In Wake Forest’s 89-84 win over Virginia Tech on Saturday, the Deacs went to a zone defense in the second half that seemed to confuse a lot of people (including me). Was Wake Forest starting in zone and then switching to man? After doing some research and rewatching the 2nd half, it is my opinion that the Deacs were playing a basic 2-3 matchup zone for most of the second half. First I’ll give some basics of the matchup zone, and then I’ll explain the play that is probably causing most of the confusion.
The first thing to understand about the 2-3 matchup zone is that it is a 2-3 in name only.