Full court press advantage? Topic

milwood
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Okay, let first get this out of the way.  I am not good at this game; I am still new.  I just lost to a full court press team that is better than my team at every position including backups. I swear this is not just a rant over a loss. Still, I have a couple of questions about the full court press. 

First, does a full court press defense actually exist?  Is there a team that plays this defense exclusively?  I understand that some teams will periodically play a trap defense, but that is usually on an individual.  If a team did play a full court press wouldn't there be a period of time during pretty much every game where the defense just breaks down entirely.  When backups and underclassmen come in the game there should be a significant drop in effectiveness.  If there is any defense where IQ is a major factor it should be in the press.  If a player makes a mistake or is out of position it would be an almost guaranteed basket.

Second,  does the balance of power lean towards press teams?  In Knight DII 14 of the top 25 teams play a full court press.  To be fair there are also ten man defenses in the top 25 and only one zone team (way to go Aupat!).  Do many of the better coaches just gravitate towards FCP?  Is it possible that there is a built in advantage to playing a FCP.  

Also, I am sure I have been doing about a zillion things wrong with my team so feel free to comment on my overall strategies.

Thanks all
7/25/2012 10:26 AM (edited)
bbunch
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it seems that FCP and Man are equally popular, and zone is generally unpopular, though a select few coaches stubbornly use it (like myself in Gulf South Allen), or zone with a combo. 

The big weakness of the FCP is lack of ability to match up vs. a premier scorer. Against a top-notch scorer that doesn't turn the ball over, you're basically screwed. However, FCP has some strong benefits as well. 


7/24/2012 3:19 PM
llamanunts
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It has to make it easier to recruit, especially if you're running fastbreak/press.  LP/PER?  Ditch 'em.  Defense?  Nice bonus.  Suddenly 60% of coaches aren't interested in the recruits you like.  You can recruit the guys who other coaches see as fatally flawed and have a successful team.

Gross oversimplification, sure.  Inaccurate?  I'm sure someone will say so.  In fact, I hope someone will say so.  The other thread is about how to be successful with the FCP.  It'd be cool to see more about how to counter it.

(Or I could just search the forums.  With some browser plugin I should invent, because this search feature SUCKS.)
7/24/2012 7:32 PM
taniajane
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lol they are both (other thread) interesting llama nuts
7/24/2012 10:20 PM (edited)
joeywheeler1
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Posted by milwood on 7/24/2012 3:02:00 PM (view original):
Okay, let first get this out of the way.  I am not good at this game; I am still new.  I just lost to a full court press team that is better than my team at every position including backups. I swear this is not just a rant over a loss. Still, I have a couple of questions about the full court press. 

First, does a full court press defense actually exist?  Is there a team that plays this defense exclusively?  I understand that some teams will periodically play a trap defense, but that is usually on an individual.  If a team did play a full court press wouldn't there be a period of time during pretty much every game where the defense just breaks down entirely.  When backups and underclassmen come in the game there should be a significant drop in effectiveness.  If there is any defense where IQ is a major factor it should be in the press.  If a player makes a mistake or is out of position it would be an almost guaranteed basket.

Second,  does the balance of power lean towards press teams?  In wooden DIII 14 of the top 25 teams play a full court press.  To be fair there are also ten man defenses in the top 25 and only one zone team (way to go Aupat!).  Do many of the better coaches just gravitate towards FCP?  Is it possible that there is a built in advantage to playing a FCP.  

Also, I am sure I have been doing about a zillion things wrong with my team so feel free to comment on my overall strategies.

Thanks all
I just lost to a full court press team that is better than my team at every position including backups. I swear this is not just a rant over a loss

I think you explained it all, the full court press team was better at every position including back-ups.

But seriously, if your fullcourt press team has high IQ's it seems to be able to create really high TO's even though the talent of the players may not seem that great.  Those TO's lead in many cases to easier baskets for the press team, and the TO obviously takes a possesion away from your team.
7/24/2012 10:58 PM
rogelio
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The two teams that I can think of offhand are: Virginia Commonwealth - 'nuff said...and St. John's U. - in Steve Lavin's first year with St. John's  2010-11, St. John's ran a fullcourt press all season.  I doubt that he will still run the same thing this season.  As an aside for zone: Syracuse is the premier 2-3 team, of course, but Oklahoma ran a 3-2 zone base set all last season (I'm not sure how long that's been going on).   

In this game pressing teams have an advantage at DII & DIII.  You can just recruit ATH, SPD, STAM & DEF and just steamroll opponents with turnovers.  It is hard to get good enough ball handlers, passers & team IQ at DII & DIII to control the turnovers, but it isn't impossible.   






