Sean Keating 4v3 3v2

This is the Transforming Basketball Podcast hosted by Alex Sarama. This is the podcast helping coaches and practitioners change the way we think about basketball performance. Our goal is to provide the ultimate resource for making sense of applying contemporary skill acquisition ideas within basketball.

Within this podcast, Alex and his guests unpack how an ecological dynamics framework Impacts our perspective of the game. If you're ready to join us in our quest to transform the basketball world, this is the podcast for you.

Do you need help applying all the unique transforming ideas in your next practice? Our free youth basketball practice book provides you with 21 small-sided games which are perfect for all levels of youth basketball. Join thousands of coaches around the world coaching the transforming way and get your free copy by heading to the show notes.

Hi and hello, welcome back to the Transforming Basketball Podcast. I'm Adam Omiecinski. I'm here with Sean Keating this week. And Sean, if you don't mind giving us the pleasure of giving us a little background introduction on yourself.

Yeah, thanks for having me today. I'm a head high school varsity basketball coach in St. Peter, Minnesota, kind of a medium-sized school, a public school, and been coaching there for 12 years and, you know, coached a little bit before that. And I've been a teacher in the high school and just been working, you know, kind of a smaller town community.

So I've been building the youth basketball program. I've got twin 3rd grade boys that are starting kind of the first year of our youth basketball program. So I've been involved in that and just trying to build the program in a kind of small rural town and try to do it the right way.

And that youth program is actually kind of what sparked this conversation because there was a tweet that came up that we got tagged in and it was a youth fast break league. And do you mind kind of describing like the origin of that league that you started up, Sean?

Yeah. So there's a guy by the name of Jeff Boos who was a head coach at Sun Prairie For over 30 years in Wisconsin. It's outside of Madison there. It's a pretty big school. And I've gotten to know Jeff over the last few years, and he told me about this fast break league that they had started there in his community.

And kind of the origins of it were him and another buddy were trying to find a better way to, you know, play basketball at that age rather than 5-on-5. And so they kind of toyed around with some things and eventually landed on this game, which is a 4-on-3, 3-on-2 continuous game played in 4 10-minute quarters.

And just, you know, I've spent a lot of my life, you know, having twin boys, you know, just thinking about how am I going to do this when they get up there and how do I want to build my program and what's the best way to, you know, develop kids.

And obviously as a parent and a coach, you just want to give your kids the best opportunities. And so this was the first year I'd actually tried to get some other towns involved. We had played this game probably a little bit over the last year or two.

And I just took a little on our huddle camera recorded one of the sessions. And then I put a clip out there on Twitter. And yeah, a lot of coaches really, you know, responded to it and took to it well and thought it was a really cool idea.

And I think it's pretty revolutionary. I think it's a great way to teach basketball at that age.

Okay, so I'm curious, like, this is a little bit different. I've never really seen before this tweet. I never really thought about like a different approach where you're actually using fast breaks at that level to make sure they get more touches and whatnot.

What has kind of been the feedback from the coaches who've been exposed to it, whether it be the ones you've actually involved in the league itself? And especially, like, I'm curious, like, what the feedback is from the parents, because that's kind of quite the shift from probably what they expect to see when they're signing their 3rd and 4th graders up for basketball.

Yeah, the feedback's been really, really great. You know, I think, you know, basketball is such a different game at the younger levels because it's so hard to get any rhythm or pace to play because it's so easy to have so many stoppages, right?

So easy to have a lot of jump balls and traveling and whistles and all those types of things that kind of prevent the game from being enjoyable from even a parent's perspective, right? It's just like, oh, I gotta go watch this 5-on-5, constant jump balls and those types of things.

So what this game really has done is it's, you know, what the way we run it is 4 10-minute quarters. One team goes down 4 against 3, the other team comes down 3 against 2. These players run off to the side and we play music, we keep score.

It is just really fun to watch because there's constraints put in. And so a couple of those things that make it more enjoyable would be the defenders. We don't have them guard past the 3-point line, the arc. And so what that does is allows kids to bring up the ball freely regardless of their skill level.

