Chris Endres - Coaching the Princeton Offense

Chris Endres is an assistant basketball coach at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio. Endres began his coaching career in 2001 as a graduate assistant coach at Urbana (OH) University. After two seasons, he moved on to become the varsity assistant boys basketball coach at Cardington-Lincoln (OH) High School, a role he held for two years. Next, he accepted the position as head boys basketball coach at Bethel (OH) High School. During his four seasons at the helm of the Bees, his teams compiled a 50-36 record and won a league championship.

2012 Coaches Choice. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Coaches Choice. Throughout this book, the masculine shall be deemed to include the feminine and vice versa.

ISBN: 978-1-60679-188-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011941130
Cover design: Studio J Art & Design
Book layout: Studio J Art & Design
Front cover photo: US PRESSWIRE

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This book is dedicated to all who have been a major part in my personal life. I was brought up with hard-working, humble parents who taught me to give everything 110 percent and success will come. I believe I have succeeded in accomplishing that with my family that I have now and will pass along that message to them.

This book is also dedicated to all of those who have influenced my basketball coaching life and to all coaches who have dedicated their lives to doing what is right and teaching our next generation about what it takes for success.

Finally, this book is dedicated my wife Theresa, and my two sons Kevin and Connor. May they understand how appreciated they are and that I love them with every part of my being.

This book was written to provide the reader with an overview of the basics of the Princeton offense. My experience with the offense began with my college basketball team, studying it as a player at John Carroll University in University Heights, Ohio. When we played a very disciplined Muskingum College team, coached by Dr. Jim Burson, we had to defend what was known back then as the Princeton offensive system. When only having two days to prepare for a game in which a team runs this offense as well as Muskingum College executed it, it makes life very difficult for coaches and for the players who are trying pick up on the screens, cuts, and movements of the offense in order to defend it properly. With defending it in practice and in game situations, our team found out how truly difficult this offense is to defend. Even with the film study and on-court demonstrating, it was impossible to stop. The scouting and preparation of what to try to expect with the offense really intrigued me to want to learn more about how the reads and cuts worked to key the different movements of the players.

When I started my coaching career, I was a graduate assistant under Ken Braun at Urbana University in Urbana, Ohio. We decided to really make a commitment to learning in depth how this offense works and to use it to exploit mismatches to get our players the basketball in places where they can be effective. In developing the offense, we spent countless hours watching game tape of Princeton running the offense. We studied Coach Pete Carrils coaching videos.

We were able to put together an offensive system that enabled us to compete against some of the top teams in our Division of NAIA, and even against NCAA Division I teams of Bowling Green State University and Kent State University.

The Princeton offense is a fun way to play basketball and really can give defenses a lot of problems in trying to defend everything that you are throwing at them in one defensive possession. The beauty of running the offense as a stall is that it frees up time for other preparations.

This book provides the breakdown drills to teach your players the freedom to make reads, slip screens, and look for three-point shots and backdoor opportunities. Teams from the NBA, Europe, NCAA, and high school have incorporated some form of the Princeton offense in their offensive attack. I hope you enjoy reading this book about this innovative and effective offense.

About the Companion DVD

This book includes an accompanying DVD that is an audiovisual supplement to the text. Its purpose is to reinforce concepts discussed in the book and explain them thoroughly on a smart board presentation. The DVD is segmented into parts that correspond to the books chapters. The actual teaching of the concepts on the smart board in the DVD should provide a more comprehensive explanation of the Princeton offense.

The Princeton offensive system is a system that teaches basketball players how to play the game against any man-to-man defense. Some of the advantages of running the offense include the following.

The basic Princeton offense is challenging to scout. In trying to prepare as a coach against this style of offense, the opposition will have to make a lot of decisions in their practice plans. What offensive option he feels his defense will struggle with the most is a paramount decision. He will have to instruct his players on how to defend the dribble handoffs, the ball screens, the flare screens, the backdoor cuts, the isolation post-ups and the shuffle cuts. All of these movements require time to learn how to defend them. During the course of a basketball season, you might not have enough time within a given practice to demonstrate all the correct defensive techniques needed to defend the movements of the offense.

The basic Princeton offense helps the less talented teams to compete with moreathletic and talented teams. When teams are guarding the movement of the offense, they are placed in a hypnotic cycle of movement. The defense is constantly put into difficult defensive situations. Within a single possession, the defense is being spread out, forced to move from an inside to an outside movement when the basketball is passed into the low post player and then passed back outside to the perimeter player, who attacks with a straight line dribble penetration. The teams that try to defend this offense always have to think and react so something remorseful does not happen to them, such as giving up an easy backdoor lay-up or a wide-open three-point jump shot.

This defensive indecisiveness keeps their feet moving very slow as they cautiously try to defend all the movements within the offense. This is what makes a very agile defensive team very stagnant, giving a less athletic and talented team the advantage.