Geno Auriemma: Building the Perfect Offense

with Geno Auriemma,

• 3x U.S. Women's Olympic Basketball Head Coach (3x Gold Medal; '00, '12, '16)
• 1200+ career wins - Fastest coach to 800, 900 and 1,000 wins, any level, men's or women's
• 12x NCAA Women's Basketball National Championship Coach ('95, '00, '02 -'04, '09 - '10, '13 - '16, '25)
• 24x Final Four appearances;
• 9x AP Coach of the Year; 8x Naismith Coach of the Year; 7x WBCA National Coach of the Year; 6x USBWA Women's National Coach of the Year
• 2012 John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award
• Inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame ('06); Women's Basketball Hall of Fame ('06); National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame ('07)
• 28x Conference Regular Season Champions (21 Big East, 7 AAC) and 27x Conference Tournament Champions (20 Big East, 7 AAC)

Great defense can take you far on the road to a championship, but games aren't won 0-0. The ability to score points in the ever-changing world of basketball is vital for team success. Legendary coach Geno Auriemma explains the concepts, drills and plays he's used to excel in both man-to-man and zone offenses.

Offense Breakdown Drills

Discover how to build your offense with breakdown drills that fine tune technique and build skill. Coach Auriemma stresses the importance of individual skill development within the offensive progressions, and shows you the drills he uses to improve the passing, dribbling, shooting, cutting and screening of his players. He includes two drills that train players to attack the basket with as few dribbles as possible. These drills work on dribble moves and finishing at the rim with different types of lay-ups and pull-up jump shots.

Coach Auriemma demonstrates how he prepares players for UConn's offensive system by simulating his offense with drill work. You'll see seven breakdown drills that use two and three players to refine parts of his 1-4 high offense. Players work on basket cuts and UCLA cuts for lay-ups, scoring off of down screens and back screens, and getting posts involved as a scorer or facilitator with back cuts and handoffs.

1-4 High Offense

Starting with a wing pass and cut, you will learn how to run multiple actions from the 1-4 high set that are triggered based on various entries into the offense. See how to flow into side ball screens, free shooters off of down screens and make plays from off-ball screens at the wing. Coach Auriemma shows how making adjustments can take advantage of mismatches or counter a defense that denies entries into the high post.

In addition to these actions that can be run from their primary offensive set, Coach Auriemma shares four set plays that can be run with the 1-4 high alignment.

Attacking Zone Defenses

The 1-4 set can also be used to attack zone defenses. Coach Auriemma loves to use this alignment to force zone defenses into 1-on-1 match-ups. He outlines the basic philosophy for his zone offense, and presents several strategies for attacking the 2-3 and 1-2-2 zone defenses that will create open 3-point attempts or post up opportunities.

This video will give you offensive strategies to get easy buckets against both man and zone defenses from one of the winningest women's basketball coaches of all time!

Produced at the Fall 2015 Toronto clinic.

74 minutes. 2016.