Detailed Breakdown of Pack Line Defense

Pack Line defense has been a popular philosophy since the 90s. Virginia's Head Coach Tony Bennett took this defense from his father, Dick Bennett, who had a lot of success at Wisconsin-Green Bay.

This breakdown is broken up into two parts. Part 1 focuses on the foundations of this defense. 1. What the Pack Line is, and 2. Why it's structured to force ball-handlers to the middle of the court.

The Pack Line is an imaginary 16ft line (similar to the 3pt line) that every off-ball defender should be inside, or on, at all times. The on-ball defender is tasked with applying ball pressure to his match-up to influence dribble penetration. When done correctly, this defense forces a lot of drives into traffic that result in poor shots and turnovers.

In part 2, I'll breakdown Virginia's ballscreen coverage, and the 4th component of Pack Line which is post defense. Virginia primarily hard hedges ballscreens, which allowed them to maintain their aggressiveness. When the ball goes into the post, they "post fire" or double team to continue the theme of aggressiveness. Here's the link to part 2 [   • Ballscreen Coverage & Post Defense fo...  ]

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