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Bob Starkey Aggies
Bob Starkey Aggies
First and foremost, we want our stance to present a “wide base” in order to take up as
much room as we can while posting. The feet should be as wide as possible without
giving up balance. The knees should be bent to make us more mobile and able to
move more quickly. The butt should be out, again so that we can take up as much
space as possible. We want the hands in front of the face with the elbows parallel to
the floor.
Our basic posting position should be to straddle the first hash mark on the lane. Dur-
ing practice sessions, we use floor tape to outline a “posting box” as a guide for our
post players. The tape is a little higher than where we generally want our players to
post, but we find that during game slippage they will drop a little. Taping the posting
box a little higher is part of our “overload” teaching philosophy. Overloading is placing
the player(s) in a more difficult circumstance than they would encounter during a game.
FOUR THINGS TO MASTER
Each day we try to work in some capacity with our post players to master the four fol-
lowing phases of offensive post play:
4. SCORE SIMPLY
Too many players take an easy shot and turn it into a difficult shot. Some players don’t
understand the concept of getting a simple shot and don’t work accordingly. The best
move is to not to have to use a move...to work so effectively that all you have to do is
catch and score.
THE SEAL
Sealing is absolutely critical to be an effective post player. We believe it is something
that should be worked on in practice every day in some shape or form. Some im-
portant teaching points on the seal include:
1. Initiate contact with your hips. Don’t seal with your upper body. Believe it or not,
the feet are far more important on the seal than the upper body. If you are using your
upper body for sealing you are going to have some major problems in regard to bal-
ance and movement. It is also a very poor habit to seal using your arms, as this is an
easy offensive foul call for officials.
2. Two methods of working to get open on the seal are to hook the defender (take your
leg and hook it around the defender to blind her to the ball), and to drive and spin (face
your defender, step into her, and then spin into your seal).
3. Once we have established the seal, we always want to “sit down” on the defend-
er’s front leg. This creates contact for the seal, allows us to know where the defender
is through that contact, and establishes us in a low, wide base.
4. We want to really drive home the philosophy of “getting a piece of the paint.” This
means that we want the seal to come with at least one foot in the paint. In fact, we of-
ten tell our perimeter players not to feed the post unless she has a foot in the paint.
The ultimate seal is to have both feet in the paint.
5. We want to hold our seal for at least 3 seconds. In a drill, as a form of overload
teaching, we ask them to hold it for 5 seconds.
6. A major problem early for most players is that they release from the seal too soon.
We like to hold the seal until the ball is “in the air,” and then go get the ball.
7. We want our post players to meet the pass. This is a major reason why getting a
piece of the paint is so important. If we start with a good seal, and both feet in the
paint, then stepping to meet the pass will still have us in good position around the lane.
THE LOB
There are several important factors in making the lob pass. First, we believe that you
need either a height or jumping advantage for proper execution. You must obviously
have the proper spacing or movement to clear out the helpside, or at least to keep
them occupied long enough to make the pass. We believe all players can seal out for
the lob, but you can’t necessarily throw it to all players. Keys for the lob seal are the
following:
#1 Use the sealing principles: seal with the hip not the upper body
#3 On the lob, we want the post to be squared and facing the baseline
#4 We want BOTH hands up. This way there can be no push off, and
we believe it aids our ability to catch the lob.
#5 Don’t release your seal until the ball is directly above your head. If you release too
soon, the defender will be able to adjust and deflect or steal the pass. We tell the
passer to throw the ball to the corner of the backboard.
#1 Proper mental attitude, you must desire the basketball — call for the ball with your
mouth and your hands.
#2 Catching is done with the entire body, not just your hands. You must have
soft hands but you must also “watch” the ball into your hands, never taking your eyes
off of it (not even to find the defense), and you must use your feet to maintain good
balance.
#3 Catch the ball with two hands. This is a big one for us and one that we must
constantly stress to our players. In the day and age of the NBA, players think it looks
better to make the one-handed catch. Stress that possession is everything! It doesn’t
have to be pretty — there are no style points. Go catch the ball.
