4 Reasons Why I Continue To Harp on Playing Man-to-Man Defense

Those of you who aren't familiar with my previous articles, must understand I am a youth basketball coach and gear my writings to teaching principles for ages 8-13. With this in mind, we have to appreciate the level of play and grasping of ideas from these kids.

My theory is very basic. The old KISS method. Keep It Simple Stupid. As you gain more coaching knowledge and experience, your ego tends to experiment you to experiment outside this principle.

You may ask what does this have to do with playing defense? Everything!!!

To me, teaching man-to-man defensive principles are easier to teach than zone or various gimmicky defenses you see youth teams trying to implement.

I recently read an article where the coach claims teaching man-to-man is difficult which may be true based upon his experience and methods. My experience has been it's difficult if you are impatient, but if you are patient, it's very easy to teach.

Younger kids tend to want to chase ball, and this is their naturally tendency. Watch any beginning youth team (not just in basketball), and you will see all the defenders chasing the ball. Good luck playing zone! With m2m, you want the player to defend their man and have sight of the ball at all times. This does take patience, but not as long as you may think.

There are various drills to keep players focused on this aspect of playing defense. First, I would teach them to play just their man and then teach them drills of playing man and ball. This a step by step process.

With this out the way, here are the reasons why I continue to harp on playing man-to-man defense:

1) Man to Man teams are more aggressive.

They tend to steal the ball more, rebound better, and score shooting layups ratha than jump shots.

What if you didn't have to spend so much time teaching offensive plays because your great defense led to easy scores?

When you have beginning players and limited court time, is it better teach a layup than a jump shot?

2) Better team communication.

There is more chatter amongst the players as to who you are suppose to guard. I even have players yell for help or even switch.

3) They become better defenders at other types of defenses.

If your players understand m2m principles regarding footwork, spacing, vision, etc.,. they become more adept at playing other types of defenses. To me, teaching m2m is the basic fundamental way of defending.

4) Higher level coaches prefer players who can play m2m defense.

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with coach from another league and he mentioned the high school coaches are questioning why very few kids are taught to play man to man. When you have players who have learned to play m2m, they are ahead of the game when it comes to playing defense. It may give the edge when competing against players for select or travel teams.

I hope this gives you some general idea of why m2m is necessary. In the next few weeks, there will be a FREE Ebook of articles from youth coaches around the country providing drills, concepts, and ideas of how to best implement m2m with your team.