Zone Attack

Zone Week has been going well. As I mentioned the other day, we are using a new zone attack which we believe has the following advantanges over approaches I've used in the past:

• More movement to prevent zones from matching up on us
• Better offensive rebounding as a result of this movement
• Penetration options built into the continuity
• Similarity to our M/M attack
• Simple

The thing I like most about the zone attack is that it flows so well from the fast break.  As you know by now, we don't really have a half-court offense in the traditional sense, just Early Break (one pass downcourt and shoot), Middle Break (penetrate, then make one pass and shoot), or Late Break (our plan to keep players moving while maintaining floor spacing whenever we are not able to shoot off the first pass.) 

Our goal is to shoot within 10 seconds of gaining possession, therefore any offensive scheme at the end of the break must allow us to do that, and I think our zone attack fits the bill.

One other thing.  Like many coaches, I've had trouble in the past helping my team recognize when the opponent is switching defenses from man to zone and back again.  Normally this would not matter to us, since we often shoot off the first pass in transition (Early and Middle Break).  We've sometimes gone an entire half, not realizing until we viewed the video the next day, that the opponent was playing a zone, because we were getting a quick enough shot that we never noticed!

However, when the defense is set and is doing a good job of disguising what they are in, we sometimes get out of sync trying to identify matchup zone.  So, we have an easy way to do this in our new zone attack.  We simply tell instruct the PG, "After making your first pass and cutting through to the short corner, did anyone follow you?  If so, yell 'Man!' and we are in our Man offense.  If not, yell 'Zone!' and flow into the Zone attack."  Simple and efficient.

I've created a file of diagrams from my FastDraw program to show you how it works, unfortunately I have no idea how to insert it into this blog!  I've tried everything I know (which isn't much) and can't figure it out, so if you are interested, just email me at my office email, and as long as you aren't from the CCIW I'll be glad to send it to you!  (Note:  If you are from the CCIW, let me know and I'll give you the new and improved version ;-)
dcporter@noctrl.edu