7/24/2012 11:01 PM
udm_mike
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Posted by llamanunts on 7/24/2012 7:32:00 PM (view original):
It has to make it easier to recruit, especially if you're running fastbreak/press.  LP/PER?  Ditch 'em.  Defense?  Nice bonus.  Suddenly 60% of coaches aren't interested in the recruits you like.  You can recruit the guys who other coaches see as fatally flawed and have a successful team.

Gross oversimplification, sure.  Inaccurate?  I'm sure someone will say so.  In fact, I hope someone will say so.  The other thread is about how to be successful with the FCP.  It'd be cool to see more about how to counter it.

(Or I could just search the forums.  With some browser plugin I should invent, because this search feature SUCKS.)

Do you actually think defense is nothing more than a nice bonus?  I'll no longer start guys that have less than 50 defense because they foul out way too quickly, regardless of speed/ath advantage.  Check this most recent team.  I had to start a pg with passing in the 40's simply because the traditional pg options fouled out too fast (defense in the 40's).

And as for going against the FCP, I love it.  You can just give distro to your best offensive players and not worry at all about being gameplanned against it.

7/25/2012 8:31 AM
llamanunts
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I don't actually think... much.  Do you disagree that it's easier to recruit when a DEF in the 50s for your starters is plenty good?

As far as disliking FCP opponents, I guess I just need better BH/PASS to minimize the turnovers.
7/25/2012 9:50 AM
udm_mike
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Posted by llamanunts on 7/25/2012 9:50:00 AM (view original):
I don't actually think... much.  Do you disagree that it's easier to recruit when a DEF in the 50s for your starters is plenty good?

As far as disliking FCP opponents, I guess I just need better BH/PASS to minimize the turnovers.
I don't think 50's is good.  But 50's is the bottom level of consideration.  If def could be viewed as a bonus then wouldn't it stand to reason that a team with a big speed/ath advantage could get by with nothing but avg at best def ratings?  It never does in my case, and that's over...however long ago they made the changes.  95 speed does you no good if your def is in the 30's or 40's, which is the assumption many people make about the FCP.  I'd much rather have speed in the 60's or 70's (for perimeter players) to go with ath/def in the 50's or 60's than speed in the 90's and reduced ath/def. 

EDIT: You also can't hide poor defensive players in the press like you can with the zone.  A weak defender will consistently be in foul trouble and see 10-15 minutes per game.
7/25/2012 1:18 PM
coach_billyg
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i will 100% agree that you can NOT ignore defense in the press. it is very important now - in fact, id wager that on defense, it is the #1 stat. i would actually argue this is the first time in the history of the game (at least the 5 years i played) in which defense is the most important stat on defense for every set. ON DEFENSE is the key - ath and spd matter so many places, for them to trump defense in defensive ability itself is somewhat unreasonable, and im highly confident seble holds this view. doesn't mean def is more important than ath or spd, that just depends how much they do for you outside of defense...
7/25/2012 1:28 PM
jslotman
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Lavin's St. John's teams ran a really soft press, certainly not the "40 minutes of hell" I'd imagine is envisioned by the HD version of the defense. 
7/25/2012 1:50 PM
isack24
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No team has ever run 40 minutes of FCP/trapping the way that HD's FCP is supposed to be run.  It's a totally ludicrous defense and you would need 10 players with staminas of "120" to even come close to pulling it off in real life.

On another note, I like how I now import HD ratings to real life players.  Andrew Goudelock is lights out.  He's like a 97 per.
7/25/2012 1:53 PM
spasticity
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Strongly agree about the importance of Def in the Press.  Guards, particularly PGs, just can't stay on the floor without a bare minimum of 40 Def in D3..really 50+ Ath and Def is what I want at this point.

I've recruited for my J&W Press team like it's a M2M.  I think the weakest defender right now is about 52 Def.  Makes for some suffocating D.
7/25/2012 1:55 PM
jslotman
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Incidentally, St. John's ran basically the same defense with a 6-7 man rotation last year.  They also weren't very good. 
7/25/2012 1:57 PM
disasteruss
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Posted by isack24 on 7/25/2012 1:53:00 PM (view original):
No team has ever run 40 minutes of FCP/trapping the way that HD's FCP is supposed to be run.  It's a totally ludicrous defense and you would need 10 players with staminas of "120" to even come close to pulling it off in real life.

On another note, I like how I now import HD ratings to real life players.  Andrew Goudelock is lights out.  He's like a 97 per.
Well, considering Arkansas and UAB both ran a defense called "40 minutes of hell", I would tend to disagree. It's not super common, but some teams do it. Bruce Pearl did it at UWM/Tennessee. VCU has done it. Alabama is trying to run something similar now. You just have to have a good amount of depth who are willing to run up and down the floor.

Anyway, as far as the FCP goes in HD, you see an inordinate amount of it for a couple of reasons. The biggest is that it seems like everyone basically dismisses the non FCP and M2M defenses. I'd say it's a pretty even split between those two.


7/25/2012 3:50 PM
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