Posted by gillispie on 2/18/2011 12:59:00 AM (view original):

Posted by girt25 on 2/18/2011 12:03:00 AM (view original):

Posted by coach_billyg on 2/17/2011 11:22:00 PM (view original):

Posted by girt25 on 2/17/2011 10:53:00 PM (view original):

Posted by dahsdebater on 2/17/2011 7:55:00 PM (view original):
Doesn't matter, most of that is post-update and happening without the press.  I do think it's mostly "coincidence" that most of the great runs were pre-update.  "Coincidence" in the sense that pre-update is the vast majority of HD history.  UglySkunk at La Verne in Knight and Narcotico in Tark have built 2 of the most successful D3 dynasties in history in the post-update environment.

No, no. There was only one section of time that press was uber dominant. It was not like that from the beginning of HD all the way to the update. It was a year or two. And I would agree that it's definitely not a coincidence.

i think it was a bit longer than that. the effectiveness of the press was virtually unchanged (imo) at least from when i started to seble's new engine release. and when i started is when OR/rails were pulling off their most impressive runs, i actually think i just caught the tail end, so my guess is it had to be at least 3 years and probably longer.

i also don't really feel the press was uber dominant in general - in many cases it was not the best defense IMO. i do think for high quality #1 teams, it was a bit unbalanced, but even for say average #2 teams nationally i don't think the advantage was very significant, and definitely not what some people made it out to be - although i do think it was the best at that level.

C'mon, really? Both Admin and seble (and even a lot of the uber successful press guys) have all said that it was too strong. It was akin to the court being tilted in one direction. Now, that was the engine that we all played with, but I still think we have to call a spade a spade. I just don't even think it's debatable.

Do I think that you and OR and rails would've still been extremely successful? Of course -- you're all smart guys and awesome coaches. But do I think you could've gone on the West Chester/SIUE/WConn State-type crazy *** runs w. out the benefit of that downhill tilt thanks to fcp? No chance.

girt, i really don't think we disagree to the extent you are making it out to be in this post. as i said, for really good #1 teams, i think the press was a bit unbalanced. i guess to me a bit unbalanced is a pretty big deal, it probably sounds different than i mean it. i would put any degree of unbalanced beyond a significant advantage - because i think you can have pretty significant balanced advantages. unbalanced to me means something that is, well, unbalanced, and needs to be changed. 

i stand by what i said, what i've said for a long time. the press really was not broken for the large majority of the quality spectrum. there is 0 doubt in my mind that there were plenty of situations in which press was not the ideal defense - i had some zone and man teams that were young and not that great who far exceeded what i could have done playing press - and to me that says a lot considering the fact that i was great with the press, inexperienced with man, and clueless with zone.

i guess to me, if you only look at the bottom to the average #5 team nationally in the country, press was balanced just fine. for teams in those ranges, in a natural 4 year cycle with young and experienced teams, i think there are years press is the best (experienced ones) and ones where its the worst (young ones). to me, that makes a lot of sense - a sliding scale where at one end one defense is best, and the other, the worst. that is how i would expect things to work in a game in general, no matter what sport it is or really even in non sports games.

to me, the only place press was really unbalanced (meaning too severe an advantage to maintain) was at the very high end. i had a lot of teams who could beat the average #1 team in the country 90% of the time. with man or zone, those teams would have still been solid favorites, but no way to the extent it was. i fully agree the press made runs like OR, rails, etc had much more possible - i would often point to the fact that the greatest half dozen runs, by far, in the time i played were by press to support my claim press was broken for the truly elite teams. but i honestly don't consider the avg #1 team in the country to be truly elite. avg #1 teams are only slightly more likely to win the title than avg #2 teams - maybe they are 12% to 10% or 10% to 8%, that is a small advantage. there aren't many, but teams who are really 25% or more to win, that is where i felt press was broken - by a lot - so i 100% agree with you on your last paragraph. i just think the general level of bellyaching about press at the other levels of play was basically blown out of proportion.

OK, now that you clarified what you meant by unbalanced, I see we're more on the same wavelength than I thought.

The major point I'd disagree on is that the press was only unbalanced at that very top level. I remember scores of examples where the press was clearly making average teams good and good teams great -- the impact was far beyond just the elite teams.

Posted by zbrent716 on 2/17/2011 8:33:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tkimble on 2/17/2011 7:07:00 PM (view original):
He ran press pre-update.

I stand corrected. Were the "down" (for him) years when he was transitioning to M2M?

Yes. The sweet 16/elite 8/sweet 16 seasons in between threepeats was when I switched defenses after the update. Kind of a shame, because I had the talent those years but the IQs obviously took a hit in the transition.

I've actually gone m2m-->press--->m2m at Greensboro.

Posted by zbrent716 on 2/18/2011 2:22:00 AM (view original):

Posted by dacj501 on 2/18/2011 12:56:00 AM (view original):

Posted by zbrent716 on 2/17/2011 6:59:00 PM (view original):
Narcotico is currently running M2M (and I think may have been the whole stretch) and he's gone 

Champion
Champion
Champion
Sweet 16
Elite 8
Sweet 16
Champion
Champion
Champion
Final 4
Final 4

in the past 11 seasons.

so do you pronounce that Nar-co-TI-co or Nar-COT-i-co?

This is an excellent question.

When I first started, I said Nar-COT-i-co in my head.

I recently had the chance to visit Costa Rica, however, and learned that "tico" (tee-co) is what native Costa Ricans call themselves, so now I think he is he's a drug kingpin who came to the U.S. from Costa Rica, and he is Nar-co-Ti-co in my head.

Hah, I too have been to Costa Rica: Class 5 whitewater rafting on the Pacuare river(almost died), surfing at Nicoya(almost died), and I almost got stabbed by an angry Rastafarian in Limon(almost died). So yeah, I love Costa Rica...~Pura Vida~....but I'm not a Tico!

btw it's Nar-COT-i-co. Nerd alert: This became my favored online handle after playing various MMORPGs over the years - I was roleplaying a character as a shady illicit substance vendor of sorts, ahem,  and the name kind of stuck.

lol narcotico. i should have made that connection... not sure how i missed it :) out of curiousity, what MMO lets you be a shady goods vendor? that sounds like a lot more fun than the ones i've seen. i was once a legit good vendor, it was fun (and profitable, i made a few thousand real dollars selling crap from the game), but selling shady **** sounds better :) i guess you could always pick that up on the side in real life pretty easily... not that i'd know... but i suspect it would be more fun to try to monopolize something like that in a game, where somebody won't rob you at gun point if you get too successful.