Good stuff. Thank you, TJ. I've started out with FB/press at FD. Going to be a LONG road to find out how effective I will be at running it. Going to have to remind myself a few times over the next season or two to trust the process.

My favorite type of zone player is the high ath and def lowish speed high pass no offense SF. These guys fit well in triangle zone

Unless you are recruiting EE talent, don't run Zone at DI.

Couple thoughts. I'm also not a fan of running zone at low D1 unless you recruit several players who are bonafide scorers. Along the lines of zone, taking guys with obvious flaws hurts you in zone moreso than other defenses and negates the strengths of zone. Again, just my opinion.

The biggest difference between the divisions is as you move up levels you need more scoring. At D1 I don't think you can get away with just 2 or 3 good scorers-good to great teams have 6+. Competitive tourney teams have 5+. Teams that are 10+ seeds that get first round upsets have a 60+ TEAM rating in LP and/or PER. The only exception to this is if you build an amazing press team that can generate a ton of TOs and run the opponent off the court but even then at some point you're likely going to run into a far athletically superior team and get smoked without guys who can flat out score.

Posted by darnoc29099 on 12/24/2017 11:23:00 AM (view original):
Couple thoughts. I'm also not a fan of running zone at low D1 unless you recruit several players who are bonafide scorers. Along the lines of zone, taking guys with obvious flaws hurts you in zone moreso than other defenses and negates the strengths of zone. Again, just my opinion.

The biggest difference between the divisions is as you move up levels you need more scoring. At D1 I don't think you can get away with just 2 or 3 good scorers-good to great teams have 6+. Competitive tourney teams have 5+. Teams that are 10+ seeds that get first round upsets have a 60+ TEAM rating in LP and/or PER. The only exception to this is if you build an amazing press team that can generate a ton of TOs and run the opponent off the court but even then at some point you're likely going to run into a far athletically superior team and get smoked without guys who can flat out score.

The need for more scorers seems to be part of the D3 recruiting D1 players issue - more humans distribution at D1 would elevate the need/use for role playera

Posted by darnoc29099 on 12/24/2017 11:23:00 AM (view original):
Couple thoughts. I'm also not a fan of running zone at low D1 unless you recruit several players who are bonafide scorers. Along the lines of zone, taking guys with obvious flaws hurts you in zone moreso than other defenses and negates the strengths of zone. Again, just my opinion.

The biggest difference between the divisions is as you move up levels you need more scoring. At D1 I don't think you can get away with just 2 or 3 good scorers-good to great teams have 6+. Competitive tourney teams have 5+. Teams that are 10+ seeds that get first round upsets have a 60+ TEAM rating in LP and/or PER. The only exception to this is if you build an amazing press team that can generate a ton of TOs and run the opponent off the court but even then at some point you're likely going to run into a far athletically superior team and get smoked without guys who can flat out score.

Good post

Posted by Trentonjoe on 12/23/2017 9:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cubcub113 on 12/23/2017 3:39:00 PM (view original):
If my goal is to get to the S16 four years in a row, FB/Press or Mo/Man is the answer. To succeed in FB/Press, one needs Ath De Sp Sta. Therefore, you can take guys where that is all they have a wreak havoc off the bench. You can't take ANYBODY with poor Ath De but you don't have to take anyone with Per or Pa.

With Mo/Man you can take build a crazy good team, while having .5 to 2 shooters and no bigs with LP. With Mo/Man you can run uptempo with 11 guys or slowdown with 8. All you need is Ath De Pa.

Tri/Zone teams are great if all you want to do is get to the second round, once, but very hard to implement. Triangle/Zone teams will get ****** losses, even if they all filled with talent.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/History.aspx?tid=3448

Prairie View is a great example. They got great wins but had inexplicable losses, and got booted out of the NT. Zone is great in theory, you just can't actually win unless you have extreme talent. I'm all for zone at high DI, but even relatively talented teams like Cal got ****** sims, unfortunately two of them were in the NT (In 96 and 97).

https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/History.aspx?tid=3266

With all do respect, this is awful advice.

You can win with almost any combo. That's the beauty of the game. Anyone who tells you have to do something doesn't see the big picture.

Shawn Meier was your first drafted player at Fordham. His first year was in Season 92. Your first 8 years at Fordham, before you got that elite talent, you had 1 NT appearance and 0 NT wins. The next 8 years, you had 6 players drafted, and had 10 NT wins. Zone works really well with good players and AWFUL with average ones. I challenge you to recruit 2-stars at the highest, running zone, and get 10 NT wins the next 8 years.

