I don't want to complain about the zone generally -- I know several coaches who have had dominant zone teams, but I do think there is a sentiment that its more of a challenge, especially at the certain levels to win with zone compared to the man or press.  And I'm familiar with the advantages that the zone has, and the different recruiting strategies you can employ, but this is about making it more competitive across the game without just relying on people to magically get better at coaching it under the current rules.  

I have three possible suggestions on how to make the zone more competitive generally.  No need to chime in if you think the zone is fine the way it is, but if you think the zone could use a boost, consider the following:  

1) Make certain ratings more important to the zone than for other sets (more important than they already are).   Some believe that certain ratings, like BLK, might be more important for the zone than for other sets.  But if the difference in the value of BLK isn't great enough between zone, man, and press, than everyone still recruits the same kinds of guys, who are great at the same things.  By making something like BLK *way* more important for the zone, zone teams could target e.g. high BLK guys that the vast majority of teams pass up, thus getting better players with less competition (until more teams adapt and start playing the zone).  Basically each set should have more of an ecological niche than it already has, allowing underrepresented sets to thrive in that niche until the competition gets wise and joins them.  

2) Decorrelated ATH/DEF.  ATH may be less important in the zone than in other defenses, but DEF may be just as important.  Sure, you can hide one bad defender, but you can't hide a whole bad defense.  But it's hard to get a player with good DEF without good ATH, since recruits have highly correlated ATH/DEF ratings and potentials.  Fixing recruit generation to decorrelate ATH/DEF would produce more players with mediocre ATH but great DEF, who might be inappropriate for the press or even the man, but great for the zone.  Plus it would be more realistic (if anyone cares about that).  

3) Two redshirts per season.  This is by far the easiest fix.  Press teams probably can't afford to redshirt two players and be competitive in that season.  Sometimes they can barely afford to redshirt one.  Man teams can get away with it, but it can be a little bit of a challenge.  For a zone team it's no problem.  Real college basketball teams can redshirt several guys in a season.  By allowing two redshirts in a season, you give zone the advantage of potentially having one extra player with a full extra season of development at all times, compared to the other sets.  

Any thoughts?  

R : agreed on everything but i think blk is already more important at the 5.

As a zone guy, I love the ideas.  I would submit this as a ticket.

The zone is fine as is! I think they'e got it about perfect. In Real Life college ball, it is by far the weakest "D." There are just a handful of decent zone teams at the college level because of it's weaknesses. I know when my team played zone teams I loved it. We tore them up.

i like the idea of a second redshirt regardless, as i think it would help mid-major teams be a bit more competitive.

I actually think zone is almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy because people don't know how to use it.  People perceive it as weak, so they don't use it, then point to the fact that nobody uses it as evidence that it's weak.  

When you know how to recruit for and gameplan with a zone, you are on equal playing fields with top teams. Press strategy (depth/ath/spd/stam) is more prevalent in the forums than zone strategy, but it clearly has a distinct recruiting strategy.  

I love having my zone team go up against press teams.  Slowdown with a zone D means that my starters can play 30 minutes, even against a press, without getting too tired, but the press team has to use their bench guys for a portion of the time against my starters because they're tiring their own guys out.  

The way I tend to recruit, I naturally focus on getting star players more than depth.  This fits perfectly with a zone and would be a terrible press recruiting strategy.  

Basically, I disagree with your basic premise that zone is harder to win with.  

I think hiding the bad defender in the zone is a myth. Check out the zone teams that have won and are consistently competitive. They generally do not heed this advice. And to that point if you can hide a bad defender then the opposite must be true that an elite defender is lost to a degree in zone. Build a solid defense and I think you will be very happy with zone defense.

I've seen many press teams be very competitive with, what I would consider to be, less than stellar defenders. I've also seen man teams with a weak defender still be effective.

But I'm all for the second red shirt!

I like the second redshirt idea.

Posted by milwood on 4/20/2015 3:51:00 PM (view original):
I think hiding the bad defender in the zone is a myth. Check out the zone teams that have won and are consistently competitive. They generally do not heed this advice. And to that point if you can hide a bad defender then the opposite must be true that an elite defender is lost to a degree in zone. Build a solid defense and I think you will be very happy with zone defense.

I've seen many press teams be very competitive with, what I would consider to be, less than stellar defenders. I've also seen man teams with a weak defender still be effective.

I guess with my zone I'm just heavy on the impression that an elite defender can even out a bad defender...  I could be wrong though

I just made the NT championship game running zone

In Tark Carlbuzz won the D2 champ running flex/zone and in Wooden D3 dgravs won it also running flex/zone, as well as the season before tarvolon also won it with a zone

Granted those are 3 top of the line coaches, but 3 recent examples.

I don't know how I feel about 2 redshirts, I think one is enough since we already get 12 scholarships, it would probably just allow top level teams to hoard even more talent.

I've always been in favor of a second redshirt option. If you run ten deep and don't use the 11th or 12th man much, it can give you more options.

zone isn't the problem, press is

I will also support the second redshirt. Was actually just talking about this earlier this year with my Concord team in Naismith. I recruited two guys this year, and neither of them are good enough to contribute much immediately, I don't need either in my rotation, and both could benefit from a redshirt year. But there's no way I can actually redshirt both of them, which is annoying. I know the restriction is probably there to keep people from redshirting half their senior class or something to prep for a big run the following year, but it's frustrating for people who could use it as legit fake basketball strategy. And it also does seem like it would help balance out press a little more, because zone and man teams can run 10 men a lot easier than press teams can. As has been mentioned, it would probably also help strengthen mid-majors in D1, because high-majors aren't going to be able to redshirt much (because their guys will just go pro).