Posted by kujayhawk on 11/16/2011 12:43:00 PM (view original):

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.

Zone does not average ratings. There have been multiple tickets about this. 

Posted by mizzou77 on 11/16/2011 1:06:00 PM (view original):
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.

Hmm ... I stand corrected.  That's why it's called forum fact.

I actually hesitated a bit before typing it out.  The one thing that I think *might* be true is that if you don't have good team speed a zone defense is more likely to foul and that's why I went ahead and typed it.  But I'll fully admit that I wasn't aware that as long as you do have good team speed zone appears to have the fewest fouls.

I'll take you at your word, tianyi so don't bother searching .... but if you have access to a ticket I'd love to see it.

One thing that has ticked me off about zone is that when you have forum posts about it you end up with coaches that rarely are talking apples to apples about how they think it zone works.

I love the zone; in fact, it's my favorite defensive set.  I like the stamina boost.  I would definitely say that the same players would be slightly more effective per minute in a man defense, both in terms of a slightly better defensive performance as reflected in Opp %s and rebounding.  But I love the fact that I can run mostly uptempo some seasons and still get 28 or 29 MPG out of guys with 85 stamina.  This season we have a losing record, largely because I played the #1 SOS non-con (4 of the teams I lost to ended non-con undefeated) and have only 4 upperclassmen, only one of whom is a senior.  Some of the young guys are going to be really good, and I expect there's a good chance of this being a top-10 program again as early as next season.

Back to my main point, the problems I have had this season have been almost exclusively on the offensive end of the court.  So far 16 games into the season against the #7 SOS to date I'm outrebounding my opponents by 3.1 RPG and holding my opponents to .415/.317% shooting.  I'd say that's indicative of my zone defense being very solid and not overly hampering my rebounders (who are certainly very good).

Posted by dahsdebater on 11/16/2011 1:45:00 PM (view original):
I love the zone; in fact, it's my favorite defensive set.  I like the stamina boost.  I would definitely say that the same players would be slightly more effective per minute in a man defense, both in terms of a slightly better defensive performance as reflected in Opp %s and rebounding.  But I love the fact that I can run mostly uptempo some seasons and still get 28 or 29 MPG out of guys with 85 stamina.  This season we have a losing record, largely because I played the #1 SOS non-con (4 of the teams I lost to ended non-con undefeated) and have only 4 upperclassmen, only one of whom is a senior.  Some of the young guys are going to be really good, and I expect there's a good chance of this being a top-10 program again as early as next season.

Back to my main point, the problems I have had this season have been almost exclusively on the offensive end of the court.  So far 16 games into the season against the #7 SOS to date I'm outrebounding my opponents by 3.1 RPG and holding my opponents to .415/.317% shooting.  I'd say that's indicative of my zone defense being very solid and not overly hampering my rebounders (who are certainly very good).

This is why I think zone is better for D1 than D2/D3. For D2/D3, my bench is almost as good as my starters, so I would rather take the better per minute production from man and fcp. For D1, with how unbalanced the player pool is and how many teams cannot even get a roster of 12 players, zone's stamina edge is huge. 

I like it at D3 because I can afford to be more aggressive during recruiting.  If I lose out on one or even 2 guys and have to take walkon(s), it doesn't really hurt me.  I can still use whatever tempo I like without too much risk.  Also, that popular refrain of all players being basically alike in D2/D3 is a bunch of BS to me.  I have undoubtedly had a few "best players" on my teams more often than not, and I'd like to maximize their minutes.  Even when this is not the case it's almost always true in the lower levels that juniors and seniors are head-and-shoulders above freshmen.  Obviously the talent gaps are bigger at D1, but elite teams can have freshmen who are ready to contribute big minutes.  There are very few D3 freshmen I want to give huge amounts of court time.  Pederson is a nice counterexample on this team.  That dude is one of the best freshmen I've seen, even among guys who had a redshirt season.  Unfortunately I let him go ineligible.  Hope he comes back for the tournament.

Posted by kujayhawk on 11/16/2011 12:20:00 PM (view original):
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.

Oh that statement to Tianyi was strictly in reference to the MTM generating more turnovers in real basketball than zone. I wasn't trying to apply that to WIS in any way.

Posted by kujayhawk on 11/16/2011 12:20:00 PM (view original):
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.

And also, as I stated before I think more coaches don't run zone because they don't understand how to run zone. Even listening to Mizzou makes the zone sound like some mystical set with all these different theories behind it.  I'm converting a team under another ID I have in tark to zone at the DII level to see how effective I can be with it. I choose not to pay attention to what all the other coaches in WIS are doing as a lot of coaches just run to the flavor of the month thinking this D or O is better than the other. I'm very new to WIS but of most of the posts I've read concerning different schemes and what's best everyone says the same thing...." Pepsi or Coke" its about preference. It also doesn't benefit the game if the engine treats once scheme more favorably than the other and you could be right but you could be wrong as teams just may not know how to run the zone.

I don't know why you think coaches aren't running zone because they don't know how to run zone. There has been discussion about this before, and the general consensus is that man and press are better than zone. Alot of coaches chimed in on the topic. There's a reason most teams are not running zone and it's simply because zone isn't as good as man or press right now.

Trust me, if zone is the better set, people would be switching to it asap. Correct me if I'm wrong, but for a season or 2 a while back, zone was clearly dominant. 

I don't remember zone ever being dominant.  I disagree that it's weaker right now, though.  I think some coaches like the flexibility of man and recruiting for press can be a little easier since a really good press defense helps compensate for offense and becomes a weapon on its own.  In reality right now I don't think there is a significant difference between the relative "strength" or "weakness" of any of the sets aside from fastbreak probably not having enough advantages to compensate for its disadvantages on the offensive end of things.

Posted by tianyi7886 on 11/16/2011 4:03:00 PM (view original):
I don't know why you think coaches aren't running zone because they don't know how to run zone. There has been discussion about this before, and the general consensus is that man and press are better than zone. Alot of coaches chimed in on the topic. There's a reason most teams are not running zone and it's simply because zone isn't as good as man or press right now.

Trust me, if zone is the better set, people would be switching to it asap. Correct me if I'm wrong, but for a season or 2 a while back, zone was clearly dominant. 

I'm not saying zone is better than MTM or press. I think all three have their strengths and weakness and that it's just a matter of personal choice as to which you choose to deal with.  I do think it's the least understood of all the defenses as there are sureties with MTM and press where when people talk about zone there is debate as to whether it's a law of averages or random chance defending which I think plays a role in it being less popular. It seems there was a time when way more teams were running press, now I'm seeing more people wanting to run MTM... One day it may be zone again, who knows?  I'm not going to base my opinion of zone on what other coaches are doing because next month they will be doing something else.