NCAA Basketball: Are zone defenses dying in the sport?

Coaches’ Opinions

The coaches are the ones who create the game plans to try and stop the opponents they are the ones who decide when to utilize the zone defense or go to strictly man to man.  As with everything the responses by the coaches play both sides of this debate.  Some coaches are accepting of the zone and will run a zone but won’t actively teach it.  The opposite end of the spectrum is a few coaches who will vehemently oppose the zone and refuse to run it.  All the coaches have been successful and have been around a lot of players and basketball at all levels as their resumes will show.

The first coach does a lot of great work for the college basketball community.  He is the leader of Delphi Bracketology.  He is also a teacher, he is helping mold young minds and teaching them bracketology in school and makes learning fun. His name is Brian Tonsoni and he is currently an assistant at Western High School in Indiana.  He was a head coach for 10 years and has been in a coaching capacity for a total of 20 years.

Tonsoni is a proponent of the zone but it seems he wants his zones to fit into the criteria outlined.  He likes his zones to be aggressive, and further suggested that he doesn’t believe in lazy defense so if you are running a zone it should be to control tempo and pace.  As the rest of this writing has suggested a great zone should be trapping the short corner, cutting off the cutters and flying to the pass.  If you fly to the catch it may already be too late, especially when playing a team that is good from deep.  His team does run a combination of an aggressive trapping style 2-3 and man.

In High School, most coaches do not have a good enough offense or good enough players to successfully combat an aggressive zone defense.  The best zones are practiced, believed in and aggressive.  He also went further to say that coaches like Chris Beard and Tony Bennett don’t need to run a zone because many coaches will tell you that a perfect man defense is a great zone.

The next coach to provide some insight is a former Big West assistant at UC Riverside, and an at Roosevelt High School in California.  He was also a Skills coach at Pure Sweat Basketball and currently works as an independent Player Development Coach.  He has coached many great players in the High School ranks including Jemarl Baker who is a former top recruit and recently transferred to Arizona from Kentucky.  His name is Eder Sanchez and he is a fan of a man to man defense but will employ a zone based on his team’s personnel and the makeup of the opponent.  That is interesting to see that he like many other coaches run his zone as a matchup.  Like the data would suggest most of the zones being run now are matchup based on the opponent and your current team’s personnel.

Sanchez went on to further state that it is always going to be more successful deploying a defense that fits into your teams’ strengths, do not try and fit a square peg into a round hole.  He meant do not try and force a defense that your team is not comfortable or incapable of running, because you as a coach want to run it.   Have to run what your team is good at and make your coaching philosophies adaptable.  That may be a reason why many teams are no longer running zone.  It may come down to the Jimmies and Joes on the roster like so many other things do.  Coach Sanchez will run a zone but like Tonsoni does it situationally when the time and score calls for it.

The next coach interview comes via one of the best High School programs in the country and in the state of Nebraska.  Nick Moyer is a current Assistant coach at Millard North High School in Omaha, Nebraska.  He currently coaches five-star top 25 prospect Hunter Sallis, 4-star Stanford Commit Max Murrell and 2022 sleeper Jasen Green.  The Mustangs have a lot more division one talent on their roster with Saint Thomas and Jadin Johnson as well.

His resume speaks for itself.  He is a current coach for the Nebraska Attack Girls Under Armor AAU program.  The Attack Girls are a top 20 summer program nationally.  Moyer was also the head coach of Brownell Talbot Girls High School basketball and was given and opportunity as one of the Pro Scouting School invitees during the NBA summer league in 2017.  Moyer has an impressive resume and his opinions on the sport are one I value greatly.

Moyer prefers man to man and he provided his reasoning.  He would like to use to man to man to control the tempo of the game and speed up opponents.  As has been mentioned a zone is meant to slow the game down both on defense and on offense.  His main reasoning for running a man to man is it allows the offense to play true.  The offense is always going to have to make a decision and keep the ball moving, in a man to man he knows he is going to have an advantage rebounding the ball.

Moyer also suggested that in a man to man it gives you the ability to take the best player on the opposing team and take him out of a game.  Moyer did agree with most everything said to him and wanted to reiterate that the zone is dying because the game of basketball is moving towards a three-point oriented offense for everyone.  No one plays inside anymore, and a zone plays into letting a team shoot threes.  A man to man defense takes away the three-point line and makes teams must play inside.