Coach Brad Underwood talked about the Spread Offense during his presentation with NABC. Coach Underwood has had success at multiple stops using the Spread Offense against Man and Zone. I’ve compiled my notes from the presentation.

• What do you want to stand for? What do you want people to think of you as?
• Culture – stand up guys, family, hard work, winning off the court to win on the court, character over characters
• 2 rules for the team – be on time and listen
• Spread offense principles – player movement and ball movement simultaneously happening – hard to prepare for
• Tweak-able towards your personnel – have had big, small/quick, teams that can shoot it
• 4 perimeter players are interchangeable, but the five spots have to be filled at all times – can put a guard at the pinch – 2 slots, 2 wings FT line extended, pinch post
• 1st cutter – ball thrown to wing, first cutter cuts rim off screen from post if possible (puts x’s on the floor where the cutters need to go to practice, cuts have to be sprinted, practiced everyday)
• Even if you see the back of the defender’s head, throw the pass – defender doesn’t see it
• Find the opponents worst defender and attack him
• 2nd cutter post – weak side wing will sprint to the post up at block – important no matter the players size because he occupies the defense as 1 and 5 play a 2-man game – 1 will slide 2 steps so he has more of a direct angle downhill
• 1 premise of spread is to keep the defense low
• After 5 sets the screen for weak wing, top foot pivot to get a little wider at the elbow for the 2-man game
• 2 areas to drive – wing to baseline side on a quick reversal, we throw a lot of skip passes – skip from slot to opposite wing and cut
• Teaching points for cutters – sprint to pass, look for pass and throw a hand down (give them a target)
• The whole key is teaching guys how to pass – run it with no dribble in practice – or anytime there is a skip we drive it – have to get it to 3rd or 4th side before we score, etc.
• 2 man game – bread and butter of the offense – 5 man sets the screen at the elbow, anytime we can skip from 2 to 5 we want to do that, 1 man sprint off 5 while ball is in the air – if pass goes to 1 first we prefer to pass to 5 and DHO
• Play high low with 5 and 3 – 5 can rip and drive
• If 1 cannot score, get the ball to the block level and drag dribble (2 dribbles to get to the 3-point line while 5 man slips for lob or post up) get flat and wide to stretch the defense
• High post entry – 1 to 5, 1 and 4 sprints down the lane line and come out opposite sides on the wing
• 2 and 3 sprint to the slot spots
• 5 hits whatever slot gets open first and we immediately look for a skip and sprint into 1st and 2nd cutters
• Dribble entry – push the wing through with a dribble and immediately cut – 5 sets a pin down for 2 after the cuts
• Can run it against zone – plays into the natural overload, slight spacing adjustment
• What to do when teams pack it in – take advantage of close outs, continue to cut hard and move ball quick
• Coaches reads – how is x5 playing the reads – how are they playing the pass from the wing to 5 – how are they guarding 2 man game, how is x5 going to handle that