TRANSITION OFFENSE THOUGHTS FROM MARIANNE STANLEY

As a young high school coach, one of my annual rites of passage was to travel from West Virginia to Old Dominion University to work basketball camp for Marianne Stanley.  It is still one of the best camps I have worked.  Tremendous teaching was the primary goal of the ODU staff and it spilled over into their treatment of the coaches that worked the camp.  Every night Marianne would host a clinic in the dorm and never left until the last coach was done asking questions.  After seven years of working two weeks a camp each summer Marianne became one of my mentors and someone that has helped me move up the coaching ladder.

Many years ago, I talked her into coming to LSU and speaking at our coaching clinic and here are just a few of the notes I took from her in regard to transition offense:

In order to be a quality fast breaking team, you must be good defensively and on the boards. You can only be so good in transition if you are constantly taking the ball out of the net after your opponent scores.

Defensive rebounding is not talent — it’s heart.

Two important areas for developing transition offense:
Be good in the fundamentals of the game
Train and practice at speed

OUTLET PASS

◄The deeper the better…between free throw line extended and the hashmark.

◄Point guard sprint there, show you back to the sideline and call for the ball.

◄Look up!...majority of guard take outlet and immediately put the ball on the floor dribble and then look up...we want to look up first.

Important quality for guards is body control.

Point Guard: key to good transition is her vision...once she catches the ball Washington teaches for them to look “at the bottom of the net”...this gives a good centering point for their peripheral vision.

Lanes: “Don’t jog, don’t run. Sprint!”

Definition of “sprint” — “as fast as you can” — anything less is not a sprint