New Zoom Offense Articles plus Q & A

  We recently put out a few posts about the Zoom offense on our social media accounts, and the response has been insane!  People also had the opportunity to reply to the posts in order to [get a free copy of our Zoom Offense eBook (with bonus drills and plays),]( and there have been 617+ responses as of now.  So it’s clear that the Zoom Offense is a hot topic, and it makes sense.  It’s a super versatile action that’s easy to implement for teams at ALL levels…  And it’s an action that was featured a lot in the National Championship game between UConn and Purdue last week. And even Kentucky’s new hire Mark Pope used the zoom at BYU.  Plus, ever since we launched [Coach Nate Steege’s Zoom Offense]( in November, we’ve been getting a ton of interest and follow-up questions about it.  So, with all that in mind, we wanted to create a special Sunday email where we answer some of the most recent questions we received.  We discuss topics like: - How to run Zoom against Zone Defenses - How to run sets/plays from the conceptual Zoom offense - Implementing the Zoom Offense at ALL levels–from middle school to freshman to varsity - Injecting “teachable moments” into your Zoom Offense adaptations - And a whole lot more! Plus, before we get to those questions, here are a few related articles and videos that can help you better understand the Zoom Offense, why it’s so effective, and how to seamlessly integrate it for your team: New Zoom Articles and Videos  [Pistol Set Vs. Zoom Set - What’s the Difference?](  [Man to Man Basketball Plays: Zoom Action Offense From Toledo & Pitt](  [How to Add the Zoom Action Into Your Offense](  [UConn and Purdue Are Using This Offense - You Should Too!](  Now, onto some recent questions we’ve received about the Zoom Offense:   Question #1: Running Zoom Against Zone Defenses  Do you have any suggestions/experiences to share regarding running the Zoom offense against a variety of zone defenses or do you run some other offense when faced with an opponent's zone defense?  Thank you for your time.  Kindest regards,  Coach Steve   Coach Steege’s Response:  Hey Coach,  This is how we handle it... In transition, we tell our guys we're going to get at least 1 action before we worry about what defense the opponent is in. A lot of times our pace and/or action will get us a good shot before we have to worry about zone offense. This offense can confuse a zone just as easy as it does a man defense. NOW, with that being said, we have never run our man offense against zone dead ball, or after an FT if we know they will be in zone.   For example, if we are walking it up and they are standing in a 2-3 or 1-3-1, the defense is set, we will run our zone offense. For us, it's because we think our zone offense is going to be more effective than Zoom, but if I'm being honest, I've never really tried running it against a set zone either :)  Against a 2-3, I would imagine running your actions with a switching D/slip mentality could be very effective.  A girls coach from the area who used to be my assistant talked about trying 2 post flow against 2-3 this year...on the whiteboard, it looked pretty good, but you don't know until you try.    I will also note, that over the past couple of years, we have incorporated more Ball Screen, DHO actions in our zone sets.   Hopefully that helps!  Always feel free to ask questions.  Coach Steege   Question/Comment #2: Running Sets/Plays From The Zoom  I like some the offensive sets that MOC ran late game. I may be off on this one -- but your team looked better in "flow" (just hoopin) and their team looked good at times running plays. I'd rather win the "FLOW" game vs the SETS game. Especially at a small HS like mine where I don't have much time with players...I've gotta pick three things to focus on and stay there.   Coach Steege’s Response:  Agree 100%. A lot of the sets we run look a lot like our offense, so sometimes you can't tell the difference. One of the biggest things is we want to try and score in transition first...and if we don't score, we want to get into offense without "setting it up" or calling a play.  Regardless of where the ball ends up in transition, we can start zooming/flowing.    Question #3: Implementing At Lower Age Levels… Freshman to Varsity Implementation… More 4v4 and 5v5… Teachable Moments… Defensive Constraints?  Let me provide some background. (School name removed) is a school of ~160 students. We have ~15 girls across our Varsity, JV and C program. We often use the full 6 quarters during game days with our second team varsity starting at JV. We get a handful of C games a year as other schools are in similar participation crunches. At the Varsity level we'd like to go more advanced as those girls are capable of handling it and we think they'd be more engaged with the freedom it provides. With the drop off between 1-5, 6-10 and 11-15 we often struggle to simulate pressures (we get pressed by the top teams) and have to find ways to develop the whole group with skill appropriate breakouts. JV would probably run a little more simplified offense or perhaps more "set" calls to get acquainted with the concepts.  Circle drill, probing and "no freakouts" were things we will be working on early. Once we get our cumulative skill sets up, we're hoping we can compete in our conference. We did a lot of 5v0 last year. Your comment about more 5v5 or 4v4 live resonated as we often looked good on air and then struggled in games. We "blamed" an inability for our second group to simulate what the first group sees against the tougher teams.  This is my second year in the program. The three years prior to me they averaged 3 wins. I put a defense first mentality in and we jumped to 9 wins and won the tournament we hosted for the first time in 20 years. I came from a defense first background so I left the offense in place from the previous staff. We ran a continuity offense and had the "robot" problem you touch on. We implemented zoom action last year based off a YouTube video and decided to spend the money to add some fresh ideas and get some systematic teaching points as we focus on offensive improvement this season. Another huge point I appreciated in your videos was there was very rarely anything "wrong" or "bad" that the athletes did but there are teachable moments. We've spent a lot of time trying to build a mindset and confidence in their own abilities that we hope is starting to pay off. Our culture was bad. It's better but not good yet.  I'm just the JV head but my varsity coach has been very open to ideas I've pitched. Now we are trying to figure out what day 1 looks like. As you can imagine we all practice together so we're on the same court everyday.  Hopefully, that helps give you a sense of where we are at.    Coach Steege’s Response:  Awesome, thanks for sharing. It's a challenging situation for sure...    You can morph this thing however you think works best for your team. We have the benefit of 3 different levels, who all practice separately. So we can progress them year by year. Our freshman always start with 2 post flow. Because once you have that down, you can pretty much just play within actions and less structure.   My first thought for you is... A lot of breakdowns with best on best.  So you take the top 6 players in a group, next 6, etc. You start with 2-0 and as soon as you think they understand, you go right to 2-2. Same thing with 3-0 & 3-3. Everyone can do the same thing, but it is against people with similar abilities on both sides of the ball.   We use 2-0, 3-0, 5-0 almost everyday as our warm-up before we stretch. Hammering terminology, reads, etc. Get their minds going and their legs warmed up.   As noted in the video, when you go live - you can put whatever constraints on the defense you want. No switch, switch everything, trap. When you think they have it...turn the defense loose to do whatever they want.  Make it competitive when they are ready, keep score, losers run, etc.   Have at least one segment each day where you put it all together and play 5 on 5. It's going to be SLOPPY for awhile. Coach 'em through it. It WILL get better.   I have been the head coach here for 20+ years. I can relate to your mentality...we won because of our defense. We still strive for that, it is our identity. But times have changed, the game has changed.  And I was tired of sucking on offense :)  Hopefully that helps.   ---------------------------------------------------------------  If you have any other specific questions about the Zoom, please feel free to reply to this email and we’ll get back to you ASAP.  Also, if this content interests you, keep your eyes peeled for an exciting announcement about the Zoom Offense that we’ll be making next week! All the best,  Joe Haefner Breakthrough Basketball  This email was sent to {EMAIL} because you indicated that you'd like to receive emails and updates from Breakthrough Basketball on 2016-12-16 05:42:39. If you don't want to receive such emails in the future, please [Change Your Email Preferences]( or [Unsubscribe All]( Copyright © Breakthrough Basketball, LLC. All rights reserved. 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