Mark Barnard, Head Coach at Oregon State, and Ben Josephson, Head Coach at Trinity Western Athletics, address how to pick the defensive system that best works for your team's set of skills.
For women, Barnard notes that perimeter defense is the system he usually uses with his team since the women's game is slightly slower than the men's game. Digging, in the women's game, is just as important as the blocking.
For the men's game, the first priority is to block the "hard shot" and dig the "secondary shot." Building a system, Josephson says that the priority must be on blocking the most difficult shot, and then training your defenders to dig off-the-block and less-hard attacks.