Zone defense in Junior High
Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 3:13 pm
What is everyone's opinion on this? Personally, I'm 100% against it at all in Junior High. It allows you to train bad defenders to think they're good defenders. It also allows average-to-good defenders, become lazy. They believe they're good at defense because it worked in 7th and 8th grade.
More often than not, you're not going to run into many JH teams that have players who can shoot you out of a zone, much less find the gaps and attack it at the right time. There are obvious exceptions such as being short on players (I'm talking 5-6 total), but if you've got enough players to sub new guys in and out, and you're sitting in a zone to collect wins to your Junior High coaching mantle, you're doing your players a disservice. Any basketball coach could teach a 2-3 zone in 15 minutes at one practice. If that's your base defense, it will give most teams fits.
Some of the good teams will figure it out because they may have a few talented players that can do it on their own. But when your 8th grade 2-3 zone is successful, most of the time it isn't because you're running it like Syracuse. It's because at that age, it's more important to develop individual skills, basic offensive strategy, showing them what good man-to-man defense looks like, and to get them on the floor and let them learn.
Thoughts?
More often than not, you're not going to run into many JH teams that have players who can shoot you out of a zone, much less find the gaps and attack it at the right time. There are obvious exceptions such as being short on players (I'm talking 5-6 total), but if you've got enough players to sub new guys in and out, and you're sitting in a zone to collect wins to your Junior High coaching mantle, you're doing your players a disservice. Any basketball coach could teach a 2-3 zone in 15 minutes at one practice. If that's your base defense, it will give most teams fits.
Some of the good teams will figure it out because they may have a few talented players that can do it on their own. But when your 8th grade 2-3 zone is successful, most of the time it isn't because you're running it like Syracuse. It's because at that age, it's more important to develop individual skills, basic offensive strategy, showing them what good man-to-man defense looks like, and to get them on the floor and let them learn.
Thoughts?