Duke and Zone Defense

As someone who has never played organised basketball, I’d always been under the impression it was harder for players to learn how to defend in a zone as opposed to man to man? So if they have enough time to install a zone defence, they had more than enough to learn man to man. Teams that go to zone are ones that have always run that system (like Syracuse) or matchup driven (playing against strong interior teams with little outside threat).

As far as Bagley being too slow-footed – that is completely wrong. He’s an agile big who can move laterally and stay in front of his man, Perfect for man to man or zone defence.

I think they played zone because of their personnel 1 thru 5, and their depth(or lack of), 3 guards 2 forwards, no blue collars type that time.

Bagley’s real bad, but not because he’s slow footed.

Coach K needed them top play 30-40 mins a night(energy, foul trouble) just like Boeheim did for years, owning the boards and their offensive fire power "was enough", Carter was the most exposed, and he had a "body" to back him up.

 I believe it was a combination of serious lack of depth in the post and Bagley and Carter were just terrible defenders. Coach K is known for not using his bench and if Allen, Trent, Bagley and Carter weren’t playing 30 plus minutes, Duke was not going anywhere.  As gifted as Bagley was offensively, man he was a bad defender.  I think Wendell Carter was bad but not as bad as Bagley.  As a so called "defensive" coach, K sure dropped the ball on teaching these guys any sort of post defense.  Possibly because he knew he needed them on offensive so much and played the zone in hopes of covering up their weaknesses.  For the most part, it did work, they came within an Allen runner of a final four trip