HELP! Looking for good offensive scheme for youth team

Hey coach, For my team of that age group, after trialing a variety of offences I found, the shuffle or swing offence works very well. The reason I say this, becaues it is simple for them to understand as there is not too much motion, but there are cuts. It also gives them the ability to read for themselves and it has the screen at the elbow, which most teams that age have problems defending from the top. I hope this helps you out.

Coach, I think the Flex is a good way to get everyone involved. All 5 players will have a chance to touch the ball and be given shot opportunities at the mid-range area and in the paint on flex cuts. The good thing abou the Flex is that there are several skills incorporated: Passing, cutting, screening, and shooting. Once they understand the coninuity fo the offense, you can eventually start adding some wrinkles, ie.e: flares, slip screens, etc. Hope this helps!

Coach,

I'm sure your delimma is not a new one.   There are a lot of coaches who pick up a youth team without proper training and background in organizing teams offense and defense.   My answer to you is relatively simply...keep it simple (The KISS principle).  By that I mean what is more important at this age group is for the kids to know what offense to run, and how to execute it to the smallest detail.  Too many coaches try to get complex and this is an age players should be concentrating on how and where to pass at specific times, how to set a proper screen, how to cut to an open spot when defenses collapse or rotate, and what is a good high percentage shot.  You generally should have one offense for playing against man-to-man, and one for playing against zones, although there is no rule that says you can't play one against both.  I think the best thing for you to do in this situation, is to pick one offense and try to learn the specifics of it and stay with it for a year or so.  This is the best way for a young coach with little experience to understand an offense and why and how it works against specific types of man to man defenses.  While there are long term advantages to running a "passing game" or "motion offense" or even something like the Triangle Offense, their success are predicated more players learning more advanced decision making and being able to increasingly more difficult levels of understanding.  I would probably go to something more like the Flex or Shuffle which have a very basic pattern which is relatively easy to teach.  This will let you focus more on execution of screens, cuts, passes and shooting technique than to get bogged down in the details of advanced player and coach decision making.  Against zones, a lot of coaches like to gap (which against some zone defenses can be effective) but I personally like zone motion offenses at this age because they teach players to move to spots, generally include some type of screening action and necessitate ball movement which is a fundamental part of good zone attack.  If anyone attempts to play match-up on you the screening action also aids you in attacking any match-up zone defenses.  You may also want to pick an offense (both man and zone) that gets everyone involved at this age.  While everyone wants to win, I think you have a responsibility as a youth coach to try to get everyone on your team involved and growing in their skills and confidence.  While one or two great young players can carry a youth team, you will eventually face a team with more talent and lose without collective team effort, understanding, and improvement amongst your whole team.  Good luck and keep visiting the Highway's Posting Up forum for more ideas.