Louisville Women's Hi-lo Quick Hitter

I was watching some older tape I had from the NCAA season last year and I came across one with UofL against USF. Tom Collen left Louisville in March but I like his half-court sets so I drew up one of their favorite M2M quick hitters. I'm not sure what coach Collen called it, but I like to call it the Hi-lo pick and roll.

Setup:

It's a 1-4 high set. This is a very quick play, almost an early offense play. Louisville ran it many times as their first look before going to motion.

So what's going to happen is P5 will come up and set a ball screen on P1 who will dribble off the screen. P4 will come to the top of the key and get in position to screen P5 who rolls off the ball screen and rubs off of P4's shoulders.

Hi-lo:

The timing is key here. You need to make sure P1 waits for P5 to set the screen properly and P4 should already be coming up to the top of the key once P5 has set the ball screen.

P1 passes to P4 at the top of the key after P5 clears. Once P4 gets the ball, she will pivot to the basket and immediately look for the lob or shot pass into P5. P5 should briefly hesitate after coming off P4's screen then cut hard to the basket. This is important because the change of speed will allow P5 to get open underneath for an easy layup.

The video I saw, UofL must've ran this play about 20 times. A couple of times, the defense read the play and intercepted the Hi-lo lob pass to P5, so it's key to tell your players not to force the ball. If the pass isn't there, pass back to the wing and setup your motion.

For high-post offensive development, I like Gene Auriemma's DVD on the High Post Offense. Coach Auriemma does a good job going through all the different progressions and various ways to attack both zone and M2M defenses through the high post. I have notes from coach Auriemma so head over to the X's and O's of Basketball Forum to request them.