NCAA Basketball: Are zone defenses dying in the sport?

NCAA Basketball Zone Defense

There are a few teams who run some version of a zone defense more than others.  Baylor and Texas Tech run one about half the time and the time will vary when they run them in games.  As everyone knows Syracuse runs zone exclusively and they have run their version of a 2-3 zone for most of the duration of Coach Boeheim’s tenure.

As per Three Man Weave and their deep dive into the zone defense and the numbers behind it in the recently published Zonal Shift article, the numbers say that seven teams, with Syracuse included, played a zone as their primary defense more than 75% of the time.  The rest of the teams will just run the zone as a change of pace defense to give the other opponent something new to look at.  Aside from a change of pace defense, there are other reasons a zone can be beneficial for teams.

Zone defenses can be utilized by all types of teams ones who are less athletic and those that are extremely athletic.  They can be run a variety of ways most of the good ones are an aggressive style that will actively pressure the ball handler utilizing traps and denying every pass.  The best way to break a zone is by using crisp deliberate passes into the holes in a zone.  Most college players do not have the passing skill needed to accomplish this over the duration of a game.

A zone defense is always going to run successfully when it leads to numerous turnovers and bad shots that are usually rushed.  Everyone has seen it; a team is behind by a ton of points switches to an aggressive zone and the team ahead looks like they forgot to play basketball for a while.

Another reason teams may use a zone is to hide a player who is either not great on defense or is in severe foul trouble and the coach wants to extend them in the game.  A lot can be said about a player who has expended a ton of energy on the offensive end to get a team back in the game.  Often, they will be in one of the non-aggressive positions on the zone to preserve their legs.   One of the other reasons to run a zone is to scheme against a very complex and complicated offense.

As mentioned, it takes a particular skill set, as well as designed offense sets to break a zone.  Many coaches either as mentioned do not have the players who can pass and not many players can make enough mid-range jump shots to break the zone.  Anyone who follows analytics knows the mid-range jump shot is the least successful shot in basketball.  Since many coaches know that their best medicine against a good zone is to take rushed ill-advised three-point shots playing directly into the zone’s hands.