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3rd-Grade Basketball. REALLY necessary to full-court press the entire game?

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by exmediahack, Mar 13, 2010.

  1. Boomer7

    Boomer7 Active Member

    NOOOOO!!!! If you de-emphasize winning and losing, they'll grow up to be worthless and weak!!!! How are we ever going to beat the Russians?
     
  2. jackfinarelli

    jackfinarelli Well-Known Member

     
  3. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    Starman,

    Agree completely on the stolen base/passed ball stuff in Little League. There should be no advancement other than by hit or walk.

    Kids need to learn how to handle force plays, how to turn double plays, how to bunt or hit behind the runner to move runners along, how to get runners in from third, etc.

    Having some guy get on first and then end up automatically at third on a steal and a passed ball isn't teaching anyone how to play baseball.

    And keeping all five defenders inside the 3-point arc is an excellent idea for kid's basketball. I hated my son's youth games against some dickhead coaches who picked up at midcourt and basically mugged the dribbler, since no fouls were ever called.
     
  4. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    Not worrying about a kid stealing second would probably help the poor kid throw a strike as well.

    Great suggestion.

    I like the three-point line rule for hoops, but in the last two minutes (I'm thinking of a trailing team) they probably want to allow them to play defense past the arc.

    Hopefully teams stop the clock for free throws as well in youth games. You can lose half the game on the free throw line.
     
  5. qtlaw

    qtlaw Well-Known Member

    I just finished my 3rd grade team's season in a community league (there's a higher CYO league). The rules were no pressing, defense starts after half court, and mandatory zone defense.

    Pressing? If there was pressing my kids would have had a hard time learning anything other than being scared to have the ball as they got constantly trapped into a turnover. That's not conducive to learning the joys of basketball.

    My team was challenged, (yes we lost every game), I did not have one player out of the 8 who could hit a 10 footer more than 5% of the time. 2 of the players could not dribble more than two bounces and one would come to practice with no socks and Vans then wonder why he was not playing PG. But it was satisfying to see them develop as the year went on. I think everyone of them was better at the end than the start of the year.

    The shooting was horrible but the guys learned to make bounce passes into the key and look up court on the fastbreak for the layup. It was frustrating seeing them execute a great pass and not having the shot going in, but I loved seeing the execution.

    Pressing? That's too extreme. The parents/adults need to get some perspective, why press? To win? I had just as much fun coaching this year as last year (2nd grade) when we won 50%. Winning does not matter at this level. Learning the fundamentals matters IMHO.
     
  6. YGBFKM

    YGBFKM Guest

    Why the hell are they keeping score? What does that teach kids?
     
  7. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    MANDATORY zone defense??? Eeeyow, most of the kids' leagues I ever coached (or played, centuries ago) in were run by absolute zealots on the point that zone defenses should be utterly forbidden -- which of course led to hilarity when the refs, usually JV high school players, tried to decide what was or wasn't a zone defense.

    From my experience there was never a great deal of problems in getting kids to match up -- even in 3rd grade (the youngest level I ever coached) most kids got the concept of picking one player to guard, if you left the game tell the kid coming in who you were guarding ("I got No. 24," etc etc). There actually is a rule (I think it's still on the books) that if more than 2 subs come in at a time you can ask the refs to tell them to line up so players can choose defensive matchups.

    Plus I always had one simple rule: "if you either forget who you're guarding or lose them, go straight into the lane -- 97% of the time, that's where they're going" (which leads to problems when the kid-refs say 'you're standing in the lane, that's a zone,' but it's better than having people bust loose for wide-open layups).

    On another minor tangent: Leagues under junior high shouldn't use the 3-point shot. The huge majority of kids in sixth grade and below simply physically cannot chuck the ball that far. Allowing the 3-pointer at that level simply makes the tiny minority of those who can dominant beyond all reason.

    Almost all kids who can physically shoot a 3-pointer at that age group are massively dominant anyway, since they can usually dribble, pass, etc etc. Having the 3-point shot in grade school leagues is like giving Marshall Dillon an Uzi for his showdowns in Dodge City.
     
  8. qtlaw

    qtlaw Well-Known Member

    I was befuddled by that rule. I thought I'd start out teaching fundamentals, which means m to m D. Well middle of first game and commish walks by and tells me, wrong D, need to go to zone. I was floored. Wrong way to teach hoops if you ask me. Yeah its easier to get the guys in the proper place but just goes totally against what is hoops.
     
  9. zagoshe

    zagoshe Well-Known Member

    Here is an example of when zones should be outlawed at any age younger than sixth grade ---

    I have a fifth grade team, we played in a tournament tonight -- we show up at the school and the "court" is actually the cafeteria and it is this tiny little bandbox -- the three point line touched the out of bounds line - you couldn't shoot 3's from the corner.

    Of course, we were playing the tournament hosts who played this silly pack it in kind of zone and it turned into a jump shooting contest from the top of the key because you couldn't get spacing or get the defense to move because there was nowhere to go.

    That was just silly - at least if they had to play man you could move them a little bit.

    Now that being said - we also play in a league where man-to-man is mandatory and frankly, that is OK if common sense is used (in other words, kids should be able to double and help because that is basketball.

    But some of the refs are absurd in the way they call the games and every time a kid isn't connected at the hip with his man and any time you even think about trapping or switching, they call illegal defense.

    Like I said - common sense should be applied but I am a firm believer that kids should learn how to play man
     
  10. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    It's very hard to tell the difference between very poor man-to-man defense and somewhat-below-average zone, which is where the problems with the kid-refs arise.

    Also, many offenses in kids b-ball consist of one person dribbling and four people standing there. And of course THAT looks like a zone.

    NBA refs could never figure out how to call illegal defenses, rec-league refs sure as hell can't do it.

    Maniacal insistence on no-zones rule produces a) ballhog isolation offense, and b) defensive players learning nothing about help principles.,
     
  11. zagoshe

    zagoshe Well-Known Member

    No question - which is why I think there needs to be common sense.

    But when fall five guys are packed in close to the lane or in the lane and are not moving at all -- that is pretty easy to see the zone
     
  12. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    Competitive girls league I coached in had a few rules:

    3rd grade: No pressing, no zones
    4th-5th: Zones were only allowed on a limited basis.
    6th and up: Anything goes, but you can't press when up +20.

    But the games were officiated largely by varsity officials who understood the concept of help defense, so there weren't really any problems.

    You can tell the coaches who are trying to teach their kids basic fundamentals, and the ones who are trying to gimmick their way to a perfect record. We were getting slaughtered one game, it was obvious my team (a B team that might be one of the worst collections of players I've ever seen) couldn't handle the ball to save its life, so the opposing coach comes out in a 1-3-1 half-court trap because he can't press full-court anymore. My assistant (a former varsity boys coach) and the John Wooden-wannabe almost got into a shouting match in the middle of the game.
     
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