Texas. FSU missed out on all it’s top targets. Doesn’t help the declining ACC narrative.
https://twitter.com/TheCircuitAlex/status/1452434163416674311
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Also telling two of the three are SEC schools
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For a 5 star 2022 Texas is very much a Big 12 school. Unlikely he is still on the team for the move to the SEC.
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https://twitter.com/bradklein15/status/1451750014389260290?s=21
This is hysterical, dude needs to retire
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In slight fairness, they did make the sweet 16 last year. So when it comes to tournament time, he’s still a tough out.
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Yeah he still manages to confound teams with the Zone in March but the Syracuse fans I know are sick of his shtick
I get that, but you want to talk about a program that could easily fall off the map completely after their hall of fame coach retires, I feel like Syracuse is way up there. Getting top talent to upstate NY to play in a weird old dome while it is freezing outside may not be super easy for the next guy. And they don’t have the brand that Duke, UNC, Kentucky etc. have to sustain them even if their coach takes a little while.
Anyway, they could be totally fine, but their transition makes me more nervous than most. Will be interesting to see how it unfolds.
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Can anyone even name another Cuse coach that wasnt Boheim in their history?
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I’ve never seen one in my lifetime.
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After Boeheim goes, will the admin only hire someone that will also play the 2-3 zone? I mean that’s kind of the defining element of their brand of basketball. Without that, all you have are a giant dome and cold ass winters.
You see more schools every year it seems running variations of the pack line. I’m not sure there’s much momentum toward 2-3 zones though. It may be it’s time to retire that when Boeheim retires.
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Is Boeheim the last of the zone coaches? When we were kids you had him and Chaney up at Temple and a few others running 2-3 or match ups. Nowadays there’s teams that switch in and out of zone variations but 'Cuse is the last “zone school” right?
Also how much of a rebuild is that when Boeheim leaves if the next guy is not a zone guy? Could be a major setback.
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Altman runs (or ran the year we played) a funky matchup zone. Plus Hopkins (Boeheim disciple) at Washington. I can’t think of any other majors. Pastner runs something zone-y, right? Duke when their defense stinks, LOL!
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I was thinking teams in the Power conferences and I couldn’t think of one. I know some coaches dabble in it. I think Mack has at UofL, Xavier has a 1-3-1 package that occasionally gets deployed. Chris Beard had TT switching in and out of zone and man for a few yeas figure he will do that at UT. I remember Duke moving to it in 18 or 19 because they couldn’t play defense. But Cuse is the last Power 5 team program I can think of that lives and dies by it.
Mike Hopkins runs the Syracuse 2-3 at Washington, though he’s started running more matchup zones & straight man-to-man recently. Last year they bailed on the zone when they started 1-11 and then immediately almost upset UCLA. So that 2-3’s days may be numbered (and Hopkins’s days may be numbered at Washington as well). Side note: Matisse Thybulle in the UW zone was the best perimeter defender I’ve ever seen in college.
That’s the highest-profile example I can think of, though a bunch of schools run zone looks as a changeup if they need it (Xavier and TTU are the two that came to mind, as you already mentioned).
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As Ty called Dukes “they were in that lil zone…”
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Zones are still big in the Pac 12. Pretty much everyone at least has a zone they’ll go to for a portion of the game. Others already mentioned Washington and Oregon running zones as their primary. Oregon State, although they haven’t been good outside do that run last year, is zone heavy too.
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Was it Oregon St that made the run last year? Did they run one?
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Yupp. At least the majority of the time for their Pac 12 tourney and NCAAT runs.
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Loving the zone discussion tbh. Great b-ball knowledge on this board.
NBA has started playing more zone defenses to stop pgs like Trey Young/Luka/Harden.
But on the flipside, Georgia tech was well known for triple option and once Paul Johnson was out they stopped doing it.
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