How important is the defensive stat to the zone? I know def is most important in MTM and I know zone is supposed to hide bad defenders, but let's say I recruit 70+ rated def players for my zone...would it be a waste of def or would the extra D be utilized in the scheme? 

Having good defense ratings at all positions in a zone does still make for a much better zone.

I'm not at all certain that defense is any less important in a zone defense than it is in man defense.  I somewhat hesitate simply because most good coaches will play either man or press and therefore you don't have many examples to observe.  But from my limited number of observations, it seems the good zone teams have defensive ratings that rival that of a good man team.

It's not that zone hides bad defenders, the forum fact is that zone works in large part by averages things.  So if you are playing a 2-3 zone and have a 20, 50, and 80 defender at SF, PF, and C, your average will be a 50 defensive player.  In that sense you can "hide" but you can also build a team that is truly excellent at defense as well.

I don't think you really can waste defense in a zone unless you are recruiting for that at the expense of all the other categories.  Whatever you do recruit/develop will be used.

Does Ath play as much of a role in zone as it does MTM as well? Would you all recruit any different playing a zone... (ie maybe less stamina would be needed?)

Posted by rednation58 on 11/15/2011 6:34:00 PM (view original):
Does Ath play as much of a role in zone as it does MTM as well? Would you all recruit any different playing a zone... (ie maybe less stamina would be needed?)

Chicken/egg?

There is such a strong correlation between the defensive rating and athleticism that I think it would be very difficult to tease out the effect of one from the other.

Forum fact suggests you should place an emphasis on shot blocking for zone more than you would for other defenses.  I personally am not sure if this forum fact is true.

Zone hurts rebounding, how that impacts how you recruit is up to you.  You can be successful and not be a terrific rebounding team and at the D2 level you aren't going to be able to recruit perfect players so I personally wouldn't overcompensate too much while still avoiding any post player that has a poor rebound rating.

You are correct that less stamina is needed.  For the most part that is a very nice thing.  I will note that I got a bit burned this past go around in recruiting by making what I thought was an innocent 10 minute promise that I had a hard time keeping because the zone defense kept my starters on the court more than I expected.  You don't need as much stamina and/or depth to the rotation.

I've got a little experience using zone and here's my .03

A1) Zone might average the def together, like kujayhawk mentioned above.
A2) Or, say when running a 2-3 and the opponent goes inside the engine will randomly decide which of your SF,PF, C will be the defender.

If A2 is used then one might be tempted to use a 3-2 if you have a weak defender at the SF and good defending PF,C. Regardless of which method the engine uses an advantage of zone is it's more difficult for your opponent to run play after play against your weakest defender. In my opinion DEF rating along with SPEED (per guys) and/or ATH (interior guys) is just as important as it is for man defense for your overall defense (ok, maybe 97%). BLK for big guys is considered a bit more important in the zone. I'm not sure anymore about the BLK thing though. The play by play used to include phrases such as "shot altered by....." but doesn't anymore. I still make sure my bigs can block just in case.

A minor advantage of zone is if your overall team defense is very good you may be able to recruit a sharpshooter with weak defensive skills. Fewer man or press teams will compete with you for such a recruit. Just don't go crazy and have to many of these guys as it WILL hurt you overall team defense.

Another small advantage is day to day game planning. If the other team is scoring from distance just go 3-2. If they score inside go 2-3. Fast, Simple, and lazy!

A big advantage of zone is stamina. Guys simply tire out much less playing zone. This has multiple consequences. If you have a 10 man rotation on "fairly fresh" they will never hardly tire-out. You can develop a freshman by not letting him shoot much and still give him 30minutes of court time. Your team will commit fewer fouls (tired guys foul more). If you don't have a 10+ rotation the zone allows your guys to stay fresher longer. 

Sorry for the long post. To answer your questions...

DEF is important
SPD is important
ATH is important
STAMINA is important
But yeah, you can cheat just a little!

Zone defense is pretty much the same as m2m. On any possession and offensive shot, there has to be 1 guy defending the offensive player. You can in theory hide a bad defender by playing around with 2-3 and 3-2 and the depth chart, so your bad defender has a lower probability of guarding the other team's best scorer, but that's not really ideal.

Main advantage of zone is that you can play more shallow than m2m, and definitely with a much smaller bench than fcp. 

Downside? Zone is a little weaker in rebounding, which is magnified should you go 3-2 to defend the 3 ball. 

As far as rebounding which is a concern of mine, how much weaker is the zone in rebounding vs. a press vs. a MTM or the hybrids? If I have very athletic guys would that compensate for my def being at a natural disadvantage rebounding? It seems like zone is the least popular def of all but to me it seems like the most ideal def. Low stamina hit, low fouling rate, most versatile in that you can switch from 2-3 to 3-2. I see the weaknesses but the strengths seem to outweigh them.

