Is the 2-3 zone obsolete with the way the game is currently being played

[General20]

This is a silly discussion. Two years ago Syracuse reached a final four with sub par interior defense and sub par interior scoring. They went to the final four because they were the best in the country at stopping the three, and got hot making threes.

Last year they stunk defensively. White was terrible defensively before coming to Syracuse, ditto Gillon, so can't blame the zone for that.

The only argument you can make for the zone being obsolete is that basketball changed so much between 2016 and 2017 that the zone went from being the best defense in the country to unplayable in one year. This is, of course, an irrational argument. Trends change in basketball, but not that quickly.

There are downsides to playing zone, but I've noticed that nobody ever seems to make them when they try to criticize the zone. Almost all the criticisms of the zone I hear are irrational.

The two legitimate downsides I see are:

#1 Its harder to hide a bad defender in the zone.
#2 the players who are most effective in the zone are the long athletic types that tend to get drafted early by the NBA.

There are many upsides to playing zone of course. A defense has two jobs. One, create a turnover - we tend to be above average in turnovers and blocks. Two, if you can't create a turnover, then force a bad shot. We are consistently the best at this I've seen. You know how people always complain that some nobody is scoring a lot of points against us? That's actually the best compliment you can give a defense. Offenses want their best players to get the shots they are most comfortable with. We almost never give that to teams, and we force them to go to options B and C. And while anybody can get hot in any given game, long term we have much better odds of winning, which of course, Boeheim's record is indication of how well this works.

 

[Zelda Zonk]

• That video features Carolina, but that doesn't mean it takes their talent level to do the same things. It's an example. Seems like, before every televised 'big' game we play (which in and of itself is less and less frequent), some talking head/s show similar clips and 'dissect' our zone. Other teams do the same things, either for spurts or all game long.

• "...with the proper personnel, length, IQ, etc; the zone is a force." Add "experience and inclination" to the list. So, then the effective question becomes: "going forward, how often will we have this recipe for 'a force?'" We now have our best players going pro 'almost predictably' a year before we expect, so we're always playing with inexperience, and out of position.

• We may have won our only NC with (slightly more of) a mix, but that just happens to have coincided with Carmelo. And then, oddly, after he left, whenever we tried to play man, even against scrubs, we were decimated. What happened to our ability to play it, and/or the staff's ability to coach it? I honestly think JB would try to mix defenses, but we've been so woeful that he grew frustrated with even trying. I don't like that he's given up on such a staple that 95% of other programs are able to make work. But, yeah, we've been so bad at it in recent years that even fans who dislike the zone don't want to see us switch into m2m. And it seems unnecessary t0 consider a 1-3-1 or whatever, because our 2-3 becomes something of the sort, on the fly.

• In my mind, crediting the zone for "2 FF in the past 5 years" is canceled out by the constant bubble-ness, being on the wrong side of it, ACC tournament failure, and our midpack conference status.

 

[SoBeCuse]

This is a silly discussion. Two years ago Syracuse reached a final four with sub par interior defense and sub par interior scoring. They went to the final four because they were the best in the country at stopping the three, and got hot making threes.

Last year they stunk defensively. White was terrible defensively before coming to Syracuse, ditto Gillon, so can't blame the zone for that.

The only argument you can make for the zone being obsolete is that basketball changed so much between 2016 and 2017 that the zone went from being the best defense in the country to unplayable in one year. This is, of course, an irrational argument. Trends change in basketball, but not that quickly.

There are downsides to playing zone, but I've noticed that nobody ever seems to make them when they try to criticize the zone. Almost all the criticisms of the zone I hear are irrational.

The two legitimate downsides I see are:

#1 Its harder to hide a bad defender in the zone.
#2 the players who are most effective in the zone are the long athletic types that tend to get drafted early by the NBA.

There are many upsides to playing zone of course. A defense has two jobs. One, create a turnover - we tend to be above average in turnovers and blocks. Two, if you can't create a turnover, then force a bad shot. We are consistently the best at this I've seen. You know how people always complain that some nobody is scoring a lot of points against us? That's actually the best compliment you can give a defense. Offenses want their best players to get the shots they are most comfortable with. We almost never give that to teams, and we force them to go to options B and C. And while anybody can get hot in any given game, long term we have much better odds of winning, which of course, Boeheim's record is indication of how well this works.

