So we had our first day of 7th grade girls tryouts yesterday and it looks like we are only going to have 9 players this season. I was hoping for double digits for practice purposes, but we'll just have to make it work.

I was planning to primarily run a 5 out pass and cut/pass and screen offense. But I was thinking that for when we are doing internal team scrimmages and working on our full offense, would it make more sense to go 4out and scrimmage 4v4 with that alignment? We could also scrimmage 3out 1in if we go this route.

I usually use a 4out alignment as changeup at some point in the season anyway.

The 8th grade coach is planning to keep 12 players and said we could rotate a player from his team to use as our 10th when I want to do 5v5 with my own group. And we also work 5v5 against the 8th grade a lot throughout the season. But I'm just wondering how that initial installation phase is going to go if I've only got 9 to run with and we're trying to install a 5out.

Thoughts?

I personally see no benefit to going 4 out with low numbers. I think you choose the offense that will best for them... whether you have 6 players in practice or 15 in practice... I don't think the offense matter.

When running 4 out, I find one of the harder parts is learning how your post and perimeter players space together. If you just go 4 out, you lose that learning aspect.

Whether you run 4 out or 5 out, you;'ll only be able to work on pieces of it.