We shouldn’t change our style or our philosophy. But we should take advantage of situations when they present themselves. Not saying we should run with Duke/UNC, but we should be opportunistic and not be averse to running. Great coaches tweak things and make small changes over time. I bet we see some opportunistic buckets next year.
2 Likes
And it’s not even going away from things Tony has done in the past! Joe Harris and Malcolm Brogdon used to selectively run
Yes Havs. But walking the ball up the floor will never cause opportunities to present themselves. Must push across half much more and force the defense to pay attention. As you said. 
If you watch our games, the opponents don’t even pay attention the first 8 seconds. They get to rest at the beginning of almost every one of our possessions.
1 Like
Dave - this I absolutely agree with! LP was the worst - I think even Tony said there was no way to speed him up. With Ty and Kihei, and now Reece, I really wanted the ball to be pushed into the front court with 25 seconds or more left on the clock. If the defense fell asleep, well that won’t happen much again, but don’t you want that extra 3-4 seconds to run your offense when you are as deliberate as we are? Different under the 35 second clock vs. the 30 second.
If you pick up an extra 2 seconds per possession by getting the ball up the court quicker, that will equal 4-5 possession per game as well. As we are a “deep” team next year, no excuse for not in-bounding/securing the rebound and getting over the half court line in less than 5 seconds on almost all possessions - guys have to move their butts down the floor and if no opportunity, set up and start the offense.
Kyle guy also said this in an interview his last year
This video has probably been posted already but does a good job of pointing out the flaws of our version of blocker-mover. Basically spacing issues.
On top of that I’ll add that it can stifle individual athleticism and creativity. And our pace absolutely kills rhythm shooters. I’m positing as well that outside of pace, the system itself seems to take a lot of mental exertion / decision making.
3 Likes
yes and Jay Willy has mentioned that defensive effort puts a toll on offense as well. makes sense
Yep and all that running on offense can create tired legs … so our best scorers run around like crazy for 25 seconds on offense - then are likely to have to run a ton on D - since we never play zone - chasing the opponent’s best guards and wings.
And then make shots when you might get a shot attempt every 5 minutes because of the glacial pace.
2 Likes
I hope this is tongue in cheek - our coach has only managed to win a bit over 24 games per year for the past 13 years at UVA having his teams do exactly that. If 19-22 year olds can’t manage two ends of effort then I’m questioning either Mike Curtis’ conditioning program or the players efforts in the off-season.
EDIT - I will agree that playing both ends the way Tony expects, he should widen his bench to 8-9 until post-season.
3 Likes
Doing it just the way we have done it has garnered us 5 regular season titles in 9 yrs … 2 ACC Tournament championships … A natty … And the winningest overall record and ACC record over that time frame and its not even close.
Im good … Carry on
9 Likes
Glacial pace is back …
59 possessions vs ND and 60 vs. Louisville and 60 vs Duke and 60 vs NC State - per 40 minutes.
1 Like
Good thing this thread was started before the new “automatically closes” nonsense or you wouldn’t have been able to revisit the topic.
8 Likes
Since the morning of the NC St. game, our adjusted tempo on KenPom has gone from 62.0 to… 62.0.
Duke and ND play slow, and Louisville isn’t racing up and down the floor. NC St. was the one that surprised me. It almost looked like they were just resigned to the fact it would be a slow game and were purposely running clock early in the shot clock.
4 Likes
I don’t look at adjusted pace - simply possessions per game is for me the truest test of how slow someone is actually playing - regardless of opponent. It measures whether someone puts their own stamp on the game or not.
I disagree, I think both teams impact the pace of a game. I have my reasons but not the time to flesh it out!
2 Likes
I think pace is a pretty silly stat. All it means for the most part is how often a team gets/allows transition opportunities. If that’s real important to you, you probably will never enjoy a game involving a Tony Bennett team haha
I do find it useful sometimes just to sort of confirm things. UVA games have a such a small variance and the opponent doesn’t matter that much, so you can sometimes use it to pick up on patterns. If they creep up to 65, it usually means they’re not defending very well, ie giving up quick shots. If it slows down, it’s typically the opposite, their offense is having problems getting shots.
That said…When they won the title, 4 of those 6 tourney games were played below 60 possessions. If I’m not mistaken NCAA tournament games in general are at a slower pace…because, get this, teams tend to value possessions more and get back in transition, because that’s how you win. lol
The Purdue Elite Eight game everybody calls an all-time classic was played at a pace of 54.8 possessions according to bball reference, super slow even by TB standards.
24 Likes
So great cause that game featured play after play after play of greatness
4 Likes
Which two games were the faster paced games?
Let’s see here…bball reference has Gardner Webb at 64, and Tex Tech at 62.
3 Likes