RIP 2-3 zone?

[CuseFaninVT]

I doubt zone defense bothers recruits or factors much into their decisions. Who knows. It hasn’t tended to hurt our players’ draft prospects, at least. But 18 year olds might pick a destination based on how big the tv in their room is or some other random thing.

Also wrong

 

[Cusefan0307]

Look at true shooting percentages over the past decade, not 3 point percentage. More guys are taking 3’s. Everyone plays how Pitino used to scheme against the zone.

 

[djcon57]

I have no issue running 2-3 vs poor shooting teams.
In 2023, thats prob like, what, 10-20% of the time?

 

[Orangezoo]

If you watch AAU games you see most kids don't like defense.

True.. some still do though at least. Not many but some...

 

[hoopsupstate]

I have no issue running 2-3 vs poor shooting teams.
In 2023, thats prob like, what, 10-20% of the time?

Save it for BC.

 

[Orangezoo]

Look at true shooting percentages over the past decade, not 3 point percentage. More guys are taking 3’s. Everyone plays how Pitino used to scheme against the zone.

In addition to percent of offensive possessions where a 3pt shot is attempted, in addition to the bell curve on 3pfg made and attempted, in addition to the ppp figures vs zone... and so much more.

 

[djcon57]

Save it for BC.

That's exactly who I was thinking of. 1 out of every 10 games?

And figure out a better scheme to rebound.

 

[Orangezoo]

I will say that the intrigue of what comes next in terms of our defense and and approach under Red has me more motivated to watch the tourney this year and watch many more replays of JBs teams kicking ass.

 

[M2MPrinciples]

Our opponents are shooting more threes as a percentage of total shots, but our opponent 3FG% allowed from season to season hasn't been going through the roof (though it hasn't been good either). It's also about the downstream effect of extending the zone leading to more room for backdoor cuts. And our wings not being big enough and out of position to help Edwards and our other rail-thin centers in recent years.

You can pick up shooters at 25 feet instead of 20 or you can pinch the zone to prevent close looks, but you can't do both. Trying to serve two masters leaves you completely flat-footed.

 

[Brooky03]

You’re still wrong about this.

I compared ‘22 to ‘14. Grabbed a population of ‘shooters’. The criteria was a 3pt% above 30% and more than 90 attempts. Both are very low bars for what counts as a shooter, imo. As an opponent you WANT anybody below those thresholds shooting 3’s. And I had to limit the population some way to make the data manageable. I did assess whether or not teams have more of these shooters with less than 90 attempts; meaning the attempts are spread out over more guys which prevents them from getting to 90 attempts. And the short answer is no, that was not observed to be the case. Again, 90 is quite a low bar.

11%. This is the biggest difference. There are 11% more shooters now than in 2014 (adjusted for the change in the number of teams). In raw numbers that’s 108 players, or .27 players per team. I would have expected a larger difference to signify a sea change across the entirety of college basketball.

The increase in 3pt attempts correlates to the increase in players. 13%. When you look at the attempts per player, there is almost no change, 146.7 vs 147.4. 2014’s players played an average of about one more game. This equates to a per game, per ‘shooter’ difference of 0.19 attempt. Is this the significant change I’ve been told about? Doesn’t seem like it.

I looked at these numbers for top 10%, top 25%, middle 50%, and bottom 25%. There were no notable deviations from the numbers above. I also assessed whether there was a noticeable shift among the P6 in the number of shooters they have. The idea being that the formerly midmajor style of putting shooters on the floor to make up for size /athleticism deficits worked its way up to the big boys. The short answer is barely. 22.2% were in the P6 in ‘22 vs 21.2% in ‘14.

Then I took a look at the ACC opponents (so excluding us). There were 2 more shooters for an increase of 6%. They’re shooting a little better, too, a departure from the global number, which decreased from 37.3% in 2014 to 36.6% in 2022. ACC players shot 37.6% in ‘22 and 36.6% in ‘14. Attempts per player per game remained basically flat, slightly higher in ‘14.

