If you guys had to rank the best offense/defense combinations how would you rank them? I typically see pairs of motion/m2m, triangle/zone, flex/m2m, flex/FCP, fast break/fcp. I know there are no correct answers, but I’d be curious to hear everyone’s opinions.

This is gonna be interesting! Personally, I play zone, but I know it’s the least popular defense (at least for D2 and D3). Press is probably the most popular defense at lower divisions. I assume people will say FB/Zone is the worst combo. I’ve only ran Zone so I have no clue how I’d rank the other sets, but this will be interesting to see what people rank though.

motion/press as long as I can run 11- or even 12-deep. it's less effective with every walk-on.

Posted by bathtubhippo on 3/3/2019 4:58:00 PM (view original):
motion/press as long as I can run 11- or even 12-deep. it's less effective with every walk-on.

I think that’s probably the biggest problem with FCP. In the current recruiting environment, it is very hard to get quality players without taking walk ons.

I am a big fan of the triangle/2-3 zone. With the right players, you can run it with 4 guards and 5 bigs...allowing for a walk-on, RS and ineligible.

Posted by robinsmd on 3/3/2019 5:55:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bathtubhippo on 3/3/2019 4:58:00 PM (view original):
motion/press as long as I can run 11- or even 12-deep. it's less effective with every walk-on.

I think that’s probably the biggest problem with FCP. In the current recruiting environment, it is very hard to get quality players without taking walk ons.

This is the reason I have switched (almost) all of my press teams to press/zone. When my teams are 11 or 12 deep, I run press. When we have more than 1 walk on, we run the press/zone and if I have 3 or more walk ons I play exclusively zone.

My UNC team in Smith is the only team I have that practices exclusively zone. All of the rest practice zone and press.

Flex/press was my favorite when I started. Still like to run, run,run and loved the idea of running a three guard lineup.Triangle/man was the one I was most familiar with when I started and what I used when I started playing this game. When I got the basics I went to the flex/press.

Right now my favorite would be the flex/man combo because I don't have to stress about getting the 11-12 players for the press. Considering a zone for one or two of my teams.

A really well built FB/FCP team is one that causes me the most trouble. Arfy is the best I've seen with it but I have fairly limited scope. I liked triangle/zone at low D1 for recruiting reasons mentioned, but I haven't seen it implemented much for the top tier programs. As a coach, game planning for my own defense is not so tough, but I've really struggled to see the difference between Motion/Flex/Triangle from an offensive standpoint. I generally run flex just because it's just what I started with, but I can't say why I like it better than Tri or Motion.

66 votes as of now?! THAT is a poll. I haven't seen that kinda participation since i've been back. Good stuff.

Although I am completely stunned to see that with the amount of combined D2/D3 coaches that play, that press isn't a landslide victor. I assumed it would be. But it's fairly balanced

Posted by topdogggbm on 3/5/2019 5:47:00 AM (view original):
66 votes as of now?! THAT is a poll. I haven't seen that kinda participation since i've been back. Good stuff.

Although I am completely stunned to see that with the amount of combined D2/D3 coaches that play, that press isn't a landslide victor. I assumed it would be. But it's fairly balanced

I’m a little surprised press is so low, although this is still only 5-10% of the total population of coaches, so the margin of error is pretty high. Right now, M2M is the clear winner (which doesn’t surprise me) while press and zone are about equal.

I like the triangle/M2M and only running 10 players. Kinda like what gomiami said...except I only get 2 of the 3 (walkon, redshirt, ineligible) every season.

I have seen other coaches who are pretty new have some amazing success at the flex/halfcourt press-M2M combo with average-rated teams. That combo interests the hell outta me but I'm too entrenched in my ways with my current team to make the jump. Really thinking about adding a team in another world to experiment with it.

Posted by topdogggbm on 3/5/2019 5:47:00 AM (view original):
66 votes as of now?! THAT is a poll. I haven't seen that kinda participation since i've been back. Good stuff.

Although I am completely stunned to see that with the amount of combined D2/D3 coaches that play, that press isn't a landslide victor. I assumed it would be. But it's fairly balanced

66 votes? Huh?

I like Flex/press or Fb/press at D2 & D3. Motion/man at D1.

Posted by pdxblazerfan on 3/5/2019 10:18:00 AM (view original):
I like the triangle/M2M and only running 10 players. Kinda like what gomiami said...except I only get 2 of the 3 (walkon, redshirt, ineligible) every season.

I have seen other coaches who are pretty new have some amazing success at the flex/halfcourt press-M2M combo with average-rated teams. That combo interests the hell outta me but I'm too entrenched in my ways with my current team to make the jump. Really thinking about adding a team in another world to experiment with it.

I’ve been meaning to give this a try, too. Next time I change jobs, I’ll likely give it a shot.