Playing for metrics or end of year health and success

BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
Game time environment is the first 35 minutes of a game not the final 5 against a bottom feeder team.

If Nojus couldn’t figure out how to play defense against Tamin, Curt, and Keshon in practice, an extra 5 minutes against Jackson St isn’t going to either.
He’s not playing the Iowa State defense there you understand right? He’s playing the Oklahoma State defense the BYU defense he’s having to understand what they do and strictly do what they do not go run a rogue situation of his own.
 
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CYdTracked

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It's a fine line. A 12 point home win over a team rated #250 will not compute well in the majority of metrics, including the NET ranking, I personally would like to see a deeper regular bench rotation. Ideally a 10 man rotation instead of 7-8. Easier said than done though

I don't know how deep I really want to go into the bench unless we actually have guys that can play meaningful minutes on a consistent basis. That kind of blew up on the women's team earlier this season when they literally were going 10-12 deep nearly every game and we never got into rhythm or consistent production until Bill finally locked it down to about 8 or 9 deep rotation. I'd like to see TJ maybe go 9 deep at times this year as Watson and Nojus showed enough that they could give our guards and wing players a few more minutes of rest and not have a huge drop off in the process. Even just playing a 9th guy 5ish minutes a game would shave off a couple minutes here and there for the regulars. I don't want to go with what Iowa and Fran would do which is play 10+ guys regularly as then you are leaving your best guys on your team on the bench too much and also never establish a rhythm to get consistent production out of certain guys.

I was perfectly fine leaning heavily into our 8 man core this year as you want to get the most out of your best guys but there were times when we had injuries or we were up comfortably enough even in Big 12 games where I felt bringing in a 9th guy for a few minutes during certain stretches could have benefited us over the course of the season health wise. It's also going to make it tough to recruit depth if we're known for only playing 7-8 guys a game even when the score is out of hand. Where is the incentive to bust your butt in what is probably one of the tougher practice and workout programs in the countries when you don't see any playing time?

I'm not saying TJ's system is the problem here, I'm just looking at it from all angles in this day of age because when guys don't get playing time regardless of what school many aren't going to stick it out to see if that changes. Before the portal if you wanted to transfer out you had to sit out a year and that kept some of these marginal guys in the program longer because most of them didn't want to sit idle for a year or add another year of school to their stay when they likely were not going to make a career out of basketball after graduation. Now it's as easy as putting your name in the portal and finding a place you could play immediately even if it is a step down in competition.
 

SoleCyclone

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We’ve seen Nojus play some, do you think he looked Big 12 ready
He played about 10min a game against good competition in Maui and did well. Played meaningful minutes in a top 10 matchup against marquette. It's just odd TJ basically shut him down the rest of the year. Not even playing in meaningless games
 

syclonefan

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He’s not playing the Iowa State defense there you understand right? He’s playing the Oklahoma State defense the BYU defense he’s having to understand what they do and strictly do what they do not go run a rogue situation of his own.
1. This isn’t football, everyone in college runs the same man defense with slight wrinkles like Iowa State or Houston.

2. Do you think TJ doesn’t have the 2nd team practice how they run defense?
 

3TrueFans

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He played about 10min a game against good competition in Maui and did well. Played meaningful minutes in a top 10 matchup against marquette. It's just odd TJ basically shut him down the rest of the year. Not even playing in meaningless games
He made two shots and grabbed 1 rebound against a bad Colorado team, did not much against Dayton, and played 4 minutes against Marquette doing nothing.

I'm not knocking the kid, he's a freshman I don't think think anyone expected him to contribute this year. He's a ways off though. I think 10 minutes a game in November is good minutes for a freshman that isn't going to be playing after New Years.
 

MTCyclone43

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TJs record is .500 through February and March in his career. Obviously we are all just idiots on a message board but I'm just spitballing how the team can consistently navigate the season.
What games are typically being played in February and March? I believe they are conference games and tournament games (Big 12 and NCAA Tournament) versus November and December is non-conference season. As I see it what is our record in January under TJ?
 

SoleCyclone

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What games are typically being played in February and March? I believe they are conference games and tournament games (Big 12 and NCAA Tournament) versus November and December is non-conference season. As I see it what is our record in January under TJ?
Right. January is conference games as well. So what I'm trying to figure out is what the drop off is in result to?
 

ClubCy

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Right. January is conference games as well. So what I'm trying to figure out is what the drop off is in result to?
Because TJ and staff did not think he was ready to contribute at that point. My goodness why can’t some just accept that.

This isn’t an exact comparison but NBA teams will go deep in the regular season and shorten their rotation during the playoffs. That is basically non con vs conference play in NCAAB.
 