There is a noticeable difference in how shooters are distributed among ACC teams, though it’s not much of a departure from the 0.27 number from above. In 2014, the ACC had 7 teams with just 2 shooters. In 2022, they had 7 with just 3 shooters. Conversely, there were 2 teams with just 2 shooters in ‘22 and 3 with 3 shooters in ‘14. The 1’s, 4’s, and 5’s are the same. To clean this up, we faced 4 teams with an extra shooter on the court (from 2 to 3) in 2022. Notably, we were 5-2 against ACC teams with 3+ shooters in 2014.

My conclusion: 3pt shooters absolutely are not shooting better than they did in ‘14. Way back in the before times, when basketball was so way totally different.

There are more shooters. Approximately 10-15% more depending on where you want to draw the line for what counts as a shooter. These shooters are not really shooting more threes. 4%. 4% is not moving the needle and certainly not a sign that something has changed in a meaningful way.

1 in every 4 teams is putting an extra shooter on the floor compared to 2014. In Syracuse’s ACC bubble, that amounts to 4 teams. Maybe that’s enough. When Syracuse had a good team, the ones with extra shooters managed 2 wins, one by 3 points and one that was a CJ Fair charge away from maybe going the other way.

I don’t need an article from The Atlantic or something like that to tell me what I can see in numbers. If teams were getting shooters more open looks, that would be reflected in the percentages and attempts. It’s not. If this change has been as drastic as suggested, I would expect a larger than 0.27 jump in the number of shooters per team. Everybody is seeing that the zone didn’t work and attributing that to the defense as a scheme rather than the talent and experience in that defense. Then they’re making the connection that teams just shoot too much now and the zone can’t handle it. The data doesn’t support that. For our record to have swung as much as it has and for the defense to be a primary contributor (what has been asserted), an extra shooter for every 4th team we play, worse efficiency, and an extra attempt for every 5th game isn’t going to do the trick.

The zone, over the course of a season, doesn’t have to defend more shooters than it did in 2014 for 75% of its games. In 2014 it could handle 3 shooters without much issue. Few teams field more than 3. The extended arc could be a contributing factor and that is worth looking at. But the extended arc has not been at the heart of many/any of your (you all) arguments. It’s been about style of play and how everybody is the Warriors.

 

[Orangezoo]

I compared ‘22 to ‘14. Grabbed a population of ‘shooters’. The criteria was a 3pt% above 30% and more than 90 attempts. Both are very low bars for what counts as a shooter, imo. As an opponent you WANT anybody below those thresholds shooting 3’s. And I had to limit the population some way to make the data manageable. I did assess whether or not teams have more of these shooters with less than 90 attempts; meaning the attempts are spread out over more guys which prevents them from getting to 90 attempts. And the short answer is no, that was not observed to be the case. Again, 90 is quite a low bar.

11%. This is the biggest difference. There are 11% more shooters now than in 2014 (adjusted for the change in the number of teams). In raw numbers that’s 108 players, or .27 players per team. I would have expected a larger difference to signify a sea change across the entirety of college basketball.

The increase in 3pt attempts correlates to the increase in players. 13%. When you look at the attempts per player, there is almost no change, 146.7 vs 147.4. 2014’s players played an average of about one more game. This equates to a per game, per ‘shooter’ difference of 0.19 attempt. Is this the significant change I’ve been told about? Doesn’t seem like it.

I looked at these numbers for top 10%, top 25%, middle 50%, and bottom 25%. There were no notable deviations from the numbers above. I also assessed whether there was a noticeable shift among the P6 in the number of shooters they have. The idea being that the formerly midmajor style of putting shooters on the floor to make up for size /athleticism deficits worked its way up to the big boys. The short answer is barely. 22.2% were in the P6 in ‘22 vs 21.2% in ‘14.

