Building a Zone team Topic

I was thinking of moving up next season and was planning on switching to a zone team and was curious on how to go about building a good zone team. I've seen some info around the forums but I thought it'd be more fun to hear how other coaches would go about this. Any advice would be much appreciated

Here's all I know about zone defense:

Rebounding is vital in bigs
Fatigue isn't a major factor and can easily run a 10 man rotation
Turnover differentials can be a problem (SPD in guards can help)
BLK can be important for a SF in a 2-3 set

6/3/2014 3:14 AM

The only thing it really sounds like you're missing is DEF. You really need good DEF players in zone to keep down FG%.

6/3/2014 8:48 AM
For one thing, I would modify your second pointer to "can easily run a 9-man rotation."  You CAN get away with an 8-man rotation, even with fairly average stamina, but it can be a little tougher, and you can be in trouble if you get a guy or 2 into foul trouble at any point.  If you look at my Rochester team right now (which, incidentally, I would absolutely NOT hold up as an example of how a good zone team should be built) you'll find that while I am running an 11-man rotation, the 3 guys outside the top 8 are combining for 22.5 MPG; you could easily get those minutes out of a single scholarship freshman if you needed to, and even guys 6-8 certainly aren't playing as much as they could.  This is the big advantage of the zone, which I am not currently taking advantage of at all.   You can afford to take 3 walk-ons, if need be, without even necessarily giving up the ability to use a redshirt.  This gives you the ability to focus on getting fewer, very good players.  Conceivably, if you carried 3 walk-ons at all times, 3 out of 4 seasons you could recruit 2 players on a 5-player budget, with the 4th still allowing you to recruit 3 on a 6-man budget.  Don't get me wrong - I firmly believe this kind of recruiting is substantially more work.  Particularly if you take into account the greater breadth of players you can't just dismiss out of hand on a zone team.  If the rest of your defenders are elite, it might be perfectly reasonable at the D3 level - indeed, in some cases, it might even be advantageous - to forego the well-balanced SF you would want on your man team in favor of a guy who's going to top out at 97 PER with some speed and ball-handling.  Honestly, one of my biggest pet peeves with this game right now is how virtually impossible it really is to stop a high-PER scorer, even one with mediocre SPD, BH, etc.  If your guards and/or posts allow you a 30 ATH/30 DEF sharpshooter at the 3, you can afford to take him.  Heck, you could afford to battle for him, although that is a player type where the old, oft-heard, and generally very wrong D3 adage of "don't battle, you can find someone similar who you don't have to fight for" would be likely to apply.

Of course, you can't get caught up in defensive sacrifice; that'll bite you in the butt in a hurry.  But if your team is well-planned, you CAN get away with 1 or even 2 poor defenders without it hurting you all that much.  It isn't ideal.  But it's very workable.  You have more options than you would with a man defense, particularly if you run triangle or fastbreak offenses and don't need every player to be a scorer, either.  Of course, if you run fastbreak, you need to add a little back on to your depth chart...

6/3/2014 1:04 PM
Based on the info in last month's zone discussion we learned the 2-3 breaks down defensively as an average of the pg and sg, then sf and pf and then the center by itself. With that knowledge I think it makes sense to have a different starting lineup depending on which zone you run that day unless you have the rare sf that possesses both guard and pf like skills. I agree with the others in stating defense and spd plus athlete in guards is important as it limits open looks from 3 especially in 2-3.
6/3/2014 1:36 PM
BLK not really in SF. BLK is most important in C in a 2-3.  Like fat said, your C in a 2-3 is on a island. He's got to be def, reb, blk, ath!!!!!
6/3/2014 1:44 PM
Building a Zone team Topic

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