Stupid tournament rules

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

The first year my daughter started playing basketball, probably fifth grade, after giving up dancing, the recreation league that she played in had a no zone rule, just man to man. My daughter was a pretty smart player. Whenever a teammate would get beat, she would leave her man to defend the ball handler. Officials: "Sorry, can't do that. Stay with your man".

...

She signed up for travel ball the next winter. We had enough of that nonsense.

That is nonsense. While it has been a while since I have worked a no-zone game, it was never managed that way. Teams were free to double team and help and some even played a match-up zone.

Since these rules were usually used only at a level when the player were very poor shooters beyond about 10', the point was to keep a team from packing 5 defenders deep in the paint and making the opponent shoot from outside all the time or just stand out there with the ball.

It also served to promote the better learning of individual defense.