Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="nelsonmuntz, post: 2106693, member: 833"] I don't think the absence of a defensive 3 seconds call is that big a deal, because most college teams don't have a center. I think the ball movement overall is fine. I agree with Fishy that the prioritization of middle of the pack major conference schools over good mid-majors makes the overall tournament pool a little younger which can have an impact at the margin. I think overall the individual skill level is higher than it was 20-30 years ago because of the emergence of AAU. 20 years ago, only the top players played AAU, and then it was just for a few tournaments over the summer. Today, high school bench players are playing year round, which can only make them better players. I also think most offenses today are less star-centric than they were before, although they are also more guard centric than they were before. My earlier point about AAU is solely related to crunch time, and I see it at the youth and high school level too. With so many options to play, a lot of kids (and particularly the better players) feel like they can do whatever they have a lot more independence than players may have had 20 years ago. 25 years ago, if you were a showboat in 6th grade, it seriously impacted your ability to make the travel team in 7th grade. You couldn't afford to get on the bad side of your coach, because if you didn't play travel, you were basically done with basketball. Today, some kids skip travel altogether and play for a different AAU program every year. All that matters is how they play at tryouts. When they get to high school, their high school schedule is 25-30% of the total games they will play in a year. All of this means the players feel emboldened to do crazy stuff at crunch time. I have seen this first hand at the youth level, with players threatening to quit if they are disciplined for selfish play at the end of games. 6 years of that mentality is not going to be reversed in a year or two of college. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

Forum statistics

Threads: 164,613

Messages: 4,403,480

Members: 10,216

Latest member: Peter8122