Can someone please explain to me how zone is so much inferior at least in D3. Its easier to see how it could be in D2 and D1 considering the talent pool you would have to pick from as you go from D3 to the upper levels but I feel like you are going to have a lot more recruits that are not going to excel at everything. Such that guys that really excel in one area may suffer in another. W/ man you are going to need everyone to excel at defense or one guy can get exploited by a smart coach. W/ zone you can approach it different ways i would think. Now I just signed up and really don't fully understand the game but looking from my perspective you could get more creative w/ zone defense. 

So lets start with 2-3. From what I understand in this defense the PG/SG, SF/PF, and C are the 3 individual components. From my understanding You could craft a team that has a redicoulously good defensive PG or SG, SF or PF and then have the opposite be mediocre at defense but be more of offensive minded player. Then your center would need to be at least average at defense (probably need good rebounding though). So w/ this type of zone I could mix/match my PG/SG to try to get a decent ath/def average. If you took a team (and I know i am just focusing on defensive numbers and not the whole picture plus being theoretical) you could really mix/match how you set that team. Knowing zone you know that your guys are going to be able to stay in longer so you can probably focus on who your starters are. So lets say in D3 you are shooting for a 55/55 athl/def average. For your PG maybe you go defensive and find that guy that is say 70/70 ath defensive and not much of a shooter but your SG is your offensive minded guy who is going to be the shot taker from this group. He could be 40/40 ath/def (not terrible but not really that great) they are going to average out to your 55/55 (of course you could mix/match that have one guy be 70/40 and the other 40/70 and get the same average). You could do the same thing w/ your SF/PF combo and then for the center find someone who is going end up in the that 50/50 range for athl/def but maybe be an average shooter, really good rebounder. This would allow you to be a lot more flexible in your recruiting because guys aren't necessarily going to be wanting that 40/40 ath/def guy because he is probably not going to be that great for a man or press def as compared to a guy w/ better numbers. Maybe you spend less on that in recruiting for that reason. 

Now lets look at the 3/2. From what i have read you average the PG/SG/SF and the PF/C. The same thing as 2-3 can be applied to the PF/C (obviously you want some SB and Rebounding in there but w/ averaging the PG/SG/SF I feel you could get very creative. You could find that random guy that ends up 90/90 in ath/def but sucks everywhere else to be your defensive workhorse while the other two guys can get away being a little more offensive minded. W/ a rating of 90 in a group of 3 the other 2 could average 40 to get you your 55 average. 

Either way I feel like w/ zone you could get really creative with how you recruit guys and maybe get less desirables simply because they aren't that great for man or press seeing as majority of coaches run press or man. Now maybe this creativity portion is why zone is perceived as inferior or not really recommended for newer coaches as it could seriously get complicated. My brain is spinning just from writing that. W/ each situation I described I feel like you could hide 2 defenders, maybe 3 mediocre in the 3-2, yet still have 2, maybe 3 shooters on the floor. And really given that in 3/2 the PG/SG/SF are averaged you could really hide 1 really bad defender. Thus making it more difficult for the opposing coach to attack your weaker defenders and still have enough offensive players to not allow the other team to focus on one elite offensive guy. Then for each game instead of switching between 2/3 and 3/2 you mess more w/ your +/- depending on whether the team you play is more perimeter or inside.

Again this is my thoughts on the use of zone in D3 as I think this could be a little more difficult to implement in D2 or D1 w/ the higher talent available in D2 and D1. And I just want to repeat that I am new and simply posting this to see if I am thinking correctly or way off base. At this point I think I going to stay w/ man but zone is appealing to me for the reasons I state above if my reasoning is correct. Feel free to comment and rip apart my thoughts as you see fit...lol...I won't be offended. I know there are some other threads discussing zone and it really is difficult to decide what to do especially when new to the game. 

Zone has intrigued me too and I wish there were more zone teams already out there that I could pick up, so I didn't have to start from scratch, but all of the ones that I find are really poor. I didn't know that zone averaged the PG/SG, SF/PF etc, did you actually read that somewhere? Or is that just your thinking?

I think if I ran Zone I would not focus on depth at all and not care about taking a walk-on, which would allow me to spend more on getting the better players with more money available. I would try to be 2 man deep at each position but that not a necessity. I would run zone with either the triangle or the flex and probably run slow down most of not all of the time.

