you have a PG with a 1 pa rating?  realistic game.  In my experience you can substitue stamina (which many sports phycologist agree is part of athleticism) with eye-hand coordination, balance, quickness (different from speed most agree), and agility,  Then stamina would make sense.  I think users are too quick to say that it's not as effective.  In my opinion there is very little downside to press if you have the eye-hand, balance, quickness, and agility rating (refuse to call it stam).  On average there can be as many as 8-10 extra turnovers created per game with only a few extra fouls, and an extra basket or two (1 more make out of 50 ups your % from 24-50 (48%) to 25-50 (50%).  That looks significant but it's two points.  Add those 2 to maybe 3 points from FTAs and you've got 5.  The 8-10 extra turnovers leads to more than 5 points. No risk if you have the EYH/Q/B/A rating in your favor.

Any other thoughts on Man v Press and which one is the superior defense?

Posted by Weena on 10/24/2010 7:09:00 PM (view original):
I don't think Press needs any more stamina than M2M. The fouls generally come from not having the right type of players or playing them with low IQ. To me the biggest difference is that defensive skills in the Press can be almost as low as Zone. I take that as a huge advantage because I that's one less factor to consider in recruiting. Speed and Athleticism are the key to running a successful Press along with M2M type stamina. I obviously like Press a lot but I think I have given a fair assessment. Other coaches may have differing opinions.

I've actually noticed the opposite, Weena.  Def and stamina are incredibly important in the Press.  For M2M, you really just need def and IQ.  For Press, you need those 2 as well as stamina, & ath/speed.

You will be a bad FCP team until you get the iq's to B or above.  And you need to either go 11-12 deep, or have guys with 80+ stamina.

udm_mike, looking at my Drew team, would it even be stronger if it was running m2m rather than press? My games vs. top 10 teams last season were very close and I had only about a 2-3 t/o edge. I think if my team was m2m, I can easily force my opponent to shoot sub .400 with how high the ath/spd/def the team is. 

tian - you have a very good team for either pressing or running m2m, esp if your young players have hi or mid pot in stamina.

If you do change, my advice is do it immediately, at least that is what I do, practice press zero, run man combo for 10 games, then switch to man for the conference season.

I think you have gotten some great advice about the differences, I would just second the notion that the new press is less consistent than the old press, and more than likely less consistent than man to man,

But, in mis-match games, I think fcp is still more effective than man to enable one to blow the other team off the court, but in closely contested games man seems superior, maybe not by a huge margin.  I do think season in and season out it is harder to assemble a great fcp team than it is a great man to man team, and maybe if one could always have a great team, press would be the way to go?

Tianyi, in my experience, I generally think of Def as being about twice as important as Ath and Spd for M2M. (Obviously I'm talking just on the defensive side of the ball - ath and spd will of course also make a big difference on offense). Other people with more FCP experience can probably weigh in on the relative importance of ath / spd / def in press, and then you can estimate if your team is currently better set up for press or man.

Posted by oldresorter on 1/6/2011 12:10:00 PM (view original):
tian - you have a very good team for either pressing or running m2m, esp if your young players have hi or mid pot in stamina.

If you do change, my advice is do it immediately, at least that is what I do, practice press zero, run man combo for 10 games, then switch to man for the conference season.

I think you have gotten some great advice about the differences, I would just second the notion that the new press is less consistent than the old press, and more than likely less consistent than man to man,

But, in mis-match games, I think fcp is still more effective than man to enable one to blow the other team off the court, but in closely contested games man seems superior, maybe not by a huge margin.  I do think season in and season out it is harder to assemble a great fcp team than it is a great man to man team, and maybe if one could always have a great team, press would be the way to go?

If you always have a great team, then wouldn't man be the way to go, since once you get deep into the NT, pretty much every game is going to be closely contested. My brief experience with the press in the past 2 seasons is that against bad teams, the score will be a blowout by 30-40 points, but against good teams, games will be more inconsistent. I think in theory, this inconsistency makes it harder for press to win the NT since you have to win 3 close games (elite 8, final 4, then NT), where as you said, the press would be at a small disadvantage compared to man? Since the inconsistency makes winning 3 or 4 in a row against good competition more difficult? But having said this, the D3 NT in Wooden and Phelan both were press with the entire wooden elite 8 being press, so maybe my thoughts are wrong. 

And all my fresh and soph are high potential in stamina except one, so this team should be good for either defense. I'm just trying to decide which one will put me over the edge for a NT or two. I feel that if I am to switch, this is the season since I can practice man while playing the press with most of my team in the A- to A range. With 5 SR graduating and 3 frosh this year, a switch now will enable me to effectively completely switch into Man by next year.