Then I took a look at the ACC opponents (so excluding us). There were 2 more shooters for an increase of 6%. They’re shooting a little better, too, a departure from the global number, which decreased from 37.3% in 2014 to 36.6% in 2022. ACC players shot 37.6% in ‘22 and 36.6% in ‘14. Attempts per player per game remained basically flat, slightly higher in ‘14.

There is a noticeable difference in how shooters are distributed among ACC teams, though it’s not much of a departure from the 0.27 number from above. In 2014, the ACC had 7 teams with just 2 shooters. In 2022, they had 7 with just 3 shooters. Conversely, there were 2 teams with just 2 shooters in ‘22 and 3 with 3 shooters in ‘14. The 1’s, 4’s, and 5’s are the same. To clean this up, we faced 4 teams with an extra shooter on the court (from 2 to 3) in 2022. Notably, we were 5-2 against ACC teams with 3+ shooters in 2014.

My conclusion: 3pt shooters absolutely are not shooting better than they did in ‘14. Way back in the before times, when basketball was so way totally different.

There are more shooters. Approximately 10-15% more depending on where you want to draw the line for what counts as a shooter. These shooters are not really shooting more threes. 4%. 4% is not moving the needle and certainly not a sign that something has changed in a meaningful way.

1 in every 4 teams is putting an extra shooter on the floor compared to 2014. In Syracuse’s ACC bubble, that amounts to 4 teams. Maybe that’s enough. When Syracuse had a good team, the ones with extra shooters managed 2 wins, one by 3 points and one that was a CJ Fair charge away from maybe going the other way.

I don’t need an article from The Atlantic or something like that to tell me what I can see in numbers. If teams were getting shooters more open looks, that would be reflected in the percentages and attempts. It’s not. If this change has been as drastic as suggested, I would expect a larger than 0.27 jump in the number of shooters per team. Everybody is seeing that the zone didn’t work and attributing that to the defense as a scheme rather than the talent and experience in that defense. Then they’re making the connection that teams just shoot too much now and the zone can’t handle it. The data doesn’t support that. For our record to have swung as much as it has and for the defense to be a primary contributor (what has been asserted), an extra shooter for every 4th team we play, worse efficiency, and an extra attempt for every 5th game isn’t going to do the trick.

The zone, over the course of a season, doesn’t have to defend more shooters than it did in 2014 for 75% of its games. I’m 2014 it could handle 3 shooters without much issue. Few teams field more than 3. The extended arc could be a contributing factor and that is worth looking at. But the extended arc has not been at the heart of many/any of your (you all) arguments. It’s been about style of play and how everybody is the Warriors.

Challenge the analysis already done and shared. You do nothing of the sort here. This is all just you spitballing numbers and talking up a pre determined narrative you are hellbent on proving.

As VT said- you're wrong. Not to mention on multiple counts. Usually if you are going to counter a position effectively you dissect it, counter the accuracy of that data and cite your own data you counter with. This post of yours is 0/3.

 

[RMH44]

The game, per analytics, has changed only a little since 2010 and 2014. The zone didn't stop working because teams put more shooters on the floor. It stopped working because our recruiting classes stopped landing in the top 25.

Assuming your premise is correct...why the fall off in recruiting? Top players don't go to college to play zone defense. That's a very difficult sell for any staff.

 

[Brooky03]

Assuming your premise is correct...why the fall off in recruiting? Top players don't go to college to play zone defense. That's a very difficult sell for any staff.

Recruiting fell off for many reasons. The zone is not and has not been one of them. We’ve played exclusively zone since the early 2000’s. Recruiting didn’t die until the sanctions hit in 2015.

SU never struggled to get players into the NBA, which flies in the face of the lazy analysis some like to point to that the zone hurts our players’ draft chances. NBA teams don’t get scared off by a kid playing a couple years of a zone with m2m principles. They’re usually confident they can teach a player how to chase another guy around the court, which is the only real difference. Zone defenders still have to fight over screens or go under them at the right time. They still have to play on-ball defense. They still have to anticipate passes off-ball and play hep defense. They still have to defend in the post.

