Zone Exclusivity

[Brooky03]

" Can't blame that on anything other than crappy circumstances."

or teams outscoring us.

exactly, due to crappy circumstances costing us key players.

I'm glad we're in agreement

 

[tbonezone]

same here. enjoy the post season. who do you got in your pool ?
do they play zone exclusively? probably not. wonder why?

 

[Brooky03]

same here. enjoy the post season. who do you got in your pool ?
do they play zone exclusively? probably not.

Kentucky. They play zone about 20 seconds on average each game. That must be why they're so good. If they didn't play those 20 seconds of zone, they'd probably have 3 losses by now.

 

[HOFCeluck]

Debatable. We've had 3 years in which we've underperformed due to injury or supsension. Can't blame that on anything other than crappy circumstances. The other years, we've typically never done worse than losing one round earlier than expected, if that.

Also, defense is rarely the problem. m2m wouldn't have helped us shoot better than 38% from the field and 0-10 from 3pt range against Dayton. Yeah, I'm aware they shot 43% from deep, but they only managed 55 points and shot terribly inside the arc. That's a good defensive performance, in my book.

Jim Boeheim, for as great as he is, has been past the sweet sixteen six times.

 

[kuethstheman]

ok. so zone only strategy worked great for us last year in the tourneys. with all that nba personnel...
should i laugh or cry ?

Yet somehow we had a chance to win while shooting 0-13 from three. Could it have been our defense?

 

[Brooky03]

Jim Boeheim, for as great as he is, has been past the sweet sixteen six times.

I'm more interested in how he performs compared to his seed. I actually created a spreadsheet once and figured out he wasn't much worse, if any worse, than the top level coaches relative to seed. I'll have to see if I have it around still. The argument could be made that he doesn't 'overperform' as well as the other coaches may have, but if you remove the Fab year and Onuaku year from the equation (or count them as E8 trips or better), then he's not as bad in the Tourney as perception would suggest.

 

[Quazzum69]

I'm more interested in how he performs compared to his seed. I actually created a spreadsheet once and figured out he wasn't much worse, if any worse, than the top level coaches relative to seed. I'll have to see if I have it around still. The argument could be made that he doesn't 'overperform' as well as the other coaches may have, but if you remove the Fab year and Onuaku year from the equation (or count them as E8 trips or better), then he's not as bad in the Tourney as perception would suggest.

He's only had seven top 2 seeds, three #1 seeds.

Coach K has had over 20 top 2 seeds and 12 #1 seeds!

K has 4 times as many titles but also 4 times the number of #1 seeds.

 

[Orangeman]

We don't have the same size in the zone that we usually do.

Eh

I watched MD vs. Iowa and they made 6 straight jumpers between them, all deep.

It's possible that players are becoming better shooters.

 

[tbonezone]

"I believe coach has said on several occasions that they simply cant practice enough man to make it playable. The practice time devoted to man would simply result in a crappy man defense and a less effective zone. "


is the coach just stubborn or lazy. cuz this statement is simply indefensible. we could play better man.

 

[Brooky03]

"I believe coach has said on several occasions that they simply cant practice enough man to make it playable. The practice time devoted to man would simply result in a crappy man defense and a less effective zone. "


is the coach just stubborn or lazy. cuz this statement is simply indefensible. we could play better man.

Duke is a m2m team. They play good m2m defense when they have good defensive players because they practice it all the time. Duke plays beyond terrible zone defense because they obviously can't practice it much. Syracuse is the same in the other direction.

I don't see how this is indefensible. You could either be a jack of all trades, master of none. Or a master of one trade. Those are the options.

 

[tbonezone]

hey duke plays both defenses. depending upon situation. that's a fact.
and you are allowed to change defenses when one isn't working. also a fact.

 

[doc05]

Who says? Just because we dont have MCW at the top doesn't mean we don't have a long and tall lineup for our 2-3.

Our starting 5 is:

6-3
6-4
6-7
6-8
6-9

Seems like plenty of size to me. Oh, and that is not even including a 6-10 McCullough

Maybe not as much as we have had from time to time, but not the size that JB expected - especially with McC out. You have Roberson at 6-8 who was supposed to play the 3 playing the 4 with Gbinje who is SG/SF playing the 3. JB envisioned this team with a bigger front line, period. JB's recruitment of Frank Howard shows you just how much he values longer guards out there, especially playing the point (ala MCW). This team doesn't have it. So while you may be technically correct, this is not the size JB envisioned going forward with this zone.

 

[Antiprodigy]

He's only had seven top 2 seeds, three #1 seeds.

Coach K has had over 20 top 2 seeds and 12 #1 seeds!

K has 4 times as many titles but also 4 times the number of #1 seeds.

Because SU recruits as well as Duke does. :crazy:
Have you seen how many McD's K has had in comparison to JB? You don't think that maybe that might have a little to do with the difference in #1 & #2 seeds?

Feel free to argue that JB is not as good a recruiter as K is, but don't use this as a metric for why the zone is bad.

 

[Orangeman]

"I believe coach has said on several occasions that they simply cant practice enough man to make it playable. The practice time devoted to man would simply result in a crappy man defense and a less effective zone. "


is the coach just stubborn or lazy. cuz this statement is simply indefensible. we could play better man.

its an absurd concept to state publicly.

the inference is we recruit "bad" M2M players who can only play zone.

going to have to change in this league to succeed long-term

 

[moqui]

Recency bias.

