Just trying to keep it simple and make a comment about yesterday's game.

When St. Joe's made their run, Madsen switched to a zone. My feeling was after a couple of sequences it looked like the zone we used made things even worse. St. Joe's had no problem with it, allowed them to get open threes that accelerated their comeback, and caused our defensive rebounding to drop a notch lower than it already was. I think Madsen is a good coach. But I think he should have got out of that zone sooner than later.

100%. But this game was lost on offense; too many low % shots down the stretch. Scoreless for last two minutes of game. Last bucket dropped just inside the 4 minute mark.

Madsen should have burned some TO's durum their design some plays.

RedlessWardrobe said:

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Just trying to keep it simple and make a comment about yesterday's game.

When St. Joe's made their run, Madsen switched to a zone. My feeling was after a couple of sequences it looked like the zone we used made things even worse. St. Joe's had no problem with it, allowed them to get open threes that accelerated their comeback, and caused our defensive rebounding to drop a notch lower than it already was. I think Madsen is a good coach. But I think he should have got out of that zone sooner than later.

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The common thought is that playing zone is somehow easier than man v man. It's not. A team has to practice it a lot to get proficient - just like a full-court press. Obviously, Madsen chooses not to spend a lot of practice time on zone defense and it showed in the St. Joe's game. That doesn't mean a team can't throw in a zone defense as a change of pace for a minute or two, but longer than that gives the opposition time to make an adjustment, even if they have to call a time-out to do so. Cal stayed in the zone for too long.