My Two Cents: Now That Hoosiers Play Zone, Here's 3 Other Unique Ideas

We thought we'd never see an Indiana basketball team play a zone defense, but now that we have, here are three other novel ideas for the Hoosiers. Let's see a few more things we never get to see.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it. But there they were, in their red jerseys with Indiana on the front and no names on the back, playing a zone defense.

A zone friggin' defense.

The head coach who made that decision, Indiana's Mike Woodson, played for Bob Knight at Indiana for four years from 1976 through 1980 — and he never once played zone defense. His beloved head coach didn't believe in it. He thought only lazy teams that didn't want to play hard used zone defenses.

After leaving Indiana, Woodson spent nearly four decades in the NBA as a player and a coach, and zone defenses weren't allowed in that league for the early part of his time in the league. And even when rules were relaxed about zones in 2002, he wasn't a believer and rarely used them. 

But when Indiana was in severe foul trouble on Monday against Louisville, and was trailing the Cardinals by six with a little more than nine minutes to go, Woodson switched things up. He went to a wide 2-3 zone, and Louisville's offense ground to a halt. They scored a total of six points in nine minutes, and Indiana went on a 13-0 run to pull away.

The zone, the friggin' zone, worked to perfection, and Indiana had its fourth win in five tries.

In the postgame press conferences, Indiana guard Xavier Johnson said they ''never'' practice zone defense, because “I’ll be honest, Coach Woodson doesn’t like playing zone defense.''

Woodson had a slightly different take, saying they put it in this summer, as a way to go from its 2-2-1 zone press and falling back into the 2-3 zone. 

Purely by coincidence, I was staying in the same hotel in New York as the Indiana team, and I ran into Indiana assistant Yasir Rosemond on Monday night. So I asked him to tell me the whole story, and what was real about what Johnson and Woodson said.

"Well, they're both kind of right,'' he said. "We did put it in during the summer and we worked on it for like part of a day, sort of 'when we're in this, we can fall back into that,' very general stuff. We've never practiced it since. Talked about it a few times, but never used it, never really worked on it again.

"But it sure as hell worked tonight. They ran it great and it shut them down offensively. And we got a lot of easy baskets in transition, too. Once they started to miss so many shots, we were able to get out on and run. That's when we're at our best.''

Woodson and Louisville coach Kenny Payne have been friends for a long time, and even coached together for a bit in the NBA. Payne said Woodson ''tricked me,'' by playing zone, because Woodson doesn't play zone. Payne admitted they never practiced for Indiana's zone, ''not for even a second.''

The zone surprise? It worked.

Now let's be clear on something. The Indiana zone worked because it came as a complete surprise. We will NOT see Indiana playing zone for 40 minutes a game going forward. Woodson is a man-to-man coach, at his bones. 

But it's in the tool belt now, so I feel very confident we'll see it again, but just in small doses. There will be times it will actually help, because sophomore forward Malik Reneau, their best offensive weapon, is crazy foul-prone. And freshman Mackenzie Mgbako seems to have no clue how to play Indiana's man-to-man defense. He's been a huge defensive liability, and playing some zone might help him, too.

And since we're scratching new surfaces here, how about three other "out-of-the-blue'' ideas we never see? Such as:

1. Run isolation plays for Mgbako

Mackenzie Mgbako came to Indiana as a highly touted 5-star recruit, a top-20 player nationally, but he's really struggled through the Hoosiers' first five games on both sides of the court.

He was supposed to have scoring skills at all three levels, but he's 1-for-13 from three-point range — and 7-for-12 from two. Indiana needs to get him more twos. Woodson and Calbert Cheaney are the two best small forwards in Indiana basketball history, and they work together on this Indiana staff every day. Woodson coached Carmelo Anthony with the New York Knicks, and only ran about a billion isolation plays for the future Hall of Famer, one of the best small forwards to ever play the game.

Do that for Mjbako now, and see if that gets him going, because if Indiana wants to be really good this year, they'll need Mgbako to be a star. Let him get the ball on the wing, and let his driving ability take over. Spread everyone out enough so that his defender can't get much help. It just might work, because he can blow by people and finish hard at the rim.

