I have 7 teams all running zone. 95% of the time running a perimeter defense, the 3-2. The 2 in D2 are currently my 1st year or 2 with them and they suck. Especially being out rebounded 3 to 5 per game. The 5 remaining D1 teams also suck but generally average a little MORE rebounds than their opponents. 1 really sucks with a 200+ rip and is a negative rebounding margin of 5 or more. 2 are so-so with break even (actually slight advantage) rebounding. And then my currently best 2 teams average around 5 more boards than their opponents. And remember, I 95% of the time run a 3-2 with no + or - (I'm lazy!). Anyways, and I'm sure I'm in the minority, I just don't see the game engine affecting zone rebounding as much as people fear. Of course, I'm always afraid of the zone being weak at rebounding so I try very hard to get C's and PF's who can rebound. And by rebound I mean REB + ATH. 

As for steals my teams don't do so good. A player with great SPD and DEF will get more than the slow bad defender of course. But overall my teams don't steal. They do hold opponents FG% down though. In fact, I'd say my players hold the FG% down a little better than if they played man. Drawback is fewer steals and, maybe, the opponents low fg% is what's getting my guys rebounds?

Take any of my words with a grain a salt. I've got a ton of experience but guys like kujay are better coaches.

Posted by tianyi7886 on 11/16/2011 12:53:00 AM (view original):

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.

The zone theoretically should be better at any other defense at disturbing the passing lanes because of the fact that defenders play an area on the court. A good zone can create as much pressure as a man to man in my opinion because it throws off the offense. The offense has to play smarter when facing a zone because poor passing can destroy you against it. Most defenses focus on the man in front of them. That includes press and MTM. Penetration against a good zone is almost obsolete because you're not taking one guy off the dribble. If you get past one defender most likely you'll have another one in your face in a good zone and you never really know where they are coming from which definitely leads to TO's/blocked shots. I'm not saying it causes more than a press or MTM but it definitely shouldn't cause that much less where it's noticeable and you wouldn't want to run it. if you say MTM or press causes more steals as far as guys getting on ball steals then yeah but TO's as a whole no...Im talking about errant passes, picked off passes, tipped passes because everyone on the floor is watching the ball. Just as in football same principle most interceptions are made by a def playing zone and the qb fails to see the zoner and throws the pick. Same principle.

Offensive fouls too... Charges all more prevalent in zone play which is also a TO.

Posted by jenningss on 11/16/2011 1:25:00 AM (view original):
I have 7 teams all running zone. 95% of the time running a perimeter defense, the 3-2. The 2 in D2 are currently my 1st year or 2 with them and they suck. Especially being out rebounded 3 to 5 per game. The 5 remaining D1 teams also suck but generally average a little MORE rebounds than their opponents. 1 really sucks with a 200+ rip and is a negative rebounding margin of 5 or more. 2 are so-so with break even (actually slight advantage) rebounding. And then my currently best 2 teams average around 5 more boards than their opponents. And remember, I 95% of the time run a 3-2 with no + or - (I'm lazy!). Anyways, and I'm sure I'm in the minority, I just don't see the game engine affecting zone rebounding as much as people fear. Of course, I'm always afraid of the zone being weak at rebounding so I try very hard to get C's and PF's who can rebound. And by rebound I mean REB + ATH. 

As for steals my teams don't do so good. A player with great SPD and DEF will get more than the slow bad defender of course. But overall my teams don't steal. They do hold opponents FG% down though. In fact, I'd say my players hold the FG% down a little better than if they played man. Drawback is fewer steals and, maybe, the opponents low fg% is what's getting my guys rebounds?

Take any of my words with a grain a salt. I've got a ton of experience but guys like kujay are better coaches.

I had to look - not trying to bust you down or anything - those 2 good teams are Denver and Oregon St. right? No offense, but Denver's numbers are coming against the 201 SOS and Oregon St is only 5 games into the season. Cook and Minter I would say are ok rebounders and Kopp is pretty good while Harte might be great one day, but is currently 5 games into a freshman yr. I'll posit that against stiffer competition those numbers would not be as good. Whether or not that means there is or isn't a big impact on rebounding due to the zone I can't say - I just want to enter into the record the above facts...