Because the zone doesn’t hurt draft chances, there’s no real reason for recruits to avoid SU because of the zone.

 

[BludOrange]

Zone was broken when the arc moved back. That change opened up many passing lanes that were not there before when all five of our defenders were packed inside a tiny arc. So many more angles available to drive to the hole, more backdoor cuts opening up. Also more teams are employing more shooters on the floor. We use to only have to stretch the zone to stop the one gunner a team may have had, now they need to worry about 3-4 different shooters who can drain a three.

The guards use to be touching hands when arms extended at the top of the zone. There was no entry pass to the FT line back then. Now our guards have ten feet between them most of the time. Out forwards played no higher than the FT line, now due to the line being moved back and more shooters deployed by our opponent, they play most of the time at the FT line or higher and leave the corners open for our Center to try and cover. The same center that is trying to defend the high post/Ft line area and the low post. Now he has three locations he needs to defend instead of only having to worry about two spots on the floor. The center use to only cover the corner after the zone was forced to rotate numerous times in a possession, now it's almost solely his responsibility.

The percentage of 3's made against us may not have changed much, but every other aspect with regards to the zone has. How much higher would that percentage of made 3's against the zone be if we did not extend the zone further out and let them shoot wide open 3's all game long because shooters are supposedly no better now than back in the day? How long would a coach last at a program if they just let people shoot wide open from anywhere beyond the arc?

Steph and the Warriors did have a part in breaking the zone. Kids simply did not practice thirty five foot shots for hours at a time as they now do. Coaches didn't allow it, or the player got an instant hook for shooting such a shot back in the day, minus the one hired gun a team may have had. Now we see 4-5 players on every team that will jack it from Steph range, and coaches don't even blink, mean the less yank them from the game.

Again, three point percentages have nothing to do with the breaking of the zone, other than opposing teams being just as efficient from 35 feet as they once were from only 22 feet from the hoop back in the day.

 

[Orangezoo]

Zone was broken when the arc moved back. That change opened up many passing lanes that were not there before when all five of our defenders were packed inside a tiny arc. So many more angles available to drive to the hole, more backdoor cuts opening up. Also more teams are employing more shooters on the floor. We use to only have to stretch the zone to stop the one gunner a team may have had, now they need to worry about 3-4 different shooters who can drain a three.

The guards use to be touching hands when arms extended at the top of the zone. There was no entry pass to the FT line back then. Now our guards have ten feet between them most of the time. Out forwards played no higher than the FT line, now due to the line being moved back and more shooters deployed by our opponent, they play most of the time at the FT line or higher and leave the corners open for our Center to try and cover. The same center that is trying to defend the high post/Ft line area and the low post. Now he has three locations he needs to defend instead of only having to worry about two spots on the floor. The center use to only cover the corner after the zone was forced to rotate numerous times in a possession, now it's almost solely his responsibility.

The percentage of 3's made against us may not have changed much, but every other aspect with regards to the zone has. How much higher would that percentage of made 3's against the zone be if we did not extend the zone further out and let them shoot wide open 3's all game long because shooters are supposedly no better now than back in the day? How long would a coach last at a program if they just let people shoot wide open from anywhere beyond the arc?

Steph and the Warriors did have a part in breaking the zone. Kids simply did not practice thirty five foot shots for hours at a time as they now do. Coaches didn't allow it, or the player got an instant hook for shooting such a shot back in the day, minus the one hired gun a team may have had. Now we see 4-5 players on every team that will jack it from Steph range, and coaches don't even blink, mean the less yank them from the game.

Again, three point percentages have nothing to do with the breaking of the zone, other than opposing teams being just as efficient from 35 feet as they once were from only 22 feet from the hoop back in the day.

Tendencies, reliance , volume. Paired with rebounding showing to be even more correlative with success. There are multiple variables. That includes what kids play before they get on campus. Less than 7 teams played zone 75 pct of the time in 2020. That number is equal or less right now- I believe it's 5 or 6 now since Baylor moved away from it.

