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Message: [QUOTE="nelsonmuntz, post: 3743563, member: 833"] Shot Clock: Pre shot clock, the team with the lead had a huge advantage in the last 10 minutes (obviously), forcing the team in the hole to take bigger and bigger risks. This cut both ways, because underdogs could be up late too. The bigger issue was that size had a huge advantage both because of no shot clock, and because of no 3 point line. The higher profile teams generally had the size, making it harder for lower ranked teams to pull the upset. With the shot clock, a lot of marginal strategies, like LMU's over-the-top press or Arkansas' 40 minutes of hell, became a lot more effective. In the old days, pressing was a big risk if the other team had a couple of good ballhandlers, because they could play keep away until they got someone wide open under the basket. With a 45, and later a 35, second shot clock, if the press caused a team to burn 15 seconds getting into its offense, it was an effective press, because 20 seconds is not a long time to have to play half court defense. 3 point line: With the 3 point line, EVERYTHING changed. Slower, shorter teams suddenly had a shot if they had a couple of kids that could shoot 3's. Huge upsets became possible, which made it a lot harder to win the 6 games needed to win a National Championship. The 21-10 mid-major conference champ only had to get hot for one game to enter the history books, and many of those kind of teams have. I would add a few other things making it harder to maintain excellence today than it was 40 or 50 years ago: 1) AAU - AAU is more pervasive than it was 30 or 40 years ago. This means the talent level is deeper for the second, third and fourth tier programs. 2) Foreign Players - The arrival of the foreign players in the 80's had an immediate impact. Olajuwon was the biggest name, but players like Andrew Gaze and Nadav Henefeld transformed their programs, and the college game. By the end of the 90's, and beyond, college basketball played a more passing and shooting style rather than simply taking it to the hole style. 3) Analytics - these have changed every major sport at every level. There are good coaches everywhere today, and mid-major coaches have more and better information to coach with than the top programs had 40 years ago. [/QUOTE]

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