I agree with much of this and, for the record, I'm a huge fan of your posts. But, the 2016 F4 must be examined. As Eric earlier and I have mentioned numerous tims; 14 losses isn't a recipe to get to the F4 let alone to gain entry to the Tourney. The Tourney is a new season and a new lease on life. Matchups become critical. So does luck with draws and such. The comebacks were incredible against UVA and even Gonzaga. The team's shooting improved and Malachi caught fire. That really wasn't the SU team in the regular season. Had MSU not been upset they had all the pieces to shred the zone. The best offensive and 3 point shooting team Izzo ever had, actually, in addition to thier rebounding prowess. Of course, UNC had the depth inside, good guard play, and bball IQ to end our run. Not diminishing the F4, but it should have a fair examination.

I'll add a third potential downside. Those long athletic types sometimes don't possess the basketball IQ and skillsets on the offensive side of the ball despite being great zone fits. An elite talent like Bazely coming in trumps all of that. Warrick in the past was a great zone player offensively. It's just more difficult to find those gems and/or get those elite guys here.

 

[Eric15]

I agree with much of this and, for the record, I'm a huge fan of your posts. But, the 2016 F4 must be examined. As Eric earlier and I have mentioned numerous tims; 14 losses isn't a recipe to get to the F4 let alone to gain entry to the Tourney. The Tourney is a new season and a new lease on life. Matchups become critical. The comebacks were incredible against UVA and even Gonzaga. The team's shooting improved and Malachi caught fire. That really wasn't the SU team in the regular season. Had MSU not been upset they had all the pieces to shred the zone. The best offensive and 3 point shooting team Izzo ever had, actually. Of course, UNC has the depth inside and bball IQ to end our run. Not diminishing the F4, but it should have a fair examination.

If you're in a bar and talking smack with a fan from another team, you absolutely bring up the 2016 Final Four as a feather in our cap. That's an achievement that will never be taken away from us. And it totally makes up for us getting screwed in 2010 and 2012 when those teams easily could and should have been there.

But if you're objectively evaluating the strength of our program over the past few years in a thoughtful way, using the 2016 season as an argument amongst Cuse fans that everything is OK, is not thoughtful. The primary reason we got to the Final Four that year was due to an historic amount of good fortune of which we have never seen before and probably will never see again.

 

[SoBeCuse]

If you're in a bar and talking smack with a fan from another team, you absolutely bring up the 2016 Final Four as a feather in our cap. That's an achievement that will never be taken away from us. And it totally makes up for us getting screwed in 2010 and 2012 when those teams easily could and should have been there.

But if you're objectively evaluating the strength of our program over the past few years in a thoughtful way, using the 2016 season as an argument amongst Cuse fans that everything is OK, is not thoughtful. The primary reason we got to the Final Four that year was due to an historic amount of good fortune of which we have never seen before and probably will never see again.

Be prepared to be scolded and/or warned.

 

[General20]

I agree with much of this and, for the record, I'm a huge fan of your posts. But, the 2016 F4 must be examined. As Eric earlier and I have mentioned numerous tims; 14 losses isn't a recipe to get to the F4 let alone to gain entry to the Tourney. The Tourney is a new season and a new lease on life. Matchups become critical. So does luck with draws and such. The comebacks were incredible against UVA and even Gonzaga. The team's shooting improved and Malachi caught fire. That really wasn't the SU team in the regular season. Had MSU not been upset they had all the pieces to shred the zone. The best offensive and 3 point shooting team Izzo ever had, actually, in addition to thier rebounding prowess. Of course, UNC had the depth inside, good guard play, and bball IQ to end our run. Not diminishing the F4, but it should have a fair examination.

I'll add a third potential downside. Those long athletic types sometimes don't possess the basketball IQ and skillsets on the offensive side of the ball despite being great zone fits. An elite talent like Bazely coming in trumps all of that. Warrick in the past was a great zone player offensively. It's just more difficult to find those gems and/or get those elite guys here.

You are missing the point of my post.

The argument of this thread is that the zone is obsolete because players are too good at 3 point shooting now.

In 2016 Syracuse was top in the country at defending the 3 point shot while playong exclusively zone. They were also near the top in total defense despite not beomg able to defend the post due to the personnel they had.

Forget the final 4, just look at that. Basketball trends dont chamge fast enough for a defense to be tops in the nation one year and obsolete the next year. The drop off in D was due 100% to personnel amd 0% to shifting styles on basketball.

It was pretty well documented going into the season that White and Gillon were going to be bad defensively. Chukwu got hurt, so Lydon went back to center, and we didnt get many productive minutes out of Roberson forcing us to play Thompson who was a historically bad defender.

