Mark Pope plans to continue incorporating zone defense looks as season goes along

As the season has gone along, Kentucky men’s basketball head coach Mark Pope has continued to flash zone defensive looks. It’s something he plans on doing the rest of the way, too.

Kentucky is primarily a man-to-man defensive unit. It’s helped the Wildcats settle in as a top 40 defense in the country, per KenPom, one that ranks among the top half of all SEC teams (6th out of 16) since conference play began. But every now and then, Pope breaks out a zone defense — for a handful of reasons, too. It’s a calculated decision that factors in time, score, and even player engagement.

“I think we’ve been solid in picking and choosing our places to use it,” Pope said Thursday when asked about UK’s zone defense. “We may have underutilized some of our changing defense. It’s probably got a little more space in the game for us, but I think we’ve been really strategic, and the numbers have borne out to be pretty positive for us. I think it’s something we’ll use.”

Per Synergy, Kentucky only uses a zone defense in 1.8 percent of its possessions, a relatively low number compared to the rest of the country. But the results have been positive, and Pope has slowly used it more and more in recent games. Kentucky allows just 0.833 points per possession (rated as “very good”, per Synergy, and ranking 55th nationally) when in zone this season. For comparison, UK’s man-to-man look is allowing 0.884 points per possession.

The purpose of Kentucky’s zone defense isn’t solely meant to keep teams from scoring by throwing them off with new looks, although that’s obviously the top priority. Pope will toss in a zone defense to re-engage his players on that end of the floor. With a zone look, defenders are assigned an area and have to focus on everything happening within that space. That mental shift from a player can be just enough for them to “lock back in”, so to speak.

“We’ll use some changing press and some changing defenses, probably in every game as we move forward,” Pope added. “We have just about every game so far this season. And it’s just a way for us to change up the feel a little bit, just give teams a different look. I think sometimes it just helps us refocus on the game. Instead of being focused on the flow of the game or the emotion of the game, it dials you back in like, ‘Okay, I have to think about this possession right now,’ so we’ll continue to use it that way.”

An opponent like Florida, the Wildcats’ next team on the schedule, might be a good team for Kentucky to use even more zone against. The Gators are a poor outside shooting team (30.6 percent in SEC games), which is something a zone defense is prone to giving up. A zone defense also makes a team more likely to give up offensive rebounds, but Florida is already the top rebounding team in the country — the Gators are going to grab boards no matter what.

In limited possessions, a zone look could be just enough of a switch for Kentucky to steal a few extra possessions on defense against Florida.

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