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Message: [QUOTE="oldhusky, post: 3739733, member: 9844"] Hoophuskee and Oldude make very valid points, namely you can win with a very short bench. But it takes a pretty unusual set of circumstances for that to be true. Notre Dame had five future WNBA players in that lineup, that were also very used to each other, because 4 were seniors with one junior (Jackie Young) who joined them declaring early for the draft. They had talent, experience, and teamwork from familiarity, that is close to as good as it can be from five starters, with some Uconn five's being there as well. I also agree somewhat with mhshuskies. I think Geno with some teams has been overly reluctant to use his bench, and I think he runs up the score in blowouts by sticking with starters way past the period when the game was in doubt. Now with many computer power rankings etc. running up the score can help your rating, I get that aspect of it, but maximizing the final point differential can be a negative to achieving other objectives. Developing players and retaining players are also important objectives, and could be even more important in the next few years. If Geno wanted to run up the score with the 2016 championship team by limiting Pulido minutes to the last minute of a 40 point blowout, that is one thing. She was a walk-on that didn't matter much in the big scheme of things, and for sure the difference in ability was so great that yes you might lose a few points of that huge margin while she was in the game. In the next few years, developing and retaining highly regarded players is a far more important objective. Geno may well go with mostly 8 early this year, but if he sticks with that over the next couple of years, the highly regarded recruits won't accept being the 9th or 10th player on a great team. It's probably true this year, but beyond this year almost a certainty, that the players deep on the bench when inserted into the lineup will expand the lead not shrink it, mostly against other teams subs, so what's the downside? Next year the gap between our team's bench and our opponents, will likely be significantly larger than for our starters vs. their starters. So why not press and pick up the pace on offense, wear out the opponents starters, and have more of the game be a battle between the benches than it would otherwise. Find a role for more of the recruits, retain more of them, and increase the margin of victory at the same time. [/QUOTE]

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