How many times has it been said that Watson injured his foot in Hawai'i? He had to have the bottom of his foot stitched up because he stepped on coral or something. Not something you can play on. It kept him off the floor for a while.
Playing for metrics or end of year health and success
- Thread starter SoleCyclone
- Start date
So it must have healed fully right when Milan broke his finger then? What, about 7-8 weeks later?
This is the bottom line. We can argue all day about whether 8 or 10 is the perfect rotation number, when all the while I'm sure the staff would've loved having one more major contributor this season. reality is that's not always in the budget for schools like ISU. have to hit on cheaper players if you want reliable depth, which are generally going to be freshmen given how wild the NIL market has gotten, even for role players (though that will die down post revenue-sharing). Having cheaper players does not mean you have to play them/prioritize rest, however, as some argue. I think everyone here would agree Lipsey and Momcilovic are home run recruits. Otz's hit percentage probably needs to increase, but it's not like the staff can’t identify talent and potential.
Michigan State can afford 9 or 10 P4 regular-season-champions-caliber players. Most years ISU will not be able to.
A 6 seed hasn't made the Final Four for over three decades, so, sorry, I'm gonna have to completely discount these comments. You want a 1 or a 2 seed, can live with a 3. You do whatever you have to—assuming you're not defying your medical staff or psychologically abusing players—to get one of those seeds.
None of the title contenders think this way. Four teams had historically great kenpom NetRtgs going into the tournament. Auburn beat the crap out of bad teams, the difference (between them and ISU) is they beat almost everyone they played for over two months, the lone loss being to another title contender. Florida was similarly dominant. Duke obviously benefitted from a weak ACC, but beat the crap out of bad teams and average teams alike. We all know what Houston did in conference play. Now, were those rosters deeper? Most of them, probably. Could ISU get better at moneyball to achieve comparable depth? Sure. But perennial contenders that are well-funded don't even entertain "tanking" a seed line or two in a vain attempt to avoid injuries or fatigue. Every team will be banged up and tired by the end of the season. ISU just had too many *serious* injuries to overcome. You try to build a Final Four roster, and play your best players in hopes that even they can improve over the course of the season. Most of the time it's that simple
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We should ideally be able to beat Bumf*ck State by 25+ points regardless of if Tamin Lipsey plays 25 minutes or 30 minutes.
But does 6 seed ISU beat North Carolina to even get a chance to face 3 seed Ole Miss? Not the same.
You can't know what the match ups will be. Just have to go with statistics and work towards the highest seed you can attain. I will reiterate from my earlier post that depth is important here. You can't expect to have no injuries.
Probably not but you're also mitigating injury risk by not having them out there when a game is out of hand. What if Keshon pulled his groin against in garbage time against Morgan St a week earlier than Colorado.
Players can get injured anytime during a game or practice. Pulling a guy 5 minutes early doesn’t make a big enough impact mitigate injury.
If you want to argue load management to make sure guys are fresh throughout the season that’s a different matter.
I wasn't necessarily mad that we didn't play more guys earlier in the season or lopsided conference games, but I thought the opportunity was there this year. I wished we would have tried to take advantage of it to develop players, not necessarily load manage the starters. I'm not writing an email to Pollard I'm only wasting time on a message board about it though.
I did question what we were doing with Lipsey in the Lipscomb game. I took a peek at the game log and we subbed him out at the 10:18 mark up by 25. I thought that'd be the last we'd see of him. He came back at 7:53 up by 26 and did not come back out until 4:45 when we were up by 30. I thought that was reckless since he clearly was only a play away from not being able to go on Sunday.
Still not emailing Pollard about it though
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I did question what we were doing with Lipsey in the Lipscomb game. I took a peek at the game log and we subbed him out at the 10:18 mark up by 25. I thought that'd be the last we'd see of him. He came back at 7:53 up by 26 and did not come back out until 4:45 when we were up by 30. I thought that was reckless since he clearly was only a play away from not being able to go on Sunday.
Still not emailing Pollard about it though
Agree, he probably didn't need to return. If by chance Lipscomb went on a surge at some point and you don't want to risk lead shrinking too much, always can re-insert. By that point in the game, I don't think Lipscomb was capable of that anyway.I wasn't necessarily mad that we didn't play more guys earlier in the season or lopsided conference games, but I thought the opportunity was there this year. I wished we would have tried to take advantage of it to develop players, not necessarily load manage the starters. I'm not writing an email to Pollard I'm only wasting time on a message board about it though.
I did question what we were doing with Lipsey in the Lipscomb game. I took a peek at the game log and we subbed him out at the 10:18 mark up by 25. I thought that'd be the last we'd see of him. He came back at 7:53 up by 26 and did not come back out until 4:45 when we were up by 30. I thought that was reckless since he clearly was only a play away from not being able to go on Sunday.
Still not emailing Pollard about it though
What happens if he pulls it during tip off?
I know you'll 'dumb' this but how much mitigation is needed to rid a player of injury risk?
Good grief, we've already discussed this in depth on this site. Yes players can get hurt at anytime.
Do you think Lipsey is more likely to get injured during a real game going 100% against other guys going full speed, or more likely to pull something going up the stairs to his apartment?
If you can't see the difference I really don't know what to say.
Well, you are certainly right about the 6 seed. But 3, 5, 7, or 11 look promising if you can't be a 1 or 2!
Although, 2 and 3 haven't worked out for ISU. Maybe need to try for a 5 or 7... 11 would likely mean an unhappy regular season, so I wouldn't go there.
Final Four distribution by seed for the past 10 tournaments:
1 xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
2 xxxxx xx
3 xxx
4 xx
5 xxx
6
7 xxx
8 xx
9 x
10 x
11 xxx
I'm not going to dumb your post. I just don't understand how you can't see the benefit of him on the bench in garbage time against 300+ level teams. Just the other day against Lipscomb there were hundreds of people having a meltdown on here because he's still in there up by 30.
Hundreds of people?
Never said I don't see a benefit but how do you know resting for 5 minutes earlier in a November game or NCAA tiurney game would be beneficial? Paraphrasing but Lipsey himself said when he sat the injury felt worse. Could there be a possibility to keep it mobile/warm as much as possible?
Before you go to 'well what did he do after the game?' do we know if players are on a bike or similar sessions between games and practice be to keep the blood flowing?
Teams often do that with players during games if working through an injury even if they've played.
Becuase it mitigates the risk of injury, at least in a statistical sense.
You don't see any injury difference between guys averaging 35 minutes a game and guys who never play? Do the backups in football usually sustain all the injuries playing a couple special teams snaps a game?
What about Houston? I just saw you mention them in a post. Were their injuries to key players or the 13th guy on the bench?
We had more players get hurt this year from swimming in the ocean than the final 5 minutes of a blowout.
Like I said if the argument is more load management to be fresh for March, that’s a different conversation.
