I actually agree with you, emy.  I can't get my head around taking 15-25 more minutes away from player development.

I guess if I had an older team I could sacrifice the minutes but I have some young guys who need all the minutes they can get. I'll probably just try to run the HCP with the low IQ's and see if there are any benefits to be had.

my opinion is those who were succesful with combo defenses were successful in spite of those combo defenses. they generally were very good coaches who would have, i think, done at least as well running straight defenses. 

i spent like a season or two looking at this, studying other teams who ran combo sets. from the pbp, there is basically no benefit. from overall stats, i could not see more than 1 turnover a game benefit. but im not sure if the pbp really shows anything of value and its hard to say how many turnovers a team should have forced without a combo set...

i did however see significant downside in terms of fatigue. i think you are better off to have IQ in multiple sets and chose to play one or the other, situationally, as tanner did so successfully (with zone, man, and press iq), rather than play a combo set.

Wow how did he set that up?

I did that with m2m and zone at Montana and loved the results and versatility. It also really made me feel like I was doing more "coaching". I stopped doing it after an engine change that decreased the differences between those defenses, I just didn't feel that it was worth it any more.

so is this team as currently composed(pressing the reset button and recruiting different types of players next season, so 'get new players' is irrelevant) better off running press, zone, zone/press, or being situational on that?  zone d is basically b-/b, press is basically mostly a's.  as an example.  

Name	Yr.	Pos.	A	SPD	REB	DE	BLK	LP	PE	BH	P	WE	ST	DU	FT	TOT
Douglas Hughes	Sr.	PG	45	85	1	46	4	40	47	80	70	69	95	84	B+	666
William Brooks	Jr.	PG	2	74	1	1	3	16	60	65	65	48	87	85	B-	507
Douglas Forrest	So.	PG	64	64	11	55	13	27	26	37	21	36	78	50	C	482
David Miller	Sr.	SG	44	71	11	38	3	1	50	86	32	90	80	43	B-	549
Paul Tillison	Sr.	SG	33	59	11	24	13	75	36	44	47	82	86	69	C+	579
Rodney Lancaster	Sr.	SF	30	47	42	22	33	23	64	47	32	71	89	71	C+	571
Roger Simpson	Sr.	SF	44	60	45	41	24	58	39	66	70	66	80	60	C+	653
Walter Buchanan	Sr.	PF	22	34	61	24	40	82	5	46	16	73	69	35	C+	507
John Lowe	Jr.	PF	36	43	64	23	51	66	36	17	10	47	84	50	C-	527
Robert Boatright	Sr.	C	41	43	84	38	79	39	20	26	21	51	69	53	C	564
Sam Phillips	Sr.	C	35	41	79	34	69	69	37	11	8	81	72	73	C	609
Wilbur Trent	So.	C	34	30	72	25	62	33	11	14	36	50	61	77	C	505
Averages	-	-	36	54	40	31	33	44	36	45	36	64	79	62	C+	560

Posted by coach_billyg on 8/11/2012 4:30:00 AM (view original):
my opinion is those who were succesful with combo defenses were successful in spite of those combo defenses. they generally were very good coaches who would have, i think, done at least as well running straight defenses. 

i spent like a season or two looking at this, studying other teams who ran combo sets. from the pbp, there is basically no benefit. from overall stats, i could not see more than 1 turnover a game benefit. but im not sure if the pbp really shows anything of value and its hard to say how many turnovers a team should have forced without a combo set...

i did however see significant downside in terms of fatigue. i think you are better off to have IQ in multiple sets and chose to play one or the other, situationally, as tanner did so successfully (with zone, man, and press iq), rather than play a combo set.

I agree CBG, I just didn't see the benefit of the hybrid.  Didn't really see any significant difference in the stats, which is another reason why I usually just concentrate on one defense.  I could certainly see the benefit of practicing multiple defenses to give a coach more options, but again, my personal opinion is to use those minutes for player development.

I also agree 100% that those coaches that were successful with the hybrid D's would have been just as successful running a single D because those coaches tend to be amongst the best coaches in HD anyway.

It all comes down to how long you are going to be at the school. Even if its a DIII team and you want to make it 100% yours before you move one. You pick your base D then put a few points into the second one. The first two season you pick your spots when you run it in a game. Season three you start to run it full time. By this team you have two classes that are strong in both sets. And then you just run full time from that point out. You will always have 6-8 guys that are strong in both sets. 