6 of one half doz of the other I would guess, still the best way to win it all is getting a #1 seed and going 29-0, and the best way to do that is to win by large margins, so FCP is not chopped liver by any means.

the answer to your ? is the difference is now close, which is exactly what we wanted in the first place from CS, and if I would have been asked, I would have told them to make fcp less consistent, just how they did it, but IMO and from reading all of these comments, the diff between fcp and m2m is pretty small, a matter of preference

Posted by bhansalid00 on 1/6/2011 12:43:00 PM (view original):
Tianyi, in my experience, I generally think of Def as being about twice as important as Ath and Spd for M2M. (Obviously I'm talking just on the defensive side of the ball - ath and spd will of course also make a big difference on offense). Other people with more FCP experience can probably weigh in on the relative importance of ath / spd / def in press, and then you can estimate if your team is currently better set up for press or man.

So def matters more in m2m than press, while in press, ath/spd matters more than def. From the way you put it and from what I conceive how the engine works, a m2m team can be competitive with good defense, above avg ath/spd, but a m2m defense with good defense and ath/spd will pretty much be a huge shutdown defense?

The potential for a shutdown defense is why I am looking for a switch.

Anyways, I think I got enough info in this thread and am going to switch to man. 

And this game sealed the switch. Press is indeed easier to get upset:


http://whatifsports.com/hd/GameResults/BoxScore.aspx?gid=6533845

I agree with this that OR said, I think it is a good summary -
But, in mis-match games, I think fcp is still more effective than man to enable one to blow the other team off the court, but in closely contested games man seems superior, maybe not by a huge margin.  I do think season in and season out it is harder to assemble a great fcp team than it is a great man to man team, and maybe if one could always have a great team, press would be the way to go?

then tianyi -
If you always have a great team, then wouldn't man be the way to go, since once you get deep into the NT, pretty much every game is going to be closely contested. My brief experience with the press in the past 2 seasons is that against bad teams, the score will be a blowout by 30-40 points, but against good teams, games will be more inconsistent.

well, there once was a time when you could have great enough teams that even deep into the NT, you could not expect close games. that, in particular, was the case (IMO) in which press was broken - it made really good teams too good. but with all the changes to this game, i think sustaining that talent level advantage is much harder, and thus, your assumption is a reasonably safe one (late NT games are closely contested). so i'm not sure really that modification to the press was needed, just by virtue of the evening of the talent gap. but anyway, what you said about the games being closely contested late in the NT, that is why i switched from a 100% press coach to a 0% press coach. i just don't think press is good for the contested games that you should win - which is precisely what it was great for in the past. so, more of those contested games + press being unfavorable in those cases pretty much ruled it out for me. but also at the time i switched the fatigue and fouling issues were a lot worse, so today, i feel press really is not a bad option, except for d1, where IMO it is unplayable.

to me, it is up in the air what is best for d2 and d3, but i do think zone is the worst. zone thrives off of lack of depth, and there is just no reason to have that lack of depth in the lower divisions.

i will give zone some props for d1 though, in the early entry rich, good player poor environment we have been handed, zone is ideal for evening out the curves of the up and down ride that d1 has become (not that it wasn't before, but its definitely more so today, right?). i don't think zone is best for the best team in the country on a given year, but over a period of time, i think it is in good position to yield the best average results. i think man is probably the best for winning titles in d1 but if your goal is say to be a top 10 every single year, zone might be the only option that makes that possible. for similar reasons, i think press is really bad for d1, its ability to deal with the up and down nature of d1 is seemingly terrible. as OR says, if you could have great teams (and i assume he meant roughly top 5 to top 1 by great, not like top 25 great), press would be fine - but i don't think that is possible in d1 to the extent required to effectively run the press. at kentucky i run man and felt i had a top 5 team last year, but because of the youth you have to endure from early entries and everything else, i feel like press would have been fairly terrible. so to me the threshold for press being successful in d1 is really more than, can you be great, its can you be great AND experienced, and that may be impossible.

Well one thing I agree with 100%, zone is bad for D3. My zone team is underperforming imo, and I don't remember seeing a zone NT in any of my worlds in D3. 

billyg, so there was another modification since the first one which reduced fouls and fatigue for the press?

Posted by tianyi7886 on 1/6/2011 8:04:00 PM (view original):
Well one thing I agree with 100%, zone is bad for D3. My zone team is underperforming imo, and I don't remember seeing a zone NT in any of my worlds in D3. 

Give me a few seasons, jeez. I'm still (relatively) new at this...

Posted by tianyi7886 on 1/6/2011 8:04:00 PM (view original):
Well one thing I agree with 100%, zone is bad for D3. My zone team is underperforming imo, and I don't remember seeing a zone NT in any of my worlds in D3. 

Thomas in Allen D3 runs zone... no combo, straight zone. They have been to the NT 15 straight seasons, playing from one of the top 2 conferences in Allen the entire time. They have made the 2nd round or better the last 14 straight... a few seasons back they were so bad they dropped to #35 RPI and only won 18 games, their highest RPI and worst season of the 15.

Thay have had an E8 and made it to the championship game in the last 2 seasons.

Zone can be run in D3 and run well.... at least by someone who knows what he's doing it can.