It doesn't seem like the press is running at all in combo defenses (halfcourt press + zone or halfcourt press + man).  Anyone else seeing this occur?  Going through my play-by-plays, I'm not seeing any steals during the first 10 seconds of the shot clock either.

My steals are off slightly from previous seasons playing a zone-press combo, but my overall turnover numbers are trending similar, so I don't know if its a case of the press not being taken into account or simply the random boxscore language isn't jiving with the actual reason for some of the turnovers that I'm forcing.

If I remember correctly, the new engine was supposed to slightly reduce the incidence of steals to bring the league average in line with the actual NCAA avg.

It will still take a while before we can really be sure of any new trends being sustained over the course of a season or two, but weakening combo defenses would be a huge disappointment if true.  That's part of the answer to the 'press is too good' problem of old, and having the option of training two D's at the expense of individual development adds a great component to the coaching and game planning aspects of the game.

ALL of my current teams running a combo defense are having HORRIBLE seasons. I will start looking into their stats more carefully, but their results are not matching their talent for sure.

Agree 100%. Take a look at my Wake Forest team in Naismith. Not sure what is going on at all.

last season started out horrible, for a traditionally powerful team, and once i switched from combo to one defense, we started picking up more wins.

I think the majority of it is merely the press being weakened.  It will continue to be weakened by the reduction in fast big men in the recruiting pool.  Press needed a bit of a cooling out, but with the extra fouls, slower recruits, and less TO's I think they've overdone killing the press.

grant - that is exactly what i was thinking as well.  it is not so much that the press is dead.  it is now that you need better players to run it as we were accustomed to.

Not sure how much better they can get than two of my Auburn guards... 100 ath, 100 spd, 100 def...... and they STILL can't run it without fouling out.

Posted by porkpower on 6/30/2010 8:02:00 AM (view original):
ALL of my current teams running a combo defense are having HORRIBLE seasons. I will start looking into their stats more carefully, but their results are not matching their talent for sure.

Amen, this is happening to me as well.

i have temporarily given up the press portion in each of my teams that ran combo-- i think it'll be tweaked again, and i may roll it out again then...

my team was playing worse with a combo defense. I had to switch to just man to man. My team is forcing just as much if not more turn overs by playing just man to man.

Have to agree with the poster. My ISU squad should have been due for a good tourney run, instead they were a 7 seed in the PIT (754 wth a walkon). Despite the speed and ath advantages and all defenders above 90, I still got beat on FG % when I lost. Seems the same in Phelan. Pulling the press portion until I get it figured out...