Twilight of the zone? Syracuse sticks with it, others move on

INDIANAPOLIS » It had been nearly a decade since West Virginia coach Bob Huggins had to draw up a game plan to beat the infuriating zone defense run by Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, going all the way back to their time together in the old Big East.

The job hasn’t gotten any easier.

Faced again with that 2-3 zone in the NCAA Tournament last weekend, Huggins watched his No. 3 seed Mountaineers shoot 37 percent from the field while turning the ball over 14 times in a 75-72 loss that sent the Orange to the Sweet 16.

“You don’t just roll out of bed and play 2-3 zone the way they do,” Huggins said with a shrug. “He’s the best that’s ever coached the 2-3 zone and they’re the best to ever play it.”

They’re also one of the last to play it.

The No. 11 seed Orange’s run to a second-weekend matchup with No. 2 seed Houston is proof that a zone done well still works. But most programs that once relied on some variation of it, including fellow Sweet 16 teams Baylor and Southern California, have shifted toward manto-man approaches with the zone merely offering a change-up.

It’s almost as if those playbook pages are tucked away behind a sign that reads: “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass.”

There are a few reasons for this. Some have to do with the programs themselves, such as their personnel, while others have to do with opposing teams and the very way the game is played.

The top-seeded Bears, who play fifth-seeded Villanova on Saturday, for years played a 50-50 split between man-to-man defense and zone, where players are responsible for covering areas of the court. But coach Scott Drew has turned to using man defense almost entirely the past two season, and his personnel is the biggest reason why.

“We went from a team that was really long on the front line to a team that is a smaller, quicker team,” Drew said, alluding to his guard-heavy lineup, “and obviously a pressure manto-man style favored our personnel more.”

The sixth-seeded Trojans once unleashed their zone about as much as Baylor, but coach Andy Enfield has gone from using it about 45 percent of the time to about 10 percent. When they do trot it out, it’s usually because of a matchup problem that it creates for the opponent, which was the case in a blowout win over Kansas last weekend.

USC wanted the Jayhawks to shoot over the top and the vast majority of their 3s wound up hitting metal rather than nylon.