If I run a man to man D and want to use the half court press/man2man option... Here is my Q: In practice, do I need to practice both the man2man and the press in order to use this defense?

If I'm just practicing man2man will my players magically know how to half court press with it? A player with a high man2man IQ can half court press/man2man like a pro?

Or do I need to allocate team minutes to practicing the press?

There is no magic to it. You have to practice both.

Posted by Weena on 4/5/2013 2:41:00 PM (view original):
There is no magic to it. You have to practice both.

That is lame. Why would anyone run this? Too much work...

Most teams DON'T run a combo defense BECAUSE it essentially takes double the practice time.

That's the key disadvantage of it.

The advantage is that it does offer you options - you can run both at once or either defense in any given game. However, the practice time you spend on the second defense is probably more detrimental to your player growth by losing individual practice time than it is worth - i.e. you won't win more games by using two defenses, but you might if your players improve faster.

Again, that's why most people don't run combo defenses.

I really think to run combo defenses effectively, you have to pay extra close attention to IQ when recruiting. If you can find some good recruits who already know the press or MTM very well you can structure your team in a way to where you could focus on the weaker defense of the combo. Someone always says paging barretchap when this comes up so ... paging barretchap?

High work ethics are a must...when I ran zone-press combo, I wouldn't even look at a player with a WE under 40 and tried to make sure they were all "above average students on the floor and in the classroom" as well. Since you're not going to have as many minutes free for individual practice, you want individuals who will get the maximum gain from the floor minutes you can provide them.

The combo gives you the benefits of both. turnovers and being able to man up your best against the other teams' best. The downside is having to spend 15 minutes on both defenses. I've never done it, but I think a High DI team like KS that recruits top notch guys every year would do it reasonably well. KS doesn't have to worry as much about practice time as say, witchitaw state. 

interesting comments. i'll make a mental note to never worry about practicing two defenses unless i'm at a A prestige D1 program. So, maybe in 5 real life human years I can actually think about it.