I ran Press/Man combo when I first got to SMU.  Part of the reason was that I had several new players and wasn't sure which way I wanted to go with the defense.  After two seasons of 12 minutes on each D, I decided I would move all of my minutes to the press.

Personally, it isn't worth the extra practice time when I'd rather develop my players. 

Posted by emy1013 on 8/10/2012 11:45:00 AM (view original):

Posted by rednation58 on 8/10/2012 8:54:00 AM (view original):
well it would be cool if there is a coach out there who has successfully run a hybrid d so I can get another prospective on this. As of now I am swaying towards emy as the minutes needed for IQ seem too great a sacrifice for the hopeful benefits of the press.

Red, there have been some coaches that have successfully run hybrid defenses, don't get me wrong.  Like I said, it's just my personal preference to use the minutes towards maxing out player ratings and maxing out one defense.  If a coach can allocate his minutes effectively enough to max his players and max two defenses, then I would say to use the hybrid for sure.  But again, to each his own. 

my personal opinion is that the coaches who have successfully run hybrid defenses, were largely successful in spite of, not because of, the hybrid defense. a great team is a great team, so its not like you cant have great hybrid teams. its just harder (IMO). the turnovers are way too infrequent to justify the fatigue hit.

even with free IQ in press, i wouldnt play the hybrid set. i have only played it briefly (while switching setes) but at the time i studied like 20 teams who played it, combing through at least a hundred box scores and a few dozen PBPs, and it seemed like the hybrid set was creating something like a half to one additional turnover per game, with a noticeable impact to fatigue (i think at most one, i would definitely not be surprised if it was significantly less than 1). CS has stated the hcp only comes into effect like 20% of the time, so it makes sense why there are so few additional turnovers. when you throw in the extra practice minutes, i really think the hybrid set is working against you. there could be more to it than i saw, its not like i played it for years and am an expert or anything. i would definitely recommend new coaches, and coaches who are still highly concerned about their level of success, stay away from it. if you want to experiment, and dont care about anything else, then it might be fun.

I've run combo D only a couple of times, and like others here, didn't see the benefit. It didn't show up in the pbp, and I couldn't see it in the box score either.

Posted by gillispie1 on 3/5/2013 2:37:00 PM (view original):

Posted by emy1013 on 8/10/2012 11:45:00 AM (view original):

Posted by rednation58 on 8/10/2012 8:54:00 AM (view original):
well it would be cool if there is a coach out there who has successfully run a hybrid d so I can get another prospective on this. As of now I am swaying towards emy as the minutes needed for IQ seem too great a sacrifice for the hopeful benefits of the press.

Red, there have been some coaches that have successfully run hybrid defenses, don't get me wrong.  Like I said, it's just my personal preference to use the minutes towards maxing out player ratings and maxing out one defense.  If a coach can allocate his minutes effectively enough to max his players and max two defenses, then I would say to use the hybrid for sure.  But again, to each his own. 

my personal opinion is that the coaches who have successfully run hybrid defenses, were largely successful in spite of, not because of, the hybrid defense. a great team is a great team, so its not like you cant have great hybrid teams. its just harder (IMO). the turnovers are way too infrequent to justify the fatigue hit.

even with free IQ in press, i wouldnt play the hybrid set. i have only played it briefly (while switching setes) but at the time i studied like 20 teams who played it, combing through at least a hundred box scores and a few dozen PBPs, and it seemed like the hybrid set was creating something like a half to one additional turnover per game, with a noticeable impact to fatigue (i think at most one, i would definitely not be surprised if it was significantly less than 1). CS has stated the hcp only comes into effect like 20% of the time, so it makes sense why there are so few additional turnovers. when you throw in the extra practice minutes, i really think the hybrid set is working against you. there could be more to it than i saw, its not like i played it for years and am an expert or anything. i would definitely recommend new coaches, and coaches who are still highly concerned about their level of success, stay away from it. if you want to experiment, and dont care about anything else, then it might be fun.

whoops, i didnt realize i made the same post 5 months ago :O

I've recently just started to run a hybrid hcp/m2m, but it's too early to gauge it's effectiveness. What I already really like about the set-up is the options it allows me, specifically the choice of running either defense individually and (what I really love) the ability to soley run a full-court press at the end of games by utilizing the "losing late" settings.