Floor Taping To Teach Packline Defense

Cones or floor tape to establish 10 x 10 squares.

Floor taping to teach packline defense.

The pack line defense was created by dick bennett of wisconsin stevens point wisconsin green bay university of wisconsin and washington state. Here s a comprehensive list of drills you can incorporate into your practice if you plan on running the pack line defense. All other defenders must have at least one foot inside the pack line. While it is a man to man defense it is not an individual defense.

I coach 8th grade girls. It is usually easier for a typical pressure deny man to man defense to drop back and play the pack line defense than vice versa. The gap defender is positioned to stop backdoor cuts helps until the ball handler picks up the dribble then recovers. In the pack line defense it s critical that players position themselves in the right spots and closeout correctly.

Pack line pillars cannot get stretched only the ball defender can go outside the pack line. Instead teach players to make cuts that will manipulate the help defenders. Our base defense in the half court is popularly referred to as the pack line defense. It is a gap defense that still puts pressure on the ball.

It is now commonly used in some form by many coaches including tom izzo at michigan state sean miller and chris mack at xavier tony bennett at virginia and steve alford at ucla. Now you are caught in a situation of having to play deny defense with more pressure on the outside and this is often difficult to do when you are not used to playing that way. We deny baseline and funnel to the middle using the packline defense. With the packline your help is already positioned in the gap so there is no help then recover just recover.

Developed by legendary coach dick bennett he used it the 90 s with great success to lead his underdog green bay and wisconsin teams to success against much more talented ncaa powerhouses. The pack line man to man defense is designed to clog the seams and stop the dribble drive. So the pack line defense is a problem here. Number 1s 3s are offensive players try to establish passing lanes.

The two diagrams show the lack of driving room your players will find with traditional pack line defense spacing. The pack line defense is a half court defensive system that literally packs the middle of the paint to make it difficult to score inside. Number 2s try to get between offensive players blocking passing lane. Warm up stretch groups of three place stand in 10 x 10 square defensive number students 1 3.

It has been copied adapted and modified through the years by coaches at all levels. They ve shared their packline drills exclusively with us we ve added 5 more pack line drills. It gained recognition when dick bennett installed and used it with his teams at the university of wisconsin. Notice how the ball handler has no room to safely put the ball on the floor.