I took over UM Crookstone in DII Knight this season and they run the press. So far I am 5-2, and I did some major reshuffling with the roster. I cut 3 Sim AI player and recruites 3 Fr. and 2 Jr's, with the Idea of switching to Man (I am practicing man and running press until my IQ's get better in Man) because my team did not have very good SPD or Ath to run an effective press, or so I thought. Now that I am 5-2 and like the restults I have been getting with the press I am tempted to keep it.
So I guess my question boils down to this, do you think that my team could be effective running a press this season or would it be better suited to switch to Man?
I have a very weak NC schedule so I figure that is playing into my results, and it may be biasing my opinion on the subject.
Any comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

In my experience, press is a lot stronger than people give it credit for. This season I was a 24-7 NT team in DII Tark and 6 of my 7 losses were to press teams; this is even though I have a good amount of team speed and stamina including a guard with 98 speed. I'd say the biggest reason I don't run it myself is that it's a pain to recruit for, and since I'm a Puerto Rico team it's hard enough to recruit as it is. But take a look at the forums over the past few months and you'll find several threads asking how to beat the press; you never read threads where people have to ask for advice on beating the zone or M2M. That should tell you something.

This is coming from someone who's still learning the WIS system:  I'm in the process of making a shift, myself (playing Zone this year, practicing Man), and what I was told on this forum was that you can win with any scheme if you have the players.   The key consideration is to make a choice and then see it through because switching schemes is only going to hurt you during the transition.

I've seen that a large percentage of the championship-caliber teams run Press.  If I had the athletes, I'd probably switch to Press too, simply because I like forcing the tempo.  But my team's SPD and ATH are so miserable I even questioned whether I can run a good Man defense.  The answer is that I'm building for 3 or 4 seasons down the road.  I'm trying to get better athletes with each recruiting class so I'm essentially recruiting for the system rather than just recruiting the highest ratings.  It takes time.

press used to be magic

it is less magic now - needs top athletes, top stamina and top IQs - helped by good DEF and speed.....if you have the horses, run it

I like the press, especially if you put in 25min into press IQ. 

In the just-concluded Naismith Division 1 season, 12 of the Sweet 16 teams ran man-to-man.  3 ran press.

Of those in the Elite 8, 5 team ran M2M, 2 were press and 1 was Press/Man.

DI is a different beast. (Not to mention that cherrypicking a stat like that doesn't necessarily tell us much.)

I would run whichever defense you feel most comfortable and confident with. You can still be very successful with press, you just can't do it blindly like you used to ... now you actually need to pay more attention to stamina, depth, sp, etc. But there are tons of extremely successful programs at all levels running fcp.