Couple questions on using a press/man or press/zone defense.

1. Has anyone had much success using a combo approach? Seems like it would be hard to get the IQs high enough in both defenses to make it effective.

2. When game planning against a combo D, do you need to set 2 distribution sets (one for the press and one for the man or zone)? Or would the game only use your distribution for the man/zone portion, since that's what's going on after you get the ball into the front court?

I did press/zone when I only had 1-2 FR who really weren't going to play. And I only used it in the "If losing by..." setting. Got the press up to 3. Still lost in the F4 the only time it went into effect. Didn't seem to produce any extra turnovers.

I'd really like someone who runs combo defense add some practical advice tips on practice plan and necessary IQ.

No titles yet, but 2 D1 final fours now with zone/press (championship game with UV as pkoopman). I’m confident I’ll get one eventually. I think it can be a successful defense for sure, with the right players and game plan. But very few try it, which is why you don’t see it in many final fours.

I use 45-50 set minutes per practice, which is comparable to what a lot of folks use at D1, I’m told. I use considerably less on press than offense or zone in a combo setup. My guys generally end up A- in offense and zone by the end of their junior years, and finish their senior season A to A+. With press, if they know it coming out of HS, they usually get to B- before we start conference play their sophomore season. Most will finish their senior year at B+/A- in press. Obviously some variance, if the player is exceptionally dumb/lazy, or smart/driven.

Adding the press definitely adds some turnovers IMO, though I don’t track it. Every time I’ve switched from straight zone to press/zone, it’s been noticeable. I don’t have any data for you, though, sorry. The extra turnover or 3 per game is worth giving up trying to max out every attribute category, or get every core to red by the end of the junior year. One of the key drawbacks to straight zone is that you’re always struggling in the possession game, with a disadvantage in both rebounds and turnovers. I like the flexibility of zone, though, and being able to switch between 2-3 and 3-2 - ideally, if I have the right personnel - and the ability to double team guys occasionally.

I also like the flexibility of running with 10 or even fewer, if I have to, which I would hate to try with straight press.

Posted by slayterhill on 12/30/2017 3:03:00 PM (view original):
Couple questions on using a press/man or press/zone defense.

1. Has anyone had much success using a combo approach? Seems like it would be hard to get the IQs high enough in both defenses to make it effective.

2. When game planning against a combo D, do you need to set 2 distribution sets (one for the press and one for the man or zone)? Or would the game only use your distribution for the man/zone portion, since that's what's going on after you get the ball into the front court?

When gameplanning against press/zone, I’d set one for press/2-3 and another for press/3-2. Or if you notice that the opposing guy likes to drop the combo, you can set one for each. If you’re up against press/man, unless you feel there’s a risk he’s going to drop the combo, you can just set for press/man.

I've been running a press/zone for 50+ seasons--I've made a bunch of final fours and 4 championship games but never closed the big one (had a heartbreaking 1 pt loss in the championship many seasons ago against a far superior team talent wise). I really like the versatility it gives for game planning, but it definitely requires more judicious allocation of practice minutes to make it worthwhile. Low WE players really suffer due to the extra minutes that get taken away from cores and added to the second defense. For practice I generally allocate 20 Off, 20 zone, 18 press and most of my players are A+ in all three 3/4 of the way through their SR year, unless they had really low work ethic or I had a season or two with a lot of walk-ons. I change from 3-2 to 2-3 depending on the makeup of the my team, calculating the groupings to see which will yield an overall higher ratings average for a metric of Ath/Spd/Def/Reb. I like being able to run a straight press when losing at the end of close games, or a straight zone when winning and trying to slow them down.

I do feel like the halfcourt press helps offset the low turnover generation of the zone, but I don't have any data to back that up. All in all I think the combo is better than the zone by itself (at least I had more success when I switched from running just the zone), but it also corresponds with me getting better at recruiting so I was bringing in much better talent. My teams are generally very athletic and reasonably fast with very high defense, so I often wonder if switching to a straight press would be more advantageous....but I also usually ignore stamina in recruiting and worry my team would tire far to quickly. That's my $0.02 (from a coach who has been at this for a very long time but never won the big one, so take it for what its worth).

"Adding the press definitely adds some turnovers IMO, though I don’t track it. Every time I’ve switched from straight zone to press/zone, it’s been noticeable. I don’t have any data for you, though, sorry. The extra turnover or 3 per game is worth giving up trying to max out every attribute category, or get every core to red by the end of the junior year. "

I did this awhile ago at SMU in Rupp when CUSA was a super conference. Against the top Conference in the world I found the halfcourt press added roughly 3 TO a game at the cost of about 2 minutes of my starters playing time. It was awhile ago and I don't recall the exact #'s but it was something like that.

I think I went something like 17 O 15 Zone 8 Press.

I ran combo long ago, with mixed results. The downside is that getting good at three schemes - one offense and two def - consumes a lot of time or you dont get to high IQs.

On the other hand, more room to game plan

I think it can have the advntages discussed in this thread. I would tend to use it in a situation where I expected to sign players who had somewhat less upside potential - so more minutes on scheme would not be as big a deal. Sign guys who others dont love as much - on average - spend more like 60 minutes on scheme and see what can get done...

60 is pretty extreme, in my view. I’ve never spent more than 50. And I’ve never spent more than 10 on press. So maybe that’s the little secret - you can run an effective HCP without devoting a whole lot of practice minutes.

At 50, I’m not seeing much problem in getting my guys’ cores fully developed by junior year. I’m looking at my juniors in Oregon now, Wang (who will be 5th yr sr next year) has 3 orange in non-cores, everything else is red. Johnson, who’s always been high potential and already grown ~200 points in 3 years is on cusp of turning orange in speed, stamina, and defense, is Black in perimeter (who cares) and everything else is orange or red. Lara is orange in speed, rebounding, LP and passing, everything else is red. And Cooper is on cusp of orange in perimeter and stamina, everything else orange and red.

All these guys will just be basically flushing practice time down the toilet next year as it is. I could have gotten them where they are now maybe earlier in the season. For my taste, I’m getting a lot more value out of having them run a HCP.

What is the best combo defense?

I want to try a man zone combo

Wouldn't man zone be the worst technically? Cuz you're playing either or, not both. I would think if you have to have press in there, combined with one if the other 2 sets, to get full value of your practice minutes