Tubby Smith: Ball-Line Defense

First, Coach Smith is a great teacher. He goes into great detail explaining the Ball Line Defense. He shows it in the half court and then how to trap out of it in the full court. He also states his 10 rules for the defense. good video.

This defense will be a big help to the style that we want to play this year. He did a good job going into detail.

There's a lot of good information put into action in this video. Coach Smith learned the Ball-Line M-M defense from his college (High Point) coach, J.D. Barnett whom he later served under as an assistant coach. This video perfectly matches an out-of-print defensive pamphlet written by Coach Barnett, then at the University of Tulsa (1985-1991). This defensive system resembles that of Charlie Spoonhauer and Norm Stewart, two coaching legends in the state of Missouri who were both heavily influenced by the granddaddy of midwestern basketball coaches, Henry Iba. The point is this successful system has been around a long time. The Ball-Line M-M defense refers to defenders dropping to the level of the ball to prevent dribble penetration into the middle. Gap M-M coaches can appreciate this aspect. The half-court defense strives to fan the ball to the baseline, allow no middle drives or penetrating passes and does not worry about ball reversal, although this can be adjusted according to scouting report. Coach Smith also shows how to trap out of M-M, temporarily converting to a zone until the trap is broken -- a Scramble defense (my term, not his). The explanations and demonstrations in this video are good to excellent for the most part and covers full-court, half-court perimeter and post defense. Coach Smith is clear and consistent on his 10 rules of defense. Caution: Rule #7 should read "Be as close to the ball as possible w/out losing your man." Coach Smith clearly examines this rule but the production mis-typed it. The drills shown build all the way up from 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 to 4-4 and 5-5. Coaches who do not use this exact system of defense will find many of the rules and drills useful in other types of M-M defenses. Beginning coaches and veterans alike can get something from this video. (It's best if you already understand what deny, fan, ballside, mid-line and helpside mean.)

This DVD is, in my mind, terrific. Coach Smith really does a great job of explaining the defense. I am a young coach and at this point it sometimes takes more time for me to "get" things but I felt that after watching this DVD I was able to take in and understand a good deal of what he was explaining. I will defiantly be buying more of Coach Smith's videos in the future.