Indiana's Mackenzie Mgbako (21) drives against Wright State's AJ Braun (12) at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in November :: Rich Janzaruk/USA TODAY Sports

2. Give Reneau more room inside

What we've learned through five games so far is that Malik Reneau has a lot of great post-up moves down on the blocks. It's very clear that he learned a lot from Trayce Jackson-Davis last year, and there are a lot of similarities to their games.

In the two games in New York, Reneau saw a lot of double teams. He fought through many of them, but it certainly showed a blueprint for others in how to slow him down. With 7-footer Kel'el Ware also down in the paint, Reneau was an easy double. It was too crowded far too often.

I know Woodson would love to have Ware mix it up down low more, but there are two realities with him. One, he doesn't really have good post moves of his own, and secondly, he can knock down 3-pointers pretty well. He's 3-for-7 so far, a 42.9 percent clip.

I'd love to see more four-out actions so Reneau could have a little more room to operate. And if the doubles come from off the 3-point line, maybe the Hoosiers — who are desperate for more 3-point shooting — might actually get some better looks. That might help the overall offense picture much more.

Indiana's Anthony Leal (3) celebrates with Xavier Johnson (0) after making a three-quarter court shot in the skills competition during Hoosier Hysteria in October :: Rich Janzaruk/USA TODAY Sports

3. Give Anthony Leal a shot 

Indiana has been horrible from 3-point range so far, like worst in college basketball bad. They rank No. 344 out of 351 teams in 3-point shooting percentage, at 23.44. They are No. 349 in attempts, at just 12.8 per game. (BYU, for instance, is first with 33.6 3-point attempts per game.)

Mgbako, as we mentioned, is 1-for-13. C.J. Gunn, who went 2-for-24 from deep last year, is 0-for-4 so far. So is Reneau. Trey Galloway, who shot 46.2 percent from deep last year, is just 3-for-14 this year, a dismal 21.4 percent. Even freshman Gabe Cupps, who could shoot it in high school, has made only two long balls all year.

Something needs to change, of course, because this isn't working, despite the 4-1 record. It's not sustainable. They've been outshot 49-15 from deep, which means they've allowed more than 100 extra points behind the line in just FIVE games.

What if the spark off the bench came from senior Anthony Leal? His playing time has been severely limited the past couple of years, and he hasn't even played a minute yet this year. He's the only one who hasn't. (The 12th scholarship player, Jakai Newton, is out with a knee injury.) 

It's strange as to why. He scored 1,620 points at Bloomington South High School, and was a noted perimeter shooter. He is still a fan favorite. In very limited minutes during his time at Indiana, he's made 31 percent of his threes.

Getting so little out of everyone else, why not throw Leal in there and see what he can do? Making only three 3-pointers a game won't cut it. Shooting only 12 a game doesn't cut it, either. 

Spread out the floor like we talked about above. And have shooters on the floor. Maybe Leal could do that. Maybe he can't, but let's at least give it a look. Give him 10 minutes on Sunday when the Hoosiers play Harvard in Indianapolis.

If the Hoosiers can play zone defense, then maybe they could release a shooter, too.

Related stories on Indiana basketball

• 3-POINT STRUGGLES: After a loss to UConn and a win over Louisville in the Empire Classic, opposing head coaches Dan Hurley and Kenny Payne had similar takeaways about Indiana, as the Hoosiers shot 4-for-24 from 3-point range in two games. CLICK HERE
• GAME STORY: Indiana doesn't play zone defense under Mike Woodson, but they broke it out late in the second half, and it worked to perfection in a 74-66 win over Louisville in New York. A 23-6 run spurred by the defensive switch flipped the script, helping the Hoosiers get to 4-1. Here is Tom Brew's game story. CLICK HERE
• WHAT MIKE WOODSON SAID: Here's everything Indiana coach Mike Woodson said after the Hoosiers' 74-66 win over Louisville in the Empire Classic at Madison Square Garden. CLICK HERE
• TOM BREW COLUMN: It turns out winning ugly has its rewards. Indiana shouldn't have had to play a lot of close games in their first week of the season, but they did and there was one huge positive that came out of it. They learned to make big plays down the stretch, and close out games. CLICK HERE
• FULL INDIANA SCHEDULE: Here is the full schedule for Indiana this season, with dates, opponents, game times and TV information, plus links to stories on all the games played so far. CLICK HERE