The predecessor at my school had been running a full court press, which is just not working with my current team.  We are worst in the conference in points allowed, fg% against, and 3 point % against, while not getting many turnovers.  I feel like at this time a zone would be much better for my team, as they are young, poor defensively, and perpetually in foul trouble.

I am just wondering how much a players IQ will really affect their quality of play in a particular defensive set during this particular season.  They are all familiar with the press, and their IQ's for zone are quite bad.  Basically, I am weighing the options between Good IQ and poor production with press vs Poor IQ and (hopefully) improved production with zone.  Thanks for any help!

2 Thoughts

A) If this school is just a brief stopping point in your career of always moving up then usually you don't want to change O or D. Just make do which what you got and recruit with the sets in mind. Generally the time wasted starting over from scratch will slow you down from being successful quickly.

B) If you like a particular set or plan on being at a school for awhile then go ahead and make the change. This is usually done at the beginning of the year but you can certainly do it now. If your team is currently bad then there is not much of a downside to changing now. The 1 factor to consider is you don't want to change in the middle of the year if it will cause your team to lose a lot more thus lowering your prestige going into next years recruiting.

C) A middle ground is you can practice zone while playing man for the rest of the year. You'll get an annoying email from your assistant. Maybe switch to zone in the conference tournament?