I hear ya...if nu took every "daum" they'd be lucky to win 10 games a year
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Ed Morrow transferring
- Thread starter ShortSideOption
- Start date
As is the case, we crushed that this year with 12 wins.
You know your hoops if you can joke about zone basketball
Zones are only good if the entire program commits to it long term (ie, Temple, Syracuse, etc.). Teams that randomly play zone usually aren't very good at it.
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Lars inspired me when he brought up the box and one and triangle and two. I think maybe people used to play those, but as of the 80s my impression was they were mostly farcical. I could be wrong.You know your hoops if you can joke about zone basketball
You have a good point about how teams have to dedicate themselves to zone for it to work. Playing just a little zone might work if you're going to an aggressive trap three or four times a game. But running a passive zone for e.g. five minutes a game each game, I haven't seen that work. Defenders don't get the principles down, and once the offense settles in it's not hard to exploit weaknesses in the zone. And rebounding...it's so much easier to offensive rebound against a zone.
It is kind of gimmicky, but teams will still run versions of both if they have particular players to match up with a certain opponent. It's called 'shadowing' by most to sound sexier. You see it when you have an opponent who has an elite offensive player, and at least one person on your roster who can physically match up to some extent. The reason you use the 'box' format is for help defense. Dribble penetration of a zone, and that's essentially what the box is, is a much bigger challenge, so you put someone to full time harass and zone style help defense. It can work well for a while, but fails if a team has additional offensive options, or can create easier shots through passing.
And while I agree that zone is a, commit or don't play style, it also can be successful if you are playing a team with crappy zone offensive pieces. And trust me, there are some teams that just don't have players that can be successful against a zone...even a marginal zone.
That's a cogent description of what could be the value of a box and one. AFAIK I haven't personally seen it in use since the 80s, though.
Even in the situation you describe, I would rather go man. In man, you can still overplay their best player, planning to get burned sometimes and help. And you can do that better than with zone, because in man you can decide who helps based on which opponents you want to leave open -- some guys you can afford to leave at the 3-pt line, or the high post, etc. Really the only thing I think you can do with a zone much more effectively than with man is a trapping full/half-court press.
You can also reduce the penetration lanes against teams with great ball handlers who lack an outside shot, and probably more importantly, keep a front and back on a dominant inside player in those rare instances you actually run into one these days. 2 kinds of zones: aggressive, attacking, trapping zones, and the space filling, dare you to beat me from the outside type. I hated both.
No doubt... man to man principles still apply when playing zone (closing out, stopping penetration, box-outs, etc...) Again, a full commitment to zone must be made for it to work. As u said, rebounding is difficult in a zone, so that too must be practiced for months to get it right.
I like a 3/2 zone personally... its significantly more versatile than a 2/3 imo. It can do all of the things you mentioned (trap corners, double the post, guard the perimeter). Its a little weak at the high post, but if practiced that can be stopped too.
It's just much harder to play it well, especially if you have someone who is relly weak playing defense and rebounding. With man you can at least manipulate the matchups a little, putting your slug on their slug, but in a zone, you can lose that matchup quickly and end up with the wrong guy having to defend a very good player. Zone is about forcing the offense to play 2 on one, or at least 1 1/2 on 1. A really crisp zone offense can change that back to just man on man, and they can dictate that matchup.
Like I said, some teams are built to play that defense, and those are scary. We aren't that team.
Was thinking of Morrow today. Would there even be minutes for Morrow on this team? I guess he could take Duby's minutes.
Oh, I think so, Ed's big problem was that he didn't really want to play the 4. He thought of himself as more of a perimeter player, but he just didn't shoot that well. He was a much better inside scorer than Duby. I would probably rather have Jacobson, I think he was more of a team player.
Yeah, he would have taken all of Duby/Tanner’s minutes. The rest of the time would have been spent on the bench cheer team or grabbing coffee for starters after scout team work.