 

[Fly Rodder]

The Syracuse 2-3 is a perfectly fine defense that will continue to win games under Boeheim. My biggest criticism of the 2-3 is that while I think it's effective in limiting offense over 40 minutes, other defenses are better for stopping a single possession.

 

[SoBeCuse]

You are missing the point of my post.

The argument of this thread is that the zone is obsolete because players are too good at 3 point shooting now.

In 2016 Syracuse was top in the country at defending the 3 point shot while playong exclusively zone. They were also near the top in total defense despite not beomg able to defend the post due to the personnel they had.

Forget the final 4, just look at that. Basketball trends dont chamge fast enough for a defense to be tops in the nation one year and obsolete the next year. The drop off in D was due 100% to personnel amd 0% to shifting styles on basketball.

It was pretty well documented going into the season that White and Gillon were going to be bad defensively. Chukwu got hurt, so Lydon went back to center, and we didnt get many productive minutes out of Roberson forcing us to play Thompson who was a historically bad defender.

Well aware that the defense was good. Very good at defending the 3 like you say. F4 or not it still wasn't a very good team top to bottom. Like I said, the Tourney is a brand new season. They were a 10 seed (generous perhaps) for a reason. Not a recipe for success of course moving forward.

I don't even get into the zone Vs man debates as long as Boeheim is the coach. It makes no sense to get into all that since he isn't going to deviate from it. It is perplexing and downright insulting to the players I would think saying over and over that they can't play man, but, we'll never know. Do I wish for the next coach (hopefully outside the program) to potentially scrap the zone altogether or at least play multiple defense like Louisville/Kansas/Duke does now. Absolutely.

 

[Cusefan0307]

Well aware that the defense was good. Very good at defending the 3 like you say. F4 or not it still wasn't a very good team top to bottom. Like I said, the Tourney is a brand new season. They were a 10 seed (generous perhaps) for a reason. Not a recipe for success of course moving forward.

I don't even get into the zone Vs man debates as long as Boeheim is the coach. It makes no sense to get into all that since he isn't going to deviate from it. It is perpexling and downright insulting to the players I would think saying over and over that they can't play man, but, we'll never know. Do I wish for the next coach (hopefully outside the program) to potentially scrap the zone altogether or at least play multiple defense like Louisville/Kansas/Duke does now. Absolutely.

JMHO, but Kansas lack of success in the tourney over the years is a direct result of Self being stubborn and only sticking to man to man. Louisville I agree with you on.

 

[SoBeCuse]

JMHO, but Kansas lack of success in the tourney over the years is a direct result of Self being stubborn and only sticking to man to man. Louisville I agree with you on.

It's possible. That and maybe their conference although it isn't as bad as many people say.

 

[newmexicuse]

This is a silly discussion. Two years ago Syracuse reached a final four with sub par interior defense and sub par interior scoring. They went to the final four because they were the best in the country at stopping the three, and got hot making threes.

Last year they stunk defensively. White was terrible defensively before coming to Syracuse, ditto Gillon, so can't blame the zone for that.

The only argument you can make for the zone being obsolete is that basketball changed so much between 2016 and 2017 that the zone went from being the best defense in the country to unplayable in one year. This is, of course, an irrational argument. Trends change in basketball, but not that quickly.

There are downsides to playing zone, but I've noticed that nobody ever seems to make them when they try to criticize the zone. Almost all the criticisms of the zone I hear are irrational.

The two legitimate downsides I see are:

#1 Its harder to hide a bad defender in the zone.
#2 the players who are most effective in the zone are the long athletic types that tend to get drafted early by the NBA.

There are many upsides to playing zone of course. A defense has two jobs. One, create a turnover - we tend to be above average in turnovers and blocks. Two, if you can't create a turnover, then force a bad shot. We are consistently the best at this I've seen. You know how people always complain that some nobody is scoring a lot of points against us? That's actually the best compliment you can give a defense. Offenses want their best players to get the shots they are most comfortable with. We almost never give that to teams, and we force them to go to options B and C. And while anybody can get hot in any given game, long term we have much better odds of winning, which of course, Boeheim's record is indication of how well this works.

Nice post General, but you missed one of the biggest downsides of the Zone. It is hard to rebound in a Zone D, particularly our zone D where the wings extend.

