NCAA Basketball: Are zone defenses dying in the sport?

NCAA Basketball Coaches

The High School coaches and AAU coaches provided their feedback.  They provided a nice insight into what they are teaching and preparing the kids for when they head off to College.  What about the men on the front lines?  The college coaches are the best men to get an opinion from.  They are facing the best of the best every night and they are responsible for every player on their team as they were the ones who recruited them to the team.   The two coaches are both from the mid-major ranks and are from two different conferences and both have two different philosophies to the zone vs man to man debate.

The first coach I interviewed is a newer head coach and is coaching at his alma mater.  Head Coach Danny Sprinkle of the Montana State Bobcats is trying to build a power in the Big Sky and get his team to the NCAA tournament.  The Bobcats are one of those teams who go on the road a lot in the early portion of the season as they take a lot of buy games.  Coach Sprinkle does run a zone the Bobcats like to utilize a 1-3-1 and a 2/3 zone. Montana State will utilize these defenses against the power schools as a change tempo, again to slow the game down.  Coach Sprinkle will also utilize his zones when the other team has a player who is hot on offense.  The move there is to get them out rhythm and hope to minimize the mismatch that player presents to his team.

The Bobcats do practice a zone so they can run it their best ability.  When a low major team plays a schedule full of high major and power schools the height and potential overall talent disparity could be large.  Coach Sprinkle puts extra emphasis on rebounding out of the zone.  If they don’t rebound well out of their defensive sets, they will get destroyed on the glass.  The key thing to remember is that Montana State does also run man to man and will switch to zone as needed.

The next coach has been in the news a lot over the last year.  His team beat Duke on a last-second shot at Cameron Indoor Stadium, they also had a great case for an at large bid if they did not win their conference.  Head Coach Kyle Keller from the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks.  The Jacks come out of the Southland Conference and have been one of the best mid-major schools in the country over the last handful of seasons.  Coach Keller is one of the nicest and most humble men in the sport.  He appreciates any news coverage he gets, and he was candid and told it like it was.

For those that don’t know much about the history of the Stephen F. Austin head coach.  He was mentored by the late Eddie Sutton and has been on the staff of both Leonard Hamilton and Bill Self so his coaching philosophies have been reinforced by some of the best coaches in this game.   Those three coaches are also some of the best defensive minds in the game.  Those are great people to learn defense from.

Keller runs a man to man and wants to have his players be accountable and responsible for their actions on the court and the zone skirts a lot of the accountability and responsibility that comes with playing defense.   Man to man is easier to learn how to do properly and a zone is harder to run properly and filled with grey areas. While it is just one coach’s opinion, the Jacks finished in the top 15 nationally in defensive efficiency last year they led the NCAA in turnovers created.  The Jacks do not ever play a full-court defense they like to play a half-court game and make the offense work for everything they get once the opponents cross the timeline.

Coach Keller wanted to let it be known that he would be cheating his team if he tried to teach something he didn’t know.  He doesn’t know much about a zone or how to teach a good one.  He knows a lot about playing good man defense. Players know when a coach isn’t being genuine, and players are going to give the effort when the coach is confident and does things with conviction.

That is why he is so adamant about teaching his version of a man to man defense and why Syracuse and Coach Boeheim are so adamant about playing zone.  Must coach and recruit to what you know, can never be someone you’re not.