A question for the group - I'm currently running (and practicing for) 2 defenses on my UCSD team in Tark. When I took the team over from seabreeze, he was doing that and I didn't change anything (particularly when I won an NT with his players and his practice schedule...).

The question now is, is this really worth it? Are there other teams out there successfully practicing for two defenses? I've got players that are graduating that are still improving in some categories.

So, I guess the question is, is the benefit from practicing for two defenses worth potentially not maxing out your players' skills before graduation?

Again, thanks for the help.

I run press/man with 2 of my teams, and I have stopped practicing press all together. I used to practice both and then on 1 of my teams I stopped running press/man and went with just m2m. After a couple of seasons I decided I wanted to go back to press/man but I did it without practicing press and there was no negative affects. My opponents FG% did not increase and I began forcing more TOs. The only thing I didn't pay attention to was fouls. I do this on both of my D2 teams and last season I got a 1 seed and 4 seed with those teams playing a combo D without practicing the press at all.

My team practices both man to man and press since I run the half court press/man to man d.
It has worked out fairly well overall.

Press/Man and it took me to my first final four in Knight.

When I've gone press/man with my other teams, I usually put 20 into man and 10 into press. My thinking is that you don't have to have a dominant press aspect in order to get a few lucky steals...but you want a good halfcourt defense to fall back on. Didn't win any NT's with it, but had fairly good success.

tannermcc runs all 3 defenses at Phelan Stanford, and he's maintained a pretty consistent A+ prestige. I've never been able to gauge the advantage of it, but it's worked for him.

I think his original question was regarding potentially not maxing out players core attributes...So to answer that I run a blend with one team and practice 20/20 in my defense and another 20 in my offense...no one has ever not maxed out and I normally have Srs with study hall...My other two teams I run a straight up Press and put 25 minutes into each...the extra 10 minutes gained has not made that much of a difference.

Quote: Originally Posted By jskenner on 9/22/2009tannermcc runs all 3 defenses at Phelan Stanford, and he's maintained a pretty consistent A+ prestige. I've never been able to gauge the advantage of it, but it's worked for him

he does in wooden d1 also and won the nt last season.

There is a very fine line in HD that involves winning because of something vs. winning in spite of something.

I've seen many, many cases over the years of guys doing something that was clearly detrimental, but they were still successful. If you have talent, you can mess up quite a bit and still win consistently. Just because someone makes a Sweet 16 run playing a combo defense doesn't mean they got there because of the combo. They may have been a F4 team running one defense with better iq's.

That's not to say that running multiple defenses is always a mistake, because it's not, especially with players capping out in individual skills with a frequency that didn't exist previously. That said, if your players are still improving when they graduate, I would say that there is probably too much time being devoted to team practice.

I would add that even if seniors are reaching maximums by graduation, there is also value in improving quicker throughout the career. After all, players play 4 years, not just the end of the senior year. The balance between team and individual practice is not a question with one obvious answer.

Thanks for all the interesting takes on that guys. Some things to think about...

I would run 2 defences if yuo do 2 6 man classes that way they are all maxed by seniors and then you have somthing to do with the practice otherwise I dont feel its worht it. just my .02 but tanner is proving me wrong with his approach

i practice man and zone in Smith and press combo in my other 2 worlds, have every season since potential was introduced and you started running out of places to put minutes. While everyone was ******** about having 90 minutes in study hall, this seemed like the direction that the game wanted us to go.

many people on here will present facts based on things they haven't ever experimented with or with things they have heard on the forum for years. i suggest you try multiple D's for yourself and make up your own mind based on your own results.

following up, it seems tmac doesn't do the multiple D thing. tanner/tmac wins because he runs these types of experiments...the mad scientst of HD.

This doesn't work. Don't try it.