Maybe if you ignore the unseeded NIT year. But even in T-rank’s ‘somehow it can’t include Ryan Dunn’ weird list we are at the same level as that 21/22 team
I agree, although I would add that I believe the regular season is always the time to spread PT around more. It develops guys further, has the team more ready for an untimely injury, and saves stamina for the core guys. I would rather play 9-10 guys rotation minutes in the regular season and then cut back to the 7-8 man core for the tourneys. Obviously that approach would add some risk to the regular season record, but I think it would also add some upside to the postseason potential.
All that said, I don’t think Tony agrees with me.
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It’s also a broad fan vs coach split throughout college basketball. The vast majority of coaches only play 7-8 guys. Most fan bases clamor for a deeper rotation. Way it will probably always be
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We’ve only had the option in 3 of the 14 seasons under CTB. Choice has been made for him by and large with illness and injuries.
So play 10 all year knowing it’s likely to get down to at least 9 and maybe 8 anyway… I just don’t get why we don’t do this every year.
p.s. - Tons of other teams have been able to withstand injuries to a key rotation guy and still make deep March runs. We haven’t.
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Can anyone actually find the tournament teams that made deep runs after sustaining an injury? Specifically, can someone point me to the team that made a deep run after losing a starter during their conference tournament?
I think we’ll see more 4 guard lineups than people anticipate.
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Just eyeballing and already found two:
- Tennessee went to the Sweet 16 after losing Zakai Ziegler a game prior to the conference tourney
- UCLA lost Adem Bona during the conference tourney and Jaylen Clark just before, both starters, and went to the Sweet 16
Keep going?
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So you win two games? I just think the tournament thing is overplayed. We’ve had exactly four tournaments where we were healthy. We went to a round of 32 (lost to MSU), a sweet 16 (lost to MSU), elite 8 (unspeakable), and won a national title. While that’s not Duke levels of success, it feels pretty appropriate
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Are you arguing that a sweet 16 is not a deep run? Whatever you call it, I think it’s pretty good. Beats getting upset by your second straight 13 seed, IMO.
I’m stepping into another debate that I didn’t even start it, but I think the basic point is that we’ve had bad hands and we’ve misplayed our bad hands. Both things are true…
Like, losing Dre right before the tourney was bad luck. Getting curb stomped by a 16 seed in the next game was a misplay. Like, a really really bad misplay.
What are you saying is overplayed? We’ve been bad in the tourney. Mostly because Tony is historically bad in the first round. Once he gets out of that, he’s pretty good. And the natty cures a lot of ills.
Like, I basically agree that when Tony has the right guys and stays healthy then we’ve been awesome in the tourney, by and large, but just starting to constrain the data like this is a serious case of Neckel-itis.
It’s basically saying that “every time we’ve been awesome, we’ve been awesome.” I mean, spot the lie, I guess.
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Like, if I pointed out, "if Mark Mitchell had stayed healthy, then Duke could’ve gone to the final and maybe beaten UConn, that would be both (1) maybe true, and (2) insanely comical to most LRA posters (not you, you’re a Duke lover ;-))
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Auburn lost to us by 1 point with a pretty serious injury
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Should we have done better when we’re hurt? Yeah for sure. But we also don’t have a good understanding of the universe of teams who get banged up. They could have a 25% success rate. Still it’s not a point worth arguing
But I don’t think it’s cherry picking to say that we do well when we’re (fairly) healthy. Plenty of teams are healthy and get upset. Purdue was very healthy and lost to a 16 seed
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What’s our injury excuse from last year? BVP and Reece? Tony never stopped playing them to let them heal, so is that coaching? Also was Reece even really still that hurt by the end of the season? And we’re gonna say that tourney result doesn’t count because our mediocre-shooting unathletic transfer power forward who’d been with us a few months couldn’t play?
Having watched all these exits, I just don’t see how losing to Ohio and Furman were really injury related. We played bad basketball and dudes were completely un-clutch. Neither of our opponents were particularly good, neither played particularly well. We should have beat both. (I’m a little open to the COVID explanation for lack of prep obviously, but I also think it was one of Tony’s worse in-game coaching jobs so I struggle to excuse it away).
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I suspect if you look at the last 5 or so tournaments (skipping 2021, just b/c it would give weird data), and focus on top 5 or so seeds that lost a starter right before the tournament (like, within a week or two), then they are probably doing worse, on average than teams are healthy.
But I also suspect that we would still stick out as an outlier even among those teams, in terms of underperformance.
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The injury excuse is that one of our starters couldn’t play lol. Pretty straightforward. I feel pretty confident saying if BVP plays and we practice before playing against Ohio we win both games. We can never prove either though.
We do pretty well in tournaments where we’re healthy. We do poorly in tournaments where we aren’t. If we are a tournament team this year and we’re healthy, I think we can expect to do well
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Well yeah, this is where we disagree, haha. I am not confident in that at all. So it is. We see it differently.
I also don’t see how a single injury to a guy who is nowhere near our best player or lack of a few practices (although in a historically unique and stressful enviro - so I get it) should be enough to overcome the massive talent disparity between us and the teams we played. And again, they didn’t even play well! Go back and look at those box scores. Neither of those teams even had good games - we just were terrible.
I tend to think chalking it all up to injury is just an easy way out of having to confront that we’ve had some issues - whether they are coaching or player leadership or whatever - the past few years in the tourney. But that’s just me. And as I always point out, I don’t really know anything.
I actually said something about BVP during the season that, for all his faults, he would probably help us avoid the inevitable disappointment to a mid-major in round 1. So blame me… 
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Hold up. Didnt BVP play for Ohio???
Hahahha
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I believe Houser/Huff were a combined 2/14 from 3 in the Ohio game. Which could be attributed to not practicing for a week but seemed that we waited to the last few minutes of the game to try something different when Beekman started taking the ball to the basket. Correct me if I am remembering it wrong. I believe that one of the Hoos Place guys did a write up on the game about how Ohio made a run out of every time out. I don’t think it was one of TB’s best coached games even considering the Covid break. BVP or not it was ridiculous to lose to Furman. Our experienced player didn’t get the job done.
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Kansas State 2018 is the golden example imo. Mike McGuirl. But of course they benefited from us and Arizona being upset