And then another thing that has really, I think, really helped the game is we don't allow defenders to reach and steal the ball directly. They can steal passes, but they can't go in and reach and do a jump ball. And then just having an odd man advantage, there's always somebody open.

It teaches kids to play in space. You know, there's some soccer kind of similarities that I see with just kids being able to, you know, learn that, hey, there's somebody open, use pass fakes, pivoting, you know. And so I've, yeah, really been blown away with just from a varsity coach perspective, seeing the development of the kids, the parents, the feedback's been tremendous.

My own parents, I know our 4th grade boys team Did it for 4 weeks and then they played in their first 5-on-5 tournament. And I had a few parents text me like during their 5-on-5 game saying, oh my gosh, like our kids look like a different team.

Like they're passing the ball ahead. They know how to pivot and pass and move. And, and so I just think the game is, it just provides a structure for kids to learn, which is really cool.

I guess I'm curious, like how many of those constraints that you mentioned, like for instance, only guarding inside the 3-point line, not being able to reach on the on-ball defender. How much of the— were all those included when you first originally designed this, or did they come about as you kind of watch things play and you see some of the struggles like the jump balls we're talking about and offense not really gaining the most from the experience?

Yeah, I think some of them were developed, you know, through Coach Boos. Like, I think he even makes the 3-point line even smaller at that level. He'll, you know, put some tape down and maybe make it instead of the 19'9, maybe it's 16 feet or something like that.

But I think that was just to promote more scoring. I think one of the big goals of this game— I know like our other team played in a 5-on-5 tournament the other day and like they were scoring 20, 25 points. In this game, you're going to score in the 50s because there's just going to be so many more opportunities.

So I think that, that is huge because who doesn't want to score the ball? I'm a big believer in lowering the hoops. I did have some people fight me on that because they're like, we should be playing at 10 feet. And I'm like, don't.

These kids want to score. Like, let's get every kid an opportunity on an 8, 9-foot hoop. It's just easier. And then the no reaching, that was my assistant Josh that I kind of fought with a little bit on that at first. I'm like, well, that takes away their aggressiveness.

But actually it's been just an absolute blessing for him to come up with that idea because it's really twofold. Number one, it teaches kids how to play defense without fouling, which I think we can all agree is an issue. And then number two, it just, it gives these kids an opportunity to learn how to pivot.

And even if it takes 5, 6, 7 seconds, that opportunity to learn how to pivot and make a pass has really— I've noticed that being one of the biggest benefits of this game because teaching a kid how to step through and reverse pivot and those things is really hard.

But when you put it in a real live environment, they start to get the hang of how they can do it and throw a bounce pass or chest pass. And then I'd say the last constraint I put in is I have this thing from A guy that I learned no rainbow passes.

And so if you just throw a chuck it up pass, that's a turnover automatically. So they gotta be good passes, not just chuck it ups.

Interesting. Yeah, I can see the pivot, like the pivoting being a huge advantage, especially at that level, because what is like probably one of the main deterrents to that actually occurring is they're not comfortable with the basketball to pivot. They're worried they're going to lose the ball because again, they're at such a disadvantage at that size and skill level and level of coordination that it can be very difficult to pivot without losing the basketball because the basketball's— geez, covers basically their entire torso.

So it's hard not to get a piece of the ball when you're playing defense if you're not reaching in.

Yeah. And something I just add on that real quick is like, we've all seen this, right? A kid dribbles to his right, picks it up. And so in a 5-on-5 game, what happens? The kid kind of holds it like a baby, and eventually a 5-second whistle or a jump ball.

But what this does is that kid gets to that spot But now he, the defender can't reach. So the kid gets to actually work on his pivot to make a pass out. And I think that's the real beauty of it because it's allowing them to learn and try some different things rather than just get to my— I got a kid on our team named Connor that's pretty famous for going to the right and picking it up.

So I call it Connor's corner, that right side of the court. But we say, you know, if you get in Connor's corner, Either dribble back out or we got to reverse pivot, make a good pass. And so I think it's been it's been really beneficial when it comes to those fundamental things.