In the ACC season that Syracuse was not depleted by injury & distracted by an impending NCAA penalty, the team went 14-4 and had the 13th rated defense in the nation & 2nd best in the ACC.

it's not the defense you play, it's the way that you play it

 

[longislandcuse]

Recency bias.

In the ACC season that Syracuse was not depleted by injury & distracted by an impending NCAA penalty, the team went 14-4 and had the 13th rated defense in the nation & 2nd best in the ACC.

it's not the defense you play, it's the way that you play it

And lost in the NCAA Second Round because Dayton just stood around with no ball pressure shortening the game taking 35 seconds off the shot clock every time down, being allowed to wait until 15 seconds left in the shot clock to go into their uninterrupted offensive set.

 

[moqui]

And lost in the NCAA Second Round because Dayton just stood around with no ball pressure shortening the game taking 35 seconds off the shot clock every time down, being allowed to wait until 15 seconds left in the shot clock to go into their uninterrupted offensive set.

SU is the 3rd winningest program nationally since 2009, with a protected seed each year, 4 trips to the second weekend or beyond, a Final Four and 13 NCAA tournament wins, all while playing nearly exclusively zone defense. but by all means ignore all that data and focus on the one game/one season that stick in your craw

 

[HOFCeluck]

SU is the 3rd winningest program nationally since 2009, with a protected seed each year, 4 trips to the second weekend or beyond, a Final Four and 13 NCAA tournament wins, all while playing nearly exclusively zone defense. but by all means ignore all that data and focus on the one game/one season that stick in your craw

In 2010 we had two 5th year seniors, a consensus AA who was playing his fourth year of college basketball, and a true Junior in the starting rotation. Three guys eventually got drafted off that team, one was top five. Another had a cup of coffee in the NBA. In 2012 we had three guys who would eventually first round picks (though to be honest one of those guys didn't see the floor much), one second rounder, and one guy who's almost a lock to get drafted this year.

In all since 2009 we've had nine guys get drafted and two more play games in the League. I don't know. Maybe we recruited/developed really good players in that time who would have been successful regardless of the defense we played.

Also, we've played to our seed or beyond twice since 2009.

 

[moqui]

Maybe we recruited/developed really good players in that time who would have been successful regardless of the defense we played.

as long as we played it well, which is my point. it really is not about zone vs man. changing the approach won't matter if the personnel lacks ability/commitment

 

[HOFCeluck]

as long as we played it well, which is my point. it really is not about zone vs man. changing the approach won't matter if the personnel lacks ability/commitment

When it's played well, it's great. What happens when it's not? Should we just accept it as inevitable if we lose in the first weekend because some 8 seed shoots 45% from three?

 

[Scotch]

When it's played well, it's great. What happens when it's not? Should we just accept it as inevitable if we lose in the first weekend because some 8 seed shoots 45% from three?

When a team shoots 45 percent against Izzo are Mich. St. fans screaming to play zone? It's a strange double standard.

Our defense has been the least of our worries in the majority of our tourney losses. We needed to score more pts against Butler and Dayton. The refs let OSU shoot 50 free throws in 2012. And don't forget our 2013 wins against Indiana and Marquette - defensive CLINICS.

Saying all that, a one-and-done NCAA tournament is the ultimate "small sample" dataset that people use to make enormous judgements about programs. JB's overall record and defensive efficiency numbers over the long-term are the real barometers for how his defense should be judged.

 

[longislandcuse]

When a team shoots 45 percent against Izzo are Mich. St. fans screaming to play zone? It's a strange double standard.

Our defense has been the least of our worries in the majority of our tourney losses. We needed to score more pts against Butler and Dayton. The refs let OSU shoot 50 free throws in 2012. And don't forget our 2013 wins against Indiana and Marquette - defensive CLINICS.

Saying all that, a one-and-done NCAA tournament is the ultimate "small sample" dataset that people use to make enormous judgements about programs. JB's overall record and defensive efficiency numbers over the long-term are the real barometers for how his defense should be judged.

I'm not saying we need to be winning Championships left and right but we should be doing better than we have. People don't freak out on Izzo when his defense gets shredded because at least they are forcing the issue. M2M isn't passive. I know our zone is aggressive but when you allow a team to waste the entire shot clock with no ball pressure, it's aggravating and very different than Izzo's defense.

The ability to just waste time against us is a bigger reason for my aggravation at only playing zone than giving up threes. We allow less talented teams to essentially play 20 minute games against us.

 

[HOFCeluck]

When a team shoots 45 percent against Izzo are Mich. St. fans screaming to play zone? It's a strange double standard.

Our defense has been the least of our worries in the majority of our tourney losses. We needed to score more pts against Butler and Dayton. The refs let OSU shoot 50 free throws in 2012. And don't forget our 2013 wins against Indiana and Marquette - defensive CLINICS.

Saying all that, a one-and-done NCAA tournament is the ultimate "small sample" dataset that people use to make enormous judgements about programs. JB's overall record and defensive efficiency numbers over the long-term are the real barometers for how his defense should be judged.

Tom Izzo has been to final four six times in 19 seasons. With talent roughly equal to ours.

And if I was a MSU fan, I would wonder why we didn't mix up defenses a little when we struggled.

And as far as the old cliche "the tournament is a crap shoot"...we have almost forty years of data points. So I don't think that's entirely accurate. college basketball is a one month season.