Dave Smart: Building an Offensive System of Play Around Space & Pace

In this highly-anticipated video, Coach Smart discusses his coaching philosophy and effective space and pace style of play. With a space and pace tempo, you are able to create mismatches and get the scoring opportunities you want.

Philosophy
Over his storied career, with 13 Canadian University National Championships to his credit, it is more than apparent that Coach Dave Smart knows how to attack an opponent's weaknesses. In 2018, Villanova's legendary coach Jay Wright was quoted (on Deadspin.com) as stating "Dave is one of the smartest coaches I've ever met."

In this video, Smart describes how to get players to buy into your program and style of play. With your players and coaches on the same page, you can focus on teaching your players how to play the game more efficiently and smarter by putting players in positions where they can have the better match-up; by doing this, you are creating confident, comfortable players who will be able to perform when it matters most.

Transition Game
Coach Smart covers a lot of ground in this part:

• Putting pressure on the defense as soon as you get the rebound.
• Creating a 3 in 3, 3 point line in 3 seconds, your teams will control the tempo of play and feel confident getting up the floor.
• Coach Smart emphasizes the match in transition - the one player we are looking to take advantage of and score.
• If you are the match, then get down the floor and hunt the paint. Ball must get into the match in order to be successful and create scoring opportunities.
• Coach Smart will show you how to use a numbering system to get your match-ups and help players understand where the shot needs to come from.

In 25, the 2 and the 5 are the match-ups your team is looking to take advantage of. These players must do everything they can to get down the floor and look to get into the paint and score.

Offensive Philosophy
In this part - the focus is on - Putting the other teams players in a spot where they don't want to be!  If you can't get a matchup in transition, then you focus on getting to the midline and refocus your offense.

This tells your team to get to the baseline and creates an attacking angle that forces help to rotate over. Attacking with best players against their worst players and making the help make a choice.

Coach Smart uses 5v0 demonstrations to show where the mismatch needs to come from in the half court.

Shooting Chart and Competition
Another critical part of the focus of this video is on the shooters on your team. It is a given - everyone wants to be the best shooter on the team. In order to create a fact-based hierarchy of who are your shooters, Coach Smart creates a shooting chart for his entire team.

This helps players figure out where they stand on the team. At any point in time someone can challenge the person above them to see if they move up the chart.

This chart tells players exactly where they stand and what type of shot they can take within the offense.

This is an excellent way to make players compete, hold them accountable, and put them in the best spots possible to create a mismatch.

Through his Space and Pace Offense, Coach Smart has created a fun and up-tempo style of play that results in high scoring games and offenses that players love. This video gives you some of the critical details plus the backbone of it all - Coach Smart's Philosophy on it all - that have helped him shape his programs into National Title Contenders year in and year out.

The more you learn about the offense and all that goes into it to work properly, the more you will want to add his philosophy to your transition game and dominate your opponents in the open floor in the seasons ahead!

Customer Review: 5 Out of 5 Stars!
- "Excellent teaching video that explains coaches philosophy and how to implement it into your style of play. Smart is an excellent coach and teacher!"

77 minutes. 2024.