YouTube Gold: Bellarmine’s Offense

People who pay attention to such thing often call the US states laboratories where ideas are tried before they go national.

You could say that about smaller athletic programs too.

In football, at Presbyterian Kevin Kelley is loathe to kick and almost never punts. Bill Belichik is playing close attention.

In basketball we’ve seen some radical ideas over the years. Loyola Marymount was a lot of fun when it was scoring 110-130 points per game. Grinnell College has blown way past that and had one player score 89 himself. In the 1970’s and 80’s Sonny Allen developed a concept of pressure offense which basically meant pushing so hard that the defense tired out. And now, at Bellarmine, Scott Davenport has expanded on some of these concepts to develop what he calls “pressure offense.” And it’s pretty cool.

Bellarmine tries hard not to dribble, preferring to pass constantly. As anyone who has ever played has been told, the ball moves faster when you pass it and nowhere is this more true than at Bellarmine. It’s a really interesting approach.