 

[newmexicuse]

I agree with much of this and, for the record, I'm a huge fan of your posts. But, the 2016 F4 must be examined. As Eric earlier and I have mentioned numerous tims; 14 losses isn't a recipe to get to the F4 let alone to gain entry to the Tourney. The Tourney is a new season and a new lease on life. Matchups become critical. So does luck with draws and such. The comebacks were incredible against UVA and even Gonzaga. The team's shooting improved and Malachi caught fire. That really wasn't the SU team in the regular season. Had MSU not been upset they had all the pieces to shred the zone. The best offensive and 3 point shooting team Izzo ever had, actually, in addition to thier rebounding prowess. Of course, UNC had the depth inside, good guard play, and bball IQ to end our run. Not diminishing the F4, but it should have a fair examination.

I'll add a third potential downside. Those long athletic types sometimes don't possess the basketball IQ and skillsets on the offensive side of the ball despite being great zone fits. An elite talent like Bazely coming in trumps all of that. Warrick in the past was a great zone player offensively. It's just more difficult to find those gems and/or get those elite guys here.

Hey SBC, I agree with the FF4 analysis, well done. 14 losses is simply not a FF team except by extreme fluke. Too many on this forum hide in the fact of the two recent FFs to realize that too many losses shows the real truth about the overall health of the program.

Gotta take issue though with the comment about long athletic types not possessing bball IQ and O skills. Fail to see any connection to being long and athletic and having a high or a low BB IQ. In terms of also having O skills that is simply a matter of who we can attract. If we want long and athletic plus o skills we better be able to land the top 50 type recruits. If we can't get the top 50s then you sacrifice some combo of size, athleticism, or O skills.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Well aware that the defense was good. Very good at defending the 3 like you say. F4 or not it still wasn't a very good team top to bottom. Like I said, the Tourney is a brand new season. They were a 10 seed (generous perhaps) for a reason. Not a recipe for success of course moving forward.

It also seems to be conceding the regular conference season title as well as the conference tourney title. Remember when we used to compete for those? I love the F4, but I'd also like to dominate the regular season. Maybe win an ACC tourney game along the way...

 

[SoBeCuse]

Hey SBC, I agree with the FF4 analysis, well done. 14 losses is simply not a FF team except by extreme fluke. Too many on this forum hide in the fact of the two recent FFs to realize that too many losses shows the real truth about the overall health of the program.

Gotta take issue though with the comment about long athletic types not possessing bball IQ and O skills. Fail to see any connection to being long and athletic and having a high or a low BB IQ. In terms of also having O skills that is simply a matter of who we can attract. If we want long and athletic plus o skills we better be able to land the top 50 type recruits. If we can't get the top 50s then you sacrifice some combo of size, athleticism, or O skills.

Maybe I could've phrased it better. Often it seems we have had players lately (SG and Forwards) who perhaps offensively, despite being good defenders, were limited. Whether it is being able to put it on the floor, pass, etc. I think some of the offensive woes between 2012-16 were due to recruiting more for the zone and less for offensive skill. I could be wrong. We can get into player development too but that's another topic. I like where recruiting is trending right now. Obviously Lydon was a very skilled player for his size.

 

[SoBeCuse]

It also seems to be conceding the regular conference season title as well as the conference tourney title. Remember when we used to compete for those? I love the F4, but I'd also like to dominate the regular season. Maybe win an ACC tourney game along the way...

No question. I don't want to be Kansas and keep getting bounced early in the tourney but this program should and needs to be putting together some better regular seasons and advancing in the ACCT.

 

[Dave85]

You are missing the point of my post.

The argument of this thread is that the zone is obsolete because players are too good at 3 point shooting now.

In 2016 Syracuse was top in the country at defending the 3 point shot while playing only exclusively zone. They were also near the top in total defense despite not beomg able to defend the post due to the personnel they had.

Forget the final 4, just look at that. Basketball trends dont chamge fast enough for a defense to be tops in the nation one year and obsolete the next year. The drop off in D was due 100% to personnel amd 0% to shifting styles on basketball.

It was pretty well documented going into the season that White and Gillon were going to be bad defensively. Chukwu got hurt, so Lydon went back to center, and we didnt get many productive minutes out of Roberson forcing us to play Thompson who was a historically bad defender.

The thread has two parts. First is it is difficult to defend against the 3-point shot when you play zone. That's just a fact. One good year doesn't take into account the other years. I'm sure some the deep data miners here could do some real analytics of zone versus man with 3-point shooting effectiveness. It just seems lately 3-point shooters have been lighting up our defense.

