Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="Fightin Choke, post: 2985084, member: 2605"] I think some posters are conflating three different issues: (1) trying not to run up the score, (2) giving the bench minutes and (3) giving the bench [I][B]valuable [/B][/I]minutes. In the Pitt @ND game mentioned above, ND starters played 79 minutes in the first half, so the bench players picked up 21 minutes. These were what I would call valuable bench minutes, as there were no more than 2 bench players on the floor at a time. These minutes are valuable because they simulate what would happen if a bench player needed to enter the game due to foul trouble or injury. In the third quarter, Muffet started to substitute more liberally, as the game was well in hand. Starters played only 19 of the available 50 minutes, and most of those 31 bench minutes occurred after a short period of all the starters playing to start the second half. These minutes were thus less valuable for the bench. The fourth quarter was Muffet's attempt to not run up the score, as the starters never saw the floor. These 50 bench minutes were NOT very valuable, as they did not simulate actual game situations, despite the fact they were during a game. For the game, the starters (98 minutes) actually played fewer minutes than the bench (102 minutes), but half of those minutes were pretty low quality. Coaches of elite teams need to play the starters together a lot to develop the chemistry that teammates need to be successful against the top 10 teams on their schedule and the teams they face in the last two weekends of the NCAA tournament. But it's also important to develop the bench players enough that they are not a liability when they are forced to enter an important game due to foul trouble or injury. As far as not running up the score, UConn can do that with their starters still in the game by simply slowing down the pace (as they often do). But if you substitute the starters [I]en masse[/I] your big lead will typically shrink. ND was leading by 30 against GTech yesterday with 5 minutes remaining and the lead shrunk to 21 with 4 and then 5 of the starters on the bench. The other two reasons to play the bench benefit the team long term, but not very much in the current season: (1) develop players for future seasons and (2) keep players on the bench happy (so they don't transfer). [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

Forum statistics

Threads: 164,398

Messages: 4,394,376

Members: 10,208

Latest member: jskwrite