Zone Defense
- Thread starter IAHawkGrad2000
- Start date
Both man to man and the zone are terrible so they have to chose one???? For me I hate the zone, as any team who can shoot 3's love it...
I enjoyed the win against Rutgers for sure. It just doesn’t give me any hope for future success. The ability of the opponent to get the ball to the high post uncontested, to a corner three uncontested, then they miss and get an offensive rebound . It happens over and over. I’m the idiot for thinking something will change and we’ll be able to stop people .
Yeah, we don't typically stop people,.. it's more like slowing them down enough to out shoot them...
I wouldnt mind seeing Patrick at the top of it. He has length and moves his feet better than Connor or Jbo
My feeling is that because Iowa uses zone much more than most teams, that impacts the man/man. In both cases they are sagging into or toward the paint to protect Luka and many times the teams that pass the ball around more than dribbling, with a few sharp passes feed a wide open 3 point shooter from the side and Iowa is about a step slow in getting to the shooter.
Another criticism is that Fran switches between the two and much of the time he then stays with the zone to long. When another team is hitting 3's with consistency it is time to play in your shorts man/man defense. I know Izzo's teams play man entirely and they are good at it.
It's pretty simple actually. Garza is slow. When you have him playing on the side that's overloaded, and the pass skips, he's slower to transition to the other side. Because of this, it opens a few back door opportunities. The plays need to stick and rotate faster. However, Garza is the slowest to be able to switch. Sometimes this causes others to be out of place. Knowing this, they typically sag down a little and that opens the corner shots. That puts more pressure on your guards to have to rotate faster because Garza cannot close out to the corner fast enough.
Fran keeps the offensive teams in because he believes they can outscore. He is right from this approach. If you are going to force them to shoot outside, you'd better be able to outscore them. The zone is right for this team unless you are playing some of the younger players. They have the speed, but they don't have the offensive capabilities. I have seen them run some man to man with the younger players and it looks decent, but they just don't have the firepower to pull away. I'd like to see Fran throw them in to tire out the other team a little, then switch back to Zone to rest the offensive team.
Again, this is coaching. Honestly, if we took out JBo and Garza and put in Nunge and Keegan, it uplifts your defense in the zone quite a bit. They aren't going to get as many shots, however, going zone, you might be in trouble with guards. Take out Connor and put in Joe T, Uhlis, or Perkins, and now you can run man, but you have less offensive firepower.
Overall, I know the zone is frustrating when teams are hot, but it's really the right call with this personnel. Unless you are trying to keep the team from scoring while your starters are out, then go to man and tire them out as much as you can. Again, I think this is managed fairly well for the most part, however, I do believe Fran should play match ups a little better with Jbo/Joe T. That's my biggest frustration with coaching right now.
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