I’ve been watching a lot of college basketball recently and noticed an interesting trend- unless they’ve called a timeout to draw something special, most coaches use the same starting alignment for every baseline out of bounds (BLOB) play. Coach Bill Self’s Kansas Jayhawks is a great example of this idea. Although I (and the opposing team) knows that they’re going to go to a box every time, they regularly get open dunks and 3’s.
So far in this blog, I’ve advocated for coaches to run the motion offense, but there are reasons why you might want to use a set play from time to time:
Initiating the motion offense– sometimes you just need to mix things up if the defense has read and adjusted to your first options.
Getting a shot with limited time– whilst I’m certainly part of the camp that says you should run motion offense throughout the fourth quarter, if you’ve only got 10 seconds on the shot clock, your team has to make a move quickly.
Inbounding the ball– if a team is pressing or zoning you’ll need something set to beat it.
A play’s success shouldn’t be contingent on executing an exact sequence of moves, but rather on the fundamentals of the team. Another thought is that the more you run a play, it becomes less set and more “motion”, meaning that your players will learn about the different options available to them and be able to react to the defense rather than just follow what you’ve drawn up. Keep these ideas in mind as you browse these 5 successful plays used by NCAA college teams:
