Stupid Question:

[nomar]

The refs did call a tight game, but they called a tight game from the start to finish. Emeka did score 18 points in the second half, but he also could have scored 18 points in the first half and UConn would not have been down seven going into the break.

Some call this strategy brilliant, I call it a myth. Just my opinion of course, but I believe you are hurting your team to take out such a weapon as Emeka Okafor was. Duke's big men fouled out, yes. But by playing them in the first half, there was the chance that they would not foul the rest of the game and end up playing more minutes than Emeka, putting Duke at an advantage. As it turned out, Duke's big men played more than Emeka even while fouling out, simply because Calhoun yanked him in the first half. If Calhoun had rolled with Okafor, he may have fouled out with five minutes left in the second half, let's say. Do you think UConn is in a position where they need to comeback if that is the case? Obviously I have no crystal ball, but if Emeka played the whole first half I think UConn would have won by a comfortable margin, and controlled the game throughout.

IMO, Calhoun's taking out Emeka in this case, gave the inferior team (Duke) a chance to win that they would not have had if Emeka played the whole game.

How many minutes did Emeka play? Was it around 20? 25? If Calhoun had taken my approach, there are two realistic scenarios:

1. Emeka plays nearly the whole first half, fouls out with 5-10 minutes remaining in the second half. Total minutes: 30-35

2. Emeka picks up two early fouls, comes out for a couple of minutes to calm down, then goes on to play the rest of the game. Total minutes: 35-40

Or...you could take the Calhoun approach

3. Emeka picks up two fouls five minutes in, is benched for the last 15 minutes of the first half, and then goes on to play the whole second half. Total minutes: 20-25

It's simple, really. Do you want your best player playing more or less?

Pretty surprised by this since it's pretty much universally accepted that Calhoun's decision won the game for us. I mean, I get your point, but odds are Emeka would have fouled out and he wouldn't have been around for the end of the game. I'd rather have someone available for the last 5 minutes than 10 minutes in the first half. They were calling the game tight and Emeka would have fouled out early in the game if you had been coaching. Instead, he got to play critical minutes against Duke's third-stringer and, furthermore, the refs let him play physical against a non-entity like Horvath.

This is Calhoun's iron-clad rule and the ONLY time it has ever cost us, in my opinion, was against Maryland in 2002. We needed more minutes from Caron in that game. Still, though, we were in the game at the end. I still hate Steve Blake.

One last point on the Duke game: Calhoun has talked about his decision-making in some detail. He said Emeka was badgering him to put him back in. He also said that had Duke opened up a really big lead (10-12 points), he might have broken his rule and put Emeka back in. We'll never know what would have happened, since we kept the lead at 7 going into the break.

 

[nomar]

They did stretch the lead to double digits.

I don't recall specifically how the PBP went but IF the lead was up to 10, it only lasted for one possession. We cut it to 7 at the break. There wasn't a timeout where we were down, say, a dozen points and Calhoun had an opportunity to stick him back in. Also, even if it got up to 10-12 points in the last minute, that wouldn't have been the time to stick Emeka back in. You never want someone to pick up the 3rd foul in the last minute of the half.

 

[intlzncster]

Pretty surprised by this since it's pretty much universally accepted that Calhoun's decision won the game for us. I mean, I get your point, but odds are Emeka would have fouled out and he wouldn't have been around for the end of the game. I'd rather have someone available for the last 5 minutes than 10 minutes in the first half. They were calling the game tight and Emeka would have fouled out early in the game if you had been coaching. Instead, he got to play critical minutes against Duke's third-stringer and, furthermore, the refs let him play physical against a non-entity like Horvath.
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This is the single most important point imo. The last five minutes of a game are often the most critical. It seems to be the hardest time to get points. Great players respond in these situations...that's what makes them great. The best players deliver over and over at the end of games (see Kemba Walker). They don't tend to have the tightness of nerves, the fear, or the whatever that regular players can potentially be afflicted by. If I'm coaching, having KW on the floor with 5 to go is the single most important thing on my "to do" list.

Two good teams are likely to scrap it out and be in the game late, so you need your gun when the chips are on the table in the last 5. Not to mention if the teams go into OT. Depleted bench, no star player (go to guy)

 

[Gurleyman]

Denham hit a three right after Duke took a 10-point lead - that shot probably kept Emeka on the bench. We also led against Maryland late (77-74, actually at one point), so we still had a chance even with Caron on the sidelines (that was another terribly officiated game with tons of whistles - Emeka got two fouls for standing still while Baxter jumped into him).

The idea that five minutes in the first half are worth the same as the last five minutes of the game is mathematically accurate, but defies all sense of basketball logic. Sort of like the mathematicians who try to prove statistically that the concept of a hot hand or being in the zone is a myth, but anyone who ever played the game knows. The last five minutes of a close game are played strategically due to time and score, and it's when you want your best line-up out there. You can't just say "we lost by four, if we had made those five free throws in the first half, we would have won by one". Not so - the end of the game would have played out differently if the score was different.

 

[upstater]

Another example: we were down to Butler in a rockfight. if I recall correctly, we had practically our entire starting lineup out for the last 7 or 8 minutes. Lamb, Kemba, Oriakhi, etc. The only ones holding the fort were Giffey, Okwandu, Napier, Beverly, Coombs-McDaniel, and it was pretty ugly for those last 6 or 7 minutes.

 

[HuskyFan32]

yeah i remember jay bilas talking about it and i believe he supported calhoun... i have always felt calhoun is or is one of the best in game coaches

Duh!! I thought that was a given.

 

[NOTaDIME]

I feel like this predicament is a simple risk/reward type of call. There are a plethora of factors that go in to this decision that every coach weighs. One of the big ones is to feel out how the game is going. Is the team going to be faced with an insurmountable deficit if a player has two fouls and rides pine for much of the first half? Obviously JC didn't feel that was the case in the Duke game, and while some good points are brought up statistically it is usually standard that you sit one of your best players (in the case the best) if they have two fouls in the first half. Having them sit for 10 minutes may or may not lose you the game, but having them foul out with ten minutes left is a much tougher hill to climb for your team. That is the risk that you are facing by playing a guy with two fouls in the first half of the game, and the reward, in my humble opinion, simply isn't worth the risk. Having a guy foul out is an emotional drain as well as a loss to the productivity of your team. To know you have to finish the game without your best player and team leader is hard to overcome.

 

[champs99and04]

Actually, I'm pretty sure we were down in the second half of that game. So they could recover, and did.

The bottom line is that every game has its own ebb and flow. If you leave your best player on the bench while the other team is taking over and going up 20, that's a bad idea. But if the game remains competitive then, referring back to your initial comment, if your best guy has foul trouble and can only play 5 minutes: it's far better to have him play 3 minutes at the start and 2 at the end than 5 minutes at the start and 0 at the end.

Point taken, but you can't tell me the game would have played out much differently had Williams been left in. IMO, there is a good chance a player of Williams' caliber is smart enough to avoid foul trouble while playing effectively.

Obviously you want to have your best player on the court at the end of games, but in my opinion, it is just as important to have him in the game during the first half. There is no saying Arizona wouldn't have been in a better position to win had Williams not been benched in the first half, and there is also no saying they wouldn't have been able to win a game down the stretch without him. The one thing we do know, is that taking Williams out in the first half eliminates the chance of your star player playing his usual amount of minutes.

 

[champs99and04]

A few assumptions are being made here.

1. The NBA is not officiated the same way college games are. I doubt the stats hold as much water in college games.

2. In a relation to #1, ask a college official how many fouls # whatever has. 99% of the time, he won't know without looking. In the NBA, the officials are conditioned to know the foul numbers on the stars.

3. The myth of the predestined play is also at hand in this argument. There is NO way to know that if a player plays 25 minutes, that the score and situation will work out the same with different breakdowns of the 25 minutes.

Those are some good points, specifically the last one. Trust me, I am not assuming anything in that regard. The only thing I am assuming is that your best players playing more minutes is beneficial to your team, which is basically what my whole argument is based around. A basketball game is 40 minutes. I do not weigh any of those 40 minutes heavier than any other. Mentally, we may be trained to play differently in the last minute than we would play in the 17th. But the goal remains the same: Score one end, stop the opponent from scoring on the other.

 

[champs99and04]

I don't agree with that. Coaches tell players to play aggressively all the time, but they don't always respond. Regardless, a coach isn't going to tell his star player to play aggressively after picking up 2 fouls in the 1st half. Really! When have you ever heard that?

IMO, the math is simple. If a player picks up 3 fouls in the first half, he has just 2 to work with for the 20 minutes left in the 2nd. He's one foul away from having to play mistake free hoops. As pointed out by someone else, good coaches know how to get their players to induce that 3rd foul, especially against the bigs that are vulnerable since they play near the basket where the play often funnels in their direction. Just look at how close some of these charge/block calls often go. Some guards are very good at initiating contact that doesn't look like a charge.

You're also failing to see the difference between a player playing 25 minutes or even say 30 during the first 3/4ths of the game compared to some combination of the start and end of the game. One could argue that the player's replacement during the middle of the game is capable of holding his own (i.e. the team plays equally or slightly less productive w/ the replacement) and that even though you might get less minutes out of the starter by managing his minutes compared to throwing the dice and letting him play more minutes earlier in the game, there's a good chance you'll get more production from that player who is going to play more aggressively with 3 fouls to give over 20 minutes or 2 over 10 minutes. Add to that, this key player might end up where he can play aggressively and more productively against a player who's playing tentatively due to his foul trouble or even better, have a huge mismatch late in the game because the player or players that are more capable of defending them or scoring against them are disqualified and sitting on the bench, which was the case in that F-4 game against Dook.

As many have pointed out, each game is different. If the game gets away by a certain amount, you bring players back in with foul trouble. You sometimes see JC put a player in for an end of the first half offensive set or two, where the odds of picking up a foul are less.

I'm not sure if it was mentioned, but JC often sits a player for a while if they pick up #3 early in the 2nd half, which I alluded to above. To think that a coach is going to tell a player to be aggressive and/or a player to actually play that way with a lot of time on the clock who is just 1 to 2 fouls away from disqualification is naive. Based on watching hoops for many years, when players are put in this situation I see teams go hard after those players who either play matador defense or pick up #4 and 5 in a heart beat. There are some players who are better at managing foul trouble. Less tend to be bigs. You might take more chances during league play, but in a one-and-done game, it's best to play the percentages and hope your bench guys can hold down the fort for a late push at about the 7 to 10 minute mark of the second half.

How many times have we seen games where a team is up by as much as 10 or even a dozen points with say 5 minutes to go end up coming down to the last shot or two? That's the stretch where you want your best players on the floor. That's the time we call winning time, and UConn under JC has won more of those types of games more often than he has lost. I'll go with JC's way as far as this strategy is concerned.

I suppose the difference in our opinions is based on different approaches to the game. You think it is crazy to ask a guy to play agressively even with two early fouls, I see it as logical. My opinion may not jive with previously accepted basketball stragetiges, but thinking about it logically, I see no reason to take out a star player due to early foul trouble. There is nothing to tell me that a player is more or less likely to foul at a certain point in a game. A certain team might try to go after a certain player, yes. But if that is one of my best defenders, I would welcome the challenge, thinking it is going to throw the other team out of there offense.

I also fail to see the logic in coaching an elimination game differently than a regular season game. If a guy picks up four fouls, maybe I can see your stretgey, since the player will inevitably foul out at some point. Specifically in the case of Kemba, I do not agree with benching him because of foul trouble. He is a guard, making him less prone to foul trouble, and also smart enough to play effectively even with the two fouls.

Last season might have been a unique case becaues UConn really had no idea how to finish games without their leader in Kemba. But even then, I would wait till he had four fouls before pulling him from the game, whether he picked up that fourth foul in the first half or second half. In the case of the 04 crew, I would be willing to take my chances that they could have finished out Duke without Okafor, especially if they had been given a lead. That team was very experienced, had big time shotmakers in Ben Gordon and Rashad Anderson, and had proven they could win games without Okafor down the stretch.

By no means am I suggesting Calhoun is not a good in game coach. In fact, he is one of the best. But there are are a lot of factors that go into that sucess, and in my opinion, this is not one of them.

 

[champs99and04]

Pretty surprised by this since it's pretty much universally accepted that Calhoun's decision won the game for us. I mean, I get your point, but odds are Emeka would have fouled out and he wouldn't have been around for the end of the game. I'd rather have someone available for the last 5 minutes than 10 minutes in the first half. They were calling the game tight and Emeka would have fouled out early in the game if you had been coaching. Instead, he got to play critical minutes against Duke's third-stringer and, furthermore, the refs let him play physical against a non-entity like Horvath.

This is Calhoun's iron-clad rule and the ONLY time it has ever cost us, in my opinion, was against Maryland in 2002. We needed more minutes from Caron in that game. Still, though, we were in the game at the end. I still hate Steve Blake.

One last point on the Duke game: Calhoun has talked about his decision-making in some detail. He said Emeka was badgering him to put him back in. He also said that had Duke opened up a really big lead (10-12 points), he might have broken his rule and put Emeka back in. We'll never know what would have happened, since we kept the lead at 7 going into the break.

One of the major strengths of that 04 UConn team was the depth of the big men. We had Hilton, Boone, Emeka, and Charly. If Emeka had been allowed to play the first half, there is a very good chance he would have fouled out with 5-10 minutes to play, along with Williams. In that situation, I still feel UConn would have had the inside advantage because of tha depth. Therefore, UConn would have had an advantage inside nearly the whole game.

I agree with you on the Caron-Maryland game. I think the game would have been different had he played more minutes. That was far from the only reason we lost, though.