Installing actions for 12U
Good evening, Last year in our 11U AAU season we installed the fingers cut and swing option in 8 weeks of practices in games. Considering the short period, I though they did very well. I'm looking forward to building on that this season. During the rec season which just ended, I just finished coaching a 7th/8th(13/14) grade team in which we installed the same thing and man what difference. Both teams have some talented kids but 1-2 years makes a huge difference in the way they flowed in and out of the fingers cut motion. To break up the same motion we ran a play called "X" where it gave the racker an option to either call the porch up to run a get or to run zoom by a DHO to same side corner followed by the opposite porch swinging over to the same side slot to set the screen(just below the elbow). We installed this playing playing 5 on 3 and then 5 on 4 which really helped with getting them to really look for the advantage and it encourage a lot of back door cuts or 45 dives. So now I'm about to start the AAU back up as 12U and outside of working on what weve already learned, I feel like I need to create stations in practice where we focus on spacing in 3 on 3 and what two(start with) options do we have every time we move the ball. For instance, racker at right action spot, lock in right corner, porch comes over to post(foul line). If the ball enters the post from the racker, give them options based on their defender(get, cut, split action with dragon, or pindown to same side corner). And then you eventually lead into slips/ghost handoffs etc. Has anyone used a similar or better way to handle blending free play with the fingers cut action? Thanks, George