zone is not difficult to learn. any player that's played through HS knows

[whhs22]

how to play a zone. not second guessing Cal , but sounds like Cal is second guessing himself. zones are in place to protect your bigs. and our bigs need a lot of protection. going zone would also give other players who struggle at man to man switching everything a chance to get some mins.

I'm not sure zone fixes all of our problems. but I do think we would of won last night , and possibly at Kansas. I watched UL go Zone against NC and it won them the game.

Cal said when he got here he couldn't hide you. well I'm sorry but he recruited players he needs to hide to give us a chance to win. this is not a bad team. it just seems like Cal is trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

I'm not trying to question Cals coaching, but something is seriously wrong when another team makes adjustments and we do nothing but lose double digit leads. and we have lost double digit leads in the last 2 games after the other team made adjustments to what we were doing.

I trust Cal will figure this out.

 

[Icecoldbrewdoggy]

Agree with some of this, but is there any way we can put all the Zone comments in one single thread? It's taken on a life of its own.

 

[JohnnyGentle]

you are second guessing him, and you are questioning his coaching

you zone people don't see it and can't be made to understand

 

[CatPhight]

you are second guessing him, and you are questioning his coaching

you zone people don't see it and can't be made to understand

Kind of like Poythress can't be made to stay alert on the court, Murray can't stay or switch on his man and Lee can't catch a damn ball
and couldn't defend a fence post without fouling.

The zone is a tool to help confuse the defense - hell, we've got all the confusion we can handle when switching on a man-man,
when players don't even switch and wind up guarding the same player and leave holes the size of Texas.

This is NOT a smart effective man-man defensive team with the athletic ability to recover, if you can't see that then there's no hope for you.

 

[JonathanW]

Zone also hurts your rebounding. I'm not saying we should never use it, just that it is not the answer to all our defensive problems.

 

[CatPhight]

Zone also hurts your rebounding. I'm not saying we should never use it, just that it is not the answer to all our defensive problems.

Depends on what type of zone, a collapsing zone can improve rebounding.

I agree we shouldn't be zoning primarily, but to dismiss it entirely, particularly during glaring defensive struggles and foul issues is wrong.

Hell, just to throw different looks at a team in critical junctions and force them to prepare for more if nothing else.

 

[Big_Blue79]

It's not that having a zone possibility is bad. It's that practice time is limited and the team is almost entirely new, so you have to sacrifice something to get something. Here's stuff from Coach K in the late 1980s:

I wanted to know why K refused to play anything other than man as his base defense. He patiently explained that his man-to-man was so flexible that he didn't need to use zone. He argued that he could play a sluffing man-to-man that was virtually indistinguishable from a zone. But by sticking to variations of the man, he could spend his practice time drilling man-to-man principles into his players. Zone required different fundamentals. He would rather play one defense very well and play multiple defenses mediocrely.

 

[dstroya]

It's not that having a zone possibility is bad. It's that practice time is limited and the team is almost entirely new, so you have to sacrifice something to get something. Here's stuff from Coach K in the late 1980s:

I wanted to know why K refused to play anything other than man as his base defense. He patiently explained that his man-to-man was so flexible that he didn't need to use zone. He argued that he could play a sluffing man-to-man that was virtually indistinguishable from a zone. But by sticking to variations of the man, he could spend his practice time drilling man-to-man principles into his players. Zone required different fundamentals. He would rather play one defense very well and play multiple defenses mediocrely.

Don't understand all the whining about the man defense, they have held the last 8 SEC teams under 42% for the first time in over 50 yrs. The major problem has been inconsistent offense and BIG difference in FTs(Kansas and tenn) that have caused loses. I agree playing a little zone just as a change of pace or foul trouble is a good idea, but the man defense has been good and does exactly like Cal wants. He wants the guards to steer drivers into the middle toward the big boys for blocks and altered shots instead of open 3 pointers or baseline drives. For the most part that is what they are doing and the fg % shows that.

 

[Xception]

Hopefully Cal reads this thread and picks up some pointers .

 

[kybassfan]

I dunno where you guys learned to play zone. Man to man was easy by comparison. Zone was easy for about a day. Then it got to be nasty hard work, particularly if you started trapping out of it or the damn guards started stepping into passes or stretching out into the floor. You guard what's in front of you, behind you then you wrestle some guy who got the jump on position because you filled a gap.

Zone is easy play and VERY hard to play well. You did not see a good zone Friday. You saw a struggling team founder on a zone where any defense would work.

 

[MethodUK]

I agree they should sprinkle in some GOOD zone from time to time but that's not Cals game.

One of the best attributes he has as a coach is to get 5 star athletes to play solid D. Most of these guys don't play enough defense in high school, then show up on campus to adjust to college game play which is played twice as fast. Man to man is all about skill, speed, agility, and a bulldog mentality. This is one reason why Cal says this place isn't for everybody. He recruits these types of players in my opinion.

 

[maysvilleky]

Principles of playing helpside defense in man to man is very similar to a zone.

 

[stenchymouse]

I dunno where you guys learned to play zone. Man to man was easy by comparison. Zone was easy for about a day. Then it got to be nasty hard work, particularly if you started trapping out of it or the damn guards started stepping into passes or stretching out into the floor. You guard what's in front of you, behind you then you wrestle some guy who got the jump on position because you filled a gap.

Zone is easy play and VERY hard to play well. You did not see a good zone Friday. You saw a struggling team founder on a zone where any defense would work.

This!!

To play a zone well enough to win at the highest level is not easy!!

There are certain teams whose rosters lend themselves to playing a zone.

2013 with the lack of size at guard and the slowness of Wiltjer NEEDED to play a zone as their primary defense IMO.

I believe that this team will NEED to play zone in certain situations to limit foul trouble but man to man is Cal's thing and that'll never change.