Call this whining, venting, whatever.

IMO the one thing that Seble did to hurt the game was his tweaking of the impacts of defensive positioning.   From the several seasons of experience I've had before and after the change I feel that positioning has VERY LITTLE impact on a team's ability to score from the inside (-) or ourside (+).

The only thing it affects is the # of 3 pointers taked by the opponent.    While this may work (in a way) vs. teams that like to shoot from the outside it does NOTHING against teams that like to shoot everything from the paint.

Running a -4/-5 vs. a team that doesn't want to shoot 3s does not impact their FG% at all.     So if nothing else the description on the team game plan page should be changed because this does not stop teams from scoring on the inside.

What I actually find is the defensive positioning affects the positions that score.  (ie - a  (-4) defense would stop a team that scores inside from the C/PF positions but will NOT stop a team that scores inside from the SG/PG positions).

If this is true, then again the description and forum guides would need to be changed to speak the truth.   Just my opinions,  but it still drives me crazy when this happens.

Have you noticed any effects of positioning on a teams rebounding?

I agree completely.

Seems to be just as fruitless in better protecting the boards as well.

Posted by clouseb on 8/2/2014 11:06:00 AM (view original):
Have you noticed any effects of positioning on a teams rebounding?

Yes, it does seem you fair better on defensive boards the the more (-) you are.

Posted by car_crazy_v2 on 8/2/2014 11:29:00 AM (view original):
I agree completely.

Seems to be just as fruitless in better protecting the boards as well.

I haven't notice that at all. Playing a - defense does help on rebounding.

In my first season back after a long hiatus, I've mainly played between a +1 and -2 defense, which obviously isn't enough for me to get a great reading on how effective +/- has been in effecting rebounding, but I always felt that +/- should have had more of an effect on rebounding. I often used -5 positioning back in the day and when I did, my rebounding rate didn't noticeably change. It still seemed that my opponents could grab near their usual share of offensive boards, and my teams were never weak in rebounding. This always itched at me. Obviously I don't have any data to back this up though so I'll put my trust in you guys; you've had far more experience than I, especially as of late.

Here's a solid example.

I went -5 in my first game (stupid I know when running the press. t I wanted to test it out against a very poor shooting team) and it didn't seem to have much of an effect. My opponent had a typical offensive rebounding game for them and I allowed what amounted to a typical number of offensive boards.

Second game of the season.

We went -5 again (this time I simply forgot to gameplan as I was on vacation) and switched to -3 at the half. Their offensive rebounding rate stayed nearly the same in the second half despite the change and they actually shot better from outside the arch.

by definition, a game cannot be a solid example of the impact of defensive positioning. you need at a minimum, the aggregate games from the season. trust me, if you take the time to aggregate, you will find the negative settings do help on the boards. these are all subtle effects though - an HD game result is the culmination of over a hundred factors and hundreds of random number generations. you can't expect one single factor to have such a huge impact that it jumps out an punches you in the face!

Not to mention, that Princeton team isn't what anyone would consider a badass rebounding team (I realize it's only your first season and most of that can be attributed to Sim recruiting).  Mediocre athleticism and rebounding ratings from your bigs, combined with non-existent rebounding ratings for your guards, added to running a FCP is gonna make it pretty difficult to maintain any kind of rebounding advantage.  My two cents.

Posted by gillispie1 on 8/2/2014 10:11:00 PM (view original):
by definition, a game cannot be a solid example of the impact of defensive positioning. you need at a minimum, the aggregate games from the season. trust me, if you take the time to aggregate, you will find the negative settings do help on the boards. these are all subtle effects though - an HD game result is the culmination of over a hundred factors and hundreds of random number generations. you can't expect one single factor to have such a huge impact that it jumps out an punches you in the face!

Should a -5 defense NOT have a dramatic effect compared to running a 0 or +1, though? I understand that it won't always be evident on a single-game basis, but looking through all of my games this season, I sincerely cannot find a correlation between my +/- and opponent's offensive rebounding rate.

And emy, I completely agree that my current roster is not set up to rebound well. I'm just making the point that in relation to our typical rebounding performance and our opponents' typical rebounding performance, playing a -5 defense didn't seem to have a noticeable effect over running a 0 or even a +1 positioning.

But I'm open-minded. I'd love to see some more data on this because I'm all for collectively figuring out how we can improve the game. Perhaps my POV is skewed by my deep-rooted disdain for WIS and their efforts to improve the game, but again I'm all for making changes in the game where the community as a whole finds fit.

What would an expected advantage be?  How big?  What I see here looks unremarkable.  In each of the games linked above, the teams' starters' rebounding ratings are very close.

In the first game, each team had 38 misses.  Princeton had two more offensive rebounds than Quinnipiac, for a 5% advantage on the offensive boards.

In the second game, Princeton had 32 misses, and Portland had 27.  Princeton had four more offensive rebounds than Portland, for a roughly 7% advantage on the offensive boards.

One interesting wrinkle is that, in both of those games, Princeton's bench players did a much better job than the starters did rebounding their misses while also shooting a better percentage than the starters.  What's up there?  I guess I've reached my research tolerance limit.

Anyway, in a vanishingly small sample, Princeton had a 5% and a 7% advantage in offensive rebounding running a motion/press vs.  motion/2-3 zone opponents.  I don't know what the expected advantage would be, but I'd bet that's not far from the range if it's outside at all.

I feel like I disagree.

I'm a contrarian myself.  Care to elaborate?

I think I went off on a not-very-responsive tangent above.  Please feel free to ignore.