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 CampThe son of the legendary, Hall of Fame coach, Morgan Wootten, Bishop O’Connell’s head coach Joe Wootten has created an undeniably strong legacy of his own in the past 25+ years. In this video presentation you will get the tools, drills, and adjustments needed to create your own dominant defensive system!
Breaking down the drills that have helped him build one of the toughest defenses in high school basketball in one of the most competitive areas of high school sports, Wootten gives you build-up drills, full-court presses and variations, transition defense principles and full-court, late-game quick-hitters.
This instructional coaching video with on-the-court demonstrations provides a valuable opportunity to watch how a prominent high school coach learns, adapts and adjusts defenses to maximize his team’s level of talent and skill!
Build-Up Drills for Defense
Running a variation of the pack-line defense, Coach Wootten begins his presentation by stressing the importance of emphasizing your key principles – explaining that it is not what you run that is important, it’s what your players know and what they can execute that makes the difference.
Wootten then dives deep into the type of stance and slides that he believes set the foundation for a strong team defense are introduced with his ‘Stance-and-Steps Drill.’
From there, Wootten covers techniques for guarding the ball and defending ball handlers in the full court. Once that foundation is solid, Wootten shares how he begins the process for building his half-court, man-to-man defense.
Coach Wootten says that teaching players how to close out is the key to playing good team defense. Learning how to do it if you run a pack-line defense might be new for some players.
Coach Wootten discusses why he’s switched to a pack-line defense system and shows how to build up from a progression of 2-on-2, to 3-on-3, to 4-on-4 closeouts.
Showcasing a drill called the ‘Man-Down Shell Drill,’Wootten begins by placing players in a disadvantageous situation that promotes the need for talking, rotating and hustle to develop a cohesive team defense.
Post Trapping & Full-Court Defense
Coach Wootten discusses how his team traps the post within their half-court defense. He explains the rotations and reads, as well as a type of counter-adjustments, which he calls ‘Villain.’
Next, Wootten showcases the ‘Fogeler Drill,’ which places his team into situations to trap, recover and rotate within the two trapping schemes.
Wootten transitions to a section that covers his full-court defensive system. He discusses the importance of teaching your players how to read hand signals from the coach so that you can make adjustments during a game in a loud gym.
Coach Wooten also covers how they trap, when they trap and why they trap – in different ways – from baseline to baseline.
Any video on full-court defense would not be complete without a discussion on transition defense. Wootten showcases his favorite drill for teaching and emphasizing his transition defense principles. The concepts shown in this drill helps teach your players how to play more instinctively as they stop the ball in transition.
Next up, is an extremely valuable and informative Q&A with the coaches watching this session. Wootten takes to the court uses the players to demonstrate the way they guard dominant players, how to rotate out of traps, when they trap the post, rules for defending dribble handoffs, how to defend ball screens and many other smaller, yet critically important defensive details.
Lastly, you will see a segment featuring key offensive information that shows Coach Wootten’s technique for teaching his players how to attack a press and several excellent plays for a late-game, final-seconds-on-the-clock, full-court scenario.
This is a must-watch video to gain valuable insights on transforming your team defense into a dominant, lock-down defense!!
84 minutes. 2024.
BD-06175B: with Joe Wootten, Bishop O'Connell High School (VA), Head Boys Coach
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.