Kentucky versus the Zone

ESPN's College Basketball Nation Blog had an interesting statistic about Kentucky's performance versus zone defense. Here's the excerpt:

"(2) Kentucky at Tennessee, Noon ET

Key stat: In its first two conference games of the season, Kentucky has shot 50 percent against zone defenses and 39 percent against man-to-man. That’s noteworthy, because the Wildcats have faced zone defenses on about 60 percent of their offensive possessions in those two games."

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/44615/stats-in-the-paint-weekend-outlook

What do we make of this? Well, we probably dismiss it due to small sample size. It does, however, provide some evidence that the Cats are not as miserable at zone offense as some might assume given their dependence on points in the paint. My eyeballs told me that the reason the Cats had trouble with Auburn's defense was that Auburn switched between a Raftery-esque "Mantaman" and a zone repeatedly and the Cats didn't modify their offensive attack quickly enough. That and the already much discussed lack of effort. So fear not the zone. No team with TJ, Gillie the Kidd, and the nickname-less Darius Miller should have trouble with anything less than a great zone defense.