Posted by clayolson1 on 5/23/2021 5:50:00 PM (view original):
When taking over a program that has a full court press set up, do you change the way you recruit? Or change systems? Recruiting for full court press I assume speed and stamina are pluses?
The physical cores should be highest priority. Emphasizing speed for guards, athleticism for bigs, stamina for everyone. You can give up a little bit of defense (especially for fast guards). The press wants to win with turnovers, and the primary factor there is laying your speed against the opponent’s ballhandling. Lower athleticism, especially if it comes with lower IQ, means you’ll foul more, so be prepared if you have disadvantages there. For this, and other reasons, stamina and roster balance are very important as well. You don’t want to be caught thin at any position, you want a solid 2 deep everywhere, ideally with 11th and 12th guys who can cover multiple positions in the 3rd/4th slots as well.
Having strong defense ratings in the press helps keep opponent’s FG% lower, and also helps keep the ball away from those positions, so obviously the higher the better. It’s not the highest priority like it is with zone, and maybe to a lesser extent man, but it is still up there pretty high. Likewise, rebounding is a little less important to me in press than it is elsewhere. It’s always important, but it’s not the primary way I’m trying to win. Block is gravy with the straight press really, IMO.