MTCyclone43

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He made two shots and grabbed 1 rebound against a bad Colorado team, did not much against Dayton, and played 4 minutes against Marquette doing nothing.

I'm not knocking the kid, he's a freshman I don't think think anyone expected him to contribute this year. He's a ways off though. I think 10 minutes a game in November is good minutes for a freshman that isn't going to be playing after New Years.
I want someone, who watched the end of the Lipscomb game, to honestly tell me Nojus looked even remotely ready for the Big 12. Nojus played very sparingly during the season; however, he practiced against multiple all Big 12 players all season. Reality- Nojus was not ready this season.
 

SoleCyclone

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Because TJ and staff did not think he was ready to contribute at that point. My goodness why can’t some just accept that.

This isn’t an exact comparison but NBA teams will go deep in the regular season and shorten their rotation during the playoffs. That is basically non con vs conference play in NCAAB.
Relax bud. This was an answer to why TJs has a worse conference record in Feb vs January. Not about 1 player
 
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jbhtexas

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We’ve seen Nojus play some, do you think he looked Big 12 ready this year?
I'm not sure how that question is relevant to a discussion on whether or not bench players should get more minutes in blowouts.

In any case, he was needed for a couple of minutes in the non-blowout 2/22 Houston game. It seems that anything that could have helped him prepare/improve for that call would be beneficial.

And...gasp...sometimes coaches regularly put developing players like Nojus into tight conference games for a minute or two, often towards the end of the first half. I've seen Self do that a number of times, and I've admired him taking a little risk to help the player develop...but that's just me.
 
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Clonefan32

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I’m not sure it’s as simple as play for one of the other, but if the question is a healthy 6 seed that can go 9-10 players deep, or a banged up 3 seed that can go 7-8 deep I’m taking the 6 seed every time.
 
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AuH2O

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And the second either of them gets hurt from stepping on someone's foot and has to miss two months it'll be 'Well there goes the depth! Why even play them and risk the starters not being conditioned enough to finish games!?'.

And anyone that doesn't think this can happen should go watch Hawley's 30 seconds in November game that led to him not even suiting up for a long while.
It can happen.

But really a team playing an 8 man rotation with a bunch of guys around 30 minutes per game is incredibly normal. Stirtz averaged over 39 mpg and Mascari just under 39 mpg for Drake. Purdue blew a bunch of teams out all year and their Big 10 player of the year played 37 mpg.

You could play Nojus, Kelderman, Watson, you name the additional bench guy as much as possible, and this team isn't going any further. Gilbert got hurt in the first conference game at CU while the game was close. Tamin, not sure exactly when it happened. Maybe it was garbage time, maybe it wasn't. I don't remember.

The chances you avoid an important injury by trimming off a few minutes per game is not really that high. The odds that you develop someone outside of the rotation into a rotation-worthy player that can offset an injury enough to advance further in the tourney are also very small.

The idea that TJ grinds down his guys like Thibs doesn't seem to hold much water. Gilbert averaged 31.6 mpg and Tamin 30.9. The top 100 minutes guys in D1 are all above 34.5 mpg.

Injuries can happen. And I'd prefer in blowouts to sub earlier or steal minutes during the buy games. But I just don't think any of these things would've changed the outcome of this season in any material way.
 

MTCyclone43

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Because TJ and staff did not think he was ready to contribute at that point. My goodness why can’t some just accept that.

This isn’t an exact comparison but NBA teams will go deep in the regular season and shorten their rotation during the playoffs. That is basically non con vs conference play in NCAAB.
NBA seeds based off of wins and losses (period) because they play everyone. It is impossible for the NCAA to play everyone so they seed the tournament based on metrics in addition to wins and losses.
 

ClubCy

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NBA seeds based off of wins and losses (period) because they play everyone. It is impossible for the NCAA to play everyone so they seed the tournament based on metrics in addition to wins and losses.
I thought I was responding to another post about Nojus’ minutes dropping off not how seeding works. That was my mistake.
 
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Raiders70

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BYU was 24/25 in Kenpom/NET so by those a 6 is about right.
Numbers don't always tell the truth. BYU was actually more like a 3 and ISU was more like a 6. I mean they beat ISU twice in a week when the games mattered the most.
 

BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
He’s not playing the Iowa State defense there you understand right? He’s playing the Oklahoma State defense the BYU defense he’s having to understand what they do and strictly do what they do not go run a rogue situation of his own.
So @syclonefan Do you think they Street ball and just run the Iowa State offense and defense all the practice?

The backups don’t. How it happens even in HS and confirmed by former bench folks.