CLAY MOYLE AND SON CALEB
I just came across an interesting article in my latest issue of Sports Illustrated concerning the use of the zone defense in college basketball. The article, written by Seth Davis, focuses on the devotion to the zone defense by longtime Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, but indicates many more coaches are increasingly turning to the use of a zone as a result of the recent changes in rules allowing less defensive contact against offensive players.
Apparently, in this modern era where statistics are gathered concerning seemingly just about everything, the amount of possessions where teams employ a zone defense as opposed to a man-to-man defense is tracked and there is an increasing trend in the use of a zone.
Now, it’s not exactly a huge increase, at least not nationwide, as the article reports that Division I teams played zone 17.7 percent of the time this year in comparison to 15.6 percent the prior year. But there are a number of teams that dramatically increased their use of the zone defense.
For example, UCLA, under their new coach Steve Alford, jumped from 3.1 percent in 2012-13 season to 37.5 percent this year. Baylor increased from 7.3 percent to 55.3 percent, and Stanford went from 5.1 percent to 29.3 percent.
Zone crazy Syracuse relies almost exclusively on the use of a zone defense and used it 94.2 percent of the time this year. Coach Boeheim is the best known proponent of the use of the defense among the college ranks.
While always relying heavily upon the use of a zone, Boeheim made a conscious decision to switch to a zone almost entirely early in the 2009 season. Prior to that, his teams had averaged 24 wins per year over 33 seasons. Since then Syracuse has averaged 30 wins over the past five years.
Some may believe that increase in victories over the past five years has more to do with having better players, but Boeheim doesn’t believe that’s the case.
“The difference is we made the switch to the zone, and we’re committed to it” he said.
I played high school ball on BainbridgeIsland where my coach Dean Scherer was a strong proponent of the use of the zone as well. I don’t know what percentage of the time we played zone as opposed to man to man, but I’m positive we played zone a lot more than we played man-to-man.
Terry Mosher wrote an article about Scherer this past October in which the coach was quoted as saying that he believed he used a zone about 70 percent of the time. Terry thought it was more often than not and couldn’t recall seeing any of his teams playing man-to-man. Scherer replied that he could be correct, and the percentage might have been even higher.
Personally, I really disliked playing a zone defense when I was in high school. More often than not, we employed the use of a 2-3 zone defense and that meant that as one of two guards up on top of the zone, the other guard and I would have to trap the offensive ball handler when they arrived at the top of the key.
Of course, in most cases that individual would then immediately throw a pass to another offensive player on either the right or left wing. When they did that it was the defensive guard on that side of the floors responsibility to immediately sprint over and cover that wing player before they could launch a shot or penetrate the zone. If they threw the ball back to the top of the key the defender then had to race back to cover that player.
So, as defending guards we were constantly racing back and forth between the wing and the top of the key and that was very tiring. But, it wasn’t that which I hated, it was the fact I couldn’t always get from one spot to the other fast enough to prevent an offensive player from catching the ball and launching an outside shot before I could defend it.
It frustrated me to no end when we’d play a team that had a kid I felt I’d be able to shut down on a man-to-man basis only to see that kid score on uncontested shots from the outside when I couldn’t get to a spot fast enough to prevent it.
Now I read where Syracuse handles that a bit differently by requiring their two forwards to “bump up” and very briefly cover the wing who receives a pass until the guard can get over there, at which point the forward then retreats back down in the zone.
I cannot remember if our forwards were ever supposed to do that as well or not, all I know is that to the best of my recollection that didn’t happen and the other guard and I often ran ourselves ragged trying to defend the three offensive players on the top of our zone.
The 2-3 wasn’t the only zone defense that we employed though. We also utilized a 1-3-1 on many occasions and I recall the defending guard at the top of that zone being required to do an awful lot of sprinting back and forth between the top of the zone and the wing as well.
We also had a half court trapping defense that we’d employ from time to time which for all intent and purposes was an extended version of the 1-3-1 and was used to trap the ball handler the moment he crossed the midcourt line.
Interestingly, I think I learned more about how to effectively play man-to-man defense as a result of the use of a zone defense called the box-and-one. Every once in a while we’d encounter a team with a primary offensive threat that our game plan called for shutting down and coach Scherer rolled out the box-and-one.
In that case, four defenders play a 2-2 zone while another defender shadows one offensive player all over the floor in an effort to prevent him from touching the ball at all offensively.
So, if you were the defender assigned the task of denying that player from receiving the ball, you were in for a grueling night defensively because it’s very tiring to stay in an opposing player’s grill all game long from one end of the floor to the other in an effort to try and prevent him from touching the ball.
But, it can be an effective strategy. You can’t score if you don’t have the ball.
I loved the challenge of being the defender assigned the task of preventing an offensive player from getting the ball in those instances. And it taught me how to employ the use of footwork to best position myself in ways to prevent an offensive player from receiving the ball. So, from that point forward I became a much more effective man-to-man defender.
Of course, there are other skills that go into becoming a good man-to-man defender and one has to learn how to become a good help defender as well, but the box-and-one zone defense definitely helped me become a better man-to-man defender.
On the flip side of things, as an offensive player I’ve often enjoyed facing a zone defense because I believe I didn’t have to work quite as hard to get a good shot opportunity, and I have always been able to shoot pretty well from the outside.
When facing a man-to-man defense I always feel a need to constantly keep moving fairly quickly. But, when going against a zone I believe it’s more a matter of finding the areas where a zone is weak and moving to those spots as the zone shifts to create a scoring opportunity for yourself or a teammate.
As a guard, I’ve always felt that the best way to beat a zone was to penetrate the zone with the ball and then pass to an open teammate when two defenders collapse to stop that penetration. But, that is only effective if you have someone who is comfortable enough with the ball to drive into a double team and can pass the ball just before getting trapped. It also requires the assistance of teammates who are smart enough to move to openings created when the defenders shift to stop the penetration of the ball handler.
Nothing drives me nuts more than to watch a team try and attack a zone by simply throwing the ball around the perimeter without attempting to penetrate the zone and draw a double team to create opportunities for teammates. But, surprisingly I see that all the time and I suspect it’s a function of a shortage of heady ball handlers.
I coached a local 5th/6th grade boys youth team this year and during the regular season teams aren’t allowed to use a zone defense. I imagine that rule is in place because of a belief that it’s important to teach the kids the fundamentals of man-to-man defense.
But, the league has a season ending double elimination tournament and on that one day anybody who wants to use a zone can employ one. Since the “big men” on my team weren’t all that great at moving their feet or helping out on defense we spent a few practices learning how to play the 2-3 zone so we could use it in the tournament. While, we didn’t have enough time to learn it as well as I would have liked and didn’t have an opportunity to practice it very much, the boys picked it up fairly quickly and it proved to be pretty effective since there aren’t many proficient outside shooters in our league at this age.
All things considered, if I have a team of very athletic intelligent kids I think I would prefer to play pressure man-to-man defense all over the floor. But, if that’s not the case I believe the use of a zone defense can definitely help level the playing field.
And when I think back to the high school team I played on, I believe we had a few guys who would have been very effective playing man-to-man defense, but as a whole that team was better served and more effective playing a zone.
It will be interested to see if the trend toward an increase in the use of the zone defense continues over the next few years.