#4 We want to catch the ball in the air, slightly coming back for it and landing in a jump
stop position. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of catching in a jump stop
for maneuverability.
#5 Finally, once receiving the basketball, we want to “chin” the ball and look in the
direction in which the pass leads us. We tell our players that the “passer must be the
eyes for the post player.” If the ball is thrown directly into the post player, we want the
first look to be towards the baseline. We also want the pass to be fed low (below her
waist) or high (above her shoulders). We especially like bounce passes into the post
for a small post player. This is a very difficult pass for a low post defender to deflect.
Part of the reception is to have our post players take a half turn in the direction of the
pass to locate the defense.
MOVES IN THE LOW POST
Again repeating Don Nelson, “less is more.” Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the leading scor-
er in the history of professional basketball and he did it with basically two moves — the
sky hook and drop & go. We teach three moves that both go to the baseline and to the
middle. The moves we teach are:
For certain players, we will also work and develop a JUMP HOOK.
Some additional rules that we have concerning post moves and inside shooting in gen-
eral include:
—On shot fakes, we like an approximate 6 inch fake; we don’t like to show a lot of the
ball to the defense, but enough to get results. To big of a shot fake allows more recov-
ery time for the defender and allows more time for post collapse from the perimeter.
—We tell our post players that their goal in regards to shooting the ball is to shoot it
closer to the basket than where they caught it. So many post players want to fade
away when they shoot or settle for holding their ground as opposed to gaining it.
—In regards to dribble usage, we tell our post players that if they catch the ball with
one or two feet in the paint, we don’t want them to use a dribble. If they catch with
both feet outside the paint, we allow one power dribble. It must be a power dribble
which means it is a low, hard dribble that stays below the knees, between the legs, and
is done with both hands.
POST PLAYER DEVELOPMENT
Dick Motta once said, “Championships are won with post play.” We think that the pe-
rimeter play is also important but without question, you must have a solid inside game
to be successful on a consistent basis.
You must constantly drill your post players. You must work with them in part method
breaking down the phases of post play in order to develop the necessary habits they
need to be successful. The following is a list of drills that we use at Texas A&M to de-
velop our offensive post game.
Ball Handling Series: Even as post players, we rely heavily on ball handling
drills to develop the touch needed in good hands.
We like to use Ball Slaps to develop our strength and to develop a toughness in the
hands. In this drill, we simply take the ball in one hand and slap into the other hand.
We want the full strength of the arm to slam the ball into the other hand. If done
properly, there will be a slight sting until the hand toughens.
We will follow this drill up with Popcorn which is opposite of the Slaps. This drill is de-
signed to develop finger touch in regard to the ball. With your arms straightened in
front of you, tip the ball back and forth to each hand (your hands should be approxi-
mately 12-16 inches apart). You should only touch the ball with your finger tips. You
then want to move the ball above your head with continuous tipping, moving it to your
knees and then back. This should be done with constant tipping while keeping your
elbows locked.
Ball Circles is something that is also usually considered a guard drill but again it
is important to develop the hands of a post player. We tell our players to use their im-
agination in this drill by quickly combining circle drills around the head, waist and legs.
We want the drill done at such a pace that there is an occasional drop. We tell them
that if they don’t ever have a drop, they are not pushing themselves in the drill.
Slams is another great drill to develop touch in post players. In this drill, the
post player has a ball and throws the ball above her head. She then squats down and
tries to catch the ball as close to the floor as possible after it has hit the floor. This drill
sounds simple but is more difficult than it seems. As a player becomes efficient at the
drill, she can begin throwing the ball higher to increase the degree of difficulty.
A couple of quick lay-up drills we utilize are the Mikan Drill and the Reverse Mikan Drill.
