The blocker mover offense is an offense created by legendary college coach Dick Bennett in the 80s and 90s. In his coaching career, Bennett coached Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Washington State, and made the NCAA tournament seven times. Although Dick Bennett created the offense it is his son, Tony Bennett, who has made the offense very popular. Tony Bennett is the head coach of Virginia and won a national title using the blocker mover offense. Let’s get into how to run it.
There are two types of “positions” in this offense, blocker and movers. The offense has two blockers on the court at all times and usually they are bigs or players that don’t operate on the perimeter too much. At all times there is one blocker on each side of the court and they operate between the block and the elbow. The offense is a consistent process where the blockers screen for the movers.
If a mover is inside the lane the blocker will set a flare screen for the mover to pop out and if the mover is on the perimeter then the blocker will stand firm with a screen while the mover cuts off him to the other side. The blockers only ever go to the opposite side of the court that they are operating on if they are setting a cross screen for the other blocker.
There are many potential variations of the offense but those are the basic principles of how to run it. Virginia is known for having a very slow and methodical offense but that is purely up to the coach. The blocker mover offense can work as a slow offense but it can also be run quicker and find shots earlier in the shot clock.
The offense is effective because if run correctly it can almost completely eliminate stagnance from the offense. The negatives of this offense is that it is hard to run plays out of unless you stop running the offense. Overall this is a great offense for any team that stands around too much.
For a deeper analysis of the offense check out this video.
