Drives Faced oddities

[Your_Imaginary_Friend]

I noticed my Stony Brook team had faced very few drives compared to other saves I've had. I looked at all the other teams in America East after 18 games and saw wide swings in the number of drives faced from a low of 12!! in 18 games at Albany, to SB's only having one player who averaged facing 1 or more drives in 18 games--he had 22. The entire team has 128 faced in 18 games. Typical team totals are around 250 so far--so twice that.

I'm not sure what's going on. this could be a quality of play issue--the America East stinks. Or defensive style play from the coaches philosophy page of not pressing or low defensive intensity. I can't see much difference in defensive sets used--mostly man.

[NCAAhoops]

Is your team athletic? One of the things I look at is how athletic my team is. When I scout my next opponent I look at their drive ratings 8 men deep on their depth chart. Then I adjust my defensive intensity to accommodate my scouting. In other words if a team drives a lot and your not athletic you better play off and set defensive intensity lower. I've gone from my default of 6 defensive intensity to 4 in some cases. If I'm athletic and they have high drive ratings then I just back of defensive intensity from 6 to 5.
If your athletic and at least average defensive rating or better your less vulnerable to drives and not fouling when they do.

Might help explain your numbers.

[Your_Imaginary_Friend]

My team is the most athletic in the AE, however I'm going all zone, so not seeing drives is plausible. I'm more concerned with Albany facing only 12 drives in 18 games! how is that even possible?

[CoachC]

i don't pay a lot of attention to that stat, but i know that the stat's are usually highest for my post players and my point guard with the highest def ratings. you'll see it in game in 2d occasionally by the play by play saying the drive was cut off. I usually play at least 70% man. if you are weak in perimiter defense, you may see a lot fewer drives stopped, mainly because they aren't bothering to drive. i'd look at your drives stopped percentages and your 3 point defense and rethink things maybe defensively. Like NCCAhoops said, your defense makes a difference too...if you are playing a ton of 2-3 zone you won't see as many drives because that is one of the things that zone is supposed to stop. you may get riddled by outsides shooting and guards that can make good passes to the posts, but usually drives will be less of a problem.

Can't give any real advice here without knowing the make-up of your team, but from what i've seen , drives overall haven't changed.

[Your_Imaginary_Friend]

Okay, I think folks are missing my real point: it is not that I am seeing too few drive STOPS, it is that I am not seeing drives at all. Albany's opponents only tried to drive the ball 12 times in 18 games. It is NOT drive stop percentage, it is that other teams aren't even trying to drive.

That is what is strange.

[Your_Imaginary_Friend]

This is silly. After 14 games in season 2 NO ONE has attempted to drive on us. Not one single time. Not even on a fastbreak. This is us using a zone 100% of the time--I'm using a mix of all four and no MTM usage at all.

Albany has faced 14 drives in 14 games.

[Your_Imaginary_Friend]

So 31 games played and not a single player attempted to drive on us. We did finally take 3 charges in the last 10 games of the season, but I did not notice exactly when they happened.

[Gary Gorski]

I guess "drives faced" is perhaps not the best way to describe what is being tracked. It's tracking a one-on-one defensive matchup. So if you're playing 100% zone you will see no "drives faced" because one single player isn't matched up with one other player - everyone has a zone responsibility to stop drives to the basket so it can't assign it to any one player

[Your_Imaginary_Friend]

Thanks for the explanation.

[CoachC]

i'll resummarize my point as well... total drives faced i've not seen go up or down...it depends on your personnel on both ends of the court and the defenses you run and the defenses you face. If you have few drives faced on your end of the court, and aren't giving up a lot of 3s, or jumpshots overall...you are in good shape. on the offense end, if you aren't getting enough drives, examine your offenses and your personnel. That being said, there is nothing you really get from recruiting that tell you how players get their points...you only get that once you have them. Like i said, i haven't seen any big difference in the NUMBER of drives on each end of the court, and if you have, perhaps you need to examine your sets. It's one of the reasons i've never simmed games other than during beta. A legit 3 that can drive and shoot outside, AND play defense is perhaps the most valuable and hardest to find asset of all. Especially if they can rebound as well. phemomenal sfs have always been the most difficult to find asset in the game, as well the hardest to stop!