The good news: We'll find out if my concept works for me.
The bad news: If it fails, we won't really know if the concept failed or I just suck as a coach.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/24/2017 3:35:00 PM (view original):
The good news: We'll find out if my concept works for me.
The bad news: If it fails, we won't really know if the concept failed or I just suck as a coach.

I would define works on a gradient, not binary, scale. If it gets you to A- or B+, it clearly worked, while B and B- and more in the middle. If you can't get to the Bs that's not good.

I do wish I was running Zone sometimes in Low DI. If your going to do that, you can take 3 walkons which looks pretty convenient sometimes! Obviously you need EE level players to balance.

All I want at UNC-A is one NT win.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/24/2017 5:05:00 PM (view original):
All I want at UNC-A is one NT win.

One NT win will qualify you for C- Iowa or C Penn St and at those prestiges you'll be in a full rebuild all over again. If your goal is just to make any big 6 school then 1 NT win will get you a really bad one where you'll face another uphill battle. If you stayed few extra seasons at UNC-A and made a S16 or made the tourney a few seasons in a row you'll qualify for higher baseline and higher prestige big 6 schools that will still be in semi-decent shape. Maybe you know all of this already but in case you didn't I figured it was worth mentioning. The other advantage to staying a few extra seasons at UNC-A is making and winning tourney games will get you credits.

My sole goal is to get UNC-A their 1st NT win. I don't have a second goal at this point. I may take another team with 0 NT wins. Or maybe I'll stay at UNC-A. Or maybe take a crap Penn St. I figure I've got some time to figure out what I want to do next.

Posted by cubcub113 on 12/24/2017 2:33:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Trentonjoe on 12/23/2017 9:26:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cubcub113 on 12/23/2017 3:39:00 PM (view original):
If my goal is to get to the S16 four years in a row, FB/Press or Mo/Man is the answer. To succeed in FB/Press, one needs Ath De Sp Sta. Therefore, you can take guys where that is all they have a wreak havoc off the bench. You can't take ANYBODY with poor Ath De but you don't have to take anyone with Per or Pa.

With Mo/Man you can take build a crazy good team, while having .5 to 2 shooters and no bigs with LP. With Mo/Man you can run uptempo with 11 guys or slowdown with 8. All you need is Ath De Pa.

Tri/Zone teams are great if all you want to do is get to the second round, once, but very hard to implement. Triangle/Zone teams will get ****** losses, even if they all filled with talent.

https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/History.aspx?tid=3448

Prairie View is a great example. They got great wins but had inexplicable losses, and got booted out of the NT. Zone is great in theory, you just can't actually win unless you have extreme talent. I'm all for zone at high DI, but even relatively talented teams like Cal got ****** sims, unfortunately two of them were in the NT (In 96 and 97).

https://www.whatifsports.com/hd/TeamProfile/History.aspx?tid=3266

With all do respect, this is awful advice.

You can win with almost any combo. That's the beauty of the game. Anyone who tells you have to do something doesn't see the big picture.

Shawn Meier was your first drafted player at Fordham. His first year was in Season 92. Your first 8 years at Fordham, before you got that elite talent, you had 1 NT appearance and 0 NT wins. The next 8 years, you had 6 players drafted, and had 10 NT wins. Zone works really well with good players and AWFUL with average ones. I challenge you to recruit 2-stars at the highest, running zone, and get 10 NT wins the next 8 years.

And your position is that press works well with average talent?

Posted by darnoc29099 on 12/24/2017 11:23:00 AM (view original):
Couple thoughts. I'm also not a fan of running zone at low D1 unless you recruit several players who are bonafide scorers. Along the lines of zone, taking guys with obvious flaws hurts you in zone moreso than other defenses and negates the strengths of zone. Again, just my opinion.

The biggest difference between the divisions is as you move up levels you need more scoring. At D1 I don't think you can get away with just 2 or 3 good scorers-good to great teams have 6+. Competitive tourney teams have 5+. Teams that are 10+ seeds that get first round upsets have a 60+ TEAM rating in LP and/or PER. The only exception to this is if you build an amazing press team that can generate a ton of TOs and run the opponent off the court but even then at some point you're likely going to run into a far athletically superior team and get smoked without guys who can flat out score.

I think guys with flaws only hurt in zone if the flaw is defensive.