The Mikan Drill is one of the oldest drills known to basketball and is still one of the
best. A player starts on one side of the basket and lays the ball in. She then rebounds
the ball out of the net and with one step crosses over to the other side and lays the ball
again. In this drill we want to use the left hand on the left side and right hand on the
right side. We will either time them or give them a target total. Often we will tell them
to make 10 in a row. On certain days, a coach will use a football blocking dummy to
give the offensive player some light contact during the drill. The Reverse Mikan Drill is
the same drill except now their back is towards the baseline. This helps to develop the
reverse lay-up that post players can often use in traffic.
1/1 with 2 Balls is a great passing drill to again develop touch. In this drill, we
have the players about 8-10 feet apart with 2 balls. We want them down in posting po-
sition making a push pass to each other with two balls at the same time. We push
them to make the passes as quickly as possible. On a coach’s verbal call, they
change hands. To make the drill even more difficult, we will change objects to pass.
For instance we might use a tennis ball and a heavy trainer ball at the same time. This
is excellent for players to develop touch in regard to what they are receiving.
2/1 Receiving Drill has a low post player down in her post stance and two de-
fenders (one on each side). We want the defenders to give her some token pressure
and contact while the ball is being passed to her. We want her to come meet the pass,
catch it, chin it and finish with a half turn towards the baseline before passing the ball
back out to the coach and repeating the drill.
Post Feeding Series is something that incorporates our entire team. It is worth-
less to have a team of great posters if you don’t work on properly feeding the ball into
the post. The first phase of this series is to have the wing drive the ball toward the
baseline to improve her passing angle and then feed the low post player on the base-
line side. We will have a manager with a blocking dummy working the post player. We
want the post player to call out her seal. She will catch it, chin it, give a half turn and
then pass it back out and the next two will step in for the drill. The second phase of
this series is to drive the ball off the baseline and feed the low post player on the high
side. Again, we want the post player to catch it, chin it, give us a half turn towards the
middle and find the basket. We also will add a point guard to our wing and post player
and work on our “loop” maneuver. In this drill, the point drives to the wing and loops
the wing back out top. The low post “seals out” (a manager is fronting) while the point
guard hits the wing up top who then feeds the low post player stepping across.
SEALING DRILLS
Butt-to-Butt Sealing has us placing two players, butt to butt with them sealing each oth-
er. We want their hands up, in front of their faces with their feet constantly moving.
To work on foot movement, we utilize the Box Slide Drill. In this drill we place a post
player in the post box and have her slide to the positions of seal up, seal in, and seal
down for 30 seconds. We are stressing quick foot movement, hands up, and a low
posture.
A very basic drill that we use almost daily is V-Cut to Seal. We have a manager or
coach with a dummy on the ballside block waiting for a player to flash across. We dic-
tate early where we want the manager to defend the post to work on the habits of seal-
ing. Later we will allow the manager to change up the defense so that the poster must
then learn to read as well. We call it the V-Cut to Seal DIAGRAM #1
Post Moves are something we add to the V-Cut to Seal Drill. Now upon flashing
and sealing, we want to finish with one of our moves. Again, we will do this with de-
fense and without defense.
POSTING DRILLS
Offensive Restrictions
Within your offensive system of play, set up restrictions that make you concentrate on
your post play. At LSU, we run motion offense and post play is critical to our success.
Some examples of restrictions that we would use include the following:
1. Two Low Post Touches - This means that we cannot attempt a perimeter shot until
the low post touches the ball at least twice. It doesn’t have to be the same low post
player but we are going to the block twice with a pass. This makes your perimeter
players look in the post as well as putting a great emphasis on your post players toget
open.
2. Two High Post Touches - Especially in our Post Exchange alignment, we want to
utilize the high post so we will demand the offense passes the ball to the high post
twice before attempting a jumper.
3. Nothing But A Paint Shot - Here we take all perimeter shots away by designating
that we want nothing but shots inside the paint. This does not always mean a low post
move. It can be a bucket off of dribble penetration or a pass to a perimeter player cut-
ting to the basket.
4. Only “Jane” Shoots - Designate a certain player to get a shot off. This means your
perimeter players must look for her; it means your players must screen to get her open;
it means she must work hard to get open and to get herself a quality shot.