Hoops

VJBL to ban zone defense in U12 next season

Interesting Anon (Reply #431347), being a coach at Knox, I would have run perhaps 8 mins of zone for the year, including grading and practice matches... not quite on the money there champ.

Knox is going to be in trouble if this is the case. It is their club defence!

About time IMO.

Ive always been an advocate on M2M and think its a great decisiin if it gets up.

My team plays a mixture of defences, Anonymous you should carefully read other peoples replies and also learn how to teach your team to play a variety of defences INCLUDING zone.

I'd love to coach against you anonymous. We would throw all sorts of pressure defence at you and i am sure with your obviuos lack of knowledge you would lose DISMALLY!!!!

If you teach a kid basic shell D. They're not going to stand in the corner on the weakside if they execute it properly. Proper man D is easy to spot, just watch how a split line defender rotates when the ball moves and also on backdoor cuts if they go with the cutter to the basket.

Melbourne boy you got it spot on.How many times do you see and hear coaches and parents yelling out to players "get on a man".So the kid goes and gets in his opponents face -- IN THE CORNER ON THE WEAK SIDE. It can be argued that playing mam2man is for SOME coaches who don't know how to teach the skills of being able to play defence.Look don't get me wrong - nothing looks worse than 5 ststues garding the paint. But a pressuring,moving,rotating zone can be quite effective as a different look.Maybe you have a rule that you can't play zone for the first half? But as someone said earlier if your playing man2man properly it will look like a zone anyway.I like to use a combination of defences so I guess we will have to agree to disagree with all the 'anti zoners" out there!!!!!

I'm with Bear

Generally, kids who only play zone at u/12's, will win more games. The problem is, these same kids won't be able to play at a high level once the offense gets stronger at u/14's. Seen it a million times. Lazy coaches who just want to win early, end up with players that arent that good at older levels.

Anonymous - If you teach kids proper man to man defense, many of the same princples will then help them later on when they can play zone or any other style of defense. U12 zone D is basically pack it in and wait for the the offense to heave a shot they can't make, usually with no pressue on the ball and poor (to none) defensive stance.

The kids won't run around like headless chooks if you teach them correct positioning, when to adjust, how to close out and how to stay in front of the ball.

If all these kids learn is to stand in the key and wait for a rebound, what happens when they get into a close game and they have to pressure the ball full court or even half court to force a turnover? Simple, they won't be able to do that because they won't know how.

You teach them the correct way to play zone. That is you put pressure on the ball,you move from weakside to split, everyone moves,it is a different look and if taught correctly is the same as playing mam2man except you already have your players in the help position. NBA,NBL,WNBA,&WNBL USE IT.

I turned the television on this morning as I always do during breakfast to catch the 'Today' show and with my good timing they showed a quick segment on former Brisbane Bullet Andre Moore.

Basically he's helping keep youth off the streets on a Friday night by holding basketball sessions @ a local indoor gym somewhere.

I thought that was pretty cool and wished this stuff would happen more often especially since the old 'Timezones' shut down years ago. The lock-ins were pretty good @ keeping the youth off the street.

The man was a frecious dunker from the highlights I saw and quiet athletic.