-Jim Root

After pouting for a few weeks due to COVID-19 assassinating the 2020 NCAA Tournament in cold blood, I’m finally peeling myself off the floor (yes, I’ve been laying on the floor) and putting some words down onto virtual paper. There are only so many movies (I’ve watched 30!) and TV shows (two seasons of Succession, two of Breaking Bad so far) that a person can watch before the itch to be productive finally returns. And while preparation for 2020-21 previews has begun in earnest, I needed to put something out sooner than that.  

I’ve always been fascinated by coaches who are willing to make sweeping changes to their style in order to maximize their team’s potential; think Tony Bennett embracing the continuity ball screen offense en route to a national championship last year. In doing so, these coaches often establish a “new normal” of sorts, which just so happens to be my colleague Ky’s favorite coronavirus-adjacent term – please tweet @Ky_3MW and ask him his favorite aspects of the “new normal,” he’ll love it.

Not all changes result in cutting down the nets on a glorious April Monday; in fact, some are actively harmful (like Kevin Stallings opting not to run an offense in 2017-18). I’m taking a positive approach to this analysis (for now, at least), and focusing on five squads whose defense took a massive step forward while switching from a mix of zone or zone-dominant schemes to almost exclusively man-to-man.

Another important, and maybe obvious, factor: I focused only on teams that kept the same coach, because a change at the top can signal a scheme alteration by itself. It’s more enlightening to zero in on coaches who fundamentally played differently, and Richmond, Baylor, USC, Wyoming, and Stanford all qualify. Just take a look at the data:

All five teams saw massive decreases in zone usage (each ranking among the 20 biggest year-over-year drops in the country), and the defensive improvement is clear as well: Baylor, USC, and Stanford went from solid to elite, while Richmond and Wyoming rescued disasters to become respectable. The “how” and “why” varies for each squad, so let us delve into them individually…

Richmond

Key Personnel Changes: Blake Francis and Nick Sherod taking over on the wings

The Itsy-Bitsy Spiders were one of the more surprising teams on this list for me; Chris Mooney has been one of the most distinct coaches on both ends of the court for years. Offensively, Mooney is a devout Princeton acolyte (he played for Pete Carril from 1990-94), and the Spiders mixed in a ton of 1-3-1 on the other end. Mooney has been in Richmond since 2005 (to the chagrin of certain Spider fans), and this year’s shift to man-to-man is a complete subversion of his coaching history:

It’s not quite Jim Boeheim suddenly ditching the 2-3, but it’s a seismic change for a coach who, quite frankly, needed a jolt of positive momentum.

The 2018-19 Spiders were notably short-handed on the wing: Nick Sherod tore an ACL six games into the season, former A-10 Freshman of the Year De’Monte Buckingham had been dismissed in the offseason and transferred, and Blake Francis had to sit out the year as part of his own transfer from Wagner. Sherod’s return and Francis becoming eligible upped the team’s athleticism significantly; Sherod is built like a strong safety, and Francis is exceptionally quick. That allowed the guard rotation to more ably keep would-be drivers out of the paint, making man-to-man a more viable option. Plus, it further unleashed demon banshee point guard Jacob Gilyard, a 5’9 pest who ranked second in the country in steals per game (behind Division I newbie Juvaris Hayes).

Contrary to perception that playing less zone would lead to fewer threes, the Spiders gave up quite a few more triples while playing man, ranking 283rd in defensive 3PA rate after an average rank of 101st the past five seasons. The Spiders packed the paint more, greatly boosting the team’s interior defense and perfectly playing into the three-point distance being lengthened this year, making the shot incrementally more challenging. The one concern for next year: opponents went ice cold from deep against the Spiders, particularly in conference play (29.3%, 2nd-lowest in the A-10), and a return to “average” shooting could undo a lot of the progress seen this season.

Baylor

Key Personnel Changes: Davion Mitchell at PG, more Freddie Gillespie at C

Like Mooney, Scott Drew was the purveyor of one of college basketball’s more unique defenses: a morphing blob of a matchup zone, initially aligned in a kind of 1-1-3 setup that prioritized taking away the vulnerable foul line. Drew had some success with that defense, ranking inside KenPom’s top 25 in AdjDE in three of four seasons from 2015-2018, but the addition of a mad dog on-ball defender in Davion Mitchell finally emboldened Drew to go to man-to-man full-time (actually, 98.0% of the time, per Synergy), adopting the “no middle” style run so successfully by Chris Beard’s Texas Tech squads (among others).

Of course, Mitchell wasn’t the only factor, as Freddie Gillespie and Mark Vital both emerged as nationally elite defenders at their positions, as well, and the Bears’ defense rose to a level never before seen under Drew. The Bears ranked in the top 25 nationally in both defensive turnover rate (22nd) and effective field goal percentage (15th), the only team in the country to do so (next closest: Stanford, who ranked 27th and 21st, respectively – more on the Cardinal below). The aggression needed to force that many miscues often leads to easy cuts and drives (read: lay-ups), but the Bears’ overall athleticism and discipline allowed them to have their cake and eat it too.

