I just took over a D3 press team, and I'm trying to figure out what to do on offense - stick with flex, or switch to motion. I'm going to be turning over almost my entire team over the next two seasons, so what this team's practiced in the past isn't a primary concern for me. I'm just wondering if the ratings I'll be trying to focus on for the press are better used by one offense or the other, or no major difference.

Depends.

FB uses the SPD/ATH the best but will cause fatigue issues.
FLEX takes advantage of the speed you'll be recruiting if you can pair it with PER.
Triangle will allow you to recruit less players with offensive skills. You can recruit pure defensive players and pair them with two scorers.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 7/4/2014 6:21:00 PM (view original):
Depends.

FB uses the SPD/ATH the best but will cause fatigue issues.
FLEX takes advantage of the speed you'll be recruiting if you can pair it with PER.
Triangle will allow you to recruit less players with offensive skills. You can recruit pure defensive players and pair them with two scorers.

Can you expand more on this Joe? Because the information in Hoops 101 suggests that you cannot rely on few scorers when running the triangle.      

In my experience, Triangle works best with a PER based scorer, a LP based scorer and then a third guy. The other two guys can be basically set at zero. Motion, Flex, and FB are a little more "flexible". They work better with more and less scorers. If you have a team with mostly PER shooters, you want flex. If everyone is more or less equal, motion works best. FB works best with (or is most effective with) guards that draw fouls.

BillyG's interview talks about the offensive sets in significant detail. It's worth reading.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 7/4/2014 7:33:00 PM (view original):
BillyG's interview talks about the offensive sets in significant detail. It's worth reading.

Just read through that whole interview. Great info!

How can I find this interview?

I like motion, and I don't think I would run any other offense but motion at a school I'm coaching.

Posted by tristandavis on 7/5/2014 10:58:00 AM (view original):
How can I find this interview?

Editorial-interviews

Thanks Joe. I decided to go with motion - since I'm valuing ATH / SPD / DEF quite a bit more than offense ratings, I figure I'm going to end up with fairly even distro anyway. Plus my first recruiting class is stronger on BH than PAS (and woeful on PER, so flex ended up not being an option).

Posted by bhansalid00 on 7/6/2014 8:09:00 PM (view original):
Thanks Joe. I decided to go with motion - since I'm valuing ATH / SPD / DEF quite a bit more than offense ratings, I figure I'm going to end up with fairly even distro anyway. Plus my first recruiting class is stronger on BH than PAS (and woeful on PER, so flex ended up not being an option).

this sounds like the wrong reason to reach potentially the right conclusion. with press, there really is no wrong answer, except you better be a damn good recruiter and very attentive to your team, if you pair with fastbreak, the combined fatigue hit is a bit insane. 

the reason for my objection is this. you are valuing ath/spd/def more than offensive ratings - a worthy decision. however, if you do that in ALL your players, instead of MOST, its also a stupid decision. the law of diminishing returns strikes hard in team wide abilities - but most of all, with offense (and least of all, with defense, which is why prioritizing team defense is a great move, its why i always say, defense wins championships). but diminishing returns cut both ways. they cut the wrong way when you are filling up on stuff like offensive talent and rebounding, but it also gives you HUGE returns on your offensive and rebounding studs, if those are not team strengths.

let me put it like this - for most teams, by far the most influential player is their lead scorer. for really flat distro teams, this may not be true. but i also think most really flat distro teams are playing it wrong. when you are in high d1 and can sign a ton of offensive talent, while also signing elite defensive talent, then it fits - thats why motion man is easily the preferred championship caliber d1 system. but in lower divisions, and lower in d1, you can never have it all. to focus on defense team wide, without focusing heavily on offense in a couple player, it doesn't really make any sense, from a team planning perspective, just think about the marginal returns. how valuable is that 1st great scorer compared to a 5th great defender? granted, a 5th great defender is worlds better than a 5th great scorer - but that 1st scorer is dramatically more valuable than your 1st or 5th defender, or anyone else. having 2 guys put up 20ppg ballpark figures is a fantastic thing to pair with the press, but that is least true running motion. motion makes sense when you have a glut of offensive talent. it also makes sense when you have a team wide deficiency - but that is just a bad strategy in general. 

hope that helps! i love motion/press, and its a great way to go in any division, but if you want to be really defensive minded, that is the exact situation for which motion offense is most poorly suited. i recommend either not going motion, or not prioritizing defense so heavily. both are fantastic routes on their own, but they just don't mesh that well together. that said, an expertly ran motion/press team is beastly in the lower divisions... for some coaches, you can sort of break that rule that you can't have it all in lower divisions. those coaches are very rare though, and i've seen those same guys who really succeeded greatly in some instances, struggle with the same system in others, because they just didn't have enough total talent to both have their offense and defense really hit the sweet spot - while they would have been fine if they ran (and properly played) a different set.

its true flex runs really heavily on guards, off spd/per, so i'd probably suggest triangle in your situation. for what its worth, two of the all time great d2/d3 runs, if not the #1 and #2 on that list, were both achieved running triangle/press.

