Louisville 1-3-1 Press Break

I usually don't scheme press breakers for our team. Instead we teach our players to play with confidence and face the pressure head on with a just few simple rules. But there are schemes you can incorporate to not only break the press but get easy baskets. Louisville is one of those teams that not only pressures full-court, but really gets out and runs in the open court. This is one of their press breaker sets they use to get out and run.

Setup:

It's a 1-3-1 shallow look. The key here is to get the ball in the middle where you can then hit the outlet runners.

O4 is the inbounder, O1 is middle, O3 and O2 the wings and O5 in center-court. O1 does a v-cut to the ball, the wings do v-cuts away from the ball. O4 can hit O3 over the shoulder, or O2 if overplayed and finally he should be able to hit O1 coming to the ball as the safe option.

Fast Break:

Now that the ball is inbounds, the idea is to advance the ball up the middle while the wings run the outlet.

If O1 can hit O5 at center-court, he does so. O5 will execute a simple pivot and find the outlet. Now if that option isn't available, he can hit O1 on the handoff. Another option is for O5 to come down and set a downscreen for O1. O4 is the safety and will look for the reverse pass from O1 if in trouble who is looking for the reversal to either O5 or all the way to O2.

Getting the ball into the middle is key, many presses like the 2-2-1 or even 1-2-2 are weak in the middle. You must get the ball in the middle of these presses where everything breaks down. If your team is more athletic than your opponent, you will get plenty of easy baskets.

For more great press breakers, check out John Brady's DVD on the press-break offense. I have some more notes on Rick Pitino and John Brady, so be sure to check out the X's and O's Basketball forum to see what I have.