UW Women's Box Offense Play

This clip is actually from yesterday, but I like to illustrate anything out of the box set because it's a very versatile set. It's great for teams that don't have great forwards that can play with their back to the basket. Here, the Washington Women's team demonstrates one play you can use out of the box set. It's basically a high post clearout allowing one of your players to attack from the high post facing the basket either with a drive or shooting. Watch the video and read my thoughts below,



Setup:

It's a box set with the guards playing down low and the two forwards occupying the elbow spots. Washington likes to put their best player on the right elbow, presumably because their best player finishes best with the right hand.

The pass goes to O5 on the left elbow, O2 clears out to the corner, O4 crosses from the right elbow to the left low-block. O3 comes up to the right elbow.

High-post attack:

As I've heard Bobby Hurley Sr. once say, "Once the ball goes into the high post, the whole defense breaks down." The high post is the best place to attack from because it is right in the middle of the defense and forces the whole defense to collapse down.

Here, O5 does a simple bounce pass to O3 on the right elbow.

Once O3 has the ball, you'll notice the entire right side is clear of defenders. There is O4's defender, X4 defending the paint down low playing helpside, but that would mean O4 would be open if the drive sucked X4 in to defend. O3 drives and finishes the play with a baseline jumper (not my favorite shot, but I guess it worked here). Washington probably ran this play about 10 or more times, with O3 either driving or shooting, and it was quite effective each time (probably around 50%). Washington would go on to win this game over UC-Irvine.

Summary:

I used the box set one year with a group of girls I was coaching that had incredible athleticism but not great basketball skill (they were mostly volleyball players, one is now playing at the college level). We were able to get the ball into our athletic forwards in space where they could attack the net. We did pretty good that year with it.

A great video showing motion from a box set is Kelvin Sampson's DVD on the Multiple Option Box Offense. Interestingly enough, since Sampson has had the luxury of having Eric Gordon this year with Indiana, I haven't seen much box from them this year, but I'm sure it's still a part of their system. Don't forget to check out the the X's and O's of Basketball forum to exchange ideas and talk hoops.