Successful Transition Offense and Secondary Break

with Jim Ferry,
UMBC (University of Baltimore, Maryland County) Head Men's Coach;
Penn State University Interim Head Coach in the 2020 -2021 season;
Penn State Assistant Coach from 2017 to 2020;
in the 2019-2020 season, the Nittany Lions earned 21 wins overall, while ranking third in the overall Big Ten standings at 75.1 points per game;
Duquesne University Head Coach from 2012 to 2017;
Long Island University Head Coach from 2002 to 2012;
2x NEC Coach of the Year;
2x NEC Tournament Champions;
Ferry's 2011 squad at LIU ranked fourth nationally in scoring (82.7 ppg)

Transition offense is one phase of basketball offense where teams can look to get easy buckets and place pressure on the defense. Coach Jim Ferry knows how to play fast and push the ball in transition.Coach Ferry’s teams have continued to be one of the best transition offenses at the college level, because of how fast they play and how organized their attack is at exploiting defenses. By instilling an attacking mentality in your players as soon as they secure an offensive possession, it becomes a contagious team mindset to play fast and look to score right away.  

In this on-the-court instructional coaching video, Coach Ferry showcases the ins and outs of playing fast, and how, by ‘practicing fast’ every day, it helps to turn your team into an attacking transition nightmare for opposing defenses to defend. 

Alignment, Magic Drill

To utilize transition basketball in a fashion that’s both fast and attacks defenses vulnerabilities, your players must know where they are running and what lanes they are looking to fill. Coach Ferry shows you a variety of proven strategies for teaching your players proper spacing and utilizes techniques that create open lanes that allow your players to get easy paint touches and high-percentage scoring opportunities.

Beginning with actions that have the wings sprinting to the corner and having your post player rim run to the low block, Ferry emphasizes the technique your point guard will use to push the ball up the sideline as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, the trail post manages to be in position to help with ball reversal or post-entry duck-ins, if first option layups are taken away. 

Coach Ferry next shows off the ‘Magic Drill,’ a terrific drill to be run daily that teaches players how to properly run the floor as fast as possible. The drill begins as a 2-on-0 drill, and emphasizes to players all of the different options they should be looking for as they bring the ball up. Starting with a point-guard chase, your guards will soon develop an attacking mentality as they are being pursued by a trail defender.Building up from here, players running the ‘Magic Drill’ learn to look to use their teammates and come off for a ‘drag-screen-and-finish move,’ or a ‘drag-screen-and-throwback’ option, and finish up by feeding the forward who is running wide.  

Pitch, Flow, and Down

When you’re facing a defense who is good at getting back in transition, it means that initial layup options may well be taken away and that your offense must find other ways to score.

Coach Ferry then outlines the primary methods that your players can use as alternatives ways to score in a secondary break situation, while not forcing players to memorize a large number of set plays.In a play called ‘Pitch,’ Coach Ferry shows how your point guard can look to attack the corner and stretch the defense and flatten out – all while your trailing post and opposite guard look to exchange and create a quick-hitting screening-and-scoring opportunity off a dribble handoff.  

In ‘Flow,’ Coach Ferry shows how players can quickly move into a motion offense, where they look to feed the ball into the post as quickly as possible through attacking the paint, post duck-ins, utilizing ball-reversals and by feeding the post. Any of these options will keep your opponents on their toes and off-balance all game long!

Transition offense is a style of fast-paced basketball that places pressure on defenses as soon as the ball is inbounded. By pushing the ball up the floor and looking to score within 5 seconds or less, your defensive opponents are forced to constantly worry about getting back on D and, as a result, cannot send as many players to the glass for rebounds. 

Coach Ferry has developed teams that have played fast during his entire coaching career. In this highly valuable instructional coaching video, he pulls back the curtain on how to play fast and dives deep into all the benefits your offense will gain from possessing an attacking mentality that creates a relentless push to look for driving lanes and paint touches.

This is a must-have video if you are looking to add an infusion of electricity into your transition game and turn your current transition offense into an unstoppable attacking offense!

Coach Rating: 5 Out of 5 Stars. ‘Coach Ferry does a great job breaking down transition scoring options and demonstrating how he teaches and trains his players to have an attacking mentality and gets them to play fast. Easy to follow along with his instruction and coaches will be able to place many of these concepts into their own team’s style of play right away.’ 

81 minutes. 2023.