the cutter breaks from a screen that is in motion and stays in motion. There is no jump-stopping by the screener b...
‘Mouse’ counters help defense, attacks players in foul trouble
Coaches are always thinking of new plays to attack the defensive schemes they encounter during the season. Basketball is a game of adjustments, with one coach or team running a play while the other coach works to take away that play. The other coach ...
10 tips for breaking zone defense
This article looks at offensive concepts against the zone defense. Rather than provide specific plays or actions to run, I want to look at certain concepts that enable you to tailor your offenses to fit your personnel, your style and the variations o...
11 myths about free-throw shooting
College teams average about 68 percent, and professional players are all the way up to a whopping 72 percent. That means that there is only about a 7-percent difference between a highly paid professional and the teenager down the street who plays fo...
Managing the final minutes with a lead
Sooner or later, every team faces a single "moment of truth." A close game, a slim lead, a minute on the clock and possession of the ball combine to create a pressure situation that's the difference between winning and losing. You want your team to ...
