Great idea.My team only plays man on man because developing my kids is more important than winning.

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.

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.

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.

I think this would be a positive step towards developing young players and would encourage teams to focus more on fundamentals by allowing the offense to run better, especially off the screen.

This is tough enough to teach properly at under 12's and zones just make it harder on the kids.

All in all, a very good move and yes it should stop at 16's but be included at 14's.

I would also like to see no games for under 16 year old kids after 8.30pm (No game for school kids should start after this time, it is just too late) IMO!

Great Idea, hope it extends to the Classic.

Concept is fine, but how will the ref be able to determine the difference between a zone and proper m2m?

If players are on the split line on the weak side and halfway between their man and the ball strong side as they should be, this will look like a zone?

In my opinion the way some under 12's and 14's play tag on their men with no concepts of team defense due to poor coaching can be more detrimental to their development than zone.

Good coaching should accommodate for this and compensate for any lack of a 'zone buster' and yes, not easy for the referee to add this to his/her night's workload, but I believe the idea is to try and stop the stand still 'zombie D' that can creep into our game at this age...

That in itself is a good idea, notwithstanding the fact that it is never an easy concept to implement.

Been holding back on this for some time

What I would like to see here is the referees work closer with the coaches, especially in under 12 age group. Don't be so stand-off-ish and communicate with the coach more during a game to be on the same page.

Too often the referee and coach are in conflict, this is a good way to bridge some of this gap, by speaking about zones and alike beforehand and form a closer relationship during games.

At least start this way, see how it goes! If the coach is a dick, still needs to be tech'ed, just that I see some games would be better off if communication between coach and official is improved!

Otherwise implementing a no zone rule could go the opposite way and just cause more frustration!!

Man to man certainly develops players footwork when their opponent has the ball. It also develops their defensive skills and knowledge when either one pass or two passes away from the ball. ( ie spacing, triangles etc) All of these principles can then be used to quickly adapt to zone defence if/when required later in their careers (WNBL, NBL, SEABL etc.) Nothing to lose by doing away with the zone at junior level but plenty to gain. I have noticed that after 30 odd years of playing and coaching, the best zone defenders (ie. box well, shift with ball movement, are aware of the split, etc) are also the among the best 'off the ball' defenders in man.

What if the 12's or 14's have a couple of bigs who play man but protect the paint? I'm worried referees will be in constant arguments with coaches about the defense being played.

I'm with Bear

i work to the rule -

you can sag off the offender to split line - if the offence is on the weak side.

but you cant just run back and camp in the paint.

you can still set traps etc but once inside the 3 point arc cant zone up - must be some resemblance of a match / man up

melbourne boy - forget the concept of "guarding the paint" that is exactly what this initiative stops

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!!!!!

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.

I guess the big thing here is the age of the kids, under 12's especially.

In the VJBL most coaches will only get one or two sessions of training per week into them and maybe if lucky two hours per session.

So much to teach them, so this in my opinion will just reinforce those important SHELL defensive principles which are a fundamental of the man2man style we are suggesting.

Of course, teams are at different levels of skill (VC -Regionals), but time is precious to all coaches, all this will do is assist in some coaches to focus more of their time on fundamentals.

A good thing if you ask me...

Not suggesting for a moment that a coach couldn't switch up his/her defense during a game and yes, agree that a competent man2man may sometimes look a little like a zone, but if common sense is applied this should only be a plus for all concerned...

Gun Dad, i'd love to coach against you if your team doesn't guard the paint, at any level. The distance the help d stands away from their direct opponent is dependent on shooting ability, so in 12's and 14's why the hell wouldn't you teach the players to play good help d, heavily protect penetration and rotate behind the helper, and also teach proper close outs?

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!!!!

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.

my u10s run shaka smart's havoc D all the time

Swindler have you found your under 10's have worked better using the Princeton offense or Tex's Triangle offense?

About time IMO.

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

Serious question Swindler, are you older than the players in your team?

:)

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

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.

Is it ironic that the club leading the pack with this movement is littered with zoning coaches at all levels? 1st team coaches no less!

You know what they say about people in glass houses..........

I think it will be too hard to control by Referees.

What you believe as a Coach to be M2M may be deemed zone - such as split line defence.

It would have to be carefully defined what can & can't be done in terms of M2M defence.

I've seen teams play M2M and have 4 players in the key the whole time.

What about zone press & trapping defence.

If the defence outnumber the offence team in a half of the court or in an area is that man or zone?

Personally, if I see two players playing High & Low split then thats zone defence.

The only way around it may be to have a 3 second in the key defence rule to prevent players camping in the key without directly defending a player.

Very interesting discussion otherwise.

I agree with some of your points VP, they are valid and before the decision if made I would hope to see some workable and common sense directives come from the VJBL on this.

That will be interesting, but I am not sure this is ground breaking stuff here, surely it has been done before somewhere with some varying form of success?

We have all been to tournaments where they have the old 'Zone Buster' monitoring courts to warn the odd coach here and there, but this won't work for the simple logistics nightmare of such a broad competition.

That leaves it to officials, and for me the fact that they will only be able to succeed if coaches also get on board and the two (or four) work as one on it...

Must be driven by VJBL to the referees, the Associations and then to the coaches as a directive (and a positive one at that)IMO!

Anon, it's not about stopping a coach from developing a full court press or structure in the team's defensive strategies.

It is about stopping kids from accepting that being a zombie and filling a spot with your hands up to intimidate your opponents, who are also still learning the basics of the game, isn't going to help anyone in the long term...

Have read all the Posts and everyone has good arguements. Have coached in VJBL for 10+ years - and lets all remember - most of the coaches out there are volunteers! Some of these may only know how to teach/know Zone! How do you help the less experienced coaches teach m2m basics? I think just putting in a rule will not be the answer! The more experienced coaches will work a way around it - put the 2 big kids low and switch the down cutters and screeners!The next issue is patrolling? Having the refs do it will just cause major fractions - the last thing we want is to put more pressure on developing refs which may lead to coach and parent confrontations!
I agree that for the developement of players - zones in under 12's should be banned - but a better solution needs to be found! Maybe the answer is Club based - have BV inform each association to nominate a Zone buster for U12 games - BV fixture all U12 games within 2 timeslots at venues - Refs are made aware of this person and if they believe zone is being played - they have the Zone Buster watch as per Under 14 Nationals? Means another resource and more work when fixturing but keeps it simple. Maybe up cost of score sheets at venues to pay these people! Maybe people should use this to put up ideas to imrove our game rather than shoot other people down and voise negative ideas! Lets remember why we are all here??