Getting Inside Against a Zone

with Greg Kampe,
Oakland University Head Coach;
over 600 career wins; 4x Summit League Coach of the Year; 4 straight 20-win seasons (2008-2012);
Michigan Sports Hall of Fame inductee (2017)

Greg Kampe has been at the University of Oakland for the past 20 years. In that time, he has built one of the most fundamentally sound programs in the country. With an offensive philosophy of hunting for layups or 3-pointers, his players have an easy understanding of why they do what they do on offense. In this video, Kampe demonstrates how to explain the "why" behind what you do to your players, and gives you a few quick hitters to score against any zone defense.

Quick Hitters

In order to beat a zone, you must expose its weaknesses. By allowing the zone to think it's strong, you can create a level of deception and set up your offense for easy buckets. In his first few quick hitters, Coach Kampe designs his sets to screen and post up the middle of the zone. By pounding the middle of the zone, your quick hitters will wear down your opponent's post defense, leading to easy layups and buckets 6-8 feet around the rim.

Kampe emphasizes the idea of creating false motion within most of your zone quick hitters. False motion can create the action you want through simple levels of deception. Quick passes, eyeing the cutter, using shooters as decoys are all forms of deception that you can add to your offense in order to get what you want, when you want.

In Coach Kampe's high ball screen sets, he forces the defense to make a decision. By creating a 2-on-1 situation, you can control the tempo and pace of the game. When you incorporate a ball screen, you also create lanes for your best passer to be able to find anyone on the floor.

Attacking a Match-Up Zone

Match-up zones create many problems for some of the best offenses. They are hard for players to understand and beat. Using a double post, Coach Kampe shows how you can create a mismatch for a slashing guard to score in the paint.

Dribble Drive vs. Zone

Kampe demonstrates how to raise the defense on dribble hand-offs in order to create a false action and set up your best driver for a ball screen to get downhill and attack the basket. If the defense is able to stop your dribble penetration, they'll have left your best shooter wide open in the corner for an open triple. By creating 2-on-1 scenarios, you'll be able to get your team more exploitable opportunities.

Favorite Drills

Coach Kampe rounds out his presentation with some of his favorite drills. In his Closeout Drill, the ball is passed around the perimeter and players closeout with high hands and use short choppy steps to work on closing out high-side. As Kampe demonstrates, this is an outstanding drill that is great for preparing for game action.

Coach Kampe has been around the game for a long time and has built a successful program that often dominates on the offensive end of the floor. This is an excellent demonstration of how he has been able to beat even the best zone defenses using his players' ability to score around the rim and get open 3-pointers. His false action sets will provide your team with what it needs to score against your best opponents.

58 minutes. 2019.