If you don’t know any better, you would think high school is just about being tall, athletic, and favoring the sweet jump shot or a pure ability to jump. That’s only part of it and only takes into account the surface of the game. The heart of the high school basketball game is strategy and playing together at a team. Any high school basketball coach and for that matter, any winning prep bball team knows full well that there’s more to it. The style of defense figures right into this calculation and the question of man versus zone eventually comes into play. Let’s look at man versus zone defense at the high school basketball level.

First, what is man and what is zone defense. On the surface, they’re pretty easy to understand. With man defense (can also be used for girls high school basketball by the way) is when each player is dedicated to defending or covering another person on the opposing team. For the most part outside of successful screens, you stay on your opponent and trust that your teammates will also stay on theirs. Zone is different. Rather than covering a particular person, you’re responsible for an area of the floor. As players come into your zone, you D them up. This is a little more advanced and complicated for high school hoop players to wrap their heads around. There’s a constant movement and adjustment on the floor to follow the offense or the ball as it moves around the floor. Let’s dig deeper into when to use either and pro’s and con’s of both high school basketball defenses.

The defense you plan to use really depends on the make up of your team’s athletic ability and to some extent, the opposing team’s offensive ability. On average, man defense will result in more one on one situations and screens since this is the best way to game open shots. If the offense is too fast for your team’s defensive ability or if they screen often and well, man defense may prove to be a liability. Also, if you have a weakness on the floor, the zone can be used to offset this as surrounding zones can sink in and help. So why not always use a zone defense at the high school level? There are always trade-offs.

If your offense is faced with a zone, it’s time to long-range bomb. A zone will favor the outside shot as defensive players have to cover a lot of ground and rotate around to get to the shooter. This can provide opportunities for any of the shooters on your team to light it up from outside. Let’s face it…the ball moves faster than any player can and when it swings from one side of the arc to the other, the waiting shooter will have a second or two before the defensive player can get there. That’s the time to strike and often when a team switches out of zone defense, it’s because the offense has been punching holes in their zone with long range (especially 3 point) shots.

Some teams stick with one defense while other high school teams will bounce back and forth but this takes a lot of knowledge of both methods which is hard to come by at such an early age. If a team is able to successfully juggle this, it makes them pretty formidable as it constantly keeps the opposing team’s offense off balance. They are not able to get into a rhythm over the course of the game which is critical to winning a high school basketball game since so much of it is about confidence in your shot and finding a routine. There are times for both man and zone defense even at the high school level and they will both be around as long as the game is due to their various strengths and uses.

Dennis Jarvis writes about high school sports and prep sports with fantasy league at
www.prepsportfantasy.com including high school football, basketball, and baseball.

Dennis Jarvis writes about high school sports and prep sports with fantasy league at http://www.prepsportfantasy.com including high school football, basketball, and baseball.

Author Bio: Dennis Jarvis writes about high school sports and prep sports with fantasy league at
www.prepsportfantasy.com including high school football, basketball, and baseball.

Category: Sports
Keywords: high school basketball, high school sports, prep basketball, prep sports,basketball season