I agree with most of your other points, but can’t really get on board with this thesis. Randomness works both ways, so I’d expect things to favor the hypothetical team as often as it worked against them, especially over a large sample of games. I also think that 60 possessions is probably a probably a better predictor of how an additional 15 possessions would play out than whatever the hypothetical team’s average was coming into the game.
To transition from a hypothetical to our recent experiences, a slower pace does place greater emphasis on a single possession or group of possessions so being consistent across all possessions (continuous in Tony’s language) is of greater importance relative to a higher paced game. Our issue, especially over the last few seasons, is that we’ve struggled to consistently run good offense. If we run good offense against Furman’s zone last year, then Kihei’s bone-headed pass is irrelevant/never happens, and we advance to SDSU. I agree with others, and with you that our DFL pace ranking is partially fed by the futility of our offensive system and would love to see us push the pace strategically.
I don’t think it takes much extra effort to get into the halfcourt set faster, then slow down. You keep the other team on edge and make it harder for them to get a breather vs just walking it up the court. I get jealous when I see teams with grab and go wings/forwards. We have no variance when we always get a RB and look for the PG
Fair point, but they also were a pretty bad offensive team with length and athleticism that liked to play grind out defense too. That game was, in hindsight, a lot closer than it should have been – and if I recall we blew a pretty sizable lead and did have to answer a scoring run towards the end even though it was a low scoring grinder.
As the guy who started the debate-around-pace rabbit hole on this thread, I do want to circle back and say how great this article is (even if a little negative…but the last few years likely warrant it).
I will say that the article calls out a few things that I do think have structurally contributed to our early tournament exits (more so than pace, imo), namely:
A defense that shuts down the paint and dares offenses to shoot over the pack → When you are playing midmajors that live and die by the 3 (and increasingly so as basketball has evoloved), coming in with confidence as champions, and liable to get hot in a one-off game, you open yourself up to upsets more than a team that plays pressure defense.
An offense that doesn’t focus on post looks when playing a team with less size and athleticism
The tendency to “run your stuff” instead of consistently picking on the weak links on an undermanned mid major through deliberate matchup exploitation.
*General mental tightness vs playing loose mid major champions – a function of several things, but notably how “by the book” we run our stuff.
Hey there thanks for the thoughts - I think we agree mostly actually and the difference is more with the tone in how we’re thinking about these things. We’re still a good program. I think we need some broad strategic changes to become a great program again and I don’t think much of what we’ve seen indicates those kinds of changes are coming. But that doesn’t mean more minor changes can’t help some (although I do worry about all of this snowballing and I’d rather us try to significantly course-correct before we get to a more obvious inflection point)
Just a few points of clarification:
It’s not that redshirting no longer works. I’m fine with redshirting players like Robinson and Bliss where that was the clear intent when they committed, aren’t a big risk to leave, and aren’t the end of the world if they would anyway (speaking more to Robinson here, Bliss was his own thing entirely coming early for the purpose of redshirting - I like that move). But the juice isn’t worth the squeeze with highly talented/sought after players like Gertrude, with a high ceiling, who we would be disappointed to lose, who are betting on themselves to earn time and would be disappointed not to, and who could contribute now. Even if he stuck around this year because he rocks (and didn’t fully redshirt), that’s not a gamble we should be replicating. You need to find ways to get these guys on the court (which I think we agree on about Gertrude).
I’ve done about as deep of a dive/research on the Kadin thing as one can, I think, because it was so perplexing. Without relitigating, it started that way and could have been handled WAY better from everyone but especially our staff who are the ones in charge of everything, and I’ll leave it at that. Communication issues abound. By the way, did you all see that Reece, Ryan, Leon, Andrew and Chase went to see Kadin play against CSU? I thought that was cool.
I didn’t say to ditch the packline - I said practice it less, be willing to compromise with some of your adjustments, play your athletes, and stop benching guys for mental mistakes - let them play through it - all adjustments in concert with improving your offense and keeping your most impactful players on the floor.
Lineup decisions have been quite bad for three years - but I do think it coincides with player mobility and plays into the rigor around rotations and mistake free offense. Making those updates to philosophy would probably help here.
I went back and checked the play by play because I wasn’t remembering it the same way. My main memory is it tipped off very late and I was a nervous wreck in the final minutes.
Our biggest lead was 8 points and that was early in the second half. It was basically within 5 points for the final 15 minutes of the game. There wasn’t really a scoring run late in the game. Oregon had a 8-0 run in the middle of the second half to take a lead. They led by 3 with about 6 minutes left then Kihei and Jerome made big 3’s to put us ahead. There was very little scoring in the final 5 minutes.
If your true baseline shooting percentage from three is 36%, you’re probably going to be closer to that number with 75 attempts than with 60 attempts.
If your baseline expectation would be scoring 1.2ppp against an opponent and allowing 1.0ppp against an opponent, you should be in a better position after 75 possessions than 60 because there are more opportunities to replicate the expected result, and the inverse is true for the underdog.
Now, if an opponent would score 1.15 ppp in a 75 possession game vs. 1.0 in a 60 possession game, that’s a different discussion. But on a conceptual level, if the PPP isn’t changing, the favored team is going to benefit from more possessions.
I should just say - at its core, all of these ancillary issues: pace, lineups, player PT, recruiting and talent, all boil down to the fundamental issue of our program’s relationship with offense (or lack thereof).
If we were to make a fundamental shift to significantly improve that side of the ball in a true and meaningful way, the rest of the stuff would probably sort itself out. I outline them more as problems that stem from the current reality that, sure, we might be able to address individually, but aren’t really the fix themselves - they’d more be additional benefits/improvements if we actually fixed the big thing.
The issue isn’t retention of redshirts … it’s simply whether it makes the roster and team better by trying to keep guys 5 years in the current environment. What’s the point if they only stay 2 or 3 or 4 years anyway?
I don’t think many of us would have had near the clamor about Eli’s playing time if he were playing behind a 5th year Armaan that was as good as or better than 4th year Armaan. But he was playing behind the worst 2 Power 6 guards in the nation…. And that’s objectively true.
Those players should play and would help out of the gate compared to the alternative… and when they see themselves playing behind guys like that (or more talented guys for that matter) they’re more likely not to stick it out so there’s an increased (and significant risk) we won’t benefit from them at all.
I don’t think we’re “trying” to do that. We’re just doing it because our recruiting has been shit for years after the title. Roster construction has been abysmal compared to what we all thought should come after a ring.