I'm just trying out a zone at my D 2 club. Going FB on offense, and want the zone to offset fatigue. Still recruiting M2M defenders and big men though, just feel they'll be ok in the zone. Work in progress.

Your right about Denver and Oregon St. and it's early or sos. Check out my Hawaii teams with 9 or 24 games played. Sub 20 sos. Rebounding margin -1 or -3. Some players better than others at rebounding, some not so much. And this is playing a 3-2. I've seen this year after year in world after world. I do think zone affects rebounding but not as much as people (including me) fear.

It was probably 20 seasons ago I started to switch all my teams to zone and since then I've managed to get fired 3 times!

I cant imagine alot of BCS coaches run zone. but i do @ texas...curious to how many other bcs zone coaches there are in comparison to man.

Posted by jenningss on 11/16/2011 3:54:00 AM (view original):
Your right about Denver and Oregon St. and it's early or sos. Check out my Hawaii teams with 9 or 24 games played. Sub 20 sos. Rebounding margin -1 or -3. Some players better than others at rebounding, some not so much. And this is playing a 3-2. I've seen this year after year in world after world. I do think zone affects rebounding but not as much as people (including me) fear.

It was probably 20 seasons ago I started to switch all my teams to zone and since then I've managed to get fired 3 times!

You may be right I guess, but both those teams have losing records...kind of a winning the battle, losing the war thing? Hawaii Crum has a couple pretty good rebounders, is getting out rebounded by 3.2. Hawaii Wooden IS roughly even on rebounds, against the 11 SOS. However - 4 of their top 5 rebounding games came in the 4 wins, including the top 2 totals of 41 and 46 against RPI 280 and 265. Add in Florida A&M (2-7, 123 RPI) and that's 123 of your 296 rebs. Without those 3 games the margin is 206-173 or 34.3 to 28.3. Your conference looks reasonably tough, so I'm going to project final numbers closer to the -6 than to even. 

And still this really doesn't prove anything about the original issue, just that still the stats you have make it hard to draw any concrete conclusion.

Well does anyone atleast know for a certainty that zone is based on a law of average def? Is it a random choice in defender? If it's an average I would think more people would run the zone. I think for example if I ran a 3-2 there would be 1/3 a chance for the 1, 2 or 3 to guard the shooter and in the post there would be a 1/2 chance of the front court player guarding the inside... not sure but a little concrete help would be appreciated.

Zone can be run successfully at any level if you know what you're doing and get the right players.
as far as the question above, I think you're trying to overthink the game and make it more complex than it is.
Rebounding is not as important as it once was,(IMHO of course), none-the-less, my zone teams out-rebound their opponents by several boards per game.
And these AREN"T bum teams playing bum schedules. They're DI, Top-20 NT teams with RPI's in the teens.

Posted by rednation58 on 11/16/2011 8:44:00 AM (view original):
Well does anyone atleast know for a certainty that zone is based on a law of average def? Is it a random choice in defender? If it's an average I would think more people would run the zone. I think for example if I ran a 3-2 there would be 1/3 a chance for the 1, 2 or 3 to guard the shooter and in the post there would be a 1/2 chance of the front court player guarding the inside... not sure but a little concrete help would be appreciated.

It's based on random assignment of a defender to the shooter. Think of this as real basketball, the heart of any zone defense (or any defense for that matter) is man defense. When a guy is your assigned zone, you have to match up to him 1 on 1. If you are a poor man defender, you will be a poor zone defender. 

Posted by mizzou77 on 11/16/2011 9:53:00 AM (view original):
Zone can be run successfully at any level if you know what you're doing and get the right players.
as far as the question above, I think you're trying to overthink the game and make it more complex than it is.
Rebounding is not as important as it once was,(IMHO of course), none-the-less, my zone teams out-rebound their opponents by several boards per game.
And these AREN"T bum teams playing bum schedules. They're DI, Top-20 NT teams with RPI's in the teens.

so based on your experience running a successful zone, what elements do you apply when recruiting? What type of players do you pursue? What strategies do you implement to run a successful zone team?

