If so, what's the secret?

Yeah, not sure of the secret but you do need good defensive metrics. Shot block is very important for the post players, don't ignore that.

I've made it to the s16...SB is most important in my humble opinion. Of course you want 80+ATH/DEF. I run a 3/2 mostly because it is hard to find quality sf's with high sb.

Trentonjoe's Fordham team is the best I can really find. He plays 3-2 and built it really well.

Cal in Wooden also.

Ill say this, with my UNLV team I played the zone with the "right" players (SB/ REB/ DEF for post players) and I felt I was underperforming and was frustrated. I switched to a Press this season and my team has taken off. Now I realize I was starting young players with the zone and now they are Juniors...but still, I feel there is a night and day difference to my teams defense. I feel if I had stuck with a zone this season would have been different, not in a good way.

I have played zone my entire HD existence, not sure I'll go back now.

In Crum, the finals were Stanford v Kansas...both zone teams.

**Spoiler alert, a zone team won**

dude darnoc ... I had that on my dvr

I use zone on a few teams, and I like it because of how creative you can get defensively. I have obviously never seen anything but moderate success with any team I've managed, but I feel semi-confident that I'll be able to make some deep tourney runs in the future keeping the zone.

Posted by mbriese on 8/2/2017 4:58:00 PM (view original):
I use zone on a few teams, and I like it because of how creative you can get defensively. I have obviously never seen anything but moderate success with any team I've managed, but I feel semi-confident that I'll be able to make some deep tourney runs in the future keeping the zone.

Somewhat of a newbie here...what do you mean by defensive creativity?

Not an expert but I know the basics.
3-2 combines PG/SG/SF and PF/C
2-3 combines PF/SG, SF/PF and C stands alone.

If you're running a 3-2, you can essentially "hide" a weak defender with a big number elsewhere. I have a SF with a 90+ LP and 37 D.
Same at the PF/C, where I have a 90+ REB and 46 D.

I just pair those guys up with better defenders to take advantage of their big D3 skills. I haven't have a C good enough to play 2-3 yet.

zone lets you be creative - requires you to be creative - thinking about playing 3-2 or 2-3 depending on your roster and your opponent. also invites you to think more about double teaming in my opinion.

It requires you to be creative if you have a shortcoming on D. If I were running man or press, I wouldn't have either of my aforementioned guys starting.

Given that teams routinely are playing with smaller (8-9 man) rotations now, Zone makes a lot of sense with respect to fatigue issues. In that respect, in Rupp last year, Colorado (Zone team run by OR) was kind of a nightmare matchup for a really great UConn (press team with hawkfan, but having to play a walk-on or two) team. in the Final Four. I think UConn would have beaten pretty much any other M2M team, but their fatigue/less player (walk-on) liabilities were certainly more pronounced against a zone.

That being said, I never got the zone to perform consistently for me. I must not quite fully understand how to maximize it.

I don't know if these are "secrets" but at D1 I believe the following:

1. You can't really "hide" players. You still need 5 good defenders. You can get away with a low DEF, high scoring sub, but I try to limit my bench player(s) that are like that to 12-14 minutes a game.

2. Running the 2-3 is very hard at high D1 because the ideal SF in that defense will be HIGHLY recruited and in all honesty, your SF and PF both need to be REALLY good. Finding high BLK guys with 60+ guard skills isn't super easy.

3. Triangle works great with defensive oriented zone teams. You can take an offensive zero if he is a defensive stud. The 50 PER guard who would hurt you in flex or motion is an asset in triangle because you don't need or want him to score.