Rule changes and 3pt line played a big role. Biggest role is the universal desire for all kids to play on the perimeter and shoot jump shots creating a reliance on 3pt shooting and rebounding misses on both ends to win.

 

[Sherman20]

Nobody liked watching the zone during the downturn. But I certainly enjoyed it when we were good. It was nice to turn on a game and know in the first 5 minutes it was all over for the opponent because they were overwhelmed and had no answers, even with shooters on the floor. We obviously haven't had much of that in recent years.

btw, what are people's opinions of the pack line (zone) defense? Bennett seems to do well with it. That's more zone than man.

Griff coached the pack-line defense under Archie Miller when he was an assistant at Dayton for 6 years. That’s the staple defense of both Miller brothers (and of course Tony Bennett). It’ll be interesting to see what man to man scheme Red runs. I like Mick Cronin’s man to man scheme.

 

[oTTo113445]

2 years ago, we had carolina held to under 65 before pressing late, clemson under 60 ,, asu to around 65, houston to under 50 and wvu barely hit 70 to end the year.

Zone is dependent on the players doing everything they can do. Some years no weakside shotblocking can hurt, others it wont. Some times you can bring 4 guys forward, other years only 2-3, Some years it needs turnovers, and other years just stops.

With zone It's not just figuring what each player is lacking in the zone, it's figuring out what each of our individual teams year by year can be hurt by.

 

[Brooky03]

Challenge the analysis already done and shared. You do nothing of the sort here. This is all just you spitballing numbers and talking up a pre determined narrative you are hellbent on proving.

As VT said- you're wrong. Not to mention on multiple counts. Usually if you are going to counter a position effectively you dissect it, counter the accuracy of that data and cite your own data you counter with. This post of yours is 0/3.

Your posts are on ignore. I selectively read them. If you posted an article by some dork who wants to push a narrative that the game has changed in the way you suggest without the numbers to back it up, then I do not care.

The numbers are the numbers. I don’t need some guy who fancies himself a basketball analyst to break them down for me.

 

[FRANKIEFAN]

If we have a taller team we might see it in the future.

I'd honestly prefer to be a team that has 3 guards on the floor at all times.

If Jesse leaves I'm not sure we need to add another center and I don't need Hima to start either. Williams Brown and 3 guards might even be OK.

 

[Orangezoo]

Your posts are on ignore. I selectively read them. If you posted an article by some dork who wants to push a narrative that the game has changed in the way you suggest without the numbers to back it up, then I do not care.

The numbers are the numbers. I don’t need some guy who fancies himself a basketball analyst to break them down for me.

Still amusing at least. So there's that.

And yes your numbers are your numbers... not anyone else's but they sure are yours.

 

[CuseCrew08]

Can you imagine the buzz in the dome the first time we go back to it after our man to man is getting abused?

 

[dollarbill44]

True.. some still do though at least. Not many but some...

It's also why coaching is important. Coaches make players work on things they don't want to. Defensive drills and rebounding drills are no fun for most. But they are very important if you want to win a lot.

 

[Toga]

I wouldn't mind keeping the zone if we pair it with a 3/4 quart press.

Been saying this ever since they shaved time off the shot clock. Such a no brainer. Makes me nuts.

 

[BludOrange]

So according to some #'s......Today's shooters, who shoot from way deeper than back in the day, are just as efficient as their predecessors?

And same poster believes that has no effect on the zone?

Am I understanding that correctly?

I love when people debunk their own theories, then don't just double down, but go all in on it.

 

[Toga]

Been saying this ever since they shaved time off the shot clock. Such a no brainer. Makes me nuts.

And another thing - Remember when once in awhile out of the blue, Boeheim would send his two outside defenders to trap the ball handler as soon as he crossed mid court? Would result in a turnover more often than not. Haven't seen it in probably 10 years.