Implementing An Explosive 2-Guard Spread Attack Into Your 5-Out & 4-Out Motion Offense

with Niko Medved,
University of Minnesota Head Coach;
Colorado State University Head Men's Coach from 2022 to 2025;
2025 MWC Tournament Champions;
2024 Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award;
25-6 record in 2021-2022, the highest single-season winning percentage in school history, the first NCAA Tournament berth since 2013 and the highest NCAA seed in program history;
2021 Mountain West Coach of the Year following a 20-8 record in 2020-2021;
2021 USBWA District Coach of the Year honors;
2017 Southern Conference Coach of the Year

Possessing the ability to move seamlessly from transition offense into a smooth entry set that flows seamlessly into your motion offense is a sure-fire way to put a defense on its heels. Niko Medved, who oversees one of the most-explosive offenses in all of college basketball, pulls back the curtain to give viewers a look inside his offensive success.Learning from offensive masterminds like John Beilein and Tim Miles, Medved has put together an efficient offense that creates an illusion of complexity. In this highly valuable instructional video, you’ll learn how Medved has put together a variety of offensive combinations that teach his players how to automatically read the defense and execute his 2-Guard Spread Offense at a high level. 

2-Guard Spread Offense: Concepts, Drills & Actions

Players who know how to read defenders and make good decisions based on those actions create ideal offense spacing and use movements that lead to high-quality scoring opportunities. Medved has taken the lessons learned from some of the coaching masters of the 2-Guard Spread Offense and developed a style of play that features a smooth offensive flow that not only helps players understand how to play the game, but also stays unpredictable and tough to defend.Medved describes the best methods for teaching players how to continue playing after a set play has broken down and how to prevent defenses from getting multiple stops in a row. Viewers are provided with vital information on how to best keep half-court offenses flowing, as well as how to keep defenses continually guessing as you run through your motion offense.Coach Medved discusses why it’s critically important for coaches to teach players how to visualize key offensive actions such as cutting, footwork, ball handling and shooting. Medved demonstrates breaking down these types of concepts to your players and teaching them how to make your offense more unpredictable and unguardable. 

  

Most coaches find the 2-Guard Offense to be one of the more complex offenses to teach and learn. Medved helps viewers in this regard by breaking down offensive actions into simple and repetitive actions that teach your players how to make quick decisions, while simultaneously teaching them how defender’s will likely think and react.

Starting with initial setups, Medved describes a Spread Set with a similar Princeton lineup and a 2-guard front. In this setup, viewers learn the terminology and cutting actions. Everything begins with catching the ball and looking to see what the defense is giving you. Medved then showcases two initial actions once the catch and evaluation occur – a ‘hand cut’ and ‘burn cut’ where players learn how to execute dribble handoffs and look for either a back cut or re-screen option.  Screen-Away Series, Shuffle Series

Medved then provides valuable coaching information on two important offensive series within his 2-Guard Spread Offense system – the ‘Screen-Away Series’ and ‘Shuffle Series.’In Medved’s ‘Screen-Away Series,’ viewers learn howplayers can take a 4-out action and manipulate the defense with different cutting actions such as a ‘Spur Cut,’ a ‘Blazer Cut,’ or a ‘Jazz Cut.’ With any of those three cuts, an offensive player can incorporate an isolation on one side of the floor to create backdoor scoring options or even utilize a ball-screen screen to hit a post player rolling to the basket.  In ‘Shuffle Series,’ Medved demonstrates how to use 5-out actions and incorporate a shuffle-cut with various scoring options. Options you can teach your players off the shuffle series can include a flip action or back screen for your post player and a ‘Razor Action’ that includes a UCLA screen for a post player diving to the basket. These options are excellent reads to teach players and they help them learn how to continue playing within the offense even when things break down. 

Medved is a masterful coach when it comes to creating offensive flow within a half-court offense. Starting with a 4-out offense and manipulating the defense with cutters, he shows viewers how to create a 5-out alignment and confuse opponents with what appears to be a complex offense.This simplistic style of play is used at the professional level and, as taught by Medved, becomes easy for your players to pick up, too.  In this must-have offensive video, you will overwhelm defenses by teaching your players how to make quick, effective offensive decisions and create great scoring opportunities! 

5 out of 5 stars – “Coach Medved does a great job teaching you simple actions and how your players can recognize what defenders are trying to take away.  There are some great counters and actions your players will love to use!”

46 minutes, 2022.