Who was the opposition?

Just a reply to the less that insightful first reply

- you obviously have not coached in the lower age groups -even in u14's when zones were allowed, its difficult to teach 10,11 and 12 year olds an effective zone offense, even when they got to "practice" against them in the games most weeks.

To train your team to execute an offense against an illegal defense is not exactly a great use of their or your often limited practice time.

All you can do is send cutters through the zone and hope that the officials will see that there is no "switching " and that they will call a time out and instruct the offending coach to play a legal defense.

That said, a full "bob knight" defense that can absolutely ignore defending a 3 point line - can be indistinguishable from a zone, both in look and effect.

But I doubt than any local u14 coaches ever attended any of knight clinics here in Oz, much less any in the US.

zones are illegal in u12s and u14s.To get the rule enforced, the coach needs to inform the court supervisor.

Whilst the rule may have merits in theory, in practice all teams fall back and play a "zone". The rule is a waste of time unless the court supervisors enforce it themselves, rather than wait for a coach to complain.

Easiest way to show it is a zone is to get a player to cut from 1 wing to the other wing and see if the defensive player goes with the cutter.

Why not bring in a defensive 3 second call. Hopefully will keep the key clear for motion cuts. Get 1 warning then it's a foul shot plus possession.
Otherwise it's way too easy to disguise a zone defense as man.

i encounter teams playing zones in u12 and u14 all the time. Where it gets annoying is because zones should not be played, you only teach side line and base line plays to be used against a man to man D.

You then get players camped in the key who are clearly not playing a zone. If you want to complain, you must locate the court supervisor and then get them to your court. All too time consuming, and also the coach is there to coach, not chase court supervisors. If they want to have this rule THEY , court supervisors, who are employed by the governing body to enforce rules/regulations, should do their job and enforce this rule.

to 697 above, the court supervisor should tell the big guy to play D. Coaches should only be there to coach, not enforce the rules!!

I agree it would be annoying and I have been in the other camp as I teach a pack line style of D that can sometimes look like a zone if we decide to switch on screens, and I spend half the game trying to ignore the opposite coach screaming we are in a zone because we are not playing D out past the 3 point line (defend all threats, a player 2 meters past the 3 point arc is not a threat in this style of Defence)

But in saying that what the hell is the other coach thinking, the reason we should teach and play man is so that kids grow up with the skills to make it to the next level, zone has its place but not in u14s etc....

to 707 depends where the ball is. if the big guy heads down the court and gets under the basket when the ball is at half way, and no O players near him, is he playing man D, as the rules require??

Read zone buster manual - available online. Defence can do what it likes until ball at 1/4 court.

3 or 5 second defence violation rule sounds good

to 725 that is a good theory, but the stats (google zone buster) indicate that players subjected to a "no Zone" environment develop into better players.

"the issue of zone at under 14's is more about the attitude and ability of a coach than the players"

correct , it is the coaches who wish to win rather than develop players who resort to a zone, or to a collapsing man-to-man that is so much "help" that it is mob defensive pressure rather than individual pressure.

If the rule said - once an offensive player/team is in the 1/4 court, all defensive players must be close enough ( or actively closing on an offensive player) for that defensive player to take one step and reach out to touch an offensive player, then the zone question would be fairly easy to police. ( double teaming is obviously possible under this)

the penalties would be

on observing this an official will stop lay and

1) first instance send teams to a time out, and instruct/warn the offending team that all player must -( as above) or they will be immediately be subbed out by the official. This avoids the claim of "don't know the rules"

2) second to fourth instance are forced substitutions. ( the players don't want to be subbed out so eventually they will not follow the "win" coaches instruction

3) fifth team violation is the removal of the coach for the balance of the game. ( this covers the case of where the coach does have an iron control of their team.

It would be a very steep learning curve - but I've seen it work in a social internal club junior competition that I used to manage - so its not a hypothetical.

That junior club pretty much set the defensive standard in all grades of the juniors in their area for several years, and basically ran their on court defence according to the same rules.

This also fosters the modern "dribble penetration and kick" offensive strategies and allows it to be introduced at a young level.

It also allows for the more old school "give and go" and the "pass and screen away" offensive structures.

It allows for switching ( reactive help) onto an offensive player who has gone past their immediate defender

And also for anticipative help defenses - where each player follows a team philosophy of where their "sag" is to be directed toward -eg the ring, the split line, the current ball holder, or towards the 6'+ player who is simply cutting from one block to the other.

Hmm - as an official myself - I'm not following the above post, here on OZ, under the BA rules , we are already required to enforce the existing zone rules in u/14 competitions, i'm just suggesting a change to the rules, not adding a new responsibility .

JMHO ;)

I'm not try to start a flame war with an anon poster - but the FIBA rules have for many decades required officials to judge if non-condoned player-to-player physical contact gave rise to an "illegal" advantage - and if it does not ( unless its a technical infraction) its not to be called a foul. So some assessing of defensive tactics and its effects are already required.

should be enforced by court supervisor, not the refs/umps or coaches!!!!

should be a 3-5 second key way defensive violation if not guarding anyone - that will get them moving !

the money they all charge to play, they should have 2 court supervisors at each stadium.

819 above, we all know under the current system, the coach must complain to the CS. We are saying it should be the CS job to enforce the rule, ,NOT the coach.

