Coach K Ponders, To Zone or Not to Zone

Via Yahoo! and ACC Now, Duke may play some zone defense in the upcoming season due to the lack of depth in their backcourt which will prevent them from playing their up-the-line-on-the-line pressure M2M defense exclusively, the kind of defense Coach K is known for. According to Kyle Singler:

"What we've been talking about... is we might be playing a little more zone this year than in years past. That might not be the way Coach [Mike Krzyzewski] wants to do it, but with the personnel that we have, we are a big team."

To be honest, I thought that Duke should've switched up their defense at times last season, especially in the UNC game where Ty Lawson went crazy in the second half.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that I'm not big on zone defenses as a base, but I think the place for zone defenses is during in-game adjustments. As a coach who is a firm believer in M2M defense as a base, I think it would crazy to not have a few zone defenses at your disposal to use when the game situation calls for it. Would a zone defense have allowed Duke to beat UNC last year? Maybe not, but it was clear that they were never going to be beat UNC playing up-the-line-on-the-line M2M exclusively. I thought for sure that Coach K would make a change at halftime, but he never did.