More teams seem to be switching to the zone defense over man-to-man and that might increase given the success of Washington and first-year coach Mike Hopkins, a disciple of zone guru Jim Boeheim at Syracuse.
When Dana Altman arrived at Oregon in 2010, only one other men’s basketball team in what was then the Pac-10 played some variation of a zone defense.
From Los Angeles to the Bay Area and from the Northwest to Arizona, everyone – with the exception of Oregon and Oregon State — relied exclusively on a man-to-man defensive scheme.
Fast forward eight years and the popularity of the zone defense, which was once considered a gimmicky strategy employed by teams with inferior athletes, has expanded to every corner of the conference.