I have been experimenting with half court press/man. any vet out there who have gone down that road have any insight for me? am i wasting my time? is it a good thing? i have 20 min on press, 20 min on man, 20 min on offense. I max out the green and blue cats in practice and get the other cats later in their career. thoughts?

I’ve won D2 and D3 titles with press/zone, and I’ve been knocking on the door with D1. You don’t need 20 in press, IMO. I use 10 (20 for offense, 20 for zone). HCP is to increase your turnovers and possessions. If I was only recruiting the best of the best at D1, I’d consider bumping my O and zone up to 25, but I’d still keep press at 10, FWIW.

You give up a bit of development in the off-attributes, and it can be noticeable for low WE players. But for the most part, with normal WE and potential players, I have no trouble getting to or close to max in the cores by the end of soph year.

Curious what others say - I'm currently trying press/man for the first time with my Hampton team. Wondering what everyone think.

so far, it seems to be ok, i need to get my IQ's up. It makes gameplanning more dynamic. brings into play double teaming, the ability to full court press when losing, i dropped press time to 15, i couldn't bring myself to drop it to 10

I ran it years ago with my SMU team (Rupp?). It was hard to get a real read on the effectiveness but I think I estimated the HCP added about 2 TO's per game.

I'm not a fan of combo Ds. I've noticed that they make for great regular seasons. But whenever I've played against a combo D late in the NT, my IQs have been substantially better than my opponents. And I feel that's the difference in me winning almost all of them. To be completely honest, I hope to face combo Ds in the NT. Much much more than I do any standard sets

Posted by topdogggbm on 3/16/2020 10:27:00 PM (view original):
I'm not a fan of combo Ds. I've noticed that they make for great regular seasons. But whenever I've played against a combo D late in the NT, my IQs have been substantially better than my opponents. And I feel that's the difference in me winning almost all of them. To be completely honest, I hope to face combo Ds in the NT. Much much more than I do any standard sets

If you’re actually seeing a substantial difference in IQ, it’s because your opponents are skimping, for whatever reason. I suspect a lot of folks have the same thought as mike above, feeling weird about going as low as 10 in press, so they skimp on the primary sets instead. That’s a mistake, IMO. If you compare our team IQs in Smith or Naismith, the IQ difference in the primary sets is not what I would call substantial. 25 vs 20 minutes is a difference, but because of increasingly diminished returns as you get above 15 minutes of set practice, you’re generally looking at 1/3 of a grade by the end of their careers, max (for normal players, not for the low WE dummies like Rufus Decamp, lol). If my Naismith seniors had started with knowledge in flex or zone, they’d all likely be at a flat A right now, same as yours.

As an aside, after running a combo with lots of teams for lots of seasons, I’m starting to be persuaded to bump up my evaluation of both WE and HS GPA, because as much as (or perhaps even more than) those 5 extra minutes, having a good starting baseline in those places has a significant impact in where a player ends up.

I enjoy having the ability to make choices on defense - and have found that Hawaii is actually a place where I sometimes can run combo

That may seem odd, but here is how I get there. Hawaii is base case a triangle and zone. Thats good because zone lets you sign all kinds of guys - including guys with weaknesses. On the Island, you have to take any quality local players - and cant reject a good player because of a weakness.

Beyond the islands, we mostly recruit internationally.

Between those two sources, we some times swing for the fences and miss. We then run just zone and play with as few as 8. But, sometimes I'll have a deep team - like when there are quality developmental guys in Hawaii and or internationally. Then, we run a combo zone press - as does Hawaii this season in crum. We play 11 guys - one redshirt. We have only one senior. Depending on the opponent and my mood, lots of choices on defense.

for better or worse.

Big fan of zone/press in D2/D3 ... but not a fan of man/press.

In D2/D3 playing straight zone you are likely to lose the turnover battle every game. Adding the press fixes that and gives you a weapon (running solo press) when behind late.

I see no advantages to running man/press.

D1 is a different animal. Zone is more effective there because teams usually have or 4/5 or less exceptional players with a big drop off to reserves. Zone allows those players to stay on the floor longer and use the reserves less. Zone is a good D1 defense.

My experience ... your experience may vary.

Posted by shoe3 on 3/17/2020 11:55:00 AM (view original):

Posted by topdogggbm on 3/16/2020 10:27:00 PM (view original):
I'm not a fan of combo Ds. I've noticed that they make for great regular seasons. But whenever I've played against a combo D late in the NT, my IQs have been substantially better than my opponents. And I feel that's the difference in me winning almost all of them. To be completely honest, I hope to face combo Ds in the NT. Much much more than I do any standard sets

If you’re actually seeing a substantial difference in IQ, it’s because your opponents are skimping, for whatever reason. I suspect a lot of folks have the same thought as mike above, feeling weird about going as low as 10 in press, so they skimp on the primary sets instead. That’s a mistake, IMO. If you compare our team IQs in Smith or Naismith, the IQ difference in the primary sets is not what I would call substantial. 25 vs 20 minutes is a difference, but because of increasingly diminished returns as you get above 15 minutes of set practice, you’re generally looking at 1/3 of a grade by the end of their careers, max (for normal players, not for the low WE dummies like Rufus Decamp, lol). If my Naismith seniors had started with knowledge in flex or zone, they’d all likely be at a flat A right now, same as yours.

As an aside, after running a combo with lots of teams for lots of seasons, I’m starting to be persuaded to bump up my evaluation of both WE and HS GPA, because as much as (or perhaps even more than) those 5 extra minutes, having a good starting baseline in those places has a significant impact in where a player ends up.

Rufus Decamp made Jordan a star but don't get me wrong he had to be on developmental B camp before entering fall camp and before entering fall as a freshman. He clearly wanted it and was guaranteed. However its a big strain maybe a Astrisk on how we were taught basketball in high school.

I practice zone and press with most of my teams, but I rarely play combo defense in a game. My goal is to always play straight full court press, but in high D1 it is common to have multiple EEs, so there are seasons were i have to take 2-3 walk ons and in those seasons I play zone with a short rotation. So the zone is my hedge against disaster seasons when my bench is too short to press effectively.

If i am playing combo press/zone, it is probably in games against cup cake teams early in the season so i can pad minutes that i promised to my freshman, so i can play them fewer minutes in key games during conf play.