Believing another wave of zone defenses would greet his Wildcats this season, Arizona coach Sean Miller often assigned some of his players to form zone schemes for his offenses to practice against this fall.
It was a necessity, even for a man-to-man devotee such as Miller. More and more in recent seasons, Pac-12 teams have thrown zones at the Wildcats: Mike Hopkins brought Syracuse’s infamous 2-3 zone to Washington, Oregon State’s Wayne Tinkle has a matchup zone and 1-3-1 in his pocket, while Utah’s Larry Krystkowiak and now UCLA’s Mick Cronin use a mix of zone and man defenses.