Last One Holding The Chalk...Usually Wins!

(June 2005)

Assortment of plays, drills and ideas to help your program improve.

Our Al Rayyan Club team finished the regular season as League Champs, Heir Apparent Cup Champs and The Emir Cup Champions with a combined record of 30 - 2. This was a first for the Al Rayyan Club to win all three championships in one season. Very proud of the accomplishments of this team that underwent several changes in personnel for various reasons throughout the course of the season. We now conclude our season in Manila (Philippines) at the Asian Cup Championships.

(Update) On Sunday, June 6th, we won the Asian Cup Championship, one of the biggest tournaments in Asia.

We won 7 games in 7 days on the road to winning the championship, pushing our overall final season record to 37 - 2.

Here were our scores in this tournament:

Al Rayyan (101), United Arab Emerites (44)

Al Rayyan (84), Kuwait (60)

Al Rayyan (79), Syria (54)

Al Rayyan (92), Jordan (56)

Al Rayyan (89), Kazakhstan (82), quarterfinals

Al Rayyan (87), Lebanon (84) OT, semifinals

Al Rayyan (83), Jordan (76), championship

Click here for a website that followed the tournament.

As promised, this month we will look at our 1 - 1 - 3 zone defense (called "23", much easier to call out than "1 - 1 - 3") and the traps we use out of it ("23 Down" and "23 Fire"). Also, we will look at a simple, yet effective, box and one defense using the 1 - 1 - 3 alignment ("41").

This zone defensive section included in this newsletter concludes our entire offensive and defensive systems that we have used throughout our season. I hope you have enjoyed a look into our season and the various strategy we have used on offense and defense in the past several newsletters.

1 - 1 - 3 Zone Defense (click defenses below)

"23" (basic 1 - 1 - 3 Zone Defense)

"23 Down" (trapping wing / corner)

"23 Fire" (doubling the low post)

"41" (Box and one defense using the 1 - 1 - 3 alignment and rules)