I'm asking a ton of questions today. This will be the last.

To you coaches who have experience running different offenses and defenses... do you swear by one? do you avoid one like a plague?

This is all subjective right? I would guess this question comes up quite a bit. But I'm looking through resumes of successful coaches on here and there is no common thread. It seems each offense and defense type has successful coaches that run it.

Thoughts?

You can be successful with any offense and defense, though some combinations probably work better than others. For example, Fast Break seems to work well with Press, because you're recruiting for the same skills (ath, spd).

The key to success (not that I've achieved anything amazing!) is to match the players you recruit to your systems. So, for example, if you're a Zone defensive team, you can arguably recruit some players with lower ATH / DEF and instead focus on things that help offense, like PER and BH.

I did a case study of the past 2 season's national champions in the 6 worlds that I'm in.

I found the winner used the following:

Motion - 20
Triangle - 8
Flex - 4
Fastbreak - 2

Man - 18
Press - 11
Zone - 6

Doesn't quite add up to 36, but there were a few I couldn't tell for sure.  Pretty interesting that in Knight season 57 that the 3 winners all used Triangle offense, and each used a different defense.  Maybe Motion/Man is most popular...maybe it's the "best"...?



 

At the upper levels of DI it's generally accepted that Man defense is the best option but a lot of that is due to the fact that most players at that level are very high in most ratings. At the lower levels where you have to sacrifice some areas in order to get very high in others you can make any of the defenses work with the right players.