Posted by dwoelflin07 on 11/16/2011 4:31:00 AM (view original):
I cant imagine alot of BCS coaches run zone. but i do @ texas...curious to how many other bcs zone coaches there are in comparison to man.

When I did my super-quick look last night I noticed Cal is in Allen.

Rednation58 -- mizzou is hitting the nail on the head about you overthinking.  How basketball does work and how the sim treats the zone are two different things.

The reality is that the way the sim currently works means that the zone (1) makes it more difficult for the opposition to exploit a weak defender albeit by weakening the overall team defense, (2) is less demanding on stamina so you can extend the minutes of your starters and shorten your bench, (3) is good for blocking shots, (4) is poor at rebounding, (5) is poor at generating steals, (6) fouls at a low rate -- but not quite as low as man, (7) is good at stopping teams that have lots of players that shoot from the outside/inside, (8) can't have lockdown defenders to put on a leading scorer.

Whether or not you think these matchup with real life is a bit beside the point.  I'll agree with you that real life isn't always in sync with the above.

The negatives of zone in most cases outweigh its strengths.  If that wasn't the case, you would have way more coaches playing zone than currently are.  There are 10 worlds of HD and if zone was a better option than man or press, folks would have noticed.  If I had to guess (and this is just a guess), 80%+ of the humans running zone are running zone because the team they inherited ran the set and they haven't taken the time to change it.  Almost nobody chooses to play zone.  That includes me, I inherited it for my team and have been unwilling to invest in teaching my roster a new set.

My personal opinion is that as long as you recruit a talented roster, the negatives of zone aren't going to drag you down much.  My opinion is that in most seasons it doesn't cost me a single game.  And without a doubt there are certain opponents that it helps to be playing zone.  But over the course of a full season, the other two sets are going to be better.  Again, were that not the case, folks would notice and in turn would change their defensive sets.

And since nobody answered you .... to address the +/- question you asked, the thought is that since the 2-3 sags inside and the 3-2 leaves the interior a bit exposed.  So 2-3 (+2) and 3-2 (-2) are thought to have a "neutral" defense.

Posted by tianyi7886 on 11/16/2011 10:22:00 AM (view original):

Posted by rednation58 on 11/16/2011 8:44:00 AM (view original):
Well does anyone atleast know for a certainty that zone is based on a law of average def? Is it a random choice in defender? If it's an average I would think more people would run the zone. I think for example if I ran a 3-2 there would be 1/3 a chance for the 1, 2 or 3 to guard the shooter and in the post there would be a 1/2 chance of the front court player guarding the inside... not sure but a little concrete help would be appreciated.

It's based on random assignment of a defender to the shooter. Think of this as real basketball, the heart of any zone defense (or any defense for that matter) is man defense. When a guy is your assigned zone, you have to match up to him 1 on 1. If you are a poor man defender, you will be a poor zone defender. 

How do you know this, tianyi?

I mentioned earlier that the forum fact is that a zone averages the ratings.  My personal recollection of the forum fact is that after doing that and determining the outcome of the possession, the sim then assigns the event to a somewhat random assignment, although if the event is a steal/block the assignment is to a player that is more likely to accomplish that.

I've sort of wondered if the forum fact about averaging ratings is true since it predates my existence playing HD (and while I'm still semi-new compared to the true vets, I've been around a while now).  Even if it was true when Tarek designed the game, it might not have survived the change when seble rewrote things.

I think the sim should behave the way you describe it; I've just never seen it acknowledged so I wouldn't assume that's the case.  And in the absence of new information, I'm still assume the old forum fact about averaging ratings is true.

I would disagree 100% that man fouls less than Zone.

I don't think all things being equal (which they won't be) it's even close.

3 minutes research provides....
Allen DIII = 7 of the top 10 teams with fewest fouls = Zone
Allen DII = 7 0f the top 10 = Zone
Allen DI = you guessed it... 7 of 10 run Zone.
several of these are simmie coached and recruited. He doesn't run slow-down... nor does he recruit stud defenders who don't foul.