I would probably run 2-3. I would focus on rebounding and shot blocking for the bigs, and try to get some low post too. I would go for passing ball handeling and Peremeter in my two guards and try to get some speed. I would try to get at around 40-50 DE for all of my guys because I'm assuming like in real life zone is for the poor defenders.

There are multiple forum topics I have seen that have discussed zone. the following topic has a really good but complicated post from gillespie on zone equations.

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=490619

If you want to be creative and win play man.  If you want to be creative and attempt to win play zone.

Zone is not good in the engine.  You can do well in it, but it's very very hard too.  The best example would be Carlbuzz's Becker team in Knight.  There he plays a high ath/def lineup that shuts down a lot of the fb/press teams in Knight since they're so many.

If you really want to try it out, I'd suggest playing a man or press team first and then once you learn the game maybe pick up a 2nd team and try zone there.

Posted by rpolzin25 on 1/29/2016 1:22:00 PM (view original):
There are multiple forum topics I have seen that have discussed zone. the following topic has a really good but complicated post from gillespie on zone equations.

https://www.whatifsports.com/forums/Posts.aspx?TopicID=490619

i guess it was too complicated - the old forum wisdom is that the pg/sg are averaged, etc, but really all 5 players are averaged on every shot. its that the pg/sg etc (in the 2-3) run off the same equation. its not terribly bad to think of them as averaged, because we really don't know if all 5 players are weighted equally, when averaged together. my guess is that in general, guards do count more in defending a 3 than the center, even if it is only a product of their higher per defense ratings.

anyway, thinking of zone allowing you to average in a bad defender, and not be exploited like man, is good, thats how you should think of it. just don't think of it so strictly like its certain pairs of players being averaged. think of it like, the entire team contributes to defending every shot, which lets you hide a bad defender somewhere, unlike man. 

Posted by the0nlyis on 1/29/2016 2:17:00 PM (view original):
If you want to be creative and win play man.  If you want to be creative and attempt to win play zone.

Zone is not good in the engine.  You can do well in it, but it's very very hard too.  The best example would be Carlbuzz's Becker team in Knight.  There he plays a high ath/def lineup that shuts down a lot of the fb/press teams in Knight since they're so many.

If you really want to try it out, I'd suggest playing a man or press team first and then once you learn the game maybe pick up a 2nd team and try zone there.

zone is a very good set in some cases, but people largely suck at coaching it. i think zone is arguably the best defense for mid majors in d1. zone is the hardest to win championships with - but its not the hardest to be good with. 

i do think its probably better for new coaches to start with man than zone because it is easier to play, zone is complicated, basically nobody fully understands it, including myself, and that is certainly not true for man or press. its easier to learn man or press because there is more good info about them and more good teams to observe playing them well. but zone itself is not as much the problem, outside of championship level play, as it is that nobody really understands it and that it is harder to learn.

I've played zone and you can't play zone with the same players as you would with man to man or press. In press, I don't even check my block rating other than to see, which one of my player will be center.

And zone is different whether you play 3-2 or 2-3... Even if we do not agree on it, you have to get players built for that zone. A 3-2 zone is speedy, athletical and truly there to prevent outside shooting, leaving the Inside to much needed athlètes with sb abilities and rebounding skills. At 2-3, it's you clug up the paint more and get more vulnerable against 3 pts shooting. And sometimes, your center counts alone so he needs to be good in SB. Rebounding is key.

I change my set up depending on my roster and/or my opponent. Last season I did not have a team to play 2-3... So not once I've played 2-3. This season I have a SF that is better in that set up and back-ups that can help out so I changed. I saw a lot of coaches be successful with a 2-3 zone. Mattster in Heartland, Knight, has been playing that set up for a while and he has NC to show for. I think 2-3 is better.

Posted by gillispie1 on 1/29/2016 6:38:00 PM (view original):

Posted by the0nlyis on 1/29/2016 2:17:00 PM (view original):
If you want to be creative and win play man.  If you want to be creative and attempt to win play zone.

