'He tricked me': Indiana basketball's switch to zone defense stuns Louisville

NEW YORK — Louisville's scouting report for Indiana basketball didn't include anything about the team running zone defense.

Cardinals coach Kenny Payne was plenty familiar with Mike Woodson from their time together on the New York Knicks coaching staff.

That familiarity had Payne convinced Woodson would stick with man-to-man defense.

"I knew Woody wouldn't play zone, or I thought, he tricked me," Payne said.

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Indiana pulled out a 74-66 victory after trailing by as many as seven points down the stretch. Woodson made the switch to a 2-3 zone down five with just under seven minutes to go.

It helped the Hoosiers close out the game on a 19-6 run while forcing four turnovers along the way.

"It forced us out, we stayed out too wide," Payne said. "We didn't move the ball like we've been doing. Then we became passive, we telegraphed passes. One time we looked at a guy for four seconds before we threw a lob, they got a steal. One time we dribbled into it and we got a turnover."

Payne summed up their struggles by saying IU's zone, "knocked us for a loop."

For as well as it worked, Woodson wasn't thrilled having to break the emergency glass. He was frustrated with IU's inability to defend Louisville's pick and rolls out at perimeter. It didn't help that Kel'el Ware and Malik Reneau were playing with four fouls.

They were in the lineup alongside Xavier Johnson, Trey Galloway and Kaleb Banks when Woodson made the change. Banks, who played a season-high 25 minutes, was the lone bench player on the court at time.

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"I'm going to be honest, coach Woodson doesn't like playing zone defense," Johnson said, with a smile. "They were getting downhill a lot, we had to change the game with a zone. It opened up everything for us."

Indiana installed the zone defense early in the preseason, but Woodson and Johnson said the team doesn't work on it very often in practice.

"Always been in our back pocket, never felt the urge to pull it out cause I'm still trying to get our man-to-man defense where it needs to be," Woodson said, with a shake of his head. "It helped us tonight."

Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on Twitter @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Rare zone look from Indiana basketball sends Louisville into tailspin