I have never run zone, so I don't know much about its effectiveness in HD.  Take DI Bowling Green in Smith for example.  They run the zone with 3 seniors and 2 juniors.  All 5 players have 96 DEF or better.  So far, as I can tell, they have been very successful (for a SIM) and seem to be shutting teams down defensively.  As well, the team isn't real powerful in the other areas. (in my opinion)  If this team were running man 2 man with those kind of DEF numbers, would they be more or less effective?  Is Man 2 man about DEf numbers more than zone?  Would love to hear the opinons of the board.

I think man2man is much more about speed than a zone. Sure you could have a defender with DEF in the 90s+, but if the man he's guarding is anything around 15+ points better in speed, it could be a significant mismatch (at least for guards and SFs).

Basically it really depends on their speed/athleticism/defense/stamina. Man 2 man requires decent to good ratings in all four of those categories, with no really weak player(s) an opponent can exploit.

Taking a look at Bowling Green, it looks like they could do decent in m2m, given good IQs. However, there are a couple weak points such as their back-up SF's speed, and many of their posts' rebounding would hurt them in individual matchups.

Is your question about m2m or zone?

My questions is more about would Bowling Green be even more effective if it ran man 2 man.  I ask because i do not understand zone very well.  To my knowledge if you have good defenders (which BG does) I would think the most effective DEF would be Man 2 Man.  But BG is being really effective and they run zone.  Just wondering if there is an attribute that they are missing that would be be needed in man 2 man but because they run zone it is not e exploited.  Really ryananderson started to answer the question.   I seem to hear that zone is not very effective to run (especially in DI) but BG seems to be proving that wrong and I am wondering why.  Just trying to learn a little more.  

I guess to summarize my earlier comment, yes Bowling Green would have a good man 2 man defense. They have a couple poor rebounders, but it looks like those players' athleticism makes up for it as their not getting overpowered on the boards. Being a Sim team, they would also start every game playing a 0, so the other team might win out on the boards in the first half. Also, the backup SF has really poor speed and a backup guard is a little slow. This would hurt them more next year if they started (and if they played m2m) because both could be exploited.