USC

Key Personnel Changes: Onyeka Okongwu anchoring the paint, Bennie Boatwright gone

We’ve been as harsh on Andy Enfield as any outlet in the college hoops sphere, even getting rejected for credentials at a USC game for, um, dubious reasons. But we are resolute in our objectivity here at 3MW, allowing me to proclaim that Enfield smartly flipped the defensive switch from zone to man this season, and the Trojans saw a tremendous boost on that end as a result.

During the preseason, Enfield made us nervous with his plan to play all three of his intimidating bigs together (senior Nik Rakocevic, freshmen Onyeka Okongwu and Isaiah Mobley), which admittedly could have made for a monstrous back line in a 2-3 zone, but would have limited the Trojans in other ways. And he did experiment with it, rolling out that trio for 72 possessions (roughly the equivalent of one full game) in the season’s first 10 games, per Hoop Lens. During that time, according to Synergy, USC played zone on 14.1% of its defensive possessions (already a huge downshift from ~45% the previous two years).

Over the season’s final 21 games, though, those three played just 35 possessions together, as Enfield fully embraced man-to-man. USC’s season-long zone rate was just 7.0%; the wonders of algebra tell me USC went man-to-man around 96.5% of the time for the remainder of the year. And lo and behold, the Trojans had, by a huge margin, the best defense of the Enfield era. USC’s previous high defensive rank was 80th, compared to an impressive final finish of 18th this year.

Enfield has always had the size and athletes to play man-to-man; after all, his greatest strength as a coach is his ability to continuously bring in raw talent, so it was always bewildering for us to see the Trojans play passive zones. Better late than never, though, and the Trojans’ defense could raise the program floor in future seasons.

Wyoming

Key Personnel Changes: Having healthy players!

Wyoming is a unique example on this list in that the Cowboys played zone largely out of necessity in 2018-19. They were absolutely ravaged by injuries that season, with Coach Allen Edwards being forced to use 15 different starting lineups over the course of 32 games while six different players that started five or more games missing multiple weeks (or more). Only Justin James started all 32, and only one other player (A.J. Banks) saw action in every contest.

That limited rotation (Edwards was down to seven healthy bodies for parts of the year) made it difficult to play man-to-man for a multitude of reasons: lack of depth, lack of quickness, lack of size, etc., and the defense tumbled as his patchwork roster employed a sieve of a zone. That was, by far, the worst year Wyoming has ever had in the KenPom era.

Unfortunately, even after seeing the noted improvement defensively, Wyoming was miserable again this year (the anemic offense did not improve), and after two 20-win seasons to start his tenure in Laramie, Edwards is gone. In steps Jeff Linder, the mastermind behind Northern Colorado’s recent run of success in the Big Sky, and a coach who will play exclusively man-to-man.

Stanford

Key Personnel Changes: Oscar Da Silva moving to C, Spencer Jones/Tyrell Terry in for Marcus Sheffield/Cormac Ryan

I did not expect to see Stanford here, as I’ve never thought of Jerod Haase as a zone guy, but Stanford was just above 30% the last two years in terms of zone possessions. That was a slight uptick from his UAB days, but last year’s elite Cardinal defense went all man, all the time.

Personnel changes were a big reason in this case. In prior seasons, Haase’s guards weren’t reputed as great individual defenders: Cormac Ryan (now at Notre Dame) lacked the foot speed, and Marcus Sheffield was already dreaming of launching 20 shots a game at Elon, even before transferring. But in Daejon Davis and Tyrell Terry, Haase had two stout one-on-one perimeter defenders who could consistently prevent easy drives to the basket.

The other key was downshifting, size-wise, and playing Oscar Da Silva at center and Jaden Delaire or Spencer Jones at power forward. Da Silva and Delaire are fluid athletes for their size, and they opened up the option of switching more frequently against all kinds of screening action. Watch Delaire seamlessly switch onto a ball-handler here, eventually forcing a dead ball situation as Davis and Terry denied their men:

Da Silva’s influence on the Cardinal’s defense was particularly clear via Hoop Lens on/off numbers, with opponents’ eFG% tumbling when he took the court:

With Terry likely headed to the professional ranks after just one season in Palo Alto, it will be telling to see if Haase sticks to the relentless man-to-man or has to back off a bit. Next year’s Cardinal may have to roll out a slightly bigger lineup or have another freshman, Noah Taitz, sliding into Terry’s spot.

Quick Bonus Post-Script

Trying to identify power conference or high-major zone-heavy teams who could similarly shift to a man-to-man heavy system next year is tough. Most teams that frequently went zone did so effectively (Syracuse, Washington, Tulane, Tulsa, Georgia Tech) or don’t project to have the personnel changes to get much better (Iowa, San Jose State, Oregon State). The one team that I’d love to see play more man-to-man is Wake Forest, who zoned on 27% of possessions this year. The Demon Deacons have the athleticism and perimeter size to be far better on this end, although it’s probably more of a “Danny Manning can’t teach defense” issue, considering the best AdjDE ranking Wake has ever achieved under his direction is 125th. Woof.