This coming week, my school’s basketball preseason starts, and my student-athletes could not be more excited to be playing again. Two years ago, my sixth grade team played in the championship and had a great game. Their record was barely over .500, yet we saved the best for last, and at the end of the season, shocked some teams to make it the championship. We were riding high, and hoped to use that momentum for an even better seventh grade season. About a week after our championship game, it was announced that all sports were shut down due to Covid. Several of my teams didn’t get to play any games of their postseason games. And then we lost the next basketball season completely.
After long last, we are back! I know many of my older players have been practicing on their own to keep their individual skills sharp. Some have even played in the other leagues. However, we haven’t practiced as a school team in a while, so I’m interested to see what they remember from offense system. Years ago we began using the Read and React system from Better Basketball, and it was breakthrough. My players were learning how to play basketball, not learning plays. Players were allowed to be spontaneous and creative while still functioning as a complete team unit. My players learned rules which allowed them to understand what to do in a given situation, which organized the offense and kept everyone on the same page.
The Read and React System is broken up into layers, describes a basketball action, and how the whole team reacts in sync to that action. The first layer is when a player passes to another perimeter player, the passing player must cut to the basket. So simple, yet so effective. Right off the bat the offense had more dynamic movement. The Read and React system originally had twenty layers. While I was a giant fan of the system, it was too much basketball for any team to cover in a season. It was too much for a team to cover over several seasons! While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it follows the progression of the players (something I appreciated as a Montessori teacher and coach), it meant that most of my teams would never be able to learn the more advanced rule sets and scenarios. The advanced systems of the Read and React were scenarios we were seeing in games all the time: transition offense, zone defenses, screening opportunities, etc. While my teams had strong foundations, they had limited knowledge of the advanced gameplay, which was necessary for success against kids their age (and coaches who were using strategies to exploit the limitations of the age: mentally and physically).
I knew before the 2021-2022 season started, we were going to have to do a lot of review of the Read and React system. I was worried that reviewing old concepts would mean that my middle school teams would not be able to learn the new stuff, which is especially important as new rules are implemented for the older ages (for example, full court press is now allowed at any point of the game). So when I signed up on for the All-Access Pass on the Better Basketball website, I knew I had a lot to review (twenty layers worth). To my surprise, Better Basketball has introduced Read and React version 2.0!
This revamped Read and React System is exactly what I needed!
The system has been dramatically simplified while keeping the core of the system intact. Instead of twenty layers, there are now ten. By condensing ideas together, we can finally get to the more advanced concepts, which we will need for our older teams. After watching all 60+ videos with detailed explanations of the layers to the system, not only do I know our team will do better, but I will be a better coach as well.
My research and studying is not done however. There is another system I’m very interested in called Fusion practice. The promise is that the players will practice the system, get extra work on fundamental skills, and we will be training the defense, all at once. As coaches, we all know that we never have enough time, so anything I can do to condense the practice to get the most out of it, the better. This will be vitally important for my middle school teams who lost last year’s basketball season.
To be clear, I have no financial connection to Better Basketball. I am just a giant fan. This isn’t a secret weapon that I hope other schools don’t use except ours. I wish everyone used this system. If every coach used Read and React, we would have better basketball players moving onto the next level every year, and we would see games won because the better team won, not because of weird tactics that exploit the age of our player. The way the system is taught: big picture, drills, test, and incorporate into the full offense, feels similar to the how topics are taught in the classroom. If you are a basketball coach and struggling with your offense, this is the single best resource to teach basketball, and is worth every penny (especially after the Read and React 2.0 upgrade).