The Hawaii men’s basketball team has been in a zone.
Defensively, that is — though the same could be said of the Rainbow Warriors’ rhythm so far in the 2014-15 season.
Heaping helpings of zone defense, of both the 1-2-2 and 2-3 varieties, has helped UH (7-2) hold opponents to 40.2 percent shooting from the field through nine games.
On Tuesday night, Delaware State shot 37.7 percent as UH prevailed 75-60 and won for the fifth time in six games heading into Saturday’s matchup against BYU (6-2) at EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake City. Coach Benjy Taylor directed his team into a successful zone for much of the second half against the Hornets once big men Mike Thomas and Stefan Jovanovic both got into early foul trouble.
Taylor prefers man-to-man defense, but has shown he is not averse to opening games with zone as well.
"It’s not really foul trouble (why we go zone), it’s just a feel for what we’re trying to dictate," Taylor said. "We really want to dictate our will in terms of the tempo of the game. Sometimes we have to go zone to do that, throw them off a little bit. … We don’t want to be predictable; that’s never any good. We go off scout, personnel, who’s in the game, who’s not in the game for us."
The 1-2-2 zone allows UH to be aggressive on the perimeter, trapping and hunting passing lanes. The 2-3 zone is preferable against a better low-post presence, and usually when 6-11 center Stefan Jovanovic is in the game to anchor the middle.
"So far it’s worked out for us and hopefully it will continue," Taylor said. "The guys have done well making the adjustment (between defenses) and we’re getting better at it. We don’t like to play a lot of it, but we’re getting better at it."
UH did some preliminary scout work Wednesday evening on the BYU Cougars, the highest-scoring team in the country (95.1 ppg). UH was to depart for Salt Lake City via Los Angeles early Thursday morning. It will travel most of the day.
Stats corrected
Early Wednesday morning, UH issued a corrected box score from the DSU game.
There were several minor changes, but most notably, UH forward Mike Thomas had nine rebounds instead of four; forward Aaron Valdes had seven rebounds instead of four; swingman Negus Webster-Chan had three rebounds instead of eight; point guard Roderick Bobbitt had seven assists, not six; and shooting guard Garrett Nevels went 2-for-2 on 3-pointers, not 2-for-3.