Zone is not good in the engine.  You can do well in it, but it's very very hard too.  The best example would be Carlbuzz's Becker team in Knight.  There he plays a high ath/def lineup that shuts down a lot of the fb/press teams in Knight since they're so many.

If you really want to try it out, I'd suggest playing a man or press team first and then once you learn the game maybe pick up a 2nd team and try zone there.

zone is a very good set in some cases, but people largely suck at coaching it. i think zone is arguably the best defense for mid majors in d1. zone is the hardest to win championships with - but its not the hardest to be good with. 

i do think its probably better for new coaches to start with man than zone because it is easier to play, zone is complicated, basically nobody fully understands it, including myself, and that is certainly not true for man or press. its easier to learn man or press because there is more good info about them and more good teams to observe playing them well. but zone itself is not as much the problem, outside of championship level play, as it is that nobody really understands it and that it is harder to learn.

not a superclass press team for midmajor?

If we are still at the point where no one knows to to coach zone effectively to the same level of man or press then I think its just zone being weaker than man and press or too confusing.

Here are the positives of zone in my mind since I didn't really give any

• lets you put your best players on the court for a longer time than man/press
• fouls less than man and much less than press
• the 2-3 is the best rebounding defense(however fb/press teams actually average more rebounds due to possesions)
• you can double team(i think man double teams are better)
• it values sb the highest
• you can vary the 2-3 and 3-2 whenever since they both go off zone IQ and because of that it is the most versatile or "creative" defense.
• you can afford walkons and redshirts easily allowing you to go really hard after a few prospects and not worrying about taking 2 walkons and using a redshirt.

In another recent post on zone, I think it was Emy that mentioned how every time he had a good zone team he always bowed out early in the NT-I felt the exact same way.  I ran zone with my first ever team at D3 and had a couple monster teams, teams that should have easily gotten to the FF and/or beyond.  But we couldn't make it out of the S16 and I couldn't ever figure out why.

When running press or man I usually have a good feel if I'll win a game and roughly by how much.  Similarly, I don't feel like you get upset nearly as much running man or press.  With zone not only would I barely squeak past teams I should have beaten by double digits but I knew I was in for 2-4 upsets every season and had no explanation for why.  

You don't force very many TOs in zone and so I've always felt dominant rebounding is important to maximize possessions.  

Last, I think coaches get too excited about being able to average ratings in the back or front court and they justify that as to why they can get away with a guy with bad defense or bad athleticism.  After all the averaging you just wind up fielding a team that's average in important categories rather than one that excels in them.  Just my 2 cents...

0nly,  add to that list the fact that zone suppresses opponent FG% the most.  That's sort of the whole point of defense, right?

I've wanted to love zone for a long, long time and exclusively have run it at several teams, but then I'm on the list with no NT's.  I've had more success with man or press than zone.

I've tried to ignore the "average in a bad defender" aspect of it, and still try to have 5 very good defenders on the floor, but even with that I don't think I've ever taken a press team past S16, maybe E8

Posted by guyo26 on 1/30/2016 9:40:00 AM (view original):
0nly,  add to that list the fact that zone suppresses opponent FG% the most.  That's sort of the whole point of defense, right?

I've wanted to love zone for a long, long time and exclusively have run it at several teams, but then I'm on the list with no NT's.  I've had more success with man or press than zone.

I've tried to ignore the "average in a bad defender" aspect of it, and still try to have 5 very good defenders on the floor, but even with that I don't think I've ever taken a press team past S16, maybe E8

I won a title with a zone/press team....just sayin :)

Posted by Trentonjoe on 1/30/2016 10:01:00 AM (view original):

Posted by guyo26 on 1/30/2016 9:40:00 AM (view original):
0nly,  add to that list the fact that zone suppresses opponent FG% the most.  That's sort of the whole point of defense, right?

I've wanted to love zone for a long, long time and exclusively have run it at several teams, but then I'm on the list with no NT's.  I've had more success with man or press than zone.

I've tried to ignore the "average in a bad defender" aspect of it, and still try to have 5 very good defenders on the floor, but even with that I don't think I've ever taken a press team past S16, maybe E8

I won a title with a zone/press team....just sayin :)

Dont you end up spending alot of minutes practicing both zone and press? I have seen some very successful teams use that defense but could never convince myself it was worth the practice times