Jerry Tarkanian's UNLV Amoeba Zone Defense

Being a fan of Tark's Runnin' Rebels teams I'd long wanted to look into the Amoeba Defense & give it a try. This video is brief & doesn't get super detailed in discussing how to handle a very large variety of looks offenses may try, but it is a very good start. It was enough to get my Spring travel team introduced to the Amoeba and with very exciting results. Using just the information from this video we forced our opponents into timeouts & created lots of turnovers in all 10 of our tournament games. And the kids had fun running it! If you've got the right personnel, Amoeba is a very viable defense & this video is a good introduction to it.

4 stars because if you want something on the amoeba, this is what ull need. Tark's coaching record speaks for itself. The DVD itself is short, it appears like he's using players that just happened to be at the gym that day, which is good and bad, you can see common mistakes by low iq players and you have a couple players that know what they're doing.

The amoeba seems like a forgotten defense, I'm not really sure why, I guess you need very versatile players to use it at a high level, but to catch opposing coaches off guard the amoeba might be what you're looking for.

Tark goes through all the rotations on a white board, than a walk through, than guards only, than forwards only, than 5v5 full speed. At the end he gives a couple drills that are general defensive drills. Solid defense, presentation is kinda short and low budget but it's worthwhile, I'm glad I have it. If you made it far enough to look up Tark's amoeba than you'll want this DVD.

A defense that is extinct in today's game and unfortunately not much was of value with the lethargic approach to the video by the coach. I did like the clips which showed the success it had but not the break down at all by the coach.

I was not a fan of this DVD. It was only 25 minutes long and didn't provide a lot of information of the different rotations. Only showed a few drills to use with Amoeba. Didn't show any tips on how to use with full court pressure although there were a few 5 second clips of team using full court pressure. To be fair, I was able to exchange it with no problem at all.

A great reminder of intensity and organisation at training. I like the concepts and can't wait to implemeant into next seasons programme

If you are student of the game, this is a zone classic. The strong use of the forwards and harrasing but complementary guard play modified slightly was innovative at the time. Years later you can still see the influence Tark has had on zone oriented coaches.

Even though it's old I still think this is a solid 1-1-3 dvd. He shows the breakdown drills and skills needed to play the defense and also covers some trapping in the half-court. Good dvd!