Anybody have experience, or an opinion, on the how best to teach offense and defense to a 3rd grade basketball team?
Keep in mind that this is a county league and I get 2 hours of practice a week on a half court . The other coaches in the league all seem to be going zone because they think its easier to learn. However, my feeling is that zone is too easy and the kids will learn a lot more about the game and improve a lot more over the course of the season if we play straight man to man. To keep it simple my plan is to teach straight up man to man and as soon as they seem to get the concept of staying with their man and can avoid the temptation to all rush the ball handler I’ll add ball side deny and weak side help and recover concepts. That will be it for defense.
On offense, knowing all the other coaches will be in a zone, I figure I should just teach the kids to spread out, pass a lot, maybe do the Gene Hackman thing and require 4 passes 
teach them to cut to the basket after passing the ball, etc. Again, keep it real simple and force them to involve everybody in the offense.
Any opinions?
