How Notre Dame's zone defense has become a reliable change-of-pace weapon

No, you don’t need to get your eyes checked. Those numbers are correct.

Notre Dame’s defense is ranked higher than its offense at KenPom. Yes, that’d be a first in Mike Brey’s 27 years as a head coach if it holds.

“When I saw that, I thought maybe the earth would rotate the wrong way on its axis,” Brey said. “What’s going on here? Defensive guru up here. It’s an area we had to get better.”

Brey’s offseason hirings of associate head coach Anthony Solomon and assistant Antoni Wyche were done with defense at top of mind. Both have aided the Irish’s impressive year-over-year jump in KenPom’s defensive efficiency ratings from a Brey-era worst 203^rd last season to 66^th this season.

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As it stands, the latter ranks as Notre Dame’s second best mark since joining the ACC in 2013. The Irish’s No. 3 defensive rating in league games is on track to be their best conference finish under Brey. Twenty-seven years into his career, a coach known for his potent offenses has a team fueled as much by preventing baskets as it is by making them.

Some of the defensive highlights are holding Duke to season lows in points (57) and points per possession (.86) in a Jan. 31 home loss, keeping Miami’s top-25 offense to 64 points in a Feb. 2 win and quelling Kentucky’s No. 5-rated offense (62 points, 1.0 points per possession) in a Dec. 11 victory.

The upside-down KenPom stats are due in part to the Irish’s middling offense by Brey standards (72^nd nationally in efficiency margin, second lowest of his tenure), but they have proven they can guard during this 13-3 stretch since a Dec. 3 loss at Boston College. None of their last five opponents has surpassed 65 points.

Notre Dame remains largely a man-to-man defensive team, but their best weapon is their zone. The Irish use it on just 15.3 percent of possessions, per Synergy, but allows only .821 points per trip – which ranks in the 71^st percentile. Opponents are shooting 37.1 percent against the zone (43.7 percent vs. man) and scoring on 35.3 percent of possessions (41 vs. man) this year.

Notre Dame is not new to zone defenses – it employed one more often last year – but the way the Irish use it and play it has changed. It’s a 2-3 zone largely based on Wyche’s philosophy, which he explained to Brey when they first met to discuss the defensive overhaul. Brey signed off on incorporating it this year on the spot.

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An old cliché about zones is they allow a lot of rhythm three-point attempts. Notre Dame, though, uses its zone to try and take that away. It gives the guards up top a lot more freedom to contest shots and play further out on the perimeter.

“That’s one of our big things, guarding the three-point line,” Wyche said. “It’s a thing that can shift games and create runs. Even though it’s a zone, it has man-to-man principles. You’re not just guarding an area, you’re still kind of responsible for a man.”

Players notice the difference too – in its results and methods.

“They did a great job figuring out how to change our zone up in different ways and be able to not have as many open shots, just have more guys moving around,” guard Prentiss Hubb said. “It’s more like a man-to-man concept, not as much sitting back and letting people come to us.”

Arguably the zone’s best work came in Notre Dame’s most recent game, a 69-57 win at North Carolina State on Saturday. The Irish controlled the opening 10 minutes with their man defense, holding the Wolfpack scoreless until 13:37 remained in the first half. From there, though, North Carolina State needled it with dribble drives and eventually took a 40-37 lead about five minutes into the second half.

Notre Dame promptly made the switch to zone and stuck with it for nearly the remainder of the game. North Carolina State scored 17 points the rest of the way. Only 11 of the Wolfpack’s 36 shot attempts in the second half were three-pointers.

Three days earlier, Notre Dame threw a heavy dose of zone at Miami in the second half.

Any tactic’s usefulness is determined by the situations in which it’s deployed. Part of having a zone defense or any secondary defense as a curveball is knowing when to throw it – or stop throwing it. That’s a collaborative decision on the bench or in timeouts between Brey and his staff. Generally, though, they take the court knowing how much or how little they will use it based on the opponent.

“We talk about it going into games,” Wyche said. “If it’s something we know we’ll use, we try to identify times when to use it, like if there’s certain personnel on the floor that’s more conducive to it. Sometimes it’s dictated by matchups, if there’s an action that’s hurting us. N.C. State was driving us, we were struggling with the staggered ball screen. We had to control their penetration.”

Consider it the zone’s latest success.

“I think we get some confidence from it,” Wyche said.

Notre Dame (16-7, 9-3 ACC) at Louisville (11-12, 5-8)

When: Wednesday, Feb. 9 at 7 p.m. ET

Where: Purcell Pavilion

TV: ESPNU

Radio: Notre Dame basketball radio network

Line: Notre Dame -8

KenPom prediction: Notre Dame 72, Louisville 63

Series history: Louisville leads 27-16

Last meeting: Notre Dame won 82-70 at Louisville on Jan. 22, 2022

Leading scorers:

• Louisville: forward Malik Williams (10.0 points per game), guard Noah Locke (9.8 ppg)

• Notre Dame: guard Dane Goodwin (14.5 ppg), guard Blake Wesley (14.1 ppg)

Other notes:

• Louisville is 11^th and 12^th in offensive and defensive efficiency in ACC games, per KenPom. The Cardinals take more three-pointers than any ACC team in conference play (43.1 percent of their shots), but have made only 35.2 percent of them (ninth in ACC play). The Cardinals were 10-of-21 from three-point range in the first meeting against the Irish, but just 1-of-8 in the second half.

• The last time Notre Dame played the Cardinals turned out to be head coach Chris Mack’s penultimate game in charge. He and Louisville parted ways on Jan. 26, and the program named assistant Mike Pegues the interim that day. Pegues played for Brey at Delaware from 1996-2000. Wednesday will mark the fourth time Brey coaches against one of his former players.

• Wesley put up 14 points on 7-of-13 shooting against North Carolina State. He was 10-of-55 from the field in the prior four games and had 11 combined points in the two most recent outings (Duke and Miami).

• Notre Dame forward Nate Laszewski left less than five minutes into the win at North Carolina State with a lower leg contusion. He will be a game-time decision Wednesday, per Brey.