https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/Ratings.aspx?tid=5231

I'm struggling with this, have had success and D3 and D2, and just can't crack the code at D1. How is this team struggling so much? Is it Full Court Press?

The short answer is yes. Most of your problems relate to how your team is functioning in the press.

A quick stat analysis tells you you’re getting walloped on the boards and only just barely winning the turnover battle, so you’re getting killed on the possession game. You want a couple of those PFs who are sitting in the 50s rebounding to become good rebounders, up into the 70s and 80s, that will help. More importantly for press though, most of your guards are too slow for an effective press. 17 TOs per game isn’t going to get you there with a straight press. Good press teams will get 20+, the elite ones are pulling closer to 25.

At 75 your team stamina isn’t bad for a non-FB at first glance, but there are balance problems. A guy like Walters is a great zone C, for example, and a very good man C. But in a press, he’s a bench player. He can’t give you more than ~16 good minutes, unless you’re slowing down. And if the other team is playing FB or uptempo, even that will get him in trouble. He’s getting too many minutes, my guess is if you dig into the game log pbps, you’re going to see a lot of yellow and red where he pops up in the lineup in the last 10 minutes of halves.

If you haven’t read it, there is some good discussion on press in a recent thread, you might find helpful.

Posted by shoe3 on 10/16/2021 10:34:00 AM (view original):
The short answer is yes. Most of your problems relate to how your team is functioning in the press.

A quick stat analysis tells you you’re getting walloped on the boards and only just barely winning the turnover battle, so you’re getting killed on the possession game. You want a couple of those PFs who are sitting in the 50s rebounding to become good rebounders, up into the 70s and 80s, that will help. More importantly for press though, most of your guards are too slow for an effective press. 17 TOs per game isn’t going to get you there with a straight press. Good press teams will get 20+, the elite ones are pulling closer to 25.

At 75 your team stamina isn’t bad for a non-FB at first glance, but there are balance problems. A guy like Walters is a great zone C, for example, and a very good man C. But in a press, he’s a bench player. He can’t give you more than ~16 good minutes, unless you’re slowing down. And if the other team is playing FB or uptempo, even that will get him in trouble. He’s getting too many minutes, my guess is if you dig into the game log pbps, you’re going to see a lot of yellow and red where he pops up in the lineup in the last 10 minutes of halves.

If you haven’t read it, there is some good discussion on press in a recent thread, you might find helpful.

This is really helpful, thanks!

what's up with your depth chart? i am not super clear on what you are doing there, i didn't spend a ton of time investigating but it definitely doesn't look like a normal press rotation. are you running minutes?

normal press rotation = straight 10 man rotation; 10 guys with 1 slot each on the 1/2 line, all on fairly fresh. (still need to fill out the rest of the depth chart) you can stack a pg2/sg2 with a pg3/sg3 behind him and that sort of thing, but the impact on minutes played is small, because the players end up rotating hockey style most of the time anyway. so i'm not saying like, a simple 10 man rotation is always the best - but it is the starting point - and press deviations from that tend to be small in terms of minutes played.

that sort of rotation is what you want, i'm not sure what you are doing but it is not that. the backups with so many minutes played makes me think minutes, and if so you really don't want that - press is so much about managing fatigue, you basically are forced into a depth rotation (sometimes target minutes is used to meet promises for press in the regular season, but everyone acknowledges you are fielding a crummier team by doing so).

you should take a look at some pbps, watch the rotation (substitutions, who plays together, particularly when it comes to scorers). watch the fatigue. it really jumps off the page, all that yellow and orange. the impact of substantial fatigue is quite severe and that is the main cause of your problems. straight 10 man rotation to fix it, with your 12 guys spread around, go for 7-8 players from the 1-3 because the fatigue matters more on that side (at least when pressing). its better to play a guy or two out of position, play a true big at sf or a sf at guard, than to allow that fatigue. i think you have the players to have ok fatigue, being 12 deep even with not very good stamina should not have been nearly that bad - but in the future if you are short in press, too short to manage fatigue, better to slowdown.