UCF Defensive Philosophy

UCF Defensive Philosophy

At UCF, we take great pride in our Defense and Rebounding. It is our belief that if our Defense can dictate how our opponents play, we will have a great chance to be successful on the road, at home and against all our opponents. We want to disrupt our opponents and not allow them to do what they do best. With the use of scouting reports, we want to be an intelligent defensive team and make shooters drivers and drivers shooters and be prepared to defend all types of offensive schemes.

Often times, the most selfish players are the ones on the defensive end. Therefore, to emphasize everyone guards the ball and your player, our Ball – Man defensive system is designed to make each player accountable for their responsibilities. With accountability and communication, players learn to trust each other. Both instill great team work and confidence in our defense. We must not only be willing to play harder than our opponents, we must be willing to play Defense as a team and be mindful of not allowing our offense to affect our defense. Ultimately, we must commit as a team to not giving up easy baskets and contesting all shots.

A lot of championships have been won by teams that have not been the most talented. So, how are we going to win our conference, if you are not the most talented team? By influencing our opponent defensively. We know we are not going to “pitch” a shutout. But we can determine who scores, where they score and how they score, we are going to make it hard on them.

We want our system to be simple and efficient. Ernest Hemingway was once asked, “How did you learn to write?” Hemingway replied, “By writing every
day.” That is the mentality we take to our program on a daily basis. In doing so, we plan to outwork, outprepare and outfundamental our opponents.

In the teaching of our defense, we really concentrate on developing sound defensive techniques. It is essential that our players have a master of the proper defensive techniques. It is only when our players can get into, stay in and move in the various defensive stances will our defensive system be executed to its fullest.

There are basic four ways as to why games are lost:
Turnovers
Bad shots
Failure to blockout
Lack of pressure

Our defensive system is predicated on these four variables. We know that most games are lost, not won. We simply want to get the offense to do something they don’t want to do.