pressbreaker

Question
 I coach a small school 8th grade girls traveling team, the problem is that we play mostly schools that are three and four times our size in population so obviously there is a larger pool of atheletes to choose from.  Playing straight up basketball, we are competitive. Where we get in trouble is everyone we play uses a full court press on us and we have serious trouble breaking it. we have a decent pressbreaker and we practice it alot, but in a game situation we just crumble and can't run it effectively.  Do you have any suggestions or tips to help us? Maybe a different pressbreaker or just a small adjustment that we could make to break the press? Thanks for your help.  

Answer
Hi Coach,

It's hard to answer specifically as I don't know what kind of presses you are facing and what your press breaker is.
I loved when a team would press us becaue you could use that to get easy baskets. The problem with pressing in the womens game is that there is no ten second violation. You don't have to hurry to get the ball across half court. With this being said we used to spread the court and make the "D" work as hard as possible. We would really work on swinging the ball from side to side until something opened up and it usually did. The press is basically a gamble and I believe it only has an upside if there is a ten second violation. If you want to write back and let me know what kind of press you are trying to break maybe I can give some specific tips on beating the press. If you want to give me your fax # I can fax over a couple of press offenses. Basic tips against a press are relax, ball fakes, step to the passes, don't float passes, and spread the court. We used to go against seven players with are press offense in practice so when game time came it could never be as tough as going against seven players. The other thing we would do is quick break the press before it could get set up. I hope this helps and good luck.