The Playbook: Louisville's Flow Offense
What happens when you mix the dribble drive with the Princeton offense?
We are now six games into the new season and Louisville’s playbook is starting to come together. Ross McMains was brought in to increase the Cardinals pace offensively, but there have also been some changes to what Louisville is running in the half court.
In this first edition of “The Playbook” we’ll look at the offensive system the Cards have been using to score in the half court. In short, the offense is a mix of the dribble drive and the Princeton offense.
Spacing
While Louisville will often play out of 5 out spacing when the center is trailing the play, its base offense is four players spaced around the perimeter with the center in the paint.
Two Louisville players will be in the slots - the area a step or two outside of the free throw line extended. The other two perimeter players will be in the deep corners, while the center will generally be spaced out in the paint.
Dribble Drive
The dribble drive offense was a system created by Vance Walberg to open up gaps for players to attack downhill and create open shots around the rim or from three. Walberg has stated that he wanted to “find an offense where he could continually attack” the other team.
John Calipari famously ran the dribble drive with his teams at Memphis. In the preseason, Kentucky was running this system pretty consistently, and you can see in the clips below the basic principles in action. The offense calls for players to cut and space in such a way that the ball handler has large gaps to attack the rim with a drive.
While Louisville hasn’t adopted the full dribble drive system, it has included some of its principles into its half court offense. The Cards flow offense begins with a dribble handoff or pass from the player in the slot to the player in the corner.
Just like Walberg’s dribble drive offense, the way Louisville cuts on these passes and dribble handoffs opens up large gaps for the player coming out of the corner to get downhill and attack the rim.
Princeton Offense
The Princeton offense, created by Pete Carril when he was the head coach at Princeton University, is a wide ranging system that has many different options within it. One of those options that is still run by many teams around college basketball is referred to as the “point series.” In this part of the Princeton offense, the ball is entered to a big man at the elbow and the perimeter players cut around him in various predetermined ways.
One of the options out of the point series, known as “point away,” involves the player who has just passed to the big man at the elbow immediately screening for the player in the slot beside him. In the video breakdown below, you can see how the University of San Francisco has run this aspect of the Princeton offense.
The point series can also be run for a spread ball screen, as the big man continues up from the elbow to set a pick and roll instead of receiving a pass.
Louisville has incorporated aspects of the Princeton point series into its half court flow offense. When the initial dribble handoff or pass does not create an advantage for the player in the corner, he will quickly throw the ball ahead to the player on the weak side who has now risen to the top of the key.
From there, that player has two options. First, he can receive a step up screen from the big man who has lifted to the elbow.
Second, he can pass the ball to the big man at the elbow and screen away for the player who just passed him the ball, similar to the point series discussed above.
Louisville’s half court offensive system can sometimes get bogged down as the players are still learning how to move between the different phases of the offense. But overall, the way the system is designed allows the Cards to continuously attack the defense in a number of different ways - through dribble handoffs, screens, and pick and rolls.