Over 500 career victories;
5x Virginia State Independent Champions;
4x Alhambra Catholic Invitational Tournament Champions;
3x WCAC Regular Season Champions;
3x Virginia State Independent Coach of the Year;
Director of Coach Wootten's Basketball CampBishop O’Connell High School’s Joe Wootten, a coach with over 500 career victories and five state championships, has earned a reputation for building high school teams who play tenacious defense, year-in and year-out.
In this instructional coaching video that utilizes on-the-court presentations with players, Coach Wootten holds nothing back as he shares a comprehensive collection of 15 defensive drills that will help you install a highly effective man-to-man defense.
You will gain new defensive tools and ideas for teaching your players multiple concepts including transition defense, on-the-ball defense, off-ball positioning, beating screens, post defense and more.
Keys to Transition, On-The-Ball Defense
Coach Wootten emphasizes three critical keys to transition defense that helps you slow down opponents and forces them to grind out the possession in the half court. The Bishop O’Connell head coach highlights three drills that teaches players the benefits of sprinting back on defense and communicating through disadvantageous situations to eliminate an opponent’s three biggest threats in the early shot clock.
For any team defense to excel it is critical to have great on-the-ball defenders who can stay in front of their man. Coach Wooten showcases five drills to help your players improve on their close-outs and turn them into tough on-the-ball pressure. He shows a drill called ‘Bully Ball,’ which challenges your defenders to contain an offensive player who is attacking them at full speed in transition.
A drill called the ‘5-Spot Drill’ is an incredibly valuable, multi-purpose drill that incorporates denial, help rotations and post defense.
Coach Wootten then highlights four drills that teach your defenders how to aggressively deny passing lanes while also being in the right spot to provide help or contest the ball when needed.
The ‘Guard-Forward Overplay Drill’ challenges players to keep a hand in the passing lane while giving the offensive player total freedom of movement in the half court. This is a great drill for improving your defender’s denial of backdoor cuts.
Coach Wootten demonstrates four variations of Shell Drill that reinforces defenders sprinting to spots with each pass, rotating into help on drives, and maintaining denial position versus basket cuts and down screens. Wootten also uses the shell drill to showcase his philosophy for post defense. You will learn how to fight around the post to maintain three-quarter-front denial relative to ball movement and you will see how to use a defensive strategy called ‘Monster’ to double-team effective post players.
Defending Screens, Dribble Handoffs
In today’s game, every team needs a plan for how to defend the wide variety of screening actions an opponent can attack them with. Coach Wootten shows how you can use five breakdown drills to teach nine different screening concepts.
Wootten offers specific drills for fighting through downscreens, cross-screens, backscreens, and staggered screens.
Additionally, you’ll receive five progressions to the ‘3-Spot Drill’ that help to break down two different types of options for defending dribble handoffs, three coverages for side ball screens, and a coverage called ‘Maryland’ for defending middle ball screens.
Coach Wootten also expands on defensive help rotations that may be needed when blitzing the pick-and-roll and to use when teams try to clear space with an empty ball screen.
Finally, Wootten offers up two highly valuable scrimmage formats that can be used to integrate all of these defensive concepts into a live-play scenario.
The ‘Hand Signals’ and ‘Fist-and-Fingers’ scrimmages help you control the action to work on specific full-court pressure concepts while testing the retention of your team’s defensive principles while doing so in a game-like environment.
This is a must-watch video for coaches at all levels of competition who are looking to improve how they teach man-to-man defense!
95 minutes. 2024.