I have always had the thought that you build your system so you can beat the best teams on your schedule. If we try to run with Duke or UNC, I don’t believe that isn’t going to happen. Are there trade offs to this philosophy? Absolutely, but there are trade offs to every philosophy.
Do I think we should run selectively? Sure. But you better take advantage of it because if you aren’t successful the opponent is coming the other way, most likely with an advantage. Also, I’d rather not see us go 1 on 3 just to try and score fast break points.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.