Ball Screen Continuity Tools for Success

with Kelly Graves,
University of Oregon Women's Head Coach;
3x Pac-12 Regular Season Champions;
2019 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament Final Four;
2x Pac-12 Tournament Champions;
2017 & 2018 NCAA Women's Basketball Elite Eight;
2x Pac-12 Coach of the Year;
Gonzaga University Women's Head Coach from 2000 to 2014;
8x West Coast Conference Coach of the Year;
10x WCC Regular Season Champions;
7x WCC Tournament Champions;
USA Women's Basketball U19 Team - Assistant Coach;
2013 FIBA World Champions (Gold medal)

The turnaround at the University of Oregon's women's basketball program has been swift under the direction of coach Kelly Graves. Thanks to an efficient ball screen continuity offense, Coach Graves' teams have achieved a championship pedigree and are one of the emerging forces in women's college basketball.

In this on-court presentation, Coach Graves shows many of the drills and philosophies that have helped fuel his offense.

Peer Pressure Drills

Graves uses peer pressure drills to develop his team's passing and catching skills. These drills emphasize passing and catching to reduce turnovers and improve his players' ball handling. The reason these are considered "peer pressure" drills is because the team must make a consecutive number of lay-ups before being able to move on to the next drill. In total, you'll get three peer pressure drills, including:

• Scramble - Requires players to pass, catch, cut hard and finish with a lay-up.
• Three Lane Rush - Incorporates making outlet passes and finishing.
• 11 Second, 5 Player Weave - Adds a pressure element of scoring within 11 seconds.

Shooting

In 2019, Coach Graves' team at Oregon (who went all the way to the Final Four) led the nation in true shooting percentage. Recently, he has developed a four-pronged approach to developing a good shooting team. The four aspects of his team's shooting ability are: recruiting players who can shoot, shooting often in practice sessions, executing the offense, and knowing who should be taking shots.

To determine who can shoot, Coach Graves runs "Red Light, Green Light" every week. This five-minute drill requires a shooter to make two 3-point shots in a row from one of seven spots before moving to the next spot. The number of spots completed successfully are counted at the end to determine whether or not a shooter can have the green light to shoot from 3-point range in games.

Pick & Roll Continuity Offense

In this section of his presentation, Coach Graves touches on the concepts that make his ball screen continuity so deadly. In order to play to the strengths of players and away from their weaknesses, Graves presents options to limit which players receive ball screens in his offense. You'll also get a couple of Graves' favorite actions, including his "Wash Action" and "Mixer Action."

If you've paid attention to women's college basketball over the past few seasons, you've undoubtedly noticed Oregon's rise to prominence under the leadership of Coach Graves. This video gives you a peek inside the method he uses to ensure his team experiences great success on offense.

71 minutes. 2019.