I've noticed that there are some very successful coaches (D1) who run all three defenses: man to man, zone and press. And they switch it up depending upon the matchup and even switching it up in late game situations as well. It makes me wonder if there is a rock, paper, scissors approach to beating an opponent.

For example: zone beats fastbreak, man to man beats triangle, press beats flex, etc.

I'm curious to see what opinions or observations are out there as to the logic behind this. Also, I've seen coaches run multiple offenses, but I don't think it's as common or successful.

I would think it is hard to have Defensive IQs good enough to run all 3 defenses. I guess it is possible.

What seems good to me though is if you normally play Zone-Press (or Man-Press) then you are practicing at least 2 defenses. If you are decent at both of those defenses, then you can so things like shift to straight zone (or M2M) or shift to Full Court Press at certain times and be able to run them both.

A scenario might be, if run Zone-Press and you get way ahead then you can run just the zone. If you fall way behind, you can shift to the Full Court Press to try and get some turnovers? At least, that makes sense to me

What other D1 coaches do this?

Quote: Originally posted by tannermcc on 5/18/2010What other D1 coaches do this?

tanner, if you wouldn't mind sharing, i haven't taken the time to study it yet but have been very curious.... what % of the time do you think you play each defense? does it vary significantly by season? like on a bad season, is it mostly zone, and on your best season, mostly press? seems like it would be tough to have the defense to play man and the spd to press, but i suppose its manageable.

do you think the triple defense strategy will suffer from the sim engine changes? the amount of time it takes to max out is supposedly significantly longer, i would think that would be a negative. also, the oddly shaped players - it seems def/spd are a must, and that supposedly should rule out a lot more guys than it used to. any thoughts?

Quote: Originally posted by toysboys on 5/17/2010I've noticed that there are some very successful coaches (D1) who run all three defenses: man to man, zone and press.  And they switch it up depending upon the matchup and even switching it up in late game situations as well.  It makes me wonder if there is a rock, paper, scissors approach to beating an opponent.  For example: zone beats fastbreak, man to man beats triangle, press beats flex, etc.I'm curious to see what opinions or observations are out there as to the logic behind this.  Also, I've seen coaches run multiple offenses, but I don't think it's as common or successful.

i am pretty sure there is no rock paper scissor thing going on. but if there is, i call rock!

i think the reason there is nothing like that is because you can play so many different offenses differently. a team who relies heavily on 3 pointers can do so with any offense, and in that case, man is probably the best. but if they pound it inside, zone is probably the way to go. unless of course your speed is way better, than you probably want to press. but any of those can be true against any offense... hope that makes sense :)

Dalter does it at Montana in Allen, very successful He only does zone and man, but made 2 or 3 final fours.

Quote: Originally Posted By tannermcc on 5/18/2010
What other D1 coaches do this?

I was actually talking about you. You have Baylor in the final tonight (good luck) and notice that you switch up your defenses between a man/press and zone/press with some other minor variations and was wondering why.

My other question is why would dalter run a man or zone? In which instances would you choose zone and the other man2man?

I think this is a question for dalter to answer.