And the other point is teams seem to be more educated on how to shred the zone. It seems like the secret is out and teams are getting very good and making the plays that are difficult for the zone to defend against as shown in the video from the original post. My suggestion then is our zone needs to evolve.

The 2-3 zone is great when it's played right. It's just it takes many years to get it right. Playing the top of the zone takes a really good athlete to be very good at defending against the 3. The guards need really good conditioning. Maybe you are right and last year's defense was just a down year and my view is being soured by it.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

The thread has two parts. First is it is difficult to defend against the 3-point shot when you play zone. That's just a fact. One good year doesn't take into account the other years. I'm sure some the deep data miners here could do some real analytics of zone versus man with 3-point shooting effectiveness. It just seems lately 3-point shooters have been lighting up our defense.

And the other point is teams seem to be more educated on how to shred the zone. It seems like the secret is out and teams are getting very good and making the plays that are difficult for the zone to defend against as shown in the video from the original post. My suggestion then is our zone needs to evolve.

The 2-3 zone is great when it's played right. It's just it takes many years to get it right. Playing the top of the zone takes a really good athlete to be very good at defending against the 3. The guards need really good conditioning. Maybe you are right and last year's defense was just a down year and my view is being soured by it.

Last year was also tough because white didn't practice with the team in the summer, Gillon was also new to the zone and way undersized to play it

 

[orange79]

First is it is difficult to defend against the 3-point shot when you play zone. That's just a fact. One good year doesn't take into account the other years. I'm sure some the deep data miners here could do some real analytics of zone versus man with 3-point shooting effectiveness. It just seems lately 3-point shooters have been lighting up our defense.

Thing is, it's not a fact. Using stats from Team Rankings (because I couldn't go back as far with NCAA.com), the numbers disprove your argument.

What the numbers say is that in 7 of the last 9 years, we are in the Top 14th percentile of 3-point FG defense, twice finishing in the Top 10, 5 times finishing in the Top 30. In the country. So, in the last 9 years the worst we have finished in the country in 3-point FG defense is middle of the pack. Last year, yeah, we weren't great. But we were better than over 200 other teams. And in many years, we were stellar.

 

[pfister1]

No. It's not.

 

[General20]

Thing is, it's not a fact. Using stats from Team Rankings (because I couldn't go back as far with NCAA.com), the numbers disprove your argument.
View attachment 110858

What the numbers say is that in 7 of the last 9 years, we are in the Top 14th percentile of 3-point FG defense, twice finishing in the Top 10, 5 times finishing in the Top 30. In the country. So, in the last 9 years the worst we have finished in the country in 3-point FG defense is middle of the pack. Last year, yeah, we weren't great. But we were better than over 200 other teams. And in many years, we were stellar.

How do SU fans not know that we've been regularly among the best in terms of three point percentage defense? Do they come here and post but not watch the games? Its embarrassing. As I said from the beginning this thread is silly.

 

[SoBeCuse]

How do SU fans not know that we've been regularly among the best in terms of three point percentage defense? Do they come here and post but not watch the games? Its embarrassing. As I said from the beginning this thread is silly.

Again I never was questioning the defense or validity of the 3pt defense. My issues have almost always been with the offense, scheme, and the fundamentals exhibited within the offense.

 

[OrangeDW]

My only real problem with playing zone is when we let teams eat 30 seconds every possession and slow the game to a crawl.

I wish we’d pressure the ball in other ways besides the trunk monkey.

 

[cuseattle]

My only problem is when we play an obviously inferior tem (st johns) and a guy goes off and we don't correct. Otherwise pretty awesome.

 

[AlaskaSU]

I'd like to add another factor; one that has been discussed endlessly. The most important factor determining success is talent. We are competing against some unreal recruiting machines. Therefore, the most important issue regarding the zone is whether it hurts recruiting. My hunch is that exclusively playing zone does hurt. If we played at least some man we would cast a broader recruiting net.

 

[Newhouser]

Again I never was questioning the defense or validity of the 3pt defense. My issues have almost always been with the offense, scheme, and the fundamentals exhibited within the offense.

I agree - last year our D was not good and we know why, but for the most part I am worried that our O has fallen behind the times. OUr half court sets are bad and that is highlighted when our D doesn't generate TO's and get some steals or easy buckets. Our O is a grind, and no matter how good the 2-3 is or isn't, ACC teams for the most part preach tempo, stylistically and athletically. Much more so IMHO than our old BE rivals did.