In breaking down our press we try to make practice tougher than game situations, so sometimes we will go 4 against 5. This makes the job of X1 much tougher because X1 does not have X5 to help take away the long cross court pass. In this drill the responsibilities if X4, X3 and X2…

In diagram 24 we are working on the front part of our press. We are working on influencing the ball to the corner and then on forming the trap. Since we do not have X1 in this particular drill, we will not allow a long entry pass down the floor or any entry pass beyond…

At UW-Plateville we teach by the whole-part method. We will introduce a major concept and then continue to break it down and work on different parts. We not only use the whole-part method with our offense and with our defense, but with our press as well. What follows are a few of the drills that…

Some teams will try and beat our diamond pressure by applying more offensive pressure in the backcourt, as we see in diagrams 22 and 23. They will do so by bringing a third person towards the ball in the middle of the floor. As we stated earlier, we cannot allow an inbounds pass to enter…

If the initial or entry pass is made beyond the front line of our defense, as shown in diagram 20, we will get back on defense right away and not give up a lay-up. Remember, we want to get back to the paint and find our people from the inside out. We do not want…

In diagram 17, the ball is being inbounded to our left. We are trying to keep the offense on one side of the floor to cut down the area that we need to cover. We try to do so, by having X4 overplay the middle and invite the pass to the near corner. In diagram…

Most teams will take the ball out of bounds on the right side of the floor, which is the left side of defense (as shown in diagram 7), since most teams tend to be righthanded. If that is the case we want to keep them on our left and cut down the area that we…

At UW-Platteville we often talk about our system, which includes everything we do on the basketball floor. Our system therefore includes our offensive philosiphy, our defense philosophy, and everything in between. As you will notice when we discuss how we get into our full-court pressure, everything we do fits together and there is a reason…

Our diamond press is based on a numbering system that allows our players to move easily from our offensive positions to our defensive press positions. X4 pressures the person taking the ball ot of bounds and forms the inside of the first trap. Invite the inbound pass to the corner, so that X4 can trap…

In describing our diamond press positions, we will begin with the person on the ball (X4) and work our way down the floor towards our opponent’s basket. (Diagram 2 and Diagram 3 are identical) #4 – In our system our 4 person is usually a good athlete who is one of our better rebounders. Since…