I guess I'm curious as well. Like how is like implementing this? Has this influenced you as when you're going through your practices as a varsity coach? How has it influenced your varsity practices? And do you even implement this every once in a while into your varsity practices?

This four on three, three on two. And how has that impacted you?

Yeah, you know, it really. I'm kind of going through it right now where I have this unique perspective of coaching the varsity and coaching my 3rd graders and going through this. And so I think, you know, it's still kind of a process of what I am learning, but there's so many parallels to basketball that you see at the young levels that show up still at the older levels.

And I think, yeah, it has made me play more odd-man situations because the other benefit besides offensively, like, yeah, you're doing it at the 3rd, 4th grade level to help kids score. But what it does defensively is really unique. The instincts that it causes that, hey, we have to stop the ball.

And now we've got maybe 2 other defenders to guard 3 guys, or we've got 3 other defenders to guard 4. You know, how do you play those gaps and use your instincts to read? You know, you can do shell drill all day that you want, but that doesn't really teach kids how to adapt in the moment.

And I really love the odd man situations because it teaches you how to scramble out of situations.

Yeah.

And transition. And, you know, look at the advanced analytics about how much the game is played actual 5-on-5 versus broken situations. And so I think it allows kids to have to just kind of use their instincts and adapt, and instead of just being so reactive, being proactive to the situation.

So I'm using it more in my varsity, playing more odd-man situations, playing down a defender, down 2 defenders. And just teaching kids like, hey, if you're not guarding the ball, how can you help buy a second to get a teammate back into the play and get a stop?

And when you get stopped down a guy or you have somebody guard 2 for a second, those are huge plays in a varsity game and can make the difference in them taking a worse shot than they could have gotten.

And it's certainly going to— it's going to enhance all the aspects because you were going to be in scramble situations, whether we're 5-on-5 or have an odd man. It's You're learning principles through that, through that process that you may not be exposed to if you were simply doing even-number matchups.

So yeah, I don't see why it wouldn't be beneficial at all levels. I guess, Sean, another follow-up question I would have was like, you're doing this at 3rd and 4th. Have you explored doing— because I know modified, at least in the States, it starts at 7th grade.

Are you doing this with 4th and 5th, with 5th graders as well and 6th graders? Or do you kind of like— Do a little bit more even, even type situations with 5th and 6th graders as well.

You know, I kind of learned, um, a long time ago when I came in as a young coach, when I tried to, uh, make people do something, it didn't go too well. And so, you know, my goal is to kind of show this and the benefits, but, you know, it's, it's really gonna be upon others to kind of take it and make it what they want.

I think there's just such a resistance in our society to just play 5-on-5 and try to play real basketball as fast as we can. And so I do see some pushback on playing this at higher levels. But I think from a practice standpoint, and I honestly believe from a development standpoint, I don't know if you're going to find a better way to create as many possible situations and opportunities for kids to get better.

I really think it has huge benefits at older levels as well. I think all the way up through 8th, 9th grade, and I don't I mean, I think there's definitely a place for it in high school and even college as well, putting dribble limits on things.

You know, I think there's different ways to constrain it. You could, you know, figure that out and tweak with it. But yeah, there's definitely people, you know, that tweet got all kinds of feedback and people from all over the world that were thinking about implementing it.

And I just think if they try it, they're going to realize the benefits and they're not going to want to go back.

Well, Sean, I was going to ask you to pitch it and give advice for Anybody who was out there who's the director of a youth program and on how to do things and whether then whether or not they should do it. But I think you made quite the good pitch there.

So I guess we're going to end things there. I'll attach all your social media information, whatnot. And I just want to say thank you, Sean, for coming on the show and really spreading this game.

I appreciate it. Thank you for your time. And if anyone has any questions, don't hesitate to reach out.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Transforming Basketball Podcast. If you'd like to learn more about the work that we do, head to transformingbball.com to access our free resources and spread these ideas throughout the basketball world. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.

You can also connect with us on Instagram, X, or YouTube with any questions that you have from the episode. See you next time on the Transforming Basketball Podcast.