Posted by gillispie1 on 7/7/2014 1:32:00 PM (view original):

Posted by bhansalid00 on 7/6/2014 8:09:00 PM (view original):
Thanks Joe. I decided to go with motion - since I'm valuing ATH / SPD / DEF quite a bit more than offense ratings, I figure I'm going to end up with fairly even distro anyway. Plus my first recruiting class is stronger on BH than PAS (and woeful on PER, so flex ended up not being an option).

this sounds like the wrong reason to reach potentially the right conclusion. with press, there really is no wrong answer, except you better be a damn good recruiter and very attentive to your team, if you pair with fastbreak, the combined fatigue hit is a bit insane. 

the reason for my objection is this. you are valuing ath/spd/def more than offensive ratings - a worthy decision. however, if you do that in ALL your players, instead of MOST, its also a stupid decision. the law of diminishing returns strikes hard in team wide abilities - but most of all, with offense (and least of all, with defense, which is why prioritizing team defense is a great move, its why i always say, defense wins championships). but diminishing returns cut both ways. they cut the wrong way when you are filling up on stuff like offensive talent and rebounding, but it also gives you HUGE returns on your offensive and rebounding studs, if those are not team strengths.

let me put it like this - for most teams, by far the most influential player is their lead scorer. for really flat distro teams, this may not be true. but i also think most really flat distro teams are playing it wrong. when you are in high d1 and can sign a ton of offensive talent, while also signing elite defensive talent, then it fits - thats why motion man is easily the preferred championship caliber d1 system. but in lower divisions, and lower in d1, you can never have it all. to focus on defense team wide, without focusing heavily on offense in a couple player, it doesn't really make any sense, from a team planning perspective, just think about the marginal returns. how valuable is that 1st great scorer compared to a 5th great defender? granted, a 5th great defender is worlds better than a 5th great scorer - but that 1st scorer is dramatically more valuable than your 1st or 5th defender, or anyone else. having 2 guys put up 20ppg ballpark figures is a fantastic thing to pair with the press, but that is least true running motion. motion makes sense when you have a glut of offensive talent. it also makes sense when you have a team wide deficiency - but that is just a bad strategy in general. 

hope that helps! i love motion/press, and its a great way to go in any division, but if you want to be really defensive minded, that is the exact situation for which motion offense is most poorly suited. i recommend either not going motion, or not prioritizing defense so heavily. both are fantastic routes on their own, but they just don't mesh that well together. that said, an expertly ran motion/press team is beastly in the lower divisions... for some coaches, you can sort of break that rule that you can't have it all in lower divisions. those coaches are very rare though, and i've seen those same guys who really succeeded greatly in some instances, struggle with the same system in others, because they just didn't have enough total talent to both have their offense and defense really hit the sweet spot - while they would have been fine if they ran (and properly played) a different set.

its true flex runs really heavily on guards, off spd/per, so i'd probably suggest triangle in your situation. for what its worth, two of the all time great d2/d3 runs, if not the #1 and #2 on that list, were both achieved running triangle/press.

This is funny because you and I had a back-and-forth on the forums about diminishing returns a couple of years ago as well, which really changed how I thought about recruiting and helped me become more successful. So first of all, thanks!

Second, I gave a very short response to Joe, but the real answer is more complicated. My plan is to recruit for ath / spd / def at 10-12 spots, but also get upside in LP or PER wherever I can. From my first recruiting class of 6 freshmen, I have 4 hi-potentials in LP and 4 highs in PER. So hopefully I end up with at least 3 real scorers from that group, though I don't know which 3 they'll be.

I totally get your point about diminishing returns, and I've applied that to all of my recent teams. But part of what I want to do with this new team is test the limits of ath / spd / def with press. Both of my NC's came in D2 with triangle/man teams, where I was quite good in both ATH and DEF, but not elite. Now I want to see what happens if I obsess over ath / spd / def with press. I understand it may not be optimal in terms of off vs def tradeoffs, but I see it as a 6-8 season test and part of my learning process about the game.

So given that, your other point is spot-on: I really should be picking triangle instead of motion, because I'm going to have fewer scorers than if I relaxed my ath / spd / def guidelines a bit.

Last question:why would anyone pick flex / press? I understand it maximizes the effect of PER / SPD, but now you're forcing yourself to recruit multiple perimeter scorers, as opposed to triangle, where you just need 3-4 guys who can score inside OR outside. Seems more limiting from a recruiting perspective.

I run a flex press on my limestone team.

I sacrifice a little on defense to recruit perimeter.

I did have a post player who was 70 ATH/99 LP who averaged 16+ppg. It isn't like post players can't be used.

Posted by Trentonjoe on 7/7/2014 2:04:00 PM (view original):
I run a flex press on my limestone team.

I sacrifice a little on defense to recruit perimeter.

I did have a post player who was 70 ATH/99 LP who averaged 16+ppg. It isn't like post players can't be used.

agreed. all these offenses have fairly subtle differences, its not like spd/per guards are the only way to succeed with a flex offense. but, they do seem to kick it into overdrive. i think all in all, having to focus on spd/per in your guards is not terribly at odds with press, where speed is more valued than in any other defense (albeit not even close to how it once was). flex/press teams can also really focus on rebounding at the 4-5 and maybe the 3 as well, if you are going to have almost guard only offense, flex or fastbreak is the way to go. 

Gillispie I know you've said that fastbreak is effective in high championship-level D1, do you see any advantages in using it at low D1?  I've been exclusively a Flex/Press guy, but am weary about running the press in D1.