Zone is better in reb than the press, worse than man. There is a reason that zone isn't very popular in D2 and D3. You shouldn't need the stamina help from zone because you should be recruiting players that are fairly interchangeable. At D1, I see the benefit of zone more because you are likely to take on walkons.

Another major weakness of zone is you generate the lowest number of steals. 

You are flexible between 2-3 and 3-2, but what happens when your opponent has a dominant rebounding team with great backcourt scorers? Do you go 3-2 +1 or +2 and watch your opponent dominate you on the offensive glass?

Zone generates less fouls? I'm not sure if that's true. 

If I had to put a number on on how much rebounding is impacted compared to a man team, I'd hedge and say 1.5.  It's a factor; I don't believe it's a tremendous factor.  Athleticism can help compensate, but that's true for any defensive set.

A good man team is going to foul less than a zone team.  A good man team also doesn't really have the need to switch between 2/3 and 3/2.  (Most good teams also are balanced in scoring and you rarely need to make a switch like that if you are up against them.)

I don't believe zone is much worse than the other two sets.  I run zone and I think it's maybe cost me 2 or 3 games over the past 5 or so seasons.  And even those games, I might have just been on the wrong side of randomness.  (For what it's worth, my 1.5 number on rebounding is a decent guestimate.  The number of games I may have lost is a completely made up number that I in no way can back up.)

If zone was the better defensive set, coaches would be voting with their feet.  It is very difficult to find a good coach that is willing to run zone.  The good coaches know better and choose to play man or press.  And if zone was a worthy option, they would change.  Prior to you having a team, press for a long time was by far the dominant defense.  Maybe as many as 80% of good coaches ran press.  They changed the game and for a little while press was the worst defensive option.  The number of coaches that switched from press to man was astonishing.  (They've since made some refinements that helped the press and some have switched back.)  But almost nobody switched to zone.  It just isn't that effective.

I took a quick look at the Allen world's top 25 RPI teams.

In Division 1 there are two teams running zone.  Division 2 also has two zone teams.  Division 3 has three zone teams.  All but one of these teams has some sustained success running zone but for the most part for every season the teams finish in the top 25 RPI, there is another season where they are in the 40-60 range.  It's sustained success but it isn't too impressive.  (I probably should throw modesty aside and note that my team has done a better job of having top 25 RPI seasons than the other 6 teams so it is possible, but I'm also doing it at the D3 level which obviously is the easiest.)

Even though I run zone myself, I know I'm always happy to gameplan for my next opponent and see that they play zone instead of the other two sets.  I'm pretty sure that's a common feeling around here.

Could it be that zone is just the least understood of all the Def sets? It just doesn't seem right that when people debate about running motion, flex, fastbreak and triangle no one can't point out a clear cut superior set. On the other hand everyone says MTM and press are heads above zone. I know press causes To's but you also foul way more and need deeper benches. MTM is totally reliant on the def rating and the ATH and SP and also fouls a bit too. I would think and this is just an educated guess that zone would be a median of both the other two. I also find it funny that zone has the least amount of steals... in reality zone should generate the most To's (maybe second to a press) and be less affective against great perimeter teams. A good zone team should destroy a bad passing team or a bad perimeter team easily. I also have read in the forums that the def setting is totally different for zone than the other two schemes where a 0 setting for a MTM or press would be equivalent to +2 for a zone... is this true?

Zone causes more steals than m2m in real life?!? That's news to me.

My S. Ark team is in DII Allen, and we're in the Final Four right now (I assume we are one of the two DII teams that kujay was talking about). We've had pretty good sustained success, but haven't been a top of the crop team all the time.

A benefit of zone is this.........William Jones is our top bench sharpshooter with a poor DEF rating but high PER - and he's most successful w/ us as opposed to M2M or Press because we're a zone team and can "hide" his defensive flaws. With good rebounders, zone is a fine defense to run. I really like the versatility in switching from 2-3 to 3-2....I play about 50/50 each setting, it's helpful for gameplanning.  

Posted by tianyi7886 on 11/16/2011 12:01:00 AM (view original):
Zone causes more steals than m2m in real life?!? That's news to me.

It does for good zone teams. Look at Syracuse. They force TONS of turnovers out of the zone because they run it so well.

Posted by blackdog3377 on 11/16/2011 12:28:00 AM (view original):

Posted by tianyi7886 on 11/16/2011 12:01:00 AM (view original):
Zone causes more steals than m2m in real life?!? That's news to me.

It does for good zone teams. Look at Syracuse. They force TONS of turnovers out of the zone because they run it so well.

Do you think syracuse would have generated fewer t/os in the past seasons with a man defense? And is Syracuse zone really the typical 2-3 zone? It's more like a half court trap defense, especially in the corners. Most basketball coaches will tell you that m2m generates more pressure than zone and force more turnovers, so I agree with WIS setting up the zone defense to be weaker than m2m and press in terms of generating t/os.