What other playing rules is a coach asked to enforce?

Agree with coach on this one.

Pisses me off how many times I saw this on the weekend. If I'm at a 3 or 4 court venue, trying to find the CS and burn a timeout is a joke.

While the div 1 girls are generally bigger/stronger/higher skilled and able to make ranges jumpers and throw cut out passes, many first year girls at U14 simply can't.

Trying to break a zone, or simply a centre protecting the rim can be challenging.

I hear the "we'll teach them some zone buster offences and stop whinging" comments and I get that argument. For me though, I'm spending my 3.5hrs a week with them working on skills they still don't have, such as off hand work, dribbling and passing skills, decision making, understanding written plays for slobs and blobs written on a whiteboard, and trying to rectify poor shooting technique. Trying to sneak time in for guard defence, post defence, understanding traps, and then the flip side of press breakers, post offense, the importance of speed and directional changes, motion offense, screens, ball reversals....this is a better grounding for the players to move forward next season.

In saying all this, I still spent 15 mins of a training running through 2 zone offences that we can run. Going to need to invest another hour or so on this over the next 2 weeks, but they may get some thing from it, and it might stop me going bobby knight with a chair the next time it happens.

I know I'm buying an argument but it happens a lot less than you think. I've seen coaches calling for a zone before the ball's over half court. It's. not And if the offence doesn't pass to the other side or have cutters, it's not. Most, if not all coaches train for man to man. Bear in mind this doesn't prevent double teaming or help. Virtually all the situations I've seen where there may be a case are caused by inexperienced or lazy players not following instructions and the first action of advising the coaches sees it resolved.

I'm sorry but are Coaches allowed to blow the whistle for the Refs and make those calls? NO neither is the Court Supervisor, Complaint should be made to Ref to monitor what appears zone and Refs should enforce the rule..

don't think half the refs know themselves - particularly in lower age grades and divisions - go ask a 11-14 yo reffing what a zone is.... and it is not their fault, just beyond their capability / have not reached that level of understanding yet.

So the coaches slip a zone in and hey presto, they get the win, parents & kids are happy - regardless of rule breach.

so I am big supporter of 3-5 second defensive keyway violations.

^ pretty sure that was covered off earlier, as was the fact that the CS A. Probably not a ref, player or coach and hasn't been educated to monitor and identify the rule. B. Isn't confident enough to interrupt a game to adjudicate.

Agree that in game rules should be the referee responsibility.

Valuable input though Muppet.

I have found this issue of 'zones in junior basketball' tends to work itself out to a point, but of course it is an ugly way to teach the younger age groups how to play 'D' because they often don't tend to get it right and at the lower levels the 'O' usually isn't able to cope.

Scoring becomes difficult for those teams that are unable to break down a zone 'D' and lets face it we are talking about the younger age groups here, not generally u/16's or u/18's and above.

So the end result is that people complain because their teams lose and the winners go on to learn nothing and even those kids just end up floundering in domestic competitions because their footwork is often lacking correct technique as they may not have been taught how to play man-man man-ball 'D' properly.

Much of the rhetoric is pushed towards a sloution based on the symptoms and not the cause, yet it is the clubs and Associations that need to take on more responsibility here, to improve understanding and develop the concepts of our game.

I often observe kids playing basketball without a clue as to what they are doing on court, they may have developed seriously bad habits over time and will never be anything but domestic players.

This however is fine in many cases, because lets face it the majority of kids out there will only play basketball for fun and fitness, so what are the issues we really need to consider here, is it to police a zone rule that is frustrating and almost impossible to monitor or control?

Or is it to step back and look at the sport and how best to continue to have kids play it and enjoy it, knowing that only a very small percentage will go on to play in a higher level of competitions or even less still go on to play semi-pro or pro ball?

If we are seriously considering getting some form of zone rule enforced, it must be done from BA down to the Associations and clubs/schools, it must be more of a culture shift to understand how the game is played and what the kids will get out of it than just to play for a meaningless win that results in people being upset at each other IMHO...

defensive 5 second call will eliminate everything sus

Well said, Bear.

To be honest, I coach multiple levels, and ZONE especially the 2-3 is ever so common at all divisions and ages, junior - YL, Seniors even Premier League here in SA.

I think you should really teach, as a coach, a zone offence or multple zone options early to equipt players better.

Most teams that start Man switch to zone when they start losing on Man, change the offence quickly and stay ahead of the game.

Learn em better, I sincerely hope you're coaching YL-Seniors and not U10-U14s.

Sometimes coaches and parents don't understand man to man concepts.

Most man defenses teach players to get to the middle (split line) when your player is on the weakside/helpside.

If the offense does not have a lot of player or ball movement, a man to man defence can look like a zone defense.

Very true, Todd. Many coaches also fail to make the distinction in real-time. This is why the youth 'zone-buster' procedure requires ball and player movement.

"A good man-to-man looks like a zone, and a good zone looks like a man."

A lot of u10 stuff I see is full court man and trap kids on weaker teams don't even see the front court against zone

defensive 5 second call will sort it right out

It is a simplistic solution @dr seuss, however I can't really think of how that couldn't work!

It would be very interesting to trial a 5 second defense in the key rule...